Rich Steel Posted October 29, 2006 Report Share Posted October 29, 2006 Shot a music Video a few weeks back on an SR3 Advance with Cooke S4 85mm Lens Arri LCS and an Arri Video Tap. It's pissing down with rain, It's dark, the DOP has placed a 4k right behind the talent about 100 yards down the street and around 15ft in the air, I'm preceeding the Talent by about 3-4ft, I'm maxed out on height to lose the 4k and the Sharpy is working a T stop of 1.3......We do a couple of rehersals and I'm not happy. I've got a 12" arm post to try and help but I'm still not getting the shot the sharpy is losing focus all over the shot and my talent is bouncing in and out of frame. Oh! and it's 3am in the morning. Now, I ask the DOP if we can shift the 4K as this seems to be the problem, he gets a bit arsy and shifts it. This resolves the height issue. Phew, but we're still on T1.3 and the Talent just isn't listening to us as we tell him he needs to keep a constant pace. After 4 takes I'm not convinced we've got it in the bag so we go on the sticks. My question is: Was this the right thing to do or should I have given it some more time? Thoughts and Comments? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Premium Members Thomas English Posted October 29, 2006 Premium Members Report Share Posted October 29, 2006 I bet I can guess who the Dp was! No... thats tricky... been there (but it was a howling wind as well) and I reckon it was the same guy. 85mm is a long lens 3 to 4 feet away, they where almost certainly looking for some promo style framing coming in and out of focus, you probably delivered what they where after anyway by the time you went on sticks. Don t worry about it, it was 3am and raining. After a long day, people forget their manners to tell you when they are happy or not and you get the same grunt whether you nailed it or they wanted something different. Did you try bringing the camera lower and framing the light directly behind the talents head? getting all the nice flares as you mess up. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Premium Members Eric Fletcher S.O.C. Posted October 30, 2006 Premium Members Report Share Posted October 30, 2006 85mm is a long lens 3 to 4 feet away, they where almost certainly looking for some promo style framing coming in and out of focus, you probably delivered what they where after anyway by the time you went on sticks. Show I'm doing now the normal lens for steadicam is the 65mm then we go to the 100mm and the 135mm. For the dolly my two normal lenses are the 180 and 300. A few days ago we were doing closeups on the 300mm at 11ft. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Premium Members Thomas English Posted October 30, 2006 Premium Members Report Share Posted October 30, 2006 Show I'm doing now the normal lens for steadicam is the 65mm then we go to the 100mm and the 135mm. For the dolly my two normal lenses are the 180 and 300. A few days ago we were doing closeups on the 300mm at 11ft. The SR3 is a s16 camera Show I'm doing now the normal lens for steadicam is the 65mm then we go to the 100mm and the 135mm. That sounds nice for synch format, is it a drama? what is it? I Want to see how that ends up being cut together. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Premium Members Eric Fletcher S.O.C. Posted October 30, 2006 Premium Members Report Share Posted October 30, 2006 Show I'm doing now the normal lens for steadicam is the 65mm then we go to the 100mm and the 135mm. For the dolly my two normal lenses are the 180 and 300. A few days ago we were doing closeups on the 300mm at 11ft. The SR3 is a s16 camera Show I'm doing now the normal lens for steadicam is the 65mm then we go to the 100mm and the 135mm. That sounds nice for synch format, is it a drama? what is it? I Want to see how that ends up being cut together. I know very well what the SR3 is. I use it every weekend with a 150-600mm on it. as for the Drama it's a New NBC Show starring Jef Goldblum called "Raines" Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Premium Members Charles Papert Posted October 31, 2006 Premium Members Report Share Posted October 31, 2006 Eric, say hi to Jeff (how cool is that guy??!) and Frank Darabont for me--I had fun with them on the pilot but the timing wasn't right for me to do the series. Are they still doing the Altmanesque constant zooming? I had a good time with the pilot DP, got him the Radio Microforce and he worked the zoom from the monitors while we were on Steadi which was a head trip of coordination at first and then became a real dance, kept each other on our toes. Oh, and tell that Kiwi madman of a craft service guy Barry I said hi also, if he's still onboard (worked with him a month or two ago and he said he would be). Looking forward to watching the show. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Premium Members Eric Fletcher S.O.C. Posted October 31, 2006 Premium Members Report Share Posted October 31, 2006 Eric, say hi to Jeff (how cool is that guy??!) and Frank Darabont for me--I had fun with them on the pilot but the timing wasn't right for me to do the series. Are they still doing the Altmanesque constant zooming? I had a good time with the pilot DP, got him the Radio Microforce and he worked the zoom from the monitors while we were on Steadi which was a head trip of coordination at first and then became a real dance, kept each other on our toes. Oh, and tell that Kiwi madman of a craft service guy Barry I said hi also, if he's still onboard (worked with him a month or two ago and he said he would be). Looking forward to watching the show. Charles, Yes you are correct Jeff is very cool to work with. Frank Darabont is not involved in the series, Felix Acala is our show runner and he has changed the look of the show. I gotta tell you its a look that I love and its the most fun operating I've had in a long time. One of the things that Felix changed is banning zoom lenses. Yes Barry is doing crafty and doing one hell of a job of it. It looks great and it's lots of fun, I think people will like it. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Premium Members Charles Papert Posted November 1, 2006 Premium Members Report Share Posted November 1, 2006 Interesting about Frank not being involved, I'm sure there's a story there. Felix is cool, I did a bit of "ER" with him. Do you know when it goes on the air? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Premium Members Eric Fletcher S.O.C. Posted November 1, 2006 Premium Members Report Share Posted November 1, 2006 Interesting about Frank not being involved, I'm sure there's a story there. Felix is cool, I did a bit of "ER" with him. Do you know when it goes on the air? After football season. 10pm Sunday nights Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Michael Jones Posted November 4, 2006 Report Share Posted November 4, 2006 I'm anxious to see the pilot Charles! I saw the pilot of "The Nine" a few weeks ago that Chad was working on when I was out... -Mike Jones Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Premium Members Erwin Landau Posted November 9, 2006 Premium Members Report Share Posted November 9, 2006 Rich back to your problem... What I found over the years, is that the music video DP are less flexible, hardass-ish and not collaborating with you as they would on a feature for instance. It's always a struggle, especially if you work with this DP for the first time. They have so much trouble to let go of the Camera... it's ridiculous. They wanna do everything them self. If they could, they would even do steadicam. I worked with a DP on a Commercial campaign a while back, he used to be the steadicam operator on the original "Miami Vice" TV-show, I was filling in for the regular operator and his regular AC said that the DP had taken away the operators Steadicam and did it himself if he though that it didn't worked for him... I worked on a Music video last week where I was hired by a company that I did many music videos in the past, this was to be the DP's second with that company and he felt that he had to prove to production something by sinking me. I ended up doing fast pushes with zooms (on a 16mm zoom: 10mm to 64 mm) into a cross on a green screen while booming... It was screaming Dolly on a 10 to 1... no he wanted me to do it... it looked like shit! Guess what... the producer didn't like it apologized to me and I'm doing another one in a couple of weeks with the same company... but without this DP. I found that on Music videos it's pretty much a lose lose situation for you as the Steadicam op. I posted a while back a music video link to a Lionel Richi video... shot in Anamorphic with very long shots, up to 1 to 3 minutes where the DP insisted on certain moves... none of my "moves" are longer then a couple of seconds as the song was under 4 minutes... The DP almost never moves the light... it's mostly up to me to frame it out... including impossible framing and moves... just so that his lighting is not compromised... But sometimes they can actually be fun, Fly safe, Erwin Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Premium Members Thomas English Posted November 10, 2006 Premium Members Report Share Posted November 10, 2006 Erwin is right, promo Dp s (music video) are often less experienced and more experimental running on a tighter schedual on a lot more coffee/cocaine. This can be difficult for the steadicam op. especially for a DP who has done steadicam. I don t know about in the states where you have a much more constrained higherarchy (am I wrong?) but in the UK the lines of who is calling the shots often completely melt away. You tunrned up as the steadicam operator and before you know it your directing the talent, deciding on shots and shifting lights (although I always take reverence to the dp before I ask for a shift of a light), then you start having to take over as AD as well ..... and things slowly but surely descend into chaos. Chaos that over runs for 20 hours and ends in the rain on an 85mm lens at 3am with a DP that is too stoned to want to move a light. KBS kick bollock shove .... UK promo s under 25 grand Erwin, When you say he wanted to prove production by sinking you... do you mean he was trying to make you look bad? .... wow, Shooting in america is quite cut throat sometimes ? Another point to your point richard, pulling sharps on an 85mm lens on a walking face open to 1.3 is very very tricky and I could not do it. Your depth of field is approx half of an inch... its the equivilant of being at f2 on a 300mm lens at 11ft... maybe you should have called Eric and his focus puller over from the states and they could have done a marvelous job and talked about how fantastic they are at the behest of any contructive and helpful conversation which is what this forum is so good for. The thing is... it s a promo... in and out of focus... yeah! Although I got slightly burnt on a promo I DP ed by not giving my puller enough stop (at 1.3 for 15hours on s35 gate) and the editor really struggled for usable shots. Pulling focus at 1.3 on steadicam is a mistake (whether s16 or 35) and should only be done in emergencies. My lowest stop on a KBS promo now is T2.8, unless it s an emergency or getting to the end of the night, raining and someone else is operating. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TJ Williams Posted November 14, 2006 Report Share Posted November 14, 2006 Rich I don't know how anyone could operate that without some rigging. and I've worked with some great assts. but that is an unreasonable focus hold. Had a recent similiar thing but looking at a gun hanging in the guys hand from behind. Low mode too low hi mode to hi so mounted the rig on a cart, stuck some C arms out in front out of frame with a tennis ball on the end. kept the tennis bal against the middle of the talents shoulders. Whenever we got loose on the shoulders the first could see the distance between the ball and the back and adjust slightly., cause of course it was easier to see the small distance. In your case mounting on a cart higher than you could reach to miss the light and some arms out to the guys waist.... an who knows perhaps it would work.... perhaps it would be just too late to setup. Why do folk ask the impossible at the end of long days.... TJ Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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