Jess Haas SOC

I looked at that thing and it didn't look like any of the holes lined up with ones on the decimator or anything... maybe I was missing something. They could have been under velcro..... ~Jess

nebtek doesn't have the lumavec monitors on their site anymore. Is anyone in the US selling them? ~Jess

We only went through half the sausage so I guess we will have to do it again. Maybe when we move into our new place in a few months. Should definitely have a beach get together at some point as well. ~Jess

I was flying with a very close to neutral drop time for a while so that I could have more freedom to easily adjust tilt throughout the shot. In the end I realized that it is just too much work to keep it steady and properly framed like that. Now I do a 2ish second drop time unless the particular circumstance calls for neutralish. What in particular do you find requires the neutral drop time in live shows? The flexibility to adjust tilt on the fly?

As far as dynamic balance goes if I know that the setup is relatively well balanced dynamically and I don't have any whip pans or anything like that planned I often won't dynamic balance when setting up. If I have plenty of time I will do it but I am trimming for headroom often enough that there often isn't much point. ~Jess

If you run out of options I have a lightweight 7" LCD you can borrow. It is about 500nits. Takes 4pin XLR power, BNC for video and has a 1/4" thread for mounting. Not perfect but you might be able to get it to work for you. ~Jess

If that doesn't solve your problem then contact Tiffen and they will take care of it for you. ~Jess

Ditch all that junk and either use the arri lightweight rod bracket that clips on the front or get a jerry hill 2n1 motor mount (http://www.steadimoves.com/parts.html) and I would think you could get it on a flyer even with a bartech on there. Use blackwrap instead of a mattebox. Doesn't leave you a lot of room but if it works I would personally prefer it to the glidecam. Of course you are still going to need a wireless follow focus so until you can afford it you should become friends with someone that owns one. You can get by without one on 1/3" digital shoots and even on 16mm and 2/3" digital shoots if you are doing day exteriors stopped down but it can become very limiting. As everyone else has already said, take a workshop. Even if it is just one of the $500 2 day Flyer workshops. Peter will get you started on the right track. ~Jess

So this time there isn't any rain to be scared of so it is actually going to happen. All are welcome I just ask that you let me know if you think you might come. I will be providing charcoal, some Elgin Sausage (thats from Texas and much better than any sausage in these parts) along with some other things. Come hungry and feel free to bring whatever you want to throw on the grill and whatever else you want to eat and drink. Keep in mind that LA parks don't allow alcohol so if you wish to enjoy an adult beverage please be discreet about it. The address is 1835 Stoner Ave. Los Angeles, Ca We will get there a little before 3pm and are thinking it will probably go until about 7 or 8pm. After that we can always move the party someplace else. If you are on facebook send me a friend request and I can send you the evite. http://www.facebook.com/people/Jess-Haas/7921785 ~Jess p.s. The true name of the sausage is Elgin Hot Guts. How could you not want to come eat that? :-)

Anyone following the LLP Strike? Looks like Larry Levinson Productions is taking some serious heat. "IATSE is battling unfair labor practices in Larry Levinson Productions. Especially on their $9M+ budget Mega Storm for NBC which was paying crew less than $10 hr for over 16 hour days, 6 day weeks. Please show your support by joining the picket line. For up to date information please e-mail StrikeLLP@gmail.com" ~Jess

From what I have seen the Pilot is light enough to not be a very fatiguing rig even for inexperienced operators. I don't know your particular condition and I am not a doctor so I can't really give any advice as far as that goes, but it is not very hard on your body so you might have some luck with it. The one time I used a flyer it had an XLHD mounted on it and I felt like I really didn't feel any different wearing it than wearing nothing at all. That being said I am used to a big rig. As far as the muscles that are worked goes its mainly that big one in your back that goes from your but to your shoulder blade (or something like that). Often refered to as "that muscle." Once you get used to operating and build up those muscles you don't really notice that and its all about the legs. With the pilot I wouldn't expect either to have to work very hard under normal circumstances. There is a great article floating around about steadicam posture that you should read. Some general postural advice such as that offerend in mckenzies back books might also be useful for both your steadicam posture and your everyday back problems. ~Jess

I have used various knock off brand batteries for various uses and while some of them work well most of them don't seem to live up to the stated capacity and don't have nearly the life of a higher quality battery. It seems that a lot of people have been turned off knock off brand lithium ion batteries due to the fires that were caused by them in the past. Of course there were also a number of fires from name brand batteries, but those were probably rebranded cheep chinese batteries anyway.

So I will be going there from Santa Monica if anyone wants a ride. Looks like it will take a little under 2 hours without traffic so I will probably allot enough time to get there by 2. Let me know if you want to come with. ~Jess

So what are you going to stop selling/making/doing from before? Or were the extra companies just names and you are going to continue offering the same products and services under the remaining names? If this is the case what has changed in order to allow you to focus more on things like customer service? I honestly want to know the answer to this question and mean no disrespect in it so please don't take it that way. I am simply curious as to what the problems were and how things are going to change. Thank You, Jess

Well it looks like it is going to rain tomorrow so we are going to go ahead and push the BBQ to next weekend, Sunday the 29th. I hope yall can still make it. ~Jess

If you start with two fully charged batteries of the same make you should be able to parrallel them without any trouble. If you do it to hot swap batteries you might have issues with one battery changing another. If you are quick and change out both batteries it might work. It could also lead to bad things happening. ~Jess

So can the ones with 4pin XLR handle modern batteries? ~Jess

Well Howard did say that the company was going away and that he will be operating under another name. This is usually done when a company is trying to get rid of its debt by not paying it.... The morality and legality of doing this but continuing to operate under another name always seems questionable to me. If only I could get rid of my credit card debt by changing my name...... ~Jess

You mean I shouldn't require my assistants to have "had at least two years of post - graduate courses in both mechanical and electronic engineering, has a basic understanding of Newtonian physics, access to a machine shop and friends at all the rental houses"? Sorry if the humor wasn't obvious enough, although I would love to see someone try to implement that litterally. You would need a whole nother assistant just to keep track of it. That is if you don't have the new Cinema Products docking stand meter, but who doesn't have one of those? ~Jess

There is always Ted Churchill's example rate chart: "18. Determining your Rate More often than not, the operator - after a particularly grueling day - will feel that he or she has not been adequately remunerated for the gross amount of effort spent. Therefore, it behooves the operator to establish a rate schedule which will accurately reflect the work done and with which there can be no disagreement and misunderstanding. For example: $ 100.00 at the time of your appearance on the set $ 2.00 per yard forward (walking) $ 5.00 per yard forward (running) $ 3.50 per yard backward (walking) $ 7.00 per yard backward (running) $ 10.00 actor in the shot $ 15.00 actor not in the shot $ 20.00 per flight of stairs (up) $ 15.00 per flight of stairs (down) $ 10.00 each additional consecutive flight $ 25.00 to put the camera in the Low-Mode $ 15.00 to put it back $ 35.00 to change sides with the Arm $ 25.00 to put it back $ 5.00 per rehearsal minute, 16mm & Arri 2C $ 10.00 per rehearsal minute, Arri 35BL $ 15.00 per rehearsal minute, Panaflex on Steadicam $ 35.00 per rehearsal minute, Panaglide $ 3.50 per focus change $ 2.50 per iris change $ 8.50 both focus & iris at the same time" (http://www.steadicam.ca/mainfile/article/churchill/tedbook/tedbook.html)

With the old style lemo the shield is electrically connected but since its not going through a connector designed for carrying RF the impedance is going to be wrong which is going to result in signal losses. There may also be shielding issues resulting in it being more susceptible to interference. SD composite signals aren't all that picky about such things especially with the short distance of travel found in a sled. It would seem the HDSDI signal is much pickier and degrades much quicker requiring correctly speced connectors and cable. It would not surprise me if someone was able to get a signal through a traditional lemo. In the end it all comes down to what works, but if you are not using correctly speced parts you are going to have a weaker signal which will be much more susceptible to things like interference. ~Jess "Not an expert but I do own atleast 3 books on the subject of RF. I have no idea where they are."

I have found that with Fastex style buckles if they are put under load while not completely closed it will cause them to snap. They also wear out after a bit of abuse which is what they are likely to see on a steadicam vest. When I was looking for replacements(not for a flyer LE vest) I was having trouble finding a place online to get the ones I wanted but the US distributor happily sent me free samples. ~Jess

your welcome to bring them with. -Jess

Just for the record Stoner Park IS a real place and it will be a real barbecue :-) I believe on google maps it actually shows up as Stoner Playground..... ~Jess

The funny part was that for some reason based on the x-ray they thought I had a large number of coins and kept asking me if I wanted a private screening so that no one would see them. ~Jess