British Cinematographer issue 51 - Imago

British Cinematographer
Covering International Cinematography
www.britishcinematographer.co.uk
Issue 051 ––– May 2012 44
45
British Cinematographer
Covering International Cinematography
www.britishcinematographer.co.uk
Issue 051 ––– May 2012
F-Stop Hollywood
–––The inside track on
what’s going on in Tinsel Town
NAB 2012:
4K and the
Workflow
4K, along with the
sticky subject of a
related workflow, was
getting a sizable
amount attention from
production through to
exhibition, during the
2012 NAB Show, 14-
19 April in Las Vegas.
The event attracted
an estimated 92,000
attendees, according
to NAB figures.
Canon... took 4K by the scruff of
the neck with its new low-priced
4K C500 camera.
Cameron... forecasted
explosive growth in 3D stereo
broadcasting.
Eldorado... Curtis Clark ASC’s
short film shot with the F65 was
screened at NAB.
Cinedeck... announced the new
Cinedeck MX as a contender to
replace the tapedeck.
Meanwhile, one manufacturer, postproduction
technology developer Blackmagic Design, came
to Vegas to reveal the development of a digital
cinematography camera that will be shipping as early
as July for just $3000 (roughly £1,843 GBP).
The compact Blackmagic Cinematography
Camera, unexpected by many, turned heads not only
for its price but for its features, including 13 stops of
dynamic range, a 2.5K sensor, a built-in SSD recorder,
open file format support (including CinemaDNG RAW,
ProRes and DNxHD), and a built-in LCD with metadata
entry. Blackmagic even threw in a copy of its new
version 9 DaVinci Resolve colour grading software
and Blackmagic UltraScope software for waveform
monitoring. Blackmagic said the camera could
accommodate Canon EF and Zeiss ZF mount lenses.
4K Camera Technology
To no surprise, Sony’s F65 4K camera continued to
generate attention from those looking for high-end
cameras. New F65 clips that were screened at the Sony
stand (with its 4K digital cinema projector) included
Eldorado, an eight-minute short from Curtis Clark, ASC.
The cinematographer, who chairs the ASC Technology
Committee, previously wrote and directed The Arrival,
the first short lensed with the F65, which debuted at NAB
in 2011.
In related news Sony’s Professional Solutions of
America has launched a Digital Motion Picture Center
at Sony Pictures Studios in Los Angeles. Activities will
include hands-on F65 training, and Clark will oversee
educational efforts. “This Center will help everyone get
comfortable with the digital camera system and the
workflow that supports it,” he said.
Production is already underway on several F65
projects, including M. Night Shyamalan’s After Earth, a
sci-fi film for Columbia starring Will Smith. Peter Suschitzky
BSC ASC is lensing the movie. Claudio Miranda ASC is
also working with the F65, to shoot Universal’s Oblivion, the
Joseph Kosinski-helmed action film starring Tom Cruise.
Last November when Canon launched its Cinema
EOS line, the company related that 4K was on the
development roadmap, and more details were made
available as NAB got underway. Canon is bringing to
the market a 4K-capable Cinema EOS C500, which
accepts EF-mount lenses, and Cinema EOS C500 PL for
PL-mount lenses. Both will be available later this year for
an estimated $30,000 each.
Canon reported that the cameras would be
capable of recording 4K resolution with 10-bit
uncompressed “RAW” output with no de-bayering,
as well as quad full-HD, 2K, and full HD formats. These
models have a Super 35mm-equivalent approximately
8.85-megapixel CMOS sensor.
The company also extended the 4K dialogue at
NAB with the EOS-1D digital SLR camera with 4K support.
According to Canon, the $15,000 camera will record up
to 8-bit 4:2:2 Motion JPEG 4K video to the camera’s CF
card at 24 fps.
During a panel discussion about producing
resolutions of 4K and higher, an executive from NHK
restated the Japanese broadcaster’s plans to begin
experimental Ultra High Definition broadcasts, using its 8K
Super High-Vision system, in 2020.
NHK and BBC are preparing to test this system during
the London Olympics, using Super High-Vision to shoot
the opening and closing ceremonies, as well as various
competitive events.
Workflow
During its NAB press conference, AJA placed emphasis on
4K and in particular its collaboration with Canon to launch
the Ki Pro Quad, a solid-state portable video recorder.
Priced at $3,995, the device was getting a lot of attention
with its ability to capture files in 4K, Quad HD, 2K and HD.
“Ki Pro Quad offers some amazing new ways of
working; by creating post-friendly files to removable
SSDs, moving the original camera RAW files to a Mac,
and allowing 4K monitoring all at the same time,” said
Nick Rashby, president of AJA.
Colorfront previewed On-Set Dailies Summer 2012
release, the next version of its on-set dailies system,
which extends its realtime 4K dailies capabilities,
including a realtime 4K ACES (Academy Colour
Encoding Specification) workflow and support for
Canon’s C500 camera.
The new release supports the HP Z820 16-core
workstation and the latest Kepler CUDA processing.
According to Colorfront, combination delivers in excess
of 100FPS parallel rendering for multiple deliverables,
faster than real-time JPEG2000 MXF DCP and IMF
deliverables, realtime Arriraw 4K de-bayer and 4K F65
Raw, as well as Avid DNxHD 444 support and Sony SRFile
playback/encoding. Colorfront On-Set Dailies has been
used on production’s including The Avengers, Skyfall
and World War Z.
FilmLight showed Baselight Transfer, a real-time, 4K
dailies processing system aimed at supporting digital
cinema cameras including the Sony F65, ARRI Alexa and
Red Epic. It was recently used with the F65 for a 4K ACES
workflow for M. Night Shyamalan’s After Earth.
Also at NAB, FilmLight unveiled FLIP, a real time
image processing tool that would allow a user to design
looks in pre-production and apply and refine them
on the set. The system uses FilmLight’s Baselight GPU
renderer with Truelight Colour Management.
Aimed at workflow advancements, Cinedeck
gave NAB goers a look at its Cinedeck MX, a multichannel
recorder designed to replace tapedecks. The
rack-mountable, solid-state recording, monitoring and
playback system supports variety of codecs, multiple
realtime codec delivery options, and offers realtime up/
down/cross conversion capabilities.