News

September 11, 2013

Alternative rock band Placebo has recorded a live studio set of its new album on the Blackmagic Cinema Camera. The hour long session was filmed at the famous Rak Studios in London and will be featured as bonus material on the band’s soon to be released seventh album, titled “Loud Like Love.”

Directed by Charlie Targett-Adams and produced by James Tonkin of Hangman Studios, the multi camera project incorporated eight fixed camera positions, five of which were Blackmagic Cinema Cameras. “It’s wide dynamic range, it’s size, the ability to record straight to ProRes and that beautiful log flat look that you get from the camera make it an ideal choice for live shoots like the one with Placebo,” reveals Tonkin.

“When Charlie and I went through tests from previous shoots he really saw the strength in going down this route. Although he is a young director, Charlie very much prefers the look of film in the same way that I do.”

“Knowing that we could shoot and create a look inside the camera meant the Blackmagic camera was the ideal choice. We had to film the whole session uninterrupted and that meant planning as much as we could in advance and then simply going with it on the day.”

With Placebo’s management wanting this to be an honest representation of how the band would play behind closed doors, the aim was to give the whole thing a stripped back look that felt natural on camera. That meant allowing the band to play with as few distractions as was possible.

Tonkin continued: “Although we used a number of sliders and tracks, our camera operators were for all intents and purposes in fixed positions for the whole shoot. And working in a confined space like Rak Studios required careful planning. I had to make certain that we had enough camera angles so that the whole thing would feel coherent, well covered and dynamic. That to some extent dictated my lens selection because as beautiful as primes are, you can’t be stuck on one shot. It just doesn’t give you enough latitude to get what you need when working from fixed position.”

Treating this as a live shoot was perhaps the most challenging aspect of the project for Tonkin.

“You didn’t necessarily know what you’d got until it was all shot,” says Tonkin. “However the simplicity of the settings and menu structure in the Blackmagic camera really worked to our advantage. It allowed me to quickly set up the cameras and ensured everything we shot looked the same. The Blackmagic Cinema Camera for that reason became so much easier to deal with in the grade because you had a neutral starting point on all of the footage.”

Post production involved an edit in Final Cut and then the material was graded on Blackmagic Design’ DaVinci Resolve. “Being involved in both the filming and grading of the content has a definite advantage,” said Tonkin. “You have a better understanding of what you can correct in post, or how best to shoot some things and what lighting ratios will allow you to push and pull things in the grade.”

Press Photography

Product photos of Blackmagic Cinema Camera 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.

Adobe announced updates for video tools in Adobe Creative Cloud, and Adobe Generator, technology that fundamentally changes the way people work with Photoshop for web and screen design. Generator is a platform that brings Photoshop to the heart of the design process, enabling greater interoperability between Adobe Photoshop CC, Adobe Creative Cloud and third party applications.



With over 150 new features, the upcoming video tools update in Adobe Creative Cloud, is packed with new capabilities in Adobe Premiere Pro CC, Adobe After Effects CC, Adobe SpeedGrade CC, Adobe Prelude CC, Adobe Media Encoder CC and Adobe Story CC Plus redefining how video professionals create, collaborate and deliver high quality productions across multiple screens. The announcement signifies Adobe’s commitment to providing continuous innovation for Creative Cloud members and builds upon the huge customer momentum Adobe video is experiencing across the broadcast and post-production industries. These major updates, expected in October, allow broadcast and media professionals to extend their creative toolset and streamline their editing environments.

New Tools and Workflows:

• A new Direct Link Color Pipeline between Adobe Premiere Pro CC and SpeedGrade CC provides an integrated workflow that allows users to move multi-track timelines seamlessly back and forth; open Adobe Premiere Pro CC sequences in SpeedGrade quickly; and see the results as effects in Adobe Premiere Pro CC that are managed by the Lumetri Deep Color Engine.

• Expanded native support for UltraHD, 4K and higher resolutions, high frame rates and RAW formats, enables editors to work with footage from the hottest new high-res cameras natively – without having to wait to transcode and re-wrap files.

• The Mask Tracker in After Effects enables video professionals to create masks and apply effects that track automatically frame-by-frame throughout a composition to save countless hours of tedious work.

• Editing is streamlined in Premiere Pro CC, with improved multicam, enhanced closed captioning capabilities, new monitor overlays and audio monitoring features, enabling editors to work faster.

• Performance enhancements punctuate this release with support in Premiere Pro CC for OpenCL, providing editors with the speed and power they need for the most demanding projects; and new GPU debayering of the Cinema DNG file format for real time playback.

• New Sync Settings in Adobe Media Encoder CC let users now sync application preferences between multiple computers via Creative Cloud.

And more! The Adobe Generator technology for Photoshop CC is available now, Premiere CC and After Effects CC updates are expected in October.

NewTek unveiled the next generation of its industry-standard, professional TriCaster multi-camera production systems, introducing three new models - TriCaster 860, TriCaster 460, and TriCaster 410 - and major enhancements to the company’s flagship system, TriCaster 8000. The entire professional TriCaster product line incorporates across-the-board breakthroughs in integrated multi-camera live production. All systems now offer 4 or 8 full mix/effects (M/E) channels, greatly expanding the system's switching performance. Producers can use these M/Es to generate layered and composited real-time video, produce sub-mixes in the main video program, and output content as a secondary program - all with complete switcher behaviors, transitions, overlays, multi-source layering and virtual sets.



The new family of professional TriCaster systems includes four models, each designed to address a wide range of multi-camera video production needs:

TriCaster 410. A streamlined, compact system with a full 4 M/E production switcher, HD-SDI connectivity, and tools for live-only delivery, ideal for anyone producing small to medium-sized live shows or webcasts with powerful media sharing and disk recording capabilities.

TriCaster 460. A compact system with a full 4 M/E production switcher with greater connectivity and broader creative flexibility for any small or medium-sized production, particularly where live video content is touched up, re-packaged or repurposed for postproduction or supplemental programming.

TriCaster 860. A system designed for full-sized live action with an abundance of angles, visuals, coverage and postproduction tools, offering a full 8 M/E production switcher, plus more channels, sources, I/O, graphics and effects, and greater capacity for media storage.

TriCaster 8000. The flagship content publishing hub for all the media in a live program, with a premium 8 M/E production switcher, built-in failsafe and redundancy capabilities, and extensive router support for enhanced broadcast integration, massive multi-camera coverage, and mission critical high-end productions of any size.

All TriCaster models include comprehensive feature enhancements that enable producers to create bigger and better shows, and reach larger audiences with network TV-style video content—while also significantly lowering production costs. With any TriCaster system, users can reduce the many racks of equipment and crew often required to produce a multi-camera show.

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.