Notes On Video

This week FxFactory released Cineflare's  Final Cut Pro X Hand Held Effect , a plug-in that turns your video into...well a bit of a mess if you're not careful. You can add whip pans, lens focusing, zooms, and bumps and jitters. All to give you that classic camera-operator-wasn't-ready kind of feel. The idea is that you apply it to a locked down shot to make it look a bit messy. And since you're doing it in post, you can play with it as much as you like. I find that very appealing, because making something look naturally accidental can be very difficult and time consuming. So why not do it in post? And it's $49, which isn't too bad. My only gripe; it's only for Final Cut Pro X , and even though I have Final Cut Pro X it's not my editing tool of choice at the moment. Of course, you could recreate the effects yourself using After Effects or Motion , but a plug-in will save you some time.

I upgraded my iPhone 4 to iOS 7 last weekend, and since then I’d been unable to use Messages to send texts through the iMessage interface (I could send regular SMS messages). I did some searching on the net and found some different articles that had a variety of suggestions for fixing the problem. These boiled down to: Turning off Messages and FaceTime in Settings Resetting Network Settings That didn’t work, and some other suggestions (like backing up and restoring the entire iPhone , or using a Jailbreaking utility) weren’t particularly appealing, and seemed more of a last resort. But I was awfully close to doing just that when I tried using the Restore iPhone... option in iTunes (with the iPhone connected to my Mac.) That was when it told me that I needed to first turn off the Find My iPhone utility. That was interesting, because other instructions had talked about turning off Messages and FaceTime, but hadn’t said anything about the Find My iPhone function. I tu...

It's Friday, so I guess we all have to run out and spend money! There's been articles about the best time to buy different gear, whether it's best to rent or buy, etc. etc. I'm not sure I can provide any advice except this; if you aren't going to be shooting with it in the next 30 days, don't buy it. Buying things before you really need them doesn't make much sense - often you find out you didn't need the thing much at all. At least, that's what I've found. B & H Sales B & H has a bunch of "special" sales over the weekend: There's a wide range of stuff there, the most interesting to me are (but there's a lot more listed): Canon 32GB VIXIA HF G20 Full HD Camcorder $899 Rokinon T1.5 Cine Lens Kit for Canon EF $1,299 (That's $300 off. I'd do this, but I already have the 35mm and 85mm lenses!) Canon CN-E 24mm T1.5 L F Cine Lens $4,970 (save $250. There's similar savings on other Canon Cin...

This is a really good cover - and ukulele too! Have a great Thanksgiving!

EOS C300, EOS C300 PL Firmware Version 1.1.1.1.00 Please note that we suspended download services for Firmware Version 1.1.0.1.00 that was posted Tuesday November 13, 2013 due to a discrepancy in color balance. We would like to apologize for the inconvenience. Firmware Version 1.1.1.1.00 corrects this color balance discrepancy. Any cameras that are running firmware version 1.1.0.1.00 should be updated to firmware version 1.1.1.1.00. Firmware Version 1.1.1.1.00 incorporates all the functions and modifications listed below: EOS C300 Cinema EOS Camera & EOS C300 PL Cinema EOS Camera 1. Fixes a phenomenon where the previous Firmware Version 1.1.0.1.00 offered incorrect color balance. 2. Ability to move the magnification viewing area around the LCD using the MAGN Function. 3. Support for a 1440x1080/35Mbps recording mode. 4. ISO up to 80,000 has been added. 5. Added functionality to support the optional Canon GPS Receiver GP-E1. 6. A Key Lock menu setting has been added w...

Landon Van Soest Crowdfunding for Artificial Retina Documentary Light Darkness Light | Filmmaker Magazine I haven’t had a lot of luck with crowdfunding in the past and thought my project could get lost in the ether on a site like Kickstarter or Indiegogo. My film was one of just a few initial projects when Crimso launched so I was able to have a personal connection with the site administrators, and they featured us in a lot of their own outreach and marketing efforts. Big League Cine Summit | Big League Film School.com What Is Big League Cine Summit? Starting December 10, 2103 For three days you will have access to presentations by top cinematographers on specific topics and techniques. Each day will feature a set of presentations that you can access. You will discover information and techniques that the pros use that goes far beyond what you can get from any tutorial. This is the inside stuff! Click on the button below to see the presentation topics. Exclusive review ...

“Directors These Days Really Have to Understand the Business of Film”: Producer Christine Vachon in Wroclaw | Filmmaker Magazine These days when there’s a lot of downward pressure on the budgets of the movies we make, when we have to be more and more inventive about how to make our films work with the amount of money we have, we really need to be able to chart the audience. I only succeed as a movie producer if my movies make their money back. And the only way I can do that is to have an idea who the audience for my films is, and how to reach them. DaVinci Resolve 10 Adds Editing to its Toolset | Filmmaker Magazine But now Blackmagic is finding that the newer colorists have some editing background and for small changes “would like to just finish a project in Resolve rather than have to go back to the NLE.” When should you use raw - and when should you avoid it? This is the definitive answer | Red Shark News Shooting raw video seems to be a very loud and persistent buzz f...

What Screens Want | Frank Chimero Interesting discussion about software and how it's changing the way we interact with things...and it has a bit about the history of motion pictures too: Muybridge had discovered how to bottle movement, and like any good inventor, he did experiments to see if he could reanimate his frozen horses. Muybridge’s first attempts to set time in motion were to print the high-speed photographs radially on a glass disc and spin it while it was lit from behind. He called it a zoopraxiscope. VFX Protest Planned for Obama’s DreamWorks Trip | Animation Magazine Hoping to raise awareness about the plight of U.S.-based visual effects artist, activists are planning a protest during President Obama’s visit to the DreamWorks’ campus in Glendale this Tuesday (Nov.26). The Hollywood Reporter says about 500 green T-shirts have been purchased by organizers in the hopes that artists will wear them to express their support for this cause. ‘Go Green’ Demonstration...

The Sony A7 and A7r are trickling out, and we're starting to get a better idea how they perform as video cameras. It seems like the RX10 is the one for video (though at least one poster has reservations - see below.) At $1,298 the RX10 is not cheap, but it's considerably less than the A7 ($1,698) and A7r ($2,298) . It seems that if you're looking for a full-frame camera, the Canon 5D Mk III still does a better job in video than the A7r (that's disappointing.) The RX10 is scoring because it has less moire and artifacting present in the footage compared to the A7's and it includes built in-ND filters. There's no interchangeable lenses, and the sensor is not as big as the other two, but it's small and light, (you can't have everything!) Finally, it looks that the A7 and A7r video are very similar in quality, even though they use very different chips. Sample video – comparing the Sony RX10, A7R and FS100 | EOSHD Andrew Reid at EOSHD has pos...

Sony A7-first look | Cinema 5D Cinema 5D takes a look at the video capabilities of Sony's new A7, and finds it an improvement over previous Sony's (like the A99) BUT they also think that the A7r will have better video (though at $2,299.99, it better be incredible!) I'm curious to see how the two compare, as I thought when the cameras were first announced that there were people saying that the A7 would do a better job in the video department... Sony themselves are looking at the A7r as superior in image quality when it comes to video. For that reason a dedicated full length A7r review is coming soon. Daytime Sony A7 footage will follow soon too. Adapting Your Canon Arsenal with Duclos | Shane Hurlbut With Canon’s new arsenal of Cinema Primes and Cinema Zooms being either PL or EOS mount, we have a predicament here. Who has the money to buy two sets of lenses? Which rental house has all this money sitting around to engage both mounts? To my knowledge, Can...

INTER BEE 2013 LIVE SHOW REPLAY: SONY NEX 18-105MM F4 SERVO ZOOM LENS SHOWS PROMISE | News Shooter If you have a NEX mount camera, I think this lens looks really interesting, the $598 Sony E PZ 18-105mm f/4 G OSS Lens : The new lens seems well suited for run-and-gun shooting with its constant f4 aperture and Optical Steadishot coupled with a nice mid-wide to mid-telephoto zoom range. Autofocus seemed quite snappy although it did struggle from time to time in the low light of our set. Manual focus is fly-by-wire which works quite well, but is no substitute for a ‘proper’ manual focus ring. It should be available before the end of the year. 3 SIMPLE BUT CRITICAL FILMMAKING TIPS FROM RON HOWARD | Fast To Create Challenge your story idea. Imagine yourself asked to watch it. Really imagine others committing the time to view it. Understand what you and your friends would appreciate about a movie version of your idea, then go for it. HEVC H.265 Royalties Are Killing It Even B...

Are Adobe Creative Cloud (CC) Files Backwards Compatible w/ CS6? | ProDesignTools Adobe officially states, “Each of the following CC apps support the ability to export to the CS6 version of the program: Photoshop, InDesign, Illustrator, Flash Pro, Dreamweaver, and After Effects” – with the caveat that, “New features added may not be supported in the exported file or implemented by the CS6 application.” And the same would go for CS5, CS4, or CS3. Fare-thee-well Magic Bullet Grinder | ProVideoCoalition Grinder’s demise probably happened upon the launch of Magic Bullet BulletProof. The good folks at Red Giant confirmed that Grinder is indeed gone. That is entirely understandable as BulletProof is a one-stop-shop data-wrangling and DIT tool for all things DSLR. BulletProof incorporates pretty much every feature that Grinder had so it might seem rather pointless for Grinder to still be developed.  Red Giant replied: Red Giant ‏@RedGiantNews Our plan is to add more automati...

RODE INTRODUCE THE VIDEOMIC GO – A LIGHT, COMPACT AND BATTERY-LESS MINI SHOTGUN MIC | News Shooter A new small and light mic intended for basic portable recording, and it's just $99 : The mic weighs a mere 73g (2.5oz) and also equipped with the excellent Rycote Lyre suspension system similar to that on the latest VideoMic. This eliminates a lot handling noise and the occasional bump by isolating the mic effectively from the camera. New H.265 codec on test – ProRes 4444 quality for 1% of the file size | EOSHD CineMartin are the first company I know of to give us H.265 HEVC (High Efficiency Video Coding) conversion with the just-announced CINEC v2.7. It supports up to 4K resolution and you can try it today. In case you live at 12 Under Rock Drive, the H.265 standard is the biggest codec of the decade. It supersedes today’s most common codec for encoding and internet delivery of video (H.264) and makes 4K recording to SD cards possible on DSLRs. Perspective Control an...

Last week was InterBee 2013, and News Shooter has posted some interesting reports from the event. The three most interesting over the last couple of days: INTER BEE 2013: TESTING THE CANON C100 DUAL PIXEL CMOS AF | News Shooter I have to say I am tremendously impressed with the results. It seems quite responsive without looking like a mechanical movement. In our tests we let the camera try to track the subject continuously to see how well it coped, but I think my preference would be to set the autofocus to only active when the Push AF button is pressed. It is however a shame that the AF box is currently locked to the centre of the frame and is not movable. INTER BEE 2013: NEW FOSTEX AUDIO ADAPTERS FOR DSLR AND IPHONE | News Shooter Fostex are an established maker of audio products and are best known for their range of sound recorders. At Inter BEE they were showing several new products – a simple minijack stereo mic adapter called the AR101 for iPhone and DSLR, and the AR501...

Canon Suspends Downloading of New C300 Firmware | CanonRumors We have suspended download services for Firmware Version 1.1.0.1.00 that was posted Tuesday November 12, 2013 at 8PM EST, because it has been determined that discrepancies in color balance can occur with footage captured by the EOS C300 and EOS C300PL running Firmware Version 1.1.0.1.00. UPDATE : Paul Antico writes: Just FYI, I did upgrade my cameras before the FW was pulled. I can't find anything wrong with the color; I shot for two full days afterwards with no issue and the footage looks fine in the edit. However, I used C-Log. Some are reporting the issue is with a green tint on Wide DR gamma in the C300, which I generally avoid. Upcoming New England Events SMPTE New England 4K is Here to Stay: Are You Ready? with Grass Valley & Blackmagic Design Wednesday, November 20, 2013 Doors open at 6:30pm Presentation at 7:00pm Rule Broadcast Rule Broadcast Systems, 1284 Soldiers Field Road, Boston, MA 0213...

4K Cameras: What’s the State of the Art in 2013? | StudioDaily But 4K's early adopters remained on the cutting edge all year, without many new camera products to challenge them. At NAB, Blackmagic announced a 4K camera for June delivery but has struggled to get it out the door in 2013. JVC devised a more expensive alternative to its inexpensive GY-HMQ10 camera, but only put it on the market in Japan. Freelance. To Incorporate Or Not | WideOpenCamera I used My Corporation to set everything up. They are fairly inexpensive and will do everything for you. There are a few ways to save a few pennies by sending in some of the forms yourself but the entire process only cost me around five hundred smackers. INTERBEE 2013 LIVE SHOW REPLAY: “5D MKII WAS A KINDA ACCIDENT FOR CANON” – CANON CINEMA EOS GLOBAL PRODUCT MANAGER YOSHINARI ONDA TALKS | News Shooter Canon Cinema EOS global product manager Yoshinari Onda came onto our live show from the show floor. Mr Onda has been in c...

More Blackmagic Pocket Cinema Camera RAW footage I decided to compare ProRes with the recently released RAW firmware from Blackmagic. I was very surprised by how much of a difference there was between the two. The 12-bit RAW looks alot better than some RED footage I've worked with, besides the ugly Moire which shows it's ugly head in this shot. Detail seems nearly identical. The most apparent difference is how the raw responds to the LUT. In the second shot, you can see the raw retains the highlights better. The blacks are also more crushed in the prores clips. Overall the colors respond more willingly. Being able to dial in WB/EXP/Sharpness in post feels pretty nice too. No sharpness applied to these though. CANON UPDATES FIRMWARE FOR CINEMA EOS CAMERAS – C300 GAINS AF AND OTHER FUNCTIONS | News Shooter Today they delivered on their promise with firmware version 1.1.0.1.00 and added a raft of extra functions as well. The AF is similar to the original C100, but ...

Thursday, November 14, 2013 Time 6:00pm until 9:00pm in EST Directed by two-time Academy Award nominee Lucy Walker, this HBO documentary tells the story of an escalating rivalry between snowboarders Kevin Pearce and his nemesis Shaun White in the run-up to the 2010 Olympics that leaves Shaun on top of the Olympic podium and Kevin in a coma following a training accident in Park City, Utah. Kevin's tight-knit Vermont family flies to his side and helps him rebuild his life as a brain injury survivor. But when he insists he wants to return to the sport he still loves, his family intervenes with his eloquent brother David speaking for all of them when he says, “I just don’t want you to die.” Kevin’s doctors caution him that even a small blow to the head could be enough to kill him. Will Kevin defy them and insist on pursuing his passion? With his now impaired skills, what other options does he have? How much risk is too much? Lucy Walker, Kevin Pearce, and Dan Daneshvar, a postdo...

I've always wanted a Canon 70-200mm f/2.8 lens, but.... Now I find that Sony has an E-mount 70-200 f/4 lens coming that includes Optical Image stabilization. And even though I have a Canon DSLR, I'm using lenses on the NEX-EA50 more than on the Canon camera. [ Note , the NEX-EA50 currently has a $600 mail-in rebate, costing $2,725 .] The new lens is expected to ship in April 2014 and cost between $1,300-$1,600. Sony :  FE 70-200mm F4 G OSS SEL70200G This compact, lightweight telephoto zoom lens is ideal for full-frame E-mount bodies, delivering superb G Lens image quality throughout the zoom range. AA (advanced aspherical) elements, Super ED and ED glass elements, the Sony Nano AR Coating, and a 9-blade circular aperture add up to refined rendering with smooth bokeh where desired. Maximum aperture is a constant F4, and the physical length of the lens does not change when zooming or focusing. Dual linear motors ensure fast, precise focusing. Focus hold, range limiter an...