Recent content by Brad Hoover

Super 8 Super 8 I have always been a big fan of Super-8. I love the organic feel and texture that's unique to the format. Recently I had the opportunity to shoot the new Vision 2 negative stocks from kodak on a short project I assigned to my class. We shot 14 rolls of the 200T and 500T stock...

Although it is obvious that you would always use T-stops for setting exposure, is it not the actual iris apeture size (F-stop), not transmitted light (T-stop) that is used to calculate depth of field (along with focal length and focus distance)? I ask this because I have several lenses that are...

Anyone who thinks that making a film is not difficult has either never made one or never made one well. Hell, even making a bad film is difficult, maybe even more so. I would know, I've made a few stinkers!. I've heard, and I agree, that making a feature film is the logistical equivalent of...

MOS MOS MOS does indeed refer to a shot without recorded sound, however, the origin of the term is not so cut and dried. There is no definitive historical reference to the origin of MOS (I've looked many times) and there are many anecdotal explanations, "Mit Out Sound" being the most prevalent...

Im not sure if you really meant to say this, but it looks like you're saying that the resolution of super-16 is the same as 35... This is definately NOT the case. If it were, there would be not point in shooting 35mm and NO ONE would do it!. Its physcially not possible for a frame of Super-16...

Butterfly Shutter Butterfly Shutter Each blade of a butterfly shutter (as is used in most Arri cameras) is only 90 degrees. However, the butterfly shutter revolves at half the speed of a pie plate or focal plane shutter, thus the blade covers the apature for twice as long as a regular 180...

Thank you Jim for your response. You beat me to the punch and did it much more eloquently. -Brad Hoover

I wasn't assuming anything. I was using your own words. Perhaps you can understand that from a film educators standpoint, when I hear people talking about "playing around with cameras" It makes me very nervous. Schools tend to be very regimented places out of necessity. It has been found over...

I'm sorry, but there is no film school in exsistance that will allow you to "play around" with their equipment. As a student, you would have access to equipment only after you have been trained on it and have a bonafide project to shoot. Film cameras (and even DV cameras), lighting and sound...

Guerilla35 The reason the Guerilla35 does not employ a spinning ground glass is that the imaging screen IS NOT a ground glass and as such does not add grain to the image. I had the opportunity to test a prototype version of the Guerilla35 and found the results to be very impressive. I'm a...

Hi, I'm a film instructor and DP now living and working in Asheville, NC. Prior to coming here, I lived in Seattle for 12 years and was in fact one of the original instructors at the Seattle Film Institute. I feel that I had, along with David Shulman the Director of the school, a strong hand in...

If you are doing a tracking shot that starts outdoors and moves indoors, (or vice versa) a trick I've used is to rack the iris very quickly when you pass a dark area at the transition between indoors and out. A door jam works well but it must be very dark and fill all or most of the frame as you...

An 85 (orange) filter is used when you're shooting tungsten film outdoors in daylight. Not vice versa. It reduces the color temperature from approx. 5,600? k down to around 3,200? k. Tungsten film is balanced to see 3,200?k as white light. Without the 85 filter, daylight would read as blueish on...

As a fim instructor, there is one thing I know for sure. You learn from everything you do in the film world. Sometimes, in fact, you learn quite a bit more from mistakes or failure than you do from success. There are no wasted experiences. Persistance is the key. Knowing which battles to fight...

You are right. Good story, good characters, good acting and good direction are the most important aspects of any movie. But please don't forget, movies are a VISUAL medium. Much of a films power comes from the visuals. The lighting, art direction and camera angles/movements can carry a great...