Notes On Video

Inspiration vs. Plagiarism | Casey Neistat | Tumblr A frenchman named Maxime Barbier copied one of my movies, the concept, the idea, nearly scene for scene, and in places line for line.  Then he sold that movie to Coca Cola.  Then he thanked me on Facebook for the ‘inspiration’. DOWNLOAD THIS CINEMATOGRAPHY CASE STUDY OF JANUSZ KAMINSKI, ASC | The Black and Blue Stephen Murphy [...] created a series of “personal study documents” – PDF files that compile quotes from a particular cinematographer placed next to stills from their cinematic efforts. Now we’re able to look at the frames of a cinematographer’s film while pairing it with their opinions on how they did it, why they did it, and what it means. 6 Lies of Film Distribution | Writers Store Truth #2: All major distributors track the movies that have been listed in the trades under their production columns. If you were in those columns, you’re going to be phoned. Do not send them a rough cut. Do not send them a...

Reader Paul Antico of Anticipate Media passed along his initial thoughts on the new Mac Pro : So.... my very preliminary testing with our new Mac Pro using the plugin I use most (filmconvert -FC), shows that Premiere CC needs more optimization for the dual GPUs. In fact, I'd say the CPU utilization is not up to snuff either. I know FC only uses one GPU presently from the developer. That will change. In the meantime, using a couple of typical projects with that plugin as an example, I'm only seeing 25-45% speed up in exports over our maxed out late 2012 27" iMac exporting the same project. That's significant of course but not the 100%+ one would think we would be seeing at the least given the MacPro config of 8 cores and dual D700s. Premiere Pro CC seems in fact to never maximize CPU (never mind GPUs). I have yet, in my very limited testing, see it "pin the meters" like I did on the iMac. Of course that's just testing now two short (under 5 mi...

B& H sent me a list of new devices they have arriving soon or that are just in stock. These are the ones I found interesting (though not sure I'd actually buy any of them!): Sony PCM-D100 High Resolution Portable Stereo Recorder | $799 This looks like a nice recorder, I'm sure it is. But for that price, I think I'd want XLR inputs! The PCM-D100 High Resolution Portable Stereo Recorder from Sony is capable of recording audio from its built-in stereo mics in up to 192 kHz/24-bit PCM, 2.8224 MHz DSD, or 320 kbps MP3 files. It has 32 GB of internal memory and supports external memory via its SD-XC card slot. The PCM-D100's stereo mics can be arranged in 90° XY or 120° wide stereo positions, depending on the subject being recorded.  Moog Theremini | $299 I suspect this would be little more than a toy for me...but I always liked the sic--fi noise they make: To assist in learning to play the instrument, the Theremin features a built-in tuner that allo...

Drowned Drones: When a Multicopter Hits the Water | MAKE Even if you manage to retrieve your aircraft, you will likely lose all of your electronics, your camera, and your gimbal. Getting footage back is about all you can hope for, and even that isn’t a given. A fully-loaded DJI Phantom 2 quadcopter with gimbal, GoPro and first-person view transmitter (FPV) is currently worth about $1,400. Losing a rig like that is very painful, but losing a larger multicopter with a gimbal-mounted SLR can cost upwards of $10,000. Netflix ends 2013 with 44 million subscribers, will keep experimenting with pricing | Engadget Netflix had a big year in 2013 with award-winning original content, new features and millions of new customers. Now, the company's fourth quarter report reveals it wrapped up last year with over 44 million customers worldwide. Interestingly, an entire section of the letter to investors is related to the recent appeals court ruling that struck down key parts of net neutra...

Evolution of the Dolly Zoom | VashiVisuals Nice compilation of clips from movies from Vertigo to Jaws: The Dolly Zoom is a camera shot made famous in Alfred Hitchcock’s VERTIGO (1958). It was invented by cameraman Irmin Roberts to visually convey the feeling and effects of acrophobia by zooming in with the lens while simultaneously dollying the camera backwards…or vice versa. Since 1958 it has been used hundreds of times in motion pictures…sadly most of the time only as a trick shot. UK Colourists Want Their Say On New Cameras With Newly Formed DCA | Definition Magazine  “The idea was basically with the advent of more digital cameras and the need for on-set monitoring or LUTs that we all try and get together to try and share some information and find some common ground. It is quite tricky as we’re all from different companies - no one wants to give away their trade secrets. Mac Pro Shipping Times Slip To March; Is “Made In USA” To Blame? | Cult of Mac A month later,...

Getting Started in Aerial Video | Make The most popular quadcopter for aerial filming is the $679 DJI Phantom because it’s ready-to-fly (RTF) out of the box and was designed to hold a GoPro camera. (The new Phantom 2 Vision has a built-in camera instead, plus an FPV system — see tip 4 below.) The Phantom is the perfect platform, even for beginning hobbyists, because it’s easily hackable — there is a vibrant third-party accessories market, mostly consisting of enterprising individuals selling mods online. Open Source Apertus Axiom 4K Camera Project Exploring Swappable Sensors, Lens Mounts, & Filters | No Film School The Axiom Alpha prototype with the CMV12000 image sensor is just the beginning, we want to offer a wide range of different image sensor modules in the future. Whether it be a Super16, Four Thirds or Full Frame Sensor or a module that allows fine-tuning the sensor alignment shift for Stereo 3D, there are so many possibilities.  Tutorial: Making an eye in 3...

Joseph Oxford and Bradley Stonesifer Create a World in Cardboard for Me + Her | Filmmaker Magazine Director Joseph Oxford and cinematographer Bradley Stonesifer created an imaginary world using cardboard boxes and rubber bands for their animated short film Me + Her. A labor of love that evolved over four years, their work was rewarded when the film was accepted into Sundance’s Short Film program. Blackmagic Design Announces DaVinci Resolve 10.1 with FCP X 10.1 XML Import Blackmagic Design today announced the release of DaVinci Resolve 10.1 software which adds new editing and 3D stereoscopic features as well as support for Final Cut Pro™ X 10.1. DaVinci Resolve 10.1 is available now for download free of charge for all existing DaVinci Resolve customers from the Blackmagic Design website. Calibrate That Display! | Alexis Hurkman One of the most frequently asked questions I’ve gotten over the years is “I’m planning on using a plasma display for color critical monitoring, but...

Sony Europe held a Facebook chat with Den Lennie about the new HXR-NX3  (currently $3,795) on Thursday. You can read it here . I've put together the highlights below: Q: Will the NX3 replace HXR-NX5 (currently $3,395) ? Alvaro Ortiz:  No, NX3 won't replace NX5. They will live together. However, both products, even having almost the same body (as that of Z100), have different specs: WiFi, 50p, SDI, HXR-FMU128 compatibility... but, to be honest, I love NX3 even more! Kanta:  The NX3 isn't a direct successor of the NX5. NX5 has SDI and it is good for those who really need it for broadcast system etc. NX3 is more general purpose camera at lower price. Alvaro Ortiz:  BTW, for those interested, as you can see we are basically sharing the same body between HXR-NX5, NX3 and Z100. The main reason is that most of NX5 users were really glad about the weight, the balance, and the lens touch of such chassis. Also, that lens allows us a little margin with different sen...

Should Professional Editors care about FCPX (again)? | Pro Video Coalition Last October Kevin McAuliffe told us in two articles that Final Cut Pro X wasn't worth caring about: "FCPX is still not ready for professional use". He caught a lot of crap for saying so, but he was right... in a very constrained context (which, if you read his rants, he carefully delineates). If you were a full-time editor working for or day-playing at an established production house, FCPX wasn't even on the radar. Tokina AT-X 12-28mm f/4 Pro lens review | Digital Camera World This lens is "just" $499 , for APS-C sized sensors: Image quality is impressive across the frame. Typical of ultra-wide lenses, sharpness drops at the extreme corners, especially if combining the shortest focal length with the widest aperture. Sony UWP-D Wireless Microphone Series | Cinescopophilia The UWP-D series uses new hybrid digital processing technology to achieve high quality sound. This...

GoPro Wins Emmy Award | Creative Planet Network GoPro today announced that the National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences has recognized the company with a 2013 Technology and Engineering Emmy® Award in the category of Inexpensive Small Rugged HD Camcorders. GoPro was selected for its groundbreaking HERO3 camera technology, which has enabled television production professionals to capture engaging perspectives that were never before possible. Another Update on Adobe Creative Cloud |  Aharon Rabinowitz When Adobe moved to subscriptions a lot of people predicted bad things (including me!) Aharon takes a look at how things are a year later. While he has a point, I'm not sure that a year is anywhere near long enough to determine the effect of monopolies. Of course that raises the question; when is long enough? Can I just go on and on saying 'well, there's been no effects, but just wait!'? I guess not. So I'll be reckless and say that if in five years ther...

Amazon Launches Free Storyboarder Tool | Michael Murie | Filmmaker Magazine Amazon continues its adventures in moviemaking. Amazon Studios, which began as an effort in crowdsourced content is moving towards content produced by professionals, but they still seem to be interested in moviemaking by the masses. They’ve already released a free storyboarding tool, and now they have Amazon Storyboarder, a tool for outlining stories using a corkboard metaphor.Corkboard interface Why I am going with 4K and why you should too | EOSHD Finally line skipping, moire and aliasing is going to die out. No more horrible electronic jaggedness and weirdness. 4K will not eliminate it altogether (the Blackmagic Production Camera does have some aliasing) but it will vastly reduce it and it will make 1080p look much cleaner. Rough edges and flaws at the 1:1 pixel level have a tendency to soften out when you’re producing 1080p oversampled from 4K. CES 2014: 4K round up | Cinema 5D The GH 4k c...

The Blackmagic Production Camera 4K Guide (Part One): Ergonomics and Specifications | wolfcrow In short, Blackmagic Design has created a product so revolutionary, that they themselves don’t really know which market it will ultimately end up serving the most. To be fair though, judging by initial videos from the Blackmagic 4K Camera, it looks like a winner, and somebody will buy it! A fun comparison between the late Blackmagic Production Camera 4K and the rumored Panasonic GH4 4K Camera | wolfcrow The ISO range of the GH4 should be at least usable till 6400 ISO, and this would give it a leg up over the Production Camera. On the other hand, due to the larger pixel pitch, in theory, the Production Camera should have lower noise levels. Thom Powers Curates Distribution Advice for Filmmakers | Filmmaker Magazine In a detailed intro, Powers discusses various distribution options, ranging from traditional to hybrid to DIY strategies. Then, he gathers specific advice from filmma...

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.