production blog

You know the story. It’s CineGear

↑ My “best in show” goes to MIC’s DMX lighting control hub and accessories. It’s so much more than a flickerbox. One of my favorite features is you can have an actor turn on a light on a practical light on set and a series of preset lights will turn on as well. No more missed cues. Or a sensor that you can aim at a light source, say a candle, and when the candle is blown out the sensor activates lights to come on or off.

→The other big winner is Leader’s new onboard monitor. The monitor offers the usual testing screens like a waveform and vectorscope, but it also offers what they’re calling “false colors” for determining exposure of a shot. The way it works is that

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↑ Rosco is expanding its product line of light pannels.
→ Not it’s not a new Pokemon.

↑ Silver Lake’s hope for competing in the speed camera arena.
→ Here’s an idea whose time has come. Rosco recently introduced a polarized camera filter/window gel combo that allows you to control the amount of

↑ LTM’s new disc brake for large head light and it can also be retrofit on older lamps. It’s very easy to engage and release and holds super tight. A great idea.

↑ Beebee is introducing a mini.

With the temperature well over 100°, when we weren’t in the air conditioned tent this was my other best friend. Thank you Mole Richardson.

↓ I’ll write more tomorrow but for now, click on the image to see the collection of Red One cameras present at this year’s CineGear Expo. Can you find yours?!

While things have been painfully quite, there’s still things to do…

I just finished shooting a presentation for a pitch, one that I can’t reveal too much about just yet. What I can say is that It’s a comedy, being shot like a reality television show. I did a bunch of research watching shows like Campus Ladies, Arrested Development, Curb Your Enthusiasm, The Hills, Reno 911 and of course, the Office. It’s quite a thing to think in terms of how to make it look “live” and real while capturing comedy which is by it’s very nature a contrivance. I especially got a kick when shooting some of the scenes and adding a little bit of camera movement to make sure that you can “feel” the camera’s presences. Other times the aesthetic meant shooting with one of the actors, a prop or set dressing placed at the edge of frame to give the shot a more voyeuristic feel. Another device we used was when panning from on actor to another but slightly behind the delivery so as to be catching up with what’s said as would normally happen in real life - reacting to the scene instead of having forethought as to who will be speaking next.

We shot 24 pages in roughly four days using three Canon XL2 cameras and shooting handheld. One day at UCLA, half a day at one home and two and 1/2 days at another home in the Valley. The grip/electric package was very simple: Kinos, 1200HMI, Arri light kits (practical and as props), shiny boards, China lamps with 250W photo floods for daylight and 200W clear utility lights for night, etc. As part of the storyline (the story includes an element of a college news cast), we incorporated Flip cameras. They’re small video cameras whose footage can easily be plugged into a computer and downloaded as quicktime files or viewed on a television directly. The idea for using them was that while our cameras captured their interactions from the outside looking in, these cameras would capture their going-ons from the inside looking out. It also gave some of the actors comedic “business” in the background while other action happened in the foreground.

↑ Mike Wade (Miles) just before
→ Aaron (UPM) awaits the results - sorry, no big money, just whammies!

↑ Sound department: Pyxz & Chris H.
→ Actors Ryan Michael Oman (Bryce) and Mike Wade (Miles) having fun before the start of day one.

↑ Tess Lynch (Chaz) looking smashing!
→ Nick Pasqual (Jimmy) and Bear Badeaux (Sleestack) dink around with the Flip cameras

↑ China lamps in full force
→ Sarah Rodenbaugh (Cindy) preps

↑ Me and director Andrew Powell prep a scene
→ The monitor room - Andrew (dir), Reg Powell (producer) and Chris Powell (composer)

↑ Sarah (Cindy) readies for her net newscast
→ Rosie R. & Justin V. (camera operators)

↑ The cast
→ Krista G. (production designer)

↑ The cooking head cams. Nice!

↑ Roll your mouse over the picture.

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My wife knows how I do love gadgets, especially those having to do with photography. She found this bottlecap camera mount online. It’s a 1/4′-20 thread with an adjustable (15°) swivel head and a rubberized base that fits snugly on a plastic water bottle cap. I love this thing.

dynomighty.com

And yes, the bottled water I get comes shaped like a flask.

Well if you’re seeing this blog entry from my website and not the blog directly, you’ve already noticed the change to the site. It was time. I needed a method that made the site easy to update and give it a level of continuity. So here it is. I had written most of the code for my site by hand but opted instead this time to find a program to do most of the work. In this case I used RapidWeaver. The way it works is a bit limiting but I can live with that for the convenience. I still have a few changes to make but you get the idea.

For what it’s worth, it’s optimized a screen that’s bigger than 900×600 on Safari and Firefox 3, but as far as I can see, it works with all browsers. Let me know if you find any typos. Enjoy.

All things must end. After nearly ten years of having it around, I tossed my first and only camera assistant toolbox in to the recycle bin. I keep the belt and ditty bag but the box must go. Still trying to figure out what to do with the changing bag (could make a nice tent for a small dog!). Goodbye old friend - may you be recycled into some useful piece of gadget.