Does anybody has one that want to sell?

Thanks

The bad guys are attacking company tax numbers and other critical identifiers just like they're looking for SS numbers.

Beware, things can be bought and ordered via your company and its a horrible situation.

You can lock both your company identifiers with various reporting agencies just like you can lock your SS number.

(Parents can lock their kids SS numbers too and prevent identity theft from them. A big problem too.)

This is a heads up on the problem and maybe we can save someone/many a huge problem.

Keep an eye on all of it in this weirdest of times!!

Janice

I'm not sure where this post will lead but I'm trying to help those who may be young and new to the Movie business think about things they haven't before...

This will and can cover a hundred different turns considering we're all in this new world of pandemic business shut down all the way to new trends in the industry.

Here's my thinking that I've looked at for a long time and being older than most of you I've seen how the industry and business in every way has changed.

Changes (to name a few).

1) Pandemic, who hasn't thought about money and when they'll get back to work?

2) Savings, who really has enough and wished they had more?

3) Savings, if  you had it and spent it, how are you going to get it back now?

4) The time between jobs may and is longer.

(about 5 more but that's a good start).

So, I'm going to lob out some ideas that many will say, "I can't do that because when I'm on a show, I'm already working 80 hr weeks."  So this may not work for them but for those others who are not there.

Ideas;

1) part time job, way under your skill level that you can get THIS WEEK.

   No big training, no big pay expected. 

   Hotel, anything, kitchen, housekeeping, whatever?

   Restaurant, landscaping, etc. you pick it.

     Why? 

     $10-12 an hour.  

    Hotel, (example) you do weekends? $100 a weekend.  $400 a week 5k a yr.  

       Employee discounts on travel, now you can do family vacation for half price, $400 a month you buy stocks and you have a savings account you didn't have before.  Now you have an extra 5k for hours that don't really matter, you learn some new stuff I guarantee; even if its about how hard the rest of the world works that spend a lifetime at $10 an hour but I'm sure a lot more too.  But now your vacations cost you half.... big savings.  Other perks, I have done some and I walk out with the donate/discard stuff and drop it at the local Goodwill and get a tax deduction!!! There are some other savings too... Ideas, think about it....

Maybe this becomes a retirement fund which you never had before?  Is there a down side to having an extra 5k a yr?  After a few years maybe this becomes the down payment for a house?  You wouldn't have had it any other way?  

      "I can't do that job?"  Why not?   I personally did a landscaper cashier job last summer on the weekends.  I learned a bunch, one guy 50+ worked his butt off every day, then I learned later, after work, doing intense days would go to the gym afterwards and walk on the treadmill for another hour.  He was made of iron.  

Compartmentalize money, think about it this way if you want, 'The money I make here, pays my insurance and utilities for a year and now the pressure is off for my other income.'  

What I'm hoping is you all start thinking about this in ways many of us have thought beneath us and it really can work in many ways.

Lastly, I read a lot of the want ads on Indeed and one came up for garbage man/person, it said things like "must be able to get in and out of truck 500-600 times a day and lift 50-80lbs etc."   That's a tough life and wouldn't that get you in shape.  Last thing I remember about garbage people was they got 100% insurance coverage in the last contract...  

Every job has some perks that we don't know about, use that money to stay humble and learn and make some money that may pave the way to a savings account you would not have had if you hadn't worked so hard for it.

(We all want to make products we can sell but that takes time to get going, this is instant and you can still do those too...)

Ideas, look at them.

Janice

I was wondering, not quite about steadicam but you certainly have the answer. Why do they often if not always cover the back of operators/cameras with scrims or flags outdoor. Can't figure out for what it is since it's used in totally different setups, I would guess it's to block the shadow or something but I see it no matter the sun direction so It confuses me ^^

Cheers,

With the prevalence of of VFX heavy shows, assistants are often being asked to shoot VFX charts and grids. Often times they involve shooting it with all the lenses in the package and depending on each focal length, you'll need to move the camera to an appropriate distance to frame the chart.

My question is how do you keep the focal plane of the camera centered and completely parallel with the chart?

This problem also crops up when you are required to shoot a rack leader/framing chart.

I can mount the chart on a wall. But there is no guarantee the wall is absolutely perpendicular to the floor. The floor you set up the camera on may not be perfectly flat.

I can use a level and level the camera and the chart, measure each of their center heights. But how do you ensure you are at the center of the chart left-to-right (even at distances of 20 or 30 feet), and ensure the pan/tilt of the camera isn't off-axis to the chart?

With film cameras, you could shine a light down the viewfinder and project the ground-glass on the wall. But you can't do that with digital cameras.

So, I'm curious how other assistants have done it. What is the method to maintain relatively high accuracy while being practical and not taking 20 hours to shoot VFX charts?

Just thought that a bunch of us older timers here may have a bunch of non HD tapes we'd like to get transferred to a hard drive, to protect it for future use or viewing and to get back some much needed shelf space somewhere in our lives.

I put together a transfer system rack of the above mentioned formats with all professional editing decks to be able to provide this service. Only to SD, I do not up convert to HD.

I saw a local big transfer house here in South Florida charges anywhere from $45/hr for a Mini DV to Hardrive transfer to $125/hr for Digibeta. You provide your hardrive.

I'm thinking way less than that. I'm set up to transfer to 2.5" laptop style drives that I can place in a caddy. The 500GB Samsung drives are less than $180 at Best Buy and hold about 14 hours of SD material in .MOV files

If anyone is interested, please reach out to figure out what you have in terms of time and I'll be more than fair.

PS. you'd be responsible for the shipment of your tapes to me and back to YOU, it's up to you to toss them after your sure everything is good on the transfer.

I did it to all of mine and it was a great trip down memory lane..

If this violates any of the forum rules, please feel free to delete. Thanks folks.

Ozzie

I only once, almost, needed to Fed Ex my package somewhere. Fed Ex said I needed to box my

Backstage Steadicam Cart. I am now facing the same situation and looking for info on what most of you do when faced with this dilemma?

Cheers,

Bud K

I had the opportunity to direct an extremely low budget music video for Sean Danielsen of the band Smile Empty Soul in the small gap between projects. I really admire fellow steadicammer BJ McDonnell for his directing efforts on the three Slayer videos (soon to be a 4th), and I wanted to do something interesting while dipping my toes in the water of directing. The pre-production phase was an absolute nightmare because there wasn't money in the budget to hire a producer. Booking locations, lining up a crew/insurance/craft service/smoke machine/retractable syringe and all the other little things one never thinks of (how many butt cans will I need?) really took a toll, but the day on set was an absolute joy. We somehow managed to get footage on the cards of my Red Dragon, and the finished piece turned out great.

I was planning on doing the operating myself until my DP started talking about steadicam. I was assuming the entire show would be handheld with the exception of two technocrane shots (thanks to Christian at TCC for the help with the 17' Moviebird), but Ric Griffith came out to save the day. He ended up operating the entire video, and it was very liberating to be able to sit back and watch the actors instead of deal with having a camera on my shoulder while trying to judge their performance. Ric did an amazing job (we didn't end up doing much steadicam) and it was great to watch someone else interpret what I'd had in my head when I was writing the treatment.

Anyway, I finished coloring the video on Friday, and I wanted to put the finished product out there if anyone was interested in seeing it. Here is a link to the video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l2HELbLB4lo, as well as a link to a behind the scenes video if you want to see Ric do his thing: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TF7wRO0byyE.

All the best, and thanks to this great community for all of the support - both during my steadicam career and after.

Brooks Robinson

brooksontheroad@pacbell.net