This past holiday weekend I went to the Baltimore inner harbor to visit the National Aquarium. It’s a place I’ve been countless times both as a child and in my adult years. I love going to watch all sorts of exotic fish and animals. But this time I noticed a nasty habit forming around me – cameras, lots of cameras. Flashes. Red lights. And it bothered me.
Filmmaking Tips and Advice
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RED Epic and Scarlet Cameras By End of 2010?
Reading off Engadget, found at the comprehensive Reduser.net forums, Jim Jannard (founder of RED) has apologized for the “embarrassingly late” production delays on the Epic and Scarlet cameras. He explains the cause of the delay was a bug that took months to find and put a “bullet in the back of it’s head.”
Toolkit: USB Lens Light (Perfect for RED one)
Luckily, if you’re shooting on RED or any camera with a USB port (though I don’t know of many), you can purchase a much cheaper USB powered lens light. Designed for laptops, most of these lights are flexible LED’s powered through the USB standard.
Arri Alexa Pace 3D System Steadicam Rig for Hugo and Transformers 3
With the Arri Alexa cameras, Pace has rigged an updated system to shoot 3D with the newest digital cinema camera. It’s the same system that Scorsese used/is using on his entry into the third dimension, The Invention of Hugo Cabret.
The Subtleties of the Slate Video
Slating can be tough. It’s not enough just to do it OK – you have to perfect all sorts of nuances and tricks. With that in mind, this video, “The Subtleties of the Slate,” is a welcome tutorial in the more advanced methods of master clappers.
Review: ‘Toy Story 3’
I grew up with the Toy Story films and was hesitant to get too excited at the prospect of the third installment – the last one in the series. These films meant a lot to me, so it took some time to let this third film marinade and cook before I wrote this spoiler-free, completely biased review.
The “Frankenstein” Steadicam
A couple of weeks ago I was called for a short film being shot entirely on a Steadicam with a RED One camera. The RED One is a heavy camera, so I was prepared for a bit of tweaking during our prep, but I wasn’t expecting the amount of DIY we’d really have to do.
‘Ghosts Don’t Exist’ Finds Distributor
Announced on the Facebook fan page, “Ghosts Don’t Exist,” a film by DC-based production company 19th and Wilson, has signed a distribution deal with Echo Bridge Entertainment.
‘Below the Beltway’ Movie Wins Audience Award at Newport Beach Film Festival (Updated with Q&A Video)
Below the Beltway, a film I worked on last summer as camera utility, was accepted into the Newport Beach Film Festival where it premiered and ended up winning the audience award!
The Art of Pulling Focus (Video from FreshDV)
Here is a video from FreshDV’s Film School, a series that centers on a career camera assistant explaining his job and giving advice on how to pull focus. This particular video is one I watched when was I first learning how to pull focus.