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Shane Hurlbut's Kino Flo Interviews: 'In Order to Be a Great Shooter, You Have to Understand Light'
There are several exciting new lighting revolutions in development these days, namely LED and plasma fixtures. The first such high-output/low-footprint alternative lighting technology — all but perfected for the performance needed in high-end film production — came about twenty-five years ago, with the advent of Kino Flo Lighting Systems. Kino Flo isn’t the only manufacturer pushing alternative lighting solutions with filmmaking in mind, but its name is still nearly synonymous with the technology it helped revolutionize. Check out an excellent interview below from Shane Hurlbut, ASC, with Kino Flo founder and president Frieder Hochheim to hear about how it all began and about how the company plans on lending its namesake to some of those new revolutions in lighting, too. More »
Oscar-Winning Roger Corman's Drive-In YouTube Channel Offers 400 B-Movie Essentials for $4 a Month
Of all the filmmakers of all time, few can claim the sheer volume of titles to their name as Roger Corman — never mind his other accomplishments. The 87-year-old director, producer, writer, and occasional actor is still active in his 60 year film career, during which he has coached countless high-profile auteurs, fostered the careers of several notable actors, and earned a 2009 Honorary Academy Award. He has also already denied services such as Hulu streaming rights to his extensive ~400 film canon even for an offered $5-6,000 per film (to be paid to him) — but has agreed to launch “Corman’s Drive-In” as a $4/mo paid YouTube channel in the summer. Read on for more details. More »
Knowing Your Scopes: When to Trust Your Eye and the Most Useful Scopes of All
Depending on the acquisition system, waveform monitors and vectorscopes can guide quality control of your imagery from shooting all the way down the pipeline to grading, mastering, and compression for delivery. Scopes can seem a little intimidating and esoteric to the new user, but getting the basics down can really help in owning your image. Recently, Alexis Van Hurkman over at ProVideo Coalition has answered some key questions about scopes: find out which ones he considers the most indispensable below, plus when it may be a good idea to trust your own pair of eyes in making adjustments — even when your scopes are reading ‘A-Okay.’ More »
Inevitable as it was, YouTube has finally rolled out the initial phase of its first ever attempt at paid subscription content. The 30 channels offered in this ‘pilot program’ span a wide range of demographics and subject matter — which is to be expected from the place where a vast majority of web video lives. Especially judging by these first 30 channels, this news likely won’t have no-budget filmmakers screaming anything about a ‘self-distribution revolution,’ but it certainly offers a more direct line of monetization for content owners than ad-based revenue. Viewers can try out any of the channels with a two-week free trial, and they start at $1 a month. Read on for more details. More »
From Microscopic to Cosmic: The Fittingly Organic VFX of 'The Fountain' & 'The Tree of Life'
Other than their deep meditation on mortality — and the associated motif of a sacred source of life — Darren Aronofsky’s The Fountain (2006) and Terrence Malick’s The Tree of Life (2011) couldn’t be more different. That is, aside from the way in which the films achieve much of their strikingly beautiful cosmic imagery. In an era of filmmaking in which CGI and space-bound science fiction are far from strangers, these two films opt for a more naturalistic alternative — such as macrophotography and high-speed microscopy — to visualize their explorations of life in the universe. What could be more appropriate effects for films so occupied with the organic? Click through for some details on how VFX allowed the microscopic to ‘double’ for the cosmos. More »
We recently shared commentary from Ridley Scott in which he acknowledged that filmmaking is indeed a business and a commercial industry — and more often than not, it’s an expensive one. As such, filmmakers are expected to put theater-going tushes in seats, one way or another, proverbial or otherwise. Now, director Danny Boyle (28 Days Later, Slumdog Millionaire, 127 Hours) describes a trend he feels is making movies too safe, family-friendly, and overall unchallenging — robbing cinema of mature, adult-oriented films. He calls this trend the ‘Pixarification’ of movies, and the added box office bankability that comes with it may or may not be a motivating factor. Click through to hear Boyle’s interesting take on this state of cinema below. More »
Ridley Scott Reflects on Beginnings, Breaking Into the Industry, and Using Too Much Smoke
We are fortunate enough to live in a day and age in which the words of prolific and eclectic filmmaking talents come readily and often. We’ve already heard from working cinematographers such as Roger Deakins and Blue Valentine DP Andrij Parekh, as well as friends of nofilmschool Ryan E. Walters and Timur Civan. We’ve also heard from directors such as Steven Soderberg and Ridley Scott – and all of this is just to name a few. Now, we have a few more valuable words from Sir Ridley — this time discussing everything from his breakthrough into the industry, his experience in learning how to work with actors, and honing a highly sensitive visual eye. Click through to hear these words and more from “the director who uses too much smoke!” More »
Netflix Streaming Loses 2000 Titles as Universal & MGM Licenses Expire
While the phenomenon of title evaporation is nothing new to Netflix, one of the service’s most significant catalog losses will come with the expiration of licensing agreements with Warner Bros., Universal, and MGM. Starting today and continuing over the course of May, InstantWatcher tracks 1,794 previously available films that will no longer be streamed on Netflix. This news piggy-backs that of Warner Archive Instant, an offering that — very literal title notwithstanding — should be quite familiar to Netflix viewers. Click below for details on what perennial picks will be removed from the Netflix catalog, some additional info on Warner’s Archive Instant, plus what Netflix itself has to say about all this as well. More »
Wherever he is, you can bet David Lynch is busy. Lynch is an American director that needs no introduction, nor does his work — which is an incredible thing to be able to say about an artist anyone considers a ‘surrealist’, if you stop to think about that. The Short Films of David Lynch does not contain the complete short films of David Lynch, but it does contain several commissioned pieces and very experimental works Lynch created as a student. If you’re a fan, a completist film-follower, or someone just plain interested in some of the most… well, interesting short material you may ever see, check below. More »
Sony’s tight cluster of NAB 2013 4K-centric announcements featured some of the most affordably priced UHD TVs yet seen all the way over to the external recorder-enabled 4K shooting capabilities of its FS700. The latter announcement also made it clear that Sony is looking to put a wide variety of encoding and format options into the hands of shooters — and beyond, potentially. Aside from external and third-party recording expansion, Sony is opening up its efficient 4K XAVC codec — native to the F5 family — to the consumer as well as the prosumer. Read on for some details regarding these new ‘lite’ encoding/wrapper options, dubbed XAVC S. More »
Meet Switronix's Blackmagic-Ready Wireless HD-SDI Recon Micro & Hot-Swappable Battery JetPack
When it comes to wireless HD monitoring solutions, companies like Teradek have some impressive offerings. That company’s Bolt, however, isn’t the only airwave-bound HD-SDI transmission system around. Switronix’s Recon is another such offering, with models including HDMI support and HDMI to HD-SDI conversion. Switronix has just announced a new addition to the Wi-SDI family in the shape of lighter-form factor Recon Micro, made more compatible with the smaller scale of cameras like the Blackmagic (pair pictured left). Switronix has also released details for a new modular battery power solution, geared towards anything from BMCC to Sony HD camcorders. If you’re looking into powerful, off-the-grid, untethered field shooting solutions, check the details below. More »
Since its release last year, we’ve know that Sony’s FS700 — the high-speed ‘little brother to-be’ of the F5 and F55 — had 4K capabilities awaiting in its future. This option, with 4K RAW speeds up to 120fps burst shooting and 2K RAW up to 240fps (continuous) is made possible by a ‘middle-man’ interface/adapter module, the HXR-IF5 along with the AXS-R5 recorder. What we probably didn’t expect was support for 2K CinemaDNG at up to 240fps, or even 4K DPX at a more modest 30fps (still — it’s DPX) by way of another external recorder, the Convergent Design Odyssey7Q. Click through for further details from Sony, some speculative pricing on the R5, and a quick look at these beastly additions to the FS700 system. More »
Until more recently, the home theater/consumer side of 4K has been a bit beyond the reach of the average consumer. The $25,000 pricing of Sony’s 84-inch Bravia 4K TV, for instance, is simply prohibitive to all but the most enthusiastic home viewers — but Sony’s newly price-pointed 55 and 65-inch screens are poised to address that point, set to go for $5,000 and $7,000, respectively. And just in case you were wondering what (and how) Sony expects you to actually watch on such a thing, the company’s also unveiled its $699 FMP-X1 4K media player, plus an eventual distribution service, to go along with them cheap(er) UHD TV screens. Check out some more details below. More »
We’ve had a few posts revolving around open source 3D modeling & animation suite Blender recently, including some info on using it to model color space in three dimensions. Now, as a bit of a ‘BTW, FYI’ to a more recent post concerning the free release of all 4k F65 footage acquired for Blender’s CGI/live-action Tears of Steel, we have some info that may actually help you visualize that or any other 4k footage in full-res — without an actual 4k monitor. It isn’t perfect — it’s a bit rough and ready, and may require Linux, but we thought our readers should know that it’s possible, especially since very few of us have access to 4k viewing, be it through projection or UHD TV sets. Read on for some details on how the Project Mango team devised its ‘DIY 4k’ monitoring solution. More »
Seriously. It’s not often I’m brought to near-tears by any kind of aerial footage, 4K RED EPIC-shot or not (featuring striking landscapes of the San Francisco Bay area, or otherwise). I’m sure the swelling musical score didn’t help. We’ve featured a number of visually stimulating aerial footage videos before, some of urban areas fitfully asleep, others less ominous and more serene, and some for free from Neumann Films. Heck, one such clip followed battling ninjas. Each and every one is memorable in its own right. But thanks to Teton Gravity Research’s use of the GSS C520 5-axis gyroscopic stabilization system, Vimeo Staff pics is now featuring possibly the smoothest, most amazingly stable aerial footage you’ve ever seen — and perhaps even the most beautiful, too. Watch below. More »
The days when Canon made its prized quality lenses separately for either its bizarre HDV psuedo-progressive imaging camcorders (remember those?) or its high-res digital stills cameras are gone — having bled into the present day. Now, its lenses have a significant stake in the production of 4K digital cinema, and its Cinema CN-E EF-mount line of compact prime lenses will be fully rounded out by a just-announced 35mm prime, due out before the close of the year (that makes six lenses now: 14, 24, 35, 50, 85, 135). Furthering the same professional motion picture mission, Canon has also announced free firmware/software upgrades for automated functions such as Push Autofocus, as well as professional-grade ACES pipeline support for color management. Some updates apply to different cameras than others, so check below for more details. More »
It’s seems like an eternity (or a brief instant, maybe) since Ryan first posted about the cessation of major manufacturers’ development and production of motion picture film cameras, and not quite as long since Joe updated us on the all the more tenuous vitality of the only two companies actually making celluloid film, Kodak and Fuji. What’s been announced before is now an all-but-undeniable reality for Fuji, who have just confirmed the company’s plans to bring its production of motion picture film to a full, complete, and permanent dead halt. Read the full scoop below before the ink fully dries on this fairly somber confirmation. More »
Blender Foundation Releases 4TB of 'Tears of Steel' Sony F65 4K Footage & Demonstrates Post Workflow
The Blender Foundation is constantly pushing the boundaries of availability, openness, and access to the raw materials it uses to create its ‘proof-of-Blender’ animated shorts. This type of access is usually more associated with open source software than filmmaking, but especially since the Project Mango live-action CGI/VFX-heavy Tears of Steel was realized, that distinction has become increasingly blurred. Now filmmakers, animators, or compositors looking to cut their teeth on professional-grade material have access to the entirety of Tears of Steel‘s footage, in 4k OpenEXR (in the ACES color space), courtesy Xiph.org. In the meantime, the Foundation has also made available a number of resources concerning their post-production pipeline, which allowed them to transcode 4K Sony F65 footage to those Linux-workable OpenEXR frames. Check below for more details. More »
Building Color Models and Exploring Color Spaces in Three Dimensions with Blender
Color spaces and color models can be difficult to wrap your head around completely. There are additive and subtractive spaces, like RGB vs. CMYK, and different format/display technologies, like analog’s YUV vs. digital’s YCbCr — all of which you may have to traverse to achieve the final ‘look’ you want for your imagery. Not to mention that many color spaces are not absolute, meaning they don’t profile device-specific color representation. This can certainly induce a bit of a headache for newcomers to the color science realm. A great post by photographer Mark Meyer, featured recently on PetaPixel, explains how you can quite literally better-orient yourself to color spaces and models by, well, modeling them — in 3D open suite Blender, no less. More »
While hand-held shooting has basically been around since there was a camera light enough to do so, it’s safe to say that the Steadicam (which is technically a Tiffen name) constitutes a cinematographical revolution all its own. Hand-holding dates back as early as 1911, but it was a long time before cinema gained the dolly’s fluidity of motion coupled with the hand-held operator’s freedom of travel. Audiences would first meet the ‘Steadicam shot’ in 1976′s Bound for Glory, and the first impressions were enough to earn the film an Academy Award for Cinematography. Larry Wright of Refocused Media recently created a supercut called The Art of Steadicam, paying homage to the ground-breaking invention and the artists who helped reshape the possibilities of cinematic movement — check it out below. More »
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