News from Here & There

Sony's Filmlike camera
The problem with reading reports about un-released cameras is that you can get conflicting information. Often from the same source.

On the first day of IBC, Philip Johnston at HDWarrior reported somewhat negatively about Sony's Filmlike camera, and said that it would have a price of around $20,000. But since then, the post has been rewritten a couple of times;

Alister Chapman told me about the footage and he was very exited about the lack of noise, I must say after further investigation he is 100% correct…fantastic pictures.

and in a "Time for Reflection" piece yesterday he says that maybe it will be priced about £6,000.

I asked Bill for a price and he told me that announcement was for early next year. Bill knows Panasonic have a head start in the FilmLike field and that their camcorder is £4000 so we can only wait for that important announcement, my bet is about £6000.

Will it be an HDSLR killer? Probably not; I think it's more likely going to go after RED.
HDWarrior: IBC 2010 “Time for Reflection”



Sony 3D Camera
I also missed this being reported anywhere else, but it seems Sony showed a 3D camera at IBC, though it appears it was just a prototype, and they didn't announce even an intention to make an announcement.
TelevisionBoradcast: Sony Unveils Prototype 3D Shoulder Camcorder at IBC



How do they write The Daily Show?

While reporting the cover story on Stewart and The Daily Show for this week’s magazine, Chris Smith sat in the post-run-through rewrite room for the show's August 12 episode, listening in while Stewart and staffers tightened, massaged, and riffed on a segment of "Indecision 2010" about the primary defeat of Karen Handel, a gubernatorial candidate in Georgia

Read the transcript of the meeting:
New York: Read a Writers’ Room Transcript That Shows How Daily Show Segments Get Made



Shooting Long Form Drama on an HDSLR
El Skid writes about the things he learned shooting with an HDSLR while making an ultra low budget pilot for British television called “Ladies and Gentlemen”. His first two insights:

1. Shooting handheld is nothing to be scared of
2. Monitoring – Buy Marshall, don’t bother with anything else

PhotocineNews: 8 Things I’ve Learned From Shooting Long Form Drama on the 5D That I didn’t Know Before I Started



Virtual Moviemaking
Autodesk has a whitepaper (in PDF format) on Virtual Cinematography:

Virtual cinematography is a new style of filmmaking that allows directors to manipulate virtual cameras within textured and lit 3D environments, populated with highly detailed characters and props in real-time. Directors can also see their computer graphics (CG) elements in the ‘viewfinder’, while working on the live-action set. These new possibilities are ushering in a new era for interactive technology.

Autodesk: Virtual Moviemaking



And for the Avid reader...
Dermot Shane is extensively quoted in this article about using Avid DS to finish a project shot on the RED and initially cut in Final Cut Pro.
digitalfilms: Avid DS shines for Metric