Notes On Video

Mocha Last night was the latest  Boston Creative Pro User Grou p meeting. This meeting featured three separate presentations, and in the first one  Ross Shain of Imagineer Systems talked about - and demoed - Mocha , along with Robin Hobart of Brickyard VFX who went through some examples of projects on which he had used Mocha . If you're not sure what Mocha is, it's a "planar tracking tool"... which doesn't really explain all the magic that it can do. Basically, it will identify the movement of a group of pixels in your 2D video sequence, and figure out the plane of those pixels in the frame, and how it changes as the camera moves. This makes it much, much easier to replace parts of the image; whether the screen on a computer, or the label on a box. Mocha can do many other tricks; the Pro version can remove parts of an image, and even figure out the movement of a 3D camera based on the video sequence (making it reasonably easy to place 3D models into your...

ARRI’s New ALEXA XTs – Internal ARRIRAW, True Anamorphic Capture, Better Lens Metadata (But Still No 4K) | Neil Matsumoto | HD Video Pro Today , ARRI announces its new  ALEXA line with features that have been requested by professional users. The ALEXA XT, ST M, XT Plus and XT Studio cameras will replace all previous models with the exception of the original ALEXA. ALEXA camera owners will be able to purchase individual upgrades that give you the same features of the new XT configuration. Canon Service Advisory Emails Sent for 5D Mark III & EOS-1D X | CanonRumors But the updates aren't expected until April and May... Depending upon the shooting conditions, it may take slightly longer for the EOS 5D Mark III and EOS-1D X digital SLR cameras to acquire focus when using the Speedlite’s AF Assist Beam, compared with that of the EOS 5D Mark II and EOS-1D Mark IV digital SLR cameras using the Speedlite’s AF Assist Beam. Diary of an Avid Switcher – Part 1: Humble Beginnin...

Review: Blackmagic Cinema Camera | IAIN ANDERSON | MacProVideo For the solo operator using DSLRs with a small kit, it’s a great A-cam, that lets you produce fantastic images with room to expand. You can rig it up, you can use it alone on a tripod, you can go naked and handheld (with a stabilized lens). It works with you, encouraging you to learn more about filmmaking as you chase that perfect image. For every tiny thing wrong, there’s a huge thing right. Dissecting a Trailer: The Parts of the Film That Make the Cut | SHAN CARTER, AMANDA COX, and MIKE BOSTOCK | New York Times Interesting little interactive doodad that shows the location of the source material used in the trailers for five of the nine best picture nominees. Check Out The First Affordable Electronic Viewfinder with HDMI Loop | Cinescopophilia $375 for an electronic viewfinder?! There's an update with a lower price too... IndiPRO Tools have released what they call the first affordable 3.5″ electroni...

Nikon D5200 review | Andrew Reid | EOSHD Hmmm...Andrew seems to think this Nikon is a better video camera than most of the Canon DSLRs, and the Panasonic GH3 as well...and it's only $800 . UPDATE: The HDMI output on this camera is uncompressed 4:2:2, for a leap in image quality over the internal 24Mbit codec! Check the forum for my ProRes noise grain sample shots The Nikon D5200 is the best mid-range Nikon yet for video. What is more of a surprise is the relish in which it takes on the much more expensive 5D Mark III, Panasonic GH3 and Nikon’s own flagship the D800 and D4. RED Sues Sony and Other News | Michael Murie | Filmmaker Magazine Some Canon and Sony firmware news too... In case you are living in a cave and missed it, the big news of last week was that RED is suing Sony. RED claims that Sony’s F65, F55 and F5 infringe on patents RED holds, specifically relating to REDCODE RAW. It appears that the issue may turn on the compression of a RAW video stream in the camer...

Sony EA50 and the Z test | Philip Johnston | HD Warrior Philip has the Sony NEX-EA50 on loan and is working on a review. He tried out one simple test to see what happens if you remove the card during recording: Simple…you let the camera record for 30 seconds then pull the SDHC card while still in record mode…why ? This gives you some interesting critical information about your solid state camcorder thats worth knowing, for instance…If your battery fails will your precious footage still be recorded as we all know horror stories of lost footage and corrupt cards. The New 4K: Different from the Old 4K | Art Adams | ProVideoCoalition I've seen 4K demos projected on 25' screens, and the footage comes across just as a movie would: there's nothing inherent in the presentation that makes me say "Wow, that's an amazingly detailed image!" When the same image is displayed on a 60" monitor, however, the effect is jaw-dropping. The amount of detail crammed ...

EOS C300/EOS C300PL, Firmware Version 1.0.8.1.00  | Canon Canon officially releases a firmware fix for the color fringe issues in early C300's: Firmware Version 1.0.8.1.00 incorporates the following fixes and improvements: Some of the EF lens products that can be mounted on the camera can be controlled more reliably. Corrections to the Spanish and German language texts in the View Assistance function [View Assist.]. Efforts to correct image color fringing when a subject is of high contrast have been made. Note: Firmware version 1.0.7.1.00 incorporates items 2 and 3 above. Battle of the Bokeh - Canon, Nikon Sigma 35mm f/1.4 | DigitalRev Battle of the Bokeh is back and we're looking at some fast 35mm lenses from Canon, Nikon and Sigma with the Canon 35mm 1.4L, Nikon 35mm G AF-S and Sigma 35mm f/1.4 DG HSM, respectively. This time, however, it's up to you to vote, and the video shows you the results of the blind-bokeh test. Which lens has the best bokeh? Visualizin...

Testing the Blackmagic Cinema Camera | Blake | The Martini Shot You need to use the right camera for each job. And while the BMCC will work in a lot of situations, it wouldn't be ideal in others. I personally feel it's a great fit for medium to low budget commercial work and narrative indie films.  It'll also probably get a lot of work as a B Camera to Alexas on bigger shoots. Documentary or run and gun stuff? Not ideal.  RED Epic versus Blackmagic Cinema Camera – Part 2 – Resolution and conclusion | Andrew Reid | EOSHD At 1080p, the Epic still has an advantage in fine detail and how clean the image is – if you think 5K doesn’t make a difference on the web think again! That amount of oversampling makes for a very sharp image relative to the 1080p workhorse cameras such as the Canon C300. BUT – the false colour streaks become a bit more noticeable.Raw on the Blackmagic looks cleaner at 1080p than native 1080p in ProRes on the camera. This is why I prefer to buy a fe...

Dear Avid Community | Avid Louis Hernandez replaces Gary Greenfield as Avid president/CEO: From my perspective, Avid has never been better positioned to deliver products and solutions that help meet your current and future business challenges. Over the past 25 years, Avid has built a strong heritage of industry leadership with the customers who create the most listened to, most watched, and most loved entertainment in the world. 10 Rules for a Successful Interview | Larry Jordan | Blog 1. Who Are You. Be able to explain what your company does in a single, succinct paragraph. You get BONUS points if you can avoid using words like: “solutions,” any acronym with more than three letters, or hyphenated-techno-speak. If you can’t explain it in English, no one listening will understand you. Academy Nicholl Fellowships in Screenwriting | Oscars.org The Academy's Don and Gee Nicholl Fellowships in Screenwriting is an international screenwriting competition established ...

Reader Varun Gathani added the following comment to the post: The Canon C300 or the Sony FS700? Hey Guys, I've read what all of you guys have had to say... and I agree with all of valid points made. For me the only two options at this point is either to buy an FS700 or Not! As thats all i can afford right now. However would you guys say its a better option to a Canon 5d Mark 3 or a 1D with its 4K for that matter. I am really confused weather FS 700 is worth investing all my savings into? Varun, One of the most important things to remember is that there is no perfect camera, no one-size-fits-all, and no one 'right' answer that applies to everyone... That said, if I was trying to decide between the Sony NEX-FS700 , the Canon 5D Mark III or the Canon 1D C , I'd pick the NEX-FS700 every time. Why? Because it's a video camera. It has built-in ND filters, good audio monitoring, an LCD that's pretty good for monitoring, XLR audio inputs, and on and on. ...

It’s not exactly video related, but I’m currently helping a client with some audio issues. They have a contractor coming in and providing wireless mics and projection equipment for a monthly meeting, and they’re thinking it might be cheaper to do the job themselves. For the audio they have two wireless handheld mics and a lavaliere going into a mixer, which is then connected to house speakers. Mixer The mixer the contractor uses is a Mackie 1402-VLZ3 Fourteen Channel Mixer with 6 XLR Mic Inputs ($399.99) A nice little box with multiple inputs, and it even has sliders! Given that the client typically only has three sources at their events (the three mics) they could get by with the Mackie 802-VLZ3 8-Channel Compact Audio Mixer ($199.99), even if it has knobs instead of sliders. Mackie 1402-VLZ3 However, an eight-input mixer doesn’t mean eight individual inputs. The 802-VLZ3 has 2 mono lines and 3 stereo line inputs. So that’s really five channels, and if they decide they ...

It's Friday, February 8 2013, and everyone in the Northeast is battened down and waiting for the biggest snow storm of the season. And while I still have power - and the internet! - here's the news of the day. Canon C100 stuff It's been an interesting week for Canon C100 news. I'd just put up a report on Filmmaker ( Canon C100 or C300: Which One to Get? ) about the Canon C300 vs the C100 image, speculating whether the Atomos Ninja would really make a big difference in image quality when Paul Antico emails me to say he just got one and tried it with his C100 and felt it was making a big difference in image. Exciting. ( Canon C100 Does 4:2:2 with the Ninja Video Recorder ) I must admit that if I had the money, I'd buy a C100 . Yes, it doesn't do 4K or overcranking, but for 99.999% of what I'll be doing over the next few years, it will be more than sufficient. The only problem is that it's outside my camera budget. The Canon C300: Field Tes...

Well, this looks cool. It's P roCutX for Final Cut Pro X , an iPad interface for controlling Final Cut Pro X that actually looks cooler than the interface of Final Cut Pro X . But $24.99? Hmmm.. I must admit, I purchased another - sort of similar -  iPad app that controlled Final Cut Pro 7 , and used it exactly twice. It wasn't because it didn't work, it was just that I could work very well with the keyboard and mouse...switching to the iPad didn't really seem like that useful. So yes, I find it intriguing, but I'm not certain that if I bought it I would actually do anything more than try it out once, go 'that's so cool,' and then never use it again....which is about the story for half the apps I've ever installed on my iPad .

You Don't Have to Go to Film School to Make It: A List of Film Schools 2013 Sundance Directors Attended | BRYCE J. RENNINGER | Indiewire 64 filmmakers responded, and the results may be surprising. 29 said they had no formal training in filmmaking. Some learned skills in design or photography school or as journalists but had no formal film school education.  The most popular film school from the filmmakers we surveyed was NYU, which had seven respondents. My Review of the Blackmagic Cinema Camera | Daniel Freytag | Blog It's a nice camera with nice images. But it's not that unicorn what everyone expected. I think there are simply to many disadvantages to use it for my productions. It has some nice things like 10-bit SDI out, 2.5K RAW recording with 13 stops of DR but on the other hand it has a huge crop-factor, it doesn't have 50/60p and the battery solution is not optimal. Canon EOS 1DC test short “Hyber Nation” & review | Nino Leitner | Blog Last but...

Using a Home Projector for Rear Projection | Michael Murie | Filmmaker Magazine The projector mentioned in this article, the Vivitek D950 1080p HD (at $899), did an amazing job:  I was amazed at how bright the projector was; given the size of the image (about 40 feet across) and the fact that the curtain wasn’t a real projection screen. The room was darkened, but it was still quite impressive.  1. Write the Feature. 2. Make a Short. 3. Get the Feature Made. (Coming Soon: a MANCHILD Short) | Ryan Koo | No Film School This section isn’t easy to write, because I can hear this hypothetical comment ahead of time: “Wait, you got us all to give you money so you could make your movie and now you say you need MORE money?” Sure, but I’m not asking for more money on Kickstarter; we’re looking to raise more financing to make MANCHILD by augmenting the Kickstarter funds with traditional independent film financing. Most Kickstarter campaigns only cover part of a film’s production...

Cinematographer Ben Smithard (My Week With Marilyn) on choosing Sony’s F65 for Belle | Chris Patmore | movieScope The Sony is better than a lot of other digital cameras and is probably the closest to film that I’ve ever seen. I really hope that the F65 becomes a standard because it’s a great camera and it would be good for the film industry to settle on something, because there’s a lot of money swilling around the pot that could be better used somewhere else. F55/F5 RAW support (in addition to F65RAW) | Sony Sony releases support for Sony's F5 and F55  in Premiere Pro: This plug-in adds support for Sony RAW MXF files in Adobe Premiere Pro CS6 products, allowing viewing and editing capabilites. What's New: F55/F5 RAW support (in addition to F65RAW) THERE AND BACK AGAIN: LEARNING TO LOVE (AND HATE) THE CANON 1DC | Andrew Wonder | Blog Now putting the 1DC in the real world it becomes harder to see the differences that 4K brings to the table. Yes it appears sharp...

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