Notes On Video

Working with Hair and Makeup – Interview with Maya Landi | Michael Murie | Filmmaker Magazine Filmmaker: How do you age a person? Landi: One of the techniques to use is to take a color that is a few shades darker than someone’s skin tone and very finely fill in the lines in their faces. You have them make different facial expressions to create different lines. To fill in the lines on the forehead, you have someone raise their eyebrows; to create crow’s feet around the eyes you have them smile and squint really hard. Ep. 35 - "The Needie Awards" (with Michael Murie) | NeedCreative Podcast | Anticipate Media I make a quest appearance on the latest NeedCreative Podcast: In this 35th episode of the NeedCreative Podcast, your co-hosts Paul Antico and Jason Sidelinger are joined by our new newscaster, Michael Murie, to discuss the latest news in the independent video world - and to give our first annual "Needie" Awards for 2012, highlighting some of the best i...

Blackmagic Solves Infinity Focus Issue with Cinema Camera, Will Require Hardware Fix | Joe Marine | No Film School It seems that this problem mainly applies to specific lenses like the Tokin a 11-16mm When I tried the same collimated lens on some 5Ds, 7Ds and even a C300, the witness marks fall short of the expected distance which indicates to me that there’s some fair amount of tolerances built into the Canon cameras to cater for still lenses where the tolerances are not as critical as cine lenses. Getting creative with a Lensbaby and water guns to make it rain | Von Wong Photography Enter the idea to use waterguns to create rain. They were light, portable, easy to clean up and easy to find. People weren’t terrified about the idea of having a watergun used in studio and it wouldn’t require any special setup. All I needed was a surface for the water to bounce off of and lo and behold, I’d have rain! (or something close enough.) Why should I buy a Teleprompter |  ...

This was posted on Sony's pro video website about the RED suit: On February 12, 2013, Red Digital Cinema ("Red") sued Sony Corporation of America and Sony Electronics Inc. and alleged that the Sony PMW-F5, PMW-F55, and F65 digital cinema cameras infringe two Red patents. The F65 has been commercially available for over a year and the F5 and F55 were announced in October, 2012. Sony has now had an opportunity to study Red's complaint and the asserted patents, and categorically denies Red's allegations. Sony intends to defend itself vigorously in the Red lawsuit. Sony looks forward to prevailing in court, thus vindicating the Sony engineers who developed Sony's quality digital cinema cameras.

Canon C100 Hands On Review | Erik Naso Right off the bat I can tell you the image is fantastic! Sharp and natural looking. I shot in Canon Log mode at ISO 850 to get the most DR from the camera. When in log mode the LCD image gets darker. I used the View Assist feature setting in the menu to brighten up the LCD display. This helped.  Canon Hosting Free Time Lapse Seminar w/ Vincent Laforet Coming Up Next Week | ERIC REAGAN | Photography Bay For those of you in the Hollywood, CA area, Canon Live Learning is putting on a free seminar next week (March 6, 2013) with Vincent Laforet on creating time lapse sequences with DSLRs. Some Like It RAW. Part 02: Low Light | Ryan Walters Welcome to Part 02 of Some Like It RAW, where I am comparing the Arri Alexa, Blackmagic Cinema Camera, and the Red Epic. My goal for these tests is to explore how each of these cameras handle real world shooting environments. Part 01 explored how these cameras handle IR pollution. In part 02, I tes...

Atomos Ninja 2 review with Canon C100 | Paul Joy I’m definitely going to be investing in one of these recorders, it’s obvious that the AVCHD codec in the C100 is damaging the footage and I would prefer to know that my shots are being stored without being degraded. As well as retaining better quality the ProRes files are also a lot easier to work with than the AVCHD files and require less horsepower during post production. Sony PMW F55 | DC-Camera | Vimeo We were fortunate enough to receive the new Sony PMW F55 and take some shots out in the field. We are very excited about the capabilities of this new camera so tune in and join us for DC-Camera's review of the Sony F55. Sony PMW F55 from DC-Camera on Vimeo . Kim Beamish gets to grips with documentary shooting on Panasonic's AF101 in Cairo | Kim Beamish | DSLR News Shooter I wanted to be able to interchange lenses, I wanted the larger chip for the image quality and depth of field but I just wanted it in a vi...

Something else: There is a rumor about a new Full Frame Sony NXcam | SonyAlphaRumors I hope it's not just a rebranded NEX-VG900 : One SAR source heard that a new “full frame professional NXCAM” will be announced for the upcoming NAB show in Las Vegas (April). 10 Lessons on Filmmaking from Beasts of the Southern Wild’s Benh Zeitlin | Ariston Anderson | Filmmaker Magazine 2. Your film must be a done deal. Only the journey is negotiable The mentality for our feature was always that we were going to make the film, no matter what. There was never this thing where we were going to write the script and then wait till someone gave us the money. It was always we’re going to make it, and here’s the starting date. If we get the money we’ll make it bigger. If we don’t get the money we’ll shoot it with our cellphones. Film Scene: Shooting a multicam DSLR rock concert music video production | Tony Reale I used what was available to me which was a Canon XA10, 2x Canon 5D MkIIs, Ca...

Turning the Black Magic Cinema Camera into a Movie Making Machine | Shane Hurlbut | Hurlblog I love that this camera fell into a nice color palette and delivered pretty good skin tones, as well as holding the sky. Some of it felt a little clippy in the over exposure, but again, I was going to eye and trying to figure it out. I would say that I exposed a little hot. Many people told me not to starve this camera of light, but I think I went a little too far. With that said, the image holds up for a $3K camera Blackmagic Film to Video plugin by Antler Post | Adam Roberts | Blog Over the last few weeks I’ve been beta testing a Final Cut Pro X plugin developed by Nick Shaw over at Antler Post-Production Services.The plugin is a great workflow tool for Final Cut Pro X (FCPX) users who are working with footage from the Blackmagic Cinema Camera (BMCC) that will be delivered to television. At the Bench: Introduction to the Sony PMW-F55 | Andy Shipsides | AbelCine Sony has just st...

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 ...