In the early days of the global shutdown, even before the canceled NAB would’ve taken place, Blackmagic Design had some product announcements that ended up being very appropriately timed: Updates to their Pocket Cinema cameras and the ATEM Mini, and the release of the brand new ATEM Mini Pro. I had a chance to chat with Bob Caniglia, Director of Sales Operations in North America for Blackmagic Design, about the new updates, as well as some thoughts on the new ATEM Mini Pro after using it for a few weeks. Turning Cinema Cameras Into Broadcast Cameras Working our way down […]

Since Sean Baker’s Tangerine hit the scene as the first feature film shot on iPhone, more filmmakers have embraced mobile production as a viable filmmaking tool. Steven Soderbergh shot Unsane and High Flying Bird on an iPhone 8. Claude Lelouch shot over 30% of his latest film, The Best Years of a Life, on an iPhone and loved the experience so much that his next film (not yet released) was shot entirely on an iPhone. Behind all these iPhone-lensed features there has always been one go-to app: FiLMiC Pro. FiLMiC Pro unlocks professional-level control over the phone’s camera, including exposure, […]

Most of the big news that comes out of NAB you’ll hear about, whether you’re there or not. Where NAB gets interesting is when you wonder around the cavernous Las Vegas Convention center, especially towards the back or perimeters, and stumble on some interesting gems of tools that might a unique solution or make production life just a tiny bit easier. Here’s a round-up of some of the smaller finds from NAB (as well as a few bigger ones), all focused around production (post-production is coming up next).  Litra Litra has some amazingly clever battery-powered portable LED lights. The LitraPro […]

Announced towards the end of last year, Nikon had their two new full-frame mirrorless Z mount camera systems on full display at NAB, which ran April 6 – 11 in Las Vegas. The Nikon Z 6 and Z 7 can both shoot full-frame 4K Ultra HD, can output a 10-bit N-Log signal via HDMI, can record up to 120 fps at 1080p, and contain standard video recording functions such as autofocus and timecode. While the Z 6 obviously has a lower ranking model number and is over a third less expensive than the Z 7 ($1,995 vs $3,399, body only), […]

Polaroid sent over their handheld 3-axis stabilizer for GoPro for a hands on review. In the video below I do a run through of the device along with taking it out for a spin with some test footage. At $180 it’s one of the least expensive gimbals for GoPro, and the shots are impressively smooth. Controlling the camera takes a little getting used to. It works with the HERO 3/3+/4. You can use it with or without an LCD BacPac (it includes a spacer when using it without). I caved and bought the screen because it was getting hard to operate holding a phone […]

One of the little gems I stumbled on in the far reaches of the central hall at NAB last year was Polar Pro, a company that’s been putting out clever GoPro rigs (among other things). I got a chance to put some of their gear to the test on a recent climbing trip in Arizona. Here are my thoughts. ProGrip and StrapMount The ProGrip is a handy mount for the GoPro and remote, making handheld shots a little more stable and adding easier access to control of the camera with the placement of the remote. I loved it. The handle […]

I know, another company with more GoPro accessories. At first I was skeptical that I’d see something new, but as someone who dives and hikes, just about everything I saw from PolarPro solved a lot of mounting and accessibility problems I’ve had in the outdoors, from keeping the camera quickly accessible to adding extra power. It’s not much of a surprise these are well thought out accessories. Company founder Jeff Overall is an action sports enthusiast himself and was looking for a decent polarizing filter for his GoPro for snowboarding. When he couldn’t find one he made it and started PolarPro during his […]

While most of the attention paid to Blackmagic’s releases at NAB went to their slew of new and updated cameras, they also released DaVinci Resolve 12, which they say has made a bigger improvement in the last year than their last five years of updates. When they introduced 11 last year, they announced new editing tools within the app. They’ve further expanded Resolve as a feasible NLE with multicam features, tons of trim mode options, and a brand new audio engine for audio editing. I played around with Resolve at the booth. The timeline definitely felt familiar and the ease of making […]

LaCie announced some updates to their familiar rugged line at NAB. There is now a larger housing with two drives for RAID 1 or 0. It includes both a thunderbolt and USB 3 interface, with 4 TB for $419. Also new to the rugged line is a 1 TB SSD drive, priced at $899. There’s a variety of other options in both SSD and spinning disk ranging from 250 GB to 2 TB. Not rugged but a new mobile addition is a USB-C drive. Expect to see more of these now that Apple has made it clear that’s the new direction of connections. Comes […]

If you’ve ever dealt with a video project that needed feedback from a team of people, chances are you’ve worked with Dropbox files, password-protected Vimeo links, and a scattered selection of email chains. Wipster aims to streamline the process with their online platform. Simply upload your video file and choose who you want to share it with. Everyone you list will get an email with a unique URL to view the video without needing to create an account and log in. From there they can use Wipster’s powerful commenting feature, which lets any collaborator comment on any frame in the video just by […]