C200: Two camera C200 interview

LOL Erich you're a cheap dude. Now I'm beginning to understand how you can afford all that gear. If you have to do the budgeting for PAs you're doing something wrong. Client should be finding and booking PAs.
 
Most of the time I'm shooting as a one man band and my approach has been to reduce the amount of gear brought on set. It makes my work easier and I can work faster and get more footage. Now I do mostly corporate videos so no need to bring all my gear. If the client wants PAs or a second shooter it's up to them to assemble the team as I'm only offering me and my gear as a service.
 
Working hard has nothing to do with it. Most of us work hard.

Eric, you talk out of both sides of your mouth. In the last few years you have gone from this guy that thought the little two minute pieces he was shooting on Clergy were documentaries and acted like there was no reason to shoot on anything except their C300 or C100 to now having taken on this "I'm better than you, because I shoot an Arri with cine glass" attitude and saying that you charge higher rates than most and you want to buy more ultra high-end equipment, not to necessarily make your product better, but just to charge more, and to be a high-end commercial DP, but then you turn around and brag about how proud you are of, essentially doing what you can to deprive others of work and working like a low budget shooter, hauling all of their equipment around, by themself down the sidewalk in a major metropolitan city, all in the name of saving a few bucks. And you think that this makes you sound like a genius.

We've butted heads numerous times over the years on here, but there have been times where we are on the same page and I have "given the devil his due", but honestly you've been coming across as a braggadocios kid who just wants attention, lately. Why else come onto a camera forum and post a listing for a 5K-6k sq ft house you're wanting to buy or mention that you're driving around the country in a $100K RV, when "hey, I drive around and stay in my own RV instead of hotels", would serve the same point? But not mentioning the six figure price tag wouldn't serve your goal of trying to establish your "superiority" via spending money. Or as it's otherwise sometimes know, "Conspicuous Consumption".

Your math may be correct, but I'd agree that the totals are probably exaggerated. You're making these claims based on actually doing these things 100 times a year to arrive at these fantastical sounding "savings".

Maybe you do have clients that just say, "here's $3K, make the shoot happen" and they don't care how you accomplish it, but mine(and a lot of others) don't. When they hire a two man crew, there better be a two-man crew show up. When they fork out the two man crew rate, it's for a two man crew. You show up by yourself, they're not paying you all of it and letting you pocket the audio portion. You're gonna get paid less, because the other portion was for another crew member. I've also been around enough corporate shoots to know that a lot of those hiring know what to expect when doling out money for a shoot and if they're paying those kinds of rates, and someone shows up solo, they know it's not for the good of the end product. If I was hiring a crew and I was quoted $3300 for a crew, I'm expecting at the bare minimum a two man crew, but possibly three. There are variables at play, though.

Bottom line, it's your business and you can run it however you want and see fit to, but as a veteran of this industry, and if I don't know you and I hear this story, I'm thinking this guy is more worried about just making a buck off of me instead of taking care of my projects needs.
 
Run&Gun said:
Working hard has nothing to do with it. Most of us work hard.

Eric, you talk out of both sides of your mouth. In the last few years you have gone from this guy that thought the little two minute pieces he was shooting on Clergy were documentaries and acted like there was no reason to shoot on anything except their C300 or C100 to now having taken on this "I'm better than you, because I shoot an Arri with cine glass" attitude and saying that you charge higher rates than most and you want to buy more ultra high-end equipment, not to necessarily make your product better, but just to charge more, and to be a high-end commercial DP, but then you turn around and brag about how proud you are of, essentially doing what you can to deprive others of work and working like a low budget shooter, hauling all of their equipment around, by themself down the sidewalk in a major metropolitan city, all in the name of saving a few bucks. And you think that this makes you sound like a genius.

We've butted heads numerous times over the years on here, but there have been times where we are on the same page and I have "given the devil his due", but honestly you've been coming across as a braggadocios kid who just wants attention, lately. Why else come onto a camera forum and post a listing for a 5K-6k sq ft house you're wanting to buy or mention that you're driving around the country in a $100K RV, when "hey, I drive around and stay in my own RV instead of hotels", would serve the same point? But not mentioning the six figure price tag wouldn't serve your goal of trying to establish your "superiority" via spending money. Or as it's otherwise sometimes know, "Conspicuous Consumption".

Your math may be correct, but I'd agree that the totals are probably exaggerated. You're making these claims based on actually doing these things 100 times a year to arrive at these fantastical sounding "savings".

Maybe you do have clients that just say, "here's $3K, make the shoot happen" and they don't care how you accomplish it, but mine(and a lot of others) don't. When they hire a two man crew, there better be a two-man crew show up. When they fork out the two man crew rate, it's for a two man crew. You show up by yourself, they're not paying you all of it and letting you pocket the audio portion. You're gonna get paid less, because the other portion was for another crew member. I've also been around enough corporate shoots to know that a lot of those hiring know what to expect when doling out money for a shoot and if they're paying those kinds of rates, and someone shows up solo, they know it's not for the good of the end product. If I was hiring a crew and I was quoted $3300 for a crew, I'm expecting at the bare minimum a two man crew, but possibly three. There are variables at play, though.

Bottom line, it's your business and you can run it however you want and see fit to, but as a veteran of this industry, and if I don't know you and I hear this story, I'm thinking this guy is more worried about just making a buck off of me instead of taking care of my projects needs.
Click to expand...

I'm not super into making comments about other users on forums.

I think Eric is a mix of fact and his wonky sense of humor. Not my style, not a fan of it, but I can just see it.

I don't think every word he writes is fact. It's that humor mix.

I'm more into using downvote or ignore.

I don't get worked up enough to go on and on about somebody. If I did, I'd be asking myself why do I care so much about what somebody else is saying/doing if it doesn't directly impact me.
 
Stills2HDConvert said:
I'm not super into making comments about other users on forums.

I think Eric is a mix of fact and his wonky sense of humor. Not my style, not a fan of it, but I can just see it.

I don't think every word he writes is fact. It's that humor mix.

I'm more into using downvote or ignore.

I don't get worked up enough to go on and on about somebody. If I did, I'd be asking myself why do I care so much about what somebody else is saying/doing if it doesn't directly impact me.
Click to expand...

There is his sense of humor to take into account. I'm a huge smart-ass, myself and some of his posts, you have to appreciate a dry, smart-ass sense of humor to get. Some I think is funny, some I don't. But that can be said about most people. Not many of us are batting 1.000.

It's not that his posts affect me directly, but there are people that come on here that may be new to all of this and then think that this is all SOP, when it's not.
 
KarlSutton said:
Any suggestions for 2-3 crew utilizing big source setups in small spaces like modest living rooms? That you can fly with?
Click to expand...

The Litemats are probably the easiest choice. Alternatively, a large or medium Chimera with either a Chimera triolet kit or a k5600 bug light will get you there in a small amount of space. The large chimera is a wonder for controlled soft lighting.
 
You're probably right about overbragging. I've come into some nice things and the temptation is to brag about it but ultimately it probably annoys more than impresses many people, and as such should be toned down or eliminated.

The reason I said "$100k RV" is because you made it sound like I was living like a bum, and if I'd just said "RV," well, bums often live in cheap run down vans, in which case you could still be thinking I'm living a bum life which had seemed to bother you back when I was sleeping in my SUV (even though it never bothered me to sleep in my SUV).

I already stated I don't show up as a one-man-band when hired as a crew, so I don't know why you're restating why that's a bad and dishonest idea, because it's not something I do. You have a lot of network clients who are used to paying a certain rate for DP and crew and have certain crew expectations. The corporate world is different, where rates and crew expectations are all over the place.

Does no one here ever get clients who can afford their normal rate, but cannot afford additional crew as well, yet want additional crew? Happens to me fairly often. And if they'd originally asked for crew included but at your normal rate for just you, then has suggesting doing the job as a one-man-band not ever happened? That's all I'm suggesting here. Otherwise, you have a few other options, either pass on the job, do that job at a significantly lower rate than your normal rates, or ask for more money, but most clients don't like to go far over budget.

I'm only suggesting to the client to eliminate crew when they can't afford my rates with crew, and I also quote for just myself if a client doesn't specify needing crew, but when a client asks for crew and can afford my rates, then I'm happy to provide crew, which I slightly upcharge.

Right now I have a client who said my rates are high for them after I quoted them a one-man-band interview setup, and when saying that, they also informed me they need four people miced at once for some four person talk show style interviews, at which point I tell them we'd most likely want at least an audio guy as me micing and monitoring four people while camera operating is a bit beyond the scope of what I'd recommend. But at this point, after we add on the audio guy to the budget, when they were struggling to meet my rate without the audio guy, I don't know if I'll be able to land the job.

As far as this whole concept of crew providing superior quality, I simply disagree in many cases. If I'm setting up for an interview with or without a PA, and say it's a short walk to my car and I can bring as much gear as needed, the PA in no way improves the quality of the product I'm giving the client. Even a gaffer I feel generally in no way improves the quality as typically I don't feel the gaffer is better at lighting interviews than me, particularly if they're using my equipment, which I know better than them. Most of the time they're setting my lights up how I tell them to, which is exactly how I would have done it if I was on my own.

Now sure, if you bring in additional equipment (like a grip truck and HMIs) with a skilled gaffer, then it can improve the product, but that's not what I'm talking about here. It's not uncommon that a client asks for a gaffer to use my equipment which I'm super familiar with for a basic interview, and if they're paying for it, I'm like, "Okay, I'll hire a gaffer," but I always feel it's a waste of money because the gaffer is just doing what I instruct them to do which I would have done on my own if they weren't there. And it gives zero benefit to the client or the product. I setup my lights before I hit record, so I'm simply not seeing Rob's idea that having a gaffer for an interview "allows the DP to focus on composition." The only way I can see that is say you're Hollywooding an LED light for a run n' gun interview and have to focus on composition while literally holding the light. But otherwise, perhaps Rob can elaborate how having setup lights an hour ago affects his ability to focus on composition while filming.

Okay, so maybe setup is 10 minutes quicker with a PA, maybe, but given we typically have 1-2 hours to setup, the setups often don't need to be done in a hurry (at least for my shoots), so again, this is really of so little benefit. They just spent $250-$300 for a PA or $600 for a gaffer because they didn't want me to show up 10 minutes early and do the same thing. Okay. I don't understand that. And in many cases the PA doesn't know the gear (particularly for me who work out of state with crews I haven't worked with before) so they're just setting up light stands but beyond that I still need to do 90% of the work, meanwhile, I may have some chit chat with the PA which may slow things down, at which point, in my experience, having a PA (again, when the shoot location is not super far from parking) is often not faster or providing a better product. And if it's not faster and doesn't provide a better product, then what are they doing aside from costing the client more money or taking money out of what we're making? Well, we now have less stuff to carry.

I just often see people complain about schlepping gear, and I don't get the big deal here, as I typically don't mind schlepping gear. Do none of you workout? You go to the gym and you lift hundreds of pounds, and you call that healthy exercise and you feel good about it, but you drag around 100 lbs of video equipment at your job, and suddenly you need a PA to help you do that and feel like you're some low life videographer if you have to do it all.

Now if we bring some math into the equation here and say a PA makes the shoot 10 minutes quicker, and they cost $200, that's essentially $600 per hour of time saved, which is beyond what most DPs are making, at which point it's more cost efficient to have the DP work 10 minutes longer, not to mention most DPs go off of day rates so if the client wasn't planning to max out their day rate then the 10 minutes is essentially free. And from my POV, if I'm saving $200 from not hiring a PA out of my pocket, and it means I need to do 10 extra minutes of schlepping, but at $600 per hour, then I'm happy to make $600 per hour to do 10 minutes of schlepping. You act like I'm pinching pennies and going far out of my way to make $200, but the extra work I have to do is so minimal and $600 per hour is considerably more than I typically make, so it's well worth it to me.

And there are other issues with PAs and gaffers, such as they're more likely to damage my equipment than I am, and a very common and annoying thing when others use my lighting gear is they're constantly unplugging power cables which I prefer to keep plugged into the lights, and then those cables get misplaced, which then slows down the next shoot, they repack gear differently than how I do so again things get misplaced and have to be found, etc.

As far as what someone said about the DP not being the one to provide the crew to the client, in my marketing I personally list that I also provide crewing services, as I feel clients are more likely to hire you if you're a one-stop-shop that means they don't have to keep doing a lot of work to find crew, as you've got it covered from there, as well as often knowing the DP will get crew he knows and trusts more than whatever random people they'd get. I upcharge the crew rates typically around $100, which unless it's a multi-day shoot, doesn't add up to much. The primary time I really do well on crewing profits is when I'm hiring a DP to do another shoot when I'm double booked, but I'm also often getting gear rental on top of that.

I'm all for crew when needed. I had a producer wanting to hire me for a feature film and he didn't think a gaffer was necessary, and I kept reiterating that while my website does market myself as a one-man-band, I don't work as a one-man-band for feature films and a feature film needs a gaffer. But it's these super simple interview shoots that I feel are often over-crewed, and it bothers me when a client insists on an in my opinion over-sized crew, but needs to talk down my rate to fit their budget.

So, no, I'm not suggesting to eliminate crew when it would significantly lower the quality of the video; I'm suggesting to eliminate unnecessary crew that provides little or no benefit to a production when that's the only way that the client will be able to hire you at a rate you're comfortable working at.
 
Last edited:
If I budgeted for crew accommodation it isn't only because it is the right thing to do. It is also because I want my crew well-rested and, most importantly, safe. I don't want crew sleeping in a van down by the river. If I learned that a crew member pocketed the budget I allocated for their well-being and for the good of the production, I'd be pissed. Unless I learned it was because of some personal financial difficulty such as gambling debt or personal medical expense, I probably would not hire that person again. If they didn't inform me in advance that they were going to pocket the money it would be shady of them. It would be unprofessional of them. I'd be horrified if a young female crew member slept in a parking lot all night instead of using the money I set aside for her to be safe and sound. That just isn't cool.


"I just often see people complain about schlepping gear, and I don't get the big deal here, as I typically don't mind schlepping gear."

I don't mind it either but that doesn't mean it is always smart. You've only been doing this for 9 years, correct? All that schlepping takes a toll after 20, 30 years. If you can pass off some schlepping to a P.A. then do it. Besides, the client might want to talk to you about the next setup and they can't do that if you are schlepping gear that you could have instead let the crew schlep. Feature film cam ops hand the rig off to a Grip as soon as cut is called, right? They do that in order to save their bodies and in order that they can be attentive to the next shot. Even if they are an ultra-fit marathon runner who benches 300 lbs, they let someone else do the schlepping. No machismo, no ego. They just work smart.


Work smarter, not harder- minimize schlepping where you can. Save your body for the shooting. And work safe- don't sleep in a vehicle when a room is being provided for you. Sleeping in a vehicle was all fine and well and sorta fun when we were college kids but we're adult professionals now.

If I come across here as preachy or dik-headed, that isn't my intent. Most of what I "preach" I learned from others more experienced than myself. I've made more than my share of mistakes over the years and done many a dumb thing on shoots. It's a small miracle that I've been able to stay in this biz for as long as I have and have never had to get a real job. Paid to play. It's a great thing if one call pull it off.
 
You’re all for crew when needed and my shoot needed crew. What’s not to understand? I would’ve looked like an absolute moron walking to and from the backlight/monitor making multiple adjustments rather than calling them in quickly. This is only one small example of course. 3x crew members means you can move either 3x more equipment or the same amount of equipment (as one person) 3x faster. Why would it be DP carries zero gear all of a sudden? Speed/more gear contributes to a superior product. I’m struggling to believe you can’t see this. Again being an interview is neither here nor there. If I did everything by myself within the time allowed the results would have to take the hit and it’d be an inappropriate distribution of funds given the brief.
 
Last edited:
Why do people keep implying that I'm billing clients for things that I'm not using or providing? I already said I'm not billing for extra crew and then showing up as a one-man-band, and here I'm saying I'm also not billing the client for hotels and then pocketing the costs by sleeping in my RV. Even if I was, though, you could argue that the RV still costs money, so putting the hotel money towards an RV loan is sort of tomato tomatoe (hmm, I don't know if this phrase works as well in print). But again, I'm not doing that anyway. I've had times where a client offered me a hotel, and I'd thought of suggesting to them that since I have an RV that they can just pay me the hotel money, but so far I've just gone with, "I don't need a hotel," and hope they appreciate the savings, or sometimes I'll accept the hotel and stay there.

As it is, I typically don't bill my clients for travel or hotels because I work as a local almost everywhere I go, and working as a local in many locations is how I keep busy with good rates. I lose a couple or few hundred dollars on gas and vehicle wear and tear for each job I do, but at the rates I'm charging those minor travel costs I'm incurring become pretty negligible and the net result is a solid and profitable business model.

As far as safety, I honestly feel less safe at home given my home burglary than I do sleeping at a rest stop, travel center, or Walmart, where there are 10+ other people sleeping in their cars who could call the police if a break in or mugging started occurring, not to mention that a good number of rest stops and Walmarts have security guards. I don't really feel unsafe sleeping in my vehicle.

You want your crew to be well rested? Then trust them to know how they rest best, as I'd already stated I sleep better in my vehicle than I do in a hotel. I slept peacefully for 12 hours last night in my RV, as I was catching up on sleep from a long work day before that.

As far as gear safety, sleeping in the vehicle with your gear is way safer than dealing with a hotel. At the hotel you're unloading gear, various people see that, then you've got gear in the hotel room while complete strangers (hotel staff who often don't make a lot of money and thus are more apt to thievery) have keys to your room while you're gone from the room for continental breakfast or whatnot, and you're also leaving likely the majority of your larger and heavier equipment in your vehicle unguarded overnight in the hotel parking lot while you bring in the smaller and more expensive items like cameras and lenses. My parents once had their car broken into while we were sleeping at a hotel; I don't know anyone who has gotten robbed while sleeping in their car.

And back to talk of reducing schlepping, now you've got to schlep all this gear in and out of the hotel, as opposed to just leaving it in your vehicle while you peacefully sleep. That additional schlepping also takes more of your time which you're not getting paid for and often cuts into the amount of sleep you're getting.

Sleeping in your vehicle is for college kids? With the popularity of RVs with retired folks, I would think otherwise. Are retired folks sleeping in RVs now just acting like a bunch of unprofessional college kids?


Back to schlepping, I feel like there's healthy workouts and unhealthy workouts. Unhealthy would be having a 30 lb camera on your shoulder for hours at a time, mostly unhealthy because of the imbalance of the camera all going to just one shoulder, hence things like the SteadiGum to help evenly distribute the weight. Pulling a cart with 80 lbs of gear? I dunno if that's really unhealthy. I think we can agree that certain types of physical workouts will increase your health and ability to live longer and healthier in old age. I'm not sure if I buy the idea that carrying and pushing equipment around in your youth is going to shorten your career and make you less healthy in old age, but I'm open to hearing elaboration of why gear shlepping is unhealthy while other workouts are healthy.

I've been filming for 12 years.

I said before, I'm primarily talking about basic interviews. Yeah, for feature films I'm all for having an AC, PA, or grip to help handle the load of equipment. But if it's just some person's house that I'm filming an interview at, which will require four 30 foot (15 second) trips to my car and back instead of two trips with a PA, where the PA's presence makes so little difference, then I'm not seeing how the PA is oh so beneficial to this super simple shoot.
 
Last edited:
rob norton said:
You’re all for crew when needed and my shoot needed crew. What’s not to understand? I would’ve looked like an absolute moron walking to and from the backlight/monitor making multiple adjustments rather than calling them in quickly. This is only one small example of course. 3x crew members means you can move either 3x more equipment or the same amount of equipment (as one person) 3x faster. Why would it be DP carries zero gear all of a sudden? Speed/more gear contributes to a superior product. I’m struggling to believe you can’t see this. Again being an interview is neither here nor there. If I did everything by myself within the time allowed the results would have to take the hit and it’d be an inappropriate distribution of funds given the brief.
Click to expand...
I think I sidetracked into talking about a different kind of production. As I'd said, if you've got a lot of gear such as a grip truck and HMIs (as you did), then having additional crew helps. I'm talking more about smaller shoots where they're using my basic lighting kit, where having additional crew in fact does not help, at least me. I'm just saying, in my experience, with my equipment, having a PA or gaffer for a simple interview shoot often provides little to no benefit to my shoots. Bigger shoot with bigger equipment, then it's helpful, as in the case of your shoot. Sorry if I sidetracked too much.

Of note, a lot of my lights have bluetooth capability, and I find it easier and more efficient to adjust the lights with my phone while looking at the camera monitor than to instruct someone else to do it. Of course this is limited to just adjusting the brightness and colors, and you can't adjust positioning and such with the phone, but positioning tends to need less adjustment anyways.
 
Last edited:
As for thoughts on the interview...

The side shot cutting off his head bothers me. The framing in the BTS photo doesn't have his head cutoff and looks better, so perhaps he moved once rolling and the camera was not adjusted?

You seem to like high contrast ratios and things often look more lit as a result. Perhaps this works for corporate videos. I personally like a more natural look in many cases. I'd also be interested to see some wider angle interview samples from you at some point, say shooting on a 24mm focal length.

I don't have my C300 next to me to try it out, but what is that +-0CC thing next to the 5600K WB? The C100 had white balance shift, the Amira has +- green with WB, but the C300 Mark I did not have white balance shift, and the Mark II I believe you have to go into the custom picture to mess with various settings to get adjustments in those regards but it's not so streamlined...so, seeing that, is there a way to do white balance shift in the settings there? I just don't recall seeing +-0CC on my C300 Mark II, so maybe that's just a C200 thing? I wonder if the C500 Mark II will have that.

Why do you need a 1.8K HMI for this shot if you're using 4 stops of ND? Would not a light one quarter as bright have sufficed, in which case you could have used say a Skypanel or Gemini and gotten similar results?

I need to buy a 6 x 6 and/or 8 x 8, but like you that's the point where you start wanting more crew and a bigger vehicle to transport combos and such too. I'm tempted to buy a 1.8K HMI. Super popular light, but HMIs intimidate me, hence my lean towards LEDs. The Aputure 600D, Hive 575, and moreso the Creamsource Space X have the ability to replace a 1.8K HMI at half or less than half the cost. For interviews, I feel like I'd prefer the LEDs, particularly in terms of heat and noise. Most of the time you just need a soft light. For narrative and commercial work, the HMI's ability to simulate sun or moonlight from a single punchy point source gives it the upper hand.


rob norton said:
I think 6x/8x frames become a pretty strong line in the sand for bringing on extra help. In the past I've "t-boned" a single frame length with diffusion fabric but you obviously lose the ability to tilt the frame.
Click to expand...
I often use reflector kits with a light stand that holds reflectors, which means I can tilt the reflector. On the last shoot I did, I tilted it as usual, but paused to think, "How does tilting it make things better?" Setting up the stand to tilt the diffusion takes more time than simply putting a clip on it and letting it hang at a fully vertical angle. So, what is the benefit of tilting such that the diffusion is at the same angle the light is?
 
Eric Coughlin said:
I often use reflector kits with a light stand that holds reflectors, which means I can tilt the reflector. On the last shoot I did, I tilted it as usual, but paused to think, "How does tilting it make things better?" Setting up the stand to tilt the diffusion takes more time than simply putting a clip on it and letting it hang at a fully vertical angle. So, what is the benefit of tilting such that the diffusion is at the same angle the light is?
Click to expand...

I recently bought a set of 6' wag flags for quick set-ups after seeing them on a couple of jobs. They really are a problem solver for creating large sources in a cramped space. They are less obtrusive and lighter than a 6' t-bone and they also work great for teasers.
 
cpreston said:
I recently bought a set of 6' wag flags for quick set-ups after seeing them on a couple of jobs. They really are a problem solver for creating large sources in a cramped space. They are less obtrusive and lighter than a 6' t-bone and they also work great for teasers.
Click to expand...
That looks like an interesting setup.

 
Eric Coughlin said:
Sleeping in your vehicle is for college kids? With the popularity of RVs with retired folks, I would think otherwise. Are retired folks sleeping in RVs now just acting like a bunch of unprofessional college kids?
Click to expand...


"if someone like me preferred or prefers sleeping in their SUV "

"I don’t like hotels, don’t sleep well in them, and sleep better in my car"
 
Eric Coughlin said:
I think I sidetracked into talking about a different kind of production. As I'd said, if you've got a lot of gear such as a grip truck and HMIs (as you did), then having additional crew helps. I'm talking more about smaller shoots where they're using my basic lighting kit, where having additional crew in fact does not help, at least me. I'm just saying, in my experience, with my equipment, having a PA or gaffer for a simple interview shoot often provides little to no benefit to my shoots. Bigger shoot with bigger equipment, then it's helpful, as in the case of your shoot. Sorry if I sidetracked too much.

Of note, a lot of my lights have bluetooth capability, and I find it easier and more efficient to adjust the lights with my phone while looking at the camera monitor than to instruct someone else to do it. Of course this is limited to just adjusting the brightness and colors, and you can't adjust positioning and such with the phone, but positioning tends to need less adjustment anyways.
Click to expand...

That's fair enough, I definitely understand your point of the potential to make more money by eliminating unnecessary expenses.

For the bluetooth adjustments that's the way forward. But like you said the changes we made were only for the position, knowing I'd be happy with the light's output/K setting. Maybe they'll come out with a light stand hot head or a gimbal type mount where someone can control pan/tilt as well?

The side shot cutting off his head bothers me. The framing in the BTS photo doesn't have his head cutoff and looks better, so perhaps he moved once rolling and the camera was not adjusted?
Click to expand...

I think maybe we pulled out slightly for the BTS shot. I recorded a smile to use as a better thumbnail than scrubbing through a timeline trying to find the only frame where they don't look ridiculous. I don't mind cutting the head off. At university (broadcast journalism) we were taught to always leave an adequate amount of head space. In narrative/cinema this obviously isn't a requirement where tops of heads are cut off regularly. I need to remind myself if it's for broadcast to leave what feels like an absurd amount of head room. One isn't better than the other but with the majority of my shoots not being bound to broadcast standards, I'm OK chopping part of the head off. This isn't to say my composition doesn't need work because it does!

You seem to like high contrast ratios and things often look more lit as a result. Perhaps this works for corporate videos. I personally like a more natural look in many cases. I'd also be interested to see some wider angle interview samples from you at some point, say shooting on a 24mm focal length.
Click to expand...

You're right, I can probably pull the contrast back slightly but at the moment I'm having too much fun going a little more dramatic. And yes, I'd like to do more wide angle interviews. I want to do full body seated interviews, which I see often on Netflix documentaries. I'll push for that on the next shoot so standby.

I'm not sure what the best way to go is for a corporate video. I like stepping away from looking natural going for an obviously lit, semi-stylized set up. Maybe it's because I'm trying to get as far as possible from a 19 year old content creator setting up their aputure 120d ii with a softbox, claiming they prefer to make things look more natural AKA don't have any equipment/skills. This isn't a dig at you Eric because you pushing for natural would actually be a genuine preference rather than the reason I just mentioned. Also, sometimes you see BTS/results of shots and to recreate "natural" requires more lighting than anything else. I think part of the marketing for a small-medium sized business is also drawing attention to the fact they're spending more money than their competitors on a video and maybe more obviously lit set ups can emphasize this? Keep in mind this starts and stops at corporate interviews, I'm not making this same point for cinema etc.

I don't have my C300 next to me to try it out, but what is that +-0CC thing next to the 5600K WB? The C100 had white balance shift, the Amira has +- green with WB, but the C300 Mark I did not have white balance shift, and the Mark II I believe you have to go into the custom picture to mess with various settings to get adjustments in those regards but it's not so streamlined...so, seeing that, is there a way to do white balance shift in the settings there? I just don't recall seeing +-0CC on my C300 Mark II, so maybe that's just a C200 thing? I wonder if the C500 Mark II will have that.
Click to expand...

That's "color compensation", which is just for green/magenta hue. In daylight/tungsten WB you can change it +/- 5. In manual K WB you get +/-20 and in custom WB it does it automatically but you can adjust further still. I just looked up the manual, I didn't know any of this until now.

Why do you need a 1.8K HMI for this shot if you're using 4 stops of ND? Would not a light one quarter as bright have sufficed, in which case you could have used say a Skypanel or Gemini and gotten similar results?
Click to expand...

We probably didn't need such a big light but I wasn't sure what the end results would look like. If you have enough separation from the background then having the really bright key light lets the background go almost fully dark then we get total control when we brought in the 575 for the wall. The background still would've been pretty dark because we could sort of control the blinds but if we opened them completely the bright light made sure the BG wasn't brighter than the subject. I've set up 4x Intellytech LC-160s in a self-contained 6x frame. It's really handy to have output/Kelvin control for this reason where you can easily tweak the light more to adjust what the background looks like. My LED wall set up takes time and I needed one for the backlight. Above all else, it's so fast and simple to fill a 6x6 with the m18/4x4 bounce as a booklight. Depth-wise this is a pretty contained set up. I think a single skypanel would need to be pretty far back to fill the diffusion. Sometimes book lighting with skypanels isn't even an option because the skypanel has to get so close to the bounce that it then gets in the way of the light going through the diffusion. Also, we didn't have access to skypanels.

I need to buy a 6 x 6 and/or 8 x 8, but like you that's the point where you start wanting more crew and a bigger vehicle to transport combos and such too. I'm tempted to buy a 1.8K HMI. Super popular light, but HMIs intimidate me, hence my lean towards LEDs. The Aputure 600D, Hive 575, and moreso the Creamsource Space X have the ability to replace a 1.8K HMI at half or less than half the cost. For interviews, I feel like I'd prefer the LEDs, particularly in terms of heat and noise. Most of the time you just need a soft light. For narrative and commercial work, the HMI's ability to simulate sun or moonlight from a single punchy point source gives it the upper hand.
Click to expand...

You could pick up a cheap, used 1.2k HMI PAR and use it as a reference if you want to go down the HMI ownership path. Don't be scared! There's no way in hell an aputure 600d can replace the m18. I can see pairs being mounted and doing a pretty good job though. At this point, Hive is too much of a gamble for me, except I'm sure they'd bend over backwards to fix any issues being such an enthusiastic company. 18kg for the creamsource is starting to push it but it looks awesome. It's not even funny how popular the 600d will be if there are no dealbreaking surprises.

I often use reflector kits with a light stand that holds reflectors, which means I can tilt the reflector. On the last shoot I did, I tilted it as usual, but paused to think, "How does tilting it make things better?" Setting up the stand to tilt the diffusion takes more time than simply putting a clip on it and letting it hang at a fully vertical angle. So, what is the benefit of tilting such that the diffusion is at the same angle the light is?
Click to expand...

We were limited by the ceiling but I was trying to shape the light as much as possible. The vertical diff/bounce is fine but I wanted to raise it to make it look slightly less side lit (pushing for that Rembrandt triangle!). I liked its side position but didn't want it quite so two-faced and think raising/tilting subtly helped.

I try to take a brutal look at every single shoot I do and want to always be improving. This post is just another reference point for people doing their own research, not meant as "the right way to do things".

PS keep sleeping in the RV eric, no judgement from me :)
 
Last edited:
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top