Category: Blog Posts

Behold the Trinity

Want to combine the benefits of a gimbal, Steadicam, and crane in a single package that can handle a heavy cinema camera?  Check out the ARRI Trinity and Maxima system – it’s a bargain at $60,700.

Still Rolling…

Can’t get enough long takes?  Check out Cinefix’s list of the top twelve best, StudioBinder’s three strategies of utilizing them, and Aputure’s four-minute tutorial on how to create them yourself.

Don’t Ditch That Slider Just Yet…

Gimbals allow filmmakers to capture a variety of moves, including variations on dolly and slider shots.  However, that doesn’t mean that sliders are unnecessary.  Here are a few videos comparing the two pieces of gear.

Feeling Unmotivated?

Need a refresher on motivated and unmotivated camera movement?  Check out this great video essay, which focuses on a small, but impactful moment in the film Frances Ha.

Once More with Feeling

Here are a couple more videos on Spielberg: his “point of thought” shooting style and his use of long takes.

So Smooth It’s Scary

Netflix’s The Haunting of Hill House is a spooky show with high production values.  One standout episode of the first season was “Two Storms,” which was almost entirely comprised of very long takes filmed on a Steadicam.  There are five long takes in total, ranging from five to seventeen minutes, each of which required meticulous planning and a very talented camera operator.  Check out a featurette about the episode below and read through show creator Mike Flanagan’s account on Twitter (courtesy of Collider)
for more details.

Brought to You by StudioBinder

StudioBinder makes preproduction software, but they also have an impressive collection of tutorial videos online.  Check out their videos on movement, blocking, and long takes below.

Long takes: https://youtu.be/h9AEYFYPYTM

Bonafide and Entirely Unfalsified

Here’s a sweet (and utterly ludicrous) animated history of the camera from the always-delightful Royal Ocean Film Society.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zI1JzDFHVh4

Digging Into the Details

Here are a few more videos that explore David Fincher’s extraordinarily precise camera movement, his use of special effects, and his unique style.

Fabulous Prizes!

Want to try out your filmmaking skills?  Check out this one minute short film competition from the fine folks at Film Riot.

Need a Hand?

Want some additional tips for shooting handheld footage?  Check out these videos for some more techniques.

Everyone’s Favorite Buzzword

The word “cinematic” gets thrown around a lot on filmmaking blogs and in video tutorials.  It’s an extremely vague term, but generally describes footage that doesn’t look like a home movie or quick social media post.  That could be due to the color grading, movement, depth of field, framing, slow motion, or other factors.  Here are a handful of videos that promise to help you get that CINEMATIC (all caps!) look.

Slowing Down in Vegas

Being able to film at up to 960 frames per second with the compact RX10 II is amazing.  If you want to capture really slow motion, however, the best tool for the job is probably a Phantom camera, which can capture footage at thousands of frames per second for specialty shots or scientific tests.  Here’s a “classic” YouTube video (six years old!) that a filmmaker with a Phantom Flex camera put together in order to stave off boredom in a Las Vegas hotel room.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=otkcRK2J3DI

Flowing Through the City

Filmmaker Rob Whitworth has developed a unique style of time lapse video that he calls “flow motion.”  Check out his travel videos for Sydney and Dubai below.

Big Sensors, No Mirrors

The “world’s leading trade fair for imaging” – photokina – is happening later this month in Germany and that means lots of rumors and product announcements are flying around.  The trend this year seems to be full frame mirrorless cameras, with Nikon and Canon announcing new systems.  There are rumblings that Sony, Panasonic, and even lens manufacturer Zeiss will trot out new full frame mirrorless cameras in the coming weeks as well.

This is actually a pretty big deal.  The first mirrorless cameras used the smaller Four Thirds image sensor and that size has been the standard ever since.  Sony have been very successful with mirrorless full frame (and APS-C) cameras for a few years now, but Nikon and Canon have continued to use the older DSLR design for their full frame cameras.  These announcements seem to signal that mirrorless cameras have really replaced DSLRs as the serious photographer’s tool of choice.

Nikon and Canon have announced a new line of lenses for these cameras as well.  Again, this is bigger than it first sounds: Canon have been using the same lens mount for something like 30 years and Nikon’s current mount has been in use since 1959.  These two companies dominated the photography industry for decades, but their apparent unwillingness to evolve has allowed Sony, Panasonic, Fuji, BlackMagic, and others to chip away at their share of the market.  How will photographers and video professionals react to these new cameras?  Only time will tell.

Lights, Hybrid, Action!

Need some filmmaking inspiration?  Courtesy of Lights Film School, here are five independent feature films shot on DSLRs and mirrorless hybrid cameras.

For reference, Diamond Flash was filmed on the Panasonic GH2, Tiny Furniture and Like Crazy were filmed on the Canon 7D, and Hell and Back Again and For Lovers Only were filmed on the Canon 5D Mark II.

https://youtu.be/VJoMWj47KP0

The Science Behind Lenses

In these videos, the gang at Fstoppers debunk some of the common misconceptions about sensor size and lens properties.

It’s Complicated.

There is some debate in the filmmaking community – even among professionals – as to whether sensor-size crop factor should be applied to aperture.  As you may recall, the size of a camera’s sensor affects the apparent focal length of a lens – so, a 25mm lens on a four-thirds sensor has the same field of view as a 50mm lens on a full frame sensor.  Is aperture affected in the same way?

The answer is… sort of.  Aperture is the measure of the size of the opening in the lens through which light enters the camera, which affects brightness and depth of field.  The size of the sensor does not change the size of a lens’s aperture, so the overall brightness does not change.  However, depth of field is directly affected by focal length – long lenses produce a shallower depth of field than short lenses.  So the depth of field (the amount of background blur) is affected by by crop factor since, for example, a 25mm lens will always produce less background blur than a 50mm lens at the same aperture.  In short, depth of field is affected by sensor size (indirectly), but overall brightness is not.

Livin’ Life 24 Frames Per Second

The always informative John Hess of Filmmaker IQ delivers a stirring defense of the standard film frame rate – 24 – in this new video.  While frame rates of 48, 60, and higher are great for video games, virtual reality, and sports, 24 is still the ideal for cinema.  Strap in for an epic rant as Hess explains why.

What Does It All Mean?

As we discussed briefly in the first lesson, SD cards are labeled in a maddeningly confusing way.  This video from Gerald Undone breaks down the various symbols, rates, numbers, and abbreviations.