Todd Terry
1
COW Coin
Forum Replies Created
-
I refuse to believe this… Rick, you’ve only been doing this 40 years longer than me, what can you possibly know???
🙂
T2
__________________________________
Todd Terry
Creative Director
Fantastic Plastic Entertainment, Inc.
fantasticplastic.com
-
Oh my… I have to RE-disagree with Rick. I think of the sandbag as a counterweight, ergo it is on the opposite side of the fulcrum (which would be the center of the turtle base). But no matter, if you pile enough weight on it either side will work.
BUT… do make sure you are using the tall leg for the sandbag. The bag is not doing all it can if part of it is resting on the floor.
And Rick is dead-on of course about the knuckle position. I was actually chiming in to explain why it’s that way, but looks like Rick has updated his post and done a nice job of that. Just remember that the weight should tighten the knuckle, not loosen it. “Righty-tighty, lefty-loosy.”
T2
__________________________________
Todd Terry
Creative Director
Fantastic Plastic Entertainment, Inc.
fantasticplastic.com
-
Hi Kat…
You look like you are doing it right…
You want to put the tall/high leg on the OPPOSITE side of the weight on the stand (i.e., if the arm/weight is pointing NORTH you’d want the tall leg pointing SOUTH). And you’d put the sandbag on that tallest SOUTH leg, facing away from the weight.
And you have at least one extra bag on yours, which isn’t a bad idea if you have a lot of weight.
From what I can tell from your pic, looks like you’ve got it.
I have no idea what that spare part that fell out goes to though, it’s nothing I immediately recognize.
T2
__________________________________
Todd Terry
Creative Director
Fantastic Plastic Entertainment, Inc.
fantasticplastic.com
-
[Richard Herd] ” we shall be receiving much direct mail from very many politicians.”
And we love it at my house… love every two years when elections roll around…
My graphic designer/better half churns out tons of those political direct mail pieces… some very good… some quite horrible… but she notices that the money all spends the same.
And we love doing political commercials, I couldn’t even count how many I’ve directed. Last election we handled 11 races, 10 of our candidates won, and only one of them (so far) has done something horribly horribly embarrassing while in office (I figure one out of 10 isn’t bad).
It’s one of the few genres where the clients do not give a hoot what something costs and never even question a budget, and they pay you immediately… the only mandate is “Get it done! Now!”
Now, I’m an admitted hypocrite since I hate watching political advertising, but I sure love making it.
T2
__________________________________
Todd Terry
Creative Director
Fantastic Plastic Entertainment, Inc.
fantasticplastic.com
-
I haven’t done that, but it CAN be done.
Several years ago Kurt Cobain’s diary was published as a book, and they wanted it to appear not as a transcription, but as if looking at the actual diary pages.
The first thought of course was to scan it… but because of the physical fragility of the diary and the way it was put together, it would have been impossible and/or impractical to do so without taking it apart.
Their solution was to do exactly what you are proposing, to photograph the pages with a high-res digital camera.
It would be pretty simple, give you good results, and frankly would be a lot faster than scanning. You’d just need a good setup, good lighting, a perfectly perpendicular camera mount, and a way to keep your pages nice and flat. A piece of glass would work… or a photographic printing vacuum easel comes to mind as a great way to keep the pages perfectly flat. Since virtually no one does real darkroom work anymore you might even be able to get one for peanuts (I couldn’t even give my own darkroom gear away). Or, easy to make one.
But yes, you certainly can do it. Even using something like a 5D to shoot you won’t get nearly the resolution of a real flatbed or drum scan, but should be more more than enough for your purposes.
T2
__________________________________
Todd Terry
Creative Director
Fantastic Plastic Entertainment, Inc.
fantasticplastic.com
-
Well, actually I think this is just a trolling post.
Now with all due respect it MIGHT be legitimate and “Jacob Anderson” might indeed be a real person with legitimate needs…
But… based on the newness of the member sign-up, the few entries from this poster which are all very vague, seem fairly uninformed, and cover very disparate subjects… it’s suspect to me.
T2
__________________________________
Todd Terry
Creative Director
Fantastic Plastic Entertainment, Inc.
fantasticplastic.com
-
That works, too. You an also just lay a sheet of gel on your bounce board, too… i.e. if you have big uncut sheets and don’t want to hack into them. You have to remember that doubles them, though… 1/4 CTB becomes 1/2, 1/2 becomes full, etc… as the light is going through them twice.
You’ll still need some BIGass instruments though if you are using tungsten to combat or augment daylight.
T2
__________________________________
Todd Terry
Creative Director
Fantastic Plastic Entertainment, Inc.
fantasticplastic.com
-
There’s nothing wrong with the idea, per se, at least not in theory. The challenge though is that when battling daylight you’re also needing a lot of artificial light at the same time… and the CTB drastically cuts the output from your instruments, so they might not do you a lot of good unless they are really powerful instruments and close enough to the subject. When you add the diffusion of the umbrellas, that just compounds the output problems.
But yes, you can do it.
If gelling an instrument and adding an umbrella is a little clunky, you can kill two birds with one stone with a blue color-correcting umbrella that does both… we have a couple of them….
…but honestly I never use them because just like blue-gelling a fixture they cut the output by so much that they are not very useful. I think I’ve used them once, maybe twice.
In an instance like that, when I need to supplement (or battle) daylight but I still want it soft, I invariably use an HMI bounced onto a white 4×4 bounce card… that’s my go-to setup for something like that. Not much else will give enough firepower.
T2
__________________________________
Todd Terry
Creative Director
Fantastic Plastic Entertainment, Inc.
fantasticplastic.com
-
Depends on a lot of factors… most importantly having perfect lighting, and what you are keying with. An NLE’s built-in keyer won’t hold a candle to something more advanced like KeyLight or Ultimatte.
I’ve pulled many a perfect key though back in the 4:0:0 days here… it’s certainly not impossible.
T2
__________________________________
Todd Terry
Creative Director
Fantastic Plastic Entertainment, Inc.
fantasticplastic.com
-
What Rick said… who is invariably right.
Also, in a situation like that it helps if you can block you shots so that you are backlit… which you might have opportunities to do in a forest where there are splashes of light here and there (and actually although challenging that can make for a very beautiful setting to shoot in).
If you are in a sun-backlighting position that can help with a lot of issues… firstly, it’s just a cool look. Secondly, it will make your background darker than if you shoot in the other direction. Thirdly, you might find a spot where you can get some natural hair/back/rim lighting for your talent (or a bit of side lighting, the sun doesn’t have to be directly behind the talent). And fourthly it will give you some opportunities to bounce light back in to the talent, if there is a nearby “sun splash” spot. A regular 4×4 bounce card or even a pop-up reflector would be fine.
I’ve also shot in wooded areas a couple of times where I found that even a couple of smallish (say, 1K tungsten equivalent) battery-powered LED panels were helpful to give talent a little pop, when able to position them closely enough.
T2
__________________________________
Todd Terry
Creative Director
Fantastic Plastic Entertainment, Inc.
fantasticplastic.com
