American Cinematographer - December 1999 - 106

THE

continues. "The computer will go out and
find the cameras, and then come back
and say,

number,

'Camera
camera

one is this serial
two is this serial

number.' Then it sends

HAT

a program to
each processor that basically says,
'Serial number X, you're the fourth

in the series, so your

of creative control.

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array

"With the still

cameras," the director explains, "you are
locked into a freeze, and the trigger has
to be

Each

pulled at exactly the right time.
gives you only one frame

camera

ability to fire each
separately, the Multicam array
can do much more than simply produce a

though, you get several thousand frames

virtual-camera freeze. "The effects

freeze the action

camera

AMERICAN

an

While

cameras.

with which to work. With the Arris,

Given this

CINEMATOGRAPHER
LOGO

SLRs with

command to fire all of the

two... three... fire!"

W/ EMBROIDERED

further, music video director Martin
Weisz, with support from Otto Nemenz
and Reel Efx, decided to replace the

of motion-picture
using 15 Arriflex 35-Ills
for rap artist Dru Hill's video "You Are
Everything," Weisz found that the
cameras gave him a considerable level

simultaneously or a pulse stream to fire
sequentially. When the pulse
stream comes down the line, the chip in
the camera counts the pulses: one...

COTTON

time-lapse
3,000 fps
shot of a bullet being fired from a gun."
Taking the concept one step
a

shutter
speed is going to be this, your f-stop is
going to be this. Look for the fourth
pulse, that's when you're going to fire.'
We can then send out a single pulse
camera

them

100% BRUSHED

you can do anything from a
shot that lasts for months to

can

achieve

are

one

pretty much unlimited,"

comments Gill. "Because each frame of

film is

a

separate picture-taking entity,

you can put

it anywhere in

space.

If you

place the
can

cameras 100 feet apart, you
achieve a 3,000-feet-per-second

dolly move-which translates into liter¬
ally hundreds of miles an hour. If you
place the cameras closer and closer, you
could conceivably start from four miles
away and zap right into somebody pour¬
ing beer or something. I can shoot at 24
cameras per second [for film finish] or 30
cameras per second [for video finish] and
play that back.
The options for manipulating this
effect are infinite: you can do a filter
gradation as you go from one camera to
the next down the line; you can put
different lenses on the camera and go

longer and longer, or shorter and shorter;
from any speed to any
other speed; you can alter your depth of
field by adding NDs and stopping down
you can ramp

to choose from. I can start a move at any

frame I want, and then have the choice to

just do a really fast
dolly. Also, in post, it's much easier to
deal with motion-picture rolls individual
frames
developing, telecine and edit¬
ing are much more difficult to accomplish
when you're working with a bunch of
five-foot rolls [from the SLR cameras]."
The major task on the Dru Hill
video was synchronizing the shutters of
-

the 15 Arri 35-Ills. Each

camera was

vidually hooked into

phasing

and slaved to
the

one

a

sync

indi¬

box

master camera. All of

cameras were

then

run

simultane¬

ously and manually synched with a
timing light. The process could take
anywhere from 10 to 20 minutes, and all
of the

cameras

entire time. If

had to be

run

for the

battery went bad and
replaced, the entire
process would have to be repeated.
On Weisz's next project, the Puff
Daddy video "Public Enemy No. 1," he
doubled the ante by using 30 Arri 35-Ills.
The Reel Efx team built a power pack
a

needed to be

that could control the

with each successive camera; or you can

single

do the reverse,

power

keeping the f-stop the
same and changing the shutter speed to
have a completely blurry subject become
sharp in the frame. The only limitation
with the Multicam array is that with 100
cameras, we're limited to a final screen
time of a little over four seconds [at 24
fps]. However, within that four seconds

or

source

cameras

from

a

and maintain consistent

to each, and Otto Nemenz

designed

a

single

sync

box with 30 indi¬

vidual controls to streamline the shutter-

synching

process.

In Weisz's latest opus,

the video

for "You Don't Know Me Like You Used
To"

(featuring Brandy with guests

Shaunta and Da Brat), he scaled back to
American Cinematographer - December 1999

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