[Todd Terry]

Just my quick two cents…. admittedly without ever having seen a GH5…

As and old film guy, I am NOT a fan of the revolution that brought DSLRs into the world of shooting video. Sure, they can record great video (and many video cameras can take great stills), but that’s not what they were initially made for. They are both great tools, but one’s a hammer and one’s a wrench. Sure, you can pound a nail with a wrench, but why would one choose to when hammers are readily available? Yes, in this case a wrench can be a fair bit less expensive than the hammer… but for professional work I don’t think the difference is big enough to be a consideration.

And yes, I know the GH5 is a mirrorless camera, so technically not a DSLR. But the theory is exactly the same.

I’m all for “If you are going to shoot video, use a video camera.” It would just make life so much easier in many ways. And the C100 would be a great choice. I’ve personally never used one on a job (my daily shooter is the C300) but a friend has three C100s and I’ve played with one of them and wouldn’t hesitate for one second to buy one. The C300 is my favorite camera that I’ve ever used, and its little brother will do darn near all the same things.

Others opinions will differ….

T2

__________________________________
Todd Terry
Creative Director
Fantastic Plastic Entertainment, Inc.
fantasticplastic.com

[Todd Terry]

I was going to suggest green or blue vinyl, too, Mark beat me to the punch. It’s going to give you a nice even look, unlike the uneven mottled look of the paper that you tried… and (assuming this is shot during the day) natural exterior lighting will give you backlighting for the vinyl, and you likely won’t have to light it at all.

Where to get such a thing? Go to a sign shop, a place that does vinyl signs and banners. They will have huge rolls of it.

You don’t need to ad tracking spikes… as Mark pointed out you’ll probably have plenty of tracking points on square windows. PLUS, they wouldn’t be right anyway… tracking markers on such a thing would only be truly useful if there were where they would be in real life… off in the distance… not so much when the keying material is applied right to the windows.

Ok, warning, here I’m going off on a tangent……

As for the floating of the tiny model in a tank of water… I hate to be one of THOSE guys that shoots down someone’s idea… BUT I’ll just say I don’t see that working very well (and I’d hate for you to waste a lot of time/money/energy/resources on something that ends up being unworkable). You say the goal is “mimicking the ocean waves, thus blending the horizon/depth.” Well, that’s going to be a tough order, in that water in a tank is just never ever going to mimic ocean waves. For one, you have a speed issue. As you (hopefully) know, when shooting moving miniatures (or miniatures in moving environments) you need to shoot slow mo in relation to how big your model is.

The formula for figuring out that is by multiplying the frame rate times the square root of the miniature ratio.

What the hell does that mean? Ok, lets say you would normally be shooting 24fps, or working in a 24p project. Then the frame rate is 24. Ok, now lets say you are shooting a 1/50th scale, which might be appropriate for something big like a house (giving, say a two-foot model). Then you would multiply 24 times the square root of 50 (for ease we will round that to 7) to get your frame rate… ergo

24 x 7 = 168

Therefore, when normally shooting 24fps, if shooting a 1/50th scale model you would overcrank to 168fps to get natural looking motion.

Then again, you said “smaller 3D printed model” so maybe you are thinking of something even smaller, maybe 6 inches across. If you had a real-life 100ft house, that would be a 1/200th scale model. Ergo…

24 x 14 (the square root of 200) = 336fps

In that case, shooting 336fps (or something in that neighborhood) would give you natural motion on a 1/200th scale model. BUT… you’re never going to get water in a tank to mimic the look/action/waves of the ocean… water just doesn’t behave that way. Even if you dyed the water (which you would have to do so you don’t see through it), I just can believe you’d get anything realistic looking. And even if it did, you can’t shoot that with your C100, you’ll need a different camera for that shot that can shoot at a much higher frame rate than the C100 can.

Ok, I won’t be any more of a party pooper on that. If you want to do it, try it… and let us see the results.

As for “What lights should I use on this?”… well, it’s hard to say. You sound like you have good access to a lot of decent instruments, so you should be in good shape. I can’t really recommend particular instruments or setups because we don’t know anything about this project, what the story is, the look, feel, mood, or anything. A romantic comedy set in the daytime is going to have a very different lighting plot than a horror story set at dusk… and everything in between.

Good luck!

T2

__________________________________
Todd Terry
Creative Director
Fantastic Plastic Entertainment, Inc.
fantasticplastic.com

[Todd Terry]

Sounds like you have a grounding issue caused by dirty power sources in your European locations. Do the mics sound clean with using AC power in the US?

If so, the power is your culprit… and sadly, I don’t know much way around it. Maybe some others with more electrical knowledge in here can help. My first suggestion when I started reading your post was to try ferrite cable cores…. but then sadly saw that you tried that with no luck.

You might have better luck using a different mic, a different XLR adapter, or even a different mic cable (and making sure your mic cable is not near any power adapters, or crosses a power line)… but I know that is hard or even impossible to test since you are not where the trouble is.

The fact that the humming stops when you touch the camera tells us that it is a grounding issue. I suppose you could rig up something where you run a physical ground wire from a grounded source and attach it somehow or figure a way to keep it touching the metal lens ring. Not a very elegant solution, but it would at least keep you from having to hold your finger in place.

T2

__________________________________
Todd Terry
Creative Director
Fantastic Plastic Entertainment, Inc.
fantasticplastic.com

[Todd Terry]

Hey Dad…

Glad Matthews is fixing you up. They are good people.

Yes, you’ll need a way to attach your camera to your Mafer clamp. Depend on what you buy, the clamp will probably come with a “baby pin” inserted into it, which is a straight stud 5/8″ in diameter. What you’ll want to do it to take out that pin and replace with with a baby pin that terminates in a 1/4″ threaded nub.

Like this one…
https://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/1245793-REG/innovative_dimmers_803509_bp_baby_pin_to_1_4.html

There are many others, probably some cheaper, that was just the first one I ran across.

For more flexibility you could also put a little ball head in there to make positioning the camera easier…
https://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/687361-REG/Oben_BD_0_BD_0_TABLE_TOP_BALL.html

As for your other questions…

The tall 40″ riser sounds like it would be the most useful one for you.

As for the boom, you won’t need the grip arm/head for this application, but you might want to buy one if you think it will come in handy for other uses.

Turtle base vs. one piece… well to be honest, I didn’t know there were any C-stands that were not turtle bases. Turtle base is the norm.

You don’t need a Rocky Mountain leg for this usage. You’ll use that when shooting on uneven surfaces, outdoors on location, negotiating stairs and steps, etc. If you are ever going to be in these situations, then yes the adjustable leg can help and you might want to buy that. If you are always going to be in that same setup on a flat stage floor, then you don’t.

Sandbags… I think most of our sandbags came from FilmTools. Sandbags are heavy to ship, obviously, so most of our were purchased empty. We fill them up here and sew them shut. Sandbag canvas is super heavy-duty though, so we took some of them to an upholstery shop to sew them up.

T2

__________________________________
Todd Terry
Creative Director
Fantastic Plastic Entertainment, Inc.
fantasticplastic.com

[Todd Terry]

If you have to use the office flos on, the best choice would simply be to use whatever instruments most closely match that light… whether it be your daylight or tungsten-balanced blubs.

Now, in the “olden days” that would have been easy to figure out, since the office flos would have had a fairly high color temp, and your daylight sources would probably be the best choice.

That’s not true any more though, since consumer flo tubes come in a variety of color temps now… from “cool” to “warm” to “soft” (which is sort of in-betweenish). And of course it’s not very exact, the consumer “cool” tubes won’t be exactly 5600&deg, just like the “warm” ones won’t be 3200° either (but at least they will be in the ballpark). So it’s hard to say, my advice would be to look at the flos present in the office and see what color temp they are. It’s pretty easy to just eyeball it and judge… if they seem pretty cool use your daylight instruments, if they seem quite warm use your tungsten. If they seem somewhere in between (probably being “soft” tubes, and usually float around 4K°), then I’d probably go with daylight instruments, although they might have to be gelled to warm them up a bit.

T2

__________________________________
Todd Terry
Creative Director
Fantastic Plastic Entertainment, Inc.
fantasticplastic.com

[Todd Terry]

Why’s that?

T2

__________________________________
Todd Terry
Creative Director
Fantastic Plastic Entertainment, Inc.
fantasticplastic.com

[Todd Terry]

I’d be very wary of this…. not that it’s a horrible idea, just know what you are getting into.

I’d do the “piece of the action” investment deal only if it is a company that you really believe in, and that you want to invest in. If this entrepreneur came to you wanting a “real” investment (i.e. cash), would you invest in it? If so, then yes, I think it would be an okay idea to trade your services for an investment in the company. If it’s not a company that you’d like to have a financial stake in otherwise, then no, I wouldn’t trade work for an ownership percentage.

All of that keeping in mind of course that the vast vast majority of startups fail, fail big, and fail quickly.

Like some of the others here, bartering in my opinion is a much more solid way to go… if they have something to trade that is something you actually want, need, and otherwise might acquire anyway.

We have bartered twice (that I can think of) and it worked out extremely well. We already had an established advertising relationship with our area’s top ophthalmologist and did television commercials for his practice. Then once when he was ready to start a new campaign, we offered a deal that both sides jumped at: we produced some television spots for him, knocked three or four grand (I don’t remember exactly how much) off the bill, and he performed LASIK surgery on our art director (who happens to be my better half) for free. Everyone was incredibly happy. So much so that a couple of years later we repeated the same exact deal, this time with our general manager getting his peepers fixed.

In this case it worked so well because each side really wanted the services that the other side had to trade. Those are the barter deals really worth having.

We’ve turned down other barter proposals in the past, sometimes because we didn’t want what was offered, but more often because the actual value of what was being offered was much less than we would have charged for the production services we would be providing.

This is sort of the same reason that here we pay for everything… all people, places, and things… anything from locations to actors to crew members. I don’t mind doing favors for people in the least (in fact I enjoy it), but I don’t like to owe favors, or be beholden to anyone. I remember needing some specific venue in the past for a shoot, and it was going to cost us a thousand bucks or so. Whoever was in charge was saying “Eh, we won’t charge you a location fee… we’re thinking we might need a commercial produced sometime.” Noooo…. in that case I’d MUCH rather write them a $1000 check. I don’t want to be in a position where six months or a year from now they come to us needing five or 10K worth of work and expecting it as “returning the favor.” Production work is so admittedly expensive that those kinds of deals are rarely to our advantage.

T2

__________________________________
Todd Terry
Creative Director
Fantastic Plastic Entertainment, Inc.
fantasticplastic.com

[Todd Terry]

Yep, Dan, that’s the part they were using exactly.

As for Speedrail… honestly I wouldn’t buy it, because it’s so darn expensive. I’d just head to Home Depot and buy large-diameter electrical conduit of the appropriate size. It’s so darn cheap, I use it all the time for different things. In fact, the lighting grid in our studio isn’t a true “pipe grid” because it isn’t made of actual pipe… it’s made conduit. Unless you plan on hanging an anvil or an engine block off it, conduit is just fine.

If you want to go even cheaper at Home Depot, skip the backdrop ears and the Mafer clamps all together. Head back to lumber and get a 2×2 (if you can find one that straight and doesn’t bend or corkscrew… lumber is such a crapshoot these days). In each end drill a 5/8″ hole from top to bottom (a drill press would be helpful, but if not just get them as perfectly vertical as you can). With those holes your wood strut will snugly drop right over the baby pins on the top of your C-stands. At the midway mark (or wherever you want the camera) drill a horizontal hole) probably quarter-inch) so you can use a bolt to attach your camera. With a setup like that I usually use an extra-long bolt so I can use a washer and a wing nut to make tightening it up to the camera easy.

But then again, I sometimes go through “cheap phases” where I’m all about making inexpensive DIY mounts and such. Other times, I’m not in the mood to build anything and would just rather buy the gear to do it the “right” way.

But either way, I wouldn’t buy real Speedrail… I’d buy conduit.

T2

__________________________________
Todd Terry
Creative Director
Fantastic Plastic Entertainment, Inc.
fantasticplastic.com

[Todd Terry]

Hi Dan…

That setup looks fine, very workable. I would have suggested something similar for just using a DSLR, but I didn’t for a couple of reasons. One, you said you might use a C100, and while that is a small/light camera, it IS a fair bit bigger and heavier than a DSLR (and especially a bit top heavy)… AND you said you wanted to mount your fluid head on it. I thought the weight and “side heaviness” of that combo wouldn’t work quite as well with that kind of setup.

But… but just a DSLR body and a reasonably small/light lens (which that is), a setup like that is pretty good. The “pipe” that is the horizontal bar is what they call “Speedrail,” which is essentially just, well, pipe. It’s used in all sorts of rigging. The hardware that is holding the camera (as well as the little monitor) is known as a “Mafer clamp.” As for the hardware that is holding the speedrail to the stands, I’m not sure what that exact hardware is… probably some kind of grip gear (that no doubt has a specific name and nickname that I don’t know) which is used to attach a horizontal to a baby pin.

You might want to just browse through the entire catalog of stuff from Matthews… you’ll learn about all kinds of different hardware and grip pieces, seeing what’s out there might give you some different ideas that you haven’t thought about yet, and might come up with an even better way. It’s at https://www.msegrip.com/ and go to “products” and then “catalog downlowd.”

T2

__________________________________
Todd Terry
Creative Director
Fantastic Plastic Entertainment, Inc.
fantasticplastic.com

[Todd Terry]

Hey Bob…

You’ll probably get some purists here who will contradict me (and I will humbly bow to their wisdom), but for me personally and in practical experience I’ve never bothered one bit to worry about matching the color temp source of my greenscreen lighting to those of the key. In fact, I will often mix them.

In theory it shouldn’t matter at all, if a green surface is hit with light, it is going to only refect the green part of the spectrum, no matter if it is getting hit with 5600° or 3200° or something in between… with the rest of the spectrum being absorbed. That’s in theory… in practicality it doesn’t work quite that way, if you blast a greenscreen with a tungsten source and then with a daylight source you will see a bit of a difference to your eyeball… but I’ve always found it to be completely in tolerance with what is compositable and never had any matting problems.

But because there is a little bit of a difference in how the two sources are photographed, I wouldn’t mix them on the greenscreen just for the sake of uniformity… I’d try to light the green solely with one type or another, not daylight in one area and tungsten in another. But in relation to what you are using to light your subject, I don’t think it matters at all.

I have two big 4′ flos that I use vertically for greenscreen lighting. I have daylight tubes for them, as well as tungsten tubes. Honestly I never even check when I’m setting up for greenscreening, I use whatever is already loaded in there, because I’ve never found it to make a difference. The last time I did this (a couple of weeks ago), they were actually half-n-half (each instrument had half daylight tubes and half tungsten). And it was just fine to mix them.

I think the only real thing to worry about is the rare instance (and it does happen now and then) where your greenscreen instruments spill a bit (either accidently or on purpose) and also directly hit your subject… maybe a little splash on the edge of a subject, etc. In those rare instances you’d likely want to make your sources match… but as long as it is purely reflected light, put me in the “It doesn’t matter” category.

Others may disagree, will be interested to hear….

T2

__________________________________
Todd Terry
Creative Director
Fantastic Plastic Entertainment, Inc.
fantasticplastic.com