An anagram
As I settle into the fitness mindset, I have written down my goals. One of them is to condition against fatigue working as a boom operator. It is something that I have had in mind for a while, assuming I would use dumbbells (though I had never gotten around to getting the right size dumbbells). […]
The first audio recorder I used for film was the Zoom H4n. Then I upgraded to the Roland R-26, then the Zoom F4, and finally to the Sound Devices MixPre-10 II. Each time, I congratulated myself that I was stepping up to a recorder with better preamps, or so I believed, but I could never […]
I haven’t read enough film scripts. One I have read is the screenplay for Trumbo, written by John McNamara. I read it before having watched the film, and it moved me: to feel sadness, joy, and pride for the characters, and to shed actual tears. I’m no expert, but I would call that good writing. […]
I started watching Top of the Lake, mainly because it’s a British police procedural, and because it has Elisabeth Moss in it. I’m only one episode in, but it’s definitely weird. I hope the dominant, entitled drug lord trope turns out to be less cliché than seems so far. Anyway, there’s a character, GJ, who […]
I have acquired a Sound Devices MixPre-10 II, which is a big step up from the Zoom F4 I have been using primarily for nearly three years. This review will largely be written as a comparison between those two devices. [Be warned that many of the features of the MixPre-10 II are not present in […]
In early 2017, I purchased a Zoom F4 digital recorder. Though I had been recording location sound for film for years, this is the first device I have owned that was designed for filmmaking. Prior to that, I had been using a Roland R-26, which was a step up from my Zoom H4n, which was […]
I haven’t been to all of them, but I suspect that the Hercules Glades Wilderness is the crown jewel of Wilderness Areas in Missouri. It is not the biggest, but it is scattered with glades — some quite large and picturesque, has an extensive and well maintained trail system, and even has a set of pretty […]
Five years late to the game, I am picking up a Panasonic GH4 for filmmaking. This is for a specific project, which I needn’t discuss here. I have just spent some time making sense of the crop factors and the 4K windowed video, and here is what I have figured out. First of all, “crop […]
From an NPR article, Are Movies Getting Better? The famous screenwriter William Goldman had a saying about the ability of the movie studios to predict what would be a critical or commercial success: “Nobody knows anything.” Waldfogel calls this “Goldman’s Law,” The methodology described in the article to arrive at its conclusion is flawed, but […]
I finally own the so-called “Holy Trinity” of Canon zoom lenses. I acquired my original Canon EOS camera outfit, including the 24-70mm f/2.8 and 70-200 f/2.8 lenses, in 2005. Since then, I have wanted to round out my lens collection with a 16-35mm ultra-wide angle zoom lens. It isn’t useful for model photography, so it […]