POWERED BY RED
New improved Power Rangers
May 2017
CREATING AUDIO FOR VR
Negotiating the spatial challenge
THE REAL PRO
URSA Mini Pro camera reviewed
KONG: SKULL ISLAND The small camera story
LIGHTING DISNEY
Inside Beauty and the Beast
definitionmagazine.com £4.99
GET READY FOR LIVE VFX
Game engines enter production
Is A Cure for Wellness digital’s best moment? sample cover.indd 1
03/04/2017 10:15
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Bright Publishing Ltd, Bright House, 82 High Street, Sawston, Cambridgeshire CB22 3HJ UK
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AUGMENTED REALITY: Technology pioneered in gaming is now bringing VFX as a live element to filmmaking.
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Welcome
2017 will be remembered as the year that the games world was fully immersed into the film and video world. Game engines are now so efficient that all you need is an off-the-shelf workstation to achieve real-time visual effects. Of course with virtual set technology we can already do that, but now we’re talking about streams of cinematic 6K data being tracked, keyed, composited, and graded in real time. Even ILM used the Unreal games engine to finish off some effects in Rogue One: A Star Wars Story. At the moment the technology is great for real-time feedback for framing purposes and previs confidence, but give it a year or two and your real-time VFX will be your finished pixels. Already the Unreal Engine is driving virtual set products to create lifelike soft shadows, photorealistic reflections and interactions. The technology is also creating new ideas in TV programming, look what the Future Group are doing in Norway with Lost In Time. Add to that real-time sky replacement or car green screen: simple VFX that can be done at the time, live. If post-production studios aren’t already using games engines they soon will be.
JULIAN MITCHELL EDITOR MAY 2017 DEFINITIONMAGAZINE.COM
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NEWS CINEMA
We all want cinema to survive but a mixture of a concentration of teen movies and high production value television has encouraged cinema chains to look elsewhere for their customers WORDS JULIAN MITCHELL arlier this year the actor and director Woody Harrelson organised a full-length feature film that just happened to be live. This was undeniably a bold vision, to perform the entire 100-minute Lost in London story live; broadcasting directly to 500 US and UK cinemas simultaneously. Apart from the excitement of actually shooting it live, part of the idea was to see if the concept held any water, to try and broadcast the excitement of the shoot to cinemas. The end goal of course, was to bring more punters in. A couple of months on and the film has been licensed for iTunes but only in the US. In the UK the idea is to look to independent chains like the Curzon to take the film. It won’t be edited but will be graded and have an uprated sound mix.
ABOVE The Cinepolis chain of cinemas now incorporate a soft play area to encourage families to come and watch films – play stops 15 minutes before films begin. RIGHT The Lost in London team on-set.
FILM IS FILM AND THEATRE IS THEATRE: THIS WAS A MIXTURE OF THE TWO
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CINEMA NEWS
REPEAT PERFORMANCE? The DOP for Lost In London, Nigel Willoughby, may not want to repeat such a feat again, although the excitement on the night was palpable. “I think it was a fantastic idea but I’m not sure I’d ever want to do it again,” he says. “It was incredibly stressful; we had a bomb alert on Waterloo Bridge and only got clearance to carry on 20 minutes before we shot. There was so much minute prep that you don’t think about. “My thinking is that film is film and theatre is theatre: this was a mixture of the two. I personally think it was very successful what we did. There were things I would do differently, like the lighting, but the operating was stupendous.” Nigel Willoughby isn’t sure that this type of production will bring the crowds back to cinemas. “I would rather go back to how we make films, which are crafted,” he explains. “This was crafted but the minute you turn over there’s no going back. The artists thought they were in a play so didn’t treat it like a movie production. I can’t honestly say what the merits of shooting a film in one take would be apart from the excitement of it. “We were originally going to do it with several cameras but the logistics of orchestrating all those cameras not to see each other… that alone put me off and is why I stuck my neck out and suggested we do it in one shot. You would obviously have to edit it on site, which, of course, is done all the time on TV but I didn’t want a
television show, I wanted a feature film which was also a stage play. “Television is the way it’s going,” he continues. “People have 50in screens in their homes, often bigger. I’m not sure shooting in one take will get people going in to cinemas. Television has come much more in to line with cinema practices than the other way around. In television the main difference is that you have to do it much more quickly than you ever did. I’ve been doing some high-end TV shows recently like Penny Dreadful and you get two weeks for an hour and that’s it. When I came in to the business an average feature film took up to ten weeks. I think to perfect your art you do need more time than we get in TV. That said, the quality of high-end productions these days is phenomenal.” Supporting Nigel Willoughby and camera operator John Hembrough, rental company VER provided a flypack, built to handle the synchronised effort of broadcasting to hundreds of theatre locations and recording the master audio and camera. Broadcast RF provided a transmit backpack connected to the film camera, an ARRI ALEXA Mini shooting in 1080/23.98PsF. The live video was transmitted at 100mW, relayed over 54 antennas spread out between the 14 scene locations. All video and audio feeds were input into a Sony MVS-3000 switcher, which was built into a broadcast flypack, integrated and supported by VER engineers.
IMAGES NT Live is another option for attracting new audiences to the cinema.
BELOW The success of shows from streaming giants, such as Netflix’s The Crown, has encouraged Barclays Bank to introduce a £100m fund.
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Sony HDC-1500 cameras provided landscape shots of the London skyline, just in case a catastrophic RF failure occurred. Luckily the backup cameras weren’t needed. LOANS FOR STREAMING We reported on a golden age for television last month and if you wanted any more evidence of a gold rush, watch what the banks are investing in. Barclays has just launched a £100m fund to provide UK TV production companies access to finance which the bank hopes will enhance its ability to compete internationally. The rise in popularity of the streaming giants has encouraged Barclays to look at how it could improve the types of funding provided to better support its TV clients. Conventional TV production loans are repaid as the content is delivered with the broadcaster paying the production company and funder simultaneously. With streaming, revenues are often spread over a much longer term, which can present funding challenges. The new fund will allow these companies to borrow money over a longer period, enabling them to use the funds to develop more ideas and programmes, which in turn supports more sustained employment and helps the companies to grow more quickly. One of the first companies to benefit from the new fund is Roughcut Television, one of the UK’s leading independent comedy production companies, responsible for bringing shows such as Trollied, Cuckoo and People Just do Nothing to our screens. The new funding through Barclays SVoD Financing involved the bank purchasing Roughcut’s Netflix receivable, giving the company the upfront cash benefit of the multi-year contract for the streaming of their BAFTA-nominated comedy Cuckoo. MAY 2017 DEFINITIONMAGAZINE.COM
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COMPETITION
WIN A VIRTUAL REALITY EXPERIENCE MIXED & VIRTUAL REALITY IS ALL ABOUT DATA, AND CREATIVES MUST BE ABLE TO HANDLE AN ENORMOUS AMOUNT EFFICIENTLY AND RELIABLY; THAT’S WHY G-TECHNOLOGY IS OFFERING READERS THE CHANCE TO WIN THEIR OWN VIRTUAL REALITY EXPERIENCE
Capturing and editing footage creates huge storage demands for content producers and creatives, who now have to think in terabytes, rather than gigabytes, even for shorter films, due to the increased quality and demands of mixed and virtual reality. G-Technology has developed a range of storage systems, from small portable drives to
large, multi-bay RAID and NAS, especially for the media and entertainment industry. These are helping power virtual reality studios, as well as videographers and photographers, post-production houses, prosumers, and content creators and curators worldwide. We’re offering one lucky reader the opportunity to take themselves into the
virtual world and transform into a 3D holographic model using DoubleMe’s HoloPortal™. The prize package includes train travel to the location, a full day trying the technology and being guided through the production process, as well as a DoubleMe 3D Holographic VR model and experience.
TO ENTER:
Tweet using #GTechComp to suggest innovative new applications for the HoloPortal by midnight, 10 May 2017
TERMS & CONDITIONS: Entries must be received by midnight, 10 May 2017 and the winner will be notified by Twitter direct message. The winner will be the entry judged to be most innovative by the prize provider. This competition is open to UK residents aged 18 and over only. Employees of Bright Publishing and the prize provider and their immediate families and agents may not enter. The prize must be taken as offered with no alternative. Entries not in accordance with these rules will be disqualified; by entering, competitors will be deemed to have agreed to be bound by these rules. In the event that the prize cannot be supplied, no liability will attach to Bright Publishing. Full t&cs: www.bright-publishing.com/terms/termsconditions.html.
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COMPETITION
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MAY 2017 DEFINITIONMAGAZINE.COM
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SHOOT STORY A CURE FOR WELLNESS
Crashing Symbols A Cure for Wellness is a beautifully made movie that uses all that cinema is good at to play with your mind and assault your senses, gradually leading you on a downwards spiral of graphic horror WORDS JULIAN MITCHELL AND CATHERINE BRODIE PICTURES 20TH CENTURY FOX
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A CURE FOR WELLNESS SHOOT STORY
irector Gore Verbinski was quoted as saying that his film was for a ‘specific’ kind of audience. We think he meant people who like their horror with bucketloads of symbolism and hours of head scratching as to what it all means. We also thought it was for people like us who simply love sumptuous cinematic imagery regardless of genre. If it was up to us all movies would be made with this degree of care for the image. The film is just gorgeous to behold: the framing, the set design, the lighting, the tonal quality – all amazing. Unfortunately, this wasn’t enough for everyone else as it bombed spectacularly at the world’s box offices. But forget that for a second, as we did when we finally tracked down the DOP, Bojan Bazelli, on the set of his new movie Underwater, shooting on the ARRI Alexa 65 6K camera. Bazelli and Verbinksi have been partnered in three movies in the last few years: A Cure For Wellness, The Lone Ranger and The Ring. It is The Ring that is closest to A Cure For Wellness as it too is steeped in cinematic symbolism to aid the creeping horror. In The Ring the circle of the eye is a recurring theme, amongst others. In A Cure For Wellness it’s water, but you can also take your pick from circles, eyes… and don’t forget the eels. Water is all encompassing. What does it mean? Usually death, unfortunately. The film’s symbolic nature encourages the lingering shot; giving Bojan the chance to flex his cinematography muscles.
LEFT Dane de Haan as Lockhart in the
film’s mysterious ‘wellness centre’.
I’M NOT SAYING THAT I WILL NEVER SHOOT FILM AGAIN BUT THE PROJECT HAS TO BE SO RIGHT FOR THE MEDIUM
BELOW On set
images of DOP Bojan Bazelli.
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to achieve his 16:9-ish aspect ratio, chosen to protect the sweeping view of the structures of the castle, for instance, for when it’s later squeezed onto an iPad for modern viewing. We wondered if, with such a promise of high levels of cinematography, Bojan ever considered film for the shoot, given that it’s still regarded as having the highest dynamic range. “I have often asked myself if digital cinematography helped me capture imagery,” he says. “I’m not a promoter of the digital world but I’m a strong believer that it’s a new era in filmmaking. Those movies that are shot on film are probably carefully chosen to be on film. I’m not saying I will never shoot film again but the project has to be so right for the medium.” Technically Bojan doesn’t see much between the two disciplines, but simply it is the way you can see the images as you shoot them that is the deciding factor. “In terms of lighting, tonality and the decisionmaking process I think they are very similar. If I had to shoot this movie on film, I would probably use identical tools except that I wouldn’t be having that luxury of seeing an image before it’s developed. If you’ve spent your life with film you really appreciate this feature of digital shooting.
PRE-PRODUCTION When you have a director who paints each frame with creepy but irresistible eye candy and a production designer whose award-winning touch is in every frame, you can bet the DOP won’t fail to deliver something exquisite. Bojan shot with an ARRI Alexa XT camera in ARRI’s Open Gate mode with Leica Summilux-C, Zeiss Master Prime and Ultra Prime Lenses. Alexa XT cameras can switch from recording normal ARRIRAW to record the entire active image area of 3414x2198 photosites, giving a 1.55:1 Open Gate image with slightly shallower depth-of-field and no surround view. In this way Bojan can pass a ‘thick’ digital negative to his grader Company 3’s Stephen Nakamura. A mouthwatering combination to attain supreme cinematic imagery. Open Gate also gave Bojan a way MAY 2017 DEFINITIONMAGAZINE.COM
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SHOOT STORY KONG: SKULL ISLAND
When Cameras Are Attacked With the general push against too much VFX, some of the practical effects from the new King Kong movie put a few of the cameras in danger WORDS JULIAN MITCHELL PICTURES WARNER BROS
irected by rising star Jordan Charles Vogt-Roberts, Kong: Skull Island is set to be one of summer 2017’s biggest adventure films. Rebooting the legendary King Kong franchise, this movie features an ensemble cast of some of Hollywood’s biggest hitters, including Brie Larson, Tom Hiddleston, Samuel L Jackson, Corey Hawkins, John Goodman and John C Reilly, to name a few. With some recent blockbuster hits struggling to reach the success that their hype should command, the team behind Kong: Skull Island have gone all out to capture some rip-roaring action sequences. As the second unit DOP on the film, Jacques Haitkin and his team were responsible for capturing a variety of shots which required cameras
to be put through their very own treacherous adventure throughout the production. Speaking about the lengths to which action filmmakers are having to go to keep attracting large audiences, Haitkin said, “Action filmmaking is always about pushing the bar higher, for bigger shots, with greater spectacle. And I’m riding that trend, always having to push boundaries. That’s where the Pocket Cinema Cameras come in for me. We can go for any shot we want.”
BELOW Actor John
C Reilly and director Jordan Charles Vogt-Roberts.
of which could only be achieved due to its compact form factor. “Sometimes we can’t risk an expensive camera, or maybe we just need a few extra angles for a ‘frosting shot’. Regardless, the Pocket Cinema Camera is a great tool that I have in my holster ready to go whenever I need it,” Haitkin commented. One specific example of where the
POCKET CAMERA The Pocket Cinema Camera was Haitkin’s go-to body whenever he needed a camera that had to be put in harm’s way, particularly in specialised crash shots, or to capture additional angles from unique perspectives, all
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IT WAS NOT A DIGITAL EFFECT, IT WAS A REAL, PRACTICAL EFFECT IMAGE Part of the second unit’s role was to provide the VFX department with strong enough Raw images to work with using multilayer VFX.
Pocket Cinema Camera helped him nail an important series of shots was a practical effect during which the cameras were mounted inside a helicopter as it lost control and crashed 150ft onto a tree. “We had pyro rigged inside the chopper, so sparks and explosions were going off and branches were crashing as the helicopter fell through the tree.” “The Pocket Cinema Cameras were rolling the whole time; it was not a digital effect, it was a real, practical effect. You can’t get something like that any other way, and we could never have legitimised using a more expensive camera to capture that shot, so these cameras enabled us to get something unique. We knowingly put them where they could get wiped out, and they captured it. It’s a great moment; outstanding,” he continued.
PRACTICAL EFFECTS But it isn’t just about capturing crash shots for the sake of it; Haitkin feels these types of POV sequences add a deeper layer to the narrative, drawing audiences further into the scene. This particular scene had two cameras inside the cockpit capturing POV shots from each of the doomed helicopter pilots. Speaking about the impact that this style of shot can have, Haitkin said: “It has action spectacle value, but it’s also an emotional shot with the POV of the pilots as the helicopter crashes. Often, the most important shots in an action sequence are the close-ups.” “The audience follows each character, and you have the emotional connection of seeing a live human being going through certain situations. It doesn’t even have to be MAY 2017 DEFINITIONMAGAZINE.COM
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GRADING TECHNIQUES MONOCHROME
a single channel to work with, which can cause some issues like being too bright on the skin tones. Because of this, I expected Butterfly Kisses to be a major challenge to say the least.”
Berlinale Winner Butterfly Kisses was shot in monochrome so colourist Pablo Garcia was left to deal with this baked-in look WORDS JULIAN MITCHELL PICTURES BLUE SHADOWS FILMS hen senior colourist Pablo Garcia CSI was first approached with the idea of collaborating on Butterfly Kisses, an indie drama which has now won a Crystal Bear for best film at this year’s Berlinale, he knew immediately that it would be like nothing he had ever graded before. Directed and lensed by talented newcomers Rafael Kapelinski and Nick Cooke and completed on a shoestring budget, Butterfly Kisses was nothing short of controversial. The film explores the story of Jake, a young teenager living on a housing project in London who has a secret he
can’t tell anyone. It was also filmed entirely in monochrome from the start. “Normally, I would expect the production team to shoot in colour, then convert to monochrome in post,” Garcia begins, telling us he used a Resolve Advanced Panel workflow to complete everything from the camera and lens tests in pre-production through to the final grade and HDR delivery. “This makes it easier for me as a colourist because I can split the RGB channels into black and white and mix them, so it’s like having two cameras in one. With a monochrome camera you only have
ABOVE The film Butterfly Kisses won a Crystal Bear at this year’s Berlinale.
RED MONOCHROME Deciding on the RED Monochrome camera paired with vintage Super Speed Zeiss lenses – the same lens choice used on The Shining – Cooke and the rest of the production team aimed to reflect the script’s dark motifs through the film’s aesthetics with a French film noirinspired look. “I expected a whole variety of problems grading the film, but was actually very pleasantly surprised and encouraged when I began seeing the results coming through from the rushes,” Garcia reveals. “The DOP, Nick [Cooke] was only around 24 years old at the time, but the pictures he was creating were gorgeous.” Of course, despite the excellent work coming through from the dailies, grading in monochrome still presented a very steep learning curve, especially when it came to delivering in HDR to push the footage even further.
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MONOCHROME GRADING TECHNIQUES
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IT MIGHT SEEM A LITTLE COUNTERINTUITIVE TO BE THE COLOURIST ON A FILM THAT’S ALL IN BLACK & WHITE
“It might seem a little counterintuitive to be the colourist on a film that’s all in black & white, let alone doing an HDR pass on it,” Garcia quips. “As human beings, we’re not actually used to seeing without colours. I needed to make the monochrome look of the film feel natural, as well as unlearn Rec. 709 for the HDR pass, which was definitely tricky. Still, delivering in monochrome HDR with Resolve really did make a big difference and once I got the hang of it, actually gave me more freedom as a colourist as opposed to less. “With black & white, for instance, I could really focus on the density of the textures in each scene. The
ABOVE Grading in monochrome presented a very steep learning curve for Pablo.
audience wouldn’t be distracted by the clutter of colour, so I could really craft the look by using tools such as Resolve FX, power windows and qualifiers to sculpt out specific elements like rays of light. I also used plug-ins like the OFX emulation from FilmConvert to emulate various types of film stocks, and put focus on adding exactly the right amount of grain to tell Butterfly Kisses’s very challenging story right.” The footage also featured specular highlights that needed to be managed in the grade. One of Garcia’s favourite scenes, which involved several of the characters playing snooker, was the perfect example. “There were quite a few
very interesting specular highlights in this scene due to the bokeh of the Super Speeds – but the lighting could have also distracted the audience from the characters involved. With Resolve, I used several power windows and keys to ensure that the speculars were soft enough not to be distracting without losing the film’s unique look. “Despite my initial reservations, grading in monochrome and delivering it all in HDR was one of the most interesting experiences I’ve had as a colourist,” Garcia concludes. “To any other colourist who wants to do the same – I say go for it! Just be sure to watch as much monochrome as possible first.” MAY 2017 DEFINITIONMAGAZINE.COM
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REVIEW DAVINCI RESOLVE MINI PANEL
DAVINCI RESOLVE MINI PANEL As DaVinci Resolve grading software finds more homes away from the swishest city studios, there’s a need to introduce a new level of interface WORDS ADAM GARSTONE PICTURES ADAM GARSTONE / BLACKMAGIC DESIGN
A MOUSE CAN’T COMPETE WITH A PROPER GRADING CONSOLE’S FINER CONTROL
RIGHT TOP & BOTTOM For fine control, the panels’ rotaries are custom made and the trackballs are optically read.
et’s be honest, it really isn’t possible to grade using a mouse and keyboard. I know some people claim they can, but a mouse can’t compete with a proper grading console’s finer control, the ability to tweak more than one variable at a time, and a detachment from the software user interface, so your concentration can stay on the image. In a large, dedicated grading suite you’ll have a full-sized console, but it’s now more common to find smaller suites, or rooms that switch from edit to grade depending on what’s required. Tangent, JLCooper and Euphonix (now Avid) were the leaders in this market, but Blackmagic has two new, smaller consoles dedicated to DaVinci Resolve. The two panels share the basic grading surface of three trackballs (with rotary surrounds), various rotary knobs (more on the controls later), transport controls and various function buttons. The larger panel adds a couple of nice, five-inch LCDs, with accompanying rotary controls and function buttons. There are also a couple of additional arrays of buttons.
The cheaper unit, the DaVinci Resolve Micro Panel, is available for £966, while the larger DaVinci Resolve Mini Panel is £2886. We had a look at the larger unit. FIRST IMPRESSIONS The Mini Panel is a lovely piece of industrial design – a textured black powder coat for the top panel with brushed aluminium accents and underside. It shares an obvious family identity with the Cinema Cameras. The unit has a pleasing weight to it – it’s not going to shimmy across the desk in use – but it’s still light enough for a DIT to use on location. The trackball rings are held on with four extraordinarily powerful magnets, which can be removed to give access to the trackballs for cleaning and maintenance. The trackballs themselves are read optically, rather than the mechanical system in cheap panels. This gives finer control, greater reliability and prevents the slight slipping that mechanical trackballs can suffer from, particularly as they get dirty. It’s a quality unit.
The smaller panel can be powered via USB, but this larger panel needs mains power or 12V from a standard four-pin XLR (hello again, DITs). As well as the USB-C connector it has in common with the smaller panel, the Mini also adds Ethernet – including support for being powered with this connector (power over Ethernet/PoE). If you stick to USB you just power the unit up, connect to the computer (there’s a USB 3 to USB-C cable included) and select the panel in the Resolve settings page. From that point on, it’s rare that you have to reach for the mouse or keyboard – the Mini Panel handles most grading functions. All the buttons on the unit are lit – the grading function buttons (to the left of the LCDs) illuminate more brightly when selected. The most obvious controls are the three grading trackballs (for Lift/Gamma/ Gain or Lows/Mids/Highs) with their surrounding rotary. These are a slightly smaller version of the controls on the legacy (£21,000!) Resolve Advanced Panel. They provide very fine control – certainly more subtle than on my old Tangent Wave – and
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DAVINCI RESOLVE MINI PANEL REVIEW
feel great to use. Above each trackball are three large reset buttons, to neutralise the grade for that trackball, RGB, level or ‘All’ change. PANEL GAMES Above the centre trackball are three intriguingly useful buttons. The Log and Offset buttons, unsurprisingly, call up the Log and Offset grading methods. Offset grading rearranges the way the trackballs work – the left ring becomes colour temperature, the middle ring colour tint, the right trackball becomes offset balance and its ring becomes master exposure. The third button, Viewer, uses the whole of the computer’s primary screen to display the video clip, basically turning your UI screen into a video monitor – very useful if you don’t have a grading monitor. There’s a row of rotaries above the trackballs – Blackmagic had these custom-made to offer a higher number of positions per rotation, giving extremely fine parameter control. From left to right these are: Y Lift, Y Gamma, Y Gain, Contrast, Pivot, Mid Detail, Color Boost, Shadows,
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Highlights, Saturation, Hue and Lum Mix. All the panel’s rotary controls have a ‘push to reset’ function. It’s worth singling out a few of these controls. Contrast and pivot work together to increase or decrease contrast – the pivot controls where the centre of the contrast expansion and contraction occurs. This works really well with the histograms – if you set a pivot of 0.3, the contrast control is centred on the 30% line of the histogram. Turn up the Mid Detail control and you increase image sharpness in detailed parts of the picture. Turn it down and you soften regions of low detail – great for softening skin tones. Color Boost increases colour saturation in low colour areas of the image, whilst leaving already saturated areas alone. This is sometimes referred to as Vibrance and it is often far more useful than the basic saturation control. Resolve is, of course, a YRGB grading tool. In cases where you have adjusted Y only, the Lum Mix control will allow you to rebalance the luma and chroma. MAY 2017 DEFINITIONMAGAZINE.COM
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LIGHTING BEAUTY AND THE BEAST
When Disney chose to give its classic animation Beauty and the Beast the live action treatment, those enormous animated sets needed a real-world lighting design WORDS JULIAN MITCHELL PICTURES DISNEY
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BEAUTY AND THE BEAST LIGHTING
inematographer Tobias A Schliessler arrived on the Beauty and the Beast production team a little later than the production designer Sarah Greenwood. When he started work Bill Condon, the director, had already spent a fair amount of time with Sarah working on illustrations for how the movie would look. Tobias says, “Those illustrations were really our guideline for the look of the movie. There was a huge presentation in terms of costumes, sets and looks and that was presented to Disney and signed off. My job is to come in and look at that and bring it to the screen. “I was blown away by the illustrations. They were so beautiful that when I saw them I said, ‘I want to make that movie and I want to make it look like that.’ Obviously with a Disney production you can’t go too ‘dark’. If you sign on to a Disney movie you have to live in that world to a certain extent; it is an 18th century French fairy tale and a musical so that brings a certain look automatically to the table. I think we pushed the envelope as far as we could. You have to keep it stylised and cinematic and also for a period piece keep it modern in a sense: with our camera moves for instance.” ABOVE Very high wattage SoftSun lights recreated sunlight flooding in to the castle once Belle started cleaning the windows.
THOSE SETS Beauty and the Beast was a UKmade production on huge sets in Shepperton. Tobias is very complimentary about the skill levels of the crew. “Everything was on sets, we even built the chase scene in the
THE CRAFTSMANSHIP IN THE UK IS SOMETHING I’VE NEVER EXPERIENCED BEFORE; EVERYTHING WAS MADE FROM SCRATCH forest with horse and wagons and wolves chasing,” he says. “That was all an enormous set. It took us close to two months just to rig the lights in that set because it was so enormous. We always had six or seven stages going at the same time. We had one stage that was two combined so we were able to build the castle entrance on there, and the castle ballroom which is almost two storeys high. I’ve never seen bigger sets in my life, and they were all so beautifully designed and crafted. The craftsmanship in the UK is something I’ve never experienced before; everything was made from scratch, nothing came off a shelf or from a props department.” LIGHTING DESIGN How do you start planning your light rigs on such a huge production? “It starts from models that we get from the art department,” says Tobias. “Then I would sit with my chief gaffer with the illustrations and the models with a plan. So we would say, ‘this
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is the kind of look that we want.’ Then you start picking what you need; here’s my ambient, here are the softboxes over the top, here are the key lights. I actually thought about going to incandescent tungsten light that was warmer and would flicker a little more. But during preparation the new LEDs started to come out.” Tobias had always had problems with LEDs, with their colour temperature and certain colour spikes in them that he didn’t like. But the Kino Flos and ARRI Skypanels persuaded him to swap 70% of his lights to LEDs. Everything was controlled from a big dimmer board that ended up being on an iPad in his DIT area. Everything was automated and DMX controlled. “It takes weeks of planning where the lights will go, then it obviously take a long time just to rig the cabling of these sets,” he explains. “In the set where we had the forest I had 700 Kino Flos up in the ceiling and then I had over a million watts of SoftSuns hanging which created either sun or moonlight wherever I wanted it. I had an amazing crew with 70 or 80 people working for me on any given day pre-rigging on different sets. They also built the exterior of the French village; that was built in the backlot with a lot of control. “Usually with these sets they are building to the last possible moment but I like to give myself three or four days so I can come in and do some pre-lighting and get prepared. But this time we were battling with the MAY 2017 DEFINITIONMAGAZINE.COM
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REVIEW BLACKMAGIC URSA MINI PRO
BLACKMAGIC URSA MINI PRO
When we reviewed Blackmagic Design’s URSA Mini, just a few months ago, we loved the body design, the menu system, the image quality and the accessories. There were, however, a few deficiencies we pointed out WORDS ADAM GARSTONE
he URSA Mini is a slightly frustrating camera to use with the (excellent) shoulder mount kit. Changing settings requires access to the flip-out LCD – as everything works through the onscreen menus – so you have to take the camera off your shoulder. There isn’t an ND turret built in. Perhaps not a killer problem, when you can fit some kind of ND to the front of the lens, but you really expect a turret on this class of camera. There is no dust/weather protection for the CFast card slots, and CFast cards themselves don’t come cheap. And finally, Blackmagic’s ‘conservative’ lens flange to focal plane distance (with the Canon EF mount) leads to back focus issues, and the carefully calibrated focus marks on your lens won’t be correct. I like to think that BMD read our review, slapped their hands to their foreheads in shock, and ran out to design a new camera (I have delusions of grandeur), because a few months after the URSA Mini started shipping, BMD announced the URSA Mini Pro.
This new camera appears to address every single one of the issues we had with the plain vanilla Mini. Could that make the Mini Pro the best sub-£10k camera in the world? The Mini Pro is based on the same body design as the Mini – which is no bad thing. The body itself is still extremely light and beautifully engineered, it has the same I/O connections as the Mini, the same battery options, and the same lens mount options – with a twist. The new URSA Mini Pro has user interchangeable lens mounts. That means you can buy a camera with Canon’s EF mount, then swap to a PL mount, or B4 or (in the near future) a Nikon F mount – the job takes under 20 minutes and the mounts are inexpensive. There is a shim kit available too, so you can shim out any of the mounts to correct those back focus issues, ticking off the first of our Mini-gripes. The lens control connector for broadcast lenses has been added to the Mini Pro, which means that the new breed of Canon EF mount broadcast lenses will fit too.
BELOW The URSA
Mini Pro moves the camera up to potential ‘Classic’ status.
Behind the lens mount there is a traditional ND filter turret, with 2, 4 and 6 stop NDs, knocking down the second of our gripes. Sure, it would be fantastic to have the continuously variable ND that some Sony cameras now have, but that’s just being picky. The colour match of the NDs is excellent, and the turret wheel is where you’d expect to find it when you need it in a hurry. Full marks. The left side of the camera is where most of the dramatic changes
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BLACKMAGIC URSA MINI PRO REVIEW
from the URSA Mini have taken place. The Mini’s five-inch LCD has shrunk to four inches to make way for a host of external controls. The LCD itself is a similar touchscreen device to that on the Mini. If anything, the excellent Blackmagic user interface on this LCD looks better than on the larger screen, though its smaller size means you have to be a bit more careful to hit the right on-screen button if you are poking at it with fat fingers. The lack of dust protection for the CFast card slots was a worry on the Mini. The new camera features a rubber seal about the panel underneath the LCD, affording some protection when the LCD is closed. The two CFast card slots have also been augmented with a pair of SD UHS-II slots. A simple toggle switch selects whether you are recording to your expensive CFast cards – for Raw or high frame rate recording – or to the SD cards, which are fine for ProRes. Similarly to CFast, the SD cards support hot swapping. Blackmagic has provided the best of both worlds here – I guess you
could argue that it would be nice to be able to record Raw to CFast, and simultaneously ProRes to SD (which you can’t!) – but Blackmagic has basically addressed the complaint that CFast cards are expensive. If you don’t need the speed, just use SD. The card slots are backwards compatible with SDXC (and earlier generation) cards, so if you just want to record HD ProRes 422, a typical £22, 64GB card will give you 67 minutes of record time at 25 frames-per-second. One thing you notice on the audio select switches beneath the LCD is that the URSA Mini Pro accepts AES digital audio on the input XLRs. This is a fantastic addition – previously only available on much more expensive cameras. The analogue audio on the URSA Mini is good, but being able to record sound to the camera, using the A-D converters of your choice, is a massive bonus. Another apparent ‘under-thehood’ change is the addition of an ultra-stable timecode clock. Cheap cameras often overlook this – the necessary temperature controlled
BEHIND THE LENS MOUNT THERE IS A TRADITIONAL ND FILTER TURRET
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crystal oscillator is an expensive item – requiring frequent jamming to the timecode reference. The stable clock in the Mini Pro will drift less than one frame in 19 hours. It’s with the LCD closed, and the camera rigged for shoulder mount, that the rest of Blackmagic’s changes really show their worth. The real estate on the left-hand side of the body freed up by the smaller LCD has been put to good use with a lot – a LOT – more user controls. At the front of the camera, there is a thumbwheel that can be selected to control iris, or the monitor or headphone volume levels. With an electronically controlled EF mount lens on the old Mini, manual control of iris was a pain: another item ticked off our list of gripes. This panel also boasts a dial with push-to-select and a ‘Back’ button. These work with the eye-level viewfinder to give the same on-screen menu control as you get with the touchscreen LCD. This means that you need to set the camera to feed onscreen status text to the viewfinder, MAY 2017 DEFINITIONMAGAZINE.COM
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4K CAMERA LISTINGS
IN ASSOCIATION WITH
DEFINITION’S 4K CAMERA LISTING As the professional video world moves towards 4K production and UHD broadcast we have the camera reference listing you need
The original URSA Mini is a fantastic camera, but the Mini Pro is Blackmagic’s first, real, professional camera that is true, no compromise competition for the Sonys, Panasonics and Canons that are the staple tools of the owner-operator cameraperson. Ignore it at your peril. SPECIFICATION
BLACKMAGIC DESIGN URSA MINI PRO 60FPS in 4.6K
15 STOPS
EF MOUNT
PL MOUNT
DIFFERENT MOUNTS: EF
B4 MOUNT
The control connector for broadcast lenses has been added, meaning that the new Canon EF mount broadcast lenses will fit too.
4608x2592
SENSOR – FORMAT AND SIZE
25.34x14.25mm (Super35)
FRAME RATES
23.98, 24, 25, 29.97, 30, 50, 59.94 and 60 fps supported. Off-speed frame rates up to 60p in 4.6K, 120p in 2K windowed
LATITUDE (STOPS)
15
LENS MOUNT
EF (Interchangeable with PL and B4 mount)
DIGITAL SAMPLING
4608x2592, 4608x1920 (4.6K 2.40:1), 4096x2304 (4K 16:9), 4096x2160 (4K DCI), 3840x2160 (Ultra HD), 3072x2560 (3K Anamorphic), 2048x1152 (2K 16:9), 2048x1080 (2K DCI), 1920x1080
CFAST
PL
Interchangeable lens mounts let you buy a camera with Canon’s EF mount and then swap to a PL mount, or B4, or soon a Nikon F mount.
B4
The mounts are very inexpensive. With the shim kit you can shim out any of the mounts to correct those back focus issues.
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4K CAMERA LISTINGS
IN ASSOCIATION WITH
BLACKMAGIC DESIGN URSA MINI 60FPS
15 STOPS
PL/EF MOUNT 4608x2592
BLACKMAGIC DESIGN MICRO STUDIO
CFAST
60FPS
A lightweight miniaturised version of URSA but with the new 4.6K Super 35mm image sensor as an option. URSA Mini shoots up to 60 frames-per-second, has a bright fiveinch fold-out viewfinder, dual Raw and ProRes recorders.
SPECIFICATION
11 STOPS
MFT MOUNT
3840x2160
The Blackmagic Micro Studio Camera 4K is a tiny Ultra HD resolution camera that can be used in HD and Ultra HD video formats. Blackmagic Micro Studio Camera 4K includes 6G-SDI connections, built-in colour corrector, talkback, tally indicator and PTZ control.
SPECIFICATION
SENSOR – FORMAT AND SIZE
25.34x14.25mm – 4.6K, 22x11.88mm – 4K
SENSOR – FORMAT AND SIZE
Single CMOS, 13.056mmx7.344mm
FRAME RATES
23.98, 24, 25, 29.97, 30, 50, 59.94 and 60fps supported
FRAME RATES
HD 1080p23.98, 24, 25, 29.97, 30, 50, 59.94, 60 Ultra HD 2160p23.98, 24, 25, 29.97, 30
LATITUDE (STOPS)
15
LATITUDE (STOPS)
11
LENS MOUNT
PL/EF
LENS MOUNT
Active Micro Four Thirds (B4 lens control output)
DIGITAL SAMPLING
Lossless CinemaDNG RAW, 3:1 and 4:1
DIGITAL SAMPLING
3840x2160, 1920x1080
RECORDED BIT DEPTH FORMAT
CinemaDNG RAW 3:1 – 180MB/s CinemaDNG RAW 4:1 – 135MB/s
RECORDED BIT DEPTH FORMAT
Built-in colour corrector, talkback, tally indicator, PTZ control output, built-in microphones, backup battery
WEIGHT (KG)
2.3
WEIGHT (KG)
2
BLACKMAGIC DESIGN CINEMA 4K 30FPS
12 STOPS
PL MOUNT
4000x2160
CFAST/SSD
Ultra-compact 4K digital film camera with Super 35mmsized sensor and global shutter, PL lens mount, 12 stops of dynamic range, Raw and ProRes SSD recorder.
SPECIFICATION
60FPS
11 STOPS
MFT MOUNT
3840x2160
Another live UHD broadcast camera but with a ten-inch viewfinder, Micro Four Thirds lens mount and four-hour battery pack. Switchable between HD and UHD.
SPECIFICATION
SENSOR – FORMAT AND SIZE
Single CMOS Super 35mm, 22x11.88mm
FRAME RATES
4K Raw at 4000x2160p 23.98, 24, 25, 29.97, 30 Ultra HD 2160p23.98, 24, 25, 29.97, 30
DIGITAL SAMPLING
BLACKMAGIC DESIGN STUDIO 4K
CinemaDNG RAW – 265MB/s 3840x2160
BLACKMAGIC DESIGN URSA 60FPS
15 STOPS
PL/EF MOUNT
4608x2592
CFAST
Now with the new sensor option that it desperately needed. This is a big camera with an even bigger monitor. Our advice is to upgrade to the new 4.6K sensor.
SPECIFICATION
SENSOR – FORMAT AND SIZE
Single CMOS, 12.48x7.02mm
FRAME RATES
Ultra HD 2160p23.98, 24, 25, 29.97, 30
DIGITAL SAMPLING
No on-board recording SDI video output. HD/UHD switch 1x 6G-SDI 10-bit 4:2:2 via DIN 1.0/2.3 connector
SENSOR – FORMAT AND SIZE
25.34x14.25mm – 4.6K 22x11.88mm – 4K
FRAME RATES
23.98, 24, 25, 29.97, 30, 50, 59.94 and 60fps supported
DIGITAL SAMPLING
CinemaDNG RAW 3:1 – 180MB/s CinemaDNG RAW 4:1 – 135MB/s
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