I went to Cal State Northridge's film production program, which was lead by a bunch of older men who really should not have become professors after failed film careers. In my only in-person cinematography class following the end of zoom university during my last semester as a student, my professor mostly lectured during our 3-hour class on his life, politics, and hardly ever any hands-on experience that really broke down what we would need to know and apply on set. Sometimes we'd watch RU-vid videos on things we were hoping he'd teach us himself. I wouldn't be surprised if your videos ended up in his class one day, at least that'd be a step in the right direction. I know that's a lot of people's film school experiences, but you'd expect education that you spend thousands of dollars on to at least teach you the bare minimum of ACing, or even how to build a camera on an industry-standard level. Nope! The good thing is I finished with 0 dollars in debt, and now I get to watch In Depth Cine videos to keep my knowledge tidied in between gigs. I prefer to tell people I didn't go to film school at this point. Thank you In Depth Cine for creating and posting this content! Can't express how helpful it is to have such gatekept knowledge online, especially as a woman trying to make it in camera dept. :]
I went to UCLA film school and it's sadly true that most film programs don't teach real world professional-level film production workflow and techniques. They make you take a bunch of film criticism classes, which I found completely useless in the real world. Many years later, I learned so much more about production when I hired a union film crew to shoot my film.
Anyone learning to be a camera assistant should read the book The Camera Assistant's Manual and watch your channel. Seriously, the gaps in that book are so well filled by your content.
Couple things of note for viewers who aren't experienced. - More often on higher end productions, a tripod plate is not bolted to a dovetail. Higher end camera departments normally use larger O'connor tripod heads that accept dovetails as the plate. - Matte boxes now have a standardized filter size. That is 5.56x4. A majority of matte boxes utilize this size regardless of whether or not it's a clip on or a rod mounted system. 6" filters are only used when extremely large barreled lenses are being utilized which means a larger matte box is required. I've used large clip ons as well as rod mounted - Not a point of critique but advice to fellow 1st ACs: Try not to mount your focus motor on the bottom rods. Whenever you can, top mount them. When top mounted, gravity will help keep the motor connected to the lens. You will have much less skipping. It will also keep the lower rods less cluttered for when you inevitably have to change things. I hope this helps clarify things for inexperienced viewers. Source: I'm a 1st AC who works on high end sets. Also, awesome video!
Not all focus assist options require the box anymore, most of the more popular ones used nowadays like the focusbug CineRT and the light ranger from Preston just require you to plug them into the 4 pin serial port on a mdr, LCube, or into the camera depending on your set up. Really only the original cinematography electronics cinetape requires the large screen strapped to the camera nowadays, the Arri udm-1 made the improvement over it to allow you to not require the control module
At 4:10 I would specifically shy away from using clip on matteboxes on older telescoping lenses like the superspeeds because having weight on the front element could damage the movement.
If you’re also using vintage adapted lenses they may have rotating telescoping elements that would cause the matte box to rotate and potentially cause it to hit something and not be able to move or break off due to resistance when it hits something
I was 2nd AC on a production that used the superspeeds and clip ons, and you're absolutely right that isn't a good combination. Because it was telescoping, the matte box interfered with the aperture ring on the lens. The 1st AC loosened the matte box, but that only made it fall off and we ended up breaking the promist filter inside... oops
Thank you for this video! I’m an internet-educated DSLR videographer who is always trying to figure out which accessories pictured in my American Cinematographer magazines and online are actually going to help me with my level/type of shooting, which aren’t, and how the heck they are all typically wired and connected!
Can you go over sound in more depth? I can’t grasp how the booms and external sound works exactly. How does the clapper help with that? Do the audio get saved else where and get synced later or do the booms go to the A cam? What about in a multicam multi boom setup? I know these are silly questions but I love cinema and learning so much from your videos except the audio component of the puzzle is getting lost on me. Thank you!
Sound department and sound equipment is used by different people than Camera on large sets. There's usually a sound mixer, a boom op, and sometimes sound assistants depending on the size. Most actors have wireless mics and Booms are used to capture overall dialogue, or coverage for anything that isn't usable with the wireless mics, or just general sound of a scene. There are timecode devices that sync up digital clocks that sync with slates, the sound mixers equipment and then are plugged into the cameras so all footage from the camera and sound recorded by the sound mixer is sycned up to this same digital clock. Each file whether video or audio has a tag to this timecode. Even in todays day and age these are notoriously unreliable and even the one of the newest camera on the market, Alexa 35, has issues with timecode still. The clapper is how sound and footage was synced before digital devices and today is still used as a backup should any of the timecode devices fail. The audio is directly recorded onto the sound mixers drives and then synced by post production. Hope that all makes sense!
If not rehoused, u should never clip on a mattebox on super speeds, these lenses are not as sturdy as modern lenses, use rod adapters for the mattebox. 😊
Yes film cameras need a battery, they usually have a power input where you can plug in a block battery and there are also companies who make battery plates for the cameras too that allow gold mount or v mount options
another excellent post mate! I'd love to see a short video regarding how to use Time Code and the difference between TC & Gen Lock... (how to use each on real life situations...) Thanks!
