Two PMW-F3’s used on 3D Cinema Commercial.

Alister Managing the F3's on a Hurricane Rig.

I got back late last night from a big budget cinema commercial shoot where I was working with a pair of F3’s on a Hurricane Rig. All went very well and the DoP, (Denzil Armour-Brown)  was impressed by the F3’s. The overall light weight of the complete system really helped us when moving from position to position. We used a ton of Chapman grip equipment including sliders and dolly’s. I was responsible for the 3D rig, camera setup and alignment as well as assisting the DoP.
We shot using 2 sets of band new Zeiss Ultra’s, mainly at 32mm and 50mm (very nice) as well as some older and very heavy Arri 100mm macro primes. Our only small issue was that the follow focus motors were shifting the camera very slightly due to flex in the tripod base plate on the F3. You probably wouldn’t notice this at most normal focal lengths in 2D but in 3D small shifts are very obvious. So a stiffener plate for the base will be needed to prevent this (as well as general flex) or a pair of 15mm rails mounted to the top holes on the F3 body.

We were recording to a Nano3D (2 x Nano Flashes) as well as to a Mac workstation recording ProRes in the video village. The video village allowed for instant playback on 50″ 3D monitors in a blacked out tent for review and tech assessment.

It was an outdoor shoot in great weather. As well as the F3’s there was a second rig with a pair of Phanton HD Gold 35mm high speed cameras shooting 3D at 1000fps. So even thought the sun was shining brightly, many shots were done with 2 or 3 18kw lamps!!

Towards the end of day the F3 rig was tasked with shooting some blue screen and other effects shots and in effect I became 2nd unit DoP. The effects shots will be matted in to the finished commercial.
I’m under NDA so can’t talk about the subject just yet, or post any pictures that show the subject, but once the ad is released (2 weeks time!!) I’ll be able to post some grabs and more photos.

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