SI2K in Western Australia.

[Jason Rodriguez]

Originally Posted by Bob Grant

Sorry to butt in. Does anyone else have the P&S OLED viewfinder?

We have one and it's a thing of great joy and frustration. We cannot get it to reset or lock any changes we make to the setup. I go through the reset procedure and for a few seconds the image looks gorgeous and then it goes back to whatever state it was in when someone fiddled with it i.e. horrid.

Contact P+S Technik (or whoever shipped you the viewfinder . . . not sure if it was directly from us or from P+S) . . . this is due to a bug in the firmware of the viewfinder that is preventing the user-defined changes from being saved. It's not in all the viewfinders, but it has cropped up in some of them.

Thanks,

Jason

[Rohan Dadswell]

Have got the OLED viewfinder but apart from adjusting brightness have been happy with the way it looks so haven't tried to alter it - now I've got some paperwork I'll see what happens.

Bob H
It would be good if the rails were longer to enable to viewfinder to slide out for left eye use - you could always flip it over to the right side of the camera & operate on that side, might feel a bit weird though.

Have shot several bits hand held with the full rig. Didn't get the shoulder pad for the cam, have Velcro'd one from an old Sony537 on. For the past three years or so I've always shot hand held with an EasyRig which takes most of the weight off the shoulder and helps steady the shot - love it (especially with the weight of a full loaded SI-2K)
The two front handles also really aid in keeping the shot steady as well but while you are holding onto the handles you've got no way to adjust focus or iris. If you try to hang onto the right handgrip and adjust with the left I find that balance becomes very unsteady and you get a lot of unwanted movement (it could be just me)
So you really need an assistant with a follow focus whip or a wireless focus unit

[Bob Hart]

Rohan.


Steve Rice has for the Mini35, the long arms (the ones with a truss pattern cast into the shanks), which are interchangeable with the SI2K.

I found with the JVC HD100/Mini35 combination, that it was handy to set the left arm low and the grip handle backwards or flat against my ample gut as a sort of tripod leg and to set the right hand grip like an older ENG or CP16 film camera to free up the left hand for focus etc..

With the heavier mass of the SI2K, there will return the abiding CP16 fear that the weight will overcome your right hand strength and capsize off your shoulder, the moment you let go of the lens to grab a stair rail. The shorter arm on the right helps but your right arm has less leverage over weight and tires more quickly.

Still if we wanted it any different we would simply shut our eyes and play back our own imaginations, but you can't share those.

[Bob Hart]

Here are a few stills from the principal day "Cadillac" shoot, our first excursion into serious production with the SI2K, much learning to do but we are getting there.

FOOTNOTE:

Sorry about the stills. I tried to upload them from Steve Rice's computer but it did want to play nice. Will get them psoted as soon as I can.

[Bob Hart]

Hopefully here are the pics I promised but failed to deliver.


FOOTNOTE: Found a way but long and tedious.

[Bob Hart]

Here are some stills from the pyro shots.


Grab 3 - SI2K touch screen and stylus controller. Very handy in the dark.

Grab 5 - They call the cameraman "Riceberg". I wonder why.

Grab 6 - The round fill lamp is a porchlight on a stick.

Grab 4 - Riceberg and the SI2K out of harms way behind the blast barrier.


Sony HVR-Z1P and Letus Extreme combination was used for behind scenes footage grabs.


Lenslist :-

Nikon f4 12mm -24mm.
Noct-Nikkor f1.2 58mm.

Night focus would have been better if I had been wearing my close-up glasses.


The short clip the grabs came from can be found here :-

http://exposureroom.com/members/DARA...a4ac4a5830b07/

[Bob Hart]

The trailer has now been assembled, edited and posted here :-


Cadillac The Movie


All origination was on the SI2k which has proven to be reliable throughout the shoot. Steven Rice, the owner is well pleased.

Al credit due to P+S Technik and Silicon Imaging for helping the journey around the learning curve to stay smooth. Thanks Jason at SI and Silvio at P+S.


For the sake of pure curiosity, there can be found in the Alternative Imaging threads a link to an audition/screen test which was shot using the SI2K as the master wide, and two Sony Z1s with groundglass adaptors for over-shoulders and reverses, just to see what it would like and get some more practice in under a different lighting setup.

http://www.dvinfo.net/conf/alternati...tml#post950990

Obviously, for resolution and ease of workflow, the SI2K is way ahead

[Bob Grant]

Trailer is looking great Bob. Can't wait to see the finished movie.
What are the plans for distribution?

[Bob Hart]

Bob.


I'm not up to date with the producer's distribution plans. The full movie is yet to be completed. I think they intend to go the path of presale, supplemented with grant assistance. I understand they may have a strong prospect into at least one other continent.

[Jason Rodriguez]

Hi Bob, if you want, we'd be happy to host a H.264 high-res version on our website forum.

Really neat movie, and I like the style, especially the transitions :)

Contact me off-list if you're interested in us hosting a clip in our customer gallery.

Thanks,

Jason

[Bob Hart]

While Steve is away, this old wizened grayheaded mouse finally got to play with the SI2K.

There was one more final installment to the "Sonic Sessions" series at Fremantle Arts Centre tonight.

The usual disparate camera line-up was there :-

Two REDs
One SI2K
Two JVC GY-HD100s with Paolo Ciccone's Truecolor V3 selected.
One Sony PMW-EX1
One Sony HVR-Z1P

I tried "adaptive mode" tonight and that seems to have fixed the buffer over run issue we had one or two mishaps with.

Interestingly, the buffer usage seems to be aggravated by conservative practice I use with Long GOP HDV cameras when lots of movement is happening. That is, I go wider to reduce the movement and the workload on the codec.

Detail, even static detail in combination with movements within the shot, seems to push the buffer usage more than large movements in a much closer shot with a plain background behind.

So when buffer usage was creeping up a bit high, I would go in and lock off the tripod on a medium close-up for a while until the indicator subsided.

Steve Rice's own camera comes back very soon with the latest firmware installed so it will be interesting to see what difference there is. We have the P+S demo cam at the moment. It has the look of a well worked camera but is still kicking without laying down on us.

[Bob Hart]

The SI2K is getting some exercise again over here, this time in a much more modest project, a pre-production promotional trailer which may or may not amount to anything.

Here's some grabs anyway from our first day shoot.

There has been no colour grade, only some gamma and brightness-contrast adjustment. It was shot a little hot. The Tungsten look file has been applied to the raw image.

Yes there are shadows. We had some redheads but no scrims and very short time to shoot in so went with what we had.

Lenslist :-

Zeiss-ARRI 25mm.
Zeiss-ARRI 16mm.
Cinema Products Ultra T 12.5mm.

The context in which the frame fit is as follows :-

Spoiler time. Dusan is a clandestine agent. He has just been identified as Marko, one of his previous personas by the man at the cafe table.

Thanks to the Elizabethan Village Shakespeare's Tavern for venue access and to some of the bandmembers of "Village Green" for being the musoes having a jam at the Tavern.

INT. VILLAGE SHOP - DAY
Outside a gloomy interior, Dusan and Lucas pass the window view of two men seated inside.

Dusan and Lucas enter. Dusan selects a few items, drops them into a cardboard box and then heads for a bar counter. Lucas runs ahead. Two young to middle-aged men sit at a wallside table with a rough meal. They glance across.

CUSTOMER 1
When did you get the new wife Marko.
Didn't know you still had it in you to
breed a son at your age.

Lucas does not like the look of the men or their familiarity with Dusan whom they address as Marko and gives them a hard look.

DUSAN/FOULSHAM
I should be so lucky.
(to Lucas)
Shht. You not talk with this man. Be
kid lost his voice. Ask not why just
do, --- I mean not do, okay?

Customer 1 raises his hand and points a finger as if aiming a pistol in Lucas' direction. Lucas becomes apprehensive.
His imagination makes the extra step and there is a revolver momentarily visible from his POV in the man's hand.

CUSTOMER 1
Be see'in you Marko.

[Bob Hart]

Went back to the Elizabethan to pickup one shot we did not have time for the previous shoot day. This time we had an experienced DP to help us along in spite of limited lighting and crew resources

The filebased system showed its worth for us to be able to recall the previous shoot and match up the camera view exactly as the live and playback views come via the same screen.

After the Elizabethan wrapped, we went to an outdoors location on a nearby orchard and shot among rows of stone-fruit trees just cropping.

Our lens list was T1.3 CP Ultra and a Sigmatel for Nikon f1.8 135mm prime.

We put a Skater dolly on MDF panels dogged down to aluminium trestles with clamps at the joints to reduce jump as the wheels rolled across and did a combined 12ft lateral track and pan follow through close peach foliage. The images look fine.

There is now a large battery box to supply the camera.

The significant thing to me is that the system just operates in the background now, is not distracting people into a shock and awe reaction but just does what it does without drama or glitch, a true production tool. Outdoors in the heat there were no problems.

The quick file recall is very handy for slack inexperienced directors (me) whose ambitions have got ahead of diligent note taking and the inevitable question rises - did we cover that - find it - play it back - yes we did. No excuses for the slackitude. Nice feature to have on hand without the worry of rolling back tape and running the risk of damaging a tape or even worse miscuing and recording over earlier footage if the end-search hits a timecode gap.

[Bob Hart]

Here are a few grabs from a scene we shot on the weekend. Not in the league of Slumdog of course but our little modest no-budget effort.

Grabs are straight off an ungraded take with Kodak 250 daylight look applied.

Image display order is :-

1.2.
3.4.


Settings were :-

Format - 2048 x 1152 in Adaptive mode
Frame Rate - 25P
Shutter - 1/50th sec

Lenslist :-

Cinema Products UltraT* 16mm. (flary on highlights due to damage). Frame 1.
Cinema Products UltraT* 25mm. Frame 4.
Sigmatel for Nikon 135mm f1.8. Frames 2 and 3.


For those with a curiosity for things vintage mechanical, the tractor is a 1956 vintage Ransomes MG6, repowered with a Kubota 11hp diesel from a Japanese rice harvester.

[Bob Hart]

Here are a couple of web addresses to more finessed assemblies of Scene 8 and 9 of the Fox Featherweight Trailer trailer shot on the SI2K system.

For reason of the limitation of the editing computer when dealing with 2K origination, the camera files were given a grade in Prospect4K then exported as Blackmagic files for the actual assembly/edit.

FOX FEATHERWEIGHT TWENTYEIGHT PRE-PRODUCTION PROMOTIONAL TRAILER - SCN 8 ASSEMBLY. By Bob Hart On ExposureRoom

FOX FEATHERWEIGHT TWENTYEIGHT PRE-PRODUCTION PROMOTIONAL TRAILER - SCENE 9 ASSEMBLY. By Bob Hart On ExposureRoom

A password may be applied to these in the next day or so.

We would have liked to have had a shallower depth of field on the long shot of the tractor approaching however had no NDs or IR correction filters at the time.