Notes On Video

This weekend is Independent Film Festival Boston 2014 . In addition to a whole bunch of screenings, there are four panels: MAKE IT (INDIE) IN MASS Who says only Hollywood blockbusters get made here? Filming in Massachusetts is a great deal at any budget. Find out all you need to know about appying for the tax incentive, working with unions, and the differences between shooting docs vs. narratives. ART OF DOCUMENTARY EDITING: CASE STUDIES Moderator: Garret Savage, President of the Karen Schmeer Film Editing Fellowship DO'S AND DON'TS OF DIY FILM DISTRIBUTION Moderator: Erin Trahan, Editor of The Independent and co-editor of The Independent's Guide to Film Distribution DOCUMENTARIES AND THE GOLDEN AGE OF DECEPTION Moderator: Chico Colvard, UMass Boston Film Series curator And this is the current list of films with filmmakers (or documentary subjects) in attendance: Narrative Features: A FOR ALEX BENEATH THE HARVEST SKY BIG SIGNIFICANT THINGS DEAR WHITE PE...

I thought I was clear about what cards worked with the Sony FDR-AX100 in my previous posts , but an email from a reader suggests I wasn't as clear as I thought: Two days before a three week shoot my producer says he got the FDR-AX100 from B&H as a backup camera. He didn't get any cards, but I looked on B&H and had three cards that were listed as accessories, so I thought I was good. Of course, after meeting the producer, the cards wouldn't record 4K or even HD as XQD. I noticed on your blog you had a similar problem, but I have yet to see a confirmation that the Sony 64GB SDXC Class 10 UHS-1 card, in fact, does work. Your most recent post about the subject even further puts doubt in my mind. I would greatly appreciate it if you could confirm that card actually works. So just to be clear, I tried one SD card that the camera wouldn't work with, but it accepted this card: Sony 64GB SDXC Class 10 UHS-1 Memory Card . So far it seems to work fine; though I can...

APRIL 24th BOSCPUG: Director Graham Elliott and Screening of “New York in Motion” We are pleased to feature a special conversation with director Graham Elliott as he screens “New York in Motion,” his celebrated 60 minute documentary and dazzling portrait of the motion graphics industry in New York and breathtaking visual journey behind the scenes and screens of the industry that shapes how we see the world today. April 26th CAMERA DYNAMICS Workshop & Seminar | Massachusetts Production Coalition The panel will explore how camera movement can enhance a shot; furthering our understanding of character and plot development; building dramatic tension; transitioning between dissimilar emotions or geographies, and enabling our immersion into the scene before us. Technical and logistical aspects of camera motion will be discussed in addition to the artistic and aesthetic. They also have another workshop in early May May 10 | P.A. Workshop | Massachusetts Production Coalition ...

One of the best audio purchases I ever made was a wireless lapel mic. If you're a one-man documentary crew, wireless mics are about the easiest way to get "pretty good" audio, in most situations. Sure, they aren't perfect, but I'd tried shotgun mics and hand mics before that, and they had their own problems. I bought a Sony unit years ago, but I had to replace it back in 2010 when the FCC cracked down on the use of the 700MHz frequency , so I bought another Sony unit . The secret problem of wireless mics is that they are operating in available spectrum (currently 600MHz), not spectrum that's been specifically made available for them, and if the FCC decides to change things, we'll find ourselves having to replace everything. As we already did. And now it appears we are about to again, as the FCC is planning to have an auction next year, and the 600 MHz is going to be up for grabs. At the moment I have no idea what this will mean for current model...

Andrew Reid of EOSHD takes a look at Sony's FDR-AX100 in this piece:  A very brief look at the Sony AX100 4K Handycam and uncompressed 4K HDMI In it he asks this question: XAVC-S on the AX100 uses a bitrate of 60Mbit/s for 4K. It is a shame there’s no higher quality mode for those who don’t mind slightly larger file sizes. XAVC is an important new proprietary Sony standard. Why such a tepid implementation?  And when I saw that I thought "oh! oh! I think I know why" - because I encountered this when I was buying a memory card for the FDR-AX100 . There's a couple of confusing things about buying memory cards for this camera; one is that the camera specs are given in Mbit/s (or Mbps) while the memory cards seem to all be spec'd in MB/s. Here's the manual: So if you're buying the FDR-AX100 you see that it writes at 60 Mbps, but if you look at Sony's own card , they quote: The 64GB SDXC Class 10 UHS-1 Memory Card from Sony features a ma...

NAB 2014: 8K resolution coming in 2020 | Digital Arts At the NAB 2014 show in Las Vegas, Japanese public broadcaster NHK showed off massive 8K video displays and a giant 8K video camera, which the company is researching as the next logical step in the quest to crank out as much resolution as the human eye can possibly detect. Dirt Cheap GoPro Cages From $35 |  cinescopophilia Well if you invent it, it will get copied and churned out at a fraction of the cost. And so GoPro cages are turning up on Aliexpress dirt cheap. A simple and quick search reveals multiple GoPro cages selling from $35 up to $70+ and most have free shipping on Aliexpress. Nikon D800 hacked with 50Mbit/s high bitrate video option  | EOSHD I like the Sony A7R but the D800 has a few advantages. Biggest one is you can install an anti-moire filter in the D800 from Mosaic Engineering and there isn’t yet one for the Sony, doubtless if there ever will be room for one in that mirrorless mount. I also ...

Panasonic GH4 vs Blackmagic Pocket Cinema Camera Early Footage, Full Specs, & Why the AJA CION is the Most Exciting New Camera at NAB 2014 | No Film School This week has been a crazy one for camera announcements. Not only did Blackmagic blow the lid off of NAB once again with the announcement of the URSA camera, but Digital Bolex brought their A-game to the world of black and white cinematography, and Apertus (despite the fact that they couldn’t make it to NAB) announced that the Axiom Beta is well on its way. Letus AnamorphX-GP Drive This is interesting because it's shot in 4K at 12fps... Here's a quick sample of what the GoPro Hero3+ Black looks like at 4K 12fps with the Letus AnamorphX-GP anamorphic 1.33X adapter. I've sped up the footage 2x to achieve 24P, squeezed vertically to get back to 2.4:1 aspect, removed the fisheye, and did some basic grading using Film Convert. The Panasonic PX270 Video Review explained | HD Warrior I keep getting...

Panasonic GH4 – Slow-mo at 96fps and 4K rolling shutter test | EOSHD Between 24fps and 60fps image quality is very good, the same as you’d get from the normal speed 1080p video modes. The 100Mbit/s data rate is enough to prevent any mud or blockiness ruining motion blur or fine detail. If you’d prefer to add slow-mo in post from regular speed footage, it is perhaps best to choose the 200Mbit/s codec and 1080/60p though. Definition Magazine NAB editions in digital format. AJA say that their new CION camera is the culmination of years of development. But they must have been inspired by what Blackmagic Design has done in the last couple of years. A great production house camera: A professional promotional film shot in Jordan with the Digital Bolex D16 | Kurt Lancaster Some have claimed that Digital Bolex’s 16mm 2K cinema camera, the D16, is simply a “niche” camera. A cell phone is a niche camera if you’re using it for serious production. The D16 is a Cinema Camera and I wou...

Production Update: April 2014 | Digital Bolex Two weeks ago we sent out an email to our customers letting everyone know that our production line had been delayed due to third party interference. Today we have good news! Shipping and production on the D16 has resumed, and we are shipping cameras again. Here is the long awaited Video Review of the Panasonic AJ-PX270 | HD Warrior The Panasonic AJ-PX270 is a joy to film with and having 10bit 422 really makes the pictures stand out. Watching the review which is a massive 19mins long you will learn the camcorders most inner secret which I will talk about later on this week but till then watch the review and be amazed. Interesting demo on attaching the Sony Action Cam to a helmet using the Sony Skeleton Frame and a GoPro mount! Moto-Vlogging with the Sony Action Camera | TechMoan Judging from some comments under my Sony AS100 action camera, a few people still believe it's not possible to access the microphone socket on th...

JELLO SHOTS WITH THE SONY A7S | Andrew Wonder There is some good news. The high ISO is stunning on this camera. 40,000 ISO (forty thousand!!!) looks great and even 409,600 (yep, that many zeros) looks somewhat useable (at least through the 4K HDMI output before compression). The body is small with a good EVF and solid controls. It even has a clever way to attach XLR inputs. The only flaw I could find with this “video optimized” camera was discovered by chance...when I accidentally kicked the tripod. Andrew Reid offers his thoughts: Sony A7S rolling shutter test | EOSHD Even in 1080p XAVC-S mode on the A7S the sensor is still scanning every line and every pixel so the rolling shutter is likely to be the same in that mode. It will be interesting to see if it improves between 24p and 60p modes though, but I was hoping that 4K 24p would not suffer from quite some much wobble. Netflix begins 4K streams | CNET Netflix's 4K streams are only viewable on 2014 4K TVs that inclu...

Lensbaby started out with odd little lenses in flexible-plastic housings, but they seem to be moving towards lenses that look like lenses... Unveiled: Lensbaby 5.8mm f/3.5 Circular Fisheye Lens | B & H Photovideo Create full-circle images using your cropped-sensor DSLR, with the new Lensbaby 5.8mm f/3.5 Circular Fisheye Lens, available in Canon EF and Nikon F mounts. Featuring an ultra-wide 5.8mm focal length and a 185˚ angle of view, this lens provides you with an expansive, sweeping perspective, even in tight spots. With an aperture range of f/3.5 to f/22 and a close minimum focusing distance of a 1/4", you can practically touch your subject and still have sharp images with expansive depth of field. Amazing Sony A7s Low Light test video! | SonyAlphaRumors Den Lennie just updated his A7s post by including an amazing A7s High ISO test (Click here and scroll down to see the video). The screenshot on top shows you the noise at crazy 409,600 ISO. This is really a co...

Digital Bolex Announces PL Mount for D16 Goes on Sale Next Month for $995 | No Film School Up until now, the default lens mount for Digital Bolex’s D16 digital camera came with a  C mount. The aim was to really capture the design of the original Bolex 16mm film cameras, allowing filmmakers to use vintage 16mm and Super 16mm lenses, but the PL mount will take the D16 up a notch. The DB team has been working on a PL mount option for quite a while, and in their blog post, they explain where the decision to include a PL mount came from. Exclusive: here is the first app to resample Panasonic GH4 4K 8bit to 10bit 4:4:4 | EOSHD As this panel aptly put it at NAB this week, 4K delivery is very rare at the moment so most filmmakers are shooting 4K acquisition to get the benefits in post for 2K delivery. For a while now I’ve been suggesting on EOSHD that 8bit 4K can build a 10bit 2K image due to oversampling, a theory which was backed up by David Newman at GoPro / CineForm in this EO...

GH4 FASHION FILM | Vimeo Mytherapy was given an unreleased prototype of the Panasonic GH4 camera to test. We brought exciting young photographer Michael Furlonger on board and created an amazing 4K fashion film. We were also able to extract high quality 8 mega pixel stills, which prove that the size of the camera is no longer a barrier to the quality of the image it creates. This little compact camera captures 4K images that rival anything we have seen from the big players. Watch our superb behind the scenes video to see how it was all done! Here's a BTS SKINTONE SHOOTOUT: PANASONIC GH4, BLACKMAGIC DESIGN 4K, SONY PXW-Z100 | Slashcam The article's not in English, but you can watch the video! NAB 2014: The Year of Unusual Cameras | Filmmaker Magazine It was clear that this would be the year of 4K, but perhaps more surprising is who plans to ship 4K cameras this year. Sony, who actually bought out two new 4K cameras last year – the F5 and F55 – clearly d...

I finally did some resolution tests with the Sony FDR-AX100 . This camcorder records 4K to internal memory cards, and I was really wondering if 4K was going to be that good, or would it be so compressed that there was virtually no difference to the HD video. The camera also has an XAVC recording option (and you can buy a cheaper version of the camera, the HDR-CX900 , that just has the higher data rate HD format recording) so I wanted to see how that compared to both 4K and HD AVCHD recording. I actually wondered whether it would be better to get the HDR-CX900 instead, as it would be cheaper and frankly, all I was looking for was better HD, rather than 4K. So for this test, I took the 4K footage, and the HD footage, and output it to HD in ProRes 4:2:2 from Final Cut Pro X. And if you're looking for really good HD resolution, than the FDR-AX100 in 4K mode is pretty amazing as a source. The FDR-AX100 4K footage blows away the best AVCHD camera I currently have (the NEX-EA50 .) And...

As they usually do, Sony held a press briefing the day before NAB opened to cover their announcements. This year was focused on 4K, though HD video did get a mention! One interesting thing; they didn't announce any new video cameras, instead they announced upgrades for the F5, F55 and F65. For the F5 & F55 they announced a new documentary base designed to help make the camera more ENG-like. They also announced new recording format support for ProRes and Avid's DNXHD. There's also a software update coming for the F65 with improved color management. Perhaps most interesting of all is that they announced a consumer camera - the A7s - at the event. This is pretty unusual (they certainly haven't announced a consumer camera at a pro event in the last three or four years!) On the face of it, the A7s looks interesting;  the A7s has a smaller total sensor pixel count than the A7r, which probably helps give it much higher sensitivity. It also outputs 4K video, but on...

The date for the release of the Mac Beta of Lightworks has been announced: it's June 11, 2014 Red Shark News :  Date announced for Lightworks for Mac Public Beta: this is the date it's available to everyone!

The weather here in the Northeast has been miserable the last week, but I’ve finally started shooting stuff with the Sony FDR-AX100 , and here’s what I’ve found out so far NLE Support. It turns out that Adobe Premiere CS6 does not like 4K footage from the FDR-AX100. Prelude seemed to import it okay, but when I transferred it to Premiere , there was garbage displayed in the Source panel. An image was displayed in the Program panel, but I couldn’t play the footage, even after rendering it. After rendering, it would just jump between two frames and not play anything else. It seems like you’ll have to get the Creative Cloud if you want to edit 4K (unfortunately, at the moment I can’t as I’m working on a computer behind a network that the IS department won’t approve any cloud-based software.) One option might be to use DaVinci Resolve to create 1080 footage from the 4K and then edit in Premiere . Final Cut Pro X , fortunately, happily imported the video and lets me edit it. ...

Calling all colourists – Grade Panasonic GH4 4K ProRes next to Arri Alexa 2K ProRes | EOSHD The camera records a LOT of data in 4K mode. The internal codec is compressed to 100Mbit/s and packed into an 8bit 4:2:0 codec but 4x the resolution of 1080p means you can oversample 2K from it and gain 10bit precision and 4:4:4 colour sampling. This theory has been backed up by people in the know, specifically David Newman at CineForm / GoPro in this EOSHD interview. New Canon XF205 And XF200 Professional Camcorders Deliver Ideal Performance For Run-And-Gun, Cinéma Vérité Filmmakers | CanonRumors Positioned above the XF105 and XF100 Professional Camcorder models, the new Canon XF205 and XF200 Professional Camcorders are equipped with the upgraded zoom lens, CMOS sensor and image-processing platform featured in the XA25/XA20 High Definition Camcorders.  Canon Announces $33K US 17-120MM ENG Style Servo Lens For Large Sensor Cameras | News Shooter Canon have pre-released inf...