theC47's channel is all about the tech, craft & business of producing videos (with a core focus on small-to-no-crew production). Check out new episodes of "The Daily Drop" every weekday & the weekly livestream every Wednesday at 3pm Pacific which includes "Camera & Flask" (with Caleb Pike & Ben Barden), the first Wednesday of each month. -- About Me... I'm Jem Schofield, a producer, DP, educator and the founder of theC47 (a full service production company focused on video production, filmmaking, consulting & education). I spend most of my time producing content & educating others.
I've produced projects for & educated people from companies such as AbelCine, ABCmouse, Apple, ARRI, Blackstone, Canon, MAC Group, NBCUniversal, NPR, Scottish Enterprise, Sony, TED, Videndum, Walmart Films, Westcott, RU-vid & Zeiss. I'm also an equipment design consultant for many companies in the industry and designed theC47 DP Kit & theC47 Book Light Kit with FJ Westcott.
I do a daily livestream and when I'm on the road, it's my iPhone15 ProMax that handles it all - whether using StreamYard or RU-vid Studio. Super simple and easy to use. Actually, the last three days of livestreams were done with the iPhone. I think you'll find it to be great - once you figure out how to mount it.
This was the boost I needed to reaffirm my getting out the biz. Thanks. There are times I miss creating (someone elses) art but I don't miss second meals again and again and again, adjusting from days to nights and then back to days without any splits in between. Shit hotels. Sharing my room in a shit hotel. Begging for just one more day player. Being asked to be patient because checks will be another week late. Being asked for a flat rate (but we will never go over 12.5....I promise) and then there are those producers that are going to rip you and your crew off.
Honestly I’m not surprised. I’m more and more into stripped-down builds these days, and with the quality those things are managing, why not? Good luck on your journey! Looking forward to all the crazy locations!
Let’s all remember that it isn’t just the crafts. The AMPTP has to do their part to ensure worker safety, fair wages and respect (ie proper rest, nourishment, equipment).
For absolutely sure. On those shoots where I’m the whole technical department, I pretty much refuse to leave the site without having completed all transfers. Even if that means running off batteries in the parking lot… It’s too terrifying a thing to think about leaving until later, for me. Great too, Jem!
Was just shooting an exterior interview yesterday with an almost identical setup. Instead of using a second 8 x 8 for the bounce, we used 4 x 4 bead board clamped to a stand with a Matthews Quacker. Because I wanted the light to be slightly more directional, I used a thinner, white scrim type material, sort of a homemade thing instead of our full silk because I didn’t want to knock back the intensity of the sunlight so much. We had a very large white object in the background and it would’ve been really obvious had we cut one full F stop off of the talent.
Agreed. But I'm not losing sleep over not having backed up the files right away. I'm losing sleep because I'd be paranoid that I would forget in the morning and either: A) reformat the cards because I thought I backed them up, or B)take the cards back to the next day of shoot completely full and screwed myself in the field. No matter how late or how tired, back the files up and be done with it! How about a Daily Drop on fast transferring SD cards? Because there are nights when it will take an hour or more to backup the files - and I use 64GB SD cards (upwards of 8 per day). I'd like to find a solution that's lightning fast.
Have you tried ParaShoot? It’s a free utility that just does a cursory file name comparison check between source and destination… if it finds a match, it allows you to “corrupt” the card by inverting the binary on the first few bytes of data, so the card becomes unreadable. Plus it can be set to eject your card, so you know if you put it into a camera and you don’t get a warning that you have to reformat, you know somethings wrong. Alongside a checksum method, it’s a nice extra piece of insurance that your cards have been transferred, I find. As for your SD cards, what kind of read speeds are they? When it comes to offloads, you can’t be faster than your slowest factor, and I always find the big bottleneck is just the read times on my SD cards… other than running several transfers in parallel somehow, I’m not sure how much you can do about that, but hopefully someone who knows more about data wrangling could help.
I can’t remember , did you ever talk about something like the ClouZen TAINER Portable Backup system? I use to use the LaCie DJI Copilot BOSS, until I got tired of the slow read write speeds.
Haven’t used that at all. Looks interesting especially because of playback functionality but could get expensive and reviews seem a bit meh. Have you used it?
This! These are the challenges I deal with all the time. From a selfish perspective, I’d love to see more of this kind of content. Controlling light and sound outdoors with small or no crew is something all of us can learn more about.
Love this! Couple questions. In changing light conditions, could you set the camera to auto ISO exposure? Was the overhead stand stable enough to not have to hold/brace? What variable ND do you use?
This is a great demonstration of how outside shoots can change with one cloud in the sky. I don't think I've seen anyone on YT actually show this happens in real-time. It's a reminder to have a plan B in the event a few clouds pop up. It changes the set dramatically as we just witnessed. The same applies to shoots near big windows. I've done tons of corp shots in Manhattan where companies want to show off their city views in the background. One cloud, just one cloud, is all it takes to mess up my lighting setup! Thank you for sharing, as always!
Looks stunning, when there's Sun out :D SLOG3 or SLOG3.Cine? I've been trying similar setup today. I always opt for the key light instead of the bounce, for the reason we've seen here ... big cloud and exposure is ducked up :D.
I do so many setups like this and I use large tent stakes and string to tie everything down. Also a 10x10 pop up tent for cameras. The clouds and changing light are the biggest issue for us typically.
If there’s one thing that gives me stress, it’s the thought of all those butterfly kits flying on a windy day. Nicely done. I hope you found out what’s making that noise! Thanks for this Jem. Very interesting to see this set up.
Looks fantastic!! Reminds me of something you’d see shot at Apple Park! Curious how that catch light works with people that wear glasses. I always struggle with that.
is it best practice for the data wrangler to format cards or is it best practice for the cam op to format after data has been dumped and confirmed by the data wrangler it's okay to format?
I like boom mics and use the most of the time myself, but my question is: if you don’t use lavs as frequently anymore, what do you do for noisy environments? Occasionally, we find ourselves in noisy environments because the client can’t be convinced to go in a different location, and there’s not much that can be done about it, other than trying to filter noise out in post. I’ve found that sometimes it’s hard to get the boom microphone close enough to the subject in those situations and I’m forced to use a Lavalier mic. what do you do in those situations?
That’s where I love using some offload software like Shotput or even Resolve’s media manager in a pinch… the automation of multi-destination transfers with checksums at the end of a day is a massive relief. Always love the opportunity to prep for the next day whenever venue/timing permits it. Thanks for this Jem! Great tip!
Besides refections , changing lighting ,etc , the biggest problem IMHO , is that if there isn't a shot ,very clearly showing there is a window there , it looks like chromakey , as in this video . I found this out the hard way doing single person interviews , but if you have a frame showing there is window ,like some of the window frame you can get away with it . But generally thats a shot I would avoid like the plague .
Having been in the biz. for a good length of time and knowing that there are many ways to skin a cat, I wonder, when you post these informative videos, if you appreciate feed back. I enjoy seeing what other people do and how they see a setup. Without knowing what the brief is and not knowing the limitations often put on solo shooters, one should not jump in and give one's opinion willy nilly, but man it is difficult to sit or stand by and hold one's tongue. However if you do wish to hear what I think please do not hesitate to let me know.
There is still some echo / reverb in the sound. I guess these big glass sheets are hard to battle (I can see there is one in the front too). Maybe additional sound blanket behind the cameras would help.
@@theC47 What software do you use for removing reverb/echo? :o BTW, I've bought 4 feet round rug you recommended back then. It helps a bit with sound (but my current "studio" is kinda sound proofed anyway). But it's much more comfortable to stand on than on tiles :D Highly recommend :D. Maybe I would test it with my client next week too :D.
Confidence is something I sometimes struggle with - mostly when I'm in front of the lens. Imposter syndrome sets in. Who am I to act as an authority on any subject when there are so many others clearly more skilled than I am? But I have to tell myself that what I have to say is going to be valuable to someone out there. I don't have to please everyone.
I hear ya Daniel! I’ve been struggling with that for most of my career. The “fake it ‘til you make it” is kind of a thing but if you have a passion for education don’t hold back on sharing what you have learned with others once you learn it. I’d just ONE person learns something from your content, me thinks it’s worth it!
in this daily drop about redundancy, I think this is a fabulous topic for you to cover. the idea of redundancy, especially when it comes to the state of not being needed, or no longer useful speaks volumes to me about your channel.
Last time I worked with a sound guy he mentioned how he double booms everything he does lately. But he said it's something he just started doing in the last year and a half or so. Apparently it's a big thing with Netflix docs nowadays he said. But probably just good practice no matter what. I love a good backup.
And number five, you gain the moniker Jem “Two Mic” Schofield, and then people start calling you Jem Mike Mike Schofield- or just Jem Mikes- and general hilarity ensues. With the “clean” secondary mic, do you ever run into any acoustic disparity when you have to rely on it mid mix? Are there noticeable differences with the noise assist off that you can easily dial out? Thanks for this Jem. It’s always a good idea to have backup options when it comes to audio. Very smart approach.