Thomas English

Ed, I don't want more boxes up there!!! After my second scotch at breakfast my eyes don't care if I've dropped to 720p from 1080p. Dan your in America with them weird frame rates. It works fine there 23.94 etc. The boxx meridian is the daddy but is just too expensive! Especially as the market only wants to pay for a Wevi. Spend 3 times the money. Transvideo stuff is always great but where is the Titan-HD lite?

Does this work yet?

What monitor bracket is that on your sled?

YES i am .. Should we have a Steadi-Ops night? +44 7970 025 389

A lot of people went to transvideos and Marshals and never looked back. There are still occasions I am definitely pulling out my TB6. Its definitely interesting that Eric, one of the biggest kit-fascists around, thinks its good. This week. Low mode. Bright and low sunshine with lots of bright cloud cover above. Lifting the low mode camera up to near chest height. Upside down TB6 3 ft above my head and as close to the line of my body as possible. Really I am looking at the most oblique angle possible onto the monitor but I can still see it. Could the Cinetronic have done it? I wouldn't of been able to tweak the monitor angle as it was a 4 minute one-take music video. According to Williams review the Cinetronic would have been fine so long as I rotated the whole monitor and was in the 175 degree angle area rather than the 5 degree angle area. Thats fine.. it would have worked for that whole shot. Direct sunshine straight onto the monitor so you can see the actual sun reflecting was never a problem with the new range of LCD's. It was always the bright cloud cover above or HMI's on a frame behind that ruined visibility. So massively interested in this Cinetronic. We do hear this every new range of LCD's that comes out and they are obviously getting better and better. Are we there yet? I would love it if others filled in Jens's questionnaire.

Is there a weight difference between the older ones and the newer ones? Will the newer ones be light enough to work on the AR rig?

Big fan of the Betz. I use all sorts of different camera plates (MK-V, Betz, XCS and Baer-Bell) and they are all different sizes but the clamping lever just clamps a little more of less. Totally fine. Betz service is also top-notch. Never used a DB2/3 but I am sure its very good. They are both very good. I dunno which you should get. The tyranny of choice. Have you heard of "Buridans Ass": If you put a donkey between a pale of water and a bale of hay it can die of starvation trying to choose between them. Now which should I get? Samsung Galaxy s2 or an Iphone 4s....

I'm not sure if the dealer in Henan on Alibaba calling it and IDX unit actually means its got anything to do with IDX. I think its probably the factory that makes the IDX units "going it alone". Probably completely identical to the IDX unit in every way and made by the same people but nothing to do with IDX.

Does it work with the Epic at 25p?

Here in England we would charge half day for the travel day. Full day and overtime (to get home) on the shoot day and if Saturday gets cancelled then full rate sunday as well. Sat and Sun are full rate and full kit days. Here in England it rains all the time and I've been in this position many times. If you wanted to give them a sleep in your hotel and go on a nice walk discount for your Saturday off that would be up to you. The grips and the sparks wouldn't. If the client is a really good friend or you woke up with the production manager after friday night maybe give them kit for free on Saturday but never your personal rate. The grips/sparks wouldn't.

Seems interesting. Is it one to one transmition like the Wevi or is it one to many like the Boxx or even a modulus SD? When I feed the TX an SD signal does an HD or an SD signal come out the other end? Have any Steadicam Operators field tested this yet? Thomas

Pedro, The PS freestyle rig flexes particularly with Alexa's or just generally? I love a compacted post. I never, in 2D, Extend my post unless for low-mode. But in 3D and the kind of operating we have to do in 3D; that really goes out of the window for me personally. Do you honestly think you can't do an Alexa freestyle rig with just a single PRO/G70 arm? I know where you are probably coming from. It is SO close to the bone with where every detail of every accesory is placed to make it work. The big issue being getting power into those two bodies. Maybe its just easier to find another solution than argue with a load of jobs-worth stereo guys. RED-Epics and Alexa-M s are rolling out now. Thankfully that little nightmare should be over.

Why not just use a G70 or a Pro-Arm?

Will these monitors (16:9) be too heavy to go on an AR rig?

You crazy bastard Osvaldo.

Ron, I see those bikes around London all the time now. Did you actually operate Steadicam off that? The cycle rickshaws that were everywhere in London where quite good to softmount on http://img3.photographersdirect.com/img/13665/wm/pd2989229.jpg I did a couple of jobs. Don Juan to shoot off behind you and 40mm+ shooting ahead and slight angle. They worked well. Although nowadays I don't like to softmount at all anymore.

The motors from Heden are stunningly good. I broke one of the brackets and when I emailed them I got an answer immediately and a new bracket was sent out fast fast. Buying new motors these days is a slow process. I think this is a current thing because he is just selling SO many. Expect a lead time of up to two weeks from your first email and your motor being dispatched. There are distributors out there if you want more dialogue when buying and some distributors may even carry stock I don't know. Speak to Louis Puli in Aus and check if he has any stock. I've bought 3 motors from them in the last few months on 3 different occasions ( 2 x M26VEs and 1 x 21VE). Yup; you don't get immediate responses to your emails which can be frustrating. You will though get an answer and you will buy a motor but it does take a little time. I have been hugely happy with the service, motors and price. Its not a fast food service though. Well worth the wait... No good if your in an urgent hurry.

I had a similar problem while trying to downconvert 25fps on that camera. I think it is fixed in build 6.24

Looks good to me!

Maybe it worked with a previous firmware. I called RED and was told it was a known issue. I rung around a few other people. Notably a very well known and talented DIT here who has a big RED facilites house and he told me he had been having murders with this issue. Its finally fixed on Beta 6.24 NTSC makes no difference but shooting at 23.94fps will work fine. I bet your camera as at 23.94? RED told me the issue was with 25p and most other off frame rates.

I have about 4 XCS plates kicking about but I use my Baer-Bell plate often. It is very thick and far stiffer than a lot of other plates out there. It comes in very useful on the Arri Alexa. You can even mount 19mm bars on the front using a special BaerBell bracket but it might foul your nose. I go backwards with my topstage when I need to do that.

Make sure that any Epic you get has the one week old beta build 6.24 if you are feeding a RedByte otherwise it won't work. The only solution on 6.20 build (current release) is putting a lockit box onto the EPIC or getting an AJA downconverter.

Thanks guys. This is a great setup to have remote DoP iris on an MDR1/HU1.

You need to be far more serious about what kit you want to use on the job not what kit they'd like to squeeze onto their budget. You need to be able to say your simply not interested in pushing weird boundaries to save them money. Need to ask yourself more important questions about how in the negotiating process you found yourself in such a debacle wasting so much time squeezing an F3 onto a pilot. If you only owned a Pilot I could understand but since you have the archer you should of just said thats the rig I am using.. lets talk money. Its weak and devalues yourself as a negotiator to pussy foot about with excuses like.. it won't fit on this rig or the insurance might not cover the equipment failure. Or EVEN I have two rigs and one can't carry certain camera weights. As an expert you decide what rig is suitable for a job and how much you quote. Messing about only devalues your expertise. The gimble would be fine and might just wear faster; It won't fail. So many things are more borderline though and prone to catastrophic failure. Low mode? Good on you for squeezing an F3 onto a pilot.... but

I want to use the Digital Bartech (Heden 26VE) as the remote iris channel for the DoP. Make up a preston to preston short power cable with a little pigtail out to power the digital bartech. This way the bartech just velcroes onto the Preston wherever it is on the camera. Is there enough power out of a single 3Pin RS out on the Arri Alexa to do both the Preston (one motor) and a Digital Bartech ?