The Art of Pulling Focus Part 3 Demo - 720p HD [15:00m]: Download

FreshDV recently spent a day with Bob Sanchez, a Chicago-based career 1st A/C with 30 years of feature filmmaking experience. In Part One and Part Two of our video series with Bob, Kendal Miller interviewed him on what exactly it takes to do the job, and the tips and tricks he’s learned over the years. Bob explained his unique method of focus pulling with a speed crank, how he approaches measuring and marking a scene, and the tools he uses on a daily basis. In this Third and final segment, we take you behind the lens as Bob shows us how he works hands-on. You’ll get a chance to see us block out a few scenes with an actor, and watch over Bob’s shoulder as he pulls focus on the HVX handheld 35mm adapter rig while Kendal operates. In the split screen you will see both the operators POV synced with what is actually being shot through the 35mm lens. Watch the Part 3 video below. You may also be interested in our video review of 5 popular Follow Focus systems.

Continue reading ‘FreshDV Film School: The Art of Pulling Focus (Part 3)’

Film & Video has an interview with editor Christopher Rouse, who cut The Bourne Ultimatum. Christopher talks about the chaotic style of editing in the series, how he approaches translating the character of Jason Bourne to screen, and why they chose not to use Avid’s DNxHD 36 codec for post on this particular feature. Check the article comments for more technical details on the project.

From Scott Simmons comes a handy tip on identifying match frame types. I lean on the Match Frame feature a lot in my editing work, so this is very helpful info. Thanks Scott!

UPDATE: Good commentary on this over at Film Flap.

New York Times writer David Pogue discusses the pros and cons of tape vs. DVD and solid-state for the consumer camcorder market in his Beware the Tapeless Camcorder article. He concludes that while sales of tape-based camcorders are flagging in sales, the format has a lot more to offer than tapeless in both quality and longevity.

(Via Digital Camcorder News)

Anthony Burokas has an Adobe CS3 for Mac review in print and also up at EventDV.com. He goes pretty in-depth on the Premiere Pro interface, and spends some time comparing specific features and capabilities vs. Final Cut Pro. Excellent review on a highly-anticipated new software package. And as a FCP editor, I found his comparisons extremely informative and helpful. While it doesn’t sound like Adobe will be replacing my primary NLE anytime soon, it could be a worthy addition to the editors toolkit, particularly if one needs some of the other interesting features and integration offered in the CS3 Production Suite.

Letus has released a new 35mm Lens Adapter product with a greatly improved design. The latest “Letus Extreme” product revision includes a solid metal casing, swappable lens mounts, prism flip, internal batteries, and only 1/2 stop of light loss. Quite a roster of upgrades, and the light loss improvement is impressive…but does it hold up to the hype?

Ryan Walters has written an extensive review on the new Letus unit, and he was pretty impressed. He thoroughly tested the Letus Extreme, and has shared resolution and color charts, as well as vignetting and bokeh examples. Excellent writeup. Ryan pulls no punches in outlining the adapter’s pros and cons.

UPDATE: The Letus team has also shared Video Samples and a model Comparison Chart.

(Thanks Dan)

Apple has released an iLife ‘08 update that includes a few new features for iMovie.

“Among the new features delivered with the release is Multiple Clip Selection, which lets users select multiple clips in order to assign keywords, paste adjustments or reorganize clips in projects more quickly than before. Similarly, a Fine Tuning feature allows users to quickly refine the start or end frame for any clip without leaving the Project view. iMovie 7.1 also introduces Still Frame Creation, which freezes the video action for creating a dramatic ending or applying the “Ken Burnsâ€? effect on any frame of a video clip. Other features delivered in the release include Frame-by-Frame trimming, Audio Ducking level control, Manual Audio Fades, a duration settings for Transitions and Stills, an option to show the current playhead time, and other performance improvements that allow users to enjoy their video more quickly by switching between Events.”

Digital Camcorder News has the scoop on Aiptek’s new A-HD model, an el-cheapo compact palmcorder with 4x zoom that shoots 720P H.264 to SD multimedia cards. Does it capture high quality images? Probably not, though it may look decent enough for web and standard def applications. Is it cheap? Heck yes, a mere $170. You can buy it direct from the mfr online. It’s big brother, the GO-HD, is also available at Amazon and B&H.

“The Aiptek A-HD still features the same 5 megapixel CMOS sensor, 2.4″ LCD, and memory slot good for up to 8GB of storage. Footage is recorded as .MOV files in the H.264 codec. Your video can be displayed on your HDTV via component outputs.”

You may recall some months back that Director Darren Aronofsky had some issues with the DVD release of “The Fountain” by Warner Bros. He was quite candid, in fact, stating;

“Everything at the studio was a struggle. For instance, they didn’t want to do a commentary track cause they felt it wouldn’t help sales. I didn’t have it in me to fight anymore. Whatever.”

So instead of fighting the studio, Darren has made and is freely sharing his own unauthorized commentary track. And in a ironic twist, the audio commentary is being distributed via Bittorrent’s The Pirate Bay, Meganova, and the recently relaunched Suprnova community. Nice. The Fountain DVD is available at Amazon for $14.99, or $27.95 for the HD-DVD.

(Via Scott Simmons)

Owyheesound has some great resources for lighting for film, located here make sure you check out the entire article its an excellent read.

The human eye can see a wider dynamic range than any normal motion picture medium. As such it sees a greater range of detail in the shadows and highlights of a lit scene.

A poor quality imaging device with a narrow dynamic range will crush the details in highlights and shadows to white and black respectively.

Film can come the closest to capturing the details that the human eye can see, but only when properly exposed and developed. Even then some detail is lost.

However, film, professional video, even the least expensive video cameras can be used to create images that ‘look’ like what the human eye sees. The key to this is understanding how wide the latitude of the medium you are using is and lighting accordingly.

If you are using a medium that can capture a wide dynamic range of light then lighting can be set fairly dynamically with fairly dark shadows and and very bright highlights. But if you are using a medium that can only capture a very narrow dynamic range of light then the shadows of you scene need to be relatively bright and the highlights need to be subdued. The result of bright shadows and subdued highlights when using a narrow latitude medium is a normal exposure that ‘looks’ like what the human eye sees. The problem with setting lights for a narrow latitude medium is that is can be very difficult to control light to the fractions of a stop needed to create the subdued highlights and bright shadows. This is why it is commonly said that it is harder to light for video than film.

The following photos represent the same scene but lit with varying degrees of dynamic range of light.

The expectation of lighting the scene with less dynamic range of light is that for cameras with a narrower dynamic range will produce (output) an image that ‘looks’ like what the human eye sees.

With careful lighting a camera with a very narrow dynamic range can produce an image similar to a professional film camera, in terms of dynamic exposure.

The Pirate Bay, worldwide Bittorrent tracker and host to content both legal and illegal, is turning the legal tables by filing their own lawsuit against movie and recording industry studios in Sweden. Two days after International Talk Like A Pirate Day, TPB filed charges of infrastructural sabotage, denial of service attacks, and hacking and spamming. They maintain that all this illegal activity was commissioned by the media companies and executed by MediaDefender. More on that in a minute. The companies that are being reported include:

* Twentieth Century Fox, Sweden AB
* Emi Music Sweden AB
* Universal Music Group Sweden AB
* Universal Pictures Nordic AB
* Paramount Home Entertainment (Sweden) AB
* Atari Nordic AB
* Activision Nordic Filial Till Activision (Uk) Ltd
* Ubisoft Sweden AB
* Sony Bmg Music Entertainment (Sweden) AB
* Sony Pictures Home Entertainment Nordic AB

Continue reading ‘The Pirate Bay to Big Media: “Prepare to be boarded!”’

We’ve mentioned JVC’s GZ-HD7 several times before, a tiny package that packs a punch and generally seems to review well. As it should…it features 3-CCDs capable of capturing over 5 hours of (pixel-shifted) full-raster 1920×1080 HDV goodness to the onboard hard drive, decent manual controls, and a 10x lens designed by Fujinon. A formidable option in the high-end consumer market.

Matt over at DCN noted that over at Amazon the HD7 is now listed at $1,110.99, which is 35% off JVC’s MSRP and only a few dollars more than the slightly less-capable GZ-HD3. Not a bad deal, if you are in the market.

We recently noted that GS Vitec have completed development of their noX 2K Digital Cinema Camera and are taking orders with a 5-8 week shipment window. Unfortunately, at that time we did not have camera pricing information to go along with the intriguing specifications. But thanks to alert reader Patrick Jennings we’ve obtained pricing information and a few other details on the recording media.

Recording Options
*Interchangeable datapacks with 2hr capacity (shooting raw uncompressed)
*Shockproof for 18 seconds
*Can be coupled with the NoxBox solution for additional live monitoring or recording via HD-SDI output

Product Pricing (in Euros)
*noX Camera, includes 8.4“ monitor, 2 noX 480 datapacks, cables, AC power adapter, and 1 training day - 57.125 € ($80,523 USD)
*noXboX, includes integrated 17� monitor, keyboard, trackball, cables, HD-SDI out - 22.250 € ($31,363 USD)
*noX recording datapack 480 - 900 € ($1,268 USD)
*noX rental - 550 € /day ($775 USD)
*noXboX rental 200 € /day ($281 USD)

In conjunction with the Chicago Cine Tech Expo later this week, Redrock Micro is offering Back to (Film) School discounts for Students and Film Educators.

…Redrock will be at Chicago Cine Tech and has a special price for students and educators. During the month of September, all Redrock M2 Bundles are 10% off regular prices, and all Redrock M2 Complete Packages are 20% off regular prices. Bundles include the award-winning Redrock M2 cinema lens adapter, microRodSupport system, achromat, and lens mount. Complete packages include everything in the Bundles, and add the microFollowFocus, microWhips, microPowerPod, and microLensSupport among many other items. All the details are in our online product catalog. The offer is open to anyone involved in education - students, film educators, etc. You just need to have a valid educational email or other form of school identification. This offer is good for international students/educators as well.

To take advantage of this unique offer use the following coupon codes when checking out:
10% of Redrock M2 Bundles - coupon code “BTS10″ (do not include the quote marks)
20% off Redrock M2 Complete Packages - coupon code “BTS20″
This sale is good for the month of September only. www.redrockmicro.com

That’s a pretty decent discount for anyone that is in the market for a 35mm lens adapter system. For instance, the HD Indie Complete Package for SLR lenses is normally $2,449.70, so 20% off would save you $489.94. Not too shabby.

This week Chicago will be host to the Chicago Cine Tech Expo. FreshDV will have a crew on the scene to get a look at the latest product offerings and demos from exhibitors and report back here. For those that are fortunate enough to attend in person, you’ll find a number of informative and interesting workshops and demonstrations including the “HD 24P Workflow” session (free admission), “Back to the Future with Filters”, “Steadicam”, “Reality TV”, “Thousand Dollar Budget, Million Dollar Look: The Cinema Revolution for Digital Video”, “Professional Lighting”, a 90 minute presentation entitled “Chicago Production: Past, Present, and Future”, “Producing/Directing: Experiences from around the Globe”, and a “Distribution” workshop by the distributors of “Supersize Me”.

The Expo Schedule is:
Thursday, September 27th - Educational Workshops and Equipment Exhibits
Friday, September 28th - Educational Workshops and Equipment Exhibits
Saturday, September 29th - Screenings
Workshop descriptions follow…
Continue reading ‘This Week at Chicago Cine Tech Expo’