Charles Papert

Paul, nice reel, and I love your graphics, the site looks great. I've been waiting for years to put my reel up for the reasons Phil mentioned--frame rate vs easy streaming etc. I finally signed up with a service (Demo Reel Network) and have my reels up on that: this link should take you there. For the reasons you mentioned, Paul, it is dynamite being able to offer the instant access to the material, especially when a decision must be made that afternoon (commercials in particular). Cheers, chas

Mmmf. It actually was a short-lived series in New Oreans but not short enough for said Achilles injury to occur, actually about 6 weeks in. We had Steadicam every day, sometimes long and funky shots (I used to have a "running" shot on my reel from this show, during part of which I was keeping pace with a decelerating Jeep). The Gold bottomed out the 3A arm so it had to be held up. And it had to be converted back to B camera at least once a day, which took 20 minutes, so there were endless "should we or shouldn't we" shooting mode discussions. I saw a doctor while on the shoot about the ankle, and described the weight load of the rig. It was one of those classic "doctor, it hurts when I do this". "well, don't do this". The only good thing about that job was that due to the location, the LONG hours, $500 of meal penalties a week (!) and a unexpectedly savvy negotiation, it was an extremely hefty paycheck for episodic (sadly, I have never matched it since, and the way things are these days, I doubt anyone ever will). I limped home and immediately dumped it all into a nice new Preston and PRO setup. The ankle got better, too.

Here is a device, the A2D, that allows for analog input and lots of groovy features. A bit big and heavy (16 oz) compared to other units however.

As a note to those readers of this thread who don't record their moves: I've used onboard recording for years, via the venerable GVU5 and later the Sony PC3; last summer my recorder cable went kaput and I've been too lazy to rebuild it and just "gone without". In retrospect, I absolutely think this state of affairs has had a negative impact on my operating as I no longer have instant feedback on complex shots and how to improve them. I've seen a couple of instances where I probably would have made adjustments had I been aware of something in the frame that was unnoticeable while actually flying the shot, due to the attention cycle being diverted at that moment to navigation or backlight avoidance or the like. Technologically, I love the idea of an instant-access drive, but I'm waiting until the playback quality and convenience match the DV recorders (and would never consider going back to 8mm at this point).

Eh? Owning a first-run PRO arm, I don't recall having a hinge retrofit, is this something I should be concerned about? Never heard this one.

Thomas English: The method you are describing for recording your footage for future use sounds really cool but somewhat convuluted compared to just recording onboard the rig, which also lets you review your work between takes to make it better...? Are you unsatisfied with onboard recorders or choose not to use them for a particular reason? I'm just curious.

On many shows the transmitted signal is also used by the sound mixer so he can work with his boom guy, and the AD's to help them run traffic. I can think of many occasions where productivity would go down if they were not able to receive a signal on their TV band receivers. I've sometimes thought about using a microwave link for the primary signal to the monitors, then piggybacking a TV band (Modulus etc) transmitter onto the Microwave receiver to repeat the signal to the rest of set. The nice thing is that you can then use a bigger antennae than we are able to accomodate on the sled which will hopefully make up for the double transmission issue. Anyone doing this?

Jim rocks. So does Howard and Co. My handset was dropped in the morning while on location in New Orleans; we had a loaner replacement on set that same night, shipped counter to counter. Both companies should be commended for their customer service. While I'm at it, Walter Klaussen is just amazing on that end also.

Bummer Greg, sorry to hear it. After two falls over the years having (in those occasional instances)"no thanks"'d a spotter, I've seen the light. Sort of a bright flash of light leaving spots behind...! I know a lot of operators feel that a spotter will get in the way, or will possibly bring them down if THEY fall, and maybe it doesn't look as macho or whatever; but for me it's just not worth it. I now use one for nearly every shot, unless I'm walking forwards on level ground. A great spotter is just about invisible anyway, until you need them. Hope the body and gear get better soon (and maybe you get some new goodies out of it!)

Thanks everyone for making my 1st birthday such a success! Although I had a little teething issue this afternoon, everything's going great. Pretty low key day overall. Got out with a couple friends to Ciudad downtown last night and downed a couple of the best mojitos I've ever had. Here's looking forward to my second year, maybe I can avoid the "terrible two's"...

Thanks much, Will! I won't have a chance to put the new sucker through its paces for a few weeks, so we'll see... I well remember meeting you at that trade show years ago. My specific memory is having to shlep my rig through the hotel on the way to a job, and yourself, Garrett and Larry insisting on helping me do so--something surreal about having such exhalted sherpas! Somewhere I have a bizarre picture of us doing so. Glad to hear you are doing well. Chas

Having just "traded" my older (now known as "deluxe") shell in for the new Light because of some major fit issues, I'm a little concerned about the appropriateness of the Light for 35mm work as you suggest Will...since that is mostly what I do, do you suspect I'm in for problems with the Light? In what ways?

Out of curiousity, can anyone confirm that those drawings of the brackets were made by Ted Churchill? Looks a lot like the style he was into in the early 90's--he did a bunch of the PRO at that time, so it would make sense if he was doing some for Bob also.

Erwin, I must contest your memory of that night. I was most certainly more than slightly drunk.

This out of the rumor mill: Sony to introduce at NAB a multipurpose HD POV camera, called the HDC-X300. Costing $15,000, it weighs 2.6 pounds, with three 1/2-inch, 1.5-megapixel power HAD CCDs. The camera does 1080 lines at 59.94i, 50i, 24p, 25p, and 30p and still-picture mode. The camera measures 9.5 x 9.5 x 16 cm. This is a true HD camera, not an HDV format like that little JVC camcorder. Meaning if cabled out to the appropriate recorder it will deliver HDCAM format images, although it is using a smaller chipset than usual (1/2" over 2/3"). I'm sure Tilman Buttner was wishing that was around for his 90 minute "Russian Ark" shot a couple years back!! First person to shoot for 24 hours continuously with this thing gets the Andy Warhol "Empire" prize--TBD.

I don't think I play guitar--wasn't that Gene Taylor? The skivvies only came out because I was entirely drenched from having attempted (and failed at) a flying leap between bumper boats in an attempt to horrify Brant Fagan as I recall. Erwin, you promised me you burned those pictures.

None taken, I actually was writing my post before yours came up. My thoughts were not in response to any single previous post, rather several of them that are reflecting attitudes that have been presented in the past as well as in this thread. In fact, I think that article actually reflects and supports my comments. I have modified my original post to replace "you" with "one" so that this is more clear. Thanks for the heads-up.

Gnespolo, it would be all too easy for people to see it that way, when a product is advertised as being unveiled at a specific place and time and it doesn't happen then, nor is there any more official word about it eight months later. I'm sure those people who travelled internationally to see it and were disappointed did not find that funny at all. I am privy to some of the reasons that this is going on, so I'm not going to comment on that situation, but I wouldn't blame anyone for having misgivings about the way this is all going down based on public information.

This is clearly an issue that we are not all going to agree on. Those who are affected by it, i.e. have lost work as a result of it, are going to be more inclined to want to act on it than those who are not affected because they never had that work in the first place, or are even benefitting from runaway production since they live or work in Canada or Romania, for instance. Obviously everyone is free to post whatever they want. But bearing in mind the circumstances above, would it be too much to suggest that if one is an operator that is not affected by the issue, don't denigrate the concerns of those who are? No-one I know blames the crew that is getting the work elsewhere for runaway production. So why should we be resented for raising concerns that affect us directly, whether or not there is anything we as individuals can do about it? And it appears that this very point is up for debate, which is an age-old issue; why bother protesting about anything, ever, when the problem is "out of your hands". Historically I think its safe to say that there has been evidence of grass-roots protest campaigns having significant impact on the policies of big business and/or government, and other instances where they haven't. Apparently the FTAC campaign against "Cold Mountain" has succeeded in bringing the issue to the forefront. Mirimax will likely be thinking twice about taking certain future shows out of the country, not because its the right or wrong thing to do, but because from a business standpoint they might jeopardize that picture's Academy Award potential due to the sentiments of the Academy Award voters. Axium has been exposed as promoting runaway production and has publicly back-pedaled. These are significant achievements for the cause.

I don't know about that, they seemed pretty pissed off to me.

It's once again time to bring up that old chestnut: is Mike Bennett going to return to his throne as the Savior of the over-paying, under-insured Steadicam masses? Anyone in touch with him? That year-and-a-half separation period with Dolle is long over, no? I need a new insurance policy!

I think my favorite was during night shoot football scenes on "Crazy/Beautiful" where I was running around like a freak down one end of the field with a bunch of other cameras shooting with absurdly long lenses and every assistant we had losing their heads (in other words, business as usual on a Shane Hurlbut show!) If I remember correctly, the loader was pulling focus for me(!) inbetween running back and forth to other cameras. I ended up threading the 2C a couple of times instead of waiting for him to get back, with vest and arm tucked behind back. Obviously a pretty easy camera to thread but I never want to take on that additional responsibility on a union job in case something happens to the film--what a weird free-for-all, that night. Oh, the humanity...

It's really bizarre that Erwin has more pictures of ALL of our rigs than we do ourselves...! "Big Dumb Face"...now there was a music video for you. Concept: musicians shot against white cyc. Run around them with Steadicam avoiding shooting off cyc. Hmm. Love to have seen the treatment that sold that one. Erwin, if I remember correctly you came to help me with my gear (this is before Erwin bought a rig, folks; I think he logged more unpaid set hours than I've had paid) and they ended up hiring you as a loader?!

I think by the time of shooting of "Any Given Sunday" he was using his second generation SL Cine body. I bought his "Strange Days"/"True Lies" SL prototype in '98. I still loving watching the opening of "Strange Days" with that insane point-of-view running stuff knowing that I own the little guy that shot that, myown work with it has been a bit more pedestrian. It's a killer camera for that type of shooting. The picture Erwin posted a little while back of that body on top of the Mini is the one in question (with 400 ft mags on it).

...and Colin Anderson.