Grimor

Another year, I return with my traditional police Christmas video. This year a short film of a thief who climbs the walls dressed as Santa Claus, to camouflage himself as the popular Christmas decoration. Remember that it is a video that we make in which each roll is interpreted by policemen, not actors, and that the technical section this time is made up of some more members of the squad, where only 2 of us have audiovisual knowledge.
I hope it makes you laugh at least a small part of what we have laughed shooting it.
 
A greeting to all, and especially to Andrew.
 

Another year, I return with my traditional police Christmas video. This year a short film of a thief who climbs the walls dressed as Santa Claus, to camouflage himself as the popular Christmas decoration. Remember that it is a video that we make in which each roll is interpreted by policemen, not actors, and that the technical section this time is made up of some more members of the squad, where only 2 of us have audiovisual knowledge.
I hope it makes you laugh at least a small part of what we have laughed shooting it.
 
A greeting to all, and especially to Andrew.
 

I shoot this with Hollyland Lark 150 dual wireless mics. 
For the money, I think is good enough. 

I believe at the 0:38 second I saw the Video Sound Police violently interrupting the shooting!

I shoot this with Hollyland Lark 150 dual wireless mics. 
For the money, I think is good enough. 

My vote is for Cinemartin 🤪

 

I was only joking here with the character behind that project, in the same way that he did. I apologize if I have offended you. I have never developed a camera. I don't even dedicate myself full time to filmmaking. Sorry

My vote is for Cinemartin 🤪

 

My vote is for Cinemartin 🤪

 

My vote is for Cinemartin 🤪

 

From my perspective of growing up as a kid in the late 60s/early 70s in the UK, the whole thing bemuses me !
It is now a fairly big deal in the UK too - although it hasn't quite become as ingrained in our national culture as changing Prime Minister every few weeks has - but it certainly wasn't the case until relatively recently.
Our halloween consisted of three elements, all of which consisted of some sort of fruit or vegetable and an element of borderline abuse.
The first was what was referred to where we lived as duck apple but was called bobbing for apples in other parts of the country.
This consisted of about a dozen or so apples being put in a bucket of water, having your hands tied behind your back and putting your head in the water to retrieve one with your mouth.
Putting your head in the water is a euphemism for one of your brothers repeatedly pushing your head in and holding it down until you'd completed the mission. Fair play to them, the skill involved in holding someone's head down in the water until just prior to the point of drowning was quite an art.
Hidden amongst the selection of apples were ones that had had a small incision made in them by my Dad to secrete a coin but the downside to this triumph was that if you managed to survive the drowning attempts to emerge with one of these prizes you then had to eat the apple to claim the coin.
These weren't your fancy dan French Golden Delicious apples, though, as these were the tartest inedible cooking apples that a 1970s UK grocer could provide so it was very much a pyrrhic victory.
The second element of the 1970s halloween in our house, retained the cooking apples and the hands tied behind the back aspect but added a new one in the form of a blindfold.
You were placed in a chair, bound and blindfolded, and you had to try and catch in your teeth whatever was swung past you on a piece of string and weren't allowed to leave the chair until you'd caught something.
The "somethings" on offer were one of the leftover apples from the previous fun and games and a bar of soap.
It was considered against the spirit of the game to not take a fulsome bite attempt at whatever wafted past so half hearted attempts were strongly discouraged using the clip around the back of the head school of correction.
In an act of unexpected generosity, all of the leftover apples were loaded with a coin this time but the same rules applied regarding eating it whereas with the soap you were at least allowed to get away with just the initial bite.
Either way, you weren't going to get away unscathed in the disgusting taste department.
We may have grown up on the shores of Liverpool Bay but with the blindfolds, hand bindings and forced water immersion techniques our house was very much more Guantanamo Bay at halloween in those days.
The final element is the one which most closely resembles the modern version of halloween in the UK, namely the carved lantern.
Now, I'm reliably informed that pumpkins were introduced into the UK in the 16th century but let me assure you that in our local shops in the 1970s you'd have been as likely to come across pheasant or quinoa as you were to encounter a pumpkin so our lantern base of choice was the turnip.
Due to its density, trying to hollow out a raw turnip and carve a face into it is something that should realistically only be attempted with the aid of power tools.
The potential dangers offered by us using the one sharp knife we owned and its main role (carving the Sunday roast) being a protected occupation meant that we had to make do with regular table knives and a spoon.
The process could be measured in days rather than hours which, combined with the rudimentary tools on offer, would inevitably lead to the adoption of the "fuck it, that will have to do" approach to fit and finish that is evident in this typical effort from the period.

As for interior illumination of the lantern, again, if tealight candles were available in the UK at that time they certainly weren't available in our local shops so it was the workmanlike though more inherently dangerous standard candle that had to be put in them.
As these never fit properly into whatever mounting hole that could be fashioned with a spoon, they would inevitably fall over and the smell of burning turnip was a constant in the atmosphere of the UK for the last week of October. Or every Sunday with my mother's propensity to burn the Sunday dinner.
The nadir of the grim lantern years was 1973 when we didn't even have the candles as there was a shortage of them as people prepared for the power cuts of the impending three day week where frivolity of using candles for turnip illumination gave way to having to use them for illuminating offices as seen here.

As regards, scary halloween movies, we didn't have any that come to mind but, truth be told, we were pretty much living in one anyway!
Things are very different now and it does appear to be on its way to being on a par with what happens in the US but for my era it was completely overshadowed by Bonfire Night a few days later.
Bonfire Night in the 70s took the danger levels of halloween to another level but as it was in honour of chaotic and ultimately doomed plots at the Palace of Westminster then it was actually very much on brand for the modern day life in the UK.

I'm so sorry to read such bad news, Andrew. You have the full support of the filmmaker community.

And don't forget those used "GH5S" now on the sub-1000 land

And don't forget those used "GH5S" now on the sub-1000 land

[Small correction] I'm getting old and my memory can't remember exactly: They were 2x12 min at 800 watts. I add a photo of one of my bags. They are very hot, you can barely touch them with your bare hands after a few minutes. It exhales a lot of water vapour, probably toxic because the smell is not like water at all. In a recent project, I put a temperature/humidity sensor with a cheap IOT module, so I can check real-time data over the internet from my smartphone all over the world and see graphs of my historical data. If someone is interested I can recover the project

I have big silica bags (1kg) I'm my gear closet. 
I usually reused every 1 or 2 month following the manufacturer instructions:
Microwave at 800watts during 15min, turn upside down and another 15min. 
 

This camera is not very popular here, but since firm. update v2, it has great new features:
Add the AI-based Real-time Tracking AF, and if the Touch Function is set to Tracking AF, you can use Real-time Tracking to track the subject even during manual focus
Add the Breathing Compensation for consistent angle of view when focusing
Note: Lenses that support the Breathing Compensation feature
Add the 16-bit RAW output via HDMI
Add the bokeh adjustment mode for easy adjustment while minimizing exposure changes
Add new features that support High Dynamic Range (HDR) and Standard Dynamic Range (SDR) dual production for SR Live
SDR Emulated Preview Display on EVF
SDR Gain Metadata Recording
Add the Picture Cache Recording function, which is also supported when shooting with S&Q Motion
Displayed the 4-channel audio level meter on the on-screen display
Add the other useful features
Note: Refer to the Help Guide for details on all updated functions.
Previous Benefits and Improvements
Adds the 100P and 120P options to the Slow & Quick Motion frame rate menu when the codec is set to RAW or RAW & XAVC-I
Fixes an issue where the EI value is not reflected correctly during playback in Cine EI mode
Improves the overall stability of the camera

This camera is not very popular here, but since firm. update v2, it has great new features:
Add the AI-based Real-time Tracking AF, and if the Touch Function is set to Tracking AF, you can use Real-time Tracking to track the subject even during manual focus
Add the Breathing Compensation for consistent angle of view when focusing
Note: Lenses that support the Breathing Compensation feature
Add the 16-bit RAW output via HDMI
Add the bokeh adjustment mode for easy adjustment while minimizing exposure changes
Add new features that support High Dynamic Range (HDR) and Standard Dynamic Range (SDR) dual production for SR Live
SDR Emulated Preview Display on EVF
SDR Gain Metadata Recording
Add the Picture Cache Recording function, which is also supported when shooting with S&Q Motion
Displayed the 4-channel audio level meter on the on-screen display
Add the other useful features
Note: Refer to the Help Guide for details on all updated functions.
Previous Benefits and Improvements
Adds the 100P and 120P options to the Slow & Quick Motion frame rate menu when the codec is set to RAW or RAW & XAVC-I
Fixes an issue where the EI value is not reflected correctly during playback in Cine EI mode
Improves the overall stability of the camera

Rather lose the audio inputs than lose the timecode input. 

Does the new server have some effect to the search function? Because the search of "Fx6" found 0 results now. I know it's a camera you don't like very much Andrew, but hope not so much to ban it fron the new server. 😂

No Glitch in the Matrix !! 
 

No Glitch in the Matrix !! 
 

No Glitch in the Matrix !! 
 

Gee I don't know what to say. Well certainly thanks is in order. Yeah i missed you guys also. I went though some scary ass medical problems, actually died for a bit, but I guess too mean to die too long so hey here I am. Sepsis shock just about did me in. It knocks you down in just about every organ you have so at my age, nearly 75 now, hard to crawl back, well I never will make it back to what I was, and I have just aged the more since, happens you know. But actually right now I am really not doing too bad. My mother died a few months ago, my one daughter just had double mastectomy with breast cancer, well not much fun not counting this God Damn Pandemic. Just what the hell I needed lol. So I have been sort of out of it for a bit, literally, bummed out for a bit and working my way back. 
I am reorganizing my camera, video gear for less heft, and a little more creativity. Nobody knows how long you will live but I know I am running out of time so I just want to have a bit of fun while I can. So I came back here to be re educated and reunite with some of my old friends, which I have had very few of in my life. I hope I can contribute a little past knowledge, screw ups and all, plenty of those, and have a few good forward thinking threads evolve. And maybe a few fireworks to add to the fire. Hey I am still Don you know. But yeah I have mellowed a bit trust me. I went out though the tunnel and saw what few have seen and felt, and for the limited time was super peaceful and intriguing. I think I was going up and not down like a lot of people thought would happen. 😬

The konica hexanon 40mm is really really sharp.
I used to use it as an anamorphic taking lens but the "dracula's coffin" bokeh is very distracting.
Wish it had more blades!