A cinematographer's job is to bring the director's vision of a story to life. A hard, but rewarding job indeed. With the wide availability of high definition cameras right at the masses' fingertips, the art of cinematography is growing and changing constantly. I myself have always been fascinated by how different cinematographers interpret light, color and mood. Zacuto is back with its Emmy award winning web series, The Great Camera Shootout. This year though they've gone in a different direction.
Bruce Logan, Director of Photography for Tron and Visual Effects for Star Wars: A New Hope, has issued out a challenge to some of the world's top cinematographers to use one of nine different cameras to film the same scene and then have a blind test to see which is the best out of the nine. The cameras include the Panasonic GH2, Canon 7D , Sony FS-100, Canon C300, Sony F3, Red Epic, Arri Alexa, Sony F65 and the iPhone 4s. Yes, you read that correctly... the iPhone.
This informative and inspiring series is broken into three parts. The first, posted above, is an introduction to some of the cinematographers involved in the project. It goes into how the scene was set up and most importantly why it was constructed the way it was for the test. Lastly, it shows the blind test for each of the nine cameras. Enjoy trying to guess which camera shot each particular scene. The next two of the series will be posted later in the week.
"I feel very strongly about this for kids that are just trying to get in the industry. If you think for one moment that Hollywood gives a damn about what camera you used on a job, they don't even know. I bet you couldn't find three people who would even ask. So, nobody should be worried about what camera they are using. The tool is there if you know how to use it and you've got the talent, and you've got the drive, you can shoot a damn good movie." - Victor Kemper, ASC.
Inspirational piece. Thanks for the post.
That last quote from Victor really speaks out. I'm a sixteen year old aspiring cinematographer and that really spoke to me. I do like to use good equipment, but he's right, Hollywood doesn't give a shit about the rig I used.
Camera D is the iPhone 4S...
Amazin series, im really inspired.