KitPlus | Articles

HD camera market

With the low cost HD market taking an ever firmer grip on the industry, we asked for Hireacamera Managing Director Guy Thatcher’s opinion on the changes taking place. So is anyone still hiring DV/DVCAM equipment anymore?Certainly in the area we specialise in, since the arrival of the Sony HVR-Z1E nearly four years ago, we have slowly watched the ma...

Submitted by Dennis Lennie

Published 01 March 2009

Choosing the right tripod

Camera support equipment is constantly changing as technological advances influence what can be created in the viewfinder. New generations of ultra compact cameras are enabling the camera operator to explore and get into the action as never before and longer lenses allow close-up views previously unobtainable. But with so much choice, how do you se...

Submitted by Dennis Lennie

Published 01 January 2009

Camera rigs and lighting

The biggest single story at IBC this year, apart from the usual company-eats-company rumours, was the continuing progress of stereoscopy or '3D' as it is currently undersold. A stereoscopic snapshot may well be 3D (displaying length, width and height) but a stereoscopic movie is in fact 4D as it includes a timeline. John Logie Baird set the stereos...

Submitted by Dennis Lennie

Published 01 January 2009

Everything you ever wanted to know about TV lighting Part...

Back in time in the days of monochrome TV, portrait lighting was used to try and compensate for the lack of colour in those days of flickering 405 line pictures on tiny screens. The other consideration was to compensate for the lack of depth; the missing dimension from our TV screens. When colour TV came along in the 1960’s, pictures looked more re...

Submitted by Dennis Lennie

Published 01 January 2009

How we lit Mick

Shine a lightLets start at the beginning with the most fundamental, basic of questions – what’s the point of lighting anything, let alone a living legend like Sir Mick Jagger? The answer is simple – because lighting is the most important part of the whole process. Not the filming. Not the fiddly edit. Not the chin-scratching pre-production. The lig...

Submitted by Dennis Lennie

Published 01 January 2009

Lighting and Grip.

Lighting and Grip are often spoken as if they are one item, inseparable and complete. However the clue is in the phrase lighting AND grip. So let’s start by separating them. Lighting covers the instruments that provide the light. Grip covers the instruments we use to hold and control the light. LightingThere is a huge range of lights, luminaires, p...

Submitted by Dennis Lennie

Published 01 January 2009

New developments in mobile HD production

When widescreen HDTV was first demonstrated back in the 1980s, the pictures were great but the size and price of the kit left much to be desired. Two decades on, broadcast-quality 1080i/720p HD cameras and recorders have reached levels of compactness and affordability that would have seemed impossible in those early days. When I designed the origin...

Submitted by Dennis Lennie

Published 01 January 2009

New editing essentials

I like to think of myself as a bit of a pioneer at the frontier of the new age of HD Digital Cinematography. Investigating the best of the new technology available to our industry and evaluating its possible impact. I ‘d like to explain the impact of some of the particular examples of this today starting with:-XDCam EX Tapeless HD Camcorders. One w...

Submitted by Dennis Lennie

Published 01 December 2008

Lights, Camera, Makohead Action

With the movie Quantum of Solace due to hit the big screens in October, audiences around the world are already gearing up for another huge blockbuster from the James Bond stable. The movie, which began shooting at Pinewood studios in November 2007, will undoubtedly include the spectacular action sequences that are the hallmark of James Bond films....

Submitted by Dennis Lennie

Published 01 December 2008

Virtual Studios

Traditionally virtual studios have been extremely expensive to equip due to the amount of technology required just to make the studio work. Besides the standard studio cameras and lighting, sophisticated additional technology is required to provide feedback from lenses, pan and tilt heads and dollies, to seamlessly synchronise foreground and backgr...

Submitted by Dennis Lennie

Published 01 November 2008

Everything you ever wanted to know about TV lighting Part...

In my last article, I talked about some of the basic technical aspects that we need to think about when we start on the lighting trail. I covered light levels and intensities in relation to lens apertures before discussing colour temperature and its relevance to producing ‘nice’ pictures. Although I’d like to move on into lighting ‘proper’ there ar...

Submitted by Dennis Lennie

Published 01 October 2008

London to Capetown, by bike part 1

South Africans are known for being to the point, so when I was told that I had done the whole thing ‘Arse Backwards’ I wasn’t unduly upset, but I did feel a need to justify the way I had approached this project. I had just arrived in Cape Town and was rather pleased with myself, having just completed a year long journey through some of Africa’s mos...

Submitted by Dennis Lennie

Published 01 October 2008

Fancy a trip from Beijing to Paris in our Landrover?

That’s more or less how it happened, not months of planning or deciding I needed adventure in my life, just “Fancy the trip”. Of course no money in it (when is their ever?) but who could pass up such an offer. Dave at Broadcast Services in Chertsey had been preparing a Landrover for the journey for some months having acquired a left hand drive mode...

Submitted by Dennis Lennie

Published 01 September 2008

Insurance in a muddy field

There can be few subjects which provide a wider insight into life than Insurance. Don’t let anyone convince you that it is boring. Over the years I have been involved in covering risks as diverse as insuring a belly dancers belly against injury, whilst dancing at a top London Turkish restaurant, to covering the Polish Chamber Orchestra and the Pope...

Submitted by Dennis Lennie

Published 01 August 2008

Is it cool to use cool lighting

Is it cool to use cool ?The term ‘cold lighting’ is used within the film & TV lighting industry as a generic term for energy efficient, Fluorescent, LED, and Plasma (panel) lighting sources which emit little or no radiant heat. HistoryThe technology is not so new; Evidence exists of neon lighting being used on a film set in Teddington Studios Engla...

Submitted by Dennis Lennie

Published 01 August 2008