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I would love to have a video tap for two reasons others mentioned:
1. Steadicam
2. Crane shots (or crash camera shots, like hacing the camera partially buried in the road as a car goes over it, etc.)
However, I too would never want one used any other time.
The first time I ever saw a photo in American Cinematographer of a crowd standing around a monitor viewing playback, my first thought was "jeez, what a freakin' waste of time! That at least doubles the amount of time it takes to shoot a scene."
Forget the fact that everyone is going to sit there and give their opinion, if the DP or whoever is running camera doesn't know their sh_t enough to know if the shot is correct, then hire a new camera op.
There is always risk when you shoot, but video is so substandard at telling you what image you actually got (especially from a video tap), that you probably wouldn't know if the shot was crap anyway, unless it was something truly grossly horrendous.
And if you didn't notice that while the shot was underway, you need to go into real estate, or something other than making pictures.
Matt Pacini
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<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Courier, Arial">quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Matt Pacini:
There is always risk when you shoot, but video is so substandard at telling you what image you actually got (especially from a video tap), that you probably wouldn't know if the shot was crap anyway, unless it was something truly grossly horrendous.
And if you didn't notice that while the shot was underway, you need to go into real estate, or something other than making pictures.
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Well modern video taps on Arris and Panavision cameras are really quite good. There is plenty of detail. In fact I know quite a few people that tape the output off the feeds and use them to start editing with until their footage comes back from the lab. However, as I mentioned before, I also don't like having them unless it's for remote viewing OR if we just had a really complicated dolly shot and I want to make sure it works before striking the track. Other than that, I think video assist and playback is a waste of production time.
Roger
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Roger Evans
MovieStuff
http://www.afterimagephoto.tv/moviestuff.html
