Review: The Power of Lighting Series
By Kendal Miller
Instructor: Bill Holshenikoff
Website: www.PowerofLighting.com
MSRP: $34.95/each or $139.00/4 DVD Set

Cinematography is essentially about controlling light. Here at FreshDV we break that control into two categories; Internal/Camera and External/Light Sources. Internal light control is accomplished by using camera or camcorder controls such as aperture, shutter speed, gain, etc to control light. Once you have maximized the control over your image using your camera controls the second realm of image manipulation involves external lighting control. This is where you actually begin to use lighting instruments to shape light before it enters the camera. Cinematographers and shooters should have a good grasp of lighting and light control if they want to deliver stellar images.

Director of Photography Bill Holshevnikoff, author of the Arri Lighting Handbook, has created one such series aimed to help understand the science of lighting. The series is a four-part DVD set entitled “The Power of Lighting”. Disc topics include “Lighting Faces”, “Lighting Interviews”, “Color Correction and Filtration”, and “Lighting Backgrounds”. Each DVD disc is approximately 45mins long and retails for $34.95, which easily places it as one of the more affordable series I’ve seen. Read on for review details and a few short video excerpts from the series.
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The basics of modern cinema and filmmaking, and a look back at where we’ve come from.

Tune in tonight, Tuesday October 30 for another Live call-in streaming audio show. The show starts at 9:30 Central time. You can send in questions, comments and news items in advance to mjeppsen AT freshdv.com and kendal AT freshdv.com. We will also be taking listener calls on the air, so check back at 9:30 PM to tune in. A call-in number will be posted at the start of the show.

You can read last week’s show notes and discussion links here.

Videography has an interesting article on the use of Final Cut Pro in post-production for TNT’s The Closer. It seems that purchasing multiple FCP systems was a more affordable option than a year’s season’s Avid rental fees.

“The Closer has six systems that each cost only about $10,000, which in total is less than Avid rental would typically cost for a season. More important to me is that I can afford to own a system at home. I’m a young mother, so sometimes I’ll take the drives home and work on an episode there. This gives me a chance to spend more time with my kids, which is very liberating. In addition, the assistants have greater access to the project and can cut some scenes on their own, giving them a way to hone their own skills.â€?

Backups. You don’t need ‘em until you are already hosed…which is why so many people neglect to make a good backup while disks and files are working just fine. Don’t let it happen to you. Here are two articles for Apple users that discuss methods of backing up a system disk. The first tutorial from Lifehacker offers step-by-step instructions on backup up a system disk to an bootable external firewire drive using the free version of SuperDuper.

By mirroring your entire Mac’s hard drive to an external FireWire drive, you can boot from that disk using any other Mac and have your entire system at your fingertips, no tedious software installations, System Preference setting or desktop wallpaper hunting required. Using the excellent free version of SuperDuper and a regular old FireWire drive, here’s how to mirror your Mac onto a bootable disk.

The second backup strategy uses rsync and two FW enclosures/drives that match your system disk capacity, one drive for regular nightly backups and one for offsite redundancy. The author’s comments on the need for multiple drives is priceless.

“OMG, three drives is so expensive! That sounds like a hassle!” Shut up. I know things. You will listen to me. Do it anyway.

A quick note…you can use external USB drives for backup, but it is my understanding that only firewire externals can be bootable. So use firewire instead and save yourself some trouble when your data or disk goes bye-bye. As they say, disks always fail…it’s not a matter of IF, but a matter of WHEN. Backup your Mac.

RED’s Jim Jannard has announced a production hold. They will be retrofitting cameras 1-100 with a new sensor daughter board designed to increase dynamic range and reduce noise on framerates at and below 25fps. There is also a new stainless PL mount that does not require the use of adjustment shims. The retrofit will be done at the expense of Red Digital Cinema, and forthcoming cameras will ship with the improvements.

Jim has stated “It is most likely that 101-200 will begin shipping November 30th and 201-600 will begin shipping December 10th.” Prior to this delay, the shipping schedule called for #101-200 to begin shipping October 30th, and #201-600 to begin shipping November 30th.

For continuing updates on Red Digital Cinema, bookmark our All Things Red linkdump.

Digital Camcorder News has posted an original review of the powerful (and popular) Canon HV20. As with most reviews, the HV20 earns great marks on it’s image quality, ease of use, 24p, and of course the killer low price point (currently in the mid-$800’s at legit online stores). DCN dings it a bit in the area of manual controls and handling, which is a common issue noted by reviewers.

“Yes, the Canon HV20 has a downside or two in the handling arena and manual control set, but what manufacturer wants to make the perfect camcorder? I mean, really! For the features it does offer, and for the price at which it offers those features, the Canon HV20 cannot be beat. Unless another manufacturer makes a surprise announcement before the end of the year, or Canon tries to upstage themselves, the Canon HV20 is almost a shoe-in as camcorder of the year.”

If you are considering picking up your own Canon HV20 Camcorder, purchasing via this B&H link helps support FreshDV at no additional cost to you. For those that prefer Amazon, please use this link.

The DVD title on Compressing Video for the Web by Aharon Rabinowitz was released recently, and Creative Cow is hosting the first chapter online, free. Look for the 60mb link at the bottom of the page. This instructional title looks like a good one, as web compression can be a bit tricky to master. So go check it out already!

Owyheesound has three detailed and thorough articles on Sound For Film, Sound Studio, and Location Recording. The articles discuss the basic process of each situation, explain terminology, and offer a few tips for handling specific issues. Here’s a quick synopsis of a few topics covered.

Sound For Film
Production Technique, Dealing with Dynamic Audio, Synchronizing, Post Production.

Sound Studio
Equipment, The Room, Mixing, Compression, Multi-band Dynamics, Equalizers, Reverb, Simulated Stereo, Exciter, Noise Reduction.

Location Recording
Equipment/Gear, Room Tone, Ambient Noise, Synchronizing, Mic Type and Placement, Booms and Blimps.

Via Shane Ross comes this time-saving Final Cut Pro setting tip from Patrick Sheffield. If you want to play back a clip or scene to check timing, and don’t particularly care about the filters you’ve applied, you can save render time (and frustration) by turning on the Play Base Layer Only setting in the timeline RT menu.

If the clip has a filter on it and it is rendered, it’ll play the rendered clip. But if the clip has a filter on it and ISN’T rendered, then it will play the base clip without filters.

Shane has an example image of the RT menu at his site.

UPDATE: Thanks for tuning in to another successful live show! You’ll find show notes and discussion links below.

Join us next week on Tuesday October 30th at 9:30 Central Time for another interactive live show. Have your questions ready and be prepared to call in when we go live.
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Titus Films blog has released the second part of their six-part series on How to Tape a Live Concert. This second segment talks specifically about audio production and live capture.

“In Part 2 of this guide on how to tape concerts, I will be exploring the different options for capturing the sound of the show in the way of microphone setup in the venue, microphone types, specific microphone models that I recommend you check out, soundboard recording and the different recording devices available to make your job in post-production a bit easier. I will also discuss a bit about room acoustics and things you should note about the venue you are taping in order to maximize the potential quality of the recording.”

Adobe’s John Nack has posted a gaggle of After Effects scripting resources and examples. Handy if you are into that sort of thing.

Lifehacker has an article up on optimum MacBook Pro memory configs, which might also be applicable for video editors. The bottom line? Maxing out the memory results in noticeable performance gains.

Everyone’s favorite electronics superstore B&H is accepting pre-orders on the highly anticipated new XDCAM EX1 camcorder from Sony. B&H has it listed at $6999. For that price you get the 1/2″ 1080p variable-framerate camcorder and a single 8GB SxS media card.

You can preorder it by clicking here (all purchases made via that link directly benefit FreshDV and don’t cost you a dime extra).

And if you haven’t made up your mind about the EX1, take a look at our previous on-going coverage of the camera here.