Robert Hart
Well-known member
- Joined
- Feb 26, 2012
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- 1,258
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Last night, I finally got my greasy fingers, dandruff and DNA on a Scarlett camera when I attended a music video shoot last night. It was hoisted out of a camera box something like a rabbit out of a hat in an undressed state, a simple grey box with some buttons and sockets and a lens mount. Then they started putting its costume on.
I've never seen so many rods, wires, levers and Lemo plugs sticking out of a Box Brownie in all my life. It went something like, "we'll need this, no that can come off, put that on, then a button got pushed somewhere in the mix and all these lights came on and the display screen lit up on the back on something which was labelled Redmote. A time-lapse sequence of the emperor getting dressed would be a cool Youtube clip. By the time they had finished, it had gained quite a bit of condition and was a lean creature no more.
Best of all was the wireless doover they had on it for the director's split. If I win the lotto, I must get one of those and put it on the SI2K.
Then the DoP/camera-op mounted it on his steadycam, a proper one, the whole kit worth more than a rich sod's house. His assistant bunged on a bunch of Duclos-Nikons in their turn and it all looked quite magnfiicent. She was a spot-on inspiration to watch nailing the focus time after time with a wireless remote, sometimes with no camera monitor available to her at all. It makes one sick and jealous that young people can do this with such apparent ease.
Despite all the failure modes I expected to witness after reading all the alarming folklore about Scarlets and Epics, about the only thing they had to do was change batteries, change drives, change frame rates for all the different slow-mo things they were doing, copy files and maintaining line of sight to keep the wireless split working. So I was not afforded an opportunity to look upon a funereal huddle around a comatose camera with beneficent sympathy to say "my SI2K works all night, do you want me to go home and get it?" or something equally churlish.
There was this young guy scuttling about with an i-Phone looking thing attached to what looked like a portable light. Turned out that was the playback system and just with a few touchscreen stabs, the slow or fast playbacks and cues were instantly there. No more "Hang-on while I find the track". I didn't find out this until after I made a fool of myself asking if they were able to change the colour temperature of the hand-held light with the cool i-Phone app. In this electronic age, everything looks the same these days.
It was shot in a supermarket. There was plently of ambient light from overhead strips but the value-adding in the form of proper lights and a good lighting crew showed its worth on the screen as soon as they switched on. I even managed to make myself useful by dragging some cables about. There was only one person did this funny bunnyhop dance as a loop went under, so I did not do too bad I think.
Pig-heaven it was to be there to watch, the folks were kindly and did not usher my fat frame out of the way. The director mentioned that the bread and butter came from the TVCs and corporates, a hard enough gig in this far corner of the world but that the music vids were for the fun of it. They were a pretty happy lot and the director, being an actor, well demonstrated motivational skills and maintaining a positive vibe.
Inagining something like this happening here so routinely would have been an impossible notion when I was a kid. The times may be challenging for the new generation but they are amazing nevertheless.
I shan't be buying into the system unless the cargo plane comes home and I win the lotto but there is no harm in envy and covetousness.
I've never seen so many rods, wires, levers and Lemo plugs sticking out of a Box Brownie in all my life. It went something like, "we'll need this, no that can come off, put that on, then a button got pushed somewhere in the mix and all these lights came on and the display screen lit up on the back on something which was labelled Redmote. A time-lapse sequence of the emperor getting dressed would be a cool Youtube clip. By the time they had finished, it had gained quite a bit of condition and was a lean creature no more.
Best of all was the wireless doover they had on it for the director's split. If I win the lotto, I must get one of those and put it on the SI2K.
Then the DoP/camera-op mounted it on his steadycam, a proper one, the whole kit worth more than a rich sod's house. His assistant bunged on a bunch of Duclos-Nikons in their turn and it all looked quite magnfiicent. She was a spot-on inspiration to watch nailing the focus time after time with a wireless remote, sometimes with no camera monitor available to her at all. It makes one sick and jealous that young people can do this with such apparent ease.
Despite all the failure modes I expected to witness after reading all the alarming folklore about Scarlets and Epics, about the only thing they had to do was change batteries, change drives, change frame rates for all the different slow-mo things they were doing, copy files and maintaining line of sight to keep the wireless split working. So I was not afforded an opportunity to look upon a funereal huddle around a comatose camera with beneficent sympathy to say "my SI2K works all night, do you want me to go home and get it?" or something equally churlish.
There was this young guy scuttling about with an i-Phone looking thing attached to what looked like a portable light. Turned out that was the playback system and just with a few touchscreen stabs, the slow or fast playbacks and cues were instantly there. No more "Hang-on while I find the track". I didn't find out this until after I made a fool of myself asking if they were able to change the colour temperature of the hand-held light with the cool i-Phone app. In this electronic age, everything looks the same these days.
It was shot in a supermarket. There was plently of ambient light from overhead strips but the value-adding in the form of proper lights and a good lighting crew showed its worth on the screen as soon as they switched on. I even managed to make myself useful by dragging some cables about. There was only one person did this funny bunnyhop dance as a loop went under, so I did not do too bad I think.
Pig-heaven it was to be there to watch, the folks were kindly and did not usher my fat frame out of the way. The director mentioned that the bread and butter came from the TVCs and corporates, a hard enough gig in this far corner of the world but that the music vids were for the fun of it. They were a pretty happy lot and the director, being an actor, well demonstrated motivational skills and maintaining a positive vibe.
Inagining something like this happening here so routinely would have been an impossible notion when I was a kid. The times may be challenging for the new generation but they are amazing nevertheless.
I shan't be buying into the system unless the cargo plane comes home and I win the lotto but there is no harm in envy and covetousness.
