Your new $120 monitor

No, this is not spam. No, this is not a gimmick. This is cool.

;-)

About 8 months ago I walked into a CVS and something caught my eye. It was a 15″ LCD TV. Made by… Craig?? (I still find the name of the company hilarious) I immediately disregarded it just as soon as I saw it. When I came back around to check out I saw it again and this time something caught my eye. 720p. Hmmm, interesting. Upon further investigation I saw that it was 15″ and it had an HDMI connection. It is also powered by 12v – dc which means it can run off an external battery with a little DIY. Interesting. Then I saw the real kicker, it only cost $115 (now I believe its a $100 or so). I didn’t buy it right then. But I came back the next day with a fist full a $20s.

NOTE: I’ve searched low and high on-line and the only place I saw them available was at amazon and it looks a bit sketchy. I would just go into your local CVS and check to see if they have them. I’ve heard some people say they now sell a 13″ monitor.

the not-so-shabby for transporting box

Initial thoughts, “Hey this box isn’t bad. Comes with a handle. Styrofoam comes on and off easily.” 8 months later and I still use the box to transport it to and fro. Is the box nice and pretty, not a chance. But for indie gorilla filmmaking it’s perfect. I’m thinking about getting a stormcase for it, but then the case would be more expensive than the monitor. Paradox for sure.

sexy? no. practical? yes.

Nice indent for charger, keeps it from scratching monitor when traveling

It’s important to remember that the HDSLRs use MINI-HDMI ports, and this monitor uses a STANDARD HDMI port. So you’ll need a mini-HDMI to HDMI cable, I went for one about 6 feet in length. That may seem a bit long but I knew that I wouldn’t be able to mount it  directly to the camera and it’s nice to have a little extra slack in case you need to put it some place awkward. I also opted to get a higher quality level HDMI cable (cost around $35-40). I think it’s been worth it so far. Mine has yet to break or crack on me. When I was out at skywalker ranch with Phil (Philip Bloom) he was complaining about his HDMI cables always breaking cause of their poor quality (HDMI is a rubbish connection for professional filmmaking use anyways). It has yet to fail me but I keep a spare on backup in case it does. That’s the difference between amateur and professional, two of everything!

My 7d with zeiss ze 21mm lens connected to monitor by mini-HDMI to HDMI cable

So the monitor originally came with a tv stand and I knew that I just wouldn’t stand for that. (Sorry, I really couldn’t help myself). So I took off the stand which was connected by three black screws. Found some old aluminum laying around. Cut it to a small piece to use as the bottom bracket (As seen as below).

aluminum bracket that attaches to monitor, it uses original screws that mounted with stand

Then made two holes to that to attach a long bracket to have a point that would connect to the tripod. Then tapped a few holes for different tripod screw diameters.

Tripod plate

It might be easier to make a pole out of the back to use with a c-stand (I’m considering making a connection for that as well). Then I found an old wal-mart tripod and I now use that as my stand! I haven’t gotten around to doing it but it is definitely possible to use a 12v battery to power this up. That is my next project and will update the post when that happens.

The connection side of the monitor

Once I got my death star fully operational I decided to give her a twirl. Plugged in my 7d and held it around the room, played with the focus, then messed with the monitor till I adjusted the brightness, color etc till it was close to the look as possible. I only did some minor tweaking. NOTE: This part of my evaluation was just done with my eyes and not with color and focus scales and all that nonsense. If it looks good, than I like it. If it looks like crap, then its crap.

Difficult to get a good photo of the monitor, but this is a live shot of 7d

PROS: The image is far cleaner and crisp than I expected, honestly not to far off from Marshall quality with a little menu tweaking. Obviously the filters feature of the marshall is what makes it fantastic, especially the false color filter. For pulling focus, particularly for 7d and 1dmk4 (5d doesn’t have HD out while recording) this thing is a joy to use. If you’re narrative based, and especially if you’re on a zero budget this thing is a MUST! When the camera goes into recording it only squishes it a bit when you’re in more advanced info settings. (You can see it change from live monitoring to recording in the video at the bottom of the page.) Now I’ve only used this with my 7d so I don’t know if the switch from HD to SD that the 5d does will mess it up at all.

a playing card to give you perspective as to how big this sucker is!

For shorts that I DP I usually operate my own camera, sometimes pulling focus but I always have a 1st AC and sometimes a 2nd AC. With their help moving gear the monitor doesn’t slow me down at all. The monitor is also EXTREMELY light weight, I think somewhere in the ball park of 1-2 pounds. I guarantee you that it will surprise you how light it is. Even if you have a marshall monitor this would be a fantastic to have for your director to use to get you off your back! Just go to JAG35 and buy an HDMI splitter ($50). They work great as long as your not running an HDMI cable longer than 12′ because then the quality turns to rubbish. For under $200 you have a viable monitoring option for your Director.

Live monitor view with info view, it is squished a bit in this setting.

CONS: It doesn’t come with a battery pack or even a battery option. You have to think about buying this monitor as a small DIY option. In order to use it practically on set you need to make a plate for the tripod to connect too. If you’re shooting run and gun this won’t be the tool to use. Also there’s some pretty significant glare off the screen and if it’s in direct sunlight for get about it! I tend to find myself using this only inside anyways. If I’ve got terrible glare I’ll get one of my grips to flag it off so I can see it. Making a sunshade out of cardboard (spray painted black) and velcro would greatly reduce glare and help out quite a bit.

Top menu buttons

You need to make sure that you’re not using this monitor to judge colors and especially the exposure. That should really go with out saying for any monitor. If you have to go off your eye, just unplug the HDMI cable and use your on camera screen, it’s more accurate. But that will prove tricky to match exposure between different angles of the same subject (speaking narrative here). With the Depth of Field on these cameras being so shallow it is vital that you use proper focus pulling techniques in order to hit that focus perfectly. A monitor should only be used as a secondary way of pulling focus, using your measured marks first and using monitor in case an actor misses the mark or tries something different.

Good idea to put this on the monitor so you won't have to answer the same questions all day: This seems really dark -or- this seems really bright

If you’re narrative based and you are on a shoestring budget you really need to consider this monitor. It is by far the greatest money/value piece of equipment I own. Seriously, think about this; a zacuto z-finder costs around $300 (I think are great, I own one myself) and then you have this monitor, that costs one hundred dollars. Can’t recommend this enough for those narrative types like myself!

How-to: CVS Craig Monitor from Garrett O’Brien on Vimeo.