The Big Think

The Lowell lighting kit just arrived! It’s smaller than I thought, but that’s probably due to the fact that it’s factory-packed into a small soft-sided case that’s too small to ever re-pack correctly. I’m sure once I take everything out and try to fold it all up again it’ll take up twice the space as it does now. So I’m going to be very careful unboxing everything. I want to see how they origami-ed it all together. Here’s a pic:

Nice kit. Portable and flexible with a softbox included. I’ll set it up tomorrow (along with everything else) and do a faux-interview. I’ll post it on YouTube or something and link to it from here.

Had to order a 4GB card off of Amazon today for the HDP2. I only have a 512MB CF card and that won’t come close to getting all the audio I’ll need in Colorado. We have a bunch of other media cards of various sizes lying around, but they’re in different formats. Darn format wars!

Oh, I also have to order spare bulbs. I hate to drop the $75 or so on the replacement bulbs (they’re really expensive!), but I don’t want to have one pop while I’m doing an interview.

I also need to make three sandbags to weight the tripods down. I could buy them for $30 each, or go to Home Depot for playground sand and the fabric store for thick cordura and make my own. Since the sewing machine is already out on the table I’m going for option #2. Did I mention that I sent back the $23 Rip-Tie’s and made my own? They’re not pretty, but they work great! Total cost: $10 and they’re much bigger/better. Hooray for Makers!

I’ve been making plans to build some sort of Über-case with wheels that can hold all of this stuff. Small enough to fit in a car trunk, but flexible enough to store everything I need so it’s all in one easy-to-steal package! Efficiency.

Seriously, I need to call the insurance company….

Wooo! The new digital CF recorder just arrived and I’ve spent an hour or so playing with it. Very nice! It’s flexible, silent (due to the fact that it records on CF cards and not DAT tape or anything else that needs motors and moving parts), and sounds great. Plus, it’s got nice little touches like instant record (you don’t have to cue the recording up to the end of the previous take), and non-destructive trashing.

If you’re curious, it’s this one:

I’m not crazy about a few things: the headphone jack is on the other side of the unit. I’d prefer it to be on the right side for wire management. It’s also mostly plastic, which is a disappointment. But the machined aluminum SD702 that every sound man lusts over is about a thousand dollars more ($1500 more with timecode option), and that’s just not in the cards. My new unit (the Tascam HDP2) has a timecode input, which just seems like it should be standard on pro decks.

One more bummer is that this sucker takes 8 AA batteries, and goes through them in about 4 hours. That’s a LOT of batteries over the course of a 2 day gig- consider also that the wireless mics go through four every 3 hours or so (2 for the receivers, 2 for the transmitters). My mixer uses up 3 every four to five hours as well. So added all together, that’s nineteen batteries used up every 4-5 hours. Over a two day gig (10hr/day), that’s almost forty batteries!. At that rate, a $300 rechargeable belt-mounted battery system starts to make sense. They also make bag-mounted ones with neat power distribution systems, but they’re more in the $500 range with chargers. NP1 batteries can run a couple hundred dollars each, but they’ll last all day and recharge hundreds of times.

It may sound like I’m complaining but I’m really not. The Tascam is a great little recorder being used in the industry every day. It’ll be great on set as well as in location recording for SFX and dialog/interviews. Can’t wait to see how it works out on my next gig. I’ll be using the new recorder on the Colorado documentary later this summer. It’ll act as a backup to the camera audio in case anything goes out there. Good insurance for the price.

The final piece of the puzzle, my Lowell light kit, is currently in transit and should be here tomorrow.