Jess Haas SOC

In that case I have things I would be willing to trade for an arm, doesn't have to be a 3A. Have a whole mess of stuff but nothing too expensive. Lowel light kit, par cans, c-stands, super8 and 16mm cameras. If anyone has one lieing around and wants to trade stuff message me. ~Jess

I had a very similar problem with one of my trimpacs. While using it one day the display said that it was still fully charged despite it being almost completely drained. I through it on the charger and when I came back the display said absolutely nothing but the charger said ready. I will also email Mike about it. ~Jess

While it should be the responsibility of the production you never really know what you are going to end up with when someone else is supplying it. The problems could range from an uncomfortable harness to someone thinking all they really need to do is bring some cheap rope to tie you in with. That is if they bring anything at all. Then there are all the times that I have seen people "safetied" to vehicles with enough slack that if they fall they will be dragged behind the vehicle. If I relied on production and didn't bring my own safety gear there would have been multiple times when I would have had to chose between refusing to do a shot or doing it in a way I was not comfortable with. While refusing to do the shot would have been the correct thing to do (if I didn't have my own safety gear) I don't think it would have helped me get hired again in the future. Do as you wish. After all it is your life. ~Jess

I am sure you can find one to rent, but they are a good piece of kit to have and not that expensive. You can also use a climbing harness if you can find someone to borrow one from they just aren't quite as comfortable. You will also need some way to clip yourself in. Most people use climbers daisy chains(http://www.rei.com/product/782801) and carabiners or something similar. Places like grainger sell things like them made for fall protection but I don't personally like them because they are usually bulky or have have some failure mode that will leave them just long enough for you to be draged. Daisy chains are also great for securing the camera, just wrap it around the handle and clip it to something. ~Jess

Don't have an extra but as long as I am not working those days you are welcome to use mine. I am in Santa Monica. Another option which I have used is hitting up the grip or electric department for a lowboy junior stand with a buttplug. Its basically the same thing, they might even have some wheels for it. ~Jess

Tilt heads and motorized stages are definitely a personal preference kind of thing. There really aren't any shots you can't get without them but some people do swear by them. I personally prefer to not have extra stuff on my rig that I don't need, especially things that can break like motors and electronics. As far as arms go they are both very nice arms. The pro arm seems much easier to clean and service while the G-70 arm has all the bells and whistles. You will find people who swear by both of them and you really can't go wrong with either choice. ~Jess

How and where in the car are you going to be sitting? If you are in a seat with a seatbelt on I don't see what problem there could be about legality but that could of course be very limiting as far as the shots you can get go. A positioning belt(http://www.grainger.com/Grainger/items/3AZ86) is what I usually use for such things. Not sure about Nevada but in most states only the people in the front seat of a car are required to wear a seatbelt. Of course if you are sitting on the trunk or standing up in the car or something it really comes down to what you can convince the cop is safe for you and everyone else. When doing driving shots it is often helpful to have a police escort because then almost anything you do becomes "legal" and if some gawker happens to run into you there is a cop there who saw it and is on your side(I have had this happen). ~Jess

Hmm. The people on imdb seem to think this movie tops it: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hpLGfdq_JS8

So when are we going to all get together to watch this wonderful film? It isn't exactly in the same vain but has anyone else seen Singapore Sling? http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0100623/ ~Jess

mouser.com and digikey.com have some of the connectors you might want. sjmediasystem.com has some of the mogami cable you might want to use available by the foot. Some connectors unfortunately seem to only be available by special order from the manufacturer. You will also want some heat shrink tubing, a heat gun and a good soldering station. Small lemo connectors are a pain in the ass to solder so don't expect good results right away if ever. ~Jess

Besides naming everything after fictitious robots who kill people this company seems to be doing some interesting stuff: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/32282749/ns/te...nce-innovation/ ~Jess

Don't forget your supply of lisigav! I hear they only have knock off brands over there and they just aren't the same.

When flying I zip tie my cases and include additional zip ties inside of the case for them to replace them with. ~Jess

I think a lot of people on here would like to politely tell them where they can shove that agreement. ~Jess

Since you have access to a machine shop I would say drill a bunch of holes in a similar pattern to those on your steadicam plate and countersink them for mounting cameras wherever you want. Then drill and thread atleast two holes somewhere near the ends of your steadicam plate that line up with your plate so that you can attach the weight plate to your steadicam plate. With this setup the weight of the weight plate will stay relatively centered and you can use the different mounting holes in the plate to mount the camera with its center of gravity over the center of the weight plate. Not sure what your steadicam plate looks like but if you have access to a mill you may want some of the holes you make to be slots. Not sure if anyone else is doing things like this but it make sense in my head. The weight plates I am currently using are actually much much simpler because I made them in a pinch using only my cordless dewalt tools. Just drilled a hole through the steel plate and I use extra long 1/4" screws that go through my plate and the weight plate and into the camera. Works fine for me but my topstage has a lot of adjustment room so some people may need more hole options. Also you need to make sure that the bolt you use is storng enough to hold everything together and keep in mind that the camera screw thread is holding the weight plate as well as the camera which it wasn't necessarilly designed to do. In cameras with pathetically week bottoms low mode might be a bad idea. ~Jess

I did actually try rubber around the motor gear but I didn't have one to fit over the lens barrel and it didn't work so well. Next time I will try it on both. ~Jess

Add on gears are the way to go for almost all such cameras. The only except is some of Canons HDV cameras. They have an autofocus sensor which is unfortunately in the way of where the gear would go. There is a manual follow focus made specifically for these cameras that uses a large soft rubber wheel instead of gears that works relatively well. I managed to use one of these to attach my follow focus motor by having its gear push into the soft rubber wheel much in the same way it was pushing against the lens. Worked surprisingly well. Should be possible to attatch some sort of similar rubber directly the the motors gear to have the same effect but I don't think anyone has done it. ~Jess

Moviola has one that they rent out with their EX-3. If you want to buy maybe Birns and Sawyer? ~Jess

If you fly Southwest they don't care about oversized or overweight (up to a certain amount) under their media rate policy. First two bags(cases) are even free. ~Jess

The bottom of the camera is not flat which is a pain in the ass because without additional support it will move. I used it on a shoot with Digiprimes and the 1/2" lens adapter adapts the connector to a standard one but I couldn't get start/stop to work through it. You don't need a downconverter. ~Jess

I have had similar (although not identical) symptoms when my BFD couldn't get enough power. In that instance the status light on the receiver was changing colors instead of staying solid green. ~Jess

Can you post a picture of your sled fully built? As I said I really think this has a lot to do with the fact that the way the sled is designed all the weight is really close to the post at the bottom and not nearly as spread out as it could be even when you extend things. Your also not working with all that much weight since you moved almost everything from the RED camera to the bottom of the sled and whats on the bottom is still probably lighter than what many guys usually fly on the bottom of their sled when flying a red. This isn't a bad thing necessarily especially as a running rig but to get that feel you are wanting you may need to add a little more weight as spread out as possible.. I would recommend doing it in the form of batteries to get some extra run time out of the pig. I could be wrong of course. Of course with a bit a practice you might not mind the current feel of the rig. Steadicam does take a LOT of practice. ~Jess

Are you in LA? ~Jess

The Red monitor is rather light so what you need to do is add more weight on the bottom of the sled in front of the post. Doing this will allow you to move the battery and hard drive further back while hopefully maintaining dynamic balance. . You can attach the weight to the monitor itself if its mount is strong enough or to the rods in front. Don't know if this will require longer rods. Ideally you would use a second battery and add some diodes so that you can parallel it with the other battery allowing longer battery life and hot swaps so that you don't have to shut down the red. Of course doing all that would require a bit of engineering and some soldering. These suggestions are based on somewhat fuzzy pictures of the red edition rig that I have seen. I haven't done it myself. ~Jess

Not all analogue systems are rubish but the stable ones are not all that cheap (Canatrans, Modulus) I have a little 1.2ghz analogue system that I got direct form hong kong via ebay for about $50. It works suprisingly well for $50 but the picture isn't very stable so it is often a bit distorted and it has dropouts quite often. Needless to say I use my Modulus instead. ~Jess