Filmmaker J.J. Abrams; Star Trek, Star Trek Into Darkness, Super 8, Lost, Revolution, Fringe, the upcoming Star Wars movie (the man is everywhere these days,) gives us a peek into his process during a recent sit down interview with the British Academy Of Film And Television Arts.
Abrams discusses the transitions between television to the big screen, balancing hyper-reality with intimacy, why television leaves room for surprises, the best advice he’s ever been given and what advice he would give to future filmmakers. [more]
Whether I’m going out for a short hike, a weekend camping trip, shooting the zombie apocalypse, or assisting someone for their personal project, there are many times when I’ve needed to be light and fast in my video rig setup. Besides going with a single camera and lens, the accessories I choose enable me to be versatile and get better clips in the end. Here’s my top 8 list of items that keep me on the move while I’m shooting video. [more]
Bulb ramping is a technique used by time lapse photographers to adjust the shutter speed throughout the time lapse to compensate for natural changes in exposure. If you’re looking to shoot timelapses of sunrises, sunsets or any change from day to night, this technique is critical. In his latest tutorial video, BC based photographer Joel Schat takes us through the steps needed in order to create a bulb ramping time lapse with ease. [more]
Today, for the first time I watched this fantastic one-take music video for Brooklyn based band, Eytan and the Embassy. On the Vimeo page for ‘Everything Changes’ they tout the video as “18 Costume Changes — 1 Music Video — 0 Edits!” It has been online for 10 months, is a Vimeo Staff pick, but only has 20,000 views. Well I think it deserves more! Check out this video and click through for a BTS video as well. Enjoy! [more]
So as a lot of you have probably seen, you can now record full 1080p 14Bit Raw video on the Canon 5D Mark II and Mark III. This is truely incredible. However, you can not just import the video and get to editing right away. To be able to use the RAW video, you have to convert the RAW files to DNG. Here is a quick workflow tutorial on how to do that. It’s really not that hard to do, just a little time consuming. [more]
Still hot with news on the Canon 5D Mark III being able to shoot continuous raw video footage with Magic Lantern, comparison videos are starting to hit the net. In this video, you’ll see the Black Magic Cinema Camera footage alongside the hacked 5D, with ISO information to give you a better idea of the noise difference. Even with Vimeo’s compression, you can see the difference for yourself. [more]
Excuse me while I pick up the brain fragments scattered across my office. In the last few months, there have posts and chatter about raw video recording being enabled in Canon’s popular DSLR through new developments in Magic Lantern‘s firmware. It appeared to be only useful in bursts of less than a second, but now news is coming out now that they have unlocked the ability to record, without issue, continuous raw video at 24fps. [more]
Do you remember 14 years ago when the Matrix came out and blew some of our minds with filming techniques? One of the most ingenious scenes at the time was the wrap around bullet shot where the camera spun around the actors on a large dolly while they were suspended in mid air. Popular Youtuber Mark Rober has come up a really simple and cheap way to replicate the rotational filming effect of that scene.
To see more of his creative videos, check out his channel.
This is one of those projects that is almost beyond words. Astronaut Chris Hadfield shot this music video to express his feelings of leaving the International Space Station, and it’s basically the coolest possible way to go out. If you haven’t yet seen this (which you probably have but heck, it’s so amazing I just had to share), quit reading and hit the play button. Your life needs this music video. [more]
This new video from the Life In Focus series from F-Stop Gear tells the story of Brian Matiash, an urban and landscape photographer from Portland, Oregon. A departure from the usual mountain or expedition setting, it’s cool to see a photographer who is working on the streets of a city and how he makes use of the rugged F-stop bags. Hear Brian discuss how he got into photography and what motivates him to shoot urban areas. [more]
Ridley Scott is arguably one of the greatest movie directors of his time. Blade Runner, Legend, Alien, Black Hawk Down are just a sampling of his masterful works.
In the following sound clips, Ridley Scott shares his beginnings through art school, how directing television commercials for 15 years developed his lighting and editing skills and how making feature films for himself helped carry him to Hollywood. [more]
The follow-up to 2009′s re-imagined (alternate universe) Star Trek film is probably one of the biggest blockbuster sequels of the 2013 film year. Follow J. J. Abrams as he directs the crew of the USS Enterprise as they fight off a new threat, John Harrison played by Star Trek newcomer, Benedict Cumberbatch. From the looks of the two B-roll videos and behind the scenes footage Star Trek: Into Darkness looks like an instant hit. [more]
The photography for Apple’s products have become an iconic style that virtually every other technology company has tried to emulate. In a recent interview with The Verge, Apple’s product photographer Peter Belanger takes us through the steps to make such an simplistic photograph come to life, using some of the most complex lighting setups imaginable. [more]
Baz Luhrmann the master of dazzling audiences with his self-coined style of filmmaking known as the ‘Red Curtain’ style is back. This week’s new addition to his small filmography, ‘The Great Gatsby’ looks to fall under the same flourish and design as previous Luhrmann films, and certainly doesn’t look disappointing. In this video Baz Luhrmann breaks down one of the scenes in the upcoming movie. [more]
The hot topic of the week around here has been the new Creative Cloud model from Adobe. We recently posted this video discussion about what some of us thought of it along with this article on why it may not be a good idea. There were great points made on both ends. However, like all popular things, humor follows shortly on the Internet. [more]
