Notes On Video

10 Stupid Mistakes Screenwriters Make | Raindance Film Festival So you want to write a screenplay? That’s fantastic! But why? Is it to make a lot of money? Or is it to impress your friends? Is it because you have a story to tell that will work best in the cinema? Try and write your screenplay before you decide the ‘why’ you want to write it. will eman, almost cetainly, your writing will be encumbered. Attention, Documentary Filmmakers: Here Are 9 Tips for Finding and Securing the Archival Material You Need | IndieWire 1. Beware the internet. "Everything is being pulled from the web and then, under deadline pressure, [filmmakers] are trying to find out who owns it. Usually, those filmmakers end up having to hire a very experienced research clearance person to try to sort out things. There's a way to work with things from the internet, but it's the wrong approach to take everything as placeholders and then at the very end, under a time crunch, try to figure out how ...

Kevin Pearce and Lucy Walker Talk The Crash Reel | Filmmaker Magazine I went to a screening for this movie and found this documentary fascinating. As well as the Q & A afterwards: Watching the movie, consisting of so much footage of events just prior to the accident, as well as footage of the accident, it was easy to assume that the filmmakers had already been following Pearce when the accident happened. But as Walker revealed in the Q & A, she didn’t even know Pearce at that point. Affordable 4K cameras galore at CES! GREAT! Now can we also have some stunning HD shooting DSLR cameras too pretty please? | Philip Bloom Philip wants better HD; maybe just subsample the 4K down to HD: One of the things I am most curious about is what the actual HD image is like. After all with these 4K cameras popping up, and I am sure many more will follow, I ask the obvious question, “Shouldn’t you get your HD image right first?” The GH3 does have one of the better HD images out there,...

Sony's New 4K Consumer Cam Unveiled | News Shooter At CES Sony have surprised by announcing the FDR-AX100 , a compact handheld camcorder that offers 4K video resolution using a 1″ 20MP sensor (14MP in video mode) and a 12x f2.8-f4.5 lens. It usefully features built in ND filters and records at up to 30fps using Sony’s XAVC-S codec XAVC-S (the consumer version of XAVC that is found on the F5/55). Here's a video shot with Sony's PXW-Z100 4K Camera (that's the $5,400 camera, not the just announced $1,999 camera.) Mac Pro and Premiere Pro CC (mid Dec 2013) | Philip Hodgetts This article also provides an interesting perspective on the different ways Final Cut and Premiere let the user configure playback performance. The different approach to controlling performance typifies the approach each company takes. Adobe gives fine control, down to using different resolutions for playback and paused (where you would use Full in most cases). The control geek in me like...

It's CES week, and while there aren't any real pro-camera announcements so far (or really expected), there are still some interesting bits of new gear, as well as some other bits of news. The regular News Gizmodo reviewed the Blackmagic Pocket Camera and they give it an unequivocal 'maybe': "I have no hesitation in saying that for certain applications, it's still worth buying." Over at CanonRumors , Sigma announced a 50 f/1.4 Art lens , as well as 18-200mm F3.5-6.3 DC Macro OS HSM Contemporary. Not sure what the price is. While you're there, check out this interesting article about plastic vs. metal in lens mounts. " Are Metal Mounts Better Than Plastic? " There's an interesting graphic on different codecs and when to use them. Adobe has announced support for new GPU's in Premiere Pro CC 7.2 , including the ones in the Mac Pro . Philip Bloom has been working on his review of the Sony A7, A7r and RX10 , and he po...

It's CES week, and Sony has gone and done it; they announced a 4K camcorder for $2,000. Wow. It's almost like I predicted it...wait a minute, I sort of did back in September ( When cometh the $1,000 4K video camera? ) Am I unusually prescient? Unfortunately, no. But if past isn't prologue, then this is one of the worst cases of déjà vu, because Sony did a very similar thing when they starting releasing HD camcorders. First there was the HDR-FX1. Six months later, Sony announced the HDR-HC1, with an MSRP of $1,999. This is the HDR-HC1: And here's the FDR-AX100 camcorder they just announced: And you can pre-order it for $1,999 . Now as a 4K camera for doing a 4K production, I'm not that interested in this camera as I doubt I'll be giving anyone footage in 4K for at least a year...but I wonder what the 4K footage scaled down to HD will look like, and whether being able to crop the 4K picture when converting to HD will make this a useful tool.

TO RAW OR NOT TO RAW: THAT IS THE QUESTION | News Shooter This week I enlisted the help of Wushu expert Alex Leng to test the performance of the new Convergent Design Odyssey 7Q when recording 2K RAW at 240fps from the Sony FS700. [...] be warned 2K RAW at 240fps eats up a lot of storage space in a real hurry. . There was only 10 minutes of record time available using two raided 256GB Convergent Design drives (they need to be RAIDed to do this). Amazon Studios to Shoot in 4K | Red Shark "As a premium original content creator, we’re excited about 4K and the future of Ultra HD technology, particularly as we move into drama series next year,” said Roy Price, Director of Amazon Studios. “All of the pilots and series we produce next year will be shot in 4K. YouTube: 2014 is the year of the high-def stream | C|Net VP9 is a big deal for the Internet, and YouTube's support of it is both an in-house quid pro quo and beneficial for the Internet at large. Matt Frost, a se...

This is disappointing: it seems that the Sony 18-105mm lens suffers from some pretty severe distortion (at least on video cameras) But Cory Shubert tried it on his NEX-VG20, and thinks the problem isn't so severe: A webinar from Imagineer Systems covering planar tracking stabilization techniques with Mocha. Shooting with the MoVI and the Sony NEX-FS100 and using the Sony 10-18 lens: Another effort at color grading the Blackmagic 4K camera footage:

ARRI Amira update (sort of) Back at the IBC show ARRI announced a new digital documentary camera, the Amira . It would be based on the sensor of the original Alexa, but other than that, ARRI was rather cagey about what it would cost or even when it would ship. But they have been showing prototypes and gathering opinions from users. According to Den Lennie , he and Rodney Charters got a demo of one of only three prototype cameras last week. Part of the demo took place at Britain's oldest pub . OWC Confirms Mac Pro 2013 Processor Upgradeable | OWC We got our hands on an Intel E5-2667 V2 8-core 3.30GHz with 25MB Cache processor, installed it in the new Mac Pro and have done some benchmarking to get an early look at the performance vs. the stock Apple / Intel E5-1650 V2 6-core 3.50GHz with 12MB Cache model.  Thunderbolt 2 is NOT twice the speed of Thunderbolt 1 | Red Shark News It turns out that the main difference between the two Thunderbolts is that version 2 ha...

Letus posted the following to their Facebook page  about the new anamorphic adapter for the GoPro that they teaser yesterday: Letus AnamorphX-GP (left), Letus AnamorphX for 35mm lenses (right) Here's a few specs for the AnamorphX-GP: 1.33x squeeze factor Custom CNC aluminum housing Use the GoPro 3+ waterproof housing for mounting. The adapter replaces the waterproof lens housing element. The unit will retain waterproof property. In 1080 mode, when the Letus AnamorphX-GP is attached, it will convert the 16:9 aspect ratio into 2.39:1 aspect ratio without the need for cropping (post production de-squeeze is required). In super-view mode the GoPro records in 4:3 aspect ratio and digitally stretch the image into 16:9 aspect ratio (dynamic stretching: http://gopro.com/support/articles/what-is-superview ). The center of the image is kept same but the outer of the image is progressively stretched outward and that is what causes the distortion, especially on the edges. This is...

Letus Corporation @letus35 Letus Tweeted this i nteresting idea  yesterday; an anamorphic adapter for the GoPro Hero! Introducing the newest member of Letus Anamorphic Club: 1.33x anamorphic lens adapter for @GoPro  Mac Pro Reviews Mac Pro, Final Cut Pro X 10.1, and five streams of native R3D | Philip Hodgetts Benchmarks, schmenchmarks: this is the performance I care about. Bottom line: multiple stream native RED 4K editing without proxies is practical if you have the storage speed. The New Mac Pro: Ridiculously Fast | Larry Jordan Here’s the speed of the Mac Pro talking directly with its internal flash drive. Holy smokes! I have never measured speeds this fast — BUT, even this speed does not fully load a single Thunderbolt 1 pipe. The new Thunderbolt 2 protocol, which the Mac Pro also supports, is more than twice as fast as the internal flash drive. The Mac Pro Review (Late 2013) | AnandTech Cheaper to build your own, but would it look as sexy? Th...

An initial look at the Digital Bolex D-16 | Philip Bloom First impressions, some sample footage, and a short video shot on the new Digital Bolex: Absolutely no moire or aliasing that I have seen. Zero, zlich. A very filmic image, more so than the BMD Pocket Camera. It really has a proper S16mm look to it, not just a S16mm sized sensor. Rain City: Initial shooting with the Digital Bolex D-16 from Philip Bloom on Vimeo . Philip compares the Digital Bolex to the Blackmagic Pocket Cinema Camera, so here's another review of that: Taking a look at the Pocket Cinema Camera from Blackmagic Design. Is this the perfect camera for low budget filmmakers? It's a quirky little camera that packs a big punch, but there are some set backs to be aware of. Sony CineAlta 4K F-Series Webinar | Sony You can watch this 48 minute webinar; but you have to give them an email address to see it: What is the Digital Motion Picture Centre Europe and how you can make the best of ...

It's the New Year, and I should do a year in review piece , but I already did that for Filmmaker . And I just want to point out that I did 2014K a day before RedShark News published their piece on why this will the year of 4K . Not yet convinced that this will be the year of 4K? Canon just dropped the price of the C500 down to $20K. For the next three days you can buy it for $16,999 at B & H thanks to $3,000 in instant savings. If that's still too rich for you, the C100 is now $4,999 ....makes you wonder what will be coming at NAB... Meanwhile, Kai at DigitalRev takes a look at the retro Nikon Df DSLR , and doesn't like it at all (and it doesn't even do video!) Here's an example of color grading , using SLog2 4K footage from the Sony F55. And here's a really interesting video showing the effect of moving the positions of your lights . Amazing video of a brushless gimbal (the MoVI?) doing it's thing. The Playlist has a list of the 1...

H A P P Y     N E W Y E A R !

Color Correcting Video in Photoshop | Photofocus You’ll learn how to color correct and grade your sequence.  You’ll learn how to refine the color and exposure of video footage. You’ll also learn how to use Lookup Tables in order to quickly apply a style to several clips.  The Photoshop editing interface is easy to learn and master. Credit Suisse: Only Canon, Nikon and Sony will survive in the digital camera market | Sony Alpha Rumors “Only those who have a strong brand and are competitive on price will last – and only Canon, Nikon and Sony fulfil that criteria,” said Credit Suisse analyst Yoshida. The new Hobbit movie saw Weta Digital make Smaug larger than a 747 in one scene yet use GoPros in another | Pocket Lint That said, the scene where Smaug chases Bilbo about the mountain of treasure is jaw-dropping and obviously took a lot of work. Yet the barrel escape scene seems more straight forward. That intricate blend of 4K footage and GoPro shots is thanks to Wet...

Blackmagic Pocket Cinema Camera Review – Final Part | EOSHD Audio is the only major weakness of the camera. The internal pre-amps are poor, the circuits are noisy, monitoring it is tricky and there’s hardly any audio features. But considering how much hassle, manpower, time and expense is saved with other areas using the Pocket in a pure directing sense like a viewfinder with a record button, it isn’t much to ask to have a sound guy on location with you. An Examination of the RED DRAGON Initial Impressions | Timur Civan Thats when I realised the difference.   I thought my MX was broken….  It just looked …. old.  Its a funny thing with technology, you don’t notice an improvement  as being that huge until you take a step backwards in generation.  I love the current MX, but I just met its successful, smarter, hotter, younger sister. Cine-EI Mode when recording S-Log2/3 and raw on the F5 and F55 | XDCAM-User Prior to version 3 of the F5 and F55 firmw...

I saw a link to " Minimalist Posters Depict The Architecture of 13 Classic Films " and immediately scanned through them to see if the house from North by Northwest  was amongst the chosen ones. And of course, there it was: But wait! There's something wrong! Firstly, it's pictured from the opposite side of the house to that seen in the movie. That feels a bit wrong because you never see that side of the house in the move; I guess that does give the artist some extra room to play given that the house doesn't exist. Still, there's definitely some problems compared to the "actual house;" for example, in the poster the front section of the house is at the same level as the back section, but in the movie it appears to be lower than the back section, though that could be an optical illusion. More troubling is the placement of the stone structure next to the end of the front section of the house (the red line in the image above). If you comp...

Is the Mac Pro processor user replaceable? Reviews of the new Mac Pro's are starting to appear, and already it's a bit confusing whether the CPU can be replaced. MacWorld's review suggests that the GPU's are user replaceable, but doesn't mention the CPU (making you think that's it's not.) The article is well worth reading as it explains why the current iMac can actually be faster than a Mac Pro for some tasks: Mac Pro (Late 2013) review: Apple's new Mac Pro really is for pros | MacWorld When it comes to apps and tasks that can take advantage of multiple processor cores, GHz matters, but multi-core matters just as much—or more. For apps and tasks that don’t benefit from multiple cores, the processor’s clock speed becomes more important.  Meanwhile Mac Rumors has an article that says that the CPU is removeable, though whether the user can actually switch it for another processor is unknown: New Mac Pro Confirmed to Have Removable CPU | Mac Rumo...

BLACKMAGIC DESIGN 4K PRODUCTION CAMERA DOCUMENTARY FOOTAGE FROM MARCO SOLORIO | News Shooter One thing I did notice is there didn’t seem to be as much dynamic range as some other cameras or even the original BMCC.  If you have a look at the sky at 01.08 and the shot in the garage at 01.37 of Solorio’s video you can see examples of what i’m talking about. There is also some noise visible in shadow areas too. Digital Bolex D16 Review Part 2: First Footage & D16 vs. Blackmagic Pocket vs. SI-2K Mini Test | No Film School To me the image looks a bit less digital than some other cameras, and I think part of that is due to the CCD sensor. The texture is different from CMOS sensors, and certainly at lower ISOs this can be a great look if the project you’re working on benefits from it. I have always been partial to CCDs and the way they produce an image, so I’m probably a little biased. Kicking the Tires on Final Cut Pro X 10.1 | Pro Video Coalition While the whole change...

The most ridiculous thing I have ever done…the “DigitalRev Cheap Camera Challenge” with…BARBIE CAM!! | Philip Bloom Philip was challenged to produce something using a cheap camera....a very cheap camera! I put the .AVI file (yes .avi) onto a 720p 25p timeline and upscaled it by 300%..my god it looked AWFUL!! Premiere CC just sort of accepted the odd framerate no problem and with this Super 8mm like frame rate I had to see if my go to plugin FILMCONVERT with a Super 8mm film stock could reduce the awfulness…and guess what? It did as you can see below! Sony RX10 Review: A First-Rate Camera With a Do-It-All Lens | Gizmodo A positive review of the Sony RX10 : The RX10, on the other hand, samples the entire sensor's raw data, then downscales to HD resolution using the powerful Bionz X processor. It works great. We found the RX10's video detail to be almost at the level of the Canon 5D Mark III, the camera most pro DSLR shooters spring for. You won't get the creamy ult...