Todd Terry
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COW Coin
Forum Replies Created
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Well, the original device created to do that is called a “Telestrator.” Unfortuantely they are very very expensive systems.
One of my clients though runs an educational television studio, and I know they have a system that does that (an on-camera teacher can use it to do math problems, etc.)… and I’m sure they didn’t pony up the big bucks for a real Telestrator.
I’ll ask him… stay tuned…
T2
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Todd Terry
Creative Director
Fantastic Plastic Entertainment, Inc.
fantasticplastic.com
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Look at the LTM Pepper kits…. rugged, VERY well made, real workhorses.
I have one three-fresnel Pepper kit that is almost ten years old that we still use sometimes… and it is just as solid as the day we bought it. It came with very nice Matthews stands and a hard-shell rolling case. You can buy single instruments, but if you buy their kits they are VERY complete (at least they were in 1997, I imagine they still are)… not only heads and stands, but barn doors, complete scrim kit (singles, doubles, halves and fulls), plug adapters, extra lamps… even leather gloves.
The more I use the Peppers the more I actually prefer them to Arris… and they are MUCH more affordable.
I think they have kits that include softboxes, umbrellas, etc… or you can just buy fresnel kits and add your own softboxes, umbrellas and the like. For softboxes on a budget I recommend PhotoFlexes. Not quite as ruggedly made as Chimeras, but do the job and cost a lot less.
T2
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Todd Terry
Creative Director
Fantastic Plastic Entertainment, Inc.
fantasticplastic.com
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About 17 DVDs later.
Thanks,
T2
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Todd Terry
Creative Director
Fantastic Plastic Entertainment, Inc.
fantasticplastic.com
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[Jeff Bellune] “Matrox inverts the field order”…
I know, but what’s the solution?
I have output the AVI files with every conceivable field order and interpolation combination. Is there a way to make this work?
Thanks,
T2
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Todd Terry
Creative Director
Fantastic Plastic Entertainment, Inc.
fantasticplastic.com
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Yes, Jim is right…. to actually capture uncompressed real HD video from the XLH1, you must record “live” out of the HD-SDI port… that is, you record into your computer WHILE you are shooting, not recording to tape and then capturing via HD-SDI. That obviously would yield greatly-compressed HDV, not uncompressed HD.
It goes without saying that this setup is best for studio use… doing it on location is not nearly as practical.
Like Jim we previously used AJA Xena/Kona for capturing this way, but I didn’t find those systems quite robust enough for my liking… I was too used to my old Canopus systems (standard-def, running Premiere) where everything was realtime and I rarely if ever had to render anything. In an effort to return to that speed and ease we recently gutted our newest system replacing the AJA guts with Matrox AXIO LE. So far it seems to work wonderfully and handles uncompressed very well with little or no need to ever render anything. Unfortunately that came with a price and the AXIO was several times the cost of the AJA system that it replaced, but so far has been well worth it.
T2
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Todd Terry
Creative Director
Fantastic Plastic Entertainment, Inc.
fantasticplastic.com
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Grinner could not be more correct… proper suite lighting STARTS with the Lava Lite and builds on that. All our our suites have at least one, and one of them (mine) actually has three. Indulgence.
Seriously, yes, soft and indirect is the way to go. Track lighting does work well. This picture is small (just ripped from our website), but maybe it will slightly show what we have on one of our suites that works well…
…it’s hard to see, but maybe you can make out that we have track lighting washing the walls behind the computer, production, and client monitors in this suite. There are also some can-style “uplights” giving some wallwashing to the wall behind the wall where the edit system is. Everything is dimmable so we can determine how much or little we want. All your walls behind your monitors should be neutral gray. Some people like “bright and airy” suites, but I like them dark… that’s just the way I always edited and am comfortable that way. We have a few pieces of artwork on the walls, and use little “museum type” pinlights in the ceiling to illuminate those so we don’t have light spill into the room. Like a lot of suites, two of ours are multi-level and there is a raised platform for clients with couches and chairs, a little table, phone, etc. These areas are slightly more illuminated (small table lamps) so the clients don’t feel quite so much like they are in a cave… and the raised platforms are ringed underneath with hidden ropelights so they shoot a little bit of a glow out from underneath… they look cool but mostly they are there to keep people from tripping and breaking their necks after coming into the dark suite from the bright outdoors.
This setup might not work for everyone, but works for us well.
T2
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Todd Terry
Creative Director
Fantastic Plastic Entertainment, Inc.
fantasticplastic.com
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Great reel, Ron…especially some really nice DP working going on there.
It also shows that every market is different, and you have to know your market and what customers there are to go after.
We started our little company to fill a very specific niche. There were a lot of television advertisters in our area that wanted, needed, and deserved better spots than they could get for $200 (or yes, even free) produced by the television stations or the cable companies. At they same time. Nor could they afford to spend $50K or even $25K for a :30 spot produced by a big post house. We set out to fill that niche somewhere in between. Consequently, we do tons of spots in the $4k-$12K neighborhoods.
Of course we try to “upsell” when we can (higher/bigger/better productions, better talent, 35mm when possible, etc.), but it is often the case that three $10,000 spots will have a lot more profit in them than one for $30,000.
It just goes to show, a little research is usually in order to see what the market will bear. What works great for us might fail misearably somewhere else.
T2
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Todd Terry
Creative Director
Fantastic Plastic Entertainment, Inc.
fantasticplastic.com
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[Mark Suszko] “chant “Thelma Schoonemaker” three times with the lights out, and she’ll appear in the mirror”
…and begin justifying her numerous jump cuts.
With three Oscars she can cut as she pleases and appear in my mirror any time.
T2
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Todd Terry
Creative Director
Fantastic Plastic Entertainment, Inc.
fantasticplastic.com
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Reggie…
Keep this in mind… I don’t know if you are doing sound shooting or MOS, but I know at least some of the Savage lighting instruments are FAN COOLED (they all may be, I’m not sure)… so you may have a bit of noise from them from their internal fans.
I’m in a similar situation… our primary lighting instruments are LTM, Arri, and Kino, but we do have a little 3-instrument 3K Norman kit that we sometimes use for supplemental lighting. They are actually wonderful instruments (very well made, multiple output settings, good accessories…. and a real bargain), but DO have fans that you can very definitely HEAR… so you do have to be judicious about their use when doing sound shoots. I usually reserve them for MOS-only shoots, or for sound shoots when I need lighting far away from the mics (deep background, outside a window, etc.).
T2
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Todd Terry
Creative Director
Fantastic Plastic Entertainment, Inc.
fantasticplastic.com
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Hi Harry….
You have no doubt thought of this, but just in case….
Judging from your area code I would assume you are in Los Angeles… I haven’t checked in a while but I would absolutely bet the farm that Birns & Sawyer has some XL-H1s in their rental inventory there.
T2
__________________________________
Todd Terry
Creative Director
Fantastic Plastic Entertainment, Inc.
fantasticplastic.com