Notes On Video

I'll admit that I wasn't that impressed when Rode announced the  iXY Stereo Recording Microphone for iPhone/iPad recently. At $199 to add a better microphone to the iPhone, I felt that the money would be better spent on a dedicated recorder. Now they've gone and announced the smartLav , which goes and turns an iPhone into a recorder - also - but this time with a lavaliere mic. Is that a good thing? Well the downsides, as Dan Chang notes in his article , include the fact that you need an iOS device, it has to be in Airplane mode to avoid interruptions, and you can't monitor the recording, so you can't be sure that's it's working correctly (the mic gets obstructed.) But then that's true for most self-contained recording devices. I guess I like a few things about this: the cost is said to be about $60 which is more affordable it could be useful for recording audio only sessions; a lav mic is less intimidating than putting even an iPhone in ...

Animating the Inanimate: Interview with Charlie Collier | Michael Murie | Filmmaker Magazine At 20 years of age, Charlie Collier of Zapamation may be a young filmmaker, but he’s already got almost eight years of stop-motion experience behind him. A self-taught animator, he says he was able to get into this partly because of the flexibility he gained from being homeschooled; he was able to incorporate animation into the curriculum.  Stop-Motion Music Video Uses Hundreds of Polaroid Pictures | Brian Anthony Hernandez | Mashable Cool animation using Polaroid pictures... The video weaves a stop-motion tale using hundreds of Polaroid pictures, whose once-blank canvases were provided by ex-Polaroid employees now leading The Impossible Project. FocusMaker – A unique focusing tool for stills lenses | Matthew Jeppsen | Fresh DV Here’s a tool that I don’t really know how to classify…it’s called the FocusMaker, and it’s a simple $89 device that straps directly on to...

Seeing RED at Sundance | Michael Murie | Filmmaker Magazine RED was part of a seminar hosted by HP: 4K and Beyond: The Evolving Role of Technology in Digital Filmmaking. Moderated by Schilowitz, the panel featured a number of post software developers including Adobe, ASSIILATE and Autodesk. The seminar focused on the 4K workflow, with the message that “you can edit 4K now.” F5 & F55 Launch Event & Workflow Technologies | Sony Professional | Vimeo View highlights of the F5 & F55 Launch Event, and learn about some of the workflow solutions presented at Sony's DMPC (Digital Motion Picture Center) on the Sony Pictures lot in Culver City, California. Working in True 4K with the F65: Belle - the UK's first 4K cinema production | Andy Stout | Red Shark "We were after a really naturalistic look for Belle, in keeping with the period," explains Smithard. "The F65 produces images which have a softer, more pleasing quality, and you could really fee...

Day for Night: Magic Bullet Looks vs Baselight suite | SUPER MASSIVE | Vimeo An interesting comparison. Baselight maybe looks more 'realistic' but hard to see what's going on!: Footage shot with various camera settings on ARRI Alexa, 19-90 zoom lens. Half graded with Magic Bullet Looks and FCP 3 way colour corrector, gradients added. Half graded on Baselight suite for comparison.H264 compression very harsh on all gradients and masks, horrible artefacting - all baselight graded material looks perfect on Dolby monitors. Download least compressed h264 for closest impression. (But still knocked down to prores and then H264). How to Keep Track of Your Battery Levels | DSLR Video Shooter Most people don’t know this, but there is a built in way to label your batteries as full or empty. This works best with the Canon LP-E6 batteries, but you can make it work with any battery with a simple mod. If you look at the back of your LP-E6 battery you will see two colors, blue and...

Color Matching a Canon C300 to an Arri Alexa | Art Adams | ProVideoCoalition The C300 doesn't have the subtlety of color that Alexa offers, nor can it match Alexa's dynamic range, and it doesn't duplicate that delicate Alexa softness that makes everyone and everything look great. On the other hand, the C300 is less expensive and much smaller and lighter, and is the perfect tool for certain projects. MATT ALLARD GOES HANDS ON WITH THE NEW SONY F55 – NO HIGH FRAME RATES UNTIL SEPTEMBER | Matt Allard | DSLR News Shooter I found the camera design to be very good. Everything was easy to find and the key camera functions are accessible without having to go into deep menus. Even as a first time user of the camera, it is very easy to get it turned on and shoot quickly. There is one major design flaw: the connection cable for the new Sony OLED or LED viewfinder sticks straight out the side of the camera.  While it is reasonably secure, it would be easier to knock and broken...

A SHORT WEEKEND WITH THE C100 | Sean Meehan | Cross River Pictures Sean has been shooting recently with a Canon C100 and loves it: First and foremost, I love the image out of this camera. So many of us have fallen in love with the look of the C300, and I would say that, to my eye, they’re pretty comparable. They could certainly intercut, and if you’re contrasting with Canon HDSLRs, the difference in sharpness, dynamic range and resolution is big. It’s not surprising, considering it’s processing the image in a way very similar to its bigger brothers. You're Not Too Old | Vimeo HOW WE MADE THE ATC MUSIC VIDEO “READY OR NOT” | Rick Macomber | Macomber Productions I wrote about this for Filmmaker Magazine, but here's Rick's report: The video has two distinctive shooting styles. Most of the narrative scenes were either shot on a Miller Solo tripod, on the Kessler slider or the Kessler Crane, all donated for the entire length of the shoot by Mike Sutton and Paul Ant...