Camera Hack: Using WiFi SD Cards to Deliver Still Frame Grabs from a Camera

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Camera Hack: Using WiFi SD Cards to Deliver Still Frame Grabs from a CameraCreative Commons License photo credit: schaft9

As DSLR cameras have become a bigger part of the filmmaking landscape, I find it interesting that digital cinema filmmaking cameras are beginning to heavily adopt stills and frame grabs as a key feature. It’s telling that these two contrasting technologies are beginning to intersect.

But it makes sense. The ability to pull stills and frame grabs directly from a camera can be used for:

The only problem with frame grabs is the intrusion of retrieving them from the camera as camera operators, camera assistants, or DP’s work. Often, a DIT or AC will have to take over the camera for a few moments to generate the grabs and whisk them away on the SD card on which they’re stored.

Fortunately, for those who don’t like interruptions and those who don’t like interrupting, reader Jared Rogers has come up with an elegant solution that utilizes newer WiFi-enabled SD cards.

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Find the Perfect Lighting Gels with These LEE Filters and Roscolux Pocket Guides

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The Dailey Info Gel Pocket Guides

What’s the one thing about lighting you often overlook? Is it placement? Power? Type of lamp?

For our purposes today, we’re going to say it’s lighting gels — the rolls of plastic you cut and slip over a light to change its temperature, softness, or overall output.

And knowing which gels do what is crucial to using them properly.

So Brian Dailey from The Dailey Info has created Gel Pocket Guides: a reference for LEE Filters and Roscolux lighting gels that you can put on your phone or in your toolkit to consult in a pinch.

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How to Pack a Pick-Up Truck (or Car) Full of Expensive Film Gear

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How to Pack a Pick-Up Truck (or Small Car) Full of Gear

When was the last time you drove a car with $100,000 worth of camera gear in the back?

Sitting in the back of my truck in that picture above is six-figures worth of gear from when I first shot with ARRI Alexa. Standing on the back is my exuberant 2nd camera assistant (AC) making sure the camera, lenses, and other accessories would stay put on the New York City streets.

The drive through the city and on the interstate was stressful, but I wasn’t surprised one bit when every piece of gear arrived safely.

That’s because I knew how to pack a truck. And today I’m going to teach you how to do so as well.

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How to Prep Your Camera for a Walkaway

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How to Prep Your Camera for a WalkawayCreative Commons License photo credit: John Brawley

The walkaway: when you leave almost every piece of gear still-built in the location you’re filming at to continue using it in the same location the next day.

At the end of a long day (or any day, really), walkaways are welcomed with relief.

For camera assistants, it means less prep time building the camera in the morning. For production, it means faster movement towards the first shot of the day.

But just because you get to walkaway from your gear and not have to pack it away doesn’t mean you should get up and leave at wrap. Instead, you need to take great care in making sure it will be safe, secure, and enjoy its overnight sleepover at the location you’re filming.
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Take 5 Minutes to Clean Your Camera at the End of Each Day

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Take 5 Minutes to Clean Your Camera at the End of the Day

It’s tempting to pack away gear as quickly as possible when wrap is called and get home in time to eek a few hours out of your turnaround.

But if you can afford five more minutes, you should take the time to clean your camera properly.

Not all camera assistants (AC’s) do this. I’ve certainly had DP’s, directors, and even other AC’s comment when I clean the camera: ”Oh wow! Taking this seriously, huh?”

To which I respond: “If you’re going to do something, you might as well do it right.”
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Why You Should Always Use Two Latches to Close a Lens Case

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One Latch vs. Two Latchesphoto credit: Adam Richlin

When you fetch a lens from the lens case, do you use one or two latches?

For whatever reason, this is a question that I see many camera assistants debate.

On one side you have the group who prefers one latch because it’s faster to get into the case and get what you need. On the other side, you have those who use two latches, primarily for safety.

I fall firmly in the latter group and always — seriously, always — use two latches on the lens case.

And here’s why…

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5 Useful Cinematography iPad Apps for Filmmakers

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5 Useful Cinematography iPad Apps for Filmmakers

It may not fit in your pocket as you sit next to the camera, but the iPad is slowly finding itself on more and more film sets between slating scenes, monitoring takes, and watching dailies — not to mention killing time between long setups.

As part of the iOS family, all of the cinematography apps available in Apple’s App Store will run on the iPad (and most are universally formatted for it), but there are a handful of iPad-specific apps. These cinematography apps will enable you to watch dailies, make shotlists, diagram lighting schemes, compare depth-of-field, and even control a camera.

So even though the iPad isn’t as portable as its phone-call-making brethren, you may find it proves useful to have in your toolkit armed with these five apps for filmmakers.

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Streaming Wireless Video to an iPad with a Teradek Cube

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Teradek Cube Streaming Video to iPad from RED Epic (Photo by Vincent Laforet)photo by: Vincent Laforet

The future has arrived. It’s true.

Want to know how I know?

Because at this time last week, I was standing in front of a RED Epic camera watching myself watch myself on an iPad. That meta-moment was made possible by the Teradek Cube, a device enabling a video stream from the Epic to appear on the iPad in my hands with a latency of mere frames.

It was truly a “wow” moment, even if wireless video has been around for ages.

But the Teradek Cube isn’t perfect, even if it is pretty damn good.

And to make iPad streaming possible, we had to make sure everything was set up the right way. So today, I want to share with you how we did it, what limitations the Cube has, and how you can expect to apply the technology to your future shoots.

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Little Known Way to Make Hidden Marks for Actors Outdoors

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Little Known Way to Make Hidden Marks for Actors OutdoorsCreative Commons License photo credit: cauchisavona

Have you ever tried to use a piece of camera tape outdoors to mark an actor?

It isn’t easy. Often the ground is uneven or the texture not well-suited for adhesive tape.

And that makes pulling focus or even composing a shot difficult because many exterior locations lack common reference marks you’d find indoors such as furniture, wall-art, or floor tiles.

While these difficulties don’t manifest on every shot, they do crop up enough to give them notice. Luckily, 1st AC Brian Andrews has a brilliantly elegant — and cheap! — solution.

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The iPad Slate iWould Use

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Ikan Corp T-Slate iPad and Tablet Slate Clapperboard

The iPad, like most Apple products, is commonplace on film sets. Producers use them to watch dailies, directors use them to keep production notes, actors use them to keep themselves busy while they “hurry up and wait” and, increasingly, camera assistants are using them to slate.

Slating with an iPad is not a new idea. Capable slate apps have existed for awhile and one even made it front and center in an Apple commercial.

The smooth touchscreen interface of the devices and their slab-like shapes seem like a natural fit to digitize the clapperboard, especially considering the price gap between pro-level timecode slates and tablets, but using an iPad to slate never seemed particularly useful or pleasant – until now.

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