DIY // Not-Quite-Ring Lights

I recently assisted on a music video for artist Cindy Shaoul directed by Illium Pictures director (and fellow Tim Horton's addict) Natasha Kermani. In pre-production talks while we were in Canada, she had mentioned the idea of a custom shaped ring light over lunch.

"FOR TOO LONG HAS MANKIND BEEN RESTRICTED TO CIRCULAR SHAPES OF LIGHTS," she yelled in my face while I was trying to eat my steak salad. "VERY TRUE, WHAT AN ASTUTE OBSERVATION." I yelled back. "HOW IS YOUR SALAD?" she asked. "IT'S NOT BAD." I whispered, "I MEAN, IT'S A STEAK. ON TOP OF SALAD. YOU CAN'T REALLY MESS THAT UP. OOH, A SPECIAL ON MARGARITAS!!" 

Eighteen $5 strawberry and kiwi margaritas later, I found myself with the task of building a ring-light. 

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One of my favorite contraptions in the world are the flexible LED strips that you can get at any of those Chinese lighting stores all over Manhattan (don't even try to deny that they're not all Chinese. SHOW ME A SINGLE ONE THAT ISN'T.) They're decently inexpensive at $11/foot and come in all sorts of colors. Best part is you can run 'em off a 9volt battery.

The back of the strip already has adhesive, so all you have to do is peel and stick. Here I've attached it to a strip of Velcro, and use it as a light for the inside of my Arri bag~

The end of the strip has a positive and negative wire that you can wire to what have you. LIKE A POTATO. But in this case, it's wired to a basic rocker switch, and then to a 9v battery clip, all available at yer friendly neighborhood RadioShack. 

The strip has open positive and negative contacts every three LEDs, so you can cut the strip at any of these points and just wire the contacts back together. So for this project, when asked if I could make a triangle, I had myself a hearty laugh and replied, "MAYBE!" (because I hadn't actually done this before)

But HEY. Turns out it worked:

Each 9 LED strip is simply connected together by soldering a wire to each contact to bridge the circuit, with the last strip leading out the bottom to the same rocker switch and 9V battery clip set up I have in my Arri bag. And why yes, that is just a frisbee with a hole cut in it. IT'S A PROTOTYPE OKAY? THE PRODUCTION MODEL WILL BE MILDLY PRETTIER.  

To attach to rods, I screwed on a 15mm riser that I had lying around, which allowed me to adjust the height to match different lenses. 

Here it is fired up. The three lights on the corners are individual battery powered LEDs. They helped accentuate the corners in the reflection. Here you can see the wires that connect each LED strip.

Here's the main shot we used it for, a macro shot of Cindy's eye. This is on a Canon FD 50mm w/ 2x Extender on a Sony FS100. I'll post a still from the final result when they get into post, but you can get an idea of the effect in the monitor above. That's Travis Tips, the DP, grabbing focus because I was taking the above photo for this blog, which was obviously far more important. 


On the bottom left corner, you can also see a gobo arm that Cindy is leaning against. For shots like these where the focus is super shallow, this helps the actor keep their position. This technique is also useful for shots where an actor's hand or other body part needs to land in a particular spot, like an XCU of giving someone the finger.


And speaking of tricks o' the trade, Sachtler tripods make good monitor stands as well when you don't have a free hand but you really really want a cookie. 

 I had a lot of cookies that day. 

NAB '12 - K5600, Litepanels, Kino-Flo

They say when covering events on blogs, "it's important to get your information up as early as possible so that it remains relevant to your readers." Well to that I say, "DAMN, I shouldn't have taken so many photos then."

Here's a quick round up of all the fun new swag from the G&E side of things at NAB this year~

// K5600 - Joker 1600

K5600's newest Joker has twice the output of it's predecessor, the Joker 800, and can still run off a household outlet, HUZZAH. This means you can throw this baby up into the ceiling of your kitchen to justify eating an entire box of Lucky Charms at 11pm because it'll look like MORNING.

The Joker 1600 comes in the two flavors users of the Joker 400 and 800 are all familiar with, the Bug-lite bare bulb version which adapts to lanterns and softboxes, and the Beamer swappable lens version.


But exclusive to the Joker 1600 is a new version called the Zoom Beamer, which uses no lenses because its housing is focusable like a typical fresnel unit. A Joker without lenses?! BUT NOW WHAT WILL I USE AS MY NOVELTY SIZED MONACLES??


// Litepanels - SOLA & INCA Fresnels

On the tails of Arri, Litepanels just debuted a line of LED fresnel units as well. They come in either tungsten (INCA) or daylight (SOLA) flavors, but there's no bi-color option. Litepanels says it's not possible based on their LED technology (BUT ARRI DID IT, SO FAIL, LITEPANELS, FAIL).


I will say though where these units excel over the Arri units is in how the unit focuses. On the Arris, when you spot and flood, instead of the lamp moving within the housing, the fresnel lens in front moves in and out, changing the actual length of the unit. So if you have gels or nets or flags set up close to the unit, spotting or flooding may become an issue in cramped situations, such as porto-potty confessionals. 


The Litepanels fresnels on the other hand spot and flood entirely within the unit like traditional fresnels.

Litepanels also debuted a kit for their popular Sola ENG lights, which are mini on board fresnel LED lights. They're fully dimmable and focusable with an equivalent output of 250W unit while drawing only 30W.

The kit comes with three daylight units, gels, power cables, a softbox, and three Manfrotto nano stands, which are just like regular light stands... ONLY REALLY TINY.

SOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO CUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUTE. Here you can see the p-tap power cable that lets you power them off battery plates. Because of their low draw, you'd have no problem running the camera and light off the same brick if need be. 

The softbox folds flat and just slots around the head of the unit, just like a regular chimera... ONLY REALLY REALLY TINY :D The whole three light kit 'n kaboodle is $2995~ At that price point, can't say it's an incredible buy. Certainly not as versatile as some of the Arri softbank kits at the same/lower price, but it's a hell of a lot more portable. They'd really be ideal for on location interview and event work, especially when you need more output than those dinky on-board panel LEDs.


// Kino-Flo - Celeb 200

Kino-flo also debuted an LED unit at NAB this year, forever disregarding the fact the word "fluorescent" is in their name.

With an output of a Diva 400 and drawing only 1 amp, the celeb 200 is dimmable DOWN TO THE DECIMAL. Finally I can tell my gaffer to give me .3% more output and he can't sass me. 

It's color temperature is also full controllable, and not only from tungsten to daylight, but green to magenta. And when you find a color you like, you can save it to a preset, the same way we all have 90s on 9 preset on our XM radios.

It ships with a gel frame, and two louvers which narrow the beam to different degrees. YOU CAN'T FOOL ME KINO-FLO, I know these things are just a rectangle frames filled with cut up boba tea straws...

How Canada does Chips

Whenever I go to Japan or Taiwan, there's only one thing I look more forward to experiencing again than the incomparable awkwardness of otaku maid cafes: FOREIGN CHIP FLAVORS.

Foreign countries always have flavors of chips that are 8000 times more exciting than American flavors for some reason. Like these CLAM CHOWDER FLAVORED DORITOS.

So during this past shoot in Canada, in between my extreme Tim Horton's binges, I sought me out some foreign Lays (IF YA KNOW WHAT I MEAN).

Here are two in particular that caught my eye. And by "caught my eye," I mean "was closest to me when I remembered I was in a foreign country and that foreign countries have crazy potato chip flavors." 

Ruffles - "All Dressed"

OH CANADA, you're so vague. Turns out bring flavored with all of the dressing in Canada amounts to tasting like french dressing, which I suppose is historically accurate. Rating: NOT BAD, CANADA.


Lay's - "Ketchup"

There's a reason nobody dips potato chips in ketchup. KETCHUP POTATO CHIPS ARE THE MOST HORRENDOUS FLAVOR IN THE WORLD. I've literally never tasted anything as horrible as Lay's Ketchup chips. It's not that I don't like ketchup. Ketchup is delicious. It's a great source of lycopene, which can help fight osteoporosis, diabetes, and reduce your cholesterol. Plus it makes my sweet potato fries super tasty.


But these chips do not taste like ketchup. These chips taste like that watery residue that floats at the top of ketchup after it settles for a while. These chips taste like that... but mixed with the poop of lemons if lemons could poop. 


On top of that, the sourness leaves an aftertaste that is as if all 6000 of my tastebuds just marathoned Human Centipede 1 and 2, then Fever Pitch, then Adam Sandler's Jack and Jill.


Rating: BAD CANADA, BAD. You're lucky your Honey Dipped Tim Bits are so delicious...

NAB '12 - Blame Canada D:

I'm on a shoot right now in Canada, and the internet here is crazy slow because everyone's too busy being all nice and hospitable or something stupid like that. 

It took me an hour just to upload this photo of Tim Horton's instead of more NAB swag D: More NAB stuff to come though at the end of this week when I get back to the cold, brute, and mildly racist internet of Manhattan... 


On the plus side, Hasidic Jewish Liev Schreiber was on my flight!

NAB '12 - Things that Slide and Things that go Boing

SLIDERS. I remember the first time I heard about these things becoming available on a consumer level. Someone in Europe slapped a camera on an industrial IGUS carriage rail and went, "Oh... a... mygod...

And thus the company Glidetrack was born. Of course, it didn't take long for people to realize, "wait a minute... that's just a slab of metal with a rail carriage on it." I can buy that straight from IGUS and make it myself! And then it didn't take long for people to try that and realize, "ugh, fuck, this is hard." 

The select few who weren't too lazy though did go on to start selling their own. Then more people started making sliders. AND NOW EVERYONE MAKES SLIDERS. Even Glidecam is releasing their own slider:

And not gonna lie, it's pretty damn solid. It has a good amount of drag and doesn't bend under the weight when you push the carriage to either end like most lighter-weight sliders do. At the end of the day though, it's a piece of metal with a thing on it that goes left and right. And that's...about...it. 


"WELL FUCK THAT," says Indie-Dolly Systems, who demoed their new slider prototype at NAB this year. 

They're sliders work more like mini-dollies, with 3 foot lengths of track that can be connected to one another. The carriage, while a roller wheel system, has a nice weight to it and good amount of drag. When you have carriages that just roll freely left and right, the operator has to do more to make it smooth. (UGH, I don't have to hone skills, c'mon) Having drag lets you feather in the start and stop. Imagine pushing an empty shopping cart vs pushing a shopping cart with an Asian man in it. 

The Indie-Dolly Systems slider will ship with 9 feet of track and the carriage with the option of 75mm, 100mm, or flat mount for around $800 and a target release date of July. It's a novel concept that at least gives you a little more flexibility considering its length isn't fixed. I think Asian Bike Cart Man will be a much more effective dolly though, but it's still in the prototype phase unfortunately...


And on the topic of Asian things by Asian people, the folks over at Nori in Toronto were showcasing this little doo-dad.

Oh that's right, it's a bounce board...

...AND AN UMBRELLA. Calm down Toronto, really. There's only so much innovation I can handle today after finally watching the highly anticipated video to Pitbull's "Back in Time," the official theme song to MIB3.


For $189, you get one silver BOUNCEBRELLA (my official new name forever because Square Bounce is not nearly as cool), one white bouncebrella, and a shoulder sling. So you can re-enact all your favorite katana-drawing scenes from movies where katanas or other similarly lengthy objects are produced from one's backside.


And none of this "expected release date" shit, YOU CAN BUY 'EM NOW. 

Blackmagic Cinema Camera Available Now for Pre-orderrrr - $2,995

ZOMG. Blackmagic's doo-dad movie-making box is now available for pre-order from B&H! Personally, I say hold off until the next iteration, which I imagine will be pretty damn soon given how often these things are coming out. It's a neat camera that produces impressive results, but if you're looking at it as an investment as a production camera, there are just too many design irks in my opinion. Until there's a confirmed non-touchscreen way to operate the thing, I'm gonna pass. Or as Jim Cramer would say, BUYSELLBUYSELLBRAWWWWWWWWR.


But hey, if you've got $3,000 in singles lying around that you need to hide because you've secretly been moonlighting as a stripper and you don't want anyone to know, then knock yourself out.

NAB '12 - Shape, Red Rock, & MORE ARRI

I was super excited to visit the Shape booth over at NAB because I absolutely LOVE their handgrips. They don't have an unnecessary amount of articulation (like the O-connor's O-grips or the Zacuto ones), and because they use rosettes instead of a ball-and-joint lock, they're rock solid. Plus they're only $300! 

They're my zombie apocalypse weapon of choice (if I had to choose between parts of a camera rig to defend myself against zombies... otherwise my zombie apocalypse weapon of choice would be this sound cannon thing that can implode things). Aw man, if only there were some sort of establishment in Vegas that made available all my favorite zombie apoc- OH WAIT.

THANK. GOODNESS.

My only irk with the handles was that they could only be used with 15mm setups, and not 19mm studio setups. I've always liked the idea of accessories that can adapt across systems, whether it be DSLR or RED or a camera mounted on the head of a chicken. 

So I was pumped to hear that Shape just announced a new hybrid 15mm/19mm rod block that adapts to their Arri rosette handgrips. 

The price-point is miles above their 15mm grips unfortunately, at $1499 for the handles and $269 for the rod block. To be fair though, I imagine these would be the last set of handgrips you'd ever have to buy. SLOT MACHINE TIME. 

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Over at RedRock Micro, they had working demos of their wireless follow focus system, which, I hate to say, is not as horrible as I thought it'd be. I remember seeing videos from NAB last year of their prototype iPhone remote thing and was like, YOU STOP THAT. YOU STOP THAT RIGHT NOW, BRIAN VALENTE. 

But they have managed to create something here which, at the very least works like an electronic follow focus should. 

With the airwaves clouded up by so many electronics (particularly in the sound dept, DAMN YOU SOUND), most vendors actually couldn't even demo any wireless products. So I've yet to see the wireless transmitters and receivers in action, but the guys over at RedRock say they have a range of 300ft. 

Their motors are actually smaller than Heden motors, and they say they perform just as well... SKEPTICAL. 

I will say though, I'm not a big fan of their receiver design. On this and their remotes they use these buttons that feel like your grandma's tv remote buttons after she wrapped it in 13 layers of plastic wrap because you kept spilling juice on it whenever you'd visit. There's not much physical feedback to denote that it's been pressed, and in the dark, the near-flush buttons may become hard to see.

The remote too is curiously un-ergonomic. It can be powered internally, but the power input as well as the input for if you wanted wired control is right where your hand would naturally hold it. 

It has its design flaws, but here's the kicker, IT'S ONLY $2400 FOR THE WHOLE KIT. Considering a Bartech sans motor is already $2100, with a motor running you at least another $2600, it's quite the attractive option for entry level users.

Again, how it stands up to actual production, we'll have to see~ 

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Finally, some more things from Arri! 

Here's an aks block that has a 1/4 20 and 3/8 16 taps to mount whatever your heart fancies to your MMB-2 (I use mine to arm out a mirror to make sure no zombies are attacking me from behind). This way you can get monitors a better distance away from your face as opposed having to crane your head back all the time like you're avoiding the mouth of that girl at the club who more than likely has mono who's trying to drunkenly make out with you. Plus it's only $30! (the aks block, not the girl at the club)

HDMI cable locks are getting pretty popular these days, because it turns out people really like breaking HDMI cable. I KNOW I DO :D This makes Germans frown though, so here's Arri's cable lock system. What sets this apart from most is that it doesn't mount flush to the body, which often blocks the other ports on the camera. Instead, it mounts to Arri's DSLR cage. I for one have never been a huge fan of cages. I find it completely defeats the purpose of shooting on a small body~ 

And lastly, here's Arri's shoulder pad. I'm not a huge fan of the actual pad, but I am a fan of the quick release rod block it's attached to. You can use it mount other accessories such as battery plates or what have you. Its design allows you to attach and release it at any point on along your rods, instead of having to slide them all the way off one end. 

While the idea is nothing new, it is by far the smoothest version of this I've played around with~ It's essentially the same way the Arri MFF-1 attaches to rods. 

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Now if you'll excuse me, I'm off to continue my win streak at these awesome new official Dark Knight slot machines. Because, you know, that's why Christopher Nolan even made that movie in the first place.

SONAR VISIONNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNN

Nab '12 - OH GOD, BODIES EVERYWHERE D:

So hey, BlackMagic Design just came out with a new camera. Why? BECAUSE EVERYBODY'S DOIN' IT, MAAAAAAN. What's that? You haven't come out with your own large sensor camera that shoots in intervals of K yet? Whoa now, don't you want to be cool? C'mon, everybody's doinnnnng it. If you do it, you'll get laid at prom this year, I SWEAR. 

And judging from all the press this thing has gotten, BlackMagic is getting mad amounts of head in the bathroom behind the Quizno's at NAB.

If you're out of the loop though, BlackMagic is the company that makes the color correction program DaVinci Resolve as well as those little video signal converter boxes. 

Back when I was working in rentals, it was their invention that made me spend hours finding a way to rig an HDMI to HDSDI box to a battery plate to an HDSDI to SDI box to another battery plate to some asshole's Rebel t2i. THANKS BLACKMAGIC.

Their new converters come in regular duty and heavy duty flavors (for those of us who use these converters as the chest plate for our Iron Man arc reactors). 

And on top of that, their new "Battery Converters" have built in rechargeable batteries, which is a win. Unfortunately though, not bearing the official Heavy-Duty label, they can't "withstand being run over by the largest OB vehicle." (WELL THEN WHAT'S THE POINT?!)

It would have been nice to see some sort of mounting option for these guys onto rails though. Oh well, I guess I'll have to stick with my current method of chewed bubble gum and hope.

But I digress, ALAS, the Blackmagic Design Cinema Camera.

Look at Mr. BlackMagic's pimp lean. What a pimp. 

Here are the specs in a nutshell:
- Shoots 2.5K RAW to SSDs
- 13 stops of dynamic range
- Records as Cinema DNG, ProRes, or DNxHD
- EF Canon Mount
- HDSDI out
- Thunderbolt out
- 5" Touchscreen LCD
- Bundled with a copy of DaVinci Resolve and Ultrascopes
- Choice of soup or salad

All for the delightful price of $2995! Which is actually more like $2000 if you consider the fact that DaVinci Resolve on its own costs $995. BUT, like I said, BlackMagic does own DaVinci Resolve and has been trying to push that "open source" CinemaDNG format for a while now. It's COMPANY SYNERGY, as fake Martha Stewart explained to me in the made for tv movie Martha, Inc.

It's a neat camera, all in all, and the test footage that I've seen so far isn't bad~ http://vimeopro.com/johnbrawleytests/blackmagic-cinema-camera

PIC DUMP TIME. 

 

The entire rear panel is a touch screen LCD with 8 physical buttons. The top left one activates iris control to open up or close down the aperture using the FF and REV buttons. The top right is peaking (which is my opinion was pretty shitty and pales in comparison to the peaking on a SmallHD DP6, for example). Double tapping on the screen also zooms in though if you want to focus that way. 

Here's the Canon lens mount. At the moment, they say there are no plans for a PL version. The sensor size though is only slightly larger than the micro 4/3 sensors on the GH2 or AF100. 

I do like the fact that the mount extends out in front of the body like this though, which make it easier get follow focuses on for lenses whose focus rings are super close to the mount~ 

Here you can see the various outs of the body. The audio in ports are actually 1/4" jacks, so... yeah, sound things. You've got HD-SDI out below that, which has the option of sending a completely clean signal for either a client monitor or recording to an external recorder. You can also record out via the Thunderbolt port below that, which will also be the only way you can view any sort of waveforms or vectorscopes while recording as the built in lcd CANNOT COMPUTE.

Then below that you get the power input. There's an internal battery that lasts all of about 90 minutes, so you'll have to bank on feeding power via p-tap to AB or V-mount bricks. Or just make your shoot days 90 minutes long. I prefer the latter option. 

On the other side you've got the SSD slot, which takes any ol' SSDs you've got lying around. Just make sure to wipe the porn off of 'em before someone on set asks for playback. 

Here's a look at the menu interface. *touch touch touch*

And that's actually my most fundamental problem with this camera. It's not that I'm writing it off altogether. I'm actually really interested in seeing what this camera can do. But there are just little things here and there that make me hesitant.

The fact that the touch screen is literally the only way to access particular controls on the camera irks me. I've had touchscreens fail me on set (*cough*Epic/Scarlet*cough*) because it was too cold or too humid or too RED. And if the screen gets damaged at all while you're shooting, then all you can really do is start and stop.

Hopefully by release date they'll have some option for physical button control of the camera (considering there is a slot for Remote on the side panel), but the BlackMagic rep said there were no specific plans for it at the moment. All I want is a camera that I can control via my PS3 controller, is that really too much to ask?

What also worries me is the fact that the camera uses off the shelf SSD drives, which aren't exactly designed for production use. They're designed to be taken out of an anti-static bag and straight into a computer, not tossed around a set. I'll hand it RED, their SSDs are built like a tank, and I've done all sorts of shit to 'em, JUST FOR FUNSIES.

I realize these are worst-case scenario concerns, but it's the little things like these that end up setting all these new cameras apart in the end. Putting a sensor in a body is one thing, but putting a sensor in a body that can withstand getting set on fire, on the other hand... 

Again, I know I'm chugging a lot of haterade here (THIS NOVELTY VEGAS CUP IS HUGE), but I'd be lying if I said I wouldn't jump at the offer to shoot on one.

Third party accessories will inevitably start popping up to make the thing look less like a tiny HP photo printer, and who knows, come next NAB, Zacuto will probably have a whole new line of Zlackmagic Zineza Zamera Zezzoriez that start at $4999 (but have a lifetime warranty!).

In the meantime though, with all these new cameras coming out, IT'S A GOOD THING I FOUND THIS:

Take that BlackMagic! I bet I won't be able to use the box for your camera as a slate, now will I??