Landing in Montana

The Jobs

This past week was pretty hectic with 2 jobs in 2 states, requiring 6 flights over 6 days.  The crazy thing was that 2 weeks ago I had a clear schedule for this past week with nothing booked.  Then one job came up, and a week later another came up.  I do find that’s often the case; I’ll start a month thinking it looks pretty light, then all of a sudden it will completely fill up.  Destination 1 was to Las Vegas.  Now, I’ll rarely turn down an opportunity to go to Vegas.  To me it’s one of the best (read: dangerous) business destinations.  You’ve got gambling, great food, great shows, and you’re getting paid to be there.  Oh, I guess there was work too, but that didn’t get in the way of fun.  The job was for FanDuel, a UK-based fantasy sports website, that was holding their 2nd annual Fantasy Football Championships.  They wanted to produce a video to highlight the competition and use it to promote FanDuel and their competition for next year.  Now I am HARDLY a football fan, but I don’t think this put me at a disadvantage.  The gig consisted of 2 days of shooting, 1 was interviews with all 11 finalists and then the next day was filming during the competition itself.  We setup interviews in a suite in the Palazzo, and shot 2 cameras (Sony F3 and Canon 7D) with the same setup for each interview.  Fortunately we had a pretty large room to work with (for a hotel room), to setup a nice looking shot.  We very much wanted to give the whole piece an ESPN vibe, and hopefully that will come across in the edit.

F3 Frame Grab

Then second day was more event-style shooting in Lagasse Stadium, the largest sports book in Vegas.  FanDuel had a decent size private room with about 50 people watching the games.  This was probably the first time in my life I spent an entire day around people watching football.  The finalists were playing in a 1-day fantasy tournament, vying for $75K for 1st place (out of a $150K prize pool) so there was definitely a lot on the line.  I still am not sure I totally get the allure of watching football for an entire day, but I like the idea of winning $75K, so it made it exciting to watch the standings shift throughout the day.  The room was pretty dim, so we shot with on-camera Litepanel Micros, and cranked the ISO a fair amount (which is VERY clean on the F3), and basically filmed….people watching tv.  There were some dramatic moments throughout the day, though, and I think in the end we’ll cut this to look like a fun, exciting event.

Getting Vegas scenics at the Bellagio

F3 Frame Grab of people watching Bellagio Fountains

Next up was Missoula, Montana.  This was my first time in Montana, and I knew it would be beautiful.  The job was to shoot a segment for the Today Show about a 29-year old unemployed firefighter, who was recently diagnosed with cancer, and is using IndieGoGo to raise money to cover the costs of his treatment.  I met the producer in Missoula, and we shot for a day and a half, interviewing the man and his sister (who was heading up the fundraising campaign), and filming them in their daily lives.  We even went ice fishing early one morning, which was a first for me.  Missoula was a pretty epic place to film, with gorgeous scenery, and frankly since I spend probably 80% of my time shooting in doors, it was just so nice to be shooting outside (even on a cold, frozen lake).  I think we got some great stuff, and I am excited to see how it comes together.  (It’s slated to air on December 22nd, if you want to check it out).

Shooting in Missoula

F3 Frame Grab

F3 Frame Grab

F3 Frame Grab

Natural light interview setup

F3 Frame Grab

F3 Frame Grab

What I Brought

The biggest hassle of travel is figuring out what to bring.  I am completely envious of many business travelers who walk on the place with a small roll-on case and that’s ALL THEY NEED.  That would be freeing, but instead I have to go through expensive bag checks, lugging heavy bags throughout the airport.  Frankly, I think I pack on the lighter side compared with many people I know who travel for video production.  I had 5 bags in total, 3 checked and 2 carry-on (Kata HB 207 backpack with the cameras and lenses, etc, and a laptop bag).  My big checked bag is a Kata OC-88 which I can fit lights, stands, and other gear in (and my clothes).  The second was the Pelican 1510, which I usually use as an audio case, but I rearranged the dividers to use it for audio, some lenses, and the KiPro Mini and batteries.  Third, I had a tripod case with a tripod, boom pole and another light stand.  The biggest issue I find is getting my Kata bag to stay under 50lbs.  It’s VERY easy to load it too much, and I’m always rearranging stuff to try to keep it below 50, otherwise they’ll gouge you with additional fees.  I was meeting my assistant Mike in Vegas (he was flying from NYC), so I brought only 2 lights and stands (an Arri 1k w/ Chimera, and an Arri 300) and he brought 2 stands and his 2 Litepanel MicroPros.  This helped in keeping the bags light enough (although my Kata was 52lbs, but they let it slide).  We used all 4 lights in Vegas for the interviews, but in Montana Mike (who wasn’t joining me) and I swapped lights and I took the Litepanels and he took the Arris home with him.  The producer for Today said he wanted to use as much available light as possible, and we ended up not lighting anything.  I think for next year I want to build a small all LED light kit with very small stands especially for flying, because it is hard to keep the weight down.

This trip was also my maiden voyage for my new Sony F3.  I’m not going to go into a lengthy review of this camera (which has been out for a year and reviewed extensively) but I was THRILLED with the results.  I had dialed it in at home, using picture profile settings that I got from Abel Cine Tech, and those worked great.  The camera has a fantastic image and is definitely a step up from my AF100 (which has been a great camera, but the F3 was the one I really wanted last year).  I was using this with the KiPro Mini, which worked great and allows me to deliver ProRes files to NBC, which makes their life easier (and soon will be able to do DNxHD which will be even better).

The new rig

Here’s just a short list of the standout features of this camera for me:

-It works like my EX-1, so the menus and buttons were very familiar.  That’s great.

-I got new lenses for this setup, using Nikon lenses (my Olympus lenses for the AF100 won’t work with the larger setup).  The 17-35 f2.8 and 28-70 f2.8 zooms are pretty compact and have aperture rings (which I really hadn’t realized was such a huge deal).  I pretty much used these 2 lenses the entire time, other than an old 85mm f1.4 that we used for interviews in Vegas.  I think these zooms (while not parafocal) are very good as variable primes for video use.  Very sharp too.

-The KiPro worked great.  I was worried about only having 2 Anton Bauer TrimPac batteries, but I never ran out during the day of shooting.  The whole rig, which is rather heavy, is actually very balanced on the shoulder.  I wasn’t using my DP4 EVF, but even so I could just use the LCD pretty well off the shoulder.

-One of the biggest PIA of the AF100 was no expanded focus on the LCD.  I loved the EX-1 LCD, and the F3 is (I think) the same monitor, with phenomenal peaking and expanded focus.  I always felt the need to use my SmallHD with the AF100 for focus, but that wasn’t an issue with the F3 screen.  This makes the rig much smaller (especially in Vegas, where I was shooting handheld without the KiPro most of the time).

-The low noise at high ISOs is amazing.  I shot a lot during the FanDuel tournament at +12 and +18 (3200/6400) and sure there is some noise, but it’s totally fine and probably looks like +3 or +6 on the EX-1, and was way cleaner than the 7D we were also using.

-The image quality is just amazing.  It’s very sharp and detailed (which I like, although some like a smoother look).  It seems to have a wide latitude and I found it handled the higher end of exposure better than the AF100.  I always found I really had to avoid bright highlights or pushing skin tones too hot, but the F3 seems to handle this much better.  There is definitely more picture control too in the profile settings.  I am not using the sLog update, which many rave about.  Personally it’s not totally ideal for me as I often hand off footage to other production companies and editors who wouldn’t want to deal with sLog footage, and want more of a baked in look.  I know that many poo-poo the notion of shooting this way, but I think it works out quite well for many projects and saves time in the back end without doing heavy grading.  I’ll probably get the update next year, but since I just spent a small fortune this month I figured I’d wait.

So that was my week.  I am writing this from my last flight (of 6) of the week.  I am looking forward to going home and seeing my family before having a shoot in Boston tomorrow and one in NYC this weekend.  Whew.

-

In terms of the production, the video was pretty straightforward.  We did one day of filming interviews at Rosie’s Place. and I decided ahead of time to shoot on a seamless backdrop with the (likely) intention of making the interviews black and white.  We shot with 2 Panasonic AF100s, so we could have a second angle (this has pretty much become the norm for me for shooting interviews now).  They gave me a lot of photos and some archive footage of Kip that I could use as well.  I decided that in lieu of the normal “pan and scan” approach to moving on the photos in post, I would film the photos instead.  I often see this approach on ESPN and in some documentaries, and I think it’s a nice visual change from the “Ken Burns” effect.  I really liked it at first after shooting and editing the pictures in.  Then I didn’t like it so much.  Then (I think) I liked it again.  Ultimately the client was very happy with it, so I guess it worked.

Normally I HATE choosing music for my videos because I find it to be so painstakingly difficult, but I actually really enjoyed it this time.  I found a couple tracks right away that I thought worked perfectly (I think it was the first 2 tracks in the video) and that got me on a roll to find the others.  In the end, it’s a fairly simple piece, but I was quite happy with how it turned out.  I was told that it was the highlight of their fundraising event, at which they raised $450,000.

Enjoy!

So, I decided to put my money where my mouth is, get together a bunch of lenses, and see what all the hype was about.  I had been talking with my buddy Chris Loughran about doing this, and he definitely wanted to hop aboard and work on this.  He had more experience with higher end lenses than I did and was pretty sure I’d see a big difference across the range of lenses we were going to test.  Previously, I had never really shot with any cinema lenses, and only worked with video specific lenses (Canon and Fujinon zooms) and then still lenses (with 35mm adapters, DSLRs, and then large-sensor video cameras).  I was certainly aware of the mechanical advantages of the cinema-specific lenses, but was more interested in the differences we could SEE in the shots.

I thought that this would be a good opportunity to get together some Boston-area shooters, so I invited a bunch of guys over to partake in some food, beers, and lens testing.

Frame grab from Rick Macomber

The Test

(Disclaimer #1: Food and beer prevailed at this get-together.  If you are looking for a really thorough, highly scientific test, you will not find it here.  We were able to make some conclusions, but for the most part, we were just hanging out and having a good time.)

Chris and I had 2 or 3 setups we wanted to do and run each lens through the same “scene”.  But (see above), due to too much frivolity we only got through one setup before we decided to call it a day.  Our setup involved 2 “actors” and went from a medium-wide to a close-up shot.  Our somewhat uninspired lighting, was fairly flat, but allowed us to see more detail in the scene.  We ran the scene through with each of the 9 lenses a couple times (mostly re-doing if focus was ever botched).

Frame grab from Rick Macomber

The Lenses

We had a wide-array of lenses ranging in price from $450 to about $18k.  With the exception of one lens, all were either 35mm focal length primes, or zooms set to 35mm.  Here was our lineup from most expensive to least expensive.

-Cooke s4 35mm f2.0 (I believe retail is about $18,000)

-Zeiss Super Speed 35mm f1.3 (not in production anymore, I think they are available used for about $5-7k)

-Zeiss CP2 35mm f2.1 ($3900)

-Olympus 14-35 f2.0 ($2299)

-Nikon 17-35 f2.8 ($1699)

-Canon 17-55 f2.8 ($1099)

-Nikon AIS 35mm f1.4 (approx $899, but this was a de-clicked version, which would cost more)

-Sigma 30mm f1.4 ($489)

-Tamron 17-50 f2.8 ($459)

With the exception of the Sigma, Tamron and Canon lenses, all other lenses could be aperture adjusted on the lens (or in the camera).  We mounted the EOS mount lenses to a 7D to set aperture on each.  We did this test at f4 on each lens (as that seemed the most appropriate for this scene), but in comparing the waveforms on each lens, found we needed to open to about 3.5/3.8 on the EOS lenses to get the same exposure.

Frame grab from Rick Macomber

The Camera

We used my Panasonic AF-100 to test all of these lenses.

(Disclaimer #2: Okay, I am aware that this camera has a much smaller sensor than the Super35 or FF35 image that most of these lenses can cover.  I am aware that because of this I am using more of the sweet spot of each lens and am not able to assess the edge sharpness between each of these lenses.  Yes, I know that.  But this is the camera that Chris and I use day in and day out, and so we wanted to see the results on what we knew and what we used.  Might things have looked different on an F3 or Alexa.  Absolutely.  I am aware of that.)

Everything was run to a KiPro Mini (awesome little device) recording ProRes from the SDI jack on the AF100.  We used a Hot Rod PL adapter for our 3 PL lenses, and Lumix, Novoflex and Fotodiox adapters for the other lenses.  Camera was set as follows (for all you AF-100 users):

Detail/V-Detail: -3

Chroma: -2

Master Ped: -2

Gamma: Low

Knee: Low

Matrix: Norm2

I don’t tend to shoot super-flat, and a somewhat more baked-in look is better for 90% of my work.  Since I didn’t want to color correct any of this (to retain the original quality) I set it this way.  I think a little more contrast could be added to this though for final output.

The Results

So here’s the video I put together which shows how these lenses stood up.  Again, not the most thorough or scientific thing in the world but whatever.

(Disclaimer #4: Obviously viewing this on Vimeo, or even the downloadable version is not the BEST way to see the results.  We all know this.  Blah blah blah.)

So there you have it.  A $5k camera hooked up to a wide-range of lenses.  As we were shooting I kept looking at the monitor and thinking that I was hardly seeing any difference at all.  In editing, the differences became more clear, but I found it hard to even be able to SAY what made one lens better than the others.  I think Chris and I both agreed that the Cooke looked the best (and maybe we were skewed by the price tag), but it had a richness and detail without appearing overly sharp.  I also really liked the look of the Zeiss Super Speed, which probably looked the most different to me than any of the other lenses.  It’s a much older lens and I often hear people talk about the look of “vintage” lenses, and I sort of get that now.  It looked soft and warm and looked really nice on the skin.  It also appeared to bring out the most shadow detail of all the lenses.  Maybe I’m just not that picky, but I didn’t think any of these looked bad, and for most projects (especially web-based ones) I doubt any of these would hinder the end results.

That said, a lot of what you’re buying in the higher end (especially cinema-specific lenses) is a mechanical advantage.  They feel better made, they have long focus throws with smooth focus and aperture rings, are color matched across their set (which is a big deal), etc.  Chris, who was pulling focus on all these shots, actually thought the Cooke, which had the largest focus throw of the bunch, was almost harder to use, because the shot required more than 2 full rotations of the follow focus.  The Tamron and Canon and the shortest throw and he ended up just eye-balling it, but nailed it pretty easily.  The Super Speed’s throw was somewhere in the middle which worked out well.

So this post is getting really long so I’ll stop.  But before I end I leave you with 2 fun BTS videos that were put together by Rick Macomber and Michael Murie.  Nowadays it seems you can’t do anything without a BTS, but I appreciate you guys doing this, and it makes us seem act marginally more prepared than we actually were.

Thanks to all who participated: Chris Loughran, Keith Wasserman, Brandon Vincent, Rick Macomber, Michael Murie, Ben Pender-Cudlip, and Matt Stapleton.  And thanks to Rule Boston Camera for giving us a deal on the rental on some of these lenses.

But from a marketing perspective (which I, honestly, don’t think much about) I think it’s important to maintain this site to be somewhat up to date.  The stagnancy of my site could indicate to a potential client that I’m not doing much work.  I was pretty shocked recently to notice that on my Vimeo account (which basically serves as my online portfolio) I’ve only uploaded one new video ALL YEAR.  Now surely it’s not because I haven’t done any work this year, because on the contrary, I have been busier than I have ever been.  I think the reason that I haven’t updated Vimeo (or my blog site) much this year, is because of fears of seeming not “cool” enough.

For better or worse, I spend a good amount of time on Twitter and other video people’s blogs.  Those two forums, in my opinion, serve three functions: to be funny, to show people how cool you are, or to make people jealous.  (That pretty much sums up social media in general, I think.) And I think when I look at a lot of the work that’s kept me busy this year, I often think it’s not cool enough to share.  I don’t get paid to climb mountains with my camera or film hot girls at 1000fps, so in contrast, a lot of what I do could seem less cool.  So, with this attitude, my online persona on my website, which could be the make or break point for a potential client, basically looks like I don’t do anything anymore.  And that’s bad.

So I’m going to make a point to change that, and share more of what I’m doing.  Personally, I like to read to about all sorts of projects that people are working on and hopefully some people will here too (you still there, Mom?).

So with that, here’s a little recap (in frame grabs) of some of what I’ve been up to this year, cool or not cool:

I shot a video with a very inspiring group of people at a construction company in Poughkeepsie, NY.

I did a bizarre pro-bono job with Shotgun Media in Boston, which has led to a great relationship with a lot of continued (and paid!) work.

I shot a successful campaign video for Dana Farber Cancer Institute.

I shot a couple segments for the Today Show.

I shot my seventh 48 Hour Film Project.

I DPed some web videos for Home Goods.

I shot A LOT of interviews for a project for a private equity firm.

Nothing I’ve done this year will become the next viral video or get linked on Gizmodo, but I should get past that.  I do love what I do and feel very fortunate to make a living creating video.  So that’s worth something.

(Right, Mom?)

I hooked up again with the core team I worked with last year on our short film Gro2.  Our producer Keith had procured an awesome industrial textile mill (after I suggested we get an awesome industrial warehouse space) to use as a location, and he and I had scouted it out a few days before shooting.  (48HFP Tip #1: I think picking a location and deciding no matter what, that you’ll shoot there, is a great way to go about the 48HFP.)  It was a working facility and there were many cool places to shoot, and we envisioned a ton of of great locations to use (ultimately due to time and story we only skimmed the surface of what the place had to offer).

On Friday night we got our genre (War or Anti-War) and our other required elements (prop, character, and line of dialogue) that had to be worked into the film.  After some brainstorming, Keith and Micah went off to write Friday night, then got some sleep.  (48HFP Tip #2: Get some sleep, don’t treat this as a two day cram session.  If you’re organized there is time in the weekend to sleep.)  We met up with our cast (two of the three only Keith had met) and the rest of our crew on Saturday morning to begin shooting.  Our plan was to front-end any of the shots requiring visual effects, so that our VFX guy (the amazingly talented Will Cavanagh) could get to work on those, so we shot the 2 scenes that we needed VFX for and sent Will on his merry way.  Honestly the rest of the shoot day went surprisingly well.  I have to commend our team and our actors for making sure everything went smoothly.  There was no drama, no real sense of major urgency, in fact I think the whole process was somewhat uncharacteristic of what the 48HFP organizers want you to think the weekend will be like.

We wrapped up shooting around 9pm or so, back at Keith’s apartment for one scene, and then headed to National Boston Studios (where Will works) where we were going to do all the editing.  It was definitely nice to get to work out of one of the nicer post houses in Boston for this.  Thanks National!  I was not planning to be too involved in the edit, but I wanted to setup some quick color grades, so while Keith and Micah started cutting in one room, I worked in another room setting up filters that they could drop on the clips after they edited the film.  Then I took off, around midnight or so, and left them to do there magic.

Sunday was Mother’s Day, and since it was my wife Kate’s first year as a mom, I wanted to celebrate with her, so while around Boston, many filmmaking teams were in a nervous editing crunch, I went out to brunch.  (Sorry.)  Keith and Micah (and Jason working on the score from his own studio) had things under control.  I went in later in the day to see what they had done and was pretty blown away.  I think for two years running, our team has done an awesome job with creating an interesting viewing experience.  The biggest challenge with the 48HFP is creating a REALLY compelling story and characters, but we keep it simple (48HFP Tip #3: KEEP IT SIMPLE) and use our skills at creating excellent sounds and visuals to help move the story along.

So here’s the film, followed with a little tech.  Enjoy!

For those interested, we shot this film on my Panasonic AF100.  Lenses used were the Olympus 14-35 f2, Nikon 28 f2, Nikon 50 f1.4, and Nikon 85 1.4.  We shot to the internal SD cards (AVCHD) and transcoded to ProRes for post.

*Thanks to Mike Flanagan and Will Cavanagh for photographs.

When I was starting out, and my lighting kit was all tungsten (3200K) fixtures, the normal procedure was to walk into a room, close any blinds or window coverings, turn off all existing lights, and start from scratch.  The darker the room, the better, as I felt there was nothing to “contaminate” our lighting. That’s changed a bit, since LED and fluorescent lights have gotten better and more affordable, and I’ve become less concerned with daylight creeping into the scene (obviously gelling tungsten lights is an option, but it can be a pain in the butt, so I typically avoid that when I can).  Working with cameras with bigger sensors has also helped, as it’s easier to throw the background out of focus, instead of having to create the separation through lighting (although that’s still important).

I often find that I go through stages of how I light things, and recently I’ve been on a kick of using little to no additional lighting for interior, day-lit interviews.  I do really enjoy figuring out the best lighting options and like the look of “lit” interviews, but sometimes the setting and mother nature work to allow you to leave all the lights in the car.  The upside is that, when it works, there is a very natural look, but the downside is that you have somewhat less control.  Here are some frame grabs from 2 recent projects, where each setup was all natural lighting, with only bounce (I think in one shot) or negative fill added.  Then I’ll get into some things to keep in mind if you’re going to setup for day-lit interiors.

The first issue if you want to shoot with all daylight inside, is to make sure that the light is going to stay pretty much the same throughout the interview, scene, etc.  Completely overcast days work well, and so do cloudless days.  In the bottom image, that day started clear blue, but about halfway through the interview, clouds started to go in front of the sun, so the light level in the room changed drastically.  This is my usual reason for closing all window blinds, so that any daylight shifts don’t effect the scene.  But, if the weather works out, then it’s easy to pull these off, or if what you need to shoot is very brief, you can hopefully pull it off during breaks in cloud coverage.

The second issue is positioning the subject.  I am very persnickity about the direction of the key light, and also somewhat nudgey about how the room “leans” in the shot, and when you don’t have control over where the key light (windows) are placed, you need to figure out your subjects position related to that.  The third shot is a good example of the room “leaning” in (what I consider) the right direction related to their position, and we are keying from the correct side in reference to the direction they are looking.  Anytime you have a long wall of windows, that type of shot is fairly effective and easy to achieve.

I found the setup for the fourth shot interesting because we had the wooden venetian blinds in the window to the subject’s right completely closed, and the only light was the sun hitting the white, wooden window sill, and bouncing onto the subject’s face.  Paired with a pretty fast lens, I think that shot worked out pretty well and is one of my favorites, because from looking in the room it seemed like there was no way there was enough light in the room.

There are definitely times when this type of look/setup is not appropriate or possible, but when it works out, it can not only lead to quick setups, but also yield pleasing, natural looking interviews.

(Some technical specs: These were all shot with the Panasonic AF-1oo with the Olympus 35-100 f2 lens.)

]]> http://benjamineckstein.com/2011/05/lighting/feed/ 3 http://benjamineckstein.com/2011/04/nab-2011-recap/ http://benjamineckstein.com/2011/04/nab-2011-recap/#comments Wed, 20 Apr 2011 19:31:05 +0000 Benjamin http://benjamineckstein.com/?p=793

So when I got on the plane to return to Boston after several days in Vegas and at NAB, I had this sinking feeling that I had missed a lot of things and people that I wanted to see.  I’m not sure if it was mis-management of my time, my hurting back or the constant beckoning of the blackjack tables, but I definitely wanted to do more in my time at NAB.  Oh well.  It was still a great trip and I saw cool things and cool people, and I already can’t wait for next year.

So here’s the highlights of this year’s show:

1. All-In Film

This was the obvious highlight of my time at NAB, and I was so thrilled to see this come together for a second year in a row.  Rob Imbs, Justin Carlson, and myself, put a lot of time and effort into planning for this event, and I have to say it went off quite smoothly.  We quickly sold out this year, and had a long waiting list of people, but for whatever reason just the right number of people showed up that night and I don’t believe we had to turn anyone away.  I have to thank all our awesome headliners: Philip Bloom, Vincent Laforet, Barry Green, Kevin Shahinian, Jon Connor, PlanetMitch, Jared Abrams, and Cristina Valdivieso.  Having you all there made for an awesome event.  I was thoroughly surprised that Philip, (who Rob and I taught how to play poker the night before) was the last headliner standing, making it to about 25th place.  Phil, I knew not to trust you when you said you had no idea what you were doing.

Shuffle up and deal!

All-In Film could not happen without our generous sponsors and there are too many to list, but thank you.  We had over $20K in prizes to give out which was HUGE.  In addition we were thrilled with the generosity of all the players and sponsors in helping us raise almost $12K for the American Red Cross Japan Relief Fund (which was close to $5K more than last year).

We had trouble getting this into the ATM

My awesome table

I was seated with a great group of people at the SmallHD table including the charming Amy Reese, El Skid, Scott Heath from sponsor Synergy-PR, and Jason Konoza (who after several bad beats from me, knocked me out to win the SmallHD DP6 bounty prize).  Don’t worry Jason, we can still be friends.  I was thrilled to see that even after most people had been knocked out of the game that most were still hanging around, which is a testament to the quality of people attending and the great venue that the Hard Rock provided for us.

If I do say so, I think All-In Film has become one of the best parties at NAB, and I am already looking forward to doing it again next year.  Look for more pics and video highlights from the event at www.allinfilm.org in the coming weeks.

2. The Show

So, while my time at the convention center seemed brief and overwhelming here are the highlights of what I wanted to see:

Me and Rob Imbs chatting with Barry Green at the Panasonic Booth

-EVFs: Last year when Zacuto and RedRock Micro announced their EVFs (in the same week) I thought they seemed sort of unnecessary.  I definitely don’t mind eating my words now, and think they have an important function, and I think that I can build up a great (fairly compact) shoulder rig with my AF100 (or similar sized camera) by using an EVF product.  The Zacuto one was all over the show, and looked very nice, with lots of features and a very high resolution image.  In the Panasonic booth they had a great AF100/KiPro shoulder rig with the Zacuto EVF which felt very comfortable but was a little longer than what I’d build.  I checked out the Cineroid EVF too (which has actually been shipping for some time).  There focus outline-in-blue worked fantastically and they had the function buttons on a remote on a handgrip which was very convenient.  The image looked much lower res though, which made focusing a bit harder.  SmallHD is coming out with a DP4 monitor which looks interesting.  It will work well as a small monitor but has a loupe for EVF type functionality as well.  They said it’s an 8-bit panel (as opposed to the 6-bit panel in the DP6) which is a big plus, too.  I only got a moment to see one, but I think this may offer the most versatility.

-Big Production Monitors: I think my next purchase is a 17″-or so field/studio monitor.  I want something that is VERY accurate as I feel that between the on-cam images with the LCD and even with the DP6, it’s hard to know if I’m right on with color/exposure.  When I rent a nicer field monitor (typically the Panasonic LH-1700) I feel a lot more confident in the image I’m capturing, and since I’m typically working with lower bit-rate cameras/codecs, it’s better if I can nail it in-camera.  From what I’ve learned very few smaller field monitors will provide this accuracy.  So I went to Panasonic, Marshall, JVC, Ikan, and TVLogic to see what they had.  The big problem is that it’d be best to see them side-by-side, with the same input.  Otherwise I could really just compare specs and features.  I think ultimately I’m probably going to go with the current 17″ Panasonic as I know those work well and are quite popular.

Mike Flanagan working the Zacuto booth

The brothers Bui and Diamond at the Teradeck booth

-Sony: I spent a bit of time at the HUGE and impressive Sony booth.  I really wanted to see the newly announced FS100, which will definitely give the AF100 a run for it’s money.  It apparently shares the same sensor with the phenomenal F3, and from what I saw, the images looked fantastic.  Feature wise, there were some things I liked and some I didn’t like compared with the AF.  I find a lack of built in NDs to be a major PIA.  The XLR inputs were in weird locations and not next to each other.  The LCD looked great and converts into an excellent EVF, but it also seemed very wobbly (but this was a pre-production model).  I think if the FS100 was out when I bought my AF, it would have been a close call, but as it stands, the FS probably won’t be available for at least 3 more months, and my AF has been working hard since January.

On-camera monitor shootout at the SmallHD party

-Zacuto Shootout: I got a chance to see a screening of the “Single Chip Camera Shootout” at the Zacuto booth.  This was a camera test they sponsored a few months ago, shot in LA with several ASC DPs and countless other technicians, where they compared 12 single sensor cameras ranging from the $1500 7D to the $80K Alexa to 35mm film.  The shots ranged from charts and still lifes, to “scenes” with actors lit for low-light, high-light, etc.  My initial takeaway was “I want an Alexa NOW”.  I mean, REALLY, it looked great and was the baseline for many of the tests they did.  I know it’s only 1080p, but I’m not a resolution snob and it just looks beautiful.  I also thought the F3 looked fantastic and they weren’t even using the S-Log modification.  Having just yesterday seen tests of the S-Log capability, I think the F3 (with modification and recorder for about $20K) will give the Alexa a real run for it’s money.  I was interested in seeing how the AF100 held up and in most cases looked quite nice.  It held it’s own very well in the low-light tests, which was a bit of a surprise.  The DSLRs were ok, but did not look as nice to me as the video specific cameras.  One viewer commented after the shootout that we are lucky to work at a time when we can put such a range of cameras up against each other and they all look pretty freaking good.  5 or 10 years ago that would not have been the case.  I definitely agree with that statement.

So, while on the one hand I felt like I was in Vegas forever, I also felt like it went by quickly and I missed seeing a bunch of things and people.  Still it was a great trip, and I’m looking forward to next year, and All-In Film 3.0.

How soon can I start planning?

Just quickly, what’s the big deal here?  The recent rage in the video production industry over the last two years has been the proliferation of shooting our videos on still cameras.  These newer generation DSLRs had the ability to shoot nice looking 1080p HD video.  Why would we care if we already had cameras that could do that?  Well, because these DSLRs have imaging sensors that are much bigger than many of the video cameras we had been using, and this enables the user to more easily achieve selective focus, shallow depth-of-field shots.  It’s a useful quality of a camera, and can create an image that is in some ways more pleasing.  These cameras are also a fraction of the cost of many of the other video cameras available at the time, and could do double duty as professional stills cameras.  That was all cool!  But there were lots of drawbacks (which, again, those reading here know about, so I won’t go into too much detail), which included a need for separate audio recording, images prone to moire and aliasing, an overly-compressed codec, etc.

AF-100 with Nikon 28mm lens

I bought into these DSLRs (my Canon 7D) in the fall of 2009.  I knew it was a bit of a transitory step towards something specifically designed for video, though, and was only using my Canon for about half of my jobs.  Anyway, I got really excited when the Panasonic was announced because it seemed like the answer to what I was looking for.  I was even more excited when they announced the price (about $5K), which was about half of what initial reports were, so it became almost a no-brainer for my company.

I’ll cut to the chase and get to some of my reactions to this camera, in no really specific order.

-Audio. It’s in the box.  I now can just press record on one device and there’s no syncing in post.  If that’s all this did it’d be worth it for me.  Nuff said!

XLR audio, as you'd expect

-Monitoring. Nice high res LCD that can be tilted every which way.  Shooting from below, no problem.  From above, no problem.  Plus there’s a VF as well.  And SDI and HDMI monitors so I can go to my SmallHD or whatever.  These are all useful features that mean that I can go with what’s in the box and not worry about add-ons if I don’t have to.  A couple caveats, though.  The LCD and VF don’t really match color wise.  The LCD has a distinctly green bias to it.  You notice this especially if you look in the VF or at an external monitor.  That said, the LCD is higher res and easier to judge exposure/focus.  And from what I’ve seen the VF color is pretty accurate, so my tip is to set your white-balance through the VF and the LCD is fine for everything else.  I am still finding my SmallHD to be good, but the image has a bit of a coarseness to it that I can mostly dial out, but it’s not perfect.  Perfect is a tall order though.  I am going to try their new beta firmware and I think they’ll really make this thing shine.  The SmallHD is probably the best of both worlds though (VF vs. LCD) and is certainly great to hand to a director/client.  It also has 1:1 pixel mode (which is sorely lacking on the AF-100 and I’d LOVE to see in a firmware update) so it is the best tool for focusing.

Ins and Outs

LCD and lots of buttons and switches

-Laziness. That’s sort of a weird topic header, but in a way it’s an important feature of this camera, at least compared to the DSLRs, and a comparable feature to say, my EX-1.  It’s not that the camera itself is lazy, but it allows me to be lazy.  Not sloppy, but lazy.  Basically it just works in the way you expect a video camera to work.  A huge part of what I do is shoot interviews, and the look of the big sensor cameras was especially nice for the way I like to shoot interviews, and part of why I was so attracted to the 7D.  But I found that after the setup and the lighting, there was a sense of always needing to be VERY mindful of what was happening technically during the shoot.  I had to make sure that both audio and video recorders were going (although I usually had a sound op who could mind that part).  I had to be mindful of the 12 minute record limit, and never wanted to have to stop a subject mid-answer to press record again.  I had to be very mindful of the focus if the subject was moving much because sometimes these cameras (especially the 5DMk2) yielded depth of field that was TOO shallow (and would require more light than I typically have to stop down the lens).  AND, I (and I know I’m not the only one) had some issues with card errors on the 7D and file corruption.  It only happened to me twice and I never lost anything un-replaceable, but it scared the crap out of me and basically made me cross my fingers whenever shooting.  I learned how to see if it had happened right away, but it made me uneasy.

Anyway, the AF-100 allows me to be lazier because I feel more confident with it as a tool.  I can press record during an interview and know that the sound is getting recorded too.  I can press record and not worry about it stopping in 12 minutes (there is no record limit to speak of).  Focus is certainly still critical but the slightly smaller sensor is a little more forgiving to subtle movements.  AND (and this is a hunch, as I haven’t had it that long) I don’t expect to hear about the widespread clip corruptions like I’ve heard about with the DSLRs.  Basically I can feel more confident using it, and thus be a little more “lazy”.

-The Sensor. The AF-100 has a m4/3 inch sensor.  It’s about half as big as the Canon 5DMk2 sensor and .8x the size of my 7D sensor.  And 2.5x the size of my EX-1 sensor.  It’s plenty big I think.  There was a lot of talk about crop factor and I found that tiresome.  People have been spoiled by full-frame 35mm sized imagers in the 5DMk2, which are also MUCH bigger than motion picture film sensors.  My buddy Matt Jeppsen has a great post on this.  Anyway, I see the crop factor as a bit of a non-issue, as long as your lens collection takes sensor size (and your needs) into consideration.  A great thing about the m4/3 sensor is that almost all still and cinema lenses will cover the sensor, and adapters are readily available for pretty much any lens mount, whether it’s PL, Canon, Nikon, Contax, standard 4/3, etc.  So if you’ve built up a collection of lenses for your DSLR or digital cinema (or film) cameras, chances are they’ll work fine on the AF-100.  With that in mind, my plan was to use my existing lenses (a set of nice older manual Nikon primes, and a set of 3 nice Canon zooms) on this camera.  I have an adapter for the Nikons and it works great.  I have an adapter for my Canons and it works (in such that it does mount on the camera) but because the lenses all have electronically controlled apertures, you cannot change the iris.  So an f2.8 lens is stuck at f2.8.  I knew this would be the case, and a company called Birger Engineering is coming out with an adapter in the next couple months to address this, and then Canon lenses should work much better.  I think most AF-100 owners, with a collection of Canon lenses will find the Birger to be what they need.

This week, though, I took a somewhat different approach than what I had anticipated and bought 2 new lenses, and plan to get rid of a couple of my Canon lenses.  I decided on buying two Olympus 4/3 lenses, the 14-35 f2 and the 35-100 f2.  These are big and somewhat pricey but are highly regarded as some of the sharpest (and definitely the fastest) zoom lenses available.  For most of my work, zoom lenses make a lot more sense than switching prime lenses.  The biggest factor in buying these lenses was that I could get them now, and the Birger may not be readily available for a month or so and I need this setup to work for me in about a week.  The other major factor was the focal length of these particular lenses.  Having mounted my Canon 17-55 and 70-200 on the AF-100 for interviews, I found I was sort of missing something.  With my normal interview setup I found that I really wanted to be between 50 and 75mm, so basically right where I had a gap in my lenses.  Now, I certainly could just adjust the camera a bit, but I found that I didn’t have one lens that really allowed me to get the wider and tighter shots I like to get during an interview.  The 35-100 will solve that.  Plus these lenses, at f2, are VERY bright, so that’s a big plus.  The lenses were delivered yesterday but I haven’t received the appropriate adapter for them yet, so I haven’t had a chance to play with them.

Olympus Zuiko 35-100 and 14-35 zooms

-The Picture. This post is getting pretty long.  Congrats if you made it this far.  I’ll just finish by talking about the image quality.  So far I am quite pleased.  Again, I have not had a huge amount of time with it yet, or shot under lots of different conditions, but what I have seen, I am happy with.  I think shallow depth-of-field junkies should not be disappointed, and I actually prefer that at a given focal length/aperture it’s not TOO shallow, like you might get on a camera like the 5D.  The picture is sharp and reminds me of my EX-1 with shallower depth of field.  I find the skin tones to be quite rich, and the picture overall to be much more colorful.  There are a lot of settings to the picture, and they make a huge difference, and I am still figuring out what works best in what circumstances.  I did find that out of the box, the image is a bit noisy, but there are a few settings (particularly the Matrix/Detail settings) which make the image much cleaner.  I don’t expect ever having to have someone change their wardrobe due to moire, which has happened on a few occasions with the 7D, as Panasonic has done a good job solving that problem on the AF-100. There are some critics who say that the AF-100 lacks some of the nicer highlight rolloff on the Canon DSLRs.  That might be true, but again, there are a lot of settings to adjust for this, as well as the proper tools (like zebras and a waveform monitor) which help to nail exposure.

Hopefully in the coming weeks/months I’ll be posting new projects with this camera, but overall I think it’s a really nice addition to my gear kit.  I also hope that the somewhat clique-ish DSLR community will still be friends with me, as I’ve departed a little bit from being a die-hard DSLR shooter.

So enjoy our video, and have Happy Holidays and a New Year!

-Benjamin, Kate, Owen & Schnitzel

This is the third project I’ve done for Rosie’s Place, and this one was shown at a 1500-person fundraising event they had this week, where they raised over $400,000 (which exceeded their expectations by $100,000).  They are certainly an inspiring organization to work with, as they do a lot of good for the impoverished women in the community.  I often joke that my job is not curing cancer, but when I get to work with organizations that are doing work like this, I do feel like I am helping them achieve their goals.  (And actually, I recently did work for a company that IS working to cure cancer, so….)

There were some challenges on this project (as there are on most jobs).  First was the logistics of the schedule.  This all had to come together pretty quickly and our concept sort of came together as we were shooting.  That’s obviously not ideal, but was just the way it was this year.  It made for a few more editing challenges (as poor pre-production planning often does), but we made it work.  The past 2 projects I did for Rosie’s was largely interview based, but we decided to move away from that model this time.  We wanted to do something a little more like a PSA.  We also knew that we wanted to tie into the theme for their event this year, which was “The Power of Words”.  The framework that I used (which you’ll see in the video) sort of came together right before the second shoot and ultimately (I think) helped to hold the piece together, and just involved a last minute trip to Home Depot to get the necessary supplies.  The other big challenge of shooting at Rosie’s is that it is not the most photogenic facility, and also, a lot of the guests do not want to be photographed or filmed.  We are obviously very conscious and respectful of the latter issue, but it often created a shortage of people and activities to shoot.  On that note, shooting the video this year on the Canon 7D, did make things a little less cumbersome and I certainly felt (and looked) less intrusive.  I think that did make some of the women more comfortable, and worked to my advantage for the portrait shots I used at the end, because the women just assumed I was taking their photo.

Shooting with 7D, did allow me to work a little lighter and faster.  We had limited time and space (a lot of the rooms at Rosie’s are VERY small) to light much, so being on a smaller, faster camera worked out well.  We popped in a bounce card, or a small softbox if we needed to, but it was pretty run and gun for the most part.  Audio wise we recorded to a Tascam DR-100 with a Sanken CS-3e shotugn on a boom (for those curious).

The edit was a little more “effecty” than many of the projects I do, but I think it worked out well for this, and (hopefully) didn’t seem overdone.  Like most projects, there are certainly things I wish I had changed or done differently, but that’s always the case.  But the video went over very well at the event and the folks at Rosie’s Place were thrilled, so that’s really all that matters.

So check it out.  Enjoy!

Anyway, I feel like I am still in the “figuring everything out” stage, but here are my first impressions.  The monitor is small, but I think it’s the perfect size.  Bigger than the on-camera LCDs on both the 7D and EX-1, but not too big to mount on camera.  A few people can easily get around this thing to check out what’s what, which was difficult with the 7D (which usually had a Z-finder attached too).  The monitor seems very rugged; you could probably drop it from several feet and it’d be fine.  But don’t try it with mine, please (or take my word that it would survive a fall).  The inputs are all well laid out and the connections feel very solid.  In terms of accessories I got the Canon 5D/7D battery option which works great and allows me to use my existing Canon batteries (it takes 1 or 2), the acrylic screen covers (which I think everyone should get with this) and the HDMI splitter.  This was also a big selling point for me.  I hate the fact that with the 7D, the on-camera LCD shuts off when you plug in a monitor.  If that was not the case, I’d be happy to hand the SmallHD to a client or director and shoot with the on-camera LCD.  But since that is not an option, the splitter (which is small and can be powered off the monitor’s USB port) allows me to feed my larger Dell HDMI monitor that I sometimes use.  And if I am working in the world of HD-SDI, the monitor has a loop through so I can send an SDI signal to another monitor.  Basically it has all the ins and outs you could want.

He should look happier to be on a SmallHD monitor

In terms of image, let’s start with sharpness.  It’s VERY sharp.  I think you could focus from this thing with your eyes closed.  Seriously.  The first shoot I did with this last week was with my EX-1 and the image looked almost 3D.  On the 7D, focusing is now much easier than working off the relatively low-resolution on-camera LCD.  Use this and you have no excuse for out-of-focus images.  The monitor is also very bright with a fair amount of contrast.  This makes for a very punchy image, but the downside is that if you don’t make some adjustments (of which there are many via the menus) you may under-expose some of your images.  Since I am so used to shooting with the EX-1 LCD, I figured if I could get the SmallHD to match that, that’d be a good start (although I’m not positive that creates the most accurate image) and I lowered the brightness, saturation and contrast and tweaked the green gain and got it pretty close.  Are they identical looking, no, but I don’t get too clinical about this stuff.  Adjusting it for the 7D will take a little more work since I can’t see the on-cam LCD at the same time.  I haven’t had a chance to do this yet, but I plan to shoot some footage, ingest it into FCP, and bring it up there, while playing the same clip from the camera on the SmallHD and seeing how close I can get the two images.  I think that should work pretty well, and again, I just want to get in the ballpark here, as I do a fair amount of adjusting in post anyway.  I think with this monitor I’ll be able to white balance more accurately on the 7D (which can sometimes be a pain, even with the Kelvin dial).  The monitor also has many more presets than you could need, so you can set one for each camera you use.  Bonus.

I certainly think this monitor will be more freeing in how I can shoot with the 7D.  Not having a swiveling LCD on the camera is limiting (which the Canon 60D solved) in terms of shooting above or below the camera.  I haven’t actually used the monitor and the 7D on a job yet, but played around with it while visiting my parents this weekend.  I wanted to set the camera up in a small package with no rails or follow focus, so I just put the monitor on a small hotshoe mount on the top of the camera and filmed our dogs playing in the yard.  This setup allowed me to shoot handheld with the camera low to the ground.  In bright light it’s definitely hard to see the screen, but the excellent sun-shade that comes with the monitor could have solved that.  If I was in the shade judging exposure was a little tough but getting focus was quite easy.  I think for extended handheld shoots, I’d probably mount the monitor on an arm onto my shoulder rig, but this setup works in a pinch (unless I needed to shoot people standing up, as it works best with the camera on your chest, which would have you pointing it up at them… I’m short).

There’s a lot more in the menus to play with.  The focus assist seems a little odd but I may not have figured it out.  There’s a built in histogram, 1:1 mode, and a cool picture-in-picture mode if you plug 2 inputs into the monitor.  In short I think this is an excellent investment that I imagine I’ll use with any camera for the next few years.  It’s not entirely necessary with the EX-1 (which has an awesome on-camera LCD), unless needed as a client/director monitor, but will make DSLR work much better.  I also think it’s a better investment than the new breed of EVFs that have been introduced in the last week for DSLRs.  It’s not that much more expensive, does pretty much the same thing, and is way more versatile.  I definitely give this monitor 2 thumbs up.  Way to go SmallHD!  Worth the wait, in my opinion.

It seems that nowadays, though, that cost of entry into the professional field of video has plummeted to an all time-low.  The 2-year old “HDSLR Revolution” has spawned an amazing number of new video makers into the industry, snatching up these highly affordable cameras and going out and creating content and landing jobs.  Our inexpensive cameras are being used by the big boys, and we are seeing prime-time tv shows, commercials, and movies being shot on cameras that you can buy at WalMart.  Suddenly it doesn’t take deep pockets, bank loans or strong business plans to buy your way into the industry.

Is this good?  Maybe.  Maybe not.

A little backstory:

When I entered this industry about ten years ago the cost of entry was just starting to take a substantial drop.  The “DV Revolution” had begun with the advent of cameras like the Sony VX-1000 and the Canon XL-1 in the late ’90s,  people could create high-end looking videos at a fraction of the cost then it had been just a few years earlier.  Those cameras which ran in the price range of 3500-5000 were being picked up by people as an alternative to the Betacam and DigiBeta cameras that cost tens of thousands of dollars.  Were they equal?  Not really.  But that’s not what I want to talk about.  So I entered the field during the age when MiniDV and DVCam were very acceptable formats.  My first camera I owned was the JVC-DV500.  I loved it.  Shoulder mount, 1/2″ chip, interchangeable lens.  Cost about $5K.  I used it for about 4 years and made a lot of videos with it.  During that time (while working on staff at a production company) I was acquiring a lot of my own gear.  A light kit here, a nicer tripod there, etc.  It was a piece-meal approach, but it was fine, and when I went freelance I had the necessary equipment I needed to get started on my own.  Had I entered the industry when the necessary camera to produce professional products cost $30-60K, then I might not have afforded to work (and go freelance) in the manner in which I did.  And I’d like to think that I bring something good to the table, that myself and the people I work with benefit from.

So now I’ve noticed two sides to the current argument.  There are the seasoned professionals who have invested time and money into their craft, and they are concerned or complain that the market is becoming over-saturated with content producers who have run out and picked up these cheap cameras, then called themselves pros.  These experienced pros are feeling threatened by this scenario.  On the flip side, we have lots of new entrants in the field who are displaying massive amounts of talent and success.  They might have previously been financially unable to enter into the video field, but now because of these cheaper tools, they are given that opportunity.  As someone who falls (to a certain extent) into both of these parties, I can see both sides to this argument.  I have certainly been inspired by the more and more great work that I am seeing produced, but also see a lot of bad stuff being made, which makes me feel confident in my place in the market.  The bottom line, though, is that with a huge number of content producers, everyone needs to be trying their hardest to make the best stuff they can make.

What I have seen a little bit online, though, which has bothered me is a sense of entitlement by members of the “HDSLR Revolution” to cheap, professional gear.  They have entered the field at a time (and grown accustomed to) creating content with gear that they can buy and pay off very quickly.  And now, as I see the manufacturers starting to introduce newer cameras (based on the strengths of DSLRs) but geared towards the video-pros, a lot of the newbies to market are annoyed that these new tools are more expensive.  And we’re not even talking about super expensive stuff (relatively speaking).  We’re talking about cameras (like the new Panasonic AF-100) which will run about $5k, and should be the answer to a lot of the faults of the DSLR cameras, with a lot of their strengths.  In the scheme of things this is still a pretty small price tag for a camera of this caliber, and people should feel lucky that the days of needing to spend tens of thousands of dollars (on a camera) to have a shot at “making it” in this industry are well behind us.  But I think these people need to also realize that the camera you can buy at WalMart was not going to continue to become the de facto professional tool.

What do you think; does it help or hurt the industry that we have this low cost of entry now?

Finding music to accompany my videos is easily the hardest part of post-production, and I feel strongly that the decision can make or break the mood of the final piece.  It can easily take hours to find what I am looking for, and I often will preview dozens of tracks against what I am working for before I find the right piece.  (I actually find it to be an agonizing and painful process at times.)  I have also had the (crushing) experience of finding a track that I think works perfectly and then have a client come back and say they want something else.  I think that is the hardest part of picking music, because it is so subjective.  I have also had clients give me music to use for a video that I felt strongly was not right for the piece, and then it’s about having a discussion with them, but ultimately the decision falls on the person with the checkbook.

I think if you look at some of my videos, you will (hopefully) feel that music plays a strong role in each of them, and that it has been carefully selected for each piece.  There is a mix of originally composed music, production music, as well as commercial (un-licensed) tracks.  (The use of un-licensed tracks is a topic of further discussion, and something I don’t use for paid client work, but will use for personal demos.)  In an ideal world I could always use original compositions for each of my videos, as there is generally no better way to get music that fits the mood, as well as the visual cues of the video, but it is often cost and time prohibitive.  The two composers who I have used most often are Jason Jordan and Russel Wolff, two very talented guys.

Which brings us to production music.  I feel we’ve come a long way since I started in this business 10 years ago, when it comes to the offerings of production music.  Back then, a production company typically purchased a library of CDs (generally for an ample cost), with a wide array of tracks.  But I always found that the selection was typically quite lacking, and among the hundreds (or thousands) of music cuts in the library there were only a small handful of tracks that did not SOUND like production music, and I found that I was always going back to the same tracks.  Searching through the CDs was generally a pain in the butt, and in general it seemed like you paid a lot for a small selection of usable material.

When I went freelance 3 and a half years ago, I thought I’d have to invest in some sort of music library but was not looking forward to doing so.  Fortunately I found a wide array of web-based libraries where you pay by the track, and the search options, as well as the quality and diversity of tracks, was much higher quality.  The cost to license an individual track ranges from site to site, and is generally more expensive than the per track cost if you own a library, but I’d rather only pay for what I want to be using.  I still find that there are a lot of tracks on these sites that sounds more like elevator music than what I’d want accompanying my videos, but for the most part there is a lot of high quality tracks.

So without further ado, here are a few of my go-to websites for production music:

Audio Network:

This site has a great interface for searching and previewing tracks.  I can play a track in the web browser and demo it against my Final Cut Pro timeline as a quick way of seeing if it fits in with the piece.  There are a few composers that contribute to this site that I go back to again and again, but I’m always finding new tracks and composers here.  Almost every track has several versions in different lengths, mixes (drums or no drums, for instance) which is super useful.  They also have different licensing costs depending on the usage, starting at around a dollar (for personal use), so I’ll download a bunch of tracks for a specific job, then buy the appropriate license once the client signs off on the video and whichever tracks we use.  I am also finding that I am hearing tracks from this site on commercials, reality shows, etc, more and more, which I think is a testament to the material that is here.

Non-Stop Music:

I recently discovered this site (thanks to someone on Twitter) and am just starting to use it.  They have a pretty deep selection, but the sound quality is all top-notch.  They have a range of licensing types, and will setup custom libraries if you want to purchase a blanket license for parts of their collection.  Their customer support is excellent and I’ve spoken with a rep from their company a few times.  As part of their service you can contact them about a project you are working on and they will (free of charge) suggest tracks for your project.  I haven’t taken advantage of that yet, but I plan to.

With Etiquette:

I haven’t used this site yet, but I like where their head is at.  They seem to be catered more to the wedding market, with mostly non-instrumental tracks, but the quality is stuff that I’d listen to on my ipod.  They only have a small selection of artists now and I think they need to expand on this (and could easily do so), but what they have is great stuff.  I imagine I’ll have a project at some point where I’ll go here for a track.

There are countless other music sites out there and I’d love to hear what you use.  Happy scoring!

Instead of sending out the typical printed birth announcements, Kate and I decided to create a video to send to our friends and family.  I am very pleased with how this turned out (but it’s not too hard when you have an adorable little baby to work with).  Enjoy!

At NAB I had zeroed in on the (similarly configured) Miller systems, but then went to the Manfrotto booth and saw the new 504HD systems. (I owned a 501 system before buying the Sachtler and was unimpressed, and generally thought Manfrotto heads were just so-so.) This new head was very impressive though. Large and beefy. It has really nice adjustments for drag and tilt and counterbalance, which seem like an upgrade over previous models, and reminded me of the Sachtler heads. The 535, and taller 536, carbon legs fit the bill for sticks that could go really tall or really low. So I finally ordered one last week. Oddly B+H had the kit (for $989), but it said 6-10 weeks delivery. Then I saw that they had the sticks and head separately and in-stock so I ordered the two, with a cheaper bag, and the total came to $850. Score. And it was about $600 cheaper than the similar Miller system. (A note on the B+H specs online: It lists the kit as weighing 8lbs. It also lists the head as weighing 6.4lbs and the sticks at 5lbs. That does not add up to 8lbs. I don’t have a scale at home but it weighs about the same as my DV8 with carbon legs.)

So let’s take a look at the system (with a sort of side by side comparison to my Sachtler DV8):

Both sets without extensions (Manfrotto and Sachtler)

Both sets at lowest height (Manfrotto and Sachtler)

Both sets at maximum height (Manfrotto and Sachtler)

As you can see, they unfold to about the same height, but the Manfrotto can go much lower and higher than the Sachtler (according to the specs the minimum height is 16″ and the maximum is 72″).  This totally fulfills my top priorities in a second set of sticks.  If you’ve used the Sachtler Speed Lock leg system, you immediately fall in love with the way that one lock on each leg adjusts both stages of the legs.  The Manfrotto does not do this, so it requires 2 latches per leg.  Not a big deal, as this is the norm on many tripods, but just something to know.

Leg locks on the Manfrotto 535 legs

Let’s move on to the head.  As I mentioned, the drag, tilt and counterbalance adjustment knobs feel top notch.  This really does seem much nicer than the price ($399 for the head), and is certainly comparable to the DV8 (now called the Sachtler FSB-8) head, which retails for almost $1600.  The whole thing feels built like a tank which is important for a piece of gear that could last decades.  I love that it has a light on the level bubble, so you can easily level it in the dark.  I know this has become a more common feature on newer tripod heads, but this is the first one that I’ve owned with that, and it will certainly come in handy.

Tilt Adjustment Knob

Drag Adjustment Knob with Light

The head seems really smooth.  Settings of “0″ on drag and tilt are as close to friction free as you could want, and the heaviest settings will help to produce nice slow tilts and pans on heavier cameras.  The stops and starts are very smooth, and the overall balance is perfect.

The only hitch is for people looking at this system for DSLR video use.  The head is certainly bigger than it needs to be for just a DSLR, although many times people kit out their DSLRs with a lot of accessories and will appreciate the heft of the 504 head.  The majority of the time I am shooting with my Canon 7D, I have it mounted on a sort-of custom rails system.  When I do that, the Manfrotto plate (which is longer than previous plates, I believe) is just short enough to not get in the way of my Zacuto Z-finder.

Rail-mounted 7D with Z-finder and Manfrotto Plate

But, if you plan to mount the DSLR directly to the tripod, then the plate extends off of the back and I cannot fully attach my Z-finder as it hits the plate.

7D mounted directly to 504HD head

I have a hunch that you could use a shorter Manfrotto plate on this head, which would remedy this problem but I don’t have one here to try.  If you are looking for a tripod head/system to ONLY use for a DSLR, this may be overkill, but I would rather have a head that is over-rated, because I assume that the next generation of cameras will be larger, more like my EX-1.  The legs, though, are great, so you could certainly pair it with a smaller 75mm ball head if you like.  I tend to find, though, that the smaller heads lack a lot of the adjustments, and are generally not as smooth as the bigger heads.  Overall, it is not the lightest tripod you can find, but it is by far the heaviest I have used, and it does feel super sturdy.

So that’s the system, in a nutshell.  I look forward to taking it into battle next week as my shooting schedule ramps up again.

Sony EX-1 and 504HD head

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