Filmmaking

Few things add to the production value of a video like a good tracking shot - you know, where the camera is on wheels, and moves around or towards the subject. While full-size dolly systems for 35 mm movie cameras are financially out of reach for most low-budget and hobbyist film-makers, guess what? You can now shoot movies with a little something called a digital single lens reflex camera, and it only needs a tiny dolly. One such creature is the CineSkates system, but we recently heard about another, known as the Pico Flex Dolly.  Read More

When he was nine years old, Toronto film-maker Rob Spence received a severe injury to his right eye in a shotgun accident. After a period of hiding the aftermath under an eyepatch, six years ago he had the eye replaced with a prosthesis. Being a visual artist, however, he had an idea - instead of just an unseeing artificial eye, he wanted one that could capture images of what he was looking at, and wirelessly transmit them to an external recording device. He himself wouldn't be able to see through the eye, but the footage obtained from it could take film-making to new levels. It's been a few years since Spence began his Eyeborg Project, but he has just announced that the eye is now functioning.  Read More

If you’re a videographer, and want to elevate your work from just looking competent to looking slick, one of the best things you can do is put your camera on a dolly. No, I’m not talking about a Ken or Barbie, but a wheeled camera mount that allows you to do smooth, fluid tracking shots. While the Spielbergs of the world use actual purpose-built camera dollies, lower-budget film-makers often make do with wheelchairs, skateboards, or wheeled spreaders that mount on the bottom of industrial-sized tripods. Given the popularity of JOBY’s compact and flexible GorillaPod tripods, however, it perhaps shouldn’t be surprising that someone has developed a wheel system for them – it’s called CineSkates.  Read More

Like all things digital, the technology in your beautiful new camera is heading towards obsolescence at an alarming rate. The same is true, though to a lesser extent, about that SLR lens with its own processors and motors for focus, aperture and stabilization. In the analog world of manual film lenses where a lifetime of use is guaranteed there has been a renaissance in the manufacture of high quality optics at all price points, driven in part by the advent of digital SLRs and cheaper camcorder options that are capable of delivering that "film look". But for serious moving picture shooting, still camera lenses just won’t cut it. Let’s explore why.  Read More

One of the challenges faced by serious videographers is the ability to “land” the camera’s focus ring on the right spot when shifting focus between two onscreen objects. If you’re shifting between a person in the background and a flower in the foreground, for instance, it can often take several tries before getting a take where you don’t focus right past the flower, or overcompensate by slowly creeping up to it. Professionals use a device called a follow focus to avoid this problem, but they can often be prohibitively expensive for amateurs and low-budget film-makers. Fortunately, however, those people now have an alternative – the DSLR Follow Focus.  Read More

Shooting movies and television shows using digital SLR (DSLR) cameras that also record high definition video is becoming much more widespread - in fact, the Season 6 finale of House was shot using Canon's EOS 5D Mark II camera, and Philip Bloom is said to have shot a number of scenes for the upcoming Lucasfilm World War II film Red Tails using the very same model. If you're looking to make your own DSLR epic, then you'll want to keep things steady while chasing someone down the stairs or running after your star through a busy city street. The Mount Kestrel Duopod concept from designer Ben Millett is a solid-looking shoulder-mounted steadicam rig that can also double as a floor-standing, two-legged camera platform.  Read More

Converting captured high quality video to edit-ready format can be a time consuming business, but the new Ninja Recorder from Atomos is a little box that takes care of this task by bypassing in-camera video compression and recording uncompressed 10-bit video directly to a 2.5-inch removable SSD or HDD in Apple ProRes format (HQ, 422 or LT) in real-time. The self-contained portable device connects to a DSLR or camcorder's HDMI connector and allows incoming video to be monitored or recorded video to be played back on its 4.3-inch 480 x 270 touchscreen.  Read More

Apple took the wraps off its upcoming update to Final Cut Pro at the SuperMeet in Las Vegas this week. Dubbed Final Cut Pro X, the software has been rebuilt from the ground up to support the Cocoa technology underlying Snow Leopard, and by extension, utilize the full potential of modern 64-bit multicore systems with powerful GPUs. There's a whole host of new features alongside some radical changes to the interface and workflow … but it's the new pricing model we think is the most interesting.  Read More

HDSLR cameras are taking off in a big way as cheap video rigs with quality interchangeable glass – but the more you get into SLR filmmaking, the more obstacles you find yourself working around. One of those obstacles is that you can't stick your eye to a viewfinder – you have to watch an LCD screen. And in harsh sunlight or wide aperture conditions, that makes it very difficult to get a tight focus on the action. And that's exactly why Zacuto's Z-Finder EVF was built; it's an alternative plug-in LCD screen for your DSLR that can be mounted on a frame or held separate to the camera. It's got higher resolution than your camera's screen, it's got a rubber eyepiece to block out ambient light, and a bunch of other pro video-friendly features that help move your DSLR closer to a proper video camera form factor.  Read More