Michael Stumpf

Hey Robert, yeah that's the camera. I'm actually not doing a live event shoot with it, but a ABC TV show shoot. Some big 5 camera day thing and they'll be using a steadicam for what appears to be the first time since they asked me if I had a 1st AC I wanted to bring as well as a digital utility. I have planned to just hook up my Preston for focus pulling. Yes they did mention (asked) if I was ok with a fiber optic cable attached as well. So I'll give you a call tomorrow and if you have a break during your shoot, would love to get some info. Thanks Robert.

Got a shoot coming up with that HD camera. Would love any insight on it, also, if you have a good 1st AC and/or utility person who has worked with that camera, drop me his/her name(s). You can PM me their name and contact info to protect their privacy on an open forum. Greatly appreciate it.

I agree Dave. I think I've watched a total of 10 minutes of Glee, but when I did I thought it looked great. Then I heard several weeks ago it was shot on film. God bless them. I know what you mean about not being able to physically do a show like that on a Genesis or F35. When I did "The Runaways" I was in the rig all the time, often for nearly every shot of the day, not only for "speed" but for convenience and the "look" even though a lot of those shots could be on a dolly. Because it was a period piece (1970's) we shot on Super 16 with the Arri 416. During the concert footage, I'd run all around the stage, up and down the stairs and around Kristen and Dakota, sometime for 7-8 takes (music video like). I would keep thinking to myself, if this show was shot on the F35, there is no way in hell I could do 4 minute takes running all over like that, much less be in the rig for 80-90% of some of the days. I can embrace HD, but I truly hope like they pretty much abandoned the BL4's in the early 2000's for XL's and LT's, the F35 and Genesis get dumped in the next year for newer lighter better HD cameras. I can't wait to try the Alexxa, I hope it's all it's cracked up to be for us. In the meantime, I'll tune into an episode or so of Glee to check out Andrews great work, and support a show that's shot on film.

OK after a few hours of cleaning the gear from a dust filled music video I finally got the time to take my sled and Y cable back down to Terry's to test the "issue" I've been having in this thread. Well, I had him make another Y cable with the standard Aux and Camera Power. I put 2 of my Dionic 90 HC's on the sled. And guess what? No issues with flashing batteries with new cable. We even put a load on the rig and still no issue. So as it turns out, seems the Diodes are working just fine and it seems it was the original Y cable that caused the issue. Still weird that even with 2 other Y cables from Panavision showed the same issue. But maybe they were wired wrong too. All that matters is a I have a Y cable now that can be used without freaking out my batteries, and my mind set to ease that the Diodes work. Thanks all for the support and help with diagnosing the problem for me. Now hopefully the RED power cable I just got won't cause any issues while I'm in AZ on the movie I'm about to do. Fingers crossed, these HD cameras are so fickle. :D Take care all, and thanks again.

OK, so I put the standard Camera/Aux jumper block back in today, did exactly as you asked above and am showing 16.29 volts on a charged up Dionic 90. pulled the breaker and did the same on the camera battery plate only and was showing 15.8 volts on another battery. put a battery on each of the camera and aux plates, switched to 24V mode and was on the 24V 3 pin camera port was showing 15.92 out of one pin and 15.87 out of the 3rd pin. So that's what about 31V combined out of the 3 pin camera power port in the upper junction box correct? Switched back to 12V mode and got the 15.9 out of the one pin and nothing out of the 3rd. So correct me if I'm wrong, if the diodes that Terry welded in were incorrect, I would not get power right? If so, I guess I'm just going to have to wait until I do my next F35 job and check it again at the prep to see if the camera is draining power from both Camera and Aux batteries evenly now and the blinking upper Aux battery no longer takes place. It's just weird that it continued to do that even after I put the Diodes in when I tested it on the show and then had Jack run the tests. I don't have a Y cable that goes from the 3 pin camera port and the 2 pin Aux port anymore though. I had it converted to two 3 pin camera port power for use in the 12V only jumper block. So I can't test to see if the top Aux battery will still blink when using the standard aux/camera jumper block and plugging in the camera/aux Y cable in. But I don't see how it could of miraculously cured that issue from a few weeks ago when it was still doing that when Jack and I tested it, even with the Diodes in?? If it still does it, it's got to be the diodes? Can diodes be no good upon installation, even if installed correctly? Thanks guys, sorry clearly I'm no electrical engineer.

I'll check them again, but like I stated, I watched Jack check every pin in every possible configuration and it showed the exact power I was suppose too. Like everything was working, A-okay. But as soon as we plugged in the Y cable (1 into camera power, 1 into Aux power) the top Aux battery would start to flash, and this was without a load on it (no camera, nothing). But if the diodes are wired incorrectly there should be no power correct? Is it possible the diodes just aren't working at all even though they are wired in to the gold mount plates?

George was out sick at the time. I'll have to swing by GPI and see if George can take a look see and test it. Thanks for the heads up on the Diodes. Guess if that's true, I'd get no power whatsoever if they were installed incorrectly correct? Weird, cuz if they were installed correctly wonder why that wasn't solving my "draining from just the camera battery only issue." Hopefully George can figure it out, otherwise I have a Y cable with twin camera power (dual 12V) that I will fear may fry the centerpost cable now if I draw to much current.

I believe Jack tried everything for me. I was getting power out of every port as I should of. I watched him and we checked and double checked. He put a volt meter on every pin from all ports in the upper J-box and I was getting the power I was supposed too. He verified that and said nothing wrong there. We had a Dionic 90 on both top and bottom Camera and Aux plates, depressed the breakers and tested it. I got the 12 volts I was supposed to out of every port (actually 15.2-15.3 volts). Then we plugged in the Y cable that had one lemo for the camera power and one lemo for the aux. If we plugged in one side of the Y cable all was fine, but the second we plugged in the Aux side, the top (Aux) batteries meter would start blinking. The second we unplugged one side of Y cable it would stop blinking. So I'm not sure what the heck was going on, and Jack couldn't figure it out either. I thought it was the Y cable I had made from Terry West, but we tested it too and individually power was coming from each lemo as it was supposed too. And on top of that, I got 2 "Y" cables from Panavision too, just in case, and they had the same issue, so it wasn't the cables. So again, we changed out the usual Y cable with one three pin camera power lemo and one two pin Aux lemo connector to 2 three pin Camera power lemo connectors, so I could use the right two power ports in the upper junction box. With that I still got the blinking top battery. The only thing that stopped it was the dual camera jumper block. I'm now concerned about melting a wire, if running an F23/35/Genesis with SSR deck, wireless HD transmitter and Cinetape, along with my Preston. If my diodes were wired wrong, would that be the problem, or would the batteries and upper junction box power not work if they were? Should I get a usual "Y" cable with one 3 pin lemo and one 2 pin lemo again and go back to the normal jumper block and try to solve the blinking battery issue some other way? Thanks again for the help guys.

So you think maybe the diode on the aux side is wired backward and that's why it's not sharing the load, but rather just feeding off of the camera power side? I'd love to not have to change the jumper block each time I use the F23/35/Genesis. guess I might have to drive back down to Terry and have him double check. But again, I swear he did and like you said, if the diodes were wired wrong, I'd think there would be no power at all.

Hey all thanks for the replies. I don't know if it was just that diodes in my AB gold mounts were put in wrong (they were put in by Terry West) but obviously he's quite a knowledgeable man when it comes to wiring. So maybe there is a way for me to double check it. But even with the diodes, I'd still get the flashing battery. The weird thing is, I used the F35 for the first time on the pilot of "Miami Medical" back in April 2009. I had to fly the deck and everything else (IDX HD transmitter). I did not have any issues. I flew the IDX Powercubes with the normal Camera/Aux jumper block. I did not have to fly the F35 again until last month. But I tried my new Dionic 90 HC batts and got the flashing. I also then tried two IDX powercubes and it would only draw power from the bottom powercube. Would there be any issue in running one powercube on the camera power and one Dionic HC on the top Aux power? I tried that too, and the powercube would drain and the top HC would not? I had Panavision give me 2 different Y cables and tried there's instead of mine and it did the same thing. I have the PRO2 base without the HD. I won't get that base until I get an HD monitor and until the HD monitors are a bit better and get closer to the TB-6 I'll wait a bit longer. Oh and Ron, I was flying the SSR deck on the one pilot (and the SRW once when we needed 50 fps). One the second pilot they "couldn't afford" the SSR deck so I went with the deck off and wired to it. Interesting points about the amperage coming from one cable. I'm not a electrical wizard, but I would think Jack would of worried if that was an issue. Again, I'm still using the Y cable, it's just spilt between the two Camera power ports instead of one camera power, one aux power. I'll give Jack a call and see if I should be concerned about the amperage draw with this set up now for my next F35 job. Any way to check my diodes to see if they were wired in correctly, or if they didn't break or something after Terry put the gold mount covers back on?

I know others have had similiar problems that I have experienced when flying the F35 and or Genesis and using the Y cable to power the cameras with Dionic HC's As other threads have pointed out, when using the Dionics and the why cable resulted in all the power being drawn from the bottom battery when in 12V mode and a flashing battery on the top position in 24V mode. Neither was acceptable. The "fix" was to put Diodes in the Anton Bauer gold mount plates. Well I did that several weeks ago and it did not "fix" the issue. So before my show 2 days ago I went in to GPI and Jack and I spent the better part of two hours trying to figure out how we can really solve this issue. After much testing we could not figure out what the deal was. Then Jack had one last idea, let's change the jumper block. Instead of the usual Camera power on bottom and Aux on top, we plugged in a dual 12V camera jumper block. Then using a Y cable that instead of split from one camera power port and the Aux power port, we used a Y Cable that was a twin Camera Power. And voila, no issues. Jack and I solved problem And on my show last night, I powered the Genesis (without the deck) for 1/2 hour or more and my Dionic 90 HC's weren't even 1/2 drained. They were draining equally from top and bottom batteries. So in short, for F23/35 and Genesis powering with the Dionic 90 HC's get a 12V dual Camera power jumper block from GPI ($250) your problem is solved. **Note, you may also need to use a Y cable that comes out of the two Camera Power ports in the upper junction box as I did, not sure if the Y cable that splits 1 power from Camera and 1 from Aux will work. It should, but in my case I used a Y cable that splits out of the two Camera Power ports in the upper junction box. And that's how I'll do it from now on. Cheers

+1 to this whole post Dave. 2009 was record box office for the studios, and record TV ratings, but yet they are pulling out all the excuses in the book (mainly the recession and all the jobs running out of LA) to sucker us LA operators down on the rate and rental. They know there is a glutton of Steadi Ops in LA now, and jobs are 60% less than they were in 2004, so they are using the laws of supply and demand to cut down LA operators rates and rentals. Out of town rates/rentals are still pretty good. It's a bummer I turned down 5 shows in the past 7 months to stay in LA with my (then) pregnant wife, and (now) to be with my first born son. But in doing so, I've had to turn down some crappy rates and rental jobs in town too (in one case, a seasoned operator (that you know) took it at $5 above the regular operator and DIT rate, and a rental rate that was 1/3 less than standard weekly rental rate. I also call other ops to verify their rates and rentals before accepting a job. And I encourage other ops to call me if they need to know what I got on a similar studio show. But as long as there are 10x or more the amount of Steadicam Ops in LA with 1/2 or less the amount of work here as there was 6-7 years ago, getting back to the "good ole" rates of 8-10 years ago will be nearly impossible without all these other operators accepting "low ball" rates and undercutting our future negotiating abilities.

Remember THIS when the studios keep trying to talk us DOWN on our rates and rentals ladies and gentlemen. They use the recession as an excuse over and over again in the past year to drive our rates down, but once again, the studios are making more money now than ever....and this is JUST box office sales. Don't be like one experienced operator who recently took a Disney backed show for $2,000 a week rental on his Steadicam (and a bad hourly rate too). A show I (and was told 20 others after me) turned down to try to preserve our rates and rentals. Article released in Hollywood Reporter: Hollywood expecting record $10 bil year Film boxoffices were poised on Wednesday to eclipse 2007's record $9.68 billion in U.S. and Canadian ticket sales with Hollywood eyeing more than $10 billion this year as audiences flocked to theaters during the recession. Studios began the year with January crossing the $1 billion mark for the first time ever, and boxoffices this month are counting on help from films such as "Avatar," "Sherlock Holmes" and "It's Complicated." So far, moviegoers had snapped up $9.67 billion worth of tickets at domestic -- U.S. and Canadian -- boxoffices through Tuesday, tracking firm Hollywood.com Box Office said. The firm said 2007's record was expected to be surpassed on Wednesday, as Hollywood reaps returns during a recession that, as in past downturns, has seen consumers showing up in theaters for relatively cheap entertainment. Last year's domestic boxoffice came in at $9.63 billion.

Yes, I agree. I think quite a few people got the call for this show Eric is referring too. I turned it down a couple weeks ago and they kept calling back. They raised the hourly rate up a bit after having a dozen or more experienced operators turn them down, but that was still at an hourly rate of what was acceptable 5 years ago. $2,000 a week for the rental is terrible especially for a show that said they use and rely on steadicam everyday. They would not budge on that. So I repeatedly passed, much to the understanding of the DP and producer who'se hands were tied by the production companies refusal. And yes, one of their other shows has the DIT making $6 an hour higher than the Steadicam Operator. That is nothing short of insulting and a slap in the face to Steadicam operators and the work we do. It's a pity these "operators" (who will surely come to light) had to kick all of us operators in the nuts who work so hard to do great work and keep our rates (and the respect of our difficult and strenuous profession) to a respectful and proper level for the work we do on a production.

Congrats Jim. I remember when they were first coming out. Heck you lent me serial number -1 (as you called it because it was the pre pro model) for a month or two while I was waiting for mine to get made. I ordered 2 of them in January 2000 and was #70 & #71 IIRC. So by the time I ordered you'd already sold 70 in 2 1/2 months. You've always been a great business man and all around great guy too. Wish every business and business owner conducted themselves as well as you do. Cheers.

cover somebody on a TV show for a day and the rate was $60 an hour and $550 a day on the rental ( 1/5th his weekly rate). Insulting for producers to offer that on a day call (actually bad for an operator to accept that rate and weekly rental full time in 2009). If anybody accepts this rate as a day call they are doing all of us a HUGE injustice and we outta..... so don't do it guys. The rate cutting and low balling is getting out of control. Pass on those crappy, insulting rates. Keep the rates AND rentals to a fair and acceptable standard!!

Just to point out some things here. I agree with the "African American" term. There are people with white skin born in Africa and then moved to America and became citizens. THAT ACTUALLY makes them African American. Charlize Theron is an actual African American too. Further, there are black people born in other countries other than Africa that come to America. That does not make them African American either. Also, regarding the Obama point. Though he has skin is a light shade of brown he is technically not the first black president. He's just as much white as he is black. And in fact he was raised by his white mother and her parents (and later an Indonesian man) so may in fact some could argue he's more white than black. But whatever the view, he's technically the first mixed race President we've had. We have not yet had our first black President. That day will come to be sure, but that fact will be when we have a President born of parents that are both of black race (or majority black). Then technically he can be referred to as the first black President. Until then, Obama is every bit as white as he is black. And that's a beautiful thing.

ALL 4 SOLD. Thanks

Nick I just had one of my Dionics fry on the movie I'm on, was only about a year old, and just sent it off to Paul at AB. But if it comes back as no good, and you haven't sold it, I'd probably take it.

Price drop to $125 shipped in U.S.

How new is "new" Nick? Still in original box? Has warranty card been sent in? Ever charged up or used by you? Do you still have receipt to give for tax write off and warranty purposes? Brand new from B&H they are $399 plus shipping so I'd assume this one your selling is brand new, never used.

I have 4 AB Proformer Batteries that I have had for several years. They were always my back up batteries for my 8 Dionics and kept just in case I needed them for 150 fps 435 high speed. But I never use them. I don't think I've used them in the past two years. I do occasionally throw them on the charger (couple times a year) to keep the cells from completely discharging. They still fully charge up and seem to hold a charge still (though I don't really know for how long). They can easily (and pretty cheaply I hear) be recelled if/when the OEM cells completely die or won't hold a charge anymore. Can email pics upon request. I'll sell all 4 of them for $125 plus shipping.

It was good to see so many people there. I haven't had a chance to see many of you in many months due to my schedules and so forth. I agree with what BJ and Eric already pointed out however, the greenscreens still ruled when it comes to daylight viewability, and angle of view. There is no disputing that. I love my TB-6 and have for 10 years. I'm not sure why, but the TB-6 there on display didn't seem as bright as mine, and the PRO greenscreen looked noticeably brighter. Not sure if they checked other TB-6's but again, first thing I did when I saw the TB-6 looking a bit dim was to turn the brightness up only to find it was up all the way already. Maybe it was just a fluke of that particular one, as mine never seems that dim and I never have mine turned up fully bright either. I was also suprised by the Hummingbird, too bad it's not HD though. Transvideo was impressive but expensive. Nebtek 1000 nit was up there in quality/picture too. But lacked amenities. All in all, green screens still best bet for now in bright direct sun situations, as well as off angle viewability. Oh and Charles, thanks again, nice job!! Take care all, see you all again soon.

Very good idea Charles. Give me a call if you need any help setting up or whatever. Michael

Ahh, I see.