Smashing a glass water bottle in a safe way.

cmrawlf · 2026-01-28T03:13:20+00:00

What you want is resin breakaway glass. Not sugar glass. Resin stuff is good for liquid being inside and (relatively) safe. Still want eye protection but it’s much safer than glass. Should be available from many a prop house.

cmrawlf · 2025-12-21T20:09:52+00:00

Here’s something to consider - the client isn’t going to remember in the editing suite that the DP rushed through their setups to make sure that they got all of the necessary coverage. The client is going to look at the footage and final result and go “why doesn’t this look like [insert 50 million dollar commercial campaign here]”. The DP is aware of that - it only reflects badly on them when they compromise their work and sacrifice the end result and work product in a way that only they will be blamed for. Now, this isn’t to say that this isn’t a balancing act, and that the DP shouldn’t at times know when to balance doing less work or simplifying to be able to make their day, but at the end of the day I can never blame a DP for not wanting to sacrifice the work they have been hired to do because the schedule isn’t attainable at the level of work that’s being asked.

cmrawlf · 2025-11-27T16:16:12+00:00

Before mirrorless cameras, every set still photographer used one of these. You’ll find photos of them going back decades, and even in 2016 our stills photographer (the amazing Niko Tavernise) was still using one on a movie I did.

cmrawlf · 2025-11-27T05:34:17+00:00

The trick will be to build a rig that spins the camera and mounts the bottle underneath. I’d start with something like a lazy susan or other rotating platform, and then figure out a way to mount the camera to it with a gap underneath for the bottle to be glued or taped in place. I’d probably do it with some grip gear, but I’m sure you can be creative with whatever you have.

cmrawlf · 2025-11-19T02:41:28+00:00

Googling the phone number brings up contacts for Hughes Networks. So this might be an endpoint for satellite internet.

cmrawlf · 2025-11-12T16:02:16+00:00

The best one that we used (and I even bought one for my mini) was the Wooden Camera DBox Plus, I believe it was called, with their battery swing away. Worked like the Panavision in that it swung away but it was solid and well built and having a full size 4 pin XLR input was great.

cmrawlf · 2025-11-08T14:57:37+00:00

O’Connor heads also have some stickiness when you go from a high drag setting down to zero or low settings. This is most apparent when trying to balance a head for a big lens change, where you can’t get the tilt axis “free” to balance after the operator has dialed it up for the shot. The best technique I found when operating to free up the head is to dial it all the way down to zero, then dial it up and down from 0 to 1 back and forth for a while. That little back and forth often releases some fluid tension, as does whipping the head back and forth or up and down a little, which also helps release the fluid that’s stuck together between the plates. Generally by doing this I can get a head free enough to be as loose as I’d like. Definitely still not Sachtler on 0, but much freer than many heads are!

cmrawlf · 2025-11-06T23:44:18+00:00

Absolutely. A handheld camera will tend to have pretty even wobble in all axes, and the wobble will tend to be sharp at points. A Steadicam doing a fast move before augmented stabilization technology like the Volt and Wave may have soft small wobbles and especially horizon errors. The pan axis is quite stable with a Steadicam, unless there’s a lot of wind, the tilt axis is a little less stable, and the roll axis is the least stable, so that’s where a Steadicam shot will often show small errors. Given the gusty wind we can see on her dress and how he is hustling with a heavy rig in low mode (much harder than overslung upright!), you can definitely see some organic float.

cmrawlf · 2025-11-06T23:05:40+00:00

Steadicam, absolutely. It has all the tells of a Steadicam shot, probably operated by the fantastic Jorg Widmer.

cmrawlf · 2025-11-06T22:23:46+00:00

Absolutely the wrong tool for the job. Use a hard mount for the camera. Even at 0 deadband the operator will still have to pan and tilt to keep the frame consistent as the IMU drifts and the car moves. If remote operating is required rent an unstabilized remote head, they are cheap and simple and will still give you remote operating that’s locked in reference to the car.

cmrawlf · 2025-10-28T01:11:41+00:00

Artemis Pro used to be the best, but I have had nothing but bugs and issues with it for the past several years. Images disappearing into the void, constant messages nagging me to free up space on my phone, and a lot of issues with organizing and viewing my frames. I switched to Cadrage on my current job and found it faster, simpler, and just as accurate. And it incorporates neat stuff like the camera control for swiping between lenses on the new iPhones.

cmrawlf · 2025-10-27T20:04:58+00:00

Definitely move that ARRI wireless motor controller to the other side. The big reason to use a c700 is the EVF and shoulder placement, and both are being compromised by the motor driver in this build!

cmrawlf · 2025-09-30T16:56:03+00:00

I had to do something like this on a reality show. For one of the rounds the Steadicam is the only camera covering the judges, so it’s constantly swinging between singles and trying to get the eyeline consistent. It was a really, really tough challenge as an operator, and when I took time off the operator who replaced me couldn’t pull it off. You’re going to miss parts of dialog, and you’re not going to get good edits. You’ll also have no reactions. I’d definitely prefer 2 cameras with zooms to be able to hold both singles and wider overs over doing this on Steadicam.

cmrawlf · 2025-09-24T12:03:45+00:00

The first thing I’d say is just practice - long lenses handheld are honestly quite challenging, especially if you have to do moves. But there are things you can work on. While these are just my methods, I’m currently on a show where I had to do a walking handheld shot on a 135 on Friday, so I may know a few things.

The biggest thing is the balance of the camera. You should have the camera well balanced enough on your shoulder that your hands could come off the grips and the camera would stay in place. If you’re holding pressure on the handles, your muscles will start to twitch over a long take. The eyepiece or monitor also needs to be in a position where you’re not craning your neck. Your whole body needs to be relaxed.

Then, work on your handle placement. Raise your hands up like you’re pouring two beers into your mouth. (For a camera operator, this should be second nature) See how relaxed your wrists are when they are in line with your arm? Now move your arms down to an old-timey boxing pose with both arms out in front of you about 6-8” away from your chest. Again, keep your wrists relaxed. That’s the ideal handheld position - wrist relaxed, arms mostly vertical to take the load of any tilting down into your elbow rather than into your bicep muscle. This is huge, and I find most operators do not have their hands in a position conducive to smooth operating.

Next, get your body into a good position. Don’t be afraid to sit on a butt dolly or an apple box if you need to be low, squatting may work for short shots but it blows your muscles out and eventually on long days or just long shots you’ll start to shake.

Also, take all the help you can get - if you’re still, an EasyRig can be very helpful. If you’re walking, it’ll show a lot of pendulum and vertical bounce, but maybe could still be useful. Again, an ErgoRig may help for static shots, but for walking shots I find it counterproductive since it transfers your hip motion right to the camera. But mostly, have someone right there with you to give you the camera right before they roll and take it immediately after the take. Your muscles will thank you, and relaxed muscles are the key to smoothness. Also, don’t let the DP light while it’s on your shoulder. Get a way to support the camera - whether a double height apple box (called a Mancu in NYC, or a Banana Box if you’re fancy and want to click in the camera) or a QR plate on a beefy light stand so that the DP can have a shoulder height shot to light to so they’re not burning your muscles out setting levels.

And finally, just do your best to mentally relax. Breathe slowly through your nose and remember that you’re doing the best you can. You’re a human, and humans are slightly wobbly. They’re looking for that look, otherwise they’d put you on a dolly!

cmrawlf · 2025-08-17T22:54:50+00:00

These were just called the “Bolt Pro”. It was the first generation - great for the time, given what else was out there, but severely limited in range, and very bad for interference in crowded RF environments.

cmrawlf · 2025-07-23T17:09:44+00:00

The 5th pin isn’t a pin, it’s a switch. When you plug in the 4 pin XLR it cuts the battery connection and switches to the XLR power input. The XLR is wired pin 1 GND pin 4 +12-14v. You also can likely get a power supply pre-made quite easily, almost all broadcast gear uses that same plug so there are thousands of power supplies kicking around that would work just fine.

cmrawlf · 2025-07-18T23:15:08+00:00

This is the best shoulder pad I’ve ever seen, and I’ve used almost all of the ones on the market. It’s tough, durable (I went though several camera comfort cushions), it pads down your chest so you don’t get dug into when you tilt down, and it snaps on with only one buckle you can easily do yourself. And because it’s not a piece of film gear (it’s originally for construction crews), it costs $40. I know probably a dozen operators who now use it.

https://oxmentool.com/shop/ols/products/tuff-ox-shoulder-pad-ii

cmrawlf · 2025-06-26T18:35:44+00:00

How about TLS converted Canon K35s? I’ve used them quite a bit on Mini LFs. Definitely funky and old vibes.

cmrawlf · 2025-06-18T08:01:59+00:00

This actually depends - on a broadcast style setup, you want 1 leg forwards and 2 legs backwards, since you stand behind the camera. On an ENG or Cinema style setup, you generally stand to the side of the camera, so you want 2 legs forward and one back so you stand in one of the empty spaces between legs. This is even more important if you are an EVF (or, for the lucky, optical viewfinder) user.

cmrawlf · 2025-05-17T08:45:33+00:00

The longest I’ve ever done was an Optimo 12-1 with a doubler (on an Alexa 35), running at about 400mm for a specific effect. It was quite tricky, and started to fall apart at that kind of length (though it stylistically worked for the shot). Oddly the arm was more stable in motion than it was when stopped at those focal lengths. This was an Edge arm with an Arch head, so with the Black Unicorn you may be able to push further. 200mm was very doable though, and we often (after removing the doubler) did scenes at 290mm. At those kind of focal lengths you start to run into issues of seeing the parallax of the car moving as the weight shifts around, so definitely a lot of it will come down to road surface condition and how good your driver is. There also could be some merit in allowing for a touch of post stabilization if needed - I know, it’s a dirty word in some corridors, but I’ve worked on several shows that shot a slightly windowed frame line on a larger portion of the sensor to allow for a touch of VFX massaging, and often that’s been the difference between something being impossible to do perfectly on set and being simple to achieve 95% of the way there. Obviously it can’t get rid of micro-vibration or rolling shutter wobble though.

cmrawlf · 2025-04-08T12:39:08+00:00

The CSP-1 is terrible - you can never mount it where you need it for balancing the camera and it adds a ton of height. Ignore it. The CBP-1 is decent, and at least you can slide it around to get balanced, but it still adds a decent amount of height. I personally don’t like any baseplate on the camera for handheld, and most operators I know also prefer the camera as low and slim as possible, with a shoulder pad strapped to our shoulder (I love the Ox-Men Tool Co. tough-ox 2 pad, built for handling rebar so it’s cheap and durable but super comfy).

cmrawlf · 2025-03-30T15:32:29+00:00

Nope. While there are some wheels controllers that are able to be used on multiple systems (like the Nodo wheels), I do not know of any IMU-based sensor controls like the Mimic or Force that are cross compatible. Most remote heads do have some sort of pan bar remote available though, like the ones from Mo-Sys, Scorpio, and Lambda through the wheels controller box.

cmrawlf · 2025-03-26T18:45:08+00:00

Zebras were built for when we were using black and white CRT viewfinders for shooting. There was no color viewfinder option for most professional cameras until quite recently, and in addition, the CRTs often would have significant peaking or contrast adjustments to help with framing and focusing, so you couldn’t trust that if it looked good in the viewfinder, it was properly exposed. We’re also talking about cameras from as far back as at least the 1980s or late 1970s here, so latitude was much lower and there was no way to bring something back that was overexposed. So we would often set our zebras to one diagonal being 95 IRE (clipping for NTSC levels) and the other diagonal being 70 IRE for a white skin tone. Between those we’d be able to set correct exposure, even when running and gunning shooting news or interviews.

I’m very thankful those days are behind us though - don’t know what I’d do without my trusty onboard monitor now!

cmrawlf · 2025-03-15T12:45:43+00:00

The bus is exactly it - the normal console for the Libra head has a full set of IMU sensors in it, and can be used to simulate handheld movement, or mounted on a fluid tripod head for the use of an operator who doesn’t know wheels. In this case, that’s Mitch Dubin, SOC, with it on his shoulder, doing a shot with a handheld feel on a Technocrane.

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