"Act of Valor" - Shane Hurlbut - And the Canon 5D2

Liberation Frequency wrote in post #14001909
You don't have to tell me. The term 'film' will never leave though. I love digital - matter of fact, I have an Epic rented in a couple of months.

Get the manual for the EPIC ahead of time and read it front to back. Also, make sure the rental house supplies you with the 4 pin Lemo connector to 3 BNCs. The yellow one is TC, not the white... Also, if you have plans on sending the EPIC a scratch track of audio or full audio then have the rental house include the A-Box by Wooden Camera. It's an adapter that attaches to the side of the camera and has a left and right female XLRs to mono, 3.5mm mini plugs. That's how you get audio into that camera. Scary huh? There is an issue with whether the 3.5mm plug is balanced or unbalanced and most connectors people build for themselves don't work. The camera thinks it's getting audio, it even has a green light come on, but not really. The manual is confusing in that regard. Just get the A-Box and you'll be happy if you are sending any type of audio to the camera.

Also, make sure that the rental house has the latest firmware upload to the camera you'll rent. The early ones locked up a ton and caused all sorts of delays in production. The current ones are a lot more stable.

Hopefully you know all that stuff already about these cameras, but I thought I'd say it anyway

ChasWG wrote in post #14001831
Are you that blind that you missed it the first time I posted it in the opening post of this thread? ...

Why thank you for that kind comment, you are such a sport, and yes I did miss that in the post and will make every effort to ensure it doesn't happen again.

Do have a nice day and a great weekend, I know I will.

Hugs

Wayne

ChasWG wrote in post #14001998
Get the manual for the EPIC ahead of time and read it front to back. Also, make sure the rental house supplies you with the 4 pin Lemo connector to 3 BNCs. The yellow one is TC, not the white... Also, if you have plans on sending the EPIC a scratch track of audio or full audio then have the rental house include the A-Box by Wooden Camera. It's an adapter that attaches to the side of the camera and has a left and right female XLRs to mono, 3.5mm mini plugs. That's how you get audio into that camera. Scary huh? There is an issue with whether the 3.5mm plug is balanced or unbalanced and most connectors people build for themselves don't work. The camera thinks it's getting audio, it even has a green light come on, but not really. The manual is confusing in that regard. Just get the A-Box and you'll be happy if you are sending any type of audio to the camera.

Also, make sure that the rental house has the latest firmware upload to the camera you'll rent. The early ones locked up a ton and caused all sorts of delays in production. The current ones are a lot more stable.

Hopefully you know all that stuff already about these cameras, but I thought I'd say it anyway

I wasn't going to worry about the audio internally, have a tascam DR680 with a boom. Now that you mention timecode.... syncing the audio would be stupid easy in that case. I got tons of time still to figure out the exact stuff, but the rental house rates include a tech for myself who should know everything. Keyword 'should'. Im not renting it for res, Im renting it for 300fps.

There is no set turn around time for the edit - still working out what lenses to use, right now I have scheduled the red 18-50, 50-150, and 300.

ChasWG wrote in post #14001831
Oh, and you'd better post the link the Flickr page of all the behind the scenes images before someone else does.

Here ya go, replete with a few behind the scenes videos and interviews with the players.

Shane Hurlbut, “what, what do you mean live fire,” well that’s where they shoot live ammo, “where am I going to be” well you are going to be right there, “what about ricochets and everything,” well yea we’ll give you a flack jacket and a helmet, you're going to be fine…

Yea right, I heard that before at the STC, where I got a hole popped in my forehead from a copper jacket that was stripped off a round and came back at me.

None the less, enjoy.

http://www.actofvalor.​com/official/

Wayne

LiberationFrequency wrote in post #14006030
I wasn't going to worry about the audio internally, have a tascam DR680 with a boom. Now that you mention timecode.... syncing the audio would be stupid easy in that case. I got tons of time still to figure out the exact stuff, but the rental house rates include a tech for myself who should know everything. Keyword 'should'. Im not renting it for res, Im renting it for 300fps.

There is no set turn around time for the edit - still working out what lenses to use, right now I have scheduled the red 18-50, 50-150, and 300.

Well thats good, I'm still not sure how well the internal audio compairs to external sync sound recordings. Probably not the best if I had to guess. So are you only planing one channel of audio with the boom? If so, use one of your other channels to record TC to. I looked at the DR-680, it seems like a nice recorder, but I don't see where it can produce it's own, stand alone TC. I see from the pictures that it has some sort of running clock, much like the old tape counters of tape machines. Not really acurate or real TC. Maybe I'm wrong, but I didn't see anywhere that it does TC. I'd suggest renting some sort of TC device like a Deneke SB-3 or a TC-3 smart slate. Feed the camera TC as well as record TC to one of your other channels. Just get a heavy, heavy pad (70 or 80db) to knock the TC way down or you will get bleed over onto your audio track.

But if you are only running 300fps then forget sound. I did a job with HBO Sports a couple weeks ago, Friday Night Boxing, a feature with Adrian Broner. We shot that on an EPIC. The 300fps stuff looked great. Everything else was shot at 23.976 with sound. The whole shoot was a test to see if the EPIC was a viable format for HBO. The next feature they do will be done on an Alexa to test that one. We learned a lot shooting the EPIC that day.

As far as the included tech, hopefully he knows his stuff with that camera, but you should educate yourself too. He may not be the total expert that you're hoping for.

Anyhow, Good luck with your EPIC shoot!

Channel One wrote in post #14010392
Here ya go, replete with a few behind the scenes videos and interviews with the players.

Shane Hurlbut, “what, what do you mean live fire,” well that’s where they shoot live ammo, “where am I going to be” well you are going to be right there, “what about ricochets and everything,” well yea we’ll give you a flack jacket and a helmet, you're going to be fine…

Yea right, I heard that before at the STC, where I got a hole popped in my forehead from a copper jacket that was stripped off a round and came back at me.

None the less, enjoy.

http://www.actofvalor.​com/official/

Wayne

Why thank you Wayne! That's just so amazingly nice of you. You too have a wonderful evening and weekend!

I read the Act of Valor article in last month's MovieMaker Magazine... I wish I could afford to have that "let's shoot at it--if we hit it, we're just out $2500!" attitude LOL.

I don't think film will die entirely... it'll just become the domain of the art-house and obtuse filmmakers. I cut 16mm stock by hand, with razor-blades and perforated tape, in college, and it was one of the most therapeutic activities I've ever undertaken. One of these days, I'm getting a 16mm spring-driven Bolex, a Cinescope and an editing bench.

ChasWG wrote in post #14010946
Well thats good, I'm still not sure how well the internal audio compairs to external sync sound recordings. Probably not the best if I had to guess. So are you only planing one channel of audio with the boom? If so, use one of your other channels to record TC to. I looked at the DR-680, it seems like a nice recorder, but I don't see where it can produce it's own, stand alone TC. I see from the pictures that it has some sort of running clock, much like the old tape counters of tape machines. Not really acurate or real TC. Maybe I'm wrong, but I didn't see anywhere that it does TC. I'd suggest renting some sort of TC device like a Deneke SB-3 or a TC-3 smart slate. Feed the camera TC as well as record TC to one of your other channels. Just get a heavy, heavy pad (70 or 80db) to knock the TC way down or you will get bleed over onto your audio track.

But if you are only running 300fps then forget sound. I did a job with HBO Sports a couple weeks ago, Friday Night Boxing, a feature with Adrian Broner. We shot that on an EPIC. The 300fps stuff looked great. Everything else was shot at 23.976 with sound. The whole shoot was a test to see if the EPIC was a viable format for HBO. The next feature they do will be done on an Alexa to test that one. We learned a lot shooting the EPIC that day.

As far as the included tech, hopefully he knows his stuff with that camera, but you should educate yourself too. He may not be the total expert that you're hoping for.

Anyhow, Good luck with your EPIC shoot!

Thanks for the insight - Im gonna talk to the sound guy and make sure we all get on the same page. I am not all knowing on embedding TC into audio and all that, but he does audio for local TV and network when they come to town so he's not green for sure.

Not ALL the footage is going to be shot @ 2k, so it will be worthwhile to get soundbites for everything anyway and then use as necessary. Drifting @ 120fps looks cool, now its time to do it @300fps.... If my budget allowed it, I would be shooting with a Flex, but thats another story.

I'm sorta the producer/director/edit​or on this since I am funding this out of my own pocket but everyone involved is getting a few bucks and experience with an epic so they are all excited. Already have a mini-DIT station setup with a fresh 4TB installed since we will be shooting all day with a TON of red volts since I won't have the chance to run direct power to the cam on the infield of a race track... should be a good time! The runner is going to get a lot of exercise...

Im sure I'll learn a lot and probably curse the camera out a few times, but I hear most recent firmware epics are a lot more reliable like you said.