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Without something for scale it's hard to tell, but it's either a 1/4"x20 or 3/8"x16 screw. Any cine shockmount should work. http://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/429633-REG/Rode_SM4.html
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Sep 3, 2010 00:08
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exp0n fucked around with this message at 00:58 on Nov 30, 2014 |
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Sep 3, 2010 02:03
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No worries man, I was glad you were able to save it all. Here's a still from a shoot I did for a bathroom design company, we interviewed the contractor outside. The director really loved the shot, I'm still iffy as the highlights turned out a lot brighter than I thought, but hey, why not. 1080i on my HVX-200 
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Sep 6, 2010 21:15
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I can't believe I didn't know this thread was here. I just started my MFA in production at Florida State and may very well en up focusing on camera. A question for you guys: iPhone apps. pCam vs. Toland ASC Digital Assistant (which just came out I think) Thoughts? EnsGDT fucked around with this message at 16:06 on Sep 8, 2010 |
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Sep 8, 2010 15:45
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Steadicam guy did a writeup on pCam just a few pages back, seemed to really like it. I'm not particularly interested in dropping $30-$40 for this kind of thing but if I were I'd probably go with pCam, just looking at the screens it looks like pCam is a lot easier to read right off the bat. May not be as powerful but really it's just different sets of calculations, so I assume if you know which sets of numbers you want, you should be fine. Just looking at Toland's app and it's a goddamn mess of gibberish. I could decipher it in time I'm sure, but that already says bad things for me. The whole thing is way too cluttered to be of quick visual use. But they're each rated the same, so it probably works just as well. They're a hell of a lot fancier than my poor light meter though, now I feel bad for the little guy. bassguitarhero fucked around with this message at 18:24 on Sep 8, 2010 |
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Sep 8, 2010 18:21
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EnsGDT posted:pCam vs. Toland ASC Digital Assistant (which just came out I think) The guy who wrote pCam, David Eubank, has over 30 years of experience working in the film industry as a camera assistant, and has also developed the pCam app for Palm devices for years. The Toland ASC app is very pretty, but it does look a little cluttered. Personally, I'd just go with experience over flash on this one. David knows AC work, and he knows how an app should work for AC's.
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Sep 8, 2010 21:07
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I dayplayed on a tv movie on monday where we tested the HD Hero. We clamped it to a skateboard for some editing fodder and it does produce nice pictures for being as small as a pack of cigarettes. Sadly it also suffered heavily from rolling shutter as soon as rough terrain made the board vibrate. Started to look like the picture was made of goo. I guess with a higher frame rate and a dampened rig it would have worked better, but we didn't have the time for more testing. Still, I think it's a promising little tool. Here's some unrelated footage of the Hero, there's some cool rig shots in there that hint at the possibilities. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4aJzYioSDi4
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Sep 8, 2010 21:50
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Thanks guys, you pretty much confirmed by suspicions on the pCam versus Toland issue. Personally I have pCam already but I was curious as to any takes on the new software. Also I just read the last 20 pages of this thread and I gotta say, nice work guys haha
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Sep 9, 2010 06:22
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I have a business issue. I freeelanced for a guy 2 months ago. I'm used to being paid COD, but he wanted an invoice. The invoice was sent July 10th, and he still hasn't paid. I've contacted him in the interim to ask what was up, and he told me that there were some issues with the client, he still hasn't gotten paid, blah blah blah (bullshit). I think it's terribly incorrect business practice to wait till the client pays you to pay your employees. What do you guys think I should do? I plan on contacting him AGAIN today to follow up.
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Sep 13, 2010 15:36
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Keep on him. That's the business. You get people that pay, you get people that don't. Half the experience in freelancing is learning which jobs NOT to take, because you wind up risking your time, your gear and yourself. It is terribly unprofessional although a lot of times this is alright IF it's worked out in advance (I pay you when I get paid, etc). But to just do it at the last second is unprofessional and very shady, if they're hiring you to do the job of filming, YOUR job has already been done. So you should be paid.
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Sep 13, 2010 16:24
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I always get people to pay some amount upfront for this very reason. All you can do at this point is to call him several times a day and harass the poo poo out of him until he pays.
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Sep 13, 2010 16:34
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I work for a lot of independent corporate producers on smaller jobs and it's not uncommon for me to wait 30, 60 or even 90 days to see an invoice paid on those jobs. If it is a major job, I'll get them to agree to terms in writing, but that isn't always feasible for quick little jobs. In my 8+ years of doing it this way, I've had to chase people down once in a while, but I've only really been completely burned once for about $2k worth of an $8k invoice.
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Sep 14, 2010 01:12
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I just started (fully:edit) shooting with a DSLR last month and holy poo poo. It's just amazing. Even the 550D, which is the lower range of the Canon's allows me to (with a kit lens!) achieve these results. http://vimeo.com/14952104 of course i am cutting and doing color grading afterwards. does anyone know of a good site with DIY rails or rigs?
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Sep 14, 2010 13:12
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Deech posted:does anyone know of a good site with DIY rails or rigs? cheesycam.com for the serious homedepot solutions. cinema5d.com has a forum dedicated to them. Gorgeous video.
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Sep 15, 2010 00:57
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Deech posted:I just started (fully:edit) shooting with a DSLR last month and holy poo poo. It's just amazing. Even the 550D, which is the lower range of the Canon's allows me to (with a kit lens!) achieve these results. That's really nice. What sort of lens were you using? Also, what kind of setup did you have for keeping the whole thing stable? I haven't had much of a chance to play with my 550d and its Sigma 50mm since I bought it back in July, but when I do, I'd love to figure out how to shoot nice stable video with it.
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Sep 15, 2010 01:52
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Snap Your Fingers posted:I have a business issue. I freeelanced for a guy 2 months ago. I'm used to being paid COD, but he wanted an invoice. The invoice was sent July 10th, and he still hasn't paid. I've contacted him in the interim to ask what was up, and he told me that there were some issues with the client, he still hasn't gotten paid, blah blah blah (bullshit). I think it's terribly incorrect business practice to wait till the client pays you to pay your employees. What do you guys think I should do? I plan on contacting him AGAIN today to follow up. This is a long, very confusing and tortuous road to navigate. If he's a client you want to keep in good graces with, and think he may have some work for you again in the future, it's at your discretion to be as nice or as strong with him as you like. Personally, if you're in the same town as he is, and know where his office is, I'd go see him at work. Standing there in person is much harder to ignore as a pressing issue. If a job keeps in contact with me and they're honest, I tend to cut them the most slack (maybe up to 90 days). Regardless, filing wage claims takes a fair amount of time, so I'd suggest you file the paperwork immediately, and tell them you're doing so, not as a scare tactic, but just to accelerate the process. What state do you live in? Depending on the nature of the work you did for him, you're either looking at a claim in Small Claims court, or filing a wage claim with the Department of Labor (or whatever governing body handles non-payment of wages). In our business, lots of companies want to try to hide behind the veil of you being an "independent contractor". However, the state you live in has the final say of if you were a contractor (small claims court) or an employee (wage claim). Example: in the State of California, there's a lengthy list of stipulations the State uses to decide if I was an employee or not. If I worked on a feature film for 4 weeks, and was not paid for the last 2 weeks, I would probably file a wage claim. They may claim I was an independent contractor, citing that I signed a deal memo, work contract, etc, whereby I claimed "yea, sure, I'm a contractor". However, you can't actually sign away that claim. Many of the things that make you an employee over a contractor: you work predominantly with someone else's tools (even if they're rentals, it includes cameras, lights, grip equipment, wardrobe, property, etc); you work under someone else's guidance during the project; you work during appointed times as set by the employer; etc. Contractor: I bid a job where I say I'll build you a shed, matching certain specifications, for $XXX. You pay me half up front, I build the shed, you pay me the remaining balance upon completion. (just an example). I used my own tools, I bought the raw materials with your money but I still did it, I managed the creation of the shed myself, I told you when I was available to come build the shed, and when it would be completed, etc. Employee: I accept a rate to come work on your feature film / corporate video / commercial / music video. You have the vision of the film, I'm hired to help you execute it for $XXX per day. You pay me the entire balance upon completion (like wages). You direct me in the shooting of the project. I may use my work gloves, perhaps even my Steadicam equipment or my light meter, but the preponderance of the tools and materials used to complete the project were provided by you. I showed up to set at a time you dictated, and told me how many days we would work for, what hours and when. Wage claims benefit: (CHECK WITH YOUR OWN STATE) in California, if they have not paid me the balance of my wages owed, the state can compel them to pay me my rate of $XXX/day for every day they failed to pay me, maxing at 30 days. So, let's say I worked for a feature at $200/day, and they failed to pay me $1,000 (5 days of work, assuming no OT). I file a wage claim, and 4 months later they still haven't paid me. The Dept of Labor has a conference with myself and my alleged employer, and they determine my claim is valid (simply, they determine I am owed the money). We move on to a hearing with a judge, who determines if I was an employee. Upon finding I was an employee, and I was owed the money, the judge then declares that my employer must pay me $1,000 for the wages I'm owed, PLUS 30 days at $200/day, or $6,000 in fines. My total payout: $7,000. ON THE OTHER HAND, mobot is absolutely correct. Vendors are accustomed to 30, 60, 90 or even 120 days payout on invoices to companies like ABC, CBS, etc. That's why the better place to be is payrolled, or if you're a vendor, to be on loanout from your company and get paid by your company ASAP. Moral of the story is: get used to the hustle. We all do it. I'm owed $375 from a gig I did a year ago, and I hope to run into the scumbag who skipped town on me. The business is too small to screw people over, and everyone hears about dirty laundry. You won't ever find a foolproof method to ensure you get paid, but you can keep good accounting methods, set reminders for yourself of who owes you money, and don't be shy to keep the conversation fresh.
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Sep 15, 2010 05:19
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Hopefully it won't go to a court-room situation. I contacted him again and after a condescending little "Welcome to freelancing  " comment, he's relented to send a check. As many of you have said, and I said to him, I don't think this would've been an issue if I had been made aware of it at the beginning or at least kept in the loop. I may loose him as a potential employer, but the lack of communication on his end has kinda put me off. Although it's tough to come by freelance work so far outside a city, so who knows. I tried not to be a dick, and I think it will work out alright.What's everyone's opinion on putting late fees on invoices? I almost did it with this one, which could have proved beneficial to me.
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Sep 15, 2010 22:03
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Snap Your Fingers posted:What's everyone's opinion on putting late fees on invoices? I almost did it with this one, which could have proved beneficial to me. Regardless if a client agrees to pay a late fee or not, I've never found that they actually motivate a slow-paying client to pay any faster, and it's those slow-paying clients that are more likely to ignore your late fee when they finally get around to paying anyway. I would think that it might even put off clients who sometimes pay in that 90-120 day window (knowing a few myself), which could cost you future jobs with them. This is just in my experience, however. I don't know what the industry standard is.
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Sep 16, 2010 04:03
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Thankfully I haven't had to deal with anything past 30 days, but when I used to work for a private firm that provided loss prevention solutions for retailers, WalMart would regularly be over 120 days late in their payments despite the accrual of late fees. And when they paid, they never paid the late fees either.
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Sep 16, 2010 05:18
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Snap Your Fingers posted:Hopefully it won't go to a court-room situation. I contacted him again and after a condescending little "Welcome to freelancing You can always do the opposite, an "early payment discount". It's worked for me & another friend on a few photographic jobs.
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Sep 16, 2010 14:03
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schmuckfeatures posted:That's really nice. What sort of lens were you using? Also, what kind of setup did you have for keeping the whole thing stable? Thanks! I was using the kit lens ( EF-S 18-55mm). In terms of stabilization I was mainly finding my focus and holding it really close to eye level on the shots where I myself am not moving around, the LCD is clear enough to where I felt completely comfortable racking the focus on the fly. Otherwise I was just finding focus, bringing it down to chest level, holding it close and hoping for the best. For the empire state building shot I used Smoothcam in FCP, which shows on the corners of the frame and creates that slight image buzz. I cant wait to get started on building a rig. Cheesycam has a few pretty good options that I think I'll be going to work on this weekend.
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Sep 16, 2010 19:43
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Pantsmaster Bill posted:You can always do the opposite, an "early payment discount". It's worked for me & another friend on a few photographic jobs. Some of the government bills I get do this. Keep in mind that this is not actually a discount, you're just re-wording the late fee.
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Sep 18, 2010 09:56
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I'm going to be starting as a videographer's assistant/secondary videographer in the fall, and was wondering if you guys had some good books/resources to point me towards. I've got a pretty thorough background in still photography already (film and digital), but haven't really done video at all previously. I'm pretty sure most of what we're doing will be educational technology demonstrations in the classroom, but I'd like to get more into it for personal projects as well.
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Sep 20, 2010 22:00
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My first reel of Kodak Vision 3 16mm film came in today! Going to have all kinds of fun (hopefully) this weekend. I need to practice loading the thing a few more times, but I think I'm ready to finally try this. Any of you grizzled film shooters have any first-hand advice?
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Sep 24, 2010 01:09
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What camera are you going to use?
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Sep 24, 2010 06:24
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In film school we were shooting something in class that day and the two biggest retards in class were loading. I walked in the room and one said "oops", the other said "it'll be fine" and then took the mag out of the tent. Yeah it wasn't fine. Don't do that and you'll be OK.
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Sep 24, 2010 06:25
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Practice loading the mags or camera with short ends in the light, so you can see what you're doing once or twice. Then, practice it inside a pitch black bathroom. Then, practice it in a film tent. Now, you should be able to load mags with your eyes closed, feel your way around the mag and know every part and component of it. What kind of camera are you loading? Arri S? SR? CP-16? Bolex? Inquiring minds! Fun fact: if you take a tight roll of film out of the can and into the light, the film is still "good". The edges of the film may develop some hazing, but the majority of the center of the strip is unexposed. With double-perf film, this doesn't matter as much. With single-perf film, you may get some haze in the area of the ghost image. Thanks, anti-halation backing!!
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Sep 24, 2010 08:58
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Tiresias posted:What camera are you going to use? It's a non-reflex Bolex H16 and I'm going to be shooting Kodak Vision 3. Concerning loading, I had read that is was okay to load without a darkroom or tent, just as long as it wasn't outdoors in extreme directional light. Something like a darkened room at night would work with only a few frames fogged?
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Sep 24, 2010 17:52
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A dark room will be ok but it sounds kinda worrisome when you say "just as long as it's not in extreme light." that's not close at all. A dark room is a dark room for a reason, but you still want to be extremely careful. And even then, if it was me I wouldn't do it unless it's a REALLY dark room (to the point where I might as well use a bag because I can't see ANYWAY) Seriously, you WANT to learn to load in a changing bag. If you actually want to shoot film, then you need to learn to do it right. For your own stuff, you may not think it's that big a deal but it's a terrible TERRIBLE habit to develop. That's really the big thing - you need to develop good havits early on and stick to them or you're gonna wind up tryin to pull a quickie on someone else's film and get a serious rear end kicking over it. EDIT: Put it this way - You can't develop that film until you shoot the whole thing. If you're "not sure" if it's good or not, imagine how bad it could be if the whole thing gets lost. That's why you want to know this stuff. You don't want that one-take-only shot to be fogged over because you tried to macguyver the film in the bathroom with the light turned off. bassguitarhero fucked around with this message at 01:55 on Sep 25, 2010 |
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Sep 25, 2010 01:50
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bassguitarhero posted:Point taken, ordered a big bag from Amazon. It's been overdue anyway, thanks!
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Sep 25, 2010 02:44
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The Affair posted:Point taken, ordered a big bag from Amazon. It's been overdue anyway, thanks! If you ever want to make your own dark room, just find a bathroom in a house or apartment with no windows. Use a towel to block below the door, and as long as the door is completely sealed, you're good. Best way to test: go into the room, close the door, block underneath and turn out the lights. Wait 5 minutes, and if you see light ANYWHERE, it's no good.
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Sep 25, 2010 04:41
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Is it unkosher to solicit Kickstarter links here? I'll remove this link if that's the case, but here's a project we are currently raising funds to shoot. It will be a lot of fun for us to film, not to mention a huge challenge and a lot of good experiences. Some highlights are: Aerial plane to plane footage Digital SFX and green screen work and one actress fighting herself So if you know of a place where I can spam this link around, let me know, and if you just want to check it out and root for us, here it is. http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/826244280/i-scream-you-scream-0
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Sep 28, 2010 05:24
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Does anyone have experience with wireless audio? I have a shoestring budget talk show that I did screen testing for, and the wireless lav receivers would keep getting interference. I couldn't isolate the cause since the space isn't ideal to begin with (all the AC and heating runs through there, there's a bunch of electrical wire running around the ceiling in crappy looking conduit, etc.) I used these: http://pro-audio.musiciansfriend.com/product/Nady-Dkw1-Lavalier-Wireless-System?sku=472552 - obviously not great but I had them on hand. Is there any way I can minimize interference, or is it time to buy/rent a better system?
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Sep 30, 2010 05:38
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Holy crap I didn't even think you could GET a wireless system that cheap. That's cheaper than the used Shure wired lav I bought, which was in pretty awful condition. You definitely need better gear for that. Honestly though if you're in a spot with a lot of AC, heating, wires, etc then you probably want to go wired anyway if you possibly can.
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Sep 30, 2010 16:18
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I'm about to do something that I think is really intelligent, but there might be some poo poo I'm overlooking. Hopefully someone with more Final Cut Pro experience than I can help me out: I have h.264, 1080p/24p footage from a Canon T2i that I'd like to edit into a movie without having to convert to a lossy format like ProRes. Therefore I've decided to trim the clips with SimpleMovieX and merge them, essentially editing the whole movie before it reaches Final Cut Pro. Then I'm going to import said edited movie into Final Cut Pro and use PluralEyes to sync the audio. Then I'll export the finished, audio synced movie to h.264, losing no quality. Will this get me around the insane rendering time that comes with editing h.264 in Final Cut Pro? I'm pretty sure it will, but I'm not positive, because I haven't tried it yet. Also, will my final export from Final Cut Pro lose any quality? I want this to be as lossless as possible from start to finish.
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Oct 2, 2010 00:59
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Can't you just offline the footage in FCP to make your life a lot easier and then just use that to render the online so you don't have that first conversion? Although I can't imagine you're losing more data than the original format introduces. That's really more an editing than cinematography thing, I would check the "Final cutting like a pro" thread in SH/SC for more about cutting an offline of your footage.
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Oct 2, 2010 02:33
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There really shouldn't be any problem going into Prores HQ. Calling it lossy is a little odd, especially where you are coming from with your original footage. I'd look at if SimpleMovieX does any rerendering, which I imagine it would if you are stitching all the clips together, then you are way better going into prores. Prores certainly isn't going to throw away any information from those DSLR h.264 clips.
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Oct 2, 2010 03:10
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codyclarke posted:I have h.264, 1080p/24p footage from a Canon T2i that I'd like to edit into a movie without having to convert to a lossy format like ProRes. This statement is pretty much the pinnacle of irrational pixel peeping.
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Oct 2, 2010 03:45
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Thanks for the feedback, everyone! I know it might seem like I'm making a mountain out of a molehill, but looking at the h.264 footage side by side next to the ProRes footage (converted via MPEG streamclip) the h.264 looks noticeably better. The gamma/contrast is off in the ProRes. Editing in SimpleMovieX seemed like a good workaround, I was just curious if there was something I was missing or doing wrong. I wasn't aware of the Final Cut thread though, I'll take my question there.
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Oct 2, 2010 06:24
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codyclarke posted:looking at the h.264 footage side by side next to the ProRes footage (converted via MPEG streamclip) the h.264 looks noticeably better. Something went horribly wrong. Prores is massively better than h.264. Maybe try a different program? Different settings?
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Oct 2, 2010 11:12
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