Search results

I was wondering if anyone had any recommendations for large silk material, diy or otherwise. I'm curious if the expensive options like Lee 216 are much better than, say, a shower curtain. I want a large material that I can hang/mount to a stand to create a very large diffused light source. As...

I realize this is a bit of a newbie question, but how do heavy sandbags stay on lightstands' legs without rolling off? I've seen some with clips to attach to the stand's stem, but most sandbags don't have them! What's the deal?

Hi guys, I'm in the early stages of preparing to DP a feature film where the mandate is absolute realism. In order to make the footage look as real as possible, I'm considering shooting it at sixty frames a second. The only problem is, we're using a t3i, which only shoots 1080p at 30 frames a...

I'm looking at the Carl Zeiss Distagon T* 35mm f/2 lens for my T3i. On the crop-sensored body, it's a 56mm equivalent, so it'll make a good standard lens for filmmaking. Man, that lens is sexy. But here's the thing. If I'm going to spend over a thousand dollars on this lens (and skip over the...

On set, when I dump cards, I... 1) copy the files over, 2) double-click on each one in sequence to make sure it plays, 3) confirm that the alphabetical first and last file have copied, so I've got every file, 4) delete the files off the card. Now, the only problem I have with this workflow...

I've been hanging out with the sound guys on a film project I'm working on, and they were describing the exhaustive process that audio goes through before delivery: dozens of filters, equalizers, and the like, all simply designed to improve the quality of the actor's voices. For me, hearing...

If you could only afford one lens, which one would you choose? What if your lens budget was $1000? I'm not just speaking hypothetically, of course. I'm in the process of saving up for a t3i, and I am sick and tired of just sticking to those unfortunate stock lenses. My primary use will be...

I've been looking into renting a 5D MkII for a short film shoot, and this website seems to have a fairly attractive offer. I'm wondering if you guys think $167 is reasonable for a four-day rental (especially since I plan on only filming two days), or if you guys have an superior alternative...

I wrote this contract for Crew members for a feature I'm producing, but I don't have any experience doing this and there's a good chance I did something wrong. Let me know if I missed/forgot about something obvious, or whatever criticisms come to mind. CREW CONTRACT Definitions: the...

Our independent feature film "Henryk" needs grips and PAs for our October-December shoot. We're looking for enthusiastic, reliable people, from all areas of the Puget Sound, who can help out on set. Our project is a highly ambitious neo-noir feature, and is on a very tight budget. Subsequently...

This is an almost embarrassingly basic question, but I'm wondering if it is fully legal to film on the street without any permission. What if I'm filming the exterior of a post office? What about a city park or a beach? Is there any way this guerilla footage could be made unavailable because of...

I'm involved in a production with a scene that takes place in a church with a good number of people, anywhere from 15 to 50, with more being better. Since extras are hard to come by, especially without pay, I've been considering using post production to increase the size ofthe crowd. Here's...

For a few weeks, I've been trying to figure out the best way to transfer all of the editing I've been doing on Final Cut Pro at school to my Premiere Pro computer at home. I still think the easiest option is to export the entire project to ProRes, and editing that exported video file, but I want...

My understanding is that Premiere Pro can edit ProRes footage (provided you download the decoder for quicktime), but not export it. Can anyone confirm this is true? If I'm editing in Premiere with a ProRes timeline, and I drag in, say, a DV file, will Premiere be able to render it for playback...

I've been reviewing my sound recordings, and I've noticed some interesting clicks and pulsing sounds that pick up when I turn the mic off. I'm curious what the source of these sounds are. Is this RF interference? Obviously, this is more a question of curiosity than utility, but I'm wondering...

Are there any lossless codecs that can be edited in both Final Cut Pro and Premiere Pro? Do you have any codec preferences for this? There is a strange lack of information on this topic--and the only codec (beyond the typical lossy codecs like DV, MJPEG and others) that seems to work for...

Just to be clear, when using a lossless codec, I can import/export the same footage a infinite number of times without losing a single pixel of quality, correct? I apologize if this is obvious. Or if it is hopelessly misguided.

Hi guys, I'm looking for the simplest way to take a final cut pro project with hundreds of clips and change the codec of the clips. The problem is, I've been using Apple Intermediate Codec, and it doesn't run on PCs. In order to avoid generations of encoding, I think my best option is to...

All across the internet, I've heard that H.264 is not a resilient codec, and "comes apart in post." However, I have doubts about that. I acknowledge that H.264 is a pain to edit, because it's slow. The intraframe compression means your computer has to look around for the relevant information...

This is more of a hypothetical for me, since I don't have access to post-production software sophisticated enough to intelligently boost grain, but it occurs to me that the capabilities of video camera dB boosting are severely limited. For one, it must happen in real-time, and with only on-board...