E-Cig

Theater is stupid.

Kim Morgan.

I think I want to make some key art with this image.

You know, the cool thing about those e-cigarette is: if you use them in a movie you don't have to worry about the continuity of them changing length. And you can pretend they're all the non-nicotine kind so you aren't doing bad things to the kids. (You know, the kids.) And since everyone looks cool on screen smoking cigarettes, everybody wins.

I've been thinking lots about cameras. Mitchell has the awesome Panasonic GH-1 and that's cool and everything -- it seems to do most everything we want plus it has autofocus which really works and that could be... very interesting.

Normally professional video/film DP's would never use autofocus. But it is amazingly difficult to pull your own focus if you're a one-man-band operator of a camera with an imager size approximating that of 35mm film. There are French guys who can do it.* But it's very hard.

I would feel very comfortable doing walk-and-talks with the Panasonic camera. I hate constantly telling actors to slow the hell down when they do a walk and talk (look at how unnaturally slow actors walk when they have a big conversation with one another -- it's the limitation of the camera department, we're walking backwards for cryin' out loud).

But the new Canon 7D has a 60p mode which can be used to shoot slow motion.

Here's a cheap fast Sigma lens. I dunno -- I still go by the rule "cheap, fast, good, pick two."

You can easily spend $2000 on a Canon 85mm lens -- and photographers complain about the slow auto-focus on it.

Bleh. I don't know. I just want an Aaton Penelope with a digital back...

*That's not a joke -- I bet more French camera operators with Aaton cameras have the level of experience one needs to pull focus and shoot handheld than any other nationality.