Cinematography
Filmmaking - Cinematography
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2014: The Year of 4K
At the end of 2013 I wrote: 2013 wasn’t so much the year of 4K, as the year of “do we need 4K?” For most of the year I was a skeptic, but now I’m starting to think that 2014 will bethe year of 4K. And here we are at the end of 2014 and I look back and think, “I really hit that one out of the park!” Not that it took a lot of genius to read the tea leaves or see the writing on the wall: 2014 was definitely the year of 4K. Whether it was the F5/F55 […]
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A Best Cinematography of 2014 Supercut
Here’s an elegant and understated supercut from Jacob T. Swinney, scored with a meditative cue by Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross. Alongside some of the big Hollywood titles — Interstellar, Godzilla — are a number of indies and foreign films like Blue Ruin, Ida and White Bird in a Blizzard. Check it out.
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Watch: Sean Price Williams’ Frantic Fran’s Jewish Stuff
Last week, Robert Greene posted a “virtually unseen” mid-length documentary, shot and edited by Sean Price Williams in 1998, entitled Frantic Fran’s Jewish Stuff. Three years before the cinematographer’s first official credit, and nine years before his quasi-breakthrough with Frownland, the 16mm film presages the close-ups and striking compositions that earned Williams some of the best notices of his career with this year’s Listen Up Philip. And it’s pretty entertaining, as well.
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On Golden Frog: The 22nd Camerimage International Film Festival of the Art of Cinematography
Located in the nearly unpronounceable Polish town of Bydgoszcz, Camerimage – the International Film Festival of the Art of Cinematography – is the must-attend event of the year for DPs, aspiring DPs, or any cinephile prizing visual craft over auteur theory. At this 22-year-old fest, folks like Caleb Deschanel (who received a Lifetime Achievement Award, a retrospective, and a massive hardcover book highlighting his career) and Vilmos Zsigmond are the stars, complete with their names in lights on the marquee of the massive Opera Nova, the festival’s headquarters and main venue on the scenic Brda River. Far from passive honorees, […]
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Watch: How to Highlight Depth of Field
As a two dimensional medium, film employs a handful of techniques to convey a greater depth of field than what exists in a given frame. In this handy video, cinematographer Matthew Rosen breaks down his five favorite ways to highlight depth, through lighting, focus, perspective, parallax, and occlusion. The dolly effect, which Rosen argues is perhaps most effective in relating depth of field to an audience, is in fact a combination of parallax and occlusion.
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Five Questions for Drone Boning Drone Porn Creators Brandon LaGanke and John Carlucci
Drones. Porn. Directors Brandon LaGanke and John Carlucci of Ghost Cow Films have taken what might have been a cynical, viral video SEO-mashup and delivered something deeply weird and oddly hypnotic. While Drone Boning features couples having sex (so, yes, it’s adults-only and NSFW), the eerie glide of the drone and the camera’s distance from these writhing lovers make them more like elements in a video art piece than reflections of desire. Filmmaker previously featured the work of Ghost Cow when we curated LaGanke’s short film, Play House, for the Northside Film Festival. When he sent me this latest out-there […]
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Cinematographer Reed Morano on the Fight Against TV’s “Smooth Motion” Setting
“Stop motion interpolation!” is the call on a Change.org petition urging TV manufacturers to disable the default “smooth motion” setting on new televisions. As the petition explains, “Motion Interpolation was an effect that was created to reduce motion blur on HDTVs but a very unfortunate side effect of using this function is that is takes something shot at 24 fps or shot on film and makes it look like it was shot on video at 60i. In short, it takes the cinematic look out of any image and makes it look like soap opera shot on a cheap video camera.” […]
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At the Illumination Experience Tour with Shane Hurlbut
Cinematographer Shane Hurlbut has been touring the country with The Illumination Experience. This day-long workshop primarily covers lighting: how to get the best results, basic and advanced setups, and even how to do lighting on a budget. But the class also covers a lot of other material for the working cinematographer, everything from the advantages of different cameras and lenses to the correct way to hand off a C-Stand. The class begins with a demonstration of Hurlbut’s “Pirate Death Ship,” three lights attached to a dolly on a 360 degree rail system. With an actress sitting in the middle, the […]
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Canon C100 Mark II Adds New Features, But Not 4K
Canon has announced a refresh of the Canon C100, and on the face of it this update fixes many of the issues found in the original model. The Dual Pixel CMOS AF function that was a paid upgrade for the original C100 is included, though it’s still limited to the center of the image area. Also new is Face-Detection AF, which will focus on off-center faces. The EVF, which was widely panned in the first model is now larger, with a redesigned eyepiece, and it now tilts. The rear screen is now a 3.5” 1.23 megapixel OLED, with a new […]
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Panasonic VariCam 35 and HS Are Now Shipping
Panasonic is now shipping their new VariCam models, the 35 and HS. Panasonic first displayed mockups of a camera at NAB in 2012, but they didn’t announce these models until NAB 2014, and it’s taken another seven months to finally ship the product. The VariCam is really two sensor head units and a single recording unit that can be attached to either sensor unit. The VariCam 35 has a 35mm 4K sensor with a PL mount, while the Varicam HS is a 2/3” HD sensor with a B4 mount and the ability to capture at 240fps. The HS model is primarily intended for […]
