Authors — Michael Murie
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“All of a Sudden I Found Myself Creating Content on YouTube”: The Making of A Trip to Unicorn Island
Filmmaker and songwriter Scott David Winn was a working DP who turned himself into a YouTube star (ScottDW) before turning himself back into a filmmaker. In this interview he talks about making the documentary feature A Trip to Unicorn Island, which is about another YouTube star, Lilly Singh (known on YouTube as IISuperwomanII), going on her first tour. Filmmaker: How did you go from YouTube shorts to making a documentary film? Winn: Three years ago I was working as a director of photography, shooting commercials [and] music videos and I accidentally stumbled upon YouTube. I had a passion for coming […]
by Michael Murie on Apr 12, 2016 -
New OSX App Hedge Manages File Transfers
Released this week, Hedge is an OS X app for streamlining the process of importing camera footage and making backups. Hedge will transfer multiple disks at the same time and verify each copy. Paul Matthijs Lombert came up with the idea for Hedge, and is CEO of the developer, The Sync Factory. He answered the following questions via email. Filmmaker: Where did the idea for Hedge come from? Matthijs Lombert: I’ve been an acoustician and mastering engineer for over ten years. I originally came up with the idea for Hedge when working on a Dutch multicam documentary. I designed the audio […]
by Michael Murie on Mar 23, 2016 -
Atomos Announces 7” HDR Field Monitor/Recorders that can Display Log Footage
Atomos has announced the Atomos Flame series of field monitor/recorders. These new units feature 7” 1920x 1080 resolution screens with 1,500 nits of brightness — four times the brightness of their existing screen. Atomos claims it’s the world’s brightest and widest dynamic range panel in a field monitor. But what is HDR footage? Atomos CEO and co-founder Jeromy Young explains that if you have a camera that shoots in a Log format, and that will output that over SDI or HDMI, you already have an HDR camera. The problem is that it can be difficult to see what that Log image is […]
by Michael Murie on Mar 22, 2016 -
Blackmagic Ships URSA Mini 4.6K Camera Without Global Shutter
The Blackmagic URSA Mini 4.6K was supposed to ship back in October, but after encountering some engineering issues Blackmagic has finally announced that it is shipping, though minus one important feature: global shutter. In a press release announcing that the URSA Mini 4.6K and the Micro Cinema Camera are shipping, Blackmagic acknowledged that they had encountered problems with the global shutter in both cameras, though the problems were evidently different for each. Blackmagic decided to give up on the feature, in part because they think the key feature of the Mini 4.6K is really the high dynamic range, and when you […]
by Michael Murie on Mar 18, 2016 -
“Directors and VFX Artists Can Come Together as a Team”: Using Fusion to Composite Effects for Yellow Day
Magnetic Dreams is an effects house based in Nashville Tennessee. With experience in both 2D and 3D animation, they did most of the compositing for the film Yellow Day using Blackmagic Design’s Fusion. Fusion is a compositing program that, since its acquisition by Blackmagic Design in 2014, has seen a significant price drop – you can get a version for free — and the release of a Mac version. We spoke with compositing supervisor Joel Gibbs and one of the owners of Magnetic Dreams, Don Culwell, about working on Yellow Day, what it’s like to learn and use Fusion, and […]
by Michael Murie on Mar 10, 2016 -
Creating a Promotional Video for the Kindle Best-Selling Sci-Fi Series Post-Human, Part 2
In Part I, David Simpson, author of the bestselling sci-fi novel series Post-Human, talked about how he became first an author and then a filmmaker by creating a short promotional piece for his series. The resulting video represents what Simpson thinks the opening sequence of a Post-Human film might look like. He accomplished this with virtually no experience, a tiny crew and a location that cost a third of his budget. In this Part II he talks about the equipment he used, and how he planned and executed the production. Filmmaker: How did you plan out what you were going […]
by Michael Murie on Feb 11, 2016 -
Creating a Promotional Video for the Kindle Best-Selling Sci-Fi Series Post-Human
David Simpson is the author of the bestselling sci-fi novel series Post-Human. There are currently five books in the series, with two more planned. Born in Ireland, he has lived in Vancouver since 2000 and believed he would end up a teacher of English until he discovered self-publishing on the Kindle. Having had success self-publishing, he hoped to create a promotional video for the series that might lead to the production of an actual movie. The resulting video represents what Simpson thinks the opening sequence of a Post-Human film might look like. The truly fascinating part of the story is […]
by Michael Murie on Feb 10, 2016 -
The Jaunt ONE — Development of a VR Camera
The past year has seen a lot of development in VR cameras – cameras that can shoot 360-degree video. Offerings range from inexpensive rigs for mounting multiple GoPros to custom units that cost many thousands of dollars. It’s an interesting field for sports and experiences, though it remains to be seen how this will impact narrative film making. We recently spoke to Koji Gardiner, Jaunt’s Director of Hardware Engineering, about their Jaunt ONE camera. This is a single unit that contains 24 camera mechanisms. After two years of development the unit is now being used for a variety of production […]
by Michael Murie on Jan 12, 2016 -
2015: Camera and Monitor Gear in Review
Looking back on 2015, while there were few real stand-out innovations, the advances in the world of cameras and gear continued to march relentlessly forward. Cameras This was the year that Panasonic finally shipped their 4K Varicam 35, but for the indie filmmaker it was probably the announcement of the $4,000 Panasonic AG-DVX200 4K camera — which features a Four-Thirds sensor — that was more interesting. Ideal for run-and-gun documentary work, you might think of it as the GH4 with better audio and a good fixed zoom lens. For the narrative filmmaker, or those that want/need a bigger sensor, the […]
by Michael Murie on Dec 30, 2015 -
The Repertory Film Tradition Continues at the Brattle Theatre
Boston is home to many historic landmarks and buildings, but for film buffs and film students, the best-known may be the Brattle Theatre in Harvard Square, Cambridge. The Brattle has been running as a repertory theater (specializing in older “classic films”) since 1953, and has been credited with keeping movies like Casablanca in the public consciousness through the ’50s and ’60s. In addition to classic films, the Brattle shows foreign and independent film, and just celebrated 15 years running as a non-profit. The Brattle Theatre is housed inside Brattle Hall, which was built by the Cambridge Social Union and opened […]
by Michael Murie on Nov 13, 2015
