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Charles Papert

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Everything posted by Charles Papert

  1. Not a spot for the claustrophobic! Good job! That looks like it would have been a good opportunity to use the "folded back" position with the arm, where you stack up the two sections. Apologies for terrible diagram, hope it makes sense. It's hardly comfortable but it makes the rig the skinniest possible.
  2. I've already posted this on the Facebook group but after 200 likes and 8 shares in the last couple of days, it seems to be worth the risk of redundancy, so here it is for those non-Facebookers. On a commercial I shot this week we had a single crane shot scheduled as well as a heavy day of Steadicam, and production told me I could have either the crane or Steadicam but not both. I started thinking back to the various tricks I used to simulate a ramp in my operating days such as climbing a ramp or standing on a truck tailgate, and then thought--why not combine the two for extra bang for the buck? Jerry Franck walked the plank with his rig, built by key grip Bodie Hyman and his team.
  3. Cool, gotcha. My single channel lives most of the time at the DIT cart (where I grumble and moan about it just lying flat on its back, so having a good vertical bracket for it is ideal), but on other jobs it works as a single channel focus control in the AC's hands so I wouldn't want to have to switch the bracket on and off depending on the gig--hence my wondering about the compromise for the handheld mode.
  4. Quick question--does the plate affect the handgrip area at all? It appears to infiltrate where the fingers would curl around the back of the handgrip, does it change the feel when handheld?
  5. Considering the torque and load bearing involved, it is testimony to the engineering that old arms are still going strong. When I sold my PRO arm in 2010 (#15, built in 1997), after inspection Jack told me that it needed nothing, was functionally identical to the ones he was assembling that day. Pretty cool. My Model 1 arm from around '78 was still working last I heard--Dave Isern, do you still have it?
  6. The easiest trick for me to keep things balanced as one whose income was and still is 1/4 - 1/3 based on equipment rental (1099 income) was to claim 0 exemptions on the payroll side. It's never pretty to read the pay stubs to see how much tax is withheld, but it worked well to counterbalance the rentals.
  7. I blame myself. Clearly, I broke Rich this season (both physically and mentally). At least he went out strong (watch first two minutes): [video=youtube:9NHJ7-aCwA8]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9NHJ7-aCwA8
  8. Also worth mentioning is that one of the videos that made up the 24 hour version featured none other than former Steadicam operator Morgan Jenkins, now tearing it up with the Hooptown Hotties as a killer hula hooper!
  9. I will second Will's thoughts, and as a Teradek owner can further add that Mike has been extremely responsive, helpful and genuinely concerned that the products be as good as they possibly can be. No one could dispute that Steadicam operators have amongst the highest expectations of customer service, since they themselves are held to very high expectations when it comes to their gear. Mike is definitely one of the "good guys".
  10. Just addressing these things as you bring them up Jan...the newer units from Decimator Design have a front panel display, much easier than the old dip switch system (although in the case of using a Decimator 2 for Steadicam, not sure which parameters you would have changed there on a regular basis). And the control panel software that was long only available for the PC platform is now available for Mac as well, which is very helpful also.
  11. Hi Janice: Well, I for one use Decimators plugged into AC! I have several and I use them as signal modulators for my monitoring system, taking in the various output formats from different cameras and converting them to a single standard. I also use one as an SDI to HDMI convertor, so that I can transmit via Paralinx to a director's monitor. There are many units in service being used by video assist guys, broadcast folks etc. that are being AC powered. Regardless, the info about the power spike in battery switchover is a concern that should be addressed. As some may recall from a few years back, I was pretty much ground zero for introducing the Steadicam world to the Decimator product, and was for a time a reseller of their line. I have no financial connection at this point but I'm still in touch with the company and we are discussing various of the stated concerns in this thread. To amplify Suzanne's comments, there has been change in their manufacturing approach over the past year which has significantly improved the QC process as well as the repair pipeline. I'm not here to sell anyone anything but I have received assurances that the these prior repair scenarios have been improved. Hopefully someone will be able to post a more recent and successful about their experiences.
  12. Fun fact about the focus pulling--Gregor told me that he did it all old-school, by eye, never used a monitor. Atta boy!
  13. Glad to hear the "old setup" still casts a long shadow!
  14. "Birdman" is designed to play as a single take, and while it employs a variety of methods to hide the cuts from the classic (whip pans, foreground objects) to the modern (CGI), the shots are still plenty long and involved and virtuosic. Some may like the movie itself more than others, but everyone who is in the business of moving cameras should see it. Congrats and hats off to Chivo, Chris Haarhoff and 1st AC Gregor Tavenner (the focus pulling alone is simply insane).
  15. If anyone is interested in a Convergent Design Nanoflash as Brett described above, I have one for sale.
  16. Thanks all! "Key & Peele" has been an amazing experience (this is the last season) in all ways. I can only hope that I am fortunate enough to find myself attached to projects in the future that are as much fun and creatively fulfilling as this one has been. Jim, I laughed my ass off at the couscous and Skittles line also! (here's that sketch): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rtgY1q0J_TQ
  17. So, I'm amending the "too much to happen during magic hour" part, since they apparently shot over three days, so...all day to rehearse each of the three segments and then shoot at dusk. NICE. You can see the beginning of the handoff from Snorri to handheld--still wondering what their quick-release mechanism might have been. I kind of love that the making-of has so little production BTS and so much laughing, eating, drinking, reading of graphic novels and smiling. Better way of life! (oh, and most importantly, no self-important interviews).
  18. Very nicely conceived! Looks like: cut point from Steadicam to Snorri happens with the rock throw (which itself looked like CGI), hidden in the sudden dutch. The most interesting transition is then from Snorri to handheld, that appears to be seamless and I'm curious how the camera was liberated. Handheld to Techno during the empty frame of sky between the two rifle shots. I'm also curious if it was shot on an overcast day with full sky replacement, because that's way too much to happen during magic hour.
  19. Probably wise! If you just use it for downconverting SDI to SD, you wouldn't need the upgrades--I think. I'm no authority.
  20. New products and pricing for Decimator today. Very significant drop in Decimator 2's from $495 to $345. New products include the MD-HX, which will cross-convert all formats between HDMI and SDI and vice versa, act as an SDI or HDMI distribution amp etc. for only $295. Richard, there hasn't been a recent firmware update on the Decimator 2 and I think the last one was mostly about overlay options and audio metering etc.
  21. That IS funny! Ha! Even funnier will be when I tell all my AC's that they are B list (at best).
  22. Title says it all--now Mac users can control the various parameters of the Decimator 2 via USB that had been previously limited to PC. http://www.decimator.com/DOWNLOADS/DOWNLOADS.html
  23. A note about Tilta. Had not experienced any of their gear in person until a friend bought their all-in-one system: mattebox, baseplate, rods--oh sorry, the kids are calling them "rails" now--cage etc. for the Blackmagic camera. I thought it looked fairly decent until we swapped out my O'Connor mattebox into the system. We then discovered that my mattebox wasn't sitting at the right height, off by 10mm, so they had fudged the rods-to-lens mount spec in the baseplate and compensated with their mattebox. That spec is writ in stone and has been for many years. I lost a lot of faith in Tilta with that choice (or oversight).
  24. This looks very cool. Was trying to think of why I haven't seen a Cinetape or similar on set for a while, then I realized...every AC I work with pulls off the monitor.
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