Shooting Technology-2

The final piece of the lithium ion batteries was that the jib that the unit was using, had had its controller  adapted to use the same battery. Typically jib controllers use external power sources, but somebody had applied a bit of electrical engineering to adapt the jib controller to lithium ion batteries. So again the same chargers, no diesel generators, and the unit used just one kind of batteries.
The jib itself was a revelation, in the hands of a skilled operator it could give you absolutely delightful camera movements so very quickly. Once it was set up, you could move it around far faster than you’d move your camera tripod. Add to that the sheer flexibility of camera movements, and you could liven up the dullest moments with a clever camera movement.
I suppose that could lead to a lot of unnecessary camera movement, or camera movement unjustified by the narrative’s demands, but the jib is a wonderful instrument. If only one could afford to have it around all the time.
In this unit they owned the jib so its rental cost wasn’t much of an issue. But otherwise you’d need to budget carefully so that you could have the jib around all the time. though using LED lights, the savings from not hiring a generator alone could get you the jib. which is great, all filmmakers would choose the jib over a generator.
But the jib is only as good as its operator and his skill. I guess that’s where India scores, plenty of young people with the passion and drive to master these crafts.
Again  different world from my static camera universe of East Africa, where you didn’t take a trolley shot due to the time it took to set up.

Shooting Technology-1

Took part in a shooting recently. Nothing extraordinary, a simple television serial shooting for a small channel, without any TV Stars. What I mean to say is that it was a low budget kind of situation, being filmed on DVCAM to save costs.
Having come from Kenya recently, where I was working in low budget situations almost all the time, I was immediately struck by how organised the shooting technology had become in India. Or maybe it was just this unit, I am in no position to generalise really.
Let me begin by explaining  what I mean by using the word ‘organised’. I have to begin with the lights-they were LED lights made in China, with dimmers attached to them, no facility to switch off rows but just dim the whole thing. As is usual with LED lights, the dimming causes no change of colour temperature, unlike conventional movie lights. The interesting part was that these were lights running off batteries, not any ordinary batteries but lithium ion ones.
I noticed that the lithium ion batteries looked similar to the ones powering the camera (a standard high-end Sony DVCAM one). It turned out that the lights had been adapted to use these lithium ion batteries, identical to the long-life ones that power video cameras. So now the unit could use the same chargers as the one for the camera and have more batteries available all around.
As LED lights typically use very little power, the batteries were enough to power a six hundred watt output light for eight hours, or an entire working day. The unit used four lights in typical set-ups, but due to the LED lights did not need to use any diesel generator or rely on external power sources. They were ‘independent’ in the best sense of the word.
Of course you still had to charge the batteries at night and that needed electrical power. But you’d need that anyway to charge your camera batteries. Added plus to the no diesel generator was no cables running anywhere, no noise worries so ‘cleaner’ sound.
Then I noticed that the guys had adapted their camera monitor to run on the same size lithium ion batteries. So no electrical power or other power source required there, again saving on diesel generators which are standard to our business in India as much as overseas.
I was left dumbstruck by the efficiency of the whole set-up and how much it eased life, beside giving the unit a lot more flexibility to adapt to location shooting.
A lesson in technology learnt.