Notes On Video

There's some interesting events going on in New England in the next couple of weeks: 9th Annual ITVFest Sept 26-28, Dover VT ITVFest (the Independent Television and Film Festival) is the premier festival for showcasing, celebrating and distinguishing the world’s best independently produced television shows, web series, multimedia content and short films. SMPTE/New England Sept 30 “Can you hear me now?” Boston, Wireless Microphone Frequency reallocation…again! Initiatives and new regulations by the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) will change the radio frequency landscape...again. A few short years ago the 700 MHz band was reallocated and had to be vacated by wireless mics. Next year the 600 MHz band will be auctioned and thereafter re-purposed, posing even steeper challenges for wireless mic operators.  MIT Hacking Arts - Oct 4th at The Media Lab in Cambridge, MA This year's conference brings together great minds in film and entertainment from a Film/...

In response to my iPhone musings, I got the following reader email which actually sums up a lot of my second and third thoughts too: You might have a point about the fancier camera, but otherwise I would buy the smaller model. Its screen is about the same size as that of my Nexus 4, and I don't feel at all like it limits me with a too-small screen. But I do sometimes stretch to get my thumb the reach to the other corner of the screen. It is plenty big for a phone. A phone is a pocket thing. (Well, in my case it lives an ancient REI soft sunglasses case that I have on my belt.) Ubiquitous, handy, convenient, almost always with me. Small is crucial for all of that. Certainly a large screen is cool, but you need a place to put it: don't break a fundamental feature of a pocket phone by getting too big. That is what your small tablet is for. I have my phone with me almost always. I have my Nexus 7 tablet with me nearly as much. The bigger screen is great, yet it fits in some...

The iPhone 6 (left) and iPhone 6 Plus schematics (right) next to an iPhone 4 (in it's case.)  Lack of depth doesn't help with comparison! My iPhone 4 is a bit long in the tooth, and I’d already decided I’d replace it when the new model was released, so today’s announcement was rather perfunctory for me. Except Apple has gone and released two models, one quite a bit larger than the other. This wasn’t a total surprise as people have been rumoring a larger phone for months now. But there’s a big difference between reading rumors and an actual announced product, and even more so when it comes to sitting down and making a decision about which one to buy. Which one should I get? I’m not sure. I think I might need to hold them in my hand to be sure. I even went so far as to print out the schematics of the phones to try and get a better idea of just how large they are. A friend, who recently upgraded from the iPhone 4 to the iPhone 5, was complaining about how much larger ...

It's IBC week , so expect some equipment news this week. Sony is going to announce a new camera tomorrow. Is it a FS700 replacement, enhancement, or something else? Initial rumors have been about a 4K FS700 II that will be priced about $10,000, but I was curious after seeing the teaser video that seemed to focus on web bloggers. A few very successful web bloggers might spend $10,000 on a camera, but I don't think the vast majority will. They are more likely to be thinking about a7S money. Maybe there's two cameras coming? I was at the Mass Media Expo on Saturday and saw a presentation on the AJA CION , a $9.000 camera. The camera was supposed to ship this summer, and as they said, summer is over this month. They had no ship date, but the camera is being shown at IBC and it was suggested that there might be an announcement there. The new Panasonic Varicam starts shipping this month, so there should be news about that too. Panasonic thinks it has a competitor to t...

If you're in Boston this Saturday, you might want to check out this event: Mass Media Expo 2014 Saturday, September 6, 2014 from 11:00 AM to 7:00 PM (EDT) Boston, MA Includes panels as well as an industry showcasing the most complete range of 50 film and media companies in Massachusetts; including top creative production & post production companies, suppliers, innovative products & organizations.

Just wrote something for Filmmaker Magazine about 4K camera news for Sony and ARRI , and a couple of new things happen. The Blackmagic Design production Camera 4K is $500 off until September 5 . Does that just mean Christmas is early, or is something else going to happen next week? Panasonic has gone and announced a $3,4999.99 4K camcorder . The HC-X1000 features a 18.47 Megapixel 1/2.3" MOS Sensor, 20x lens, built-in ND, and records in MP4, MOV or AVCHD. It will only record 4K in MP4 format. It will be interesting to see how the quality of the video holds up.

Some exciting stuff has been announced/released the last couple of months. Of course, there’s the Sony a7S , which just started shipping and is just an  unbelievable low-light , full frame monster of a small camera. It also does 4K, though not too many people are doing 4K with it just yet, what with no inexpensive 4K recording options available. It wouldn’t be my primary camera choice, but if you have the bucks, it’s an intriguing little piece of hardware. Or you could get the Panasonic GH4 , and record 4K internally. You don’t get the low-light capabilities – at all – but you do get quite good 4K internal in a small package. A lot of people are waiting for the Atomos Shogun  ($1,995) to start shipping so they can record 4K from the Sony a7S. But if you don’t have that camera, are on a budget, and would like to record HD in 10-bit 4:2:2 ProRes, you might want to look at the Atomos Ninja Star. This tiny box is only $295. There’s no monitor, but as some have pointed o...

There will be intermittent reports for the next couple of weeks as I am currently in New Zealand on vacation. Or something like that. If you didn't know they shot "The Lord of the Rings" or "The Hobbit" in New Zealand before you got here, it's hard to miss the fact once you arrive - particularly in Wellington. The airport has a sign on the front of it: Middle of Middle Earth. At one point they were planning to put up a sign Wollywood, in the style of the Hollywood sign, but they ended up not doing it. I'm not sure if I'm happy about that or not. We went up in the bush and saw signs for Rivendell, and yes, it's the location of the shooting for Rivendell in the film, not a real place called Rivendell. One other interesting thing about Wellington; they have these Wine Trail signs. The only problem; they don't actually seem to have any wineries in Wellington. Not that I've found, anyway.

Vimeo Adds Copyright Protection | Anticipate Media I was not surprised that Vimeo has announced a new copyright protection system. It's a necessary thing, really. I was however surprised that it will flag even private videos. These videos often contain temp music that will never be made public until purchased. Staff Blog / Copyright Match on Vimeo | Vimeo Keep in mind that Vimeo can’t tell you for sure whether your work would qualify as fair use. You must make that determination for yourself and at your own risk. However, we will do our best to help you understand the four factors, and if you can present a strong case for fair use protection, you’ll be better protected from claims of copyright infringement and have a stronger case for appeal. Review and Approval options for Video Pros | Pro Video Coalition If you search for the word “private” in the comments of that Vimeo blog post you’ll see many, many complaints from creators and editors that clients won’t be able t...

Cannes Panel: Studios Fight Piracy While Indies Embrace Digital Future | IndieWire Ruth Vitale, executive director of the film industry's non-profit CreativeFuture initiative, sounded the anti-piracy gong, continuing to sing the plaint of content creators that piracy costs money for filmmakers. Elevated Sales' Cassian Elwes ("Margin Call," "Dallas Buyers Club") agreed with her, as did Fox's own anti-piracy czar, Elizabeth Valentina (VP of content protection litigation). GoPro files for an IPO to grow its media empire | Engadget Things are finally getting officially official, though: the company just filed its S-1 with the Securities and Exchange Commission, so you can expect to see the ticker symbol GPRO on NASDAQ in due course. There's no shortage of financial types digging through the document as we type (bits to note: the company managed to turn a pretty profit last year, and it shipped a net total of nearly 4 million cameras in 2013), bu...

Craig Newman is trying to decide between the Blackmagic Pocket Cinema Camera and the Pansonic GH4: The battle of the compact cameras: Blackmagic Pocket Cinema Camera vs Panasonic Lumix DMC-GH4 | Entendre In this year’s equipment budget, after all the other necessary upgrades / purchases, there is enough to get one of these two cameras. I have been switching between the two on a daily basis and… I really don’t know. If I needed a production camera, the Panasonic would win hands down, but that’s not my need. Are Passion Projects a Waste?: 6 Filmmakers’ Perspectives | The Music Bed A recurring topic in our conversations with independent filmmakers is how personal/passion projects have either launched, sustained, or saved their careers. For some people, like Hunter Hampton, personal projects have kept them from jumping off a creative cliff. For others, like Khalid Mohtaseb, passion projects have become a surprisingly effective marketing strategy. Free Forms and Legal Resources...

B & H PhotoVideo is offering a free webcast on the Panasonic GH4 next week: Panasonic GH4 Live Webcast Discussion: Professional 4K in the Palm of Your Hand | B & H Tuesday, May 27, 2014 | 1:00 PM - 3:00 PM Live from the B&H Studio in New York, B&H hosts a panel discussion with special guests Eduardo Angel, David Flores, and Mathew Frazer who will explore and discuss the new 4K Panasonic Lumix DMC-GH4. Dan Chung of News Shooter offers thoughts on the Panasonic GH4 vs the Sony NEX-FS100 (the latter is,as he notes, an HD camcorder.) @sammorganmoore In terms of sharpness yes. The GH4 4K -> HD is sharper than FS100 HD. As a functioning tool the FS100 has better controls. — Dan Chung (@DSLRinformer) May 19, 2014 EDITING A DOCUMENTARY IN FCP X PART 01 | FCP X Berlin User Group The job at hand is to edit a 60 minute documentary, colour correct the footage, perform a sound mix, add music and insert some motion graphics. At first glance things look relat...

Chicago Art & Architecture | Breaking in the Panasonic GH4 from H. Paul Moon on Vimeo . Paul Moon has posted the above test of the Panasonic GH4 : Challenges that I posed this time around included rolling shutter, which you'll see in those lateral shots from the L train; pointing at the sun for black holes or blooming sensor; playing with depth of field for focus isolation; and aliased patterns which barely appear because there is no de-bayering from the sensor in UHD mode. Highlight protection and color depth is fair but not great: the GH4 still can't beat the Blackmagic Cinema Cameras that have more dynamic range, and record internally to 10-bit 4:2:2 at a much higher bitrate. The ultimate explorer's camera? A review of the Panasonic GH4 | Story & Heart Blog Regarding resolution, the Panasonic GH4 performs exceptionally. The footage, frankly, looks beautiful.Having 4k internally means that when you’re stuck—physically, by a barrier or a body of water...

Paul Antico sent in this report on his experience with the 10.9.3 update: I just downloaded 10.9.3 and tested it on my 8 core late 2013 "new" Mac Pro D700s and my 5" late 2013 15" Retina Macbook Pro. I have a 40" Seiki 4K  display hooked up to the Mac Pro HDMI port. You can now do "retina" on the 4K panel (HIDPI scaling) and it works ok in most situations. This means photos/video/visual content etc. are shown at native 4K resolution on a big 4K monitor or HDMI 4K/UHD TV, but the screen elements and UI remain at a normal size - say what you see on an iMac at 2560x1440 - but much sharper. It's quite nice, and how the Retina Macbook Pros work. It's not a straight 2x scaling (it actually scales to 5120x2880 and scales down to UHD resolution, but from a slight distance it looks as good as the Retina screen does on my Macbook Pro.) FCPX on those mentioned computers supports broadcast monitoring (HD, and 4K) via HDMI right out of the comp...

First, the good news: We have restored Adobe login services and all services are now online. We will be sharing a complete update on the outage soon. — Adobe Customer Care (@AdobeCare) May 16, 2014 Creative Cloud login offline for almost 24 hours (and counting) | Digital Photography Review A serious outage has taken login functionality offline for almost 24 hours, leaving subscribers to Adobe's Creative Cloud unable to access their accounts or do much of anything else - including downloading new apps. As yet, Adobe has been unable to offer any indication of how long the outage will last, but a message on the CC homepage states that the company has 'identified the cause [and is] working to restore the service as quickly as possible'. Adobe did offer this stop-gap solution: Creative Cloud Help / Creative Cloud Service Outage | Adobe Other News Stu Maschwitz decides to return his Panasonic GH4 In short: Poor low-light performance and a noisy, contrasty imag...

In response to yesterday's comments about the new Canon 16-35mm f/4 lens, reader Paul Antico writes: I read your lens article. I have like 8 or 9 lenses ranging from cheap (but excellent) rokinons to the canon f2.8 70-200 is II which cost like $2400. What lens do I use for video most constantly on my video cameras? The 24-105 f4L IS.  For video usually f4 or F 5.6 is where I want to be for most shots anyway to ease focus and allow a bit of depth. The lens looks nice, is relatively rugged, and has decent IS. It's a great all around stills lens too. And the c300/100 and my 5D3 have more than enough low light ability to compensate for the stop difference over 2.8. Only on set up shots or interviews do I really use anything else actually. For quick setups and being mobile or running around, it wins every single time for quality and a great selection of useful focal lengths. (I use the 17-55 IS on the c100 too but it's a horrible lens body with nice glass inside). Pa...

Canon today announced a couple of lenses; an EF 16-35mm f4 IS lens  ($1,199), and an EF-S 10-18mm f4.5-5.6 ( $299 ). Interestingly, the announcement of the 16-35mm f4 lens seemed to have prompted a rather ho-hum reaction; some saying they'd stick with the EF 16-35mm f2.8 , while others suggesting that the Sigma 18-35 f/1.8 is a better deal. As someone who likes wide-angle lenses, owns the EF 16-35mm f/2.8, and has used the Sigma 18-35, I thought I'd weigh in on this new lens too! Firstly, like Stu Maschwitz , I think I'm going to stick with my f2.8. lens. It's a nice solid lens. The Sigma lens is nice too, but it's not quite as wide, it doesn't work on full frame cameras, and I didn't find that extra 1 1/3 stops a must-have feature when I was using it. The new Canon f/4 16-35mm lens includes IS, which is useful if you're moving the camera around, but other than that, this lens doesn't really stand out when compared to the other two. What i...

Jay Leno was the commencement speaker at Emerson College this year, and he offered some surprisingly good tips for those interested in going into show business. It starts at 9:25 Comedy lights up 134th Commencement | Emerson College The Andover, Massachusetts, native then gave graduates his “20 rules of show business in no particular order.” Those rules included: Never go on stage mad because “anger robs creativity”; when you get too comfortable, move on, saying, “you should always try to find the toughest audience”; and to not have a relationship with a partner who “doesn’t get it,” saying, “you need a soulmate, not a cellmate.” Product Review: Blackmagic Pocket Cinema Camera | Photo District News In my testing, I found the ProRes movie files to be almost on par with the RAW footage I shot, but they took less work in DaVinci Resolve. Let’s face it though: If you buy this camera, you’ll probably want to shoot the 12-bit RAW video and while it takes some time to process the...

Check out the First Indie Short Film Shot on the 4K Panasonic GH4 | No Film School Aside from being truly funny, the film does a great job of giving an entertaining overview of Panasonic’s new camera. Really, Le Cas GH4 is one part indie short, one part GH4 camera test, and one part pseudo GH4/5D Mark III shootout. Editing Interview Footage – Tips and Techniques | Learning DSLR I got to watch Chris Fenwick who has been an editor for many years to cut one of my videos while we were at NAB2014. Warning this is a long video, but I think you will learn a lot like I did. HERE'S HOW MUCH EDITING WORK (AND HOW LITTLE TIME) WAS INVOLVED IN SNL'S EPIC BEYONCÉ SKETCH | CoCreate Starting from Friday afternoon at 4 p.m., we see the production unfold through the lens of the Adobe Premiere editing software interface, revealing a constant state of video flux until dress rehearsal, airtime, and the export of the post-production version. Apparently, sometimes the process is daunt...

Creating Moonshine Kingdom: An Interview with Milton Horowitz and Ryan Forte | Filmmaker Magazine Mooshine Kingdom director Milton Horowitz says that, like a lot of Americans, he grew up watching too much television. This eventually led to film school at Cleveland State University, where he met cinematographer Ryan Forte. “Ryan’s younger than me,” says Horowitz. “He’s 21, I’m 32, and even though we’re 11 years apart we still love the same types of films and the same movie techniques.” 4 years of film school in 12 hours: Vincent Laforet's Directing Motion Tour (and a chance to win a free ticket). | Story & Heart Blog Throughout the workshop, Vincent stresses the importance of communication. It’s a benefit to both the people in your crew as well as to the talent and those who support the shoot from a distance—via budget, schedule, post-production, etc.—that a director or filmmaker’s vision is precise and accessible. The Quiet Season – A First Timer’s Filmmaking Experi...

WOULD YOU RECOMMEND THE PANASONIC LUMIX GH4? – FILMMAKER JOE SIMON GIVES US THE LOW DOWN | News Shooter Do you think you can cut GH4 footage with other cameras like the Canon C300/C100? I think they will cut together just fine. I don’t think it will be a problem because it has such a flat setting. People think you can’t match stuff in post, but even the 5D with it’s vastly different look can be matched pretty close. WOULD YOU RECOMMEND THE PANASONIC LUMIX GH4? – SKY NEWS CAMERAMAN ANDY PORTCH GIVES HIS PERSPECTIVE | News Shooter GH4 audio menu is getting better, but lacks the options of a broadcast camera. For example to split Ch1 to top mic and Ch2 to external. I remember a disaster with my 5D mkII when the cable was ripped from the camera in a scrum. The jack was left in the socket and no sound was recorded at all! Thankfully the GH4 has a headphone socket for audio monitoring so this shouldn’t happen now. Product Review: Blackmagic Pocket Cinema Camera | PDN But there...

The Video Journalist Blackmagic Camera Rig and Workflow Guide (Part One): Getting your Rig Together on a Tight Budget | wolf crow But then the Blackmagic Cinema Camera appeared on the market, and I knew this could be the camera I was dreaming for a long time. The only problem was, it didn’t really fit into my way of shooting. I do mostly hand camera under a lot of time pressure. Things are always live and happening, no one waits for me. So I had to find a way to mobilize the BMCC and make it VJ-able for a small price. Hands-on with Sony's 2014 4K televisions | C|Net Compared against the Samsung HU9000 specifically, the X950B had better blacks and shadow detail, according to the demonstration. The X950B held up remarkably well against the ZT60 as it was able to get better white highlights than the now-discontinued plasma. PICEX HONG KONG: SHRIRO SHOW ION ACTION CAMERAS | News Shooter Andy from Shriro explains that the iON Air Pro differentiates itself by being designe...