Notes On Video

There's been much excitement about the announcement of the Panasonic GH4. We know a lot about the specs, but we still don't know the price, though if the rumors floating around (about $2,000US) are correct, then this camera could have a big impact on the market. Of course, the big news is that it supports 4K recording (and both QuadHD 3840x2160, as well as DCI 4K 4096x2160.) Just as importantly, while internal recording is limited to 4:2:0, you can output 4:2:2 in either 8-bit or 10-bit. You'll have to buy the base module (DMW-YAGH ~$1,000?) and a (currently) expensive third-party external recorder to do it, but you can do it. Also interesting is that external box that Panasonic has produced for outputting 4K video, as well as adding XLR audio inputs. (it's the box at the bottom of the camera in the picture above.) It looks big; though remember that the camera itself isn't that big to begin with. This box really suggests that Panasonic sees this as a serious ...

How the ARRI ZLEXA plays with color saturation to pursue a film aesthetic | The Black and Blue Adams cleverly points out through camera tests, experience, and research that Alexa, while operating in an additive color system, is mimicking properties of subtractive color mediums by separating color saturation and luminance after a certain level of exposure in order to adopt a closer film look Traveling with gear Flight…A Filmmaker’s Plight | Pro Video Coalition Above all else, carry on your most sensitive and expensive equipment: camera bodies, lenses, recorded media and backups, and items forbidden as checked baggage -- i.e., loose lithium ion batteries. Some people will recommend that you carry these items in non-equipment bags, padded by clothing and such. Are we making too many movies? Abundance Does NOT Mean TOO Many | Truly Free Film The entertainment economy is transitioning from a mass market enterprises to one of targeted niches. In the process we are expanding ...

Every now and again Alex Buono, cinematographer for the Saturday Night Live Film Unit does a lengthy write-up on one the sketches he's shot for SNL. Here he does just that for their 'Her' parody. HOW WE DID IT: SNL – “ME” | Alex Buono Young cinematographers take note: stop hogging the whole budget with your precious lights and camera gear!  Give the budget to the art department and I guarantee they will make your job much easier than all those fancy toys.  I was given a lot of very nice compliments about the look of our Wes Anderson spot but the truth is, the art direction was so perfect that all it took was a simple bounce light and we were lit. Why Hollywood Will Never Look the Same Again on Film: LEDs Hit the Streets of LA & NY | No Film School The LEDs should very well prove a benefit to existing-light photography — better for the environment, and in nearly every case, better for cinematography. Whether the new look is visually preferable is a subjec...

Low light testing with the Digital Bolex D16 | Red Shark News With tests like this, the question becomes more than one of pixels and stops. The question is ultimately, am I pleased with the way this camera is handling the light / image I put in front of it? In this situation, I'm going to say yes. I was particularly impressed with the ability, at 200 ISO, to pull an image out of the 5-7 foot-candle region (if you squint you can actually recognize a couple of the albums in the corner!) Andrew Reid over at EOSHD often has an interesting perspective on things. And sometimes he's just confusing: obsessing over some details, and ignoring others completely. In other words, he's just like everyone else; he's just a little more vocal about it. Anyway, he sort of likes the Olympus OM-D E-M1 . Why the Olympus OM-D E-M1 is better than expected for video (Review) | EOSHD The E-M1 only shoots at 30p. Hey you, come back! It’s not all bad! Yes 24p is the fabled film frame r...

E-mount, A-mount, FE oh my! An in-depth guide to Sony lens mounts | Imaging Resources Sony's decision to drop the "NEX" moniker from its associated line within the Alpha scheme created a sea of confusion for many an NEX shooter, and for potential NEX buyers as well. Sony A7R review – does it replace a DSLR or Micro Four Thirds camera? | EOSHD The first big flaw is unfortunately video related. The image is just not good enough. The A7R has very similar video quality to the Nikon D800 as it shares such a similar sensor. What have Sony done with the A7R to improve video? Very little! Tutorial: How to Make Fake Guns Look Realistic for Less Than $10 | No Film School One of the biggest differences between a real gun and a fake gun, other than the fact that one could critically injure you (or kill you), is the materials used in fashioning them. Where's the best place for camera operators to make money and find jobs? | The Black and Blue The mean annu...

A look at different ways to put together your video kit. Note that this is oriented towards news and documentary, rather than narrative filmmaking: The $5000 question: What kit made our essential gear guide? | News Shooter For the camera, Matt went for the Sony RX10 with integrated zoom lens, while Dan opted for the versatile Panasonic Lumix GH3 with a variety of Nikon interchangeable lenses. Commenter Peter Roise also chose the GH3 but preferred to use native Lumix lenses as the main optics, while another user called Heri suggested the Olympus EM-1 Here's what the Blackmagic Cinema Camera was made for | Red Shark News I know it sounds obvious, but the Blackmagic Cinema Camera was designed for making films. The only reason we make such a self-evident point is that we've seen so many tests, that you could be forgiven for thinking that this camera was used solely for demonstrating itself! SONY 4K, HD Cameras Cover Every Angle For the Super Bowl | Sports Video FOX...

Letus has posted a very short video that shows the FOV of their GoPro Anamorphic adapter vs the regular GoPro field of view: This was shot on a GoPro Hero 3+ with and without the Letus Anamorph-X adapter. This is a quick sample straight off the camera showing what the adapter does to the FOV. Shot in 2.7k Protune mode. Trimmed and exported out of GoPro Studio. No other editing done and no stretch applied. The image can be flattened using the de-fish option in GoPro Studio and by tweaking it in post. We are also working with some plugin vendors to build a simple, one click converting option for various post workflows. NOTE: you would of course want to apply a 1.33x stretch to the anamorphic footage to re-establish proper aspect in the image. This is most easily done using the "4x3 to wide" pre-set in GoPro Studio. That applies a 1.33x stretch but does it more intelligently than a standard stretch in post. My personal workflow is to shoot in 2.7k, apply the dynamic s...

Several items from yesterday reappear in today's report. First up, Amira (or is it AMIRA?) prices were sort of leaked yesterday, and today ARRI in Europe confirmed the prices. I was going to link to ARRI's site , but it must be really popular or something, because it wasn't loading while I was writing this, so I have to link to a second source. Now ARRI Officially Announce Amira Camera Prices |  Cinescopophilia Hot on the heels of CVP dropping their ARRI Amira camera and package prices comes the official ARRI announcement that pricing has been set for its new documentary-style camera, AMIRA, and orders have begun to be taken. And Andrew Reid writes a love letter to the Amira. Arri AMIRA priced to compete with Canon C500 – plus, the secret of Arri’s success | EOSHD What’s the secret to Arri’s success? I’m putting my cards on the table straight away… I love the AMIRA. It’s as close to being the perfectly designed single-operator camera as I’ve ever seen. And...

For the past few years Lightworks has been an intriguing dark horse in the editing world. "The King's Speech" was edited on it! And they went and released a -practically - free version of it a few years ago. And promised a Macintosh version (over three years ago.) Nowadays the "free" version costs a little money if you want to be able to output in certain compression formats, and the Mac version is still not released, though they just released an update for Windows and Linux: Major new Lightworks release (Windows and Linux) - and now you can just "buy" it | Red Shark There are some big new features, including background importing, rendering and even exporting. Speaking of which, export to YouTube is now built-in. There's more hardware support with AJA's ioXT now recognised by the software. Subtle changes to the UI make navigation more direct and intuitive, and the screen elements adjust more easily to different screen resolutions inclu...

Drones seem to be "it" at the moment, with lots of different models appearing. This one seems barely larger than the GoPro it carries: AERIAL VIDEOGRAPHY IN YOUR POCKET | Videomaker The Pocket Drone is a multicopter that makes aerial videography possible through the use of an action camera such as the GoPro Hero 3. It's capable of carrying a payload of up to half a pound. Cheap $50 Lens for DSLR Video | DSLR Video Shooter The lens in question is the Olympus 50mm F1.8 fully metal manual lens. I found this lens in EX condition at KEH camera and LOVE IT. The sharpness of this little sucker blew my mind. And the manual focus ring and aperture are perfect for us DSLR video shooters. It also works great with full frame and APS-C sensors. The Kessler Parallax is intended to solve the problem of keeping the camera pointing on a still subject as the camera is moved along a slider. Redrock produced one solution for this; the One Man Crew , but the Kessler product has...

Atomos Samurai ‘Blade’ and ‘Connect’ | James Miller | Philip Bloom One thing to bare in mind is that if recording interviews using external sound into the Blade, for reference or as a master (Audio is not supported over HDMI on Canon 1DC), the sync will be off by a few frames. Luckily if you do clapper tests before your shoot, you have the option to shift sync + or -. This is very handy and will save headaches later in shifting audio layers. One of the problems with CMOS sensor cameras is Rolling Shutter. A global shutter solves that problem, so it would be good seeing that appear on more cameras (though I think the Global Shutter tends to lower the sensitivity of the sensor by a stop or so.) Canon to Offer Global Shutter for 2.5k Video on an Upcoming DSLR? [CR1] | CanonRumors We heard rumour that some folk in the video world are selling off gear in anticipation of a global shutter capable of 2.5k video being made available on an, as of yet, unnamed DSLR. Bad news for Son...

CineAlta Magazine | Sony Welcome to the premiere issue of CineAlta magazine, a periodical dedicated to telling the stories of those using Sony's large sensor digital motion picture cameras in production. Rode VideoMic GO Review | Photography Bay I have one complaint about the VideoMic GO. I wish it was built so that it did not extend behind the camera. If it remained only over the front of the camera (more like the VideoMic Pro), I would probably never take it off when I’m on an outing. Reading a Light Meter: Tips and Tricks | Hurlblog The Sekonic L-758C is the ultimate meter because it is two meters in one. You are able to read the incident light levels with the ball and the spot meter function gives you the ability to read points of light, the wall and buildings in the deep background to make sure there is enough fill level, grey cards, etc. A Film Can be Good, Fast and Cheap But You Can Only Pick Two Out Of The Three | Lights Films School The color palett...

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...