Ed Moore

Particularly love the plant that's been dressed into that shot - your AC has a beautiful future ahead of him in corporate video should he wish :)

Fantastically comprehensive report, Afton - thank you.

Thank you everyone for your typically sagely advice! Looks like the DP is happy to switch out the Pro35, etc for an HJ-11 for the steadicam work as he wants it all very wide and deep focus in any case. I've had the exact same setup with 750s before on the Archer with no problem and plenty of 'go' left in the arm so this should be fine. Eric - re the gimbal; I actually hadn't considered that. Easy to forget that the one component which almost disappears in your awareness whilst operating is actually the most crucial part of all. Savings account for the PRO rig now at £2.20 :) Ed

Yeah, the sled is an issue. Will probably have to strap some extra battery weight under the post.

Hi all, Does anyone have to hand an idea of the weight of a F900, Pro35 and prime (say, SuperSpeed) setup? Only AKS would be Bartech + video sender. Would I be able to fly that on a G-50? Sled would be an archer. Thanks! ed

As this is becoming quite the useful reference topic for RED, for the sake of completeness there's a list of the new features being added in the latest firmware (build 16) here - http://www.reduser.net/forum/showthread.php?t=14981 Boot time is apparently now down to 68 seconds.

Heh, I've been waiting years for the vitriol to build up, but the only time I really get wound up is when people do the whole "Ooh, we actually just thought of another shot" thing when you're 10cm from docking :)

As much as this situation sucks, if some doesn't pay I find it's almost always because they haven't had the money through to them from their own client. Whilst we all serve invoices generally on 30 day terms, it's not common for big corporations to pay on 120 day terms or even longer. Under those circumstances, it can be extremely difficult to say the least for small production outfits to keep their heads above the water in cashflow terms. And if they all just gave up, we'd all be out of a lot of work that *does* eventually pay. I'm certainly not excusing the behaviour as clearly it behooves anyone who's going to engage the services of freelancers to ensure that they're going to be able to pay them at the end of the job. I only bring it up with the suggestion that in *some* circumstances, trying to ascertain sympathetically whether the issue is the cash coming into the production company, may pay dividends. You may be able to arrange a part payment from a deposit the production company *has* been paid, or with enough charm learn the date they expect the rest of the funds to be available to them.

Second Joe, he'll definitely be able to help. Or if you're shooting in the Midlands, give me a call on 07980 524136 and I can help. Cheers!

Afton - and others: are you guys buying these downconverters yourselves? Or is it something that you can reasonably ask the production to get in for you? Just wondering whether I have to add another £1000 bit of equipment to my shopping list...

Yuk, that looks heavy. What downconverter were you using, Afton?

What camera are you using? Most video cameras have a setting somewhere in the menus that will output a crosshair on the monitor out if you want. You can usually toggle the amount of other info on screen off and just leave the crosshair.

I searched and searched to try and find a previous link to this, but failed (as an aside, am I the only one who finds the 'search flood control' demon a little over-zealous?). Found this afternoon the video clips for the 2006 SOC forum with a lot of the top operators at http://www.soc.org/movies/steadiforum/steadiforum_mn.html. I wanted to just say a belated "thanks" to those involved, both the panelists and the SOC guys who went to the trouble of filming and sharing that content. From the point of view of those of us who've only just begun, that material - like this forum - represents a hugely valuble fountain of knowledge and experience. I'm sure that other newbies would like to take a look, hence my bringing it up once more. Apologies if it was already discussed in great detail in the past. The only thread I could find was closed to responses, or I'd have posted this there.

I suppose the obvious bit of kit is a Jimmy Jib, of which I own one (and Joe McNally, who's probably around here somewhere, has about eight hundred :). You can get what the manufacturer calls a 'film style' crank wheel controller, but I've never seen anyone using one. I suspect it does allow greater precision, but I find it's possible to pull off extremely accurate shots even at quite long focal lengths with the standard joysticks controller. There's something about controlling pan, tilt, zoom, focus and swinging the jib all at the same time that gets into your brain and becomes very intuitive. Much like Steadicam, it's easy to get into that borderline-Zen state whereby the camera movement becomes an extension of your own wishes, with some unconscious bit of your brain handling the 'how'.

Thank you Lawrence, Mark and Eric, I'm endeavoring to walk normally, and it's easier to do that when walking faster as it tends to smooth everything out, but when I slow down it's been impossible to remove that weight transfer. Mark - I'll try shortening the vest to see if that helps. The bottom of the vest feels like it's in the same correct position I was taught originally but it's definitely worth a try. Thanks for the tip! (It's a FM vest) Ed

I've just spent an hour wandering around in the rig to try and work out where a slight bob is coming from that's appeared in a couple of recent shots. Narrowed it down to stepping from my right foot to my left. I operate in regular so my left foot is closest to being under the sled itself, so it feels like it's to do with the weight of the sled having more of an effect on that step, sending a jolt up my left leg and into the vest. Is this a sensation others have encountered? I'd be very curious to know what solutions worked for you! Cheers, Ed

Good to hear it, Jim! Thanks for dropping by.

Thanks gents.

Aha, thanks for the info. Mine's only about six months old so I'm sure it's fine.

Hi Bryan, Sadly my washer fu is weak. But, looking at those pics with trepidation, is this something I should expect to have to perform on my G-50 at some point in the future? Natural wear and tear? Or did you try and use the arm to jack up your car or something :) Ed "curious" Moore

Hi Peter, Re powering the camera from the sled, Tiffen make a power lead for this, part number 800-0106. Is that what you used? Won't give you the remaining power indicator on the Red as you indicated (although you can still use the status LEDs on your battery) but should power the camera fine.

Curious! The website has always been rubbish but almost every cameraperson I know has some Black Box kit. I'll have to give them a call tomorrow and see what's up with the email. Ed

Question for those you with the RVBM sleds (requires visit to bank manager) - my archer has a bubble level which is obviously not very useful when the sled is accelerating or changing direction rapidly. As my levels are most often screwed by fast cornering, this is annoying. The cure for my levels is more practice, but I was wondering whether the digital variety of level, with the on-screen display, works in a different manner and therefore provides useful information with regards to level 100% of the time. It's my understanding that levels of any sort are seen as perhaps something of a crutch for the very experienced operators, so I'm not suggesting that having a digital level is some sort of magic sauce, just curious about the technology involved. Cheers, Ed

With the state of the dollar, this might not be that useful, but over here in the UK Black Box Video are extremely popular for cheap wireless video/audio and timecode links. They do a range of transmitters with varying power outputs and channels. The standard 5 channel TX is £245, so about $480. Hope this helps, Ed

Someone's dry hiring my rig in the next few days to shoot some tracking shots with a custom mount to hold not one, not two but THREE Sony Z1s... not quite sure what the purpose is; I can only assume it's for some insanely-wide projection. We're doing a test run on Tuesday, I'll post some photos! Ed