As a teenager in the south of France, Maryse Alberti’s first two trips to the cinema led her impressionable eyes to Duel and Harold and Maude. If she’d instead began her cinematic journey with The Barefoot Executive and Escape From the Planet of the Apes, maybe she wouldn’t have become the cinematographer of The Wrestler, Happiness, When We Were Kings and Crumb. But the combined spell cast by Steven Spielberg and Hal Ashby – the great populist entertainer and the iconoclastic humanist – set Albert on a path that has led to a four-decade career pivoting between documentary and fiction. Alberti’s latest straddles […]
by Matt Mulcahey on Sep 21, 2015I first saw cinematographer Shane Hurlbut speaking at a trade show held in New York City in 2010 hosted by Canon. Hurlbut had just finished shooting Act of Valor, shot predominately using the Canon 5D Mark II, and he burst on stage with enough energy to power the building. At the time I wrote that he was “loud, in your face, cracking jokes while dashing about the stage,” but it was also clear he had a passion both for the gear and for sharing information. Since then Hurlbut has lensed the pictures Deadfall, Need for Speed, and the currently in […]
by Michael Murie on Sep 16, 2014What do you do when the funding for your short movie falls through? Make a different short movie! That’s what Ryan Connolly of Film Riot did after a large portion of the funding he was counting on for his big-budget short film project Outsiders fell through just days before shooting was to begin. In a similar situation most people would probably spend a week or so re-evaluating their life choices. But since they had the gear and the people had already flown in, Connolly decided instead to come up with, and shoot, a different short. The result is PROXiMITY, an […]
by Michael Murie on Dec 5, 2013Back in 2011, Canon approached director Ron Howard about creating a short film inspired by a framework of eight photographs, which were culled from over 100,000 submissions through an online contest. Howard declined on account of his busy schedule, but offered to mentor a filmmaker through the process. His pupil in Project Imagin8ion was none other than his daughter, actress Bryce Dallas Howard. Through the exercise, Bryce crafted the 29-minute when you find me, a short film written by Dane Carbeneau about two sisters grappling with the death of their mother through space and time. A photograph of a dilapidated […]
by Sarah Salovaara on May 13, 2013It’s the end of the year and everyone’s doing year-end lists, so why not me? Here’s my top ten camera news and developments in 2012: 1. The end of film Film’s been having a tough time of it, but did anyone in 2011 think that 2012 would be the year that film would roll over and die? This was the year that Kodak went bankrupt, Fuji announced they would cease production of motion picture film, and the major film companies announced the timetable for moving toward 100% digital distribution. It was also the year that a James Bond movie was […]
by Michael Murie on Dec 24, 2012When 3D TVs were the rage, I was convinced it was just a cynical push by the electronics manufacturers to sell TVs and nothing else. To me, 3D was a fad that would be used for a few things, but was unlikely to become mainstream. I’d seen the future before; I saw Jaws 3D when it was first released. So when the manufacturers started talking up 4K cameras, with promises of 4K TV sets, I was convinced that this too was a push to sell new TV sets that wouldn’t amount to much. Sure filmmakers with a big budget will […]
by Michael Murie on Nov 28, 2012Was it only last week that Sony announced the NEX-FS700, and had everyone wondering where this left the Canon C300? One week later and Canon has seemingly fired back a huge broadside, announcing not one, but two new cameras; the EOS-1D C, (a 4K video DSLR that Canon had pre-preannounced at the unveiling of the C300 late last year) and the C500, a true 4K version of the C300. Note that the C500 – like the C300 – will be available in two variants; one with an EF mount, and the other with a PL mount. For those who haven’t […]
by Michael Murie on Apr 13, 2012