Hello FPWA users! I wanted to write a post about my experience solving a problem while doing a car shoot last week. I would like to give insights on how I solved the problem and what was my set up with the aim being to help others who have had or will have this problem on set. I was covering another focus puller for a day he could not do. So I came the day before to see his set up, configuration, etc etc to minimize any issues shooting.

Our set up was: Arri Alexa Mini LF (7.2 SUP) + Angenieux EZ Zooms + Arri RF motor (focus) daisy chained to CForce Mini (Iris) connected to the IN camera Lbus output. On the other side of the lens the Arri RF motor (Zoom) powered by Dtap connected wirelessly to a RIA-1 (it was installed at the top of the car using white radio) and cable wired to a pan bar Zoom controller rigged inside the car. (All the gear was updated to the latest firmware). I was using my Arri Hi5 handset (with a white radio module) and the issue was that I could not controlled any settings from my handset while driving in the car. The options for camera control were grayed out on my handset. That were going to force us to stop to change internal filters, fps and so on not being felxible and slowing down the shoot massively as you can imagine on a Ukraine camera car. The camera was giving me a message through the viewfinder: WIFI and ECS have conflicting channels. I spent a good 30 minutes trying to figure out what was the problem, until I contacted the focus puller from the previous day, Benjamin Denoyer. He then had showed me a grid with channels and frequencies that should be set for both WIFI and white radio modules to avoid interference and work side to side. I opened the file, check the green boxes were I should set the channels to and voila!, the problem was solved! Please see the document attached for your reference. I put the WIFI on channel 11 and my handset and the camera on channel 7.

Before coming to that conclusion I changed batteries, cables, motors, channels on my handset/camera and many other futile tries with the obvious time consumed in the am and the uncertainty of being able to shoot optimally. It was a lot of sweat and cortisol spent during that time😅 It would be great if this kind of documents, files and resources are openly available to ease our pain on set. Specially to the Arri owners like me who trust their equipment but cannot get the full juice out of it in critical situations were time and money is sooooo precious. Regarding wavelegths I think is specially important for us to know what to do when given how crowded it has become in recent years with phones, Teradeks, cameras, gimbals, etc etc etc. Maybe Arri can make a few videos to explain it so everyone can watch as many times as they need to fully grasp it. Let me know if you have any questions. It would be great if you can share your experiences with this issue.

I have created a visual set up of the rigging, please find it attached. I hope it helps for future troubleshooting on set. Adios!