Camera Blocking - A Case Study

Last year I had the opportunity to worked as Director of Photography with Tim Zwica on his new project “The Nest,” a 35-min horror short shot on a minimal budget. Shooting a lot VFX shots and action sequences on a budget naturally made for a very compressed schedule. One of the things that I wanted to do right away was find a way to shoot longer master shots on a dolly to facilitate our schedule. This allowed us to combine a large amount of coverage into one long shot, and yet still be creative with the camera blocking. The following narrated behind-the-scenes video is a case study exploring the way we handled one such dolly shot. The goal here is to show just one of many possible approaches to the creative challenges we encountered on this shoot.

Click the link to watch the video tutorial below…

AJA KiPro: More Than Just a Field Recorder

The AJA KiPro (pronounced “kee-PRO”) is a very nicely designed unit that I believe will become more and more useful over time. As it is currently released, several of the features that I really am interested in are still not implemented, but the potential is definitely there.

My overall impression is that it’s a great little box that is very well engineered, but I have some reservations and an extensive wish list for making the device a “must have.” Before I get in to that, let me tell you a little about the device.

DSLR Field Test

DPs Jim Ball and Matt Gottshalk set the cameras for our studio test. Lenses and camera settings were matched as closely as possible.

I am truly excited by the convergence of technology that is occurring with DSLR cameras and video recording.  The format allows for the recording of some truly amazing images due to sensor size and lens selection.  But like all technologies, it suffers from some constraints that need to be overcome.

Premiere Pro 4.2 & AVC-Intra

The new Premiere Pro CS4 4.2 and Adobe Media Encoder CS4 4.2 offer new improvements and enhancements to CS4 video workflows. With the 4.2 update, Premiere Pro now offers users of Panasonic’s AVC-Intra line of P2 cameras the chance to edit in native AVC-Intra format. This has been a longtime coming for AVC-Intra users and they can now enjoy the advantages of Adobe CS4 tapeless workflows and native editing. Several other enhancements to Premiere Pro 4.2 were also updated, like the support for Final Cut 7 import. I have outlined several of the updates and fixes below. I have also listed the “known issues” in 4.2 as well.

Anatomy of a Spot: Commonwealth Club

In this economy one has to stretch every production dollar as far as it can go. This doesn’t mean compromising on quality, though: keeping things simple can yield huge dividends. This includes knowing when it’s okay to shoot with available light, and when natural light needs a little help.

World’s Only “Death Oompah” Band Gets Virtual Reality Music Video

[TB]

An accordion-playing lead singer; a drummer who occasionally uses a doll instead of drumsticks; and a song based on the “Rime of the Ancient Mariner.” Just another day on set with one of the most macabre bands in existence: the Tiger Lillies.

So You Want to Work with Cameras

I get a lot of e-mail from film and video students asking how they can break into the film or television industries. I can’t afford the luxury of answering everyone’s questions individually so I decided to put my advice in writing. I hope it’s helpful.

Beware the attack of the anachronisms!

Hospital central is an acclaimed Spanish series that is kind of like ER on steroids. Later in this article, you’ll see what Hospital central has to do with anachronisms.

During a recent translation/localization project for a major NLE manufacturer, my friend Rubén Abruña and I ran into a conundrum when debating with our client about how a few words should be translated. Among them was the word Slate, which Rubén and I (and everyone else we personally know in Spain and Latin America) had called Pizarra. We were quite shocked when our client told us that they wanted to use the word Claqueta, which actually corresponds with the word Clapstick. For us, the difference between a Slate and a Clapstick were clear: A Slate just shows information. While a Clapstick may show information, it always has a sound-producing “clapper” which was created to facilitate synchronizing audio and video in post. In fact, as far as we are concerned, both Clapstick and Claqueta are onomatopoeia, or words that were created to imitate the sound created by the device. For that reason, Rubén and I were quite clear about why we called a Slate as a Pizarra, and a Clapstick as a Claqueta. However, I began to discuss this with industry colleagues in Latin America/Spain, delve into the etymologies of each term, and discovered that —whether we like it or not, even Slate (Pizarra) is an anachronism.

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