Notes On Video

Quick Links

2012-01-28T10:00:00.001-05:00

*UPDATE* 5D Mark III – February 7, 2012 [CR2] | CanonRumors
The rumors of a Canon 5D Mark III announcement are getting more frantic!

A few more people have mentioned February 7, 2012 as the announcement date for the 5D Mark III. The sources are good, though I am waiting for the definitive word on the matter.

It’s mentioned that Canon will also announce new PowerShot cameras, a new Legria camcorder and Selphy printer(s).

Nikon D4 or Canon 1DX? Comparison | Fenchel Janisch | YouTube
A side-by-side video comparison of the two cameras:

Second test with the Canon EOS-1D X and the Nikon D4: In this video comparison we tested the low light capabilities of the upcoming pro cameras!

Lenses on both cameras: Sigma 50mm F/1.4 + Sigma 85mm F/1.4
Settings on both cameras:
ISO 1600
Aperture F/2 + F/2.8
Shutter speed 1/50s

Adobe Prelude Previewed and Promises Color Grading | Twitter
Adobe was at last nights SuperMeet in San Francisco, and mentioned plans for Color Grading in CS6, as well as demonstrating Prelude for logging and transcoding:

#Adobe #Prelude Logs, annotates, transcodes, exports! #CS6 #FCPUG #Supermeet pic.twitter.com/zcPFQphd

FCPUG to CPUG, The Creative Pro User User | Twitter
And at yesterday's SuperMeet the FCPUG announced a name change to The Createive Pro User Group. This is hardly surprising given that the BOSFCPUG had already dropped the F!

Mike and Dan (@lafcpug and @bosfcpug) announce name change from #FCPUG to #CPUG, The Creative Pro User User Group... http://pic.twitter.com/dhyE7Gjb

The importance of being agnostic… with cameras | Chris Marino
| WideOpenCamera
Chris argues that all the different cameras are now the equivalent of the different film stocks of old. Which is an okay analogy, except that it was a lot easier to change film stocks back when you had film cameras than it is to switch from the PMW-F3 to the C300; unless you only rent your cameras:

This brings us back to the question at hand. What is the best? Digital sensors are our film stocks of today. Find out for yourself and test, test, test. Each new digital medium has its benefits and drawbacks.

Tangent Element panels are now shipping | Scott Simmons | ProVideoCoalition
A $3,495 color control panel that doesn't currently support DaVinci Resolve:

Word came out today from Tangent Devices that the first Element panels are now shipping. If you don’t remember the Element is Tangent’s newest color grading control panel that uses a modular design that is four separate pieces that can be purchased separately. They are designed to work together to make a more full featured panel than the Wave with trackballs and rings, knobs and buttons and transport controls if the buyer so desires.

Adobe Panel At Sundance - How Technology Is Influencing Stoytelling And Film
| Adobe TV
An hour long video of a panel with Rob Legato, Jacob Rosenberg, and Vincent Laforet.

Our first panel at Sundance 2012 featured talented panelists and filmmakers Rob Legato, Jacob Rosenberg, and Vincent Laforet; the panel was moderated by Sharlto Copley. The panelists shared insights on how technology and tools have impacted the way they create films and tell stories.

Creating a Redrock Micro DSLR hand held rig for under $450 | Kurt Lancaster
| DSLR Cinema and Video Journalism
How to put together an inexpensive rig; though personally, I don't like rigs that you rest on your chest, and if you haven't used one before I'd try one out before buying:

If you’re like most independent filmmakers, you’ve purchased gear for HD video cameras. Now that the HDSLR cinema revolution has hit the market, for many of us we’re being encouraged to purchase new equipment for HDSLRs. I’ve purchased plenty of new gear, but I’ve hesitated on getting a handheld/shoulder mount adapter put out by such companies as Redrock Micro and Zacuto to name just two.

EXCLUSIVE: Hands on Review- Rokinon 8mm f2.8 Fisheye (Sony NEX)
| The Phoblographer
An 8mm lens for the Sony E-Mount cameras:

The Rokinon 8mm f2.8 is not only a small lens, but it’s super light and very well balanced with the Sony NEX 5n. In fact, it feels like it was designed to be used with the camera. When in the hand, it feels so much like an old vintage SLR camera with its small aesthetics and size.

Woody Allen talks 'Midnight in Paris' | Making Of | YouTube
Audio interview with Woody Allen:

In this roundtable discussion director and screen writer Woody Allen talks about shooting in paris, and working with Owen Wilson.

Canon C300 Unboxing | Vimeo
Some fun for the weekend; unboxing the Canon C300:

Canon C300 Unboxing from Texas Media Systems on Vimeo.

Quick Links

2012-01-27T09:00:00.000-05:00

Thoughts on the Canon EOS 1DX | KarelDonk | Blog
A look at the expected EOS 1DX, from a photographers point of view:

For the last 4 years I’ve been bashing Canon here on my blog for their poor quality control, poor product releases (50D, 5D Mark II, 7D, 60D) and questionable business practices (5D Mark II, 50mm f/1.2L). I’ve also often mentioned how it seemed like Canon was out of touch with the market

Meanwhile, rumors are flying thick and fast about an impending 5D Mark III. Who will cancel their order for the C300 if Canon announces a 5D Mark III?!
CanonRumors | 5D Mark III Brief Specs? [CR1]

Panasonic's HDC-Z10000 Is A Pro Camcorder Contender | Ned Soltz | DV.com
The HDC-Z10000 [$3,325] is a surprisingly inexpensive, semi-pro, 3D camcorder and Ned seems to like it:

Before discussing the other features of the camera, I will note that it helped me out of a potentially disastrous situation. I was shooting a pro bono event for a non-profit and intended to use two cameras: one of my own as A-camera and the Panasonic loaner Z10000 for some B-camera shots. I got both cameras set up and had my assistant roll the A-camera. It didn't roll. I shot the entire event with the Z10000 in 2D. A little color correction in Blackmagic Design DaVinci Resolve Lite and the organization was thrilled. And I was really impressed with what it delivered.

Small LED Light Panel Showdown | Dave Dugdale | Learning DSLR Video
A comparison of a Lite Panel MicroPro LED Light panel vs. a budget Konova Ledgo CN-B150. The Konova wins as much because the Lite Panels isn't a very well engineered product:

The Lite Panel fails again on it circuitry design, when each battery falls below 1.2 volts the panel starts to flicker. The Konova does not do this at all when when it drops below this voltage. I thought Lite Panels were the leader for all this LED technology, why is this thing so poorly designed?

Tech Demo: Windows 7 64 bit, MacBook Air,Thunderbolt, and Premiere Pro
| Dave Helmly | YouTube
Running Windows on a MacBook Air and testing out Thunderbolt to edit RED footage? Now that's extreme!

Here's a quick look at some Thunderbolt solutions I've been testing in my lab. In this video, you'll see an Apple MacBook Air 13" running Windows 7 64bit via Boot Camp with an activeThunderbolt port connected to Sonnet Chassis with a RED Rocket installed delivering full 4K playback on Ultra Lightweight notebook.

The Talk on the Street | Adobe TV
It's Sundance, and Adobe is there, putting together this little man-in-the-street video:

Despite snow fall, the crew explores the streets and venues to hear what people have to say around Park City, Utah

Using 3rd Party Filters in FCPX: Who Needs a Colorist Anymore? | 20k films
I saw this because Patrick Inhofer tweeted that it was; "A seriously non-sensical take on our industry," and while I agree that the article jumps to conclusions about color grading in FCPX, the basic premise - that software will make it easier for the average filmmaker and shooter to grade their own stuff - is basically correct. Computers won't be happy until they have put us all out of business.

Most recently, colorists were using the software, Color, Apple’s branded software, but now with FCPX, apparently all of the coloring you would need is built right into the program, so you don’t need Apple’s Color software (which came with FCP7 as part of a suite and was $1,000+ when it was new). Apparently, there is another color program called Da Vinci out that just made their software more affordable because Apple is discontinuing Color and will no longer release newer versions nor updates.

Demand for Video: The Good News and Bad News | Ron Dawson | Dare Dreamer
Another post on a similar theme; why hire professionals when you can do an okay job yourself?

The bad news is that more and more of these organizations are doing it themselves. The aforementioned video by Chris goes into detail on how he lights his video blogs, how he captures audio (at least he recognizes the importance of good audio), etc. And as programs like FCPX become more powerful and more accessible to the average Joe, you can expect even more DIY videos to hit the market. That could mean less work for you…and me.

A Sony and a Canon Walk into a Bar... | Gabrielle Paciorek | Blog
A comparison of specs for the Sony PMW-F3 and Canon C300, with a few additional comments and observations:

But I think what this boils down to is that the F3 is a camera that needs an external recorder to get the best out of it, and boy, you can get a lot out of it. But the C300 is ready to go, with a better internal compression, codec, and gamma than that of the F3, but won't get much better with an external recorder.

The Cameras Are Arriving!
Band Pro’s First 25 F65 Cameras | Jon Fauer | Film & Digital Times
The Sony F65's are arriving!

Why is this man smiling? Sony F65 cameras have landed. Amnon Band (above) had his first twenty-five Sony F65 cameras delivered to Band Pro headquarters in Burbank.

@rulebostoncam | Twitter
Rule Boston Camera received their first shipment of Canon C300's:

First shipment of #C300 just rolled in the door at @rulebostoncam http://pic.twitter.com/lrrolBPt

Sony F65 at Rule Boston Camera Pub Night

2012-01-26T09:00:00.000-05:00

Rule Boston Camera held it's second Pub Night of the month last night with an event dedicated to the Sony F65. Dhanendra Patel, Senior Product Manager, Beyond HD Production Solutions, Sony Electronics Inc., spoke about the technical features of the camera and showed a short video shot with the camera. They'd brought in the Sony 4K projector again (a big black box the size of a fridge that makes about three times as much noise) and I wish they had shown more than the one video; though they did show it twice, once with a director commentary.

The crowd wasn't as large as had turned up for the Canon C300 event, but then at about $100,000 once you add in the rotary shutter and the digital recorder, we are talking about a different class of customer.

I was just there for the beer and pizza.

For those of us used to DSLRs and NEX-FS100's, the F65 is huge, and quite heavy, though Rick Macomber, who slings around a huge ENG news camera all day, didn't think it was that heavy. Rule had a couple of Shape pre-production rigs intended for the F65, and at the end of the event they put the camera on the rig and Rick, Mike Sutton and even John Rule carried the camera around for a moment.

I'm not sure it's really a shoulder camera! It's shape - particularly the front - does remind me a bit of an old slide projector!

The camera comes standard with an electronic shutter, or you can get a rotary shutter (which is an add-on, and reduces rolling shutter.) I asked Dhanendra why someone would get it without the rotary shutter, and he said that of the approximately 200 already ordered, they had all been ordered with the rotary shutter!

The camera will ultimately support up to 120fps, but this isn't yet implemented; it will be available as a free software upgrade later in the year.

The camera began shipping four days ago, and they'll be shipping about forty cameras every ten days. Boston is lucky in that Rule is one of only three distributors for the F65 in the country. John Rule said that they intend to have one available for rental, and it will probably cost about $1,500 per day.

The following is a few seconds of video from the event:

Digital Film Tools Brings The Magic Of Film To New Film Stocks Plug-In

2012-01-25T23:40:00.000-05:00

Los Angeles, CA – January 25, 2012 – Digital Film Tools, developer of visual effects software, today announced the release of Film Stocks with plug-in support for Adobe® Photoshop®, Adobe Photoshop Elements, Adobe Photoshop Lightroom®, Adobe After Effects® CS5 and up, Adobe Premiere® Pro CS5 and up, Apple® Aperture®, Apple Final Cut Pro® 6 and 7, and Avid® editing systems. Film Stocks offers artists simulations of 288 different color and black and white photographic film stocks, motion picture film stocks, and historical photographic processes. "The new Film Stocks plug-in draws on our experience creating visual effects for hundreds of feature films and our expertise with film scanning and recording techniques. We have laboriously researched and analyzed different film stocks to come up with a set of interesting analog photographic, motion picture and vintage looks that will serve any project requiring that special analog film stock simulation," comments Marco Paolini, founder and president, Digital Film Tools.

Film Stocks offers a wide range of preset looks as well as the necessary controls to create analog film stock presets from scratch, including color correction, curves, colored filters, sharpness, diffusion, vignetting and film grain. Apply one of the many presets and customize the settings, or create your own interesting looks and simulations and save them as presets to use in the future or share with colleagues.

Film Stocks Feature Highlights

288 analog photographic film presets
Select from Agfa®, Fuji®, Ilford®, Kodak®, Polaroid® and Rollei® color and black and white film stocks
Choose from a wide range of historical photographic processes
Get the skewed color look of cross processing
Apply Lo-Fi photographic looks from Lomo and Holga toy cameras
Age your images with the look of faded films
Create your own film stock presets
Layering system for multiple film stock application *
Sophisticated but easy to use masking tools *
Add a vignette to any preset
Modify images with presets or sliders
Quickly search for presets
8/16 bit image processing
Multi-processor acceleration
* Photo plug-in versions

Availability and Pricing
The Film Stocks photo plug-in is available now for 95.00 USD and is compatible with the following applications: Adobe Photoshop, Adobe Photoshop Elements, Adobe Photoshop Lightroom and Apple Aperture. Users can download the Film Stocks photo plug-in from http://www.digitalfilmtools.com/filmstocks/download.htm

The Film Stocks video/film plug-in is available now for 195.00 USD and is compatible with the following applications: Adobe After Effects CS5 and up, Adobe Premiere Pro CS5 and up, Apple Final Cut Pro 6 and 7, Avid Symphony™, Media Composer®, Newscutter® and Xpress Pro®. Users can download the Film Stocks video/film plug-in from http://www.digitalfilmtools.com/filmstocks/download.htm

For more information, examples and downloads please visit: http://www.digitalfilmtools.com/filmstocks/

Digital Film Tools is currently investigating Film Stocks compatibility with FCP X for a future release.

Nattress Releases First FxFactory Based Filters For Final Cut Pro, Motion and After Effects

2012-01-25T23:30:00.000-05:00

Boston, MA – January 25, 2012 – Noise Industries' latest partnership with Nattress Productions brings a finer degree of image control to the editor through Levels and Curves, a filter pack that allows users to color grade in film-log space. The new curve-based color adjustment plug-in, available now on FxFactory 3, is compatible with Final Cut Pro® 6, 7 and X; Motion 3, 4 and 5; and Adobe® After Effects® CS3, CS4, CS5 and CS5.5. Offered at 29 USD, users can download a free trial version of Nattress Levels and Curves from http://www.nattress.com/?q=LevelsCurves.

Nattress Levels and Curves feature highlights include:

Film-Log Space – Editors have all the benefits of fine control over the tones in an image and film-like contrast handling.
On-Screen Curve Display – The on-screen curve display helps editors fine-tune curve and/or level adjustments. The curve display can easily be turned off when footage adjustment is completed.
Library of Presets – Users can quickly apply popular level corrections, or create and save custom presets to use again and again.
Levels – The Black and White level inputs and outputs can be easily set, plus gamma curve control allows for fast and functional levels control.
Curves RGB – Individual control over the RGB channels in an image is made simple. The control set is duplicated for each channel allowing for precise control over image tones and colors.
Curves Luma – Users can work on the luma component of an image only. When a user adjusts luma curves, it only alters how bright or dark the tones of the image appear; color and saturation are not affected.
Curves - Curves work in RGB space equally across all three channels. As contrast increases, so does the perception of image saturation.

More Information on Levels and Curves
http://www.nattress.com/?q=LevelsCurves

Levels and Curves Tutorial
Users can learn more about Nattress Levels and Curves by watching the online tutorial at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HsoELkmPDV0

About Nattress Productions and Founder Graeme Nattress
Nattress Productions was founded by Graeme Nattress in 2004. Graeme, who is originally from England, makes his home in Ontario, Canada, where he uses his mathematical training and unique insights to program creative solutions for image processing. Graeme also applies his knowledge of color science, image manipulation, compression and digital video to the development of the RED Digital Cinema camera systems.

PluralEyes for Final Cut Pro X Now Available

2012-01-25T23:15:00.000-05:00

Vancouver, British Columbia, January 25, 2012 — Singular Software™, a developer of workflow automation applications for video production, is pleased to announce the availability of PluralEyes® for Apple® Final Cut Pro® X (FCP X). The multi-award winning PluralEyes technology works alongside FCP X to quickly and accurately sync video and audio clips for dual-system audio and multi-camera productions, saving hours of tedious manual syncing during post-production.

"The auto sync function that is built into Final Cut Pro X is a start, but most professional editors will want more. They want to be able to sync many clips at once, see the results right away, and be confident that the sync will work across a broad range of real-world video projects," says Bruce Sharpe, CEO, Singular Software. "PluralEyes for FCP X is built on the same technology that is used countless times every day to sync weddings, corporate videos, documentaries and a host of other video production types. With a time-tested, proven technology powering the automation, FCP X editors can confidently offload their entire sync task to PluralEyes and be hands off until the sync is complete, regardless of the type of project they are working on."

PluralEyes for FCP X went through an extensive public beta before its release with thousands of editors putting the software through its paces. Photography Bay reviewed the PluralEyes for FCP X beta release, commenting on its ability to better handle real-world sync projects, "…syncing multiple takes to a single audio clip is a challenge in FCP X, but is something that the new PluralEyes beta shreds through easily." The full Photography Bay review can be viewed at http://www.photographybay.com/2011/12/15/plural-eyes-now-available-for-fcp-x/

PluralEyes for FCP X Pricing and Upgrades
PluralEyes for FCP X is available today via http://www.singularsoftware.com/buy.html#fcp for 149.00 USD.

Existing PluralEyes for FCP customers can upgrade to PluralEyes for FCP X free of charge at http://www.singularsoftware.com/downloads.html#fcp.

FCP X editors can test-drive the new release by downloading a 30-day trial version from http://www.singularsoftware.com/downloads.html#fcp.

BOSCPUG Quick Report

2012-01-25T10:00:00.010-05:00

Here's a quick report on last night's Boston Creative Pro User Group meeting held at Emerson College's Bright Family Screening Room.

Dan Bérubé began the evening by recounting the history of the Boston Final Cut Pro Users Group, which began about 11 years ago. But he said that since 2008, the focus has moved increasingly away from Final Cut Pro. "I don't care what you use" he said. For that reason, and with the "death" of Final Cut Pro 7, Dan decided to change the name of the group to the Boston Creative Pro User Group, though the focus and direction of the group won't really change at all.

Final Cut Pro 7 may be dead, but it still made an appearance!

He did say that he hopes to provide more ways to encourage filmmakers to collaborate on different projects in the upcoming months.

The event was billed as Visual Storytellers, with two featured speakers/presenters: Rick Macomber and Paul Antico, though several other local filmmakers were invited to show their work as well.

A Canon C300 was present

DP/Editor, photojournalist and multimedia specialist Rick Macomber works as a news cameraman for CBS Boston and is the winner of four Emmy Awards, nominated for eight Emmys in Videography and Editing and is a ten time first place winner for the Boston Press Photographers’ Association. Rick has really honed his craft, and has the ability to tell a story quickly and beautifully while shooting quickly and efficiently.

Rick talked about how he got into the business, recounted some of his experiences through the years, and showed some of his news reporting as well as several of his personal projects. One of theses was the piece shot for the 2011 One Day On Earth project. The clip, and the story he told about shooting it, can be found on Vimeo:

Up until the final moments before sunset I still had no idea what I was going to do for One Day on Earth this year. As a matter of fact, I had been so busy working all day, I was about to blow the whole thing off and head home... until I saw the sun setting across the street from the TV studio along the Charles River, a place where only a few weeks ago had been the staging area for the world famous Head of the Charles Regatta. I hustled over there with my gear and slogged through soaking wet grass and 3 inches of mud to get to the river just in time to set up my sticks as the sun was going down. At the time I had no clue that I was about to be surrounded by flocks of geese that probably come to the very spot in which I was currently encroaching upon at dusk every day. I suddenly found myself in the midst of them, flying around me and landing right next to me. I was so still while documenting them, I think they saw that I wasn't a threat to them so they stayed within reach of my lens. I got lucky on this one and I was glad that I had thrown my gear bag and sticks in the car when I left the house for work in this morning!

11-11-11 One Day on Earth - Boston from Rick Macomber on Vimeo.

Paul Antico works for The Department of Homeland Security/TSA, and showed for the first time publicly the DHS/TSA Boston-produced documentary "Why We're Here." Shot using the Sony NEX-FS100 and Canon DSLRs, Why We're Here explores the 10th anniversary of 9/11/01 and how it has changed the lives of those at DHS. The project was shot on a small budget, and with an even smaller crew, yet has very high production values.

Produced for internal use, Paul had to jump through some hoops to get permission to show the video publicly, and this may be the film's only public showing!

Why We're Here

A number of other filmmakers showed clips from projects they are working on. Ben Eckstein showed his latest entry in the Boston 48 Hour Film Project. You can read about his experience here.

A Path Through Fire - 48HFP Boston 2011 from Benjamin Eckstein on Vimeo.

Oddly enough, I interviewed one of Ben's collaborators on the project some months ago: Keith Wasserman: On the 48 Hour Film Project. The Boston film scene is a small world...but I wouldn't want to paint it.

Following Ben was Benjamin Chou with the film his team made for the same 48 Hour Film Project!

Rook - Boston 48 Hour Film Project

Rook - Boston 48 Hour Film Project from Christopher Lee on Vimeo.

Emerson Alumnae Nathaniel Hansen showed a segment from his documentary The Elders. The following is the trailer for movie, not the clip that Nathaniel showed. The clip was a really interesting - and poignant - interview with a man who worked on the first rocket-powered aircraft ejection seats.

The clip actually provoked a rather lively discussion, including a question about whether including the voice of Nathaniel asking a question at one point was a good thing; the questioner felt it was unnecessary, and that it interrupted the emotion of the moment.

I wish I could point you to the clip, because I thought it was an interesting question; though I don't personally agree that it was a problem.

The Elders - Official Trailer from Nathaniel Hansen on Vimeo.

Matthew Hashiguchi, also an Emerson Alumnae, showed the trailer for his movie The Lower 9, saying that this was the first time it had been shown in a theater.

The Lower 9: A Story of Home trailer from Matthew Hashiguchi on Vimeo.

Other films shown included a short segment shot for NASA in the early 90's on which Dan worked as the sound man! The audience got to see a diverse set of locally made films, and the evening provided a great opportunity for the filmmakers to see their work projected on a large screen.

Finally, Dan had teased us at the beginning of the evening with the promise of footage taken with the Canon C300 that had been shot the night before. I know there were at least three of us there who were eager to see it! ...And we ran out of time!

Maybe next time?

All we saw of the Canon C300 footage.... (*cries*)

Quick Links

2012-01-25T09:00:00.000-05:00

Buying Mics & Hacking Audio for Your DSLR Video Setup | chase jarvis
Should you buy a Rode Stereo Videomic or the Zoom H4n?

2. The Rode. I recently did a blog post about the Rode Mic a few months ago. You should read it, but to summarize; I love the thing for its straight forward simplicity. It allows me to just shoot and not worry about sound, but…
3. The Zoom. …When I DO need to worry about the sound (such as an interview or a scene in a narrative film) I bust out the Zoom H4n. It captures better files that the straight camera – remember it’s sole function is audio.

Get Lit: Using Sidelight for a Dramatic Effect | Chris Collins | Wide Open Camera
Getting lighting right can be difficult. It takes practice, and in my experience, the fewer lights the better (because every light you add, adds shadows!) Here's a guide for getting dramatic lighting:

I am a sucker for dramatic lighting. That’s why I was so excited when Jared Abrams decided that we should go with a moody look for the interviews in The Board of Education documentary. I decided to go with a fairly contrasty, side-lit look for the interviews which I have accomplished on the road with a few Ikan 312 LED lights. We were fortunate enough to get hooked up by Roman France with a studio in New York for this particular interview. Here are two fairly similar lighting setups.

White Balancing Your Camera (Part 1) | Richard Harrington | Triple Exposure
Auto White Balance can be wonderful; and it can be the devil:

By default, your camera is probably set to use an automatic white balance (sometimes called AWB). The way that auto works is that the camera will analyze the frame and create an automatic setting that attempts to neutralize any color shift. This setting works pretty well for indoor shooting where lighting is consistent.

Episode 39: Building a Flexible Top Handle Rig | DSLR Video Shooter
A flexible top handle rig built from a collection of different manufacturer's parts. It could cost you a bit of money to buy the parts though...

Ed Burns On Making an Indie with the 5D Mark II | Ron Dawson | Dare Dreamer
Tips from Ed Burns taken from a podcast "The Q&A with Jeff Goldsmith"

Shot with all available light.
Shot with one 5D Mark II and an M audio recorder with lav mics instead of a boom.
Edited on Final Cut Pro.
3 person crew.

eye3 The Affordable Radio Controlled Camera Helicopter | Cinescopophilia
A remote-control camera platform for $999? I got quite excited; until I realized it's a Kickstarter campaign:

$999 gets you a professional quality yet affordable radio controlled camera helicopter called the eye3. Almost anyone attempting to build a platform like the eye3 will be stunned by the complexity involved and the years of hands on experience needed to create a functional, safe device. The incredibly steep learning curve combined with the high cost of failure has kept this powerful tool out of the hands of thousands of creative people until now it seems.

Get Your Own Damn Movie Soundtrack! | Lloyd Kaufman | Mastering Film
Lloyd offers his typically unique perspective and experiences of music licensing:

And what about Nina Paley? She is a genius filmmaker who produced Sita Sings the Blues, the only animated movie entirely in Flash, as far as I know. She, too, has limited resources, so she decided to score her film with public domain music whose “sync” or publishing rights cost zilch. Unfortunately, Nina did not know that the “performance rights” of the folks performing the music were not public domain, and those singers, performers and musicians wanted to be paid. So far this has been a huge problem for Nina and has stood in the way of her making distribution deals.

Sony PMW-F3 & PMW-EX1R vs HDR-AX2000E | Владимир Кольцов | Vimeo
Umm...uhh...okay this is just weird. It might have been interesting if the PMW-F3 was used to shoot closeups like the PMW-EX1R and HDR-AX2000E, but since it's used only for a wide shot it's not very useful.

This video does raise an interesting issue though; if you are shooting with multiple - different - cameras, do you use the best camera for the wide shot or the close-ups?

If I have a couple of different cameras, I usually use the worst cameras for the shots that I'll be using the least (which usually means the wide shot, and any fixed closeups) and then I use the best camera to float around capturing different things.

Sony PMW-F3 & PMW-EX1R vs HDR-AX2000E from Владимир Кольцов on Vimeo.

Playing with the Canon C300

2012-01-24T09:00:00.008-05:00

Last night I was invited to sit in on some DP's shooting with the Canon C300. Daniel Bérubé of the Boston Creative Pro Users Group (formerly the Boston Final Cut Pro Users Group) arranged for the location, and the use of an EF mount Canon C300. Also present were Don Bérubé (who helped configure the camera and shot a lot of stills of the event), Baylee Ricci who graciously acted as a model, while DP's and shooters who got to play with the camera included Rick Macomber, Chris Loughran, Benjamin Eckstein and Norman Lang, with several others dropping in.

Officially, we only had three hours to set-up and do some test shots, and it's always surprising how much time can be spent setting up and lighting even a simple test scene. A variety of Canon lenses were used, including the 50mm f/1.2L, 85mm f/1.2L, a 14mm and the 16-35mm f/2.8L lens. The camera was used on a variety of support devices including a tripod, a Kessler CineSlider, a Kessler Crane and a Glidecam.

The low-light performance, as has been mentioned by many people, is very good. The location was a billiards bar with not a lot of light, and very little additional lighting was needed to produce very good images.

The camera is quite light, but it's not even close to DSLR weight unless you strip off the side handle and the LCD and top handle.

I think the small size and weight made it possible - and encouraged - doing things with the camera that you might not do with a larger camera. Of course, if you're shooting with a DSLR already, you might not notice much difference in that regard!

Chris Loughran

The LCD display is pretty good, though we were using a large external monitor for most of the work, which really makes a big difference when shooting, no matter what kind of camera you use.

We didn't do anything with audio; we didn't even try and record audio with the camera. Partly because this wasn't what we were most interested in testing, and partly because it would have added considerably to the production time.

Operation of the camera was pretty straight forward, though since most of those operating the camera had never used it before, there was a bit of time spent figuring out how to do things like change ISO, turn off the zebras, and how to start and stop recording!

Chris Loughran, Ben Eckstein and Dan Bérubé

I believe there are plans to edit together the video that was shot and put it online, but at the moment I don't have any details on that.

Included here are some pictures snapped with my iPhone. I also shot some behind-the-scenes video which I will put together and post; probably in a couple of days as this week is proving to be a very busy one with tonights BOSCPUG meeting, and tomorrow nights Sony F65 event at Rule Boston Camera.

Note: the Canon C300 will be at tonights BOSCPUG presents "Visual Storytellers" event.

New iMac report

2012-01-23T09:00:00.000-05:00

I just bought a 21.5" iMac - the 2.7GHz model. I did it for a few reasons; though it was immediately prompted by the Lion requirement for iBooks Author.

But my three year-old MacBook Pro was starting to feel a little confined; it really needed more memory, and the SuperDrive had stopped working, which amongst other things, was going to make it difficult to upgrade with the Lion install disk I had!

And secretly I'd been wanting to get a slightly larger screened, faster machine with more memory. It just seemed right to get an iMac, though I'll still be using the MacBook Pro.

Here's some notes from the experience so far:

Why not the 27-inch model?
I bought the smaller model iMac not so much because it was cheaper, but because I just came to the conclusion that the 27 inch iMac was too huge for my liking. I mean, it's HUGE!! The 21.5 inch screen is plenty large enough for me; at least at the moment, though this is coming from someone who has mostly been using a MacBook Pro and smaller external displays. The 21.5 inch screen seems large enough for me.

More memory
I'm ordering a 16GB upgrade for the machine. I'll probably get it from OWC; they have a great reputation for memory and I've bought from them before. One nice thing about the current iMac design; replacing the memory seems to be pretty straight forward.

Bluetooth keyboard and mouse
This is the first time I've had a wireless mouse and keyboard. It will be interesting to see how this pans out. So far, I'm having a little trouble getting used to the way the scrolling in the mouse works; which is opposite what you're used to if you have a mouse with a scroll wheel in it. I know you can change the setting in Preferences, but I'm leaving it as is for now.

Wi-Fi network issues
I've encountered an odd problem with the machine not detecting the Wi-Fi network when first started. Restarting solves the problem. A thread at Apple's support forum suggests that not turning on the keyboard and mouse during start-up will solve the problem. I will have to try that.

Lion
Barely gotten to know Lion so far, so I can't really comment on it yet.

Adobe Serial Numbers
Another reason I decided I needed to get an iMac with more memory, faster processor and bigger screen is I'm hoping to spend more time with After Effects. So one of the first things I installed was Adobe Creative Suite.

As always seems to happen, though I could find the discs, I couldn't find the serial number; did you know that if you have registered your software with Adobe, you can go into your account and find out your serial number? That's useful; and saved me searching all over the place!

And Adobe does allow you to install the software on two computers; as long as you don't run it at the same time on both!

It is nice to have a new machine to play with!

Platinotype for Final Cut Pro X

2012-01-23T08:00:00.000-05:00

CrumplePop's latest filter for Final Cut Pro X is Platinotype, which recreates the platinum photographic process.

Platinotype makes it easy to apply a platinum photographic process to your footage. By simply dragging and dropping Platinotype onto your clip, you can create rich, textured portraits and landscapes very quickly. Platinotype works with Final Cut Pro X only.

For the next week, Platinotype will be $39. After that, the price will move to $75.

Here is the coupon code for the $39 price: PLTY-0036-INTR-0120

CrumplePop Platinotype from CrumplePop on Vimeo.

Quick Links

2012-01-22T11:00:00.001-05:00

60 Minutes with the C300 | Cristina Valdivieso | shoot.edit.learn
Notes from Joe Simon spending an hour with the Canon C300, includes an interview and video:

Having shot on the 5D/7D for the past few years it was a bit different finding what button did what on the C300. Once I did find my way around it was great. I do love the way the C300 feels in my hands, the grip is nice. It’s a bit heavier then the 5D but feels super solid. It’s amazing to have all those “Video” features back like peaking , XLR, headphone jack etc. Technically the image looks beautiful, the highlight rolloff is great and coming from the 5D where the highlights blowout, this is awesome. I know everyone keeps say the grain looks nice, but it really does. It looks more organic then the digital noise you get from the 5Ds.

Dolly | Sam Morgan Moore | DSLR4Real
Sam decided most sliders are too small for his needs, and constructs a pretty large home-built dolly:

Now a lot of the slider shots we see in Vimeo Hell have the camera fixed directly to the slider - but in my opinion that doesn't really work. You need to be able to slide and pan at the same time to keep your subject centre of frame (as one would have to do during an interview). Of course one needs to be capable to do all the other schlep of filming an interview too, monitor, sustain focus, keep power and monitor sound too. To get my camera to do all of that I build it up to quite a size

But It’s Just For the Web | Alexis van Hurkman | Blog
How "just a few minutes" can improve an image:

It’s natural, over the course of days, weeks, or even months of editorial, to get used to the way footage looks. You can get so used to it that it’s easy to imagine that there’s nothing to improve. I don’t know how many times I’ve had a client bring me a project and say something to the effect of “we think it looks good the way it is, it probably doesn’t even really need color correction, but I thought maybe you could take a look at a few shots.”

Metabones EF – NEX adapter has firmware fault | Andrew Reid | EOSHD
Andrew receives an email from the developer letting him know the adapter doesn't seem to work with all E-mount cameras:

Sorry! We find some “data transfer problem” on our adapter when use on NEX5N & NEX7 camera.

But no any problems on other model like NEX5, NEXC3, FS100, VG10…..

Sony NEX-FS100 and NEX-VG20 hands-on (video) | Sam Byford | The Verge
A CES booth video looking at the two cameras. If you're already familiar with these cameras, you won't learn anything new, but for those who aren't...

Ira Glass On The Strange Life Of The Producer | Scott Macaulay
| Filmmaker Magazine
Ira explains how little fun there is in the movie business:

When Mike Birbiglia asked This American Life‘s Ira Glass to produce his first feature, Sleepwalk with Me, premiering here at Sundance, Glass thought it sounded like it might be fun. “I’d read a couple of scripts, look at a couple of rough cuts,” he remembers thinking.

Glass’s presumption was far from the truth… very far.

Accounting Tips From Michelle Brown. Shoot, Invoice, Get Paid!
| Wide Open Camera
Don't forget the billing!

Before you get to that invoice, you need to look at your contract. Each job you get should begin with a contract of some kind. Verbal is friendly, but if money is changing hands you want to protect yourself. Make sure you read the language and understand it as much as you can. Pay attention to the payment terms. Standard terms for most companies are Net 30, which means the invoice is due 30 days after the date posted on the bill.

Your Film Festival | YouTube
YouTube announces another film competition:

15 minutes to tell a story. Millions of people to watch it. $500,000 to make a new one for the world to see.

This is Your Film Festival. You have until March 31st to submit a short, story-driven video. There's no entry fee. It can be any format - short film, web-series episode, TV pilot - and any genre. In June, audiences around the world will vote, sending 10 deserving storytellers to open

More on iBooks Author

2012-01-22T10:00:00.000-05:00

In response to my earlier post about iBooks Author requiring Lion, reader Martin Koch posted a link to a couple of sites that explain how to install it on Snow Leopard (by sneaking into the System and changing the version number temporarily!)

He says he did it successfully!

Here's a couple of articles:

The Verge: How to run iBooks Author app in Snow Leopard
(Very short description)

OS X Daily: Install iBooks Author on Mac OS X 10.6.8 Snow Leopard
(more detailed, step-by-step)

Meanwhile, I decided to take another route and just bought a new iMac...

Quick Links

2012-01-21T09:00:00.000-05:00

RED Scarlet versus Panasonic GH2 | Andrew Reid | EOSHD
A look at some samples from David Cole of 3D rig builders Beampath, shot with the Panasonic GH2 and RED Scarlet:

The GH2 is certainly a match for the Scarlet in terms of resolution at 2K, even at a push upscaled to 2.5K.

The biggest difference is in latitude and compression in the shadows. The Scarlet has more latitude and a flatter picture profile because of its RAW recording format. Dynamic range is less on the GH2 and the lows look more highly compressed. Here I have boosted the lows in post on both shots to show what is going on…

THIS Sunday – Podcast With Philip Bloom | shoot.edit.learn
A live podcast with Philip Bloom on Sunday, January 22nd at 5PM Eastern:

So it’s that time again! We had so much fun during our last live video podcast and got so much great feedback that we decided to do it again. Karen Abad and I have invited Philip Bloom to join us this Sunday for a live interview and, of course, some q+a from all the viewers.

“Nightscapes” - A Look into creating a timelapse film on a minimal budget
| Phil Arntz | Daniel Freytag
In this guest post Phil Arntz writes about how he shot a timelapse film with minimal equipment:

When shooting sunsets or sunrises, you can also shoot manual, but you would have to factor for the change of light and see which part is most important for you and expose for that! Another method is to use AV Mode, which is aperture priority! You can use that and it will adjust for the changing light, although you will loose certain control over your image and will have flicker in your timelapse! The so called flicker, which is introduced by inconsistent exposures (some brighter or darker than the others) can be removed in post production however, but don’t forget to factor in the time, this takes!

S-Log and the Sony F3 – Part 3: Application | AbelCine | Vimeo
Andy Shipsides offers this tutorial on using the Sony PMW-F3:

In the third part of my S-Log series I took the Sony F3 outside on a nice bright day to show what S-Log can do. Jeff Lee and I headed up to the roof of AbelCine and found some shade to stand in, this allowed us to show the most contrast possible. I shot the blog in S-Log as well as in the standard video modes with the AbelRange profile that I created earlier this year. This way I can show just what S-Log enables in the camera.

Schneider Optics True Match Vari ND Filter. Wide Open Camera Quick Take Review | Wide Open Camera | YouTube
A look at an ND filter from Schneider:

Here is a Quick Take on the new Schneider True Match Vari-ND Filter. This is one of the better fader filters on the market. There are some limitations. For more info check us out at www.wideopencamera.com This bad boy is not cheap at around $450 US.

FCP X: Match the Sound of Two Clips | Larry Jordan | Blog
How to get sound levels in different clips to match:

2. Before we match the sound, we first need to match the audio levels between the two clips. While this isn’t necessary to do the match, you can’t get two audio clips to sound the same if the levels are not at least close to matching each other.
There are several ways to do this:

FCP X: Smoothing “Ken Burns” Moves
Larry also offers this tip for those using the "Ken Burns" effect:

If you are adding Ken Burns moves to two clips and you want to add a transition between them, apply the transition between the two clips FIRST, then add a Ken Burns move to each of the two clips on either side of the transition.

The C300 DPs--Dana Christiaansen | Fletch/The Association | Vimeo
This is a short piece from a recent boot camp where Dana Christiaansen talks about the advantages of hand-held shooting.

An Author Looks at iBooks Author | Alexia Van Hurkman | Blog
Alex likes Apple's new iBooks Author, but doesn't like the fact it's limited to the Apple iBookstore:

In the short term, it’s disappointing, because the team that created iBooks Author made a really, really nice piece of software. Something that I think is better at what it does then most other applications of its type on the market, for this very small niche of technical and textbook writers. I’d love to use it, and I would have paid good money were it a more general purpose tool.

Star Wars Uncut: Director's Cut

2012-01-21T07:55:00.000-05:00

This is fun; but I don't think I can watch more than a few minutes of it; a crowd-sourced Star Wars:

Finally, the crowd-sourced project has been stitched together and put online for your streaming pleasure. The "Director's Cut" is a feature-length film that contains hand-picked scenes from the entire StarWarsUncut.com collection.

Ed Burns on Newlyweds

2012-01-20T10:00:00.000-05:00

Filmmaker Ed Burns was on the appallingly bad* "Piers Morgan Tonight" last week talking up his $9,000 film project; Newlyweds. Any indie filmmaker should pay close attention to how Burns has been using social media and other unique ways to finance and promote his movies the last couple of years.

I found it particularly interesting that the budget for the $9,000 movie - after post work and other undefined things - was more like $125,000. Not a lot by big movie standards, but much more than $9,000!

Burns: I go to film schools all the time and talk to the kids and what's exciting is the playing field has been leveled. Now these kids can get in and they can make a great looking film, and that point of entry is so low. There isn't the economic hurdle anymore.

Burns: The thing that's amazing is, using social media now to publicize the film and we've done this thing where theatrical doesn't make financial sense for indie films, for the most part, so we did a digital distribution where it goes out on video-on-demand and certain companies like Comcast and Time Warner have done a great job recognizing that the indie audience doesn't go to the theater like they used to. They're sitting home at their couch; and iTunes is another major component. In seven days of release we have already made the budget back, times, I don't know, five or six, and not the nine thousand dollar budget, the budget all-in after post-production, is about $125,000.

Morgan:You've already made, what? half a million?

Burns: Ahhh....just, I'd say, a little shy of that.

...and we did not expect to do this, we did a moive last year called Nice Guy Johnny, that did nowhere near that, I mean it did very well, but this has surprised everybody.

* Morgan seemed more interested in Burns' wife than the movie.

Quick Links

2012-01-20T09:00:00.000-05:00

Thoughts On DVD Covers | Jared Flesher | Sourlands
Jared is working towards completing his documentary Sourlands, and in the latest post on his blog, talks about designing a DVD cover.

The feedback I’ve received from designer friends is that it’s a little dark overall, and rather serious. And it is, there’s no two ways around that. But I can live with a little dark and rather serious. If people don’t buy the documentary because they’re not in the mood to watch something serious, I can live with that. Sourlands is entertaining and occasionally funny, but at its heart it’s a serious film.

Mixing Voice and Music Fast in Final Cut Pro | Chadwick Paul | Blog
A tip for working with audio in Final Cut Pro:

Have you ever had a producer tell you to cut a few shots out of your video after you already made the “perfect” mix using clip overlays, keyframes, and rubberbands? Here is an old school technique I use that prevents this frustration. It keeps audio very flexible with the use of through-edits, crossfades, and the roll tool. Check it out and be happy!

Dave Gets a RED Epic Tutorial Before Shooting an Interview | Dave Dugdale
| Learning DSLR Video
A DSLR shooter gets a chance to play with the RED Epic:

A while back I did a BTS video of a camera crew using the RED Epic, after that I got an email from James Drake who is co-owner of 5kInsight.com, a local RED camera rental house in Denver, asking if I would like to see one and try it out. I was like, “Sure you bet, that would be fun”.

So we met up at Denver’s Union Station a few days ago and James gave me a tutorial on how to shoot with it which you will see here, after that I got to shoot a video interview with James using his Epic.

Sony Nex E-mount Tamron 18-200mm F3.5-6.3 OSS Di III VC AF comparison to Sony 18-200mm F3.5-6.3 Zoom Lens | mike kobal | Blog
Mike compares the Sony 18-200mm NEX [$799.99] mount lens to the Tamron 18-200mm Di III for E Mount [$739.00] (Note, if the Sony is bought as part of a camera kit, it's essentially $699, but they are still comparably priced.)

The Tamron is a little smaller, lighter and has two additional lens elements. The built quality of both lenses is excellent, featuring stylish metal bodies, the Tamron in premium black (which I prefer, also available in silver/grey) and the Sony in titanium grey. The built quality of both lenses is much better then the usual superplastic 50x superzooms.

Breaking Down the Documentary Process | Mike Rosen | Videomaker
A look at the basics to consider when you start your documentary project:

3) Documentary Equipment and Crew: Remember how we said you’d need money to shoot your documentary? Well, here’s where that comes into play. You may be able to cajole some friends into helping you out and you may be able to borrow your neighbor’s old camcorder for free… but let’s face it. You know you get what you pay for when you rely on the kindness of strangers (and friends). If you’re going to make a documentary, make it good.

New FS100 Tutorial Trailer from Sony Europe | Den Lennie | Blog
Den was one of the first to get his hands on the NEX-FS100, and now he's worked on a promotional Blu-ray disc for Sony about the camera:

Back in the late Summer I was approached by Sony Europe and asked if we (My buddy and creative partner Janes Tonkin of Hangmans Studios) would pitch a tutorial Blu-Ray to become a partner proiduct for the NEX FS100 for European Customers.

So James and I wanted to create a cinematic product that would really highlight how much you can achioeve with this gem of a camera ( and it's very affordable for what it delivers)

HyperDeck Shuttle 2 now with 10-bit Playback to the Avid DNxHD Format
| Cinescopophilia
Blackmagic has updated the HyperDeck Shuttle:

Blackmagic Design have released a new version of the HyperDeck Shuttle Solid State Disk recorder. The HyperDeck Shuttle 2 now replaces the existing model and also adds broadcast quality 10-bit recording and playback to the Avid DNxHD format for the same low price of $345. Your move Atomos.

Adobe Post Workflow on Mobius | Vincent Laforet | Blog
A video tutorial showing the workflow for editing Mobius, which was shot on the Canon C300:

A few months ago we did a piece on dynamic linking between Adobe Premiere and AfterEffects. In the above video, Jon Carr, gives a more practical breakdown of how these features were used on our latest film, "Mobius" – notably in terms of rotoscoping. During a particular scene in the film our protagonist (David Lyons) is taking pictures of a Cartel execution from an outcropping of rocks. Unfortunately, the rocks that we used on location were covered with graffiti (the location is usually a well trafficked off-roading recreation area).

Watch: 'Side by Side' Doc Trailer About the Film to Digital Evolution
| Alex Billington | First Showing
I think film is dead - Kodak just filed for bankruptcy protection - but some will keep fighting for it:

"There isn't yet a superior or even an equal imaging technology to film, but we're being forced to transition." Perfectly timed for the start of the Sundance Film Festival today is a trailer for a documentary called Side by Side, produced by Keanu Reeves, about the science, art, and impact of digital cinema.

Elevator pitch: 8 ways to take yours to a higher level | Amy Levin-Epstein
| CBS News
I hate elevator pitches, but if you think you need one, this article might help:

An elevator pitch is a form of marketing, and you need to know the product -- you -- well. "If you haven't taken the time and effort to truly understand your strengths and what differentiates you from others, your personal brand won't be as easy to communicate and won't stand out to others in your networking," says branding expert Chris Perry, MBA, founder of Career Rocketeer.

Be Careful What You Wish For...

2012-01-19T19:44:00.000-05:00

For some time now I've been hoping that Apple would do some kind of interactive book publishing tool for the iPad. And today my wish was granted; they announced iBooks Author.

It looks pretty good too: a sort of Pages/iWeb type application that publishes to the iBook store. Apple has done a couple of nice things too; you can test it on your own iPad locally, and they will let us common folk publish to the iTunes store (previously, if you weren't a big publisher, you had to go through some publishing service.)

That's the good news; the bad news? Well apart from the fact that it only supports the iPad (no iPhone) and if you already have an iTunes publisher account, you'll have to create another account to publish books, there is one little fly in the ointment....it will only run under Lion, and I'm still running Snow Leopard! (I have a policy on only upgrading OS's when I get a new machine, or when a software application requires it!)

So great...now I have to spend the weekend installing Lion and getting used to that. I hope Lion doesn't break anything else...

MacWorld: Hands on: iBooks Author effortless to use, but iPad-only

New England SMPTE Meeting, OLED monitors and a little Canon C300 News

2012-01-19T09:00:00.000-05:00

Last night was the January meeting of the New England chapter of SMPTE. SMPTE meetings are a bit of a hit-or-miss affair for me. Often they are very interesting, but sometimes things go over my head and I start to fall asleep. That was sort of how things were this night, though I did learn a little...

Up first was a talk about Holographic television by Michael Bove, Jr. of MIT’s Media Lab. No actual demonstration gear, just a PowerPoint presentation - points off from MIT's "cool" rating for that - though the first part was an interesting discussion of what holographic television is not (we're looking at you, Wolf Blitzer!), and what it is.

Michael said that in 2010 IBM claimed that Holographic television was going to be one of the top five technologies to impact our lives over the next five years; though he added that they didn't say what they meant by holographic television.

And now that I sort of know what it is, I'm not convinced it will make a dramatic difference over the next five years either.

Oh, and the Star Wars hologram's are not technically possible...

Did you know that this demo they did on CNN wasn't a real hologram?
...I thought it was a bad green screen job too.

OLED
Sonys Gary Mandle, Sr. Product Manager, gave an interesting presentation on OLED displays. It was rather…technical, with some interesting bits and pieces I could actually understand thrown in:

Manufacturing costs for OLED’s could be ultimately less than LCDs, as it's actually a simpler, less involved production process, BUT there's all the upfront costs they have to recover.
They are deciding whether to invest and build a plant to produce larger panels.
It’s been said before, but you really have to see an OLED panel in operation to understand what the fuss is; the deep blacks and response at low light levels are just incredible.
They say that the panels will last 30,000 hours; longer than many other display technologies. They have increased the size of the blue dots inside the display because the blue is the first color to go in these; and blue is still the first color to go.
The panels somehow adjust over time to keep the color accuracy up as long as possible.
OLEDs are very efficient, and Stacked OLED (SOLED) could be used to make lighting that is 10 times more efficient than fluorescents.

Sony make three levels of display; the E models for cinema [16.5" $15,300] applications, the F for television [$10,350], and the PVM for general consumers [$3,690]. The 24.62" E model costs $23,400! These are all manufactured on the same line, but then the panels are graded as they come off, and some of the support electronics are different.

He made an interesting observation that production of large panels (LCDs) has gone down over the past couple of years, while sales of small panels has gone up dramatically [*cough* iPad ] and that the way “we” watch television is changing. We’re watching a lot of stuff on small screens, and tiny screens. When he said production of small LCDs had gone up while large ones had gone down, I wasn’t that surprised; though it wasn’t something that had occurred to me beforehand.

So is an OLED worth that sort of money? When we’re talking about spending close to $20,000 on a camera to capture images, does spending the same to see the best reproduction of what we shot, too much? For me, sure, but maybe not for you!

Which is the LCD, and which the OLED?

Canon C300 News
Finally, I chatted briefly with John Rule of Rule Boston Camera about the Canon C300. He said that pre-sales of the camera have been “really good.” He also said that Canon has told them they will get three or four cameras at the end of the month - as will all the other dealers that are selling the camera.

It appears that it will take a while for the production to ramp up too; which is what Canon's Larry Thorpe said a couple of weeks back as well.

Since some people placed orders back when the camera was announced, if you haven’t ordered yet, you may not see the camera before the summer! (that’s what I’m guessing; John didn’t say that!)

Quick Links

2012-01-18T09:00:00.000-05:00

B & H Pre-orders for Canon C300 | NotesOnVideo
I already posted the details on the pricing for the C300 and lenses; you can order it from B & H, or your local dealer. I must admit, though I did think the price was going to be $16,000 - didn't everyone - I was hoping it might be a little lower. Not that I could have bought one either way!

New Canon EOS C300 Digital Cinema Camera Hands-On Review | Trevor Boyer
| B & H
A 20 minute video about the Canon C300 with Rob Rives from B & H:

To devise the EOS C300, Canon leveraged and developed cutting-edge technology from several of its areas of expertise: sensors, image processors, professional video cameras—and of course, optics. The experts at B&H hereby present a hands-on review of the EOS C300, including field and studio tests that put the camera through its paces.

Dispelling the myths, is the Canon C300 worth $15,999? | Andrew Reid | EOSHD
Andrew isn't that impressed by the C300; he thinks you're paying way too much for built-in ND filters:

Now if I were to own a camera, it’d be DSLRs or FS100, no question. I don’t like the form factor of the FS100 but there is no denying that for $5,000 it slam dunks the C300 on the spec sheet. If this is not giving Canon sleepless nights, it really should be. In my view, Canon badly need to respond and bring out a mini stripped down version of the C300 which is to the C300 what the FS100 is to the Sony F3 or a much improved Canon DSLR without the kind of soft moire ridden image we have seen so far from their DSLRs.

LARRY THORPE ON THE CANON C300 | Michael Murie | Filmmaker Magazine
A brief interview with Larry Thorpe conducted at the recent Canon event at Boston Rule Camera:

Can you talk about how you’ve removed the noise?
I can’t talk an awful lot about it other than to say in the photosensor our guys were able to reduce the noise floor very significantly and extend the dynamic range, and that’s what gives this camera this incredible ISO capability.

Sony NEX E-mount gets Metabones $399 electronic Canon EF adapter / Canon C300 available for pre-order | Andrew Reid | EOSHD
We've been waiting for over a year for a certain Boston company to release an EF to NEX converter (with electronic interface), but now it seems some other companies are actually going to do it!

This is great news for NEX 5N and FS100 owners. Suddenly that limited range of E-mount lenses have been supplemented by the entire Canon EOS range! Metabones are set to release a fully electronic interface adapter for Canon EF lenses to Sony e-mount (NEX 5N, FS100). Unlike the bulky MTF adapter it has electronic communication between the Sony body and Canon lens itself so you can adjust aperture on the camera. It also supports IS and requires no external power.

Sony 11-16mm T3 PL and 18-252mm Sony F3 Lens Review | Matthew Allard
| Vimeo
Matt reviews the $10,000 Sony SCL-Z18X140 18-252mm lens and the 11-16mm T3 PL zoom.

Would I buy either of these lenses? Thats a good question. The 18-252 has a lot of strengths and some weaknesses. What it does offer is something that no other product has done before. A zoom rocker controlled Super 35mm lens with a big range. Yes it's not fast, but if your using it outside which I think most people would or in controlled lighting situations it's pretty good. You can still get reasonable shallow depth of field despite it not being a fast lens. It's not perfect, far from it, but it does offer a lot of convenience and a pretty nice image up until about 220mm.

Compressing Video For YouTube | Larry Jordan | Blog
Tips for compressing video for YouTube...but read the next article first...

While YouTube supports a maximum image size of 4K, the data rate for really large images is ridiculously high. For most web videos, given current download rates, the preferred image size is 1280 x 720. This means that when I shoot for the web, I shoot a 720p image. (Progressive is ALWAYS better for the web than interlaced. The advantage of shooting 1080i for repositioning/reframing shots is far out-weighed by the problems interlacing causes web video. 1080p is an ideal format, but not all cameras support it.)

Maximizing Your SEO with Video | Shawn Lam | Dare Dreamer
...after reading the previous article, this one might think you shouldn't be uploading your video to YouTube after all:

So now that we have defined and stated the goal of SEO, let me give you an example of what SEO is not: Posting a video on YouTube is not SEO. It can be a part of a link building strategy but it does nothing for your SEO. In fact, YouTube is robbing you of your SEO potential with each and every video that you post on their website and embed on yours. Now while I’m not going to go into detail in this post on the different type of links, I will say that a link under a YouTube video serves very little value to you in regards to SEO.

So You Call Yourself a DP? | Den Lennie | Blog
Den continues his series on being a DP, this time offering 21 things to check about lighting:

So that's the basic 21 questions that you will be asking yourself subconsciously every single time you turn up at a location. And don't forget, if you are lucky enough to do a recce then great, but most of the time, you simply don't have that luxury and so having a rock solid process is what you need to master in order to do your job well, get a great looking image and most importantly, impress the client - consistently.

FIRST IMPRESSIONS | Stephen Garrett | Filmmaker Magazine
Yesterday I linked to an NPR story about the art of movie trailers; I wish I'd seen this article as it makes a good companion piece:

Above all, and without exception, trailer editing is about rhythm. If you don’t have an innate sense of it, then your trailer will not sing. A trailer, cut well, will have a flowing motion to it, a sense that everything plays off everything else, and will propel the viewer through the experience of the film. Trailers build up excitement and anticipation, and a keen sense of rhythm heightens those sensations.

Rode presents two new Microphones designed for use with DSLRs | Daniel Freytag
| Blog
Dan takes a quick look at two new microphones coming from Rode; the VideoMic HD and the Stereo VideoMic Pro:

The Stereo VideoMic Pro builds on the feature set of the VideoMic Pro, with an ergonomic form factor perfectly suited to DSLR, consumer camcorders and large-sensor video cameras. The integrated shock mounting system provides superior isolation from vibration and mechanical noise that can otherwise degrade the recording quality.

Sony Bloggie Live Lets You Live-Stream Video Over Wi-Fi | Tim Moynihan
| PC World
Last year it was 3D, this year the Sony Bloggie Live [$249] does live streaming...what will it do next year?

While the camcorder records at full high-definition, live streams are limited to 480-by-270 VGA resolution in order to keep lag time and choppy footage at a minimum. Live-broadcasting from the device is limited to 30 minutes per clip, and a full 1080p version of the video footage is saved on the Bloggie Live's 8GB internal hard drive.

B & H Pre-orders for Canon C300

2012-01-17T15:36:00.000-05:00

Today is the day Canon allowed resellers to set/announce prices for the C300. So the fact that B & H is now accepting pre-orders probably isn't as surprising as the price; which is exactly what we thought it was going to be: $16,000. I know some were hoping it would be a bit cheaper...

Canon EOS C300 Cinema EOS Camcorder Body: $15,999.00
Canon EOS C300 PL Cinema EOS Camcorder Body: $15,999.00

Prices for the lenses have been set now too.

Canon CN-E 14.5-60mm T2.6 L S Cinema Zoom Lens with EF Mount: $42,750.00
Canon CN-E 14.5-60mm T2.6 L SP Cinema Zoom Lens with PL Mount: $42,750.00

Canon CN-E 30-300mm T2.95-3.7 L S EF Mount Cinema Zoom Lens: $44,650.00
Canon CN-E 30-300mm T2.95-3.7 L SP PL Mount Cinema Zoom Lens: $44,650.00

Quick Links

2012-01-17T09:00:00.000-05:00

derekforeel | Derek Shantz | Twitter

Tested Canon C300 vs. Sony F3. F3 was cleaner at low ISO but got macro blocking at higher ISO. C300's noise much more fine and nicer blacks

Closing thoughts on the Canon C300 – Late night chatter with Rodney Charters, Drew Gardner and Lan Bui part 3 | Bui Brothers | The Bui Brothers Blog
The third - and allegedly last - part of this series on the Canon C300.

2012 reel | SnapRoll Media | Vimeo
SnapRoll has put together a pretty amazing reel of aerial video shots made using remote controlled aircraft:

For the past few years, SnapRoll Media has been at the forefront of remotely controlled aerial camera systems. Like most, we started out using DSLR cameras to record video, but it wasn’t long before the image quality wasn’t up to our standards. We began designing and building larger airframes to carry the weight of the cameras we and our clients wanted to use.
Equipment: RED EPIC, Phantom Flex, Phantom Gold

2012 reel from SnapRoll Media on Vimeo.

Stealth | Kessler
Kesslers latest product is a hybrid lightweight slider that retails for $799.95:

The Stealth is a hybrid slider that combines the lightweight portable rail & carriage system of our standard Pocket Dolly™ with the drag control of our CineSlider™. Features include drag control, smooth rolling precision stainless steel ball bearing wheels and multiple mounting options.
Two lengths available, the Standard 3' (40.5") or Traveler 2' (28.5"

Canon G1X video samples – DIGIC 5 – I’m not impressed | Andrew Reid | EOSHD
Does the video performance of the G1X indicate what the performance of the 5D Mark III will be like; i.e. not that great?

DIGIC 5 is built around a video core unlike the older DIGIC 4 and it largely determines whether Canon’s DSLRs in 2012 like the 5D Mark III, 1DX and 650D will be hit or miss because those too will all be DIGIC 5. So there is a strong possibility that the G1X is indicative of the image we will be getting from those. I certainly hope not…

Today DPReview posted some direct from the G1X Quicktime clips in 1080/24p H.264 format. EOSHD has the analysis…

Although this is a pre-production G1X, and there is still a chance video will be better optimised in cameras like the 5D Mark III, the video output of the G1X is extremely disappointing and I don’t think I will be getting one for video.

Sound: Which mic should I buy? | Oregon Filmmaker
A piece on recording good sound, though the write-up offers a tongue-in-cheek solution if your sound isn't that good:

So you are making a (No Budget) short film and you’ve just asked your jobless best friend to hold the microphone because awww Sound isn’t really that important. But then you get all your awesomely shot footage in the computer and “what” all the sound is SHIT. turns out your buddy you had do sound is a meth addict and seems to be constantly twiddling and rubbing his fingers on the boom pole causing hella-interference on the outputted sound. What do you do? well at this point there is only one option:
ADR

Canon EOS-1D X Battery Issues? | CanonRumors
Are there problems with the EOS-1D? Rumors think so:

It’s been noted that an official weight for the new Canon EOS-1D X has yet to be finalized, I’m told the battery is the reason for this. It was suggested they’re having “serious” issues with the new battery

What are the Best Video Formats for Online Distribution? | Mike Rosen
| Videomaker
A white paper on the best video formats for web distribution by Chelsey Grasso. It's free, but you have to give them your email address:

Whether it’s a question of finding the best compression for YouTube or choosing a format that allows your users to interact with the video, there is a video format out there for your exact purposes. Choosing the best video format for web distribution is absolutely vital for getting people to watch your videos on YouTube, Vimeo or other video sharing websites. We asked filmmaker/videographer Chelsey Grasso to decipher the mysteries of getting the best compression for YouTube and the web.

Sony NEX 5N shoots for BBC | Andrew Reid | EOSHD
Can you use cameras "below spec" to shoot video for the BBC? If you have that one-in-a-million shot, then of course you can! In other cases, it gets a bit murky...

BBC man in Vienna Johnnie Behiri has been rigging up with the NEX 5N to shoot for the BBC, which completely destroys the myth that DSLRs can’t be approved for broadcast work. Shot in 1080/25p with only the 18-55mm kit lens and 16mm F2.8 pancake, Johnnie says the NEX 5N ”is a lot of fun to work with. Its low light capability is very nice and working in even 1600 ISO is a absolutely ‘worry free’”.

Do You Want to Be Told What to Do? | Evan Luzi | The Black and Blue
Evan looks at Filmsourcing's amusing take on the business:

Filmsourcing.com, an invite-only site for filmmakers to share resources, has published a “politically incorrect” filmmaker’s career guide flowchart. It asks a series of questions — some serious and some sarcastic — to point you towards the ideal position for you as a crew member. The ranks range from Studio Head to Extra and all the way to Blogger.

The Art Of The Modern Movie Trailer | Brent Baughman | NPR
An piece on movie trailer production that aired this past weekend on Weekend Edition. Includes several interesting bits, including a popular cue that has appeared on several trailers:

The music is from a 2003 film, The Life of David Gale, which wasn't all that successful. But the soundtrack pushes just the right emotional buttons in a way that makes it irresistible to trailer producers.

"Sometimes in the back of your mind you know, 'I'm not going to use that cue. That cue's been used to death,'" says Lee Harry, Long's partner at Buddha Jones. "But I want to evoke a feeling. And this piece does it perfectly."

Adobe Press eBook Deal of the Week: Adobe Premiere Pro CS5 Classroom in a Book,

2012-01-16T21:00:00.000-05:00

Each week, on Sunday at 12:01 AM PST / 7:01 AM GMT, Adobe Press offers a new eBook at $9.99 for a one-week period.
Adobe Press: eBook Deal of the Week

Quick Links

2012-01-16T09:00:00.000-05:00

CES, Thunderbolt and Video hardware | carey dissmore | Blog
In this video Carey wraps up CES Thunderbolt news.

"A couple of things are becoming clear:
A) Thunderbolt is tricky and pretty expensive to develop, heck even the cable, which has chips right in the cable, is $50, and believe it or not, Apple may be selling that at cost. Also many developers are holding off for next-gen chip sets, parts, bridge-ports etc.
B) Apple and Intel are working to get the standard adopted by the entire world of PC architecture..."

4K for £4K and why you probably shouldn’t get a JVC HMQ10 | Andrew Reid
| EOSHD
There doesn't seem to be a lot of enthusiasm for this camera, and maybe that's explained by the way it does 4K; it seems to be a bit of a kludge:

So whilst the sensor and the lens are about as unexciting as they get, it DOES do true 4K. I just don’t understand why they took the quadrant approach. SD cards are not suitable for 4K in any guise, putting 4 slots in there as a work around is even more bonkers than having 4 HDMI ports. Not only are small SD cards easily broken or lost in the hustle and bustle of a production set, HDMI is just about the weakest connection port known to man. That there are 4 of each makes 4x more likelihood of a related issue cropping up.

Editing Tip of the Week – Keep it Simple | Barry Clegg | Blog
Some good advice on prioritizing your work:

Sometimes it is a scenario of being able to manage your efforts with the time you have. On days I find multiple deliverables due at the end of the day I try and ask to get a synopsis of everything that I need to do so I can spend x amount of time of video 1, x amount of time on video 2, etc. It can be real frustrating to reach the end of your edit session and then hear “oh, we got this one more thing we have to do” and think “man, I could have managed this time much better if I had just known this needed to be done.”

Top 5 Ways to Avoid Catastrophe in Production and Post | Nathan Adams
| Studio Daily
Some good tips for things to do, and things to avoid:

2. The devil is in the details. If you’re using a new camera, switching to a new editing platform or changing your workflow, you’d better know everything about that element of your production. On a recent pilot for a reality show we had a combination of 28 cameras that we had to manage. Weeks before the production, the DIT and I used a stopwatch to time the media transfers so we knew exactly how many seconds it took to ingest media from each camera. Based on those calculations, we knew we needed 8 laptops ingesting material the whole time.

Panasonic interview: Learning from the fringe, taking small steps | Mike Tomkins
| Imaging Resource
Interview with Darin Pepple, Senior Product Marketing Manager, Imaging at Panasonic Consumer Electronics Co. for the website Imaging Resource. Covers quite a bit of video related stuff:

The GH2 has been out now for a little over a year, so people are wondering about the next model. There’s no one great thing I can say that we’re going to plan on and actually produce right at this time. Certainly, we’ll eventually produce something, right? But I think what you’ll see from us is to continue on trying to get a better and better and better video output for it. The GH product almost has a split brain. When I talk to people and I read the blogs--I participate once in a while on a few blogs just to see what people have to say--and there are two distinct worlds; completely right down the middle, video and still,at the high end.

My first experience with JAG35 Wireless Follow Focus (V1) | Alan Besedin
| Budget Filmmaker
Alan posts a report on his experience using the Jag35 Follow Focus; which is generally favorable.

One more thing I wanted to mention is that the JAG35 wireless FF can only be mounted only on 15mm rods. RED has 19mm rods,so there was no way to mount it directly on the rods. The FF had to be attached to a short 15mm rod (which might have been the part of the kit) which was then attached to a flexible arm and positioned upside down on the top of the rig. This meant that the motor was now spinning the opposite direction, making things a bit confusing for me. The ability to reverse the spinning direction would have been great in such situation, but there wasn’t one. Fortunately for people like myself, it looks like the upcoming V2 version of this follow focus will have reversible motor function on both focus wheel and aperture slider.

Jag35 Wireless Follow Focus V2 | CheesyCam
ChessyCam has posted a short video review of the follow-focus as well.

Advanced Tips for FCP X: Custom Resolution Timelines | T. Payton | CreativeCOW
How do you deal with custom resolutions for timelines in projects? This video tutorial shows you how to create a custom timeline, though you sort of have to cheat!

Report: Camcorder sales drop, are smartphones to blame? | Brennon Slattery | PCWorld
I guess we shouldn't be surprised....

The NPD Group’s tally of U.S. sales of consumer electronics during the holiday 2011 period showed a massive 42.5-percent drop in camcorder sales, and an overall drop of 5.9 percent (which was an improvement over 2010’s 6.2 percent decline). GPS units and point-and-shoot cameras were also hit hard, dropping 32.6 percent and 20.8 percent, respectively. The culprit? Smartphones.

Quick Links

2012-01-15T09:00:00.000-05:00

HELLO 2012! & THE C300 | Casey L. Warren | mindcastle
Casey got to spend some time with a pre-production C300, and has written an extensive piece with his opinions of it:

The ISO performance is what really sets this camera apart. It was at first something I underestimated, then I began to pull the images I shot into the computer. 5000 ISO... wow, clean image and almost no grain. 8000 ISO, still a clean and clear image and the grain that was there looked wonderful. At 16000 & 20000 ISO the image definitely had lots and lots of grain, but it was something I could see myself using and being happy about. I think this camera will find its edge in the ISO battle, this is definitely where it's king.

French film director Sébastien Devaud uses EOS C300 to make ‘Out of Tunes’
| Canon
Short impressions piece with video:

“The C300 is a storyteller’s camera,” Devaud tells CPN. He was amazed how quickly he and his crew were able to learn to use the EOS C300. “It’s easy to forget about the technology and focus on the subject,” says Devaud, who since the launch of the EOS 5D Mark II has become an expert in DSLR moviemaking.

Can a professional really use Premiere Elements 10? | Allan Tépper
| ProVideoCoalition
An extensive look of the features present - and missing - in Adobe Premiere Elements 10.

Of course, it wouldn’t be reasonable to expect that the consumer version would include all of the features of the Pro version. If they did, then nobody would by Premiere Pro CS5.5. Here is a list (although not necessarily a complete list), so you can begin to determine whether you (as a video professional who reads ProVideo Coalition magazine) could use Premiere Elements 10 instead of Premiere Pro CS5.5 or some other pro editing application. Everything in this list is what’s missing from Premiere Elements

$20 DIY DSLR Shoulder Rig | Film Riot | YouTube
A very inexpensive shoulder rig:

And yes, we know this has been made plenty of times... But our build is about doing it as cheap, simple and effective as possible. We also chose to warp the pipe instead of cutting it so that it will fit perfectly to the body.

Linkage: January 2012 | S Simmons | The Editblog
An interesting collection of links to different articles relating to video editing:

This is a nice Adobe Premiere Pro CS6 wishlist with some 5.5 gripes. And it appears CS6 will ship in the first half of 2012.
Painting video frames in Photoshop can come in very handy.
Apparently you can get the full Sorenson Squeeze 8 with an Avid Media Composer purchase.
Goody. More words that sitting in front of the computer all day is killing you.

Mini Review of the Manfrotto Unica V Messenger RED shoulder bag £79
| Philip Johnston | HD Warrior
Philip looks at a camera bag from Manfrotto:

Manfrotto “The Unica V messenger is the perfect everyday companion for carrying your camera gear, laptop and personal gear. Gain quick access to your DSLR with lens attached, 17” Macbook (15.4” laptop) and personal effects in the upper compartment by using the top opening..

B & H has the Unica V Messenger Bag (Bungee Cord) for $89.99 with $15 rebate for $74.99

Otto Nemenz first Sony F65 | Jon Fauer | Film and Digital Times
I posted a link about this yesterday, but here's a little more information about the first F65:

With approximately 400 units pre-ordered worldwide, at least two major studios are planning to use it on projects that will begin shooting almost immediately upon delivery of the cameras.

Quick Links

2012-01-14T10:30:00.000-05:00

1st Production Sony F65 | Twitter

"1st production Sony #F65 SN10001 was presented by CEO Sir Howard Stringer to Otto Nemenz In Hawaii Thursday night http://bit.ly/yHoFet"

@AlexBuono | Twitter

"Just learned that our "Chantix" parody on last #SNL was the official broadcast debut of the #Canon #C300. Cheers! http://bit.ly/yTqyXI"

Rodney Charters Reviews Canon C300 and Accessories | Zacuto
I linked to Rodney's video earlier, but incase you missed it, here Zacuto adds some notes:

Charters further explains that he wants Canon to offer the C300 without the XLR/monitor add-on that mounts to the top of the camera to get below the elusive $10,000 price point. He goes on to say that because the C300 stamps each frame with timecode, it’s not really a problem syncing up audio from a secondary audio capturing device. It would definitely make sense for some people and other manufacturers could possibly create an XLR add-on that comes without the screen.

Colorimetric and Resolution requirements of cameras | ADDENDUM 70 : tests and settings on a Canon EOS C300 [PDF] | Alan Roberts | Canon
A thorough test of the Canon C300:

This camera performs well. Resolution is very well maintained and is refreshingly alias-free, far more so than other CMOS single-sensor cameras. Detail controls work well, and the factory settings are generally good. Noise levels are similar to those of 2⁄3” cameras with 3 sensors, as is sensitivity. Dynamic range is unusually high, at least 12 stops. Operating the camera at significantly higher gain produces more noise, but not dramatically so. The specified noise level of -54dB is achievable only at -6dB gain and with noise reduction switched on. Noise distribution is non-uniform, which gives the pictures a more film-like appearance.

It’s More Than Just Words On The Screen – It’s A Message | Fix It In Post Prod
Thoughts about video titles:

2) Does your screen have a proper balance to it?
Belive it or not, where you put the words on the screen in relation to what’s behind the font can affect what people see. It’s called screen balance…creating a weighted symmetry to your screen, so that not one thing overpowers or is overshadowed by something else? Consider this…you have a picture of a person on the right side of your screen, and you have some font you need on the screen. If you put it across the bottom of the screen, the left side is empty, making your picture right-heavy. It`s the same reason why, when you shoot a sitdown interview with two people, you make sure the framing is the same on both shots. That way, going back and forth from one camera to the other is not jarring.

Real World Editing: From Avid to FCP and Back Again | Mark Raudonis
| Creative COW
An look at Bunim/Murray Productions trip from Avid Media Composer to Apple Final Cut Pro and back again.

In fairness to Apple, I also wanted to give them a chance to address all of the criticism that came up. Since then, I've seen enough of their development to know that the direction they're headed in still isn't the right choice for us. As a result, after years of building our editing workflow around Final Cut Pro, we have decided to return to Avid Media Composer and Avid ISIS as the heart of our post process.

This was not a decision that we took lightly. Change is inevitable. But, different is not necessarily better. Our editorial process requires some specific features that seem to be disappearing from Final Cut.

I guess they won't be needing Larry Jordan's latest book: Final Cut Pro X: Making the Transition

Understanding the Nikon D4 battery's lower capacity rating | Rob Galbraith | Blog
This post explains Nikon's adoption of a lower capacity battery for the D4 based on an interview with Toshiaki Akagi, an engineer and senior manager at Nikon in Japan:

Put simply, if you're using the D4 to take a steady stream of photos, Nikon's contention is the EN-EL18 will give you more frames per charge than would have been possible with the EN-EL4a. Conversely, if the camera is kept awake but is spending far more time idle than it is taking pictures, the EN-EL4a would last longer on a single charge than the EN-EL18.

Anatomy of a 60 Minutes hidden-camera interview | 60 Minutes Overtime Staff
| CBS News
Might be useful for documentary filmmakers...or not:

So, producers Michael Rey and Oriana Zill spent two days in the hotel suite with a team of undercover camera specialists, carefully rigging the room with small cameras and developing a plan. (If you've watched any mobster movies, you won't be surprised by the lamp cam in this video.)

Ecklund came to the suite expecting to meet with a family seeking his medical help for their son with cerebral palsy. Soon after Ecklund arrived, Pelley emerged and said, "I'm Scott Pelley from "60 Minutes."

TS3Cine High-Speed, High-Resolution Camera on 1.11.12 | Rule Boston Camera
| Vimeo
A look at the high-speed TS3Cine camera:

TS3Cine High-Speed, High-Resolution Camera on 1.11.12 from Rule Boston Camera on Vimeo.

An introduction to EQ and filters | David Franz | Lynda.com
For those starting out in audio:

Brian Lee White explains how air is compressed and rarefied to create waveforms in his Foundations of Audio: EQ and Filters course. Check out his explanation in the video here, and then dive further into learning about using EQ and filters to improve the sound of your waveforms…I mean, music.

Lighting Principles #2 - Lighting Tools | Den Lennie | Blog
Den continues his series on lighting, getting into the types of light:

1) Tungsten Lighting
This is lighting that essentially mimics the household bulb and is measured in 'watts'. They come in output intensities of anywhere from 150w, up to 10,000w, in the case of some large studio lights. The color temperature is tungsten and so you can expect a reading of 3200K from these lights.

Another week in After Effects | Rich Young | ProVideoCoalition
Links to multiple resource sites for After Effects:

Here’s another summary of the last week or so of some news on After Effects tutorials, plug-ins, and scripts. The return to the regular news cycle caught idle hands by surprise with a promise of a big CS6 release, snakes in AE, tracking offscreen, plug-ins, and more.

Magic Bullet Suite 11.2 – Includes Avid Media Composer Support | Aharon Rabinowitz | Red Giant Blog
An update to Magic Bullet:

The 2 big highlights in this release are:
MB Looks is working in Avid Media Composer 5.5 & 6
The Single Suite installer now has individual product install options

Apple Motion 5 and mocha Track Import | Imageneer Systems
A video that shows how to use mocha with Motion 5:

Video tutorial covers the workflow to import mocha's advanced planar tracking into Apple Motion 5. Note: all mocha, mocha AE and mocha Pro versions after v2.5 support Apple Motion. The bundled Adobe AE version does not.

Also, mocha, mocha AE & mocha Pro have been updated to v2.6.2: Downloads

Episode 40: Will we be outsourced or automated out of existence?
| The Terence And Philip Show
Audio podcast for the paranoid:

In this episode Terence and Philip discuss the outsourcing of editing jobs, remote (a.k.a cloud) editing and automation in production. What’s happening now and how will it evolve in the near future. Philip also sneaks in a preview of an interesting show he’ll be involved with in 2012.

Anatomy of a Shoot: Creating Dramatic Color With Gelled Speedlites | Syl Arena
| Speedliting
While this is oriented towards stills photography, the discussion of gels and light positioning is applicable to video too:

My hero shot happened at frame 69. I like the intense blue on Arian’s face and how it contrasts boldly with the warm light in the background. Look at the wall near the right edge. You can see that I’ve feathered (angled) the blue Speedlite so that most of the light flies in front of Arian and then bounces onto him. (1/30″, f/4, ISO 200)

Quick Links

2012-01-13T09:00:00.000-05:00

What We Thought Of The Canon C300 – Four Working Pros Give Their Views
| Dan Chung | DSLR News Shooter
An interesting video with four people chatting about the C300. Their views on lenses is interesting too as they are more interested in short-throw lenses. Also, three of the four have already ordered a C300:

After a long day shooting out on location with a pre-production Canon C300 I invited DOP Andy Jackson, James Velacott of Cherryduck productions and Guardian freelance shooter Felix Clay to discuss their thoughts about the new camera with me. Below is a quickly thrown together video of our discussion.

C300 For 10G I expect a big smile.. | Sam Morgan Moore | DSLR4Real
Partly in response to Dan's article, Sam think's the C300 doesn't wow him enough; for the price:

If you do any interviews the camera will need a rig, and canon seem to have placed the lens height just wrong - that will force you to buy a new rail block at least

8 Bit -We are seeing some clips now - the image is great- ish still its going to fall over on those tonal skies and grey walls or if you get your colour balance off by a few kelvin

CES 2012: Canon C300 Digital Cinema Camera is a Badass Beast | Wired | YouTube

'Pull Back,' My RED SCARLET Test Short | Ryan Koo | NoFilmSchool
Ryan and friends did a short shoot with his new Scarlet. There's an interesting note about problems caused by infrared pollution:

I sketched out a dialogue-free scenario on my phone and emailed DP Timur Civan, who had a SCARLET of his own on order, but had not yet received it. I emailed him, “I have a SCARLET and no lenses, and you have lenses and no SCARLET,” and so it was set. Timur brought his Cooke Panchro primes, I brought the SCARLET and some batteries, Raafi brought in actor Harlan Short, and we grabbed some shots on the Brooklyn roof for a few hours.

Live from the Engadget CES Stage: an interview with Red (update: video embedded) | Engadget
Interview with Ted Schilowitz of RED. Interesting that the two 4K movies that Sony was showing in their booth at CES were shot on the RED.

Lighting Principles # 1 - Why We Light? | Den Lennie | Blog
This article isn't about how to light, but why to light (it's not just to reduce noise in the picture!):

Create contrast
Video is a 2 dimensional medium. Yet we experience life in 3 dimensions. Setting aside the evolution of 3D shooting and 3D video technology, light is used to create the illusion of a 3rd dimension in 2 dimensional video. DoP's use light to give the scene a sense of perspective. By creating contrast between shadow and highlight, you give the viewer a sense of depth.

Update Alert: FxFactory 3.0 | Scott Simmons | ProVideoCoalition
FxFactory, the filter engine for FCP and After Effects gets an update:

This update to the popular plug-in architecture introduces not just a lot of new effects but a new interface to the actual FxFactory program. This release sees an interesting new color correction tool from Yanobox and the first FxFactory tools from Nattress and an FCPX only transition package from idustrial revolution.

Tech Tues: New Portable & Studio Recorders, Featuring the CineDeck RX
| Tuesday, January 17, 2012 | AbelCine
If you're in New York next week, there's a three hour look at digital recorders with Daine Pearson from CineDeck and AbelCine's Andy Shipsides. They'll be looking at:

Atomos Samurai
AJA Ki Pro and Ki Pro Mini
Cinedeck EX and RX
Convergent Design NanoFlash and Gemini 4:4:4
Fast Forward SideKick
Sound Devices PIX 240

Making a Norwegian kid’s dream come true | Andre Rettedal | Denton Distribution
Ed Burns made a movie for $9,000. This kid shot his film in 6 days with £2700 and sold it at the Cannes Film Festival (2011). Note that this report is from the distributor:

Denton Distribution have made a Norwegian kid, who struggles to even speak English, a very ecstatic person and are now distributing the film worldwide. Who says you need £1million to make a film? Andre has proved all you need is £3000 and a lot of determination. Recently lauded as the “Norwegian Tarantino” by Norwegian Press, Andre’s future is bright!

How Stanley Kubrick Invented the Modern Box-Office Report (By Accident)
| Mike Kaplan | moviefone
This article explains how Kubrick went about handling the roll-out of his movie A Clockwork Orange.

And so, for the next six weeks, Maureen, a sweet lady from St. Albans, entered the figures from The Music Box in Chicago and The Orson Welles in Boston and the Bijou in St. Louis and a thousand additional American cinemas onto individual pages of accounting paper, which were then compiled into looseleaf notebooks, alphabetically listed by city and subdivided by cinema. This hand-crafted data base would be our bible, guiding our directives to Warner Bros. concerning which cinemas should show A Clockwork Orange.

Book Review: Cinematography | Jason Spencer | digital hippos
Review of the book FilmCraft: Cinematography:

This book isn't really here to be a how to guide but rather a look into the world of the people behind the camera and what all goes into the choices they make on a daily basis. There is plenty to learn from what they say but if you're looking for someone to tell you what to do you are reading the wrong book. The best thing that this book teaches is that each and every film you may work on is going to be different and you will have to adjust to fit the needs of the story being told.

George Lucas says Hollywood won't support black films | BBC
Lucas appeared on The Daily Show earlier this week and said that he couldn't get any major studio to touch Red Tails:

He claimed major film studios would not back the movie because "there's no major white roles in it at all".

"I showed it to all of them and they said, 'No. We don't know how to market a movie like this,'" he said.

"They don't believe there's any foreign market for it, and that's 60% of their profit," he added.

Quick Links

2012-01-12T09:00:00.000-05:00

Canon EOS C300 Pub Night with Larry Thorpe on 1.5.11 | Rule Boston Camera
| Vimeo
Rule Boston Camera has posted a video of last week's Pub Night with Larry Thorpe:

Canon EOS C300 Pub Night with Larry Thorpe on 1.5.11 from Rule Boston Camera on Vimeo.

Filmmaker Interview #13 – Robin Schmid | Neil Rolland | Write.Shoot.Cut
An interview with D.P. Robin Schmidt aka El Skid:

All my paid work now is about exploiting the opportunities of social media through film, converting brands into stories and helping them understand how to market themselves through content. Sounds boring, but it pays very nicely. As a filmmaker you basically get used to spending the whole time skint. When the funding bodies all go bust you have to fund things yourself and this is a real pain in the ass. I refuse to accept that you can’t have your cake and eat it and now I’m managing to earn a decent amount through filmmaking and carve out a chunk of that to fund my own endeavours. Still skint though!

Digital Convergence Podcast Episode 57: Nikon D4, Lightroom 4 Beta, Mirror-Less Cameras, FCP X, And More | DigitalFilm.TV
Carl Olson is joined on the Digital Convergence podcast by Mitch Aunger (aka planetMitch of planet5D.com) and Chris Fenwick (editor, Slice Editorial):

We talk about the new Nikon D4 and dissect it's video capabilities. The subject of mirror-less cameras come up - do they mean the death of DSLR's? This is a debate that Trey Ratcliff started on his StuckInCustoms blog. We talk about the new Adobe Photoshop Lightroom 4 beta and it's new video editing features. We haven't talked much about the maligned FCP X so we jump back on that soap wagon. Could it be we're slowly warming up to it?

3 Effective Sites For Learning After-Effects To Use In Your Film Projects
| Joshua Lockhart | MakeUseOf
A look at three sites offering After Effects tutorials: Video Copilot, Motion Works, and AE Tuts Plus:

These sites are great, but there are probably hundreds of YouTubers out there who have dozens of tutorials for After Effects if you just go search for them. By no means should you only use these sites to build your After Effects repertoire. Heck, some of them are only kids, and I would watch them as closely as I would any professional – sometimes even more so.

JVC Unveils World’s First Handheld 4K Camcorder | ProVideoCoalition
JVC press release for their 4K, $5,000 camcorder:

“We’re witnessing the birth of what is destined to become a broad market for full 4K end-to-end production,” said Edgar Shane, general manager of engineering. “The GY-HMQ10 is a breakthrough product that opens up 4K imaging to users who previously wouldn’t have considered it.”

Will 2012 be Thunderbolt's year? Devices arrive in force at CES | Chris Foresman
| ArsTechnica
I keep wondering where the Thunderbolt devices are:

Seagate showed us Thunderbolt docks for its GoFlex line of adaptable mobile and desktop external drives. Company representatives told Ars that its GoFlex Thunderbolt Adapter for 2.5" mobile GoFlex drives should be available within the next couple months, and sells for $100. The GoFlex Desk Thunderbolt won't be available until the second half of the year, and will sell for about $200. One nice benefit of Segate's solution is that GoFlex users can immediately upgrade existing drives to Thunderbolt using the new adapters.

Upgrade offer for CS3 and CS4 customers | Adobe
Adobe has been tinkering with their upgrade policy, and it appears they've changed it again - at least temporarily:

With these great new releases coming in the first half of 2012, we want to make sure our customers have plenty of time to determine which offering is best for them. Therefore, we’re pleased to announce that we will offer special introductory upgrade pricing on Creative Suite 6 to customers who own CS3 or CS4. This offer will be available from the time CS6 is released until December 31, 2012. More details on this offer, as well as any introductory offers for existing customers to move to Creative Cloud membership, will be announced when CS6 and Creative Cloud are released later this year.

Edward Burns: More Independent than Ever | Ron Bennington | the interrobang
Edward Burns has been popping up in a lot of places talking up his $9,000 movie:

We had the script written, he and I went on the train from Tribeca up to 34th street to B&H, buy the camera [Canon 5D] for $2800 dollars. Take the train back downtown, I call a buddy of mine who owns a gym, and my character plays a trainer. I said look, we’re going to come by the gym to test shoot a scene. No lights, just the DP and I. I did the sound by just putting a microphone on myself and the recording device in my pocket. And we shot a half of a phone conversation. We take it back to the editing room which is just a computer with Final Cut on it, put the flash card in, look at the footage and the scene looked great. We said, alright, let’s make a movie like this. And that scene ended up in the finished film.

13 Power iPhone Apps for Filmmakers | Shane Hurlbut | Hurlblog
Shane offers a bunch of iPhone apps he finds useful including sun tracking, figuring out depth of field and more:

The past 3 years have been a very exciting time to be a filmmaker with the many changes in digital technology. I think back to a time before “Act of Valor” and if I was asked to shoot a movie on a still camera, I would have thought the director had gone mad. The speed that you now have to function at has increased dramatically. Budgets are getting tighter and time is more valuable. Multi-tasking is one of the only ways to survive.

How to Accomplish Push/Pull Moves Using Kessler Crane Gear - Full Length
| Kessler Crane | Vimeo
Preston Kanak has put together an 8 minute tutorial on doing nice push/pull moves with your clider/crane:

How to Accomplish Push/Pull Moves Using Kessler Crane Gear - Full Length from Kessler Crane on Vimeo.

Quick Links

2012-01-11T09:00:00.001-05:00

One Reason to Get a Sony F3 Instead of the Canon C300: Flexibility | Ryan Koo
| NoFilmSchool
Ryan's ordered a Scarlet, but here he tries to persuade those interested in the C300 that they should really buy the Sony PMW-F3.

C300 has no such “S-Log with external recorder” equivalent (just a flat picture profile setting). But it is much smaller and lighter. The amount to which the C300′s small size is an advantage depends on your own needs… if you’re trying to steal locations the diminutive profile of the C300 may be worth the price of admission alone (though a DSLR will be equally if not more incognito).

Using the C300 to create believable pictures – Late Night Chatter with Rodney Charters, Drew Gardner and Lan Bui – part 2 | VU BUI | The Bui Brothers Blog
Another part of the series of video's posted by these filmmakers:

Rodney talks about true guerrilla filmmaking with a camera like the C300. It’s not only about having a smaller form factor, but the “handholdability” of the camera that makes it such a great tool for truly low-budget shooting. Also, when compared to other cameras around the same price range, you’ve got a true self-contained package. There aren’t boxes to hook up to capture to or wires to plug into the wall… it’s a stand-alone unit that does everything it needs to without hooking up a bunch of stuff just to get it to a workable state.

Bob The Aviator - a Canon C300 short | Dan Chung | Vimeo
A short video shot with the C300:

Shot entirely on a pre-production Canon C300 by a team of shooters. They are DOP Andy Jackson, dslrnewsshooter's Dan Chung, Owner of Cherryduck productions James Velacott and freelance shooter Felix Clay. The whole short was shot in one short winter's day and edited by Cherryduck's in house team.

The Making of Cinema EOS: Sneak Peek | Production Hub
A sort of best-of of the behind-the-scenes videos made on the Canon C300:

A behind the scenes look into the making of the Cinema EOS films, featuring insights from the directors and cinematographers, in their own words.
Shot exclusively with Canon XF series camcorders.

Live Q&A with Nikon reveals D4 video shortcomings | Andrew Reid | EOSHD
Andrew loves to hate Nikon, and he's found some reasons to dislike the Nikon D4:

The downsampling of the sensor is similar to the Nikon J1, a $499 mirrorless camera. According to Nikon, “subsampling is only along each horizontal video line; there’s no sub-sampling between video lines. ” Frankly this is bloody ridiculous. I’ve seen the results of this on the J1 and it isn’t pretty – sheering on fine diagonal patterns and very soft detail. I expect better from a pro DSLR. With that in mind don’t expect resolution on the D4 to beat the GH2 or Canon 1DX with DIGIC 5.

Red Scarlet-X #562 "Nova" Unboxing | Wade Yamaguchi | Vimeo
A fun little unboxing:

I recently purchased the Red Scarlet-X and decided to shoot a motion controlled timelapse of me opening the box. I used a 5D with the 16-35mm lens and the Kessler Crane Pocket Dolly with the Basic Controller to capture the timelapse. Got to love the little Christmas tree in the background since the Scarlet with be my Christmas present for the 10 years haha!

4p Judder and 60i Conversion | Andy Shipsides | AbelCine
Here's why 24p looks jumpy. Includes sample videos:

24p is ‘jumpy’ by its nature, but the look of 24p video in a digital video camera can still come across a little more ‘jumpy’ then you’d expect. There are several reasons for this, which I explain in article for HDVideoPro magazine called “Did I Judder.” As part of the article, I put together these two videos to show the difference between native 24p video and 24p converted to 60i. I did this because much of the 24p content we see has been converted to 60i already, which has a smoothing effect that is very noticeable on television.

JVC GY-HMQ10 available from March for £4340 | Philip Johnston | HD Warrior
A small 4K camera that will cost about $5,000. Who will buy it?

JVC’s exclusive Falconbrid LSI processing takes raw image data from the camera’s CMOS device and dematrixes (deBayers) it in real time. Unlike many high end 4K cameras, the GY-HMQ10 is able to output 4K images to a monitor or projection system in real time with virtually no latency. This capability opens up applications in cinematography, medical microscopy, telepresence, specialised observation / surveillance, and live wide-view event coverage.

JVC Introduces a Compact 4K Camcorder, shipping in March | FreshDV

Sony Handycam HDR-PJ760V | Jeremy Stamas | Camcorderinfo.com
I agree with Camcorderinfo; it might be nice but would anyone buy this just to get the projection capabilities?

The Handycam HDR-PJ760V is essentially a combination of two previous Sony camcorders: the HDR-PJ30V and the HDR-CX700V. Sony took the built-in projector from the PJ30V and strapped it onto the body of the CX700V, which had all the controls and features one would expect from a flagship Sony camcorder. The result means the HDR-PJ760V is a top-line camcorder with professional features and plenty of manual controls—and a built-in video projector.

Sony Releases LED Video Light for Its Camcorders | Daniel Brun | Videomaker
Sony announces their own little LED video light:

The light, which looks very similar to LitePanels’ MicroPro LED offering, can be mounted on any Sony camcorder with a shoe mount. The LED light will be adjustable from 10% to 100% brightness and will include 60 powerful LEDs (which should be good for 1800 lux).

Lights Galore | Cristina Valdivieso | Shoot Edit Learn
A blog post about getting some lights and setting them up for the first time:

So I had everything I needed and the main test was going to be actually putting all of these to the work. We had been planning on shooting the first episode of our new cooking show for editors for a while now but I wanted to wait till we had all our new gear. What I didn’t think about was just how small our kitchen is and how challenging lighting my first scene ever would me. I wasn’t expecting it to be easy but I didn’t really think how hard it would be to deal with space limitations, glass everywhere, and way too many stainless steel appliances.

7 G&E Techniques Useful to Camera Assistants | Evan Luzi | The Black and Blue
More tips for the camera grip:

1. Place the Sandbag on the Foremost Leg of a C-stand
This is Gripping 101 — make sure you place the sandbag on the tallest leg of a C-stand and make sure that leg is underneath the weight.
But let’s back up a bit further: you should always add a bag of dirt to stands that are holding something valuable, heavy, or high in the air.

Digital Broadcasting Group Goes Online With CS5.5 | DV.com
Another software editing suite switching article. It seems to be a trend that they are short on details:

“We were moving to an HD workflow and needed a new, nonlinear editor,” explains Davyeon Ross, CEO and founder of Digital Sports Ventures. “The integration of Adobe Premiere Pro CS5.5 software with our Dixon Sports Computing video management system made Adobe Creative Suite 5.5 Production Premium the clear pick.”

Canon PowerShot G1 X Brief Hands On | CanonRumors
A short hands-on with the new large-sensor point-and-shoot, the Canon G1 X:

The first think you notice is the size of the camera. It’s nearly the same size as the PowerShot G12 at first glance. The one glaring size difference is the rather large lens. Even when the camera is at it’s widest focal length, the lens sticks out a fair bit. Zoom in and the lens extends further.

Adobe After Effects | Facebook
Adobe is looking for input from users:

We are hosting a series of round table discussions to get thoughts from design professionals on a proposed new Creative Suite product offering. We want to understand the challenges you face and if our proposed solution would enable you to solve critical business needs & make sense for a variety of workflows. Meetings typically take two hours and can be held virtually or in person. If you are interested participating please email Victoria Selwyn at cfirst@adobe.com to see if you qualify.

edelkrone - The Pocket Rig - First Look | edelkrone | Vimeo
A brief video of the Pocket Rig a small portable and lightweight DSLR Rig. I tried a rig like this that rests against your chest, and didn't like it, but your mileage may vary.

Quick Links

2012-01-10T09:00:00.000-05:00

DP’S DISCUSS THE CANON C300 | Michael Murie | Filmmaker Magazine
At last week's intro to the C300 I interviewed some of the attendees for their reactions to the camera for this article for Filmmaker Magazines website:

...what I’m most impressed about tonight, having already seen footage before, is that this camera has a really nice feel in my hands. The controls are really obviously laid out; I’ve got my confidence indicators right on the screen for ASA, color temperature, and wave form. Everything is very beautifully laid out, there’s only a couple of buttons the operator really needs to deal with that set everything you need to know. It’s very obvious how to use it at a glance and it feels really comfortable.

First Impressions of the Canon CinemaEOS C300 | Tom Talbot
| Rule Boston Camera
Tom Talbot of Rule Boston Camera offers his own thoughts on the camera, including some interesting notes on camera bags for this unusually shaped camera!

I will devote a future blog entry to the C300 menu structure but I can say that the interface was very intuitive and familiar. The menu can be superimposed on the EVF, the LCD or the external outputs. In the case of the external connectors you do not get all superimposed info such as WFM, VECT or some other items. There is also a very handy rear display below the EVF that gives you access to ISO/Gain, White Balance, and shutter angle. I found this to be the place where I would quickly choose the Function button and toggle between and change these core settings.

The Director's Chair: the One Man Band | Raafi Rivero | NoFilmSchool
Looking to shoot a movie on a constrained budget? This article has some tips!

Stealing means shooting somewhere without permission. Now, let’s get this straight. I highly recommend getting permission to shoot… you know, producing. But sometimes it’s just not going down that way. And if that’s the case, these are some simple ideas for how to steal a shot. First off, if they see you walk in there with a slate and all kinds of microphones and lights rigged to your camera, you’re getting stopped. But if they see you there with the camera1 alone and a couple actors? Maybe you’re tourists. Use this to your advantage. Free extras!

"Season On the Edge" Shoots on Panasonic AG-AF100 Camcorders | TV Technology
An unfortunately very short article on using the AF100 for shooting a television series:

“We've had the AF100 in all sorts of nasty places for Season on the Edge, and the camera has been a workhorse for me,” Halberd said. “It’s a great tool. This is hard core fishing in extreme environments, with all the elements against us. Not to mention a hefty workflow.”

Advanced Roto Brush In After Effects | Colin Smith | AdobeTV
Colin has been producing a series of video's on how to use After Effects:

Adobe introduced the powerful Roto Brush in After Effects CS5 allowing you to increase your productivity when compositing layers together. Colin has some great tips to help you get the most out of Roto Brush including how to help After Effects make the best choices when propagating new frames.

How does Vimeo's encoding affect the colors in your video? | Forum | Vimeo
Have you had color problems with your video's on Vimeo? If so, they'd like to hear from you:

Some users have observed that the colors in their videos change after uploading to Vimeo. We realize that this is a real issue for many of you and we want to do something about it. Before we do, though, we'd like to get a better understanding of what is going on here.

Have you experienced color shift in your videos after uploading them to Vimeo? If so, please post below and explain how your video's colors changed.

Once we compile enough information, we are going to take steps to correct the problem so that your videos' colors stay as true as possible on Vimeo.

LaCie Reveals New Drives and Hubs with Thunderbolt Technology | Daniel Bruns
| Videomaker
It's interesting when companies announce Thunderbolt devices; but it would be even more interesting when they start shipping them:

What’s even more interesting is that LaCie has also designed a new eSATA hub using Thunderbolt in order to hook up to 2 eSATA drives to a Thunderbolt interface at full eSATA speeds. In addition, the hub includes another Thunderbolt port for daisy-chaining making it possible to use up to 12 eSATA drives via a single Thunderbolt connection at the full 3GB/s speed.

Canal Plus drops 3-D | Philip Hunter | Broadcast Engineering
Things are not looking too good for broadcast 3D in Europe; probably a good time for the manufacturers to start selling 4K TV sets instead:

The move reflects growing loss of momentum for 3-D in Europe, caused by a combination of lukewarm consumer response and lack of available content. The first signs of this were apparent early in 2011 if not before, with the publication by analyst group Ovum of a report called The State of 3-D (Strategic Focus) identifying a lack of enthusiasm among broadcasters as 53 percent of survey respondents regarded it as low priority.

How to Keep Your Home Office Professional and Productive | Ron Dawson
| Dare Dreamer
Some tips for those working from home:

Don’t work in your PJs all day. The way you dress has a profound impact on how you act during the day. It will subtly affect how you talk on the phone, how you sit at your desk, and the mindset you have when you go to work. So do at home what you would do if you went to an office. Shower, brush you teeth, put on your clothes, then go to work.

Sony CES Videos

2012-01-09T22:07:00.000-05:00

B & H Pre-orders

2012-01-09T21:59:00.000-05:00

You can't pre-order the Canon EOS-1D X yet, but B & H is already accepting pre-orders for the Nikon D4 [$5,999.95]

And, they are also taking pre-orders for the Canon PowerShot G1 X Digital [$799.00] camera which was just announced as well.

Sony's CES Announcements

2012-01-09T21:47:00.000-05:00

I watched some of Sony's CES keynote with Howard Stringer. He announced a Wi-Fi enabled Bloggie (it seems that 2012 is the year of Wi-Fi cameras) pushed 4K in the home (with a home projector, Bluray upscaling players and demo 4K TV's allegedly in the booth. They also had a walk-on from Will Smith after showing the MIB3 trailer, and a bit of back and forth that must have been written by the Oscar show scriptwriters. Very awkward and unnatural.

They also announced an updated 3D consumer camcorder, the HDR-TD20, which is thinner than the previous model.

Sony reveals Spring Handycam lineup, including HDR-CX760V, XR260V, and CX190 | Christopher Snow | Camcorderinfo

CES 2012: Sony offers new cameras and projection camcorders | Terry Sullivan
| ConsumerReports

Sony Bloggie Live Lets You Live-Stream Video Over Wi-Fi | Tim Moynihan
| PCWorld

Sony's slim new HDR-TD20V 3D camcorder hands-on pictures | Paul Miller
| The Verge

Canon CES Camcorder announcements

2012-01-09T21:27:00.000-05:00

Canon made the obligatory announcements of new consumer camcorders, promising improved low light performance, and Wi-Fi support.

2012 Canon VIXIA Camcorders Bring New Social Sharing Capabilities And Strong Low-Light Performance
Features Include a Newly Designed HD CMOS Pro Image Sensor to Improve Resolution, Enhance Low-Light Performance and Expand Dynamic Range

LAKE SUCCESS, N.Y., January 9, 2012 – Canon U.S.A., Inc., a leader in digital imaging solutions, today announced a new line of six VIXIA High Definition flash memory camcorders - three compact VIXIA HF M-series models and three entry-level VIXIA HF R-series models - for 2012. Focusing on the social network experience, Canon has enhanced select models with Wi-Fi connectivity, the option to capture videos in MP4 or AVCHD file format and full Digital Living Network Alliance (DLNA) compatibility, unleashing on-the-spot creative video sharing and still-image uploads. The MP4 file format option helps make content easier to share across mobile devices and to social networks online, while DLNA connectivity allows wireless transmission of videos to DLNA-compatible HDTVs. Encouraging users to shoot and share, the Canon VIXIA HF M52*, VIXIA HF M50*, VIXIA HF R32* and VIXIA HF R30* models have the ability to upload videos directly to social media sites such as YouTube and Facebook over a Wi-Fi network, or to mobile devices such as an iPhone or iPadi utilizing a free Movie Uploader app.

"Imaging devices are a key component of the interactive social experience, therefore, they must connect," said Yuichi Ishizuka, executive vice president and general manager, Imaging Technologies and Communications Group, Canon U.S.A. "We are excited to include Wi-Fi connectivity and DLNA technology, among other new features, in our new VIXIA models that will allow consumers to easily share high-quality videos with friends and families."

Canon has included a range of features and functions to help users capture stunning video to share including improved low-light image capture, a new Intelligent Image Stabilization (IS) system and the ability to capture MP4 video recordings. Canon has included dual codec recording, giving users the option to record in AVCHD, for the highest quality viewing on an HDTV, or in MP4 format, for easy sharing with mobile devices or social networks. The new 2012 VIXIA models feature a 20 percent improvement in low-light performance compared to previous models as a result of enhancements made to Canon's HD CMOS Pro Image Sensor. The sensor boasts a minimum illumination rating of 1.2 lux, Canon's lowest lux rating to date in a consumer HD camcorder.ii Another enhancement to select models in Canon's 2012 VIXIA lineup is the ability to export content directly to an external hard-disc drive through an optional USB adapteriii for simple file sharing and archiving without the need of a computer.

Canon M52

Advanced Technologies and Features:

Share and view videos via Wi-Fi: Select models of the VIXIA HF M- and R-series camcorders include the ability to share, view and store videos wirelessly, including the ability to upload videos directly to YouTube and Facebook:
Share: When connected to a Wi-Fi network, videos can be uploaded directly to YouTube or Facebook. When on the go, use an iPhone or iPad and free Movie Uploader app to connect a VIXIA camcorder to a cellular network to enable video uploads.
Watch and Store: Select 2012 VIXIA camcorders allow users to wirelessly transmit videos to a PC for storage, an iPhone, iPad, or iPod Touch through a free Movie Uploader app enabling quick storage on these mobile devices, or on-the-spot playback for friends and family. Users can also enjoy wirelessly viewing on a DLNA-compatible HDTV or through other DLNA-compatible devices such a game console.
Audio Scene Select: The Canon VIXIA HF M-series is equipped with a new Audio Scene Select menu that streamlines the selection of custom audio selection. Users select the environment that is being captured - a musical performance, a speech, a forest - and the camcorder will automatically adjust settings, including microphone directionality, frequency response, wind screen, volume level and microphone attenuator. While users will still be given the option to make these adjustments manually, the new audio settings menu makes the optimization of the audio levels quick and easy for casual users.
Export to External Hard Drive: Consumers are starting to use external storage devices more and more to supplement limited amounts of memory on laptops. Select models of Canon VIXIA camcorders allow a direct transfer of video content from the camcorder to an external storage device, a process which historically required a computer as a conduit. Data transfers from the VIXIA camcorder to an external hard drive are accomplished through an optional USB adapter.
Intelligent IS System: Canon has enhanced its Image Stabilization (IS) system, which automatically detects the needs of the situation being captured. The new Intelligent IS system will change intuitively through one of four IS modes - Dynamic, Powered, Macro and Tripod - so that the user has fewer things to worry about while shooting video. When the record button is pressed and the subject is walking, the Intelligent IS system will employ Dynamic stabilization to help reduce camera shake automatically. However, if the subject is detected to be very close to the camcorder, Macro (or Hybrid) stabilization will activate to counter shift camera shake; if the subject is far from the camcorder at extreme telephoto distances, Powered IS will activate to help counter slow, large-scale camcorder shake.

Popular VIXIA Features:
The 2012 VIXIA lineup retains many popular features that make it easy to record outstanding HD video, such as Canon's Smart AUTO mode that intelligently detects and analyzes brightness, color, distance and movement to automatically select the best of 38 available pre-set setting selections for the scene being recorded. Canon's Touch & Track feature allows users to select any subject on the Touch Panel LCD screen with their finger, which the camcorder will then track to ensure sharp focus and proper exposure. The camcorders also include built-in Cinema-Look Filters that give the look of a variety of cinematic styles by compensating for the color, gamma and other aspects of the image's quality. Select 2012 VIXIA models have Relay Recording for seamless uninterrupted video recording from one memory source to the next. When the primary recording media is full, the camcorder continues to record the scene by switching to the next memory source, so that users won't miss a moment of action.

As an integrated part of Canon's Intelligent IS, the Powered IS feature provides a higher level of compensation for subtle hand movement at the telephoto end of the zoom range. In addition, all VIXIA camcorders with built-in memory feature HD-to-SD Downconversion, which enables users to convert recorded high-definition video to standard-definition files while preserving the original HD footage. These down-converted files make it even more convenient to share video online or create a DVD. Each new model is also compatible with Eye-Fi SD Memory Cards, allowing for wireless uploading of video content to a computer, social networking site or video sharing website.

VIXIA HF M-series
The Canon VIXIA HF M52*, VIXIA HF M50* and VIXIA HF M500* Flash Memory camcorders offer consumers stunning HD video in an ultra-sleek, compact and lightweight body, now 15 percent smaller when compared to 2011 M-Series models. Recording Full HD 1920 x 1080 video, the VIXIA HF M-series features a Genuine Canon 10x HD Video Lens and Canon's enhanced HD CMOS Pro Image Sensor for high video resolution, outstanding low-light performance and a wide dynamic range.

All three models include Canon's newly designed Flat Touch Panel 3.0-inch LCD screen for a large display and an improved menu system and button layout, and now also record in MP4 file format to make content easier to share across mobile devices and online social networks. The VIXIA HF M52 and VIXIA HF M50 incorporate 32GB and 8GB of internal flash memory, respectively, and feature HD-to-SD Downconversion. They also include Wi-Fi connectivity, which enables the ability to upload videos wirelessly to YouTube and Facebook through use of an iPad or iPhone app. The models also include DLNA connectivity which enables wireless access to a DLNA-compatible device. The VIXIA HF M500 records directly to a SDXC-compatible card slot. The new VIXIA HF M-series is also compatible with the new Canon WP-V4 Waterproof Case, great for vacations, underwater videography, or any wet conditions. The VIXIA HF M52, VIXIA HF M50 and VIXIA HF M500 Flash Memory camcorders are scheduled to be available in March for an estimated retail price of $749.99, $649.99 and $549.99, respectively.

Canon R32

VIXIA HF R-series
The Canon VIXIA HF R32*, VIXIA HF R30* and VIXIA HF R300* Flash Memory camcorders offer the ideal combination of price and performance for the budget-conscious consumer who doesn't want to sacrifice on features such as Full HD 1920 x 1080 video. All three models, which are 21 percent smaller when compared with the R-series models from 2011, include a Genuine Canon HD Video Lens with 51x Advanced Zoom, 3.28-megapixel Canon Full HD CMOS Image Sensor, a 3.0-inch full-flat Touch Panel LCD screen, Touch Decoration, Smart AUTO and Advanced Video Snapshot. New for the 2012 R-series lineup, all three models feature Canon's Intelligent IS with Optical Image Stabilization allowing the camcorders to automatically switch between stabilization modes for optimal image quality while recording. All three models feature MP4 file format recording while both the VIXIA HF R32 and VIXIA HF R30 include Canon's Relay Recording, HD-to-SD Downconversion and Wi-Fi uploading capabilities. The VIXIA HF R32 and VIXIA HF R30 models incorporate 32GB and 8GB of internal flash memory, respectively, and the VIXIA HF R300 records directly to a SDXC-compatible memory card slot. The VIXIA HF R32, VIXIA HF R30 and VIXIA HF R300 Flash Memory camcorders are expected to be available in March for an estimated retail price of $549.99, $449.99 and $349.99, respectively.

New Optional Camcorder Accessories
The new Canon WP-V4 Waterproof Case helps protect any of the 2012 VIXIA HF M-series camcorders in depths of water up to 130 feet, allowing users to capture exciting HD footage even underwater. This compact and lightweight housing seals the camcorder, allowing easy on-camera operation and control for all water sports activities such as scuba diving and whitewater rafting. The Canon WP-V4 Waterproof Case is expected to be available in March for an estimated retail price of $599.

Quick Links

2012-01-09T09:00:00.000-05:00

Canon C300 Test Film | Mark Moreve | Vimeo
Another film shot on the C300, this one by Mark Moreve and others:

This film is a Test of the Canon C300 camera using Canon ef lenses.
We filmed different scenes around Chelsea in London to see how the C300 dealt with the varied conditions offered on a London street.
[...]It performed very well holding detail in highlights and also shadows where we didn't expect and because of the quality of the LCD screen and viewfinder it is much easier to operate.
The Camera was set to 1920 x 1080 @ 50m/bs - 25p we used the Normal 3 Gamma curve & Matrix.

French film director Pierre Deschamps is amazed by Canon’s EOS C300 cinema camera | Canon
He may be amazed, but it's a pretty short article...with a short video:

“I wanted to shoot as neutral as possible,” says Deschamps. “As one guy shooting, it’s very important not to complicate things…it’s easier to handle it in post afterwards.” To test the camera in the daylight he shot into the sun with the Fisheye zoom and captured a quick sequence of his daughter eating an ice-cream using the EF70-200mm f/2.8L IS II USM at various focal lengths. “The benefit of the C300 is that the built-in ND filters enable you to get the cinematic depth-of-field,” he says.

Why 4K Jan | Oliver Peters | digitalfilms
A look at 4K sensors, cameras and post:

There is no single 4K size, since it varies with how it is used and the related aspect ratio. For example, full aperture film 4K is 4096 x 3112 pixels, while academy aperture 4K is 3656 x 2664. The RED One and EPIC use several different frame sizes. Most displays use the Quad HD standard of 3840 x 2160 (a multiple of 1920 x 1080) while the Digital Cinema Projection standard is 4096 x 2160 for 4K and 2048 x 1080 for 2K. The DCP standard is a “container” specification, which means the 2.40:1 or 1.85:1 film aspects are fit within these dimensions and the difference padded with black pixels.

Bunim/Murray Productions Replaces Final Cut with Avid for All 2012 Shows
| Beth Marchant | Studio Daily
The surprise for me isn't so much that they switched away from Final Cut, but that they chose Avid over Adobe (though that's not really a surprise either!):

Dealer Key Code Media helped Bunim/Murray complete the new, or more aptly, renewed relationship with Avid. In a prepared statement, Bunim/Murray's senior vice president of post production Mark Raudonis said the decision to switch came after considering the sheer volume of content the facility generates, as well as long-term workflow needs. “As we talked with Avid, it was clear that the company has really forged ahead since we worked with them years ago," he said. "Their commitment to the needs of their professional customers, like us, is clear. And, with the introduction of Media Composer 6, they really raised the bar and have a vision for the future that makes them the right choice for our business.”

Using FCPX on long format broadcast productions | FCP.co
A Q&A with Dustin Hoye, the Lead Editor/Developer at Sour Squirrel Studios:

FCP.co: Has Final Cut Pro X been stable?
I am very impressed with the 1.2 update- proves to be very stable for a version 1.0 piece of software. Uses RAM more like After Effects, so a minimum of 16 GB of ram is necessary, I think. I personally use the full 32 GB in my 6-core, so I can run Motion 5 and After Effects, Compressor, Photoshop, Illustrator, etc. at the same time. Also, who needs to save or remember to save or have auto-save crashing your projects?

Yes, FCP X crashes, sometimes a lot, depending on what you are trying to force it to do- But, every time you open it back up, no matter what I have been in the middle of, my project is EXACTLY where I left it every time.

Final Cut Pro X Advanced Tutorial - Media Management using Disk Images
| Dan Allen | YouTube
Using Disk Images to manage your media. A bit of a pain if you ask me, but one way to do it:

FCPX Advanced Tutorial. in this hD Voice Tutorial for Apple Final Cut Pro 10, we learn some princiciples and problems of media management and using final cuts open events and project system which shows us all the events we have. This enables us to use media from other events regardless of the project you are wokrign with, but what if we don't want people to see the projects and events.

Love Like Hers and colour grading (Video Blog) | Danny Lacey | YouTube
Danny shot his film "Love Like Hers" on Super16mm, and here he live blogs his trip to visit the color grading shop. The grading is done on DaVinci Resolve, and there's a shot interview with John, the long-suffering color grader.

CES 2012: LaCie Hub Connects eSATA Drives to Thunderbolt Macs
| Arnold Kim | Mac Rumors
Finally, another Thunderbolt device announced, and expected some time in the first quarter, but no price yet:

The hub comes with two Thunderbolt ports and two eSATA ports. Users can connect up to two eSATA drives to the hub for use on their Thunderbolt equipped Macs. The additional Thunderbolt ports can also be used to daisy chain additional Thunderbolt peripherals off the device.

OSCARS: Academy Tightens Documentary Rules; Too Much Power To LA-NY Times? | Pete Hammond | Deadline Hollywood
It used to be that to qualify, a movie had to have a 7-day run in LA or New York that was advertised in a major paper. Now a change is planned:

But now, in an attempt to further weed out the influx of docs generally designed to run only on television, a review of the film MUST appear in either the LA Times or the NY Times at the time of opening along with adhering to the previous rules. According to Academy COO Ric Robertson, the new requirement is a further step in eliminating docs that have no real intention of gaining distribution or having a legitimate theatrical run.

Quick Links: the Nikon D4 and Canon C300 edition

2012-01-08T11:00:00.000-05:00

Nikon D4 News

NIKON’S JAMES BANFIELD DEMONSTRATES THE VIDEO FUNCTIONS OF THE D4 | Dan Chung | DSLR News Shooter
Dan checks out the D4 and it's video capabilities:

Yesterday I had a chance to get a hands-on with a pre-production Nikon D4 at the company’s UK headquarters. James Banfield of Nikon UK demonstrates the video functions in the video below.

We tried the camera’s clean HDMI output with the Zacuto EVF and Atomos Ninja and I can confirm that it works. We also tried the headphone output and the audio functions of the camera and I’m pleased to report they also work as expected.

Nikon D4 Brochure [PDF] | Nikon
You can download a PDF of the Nikon D4 brochure at the above link.

Another film shot on the D4, this one by Corey Rich

WHY - Nikon D4 Release Video from Corey Rich on Vimeo.

Nikon D4 vs. Canon EOS 1Dx specs comparison | NikonRumors
A comparison chart for the two new cameras; on the face of it, there's not a whole lot of differences.

Nikon D4 [Commnet] | Prolost
A comment in this thread about the D4 announcement ponders why full frame in video mode uses 91% of sensor width. Another commentor takes a guess:

the processor (whatever they call their digic equivalent) has a set of hardwired demosaicing algorithms, that take the original 4928x3280 bayer pattern and create jpg files of different sizes; the one closest to 1920x1080 is the algorithm that leads to 2048x1360 images

Canon C300 News

Alex Buono, a DP for Saturday Night Live tweeted yesterday:

For those whom the otherwise random characters "#C300" mean something, look for 2 spots on #SNL tonight right after the monologue.

Playing with Fire | Cadu Medina | Vimeo
Shot by Bruce Dorn with the new Canon Cinema EOS C300, edited, animated and graded in Final Cut Studio by Cadu Medina.

Playing with Fire from Cadu Medina on Vimeo.

Quick Links

2012-01-07T10:00:00.000-05:00

Nikon D4 Digital SLR - The New King of the Hill for DSLR Video? | Cameratown
A look at the promising video capabilities of the new Nikon D4:

The uncompressed HDMI output allows the video feed from the camera to be fed to an external HD field recorder for a more streamlined workflow in some circumstances. Unfortunately, it's been reported that the camera cannot record to it's own memory cards while sending the signal to it's HDMI port. I'm not sure if this is only true when mirroring the signal to the camera's LCD. If not, this could pose a big problem for those looking to use an external monitor for monitoring.

Nikon D4 | Amazon
No price, and you can't order yet, but you can sign up to be notified when it's available.

And so it Begins… Nikon D4 HDSLR Announced! | Paul D
A list of specs for the D4.

I recently wrote “..if you thought 2011 was an important year for cameras, photographers and filmmakers…you ain’t seen nothing yet!” Well we’re only 6 days into the new year and one of the most important cameras of 2012 has just been announced…the Nikon D4!

Nikon D4 supports iPad as field monitor and remote | Andrew Reid | EOSHD
Another look at the video features of the D4:

The Nikon D4 has the ability to monitor and control the camera via a web browser on a portable device like the iPad.

Nikon chose the HTTP protocol to do this, which is the same data protocol that websites use. With a WIFI or internet connection you can control the Nikon D4 through Safari on your iPad, iPhone or Mac, indeed any other personal computing device with a web browser.

D4 Delicious | Sam Morgan Moore | DSLR 4 Real
Sam is generally happy with the D4, with a few reservations:

All is not perfect. I have some concerns about the D4.

It appears to have Mini HDMI - the worlds worst connection interface

One the sound side 3.5mini jack is far from ideal too - BeachTek may come back into fashion big style or of course my Sound Devices 702 recorder - a solution like the 702 that records a master to a CF card and feeds out to the camera is probably ideal

A sample video that Nikon has posted:

Killing TV lighting, 4k and 10-bit - Canon C300 late night chat with Rodney Charters, Drew Gardner and Lan Bui part 1 | The Bui Brothers | Blog
A video chat with Drew, Rodney Charters and Lan Bui on New Year’s eve covering a long list of topics:

Kelvin meters vs in-camera waveforms
Using the existing light on large productions
Shooting without lights or with very minimal lights
The biggest light needed on a TV set
Generator equipment and operators are not needed anymore
Good lenses for handheld camera use, especially for 12 hour days

Colorimetric and Resolution requirements of cameras Alan Roberts ADDENDUM 70 : tests and settings on a Canon EOS C300 | CVP Blog
Tests done with a pre-production model of the C300:

The sensor is a single CMOS, total 4206×2340 photo-sites, of which a central patch of 3840×2160 is used for the video signal (the implications of this will be discussed in detail in the measurements section).. Recording is onto Compact Flash card (two slots) in MPEG-2, long-GoP, with MXF file format. Three bit rate options are available: 50Mb/s CBR (constant bit rate) at 4:2:2 colour sampling (1920×1080 or 1280×720), 35Mb/s 4:2:0 VBR (1920×1080 or 1280×720) and 25Mb/s 4:2:0 CBR (1440×1080 only). Thus it complies with broadcast requirements for bit rate and offers more economic rates for greater economy (the 25Mb/s option matches HDV format).

Getting High on the Fs100 | Sam Morgan Moore | DSLR 4 Real
An article about how the NEX-FS100 highlights go yellow, instead of white, and how to expose to avoid the problem:

Firstly we want to choose, where possible, our composition, subject matter, use of lights or reflectors to reduce the dynamic range in an image.
We then need to choose our exposure.
We then need to expose not to protect our 'super highlights' but must be careful to protect the important highlights, for example faces.

As a guide I think I would want to place a face at 70 or 80% across the histogram, but with these cameras I will be looking to place a face at around 50% across the histogram. This image will look too dark on a calibrated monitor and we will see some of those horrible colour shifts in the image

Part 1 and 2 now live!! The Christmas mini shootout with the C300 (pre-production), F3, FS100, hacked GH2 and more!! | Philip Bloom | Blog
Philip has posted the second part of his Christmas shootout:

Kind of hypocritical to say this as this whole shootout is about it, remember pixel peeping will make you go blind and give you hairy palms!! Shoot with the camera you have/can afford! There is a lot more to filmmaking than pixel peeping!

Write Shoot Cut | Website
Neil Rolland is a scriptwriter based in Edinburgh, Scotland, who has been posting a series of interviews with actors and filmmakers.

Brett Harvey is a filmmaker I met during my time in Falmouth at University. He was part of a collective of Cornish filmmakers and friends who were doing some exciting stuff, running monthly short film nights and competitions for new talent. It was (and still is) such a vibrant community and it is no surprise to me that there are several feature films coming out of Cornwall this year from this creative hub.

EVF035W-3G Electronic Viewfinder | TVLogic
A very sneak peak at a new EVF, with more details to come February 2nd.

3.5" 960x640
HD-SDI loop-through
HDMI in/out
1080P
Focus assist

SOPA Is a Symbol of the Movie Industry's Failure to Innovate | Steve Blank
| The Atlantic
More reasons not to like SOPA:

One of the claims that studios make is that they need legislation to stop piracy. The fact is piracy is rampant in all forms of commerce. Video games and software have been targets since their inception. Grocery and retail stores euphemistically call it shrinkage. Credit card companies call it fraud. But none use regulation as often as the movie studios to solve a business problem. And none are so willing to do collateral damage to other innovative industries (VCRs, DVRs, cloud storage and now the Internet itself.)

free sample video tutorials from After Effects Learn By Vide | Adobe | Blog
A resource for the After Effects user:

The fine folks at Peachpit Press and Video2Brain have just posted some sample videos from the 14+ hours of video training in After Effects CS5: Learn By Video. This DVD and book provide an introduction to After Effects that is designed to bring you from the beginner level to the intermediate level, as well as to warn and educate you about all of the common pitfalls and gotchas in After Effects.

Video from the Canon C300 Pub Night

2012-01-07T09:00:00.000-05:00

Unfortunately, this video wasn't shot with the Canon C300, but you get to see four C300's!

Correction on Canon C300 frame rates

2012-01-06T20:59:00.000-05:00

A correction to today's report on the Canon C300 supporting 60p out the HDMI port. This is incorrect and a result of working from my incomplete notes taken during the meeting. Here's what Larry Thorpe actually said about the HDMI/HD-SDI output and 60p support:

Q: I was wondering if you could discuss what’s coming out the HDMI and the SDI spigots out the back?
A: HD-SDI is coming out, base band, 4:2:2, 8-bit in a 10-bit carrier, as I described earlier. HDMI, same signal, base band HD
Q: And all the frame rates will come out?
A: Yes, all the frame rates will come out. Oh, frame rates, now that's another thing I have to say, because there’s a limitation there, the image sensor that I described can go all the way up to 60p, it’s very fast. The processor and the codec that we lifted out of the XF305 to put in this camera, at 1080 it can’t deliver 60p, it’s limited to 30p, so we have 24p, 23…oh by the way we do 24.00 and 23.98, if you want to do film or television work. We’ve got the 59.94, we’ve got the 30p, but 30p is the maximum progressive on the HD-SDI spigot coming out. 720 60p comes out on the spigot no problem there, but at the 1080 we’re limited to 30p.

The Canon C300 comes to Boston

2012-01-06T00:00:00.001-05:00

Rule Boston Camera has been running their Pub Nights - a slightly less formal, evening lecture series - for about a year now, but I’m pretty sure that last night’s “Canon EOS C300 New England Debut” had the largest attendance of any of them. A large crowd turned out to eat the free pizza and drink the beer, and hear Larry Thorpe explain what’s so different about the C300. Larry brought with him four cameras, including one with a PL mount, and they were set up in different configurations and rigs for those present to handle.

But they couldn’t tell us one thing; the price. They won’t tell us that until January 17th. Until then, all they will say is “the list price is $20,000.”

Introduced by John Rule as “an engineers’ engineer,” Larry began by asking how many creative people were present - at least two thirds of the crowd put up their hands - and then, how many techie people were present. When only two or three people put up their hands, he continued, “Oh great, no PowerPoint tonight!”

While they are clearly proud of the camera, Larry said he was going to explain what the C300 is, and what it is not. “It’s the first in a road map” Larry said, adding “it is a true-blue 4K sensor, but we elected not to make a 4K camera.” They feel that the action at the moment is in high definition for television etc. Even for most movie making, he pointed out, much of the current digital work is being acquired in an HD format. But this camera isn’t their final statement; “Where the market goes, we will be there.” He also added that the new lenses they have developed are 4K lenses.

Larry Thorpe

The camera uses a standard Bayer array sensor, with a resolution of 3840 x 2160, or “Quad HD.” They don’t de-Bayer the sensor, but use the Bayer mask to do the color encoding. The readout from the sensor gives a 1920x1080 red image, and a 1920 x 1080 blue image. The green image is 1920 x 2160, or the equivalent of two 1920 x 1080 frames. These two green images are combined, which raises the sensitivity and dynamic range of the green and creates a very clean, sharp image.

The imager is producing a true 4:4:4 image. That’s the good news. But according to Larry, they were in a hurry to get it to market, and didn’t have enough time to produce a new image processor and codec, so they used the one from the XF305, which is 8bit MPEG. And MPEG is limited to 4:2:2. The camera sends out the same 4:2:2 8-bit image - on a 10-bit carrier - out the HDMI and HD-SDI port. But, Larry argues, if they do the processing well, “You don't lose a lot…you lose a little. That's our argument,” he continued, “but seeing is believing.”

Rolling Shutter, while still present, is virtually eliminated by reading the sensor at 1/60th of a second. At 60fps it’s read at 1/120.

One of the demo movies, “XXIT,” produced by Stargate Studios, featured a lot of green screen work, and the images looked very clean. They also shot some interesting material strapping the camera to some motorcycles, so it’s worth checking out if you haven’t seen it.

An interesting addendum is that while the sensor can produce 60p at 1080, the processor and codec can’t, ~~so you would have to use an external recorder for 60p~~ [CORRECTION: The camera supports 60p at only 720]. Also, the camera supports both true 24p and 23.98p.

The other “secret sauce,” according to Larry, is that the photo sites in the sensor are totally new and very sensitive. “Is there noise? Yes, but the noise, it's not what you're used to seeing when you jack up the gain in a camera.” They’ve managed to eliminate the fixed pattern noise. “It's not grain, but it's evocative of film grain.” Noise starts to appear at about 6400, and is noticeable at 12,000.

Rick Macomber checks out the PL mount Canon C300

When asked what the ISO of the sensor was, he said that at Master Gain Zero, it’s 640, but for best image results you should use 850 and Canon Log. They think the camera is reproducing 12 stops of latitude, though “Some say we’re getting more.”

The C300 is, said Larry, “a legacy of the unexpected reaction to the 5D Mark II.” Canon spoke with over 100 DPs in 2010 to find out what they wanted. “One overriding message; the 5D is marvelous for hand held shooting. If you can make a video camera as easy and light to hold, that's what you should do.” When asked why the audio is a separate (included) module, Larry said that most of the people they spoke to shoot audio separately, and they wanted to be able to strip the camera down. Striped down, the camera and EVF weigh 3.1 lbs, yet Larry says the robustness of the mechanical design is quite remarkable.

Taking a veiled swipe at Red, Larry said; “We make all the accessories, they are in the box, unlike some others. You don't have to go out and buy a viewfinder separately. We think it's best for the majority [of users].”

Talking about lenses, Larry briefly mentioned the new 4K lenses they have announced. They will be producing these in both EF and PL mounts, with the EF versions arriving first, and the PL a few months later.

He said that they debated creating one camera with an adapter to support EF and PL mounts, but ultimately decided to make two cameras. ‘They felt they could keep the back focus precision if they made dedicated EF and PL cameras.”

Later this summer, variants, of these 4K lenses in a wide and telephoto PL and EF will be produced that will be lighter, slightly smaller, and about half the price. They’ll have somewhat lower performance, still 4K, but with not quite the same MTF. When asked what the benefit of a 4K lens is for a 1080 camera, Larry said that you still get higher resolution, and less chromatic aberration, though he didn’t add that with a 4K lens you’ll be ready for that next camera they release.

Canon C300 tonight at Rule Boston Camera with Larry Thorpe

2012-01-05T09:00:00.000-05:00

Due to a power outage(!) and other issues, there will be no posting this morning, but I will be at the Rule Boston Camera event tonight to see the Canon C300 and will post on it either tonight or tomorrow morning.

Quick Links

2012-01-04T09:00:00.000-05:00

Canon C300 – the ultimate low light test with Rodney Charters, Drew Gardner and Lan Bui | The Bui Brothers | Blog
Another post from the adventures of Rodney, Drew & Lan and the C300:

... then shot this non scientific test for low light with the Canon C300. Rodney shoots a lot of TV stuff and has much more knowledge than I do on how good this test really is. I was blown away at how well we were able to see Drew when we lit him with just an iPad. Yes thats right we lit a person with just an iPad and shot it with a C300. Now some of you might we thinking it is unrealistic to actually use an iPad in a production to light something. I’m not going to tell you if it is right or wrong… but it is a possibility.

The Ultimate low light test with a Canon C300? perhaps not, but a real eye opener as my eyes were starting to close | Drew Gardner
Drew also posted the video, with only a few more details:

It was a fun day, but by close to 2AM on the 1st January I was fading FAST. At this point after much, much rambling about life the universe and everything Rodney suggested we do a low light test shot with the Canon C300.

With an iPad

Yes, an iPad as a light source.

SONY FS100 K-Tone Picture Profiles Preview | Frank Glencairn | Blog
Frank continues his experiments with Picture Profiles for the Sony NEX-FS100:

K-Tone Picture Profiles are the first “out of the box” profiles I made. That means, it does not require color grading (of course you can grade it though if you want).
I look at it, as I look at specialty lenses. Some odd vintage glass, that I may find on a flea market for a few bucks and adapt it on the camera for some special looks and shots.
What I want to say is, this is not an everyday production profile. It´s more experimental, vintage, sweet-home-Alabama looking. So play with it and let me know what you think.

The Winner in reverse order | Philip Johnston | HD Warrior
In a two-part article, Philip first looks at the six top cameras he got to play with in 2011 [Camcorder of 2011…6 cameras 1 winner,] and crowns the NEX-FS100 the winner:

I was told by a Sony birdie when I asked the question “Whats the difference between the FS100 and the F3 ?” Sony “The FS100 is slightly noisier than the F3 and has no SDI or ND filters” Kidology as far as noise in my books this camera may not have S-Log but the picture is rock solid and bloody brilliant up to 18dBs and this comes from a man who has witnessed the F3′s fantastic noiseless pictures for himself.
[...] Once you get your head around the ND filter problem and in my case bought a smashing GenusTech Rig which then allows you to swap Vari-ND filters very easily and the fact that my Sony PVM-740 monitor has an HDMI socket…your sorted.

Kodak warned by NYSE that its shares may be delisted if they don’t rally back above $1 | AP | Washington Post
Things aren't looking good for film, or for Kodak:

Under NYSE rules, the Rochester, N.Y., company has six months to regain compliance with the minimum share price requirement. That means its stock must have a closing price of at least $1 a share on the last trading day of any calendar month during the period and must maintain that average over the previous 30 trading days or on the last day of the six months.

Final Cut Pro X Tips | Larry Jordan | Blog
Larry posts a lot of short tips on using Final Cut Pro, and Final Cut Pro X, including:

FCP X: Quick Color Correction
You know the drill… The deadline is crashing down around you and one of your clips was shot by a color-blind orangutan and it is ruining your entire opus. But, you don’t have time for a complete color grade – in fact, the video scopes are pretty much of a mystery. What to do?
Easy – read this. This color correction technique isn’t perfect, but it is REALLY fast and gets you close enough to keep your job.

FCP X: Create a Picture-in-Picture Effect
A picture-in-picture effect is a very popular effect in that it allows us to see two images at once. This tutorial shows you how to create this in FCP X.

FCP 7: Putting Video Inside a Shape
Valentine’s Day is coming up, so I thought I would use it as the example for one of my favorite effects – putting video inside a shape. This effect is also called a “traveling matte.”

Screenwriting Structure | Jill Remensnyder | Zacuto
Jill offers some tips on story structure:

Your audience subconsciously expects certain things to happen at certain points in a movie. Your job is to reveal the information so seamlessly they forget it’s coming and are hooked to keep watching more. Pacing the release of information is critical to keep your audience on the edge of their seats. Remember, every great film (even comedies) have suspense. Don’t think of suspense in terms of its genre, think of it in terms of keeping your audience glued to the screen.

OK, let’s try again: this is the Nikon D4! | Nikon Rumors
Rumors about the D4 are that it will be announced this Friday, and it may support uncompressed video out HDMI?

Quick Links

2012-01-03T09:00:00.000-05:00

New Year's Resolutions For Filmmakers | Scott Macaulay | Filmmaker
Scott offers ideas for the coming year:

4. Work for a friend. Take a page from Lucas McNelly and his Kickstarter project — don’t just obsess about your own work, make yourself crew for someone you know. UPM, do locations, cast, take sound for a project of someone other than yourself. Commit to the level of your free time.

New MTF Services Lens Adapters" Electronic EOS To Sony F3/FS100/Panasonic AND B4 To EOS/Sony F2/FS100 | Dan Chung | DSLR News Shooter
We've been looking for a good EOS lens adapter, and maybe MTF has one:

The MTF EOS electronic lens adapter is the first to actually be available to order for the Sony F3 and NEX. It also works with Micro 4/3 cameras like the Panasonic AF100 where it joins the already available Redrockmicro livelens adapter in offering aperture control, but adds the benefit of image stabilisation. American company Birger Engineering have also been working on a similar adapter for some time now and have even shown it working at the NAB show, but it is still not available to buy.

Techniques for Slowmotion Video | Richard Harrington | Blog
A Creative COW video with Robbie Carman and Richard Harrington creating slow motion in different tools:

In this video tutorial with Robbie Carman and Richard Harrington, learn various ways for converting DSLR footage into instantaneous, buttery smooth slow motion using After Effects, Twixtor, or Cinema Tools; you might also use Optical Flow in Apple Motion, Advanced Frame Blending in AE, and FCP.

The Really Good Things In Indie Film Biz 2011 | Ted Hope | IndieWire
A look back at changes in Indie Filmmaking over the past year:

1. 2011 Was The Year That Crowdfunding Took Off
1. Entrepreneur Access to Capital Act (H.R.2930) was passed by the House of Representatives earlier this November.
2. Films readily surpassed their goals.
3. Many exceeded $100K

Do-it-Yourself Acoustical Treatments: How to Build a Diffuser | Sloane | Audio Undone
A section from the book Audio Engineering 101: A Beginner's Guide to Music Production that explains how to build a "quadratic diffuser;" something I didn't even know existed until a read this!

A diffuser is a great way to control reflections in a room and make your room sound flatter. If your room is on the “dead” side, diffusers may be more suitable than adding absorptive sound control. Diffusers are often placed on the back wall behind the engineer’s head. They can also be placed in the studio to help tighten up a room, reduce flutter echo, and control reflections.

You Need a Logline | Xander Bennett | MasteringFilm
Another screen-writing tip:

What’s a logline, you ask? It’s two sentences that sum up the entire essence of your story, from protagonist to setting to plot. Here’s one I prepared earlier:
Dorothy, a naïve farm girl from Kansas, is carried away by a tornado to the mystical land of Oz. With the help of her new friends, she must defeat the Wicked Witch of the West and find her way back home.

Birth of the Flex Lens Shade | Planet5D
A small flexible lens shade:

Four years ago, while shooting boxing ringside at Staples Center in Los Angeles, I was furiously working on my standard gaffers tape and cardboard extension to my lens shade to block light flare from the HBO lights that hang over the ring. The shot I had been waiting for, happened; a perfect knockout right in front of me, I quickly chimped the back of my camera and the framing was perfect except….my homemade gaffers tape hood extension drooped down and block the fighters face. Agh!! As the night wore on I ended up so paranoid of “the droop” that I found myself worrying about “the droop” as opposed to getting the shots I needed. Shooting without a shade extension was not an option as the light flare was brutal.

Fight for 35mm | Julia Marchese | The Petition Site
I don't think there's much hope, but here's an effort to "save" 35mm film as a medium for projection:

The major film studios have decided that they eventually want to stop renting all archival 35mm film prints entirely because there are so few revival houses left, and because digital is cheap and the cost of storing and shipping prints is high.

I firmly believe that when you go out to the cinema, the film should be shown in 35mm. At the New Beverly, we have never been about making money - a double feature ticket costs only $8. We are passionate about cinema and film lovers. We still use a reel to reel projection system, and our projectionists care dearly about film..

Quick Links

2012-01-02T10:00:00.000-05:00

So You Want to Buy a RED Scarlet? | Matt Jeppsen | ProVideoCoalition
Subtitled "Do you really need that new camera? An intervention," Matt offers reasons not to buy that new Scarlet, C300 or PMW-F3:

Oftentimes client requirements and expectations do not push the capabilities of your camera…and while YOU personally might want something more powerful/interesting/snazzy, can you justify the additional cost? Will you honestly use those features? Will those features add value to your work? Be honest. Some questions relevant to the Scarlet might be; How often do you really overcrank? Are you aware of Crop Factors when overcranking Red? Does that have to be slower than 60fps? Do you honestly need higher resolution acquisition, or will you most likely still work in 1080p? Are you pushing the limits of your current acquisition codec, and why specifically?

Red Scarlet X Footage at ISO 320-6400 & at 3K 48fps & 4K | Cinescopophilia
Three tests shot with a Scarlet; at ISO 320-6400, 3k 48fps, and 4k:

Phil Holland and the Scarlet X camera called Skully have joined forces to do some camera tests. We are lucky enough to see RED Scarlet X footage at ISO 320-6400 at 3K 48fps and at a full strength 4K from Phil and Skully.

Cinema EOS White Papers | Canon
Canon has some white papers and articles on the upcoming C300, including:

New 35mm CMOS Sensor for Cine Motion Imaging:
Canon's EOS C300 has a totally new CMOS imaging sensor, dedicated to outstanding video image quality. This White Paper takes an extremely detailed look at the technologies that make this happen.
Sensitometric Characteristics of the EOS C300 Digital Cine Camera:
A technical analysis of the EOS C300's sensor and processing system, and how they combine to produce the camera's tonal reproduction and contrast range.

Canon C300 January 1, 2012 1:06 PM | Rodney Charters | UStream
Another video from Rodney Charters of Drew Gardner and Lan Bui playing with a C300. They demo a rig with a Zacuto LCD Viewfinder, and there's some interesting information; like the fact that waveform isn't sent out HDMI. This is a recording of a live stream they did.

"Suffice it to say, in a general way, we are ecstatically thrilled with this camera, and the excitement builds, and we can't wait to get hold of it for real use. I'm hopeful there's one of these in my future quite soon."

Rodney also posted this picture with the caption: This is the camera of the decade! | Mobypicture

Canon C-Log on the C300 compared to S-Log | Alister Chapman | XDCAM User
A look at C-Log compared to S-Log, which begins by suggesting that S-Log works well with 10-bit, but Canon couldn't do that same because it's an 8-bit device:

Anyway, back to the Canon C300. From what I can tell, C-Log is an extension of the cinegamma type of gamma curve. It appears to have more in common with cinegammas than true S-log. It looks like the compression starts at around 60% and that there is a little more gain at the bottom of the curve to lift shadows a little. This earlier start to the compression will allow for a greater dynamic range but will mean fewer bits of data for skin tones etc. The raised lower end gain means you can afford to underexpose more if you need to. As the curve is not a full log curve it will look a lot more agreeable than S-Log on an uncorrected monitor, especially as the crucial mid tone area is largely unaffected by strong compression and thus a large gamma miss-match.

The Canon C300 For a Day | MiH INC | Vimeo
"Mike Gurley gave me this great opportunity to test out the New Canon C-300 for a Sunday. Great fun working with such a beautiful camera."

Canon C300 Day 2 - Discussing shooting with the C300 | The Bui Brothers | Vimeo
"Today I finally got the Canon c300 out and shot some stuff with it! Drew and I discuss, footage to follow very soon."

FS100 Solid Cat | Golden Wedge | Vimeo
Attaching a Vivitar 800mm F11 Solid Catadioptric Telephoto Lens to the NEX-FS100 and ending up with the equivalent of a 1200mm lens. He's using a Novoflex T to E-mount adapter, and shows a special adapter plate he had made to mount the combined lens/camera. The lens he is using is from the 70's, and I don't know if it's the same as this one: Vivitar 800mm f/8 Series 1 Manual Focus Mirror Lens

SLR Magic announces HyperPrime CINE 50mm T0.95 M-mount lens | DPReview
An interesting lens which won't be available until September 2012.

Hong Kong lens maker SLR Magic has announced the HyperPrime CINE 50mm T0.95 lens for the Leica M mount. The lens, which can be easily adapted for Micro Four Thirds or Sony NEX cameras, is designed for low light and shallow depth-of-field videography and available-light photography. The lens features 12 elements in 7 groups and, the company says, is optimized to be shot with the aperture wide open.

A Cameraman's New Year Message | Matt Allard | DSLR News Shooter
Opening with the statement "I feel we are becoming overly obsessed with new technology and buying the latest product" Matt looks at some of the new gear of the past year, as well as what will be coming soon:

How much will the 4K concept camera be? Well given the 1D X is going to be between $6-7K US I can’t see it being any less. How the 4K camera will record and to what media remains to be seen. Regardless of price and features I’m sure the 5D mkIII will be a big seller for Canon. The 5D mkII still remains one of the best bang-for-your-buck cameras around. In my view DSLR cameras with HD video will continue to flourish. The quality of the image and the price point ensures they will remain relevant for years to come.

The quest for a small, light, levelling video tripod and head | Andrew Reid | EOSHD
Andrew is looking for a new tripod head, though I suspect that if you're looking for a video tripod head it's a case of: small, smooth, cheap, pick two.

There are some fluid 3 way heads but these are all designed for photographers. None of them seem to match the smoothness, adjustability and consistency of torsion throughout the travel of the head that a dedicated video head gives you. But none of the video heads have levelling or the 3rd axis for a roll built into the head itself.

PluralEyes for FCP X: Beta Update | Email | PluralEyes
An update to the PluralEyes beta for FCPX is available:

Syncing multi-camera and dual-system audio projects has never been easier now that the widely used and much-loved PluralEyes works with Final Cut Pro X.

We won't mail you every time there is an update, but some people had trouble even getting started with the first beta, so we wanted to be sure everyone knows that a new version is available. This release fixes lots o' bugs and is recommended to anyone who wants to try PluralEyes with FCP X.

Reminder: when it is released, the upgrade with FCP X support will be free for all current users of PluralEyes for Final Cut Pro.

Download the free beta here.

Quick Links

2012-01-01T10:00:00.002-05:00

The Best of The Black and Blue 2011 | Evan Luzi | The Black and Blue
The Black and Blue blog is a great resource for the camera operator. Evan has put together a look back at the best articles of the year.

Whether you’re stepping on set for the first time or the fiftieth time, reviewing the essential skills of camera assisting is never a bad idea. Even a small reminder of how or why can have a huge payoff. Below are some articles which didn’t introduce any ideas particularly revelatory or new, but reinforced old ones that have stood the test of time.

Top 5 Video Production Industry Trends 2011 – Part 1 | Shawn Lam | Blog
Shawn is putting together a series of the top industry trends of 2011. The first part looks at Final Cut Pro X:

You can’t tell the story of the rise of Adobe Premiere Pro without first mentioning the failure of Apple Final Cut Pro X. The two stories are linked and it wasn’t so much that Adobe did anything special with their CS5.5 release that lead to their unprecedented increase in paid users (22% overall and 45% on the MAC year-over-year, as of IBC in September) as it was that Apple failed to deliver a suitable follow-up for the aging Final Cut Pro 7.
The failure of Apple Final Cut X and the rise of Adobe Premiere Pro CS5.5 is my top video news story of 2011.

Top 5 Video Production Industry Trends 2011 – Part 2
In part two, the death of the video magazine, which are being killed by blogs and the web:

Freshness of content is one factor but ultimately the print medium is not where videographers go for their information and writing letters to the editor and waiting for a response a month or two later is not conducive to a great dialogue for both the readers and writers. A blog or online magazine that allows comments, on the other hand, is much better suited for the degree of interaction that readers crave. As a writer I value the opportunity to respond to comments and questions – I’m not perfect and if I get something wrong I want the opportunity to make changes and show the changes that I have made.
Video Magazines R.I.P. (Rest In Print) is my number two video production industry news story of 2011.

Want Better Photos or Video? Avoid Lens Flares | Richard Harrington | 3 Exposure
Tips on avoiding lens flare (even though I like the judicious use of lens flare...)

Keep the Lens Clean and Clear
Most lenses have an anti-reflective coating to cut down on lens flare. Of course greasy fingerprints and other smudges can also cause their own problems. When you clean the lens, be sure to use a proper lens cleaning cloth to remove smudges without damaging this coating.

Embracing the bold look of PARIAH | Arri News
This film was shot on Arri film cameras and there's an interesting discussion of color:

Young and Rees discussed how the look and feel of PARIAH could be used to communicate character. For Alike, the young woman is on a journey to discover her true self. He notes, “We came up with the whole notion of chameleons. They change colors based on where they are, what they step on, or which space they cross through. That developed into the overall mantra for us, mainly in the lighting.”

Happy New Year!!!!!

2012-01-01T00:00:00.002-05:00

Quick Links

2011-12-31T10:00:00.000-05:00

C300 | Rodney Charters | Vimeo
Rodney Charters shot this video of Drew Gardner and Lan Bui talking about the Canon C300 while shooting at the Billingsgate Fish Market. The BTS video was shot on the iPhone 4S.

How To Make Money From Moving Image: Producing & Others | El Skid | Wide Open Camera
Another article from El Skid about making it in the movie business, this time about being a Producer:

Producing is a skill all of its own and should not be considered the default fall-back for those who weren’t really good enough to direct. I’m really not very good at it, I’m way too nice to people and don’t negotiate prices properly. In fact I suck at producing. Which is bad really since about 90% of the work I do carries a producer/director credit. What I like is putting projects together, pulling all the elements into place so that it can happen. The budget and the operational side I’m just not interested in, which is why I prefer to hire a production manager to take care of all of that.

Sneak Peek Cinema Skater DSLR Dolly | Cheesycam
Neat little skater that will hold heavier cameras. I'd like to see the video shot by that camera in the demo...

A quick look at the new Cinema Skater Video dolly that can support larger size cameras. On the dolly you’ll see the huge Manfrotto 501HDV fluid head. There is no possible way this head would mount up on the smaller Pico Flex Dolly, so if you’re looking for a dolly to support something like a Sony FS100, Panasonic AF100, or even a RED Scarlet here’s an option.

Shooting Video? Better Under than Overexposed | Richard Harrington | Blog
A tip on exposure:

The key is to always protect your highlights. Do not let the bright areas of your image (like skies or faces) get clipped. One view you likely have on your camera is a histogram. You typically can see this after taking a photo or cycling through your view options (in most cameras you can push the Info button or press your navigation dial from side to side to cycle views). If the histogram is pushed against the right edge, it means you have no information to work with. Blown out highlights go pure white and there is just no way to recover the details.

FS 100 G-LOG (Type A) S&Q | ADW | Vimeo
Demo video shot using the Sony NEX-FS100 G-LOG recipe A from Frank Glencairn:

In each case you see the raw G-LOG clip and a corrected version.
Warning: This clip includes Raccoon-based colour correction. I also upped the saturation. Sorry, there's no sound.

Part 1 now live!! The Christmas mini shootout with the C300 (pre-production), F3, FS100, hacked GH2 and more!! | Philip Bloom | Blog
Posted a link to this post before, but Philip has updated the video because of problems with the Sony NEX-5n video.

Slo-Mo with the GoPro HD Hero2 | Jeff Foster | ProVideoCoalition
Using the GoPro Camera HD HERO2 under water:

I set up the camera attached to a light stand and rigged a short brace to help control the swaying in the water when the GoPro got splashed. Here you’ll see the mount and the GoPro’s lens just below the water line. The LCD BacPac helped me line up the shots a bit easier than just “guessing”. It’s a real time saver, but does add to the overall weight of the camera/housing.

Quick Links

2011-12-30T09:00:00.000-05:00

Case Study: Rampart | HD Magazine
A look at the workflow for the Arri Alexa used on the movie Rampart:

“This was one of the first; if not the first; feature films to use the SxS module to shoot directly to ProRes 4:4:4:4 files,” notes FotoKem Vice President Mike Brodersen. “We did quality tests that showed the format holds up beautifully with no obvious compression issues. The images are recorded in Log C, which allows the full dynamic range of the Alexa to be captured even on relatively ‘lightweight’ media. The ease of media management and the lighter files, without the need for a big recorder or tethering, was important to Bobby in this case.”

The Importance of Sound and Where You Get it From | Mario Feil | Zacuto
Zacuto has been posting articles on audio lately, the latest on using music in your videos:

1-Man-Composer: I work with friends who design music by themselves with Logic or Cubase. Stock instruments and sounds are already included with these programs. They have everything from simple mood sounds to orchestral music but it’s a lot of work (which means a lot of money) and of course it’s not a real band or orchestra.

How To Make Money From Moving Image: Directing | El Skid | Wide Open Camera
Tips on how to become a director:

If you want to attract an agent, or get representation with a production company, then you have to put the work on the table, stand and be judged. Building a reel is a long and tortuous process. Reels age fast and go rotten easily. I made some great stuff on DV and digibeta but in today’s glorious DSLR, HD world it just looks crappy and faded. You have to have to have to put your reel before anything else if you want to actually earn money from directing.

Should Art Be Free? | Ron Dawson | Dare Dreamer
Ruminations on whether working for money is a good idea, including these comments from Francis Ford Coppola

You have to remember that it’s only a few hundred years, if that much, that artists are working with money. Artists never got money. Artists had a patron, either the leader of the state or the duke of Weimar or somewhere, or the church, the pope. Or they had another job. I have another job. I make films. No one tells me what to do. But I make the money in the wine industry. You work another job and get up at five in the morning and write your script.
-Francis Ford Coppola

FS100 G-LOG color correction of Philip Blooms x-mas shootout | Frank Glencairn | Blog
Manipulating video shot by Philip Bloom:

As you all know, the G-LOG profiles are made for grading, instead to use them out of the box. I´m working on a workflow in the moment, that includes a G-LTU, to get the bet out of the profiles.
I wanted to know, how close I can match the C300 LOG-C material and FS100 G-LOG material. So I tried my prototype workflow on the material that Philip shot.

Canon C300 test video – Michaelmas Goose Dinner | Lan Bui | The Bui Brothers
Another test video shot with the Canon C300:

Here we go!!! Another test video shot on the Canon C300… remember the dinner Drew was cooking the other day? You know when Drew and I were talking about the benefits of the C300 over DSLRs… Well after a few drinks and trying to stay out of Drew’s way that was what I shot.

So now I feel very comfortable shooting with the Canon C300. That is a very good thing because there are mo more test shoots with the C300 left… tomorrow morning we are off to shoot… we even have permits!!! YAY!

New Cameras in 2012 | Paul D | Blog
A look at new cameras that will be arriving this coming year, both announced and unannounced:

Now that Canon’s EOS 1D x has revealed a whole new generation of processor, a brand new sensor and autofocus system, it seems that all the pieces are in place for the release of what surely must be the world’s most eagerly anticipated camera, the Canon EOS 5D Mark III. Precisely when in 2012 this will happen is unclear, but it is impossible not to notice that over the last couple of weeks, the price of the Canon EOS 5D Mark II has been in free fall on both sides of the Atlantic.

Box-Office Bust: Movie Attendance Hits 16-Year Low | Matthew Rosenbaum | ABC News
Another article on the problems at the movies:

Despite some big-name sequels, superstar lineups and multibillion-dollar investments from movie studios, 2011 was a tough year for Hollywood. Ticket sales are on pace to be a half a billion dollars behind last year. Attendance figures haven’t been this low since 1995.

2011: The Year In 3D | Jessica Kiang | IndieWire
How'd the year stack up for 3D?:

...considering 2011 had the lowest cinema attendance overall since 1995, how much of this slowdown in 3D is merely reflective of a wider trend, and how much due to the 3D itself? Well, if we confine our analysis to the top ten 3D movies of all time (via Box Office Mojo): it features just 3 from 2011 (despite a record 40+ films being released in the format this year) as opposed to 5 from 2010, so it does seem like the initial excitement over the format is passing.

$400 off Canon EF 70-200 f/2.8L IS II

2011-12-29T22:24:00.000-05:00

B & H is offering the Canon EF 70-200 f/2.8L IS II at $1,974, that's $400 off. The offer appears to run through Jan 7th. It's a really nice - if rather large and expensive - lens.
- Ahh, if I only had the money....

Happy Holidays from Redrock Micro

2011-12-29T21:38:00.000-05:00

Redrock sent out an amusing little card this year. I particularly like the microTape spelling out the greeting...

Canon C300 at Rule Boston Camera Event with Larry Thorpe

2011-12-29T11:00:00.001-05:00

Senior Director of Professional Engineering and Solutions at Canon, Larry Thorpe presents this powerful new camera tool offering quality and innovation at an affordable price. Join us for an overview of the C300 followed by Q&A.

Boston Rule Camera
395 Western Avenue
Boston, MA 02135
Thursday, January 5. 6:00 to 8:00pm • Pizza and Beer
Space is limited. RSVP events@rule.com

Quick Links

2011-12-29T10:00:00.001-05:00

Part 1 now live!! The Christmas mini shootout with the C300 (pre-production), F3, FS100, hacked GH2 and more!! | Philip Bloom | Blog
Philip has posted the first part of his Canon C300 comparison, with some interesting conclusions:

Bang for buck the clear winner was the GH2 with the Driftwood hack but this is purely on resolution. The F3/ C300 are damn close to each other and the FS100 not far behind. Part 2 moves onto skin tones and low light where the camcorders come into their own. I also take a look at how well each of the internal codecs hold up to colour correction and grading.

Shootout reveals Panasonic GH2 resolution at Canon C300 level | Andrew Reid
| EOSHD
Andrew Reid at EOSHD looks at Philip's results and rates the cameras from best (C300 and GH2) to worst (AF100 and Canon 7D):

Although that is not the full story. For example I prefer gradation, tonality, colour and shadow areas in my 5D Mark II footage to the GH2. Stuff shot on the 5D looks great on a plasma TV. As anyone who has plugged in both the 5D and GH1 into a plasma will remember, the GH2 can still look a bit grey and digital in comparison sometimes like its older sister. The 5D has a very organic look. The 7D is better for certain shots than the AF100 as well. They’re nice cameras, but not for wide establishing shots of finely detailed landscape and architecture like above.

Canon C300 video – Grand Union Canal, Hertfordshire, UK | The Bui Brothers | Blog
Meanwhile, the Bui brothers also got to spend time with a C300 and have posted a few blog posts about it. The latest one has footage from the first shoot with the camera:

I shot for one hour during sunset… well during sunset time… it was massively overcast as you can see so it kept getting darker and darker. The last shot of the video might look a bit odd because it is so much brighter than the rest, that is because I opened up the 85mm lens to 1.2 and bumped up the ISO a bit. This camera really can perform in low light.

Video is half the battle - Audio is the Rest | Quick guide into audio recording
| Daniel Freytag | Blog
A introductory tutorial to getting better sound, along with a warning:

The fourth step, which ruined my shot a few weeks ago, is to check the battery level. The H4n won't warn you. There is no alert that the batteries are low and the device might run out of power. While I did an interview with a race organizer my batteries (which seemed pretty O.K. before) died. The H4n did not stopped the recording and saved my file, but it turned off and gave me a corrrupted and unusable file. I had to redo this interview. :(

Cameramaker Red claims espionage | Karen Idelson | Variety
Did Arri get some information that helped them in the development of the Alexa?:

In its complaint, Red asserts that during the time Bravin was hacking Band's email account, Band Pro and Red were discussing a possible joint venture. Red says Band's emails contained detailed descriptions of the technology used in Red's cameras and Red's plans for introducing new models and features.

Red alleges that Bravin passed that information to Arri, giving Arri an unfair competitive advantage, especially with respect to the launch and marketing of the Arri Alexa camera.

What’s Cool – The Ikan iLED-One Light | Rob Ruscher | Blog
Short video review of a useful portable light:

The Ikan iLED-One did an amazing job of getting extra light into the tools, machines, and hands of the worker. I was a little worried that the tungsten bulb wouldn’t play nice with the daylight balanced ID 500, but I was wrong. It added a nice golden punch and looked great. Having the set up that Ikan put together made for some pretty awesome options. I connected the light to my tripod, light stands, cables, tools, benches and pipes. Pretty cool right?

How To Make Money In Production: The Answers | El Skid | Wide Open Camera
In his own inimitable style, El Skid offers tips on how to break into the business:

If you have no ambitions towards DoP’ing big feature films or commercials then there are plenty of opportunities around to sling a camera for smaller productions. Sports and music productions in particular tend to need multiple camera units and they tend to have less money so you can often pick up work in those areas. What you won’t do is earn much money. As always, the more kit you own the more attractive you’ll be.

5 Reasons You Must Pursue Whatever Scares You | Tasra Mar | Blog
More advice on how to get ahead in the business:

Fear is not always helpful. Most people have fears of loss: home, people, possessions, memories. Those fears can paralyze and limit healthy decision making. Think about your most frequent or biggest fear and take it to the extreme… what’s the worst that could happen?

From 'Drive' To 'Melancholia,' Here's Why 2011 Marked a Shift In the History of Cinematography | Jamie Stuart | Indiewire
Another article about the death of film:

"The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo" proved that David Fincher understands digital cinematography better than any other working filmmaker. He has made four digital features and five on film. As a result, he understands that digital works best when the lighting is built primarily around practical sources and the aperture is wide open. His approach on both "The Social Network" and his latest work, both shot by Jeff Cronenweth on the RED, is basically an extremely upscaled studio version of DSLR (digital single-lens reflex) filmmaking.

I'll tell you why movie revenue is dropping... | Roger Ebert | Sun Times
Roger offers a half-dozen reasons why movie revenue is dropping, from smart phones and streaming, to ticket prices and lack of choice:

6. Lack of choice. Box-office tracking shows that the bright spot in 2011 was the performance of indie, foreign or documentary films. On many weekends, one or more of those titles captures first-place in per-screen average receipts. Yet most moviegoers outside large urban centers can't find those titles in their local gigantiplex. Instead, all the shopping center compounds seem to be showing the same few overhyped disappointments. Those films open with big ad campaigns, play a couple of weeks, and disappear.

Edward Burns and the Socialization of Indie Cinema | Christina Warren | Mashable
Edward Burns has adopted social media in a big way:

Edward Burns credits Ted Hope for convincing him to join Twitter. Hope, a prominent independent film producer in New York City, explained to Burns it was crucial that he find 500 followers to share and promote his message. Hope’s thesis — which he has since revised to include 5,000 fans — is that connecting with the people that really care about your work is the most effective way of getting things seen.

Tintin is Soso

2011-12-29T09:00:00.000-05:00

I saw the Tintin movie - in 2D - the other night. I went in optimistic that it would be a good evenings entertainment; unfortunately, that wasn't really the case. In the interests of full disclosure: I was never a reader of the Tintin books. Though I was aware of them - and had glanced at them once or twice years ago - they never grabbed my attention. So I really knew very little about Tintin at the beginning of the movie, and came out knowing very little more.

Tintin is also bring distributed in 3D (stereoscopy), but I won't be talking much about that as I only saw the movie in 2D. I will note that when watching the movie in 2D there was never a point where I felt "this is a stereoscopic set-piece" - a scene that was obviously composed to create the maximum stereoscopic effect. I've always found those scenes a little annoying in stereoscopic movies, and I even noticed it in the recent Hugo, so points to the producers for not doing that in Tintin.[1]

But Tintin is a step forward in 3D animation, with some very human-like character performances. I've read articles talk about the "uncanny valley"; how 3D animated characters can be disorienting when they are almost human-like, but not 100% natural. Watching older movies like Toy Story or Polar Express, that seemed a more than obvious concept, because the human characters never looked human. But Tintin, the lead character, makes that jump to near-humaness.

For the first fifteen minutes or so, I spent a lot of time marvelling at the Tintin character and how life-like he was. Certainly, there were many times where it was possible to say 'oh, that's an animated character,' but there were other times where it felt like he was 100% real. Even if they were only flickering moments. Interestingly, Tintin was the exception in the movie; most of the other characters seemed more cartoonish in execution. Only the evil opponent Ivan Sakharine came close to rivaling Tintin's humanity. I'm not sure if the caricature's supporting cast hurt or helped the main character's attempts at realism.

Tintin is almost human, his friends, not so much.

Moving on to the story - and character himself - most of the story is one long chase scene. Like the books, there's no explanation of who Tintin is; is he English? French? Belgium? Other questions also go unanswered: How old is he? How come he lives alone? How did he become a reporter? How did he become relentlessly enthusiastic? Maybe a movie about how Tintin became Tintin would have been more engrossing than the non-stop adventure of this movie. There's other problems too; the movie seems to be undated, though it is likely set sometime in the 30's. Yet Tintin refers to Interpol, which only went by that name from the mid 50s.

Tintin also has a terrible habit of explaining everything to his dog, which makes for rather one-sided monologing. Certain points were laboriously explained, while others were brushed over; on seeing a picture of a model ship they were attempting to recover, Tintin notes that the image is distorted and the glass must be bullet-proof. Later on, a close-up of the glass at the edge of the case reveals a "Bullet-Proof" logo.

While Tintin lacks a noticeable accent, most of the supporting cast have pronounced English accents, yet the street and automobile scenes at the beginning are European, not English. When they are saved by Legionnaires in the desert, their commanding officer speaks with an English accent. Can you only make fun of English nationals these days?

On the plus side, there were some very amusing slap-stick set-pieces, and some ingenious action sequences and the first half of the movie was promising. But at some point, the lack of anything but a chase made the movie boring, and for the last fifteen minutes I was wishing that it was over. It also started to feel a bit too much like the Young Indiana Jones Chronicles, meets MacGyver, with a red head.

Things weren't helped towards the end when Tintin, who spent most of the movie a relentless, optimistic, advertisement for Ritalin, suddenly decided to pack it all in and give up, prompting his companion, Captain Haddock to deliver a speech about "never giving up." The fact that in the first three quarters of the movie it was Tintin who never gave up, and Captain Haddock who abdicated any responsibility, may suggest this was supposed to be an ironic comment on the character traits of the two, but it didn't play that way.

And then suddenly the bad guy is captured, some treasure is found in an unexpected place, and a map to more treasure is found, and...that's it! It's all wrapped up in five minutes, in a very unsatisfying way with a suggestion of a sequel. I don't think I want to see the second half of this movie.

In conclusion, they've almost got the 3D rendering of humans down pat, they just have to inject some humanity into the story.

[1]. I'm deliberately using stereoscopic rather than 3D when describing the projection of the movie because the movie itself is a 3D animated movie, and I'm mainly interested in that aspect of the movie.

Quick Links

2011-12-28T10:00:00.000-05:00

5D Mark III Sooner Than Later [CR2] | CanonRumors
Now the rumors say sooner rather than later on the 5D Mark III. But don't be surprised if it changes again!

Barring another manufacturing problem in Asia, count on the 5D Mark III being announced around the end of March or early April 2012.

Don’t Hold Back Your Art | Ron Dawson | Dare Dreamer
The next two posts are sort of similar. This one is an argument for putting yourself out there...

Do you know what’s so ironic about my initial feelings regarding this video? It has a sound bite by designer Rick Anwyl of Sonandsons.com (the presenter the day the video was shot) saying how each of us is unique and special, and that we each have something to give. He goes on to say “Find your voice. Be confident in who you are and what you do.” I guess I need to pay more attention to my own work.

Under The Circumstances: The Phrase That Means Nothing & Everything | El Skid
| Wide Open Camera
....and this post argues that you shouldn't apologize for your work:

On my recent WW1 short we got stuffed when our lead actor pulled out three days before the shoot. So what? I want people to judge the film for what it is. No more excuses. If it turns out the lead actor ruins the film, then we’ll take that on the chin. I will do better work from now on and stop making excuses for where it did or didn’t work. If it turns out that I’m not capable of the level I aspire to then I’ll have to take that on the chin too.

Tascam iM2 Microphone Quick Take Audio Test. Wide Open Camera | Jared Abrams
| YouTube
I also don't think this device is appropriate for most work, but here's an audio test:

Here is a quick test of the new Tascam iM2 stereo microphone and PCN Recorder App. The stereo mic feels pretty cheap and the App is fairly clunky. Files have to to be uploaded to soundcloud then downloaded to your editing suite. The audio is better than the on camera mics but I cannot recommend this for pro use. It might be a decent back up system.

Various Uses For Teleprompters Prompt Variations | Pat Nordell
| Government Video
An overview - not reviews - of several brands of teleprompter:

Tiffen of Hauppauge, N.Y. has introduced a four-inch prompter—the PW-04—that attaches to the lens of a small camera. “It comes with a case and remote control and software, so the user is ready to go,” says Ray Blumenthal, Tiffen’s vice president of broadcast systems. The PW-04 provides professional video prompting in the palm of the user’s hand, he said.

How could Amazon Studios change the way we make movies? | Roy Price, Director, Amazon Studios
Interesting defense of Amazon Studio's that somehow suggests having more people reading and adding their input in the process will improve the quality of movies being produced. I'm not convinced that's true:

This approach makes complete sense in a world where (a) it is hard to solicit people’s opinions on a large scale and (b) it is expensive to produce any sort of audiovisual representation of a film. But that’s not the world we live in. Mass online discussions are all around us, it is easy to share video and it is not uneconomical to create a viable test movie. Today’s development process yields a lot of box office surprises. If a more open development process, one that looks a bit more like a conversation with fans, can reduce disappointing surprises, it should yield more movies that moviegoers like.

The Secret to Success on Your First Film Job | Evan Luzi | No Film School
Evan normally writes at The Black And Blue blog, but here's an article he's written about how to be a success on your first job:

Before you stepped on set with the professionals, there were dozens just like you who came and went. I bet most of the crew didn’t even bother to keep in touch with them. It’s not that they weren’t nice people, or that they weren’t capable of the job, it’s that they didn’t approach it in the right way.

The real secret is you can’t be satisfied with the job you’re doing.

Five Predictions For Online Video In 2012 | Peter Csathy | Tech Crunch
Peter Csathy, President and CEO of Sorenson Media, offers his thoughts on the future of online video:

(3) Battle for Your Living Room & Cutting of the Cord. Not to be outdone, Google will continue its massive push—and billions of dollars in investment — into the premium video and “TV” world. It doesn’t matter whether Google’s initial experiments have worked so far (they haven’t); Google is patient and recognizes that we are still early in the video game.

Hollywood says goodbye to celluloid | Nick Allen | The Telegraph
It's looking like the end of film will come even quicker than we thought:

A single celluloid print of a movie can cost more than £1,500. A big release can see millions of dollars spent on prints to distribute to cinemas.
With digital projection each copy of the film can be sent out on a hard drive costing just £150. The lower cost makes simultaneous worldwide releases more feasible, which in turn reduces the risk of piracy.

The Sony NEX-VG20: What I like

2011-12-28T09:00:00.000-05:00

I’ve had a chance the last couple of weeks to play with the Sony NEX-VG20 thanks to B & H PhotoVideo, who kindly loaned me a camera (full disclosure: I have to send it back.)

The NEX-VG20 is an upgrade to the NEX-VG10, and one way to describe this camera is as a DSLR in a personal-camcorder body. Like a DSLR, it has a large sensor (I've read that it's the same sensor as the one in the Sony NEX-5N), and supports interchangeable lenses using the Sony E-mount. Like a camcorder, it has a flip-out viewfinder, a very different form factor, and a much better microphone.

At $2,199 - with the $600 kit lens - this camera is not cheap, though you can buy it without the lens. Here's a list of things I like about this camera:

Body shape: At first the camera just felt wrong in my hands; it wasn’t a small traditional camcorder, but it wasn’t a big body camera either. It was sort of in-between. After a week or so of handling it, I got used to it, and it actually works out pretty well. And I really like the LCD screen. More importantly, I like hand holding it much better than holding a DSLR body.

The rotating LCD: This is a camcorder, so it has a rotating LCD on the side, as well as a viewfinder on the back. I like the way the flip-out LCD can easily be viewed from more angles. It's much easier to see than the LCD on the back of the NEX-5N. Interestingly, if you just pick up the two cameras, the LCD on the NEX-5N appears much larger than the NEX-VG20's; but it's an optical illusion caused by the relative sizes of the cameras; the screens are the same size. More importantly, due to the menu system used on the NEX-5N, the NEX-VG20 displays a larger image.

Viewfinder with focus-peaking on

Color peaking: While this is a consumer camera, it does have color peaking, something I’m finding more and more invaluable; and available on more and more consumer cameras.

The Expanded Focus button on the top of the side handle: the NEX-VG20 doesn’t have a whole lot of buttons; that and the lack of XLR inputs are perhaps its two biggest deficiencies. But the focus enhance button on the top of the side handle is really useful; it zooms the center of the image, and it stays zoomed until you hit the button again.

The Record button next to the Expanded Focus button: If I'm going to criticize the lack of buttons, then I have to mention some I find very useful!

The Kit lens: Like the camera itself, this lens takes a bit of getting used to. It’s not incredible; I wish it didn’t extend out the front as you zoom, and I wish it was faster, but if it did all that it would have half the zoom range and cost twice the price. So with that in mind, it’s a pretty good general purpose lens. Zooming isn't totally smooth and silky, but it seemed to improve a bit with use, and in the final analysis it's better than using the small zoom rockers that personal camcorders have.

The Mic: This mic is almost as big as the NEX-5N, and it does a much better job than any DSLR mic.

Operation: if you compare this camera to the NEX-5N, then the big differences - given that the camera has the same lens mount - is the shape of the body, the menu system and buttons, and the audio mic. And the shape of the body, placement of the screen and buttons, all make a noticeable difference in ease of operation.

The price: Okay, if you compare it to a Canon T3i, or even the Sony NEX-5N, it's expensive. But if you want a camcorder with a large sensor, the choices are rather thin in the sub $5,000 category; the Panasonic AG-AF100 and Sony NEX-FS100 are the only other large-sensor camcorders out there. Both of those add features I wish the VG20 had, and the NEX-FS100 has a better sensor, but that's an extra three thousand dollars.

Of course, you could just buy the NEX-5N, and get similar results. The NEX-5N body-only is $599.99, while the NEX-VG20 body-only is $1,599.99. So you're paying $1,000 for a different body shape, slightly bigger LCD, a viewfinder, much better microphone and a few more buttons and controls. But if you're primarily interested in shooting video, and don't mind the slightly bigger body, I'd recommend the NEX-VG20.

Note: the camera was loaned by B & H PhotoVideo. This site also receives a commission on any sales made via links to that website.

Quick Links

2011-12-27T09:00:00.000-05:00

A Year with Large Sensor cameras | Philip Johnston | HD Warrior
Philip looks back at the large sensor cameras he's encountered this year, starting with the Panasonic AG-AF100:

My recommendation is to get a prime lens that is f1.4-f1.2 for producing interviews and don’t be scared to give the subject breathing space by shutting down the iris to f2.8 there is nothing worse than a person moving in and out of focus during an interview, 9 times out of 10 you won’t know that till you have started the interview wether they sway back and forth.

F65 "Behind the Scenes" | Sony
A five minute video on the F65, with an interview with Curtis Clark, ASC.

The Sony F65 | Video4
This F65 dealer has put together an information page on the camera. You can find most of this on Sony's page, but it's all in one place here:

Some camera manufacturers measure their sensor resolution on the basis of “K,” a unit that equates to 1024 horizontal photosites. So a 4K sensor might have 4096 photosites on every row. Unfortunately, the actual resolution is less because these sensors use Bayer color filter arrays. This design leverages two facts. First, the human eye is more sensitive to black & white (luminance) detail than to color detail. Second, the largest component of luminance is Green. In the Bayer array, 50% of the photosites detect Green light only, 25% detect Blue only and the remaining 25% detect Red only.

No Budget Porsche Spec Ad BTS | Alex Walker | Wide Open Camera
Alex explains how he got together some people to shoot a no budget spec ad:

I wasn’t about to just get some shots of the car driving by with a tripod and call it a day. For awhile now I’ve been really wanting to get a jib and put it in the back of a truck for some almost helicopter like moving jib shots. Those types of shots are usually reserved for folks with a budget so I felt that if we could accomplish these shots with no money it would appear as if we were a little more well funded. Trouble was I don’t own a jib and I had no time or budget. Solution? Twitter contacts. I’ve always felt that Twitter has been instrumental in getting me to where I am today but never has it felt as tangible as when this project fell together.

New Rules for the Ways We Watch | David Carr | New York Times
Carr, the media reporter for The New York Times, looks at the future of video:

So-called virtual operators — Netflix, Hulu, Amazon, Google and Apple — have none of the legacy or infrastructure costs. Google has unleashed $100 million to seed new programming on YouTube, and Netflix is financing a series by the director David Fincher. That gaming device your children are playing with? That too is a network in the making. Traditional networks and cable providers have the content, but if they hold on too tight, they will miss out on vast new avenues of distribution and revenue.

Production Video #5: On Location | The Hobbit | Blog
Peter Jackson has been posting video blogs about The Hobbit. This one is about logistics for location shooting.

The Real Wizards of Oz Deserve Better Treatment | Eric Roth | Huffington Post
Interested in getting into the world of Visual Effects? This might turn you off it:

But for the artists who create the visuals and help tell the stories we all want to see, life and working conditions are often not a happy Hollywood fantasy. Here's a dirty secret no one in the industry wants to talk about: visual effects artists and professionals are the only major group of entertainment industry workers who are not protected from labor abuses or provided with health insurance and other benefits through collective bargaining. That's just not right.

New Xeon CPU Reported to Be Amazingly Fast | Hardmac
If Apple ever makes a new MacPro, it could be really fast...

According to such information, the new Xeon E5-2690 clocked at 2.9 GHz would be 1.5 to 2.2 fold faster than the fastest current Xeon X5690 clocked at 3.46 GHz.

Edward Burns, Director of Newlyweds, on the Changing Face of Indie Film Distribution | Edward Burns | The Daily Beast
Burns has been pioneering new ways to produce and finance low-budget independent movies:

Sixteen years ago as a film student at Hunter College, I made my first movie—The Brothers McMullen. While film technology has made rapid leaps and bounds since then—I shot my most recent film on a Canon 5D—the method of exhibiting indie films theatrically has seen little change over the years, and it is still as difficult as ever for independent filmmakers to reach a sizable audience in movie theaters.

Quick Links

2011-12-26T11:00:00.000-05:00

Canon C300 review and short film “Le Mont, La Pluie et La Nuit” | Philip Bloom
| Blog
Philip posts his review of the Canon C300. Interestingly, he seems to think he will get one, but still keep the Sony PMW-F3:

Things I love about the C300: Size, the amazing image, EVF pretty good, the little lip at the front of the camera, light sensitivity, the onboard codec, the way it works with the Canon lenses, great quality LCD and waveform, actually works great in my hands ergonomically especially with IS lenses. Works out of the box without a rig surprisingly although a rig would be recommended for longer handheld filming. Excellent build quality yet still nice and light. The price at just under £10k for a camera of this spec is amazing. Remember this is not a DSLR but a high powered S35 camera.

The need for more cameras…Why? | Philip Johnston | HD Warrior
Philip asks Alister Chapman why he needs more than one camera:

Now I have the luxury of owning an EX1R for run and gun, quick and easy shooting, the EX1R works very well in that type of application. Next came the PMW-F3 for those more set up shoots, interviews, documentaries, shorts and movies. I now have 2 of them as I shoot a lot of 3D and they are fantastic in this role. However the F3 (which is my all time favourite camcorder) just isn’t suitable for some of the things I shoot, especially things like tornadoes, which are often fleeting, fast moving and unpredictable. It can be done, but the EX1R is a much better camera for this type of thing.

The need for steed: How Skywalker Sound brought Spielberg’s ‘War Horse’ to life | Mike Seymour & Ian Failes | The Daily
A look at the production of foley sound for the movie War Horse:

For the horses themselves, including titular star Joey, Rydstrom faced the challenge of creating characters that audiences could relate to, even though they had no lines. To achieve that key emotional attachment, Rydstrom eventually replaced just about every sound recorded on set.
“Horses don’t really vocalize all the time,” he said, “but they do emote through how they breathe.”
“The most time I spent on the movie, especially in the mix, was making the footsteps and the tail swishes and the body shudders, ear twitches, the breathing and the snorting.”

The Truth About 2K, 4K and The Future of Pixels | John Galt | Creative COW
A look at resolution; is 4K really 4K?

Unfortunately, one of the tragedies of digital imaging, is that now we've got these ridiculous numbers games, because so few people understand the fundamentals of the imaging technology, everybody wants a number to latch on to. The numbers don't mean anything in the context of 100 years of development of film and motion picture technology, optical technology and laboratory practice and cinematographers did wonderful work without understanding anything about the chemistry or photographic emulsion technology.

GoPro HD Hero 2 review | James Trew | Engadget
The new GoPro HD Hero 2 may not solve some problems of the original - it's weight and mounting issues) -but the image quality is improved:

The first thing you'll notice if you have the luxury of having both cameras is that the HD Hero 2 is noticeably clearer. Many people tend to think in pure numbers: megapixels, resolution and so on, but then forget that a lot of it really depends on the piece of glass the image is coming through. We noticed that images were generally sharper, but this was most visible with more complex textures such as asphalt, grass and so on.

How to: Update Firmware on a Sony PMW-F3 | Production Junction | Vimeo
Short video showing how to upgrade the PMW-F3 firmware.

Sony’s FS100 camera to become “WorldCam” via free firmware update
| Allan Tépper | ProVideoCoalition
No date fixed yet, but the NEX-FS100 firmware upgrade should be out in the new year:

Sony USA has just officially announced that the (so-far) segregated 59.94Hz FS100 camera (officially known as the NEX-FS100, often followed by a regional suffix, and then sometimes by the letter “K” to indicate that it is a kit, packaged with a lens) is about to go “WorldCam” via a free firmware update sometime at the beginning of 2012. “WorldCam” is a term used to indicate that a camera has the necessary framerates to be used worldwide

Episode #80 : Alex Lindsay Interview: Introduction To Live Streaming
| Digital Filmmakers Podcast
This weeks podcast covers video streaming:

Have no clue what a CDN is? Interested in streaming your next corporate event live to thousands of people? Then you need to listen to this week’s interview with Alex Lindsay where it’s all about hardware, software and services for streaming online.

HAPPY HOLIDAYS TO ALL

2011-12-25T02:40:00.000-05:00

Have a safe and merry day!

Quick Links

2011-12-24T09:00:00.001-05:00

Low light comparison between the RED Scarlet & Canon C300 | Nino Leitner
| Cinema 5D
Nino does a low light test with the Scarlet and C300, and finds the Scarlet noisier:

4K sounds vastly superior - it’s 4 times the resolution of 1080p. But apart from the computing-heavy post production, there is one other downside to it: light sensitivity. If the pixels sit densely on a chip, they absorb more light, less resolution leaves more light for the individual pixel. The other part of the reason is the fact that the Mysterium-X sensor inside the Scarlet is now around 3-year-old technology. It’s not the most recent tech anymore and light sensitivity is an area where sensor technology seems to improve exponentially in recent years. RED will be bringing a new sensor to market which is supposed to be much better in low light.

DP David Kruta and the Red Epic | Michael Murie | Filmmaker Magazine
After seeing Dave talk about the Epic at a recent Rule Boston Camera event, I interviewed him for Filmmaker Magazine. There's a second part coming where he talks about using the camera on a recent feature film shoot:

Q: There’s been some question about reliability? What’s your take on that?
A. I haven’t had an issue with it. To be honest, I’ve actually had more problems with the Alexa than I have with the Epic, although I’ve used the Alexa about twice as much as the Epic this year.

On the new build that I just installed the other day, it’s a beta build, it’s frozen on me a couple of times. Not during a take, just playing around with the touch screen or going into playback, but otherwise it’s been completely rock solid.

Portland Lens Test 2011 | Ryan E. Walters | Getting Elemental
An extensive test of different lenses that includes observations from other cinematographers:

As a final note I would like to discuss the importance of mechanics when determining your lens selection. As a director of photography we are responsible for both aesthetics and making our days. If we use a set of lenses only for their optics without considering their mechanical properties then we are only doing part of our job when considering which lens to use for that project. For example, If a lens swap requires one additional minute over a mechanically superior lens then over the course of a feature film that may add up to hours of wasted time.

Lens Test | Shane Hurlbut | HurlbutVisuals
Another lens test done with multiple lenses from three manufacturers: Canon, Leica and Zeiss

Overall the Canon glass produced great skin tones and colors. The reds seemed to be slightly more saturated then the other lenses with slight bleed between red and magenta on our color charts. Very sharp images as well from the primes and the zooms were a bit softer. The images were almost too sharp in some cases which caused small amounts of moire in hair especially. Also the Canon lenses tended to breath more than the others.

Editor’s Take on FCPX: Mario Feil | Final Cut Whiz
Part of a series of opinions on Apple’s Final Cut Pro X from different editors. This post is particularly interesting as Mario offers an extensive list of notes from working with the program:

Anyhow, I will continue to work with FCPX because it saved me hours and hours of time and that’s what it’s all about – the best editing software is the one that doesn’t keep you away from working creatively.

Final Cut Pro 7 was very slow at the end, countless hours of rendering to see final results is a pain in the ass. I never liked the huge “unrendered” screen and the red bar above the timeline. It’s great to finally watch footage in the timeline which didn’t need to be rendered to be reviewed.

Letus Follow Focus Overview | Letus Direct | Vimeo
A short video demoing the Letus35 Follow Focus [$758.95]

1:07 Installation
1:59 Positioning the follow focus
2:42 Setup Tips
3:44 Moving the drive gear

Wim Wenders on the Bittersweet Making of His 3-D Pina Bausch Documentary
| Miranda Siegel | NYMag
Interview with Wim Wenders on the film about his friend Pina Bausch, a German choreographer. He explains why - and how - it was shot in 3D:

...it was the answer to twenty years of worrying and questioning and torturing my mind about how to do this film with Pina. That was the solution, I realized. We had finally a new tool, space — and that new tool would allow me to be in the realm of dance, no longer just staring at it. Space, after all, is the dancer's key element: They create space with every step and gesture. In filmmaking, space had always been so fake. You make cameras fall out of windows and put them in cars and helicopters and airplanes, but in the end it was always on a two-dimensional screen. For the first time, I had a tool that wasn’t fake.

The Top 5 Reasons Citizen Kane is Crap | Ron Dawson | Dare Dreamer
A fun little post:

1. Depth of Field. You could sink the Titanic in how deep Wells’ Depth of Field (DoF) is. You would think an auteur like Welles, who’s supposed to know about filmmaking, would know about the importance of a really shallow DoF. Did the word “bokeh” not exist in 1941?

Quick Links

2011-12-23T09:00:00.000-05:00

Kessle takes a new stealth approach to Sliders | Dan Chung | DSLR News Shooter
If you need to be mobile in the field, smaller and lighter is better:

Enter the new Stealth hybrid slider which takes the Pocketdolly’s portability and combines it with drag control and a super smooth rolling precision stainless steel ball bearing wheel system on the carriage. It does not have the crank handle from the Pocketdolly and the overall design is more sleek than previous dollies. It can be used with DSLR as well as larger cameras like the Sony F3 or even some broadcast models.

The Latest OS X Lion Hackintosh Recommendations for Video Editors
| No Film School
Save money, build yourself a Hackintosh:

I recently upgraded my machine to OS X Lion (it’s working great), and so I also updated the guide to reflect an easy way to do it, courtesy Unibeast from Tonymac:
The guide has been updated to reflect the latest hardware recommendations and OS X Lion instructions. My machine’s currently running OS X 10.7.2 flawlessly.

FCP X: Saving Audio Presets | Larry Jordan | Blog
Instructions on how to save custom audio filter settings in both Final Cut Pro X and Soundtrack Pro:

The process is somewhat simpler for Soundtrack Pro because virtually every filter allows saving custom presets. Unlike Final Cut, which applies filters to clips, Soundtrack filters are applied to a track. This means that every clip in the track is modified by that filter.

Conforming and Compositing 'The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo' | Tyler Nelson
| Digital Content Producer
Interesting that it was cut on Final Cut Pro:

Managing data was one of our biggest challenges, especially because we were working with half a dozen different VFX vendors. Kirk [Baxter] and Angus cut the film using Apple Final Cut Pro again, but when it came time to conform the film and create the digital master, we used Adobe After Effects CS5.5 and Adobe Premiere Pro CS5.5 software. We also brought data extracted from [Andersson Technologies] SynthEyes, a third-party 3D tracking program, into After Effects to create a cost-effective, desktop-based stabilization and tracking system.

The Ultimate Sony NEX-FS100 Rig! | jean-philippe archibald | blog
Jean-Philippe wanted a shoulder rig that was perfectly balanced for the NEX-FS100:

So after this tryout, what became obvious to me is there seems to be no off the shelve perfect solution for my utilization. So I started to look at every single component available in the market from every company trying to put together the best rig, for me. I also had to build and modify some parts to suits my needs better. It is definitely not going to work for everyone, but I’m sure my finding might help other building there own rig for there specifications.

How to Make An Animated Title Sequence in Cinema 4D and After Effects
| The Gorilla | GreyScaleGorilla
How to create 3D text titles:

Vimeo asked me to do a tutorial for their excellent Vimeo School series and I said “heck yes!” It’s all about how to make a fun animated title using Cinema 4D and After Effects. In Lesson 1, we build the logo from a vector file and prepare it for render. In part 2, we composite it in After Effects using the built in Tracking Software, lens blur and color correction. Follow along over at Vimeo School or watch it below.

EOSHD GH2 Patch Vault | EOSHD
There may have been problems with the first patches for the GH2 that EOSHD posted. They've now been updated.

cineLook Tutorial | Denver Riddle | Color Grading Central
A tutorial/ad for using Cinelook, a plug-in for Final Cut Pro X:

In this tutorial I cover the features and functionality of cineLook™ for HDSLR’s including a workflow for working with Technicolor’s CineStyle using the “S Curve” that comes with cineLook™.

the rc #104 The year in review | podcast | FXGuide
The final podcast for 2011 covers the year in review, plus anti-aliasing reviews, gear and scandals.

Quick Links

2011-12-22T09:00:00.000-05:00

EOSHD tests the new Magic Lantern Unified on 5D Mark II | Andrew Reid | EOSHD
Testing a beta of the next version of the Magic Lantern firmware hack adds high frame rates and HDR:

HDR video alternatives between low ISO / high ISO frames and then you blend them in post. Brilliant feature. On fast motion you can get a bit of ghosting, I recommend a faster shutter speed to avoid that. More on this feature on EOSHD soon.

Eve Hazelton lighting tutorial two: Using lights around the house to add that extra sparkle | Philip Bloom Blog
Eve offers some interesting, low cost, ideas for lighting:

#2 – Fairy lights! It’s Christmas. Don’t try stealing them off the tree just yet, but do go bag yourself some in the sale to keep in your lighting kit. We all know Phil loves a bit of Bokeh! and when you are shooting at a shallow DOF with these lights in the background its easy to see why! The beautiful out of focus discs of light can add colour, interest and of course movement (gentle twinkling of the lights – I’m not talking disco! – eeek!)

I don’t want to be an AE anymore! | Kyra Coffie
| The Avid Assistant Editor's Handbook
While there's no one sure way to make the transition from assistant editor to editor, this post looks at some common aspects of the journey. Most of this applies to any creative work:

Becoming a crunch time editor sorta falls into the luck category because some company is looking for someone at that moment and they can’t find anyone and take a chance on you and you know you can do it, but they don’t know that yet. You impress them with your editing chops and all of a sudden you are an editor. That has happened a few times to people that I know and you just have to be in the right place at the right time.

Five Things Professional Creatives Need in Their Contracts | Ron Dawson
| Dare Dreamer
Contracts? Who needs contracts?! Some interesting advice here; I wish someone had told me about defining revisions years ago; would have saved me a lot of frustration on more than a few projects:

Revisions. How many revisions of the project are included in the original fee? What is the cost for editing time for any changes afterwards? I can’t tell you how many times I’ve read on forums or Facebook groups about videographers dealing with clients who want so many changes it will be ten hours worth of work. If you have a paragraph like this already in place, you can refer to it when they start listing all the changes.

GoPro Timelapse Commute to Federal Court | Rick Macomber | Vimeo
Short video shot with a GoPro HERO2 camera:

So I wanted to do a fun test with my GoPro Hero as I was hurdling toward Federal Court on a breaking story of a jury verdict coming down on a man charged with terrorism. It usually takes me about 45 minutes to get to Boston from Salem but with one photo taken at 4 second intervals it only took about 34 seconds! And just like the good ol' days, Federal Court still allows media to pull right up on the sidewalk!

Sony: 4k from Lens to Living Room | John Sciacca | Blog
Sony has the studio, the cameras, the projectors and the TVs; but they really expect us to buy a new Bluray player?!

But, your current Blu-ray player isn’t going to play any of these new 4K discs. When I posed this question to Sony execs at CEDIA, they responded that moving to 4K is beyond a simple firmware kick-in-the-pants upgrade but rather will require getting a new player; just as when someone wanted to add 3D enjoyment capability

After Effects Tuorials
A couple of After Effects Tutorials:
Photoshop and AE: Refine Edge Command and 3-D Motion Control
| Richard Harrington | Blog

In this installment of PS and AE, Richard Harrington shows to use Adobe Photoshop and After Effects together to get great 3D extrusion. He'll take some photos and split them out into 3D space, as well as use the Refine Edge command and the content-aware fill option to quickly build your layers to pop out and move around in the 3D camera.

Isolating a Subject with Roto Brush | Video2Brain
A 12 minute video (it's free, from part of "Adobe After Effects CS5: Learn by Video", which is not free):

Rather than using conventional, tedious rotoscoping, you can apply Roto Brush strokes to a layer to make a background transparent and isolate a foreground subject. You'll also see how to use the Refine Matte properties to improve the result, place the isolated foreground subject over a copy of the original layer, and apply an effect to only the foreground layer to obscure a face with the Mosaic effect.

“Swede Fest” Celebrates Low Budget Film Remakes in Video | Richard Ober
| Videomaker
Be Kind Rewind was a fun movie, though the idea was maybe funnier than some of the actual execution. I'm not sure I'd want to sit through an entire Swede Fest...

Swede Fest was launched in Fresno, California in 2008 and is held there and in Tampa, Florida, every six months. While it is a film festival, it’s like no other film festival you’ve ever seen, or entered. As described on the Swede Fest website: “Swede Fest is the only film festival dedicated to sweded films. A sweded film is a summarized, low-budget recreation of a popular movie, starring you!” The organizers go on to say about sweding that “it’s a great way to promote filmmaking in your community. Anyone can make a swede, it’s easy and a lot of fun!”

Quick Links

2011-12-21T09:00:00.000-05:00

Sony FS100 Prime lens vs Zoom lens | Shawn Lam | Blog
Shawn continues his lens testing with a comparison of the Minolta MD Rokkor-X 50mm f/1.4 prime lens and the Sony SAL1650 DT 16-50mm f/2.8 wide angle zoom lens:

I saw a very slight advantage for the prime lens at f/2.8 in both sharpness and contrast but not much of a difference afterwards. The prime was also a bit more consistent when it came to light transmission across the different exposures. I was also interested to see the depth of field differences at the various f-stops.

14 Cameras in one year Part TWO | Philip Johnston | HD Warrior
The second part of a look back at 14 interesting cameras released this year:

Panasonic HDC Z10000
I first saw this 3D camcorder at IBC 2011 and it had an impressive number of features for the money. 3D is not for everyone but if you are looking at a semi pro 3D camcorder this must be one of your choices.

Get Your Free Copy of “Becoming the Reel Deal” | Evan Luzi | The Black And Blue
If you're interested in working as a camera operator, then Evan's The Black And Blue blog is indespensible, and now he has an electronic book he's giving away for free:

Becoming the Reel Deal covers topics such as duties within the camera department, film school, resumes, and how to leverage opportunities to your advantage.
While I can’t promise you’ll instantly get a job when you finish reading it, if you follow my advice, I can guarantee you will put yourself in a better position for long-term success.
This isn’t about getting one gig — it’s about launching a career.

Breaking In | Alex Walker | Wide Open Camera
A short post on thoughts on how to get into any creative business:

I’ll tell you how I managed. Just share your work. It doesn’t matter how you feel about it, just do your absolute best no matter what and share your experiences online. It doesn’t work to just upload to vimeo or youtube; you need to advertise. Make connections with camera blogs and equipment manufacturers, collaborate with fellow filmmakers, write articles, etc.

Editing Tip: Working With Bad Footage | Jackson Wong | Videomaker
This short article has some basic tips on dealing with bad video and audio, and points to more detailed articles:

As for the sound of your given footage, this may be the most important part to fix. Clean audio can save the day, and that’s exactly what you’ll want to do, clean up the audio. Most editing programs have low-cut or high-pass filters, and these can be used to automatically adjust the tones in the video. To adjust specific sounds, look for digital noise reduction.

Post-processing in the digital age: Photojournalists and 10b Photography
| Olivier Laurent | British Journal of Photography
They don't do retouching, but they do, do image manipulation. For documentary/new reporting, is that okay? A good reminder of how changing the contrast/coloring of an image can increase an image's impact.

10b is quick to point out that it is not a retouching firm. The term is often associated with Photoshop experts, who are hired to alter the look and shape of fashion icons, for example. So when it comes to defining Palmisano's role, it can get tricky. Is he a "digital photo editor", a "Photoshop editor" or a "post-producer"? "Post-producer semantically belongs to the world of video-making and sounds a little too vague," says Valentina Tordoni of 10b.

10,000fps!? - The Slow Mo Guys | TheSlowMoGuys | YouTube
A cup breaking at 500 fps through 10,000 fps, shot with the Phantom Flex. Notice the use of sound effects in this video...

Lighting With Home Depot Lights: Part 2 | Shane Hurlbut | Blog
Lighting with a budget light package:

The Cinematography interns and I grabbed our Hardware Store Action Packer and set out on our minimal lighting mission. “What do you want to key him with?” I asked. Derek held up a cool white florescent trouble light. “I like it.” We will make General Taylor a little green. We taped that to a C-stand and armed it out overhead to mimic a desk lamp. I said, “we will need some fill.” We just happened to have another one of these which we rigged back slightly camera right. What are we missing?

Canon 600D and latest Magic Lantern hack to bring adjustable frame rates & HDR video | Andrew Reid | EOSHD
Magic Lantern is a firmware hack for Canon DSLRs, and a new version adds new features:

I am really impressed with the way the Canon DSLR hack – Magic Lantern – has recently been progressing. Enabling video on cameras that didn’t have a video mode is a miracle in itself! (50D). Putting all the settings into a menu system on the camera rather than in a Windows app like PTools with the GH2 hack – also pretty good. As well as higher bitrate recording, ML has evolved to give us ISO 12,800 recording, peaking, crop marks, false colour, zebras and now even variable frame rates.

A Letter to Stanley Kubrick about the Newly Invented Steadicam | FilmmakerIQ
Very cool, the letter sent to Stanley Kubrick alerting him to the Steadicam:

The operator can run and the camera moves through the air as if held on a string from above. I saw a roll of film this morning shot by Haskel where the operator sits on a crane – the crane comes down the the ground, the operator gets of the seat and walks away, no cut. Not only will this thing safe[sic] a lot of money and time by avoiding tracks, but you could do shots and think of shots which would not enter your mind otherwise.

Cinemek Storyboard Composer HD | Cinemek | iTunes
This storyboard application for the iPad 2 is currently 50% off; it's $14.99, down from $29.99.

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2011-12-20T09:00:00.002-05:00

An Affordable Remote Controlled Time-lapse Camera | Richard Harrington
| 3 Exposure
Using the ContourGPS camera for timelapses? That's not something I would have thought of doing!

The unit is very small (95x58x34mm) and can easily be attached to a variety of mounting points. It’s also super light, weighing just over five ounces.
It has good battery life at 2.5 hours, plus you can swap batteries in it for a longer day.
For its size, it offers a capable 5 Megapixel Sensor.

Book Review: Rotoscoping: Techniques and Tools for the Aspiring Artist
| Nick C Sorbin | Renderosity
I always been intrigued by rotoscoping; and Rotoscoping: Techniques and Tools for the Aspiring Artist looks interesting:

Modern rotoscoping, which is still the same basic concept, is used to create mattes, by which parts of a live action scene can be isolated in order to insert effects, color correct, hide rigs or wires, etc. As rotoscoping is a crucial part of any video production today, so is the importance of the job of a roto artist, both in skill and efficiency. There are a number of outstanding tools available today to handle roto work, but the roto artist still needs to refine his or her own skills to use these to the fullest. This is where a book like the wonderful Rotoscoping: Techniques and Tools for the Aspiring Artist, by Benjamin Bratt, comes in very handy.

Shootout in the snow – Sony A65 vs Panasonic GH2 vs Canon 600D | Andrew Reid
| EOSHD
Comparison of three different cameras:

Sony’s new sensor in the NEX 7, A77 and A65 is considered down Tokyo way as their best yet until the new full frame ones come along in 2012. I loved the ‘middle range’ one in the NEX 5N because it hadn’t taken an overdose at the Hacienda of megapixels. But I certainly feel colour and gradation are more life-like and smoother on the A65 compared to the NEX 5N and Canon 600D. In some areas the A65 outperforms the hacked GH2, mainly in the shadows and highlights.

Quick FS100 Picture Profile Test | Paul Antico | Vimeo
Paul posts a short test with the NEX-FS100 equivalent of S-Log (sort-of):

Using Frank Glencairn's profiles. G-Log A (graded) is quite nice though I haven't tried it outside much yet. I swear it bought more range though I could just be losing my mind. It certainly brought more latitude in grading. For example, I was able to raise the shadows and still have detail in the mids in highs. The more standard profiles don't allow for as much change; they start to fall apart earlier. The highlight on my head doesn't blow up as badly on G-LOG as with the other profiles either.

GH2 vs EX3 stills... | bwhitz | Personal View Talks
Low light comparison stills taken with the GH2 and the much more expensive, but older and small-sensor based Sony EX3:

In my personal interpretation, I say the GH2 resolves a bit more detail. But they are very close. Both are true 1080p cams. Whoever was saying the GH2 could only resolve 600 lines was out of his mind. 600 lines is even below a 7D.

Epic X un-boxing and 300fps test | MarkyMark662 | YouTube
An amusing "unboxing" video:

Finally 300 frames works on my Epic! We documented the un-boxing and first booting the camera.

Saul Bass's storyboards for the Psycho shower scene | CUA
A series of storyboards by Saul Bass. There's also a new book on Bass' title desings Saul Bass: A Life in Film

Saul Bass prepared storyboards for the shower scene, and was on the set during at least part of the filming. After Hitchcock's death, Bass asserted that he had directed the scene at Hitchcock's invitation--a claim definitively contradicted by both Janet Leigh and Assistant Director Hilton Green. Bass's partisans have subsequently held that Hitchcock merely mechanically filmed shots already laid out by Bass.

What The Business Of Video Will Look Like In 2012 | Steven Rosenbaum
| Fast Company
What's in store for the video business next year?

My prediction is that YouTube won't go out of the UGC business; in fact, it will be the exact opposite. I think you'll see more creative ways to monetize YouTube, including new partnerships with portal players, third-party ad units, and the emergence of important sponsorship and co-branded pages. It's unclear if YouTube will build these offerings, buy them, or partner with others to provide them.

The perfect SCARLET-X rig - buyers guide | Sebastian | Cinema5D
A selection of gear for kitting out a Scarlet-X:

I've decided to go public with this, after all inside the community we can achieve much more than alone. We're getting a Scarlet-X and someone said we'll be one of the first. I'm looking for the perfect configuration to present on the website. Perfect in terms of usability, compability for filmmakers coming from DSLR, versatility, lightweight and "affordable" (all this stuff is so f....ing expensive, DSLR is so much cheaper).
Second priority is suitability for rental targeted at low budget productions.

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2011-12-19T09:00:00.003-05:00

Four Minutes With ‘The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo’ | Gavin Edwards
| New York Times
Editors Angus Wall and Kirk Baxter with director David Fincher discuss a scene from the movie:

To illuminate that job, and the trio’s ongoing collaboration, we asked Fincher, Baxter and Wall to break down a four-minute sequence that occurs early in “Dragon Tattoo.” The narrative set-up: The journalist Mikael Blomkvist (Daniel Craig) is visiting the aging industrialist Henrik Vanger (Christopher Plummer), who is asking him to investigate a decades-old mystery involving his niece Harriet. Blomkvist agrees to listen, reluctantly, though he is determined to catch his 4:30 train. And ... action.

Nela | Sebastian Wiegärtner | Vimeo
Oh my! This is probably the first baby video shot with the Canon C300!

Short film about my baby girl Nela, which I shot on her first day on planet earth (18th December 2011). Love my girls Eva, Annabelle and Nela. x
Camera:
Canon C300 Pre Production Model
C-Log 720/50 frames per second

Sony FS100 - Fiddling with Picture Profile | Sam Morgan Moore | Vimeo
Experimenting with different picture profiles and the NEX-FS100:

My rough conclusion goes like this..

You are going to have to let your specular highlights blow
Exposing the majority of your image correctly yields best results
Battle contrast using lights, reflectors, and defocus your highlights with a wide TStop
I think the best profiles are gained when being reasonable

Red: The Camera That Changed Hollywood | Lee Gomes | Technology Review
A look at the history of Red:

Digital movie cameras were already on the market when the Red team began their work. But the image quality of early digital cameras was nowhere near what was required for a feature movie. Quality was improving—but Jannard wanted his first model to leapfrog past all current digital cameras and exceed the strictest performance specs, even for film.

Time Re-mapping Footage in Adobe Premiere Pro | Richard Harrington
| Creative COW
A video tutorial on changing clip speed in Premiere Pro:

In this tutorial for the Premiere Pro Video Adrenaline series, Richard Harrington talks about how to control time inside Premiere Pro. There are many options to change the speed of clips, including the rate stretch tool, time remapping to achieve a variable speed value, and using After Effects own remapping abilities to fine tune your results.

Freelance. To Incorporate Or Not | Jared Abrams | Wide Open Camera
Interesting tax advice on incorporating (as an individual you can write stuff off your taxes too...though as a corp you will avoid having to have withholding out of what someone pays you...)

The first hurdle in incorporating is getting your accountant’s blessing. Many accountants will tell you “it’s not worth it” or “You don’t make enough to justify incorporating” That is just fooey! They either don’t have the program to deal with corporations or they don’t want to get it. Luckily mine was totally on board and suggested establishing an S-Corp. S-Corps are fairly easy to maintain with only one yearly filing and an update of the list of officers. I decided to go with Nevada because of the killer tax laws there. It will be up to you to decide where to incorporate.

Paramount Pictures Celebrates 100 Years With A New Logo | imjustcreative
The new logo isn't that interesting, but hey - Paramount is 100! I always thought the Raiders of the Lost Ark was the best use of the logo...

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2011-12-18T10:00:00.000-05:00

DIY Indie Air Cannons | Realm Pictures | Vimeo
Very cool little tutorial video showing how to create a practical effect explosion with an inexpensive air canon. They are also offering some other tutorials:

For a tutorial on how to create your own DIY compressed air cannon like the one shown in the video, along with 9 other action tutorials, skip along to our KickStarter page and pick up the Indie Action Pack!

The Ultimate Guide to a Camera Assistant’s Toolkit | Evan Luzi | The Black And Blue
Another interesting article at The Black And Blue about putting together a toolkit:

For me, I started out working heavily with the RED One on feature films. As such, my initial toolbag purchase was catered towards that kind of work. Nowadays I have been working a lot on commercials that use DSLR’s. Many of the tools I had acquired to work with the RED don’t have functions while shooting with a DSLR. On the flipside, many of the basic tools I have work in both types of gigs.

Build A Jib From 5 Pieces of Scrap | DIY Photography
I started building a jib like this about a year ago and never finished. Maybe it's time to get to work again:

Jibs can bring huge production value to your videos. See this tutorial by J. P. Morgan for example. Alas they don't come cheap. A small starters jib will set you back about $270 and a production monster like this one will be about a left kidney.

I just wish someone will have plans for a small and affordable crane. Lucky me you. Videographer Dan Colvin from Unitips has a tutorial just like this.

Seagate and Western Digital cutting hard drive warranties in 2012 | Adi Robertson | The Verge
Hard drive warranties are coming down...it appears:

This isn't the first time hard drive companies have announced across-the-board warranty cuts — an article from 2002 shows almost the same changes, with the same explanation that Seagate and WD are bringing their warranties in line with those of similar computer components. It even included the extended warranty fees that Western Digital promised in its latest announcement.

Introduction to SpeedGrade | Colin Smith | Adobe.TV
Adobe recently acquired the grading software SpeedGrade. In this video tutorial, Colin Smith demos the software:

Colin is very excited to show you the newly acquired film finishing and color grading application SpeedGrade from IRIDAS. SpeedGrade contains powerful finishing tools to import EDLs from any editing environment and from there, conform, color grade and render out to multiple formats.

EOSHD releases hacked GH2 patches and film modes | EOSHD
Different patches for the GH2?

Are you mystified by the sheer amount of patches and settings out there for the hacked GH2? I certainly am. Well there is a saying that has served me well in the past – if you want something doing properly, do it yourself! I have been working on my own patches. I’ve optimised these as well as the film modes and I shoot with them on my own work. I believe them to be the most optimal patches and film modes for the best image quality currently possible on the GH2 – at least to my eye.

Brendan Galvin Creates An "Immortal" Look | Panavision
Interview with Cinematographer Brian Galvin, primarily about working with Panavision lenses:

Q: Do you have a different approach in how you shoot anamorphic vs. spherical?
BG: I know anamorphic lenses are faster than they used to be, but I like a little more depth in anamorphic, unless it’s for a specific storytelling point. I am very practical when it comes to work, so there are certain considerations: like how available are the lenses where you are shooting? I want good equipment that works. One thing about anamorphic is people like the flares you get which you don’t get in spherical, and if that’s required, I prefer to do it in camera. I’ve never shot anamorphic digitally.

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2011-12-17T10:00:00.000-05:00

When You Find Me – Awesome Canon C300 / 5D Short Film | Paul Joy | Blog
Canon had a competition where they invted people to submit photographs and Ron Howard would shoot a movie based on those pictures. Originally the movie was supposed to be shot on DSLRs, but evidently mush of it was shot on the C300. You can see it on the web at YouTube: Project Imagin8ion

I’ve not seen any details from Canon confirming that camera that were used on the film but it’s widely reported that a prototype of the Canon C300 was the main camera with some HDSLR’s being used as well. I’ll update this post when more info comes to light.

“Sugared Art”, a new short film on the Sony FS100 | Philip Bloom | Blog
Sony hired Philip for this project. You can read about it, and see some BTS footage, though Philip notes he was'nt a very happy camper because he'd put his back out the day before:

Gear wise, obviously the FS100 and Zeiss ZF macro lenses 50mm and 100mm. The Zeiss ZF 50mm and 85mm F1.4 too. I widest lens I used was the Samyang 35mm F1.4. So no wide angles in this piece! Lights were the Litepanel 1x1s. One bi-colour and 1 bi-focus. One Dedo 150. One 2k light blasting through the window for the baking shots. The monitor was my trust TV Logic 5.6″.

First Look at the $10K RED Scarlet X Camera | Jon Snyder | Wired
This isn't a review, just a note that they got their hands on one to review:

The good people at RED came by the office today and gave us a new Scarlet X to mess around with. It takes gorgeous, über-HD video at 4096 x 2160. It’s also their cheapest offering, coming in at around $10k, depending on options.

RED EPIC-X Now Available for Ordering, SCARLET-X Increasing in Price by $2K
| No Film School
Better hurry and order that Scarlet-X; the price is going up!

So, let’s do the math: the Aluminum mount is $500 (you can’t buy it by itself, only as part of a SCARLET package for the time being). The Side SSD Module is $1,500. All told, the SCARLET is effectively going up by $1,950 (you’re no longer getting $2,000 of accessories bundled in the base model, but you save a whopping $50).

Sony A65 first impressions review – documentary shooting evolves | Andrew Reid
| EOSHD
That's the A65, not the F65!! And the first half of the article wonders why you'd want to use the camera in the first place:

But still that burning question – why does the A65 deserve a place in your bag when the GH2 is just so damned good? The GH2 is more adaptable to different lenses, it has been hacked into the stratosphere codec wise, it has by far the cleanest image from a stills CMOS sensor, the best image processor in class and the most ‘real’ resolution of any DSLR video offering.

Engadget Primed: Why your camera's sensor size matters | Sean Arbabi | Engadget
An in-depth look at sensors and sensor size, and why - in most cases - size matters:

DxOmark considers 9EVs or less too limiting for image sensors, showing less than smooth gradations between shades and colors below this level. Leaf -- a digital back manufacturer that entered the market in 1992 and partnered with Phase One in 2009 -- claims its latest full frame 53.7 x 40.3mm sensor can cover an "unsurpassed 12 f–stop dynamic range."

10 Tips for the Best Holiday Video | Jennifer O'Rourke | Videomaker
Some tips for those year-end memories you never get around to editing:

Soft twinkle lights and candle-light are everywhere during winter holidays – take advantage of their soft glow to get some artistic cutaways. Pre-focus on the light then shooting from a distance [too close will blow our your shot] slowly zoom in. As you zoom into the light[s] or candle, slowly rack the focus ring to take the shot out of focus, being careful to not jerk the camera. This shot is best done using a tripod.

Roger Deakins, ASC, BSC adopts digital capture on the sci-fi thriller In Time
| American Cinematographer
Article includes interview with Deakins about using the ARRI Alexa for the movie In Time:

“The Alexa is a game-changer,” Deakins maintains. “This moment has been coming for a long time, really, but with the Alexa I believe digital has finally surpassed film in terms of quality. What is quality? It’s really in the eye of the viewer, but to me, the Alexa’s tonal range, color space and latitude exceed the capabilities of film. This is not to say that I don’t still love film — I do. I love its texture and grain, but in terms of speed, resolution and clarity of image, there is no question in my mind that the Alexa produces a better image.

PMW-F3 and Samurai Codec Tests | Ingenious TV | Vimeo
Sample clips posted shot in S-Log:

These are a few test shots done with a PMW-F3. The F3 was set to S-Log. First you will see the shots in their original size with a slight grade/correction effect applied half way through each clip. The colour correction filter used is exactly the same for both the internal recordings and the Samurai recordings. The third set of clips are side by side crops of selected parts of the image where you should be able to clearly see the differences between the images.

The Christmas mini shootout with the C300 (pre-production), F3, FS100, hacked GH2 and more!! | Philip Bloom | Blog
Philip is updating this post as he goes...he's already posted some frame grabs.

Xto7 for Final Cut Pro | Assisted Editing | iTunes
This new Mac App translates the Final Cut Pro X Project XML (fcpxml) and converts it for import into Final Cut Pro 7. The Final Cut Pro X Project becomes a Final Cut Pro 7 Sequence.