Cinematography
Filmmaking - Cinematography
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ARRI AMIRA To Do 4K, New GoPro Tutorials, and a New 50mm Cine Lens from Samyang
In a move that says a lot about the unrelenting pressure to move to 4K, ARRI has announced that they will release a 4K UHD upgrade for the AMIRA by the end of the year. This upgrade will provide in-camera recording of 3840 x 2160 UHD video at up to 60 fps to CFast cards in ProRes, as well as live uncompressed UHD output through 6G-SDI. For the past year, ARRI has been discouraging the move to 4K, stressing that image quality is more important than the total resolution of the image, and with this announcement they continue this message: […]
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Not So Fast: A Short Film With G&E Equipment Sourced From Ikea
In his short film Not So Fast, filmmaker David Sandberg managed to achieve a dramatic tunnel effect with no more than a few Ikea products and the free 3D modeling app, Blender. The very embodiment of DIY ethos, Sandberg fashioned a portable light — enclosed in a trashcan — to his dolly — a bit of shelving — and orchestrated the action atop his PVC pipe track. Granted, his battery pack and Black Magic Cinema Camera don’t exactly run cheap, but the homemade equipment used to relay his protagonist’s sleepwalking probably rounded out to no more than $30. Watch Sandberg break down his […]
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Breaking Down the DIY Visual Effects in A Truncated Story of Infinity
Paul Trillo’s A Truncated Story of Infinity considers the limitless schema of possibilities that unfold over the course of a series of moments. The eight minute film — recently featured on Short of the Week — also boasts some pretty impressive practical effects for a budget of $10,000. I asked Paul to break down the means behind each technique, which he notes may not “the correct way” to render an effect, even if they look pretty fine to me. Hall of Mirrors at :00 “Our ‘mirror’ was just a framed piece of green on a wall. We did a simple dolly into the green so it […]
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Celebrating 4K: The Art of Amazing 4K Film Competition
4K — a spec, or perhaps an aesthetic? Plenty of us are shooting in older, lower-resolution cameras, but others are buying new units that offer double — or more — the resolution we shot just a few years ago. Our images are finer, more detailed… but how else are they different? Sharp, along with RED and THX, are for the second year presenting “The Art of Amazing 4K Film Competition,” a short competition exploring the aesthetics of 4K cinematography. From the contest’s site: We are seeking short 4K films (10 minute maximum) that capture the full potential of an amazing […]
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Reviewing the ProAm Taurus Jr. Crane
With all the attention on brushless gimbals it’s easy to overlook cranes — pieces of equipment that can add cinematic motion to any shot. Cranes can also be large, difficult to move and hard to operate. The ProAm Taurus Jr is a small crane that solves most of those problems; its only limitation is that its range of motion may not meet every need. The Taurus Jr is 50” long and 5 ¾” wide and constructed primarily of two parallel rectangular tubes that are 2” x 1”. It is primarily constructed of powder coated and anodized aluminum. The only item that […]
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Sympathy, Said the Shark: Shooting in POV
Writer, director and editor Devin Lawrence says that when he set out to make Sympathy, Said the Shark he’d already gone through two projects which had stalled out due to lack of financing, so he decided he had to come up with something where “money can no longer be the ultimate road block.” The resulting project was shot in 14 days and primarily in one location, but it was by no means a simple project to make as much of it was shot using a POV rig built around the Blackmagic Pocket Camera. Lawrence, who works in LA primarily as […]
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Seeing in the Dark with the Sony a7S
When Sony announced the a7S mirrorless camera at NAB everyone was interested in its 4K capabilities, but it’s the low-light power of this camera that may be the true selling point. With the “S” standing for sensitivity, the a7S is the third a7 camera to be released. The a7 and a7R were announced in October of last year and started shipping in December. Those two models record HD video and stills at much higher resolutions than the a7S; the a7 has a 24.3 megapixel sensor capable of 6,000 x 4,000 pixel stills, while the a7R has a 36.4MP sensor capable […]
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“What is Bayhem?” The Secret of Michael Bay’s Shots
In the latest in his Every Frame a Painting series, film essayist Tony Zhou breaks down the visual language of the visually dynamic, sometimes-maligned (although not by Filmmaker!) Michael Bay, showing why his shots still pack more punch than your average multiplex-crasher. Using commentary from Werner Herzog, references to West Side Story (one of Bay’s favorite films) and A/B comparisons of imitators interesting and not, Zhou explains Bay’s use of parallax, off-screen space, compression and speed. If you’re planning to see Transformers 4 — or even if you’re not — just check this out.
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Watch: How to Hack a Lomo Camera Fisheye Lens for a DSLR
Australian artist/filmmaker Max Piantoni has a Lomo camera sitting around that’s not much good for anything these days, but he thought he could reappropriate the fisheye lens for a DSLR to cool ends. So he took a hammer, smashed apart the Lomo, and added the lens to the DSLR. In this video, he explains the relatively simple process and shows off some neat test footage that he took. Yes, Piantoni knows that there’s already a Lomo fisheye lens for DSLRs and no, he doesn’t care. Thanks to our friends at No Film School for the heads-up, and definitely head over […]
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Watch: The Shadows of Roger Deakins
Roger Deakins is widely regarded as one of the industry’s top cinematographers, bringing his characteristic earthen hues to films as divergent as Skyfall and The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford. He is of course best known for his frequent collaborations with the Coen Brothers (Bruno Delbonnel nicely filled his shoes in Inside Llewyn Davis), and this Plot Point Productions montage, “Roger Deakins: Shadows in the Valley,” makes note of Barton Fink, Fargo, No Country for Old Men, and a little bit of what’s in between. Watch above.
