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know they will work. Other Super 35mm
lenses generally wont cover that image
area, but the only way to know for sure
is to test them. AbelCines technical blog
and other online resources are available
that list various image circles, so visit our
site to learn more. HDVP
does resolution have to do with lens
coverage, anyway? The answer: Nothing.
The 6K resolution area of the DRAGON
is physically 30.7x15.8mm (34.5 diago-
nal) in dimension, meaning that each
photosite on the sensor is around 4.9um
(0.0049mm) in size. A different sensor
type could have larger or smaller pho-
tosites in the same area, producing lower
or higher resolutions.
IN CONCLUSION
Lets go back to our original questions:
Does my 16mm lens cover the Blackmagic
Cinema Camera sensor? and Does my
lens cover 6K on the RED DRAGON cam-
era? Super 16mm lenses dont cover the
Blackmagic Cinema Camera sensor, as the
image circle of Super16 glass is 15mm,
and the BMCC sensor has a diagonal area
of 18.4mm. As for the RED DRAGON
at 6K, the answer depends on the lens
image circle. Having a 6K resolution has
nothing to do with lens coverage, but it
does describe a large area of the sensor.
Lenses like the Zeiss CP.2 primes and
CPZ.2 zooms are designed to cover the
larger full-frame-sensor cameras, so we
Andy Shipsides is a N.Y.-based Camera
Technology Specialist and Manager of
AbelCines Training Department. To learn
more about AbelCines Understanding
HD Series, you can visit their website
at training.abelcine.com.
LEFT: The lines
over the sensor
indicate different
recording areas
and aspect ratios.
The area outside
the 6K image
isnt covered by a
Super 35mm lens.
Images courtesy
of AbelCine
30 Q HDVideoPro | hdvideopro.com
(
HDVP
Q
Video Assist
)
DIFFERENT PERSPECTIVES
I recently set up to shoot some interviews
and thought about the concept of what
framing I should use. Usually, I would just
mix up the framing, going from medium
to close-up, etc., so that once the footage
got into edit they wouldnt be hampered
by jump cuts. But as I set up my gear, I
got into a discussion with the interviewer/
director about framing the interviews. He
brought up the point that if the only reason
I changed framing was to avoid jump cuts,
how was I to know which bites would be
cut against other bites? He suggested that
I assumed I knew how things were going to
be cut and that maybe I was actually mak-
ing things worse. It was really an academic
discussion. We both agreed that mixing
things up would provide some options in
edit. If, on the other hand, all the shots
were the same framing, every editnot
just a fewwould be jump cuts.
Fast-forward to my next project with the
same interviewer/director. This time we were
shooting people on a greenscreen. The idea
of shooting the interviews vertically popped
into my head. I gured that since the left
and right sides of the frame were usually
just wasted green, orienting the camera
vertically would ll that space. By lling
more of the screen, there would be more
options for resizing when the people were
composited. Im sure this isnt a new idea,
but Im curious if the lens would cooperate.
Are lenses optimized for shooting horizon-
tally? Or, more simply, is this a good idea?
S.D.
Via email
Shooting vertically isnt a new idea, but
asking about lens orientation is a great
question. A simple answer could be
based on what you might glean from
still photographers. I think if you ask
any professional photographer if they
think twice about shooting vertically
versus horizontally because of lens per-
formance, they would say no.
But lets look at this question a little
more methodically. Discussions about
lens performance inevitably focus on
MTF, the Modulation Transfer Function.
MTF is one of the measures of how well
a lens will reproduce a scene.
If you think about resolving detail
in a scene, youre dealing with con-
trastthe difference between darkness
and brightness and how quickly that
difference occurs across a given amount
of space. This is more than just pixel
count; its really how those pixels are
changed from black to white, depending
on how frequently the detail in the scene
changes from black to white.
Think of poppy seeds on a white
sheet of paper. If the lens presents black
seeds against bright white, the MTF of
the lens is better than if the seeds look
gray. But optical tests dont use poppy
seeds. They use charts lled with black
and white lines that change in size.
The charts use lines in different ori-
entations to measure different MTFs. If
you dive deep into optic specications,
you might see terms like tangential or
meridional and sagittal that relate to
the orientation of the lines.
But rather than pulling out graphs
showing various MTF curves, let me
summarize what Ive learned from a
few lens manufacturers. Theres a dif-
ference in performance depending on
the orientation of the lens. However,
that performance difference is so small
as to be mostly of interest to people
testing lenses. In the real world (by that
I mean subjects that arent test charts
and displays that are for viewing and
not measuring), the difference wouldnt
be noticeable based on lens orientation.
Resolving Detail
Shooting from a different perspective
By Michael Guncheon
ABOVE: For resolving detail, contrast is key, and poppy seeds on a white sheet of paper is a
good illustration. If a lens presents black seeds against bright white rather than gray seeds,
the MTF (Modulation Transfer Function) on that lens is better.
S
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VIDEO ASSIST
However, the lens is only part of the
equation. Other parts of the equation
include the codec thats being used to
record the image. If your codec uses
chroma subsampling such as 4:2:0, then
youre losing some chroma resolution in
the vertical domain. That loss might be
more apparent depending on the subject
and the viewing screen size. This could
be a problem, particularly because you
mentioned the possibility of a greenscreen.
I cant let this subject go without bring-
ing up some more practical things to think
about if you go this route. One is to make
sure you monitor properly. Youll need to
mount a monitor vertically so you can see
the scene properly. Merely turning your head
sideways not only would be a pain in the
neck, but it might prevent you from seeing
problems. What problems? Well, because
youre using up all the horizontal space
by switching to vertical, that means your
interviewee wont have as much room to
move their hands about. With greenscreen,
you dont want any hands cut off.
Youll also need to have a good con-
versation with the person doing the post,
since they will have to rotate every shot. I
know that discussion seems obvious, and
I think its a good idea with any shoot,
but especially with greenscreen shoots.
Lastly, it wouldnt hurt to test the concept
so you know how much you gain by doing
this. Lets say youre shooting someone at
1920x1080 for delivery at 1920x1080. If
theyre sitting on a stool and you frame
from below the knee to a little headroom,
youll obviously get the full-length shot. But
if you want something a little closer than a
waist-to-head medium shot, youll only get
it if you start scaling up the image beyond
100%. And if youre looking for the type of
close-up that you might frame when you
shoot horizontally, you might have to scale
the image up to 150%. The quality might
not be where you want it to be. Of course,
you could shoot using higher-resolution
capture such as 4K and that would give
you more options, but youd also have
larger les to deal with. HDVP
Send in your video production technical
questions to videoassist@hdvideopro.com
or mail them to Video Assist, HDVideoPro
Magazine, 12121 Wilshire Blvd., Ste. 1200,
Los Angeles, CA 90025.
Adventure flmmaker and photographer Lucas Gilman creates dramatic photos and videos that
show adventurous athletes performing some incredible feats. We had a chance to interview
Gilman to talk about how he works and how he creates his unique adventure-sports projects.
Whats the latest trend in action sports, and how has the demand for your kind
of work grown and changed in recent years?
The demand for adventure and extreme sports has
grown from being a niche industry to going mainstream.
The latest trend in action sports is to continue to push
the envelope and the limits of whats humanly possible,
and you see examples everywhereeven events like
ESPNs X Games making prime-time television.
How do you work with the athletes themselves?
The relationships with athletes are paramount. In a per-
fect world, youll grow together in your respective felds.
Its a team effort. It has to be a win-win relationship, and
theres a lot of trust involved. The athlete is putting their
life on the line, and you have to get the shot. Theres no
take two, no second chance.
What are your clients looking for currently?
I fnd clients are looking for something more from images
and motion. There needs to be a story. It cant just be a
good shot of a guy hucking himself off of a cliff. There
has to be something unique about it to stand apart.
What G-Technology product features are most
important for you when you shoot in the feld?
I love the new Evolution Series drives, which are super-
durable and allow me to plug in via USB 3 in the feld to
back up data. Then I insert the ev drive directly into the
G-DOCK back at the studio and offoad data using the
blazing-fast Thunderbolt connection.
You create an artistic look. How important is
that artistic aspect?
Artistry in action-sports imagery is extremely important,
and its harder to control than in other genres because
generally the action is moving fast, and youre at the
mercy of the outdoor climate.
How does G-Technology gear factor into your
workfow?
G-Technology gear is the cornerstone of my digital workfow and backup strategy. As an inde-
pendent flmmaker and photographer, if Im not able to deliver content to my clients, Im not
going to get paid. And once youve lost the trust of the client, theres no going back. I like the
G-DRIVE ev and G-DOCK for use in the feld. The system allows me to seamlessly download
and back up content in the feld, thus ensuring success.
To learn more about the Evolution Series and other
G-Technology products, go to www.g-technology.com
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Its no secret that the ARRI ALEXA is a well-executed
digital cinema camera that has become a favorite for projects as
diverse as blockbuster theatrical releases and popular television
series over the past few years. The ALEXA is even being used
to shoot commercials and music videos, as well. The cameras
very organic image quality, dynamic range and general look
have proven to be a major hit. Given ARRIs long history and
heritage of creating innovative lm cameras and lighting gear,
its not surprising that the ALEXA has been popular in the cin-
ematography community.
The new ARRI AMIRA was introduced at the 2013 European
IBC Show in Amsterdam. Representing a whole new direction
for ARRI, the camera is intended to tap into markets where
utilizing a camera like the ALEXA, which is designed as a
two-operator digital cinema camera, just isnt practical. A fully
outtted ALEXA for cinema production is a large, heavy camera
setup. ARRI obviously saw an opportunity in the market for a
very high-quality, yet highly portable camera system and acted
upon it. The AMIRA was conceived to be easily utilized by a solo
operator. Its smaller, lighter and presumably will cost less than
the ALEXA (ARRI hasnt yet released an MSRP), yet it still shares
the same sensor and image quality as the ALEXA.
So will the AMIRA just be a smaller ALEXA designed for
handheld shooting? Lets explore some of the more interesting
tidbits ARRI has put out to the press.
IMAGING
Lets cut to the chase. The AMIRA, at least at press time,
wont support any form of 4K image acquisition. I asked
ARRI, and they replied that theyre not able to comment on
potential future camera products. Filmmakers, DPs and other
image-quality watchdogs already have began asking how the
AMIRA will be able to compete with other digital cinema
cameras like the RED EPIC and the Sony F5, F55 and F65, all
of which are capable of capturing at 4K or higher spatial reso-
lutions. AMIRA captures 2K or 1920x1080 les in Rec. 709 or
Log C using ProRes LT, 422, 422 HQ or 444 codecs. More on
this later.
Markus Drr, Product Manager for the AMIRA, is based in
Munich, Germany, at ARRIs headquarters. The design goal for
AMIRA was primarily to get a camera thats perfectly suited for
any kind of documentary-style shooting, he reveals.
While the AMIRA doesnt boast 4K capabilities, ARRI has
included some other specications that are impressive. How
does a camera with a dynamic range that exceeds 14 stops,
low noise levels, subtle highlight handling, natural color and
especially smooth, attering skin tones sound?
While the AMIRA wasnt available for a hands-on review, Ive
shot with the ALEXA, and one of the things that continually
impresses me about that camera is the incredibly smooth and
lifelike skin tones. Other cameras Ive shot with, which shall
A rst look at ARRIs new shoulder-mount,
documentary-style camera, the AMIRA
BY DAN BROCKETT
ON
THEMOVE
34 Q HDVideoPro | hdvideopro.com
remain unnamed, have much higher spatial resolution than
the ALEXA, but all of that resolution really has little to do
with how the footage will look to someone on their computer
screen or on a large movie screen.
The AMIRA also features built-in 3D LUTs, allowing for the
minimization of time spent grading in postproduction. Users
can create their own custom-built 3D LUTs and upload them
to the camera, as well, with the idea being that the AMIRA
will allow users to develop very sophisticated looks without
the extra time and money spent in the color-correction suite.
The AMIRA can also shoot at up to 200 fps using the full
resolution of the sensor, a very handy feature for the produc-
tion that wants some good-looking slow motion without the
expense, time and hassle of renting high-speed cameras to
shoot it.
RECORDING FORMATS
The AMIRA can Rec. 709 and Log C images using ProRes LT,
422, 422 HQ or 444 codecs. The camera utilizes open-format
CFast 2.0 Flash Memory cards. Physically, the CFast cards resemble
conventional CF cards, but theyre a new, recently announced
storage card standard, much faster than regular CF cards,
with a 450 Mbps data rate. Price and release date of the
cards are unknown at the time of writing this article, but
they will be available soon.
SOUND AND OTHER OPTIONS
The press photos of the AMIRA that ARRI issued show
multiple onboard balanced audio inputs. The audio inputs
are 1x XLR 5-pin and 2x XLR 3-pin, which results in four
inputs. The camera also will include integrated WiFi and
Bluetooth interfaces, as well as built-in diversity antennas.
The Bluetooth allows cable-free audio monitoring with a
Bluetooth headset.
DESIGN AND ERGONOMICS
Based upon my experience, ARRIs products are
robustly constructed and utilize simple, dedicated, func-
tional controls for many common operations. ARRI is
a German company, and typically, their products fea-
ture superb design and engineering. The AMIRA looks
as if it will carry on this tradition. The camera also
features integrated, motorized ND
lters, zebras, false color controls
and an advanced peaking function.
ARRI has engineered a new cool-
ing system referred to as Thermal
Core, which promises to allow the
AMIRA to run cooler and quieter with-
out overheating.
The camera also features dedi-
cated multifunction user buttons
that can be customized to have the
most commonly used feature pre-
sets for each operator available at
his or her ngertips. AMIRA fea-
tures an innovative multi-viewnder
that combines a foldaway LCD monitor with a high-resolution
OLED eyepiece. While normal video cameras have had this sort
of setup for years, to see ARRIs implementation of this feature
is a nice example of doing this function right and with very
high quality.
ARRI has also included sliding dovetails on the AMIRA that
allow for perfect shoulder balance, regardless of whether you
have a 15-pound PL-mount cinema lens or a 9-ounce Canon
EOS lens mounted to the camera. With the sliding dovetails for
the camera body, and the entire viewnder assembly, the user
can quickly and easily balance the camera for optimal shoulder
t and feel.
WHAT IT DOESNT HAVE
In sifting through preliminary reviews, press releases and video
from the IBC show oor, were able to divine some interesting
facts about what the AMIRA doesnt have or cant do.
s .O CAPABILITY
s .O ANAMORPHIC
s .O !22)2!7 CODEC RECORDING
s .O !22) !,%8! 0LUS FUNCTIONALITY
The new ARRI AMIRA is
designed to be easily
operated by a single shooter.
Its smaller and lighter than
the ALEXA and has a dynamic
range that exceeds 14 stops.
THE FEEDBACK LOOP
Since AMIRA details about price, delivery date and exact fea-
tures still seem to be somewhat in ux at press time, I thought
it might prove interesting to speak with a few industry-leading
cinematographers about the features and capabilities they hoped
that ARRI was considering for the AMIRA, and the responses
were enlightening.
Ive done test shoots with the ALEXA and have worked on
projects where it was used, says DP Jody Eldred (Medium, NCIS,
JAG). I like that its user-friendly and has a very nice, lmlike
look. AMIRA users will expect no less. I own and use the Sony
F55 and 4K RAW recorder. The camera is one-third the cost of
the ALEXA. I expect that ARRI will have to compete price-wise,
especially as the AMIRA is 2K and the F55 and F5 are 4K. Same
goes for HFR capabilities and 14 stops of dynamic range.
Charles Papert, a Los Angeles-based director of photography,
uses the ALEXA to shoot the Comedy Central series Key and
Peele, as well as other television series, webisodes and feature
lms. My hope is that the AMIRA remains as easy to use and
change basic parameters and settings as on the ALEXA, reveals
Papert. Im also hoping that its signicantly lighter, as I feel
that its a great contender for Steadicam and handheld use.
Smaller, lighter and less costly is a set of win-wins as far as Im
concerned, especially if the sensor remains the same. Id like to
see remote control and viewing of the camera parameters such as
ISO, shutter, frame rate, etc., transmitted via WiFi or Bluetooth
so that a DIT or assistant can make changes remotely, perhaps
from an iPad or iPhone. LUT uploading would be great also.
As we can see, ARRI did do their research; several of the
features that DPs are requesting will be included in the rst
AMIRA release.
ARRIs Drr responds, The experience and the feedback from
ALEXA users was certainly very important, but we also talked to
people who arent necessarily ALEXA users, but use their cameras
in a documentary style.
THE RESOLUTION QUESTION
In response to the questions I heard in speaking with DPs,
ACs and directors about the AMIRA and the fact that it wont,
at least in its initial offering, contain 4K, the market will have
to decide if having very high spatial resolution is more desirable
than having the ARRI look in a smaller, lightweight, lower-cost
and ergonomically well-designed package. Its interesting to note
that the last James Bond megahit Skyfall was photographed with
the ALEXA in 2.8K ARRIRAW to Codex recorders and was then
upscaled to 4K for theatrical release worldwide. Reviews of the
lm often mentioned the outstanding cinematography, so that
fact may make you ponder the importance of 4K acquisition.
THE AMIRA IN THE BALANCE
Kudos to ARRI for trying something unexpected and totally
different with the AMIRA. Based upon my own experience with
the ALEXA, I think the AMIRA will be a winner because it will
have the same incredibly appealing sensor and the same basic
look and feel to the images. ARRI seems to have put a lot of
thought into the design and integrated a considerable amount
of research, as well as communication with users, to be able to
offer most of the features they want. I personally feel that 4K
in the average consumers home is a long way off; it has been
proven that feature lms can be shot in 2K and successfully
uprezed to 4K, and most web content I shoot is screened at
1280x720, so at the present time, I dont care that the AMIRA
will be a 2K-only camera, at least initially.
The big question that Im sure ARRI is mulling over is price
point. Competing cameras offer higher spatial resolution, different
codecs and a whole different camera infrastructure and philoso-
phy, and the success or failure of the AMIRA in the marketplace
will be highly dependent on the way its priced. I look forward
to a hands-on test once the camera is released. HDVP
For more information on the AMIRA, visit www.arri.com.
The AMIRA doesnt capture 4K, but will capture 2K or 1920x1080 in Rec. 709 or Log C using ProRes codecs. All images courtesy of ARRI
36 Q HDVideoPro | hdvideopro.com
Meet the New Game-Changer
Changing forever the way users capture still images and video with a DSLR camera, Canon
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2013 Canon U.S.A., Inc. All rights reserved. Canon, 70D, and Dual Pixel CMOS AF are registered trademarks of Canon Inc. Image and effects simulated. *As of July 2, 2013.
Although the 4K RED ONE was
released way back in 2007, Sony has been
one of the leading companies behind the 4K
push, launching 4K digital cinema cameras
like the F65, F55 and F5 for high-end motion
pictures. But with the exception of JVCs GY-
HMQ10 ($5,500 list) and Sonys own FS700R
($8,686.05, camera body only), most of your
4K cameras are priced north of $10K. Up until
now, 4K wasnt an attainable format for the
majority of shooters.
Announced back in September 2013, the
FDR-AX1 is Sonys rst consumer 4K video
camcorder thats targeted toward the low-
budget lmmaking community. With a retail
price of only $4,499, which includes Vegas
Pro 12 and a 32 GB XQD memory card,
the AX1 denitely could hit a new and wider
4K demographic.
Recently, Sony invited a number of photo
and video journalists to attend their annual
DI Press Tour, which was held in Nashville,
Tenn. For the entire trip, I had access to the
AX1 and was able to shoot 4K footage in vari-
ous environments.
THE AX1 IN A NUTSHELL
- Sloos UIia HD (384ux2l6u icsoIuion)
- Rccoids icaI-imc 4K up o 6up
- Conains a l[2.3-incl, 8.3-mcgapixcI Exmoi
R CMOS sensor
- Has foui nIci scings: Off (CIcai), l[4 nIci,
116 lter and 164 lter
- Conains a huiI-in mic wil 2x PRO XLR
jacks for audio
The
38 Q HDVideoPro | hdvideopro.com
Consumer
Shooter
FIRST IMPRESSIONS
Over the years, cameras have evolved into boxes with lens
mounts, and although Ive grown accustomed to compact and
lightweight DSLRs, the AX1s longer camcorder body was a
welcome return. Unlike a DSLR, its great to alternate between
a high-quality viewnder and an LCD to monitor shots when
alternating between exterior and interior locations.
Unlike a shoulder-mount ENG-style camera system, the
AX1, which weighs 5.38 pounds, can be taxing on your wrists
and biceps if youre shooting for long periods. When shoot-
ing with the camera at eye level, I would typically hold the
camera by using the hand grip with my right hand, with my
left hand on the barrel of the lens, balancing the camera.
For shooting low-angle shots, I would use the cameras top
handle or I would cradle the camera from below. If youve shot
with Sony camcorders before, the AX1 has a similar build to
their popular HXR-NX5U NXCAM camcorder, although its a
tad heavier.
At $4,499, is Sonys FDR-AX1 the most important
camera in the 4K push? | BY NEIL MATSUMOTO
RIGHT: The FDR-AX1 is
Sonys rst consumer 4K
video camcorder. Containing
a small, 1/2.3-inch sensor
and costing just $4,499, the
camcorder captures Ultra HD
(3840x2160) resolution.
BELOW: The AX1 uses the new
XAVC-S codec thats captured
to Sonys new XQD cards.
hdvideopro.com | February 2014 Q 39
THE LENS
The AX1 has a nice Sony-branded 20x (35mm equivalent of
29.5-590mm) G Lens with a barrel that contains three rings to
control focus, zoom and iris. For autofocus, the AX1 uses con-
trast AF, which is pretty quick, although not as quick as the dual
phase detect AF found in some of Sonys DSLRs, like the A99.
For manual focus, one function that really comes in handy is
peaking, which is the feature I miss most when shooting with a
DSLR. The AX1s peaking comes in yellow, red or white. Another
great feature on the AX1 is the manual focus assist, which gives
you a magnied display to check your focus more precisely.
Also, for shaky movement, youll probably want to engage the
camcorders Optical Steady Shot when shooting handheld.
The exposure system has an /1.6 to /11 range, and the
variable aperture is /1.6 to /3.4 with six blades. Overall, the
G Lens is a solid, versatile video lens that allows you to shoot
in almost any environment.
FEATURES
Even though the AX1 is being targeted toward both profes-
sionals and consumers, in my opinion, due to the small 1/2.3-
inch sensor, the camera probably will best serve the low-budget
documentary and ENG community. The camera offers a number
of professional cinema features, although not quite what you
would get with the FS700R, much less compared to professional
systems like the F65 or ARRI ALEXA. But if shallow depth of
eld isnt a top priority for your project, the AX1s long lens and
quick AF make it a great run-and-gun camera.
The AX1 offers ve paint functions (white balance, gamma,
detail, skin detail and matrix), which can be used to create a
more cinematic look. For indie lmmakers, if youre looking for a
more neutral or at color space, the AX1 offers a Cinema gamma
setting that lets you choose between two settings: Cinematone 1
and Cinematone 2. Cinematone 1 has more of a at look than
Cinematone 2 (similar to Sony S-Log), although both settings
should give a little more leeway during post. Because I didnt
have a lot of time to color-grade, I chose Cinematone 2, which
dials down the contrast and sharpness, but still has a pleasing
look. Although Cinematone 1 is a bit atter, its still less extreme
than Technicolors CineStyle prole. For white balancing, you can
choose between Auto, One Push, Outdoor, Indoor and dialing
in your color temperature at 100 increments.
Perhaps the biggest advantage the AX1 will give you over
a DSLR is a better viewing system. The camcorder contains a
3.5-inch Xtra Fine LCD 3D display (1229K) with 100% 16:9
coverage. Like many of Sonys camcorders, the LCD is on top
ABOVE: An Ultra HD frame grab of Jeep
Wranglers offroading in Nashville, Tenn. The AX1 uses a Sony-branded 20x (35mm equivalent of
29.5-590mm) G Lens that provides quick contrast AF and peaking for manual focus.
40 Q HDVideoPro | hdvideopro.com
of the body and has a turning angle of 270. Also, once the
LCD is opened, you have access to your menu system, a design
feature Ive liked on previous Sony camcorders. While viewing
shots, youre also able to employ zebras to prevent overexposure.
The other big advantage the AX1 will give you over a DSLR is
professional audio. The AX1 features two external pro-style XLR
connectors, as well as a high-performance internal microphone.
While shooting, I used Sonys ECM-XM1 shotgun microphone,
which worked out nicely. Previous Sony camcorders on the
consumer side didnt contain XLRs.
When compared to a large full-frame or APS-C sensor, shoot-
ing in low light was denitely one of the cameras weaknesses,
although the AX1 did fairly well, performing better than expected.
(Remember, youre packing 8300K pixels into a 1/2.3-inch sen-
sor.) The camera has three ND lter settings that start at zero,
which you can boost up to 27 dB. I had my three settings at
0, 9 dB and 18 dB. For shooting Ben Folds performing inside
the Ryman Auditorium, I had to shoot at +18 dB gain, which
would be the equivalent of ISO 2500+. On a Canon EOS 5D
Mark III, ISO 2500 still looks pretty clean, but with the AX1,
you do get a considerable amount of noise. When I viewed the
Ultra HD (3840x2160) footage on one of the Sony XBR 4K TVs,
the images were usable, although not ideal.
XAVC-S
For 4K capture, Sony was very smart in regard to the AX1s
format. To capture 3840x2160 resolution, the AX1 uses Sonys
new XAVC-S codec, which I believe will dominate 4K acquisi-
tion for the consumer and prosumer market. XAVC-S employs
an efcient MPEG-4 AVC/H.264 Long GOP compression with
an MP4 wrapper, and although XAVC uses less compression and
supports color depths up to 12-bit, the les are monster-sized
and, as of yet, cant be captured to ash memory cards.
XAVC-S is recorded to XQD cards, and you can record almost
two hours of 4K (UHD) video on a 64 GB memory card. There
are two memory slots that can be hot-swapped, which means
you can remove a lled-up card from one slot and, while insert-
ing a new one, continue shooting.
THE 4K FUTURE
All in all, the FDR-AX1 is a gutsy move by Sony because,
without 4K in mainstream distribution (broadcast TV, DVDs,
Internet), the majority of indie lmmakers are still waiting
on the sidelines. But unlike many of their competitors, Sony
has more 4K skin in the game by continuing to spread their
4K SXRD digital cinema projectors into theaters and, more
importantly, their XBR Ultra HDTVs into living rooms. And
just like HDTV before it, the sales numbers of 4K televisions
will be the important gure to track in the 4K transition. With
Sonys XBR Ultra HDTVs coming down in price ($3,499 for a
55-inch set), the AX1 is currently one of the few affordable
ways to appreciate 3840x2160 resolution. So why not create
4K entertainment yourself? And, for this reason, the AX1 is
currently the most important 4K camera on the market. HDVP
Learn more about the Sony FDR-AX1 at www.sony.com.
The DSC-RX10
A doc-style movie camera
in a still camera body
By Neil Matsumoto
Although primarily a digital still camera, Sonys
new DSC-RX10 is an interesting option for
lmmakers. Part of Sonys consumer Cyber-shot
category, I normally would never recommend a
xed-lens consumer camera for lmmakers, but the
RX10 has some unique features for either mirrorless
or single-lens-reex cameras. Compared to a 5D
Mark III, the RX10s sensor is very small at one inch.
For shooters used to capturing cinematic shallow
depth of eld with full-frame or APS-C sensors, a
one-inch sensor can be a dealbreaker, but to make
up for the small sensor, Sony has included a very
long 24-200mm (35mm equivalent) xed Zeiss
Vario-Sonnar T* lens with a constant /2.8 aperture.
But when you examine the one-inch
sensor, which measures 13.2x8.8mm (3:2
aspect ratio), its actually larger than both 16mm
(7.49x10.26mm) and Super 16 (7.41x12.52mm)
lm. And because of its smaller size, for video the
RX10 utilizes all of its photosites, so aliasing and
moir are less of an issue compared with the pixel-
binning or line-skipping performed on most DSLRs.
Video features the RX10 contains (which nearly
every still camera does not) are both zebras to
control overexposure and peaking to control focus.
With its very long lens and without shallow
depth of eld like the AX1, the RX10 could function
as a great documentary-style camera. Because of
its still camera body style, you denitely could
capture some covert-style shots.
hdvideopro.com | February 2014 Q 41
For two straight years, Australian-based company
Blackmagic Design stole the show at NAB. In 2012, the announce-
ment of the Blackmagic Cinema Camera rocked the show oor,
with its interchangeable EF mount and the ability to capture
2.5K RAW CinemaDNG and Apple ProRes les for a price less
than $3,000. (The current price has come down miraculously
to $1,995.) In 2013, they announced not one, but two cameras
that disrupted the industry again. The Blackmagic Production
Camera 4K shoots Ultra HD (3840x2160) in RAW CinemaDNG
or Apple ProRes. But unlike the BMCCs smaller-than-4/3s sensor
(15.81x8.8mm), the EF-mount Production Camera 4K contains
a Super 35-sized sensor (21.12x11.88mm).
But generating even more excitement than the Production
Camera 4K was the Blackmagic Pocket Cinema Camera. Crowds
of lmmakers, cinematographers and journalists hovered around
the glass case housing the miniature bar-shaped camera just
for a glimpse. What makes the camera special is that its a true
digital motion-picture camera thats not much larger than an
iPhone 5S. Oh, and by the way, the price of the camera is only
$995essentially, a third of the price of a high-end DSLR. (Its
important to remember that without a mechanical shutter, the
BMPCC doesnt have still photography capabilities.)
TRUE POCKET CINEMA
Youve already read the reports that camera phones have
completely obliterated the consumer point-and-shoot still camera
and palmcorder video marketplace. Although the BMPCC is a
pocket-sized camera that shoots 1920x1080 resolution like most
camera phones today, the ability to record both ProRes and now
RAW CinemaDNG les is what sets this camera apart from any
camera phone, action camera or even DSLR (non-hacked). In
fact, the closest thing I can really compare it to is a miniature
Super 16mm cameraone that will t snugly inside your pocket
(sans lens). The BMPCCs sensor (12.48x7.02mm) is roughly the
size of Super 16mm lm (7.41x12.52mm), and CinemaDNG is
similar to having a digital negative.
POWER
RAW
42 Q HDVideoPro | hdvideopro.com
BMPCC TECH SPECS
- Dimcnsions: 5.u4(L)x2.6(W)xl.5(D) inclcs
- l2.48x7.u2mm scnsoi
- l92uxlu8u icsoIuion
- LossIcss CincmaDNC RAW and
AppIc PioRcs 422 (HQ) a l92uxlu8u
- Sloos 23.98p, 24p, 25p, 29.97p, 3up
- l3 sops of Iaiudc
- 3.5-incl LCD wil 8uux48u icsoIuion
- Mcadaa suppoi foi Iogging camcia daa
FIRST GLANCE
Wilou a Icns aaclcd, lc BMPCC Iooks vciy mucl Iikc
a smaiplonc Icngl- and widl-wisc, and Iikc lc BMCC, lc
hody is vciy modcin, wil smool suifaccs and no wlccIs oi
diaIs. 1lcic aic smaII pIayhack huons la si ncx o a REC
huon on op of lc camcia. 1lcic's aIso IRIS, FOCUS, MENU,
POWER and oggIc huons on lc hack of lc camcia la aIIow
you o makc clangcs. A lc hoom of lc camcia, lcic's a
haciy dooi foi hol lc haciy, an SD caid and a USB poi
o updac lc camcia's nimwaic.
On lc sidc of lc camcia, you lavc nvc connccions, incIuding
LANC Rcmoc ConioI, wlicl uscs lc sandaid LANC pioocoI,
a 3.5mm lcadplonc jack and a 3.5mm scico audio conncc la
acccps micioploncs oi Iinc-IcvcI audio. 1lis is diffcicn, and in
my opinion, an impiovcmcn ovci lc BMCC, wlicl uscs wo
l
4-incl jacks. 1lcic's aIso a u.7mm l2-2uV DC inpu o conncc
youi powci suppIy o claigc lc haciy. AII and aII, hccausc of is
smaII sizc, lc BMPCC las a vciy cconomicaI and cfncicn dcsign.
OPERATION
A l2.52 ounccs (hody onIy), lc BMPCC is ohviousIy casy
foi landlcId slooing, wil no iig icquiicd. Evcn moic lan
a DSLR, you'ic ahIc o capuic slos in Iocaions aImos as if
you'ic opciaing a smaiplonc.
AIlougl lcic aic many piofcssionaI quaIiics in lc BMPCC
la no suh-$l,uuu camcia las a iigl o lavc, lc BMPCC docs
Not much bigger
than a smartphone,
the Blackmagic
Pocket Cinema
Camera contains
a secret weapon
BY NEIL MATSUMOTO
The Blackmagic Pocket Cinema Camera isnt
much larger than an iPhone 5S and offers the
power of RAW CinemaDNG les in the palm
of your hand for less than $1,000.
have its quirks, especially if youre accustomed to shooting with
professional digital cinema cameras. For example, if you want
to change your exposure, instead of dialing a knob, you need
to press the IRIS button and then push up or down arrows to
make adjustments. Like the BMCC, you can set your look to be
either Film Dynamic Range or Video, which is a Rec. 709 prole.
Although unorthodox, one nice feature about this is that if youre
recording in the Film Dynamic Range setting, you only need to
press the IRIS button, and it will automatically set your exposure
to the brightest highlight in the frame so your whites wont clip.
In terms of workow, I captured CinemaDNG les with the
Film Dynamic Range setting to a SanDisk Extreme Pro, with write
speeds of up to 95 MB/s. In DaVinci Resolve Lite (free download
on the Blackmagic website), I added the Blackmagic Cinema
Camera default LUT to the les and transcoded to ProRes (HQ).
Although the 3.5-inch display looks great and has the same
resolution as the BMCCs 5-inch display, one of the big differ-
ences is that the BMPCCs display isnt a touch-screen LCD. If
you want to change your white balance, ISO, etc., you need to go
into the menu system and toggle down to your intended setting
instead of hitting a button or touching a particular area of the
LCD. If youre shooting on the y, or with a variable-aperture
zoom lens where youre changing ISO or color temperatures
constantly, this will slow you down. The ISO range is between
200 and 1600, so youre not going to get the low-light results of
a Canon EOS 5D Mark III. But for night shots, anything captured
at ISO 1600 looked great and had very little noise to the image.
Unlike the BMCC, the BMPCC has a removable and recharge-
able lithium-ion battery that has approximately one hour of
recording time. Like the BMCC, I found the battery reading to
be a little misleading, at times, with it showing 80% or 90%
after a full charge. This could denitely be improved in Version
2, but I can certainly understand how capturing RAW video les
would drain a small battery very quickly.
LENSES
For my review, I used a Panasonic Lumix 14-45mm zoom.
While MFT lenses are improving and growing by the year, there
are limits to using them in terms of speed, number of constant-
aperture zooms and focus throw. Manual MFT prime lenses by
Voigtlnder and Rokinon may make good solutions for lmmak-
ers. This is of no fault of the BMPCC, but trying to obtain critical
focus on a small MFT lens barrel is extremely difcult. There are
numerous adapters on the market you can use if you use Canon,
Nikon or Sony lenses. One function that was essential to the
BMPCC was peaking; you do this by hitting the Focus button
twice. Theres no viewnder so you have to depend on the LCD,
which is decent, but not ideal, especially in exterior daylight shots.
THE RESULTS
The reason youre going to buy the BMPCC is because of its
ability to capture CinemaDNG les. For me, I see it as a great
B-camera to a BMCC. I recently worked on a project in which
I shot with a Canon DSLR in a neutral at setting and a small
action camera that didnt offer a neutral-type setting. In order to
make the two cameras match in post, instead of adding subtle
color to shots from each camera, I found myself adding extreme
contrast and saturation to my DSLRs footage in order to match
the action cameras contrast-heavy look. This problem would be
a non-issue with the BMPCC.
While shooting with the camera, I did have some frustrations
with the workarounds, but after all is said and done, its all about
the images, right? This is where the BMPCC shines, especially when
capturing RAW and taking advantage of the 13 stops of dynamic
range while running through Resolve. For a camera costing $995,
the BMPCC delivers stunning image quality. Not only would it
make an excellent B-camera to a BMCC, but the images even
will cut well within an ARRI ALEXA or a Canon C300 timeline.
If you know the cameras limitations and play on its strengths,
the BMPCC is a powerful and unique lmmaking tool. HDVP
You can learn more about Blackmagic cameras on the website
at www.blackmagicdesign.com.
For color grading,
Blackmagics DaVinci
Resolve has been used on
more feature lms and
television programming than
any other system. In working
with CinemaDNG les shot
with the Film Dynamic Range
look, I added the Blackmagic
Cinema Camera default
LUT and transcoded the les
to ProRes.
44 Q HDVideoPro | hdvideopro.com
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RENT DONT JUST WISH,
How many of you remember the DALSA Origin
camera? Announced in 2003 and released in 2006, the 4K
digital cinema camera, which resembled a mini-refrigerator,
was going to take over professional production. But because
of its size and unyielding workow due to its monster-sized
16-bit 4K RAW les, the camera wasnt accessible to anyone,
including studio lmmakers. In short, it was a decade too early.
Now, 4K is becoming the dominant acquisition format. RED
has been capturing 4K since 2007 with the RED ONE, and has
since released the EPIC, SCARLET and the 19-megapixel 6K
DRAGON sensor. Sony has the top-of-the-line F65, which can
capture 16-bit 4K RAW les, as well as the new F55, F5 and
FS700U 4K cameras. Canons Cinema EOS division has been
targeting Hollywood with the C500 and 1D C cameras, and
Blackmagic is soon to release its rst 4K camera, the Blackmagic
Production Camera 4K. Even on the consumer side, cameras
are transitioning toward higher resolutions with xed-lens 4K
camcorders like the JVC GY-HMQ10U, Sonys new FDR-AX1 and
GoPros HERO3+, which can capture 4K at 15 or 12 fps. The
big holdout is ARRI with its ALEXA and new doc-style camera,
the AMIRA, still capturing 2K or full HD. But even without
ARRI, its safe to say theres no going back to a 1080 world.
THE POWER OF 4K
As you already know, 4K has four times the image informa-
tion over full HD. Most know of its technical specications
through DCI (Digital Cinema Initiatives) projection stan-
dards, which is 4096x2160 (doubling the DCI 2K standard of
2048x1080). Theres also Ultra HD, aka Quad HD or UHD,
which is for 4K television standards. Its resolution is 3840x2160,
which doubles the 16x9 full HD standard of 1920x1080.
There are many advantages in shooting 4K, but at the
present time, the most common one is archival. Since we
all know that higher resolutions are inevitable (4K now, 8K
tomorrow), typical delivery specications for visual effects and
theatrical exhibition are still currently at 2K, and deliverables
for television and the web are 1080 or even 720. But once the
transition to 4K becomes the industry standard for exhibition,
your 1080 footage will need to be upscaled to 4K. When you
upscale footage, you have to use your current pixel resolution
to guess or interpolate values based on the average of the pixels
in your image. Your new upscaled 4K images will more likely
display instances of blur, jagged images, halos, etc.
Another current advantage of shooting 4K is that you can
take advantage of its high resolution and make subtle correc-
POSTING
C
o
u
r
t
e
s
y
o
f
S
h
a
p
e
s
h
i
f
t
e
r
46 Q HDVideoPro | hdvideopro.com
tions in framing or shaky footage when nishing in a lower
resolution. For House of Cards, director David Fincher shot in
5K with RED EPICs and stabilized and tracked every shot in
Adobe After Effects and mocha. Most people shooting with
RED cameras also like to window the sensor in order to cap-
ture stunning close-up shots without having to change lenses.
But before you go out and purchase your next 4K camera,
there are still a few factors to consider before 4K becomes
your workow standard.
COMPUTER HARDWARE & STORAGE
Computer hardware is one of the main barriers of produc-
ing a 4K workow from capture to exhibition. Most of this
is due to data bandwidth requirements, which depend on:
- 1lc codcclc mclod of compicssion of aII lc his
the camera takes into a smaller format for recording.
- 1lc fiamc iacfiamcs pci sccond. Foi cxampIc, using
the Sony F65 in 4K RAW mode (16-bit linear, F65RAW-SQ)
at 24 fps requires approximately 300+ MB/s; 4K ProRes 4444
at 24 fps = 141 MB/s.
According to Jess Hartmann, CEO of ProMAX Systems
(www.promax.com), the issue with most computer worksta-
tions working in 4K is disk storage speed. A typical spinning
disk drive can transfer data at a maximum of about 80 MB/s,
he explains. Considering everything else happening on the
computer, you can count on about 50 to 60 MB/s. So to work
in 4K most of the time, you need an attached RAID array, fast
SAN storage or onboard SSD drives.
We all know that 4K has four times the image information
of full HD, and in terms of data, this also applies. Although
storage prices have come down signicantly over the years, its
still a concern. A workstation without fast disk storage options
still will need to transcode uncompressed 4K down to a smaller,
intermediate format in order to edit. But even when transcoded
to a 422 codec like Apple ProRes or Avid DNxHD, 4K les still
can ll up your hard drive quickly. For example, one minute
of ProRes 422 (1920x1080) HD material yields around 1 GB,
while one minute of 4K ProRes 422 yields roughly 4.25 GB.
1lis is onc of lc main icasons wly piojccs aic siII hcing
delivered in 2K or 1080, for the most part.
As an example, the trailer for The Amazing Spider-Man
is appioximacIy 5uu CB in sizcand la's compicsscd 4K
vidco, cxpIains PliIip Paiian, PROMISE 1cclnoIogy's piod-
uct marketing specialist (www.promise.com). You can only
Although 4K is
quickly becoming the
norm for capture,
the post world is
playing catch-up
BY NEIL MATSUMOTO
4K
OPPOSITE: Post house Shapeshifter works with a broad range of systems in nishing
projects in 4K. ABOVE: PROMISE Technologys Pegasus2 drives are the worlds rst
and fastest Thunderbolt 2 hardware RAID storage solutions.
hdvideopro.com | February 2014 Q 47
imagine just how much storage someone whos working
on a full-length movie in uncompressed 4K would need.
With the introduction of Thunderbolt 2 hardware RAID
storage capabilities for prosumers with the Pegasus2 and
the 4K editing and scalable storage features of the PROMISE
VTrak A-Class, prosumers and professionals alike are given
access to all pieces of the 4K workow, from ingestion
to postproduction.
PROMISE Technology is one of the leaders of high-
performance RAID systems in the post-production industry.
Their new Pegasus2 drive is a popular storage drive that many
productions are employing after data is ofoaded from the
cameras recorder. The drive is Thunderbolt 2-enabled, allow-
ing the D.I.T. to transfer 4K content at lightning speeds. The
drives are optimized for 4K because they offer the maximum
amount of throughput for a portable, direct-attached workow.
On average, working with 4K content requires around
15 GB/s connectivity, says Elaine Kwok, product market-
ing manager for PROMISE Technology. With PROMISE
Pegasus2 allowing for the maximum amount of throughput
for Thunderbolt 2, which boasts 20 GB/s connectivity, the
ability to work with 4K is now available to the masses and
not just big production studios.
As 4K becomes more ubiquitous, well see more storage
manufacturers advancing their products to accommodate the
speed and capacity requirements of lmmakers. For example,
G-Technology (www.g-technology.com) is a storage company,
and their stand-alone G-Technology G RAID with Thunderbolt
products (4 TB and 8 TB) were specically conceived for the
needs of professional content creators.
EDITING
The more processing and graphics power a workstation
has, the faster the editing process will be. With more projects
captured in 4K, there has been an increased amount of interest
in native 4K editing. If you have a fast workstation with plenty
of storage, the big three NLEs (Avid Media Composer, Adobe
Premiere Pro, Final Cut Pro X) can handle 4K/UHD material.
Perhaps the most common NLE for working Hollywood
editors is Avid Media Composer (www.avid.com). According to
David Colantuoni, Avid senior director, broadcast, storage
and editor product management, to edit 4K material natively,
Media Composer doesnt require signicant increases in
computer processing power to deal with 4K processing,
but they do recommend an increased amount of RAM.
However, many of our customers still want to edit and
deliver in HD, reveals Colantuoni, and weve merged the
best of both worlds. With FrameFlex, weve used our AMA
functionality to allow customers to acquire 4K material
and seamlessly dene an HD region of interest on that 4K
material for easy editing of HD content and HD delivery. For
customers who wish to nish in 4K, they can easily interop
via AAF with their nishing application.
COLOR GRADING
Post house Shapeshifter (www.shapeshifterpost.com) has
been delivering HD from 4K-shot productions for years, but
TOP: For editing in 4K, Avids Media Composer doesnt require
signicant increases in computer processing power, but they
recommend an increase in RAM. ABOVE: The ProMax One+ is a
workstation that can easily be congured to handle a 4K workow.
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has always tried to maintain the native resolution throughout the
early stages of post. With 4K nal delivery now a reality, their
experience has prepared them for the challenges they now face.
According to Shapeshifter colorist Randy Cooneld, the main
problem is the size of 4K les, which increase demands in stor-
age and processing power. We never want to compromise the
quality of a product to accommodate our systems, so hardware
must be updated as improvements become available, explains
Cooneld. This can be costly, so systems such as DaVinci Resolve
help to keep these costs down by using the latest off-the-shelf
components that can be repurposed as theyre replaced.
For 4K, Shapeshifter works with a broad range of systems,
including Resolve and a Teranex 2D processor. To display 4K
material, they use a Windows-based Resolve equipped with a
Blackmagic Design DeckLink 4K Extreme. They recently completed
work on the documentary, Mel Brooks: Make a Noise, which was
shot in various formats, including 4K, and delivered in 1080.
We were asked to do a lot of resizing, and the advantage
of having full-resolution 4K les proved invaluable during this
process, says Cooneld. Even when we didnt have to resize,
the 4K les produced exceptionally clean, rich images in HD,
but when blowups reached as much as 60%, we really saw the
advantages. The resized images looked so good that they cut
seamlessly with the rest of the footage.
THE NEW POST
In speaking with a number of postproduction professionals,
the consensus is that shooting in 4K is now a common practice,
but posting 4K is still in its infancy since the workow process is
newer and more complicated. Much of this has to do with current
exhibition standardstheaters, broadcast, DVDs, Internet, etc.
One company that has been bullish on 4K workows is L.A.-
and N.Y.-based Light Iron (www.lightiron.com). Delivering 4K
projects for the past six years, starting with the launch of the
RED ONE, the boutique postproduction company specializes in
on-site dailies and digital intermediate, archival and data services
for projects shot on le-based digital cameras.
Recently, they completed work on Canons Project
Imaginat10n, in which ve celebrity directors (Eva Longoria,
Jamie Foxx, Biz Stone, Georgina Chapman, James Murphy) made
a short lm based on 10 storytelling themes from photographs.
Although primarily shot with the 4K Canon C500, lmmakers
also shot in HD with Canon DSLRs.
According to Light Iron CEO Michael Cioni, Canon hired
them because of their extensive experience with 4K workows
and their ability to mix formats. Almost 100% of the ve Project
Imaginat10n pieces we did were shot on the C500, he says.
The C500 has the ability to photograph in both 4K and 1080.
Because we can work primarily in a 4K environment, upscaling
when necessary becomes a fairly easy and straightforward task.
Much like people 10 years ago had to upscale SD into HD,
upscaling HD into 4K is similar. But theres an innate advan-
tage of working this way, which is that 1080 and 4K are both
working in the same progressive frame rates and the same pixel
aspect ratio. This makes scaling cleaner and easier, both to the
computer and to the eye.
For Cioni, the world of 4K is like Halleys cometpredict-
able, but not yet common. The biggest challenge is exhibition
infrastructure, he explains, similar to one of the reasons why
electric cars didnt take off in the late 1990s; you need to have a
way to charge, or fuel, the car before you can start selling them
to the masses. In other words, we need to have lots of venues
in which 4K is visible before content controllers are going to
have the desire to create 4K deliveries.
In the past, people had no choice but to ofine at a lower
resolution and higher compression in order to t media in their
cutting room drives, he continues. But as price-per-gig continues
to dropnow under $0.20 per gigand codecs become more
efcient and widely used, such as ProRes, the option to work
in 4K the entire time will open doors to full-res ofine work in
a way that previously wasnt nancially feasible.
But since the majority of projects are being nished in 2K
or 1080, besides archival and reframing, is there really a benet
of a 4K workow that will offset the current storage/hardware
costs? Cioni rmly believes theres a benet image-wise. First
answer is a rule that will never become untrueoversampling
at the source will always yield better images upon delivery,
he explains. Shooting in 4K creates a better 1080. Likewise,
shooting in 6K will yield a better 4K, and so on. HDVP
TOP: Light Irons mobile processing laboratory, Outpost.
ABOVE: A still from Eva Longorias Project Imaginat10n
lm, Out of the Blue, which Light Iron worked on.
Images courtesy of Light Iron
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In the decade-long hunt for Osama bin Laden and
his al-Qaeda operatives, the United States launched many secret
missions to hunt down and eliminate terrorist leaders. Many were
successful, yet some were not, ending in tragedy. Operation Red
Wings was one of the latter, a mission that went horribly wrong.
A new lm, Lone Survivor, an action-drama starring Mark
Wahlberg, Eric Bana, Taylor Kitsch, Emile Hirsch and Ben Foster,
tells the story of that operation and the four Navy SEALs sent
on a covert mission in 2005 to neutralize a high-level al-Qaeda
operative. While hiding out, they come across some shepherds
and debate whether to kill them in order to maintain their
secret position. Within an hour of letting them go, the SEALs are
ambushed by the Taliban enemy in the mountains of Afghanistan
and surrounded.
Written and directed by Peter Berg, and based on The New
York Times best-selling memoir, Lone Survivor: The Eyewitness
Account of Operation Redwing and the Lost Heroes of SEAL Team
10, by sole-surviving SEAL Marcus Luttrell (played by Wahlberg),
the lm details the sequence of events and examines themes of
heroism, courage and survival in a hostile landscape.
I read the book and felt it was this great combination of
action along with some really strong plot twists, particularly
the moment when the SEALs are compromised and they have
to debate the rules of engagement, says Berg. And then at the
end of the book, the way the surviving SEAL develops a rela-
tionship with the local Afghan villagers who save his life, is just
remarkable, and it was just obvious to me that it would make
a really gripping lm.
The director says hes well aware of the extra responsibility
involved in retelling a true story with a living survivor. Im account-
able to all the families of the SEALs who died in the operation,
as well as the Navy SEAL community, at large, he notes. I didnt
want it to turn into some Hollywood movie where a lot of license
is taken with the facts. I wanted
it to be as accurate as we could
make it, and I wanted to make a
lm that really takes the audience
into this remote battleeld where
our soldiers are getting killed on a
daily basis, and shows you what the
reality of that war is like.
For Berg, the long-running con-
flict in Afghanistan, along with
the war on terror, has left many
Americans desensitized and
fatigued, he says. Couple that
with the accelerated news cycles
and the sheer volume of infor-
mation we get bombarded with
every day about Syria or Egypt or
Iraq or Somalia, and its hard for
people to take a moment and really
empathize with our troops who are
laying their lives on the line, and
to have a meaningful connection.
To make sure he painted an
accurate picture, Berg did a ton
of research and even went to Iraq
and embedded with the SEALs
for a month, near the Syrian borderthe only civilian to ever
do that, he reports. That gave me a comprehensive, complex
sense of who these men actually are. Besides being very effective
soldiers, I saw the dedication, charm, humor and even sweetness
of these warriors. Theyre pretty amazing people.
Berg may have started out as an actor in such shows and lms
as 21 Jump Street and Race for Glory, but it was when he moved
behind the camera that his career really took off, thanks to hits
like Hancock, The Kingdom and Friday Night Lights, which he
Director Peter Berg and cinematographer Tobias A. Schliessler,
ASC, re-create a covert Navy SEALs mission in Lone Survivor
BY IAIN BLAIR
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also turned into the award-winning TV series of the same name.
And on this lm he once again teamed with cinematographer
Tobias Schliessler, ASC, who shot Hancock, Friday Night Lights
and Battleship. Weve worked together so much were really like
brothers, notes Berg. We have a great shorthand, and hes a
great camera operator, a great lighter and very fast. And we have
a very complementary relationship. I tend to get impatient and
he calms me down, so if I want to rush through a scene, hes
more methodical and will force me to slow down. So what I
really value is his temperament.
The team spent about three months on preproduction, and
then had a very tight shoot of just 45 days. The big challenge
was matching the mountain locations of New Mexico where
we shot to the storys setting in the Hindu Kush Mountains in
northeastern Afghanistan, and then physically getting there and
shooting all these scenes, says Berg.
Adds Schliessler, The location we picked was on top of the ski
area above 12,000 feet in Santa Fe, and the high altitude made
it extremely physically demanding. All our equipment had to be
hand-carried into some of our remote locations, which meant
we had to limit ourselves to the bare minimum. Thanks to the
hardest-working crew I ever had, I always had what was needed to
get the work done. No one ever hiked to the set empty-handed,
including our producers. It was one big team effort that made
us a close lm family.
Although Berg also directs many commercials and always
shoots digitally, this was his rst feature lm in the medium,
and along with Schliessler, he opted to shoot with RED EPICs,
mainly because of the budget, he states, which was a reported
$50 million. They were cheaper than using the ALEXA. As for
going digital as opposed to lm, everything Ive done recently is
digital, and Ive been very happy with the look, especially after
Company 3 has worked on the image.
Going digital also suits Bergs style. I do a lot of takes and
different angles and prefer not to cut, so digital works for me in
that way, he explains. Ive shot a lot of lm in the past, but we
To shoot Lone Survivor, director Peter Berg once again teamed with Tobias Schliessler, ASC, who worked with him on Hancock, Friday Night Lights and
Battleship. Lone Survivor was Bergs rst digital feature, and according to the director, digital really ts his style since he does a lot of takes at different
angles and prefers not to cut.
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decided to go all-digital from the get-go. We didnt even bother
doing digital versus lm comparison tests.
Peter and I decided to shoot handheld as much as possible,
with a little use of Steadicam, when necessary, explains Schliessler.
I wanted to give my operators the most compact camera due
to the rough terrain we were going to have to work in. For that
reason, I chose the EPIC due to its compact size and lightweight
body. All cameras were equipped with an HD wireless trans-
mitter, onboard monitor, wireless remote iris and focus control
units, and a lightweight zoom lens (Fujinon Cabrio 19-90mm
or Angnieux Optimo 15-40mm, 28-76mm, 45-120mm).
My rst assistant cameraman Jimmy Jensen custom-designed
bracketing mounts for all the accessories, with the help of Keslow
Camera rental house, to keep the weight down as much as pos-
sible, says Schliessler. We shot with a minimum of three cameras
at all times in a handheld documentary-shooting style, where my
operators were able to freely change angles and reframe on the
y. That meant that the lighting situations sometimes changed
drastically within the shot. Shooting digital with wireless HD
transmitters, I was able to simultaneously watch all images on
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three monitors from my DIT tent, and with the help of my DIT
Jeff Tomcho, I could change the exposure on all cameras during
the takes with single-channel iris units, which would have been
more difcult when shooting on lm.
To present Berg with initial ideas for a lighting and visual
style, Schliessler researched war photography and came across
Tim Hetheringtons book, Indel. The book is an intimate
portrait of a single U.S. platoon, assigned to an outpost in the
Korengal Valleyan area considered one of the most dangerous
Afghan postings in the war against the Taliban, he says. But
its as much about love and male vulnerability, as it is about
bravery and war, and Hetheringtons images in this book repre-
sented a lot of the feeling I got from reading Lone Survivor, and
when I brought it to Peter, we both agreed that it was the tone
of our movie, in terms of lens choice, lighting and color tones.
It became the bible, not only for me, but also for the art and
costume department. I also referenced Tims photography in the
initial lighting and camera tests in preproduction with my DI
colorist Stefan Sonnenfeld at Company 3, where we were setting
the looks for our dailies.
If anything, the DP continues, Peter stressed to me that
Lone Survivor had to feel as real as possible. He wanted the audi-
ence to be as close to our characters and as close to the action
as possible to experience the extreme circumstances our war
heroes had to go through emotionally and physically. For that
reason, we chose to use wide lenses close to the actors and the
action. We also decided to keep the lighting natural and stay
away from overstylizing the images and keep the feel of the
movie as realistic as possible.
Accordingly, there were very few VFX elements that he had to
integrate, as all the action sequences were shot with real special
effects in-camera. For the most part, the VFX were set exten-
sions and location enhancement for some of our sets, such as
the Afghan village that was created outside of Albuquerque,
explains Schliessler. The biggest VFX sequence is the helicopter
crash in the movie and that was created by ILM, and we supplied
them with aerial plates.
Tomcho reports that for the digital workow on set, 5K foot-
age was captured using 256 GB SSD REDMAGs. The media mags
were shuttled straight to the Company 3 trailer for backup and
verication. The les were then processed using the metadata
supplied from their on-set camera settings and Company 3s own
RED log-linear color transferring. Veried copies of the original
REDMAGs were then shipped back to Company 3 in Los Angeles
where the footage was archived to LTO5 tape.
At the point we received LTO5 backup verication of a shot
card, we would return it back into circulation, notes Tomcho.
The verication process of archiving the digital negative unusu-
ally took two to three days. We had three cameras working
full-time on main unit and two-plus cameras shooting almost
every day on second unit. By the end of the shoot, we carried
about 60 REDMAGs to keep us covered during the archiving
turnaround process.
In terms of equipment, the team opted not to use any on-set
grading hardware for the majority of the shoot because of location
restrictions. Instead, we utilized the EPICs internal customiz-
able metadata settings to adjust the proper look for each lighting
Creating Digital
Film Stocks
With the help of Company 3 and EC3, Tobias
Schliessler, ASC, sets the look of Lone Survivor
The development of Lone Survivors look actually began before
the unit embarked for New Mexico. DP Tobias Schliessler, ASC,
and director Peter Berg shot some test footage on a RED
EPIC and brought it to Company 3 in Santa Monica where they
collaborated with colorist Stefan Sonnenfeld pre-building looks
in the same DI theater where the nal grading would occur. It
was like creating different lm stocks, the cinematographer
explains. We had a stock for bright daylight and for dark forest
and for day interiors, for night interiors. On the day, we could
see a look for each scenario.
DIT Jeff Tomcho took responsibility for ensuring the on-set
monitors reected the appropriate look during the shoot and
getting .r3d les (plus the color metadata) to the near-set
facilitythe EC3 Trailer. EC3 is the joint location dailies
offering of Company 3 and EFILM, and the trailer is one of the
companys two specially designed Star Waggons housing a
digital grading theater, digital cinema projector and even the
plush seats one associates with a major facility. There, EC3s
dailies colorist Adrian DeLude rened the look shot to shot as
the material came in.
At lunch and after wrap, Schliessler would sit with DeLude,
watch the colorists renements projected on the seven-foot
screen and provide his input, which DeLude then used for
guidance in further ne-tuning the images. It really helps to
see the cinematographer actually react to the graded dailies,
DeLude reects. It gave me a much better feel for what he likes
and doesnt like than I would have been able to get if we had
tried to communicate from a thousand miles away.
The trailer also became a popular place for department heads
to congregate in order to see how a costume or piece of set
design was reading after grading and projected onto a cinema
screen. Schliessler reports that this workow yielded a fast,
efcient post process, too. We had a very short DI schedule,
says the cinematographer. We hardly even did any windows.
Stefan did one pass, and I literally didnt change a thing.
(Contd on page 92)
EC3 dailies colorist Adrian DeLude
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The Secret Life of Walter Mitty had its European
premiere in mid-November in Bydgoszcz, Poland, as the nal
lm of the 21st Camerimage International Film Festival of the
Art of Cinematography. For festival attendees, the lm was a
welcome breath of fresh air after a week of mostly weighty
themes and dark visions.
The cinematic antecedents of The Secret Life of Walter Mitty
include the 1947 Danny Kaye vehicle, shot in Technicolor by Lee
Garmes, ASC, and Billy Liar (1963), a British variation directed
by John Schlesinger. But this time, director/star Ben Stiller,
writer Steve Conrad and cinematographer Stuart Dryburgh,
ASC, NZCS, didnt take any cues from previous screen versions,
instead focusing on a Frank Capra-esque everyman whose rich
imaginary world, like that of James Thurbers original, literary
Mitty, thrives because hes a bit beaten down by life.
The character was tailored for Stiller. I think our Walter Mitty
is a really lovely character, without pushing a lot of emotional
buttons, says Dryburgh. I nd a lot of Hollywood lms do that
to the point where they switch me out of the experience. Here,
you really come to like this guy, and when he goes out into the
real world and is forced into having some massive adventures,
you really want him to succeed. Ben is perfect for the role, and
as a director, he has landed the tone dead-right. Kristen Wiig,
Kathryn Hahn, Shirley MacLaine and Sean Penn, among others,
shine in supporting roles.
According to Dryburgh, the decision to shoot on lm grew
out of two considerations. Ben is a collector of photographs
and a lmmaker who loves cinema, and he feels that lm is
fundamental to much of what we love about cinema, says the
cinematographer. Also, Walter Mitty works in a photo archive.
His whole world is negative and lm print. The character he
goes in search of shoots lm, and the negative is important in
the story. So it seemed appropriate for lm to be the originating
medium. Also, like many actors, I think that Ben has looked at
himself on-screen, seen himself photographed digitally and on
lm, and decided he looks better on lm.
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A key part of Dryburghs assignment was to separate fantasy
from reality in a way that was subtle, yet distinct enough for
the audience to sense. He chose to shoot Mittys normal life
in Super 35 format with spherical Cooke S4 lenses. When the
character steps into his outrageous fantasies, which unfold mostly
in New York, the format switches to 35mm anamorphic with a
2x squeeze accomplished using Hawk V-Lite and V-Plus lenses.
The change is reected in the art direction, as well as in lighting,
color and ltration. Sets depicting Mittys work environment at
the photographic archive and his home apartment tend toward
monochrome, with blues and grays predominant. His ofce is
set at the Time-Life Building, a steel-and-glass monolith in tune
with that aesthetic.
When we switch to anamorphic, it changes the way the world
is seen, including the depth of eld, says Dryburgh. It puts more
emphasis on the foreground action. Its fairly imperceptible, but
theres a denite jump, a visual transition. Hopefully, it works
on a visceral levelthe audience reads it without even knowing
Cinematographer Stuart Dryburgh, ASC, NZCS, does his best
to capture The Secret Life of Walter Mitty in camera on lm
BY DAVID HEURING
DAYDREAM
BELIEVER
Cinematographer Stuart Dryburgh,
ASC, NZCS, and director/star
Ben Stiller map out a shot.
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it consciously, and it helps them understand and experience the
fantasies in a more vivid, more cinematic experience.
Early in the lm, Mittys fantasies are laughably over the top.
Eventually, his quest brings him real-life adventures, leading him
to Greenland, Iceland and Afghanistan. He ghts off a shark,
climbs the Himalayas and more. All these locales were shot on
Iceland over the course of about four weeks, following the initial
eight-week stint in New York.
Iceland, which has very vigorous landscapes, gave us an incred-
ible backdrop, says Dryburgh, mossy plains, barren volcanic ash,
and we were able to create an Afghanistan desert with mountains
behind. The mountains there are actually only 2,000 or 3,000 feet
high, but because theyre really close, they look huge. The sense
of scale works very well for cinema and photography.
The complexity of shooting on rugged Iceland locations gave
Dryburgh pause on the format. We decided to step back from
going all 2x anamorphic for a couple of reasons, he says. One,
Im a big fan of the 1.3x anamorphic format, and there were
some questions from visual effects and others about the natural
focus falloff of anamorphic lenses on edges, and how that would
work with some of the more graphic- and effects-contributed
sequences. So I suggested that when we went to Iceland that we
switch to the 1.3x Hawk V-Lite anamorphics, which I had used
earlier that year on Emperor. I found them to be very sharp and
bright across the whole image, and that made everyone happy.
Visual effects got a little bit more room at the top and bottom
of the frame to play with if they wanted to. Generally, the lenses
made things slightly more manageable all around while still
maintaining the vividness of anamorphic. Digital techniques
make combining the various formats simple. The nal aspect
ratio for the entire lm was 2.40:1.
In their early conversations, Stiller and Dryburgh focused on
identifying the right tone for the lm. On the set, the working
relationship was very normal, according to Dryburgh, despite
Stillers dual role as director and lead actor. The one major dif-
ference was that he would want to review the takes afterward, at
least the takes he felt were good, he says. He has a great ability
to multitask in that world. He can run a scene as the character
and then call cut. Without moving, he can be the directorgive
some notes to the other actor or actors, and say, Okay, lets go
again, and be back in character. I think its a particularly amazing
skill. He has made a lot of movies and been in a lot of movies.
He has a very strong idea of what he likes and what he thinks
works for him. My role was really to support his vision and to
bring what ideas I could to the table. Actually, many of the good
ones ended up in the movie. So, in that regard, it was a very
typical working relationship.
On stages at the historic Kaufman Astoria Studios in Queens,
New York, production designer Jeff Mann built most of an entire
oor of the Time-Life Building. In one of Mittys fantasies, an
Alpine mountainside suddenly appears in the midst of this bland
ofce environment. Dryburgh says that the success of this scene
depended on practical effects, with digital manipulation playing
only a minor role.
We basically rebuilt a section of the ofce set with a cut-
away in the ceiling and oor, as if it had been crashed, with
the physical mountain protruding into it, and with real actors
climbing on it, says Dryburgh. Theres a certain amount of
ABOVE: The Secret Life of Walter Mitty was shot on lm, and according
to Dryburgh, the decision was made because the character works in a
photo archive and director/star Ben Stiller thinks he looks better on lm.
RIGHT: According to Dryburgh, Iceland gave the production an incredible
backdrop of mossy plains and barren volcanic ash, and they were able to
re-create both the Himalayas and an Afghanistan desert.
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visual effectsblowing snow and icebut Id say that about
80% of thats done old school.
To make the incongruous ofce-mountainside combina-
tion convincing, Dryburgh lit the ofce areas with soft uo-
rescents, and added to it a bright, hot Alpine sky using a
mix of daylight and tungsten Kino Flos, balloons and
other strong fixtures mounted in the overhead grid. He
credits the set design, saying that the scene didnt require
much help in the DI, aside from some blowing snow.
Its likely that most viewers wont realize how much of The
Secret Life of Walter Mitty was done real and how little was done
in postproduction and visual effects. In another example, Stiller
jumps into a helicopter and takes off. For that shot, a camera
was bolted to the opposite side of the chopper.
Youre seeing a man actually getting lifted up into the
air, says Dryburgh. It could have been done as a visual-
effects shot. But when hes looking at you, the light changes,
and the flare kicks as the helicopter turns around, the
wind battling its side. As far as possible, if theres a ying scene
with Ben in it, he was in the shot and actually ying.
He was in the ocean on the nal day, in incredibly cold
water, and there were some pretty decent storms, continues
Dryburgh. Ben is a decent skater, and he did much of the extreme
skateboarding himself. You get the advantage of actually having
your actor physically in the situation, and you avoid having to
do a face replacement or greenscreen.
The conventional wisdom holds that comedy generally plays
better in wider framing. But, here, there were signicant dramatic
elements, and much of the comedy came from Stillers reactions,
specically, facial expressions.
We found a balance between being close on Ben and the
other actors, capturing their facial quirks and emotions, and
then cutting widereally wide in some cases, says Dryburgh.
The exceptionally wide shots, with him as a tiny gure crawling
across the bottom of the frame, also contribute to the strange-
ness of the situations. That allowed us to show the drama of the
locations, while at the same time playing the intimate story of
Walter Mittys journey. We really needed to be able to do both.
The Secret Life of Walter Mitty was shot on three different KODAK
VISION3 lm stocks. Because so much of the movie was exterior
or practical daylight interiors, the majority of the lm was done
with 50D Color Negative Film 5203. In daylight situations with
less light, the stock was 250D 5207, and in nighttime or studio
interior situations, the tungsten-balanced 500T 5219.
Dryburgh says that the 50-speed daylight-balanced stock
reminds him of Kodachrome. Kodaks older version of the
50-speed daylight lm, 5245, was extremely like Kodachrome
when it was printed, he says, very strong color saturation, high
contrast and unforgiving in the underexposure. This VISION3
version is much more forgiving and not quite as vivid, something
I can control very easily in DI.
Most of the time when youre shooting exteriors, youre deal-
ing with some sort of atmospheric moisture or vapor or mist,
or you notice that little haze, which is the are of the sun, so
I nd the clarity of that stock to be a benet, he adds. I nd
that the 250 in its current form really complements it, so when
you want to shoot a daylight scene out into the dusk, its just
a matter of changing the magazine and carrying on. And both
lms will take a push very well.
The digital intermediate was done in New York at Company
3, with Stefan Sonnenfeld at the controls. Stefan is a very sup-
portive, very smart colorist who also understands what it is we
like about lm and doesnt turn it into something that looks
like digital video, says Dryburgh. Our approach was to get
the color and tonality right in-camera, on the negative, as far
as possible, so we werent doing a lot of work in the DI suite to
match or change contrast or color. The fantasy sequences got a
little more saturated and contrasty to separate them from Walter
Mittys work-a-day life. For the Iceland scenes, we didnt have to
do much because it just came out of the landscape.
Dryburgh cites several reasons why capturing the look in-
camera, as opposed to nding it in the DI, is the right path. It
means that what youre seeing on the set, even on a little HD
monitor, is at least a pretty good approximation of what your
dailies, and therefore, your end result, is going to look like,
he says. Youre not second-guessing, and youre not saying,
Whatever, well x it later. Youre using the skills of the cin-
ematographer and the equipment and the lighting at the time
to create the image. And, in my opinion, thats almost always
going to lead to a better result than trying to cobble something
together in post from elements that were shot slapdash. There
are denitely things that you can leave. Its no longer a terrible
tragedy if you get a light change halfway through a take, if the
sun goes behind a cloud.
Previous to The Secret Life of Walter Mitty, Dryburgh shot
Emperor, a World War II historical drama, on 35mm lm in the
anamorphic format. Since Mitty, he shot Cyber for director Michael
Mann on ARRI ALEXAs, also anamorphic, with Hawk lenses.
Dryburgh says the cost differential between lm and digital
on a big feature isnt that signicant. The post costs in digital
are higher, he notes. Digital cameras and gear are expensive,
and you have a whole digital department that you never used
to have. I think the studios were keen to have the distributors
switch over to digital, but now that battle has been won, and
shooting lm isnt the hard sell it was a while back. HDVP
For more information on The Secret Life of Walter Mitty, visit
the lms ofcial website at www.waltermitty.com.
hdvideopro.com | February 2014 Q 61
Cinematographer Polly Morgan digs deep into the shadows for
The Truth About Emanuel | BY VALENTINA I. VALENTINI
At its heart, The Truth About Emanuel is a
coming-of-age story. But writer-director Francesca Gregorini
made sure that each layer of darkness surrounding the tale of
Emanuelbrilliantly played by Kaya Scodelariodidnt stop at
the usual angst-y teenage bits that often accompany a typical
coming-of-age movie. She worked eye to eye with cinematog-
rapher Polly Morgan to push the story further, going into one
girls struggle to look inside herself and seek her own truths,
while still dealing with the outside issues of her family and a
mysterious new neighbor (Jessica Biel).
Francesca is very much into the visual craft of storytelling,
says Morgan, who has come up through the ranks assisting on
biggies like Inception and V for Vendetta and shooting for American
Horror Story. Initially, we got really excited and tried to push for
35mm, as were both lovers of lm. Due to budget constraints,
we went digital, and the next obvious step was the ARRI ALEXA.
Morgan felt that the color rendition and the latitude range
were the next best thing to 35mm, and even since shooting
Emanuel, she has done side-by-side camera tests with the Sony
F55, RED EPIC and the ALEXA. Its so interesting to see where
cameras excel and where they fall short, and I feel the ALEXA
shines brighter than the rest, she states. It has a true 14-stop
range and is one of the few cameras that lives up to its 800 ISO
rating. I knew going into Emanuel that we had a lot of night
exteriors and that we needed a camera that could really dig deep
into the shadows. On top of its performance with sensitivity, it
also has a soft quality to it because of the low-pass lter, which
I gravitate to, as it reminds me of lm negative.
The second step for Morgan in creating the visual palette for
a lm is choosing the right lenses. They were originally looking
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at anamorphics and wanted to pair them with the ALEXA Studio
and its 4:3 sensor (which was just rolling off the shelves at the
time in 2012). But, again, as it was a conservative budget, they
decided to save on springing for the ALEXA Studio and put it
back into things like Technocranes and some bigger lights.
Someone had told Francesca ages ago that she should
shoot with Cookes, recalls Morgan. I asked her why, and she
said simply because someone had told her that they were good
lenses. So, of course, I decided to test ve different sets of glass
Panavision Primos, Master Primes, Super Speeds and then vintage
glass and the Cooke Panchros and the Super Baltarsand have
a blind screening for her and the producers. Every single person
in the blind screening chose the Primos. I was happy because
Ive always loved Panavision glass.
Gregorini, as Morgan tells it, was really into imagery that
was going to dig deep and convey Emanuels emotional journey,
which was a refreshing and exciting challenge when compared
to shooting traditional coverage, she says. They pulled refer-
ences from a wide variety of sources, but their favorites were
the dark and engrossing photography of Bill Henson and the
BELOW: Cinematographer Polly Morgan and director
Francesca Gregorini (left to right) on one of the
lms many night exterior shoots.
hdvideopro.com | February 2014 Q 65
TOP: Courtesy of Polly Morgan; BOTTOM: Photo by Annabel Mehran
ethereal poetic work of Ryan McGinley. We gravitated to work
that had real texture to it and really drew us to its subjects,
Morgan adds.
For moving images, they looked at masters such as Roman
Polanski for techniques of creating tension. They wanted to get
people on the edge of their seats without really having them know
why. In prep, we talked a lot about what was going on emotion-
ally with each of the characters, explains Morgan. We dissected
the script scene by scene and looked at it emotionally and then
chose lighting motifs that represented that level of intensity.
Morgan and her team had a basic HMI and Fresnel Tungsten
package, supplemented with some 10Ks and 18Ks. Those bigger
lights were important for Morgan as they helped create a really
gentle touch to keep the three main characters, who were all
women, wrapped in beautifully soft light. They also had an ARRI
LoCaster LED to add a bit more wrap when needed, which they
nicknamed Jos. We pulled Jos out a lot for Jessica Biels
scenes, says Morgan, to smooth out her complexion and help
convey a feeling of innocence and simple beauty.
We did a lot of lighting and makeup tests with the women,
she continues. I wanted to enhance them and convey unique
personalities and, therefore, needed to know how each angle
and style of light affected each of them. Francescas mantra, in
a way, is representing strong feminine women. It was important
to have them come off that way visually.
Morgan was grateful for the 18Ks, explaining that when she
shoots day interiors, it becomes much quicker and simpler to set
up, and it looks much more natural to have a nice, big unit at a
reasonable distance outside the window, as opposed to lighting
from inside with smaller units. It doesnt have that naturalistic
falloff that a bigger unit has, she explains.
Instead of having a color palette for the lights, Morgan kept
them fairly neutral and worked closely with Gregorini and pro-
duction designer Anne Costa to create visual motifs. The motif of
water was ever present in the lm, with a 15-minute underwater
scene toward the end, which Morgan operated herself.
To accompany the water motif, there were a lot of turquoises
and blues. The wallpaper and all the paint inside Emanuels
family house was very dark to create a claustrophobic feel. The
neighbor Lindas house was a little more airy and had more
neutral tones, although Lindas bedroom was blue, representing
the water element and the connection to Emanuels mother. Her
childs nursery was the brightest yellow, which for Morgan was
an interesting choice, as some of the more dramatic high points
take place in that room.
Everything in the rest of the house is pretty neutral or
dark, she says, yet you go into the nursery and its bright.
Thats counterintuitive to how you normally visually represent
dramatic scenes, which have a tendency to be more moody.
We felt that baby Chloe and the nursery represented something
For Morgan, the most challenging
part of shooting the lm was an
underwater sequence during
the last week of production. For
a water tank built in Long Beach,
Calif., the crew built a grid
with hanging lights and rigged
up Canon DSLRs.
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Photos this page by Grant Wilsea
very different and powerful to all three women and we wanted
the moments to really stand out and resonate with the viewer.
The primary yellow of the nursery represented the power of the
suna force that can warm and cheer someone up, but that can
also be overbearing and cause disorientation and confusion. It
seemed to t the babys inuence perfectly.
Morgan feels that what set Emanuel apart from the other inde-
pendent lms she has shotlike Junkie and The Pretty Onewas
Gregorinis determination to have the camera move in a way that
really helped to accentuate what was going on within Emanuel
and within the story as a whole. Camera movement can be a
little bit intimidating for indies, admits Morgan. Technocranes,
really big dolly movesthat all takes so much time to set up,
to rehearse, to get the focus and timing right. But [Gregorini]
didnt limit me at all in that respect. Whatever I needed, she
would help get for me.
By far, the most challenging part of shooting Emanuel came in
the last week of productionthe underwater sequence. Toward
the end of the lm, Emanuel has a surreal hallucination, of sorts,
where her bedroom submerges underwater and shes met by her
deceased mother and baby Chloe swimming around with sh
in a blue abyss. Morgan has shot underwater scenes before with
many formats, including 35mm, and has continued to shoot
more since lming Emanuel, but she admits that her crews story
is a bit of an urban legend now in the industry.
We started with the baby underwater sequence, recalls
Morgan, who explains that there were two different setups, one
with babies in a swimming pool and the other in a tank in Long
Beach, Calif. We had three sets of six-month-old twins ready to
go. After hours of rigging and lighting, I get in the water and start
to go under, and Im thinking, Gee, this camera is getting really
heavy, then the screen fogs up, and by that point, the camera is
at the bottom of the pool. My camera assistant had forgotten to
secure the underwater housing, and the ALEXA was destroyed.
Panavision really stepped up and got us another camera within
a couple of hours, though.
We then went to the tank where we had been having problems
constructing the set, Morgan continues. Production hadnt set
aside enough money to build a safe set, and the construction
coordinator sent an email around to the entire crew recommend-
ing not to shoot, saying that it wasnt safe, and if someone was
hurt or killed, that she wasnt responsible. We had a hiatus for a
week, and they had to spend extra money and get a brand-new
construction crew in to assemble the set. Usually, underwater
you have a two- or three-walled set, but because the water had to
rise slowly and in an even way, we had to lower the four-walled
set into the water and cut holes underneath the carpet, allowing
the water to slowly engulf the whole set.
On top of the set, they had a grid built with lights hanging
and some Canon EOS 5Ds and 7Ds rigged up. Therefore, there
were many safety precautions, as the only escape was through
the window.
The rst time they tried to pick up the set with the crane and
then rotate and lower it into the tank, they had to stop because
the crane wasnt big enough to hold the weight. Again, they had
to go home and come back the next day with a bigger crane.
Finally, they were all ready to lower the set into the water,
and Scodelario couldnt equalize her inner ears. They werent
able to submerge to the depth that they needed to get to and
they just had to sink it enough to cover the window where
Scodelario swam out of.
With the challenges that can rear their heads on lm sets,
it was good fortune that the ALEXA workow throughout
the entire production was relatively simple for Morgan. She
didnt create any LUTs and just stuck with the Rec. 709 LUT.
Its interesting because ARRIs generic 709 LUT is actually
quite lifted, says Morgan. Its a bit brighter and it can be
a bit disconcerting for the director and others watching the
monitors, as the image theyre watching is brighter than how
youre exposing the chip. You have to explain that shooting
digital is no different than shooting lm and that the monitor
can look different with different viewing scenarios, different
tweaks with the monitor settings and with different LUTs.
They have to trust the DP and the light meter.
They had a postproduction supervisor, which Morgan sees as a
godsend on indie features, and they were able to nish the color
timing at EFILM with Andrew Francis. Because their post budget
kept getting halved, she was grateful that her history working
with Andrew and EFILM kept their faith in her and the lm, and
helped them to nish it the way they had always envisioned.
Andrew had been part of the process since the camera tests,
and he knew exactly the look and feel I was after, says Morgan.
We based our nishing look on a print stock we both loved with
more neutral highlights and very rich and deep blacks. Francesca
and I wanted the lm to be natural-looking, yet with a richness
that comes with bigger budget productions. Through the careful
prep and collaboration of everyone involved, I think as a team,
we pulled it off. HDVP
Visit www.thetruthaboutemanuel.com to learn more about the lm.
hdvideopro.com | February 2014 Q 67
Courtesy of Polly Morgan
Written by and starring MADtv veterans
Keegan-Michael Key and Jordan Peele, Comedy Centrals sketch
comedy series Key and Peele has emerged as something of a
sleeper hit for the network. Already renewed for another season,
just weeks after the third season began airing last fall, the series
features a wide variety of humorous bits (more than 200 thus
far), all directed by Peter Atencio and shot by director of pho-
tography Charles Papert, a cinematographer with an extensive
feature and TV history as camera and Steadicam operator.
Each season, the cinematographer receives a massive bible
of scripts some weeks out from the commencement of produc-
tion, allowing him and the director to begin planning how to
tackle the more elaborate skits. For every large-scale spot, we
compensate by shooting three others very simply, usually just a
master and coverage of each of the guys, he explains. That lets
us keep up with the demands of production while also staying
economy-minded.
Production functions in a cycle, proceeding from a week of
prep to two weeks of shooting and back again, with at least two
sketches being shot each day, and nearly all of them taking place
at different locations. We have no standing stages, no resources
to carry over from one sketch to the next, except when we revisit
the same characters, says the cinematographer. Working on
location exclusively means were going from apartments to trailer
homes and sometimes to stages with existing sets that our art
department can modify and dress up to work for our needs.
Paperts gaffer and key grip accompany him on each location
scout. Well scout on a Monday for the next block of sketches,
so that means looking at about two dozen locations that day,
explains Papert. Well go all over the area, from Whittier to Santa
Clarita. Peter will have done a creative scout and let us know that
his intent is to shoot in a particular direction, letting us know
which walls will be visible, so we know what we need to worry
about. As I take all this in, its a matter of coming up with an idea
for lighting pretty much on the y. I talk it over with my guys in
broad strokes. So Im spending 10 minutes with Pete, another 10
with my guys, and then its back in the van and onto the next.
Papert readily acknowledges that some locations arent 100%
ideal. We might nd our guys on a sofa in front of a white wall
and arent permitted to paint the wall darker. So, in that situa-
tion, I would be subtracting light, taking the wall down, while
at the same time building it up on the actors, reshufing the
values as needed creatively.
Comedy Centrals Key and Peele delivers
sketch humor with style and economy
BY KEVIN H. MARTIN
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Written by and starring comedians Keegan-Michael Key and Jordan Peele, Comedy Centrals Key and Peele has become a sleeper hit for the cable
network. ABOVE: DP Charles Papert and crew use a JVC KY-1900 broadcast tube camera to capture a 70s retro look for a sketch. Photo credits
(clockwise from opposite page): Courtesy of Comedy Central, Danny Feld, Danny Feld, Danny Feld, Mike Yarish, Charles Papert
hdvideopro.com | February 2014 Q 69
SPRING INTO ACTION
Papert estimates the show is shot 60% on dollies, 30%
handheld and 10% Steadicam. A few years back, when Funny
or Die became very popular, there was an aesthetic that said, the
crappier the thing looks, the funnier it will be, he recalls. That
trend toward rough handheld is something we havent really held
with, as Peter and I prefer the notion of honoring the material.
If were rifng on a particular era of lm when handheld was in
vogue, like a 70s American thriller or a Bourne-type thing, then
yeah, handheld would be the way to go. But it isnt a standard
stylistic go-to for us.
When an unsteady style is mandated for a sustained sequence,
Paperts operators have come to rely on spring heads. Between
the dolly and the camera are four springs, says Papert, and
these allow the operators to create a very convincing rocking
effect, one thats more than just a back-and-forth/up-and-down
motion. It also allows the operators to do their job without killing
themselves trying to create the aberrant motion while framing
the shot. My years as an operator always serve to remind me that
what youre capable of doing at noon isnt going to sustain all
the way to the end of the day; you tire out. Before the spring-
head solution, our attempts at simulating handheld used only
the pan and tilt axes, but the trouble with that is, without the
third axis of motion, you dont get a truly random feel.
Shooting with two cameras on Key and Peele allows the cin-
ematographer to maximize coverage. I know I could make it look
better, lighting for a single camera, Papert admits, but that would
cut into the number of setups we get, which in turn would hurt
us in terms of editorial choices down the line. So I can live with
the sacrice on the lighting not being absolutely ideal if it lets
us get more great stuff of the guys doing their thing on camera.
Papert utilizes ARRI ALEXA Plus cameras, shooting on ARRI/
Fujinon Alura Zooms and Master Primes, capturing ProRes 422
(HQ) les. Part of the workow we set up involved ghting to
get a DIT [Ryan Polack] on set because this isnt a show where
you can rely on a prebuilt set of looks to switch between, says
Papert. Well build the LUT on the day and send that to editorial,
so both the producers and network have a good approximation
of what things are going to look like. Once in the color suite,
theres the occasional instance where we change gears, but most
of the time our rst choice is pretty close to what we go with.
Both DP and director try to remain dialed in to what can be
accomplished in post, especially with respect to matters that will
save time on set. Now that ProMist effects can be handled in
post, Im very happy to let go of that, says Papert. Otherwise,
LEFT: Shooting a Les
Mis sketch on European
Street at Universal
Studios. BELOW:
(camera crew from left
to right): A-camera 1st
AC Emily Mackley,
A-camera operator
Denis Moran, B-camera
operator Nick Franco
and B-camera
AC Doug Oh.
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youre spending time with different lters on each shot to try to
match as you shoot, and that costs you time for additional setups.
For a Miami Vice sketch shot at Sepulveda Dam, a certain
stylization applied in post was the icing on an 80s-era cake. We
did some of our most elaborate coverage, Papert recalls, actu-
ally getting to blow up a car while shooting with two ALEXAs,
three GoPros and a pair of [Canon] 7Ds to get all the angles.
Peter is a huge Michael Mann fan, so for this one, even more
than usual, I wanted to give him everything he wanted, even
though our choices for doing creative work for the palette on
day exteriors are fairly limited. We werent setting out to speci-
cally copy either the series or the movie, though the wardrobe
was period. So the question became, if we dont make it look
specically like the 80s series, what do we do to put across the
idea of the era? There were these light skies throughout, so when
we got to post, I timidly suggested putting the look of a sunset
grad across the sky, which is classic 80s and something nobody
does anymore, where its practically like an orange stripe across
the top of the frame. MTI colorist Steve Porter delivered the
requisite look, which evokes Die Hard and countless commercial
spots from the junk-bond decade.
TOTALLY TUBULAR
Papert credits the ALEXAs exibility for allowing him to create
looks as disparate as 50s-era Technicolor and black-and-white
lms of the 30s, but notes that one particular look seems to elude
replication. Ive found that period video has specic kinds of
artifacting that doesnt seem to be achievable with existing post
workows. In fact, the smear look of old tube camera video
isnt even something that anybody has created a plug-in for, to
the best of my knowledge. There are all sorts of chromatic aber-
ration, misregistered colors and a general funkiness thats very
much its own thing. In Season Two,
we had an Obamas college years
sketch that was supposed to be old
footage, and I pitched Peter on the
idea of using an actual Magnavox
video camera from 1985. Since the
resolution was something like 240
lines, we had to get Comedy Central
to approve, as well, since wed be
cutting that into our HD show.
The Obama sketch was well-
received, and the series has since
featured four more sketches set in
the 70s and 80s that called for a
similar approach. I started looking
for old broadcast tube cameras, and
found you cant even rent them in
L.A., reports Papert, who resorted
to buying several old JVC KY-1900
cameras on eBay, then managed to
cobble together two working units.
It has maybe six stops of dynamic
range, and the chroma bleeds all
over; the only detail it seems to
pick up on is skin imperfections. To complete the illusion of
period visual verisimilitude, the distinctive look of the old 29.97
was retained, differentiating it from todays 24-frame cadence.
A recently aired sketch sends up Star Wars, specically the
character of Lando Calrissian from The Empire Strikes Back. Peter
and I looked at the part of Empire [shot by Peter Suschitzky, ASC,
BSC] featuring the carbon-freezing room, explains Papert. Its
very dramatic stuff, with orange light coming up from below
through grills and blue light elsewhere. So right away we knew
blues and oranges, thats the color schemejust put some Kino
Flos beneath the oor and add smoke and go. The crew shot on
a stage containing sets from the old Power Rangers series, which
Papert has had occasion to utilize more than once over the years.
There were plenty of panels with holes through which light
could be passed, and we had some lighting gags built into the
set, including an elevator effect done with a series of tweenies
atop each other feeding into a chase pattern. I looked into
more vibrant LED stuff, but that might not have had the same
80s look we needed. For tracking shots through the interiors
of Calrissians Cloud City, a LiteCard mounted under the matte
box provided a moving ll for the actors eyes.
Papert has a musical background in jazz, and he likens working
on the show, with its deeply collaborative nature, to that free-form
style. Theres an improvisatory nature to how were working,
and thats not just my crew, but with art, wardrobe, makeup and
hair, as well, he reports. Plus, Jordan and Keegan are naturals
at improv. We dont have time to plan everything out because
things have to keep moving forward. Its really like playing jazz
because you just get up there and do your thing. HDVP
For more information on Key and Peele, visit the shows ofcial
website at www.comedycentral.com/shows/key-and-peele.
ABOVE: Jordan Peele, DP Charles Papert and director Peter Atencio discuss a scene on New York
Street at Universal Studios.
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hdvideopro.com | February 2014 Q 71
If there has been one position on the camera
crew that should get the prize for fastest-changing, its the digital
imaging technician, also known as the D.I.T. Six years ago, the
position didnt even exist, at least not in its current state, and
certainly not as a union career option under the International
Cinematographers Guild banner. But as workows went from
lm to tape to le-based, D.I.T.s became more of a necessary
staple on set than ever before, and their role began changing as
fast as the cameras themselves.
HDVP got to sit down with three D.I.T.s from around the
country to discuss their challenges, rewards, responsibilities and
ever-changing roles on set.
Tiffany Armour-Tejada is based in New York City and started
out as a video technician in 2005. By 2007, she had worked her
way up to video engineering, gaining a depth of understanding
in exposure, camera systems, signal management and color sci-
ence. Her position began to shift to D.I.T. in 2008the dawn
of the digital, le-based-systems revolution. Shes currently the
D.I.T. for Netixs second season of Orange Is the New Black, an
opportunity to collaborate with DP Yaron Orbach she calls one
of the greatest experiences Ive had in my career.
Washington, D.C.-based D.I.T. Damon Meledones has worked
on countless commercial campaigns since he became a D.I.T. in
2008, including RadioShack, GEs Olympics campaign, Subway
THE
DIGITAL
IMAGING
TECHNICIAN
Six years in the making, D.I.T.s
have become key components
of an ever-changing set
BY VALENTINA I. VALENTINI
Tiffany
Armour-Tejada
Ali Goldstein
72 Q HDVideoPro | hdvideopro.com
and Verizon. His notable independent features include Night
Catches Us, which went to Sundance in 2010, and more recently
with Olivia Wilde and Sam Rockwell, Better Living Through
Chemistry. But before he was a D.I.T., he was a camera assistant
working almost entirely on RED ONE jobs. My background
is in IT and ne arts, explains Meledones, so when the RED
ONE showed up, you needed to basically understand the inner
workings of a computer in order to operate it, which quickly
turned me into a camera technician.
Mike Halper, who works out of Los Angeles, started out in
postproduction as an editor and colorist, transitioning to D.I.T.
about six years ago like the others. Today, he works a mix of
D.I.T. and color-correction jobs, and still edits once in a while.
Recently, he has worked on commercials for Google, Inniti,
American Airlines, Disney, COVERGIRL, Clorox and MTV, and
his features include the Courteney Cox-directed Just Before I Go
and Adam Goldbergs No Way Jose.
HDVideoPro: The D.I.T. landscape has changed over the last
decade, which must change your role, as well. What are your
basic duties on a set?
Damon Meledones: Quite often, people ask me what
exactly it is that I do. I tell them Im the bridge between
production and post. My primary goal is to make sure
the two sides communicate with each other and all
As workows went from tape-based
to le-based, the role of the Digital
Imaging Technician, or D.I.T., became
a necessary staple on set.
Mike Halper
Damon Meledones
Courtesy of Mike Halper
Jonny Meyer
hdvideopro.com | February 2014 Q 73
data makes it smoothly from camera to deliverables.
Tiffany Armour-Tejada: When I started out in 2005, my
duties were signal management and ensuring picture quality by
measuring the exposure and color with scientic instruments
such as waveform monitors and vectorscopes. I also controlled
cameras like the Sony RMB-150 or Panasonic AJ-EC3 remotely.
Now, instead of sending a tape to post with color-corrected foot-
age, we're responsible for data management, and applying color
nondestructively, by creating LUTs, as per the DP.
Mike Halper: Typically, the very basic duties on set are to
data-manage footage from the cameras, check the integrity of
footage, calibrate monitors, make sure settings on the camera
are set to the specs provided by production and postproduction
teams, sync camera settings on multicam shoots and resolve
technical issues that may arise with cameras. Additionally, duties
include on-set color correction, live grading, transcoding dailies
for editorial and director/producer dailies, and even syncing of
sound on set. As more capabilities present themselves as the
technology continues to develop, more and more tasks tend to
get added to the multitude of things a D.I.T. can do.
HDVideoPro: Given that those duties could essentially be
given to a camera assistant or loader, how important is your
position to a production in terms of time and money?
Meledones: The downloading duties could be handled by
an AC or loader. Some of the camera setup could be handled
by the assistants, as well. A lot of the color correction could be
done in post, but the benet of having someone who under-
stands the why and how of a particular setting, not just what
to set, and how that affects other things in the camera system
far outweighs that.
Armour-Tejada: Its about not just having a D.I.T., but a good
D.I.T. on set. Its production and DP knowing the footage and
picture are being handled properly versus risking a chance on
someone unqualied possibly losing media. That could mean
reshootswhich arent even a possibilityand loss of money
and time. Also, the DP and rst assistant have greater responsi-
bilities with the constant change of camera systems, and it can
be hard to remember everything. In the digital world, everything
is being done in real time. Its good to have a D.I.T. to lean on
with questions and the comfort of knowing things are being
handled correctly.
Halper: Its so true. A good D.I.T. can be immensely important
for the budget. On a multimillion dollar production, thats a
huge responsibility, but a qualied and talented D.I.T. will never
lose data. Ive had issues with some cameras where the media
coming off the camera was corrupted and had a lot of difculty
recovering the shots. Because Ive been able to resolve and nd
a solution for these issuescaused, for example, by the camera
losing power while recordingit both saved the production
from a reshoot/pickup and allowed the director to be able to
keep desired shots and takes.
Meledones: Having a D.I.T. is a kind of production insur-
ance. Were there to catch any problems right away, while theres
something that can still be xed relatively easily. Any D.I.T. who
is doing their job well is going to save more in overall value
than what theyre costing production. Were often able to spot
something on set that would end up costing production much
more in post to x.
HDVideoPro: What hardware/software are you coming across
on set? Do you have favorites?
Meledones: About 60% of the jobs Im on are ALEXA, 30%
EPICs and 10% everything else. On ALEXA jobs, Im usually
For ARRI ALEXA shoots, the Codex Onboard S Plus
Recorder is perhaps the most popular ARRIRAW
workow solution.
74 Q HDVideoPro | hdvideopro.com
doing some kind of live color, either with LinkColor, LiveGrade
or DaVinci Resolve. The DPs I work with always love those on-
set color-management systems. They like that immediate result
when they ask me if they can change or x something.
Halper: Im seeing a lot of ALEXA, as wellincluding
ARRIRAW with Codex or Geminiand REDs. Theres also some
Sony F65/F55, even some Canon C300 and C500, and I also
work a lot of 3D shoots working with 3D rigs3aility is the most
common3D monitors, and all the other additional equipment
and tools necessary for stereography. I typically use individual
software applications such as ShotPut Pro and my own logging
software for data management, rather than full suites, so I have
more control over the workow and can customize how I do
anything, as needed. I also use LiveGrade and the new DaVinci
Resolve for on-set color correction and live grading. I typically
render dailies with DaVinci or REDCINE-X Pro for RED cameras.
Armour-Tejada: It takes a lot of time and money to keep up
with the upgrades with all the tools and camera systems that we
come across. Since my days of video engineering, Ive gone to
monitoring off CRTs to OLEDs, paintboxes to LUTs and tapes
to hard drives. Currently, my main focus has been on-set dailies.
Programs like Assimilates SCRATCH and Hackintosh comput-
ers help ensure the DPs vision of color is processed onto the
dailies there on set, bringing picture control back. This on-set
dailies process really saves money and time for productions. It
adds more control in the workow, having accurate color-timed
dailies and meeting editorial deadlines.
HDVideoPro: How much communication/collaboration
goes on with the cinematographer in terms of developing the
look for a movie?
Armour-Tejada: A lot. As a D.I.T., communication is key
to help develop the DPs specic vision. Its important to be
technically supportive and research the style of the DPs work.
Each DP has different requirements, and its important to meet
those requirements, creating a trusting working relationship.
Halper: Especially when live-grading and on-set color correc-
tion is involved, in-depth discussion of the look of the movie
is important, and that always begins during preproduction.
Frequently, well do camera, lens and lter tests together. Gener-
ally, I prefer to set the look after we begin shooting, so that we
can establish that look using footage that will actually appear in
the movie. Camera tests usually dont actually match the same
lighting as the actual production, so I nd this to be the best
solution in the end. Well sit down with actual footage, grade it
and set the look, and then upload look les to the camera, if
possible, or Ill use the grades during rendering of dailies, and
theyll be available during postproduction, as well. Of course,
changes can be made to those grades throughout production and
even replacement dailies rendered and sent to post, as desired,
if the look is rened during production.
HDVideoPro: Are you seeing repeat challenges on set, or are
there new sets of issues with each new workow?
Meledones: I come across this over and over againeducat-
ing producers and production coordinators about what it is Im
able to do for them. Im a below-the-line employee, but Im on
their side. I want it to look good, I want to go home on time,
and I want them to be happy with how much money they spent
to get those things done. In prep conversations, I hear over and
over again, I didnt know you could do that, or I didnt know
that was a possibility!, even sometimes from DPs and directors.
Halper: Every production has a unique workow. Sometimes
there are no deadlines, and its a matter of staying caught up
as best as possible as media comes in. Other times, there are
deadlines and very specic technical requirements that need to
be met, adding to the amount of work that needs to be done.
Armour-Tejada: Yes, each job I come onto has its own
challenges. And every three to six months, a new workow is
introduced. Its important to prepare for each change in workow
practices. Researching and testing equipment helps to prepare for
the challenges ahead. As a D.I.T., being quick in troubleshooting
and able to anticipate any problems is key. If plan A doesnt
work, then you better have a plan B ready to go. HDVP
LiveGrade can assist D.I.T.s in
every aspect related to look
and color management on set,
and supports the exchange
of formats such as ASC-CDL,
ALEXA Looks, 3D LUTs, ICC
proles and more.
hdvideopro.com | February 2014 Q 75
Three years ago at CES, pundits of the 3D
printing industry declared that everyone will have a 3D printer in
their home in the near future. Since that time, manufacturers of
these devices switched their R&D and marketing efforts to make
more consumer-friendly printers. Just in the past year, 3D print-
ers have vastly improved, boasting faster speeds and the ability
to use a variety of new raw materials, including various plastics,
steel, silver, brass, bronze, sandstone and ceramics.
Despite all of these changes, most of what weve seen from
these devices are simple household models: soap dishes, orna-
ments and cup holders. Thats not all thats out there, but it
points to 3D printings biggest limitation, which is its inability
to print complex machines and moving parts. If your aim is to
create something with multiple parts, they must be printed one
piece at a time and then assembled.
But even with its limitations, lmmakers have adopted this new
technology to create some impressive imaging tools and accessories.
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3D printing stands to disrupt camera
and support gear | BY CLINT MILBY
OF
THE
DAWN
REPLICATOR
76 Q HDVideoPro | hdvideopro.com
THE iOGRAPHER
3D printing will also be indispensable in prototyping and
design testing, enabling designers to get their nished products
to market a lot faster and with presumably better quality. Such
is the case with the iOgrapher (iographer.myshopify.com). David
Basulto has been in video and lm production in one form or
another his entire life. Working as an actor in feature lms, pro-
ducing and now teaching production, Basulto has maintained a
passion for the industry, with a particular interest in innovations
that can improve workow.
Recently, he found one of the best ways to teach his students
the basics of production is by shooting video with the iPad.
However, he was dissatised with the lack of mounts. What
he really wanted was a simple rig with handles for handheld
situations, and with shoe mounts for accessories such as lights
and microphones. Additionally, he wanted to add lenses to the
iPads camera, as well as have a
1
4-20 screw mount for mount-
ing on a tripod.
After a few sketches, Basulto searched for a mechanical
engineer, but couldnt nd one who would work with him
for less than $5,000. Basulto happened to come by a website,
www.shapeways.com, which is a 3D printing marketplace and
community. There, he was able to nd an engineer to create
a le for a mere $200. He took that le, uploaded it to their
website, and for another $200 he had a 3D printed, working
prototype he was able to put on a tripod. Essentially, this was
the very rst iOgrapher.
After printing a couple of additional models, Basulto created a
Kickstarter campaign to raise the funds necessary to mass-produce
the iOgrapher. Fast-forward to today, and Basulto is now poised
to release a series of products based on the iOgrapher design for
Apples entire line of iOS products, including the iPhone 5S, iPad
All photos on this page courtesy of Clint OConnor
OPPOSITE: Filmmaker and teacher David Basulto used
3D printing to create a working prototype of an
accessory that will help turn your iPad into a lmmaking
device. ABOVE: Inspired by lm photography and using
a Solidoodle 3D printer, computer hardware designer
Clint OConnor created his own pinhole camera.
hdvideopro.com | February 2014 Q 77
DAWN OF THE REPLICATOR
Air and iPad mini with Retina display.
According to Basulto, 3D printing was
absolutely essential to getting the product
off the ground.
Although conceptualized and devel-
oped using 3D printing, in truth, the
iOgrapher in its nished state is pro-
duced via injection molding in California.
According to Basulto, this is the most cost-
effective way to produce the product. As
there are 170 million iPads on the streets
today, Basulto has to prepare for the com-
ing storm of demand from a public thats
looking to accessorize.
The applications for the iOgrapher
seem endless, as well. Basulto states theyre
supplying rigs to the University of Oregon
School of Journalism, where students there
are using the iOgraphers for 92 news
shorts. According to Basulto, schools love
them, not just for pro video applications,
but also for sports departments, as well. As
a teacher, Basultos school currently uses
multiple iOgraphers for lming football
games and other events.
PINHOLE, PRINTED
Clint OConnor comes from the world
of computer hardware design. Being hear-
ing impaired, he has always been drawn to
the visual arts, particularly pinhole photog-
raphy, and over the years, he has created
many camera bodies. Although digital
has all but rendered lm into antiquity,
its evident people are still drawn to the
look of lm by their love of Instagram
and all of the other digital lters available.
OConnors passion for lm photography
and desire to introduce it to a new genera-
tion led him to use his designing skills to
create a simple and inexpensive pinhole
camera. This led him not only to develop it,
but also manufacture it using 3D printing.
OConnor bought a 3D printer from
Solidoodle (www.solidoodle.com) and
started out by printing a few things from
www.thingiverse.com, a social-media web-
site for 3D printer users (and sharers).
Looking for something else to design,
OConnor ran across one of his former
pinhole cameras and immediately thought
about how to use the 3D printer to repro-
duce it. Like Basulto, OConnor went to
Kickstarter to fund his project, Pinhole,
Printed (www.pinholeprinted.com). How-
ever, when people buy the camera, they
can buy the le to print it themselves, or
OConnor actually will print a camera for
those who dont have a 3D printer.
There are some parts needed to
ABOVE: Engineer Anthony Todd wanted a
mount for his GoPro camera for a shark
diving expedition, so he created one using
CAD software and a 3D printer.
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78 Q HDVideoPro | hdvideopro.com
Custom PE foam designed
for Canon C300 Video
camera (EF mount),
70-200mm lens and
accessories.
3i 2 2 1 7 1 0 c 3 0
i
C
omplete case soluti ons
I nsi de and Out.
assemble the camera, and to make it easy
for the customer, he has a kit of parts to
go with the les. OConnor offers two
different models: The Flyer, which is a
6x6 camera, and The Clipper, which is a
panoramic camera.
Meeting his funding goals on
Kickstarter and being in business as a
manufacturer via 3D printing, OConnor
still doesnt believe that 3D printing will
change manufacturing as we know it.
Instead, he believes it will disrupt pricing.
He feels that even if one can print all of the
parts of a product, theres still the issue of
assembly. Also, products produced with a
3D printer just arent as nicely nished as
a mass-manufactured part, even if its as
good. Very often, manufacturers overprice
the replacement parts, says OConnor,
and those are ripe for printing. Camera
mounts and accessories are perfect for
3D printing, as there are so many differ-
ent cameras and mounts. According to
OConnor, in many cases, its cheaper to
print an accessory, and you can even tailor
them for specic applications.
GOPRO ACCESSORIES
If 3D printing has done one thing, it
has helped GoPro users in a pinch. For
instance, Michael Gregg is a self-described
hobbyist and GoPro fanatic. He recently
needed a handle for his GoPro camera.
However, he was unable to buy what he
needed due to time constraints and the
lack of local stores carrying any product.
Gregg was able to solve his own prob-
lem, however, by designing exactly what
he needed in a few hours. He initially
thought of taking his ideas to market, but
eventually decided against it, as it would
have required a small investment and a
certain number of units. All in all, it was
simply beyond his initial scope, as his
interest was simply having one for himself.
Another case of 3D printing coming
to the rescue is Anthony Todd. Todd is an
engineer by trade, but his interest in 3D
printing is for the adventure of creating
and expanding his understanding of the
tools and processes involved in this new
technology. As a diver, he also wanted to
shoot his recent shark diving expedition
using a GoPro. The day before he was to
get on the plane to Florida, he purchased
a monopod with no way to mount his
GoPro HERO to it. He knew that adapters
and even dedicated monopods for diving
did exist, but he had no way to acquire
one before his date with the sharks.
With a general idea of what he wanted,
he went to work using CAD software.
According to Todd, 3D printing allows you
to treat physical design a little like soft-
ware and cheaply iterate toward a good
enough solution, discarding Darwinian
failures along the way. With a little trial
and error, he had a printed solution, and a
very successful expedition with the sharks.
You can see more images of Todds
GoPro mount and a video of his shark
diving expedition on his thingiverse page
at www.thingiverse.com/thing:73413.
An aspect of 3D printing thats of real
concern to someone who has spent the
time and resources to make a better mouse
trap is rights protection. What prevents
someone from getting hold of a 3D le
of your product and printing it without
paying for it? Currently, the courts havent
actually caught up with technology, thus
people have to rely on our patent system.
As 3D printing continues to grow, this
will become a key issue. HDVP
SOUND DEVICES 633 MIXER
The new six-input 633 mixer and 10-track
recorder from Sound Devices has a full complement
of I/O connectivity in a compact, portable form
factor. Ins and outs include three high-bandwidth
mic/line XLR inputs with phantom power (+12,
+48 and +10V are available in the system), high-
pass lter and input limiter for mics alongside
three line-level inputs on TA3 (mini-XLR) connec-
tors for exible input options, useful on large pro-
ductions with multiple capture options. All inputs
are assignable to any of the six output buses (Left/
Right and Aux 1/2/3/4) so they can be recorded
individually as tracks. AES digital I/O with support
for AES42 (+10V power)-compliant digital micro-
phones is also available on XLR input 1, with four
channels of AES output on XLR 1 and 2.
The 633 will capture 24-bit, 48 kHz polyphonic
or monophonic broadcast WAV les with 96 kHz
and 192 kHz sampling for up to six tracks, respec-
tively. For broadcast and production use, it can
also record metadata information and timecode-
stamped MP3 les to CompactFlash or SD cards
through a dual card-slot array. Different tracks can
be assigned to capture to either card individually
in a combination of WAV and MP3 les, or both
cards can be used concurrently for an automatic
real-time backup of les as theyre captured.
Offering a two-second startup, PowerSafe tech-
nology powers the device through a combination
of multiple power sources, including external DC
(12-18V) with a Hirose 4-pin locking connection,
two removable L-type Li-Ion batteries or six com-
monly available AA batteries. The unit will auto-
matically detect which power source is available,
and a 10-second failsafe will close down opera-
tions prior to shutdown. Because it can leverage
several of these power sources simultaneously, the
633 can operate for an entire production day on
batteries alone. The metalized carbon-ber chassis
is built for portability at less than a foot in length
(2.2x9.4x5.6 inches). The mixer is also available
in the complete 633 KIT with tted Portabrace
CS-633 bag, cabling, CF and SD memory card
and two XL-B2 Li-Ion batteries. List Price: $3,095
(Sound Devices 633); $3,829 (Sound Devices 633
Compact Field Mixer Kit with Carrying Case); $210
(Portabrace CS-633 bag). www.sounddevices.com
ONE-STOP SHOP
For capturing and editing live events, rehearsals
and performances, the aggressively priced AudioBox
Stereo Recording Kit is a PreSonus-based system
that combines the reliable and simple-to-use two-
channel AudioBox USB audio and MIDI interface
with the Studio One Artist 2 music production
software. The incredibly portable AudioBox USB
audio interface houses two dual-purpose front-
panel mic/instrument inputs with Class A mic pre-
ampliers and 24-bit converters that sample at up
to 48 kHz. At ve pounds, the lightweight chassis
also includes a pair of line-level outputs and head-
phone jack. Theres 48V phantom power for two
SD7 small-diaphragm studio condenser XY stereo
mics that have been included with the system. A
six-foot USB cable is part of the package, and there
are also two 15-foot XLR microphone cables.
Additionally, the HD7 studio-monitoring head-
phones offer a semi-open sound chamber with
high-resolution neodymium drivers, precision-
tuned acoustic chamber and deep lows with
extended bass response. A storage bag is included.
List Price: $299. www.presonus.com
CineSoundPro
C R E AT I V E A U D I O F O R V I S U A L ME D I A WWW. H D V I D E O P R O . C O M
(
CineSoundPro
Q
News & VUs
)
Contents
82 Microphones,
Adapters And
Audio Recorders
for DSLRs
Soundtrack solutions
for achieving much
better audio quality
when capturing video
on a DSLR
By David Willis
86 Audio Assist:
Single-System
Sound
Sound Devices
MixPre-D sound
mixer and Sony MDR-
V6 headphones
By Dan Brockett
80 News & VUs
Useful information
sound pros need
to know
Features
Departments
SPECIAL
SECTION
Innovative coincident capsule confguration for X/Y
stereo image in a compact housing
Operates on battery or phantom power for use with
pro or consumer equipment
Includes balanced (XLR-type) & unbalanced
(3.5 mm TRS) cables
Switchable low-frequency roll-off
FEATURES
Sounds bring images to life. Audio-Technicas AT8022 X/Y stereo condenser microphone
offers pristine sound to match your HDSLR cameras 1080p clarity. Designed for on-camera
use, the AT8022 delivers the total package: natural, articulate sound with the spatial impact of a
live sound feld; easy portability; and durable construction. Whatever your communications
demand, listen for more. audio-technica.com
LISTENING
50
Innovative coincident capsule confguration
for X/ Y stereo image in a compact housing.
HEAR
WHAT YOU SEE.
82 Q HDVideoPro | hdvideopro.com
(
CineSoundPro
)
Soundtrack solutions for achieving much better
audio quality when capturing video on a DSLR
By David Willis
There are a number of new
microphones designed specically for
DSLRs and short-profile camcorders.
These inexpensive, efciently built micro-
phones offer run-and-gun DSLR users
standard features like hot-shoe mounts,
a 3.5mm jack for plugging directly into a
DSLR (also known as
1
8-inch TS (mono)
or TRS (stereo) connections, the same
as most consumer headphone outputs,
and battery-powered operation in a very
light form factor. But for most profes-
sional audio needs, its best to take the
mic off of the camera, and preamps,
audio adapters and dedicated external
audio recorders will give you a way to
power more advanced microphones with
balanced XLR connections. This also
provides other advantages like remote
placement, multiple microphone setups,
redundant audio tracks for backup and to
control clipping, and far superior control
and monitoring over sound levels and
pickup. Multitrack capture with indi-
vidual control over multiple microphones
and lines is even possible when using
more expensive eld mixers from com-
panies like Sound Devices and Azden.
Its also possible to work with a much
larger selection of microphones when
using a DSLR by capturing dual sound,
which will give you much better audio
quality, in general, alongside compat-
ibility with off-camera microphones like
handheld mics and overhead boom solu-
tions. (Most lavaliers require a wireless
receiver so they can be used directly with
a DSLR if theres a 3.5mm mini-jack
output or through an adapter. A few
reliable and popular compact lavalier
systems for DSLRs include the Shure UR5
receiver, the Sony UWP line, the Azden
330LT and the Sennheiser ew G3 series.
Wireless adapters are also available for
transmitting a signal from other types
of mics.) For DSLR users, dual system,
also known as dual track/sound and
separate system audio, will provide far
more leverage in editing. To use dual
sound, youll have to learn basic edit-
ing, and you must purchase an audio
recorder or eld mixer to capture audio
separately from your video le, as well as
a clapper that must be used before each
take to synchronize audio and video.
(There are a few software solutions like
Red Giant PluralEyes 3 and Woowave
Sync Pro that will automatically sync
audio on an editing timeline, as well.)
The biggest downside to using a dedi-
cated external recorder is that you have
another piece of equipment to start and
stop, but on the other hand, dedicated
audio recorders offer verbose support for
compressed and uncompressed audio
le types, like AIFF and WAV, which will
give your dialogue and soundtrack a lot
more dynamic range over the compressed
audio you capture natively to a video le
on a DSLR. Most of these are captured
at 16-bit/48 kHz in comparison to the
higher-delity les you can gain with a
recorder of up to 24-bit/96 kHz (provided
youre using a good microphone). Many
external recorders, preamps
and audio adapters will let you
power and tether multiple micro-
phones through XLR connections for
working with professional-level mics.
These XLR connections are balanced
against signal loss and interference from
other electronics for cleaner audio over
unbalanced solutions, especially neces-
sary for wired mics, which will introduce
interference as the length increases.
For the best of both worlds, many
productions are capturing a scratch track
directly to the camera through a micro-
phone or external recorder while also
capturing another track of audio via a
professional microphone to an audio
recorder, giving two audio tracks to work
with in post. You can also capture to a
DSLR and an external recorder with a
single microphone by splitting a signal
through a line to a microphone attenu-
ator cable. Additionally, a few audio
recorders and adapters offer a 3.5mm
output to the mic jack on the camera.
Mind cost, as well. While adding even a
basic microphone will improve audio a
great deal, with lower-cost microphones,
the noise oor will be higher and delity
lower. Youll often hear an audible back-
Microphones, Adapters And
Audio Recorders For DSLRs
Shure VP83F
Que Audio DSLR-Video PRO Kit
MXL FR-310
RDE VideoMic
hdvideopro.com | February 2014 Q 83
ground hiss in the pickup, for example,
while more expensive models eliminate
as much noise as possible for a cleaner
signal-to-noise ratio.
MICROPHONES FOR DSLRS
If choosing to capture sound directly
to a DSLR, a number of affordable and
compact microphone solutions are avail-
able. The very inexpensive and lightweight
3.9-ounce Pro 24-CM mini-shotgun from
Audio-Technica houses a 3.5mm output
and two cardioid microphone capsules in
a stereo X-Y setup, which rejects ambient
noise from the sides while picking up in a
natural blend of forward-facing audio and
frontside ambience. The Pro 24-CM offers
200 average hours of use on a 1.5V LR44
battery, or it can feed from camcorders
that have plug-in powering through the
microphone input. (Most older video-
capable DSLRs dont support this, while
many newer models do.) Estimated Street
Price: $69. www.audio-technica.com
To quickly switch between close-up
shots and longer shots, the 4.8-ounce
mono MXL FR-310 microphone has a
gain switch with -5 dB, 0 dB and +5 dB
settings for reducing or enhancing frontal
sound pickup. (Mono models capture to a
single microphone capsule while stereo mic
solutions incorporate two capsule modules
for more natural sound between channels,
much like your ears.) A 150 Hz bass roll-
off switch reduces low-frequency ambient
noises like the background hum you hear
from electronics. The microphone is also
Audio Technica
Pro 24-CM
Sennheiser
MKE 600
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84 Q HDVideoPro | hdvideopro.com
available as part of MXLs new MM-VE001
Mobile Videographers Essentials Kit, which
includes a smartphone bracket mount and
impedance-matched 3.5mm plug for cap-
turing audio directly to smart devices rather
than a recorder. List Price: $129 (FR-310);
$219 (MM-VE001 Mobile Videographers
Essentials Kit). www.mxlmics.com
With three levels of gain for amplifying
volume, the Q Mini Shotgun PRO micro-
phone from Que Audio is available on its
own or in the DSLR-Video PRO Micro-
phone Kit with windscreen, heavy-duty
shock mount, shock absorber, detachable
cable, leatherette case and WOMBAT wind
muff for use in the eld. A Sniper PRO
Microphone Kit adds a QMB1 mini-boom
pole that will let you hold the microphone
just out of frame. Estimated Street Price:
$249; $329 (Que Audio DSLR-Video PRO
Microphone Kit); $499 (Que Audio Sniper
PRO Microphone Kit). www.queaudio.com
RDEs popular VideoMic solution
now features a more robust Lyre shock
mount. At less than half a pound, the compact
mic with super-cardioid pickup will operate
for up to 100 hours on a 9V battery with two
steps of audio sensitivity, as well as an 80
Hz high-pass lter to reduce low ambient
noises like humming. RDE also offers
the Stereo VideoMic Pro with similar fea-
tures. Its designed to capture more omni-
directional background ambience thanks
to a pair of
1
2-inch condenser capsules in
an X/Y stereo conguration. Just announced,
the VideoMic GO is a simplied plug-and-
Beachtek
DXA-SLR PRO
play version without switches that powers
from a cameras 3.5mm mic input. However,
it requires 2.5V, so its not compatible with
several video DSLRs. Estimated Street Price:
$99 VideoMic GO); $149 (VideoMic); $299
(Stereo VideoMic Pro). www.rodemic.com
Sennheisers MKE 400 small shotgun
mic with 3.5mm cord is a tough, all-metal
model offering side noise rejection,
switchable sensitivity and wind noise lter.
There are up to 300 hours of operation on
a single AAA battery, and it will sit atop the
hot-shoe of DSLRs and cam-corders. At
almost double the length, Sennheisers more
powerful and highly directional MKE 600
shotgun microphone has the same features
as the MKE 400 with an XLR connection.
(Youll need an XLR to 3.5mm adapter if
choosing to run audio into the camera.)
Estimated Street Price: $199 (MKE 400);
$329 (MKE 600). www.sennheiser.com
With a very short prole and low weight,
Shures new Lenshopper VP83F and its less
expensive sibling, the VP83, sit atop a DSLR
to pick up audio in a cardioid mini-shotgun
pattern. The VP83F is unique in this class
of microphone because it features a head-
phone jack for monitoring audio right
from the mic and a built-in micro-
SDHC card slot for capturing dual-track
audio to the card and camera without the
need for an extra audio recorder. The VP83
has an integrated 3.5mm cable, and the
VP83F comes with a detachable gold-plated
cable. Both mics feature the Rycote Lyre
shock-mount system. Estimated Street Price:
$229 (Shure VP83 LensHopper); $349 (Shure
VP83F LensHopper). www.shure.com
AUDIO RECORDERS
For more advanced needs, Beachtek
offers several audio adapter solutions for
DSLRs, starting with the low-cost MCC-2
audio adapter and bracket. The unit will
allow you to channel two self-powered
mono microphones or a single stereo
microphone to the DSLR with wireless
receiver compatibility if working with
lavs or remote mics. On the higher end,
the comprehensive DXA-SLR PRO has
XLR inputs for up to two mics, audio
meters, limiters against unexpected peaks
and pops, headphone monitoring and
phantom power in 12V or 48V. (Choos-
ing a lower voltage with compatible mics
extends the battery life.) They also have just
released the DXA-BMD, a dedicated audio
solution for the Blackmagic Cinema Cam-
era. Estimated Street Price: $89 (MCC-2);
$439 (DXA-SLR PRO). www.beachtek.com
juicedLink makes a number of preamp
and adapter solutions for DSLR cameras,
including the new BMC388 model for the
Blackmagic Cinema Camera. They offer a
number of fully featured models up to
the RA333 Riggy Assist, which incorporates
three XLR inputs, 3.5mm
1
8-inch stereo
output for DSLRs, selectable 48V and 12V
phantom power, and an LED display for
audio metering, as well as an optional
accessory bracket for rigging mics, wire-
less receivers and accessories to a DSLR.
If looking for a less expensive model,
juicedLink also makes the RM333 Riggy
Micro SLR adapter and preamp. The Riggy
Micro is passive, so it wont power a micro-
phone, but it still provides staple features
for DSLR capture like three XLR inputs
with preamps, wireless capabilities for lavs
and a balanced preamp with 3.5mm stereo
output for capturing directly to the internal
video of a DSLR. List Price: $469 (RA333
Now in the USA
www.prosup.us
Rigid | Lightweight | Fast Set-Up | Easy Transport
TANGO ROLLER
Custom, Ultra-Smooth Wheels
Extendable Track: 3, 4, 5
Magnetic Soft End Stops
33 lb. Payload
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33 lb. Payload
hdvideopro.com | February 2014 Q 85
Riggy Assist); $399 (RM333 Riggy Micro).
www.juicedlink.com
Available in several kits with or without
microphone, Tascams four-track DR60D
linear PCM recorder is built specically for
DSLRs with a form factor thats meant to
anchor the camera system to a tripod. Two
channels have XLR/TRS combo jacks with
either 24V or 48V phantom power (select-
able by each channel) for microphones or
line signals from audio playback equip-
ment. The other two tracks feed from a
3.5mm stereo input with individual gain
control for adding an additional non-XLR
stereo microphone or other stereo gear.
Battery life can be extended from 5 to 12
hours by adding the optional BP-6AA bat-
tery pack, and a dual safety track mode
captures at -6 dB to -12 dB lower than
the initial take for an automatic backup
track in case initial levels are too high.
Tascams extremely well-selling DR-40 is
a less expensive choice with adjustable
stereo microphones in X/Y or A/B record-
ing patterns and Neutrik Combo jacks for
adding a single XLR or
1
4-inch (6.35mm)
microphone. There are several modes for
controlling distortion, hum and audio
peaking, including the same Dual
Recording mode. Estimated Street
Price: $319 (Tascam DR-60D); $140
(Tascam DR-40). www.tascam.com
Building on the massive success
of the four-channel Zoom H4n
audio recorder as a DSLR solution,
the Zoom H6 Handy is one of the
most versatile recorder solutions
available. The Zoom H6 offers
up to six tracks of simultane-
ous capture and, interestingly,
an interchangeable plug-in
microphone module that can
be switched from the stan-
dard stereo X/Y conguration
(adjustable between 90 to
120) to an MS (Mid-Side) module for
a wider, more ambient pickup pattern. A
hyperdirectional shotgun mic unit is avail-
able, as well as an optional EXH-6 dual-
XLR/TRS Input module with extra mic
inputs (necessary to achieve full six-track
capture in the H6). Four native XLR/TRS
jacks are included with dedicated ultra-
low noise oor preamps, and gain and
pad switches to control volume by
each line. Theres also a 3.5mm stereo
Line Out for DSLRs, three levels of
phantom power and a headphone
port with volume control. The H6
can even be used as a multi-channel
audio interface on computers and
tablets. List Price: $399 (H6 Handy);
$129 (SGH-6 Shotgun Capsule).
www.zoom-na.com
Tascam DR-60D
Zoom H6
juicedLink BMC388
86 Q HDVideoPro | hdvideopro.com
Sound Devices MixPre-D
sound mixer, and Sony
MDR-V6 headphones
By Dan Brockett
SOUND DEVICES MIXPRE-D
Could you offer a suggestion on a small
mixer for maximizing audio quality when
shooting with DSLRs and medium-range
video cameras like the Canon C100? Weve
been using a Zoom H4n, but keeping the
audio organized and syncing in post is
becoming tedious, so we want to maximize
the sound quality from our new microphones
and record sound in-camera and just use
the Zoom for backup. What should we be
listening to and considering?
Marshall S.
Via email
The sound quality that most DSLRs
record is generally not very high qual-
ity. I, too, have been using small audio
recorders like the Zoom H4n and the
Tascam DR-40 to record dual-system
sound for projects that are shot with
DSLRs. The sound quality from the
outboard recorder is better quality.
But from a convenience standpoint,
dual system sound requires a lot more
work than recording audio in-camera.
Not only must you start and stop your
outboard recorder when you start or stop
the camera, but you must then sync that
audio with the cameras reference audio
when the material is edited. If you have
many short takes, it can add quite a bit
of labor and time to the editing process.
If you would like to really maximize
the quality of your DSLRs built-in audio
recording capability, there are usually
a few areas of concern. One would be
how to properly interface professional
microphones, which typically feature a
balanced XLR output, with the input of
the DSLR, which is typically an unbal-
anced 3.5mm input jack. There are
several pro audio interfaces for DSLRs
on the market from companies like
JuicedLink and Beachtek, but most of
these products veer more toward the
audio interface function than the high-
end sound mixer function, even though
some of the upper-line models feature
some mixing capability.
I recently had a chance to try out
an intriguing sound mixer with some
unique and practical functions for doing
exactly what youre seeking to accom-
plish, which is maximize your DSLRs
built-in audio capability. Sound Devices
has a small, multiuse sound mixer called
the MixPre-D (www.sounddevices.com).
I reviewed the MixPre a few years ago,
but I feel this new version has enough
new and unique capabilities to make
it worthy of your consideration. The
MixPre-D is basically a small, two-
channel, battery-powered sound mixer,
but it has some interesting features that
could really t your needs:
s Shares a metal chassis and the same
build quality as larger, more expensive
Sound Devices mixers and recorders.
s High-quality, low-noise microphone
preamps that can accept line or mic
level inputs.
s XLR inputs can supply 48V Phantom
power to professional microphones.
s Includes an optional XL-CAM mount
bracket for mounting DSLRs to a mixer
and a mixer to a tripod or other mount.
s Two separate sets of dual-channel bal-
anced outputs, allowing you to send
one set of outputs to your camera and
one set to your Zoom H4n or other
XLR input recorder.
s Sixteen-segment LED sound level
meters, allowing you to better judge
the audio levels being fed to your
camera and/or recorder.
s High-quality headphone, slate and
return monitoring.
Single-System Sound
Sound Devices MixPre-D
is a small, two-channel,
battery-powered sound
mixer that gives you
XLR inputs to accomplish
single-system sound with
your DSLR.
hdvideopro.com | February 2014 Q 87
- AES digiaI audio oupus foi fccding
piocamciaswildigiaIinpuoiolci
ouhoaidiccoidingdcviccslaacccp
digiaIaudioinpu.
I'vc savcd onc of lc mos incics-
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quaIiy mic picamp and mixci foi lc
iPad. Add lc AppIc iPad Connccion
Ki and a USB cahIc, and lc iPad, wil
lcaddiionofaudio-iccoidingsofwaic,
hccomcsapowcifuI,ligl-quaIiypoiahIc
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foiaiound$9uu.Bulcfaclai'svciy
liglquaIiy,vcisaiIc,huiIwcIIandwiII
piohahIy Ias you Iongci lan youi ncx
licc DSLR hodics mcans you slouId
considciiagoodpocniaIinvcsmcn.
SONY MDR-V6 HEADPHONES
Ive been using decent-quality earbud head-
phones for both recording sound on location
and for video/sound editing for a few years.
While Im satised with the sound quality,
Im not happy with the comfort level of the
earbuds after about 30 minutes. Any recom-
mendations on a new, comfortable pair of
regular headphones? The amount of choice
on the market is overwhelming.
Jenna B.
Via email
Eaihuds,wliIcgicafoiIiscningomusic
oi podcass wlcn jogging, aic oaIIy
unsuicdoaccuiacsoundicpioducion,
Iocaionsoundiccoidingandsoundmix-
ing.Don'confuscaccuiacwilappcaIing
soundquaIiy.EvciycaihudlcadploncI
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andamyiiadofolcifacois.1lcicsuI
is la my caihuds can sound gica onc
minuc,andinnyandalcncxmin-
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aiiiglscaIlcicisaanygivcnmomcn.
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vidco,cdiingoimixingsound.Agoodpaii
offuII-cailcadploncscanpiovidcmucl
liglci-quaIiysoundandpiohahIywiIIhc
moiccomfoiahIcfoiIong-cimwcaiing.
Wlcn you considci fuII-cai lcad-
ploncs,you'IIaIsolavcoclooschcwccn
puiclasinglciiglpaiifoiyouinccds.I
gcnciaIIydividcfuII-cailcadploncsino
oncoflicccacgoiics:
- FuII-cai dcsigns la aic popuIai wil
Iocaionsoundmixcis
- FuII-cai dcsigns la aic popuIai wil
lomc[cdihaysoundmixcis
- FuII-caidcsignslaaicunusuaIinlcii
cclnoIogyandcosaIoofmoncy
1lc mos popuIai lcadploncs wil
Iocaionsoundmixcislavchccnandpioh-
ahIywiIIconinucohclcSonyMDR-V6s
(pio.sony.com). 1lcsc lcadploncs wcic
inioduccd o lc maikc in l985. 1lcy
icaiI foi Icss lan $luu, aic vciy cfncicn
and, lcicfoic, Ioud, cvcn wlcn comhincd
wil Iow-oupu souiccs, and lcy foId up
foi ianspoi and soiagc, icsuIing in a
smaII foopiin. 1lc MDR-V6s aic iuggcd
and lavc hccn lugcIy popuIai foi a Iong
imc. I own wo paiis and lavc uscd lcm
foi ycais. 1lcy'ic piacicaI and cconomicaI.
Foi Iocaion sound mixing, laving
lc mos accuiac and appcaIing sound
icpioducion isn' icaIIy lc mos impoi-
an piioiiy hccausc Iocaion sound is aII
ahou Iiscning foi hackgiound sound and
Iiscning foi micioplonc and mixci issucs
oi piohIcms. You gcnciaIIy aicn' adjus-
ing EQ oi doing Iivc muIiclanncI sound
mixing, you'ic gcnciaIIy 'galciing lc
hcs-quaIiy sound possihIc. Foi lis, lc
MDR-V6s aic cxccIIcn. HDVP
16 CFR Part 255 Disclosure: Neither Sound
Devices nor Sony compensated me to write this
article. Neither company sent me review units
to try out the hardware; I own both products,
bought them both from established retailers
and have been using them in paid work for
a variety of clients. No material connection
exists between the manufacturers mentioned
in the article and myself.
Send questions to audioassist@hdvideo
pro.com or mail them to Audio Assist,
HDVideoPro, 12121 Wilshire Blvd., Ste.
1200, Los Angeles, CA 90025.
C O M P A N Y
Join The Discussion
With Other
Video Enthusiasts!
facebook.com/
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88 Q HDVideoPro | hdvideopro.com
(
HDVP
Q
At A Glance
)
Squeeze It!
Sorenson Squeeze
9 simplies the
encoding process
By Michael Guncheon
Since you spent the time to
make sure your project looks great, its
important to make sure it still looks
great when its compressed. While many
applications let you export or share
your video, they often dont give you
the controls you might need to eke out
the best quality.
Sorenson Squeeze has long been a
go-to tool for achieving high-quality
compressed les. With this new update,
version 9, Sorenson has increased
that quality, added several new work-
ow improvements and ratcheted up
the performance. The new interface is
elegantly designed, making the encod-
ing process straightforward. First, you
import your file. Squeeze will take
almost any le type. Second, choose
your output format by selecting a preset.
Then press the Squeeze It! button, and
away it goes.
However, if you really want to get
the most out of your video, Squeeze
lets you modify those presets. A quick
double-click opens up a whole host
of adjustments. Each preset contains
video, audio, lters, publishing and
notication tabs. Instead of an endless
list of parameters, the preset window
shows the main adjustments youd
normally access. By clicking on the
Advanced button you can quickly get to
the more expert compression settings.
More importantly, Squeeze 9 now
has support for HTML5 encoding, a new
web standard for embedding media in
web pages. It solves a lot of the cross-
platform and cross-browser issues that
have made serving up media difcult
in the past.
Squeeze automatically creates the
two avors of video les needed for
HTML5, a thumbnail JPEG and the
necessary web code that can be copied
and pasted into a web page. It even
creates a fallback to Flash for older
browsers, all contained in the single
piece of code.
Squeeze allows you to create work-
ows, so that if you get your settings
right, you dont have to re-create them
each time you have a new version of
your le. A Squeeze workow includes
a publishing section that denes the
destination (or destinations) where
you want to put your nished encodes.
Destinations can include a local or
network folder, an FTP site, YouTube or
Content Delivery Networks like Akamai
or cloud storage like Amazon S3 or
Sorenson 360.
Included with the application (and
another possible destination) is a free
account with Sorensons 360 service.
This gives you up to 5 GB of storage
along with a password-protected review
and approval site that you can share
with others.
The Sorenson 360 account is also
used to help with notications. As part
of the workow, you can have Squeeze
send you an email or even a text mes-
sage when your le is ready.
Compression takes a lot of comput-
ing power. Squeeze 9 has increased the
speed of processing, in some cases by
a factor of 6. With many compression
jobs, it uses a divide-and-conquer
approach by splitting up the source le
into chunks that it can send to multiple
CPUs if your computer has them.
Sorenson Squeeze is available in
Standard and Pro versions. The Pro
version adds closed captioning, adap-
tive bit-rate formats and the ability to
compress to ProRes (on the Mac) and
Avid DNxHD codecs.
Both versions require Windows XP,
7 or 8 with a Pentium IV or better,
or Mac OS X 10.6 or greater and an
Intel-base processor. The software can
be integrated into workows with Avid,
Final Cut Pro and Premiere. Squeeze
9 Standard is $549; Squeeze 9 Pro is
$749. A trial download is available.
Contact: Sorenson Media, www.
sorensonmedia.com. HDVP
Sorenson Squeeze 9 is a video encoder that can output high-quality compressed les.
Increasing processing speed by a factor of six, Squeeze 9 now supports HTML5 encoding.
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LAST MAN STANDING
(Contd from page 56)
scenario, says Tomcho. Our on-set monitoring
equipment was slimmed down to three Sony
PVM1741 OLED monitors, one for each camera.
During prep, we calibrated the monitors with a
custom ITU BR.709 setting to match, as close as
possible, to the colorists 2K projector. We could
toggle from our preset Looks in the EPIC, and
then adjust the color metadata for any type of
lter shifts between the cameras. Exposure was
controlled using a single-channel iris control for
each of the three camera bodies. Exposure was set
using Leader 5330 waveform monitors that we
rigged with our Sony 17-inch monitors. We had
the monitors rigged together on one mount that
we could essentially place on any slope we could
rig a stand for. This allowed us to be close to the
action and get an accurate exposure with minimal
amount of setup time.
The team also carried a portable media QC
station that consisted of a Thunderbolt MacBook Pro and con-
nections to use proper media readers. It was a great tool for
the few instances when we would receive a recording error from
the EPIC, notes Tomcho, usually due to overheating on long
takes in the sun. We were able to pull up the footage quickly to
verify whether any of the footage had been compromised. It was
denitely a great tool that t nicely in a handheld rugged case.
The lm was edited by Colby Parker Jr., a key part of my
core team, who has cut every lm of mine, says Berg. Post was
all done at Lantana in Santa Monica, which is great, as you
have most of it under one roof, he adds. Post took about seven
months, and Berg and Parker edited there and did all the sound
and mixing at Todd-AO.
The DI was done at Company 3 with colorist Sonnenfeld.
Stefan had set the look of the movie in our initial camera
tests, and we took that look right through the DI stage, says
Schliessler. Stefan also encouraged me to only manipulate the
image with power windows when absolutely necessary and to
keep the image contrast and color natural to create the realistic
look that Peter was going for. Ive been working with Stefan for
the last 15 years, and I trust his instincts and vision completely,
and Im very happy with the look we achieved for the lm.
I wanted to make an accurate lm about these real-life heroes,
and it did turn out the way I envisioned it, sums up Berg. Im
very happy with it and feel we really did justice to the story
and the SEALs involved in it. Im proud of it. HDVP
Learn more about Lone Survivor at www.lonesurvivorlm.com.
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92 Q HDVideoPro | hdvideopro.com 92
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Page 1
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New York, N.Y. 10001
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HXR-NX5U
3-CMOS NXCAM Flash Memory Camcorder
T||ee 1/8' E/rc| C|0S e|c|,
W||| a C|ea|V|d a||a]
Cap|u|e ue |erc|] S||:| PR0
Ouc / SOHC Ca|d, W||| |e|a]
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20/ W|de e||e |e|
HO-SO| & HO|| cu|pu|, S|PTE
T|re Ccde ||/cu|, Oua| /|R ||pu|
Bu|||-|| PS ]|er 8.2' /||a |||e |CO
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XA10
Professional HD Solid State Camcord-
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G4B |||e||a| a|d Oua| SOHC/SO/C
:a|d |c| W||| |e|a] |e:c|d||
1920 / 1080 C|0S |rae Se|c|
Ca|c| 10/ HO V|dec |e|
8.b" H||-|ec|u||c| |cu:| pa|e| |CO a|d EV|
8-B|ade ||| a|d |a|ua| |c:u R||
O||C OV ||| |rae P|c:ec|
24|op Re:c|d|| (AVCHO,
Oua| /|R |e|r||a|
#CAXA10 ..............................$1,699.00
HDR-TD30V
3D Flash Memory HD Camcorder
Oua| 1/8.91 oa:|-|||ur||a|ed
E/rc|-R C|0S e|c|
Re:c|d |c SO/SOHC/SO/C
|S PR0-H Ouc & /C-H red|a
1920 / 1080 |u|| HO 24p/G0p .|dec
Sc|] e||e W|de 10/ 1// e/|e|ded /ccr |e|
8.b" (1G.9, |CO :|ee| & Cc|c| .|eW|||de|
b.1-:| |e:c|d|| 0p||:a| |rae |ao|||/e| W||| A:||.e rcde
wa|:| 8O c| 8.b" (1G.9, |CO W|||cu| pe:|a| |ae
Bu|||-|| PS ||:|cp|c|e & |eadp|c|e ||pu|
#SOHDRTD30VB
HDR-FX7
3 CMOS HDV Camcorder
Ca|| Ze| 20/ Va||c-Sc||a| T |e|
8 1/4" C|0S, 1G.9, C|ea|V|O |e:||c|c] e|c|
H||-Oe||||||c| 1080| |e:c|d||
Supe| S|ead]S|c| cp||:a| |ao|||/a||c|
E/pa|ded |c:u a||
8.b" |CO :|ee| & Cc|c| .|eW|||de|
Zccr a|d |c:u |||
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Bu|||-|| ' & 1/1G \O ||||e|
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XA20 / XA25
Professional HD Camcorder 1/2.84' HO
C|0S e|c| W||| RB p||ra|] :c|c| ||||e|
20/ HO Zccr |e| 2 / SO/SOHC/SO/C
:a|d |c| W||| |e|a] a|d dua| |e:c|d||
Ca|c| O||: OV 4 |rae p|c:ec|
Bu|||-|| w|-|| |e:||c|c] W||| |TP ||a||e|
:apao||||] 0p||:a| |rae |ao|||/a||c|
8.b' |CO :|ee| a|d :c|c| .|eW|||de|
2 p|a||cr-pcWe|ed /|R aud|c ||pu|
\a||.e 24p a|d |cW- a|d |a| rc||c| |e:c|d||
XA25 Step-up Features: HO/SO-SO| cu|pu| a|d p|e-|e:c|d 8-e:. ou||e|
#CAXA20 .............................. $2,199.00 CAXA25 . ............................. $2,699.00
VIXIA HF G30
HD Flash memory Camcorder
|u|| HO 1920 / 1080p Re:c|d|| a| G0 |p
Ca|c| 2.91|P 1/2.84' HO C|0S P|c Se|c|
Ca|c| 20/ HO V|dec |e| (8.G/ - /8.4rr,
Re:c|d || |P4 (8b|op, c| AVCHO
(28|op, Oua| SO/SOHC/SO/C
|erc|] Ca|d S|c| Bu|||-||
w|-|| & ||ee |c.|e Up|cade| App
0|EO 8.b' |cu:| Pa|e| d|p|a] &
(c]||:| Cc|c| 0.24' V|eW|||de|
0p||:a| |rae S|ao|||/a||c|
#CAHFG30
PMW-100
XDCAM HD422 Handheld Camcorder
1/2.9" C|0S Se|c| (1920 / 1080,
/OCA| 422 |PE-2 Ccde: a| b0 |o/
10/ Zccr |e| - 40-400rr
(8brr E(u|.,
8.b" |CO S:|ee| (8b2 / 480 P|/e|,
HO-SO| & HO|| 0u|pu|
Oua| /|R ||pu| / T|re:cde & e||c:| |/0
Oua| E/p|eCa|d S/S Ca|d S|c|
Ccrpa||o|e W||| /OCA| O|: & E/
|c|ra| OVCA| Re:c|d||
#SOPMW100
HDR-AX2000
3-CMOS AVCHD Flash Camcorder
T||ee 1/8' C|0S E/rc| e|c|
Re:c|d |c |erc|] S||:| PR0 Ouc,
SO/SOHC Ca|d (Oua| red|a |c|,
1080/G0|, a|d 24p/80p AVCHO
|e:c|d||
20/ /ccr -|e| (29.brr W|de,
Zccr, |c:u, a|d ||| |||
Oua| /|R ||pu| 8.2' /||a |||e |CO
|cW-|||| (1.b |U/, :apao|||||e
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NEX-VG900
35mm Full-Frame Interchangeable Lens Camcorder
24.8|P |u||-||are 8brr E/rc| C|0S HO e|c|
E-|cu||, a|d A-|cu|| W||| ||:|ude
|A-EA8 A-rcu|| |e| adap|e|
1080/G0|/G0p/24p 0uad :apu|e
r|:|cp|c|e W||| /|R cp||c|
T|u-|||de| 0|EO .|eW|||de| W||| e]e
e|c| C||era|c|e arra W|||
:crp|e|e||.e ra|ua| :c|||c|
U|:crp|eed 1080 HO|| 0u|pu| |erc|] S||:| PR0 Ouc/PR0-H
Ouc, SO/SOHC/SO/C 8.0" |CO :|ee|
#SONEXVG900
HXR-MC2000U
Shoulder Mount AVCHD Pro Camcorder
1/4" 4.2|p, C|ea|V|d E/rc| R C|0S e|c|
Bu|||-|| G4B |a|d d||.e
SO/SOHC/SO/C & |erc|] S||:| |c|
1920 / 1080| AVCHO (24|op,
|PE-2 SO |cde (9|op,
12/ W|de a||e Sc|] |e|
0p||:a| S|ead]S|c| |ao|||/e|
2./" C|ea|P|c|c |CO
|a|ua| |e| ||| W||| a||ao|e
pa|are|e|
#SOHXRMC2000U
XF100 / XF105
HD Professional CF Camcord-
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1/8" C|0S 1920 / 1080 C|0S e|c|
Oua| C| :a|d |c|
b0|op |PE-2 |e:c|d||
Ca|c|' |PE-2 4.2.2 :c|c| arp|||
G0p/G0|, 80p, 24p |/| |||e |c|ra|
10/ HO /ccr |e|
8.b" 920| dc| |CO rc|||c|
S|e|ec:cp|: 8-O |e:c|d|| :apao|||||e
Oua| /|R ||pu| wa.e|c|r |c|||c|
XF105 Step-up Features: HO/SO-SO|, S|PTE T|re Ccde, e||c:|
#CAXF100 . ......................... $2,499.00 #CAXF105 ........................... $2,999.00
HXR-NX30
Compact HD Camcorder
S|cc| AVCHO Up |c 1080/G0p
a| 24|op
Bu|||-|| 9GB ||a| |erc|] Capa:||]
P|c Aud|c Cc|||c| & |e.e| Ad(u|re||
E(u|pped W||| Oua| /|R ||pu|
Bu|||-|| P|c(e:|c| & 8.b" |CO |c|||c|
Bu|||-|| S|e|ec S|c|u| ||:|cp|c|e
Supe|-w|de Ca|| Ze| 10/ 0p||:a| |e|
Ba|a|:ed 0p||:a| S|ead]S|c|
|ea|u|e SO c| |erc|] S||:| Ca|d S|c|
#SOHXRNX30U
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Page 2
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b0 |op |PE-2 E| c| P| |e| rcu||
Oua| C| :a|d |c|
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HO-SO|, HO||, /|R aud|c
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PMW-200
XDCAM HD422 Camcorder
T||ee 1/2" E/rc| C|0S e|c|
|PE HO422 a| b0 |op |e:c|d||
HO422 1080p a| 24 & 80 |p HO422
/20p a| 24, 80 & G0 |p |u(||c|
14/ /ccr (e|.c/ra|ua|, |e|
Oua| S/S rerc|] :a|d |c|
|cu| C|a||e| c| 1G-o|| aud|c
Suppc|| |/| a|d /OCA| E/
Wc||||cW A|||:u|a|ed 8.b" |CO :|ee|
T|re:cde & e||c:| ||pu| Ca:|e |e:c|d|| Up |c 1b
e:c|d
#SOPMW200 . .....................................................$6299.00
Cinema 2.5K / Production 4K
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b' d|p|a] |/e Va||ao|e ||are |a|e |e:c|d||
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98 Q HDVideoPro | hdvideopro.com
(
HDVP
Q
Production Takes
)
Table Manners
We should have listened
to the elephant
By Bud Osborne
Several years ago, I was called upon
to shoot a commercial at a manufacturer of
custom billiard tables in the Midwest. The
company had asked their advertising agency
to come up with a concept to illustrate the
strength of the companys line of high-end
tables. The agency decided, after consulting
with the manufacturers engineers, that they
could demonstrate the strength of the tables
by showing a live elephant standing on top of
one. The manufacturer agreed that this would
be a startling and memorable visual.
The manufacturers plant had a beautiful
showroom attached to it, with various grades
of pool tables, including an ornate rosewood
version that would be at home in any royal palace. All the
top management from the billiard table company and the
agency were in attendance.
After completing the required beauty shots, including
several amazing billiard ball tricks by the company pro, it
came time to get the most difcult shot of the day: the live
elephant standing on one of the tables. The agency had
arranged for an animal trainer to be on location with three
of his animals in various sizes. After a discussion with the
engineers, it was decided that the medium-sized elephant
would be our actor for the climactic shot. The elephant was
carefully positioned next to the top-of-the-line rosewood
table. The trainer urged the animal up onto a riser next to
the table and then to put his front right foot on the table.
In hindsight, we all should have listened to the elephant,
because when he put his foot on the top of the table
and it started to sag under his weight, he let out a loud
bellow of resistance. Not to be deterred, the trainer slapped
the elephants rear end with his stick and the elephant
obliged by putting his foot rmly on the top of the table.
In less than a second, the room was covered in rosewood
toothpicks and broken slate, with the elephant still standing
on his riser looking apathetically at the pile of rubble. Wide-
eyed agency people stared silently at one another with open
mouths. After a few seconds, we heard uproarious laughter
coming from the back of the room. The president of the
company was standing with tears running down his cheeks,
as he playfully choked his chief engineer.
After considerable nervous laughter from the agency folks, the
destroyed table was swept up. A smaller elephant was brought
in. The legs of a new table were wired together with some
hastily acquired aircraft-grade cable, and in about 45 minutes,
we had a shot of a cute baby elephant standing proudly on
top of another custom-made rosewood billiard table. HDVP
Albert Bud Osborne is a veteran DP, videographer, still
photographer and educator who owns A-V-A Video Productions
in Indianapolis.
Win A Litepanels
Croma LED Light
Anyone who has spent time in lm and video
production has had a funny experience happen to
them. Odd, quirky things can take place on set, and
we love sharing those stories at the end of a shoot.
We know you have stories like these, so share them with
us and the HDVideoPro audience. Youll get more than just
the satisfaction of seeing your name in print. If your
story is featured in Production Takes, youll receive
a Litepanels Croma on-camera LED lighting xture.
The variable color temperature Croma is a versatile
lighting solution for run-and-gun news shooters, event
videographers and still photographers.
Please send your stories to editors@hdvideopro.com with the
subject line Production Takes.
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ZEISS Compact Zoom CZ.2 lenses
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