I have read on 2 seperate site this week that Canon is rumoured to be making the 1DSIV with Raw video. Wow! That would seal the deal for Canon as the premier small camera platform. The biggest problem I have with the 5D is the h.264 compression. We all deal with it, but to have RAW, would be awesome, well not so awesome if you are the RED ONE company. Add to this that Zeiss anounced that will be releasing a set of cinema primes for for EOS/PL mounts, and you have a huge step forward in HDSLR film making. The speed at which these developments are arriving is stunning. It feels like something has tipped, as Malcom Gladwell would say.

The next thing I would love to see would be Canon releasing cinema lenses for their own cameras. They have the best technology out there, they just need to apply it. That Zeiss, with 20 year old technology can steal the show from them is a bit amusing. But, it is just a matter of time. Canon has fantastic IS, they have great autofocus, they make wonderful cinema lenses for super 16 ( The Hurt Locker was shot with them), they just need to make put all the pieces together and release some killer glass.

There is a wonderful part in Walter Murch’s book In the Blink of an Eye (written 1999), where he is discussing the future of cinema. He makes the prescent comparison of between change from fresco painting to oil painting to the then current state of cinema and what he was foreseeing as the future of cinema. Fresco painting was a very complex difficult time sensitive process that required a large highly skilled team to mix and prep the work while the artist had a very small window of time each day to apply the material. Only a limited amount could be done in any given day, or the plaster would crack. Before begining a project they would make a map, a plan for how they were going to proceed in the coming months to complete the work. This all changed with the advent of oil paint. Now one person could complete an entire work by themselves and they could proceed through the process in a much more spontaneous manner. This resulted in what we think of as painting today. An artist with a single vision sits in front of a canvas and makes a painting. Of course, there are plenty of painting assistants in the world, and the process of making paintings is just as ikely to be done by a directed team as by an individual. But the point is, if Murakami or Koons wanted to make those paintings by hand, by themselves, they could.

Which brings me to the 5D and what is happening in the world of the moving image today. There have been many times in my career when it has been suggested to me to make a film reel. I never was that interested because of what I saw was the complexity and logistics involved in the moving image making process. Too much stuff, too many people, too much time. It seemed like a constarint on my freedom, when in stills, I could just go out by myself and make pictures any time I felt like it. Which is exactly where we are with the 5D. I quite literally use the camera every day to make motion images, and often all by myself. I have some FC skills, so I can now edit and color correct the footage. Whenever I feel like it, I can post a film on the web. This is just fantastic, really amazing. I hear Shane Hurlbut is reducing his camera dept from 150 on Terminator, down to 5, that is incredable. When anyone who has the enthusiasm to study the workings of the camera for a short period of time can make a full res Hollywood 60ft screen quality film for basically no money, that is just mind boggling. I am old enough that to me this is extraordinary, but to someone who is 17 and just starting art school, this will be the only world they have known. I am so excited about where this is all going. I am also in awe of Walter Murch’s fortune telling abilities.

After a few unsuccessful tries at getting my Merlin/7D/Zeiss 12 combo balanced, I went out to visit the. experts at Steadycam USA in Glendale. Incredibly helpful nice folks out there. Dan spent an hour and a half with me. He balanced the rig in 5 minutes, then gave me a tutorial on how to move it. We spent the last half hour with me in vest/arm setup on a SteadyCam pilot. Great fun.

So this is the deal. It is far far easier than I had imagined. Forget about all the tables and measurements you find on the web which are like 10th grade physics class all over again. No need for that stuff. Get a light stand or a tripod out and mount an arm on it with an up facing stud. If you don’t have such a thing, Steadycam will sell you one for $45. I bought one. On your finger on a desk top, try to guess the approximate center of balance for the width and length of the camera. It will probably be just back of the lens, and towards the handle. Now take the mounting plate and line up the H hole over that point. Screw in the plate to the camera so that it more or less keeps that position. On mine it was either the M or N hole. It is helpful to put some gaff tape on the plate to give it some friction against the camera bottom. Weight the spare: middle position 1 finish, one standard; bottom position start weight, finish weight and 3 middle weights. Now put the plate on the Merlin and move it back and forth until it is in very rough balance. Don’t worry if it flops around, just put it somewhere that is about right. For me, it was back about to the -2 mark. Put the camera on the stand. Move the screws side to side and back and forth until you get close to static balance. Take the Merlin off the the stand and hold the handle at a 45 degree angle. Do a drop test. You want about 1 sec of drop time from side to bottom, but this is just a guide. The drop time will effect the technics you use to guide the camera in its moves, as you will see. The drop time is adjusted by moving the spare longer or shorter. The drop time adjustment has most likely messed up the static balance, so go back and redo the static balance. Then do another drop test, and back and forth until there is static balance and about 1 second of drop time. This sounds hard, I know, but it isn’t. I can do a new lens in about 5 minutes now after having about an hour of practice.

Now this is the tricky part, actually using the Merlin. One hand holds the handle, the other hand gently pinches the control tab. What worked best for me was to tap tap tap squeeze it gently to control the motion when in a dynamic move. The hard part I found is that the my right arm gets tired, which for some reason makes my left hand squeeze more on the tab. This is where the Pilot, with its vest and arm is great. I found after 10 minutes on it I was able to do a decent job. The weight is fully taken by the vest/arm rig so there was not the brain confusion of trying to support with one hand and control with the other. Maybe it was just me, I don’t know. The other down side is the monitor screen on the Canons is hard to see if I move my arm to the side or down low. I am looking into a very light weight monitor, but have not found one yet.

All in all, the Merlin is sort of great. It is not something I am going to use all the time, but for what it does, for the its relatively light weight and lack of bulk, it is a pretty great thing. Let me know if anyone has any questions, I would be glad to share what I learned.