[Todd Terry]

Well it all depends on what you’re doing, what you’re shooting, what the conditions are, all that jazz… as you know.

But as a general rule, I’d say that personally I find a 1200 to be the most useful HMI wattage. It’s big enough to be of good use in many situations where you need a lot of light, but still small enough that it can be powered with most home/business AC sources (and is the largest that you can do that with). I’ve used 575’s many times, but the only ones we bother to own are 1200w.

Also… you say you’re looking at a PAR. Fair enough, but personally I greatly prefer HMI fresnels to PARs. I seem to be in the minority there I know, as so many people love them, but I hate PAR HMIs. To me it is just a thousand times easier/faster and more convenient to adjust output and focus by twisting a knob, rather than wresting with changing lenses on an often hot PAR instrument. There are PARs that are somewhat focusable to a small degree, but most often you’ll be changing lenses.

Another option might be the 800w Joker-Bug. Jokers are awesome instruments, probably the most flexible HMIs out there… and their 800 is almost as bright as other 1200w heads. Much smaller and lighter in weight than a 1200w PAR head, easy to use, all kinds of cool accessories and configurations. On the downside (and it’s a big downside), they are wildly expensive.

Also, buying might not be your best bet. We own some HMIs, but the vast majority of people I know who use them find it much more cost effective to rent them.

I will say though that while I used to be a huge fan (and user) of HMIs, I hardly ever light with them anymore. I honestly can’t remember the last time I sparked any of ours. The latest generations of cameras are so light sensitive that they’re rarely needed for that, and latitudes are so much greater now that HMI firepower is not needed quite as much for things like combating windows as they were before. If I were starting from scratch, I’d probably buy some big badass LED instruments… and there are a couple out there that can rival the power of 1200w HMI instruments… and certainly exceed 575w heads.

T2

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

[Todd Terry]

Thanks Cristina…

This is a very old post, though. The problem was solved and we haven’t even heard from this client in more than two years. Which is probably a good thing.

T2

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

[Todd Terry]

Hi Ann…

I hate to be one of those “I don’t know the answer but I’ll chime in anyway” guys, but I will because you probably need a heads-up here…

This is a lighting design forum, but it’s pretty much limited to lighting design for the film and television industries… it’s unlikely you’ll run across anybody in here who knows about your particular tank eggcrate, and whether or not it is heat resistant.

There’s group for every conceivable avocation on the internet… there’s got to be a “turtle forum” somewhere that should have more helpful people who know about the exact equipment you have.

Good luck,

T2

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

[Todd Terry]

Hey Mark…

Whenever I’ve needed something like that, I’ve just made them myself out of aluminum stock. Aircraft Spruce (aircraftspruce.com) is a good source (and cheap) for stock material of whatever size and thickness you need. I’ve drilled (and tapped when needed) holes myself, although a machine shop could do that easily and cheaply.

I’ve just found when something really specific (and oddball) is needed, it’s been better to custom make a part… and as a general rule isn’t more expensive.

T2

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

[Todd Terry]

[Tom Galli] “How would one go about doing as you describe?”

Hmmm… well maybe you can’t. I’ve looked and I no longer see a method to upload videos for COW hosting. In the past, in the row of icons above where you type a reply (the same place you found the “file upload” icon), there used to be a video upload icon (it looked like a little movie camera). That would allow video uploads where clips were hosted on the COW. That does not seem to be there anymore.

I suspect that might have been removed due to an overwhelming amount of user-posted videos eating up valuable data space, and the fact that YouTube is pretty much the norm for video hosting now. I did find one mention that said that was now limited to forum leaders/hosts (and although even though I am one, I could not find how to do it).

Looks like now the COW is encouraging video uploads to YouTube or Vimeo for the hosting, and embedding them within COW posts.

Or maybe I’m just having a brain-fog night and can’t find how to do it… but it honestly doesn’t seem to be there as an option any more.

Probably shouldn’t have brought it up… but I just know how leery people are of downloading unknown files, especially zipped ones. And many people are also just plain lazy and just won’t bother to do it (I know I certainly am).

T2

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

[Todd Terry]

Nice and inventive, I like things like that.

In my house our usual description for that is “…a complicated system of winches and pulleys…” an exact phrase I’ve heard countless times.

One tip though, you should upload that to the COW as a video. More people will see it that way where they can instantly and easily just click and watch… frankly very very few people will actually download a file from here, especially a .zip file.

Good work.

T2

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

[Todd Terry]

There’s a fundamental issue going on here that we, unfortunately, see almost every day in our business.

Even after a quarter century of being an ad guy, I don’t know why but it still baffles me that everyone, yes virtually everyone, thinks that they are an expert in advertising.

You’ll have people that would never dream of telling their electrician how to re-wire their house, their surgeon to remove their appendix, their mechanic how to fix their car, or their dentist how to perform a root canal. Yet these same people have no problem hiring an advertising or marketing expert and then telling them exactly what they know is the best way for their business to be marketed.

I’ve yet to figure this out.

We are blessed that we have many clients who trust us to tell them what they need to do to effectively market their businesses. But we also have some that insist we do things that we absolutely know aren’t the best way to promote them (in fact sometimes it’s quite detrimental). We do try to educate these people, but with some it’s like talking to a brick wall. We had one problem-child client who kept hiring us for revisions to his campaign, with every change being a suggestion of his mother (and this client was a late middle-aged man). And I’ve seen more political campaigns derailed by a candidate’s spouse than anything else. Why a potential U.S. congressman thinks his Junior-League stay-at-home wife knows more about running a race than his professional political campaign advisors do is beyond me, but it happens all the time. With exactly the results you’d expect.

The OP’s client might be a good restaurateur, and lucky for him that he is an ad genius as well, knowing that he needs 365 different videos to promote his eatery. Which is of course, completely asinine. The options there are only to talk him into something more sensible, walk away, or take the money and run. But in most of those cases there’s not enough to run away with.

T2

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

[Todd Terry]

In this case Premiere is doing a good job of showing you what the footage would look like on a broadcast monitor, ergo you do not see those scan lines when it is within Premiere like you see when viewing it via VLC. You’re probably working on an interlaced Premiere timeline, so it looks right. If you were working on a progressive Premiere timeline, you might see those lines.

As I said the lines are not a problem if you are working in an interlaced project and your end result is destined for either broadcast television or other viewing on “real” television monitors. But if not (either of those things), then the scan lines will show up.

VLC will be a good benchmark as to what it would look like on normal progressive monitors, web distribution, YouTube, etc.

T2

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

[Todd Terry]

All what Ned said, exactly right.

As for “They’re not required by law to furnish their own equipment, are they?”…

Well, ignoring the “by law” part which is irrelevant… as to whether they do or not, it just depends. Often freelancers are hired just as a warm body. Just as often though, in our industry a freelancer may come with equipment. A freelance editor may work out of someone else’s post facility, or they may work at home on their own system. A DP might be hired as a freelancer, along with his camera gear. A gaffer sometimes comes with lighting. Very often when you hire a sound guy, they come with sound gear (this is probably the most common scenario). It just depends on who you hire and what is needed.

T2

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

[Todd Terry]

I responded to your identical post in the Cinematography forum.

T2

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