Todd Terry
1
COW Coin
Forum Replies Created
-
Well, it just seems that (I will say a little bit sadly) that it has become more and more an autofocus world… for anything other than really high-end stuff these days that more seems to be the norm… and expected.
Really good focus pulling is an art, and a dying one. I myself only shoot with cine lenses, so I have pulled focus my entire career and that’s just what I am used to. If my hands are full and I can’t pull focus, I have an AC do it… but I never use autofocus (and couldn’t if I wanted to, with my lenses).
It takes years to get really great at focus pulling… the true masters can nail a moving subject with a one-inch depth of field… but there are not a lot of guys who can do that (I’m decent but certainly not that good at it).
It’s all what you are used to, and skilled at. I usually shoot with a Canon C300 with PL mount lenses and a couple of weeks ago I borrowed a friend’s C100 (with autofocus EF lenses) and the little bit that I played with it drove me absolutely crazy… because my hand kept reaching out for a focus wheel that wasn’t there… I was just grabbing thin air. I’m sure if I shot with it for an extended period of time I’d get used to it, but it was very uncomfortable early on.
The bottom line is that great focusing is very difficult… and people are now relying more and more on cameras that do it for you, as long as they are good at it (and AF has gotten much better in just the last couple of years).
T2
__________________________________
Todd Terry
Creative Director
Fantastic Plastic Entertainment, Inc.
fantasticplastic.com
-
Personally I’d probably just grind that quarter-inch stud off. Fix their wagons from the get-go. 🙂
T2
__________________________________
Todd Terry
Creative Director
Fantastic Plastic Entertainment, Inc.
fantasticplastic.com
-
That combo should work.
Since the baby pin stud has both 1/4″ and 3/8″ threads, and since the clamp has both 1/4″ and 3/8″ receivers… be sure you use the larger ones.
In a setup like that I’ve had the 1/4″ studs shear off… especially those made of brass. That one doesn’t appear to be brass, but better use the bigger end anyway.
T2
__________________________________
Todd Terry
Creative Director
Fantastic Plastic Entertainment, Inc.
fantasticplastic.com
-
Hey Ben…
That piece of gear you linked to is called a Mafer Clamp, and is made for exactly what you are wanting to do. Most of them already have a 5/8″ baby pin attached to them, which is what you’d need.
If you buy them from B&H or direct from Matthews they can be a slightly pricey piece of hardware, but you can no doubt find no-brand ones on eBay… just search for Mafer Clamp.
T2
__________________________________
Todd Terry
Creative Director
Fantastic Plastic Entertainment, Inc.
fantasticplastic.com
-
[Jack Steiner] “Why is a HVAC important?”
High-end studios will have HVAC systems that run completely silently. You obviously don’t want the heating or air conditioning making any noise. Sadly we do NOT have a silent system here, and actually have to turn the HVAC off in the studio unless shooting MOS. It’s usually not too big an issue except in the dead heat of summer, sometimes we’ll have to take breaks to turn it back on and cool things down. It’s less of an issue now that we us almost all LED or flo lights, but in a rental facility you’d expect not to have to do that.
[Jack Steiner] “Are there alternatives for a concrete floor??”
Most stage floors you’ll see will have a smooth concrete deck, either polished bare concrete, or with some kind of smooth epoxy coating. I’d say gray is the most common color. Sometimes you’ll see “sprung” floors, that are literally suspended on springs to take care of external vibrations. There’s some really nice stage space not far from us that has one of these floors because the studio is right next to some railroad tracks. They’re not necessary most places (and would be many tens of thousands of dollars, if not more), so I wouldn’t worry about that.
[Jack Steiner] “what structure should we use to improve acoustics and get rid of the “reverb” ?”
That’s a question for an acoustical designer. All stages are going to have either insulated walls or textile cycs around the perimeter (or both), but there’s a lot of other things that can be done to deaden the space… it’s usually baffles and things up in the grid, a fair bit outside my expertise. Remember that hard reflective surfaces as well as parallel surfaces are a deadly thing for sound, so stages are often built with the walls purposely “out of square” and with ceilings that are canted a little bit. It’s all a really tough thing… and I’ve seen (or rather, heard) it done both very well and very poorly.
T2
__________________________________
Todd Terry
Creative Director
Fantastic Plastic Entertainment, Inc.
fantasticplastic.com
-
This is getting very confusing… you’re now saying 1000 square feet? Your initial post specs were more than ten times that big.
There’s just a zillion things that go into stage specs, and thus the rates… and not just the size. How high is the grid? What is the power availability? Parking? Proximity to major thoroughfares? Airports? Silent HVAC? Sprung floor? Kitchen? Elephant doors or roll up? Loading dock? How far is the nearest camera rental house? Can you drive a vehicle on stage? There’s probably a list of a hundred things like that. Little things like Wi-Fi aren’t even on the list, they’d be expected at any facility.
And again, we don’t even know where you are, so we have no idea of the market… or existing supply, or demand.
You might get a guess from someone in here (although I doubt it)… but if you do, it will be a completely uneducated wild guess, so take it with a grain of salt.
I’m not trying to be difficult (I’m honestly trying to be helpful)… but I don’t think this forum is going to be your best source for what you need, based on the information you’re able to give. We’d simply have no idea.
T2
__________________________________
Todd Terry
Creative Director
Fantastic Plastic Entertainment, Inc.
fantasticplastic.com
-
Jack, sorry but you’re not getting any answers because you are asking a fairly unanswerable question… and a very generic one. Saying you’re opening a studio “in Europe” is pretty generic. We’re talking 50 different countries there over several million square miles. No doubt the day rate for stage space in downtown London is going to many multiples of the rate of similar space in some small city in Latvia… if such space exists.
We also know nothing about your space other than your description of “high end lighting.” And honestly I do not wish to sound like a jerk, but just two weeks ago you had a post with a photo of a studio asking “what kind of lights are these?” There’s no crime in not knowing (and education is never a waste), but you seem to be starting your lighting education pretty much from scratch (again, nothing wrong with that… we all started somewhere), but that doesn’t give us much of an indication of what you might be including or thinking is “high end.”
Also, most stage space is rented dry… just the space, no instruments, camera support equipment, grip gak, or anything else included in the day rate. Fully equipped operations will have arsenals of this gear available à la carte, but that’s generally in addition to the day rates for the space.
And lastly, most of us are probably trying to wrap our heads around the idea of someone opening a studio for rental, without apparently knowing too much about the business (even how much to charge) first, or doing even the most basic research about the area’s markets and rates.
A good first start would be to simply hit Google and find the dozen or so comparable facilities in your area of the world and simply looking at what their day rates are. Or if they aren’t posted, pick up the phone and call them. No one is going to not tell a caller their rate. Shouldn’t take more than a half hour, tops.
T2
__________________________________
Todd Terry
Creative Director
Fantastic Plastic Entertainment, Inc.
fantasticplastic.com
-
Yeah… I haven’t seen an actual Betamax deck in probably, oh, 25 years or more. The last one I saw was at my friend Robert’s house, it was their bedroom VCR and had had the same tape stuck in it for years, his wife just reused the tape to record the same soap opera every day.
Have you considered….
T2
__________________________________
Todd Terry
Creative Director
Fantastic Plastic Entertainment, Inc.
fantasticplastic.com
-
Oh…. Betamax.
Sorry, I misread that as Betacam.
Betamax might be a taller order.
T2
__________________________________
Todd Terry
Creative Director
Fantastic Plastic Entertainment, Inc.
fantasticplastic.com
-
Rich…
Well, we’re here in the deep south and nowhere near Chicago… but if you end up needing to outsource it, our Beta decks have been sitting unused in the racks for, gosh, I can’t even remember the last time they were used… it’d be nice to have an excuse to turn them on.
T2
__________________________________
Todd Terry
Creative Director
Fantastic Plastic Entertainment, Inc.
fantasticplastic.com
