Excellent monitoring and focusing

Marshall V-LCD651STX-3GSDI-SL 6.5″

This monitor accepts the HD-SDI feed directly and has a resolution of 1024 x 768 with a brightness of 650 nits. You will need to connect this monitor to the camera body, but we’ll deal with it later.

You’ll need LCD hoods. I recommend getting them from the same manufacturer for a perfect fit.

Marshall V-H50 Sun Hood

Critical monitoring of color
These monsters can’t be clipped on to the cage or attached to the shoe mount. Ideally, you’d want to position them in tents or a shaded area so your eyes can see the colors well. It has to be a big monitor with full colors – no compromise. I prefer:

24 Pofessional Studio Monitor With HDSDI

With monitors like these, you’ll also need long cables that are of excellent quality. You can’t afford signal loss over 10 to 50 feet.

Canare BNC to BNC (SDI) 25 Foot Cable

If you’re planning to use more than one monitor on set, you’ll need decent splitters:

SDI Splitter 1:4

Good monitors have hardware calibration installed, but you can never be too safe. You’ll need a third-party calibration tool like this one:

ColorMunki Monitor, Printer & Projector Profiler

Large external monitors need hoods and accessories too, so make sure you understand what you’re getting into before committing. Rigging large professional grade monitors is an art unto itself, and is outside the scope of this article.

Recording video

The BMCC comes with Media Express 3, a free software that runs on Windows 7, Mac OSX and Linux.

Media Express supports real-time capture and playback of 2.5K RAW, metadata, thumbnail view and clip bins, etc. You can also use Media Express to capture uncompressed HD, Prores and DNxHD.

Ideally, if you need a laptop on set, it’s hard not to recommend a Mac Pro:

Apple MacBook Pro 13.3-Inch Laptop

PC users will need a thunderbolt-enabled laptop. I have been using Acer for years and will definitely recommend an:

Acer Aspire S5 13.3-Inch Ultrabook

Don’t forget the expensive thunderbolt cables:

So, what exactly will you be recording? As we’ve seen earlier, if you’re recording 2.5K, the data rate is 150 MB/s at best. If you’re recording Prores or DNxHD, the data rate is 220 Mbps at best. Let’s look at these scenarios.

For a typical 2 hour movie project, if the shooting ratio is 10:1, you’ll need 20 hours of footage.

@2.5K, this is about 11 TB of data. Assuming double for backup, you’ll need at least two of these:

Western Digital 12 TB WD Sentinel DX4000

@1080p compressed Prores or DNxHD, this is about 2 TB of data. Assuming double for backup, you’ll need 4 TB, or at least two of these:

Western Digital My Passport 2 TB USB 3.0 Portable Hard Drive

Obviously different productions have different requirements, so my suggestions are to give you an idea of the kind of stuff you’ll be lugging around to fulfill your filmmaking dream.

Monitoring video

The BMCC includes Ultrascope, a free software that includes every tool you’ll possibly need to monitor your video for quality and errors.

The cool thing about this is that it uses the same thunderbolt port used by Media Express, and you can keep both programs open. This is the advantage of thunderbolt – you can read two 2.5 streams simultaneously. Whether or not BMCC works this way is another matter altogether.

Electronic Viewfinder

Zacuto makes an excellent electronic viewfinder:

Zacuto Z-Finder EVF Pro 3.2 inch

The EVF has the advantage of being positioned in a different place – they don’t have to be fixed on the back of the camera LCD. This is helpful if you want an viewfinder in tripod-mode – a regular scenario in filmmaking and broadcasting.

The Zacuto EVF Pro has an HDMI connector, so you’ll need an SDI to HDMI converter. This is the kind of thing Blackmagic Design does best:

Blackmagic Design Mini Converter SDI to HDMI

Don’t forget HDMI cables:

Mediabridge High Speed HDMI Cable with Ethernet

We’ll cover the mounts later.

AC Supply

I’d leave the internal battery as a backup. The package also includes a 12V AC Adapter for continuous power. If you’re in an environment with easy access to an ac wall socket with reliable power (non-fluctuating), this is perfect. If going this route, don’t forget a surge protector:

Belkin Mini Surge Protector Dual USB Charger

Battery Supply

The BMCC has a DC port rated to take 12-30V, which is great. The camera itself is rated at 18 Watts. The higher the voltage of your battery, the lesser the ampere draw required.

Batteries usually rate ampere draw in mAh (milli ampere hours). How much mAh does the BMCC need? It depends on how long you want to run it on a particular day.

I always plan for each battery to run for 4 hours, with intermittent recording and standby time. Two batteries will last for 8 hours and I usually carry a third for backup as well as for those occasions when we have a longer day.

Considerations:

Ideally, the battery system should also:

• Power other devices on the rig

• Balance the front-heavy load of the camera and lens

• Provide a constant voltage for as long as possible

• Be rugged enough to withstand a production environment

• Come with a fast robust charger

First, a word on my battery philosophy:

Don’t take the ‘power other devices on the rig’ too literally. It’s not always possible or practical. Different devices are made to run at different voltages, and having additional voltage regulators for each device is a real pain.

The common thinking is: if I have one battery to power them all, isn’t that simple? Yes, only if they are all one voltage, and have similar electrical characteristics. In reality, it’s simpler to keep track of different batteries than troubleshooting electrical problems on set.

Remember, a set is a place to tackle creative problems, not technical ones – create a system that is easy to fix and control, and you’ll be most productive. Doing things in a convoluted way might seem cheaper and smarter but you’re really shooting yourself in the foot. Having said that, if you are in control and can make it work, go for it. Just don’t dive into the deep end on stuff you don’t want to get into.

I also am a firm believer of the battery being a device that balances load on a rig, especially if it is shoulder mounted. If your spine isn’t that valuable, no worries. If you are smart, you can spend a few days designing the perfect rig for your body type and save yourself years of pain and medical bills later.

In a nutshell – simplicity, safety, convenience and weight over cost. A good battery system is a long-term investment.

The simplest solution for the BMCC is currently made by Switronix:

This supplies 4,800 mAh in total and can power three devices of 12 V each. On our rig it can take care of the camera, the external monitor and the electronic viewfinder. If the external monitor isn’t required, it can take care of the camera, viewfinder and SDI-HDMI converter, and so on.

Let’s make some calculations:

The Switronix BMCC kit claims 4x the battery life of the internal battery. That’s 6 hours of battery life for the camera. How so?

The BMCC is rated at 18W, so it needs about 18Wh of energy. The Switronix is rated at 70 Wh, so 70/18 is about 4x. However:

Amperes = Power Rating/Voltage

The Switronix is rated at 14.8V, so the Ampere draw = 1,216 mA. The battery provides 4,800 mAh so that’s 4,800 mAh/1,216 = 4 hours, which is only 2.5x the internal battery.

Which version is right? We’ll see. For our purposes I’ll assume the lower rating so we’re on the safe side.

The Marshall monitor and Zacuto EVF has a total capacity of about 15 W at 12 V, which gives a combined ampere draw of 1,250 mA. Combined with the BMCC the current draw is about 2,500 mA. A 4,800 mAh battery will give us 2 hours of use. If you want 12 hours of use, you’ll need 6 of these batteries.

Trying to go with cheaper batteries that advertise similar capacities as the more professional brands is not a good idea. Cheap batteries are like balloons. When full they let out air in full steam, so to speak. As the air gets lesser, the force gets lesser as well. Similarly, a cheap battery does not give us a 12V continuous voltage throughout the ampere hour range.

Sometimes, cheap knockoffs only give 50% of their rated capacity. Personal recommendations from friends, peers or colleagues over numbers.

What makes a battery system?

Let me outline the basic building blocks of a battery system. Even though it isn’t a comprehensive guide you will get an idea of the important components involved. Let’s start with the battery:

Anton Bauer Dionic HC Digital Interactive Lithium-Ion Battery

The battery is mounted on a battery plate or bracket:

Anton Bauer QRC-Gold Universal Compact Gold Mount Bracket

The bracket is screwed on to the rig, so that every time you need to change the battery you don’t need to bring out the screwdrivers. Sometimes the bracket can also charge the battery:

Anton Bauer Tandem 70 Gold Mount Single-Position 70 watt InterActive Battery Charger, On-Camera AC Adapter

If it doesn’t, you’ll need a charger to charge the batteries:

Battery Charger for ANTON BAUER Dionic 90

Professional batteries have a P-tap or D-tap connector, from which you run a cable that connects to your camera:

Switronix XP-MAGIC-12 Powertap BlackMagic Converter Cable

If you want, you can split P-taps to power multiple devices:

PowerTap Multi – Male PowerTap to Four Female PowerTap Receptacles

These ‘devices’ can take DC connectors, XLR connectors, P-taps, etc. For each type you’ll need an adapter:

Anton Bauer PowerTap D-Tap to 2.1 DC 12v

To convert DC voltages, you’ll need something that’s called a buck-boost converter, to raise or lower the DC voltage according to the device used. Take great care, as an error here will destroy your gear. If you don’t know what you’re doing, don’t do it. This is what it looks like:

DC-DC Converter Module Step up and down In 3.5-28V Out 1.25-26V Adjustable

Some battery manufacturers make direct converters from one voltage to another. If you have access to it, buy that instead of DIY solutions.