News

September 7, 2013

Blackmagic Design announced DaVinci Resolve was used for color grading on Shinji Aoyama’s award winning film “Tomogui” (“The BackWater”), which will be in theaters across in Japan on September 7th.

“Tomogui,” which recently won several high profile awards at the Locarno International Festival in Switzerland, is based on Shinya Tanaka’s Akutagawa Prize winning novel about life during the Showa era in Shimonoseki City in Yamaguchi, southern Japan. Award winning filmmaker Shinji Aoyama directed the film and worked with DoP Takahiro Imai to bring the film’s gritty and often violent scenes to life.

Imai explained that after he read the original novel, he felt the story’s atmosphere was not a world of blue sky. “It was about people who were down to earth in the last year of the Showa era, so I wanted to emphasize the soil and ground more, not looking up at the sky,” he said. “Therefore, I decided the tone of this film should be an amber color, not blue. We knew we were going to color grade this film in post production, and I helped create the tone on site using filters.”

In order to deliver on Imai’s vision, the team chose Genta Tamaki at Japan’s Interceptor Inc., whom they have worked with on previous projects, as the editor and colorist for the film. Tamaki has been using DaVinci Resolve for color correction for three years and relies on its flexibility and feature set, all at an affordable cost. “Resolve gives me the freedom to do any color correction and achieve any look. Also, we could not complete the job within the budget without it, while still keeping the quality of the film very high.”



Tamaki said, “The story is set in summer but, when we saw the rushes after shooting, we felt the footage didn’t quite express the heat of summer. So using Resolve, I added more yellow to the original tone, which was more orange, to express the heat. Also, we wanted a desaturated look throughout the film, so I removed a lot of colors.

“I did both the editing and grading, so I was grading while I was still editing my timeline. I edited this film with Final Cut Pro X and exported the XML of the work in progress to Resolve for grading. I then rendered all of the shots used in the timeline to round trip back into Final Cut Pro X.” he said. “By rendering all the original clips of shots used for the edit, not just the few seconds used, when I re edited the timeline and changed the duration of some shots, I could always use the graded image. Resolve allowed me to work this way easily.”

With a small budget for post production, it was important that the entire grading process be as efficient as possible. “Everything is done in real time in Resolve. I could cooperate with the film crew and try many different looks and check them right away. I spent three to four days on grading, and Resolve let me spend time creating looks without stress,” Tamaki concluded.

Press Photography
Product photos of Blackmagic Design products are available at www.blackmagicdesign.com

About Blackmagic Design
Blackmagic Design creates the world’s highest quality video editing products, digital film cameras, color correctors, video converters, video monitoring, routers, live production switchers, disk recorders, waveform monitors and film restoration software for the feature film, post production and television broadcast industries. Blackmagic Design’s DeckLink capture cards launched a revolution in quality and affordability, while the company’s Emmy™ award winning DaVinci color correction products have dominated the television and film industry since 1984. Blackmagic Design continues ground breaking innovations including stereoscopic 3D and 4K workflows. Founded by world leading post production editors and engineers, Blackmagic Design has offices in the USA, United Kingdom, Japan, Singapore, and Australia. For more information, please check www.blackmagicdesign.com

September 5, 2013

Blackmagic Design announced that Nashville’s WSMV-TV is using Blackmagic Cinema Camera to shoot promotions and PSAs for the station’s news broadcasts. The station also is using DaVinci Resolve for color correction.

Brian Hallett, creative services senior producer and writer at the station, chose Blackmagic Cinema Camera for its high resolution 2.5K sensor, 13 stops of dynamic range and CinemaDNG RAW and Avid DNxHD codecs, all at an affordable cost.

“When it came time to invest in a new camera, I didn’t want something that was more of the same. I wanted to take the production up a step and think forward,” said Brian. “The Blackmagic Cinema Camera helped us do just that while providing an extremely efficient workflow. Time is of the essence in everything we do, and our deadlines are quick. Shooting with the Blackmagic Cinema Camera makes everything easier.”

For studio shoots, Brian mounts a Blackmagic Cinema Camera on a slider, hooks up audio and headphones and is ready to go. “With other cameras, I would have to hook up a monitor and recorder as well as batteries, and before you know it, it has taken 45 minutes to set up. Now I slap a lens on the Blackmagic Cinema Camera, put it on a slider, and I’m good to go,” said Brian. “I try to keep everything as simple as possible because it’s faster that way.”

When shooting outdoors, Blackmagic Cinema Camera’s 13 stops of dynamic range prove especially useful.

“The camera’s dynamic range lets me shoot in broad daylight without losing any detail in the footage,” said Brian. “I’m able to get a better look and more out of the camera, and the footage looks hands down better, which means there’s not as much time spent finessing in post. And the ability to shoot in DNxHD means I can pull the files right into Avid and start editing right away.”

Brian also cites Blackmagic Cinema Camera’s 1/4" TRS audio connectors, which allow him to connect high quality microphones to the camera and sync audio to footage during shooting. Brian saves approximately two to three hours during the post production process because he no longer has to import and transcode footage into the Avid codec, as well as spend time syncing audio. When shooting is finished, Brian transfers media off the SSD and onto his MacBook Pro for editing and then into Blackmagic Design’s DaVinci Resolve for color correction.

“I don’t know which clips I will use until I listen to how the reporter or anchor delivers the lines, and it’s a nightmare to sync audio after you’ve edited,” said Brian. “The camera’s flexibility lets me change my workflow around, and the feature set doesn’t hold me back.”

For a recent promo, Brian shot the city of Nashville at sunset and during post decided to change the yellow hues to pink and blue pastels. He cites Resolve’s Power Windows as being especially useful in helping him control the dynamic range in the sky.

“I changed the colors in the sky drastically to help show the team that the colors are not baked in and that we can change anything we want. They couldn’t believe it was the same shot,” explained Brian. “Resolve is an essential tool and should be a part of any production company’s recipe of how to improve footage. Having Resolve included with the camera was such an amazing perk, and it’s nice to have it available for a smaller station like us.

“Both Resolve and the Blackmagic Cinema Camera give us a level of detail that’s more professional. When everyone else is using a DSLR and you are using a Blackmagic Cinema Camera, you stand out. With such stiff competition in our region, our promotions and PSAs need to look better so viewers will pay attention. TV stations are really going for a higher end look, and we are able to do that with Blackmagic Design.”

Press Photography

Product photos of all Blackmagic Design products are available at www.blackmagicdesign.com/press/images.

About Blackmagic Design

Blackmagic Design creates the world’s highest quality video editing products, digital film cameras, color correctors, video converters, video monitoring, routers, live production switchers, disk recorders, waveform monitors and film restoration software for the feature film, post production and television broadcast industries. Blackmagic Design’s DeckLink capture cards launched a revolution in quality and affordability, while the company’s Emmy™ award winning DaVinci color correction products have dominated the television and film industry since 1984. Blackmagic Design continues ground breaking innovations including stereoscopic 3D and 4K workflows. Founded by world leading post production editors and engineers, Blackmagic Design has offices in the USA, United Kingdom, Japan, Singapore, and Australia. For more information, please check www.blackmagicdesign.com.

With this beta program, registered V-Ray users can get their hands on new and improved features and capabilities of the best version of V-Ray yet. Thanks to Chaos Software's continuous work with 3D artists all over the world, V-Ray 3.0 for 3ds Max has now become the most complete lighting, shading and rendering toolkit on the market. The V-Ray 3.0 for 3ds Max Beta program is available to licensed users of V-Ray for 3ds Max. You may register for the beta program here. The Beta program will run for a period of approximately 3 months.

Autodesk released a new edition of Maya 2014, Maya LT, specifically tailored for indie and mobile game developers. Maya LT includes all the tools necessary for independent game developers creating assets for PC, web, and mobile games. Based on the Maya 2014 release, Maya LT includes full modeling parity with Maya (support for NURBS, polygons, UVs etc.), including the Modeling Toolkit as well as full texture baking with Turtle, plus low resolution Texture Baking preview!

August 27, 2013

Blackmagic Design announced that Blackmagic Cinema Camera and DaVinci Resolve were used to complete FOX Sports 1's premier commercial “Happy Days Are Here Again.”

Launched on August 17, 2013, FOX Sports 1 is America’s new sports network that includes NASCAR, UFC, college football, college basketball and soccer coverage, along with studio shows, such as FOX Football Daily and FOX Sports LIVE.

Directed by HSI Productions’ Joseph Kahn, the commercial called for aerial shots of a NASCAR race, and HSI Productions turned to Mi6 Films, an aerial photography and video company based in Southern California. Because the NASCAR shoot took place at Charlotte Motor Speedway in Charlotte, N.C., Mi6 Films partnered with Beaufort, S.C. based wollwerthfilms to achieve the aerial shots.

Wollwerthfilms specializes in aerial cinematography and provided a high tech RC aerial cinematography rig equipped with a Blackmagic Cinema Camera in order to help capture the intensity of a 200 mph NASCAR race during the first day of shooting at Charlotte Motor Speedway.

“The director, Joseph Kahn, was looking for a really dramatic wipe reveal of the stadium and motor speedway with fans cheering and waving,” said Stephen Wollwerth, owner wollwerthfilms. “We were also able to capture a long straight high speed shot where we cleared the fence and dropped down to just over the track level as cars were passing underneath.”

In order to achieve these shots, Stephen mounted a Blackmagic Cinema Camera on a 3X Pro v3 gimbal from PhotoShip One, which was then mounted on an aerial cinematography rig Stephen built himself. A Blackmagic Design Mini Converter SDI to Analog was also mounted on the helicopter to convert the video feed to analog and send it downlink from the helicopter wirelessly for ground viewing.

“We needed really high video quality to match the other high end cameras that were used for shooting, and the Blackmagic Cinema Camera fit right in,” said Stephen. “The footage was shot in 2.5K CinemaDNG RAW format for optimum image quality, and the 13 stops of dynamic range really gave us the latitude we needed. Even DIT Jeremy Ball commented that the latitude of the footage was amazing.”

Colorist, DIT, Post Supervisor and Owner of A GRADE, a Charlotte, N.C. based post production facility, Jeremy and Bryan Scibelli, of production and post facility Cinemanix, were the DITs for the Charlotte location and used Blackmagic Design’s DaVinci Resolve color corrector for setting up look up tables, data management, transcoding and rendering out on set dailies.

“We had a mix of Resolve and Resolve Lite, and we couldn’t have asked for a better organizational tool. Resolve’s ability to add in different types of metadata carried through the post process was invaluable, especially with the multi camera, multi location and multi day shoot,” said Jeremy. “Resolve is affordable, fast and powerful, and provided us with a seamless process when it came to handling the multitudes of footage from a range of cameras. It’s pretty much the only tool out there that handles virtually any type footage. We were there on the first day of shooting, and Resolve set the standard for the entire shoot’s dailies process.”

Press Photography

Product photos of all Blackmagic Design products are available at www.blackmagicdesign.com/press/images.

About Blackmagic Design

Blackmagic Design creates the world’s highest quality video editing products, digital film cameras, color correctors, video converters, video monitoring, routers, live production switchers, disk recorders, waveform monitors and film restoration software for the feature film, post production and television broadcast industries. Blackmagic Design’s DeckLink capture cards launched a revolution in quality and affordability, while the company’s Emmy™ award winning DaVinci color correction products have dominated the television and film industry since 1984. Blackmagic Design continues ground breaking innovations including stereoscopic 3D and 4K workflows. Founded by world leading post production editors and engineers, Blackmagic Design has offices in the USA, United Kingdom, Japan, Singapore, and Australia. For more information, please check www.blackmagicdesign.com.