Notes On Video

Colorist Rob Bessette of Finish Post presents an overview on the art of color correction with a step-by-step look at the finer points of Black Magic Design's DaVinci Resolve : WED: June 27th, 10:00am - 12noon RSVP: events@rule.com

Canon 1D X Has Sharper Video Image Than The 5D MKIII – Comparison Video | Dan Chung | DSLR News Shooter Note that this is the $6,799 1D X he's talking about, not the upcoming 4K 1D C ; does anyone else get the naming of these cameras confused? : Quite what Canon engineers have done here is unclear to me but I suspect that the fact that the 1D X uses a 18 megapixel sensor versus the 5D mkIII’s 22.3 MP one makes a difference. They may simply have come up with a better video processing algorithm or perhaps there is just a different default level of sharpening (as zero on the camera’s menu is a purely arbitrary calibration anyway). I think that there is more to it than sharpening though as there are no signs of halos or other negative effects. Canon EOS C300/C300 PL Cinema EOS Camera Firmware Version 1.0.6.1.00 | The Digital-Picture Canon rolls out a minor firmware update for the C300 : Genlock synchronization can now be used to synchronize the camera’s 24.00P, 24.00PsF, 23.9...

Blackmagic Cinema Camera: Can It Run with the Big Boys | Marco Solorio | Creative COW A look at the upcoming Blackmagic camera, focusing on green screen work: I seriously cannot wait to start shooting serious chromakey footage with this camera. For this application, DSLR cameras aren't even in the city of the ballpark this game is playing in. I dare think a Sony F3 or Canon C300 is even in the parking lot. For chromakey production, can this little $3000 camera play at a level with the likes of ARRI Alexa, RED Epic, and the Sony F65? From what it reads on paper, it sure does seem like it and seems like fair game. Time will tell once serious chromakey productions are lined up. Drobo 5D Introduction | Drobo | YouTube Drobo announced a couple of new drives today, the 5D for desktop use, and the Mini for mobile use. Both add support for Thunderbolt.  The 5D has two Thunderbolt ports and one USB 3.0 port, will cost under $850 and the release date will be announced in July: L...

A Guide to Permits for Filming in Difficult Locations | Marcee Miller | Artbeats Blog Advice for shooting in public - and non-pubic - spaces. 1-A. Start early. Some park permits can take six weeks! 1. Research – what is worth shooting in the city/location of choice? 2. More research – where are the subjects located? Are they private or public? Are they going to be part of a street scene or panorama, or will they be the subject of the shot? Sony NEX-FS700 is shipping? B & H still says that the NEX-FS700 is expected to ship in July , but Peter Crithary of Sony tweeted that some are already shipping: NEX-FS700 cameras begin shipping....now! 10+ steps to becoming mega successful in video production and probably winning many awards whilst becoming super rich!! | Philip Bloom | Blog Philip explains how to be a success: 2: The work will not come to you. Sitting around waiting for that big break if about as likely as winning the lottery. No matter how well received your s...

Canon EOS 5D Mark III Firmware 1.1.3 | CanonRumors The firmware update adds some fixes for several lenses, as well as: Fixes a phenomenon in which an image may become underexposed when using the Auto Lighting Optimizer for continuous Auto Exposure Bracketing (AEB) shooting. Fixes a phenomenon in which the backlight of the LCD monitor may not turn off depending on the camera settings and timing. Fixes a phenomenon in which the camera’s power may not turn on when a super-telephoto lens*1) is mounted to the camera with an extender*2). DSLR Case Study: Lie With Me | HD Magazine Director Jamison Brandi explains how he went about shooting his feature with the Canon 7D : “We were not going to spend thousands of dollars a day on all the Prime lenses so we came up with a plan to cover our shooting range. We decided to use the Canon zoom lenses, the 24-70mm and the 70-200m. We didn’t want them as zoom lenses but were going to set them at certain focal lengths and use them as Primes l...

This weeks Rule Boston Camera looks to be an interesting one with hand-on with the TS3Cine High-Speed camera: SUPER SLO-MO FIELD TRIP WITH THE TS3CINE HIGH-SPEED CAMERA See the portable and affordable TS3Cine high-speed, high-resolution camera in action along the Charles River. Meet at Rule for a quick intro and head across the street for a live shoot (weather permitting--otherwise, indoors). Time : 10am to 12noon with Breakfast RSVP : events@rule.com Showroom Demo at 12noon :Sound Devices PIX 240 Video Recorder with Haley Parizo.

Reader Ross Hunter dropped me a note last week about a problem he had encountered after updating Final Cut Pro X with a project crashing. He outlines the issue below, along with the solution he found [Note:  this is an amalgam of a couple of emails ] Final Cut Pro X has been crashing for me when trying to open one particular project since the update. At first I was unable to open one of my projects. FCPX would crash every time. Other projects opened normally. Finally after digging through the crash log, I saw it was having trouble with a Motion project. I removed the Motion project and FCP would then open normally. But it later crashed during rendering. I had earlier deleted all render files thinking they might be the culprit. The backup file behaved the same way as the current project file. The suspect Motion project also crashes motion. I've done the standard trashing of preferences, then render files, but the crashing persists. There are other similar repor...

CANON U.S.A. LAUNCHES NEW PROGRAM  TO BENEFIT FILM INDEPENDENT FILMMAKERS  AT THE 2012 LOS ANGELES FILM FESTIVAL LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA, June 18, 2012 – Canon U.S.A., Inc., a leader in digital imaging solutions, today launched the new Canon Filmmaker Award Program in partnership with Film Independent, the non-profit arts organization that produces the Spirit Awards and the Los Angeles Film Festival. Open to eligible Film Independent Fellows, Los Angeles Film Festival alumni, and Spirit Awards Nominees and Winners, the program is designed to help emerging filmmakers ‘leave no story untold.’ Winners of the Canon Filmmaker Award Program will be lent a Canon Cinema EOS C300 camera package to create their next feature length narrative or documentary film, or in special cases, short films. Announced quarterly over the next year, the application process for the Fall Period opens today and will accept submissions until August 1, 2012. All applications are to be submitted via th...

LAFF 2012: Cinedigm's Chris McGurk Predicts a Digital-Driven Indie Film Renaissance | Gregg Kilday | Hollywood Reporter Thoughts on the positives of digital distribution: McGurk, whose Cinedigm offers alternative programming to theater owners, argued that “narrowcasting” is part of the solution. And instead of holding out for a 500-theater wide release, he suggested, filmmakers should follow the example of a film like Margin Call, which combined a VOD release with a more limited theatrical roll-out. Into the fire with FCP X | Oliver Peters | digitalfilms Oliver documents his experience using Final Cut Pro X on a real-world project: If you work with a lot of different FCP X jobs, you quickly learn that there is no internal way to manage different clients’ work. You either have to move these files manually from the Final Cut Events and Final Cut Projects folders to an “inactive” folder(s) – or you have to use a utility like Event Manager X. Gareth Evans – Fighting Spirit ...

John Brawley on the Blackmagic Cinema Camera | @brawlster | Twitter John is playing with pre-production Blackmagic Cinema Camera footage. The footage is embargoed, but he has posted some comments on Twitter : Ok. Just looked at the first ProRes log clips from the #BMCC in Resolve and they are freaking awesome. Mind blown What's awesome about the log ProRes clips is that they have an awful lot of range in the grade. Revenge of the Great Zacuto Shootout Part 1 – Review | Andrew Reid | EOSHD Andrew goes through all the camera footage, offering his thoughts - and some guesses on identity - on the performance of each: Zacuto’s 2012 shootout is off to an compelling start. Despite that I have some suggestions to make it even better. I’d like to see fewer sound bites, rather, for the cinematography experts to speak a little longer. I’d happily watch an hour long episode and get the full flow of their wisdom. I’d like for there not to be such a large gap between episodes. 1 month...

Just for fun, I ran the blog through URLAI and got the following results: Text analysis notesonvideo.blogspot.com is probably written by a male somewhere between 36-50 years old. The writing style is academic and happy most of the time. Gender Ranking notesonvideo.blogspot.com is the 85th most manly blog of 3227 ranked. Mood Ranking notesonvideo.blogspot.com is the 271th most happy blog of 3227 ranked. I guess I'm surprised it rates so manly & happy!

We just purchased Adobe CS6 Production Premium through a reseller, and they sent us an Adobe Software License Certificate with the Serial Number for the package. We were told to download the software from Adobe’s site. I logged into Adobe’s website, and figured that the first thing I would do is add the software to the list of products we had registered. (I also thought that this section would provide a link for downloading the software.) I went to the “My Products & Services” page, clicked the button to add software, entered the serial number … and it told me it was an invalid serial number. After some time wondering about what to do next, and reading three FAQ documents that covered invalid serial numbers - they seemed to be linked in a never-ending circle - I connected to the Online Chat to ask them what to do. This turned out to be a confusing and somewhat frustrating adventure. The following is an edited transcript; I have inserted some commentary to let you know what ...

The last few weeks I've had the good fortune of trying out a couple of newer versions of things I already own; specifically the LansBaby Composer , and now the Glidecam HD-1000  [$389.00] I bought a Glidecam 1000 Pro over ten years ago, so it's interesting to see what's the same, and what's been improved when comparing it to one of their latest stabilizers. The old 1000 Pro is looking a little rough,  particularly with it's washers rather than nicely machined base and weights.  Note too: the sled on the 1000 is not the original! The gimbal, which is perhaps the most important moving part, appears to be little changed. Maybe it's different internally, but it's hard to tell; it seems to work the same way. What has changed is almost every other part of the device. The arm that attaches the handle to the gimbal is a solid machined piece, rather than a strip of bent metal. The foot and weights are also now nicely machined, not simply a bent metal plate and ...

8 Tips: Making Silent Films Today | Karlanna Lewis | Raindance This article suggests that making a silent movie is a great way to build skills: 4. Camera and Set Because visual elements are the core of silent movies, camera quality is crucial. Set also plays an important role in the story, so consider contrasting locations to follow the plotline and using existing locations since background noise does not matter. Canon announces EOS-1D X release date | Christopher MacManus | C|net The 4K DSLR is coming, though in limited quantities: Talking to Imaging Resource, a Canon U.S. representative said that "the EOS-1D X cameras will be arriving in mid-June to select dealers in small quantities and increase gradually over time. They will be here in time for the Olympics and will be available." Exclusive preview of Zacuto’s Revenge Of the Great Camera Shootout | Philip Bloom | Blog As luck would have it, they showed the film in Boston last night; unfortunately, I was unabl...

Download Autodesk Smoke 2013 Pre-Release Trial | AutoDesk The pre-release trial of Smoke 2013 is now available: Enjoy this free* Autodesk trial until September 15, 2012. ...we will send out updated versions of the trial, helpful tips and tricks, instructional how-to videos, and more via email. And if you want to learn how to use Smoke , check out these tutorials: Smoke Learning Channel | SmokeHowTos | YouTube If you are new to Autodesk Smoke 2013, follow the movies in this Getting Started playlist and learn the basics. Topics include project creation, media management, editing, timeline FX and Connect FX node-based compositing. We strongly advise you to view these movies in sequence, from first to last, before moving to more advanced topics in other playlists. Video Encoding Presets for Kindle Fire, Nook, iPad and Android Tablets | Danny Greer | PremiumBeat Presets for Adobe Media Encoder for the Apple iPad , Amazon Kindle Fire , Barnes and Noble Nook , and other tablets ...

Canon C300 Tips for DSLR Filmmakers | Ron Dawson | Dare Dreamer Ron offers some tips for using the C300 : The C300 comes with shutter speed defaulted to shutter angles. So instead of setting the speed manually to 1/48, you choose a shutter angle of 180, and it’ll make the correct shutter speed adjustment for you. But, if for whatever reason you want to achieve a different look and need to change the shutter speed, but you’re not familiar with dealing in “angles,” you can change the C300 setup to display shutter speed. Canon EOS-1D X Manual Posted | CanonRumors The manual for the upcoming Canon EOS-1D X is now available online Apple announced - as well as didn't announce - several updates today: Apple quietly discontinues the 17-inch MacBook Pro | Nathan Ingraham | The Verge ...the company quietly did away with one of the long-standing veterans of its notebook lineup: the 17-inch MacBook Pro is no longer available. You can still buy a refurbished model on Apple'...

Canon EOS Rebel T4i | TJ Donegan | Digital Camera Info The first review of the new Canon is already up: The major improvement to AF is seen in live view shooting and video recording. In either mode on most DSLRs, the normal method of phase detection autofocus is not available, forcing the camera to rely on contrast-detection AF. With the T4i’s new image sensor, the camera has a hybrid phase/contrast detection system available in the middle of the frame, combining with Canon’s new stepping motor lenses to provide smooth, silent autofocus tracking to the subject. It starts at the camera | Oliver Peters | digitalfilms Interesting thoughts about not relying on how well modern cameras handle bad lighting: All too often though, producers take the “fix it in post” mantra way too seriously. Since modern cameras offer excellent low light sensitivity, the basics of good lighting and proper art direction get short-changed. If the director, DP and lighting crew are allowed a bit of time to...

I'm going to come right out and say it: I wasn't that impressed by the movie Prometheus . The movie was nicely shot, the acting was good, effects mostly believable, and it moved along quickly, so you didn't have to dwell so much on the problems with the story. But seriously... It's hard to believe that anyone - including eccentric trillionaires - would finance an expedition staffed by such amateurs. For those who don't know, Prometheus is about a bunch of alleged scientists sent on a secret mission to investigate the possibility of aliens on another planet. Aliens who might have had contact with humans in the past. Unfortunately, I think some of these "scientists" might have lied about their backgrounds, or were judged experts only because they had appeared on CNN. In a nod to Alien , there's a brief hint that some of the crew are dissatisfied with the money they are receiving, but that doesn't become a major plot point. My major complai...