Production – The DIT Spot

Published June 29, 2012 by John Burkhart

Sony FS700 Test Footage

The Sony reps came by yesterday to let us check out the new FS700 NXCAM, and another local vendor came with a new set of Leica Summilux-C Cinema lenses, so it seemed like a great opportunity to grab some test footage!

First of all, this is not a review, as we only were able to have the camera in house for a few hours, but more of a first impressions of the Sony NEX FS700. It’s a bit larger than the FS100, but has the same basic form factor. The main handling differences are the large ring with the built in ND filters at the front, and the re-positioning of the XLR inputs to the side. The big news is of course that it is 4K “ready” and does some pretty impressive slow-motion.

Blog Production Video Cameras

fs700 NEX Sony

Published June 21, 2012 by John Burkhart

Broadcast Asia 2012

I just came back from Broadcast Asia 2012, and had a great time. Like I alluded to in my last post, because of it’s intimate nature, I was able to walk right up and have a demo of the new Blackmagic Design Cinema Camera, get a one on one with Avid, attend the Zacuto 2012 shootout, try out an F65, and cap it off with a nice dinner from Cine-Equipment. I also saw the latest gear from Canon, Panasonic, Sony, Sound Devices, Go-Pro, Assimilate, etc., all in the same day.

The state of the film and video tech industry in 2012? Book it. Done. And my feet didn’t even get sore. I wish more trade shows were like this.

Avid Blog DaVinci Resolve Industry Post Production Southeast Asia Video Cameras

avid blackmagic broadcast asia

Published June 14, 2012 by John Burkhart

Arri Look Creator: Bringing Color Correction into the Alexa

Arri Look Creator for the Arri Alexa, is a really useful little piece of software that I didn’t really get into until recently. It’s still in it’s 1.0 beta, but the idea is that you capture a still .dpx image in LogC from the Alexa. You take the SD card out of the Alexa and bring the .dpx file into your Mac with the Arri Look Creator on it. You can make fairly detailed color decisions with the tools and create a “look” with the DP or director right there on set.

Alexa Blog Post Production

Alexa Arri look creator LUT generator

Published April 18, 2011 by John Burkhart

“Game of Thrones” shot on Arri Alexa

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TZImzzPaXew When geekiness collides. It’s no secret that I’m a huge video and film geek, it’s also no real secret that I’m a huge fantasy geek as well. This one…

Production Video Cameras

Alexa Arri Game of Thrones George RR Martin

Published April 11, 2011 by John Burkhart

NAB 2011- Sound Devices

I’ve always loved the products from Sound Devices, we own several of their 702T recorders, and 302 field mixers, that we use on our student films, day in day out, year after year. They’ve been very rugged for us, and that’s saying something for the amount of student productions they’ve been exposed to. In fact, I can only remember one time when we had a student break a 702T, and our first question was “how did they manage that?” (the forcible insertion of a mis-aligned compact flash card in case you’re wondering). Sound Devices products usually have that winning combination of high-quality, dependability, and reasonable price that film schools appreciate so much.

Industry Production Sound

mixpre NAB pix 240 sound devices

Published April 4, 2011 by John Burkhart

Standalone Video Recorders: “Corders”

Standalone Video Recorders are quickly emerging as an exciting new category of video accessory. The reason for this is obvious, there’s an artificial hole in the market. The optics, signal processors, and image sensors of consumer and industrial level camcorders have reached the “good enough” stage for professional production. So how does an electronics company maintain the value of it’s high-end broadcast cameras? Cripple the recording format to barely acceptable, and save the “good codecs” for your higher end units. Also make sure the high end codecs you do use are proprietary and incompatible with other manufacturers models.

Production Video Cameras

corders standalone video recorders

Published April 1, 2011 by John Burkhart

The Hangover 2

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RYL_T7f59o8 My good friends at Living Films produced the film The Hangover 2 in Thailand late last year, and it looks fantastic. Shooting films in Southeast Asia, and Thailand in…

Industry Production Southeast Asia

hangover living films

Published March 28, 2011 by John Burkhart

How Much Recording Time Do You Need?

What’s the ideal amount of in-field recording time? While some might say you can never have too much, for workflow reasons smaller amounts of footage can be much more manageable. So how much capacity is enough?

30 minute tape loads have been the standard since the BetacamSP days. 11 minutes of per roll (wether 400′ of 16mm, or 1000′ of 35mm). has always been pretty standard in the film world. 60 minutes was the run time of MiniDV.

I don’t think anyone would argue that these runtimes are optimal, as changing reels, and tapes has always been a hassle, especially if you run out in the middle of the take. They are simply limited by the considerations of physical space. There’s only so much tape that can be packed into a cassette, there’s only so much film that can fit into a camera.

Production

memory cards recording times workflow

Category: <span>Production</span>