Notes On Video

BMCC vs Red Scarlet vs Sony F5 | Planet 5D From being onset and not looking at the footage in post production, the Sony F5 was the winner. It is a great ‘do all’ camera with an amazing image. Unfortunately, we can’t edit this footage in Premiere CS6 because there is no plug in that allows us to do so. The only way I could show the shots is with a screen shot via content browser. Anthony is going to see if he can get it into Davinci Resolve. Tutorial: Creating 3D Graphs in After Effects by Joe Mason | MICHELE YAMAZAKI | Tool Farm There are many ways inside of AE to add a third dimension to those boring old 2D charts. If you’ve got the time and a small budget, I would recommend a 3D plug-in such as Zaxwerks 3D Invigorator or ProAnimator in order to turn a flat bar into a full three-dimensional cube that can animate and grow to a corresponding value. The following screen captures were taken from animations created in Zaxwerks 3D Invigorator. Download a free demo of Zaxwerks 3D I...

Digital Bolex image quality – Exclusive look at sensor samples and footage | Andrew Reid | EOSHD Uncompressed raw is basically a direct sensor tap. The Digital Bolex camera features a Truesense Imaging CCD (ex-Kodak). As there’s no image processing pipeline, just debayering – the sensor pretty much determines the image from the camera.So by looking at a development rig with the same sensor, we get a glimpse of what the Digital Bolex can do. Infographic: SXSW 2013Did the Big Guys Crowd Out the Crowd Funders? (And Other Burning Questions…) | Amanda Farmer | Austin Freelance Writer How are the films chosen? Are there formulas? Trends? What type of filmmakers get accepted? Specifically: Do crowd funded, totally obscure indie films really stand a chance, when $200,000 is considered “Ultra Low Budget” for Hollywood films entering the same festivals?The upcoming SXSW Film Festival seemed like a perfect opportunity to do a little research. I spent a few days poring over the SXSW webs...

How to make an HD camera rig for less than $3K - including the camera! | Craig Marshall | Red Shark News Putting together a rig based on the NEX-VG20 ....I think I'd use the NEX-EA50 ... The VG20 sports a large 4 piece spatial on-board microphone with a ‘dead kitten’ blimp and full manual audio control circuits with auxiliary microphone inputs and a headphone output jack. Although the VG20 is equipped with an external stereo microphone input, there are no balanced XLR microphone jacks. Remember, Sony does not advertise the VG20 as a ‘professional’ camera. Ang Lee and the uncertainty of success | Jeff Lin From age 30 to 36, he’s living in an apartment in White Plains, NY trying to get something — anything — going, while his wife Jane supports the family of four (they also had two young children) on her modest salary as a microbiologist. He spends every day at home, working on scripts, raising the kids, doing the cooking. That’s a six-year span — six years! — filled with da...

Lightworks for OS X to be revealed at NAB | RedShark News They've been promising a Mac version of this NLE for a couple of years...could it be just around the corner? Note that this is a first showing of the OS X software and that it will still need to go through the same stages as the Linux version: probably a private Alpha, and then a public Beta. But because of the similarity of large portions of the code, testing on all three versions benefits each specific one as well. Review of the Sony NEX-EA50 camcorder | Philip Johnston | HD Warrior Philip gives the Sony NEX-EX50 a very positive review - about the only thing that it really lacks is built-in ND filters. Low-light isn't too bad either - maybe not as good as the more expensive cameras, but it's no slouch...and it's only $3,599... Sony NEX- EA50 Review from Philip Johnston on Vimeo . Canon Announces the Development of New High Sensitivity Sensor | CanonRumors I wonder how much ND you have to...

HYDE PARK ON HUDSON | ARRI News LC : We didn't actually light them that much. Traditionally the way day-for-night has always been done in the past is that you take an image lit by daylight -- ideally on a day where it's a nice bright source rather than being overcast -- and you then turn that sunlight into moonlight by underexposing a couple of stops in-camera and some more in post, twisting everything towards a cooler look with increased contrast. What we did was to expose normally and apply the LUT, which is the equivalent of creating the look in the grade, but with the advantage of being able to monitor it on the set. The Speed Booster – a New Type of Optical Attachement for Increasing the Speed of Photographic Lenses [PDF] | Brian Caldwell and Wilfried Bittner | Metabones A white paper on this new optical adapter for full-frame lenses on APS-C format DSLRs: Ever since the introduction of DX and APS-C format DSLR’s many have wondered why it isn’t possible to build ...

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...