Week 1

Hello everyone, this is Keng Hao here.

Basically this blog will documents 3 boys journey, me myself, Ed and Nicholas from Singapore to San Francisco for their 3 months internship in 1LightMedia & Cornerstone Academy from Oct 2014 to Jan 2015.

[Ed, Keng Hao, Nicholas ]

19 Oct 2014

It’s less than a day here, I guess I am doing well here, good weather and nice people. Trying hard to adapt to the culture here I aren’t really use to the way people speak over here which make me look pretty blur sometime but I guess it will be fine in a while and all.

Harry has been taking care of us really well over here especially since Ed haven been really feeling well since arriving from Singapore. He is better now so he should be fine.

20 Oct 2014

For today we visited Holzmuller Productions, a theatre/ stage lighting equipment rental house and they did a demo on the new Philips Vari Light and their new features. it was basically eye opener for me due to the fact that I wasn’t from a stage background. Stage lights and Film Lights is miles apart man and US gripping stuff is way different from Singapore gripping.   

Harry, our boss also purposely drive past M5 Industries just to let us have a look at the location set of mythbusters.

21 Oct 2014

In the morning, Alex bought out to LOWES, basically it is an Appliances, Tools & hardware store we were there to hunt for some door latches for the dormitory.  

For the day I learnt how to solder cables, sometime which I didn’t learn before in Singapore. I didn’t take design & technology back in Singapore so it was really good that I learn how to solder those cables over here. So basically I was soldering 3 pin XLR.

Here is ED in action.

We also learn about the Party Line intercom system & 4 channel intercom system, after that I was tasked to lay the cables. I wasn’t really confident at first and I was really worried that I lay it wrongly and a big mistakes but I manage to lay it properly.

As the production house is moving their workflow to a trailer. I make a mistake of not labeling the cable before laying it and hence I got confused which end belongs to which ends. But with a method I learn from Harry. I need not need to relay everything but instead able to use a short circuit to check which end belongs to which end.

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22 Oct 2014

For the day, I was basically task to solder the cables for the intercom together with Ed. Despite making multiple mistakes we manage to create a consisting of 2, 3 pin XLR connectors on one end and a single 6 pin XLR connectors on the other end. I got burned by the machine but I guess it is all part of learning. Hahah. I then further test the intercom, I check the levels and balance the sound coming out from the intercom. Moving on I also learnt about the fiber optic cable, LC Connector.

We also did a camera test with the CCU and test out Sony PMW 320, while testing out I realized actually the Engineer on board is the one that control the exposure while shooting live shows but not the camera operator itself.     

I also learn how to use a heat tag and a heat gun to melt it to the cable for label.

This coming Thursday we will be heading for the SF Cutters Events. I always love master class / seminar talks as it always give valuable insights so I am really hyped for it especially with technology constantly advancing. Will update more about it tomorrow. 

23 Oct 2014 

 

For today I started off by learning from Nicholas, my fellow intern how to wired up the intercom cables for the Camera Control Unit. Despite some hiccups at first, with nicholas guidance i was able to complete the task smoothly. But one problem i encouter regualry was the cables being to thin and i was having a hard time trying to use my finger to fit into the cache so it keep coming out.

After we finished the wiring, we tested the intercom set together with the camera. After testing the system we realised that some part of the system doesnt work. We manage solve the problem and realise it is either due to the cable being reversed and wired wrongly or either the wire is too loose.

Here is some pictures of me testing the Camera.

 

Here is ED enjoying his time with the camera while we were testing the whole setup.

Overall we manage to complete the task given by Harry and Philip and the whole system work perfectly. 

After we fixed up the whole system, something went wrong with the fibe optic cable and causes a error between the CCU and the camera. Harry suspected it was dust that went in. With the problem in mind he then teaches me how to use a micro camera to detect any dust.

With the detecter we manage to detect some dust on the cable after cleaning using the dust pen, we manage to rectify the problem.

  

Here a picture of the fibre optic cable from the back view of the panel.

This block diagram explain a basic intercom lines of a simple studio that something similar with what we trying to do for the communication system for our trailer.

After our work we heading to Adobe Systems Inc, for a semiar known as SF Cutters.

The talk was conducted by Maureen Gosling, Josh Feldman, and Michelle E. Boone which are industry vertans. 

I was personally intrigued by the talk by Josh Feldman whereby he talk about how he only uses $15K for his feature film, and some important post production tips. 

I manage to gain alot of insights . Especially HD-VU2 a software that automically check if you successfully transfer data from the cards to the harddisk. 

The talk also cover LTFS and Media and Entertainment Forecast.

On the way there, we also went past Zynga which is the creator of most facebook games people play regularly on Facebook.

 
24 Oct 2014 

For today, I started off in the morning desoldering XLR. I was using the other soldering machine without a temperature gaudge so it was rather slow and patience process as the heating up take ages before I can get the right tempeture for it.

The whole team was suppose to have a green screen shoot today but we have to postponned it due to fire alarm testing.

Here is me fixing up some cables to the boards.

A man made wooden plank just to hold my XLR knobs.

 

After desoldering the stuff, I learnt how to make a BNC cable from coaxial cable from scratch.
It was a simple process but a rather tricky one. It was interesting and i find a big sense of accomplishment.

Here is me trying to strip the cables.

A stripped cable

The tools for using to cut the coaxial cable is pretty different from cutting the normal wires. We also have a different type of wire stripper just specific for thoes cables.

After fixing up the remaining BNC cables and connecting them to the OUT and IN of the convertor, Harry then procceed to explain us in depth details of lan cables such as how to fix it and the different color codes within the cables itself.

So that basically sums up the whole week for me.

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KENGHAO