- Gizmodo – A Rare Tour of IMAX Cameras – IMAX cameras – Wow, this is absolutely fantastic – a rare look inside the IMAX camera department.
"There are 26 IMAX film cameras in the world today. At IMAX HQ, I got to play with 4 of them (and take plenty of photographs for you)."
- Why the second coming of 3D is overrated – "The majority of films conceived in original three-tone Technicolor would be seriously diminished in monochrome, and vice versa. Films by those masters who used CinemaScope creatively are drained of their aesthetic essence when shown on the small screen. [But], no film made in 3D, even those that rely wholly on objects sticking out of the screen into one's face, has lost anything by being shown "flat"."
Interesting piece by Ronald Bergan in the Guardian. He makes a point of saying it's things that make production cheaper, like digital cameras, that make a genuine difference, rather than more expensive, like 3D. I guess the obvious question is what happens when pretty much every little digital camera for indie filmmaking can be cheaply adapted to 3D (RED are in the process of doing this) – if cinema goers start to expect that blockbusters and horror films, both genres I think where the 3D effect does make a substantive difference to the experience, will be in 3d then who knows?
- By Ken Levine: If Aaron Sorkin wrote a show about baseball – More fantastic Ken Levine. I liked Studio 60 but there's no mistaking the Sorkin patter.
Latest Updates: kenlevine RSS
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Ed's web picks for May 28th
Ed Moore
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Ed's web picks for May 21st through May 22nd
Ed Moore
- Rule By Secrecy – "But I don't like the secrecy that develops in TeeVee. The more people who understand this business, the better. Some people like to obfuscate what they do, so that people can't pull back the curtain and go, "Hey, wait a minute… running a show is NOT as hard as performing brain surgery!" Deep down, showrunners know this. They know how capricious this business is. Even the mega-successful ones have the insecurity that one day, their own curtain will be yanked aside and they'll hear someone say, "You're not as talented as we thought you were. Go away."
Another required entry onto your RSS newsreaders; the delightfully written (with loooong posts) blog of Kay Reindl, TV writer and producer from Hollywood.
- By Ken Levine: Ready for some Friday questions? – "And you’ll notice a “day” on 24 usually begins around 8 a.m. That allows them to shoot the daytime scenes in the summer when it stays light until 8 and the nighttime scenes in the winter when shooting can begin as early as 5. Lots of little tricks go into getting the most bang for your production buck."
Ken is a "Emmy winning writer/director/producer/major league baseball announcer", and his RSS feed is going straight into my news reader.
- BeachTek XLR audio adaptor for Canon 5D MkII [ProPhoto Coalition.com] – This is really good news – one of the big limiting factors of using the 5D for video work to date has been the 3.5mm minijack which is the only audio input you get. This little box screws onto the bottom of the camera and provides proper balanced audio inputs and a headphone output. There's even 48V phantom power for using a professional shotgun microphone.
I remember having BeachTek boxes on our tiny little cameras like the Canon XM2 when I was at university running the student TV station… takes me right back!
- C-MOCOS – Empowering your Camera Motion Control – Got to be one of the coolest looking motion control rigs going; this was shown at NAB this year. 7 axes and under 14KG without track. Amongst other tricks, you can perform a shot handheld and it will record the exact movement, allowing you to press a button and replicate the exact shot with perfect accuracy. For those unschooled in motion control, that means you can shoot multiple 'passes' of a shot with maybe a slight change like a model wearing a different outfit, and in post production transition between each pass gives the impression that in a single seamless camera movement, the outfits are morphing from one to another.
- Visual Effects For Directors DVD boxset – This looks to be a fantastic resource for directors and DoPs who want to know more about how visual effects works in post production so they can work on set more confidently. It can be terrifying shooting green screen or effects shots without having a clear understanding of what's fine and what's going to screw up the visual effects artists' work.
I already own the camera movement and blocking DVD set that the same guys did and it is absolutely superb. I'll definitely be dropping $329 on this when I'm feeling a bit flush!
- Tracking and Compositing with mocha for Final Cut | Studio Daily – Nice quick demonstration of a $199 planar tracking tool. Planar tracking lets you track 2D planes in 3D space – if you need to replace something in post, like a sign, a numberplate or maybe superimpose graphics onto a computer screen that's in shot (the actual graphics on a screen rarely photograph well), planar tracking works brilliantly. It tracks texture rather than the old 'corner pin' technique, so it doesn't matter if some of the object you're tracking is obscured or goes off screen.
- Star Wars: Retold (by someone who hasn’t seen it) on Vimeo – Surprising how accurate she is, considering. I find Star Wars pretty tedious going. Requires fanboy chip to be cranked up to 11.
- Rule By Secrecy – "But I don't like the secrecy that develops in TeeVee. The more people who understand this business, the better. Some people like to obfuscate what they do, so that people can't pull back the curtain and go, "Hey, wait a minute… running a show is NOT as hard as performing brain surgery!" Deep down, showrunners know this. They know how capricious this business is. Even the mega-successful ones have the insecurity that one day, their own curtain will be yanked aside and they'll hear someone say, "You're not as talented as we thought you were. Go away."