Camera suggestion

[justin316a]

This is something that may be alittle hard to pull off atm for you guys in the studio, but it would be extremely helpful (and probably alot easier on you guys on the set.) if we could get an over-head camera looking down onto a project. It was alittle more apparent this episode since you guys where having to work in a tight space and trying to help the camera get good shots (an absurdly heavy box probably wasn't help much either huh guys? =P)

It's definely not something I expect you guys to just up and do because I understand that first, is the cost of another cam, mounting it, and having some way to control it for angle and zoom shots. And I doubt that's cheap, much less having a 200lbs moving camera dangling over Pat's head might make him a touch nervous. Sorry Patrick.

[mikec]

Actually, when you see such a shot in say a cooking show, the camera is on the ground aimed at a mirror above the talents head. Another option might be lipstick cameras.

BTW, the days of 200 lb cameras, heck I can't think of any camera that weighed that much unless you include a studio pedestal. I doubt the cameras that Dave bought for that studio weigh more then 17 pounds, excluding tripod and pan head and studio viewfinder.

[drandolph]

The cameras they have is the jvc GY-HD250U which doesnt weigh very much but after you add prompter/head/VF/studio adaptor it hits 55lbs, not including the ped. However a overhead camera would be nice for them to purchase some day.

[mikec]

Dave, you should have bought some TK-42 bodies and stuck the JVC cameras in them and then showed off the new HD cameras.

Back to the original post, another issue in your quest for better presentation is that it seems that Rev3 is skimping on studio crew right now. One human to operate three cameras. It should be one operator for every camera.

[justin316a]

Dave, you should have bought some TK-42 bodies and stuck the JVC cameras in them and then showed off the new HD cameras.

Back to the original post, another issue in your quest for better presentation is that it seems that Rev3 is skimping on studio crew right now. One human to operate three cameras. It should be one operator for every camera.

i don't know if that's a complete necessity considering at least one is almost always locked down for the main shot. It's always good to have more people on hand but I dont know if it's completely needed all the time.

I do however see the mirror option being a good way of addresing the issue. It would actually work really well since you could have the cameraman working the close-up shots at head level for times like when Dave was doing the soldering segment on Tekzilla, then just looking up to an angled mirror and zoom in for overhead shots. Or just locked down on the mirror shot like they do on PixelPerfect on an LCD TV displaying bert's photoshop. session.