I thought I’d get this out of the way in case the entire line of MacBook Pros changes next week… I’m holding my breath for a new mac tower myself as I really need one with a Thunderbolt port!   Regardless of the products released, I think you’ll see the benefits of adopting SSDs within your workflow whenever possible.

For all of my productions, I have been taking my 17" Macbook Pro with me everywhere for years now.   That laptop has traveled with around the globe – coming along for helicopter shoots as a way to ingest cards in the air, and going to the lowest point in North America with me for a photoshoot in Death Valley.  A few weeks ago, my laptop had to fill in for a DIT station, and transfer massive .R3D files from a dual RED Epi shootc.

With such constant use and on site action, its important that my laptop not only be fast enough to deal with the data –  but also, I need to be able to rely on it to make sure the data is never lost.  That’s why I’ve removed the optical drive (what’s a CD/DVD anyway these days!?) and replaced it with a 256GB SSD from OWC (technically there is 240GB of writable space – the other 16GB is allocated for real time redundancy and error correction).  So now my computer has two drives – a 256GB SSD, as well as the original 1TB, 7200 rpm drive that came installed in the laptop.    In an ideal world I would have two SSD drives in there.

One of the big benefits of installing this drive in the place of the optical bay, is that you don’t need to daisy chain external drives with your readers.    This means you can have the fastest copy speeds possible and save valuable time on set.   If you were to daisy chain a RED SSD card reader with a Firewire 800 hard drive for example on a MacBook Pro – you are splitting the performance of that port by more than half, and more than doubling the time it takes to copy a card.   I have seen these time go up to 42+ minutes for a single 128GB SSD drive for example – and this can be deadly while out in the field.  This solution cuts down a copy to less than 12 minutes.   My other solution is to get an e-Sata adapter and use the e-Sata port on the RED Reader and drive – but this means that you will need AC power for all of the e-Sata drives I have tested out there – which kills your mobility.   That is why having an internal SSD is a fantastic option for those that need to copy files off of their cards/SSDs as quickly as possible.  It’s also pretty much the safest way to ensure that valuable data is never lost.

For those of you not familiar with SSD’s – it stands for Solid-State Drive.  Rather obviously, the name comes from the fact that it is solid and has no moving/spinning disk or read/write arm.  As a result, the drive can take a few bumps without you having to worry that it is going to affect the reading or writing of data.  As you can imagine, that is a huge relief when you are up in a helicopter (or anywhere on location for that matter) where you are moving, or have to move the DIT station while you are copying for example.    SSD’s are just more rugged – but they have some other benefits too.   If you (or TSA) drop the laptop for example – the changes are very good that the data will be intact on the SSD drive.  The same cannot be said about any spinning drive… Read the rest of this entry »

Before NAB, Marshall announced their new 5.6 inch monitor, which included a boat load of new features including waveform display, dual audio monitoring, headphone output, variable pixel to pixel functions, and a new peaking filter with four different color options.  On top of those features, the monitor also featured a brand new menu system that’s incredibly easy to navigate (for the full review on the 5.6" – check it out HERE). 

Now they have expanded that Modular Design line of monitors with the V-LCD70MD and the V-LCD90MD, a 7" and 9" version of that 5.6" monitor that include all of the same features.  These new sizes offer greater options for the use of these monitors.  The 7" is slightly bigger, and can function as an on-board monitor for the dumb side of the amber to give the first AC a larger screen to pull focus with.  The 9" on the other hand is great for on-set monitoring when you don’t have a village video set-up – or you don’t want to spend all your time moving between the camera and video village.  The included waveform monitors and the fact that they can be powered from P-Tap make them fantastic onboard solutions.

The 5.6" Marshall is now shipping, and the 7" and 9" versions are expected to ship at the end of June.

My buddy Stu Maschwitz made a great comment recently on his blog that while he was passionate about his blog – he wasn’t necessarily running a blog that was out there to review the latest piece of equipment or to do side by side comparisons.  As you all likely know there are a bevy of such sites/blogs out there!  Stu also mentioned that if he didn’t post anything for a bit – it was likely due to the fact that he was busy working on something, and not the fact that he was working on a "secret project." I appreciated his comments given that I always try to find a good balance on this blog for everyone reading it.  

I’ve always very much appreciated the viewership of this blog (we’re nearing 10,000,000 visitors!) and I always try to write about things that I (and I hope you) find of interest in the HDSLR/Cinema/Still world.  I also think it’s important that I continue to keep my main focus on my directing career as opposed to blogging – so that I can share as much "real life" experience with the readers of this blog.

I’m in the middle of an 8 week back-to-back shooting schedule and the shoot schedules can be grueling at times (shooting during the day, and prepping for futures jobs at night or in the morning hours) and very hard to find the time to post on the blog.  I hope you all understand if this blog goes silent for a few days or weeks at a time…  

One of the things I do very little of these days is teach cinema workshops.    I only do 2-3 times a year as it just takes so much effort to get gear in place from so many manufacturers.  Photo workshops are exponentially easier to do for obvious reasons! (One of which is that everyone brings their own gear in one backpack!)  Not so for cinema (although it can definitely be done!)

I’ve always felt it important to introduce students to steadicams, dollies, jibs, cinema lighting and lenses etc. – even if they likely will never get a chance to use them on a regular basis.  I think it’s important to have people try out the gear and get their hands on them – and to learn how each tool has its advantages, and disadvantages.    I especially want students to learn that "just because you can (have x piece of gear) doesn’t mean you should…"   – as more complicated gear is more cumbersome and can take a lot more expertise to use, not to mention logistics, crew, transportation vehicles etc.   Sometimes shooding with a bare 5D MKIII and a nice lens without a single accessory is still the best way to go!  It is after all what startedthe HDSLR revolution:  small, lean and mean (not to mention relatively inexpensive.)

That all changes when you have clients and they want to see a live image of what you are shooting and to use fancy camera moves of course… not to mention keep focus on a moving actor at f 2.8 or less on a full frame sensor…

I try to do my best on focusing on the "why" you need such gear in the first place – and how the students can think of using them on their next films (and more importantly IF they need ANY of it!)  We also tend to find that a good, experienced crew is almost always more important than the fanciest new toy…    A good crew can do wonders with the most basic gear – but the opposite is seldom true: fancy gear can lead to disastrous results (and blown schedules) in the hand of inexperienced crew members.

Here’s a great video of the workshop I just concluded in Konstanz, Germany.   It was organized by Martin Biebel, the editor in chief of the magazine Videoaktiv, and had an incredible level of support from manufacturers such as Canon, Zeiss, Arri, Glidecam, Adobe, Kessler Crane, Chrosziel, Lite Panels, Zacuto, Aibotix, A.F. Marcotec, Vocas – and the list goes on and on…  

It was a wonderful time – many laughs were shared and I think a lot of people came away with having learned at least a few important things.