Notes On Video

Blackmagic sent out a press release with some interesting news. They say that the Pocket Cinema Camera is shipping (though no mention of quantity.) Perhaps more interesting is an astonishing price drop on the original Blackmagic Cinema Camera to $1,995 [ At time of writing the price hasn't been updated at B & H yet ]. That's $1,000 off the original price! Wow. (Either Canon or MTF mount .) Finally, there's a seminar in New York on August 8th. Camera Update The new Blackmagic Pocket Cinema Camera is now shipping and there is a software update for it posted on our web site. There are some new features in the software for the Pocket Cinema Camera. You can now focus by pushing the focus button when using an active MFT lens. This makes it very easy to accurately focus. The focus peaking feature is still there and you enable it by double pressing the focus button. The focus zoom feature is enabled by double pressing the OK button. There will be an update for...

Rotolight sent me a short email (below) and a copy of the statement that they released concerning the recent take-down of a video by Den Lennie (see:  Using a Copyright Infringement claim to shut down the opposition ) With reference to the recent online publicity regarding Rotolight please find attached the official Response from Rotolight. The Statement is also available online:- http://www.rotolight.com/officialstatement/ There will be no further comments. I've reprinted the full statement below. I'm not going to flog a dead horse; I don't think we'll learn anything more by pursuing this particular event, though I don't think it removes the underlying concern that companies can have things taken down because they don't like them. I will add though, that I'm a little bit puzzled that in their statement they say that they received advice advancing the legal theory of having things removed that might be " potentially misleading and unrepresenta...

Sometimes, when you're wading through the detritus that is much of the Internet, it's easy to take for granted what an amazing thing it is. Of course, there are downsides. I'm quite convinced that the Internet will one day prove that there is no original thought. Have an idea? Search for it; you'll almost certainly find that someone already thought of it, or did it. I have a Steadicam Smoothee that works with the iPhone 4 . I used it a couple of times and then put it away and never used it again. Now you can buy an adapter for the GoPro , but I don't have one of those. Today I was thinking, 'maybe I could adapt it to work with a better camera?' Well, of course you can, and dozens of people were already doing that over a year ago . Hardly an original idea! Actually, I'm not that upset to find out lots of other people have been doing it; because now I have something to copy and I'm much more likely to meet with success.. And there is the joy o...

Canon has a new VIXIA MINI COMPACT camera [ Updated ] Canon just sent me a press release for a new camera, which appears to be a GoPro competitor. Unfortunately, no pictures were included , and the link to the camera page on their website - at the moment - doesn't seem to display anything. Clearly, the size, shape and included LCD sets this apart from the action cameras... The VIXIA mini compact personal camcorder features an ultra wide-angle Canon f/2.8 fisheye lens (160 degree movies / 170 degree photos) allowing a user to shoot from unique and creative perspectives while including their surroundings to make their videos and images more interesting. By utilizing the Wide Mode users can give the viewer a full view of their surroundings and then switch to Close-Up Mode to provide emphasis on a particular subject. While in Close-up Mode, users can record a centered 1920 x 1440 resolution image with little distortion. They can also quickly toggle from one shooting mode to t...

Indiesonar interviews Charysse Tia Harper about the making of her currently in-production documentary Panomundo: "We’ve been fortunate enough to borrow equipment from crew members and friends from our past shoots. However, I have a Lavalier mic and a Nikon D5100, and Keith has acquired a Canon 60D." NPR's POV blog has an article for those just starting out:  Tips for Making Your First Film : Choosing a Topic, Interviewing Like a Pro, and One Aspect of Filmmaking That’s Often Overlooked Choosing a TopicIFP: You have to go with your gut on this one! Whatever makes you happy, piques your interest, inspires (or enrages!) and activates is probably going to appeal to someone else. When you put passion into a project, others can see it. This makes them excited about the work too! First test's of Canon 70D footage aren't that spectacular . Johnnie Behiri has posted an initial test with a beta copy of this camera, and the footage: " At present time there i...

Back in April Vincent Laforet started tweeting and posted about a new device he'd used that would be a "game changer" and would shake things up in the industry as much as the Canon 5D Mark II had. He said that this was the first thing since the 5D Mark II that he felt was as important, and added "I have a hard time imagining the day where I won’t be using it on a shoot." The device was, of course, the  MōVI , a "revolutionary" camera stabilizer. The footage was certainly impressive, but at $15,000 for the M10 (they have a M5 that will sell for $7,500) I found it difficult to see this as a game changer for the majority of the video production industry. I just couldn't see a lot of indie or corporate video people spending that much money for a video stabilizer. And while the shots were pretty impressive, a regular Steadicam shot - done carefully - is pretty similar, and probably just as effective. But, now there seems to be a dozen or s...

How often do companies try to suppress information using copyright takedown claims? That's what I was wondering yesterday. Here's another example reported by Ars Technica ; KTVU, who had that unfortunate incident with the pilot names on the Asiana Airlines crash attempted to suppress the video by posting take down claims on YouTube. It seems they gave up after a day or so...(you can't suppress the really big stuff.) Kickstarter Project Canceled After Dude Spends All the Money | Gawker This is interesting; guy makes $120,000 and blows it all on...well we're not too sure exactly on what, but he's given up on the project. I thought this response way interesting. I wonder what the results are for Kickstarter projects: Michael Scott ‏@DorkmanScott I've backed 23, 22 of which succeeded; to date received rewards from 2. RT @E_MARSTON of the 4 i've donated to i've gotten one postcard. Meanwhile, Backstreet Boy Nick Carter is raising money on IndieG...

Den Lennie has posted a story on Facebook about a short video review he posted on Vimeo getting taken down due to a Copyright Infringement claim from one of the manufacturers in the test. What's disturbing is that in the thread of the post, a representative from the company actually seems to admit that they made the claim because they didn't like the results, not because of any copyright claim. In a first message they state " We just feel that the test was not fair or representative of our product ," but in their second post they state: You are completely right, we should have just contacted you directly to arrange the re-test rather than acted via Vimeo, please accept our sincere apologies for that. We of course have no issue at all with you posting the results of the re-test all we wanted was just to ensure the test was representative , there was nothing more to it than that. This is, frankly, shocking. While the internet is a sea of copyright infringement,...

Completely un-video related, I just ordered a Yamaha StagePas 400i . [ We're getting the band back together-Ed]  I was looking for something simple and light weight for vocals and guitar amplification. I nearly went with a mixer and powered speakers. Getting a dedicated mixer might have been the better choice if we had larger - or any - aspirations, but simplicity and lightness seemed the way to go. The 400i is a new model; the previous models (the 300 ) were considered good for what they were, but the effects were criticized a lot. Yamaha re-engineered the effects in the 400i , so I'm hopeful they are useable. You don't get a lot of choice in effects, but again, we're looking for simplicity. Back to the video stuff Canon has a 50mm f/1.8 IS coming? CanonRumors reports that maybe Canon has a 50mm f/1.8 IS coming. Canon currently has three 50mm lenses; the $125 f/1.8 II , the  $399 f/1.4 , and the $1,439 f/1.2L monster. CanonRumors wonder if it will replace...

VFX Color Grading in After Effects - a quick tutorial for After Effects users showing how to create more dynamic images by adjusting multiple copies of the same video. You can do similar things in grading programs like Resolve , but if you have After Effects and just started playing with it, this could be a useful tutorial. Animated Font - Franchise This is sort of cool; an animated font. The Type Face was designed by one person, then animated by 110 animators in After Effects . " The file contains all the keyframes, expressions and artwork from the artists. This makes it a great learning source for motion students and professionals. " Works for After Effects CS5 and up. It's listed as "Free" but you must "pay" with a Tweet or a Post (to Facebook.) Prolost Burns Preset for Adobe After Effects CS6 Stu Maschwitz has posted an After Effects preset that creates zooming/dissolving photo montages. It's $2.99. Or if you have a Mac...

The most interesting thing to come across the wires yesterday was this low-light comparison between the ARRI Alexa, Canon C300 and Sony F55 by Thomas Weber . The Alexa was rated the best picture below 800, while the F55 was the best at very high ISO's. The C300 did well in low light, and was no slouch considering it's considerably cheaper that the Alexa or F55. Want to get into movie production? MovieScope offers two articles which paint a somewhat contradictory and confused picture of what's going on. In " The Film Release Slot Machine " distribution experts explain "how a decline in studio production bring opportunities for the independent sector," while in " Digital Distribution and the Invisibility Dilemma ," "Industry analyst Michael Gubbins examines why the growth of digital cinema and on-demand platforms may see independent content disappearing…" It's sort of like when matter and anti-matter come together... But w...

The weather has cooled down a bit here in Boston after several days of 90+ temps, so that's good news. Unfortunately, the big studios didn't get a lot of good news this weekend, with R.I.P.D . and Turbo performing worse than expected (that's not exactly true, the word on R.I.P.D . has been bad for the last couple of weeks at least, so it probably lived up to low expectations.) According to the New York Times , Hollywood has now sustained six big-budget duds since May 1. Ouch . Meanwhile, over at Slate , Peter Suderman has written about the book ' Save The Cat! " and blames it's adoption as a bible of screenwriting for many of the problems in modern movies. I was intrigued, as I was interviewing a scriptwriter a couple of weeks and he referenced this book (which I hadn't really come across before.) ...this book broke down the three-act structure into a detailed “beat sheet”: 15 key story “beats”—pivotal events that have to happen—and then gave eac...

Last night was the latest Boston Creative Pro User's Group meeting, featured  Aharon Rabinowitz , Director of Communities for Red Giant, talking about their latest short film Spy Vs Guy , and Adobe Certified Master Trainer and Apple Certified Master Trainer  Simon Walker talking about Red Giant's latest application: BulletProof . Now I could talk at some length about Spy Vs Guy , or you could just watch it (it's 16 min. long.) I could also talk at some length about how it was made, or you could just watch the Behind the Scenes: BulletProof is described by Red Giant as "a complete offload, prep and delivery solution." I could also tell you a bit about what I saw at the demo of  BulletProof , or - if you have a Mac - you could just go and download the free public Beta and try it out yourself. [ I just want to point out that it's very hot here in Boston at the moment... ] Well, if you really want to know a little more: For those not intimatel...

It's Thursday here in Boston, and it's been a hot couple of days, with no relief in sight! I hope it's cool where you are. If you are stuck in Boston tonight, come to the BOSCPUG meeting with Red Giant , who will talk about BulletProof and stuff. A couple of days ago I erroneously stated that Blackmagic had said their new pocket cinema camera would ship on time. ahhhh...that wasn't really true, so I'm hesitant to post this, but a British distributor is evidently a big disturbed about whether the camera (and the 4K camera) will arrive on schedule. Of course, they are in Europe... Interested in the  MōVI ? Alex Buono (DP from Saturday Night Live's Film Unit) has posted a cool demo of the unit made at his Visual Storytelling Tour event (the tour is going on through out the country, and there are still a few dates left .) For actors and filmmakers, some casting directors wrote an article about 5 Things You Need To Know About Your Agent and Manager . N...

The Daily Show almost goes Dark The third segment of Monday night's episode of The Daily Show was taped using "consumer cameras" after a power failure occured. It's not clear what cameras were actually used (someone tweeted that they were consumer cameras), though it looked like they really needed to do a white balance, and at the end of the segment a microphone boom could be seen! This is not the first time an evening show has been recorded under "difficult" circumstances, or with consumer cameras. The Craig Ferguson Show has had problems with the lighting system and resorted to flash lights, and Jimmy Kimmel taped an episode of his show using a laptop webcam. The show shot with consumer cameras Apple releases Logic Pro X Apple released a new version of Logic Pro X , and while it's too soon to be certain, it looks like the initial reactions are more positive than Final Cut Pro X received. It's just $199, AND it can connect to Fi...