Scarlet ideal settings and gear for Run Gun documentary

[flean]

Hello,

Has anyone have any advices and tips, based on actual experience, about using Scarlet in a run-gun shooting environment and extreme sports for a doc?
Any ideal profile settings advices for outdoors run gun shooting, using mostly natural daylight and following extreme sports practitioners and cars racers? Has anyone encountered any sorts of problems?

Thanks

 

[Nick Pasquariello]

Well, most of the advice is sort-of predictable. If you have a Jib and a Shoulder mount and a Tripod and a Slider, get some quick-releases. The Kessler Kwik Release is probably the best cheap-ish solution out there; can probably hook all of the above up for around $600-$750 (get the plates a few days ahead of time to make sure you have time to get the right screws if you don't already have them.)

The weather can be unpredicatable, so rain-cover and ND filters at the ready is a must. Enough battery power to get you through the day. Personally, I'd have a Side Handle with a Red Volt, and either a V-Mount or AB plate on the back of the camera, so that I can hot-swap batteries without powering up or down.

Pre-Record will be your friend. The current firmware allows 10, 20, or 30 second prerecord, so you can be watching for 5 or 10 minutes of nothing-special and then when that killer move happens or the light hits it just right, hit record AFTER you see it and BAM, written to card.

Depending on the intended output (I.E. web only?) you may want to try 3K HDRx, again, depending on the weather and the lighting.

I like to run my camera light for everything: top handle, LCD on a magic-arm, V-Mount, Side Handle, SSD writer, Lens. For run-and-gun I'd try to keep it to this, maybe add a lightweight matte box. Plugging in anything to camera (audio, SDI, etc.) will tether you down and make it harder to be nimble.

Aside from that, everything is fairly standard stuff: adjust your shutterspeed depending on the desired level of motion-blur and the speed of the subject. Kelvin, Tint, ISO, are all metadata, so they don't matter; for shooting I like to set my ISO to 320. Then in post I usually bump it immediately to 640 or 800. For whatever reason, 320 makes the image look the way on-set that 800 makes it look to me in-post and they both look right in their respective scenarios.

 

[Ben Scott]

I agree with the light light light maxim and have a similar setup to the one described above. I just bought a Matteblox HD vinyl mattebox for extra light run and gunning. Not used it yet but hopefully will be handy for when I need grads.

I bought a Lanparte shoulder mount that fits the sony v-mount tripod system. I don't have a plate for my tripod so instead I removed those bits on the mount for weight saving, plus removed the front and rear rails clamps and then replaced the quick release with a Manfrotto 501-compatible quick release plate so I could use it with the shoulder mount or my Manfrotto 509 tripod instantly.

I have one zoom and then a bunch of primes for when I have more time to plan a setup. I have 2 x screw-in IRND filters. 0.9 and 1.2.

 

[Stefano Ceccon]

Run Gun documentary:
No mattebox or follow focus, only 1 filter ND variable
Lenses Canon 24-105 and 100-400

Lightweight configuration for low budget films

 

[Jon Shaw]

24-105 is a great lens for run and gun. I use it all the time