Definition August 2019 - sampler by Bright Publishing

SPORTS CAPTURE SPECIAL

NEW SHOTS, NEW GEAR, ALL THE ACTION P38

August 2019

£4.99

WIN

a Canon EOS C200, worth over £6490! SEE PAGE 36

NEW GEN

CHANGE UP

We review Blackmagic Design’s Ursa Mini Pro G2

MIB GETS REFRESHED

ALSO KIT REVIEWS | WHY THEY WON – WINNER STORIES | NEW OLD LENSES INSIDE UNFILMABLE? NEW CATCH-22 | WILD BILL | LEGEND STATUS: ARRI ALEXA

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W E LC O M E

BRIGHT PUBLISHING LTD, BRIGHT HOUSE, 82 HIGH STREET, SAWSTON, CAMBRIDGESHIRE CB22 3HJ UK EDITORIAL Editor Julian Mitchell 01223 492246 julianmitchell@bright-publishing.com Staff writer Chelsea Fearnley Contributors Ash Connaughton, Adam Duckworth Chief sub editor Beth Fletcher Senior sub editor Siobhan Godwood Sub editor Felicity Evans Junior sub editor Elisha Young ADVERTISING Sales director Matt Snow 01223 499453 mattsnow@bright-publishing.com Sales manager Krishan Parmar 01223 499462 krishanparmar@bright-publishing.com Key accounts Nicki Mills 01223 499457 nickimills@bright-publishing.com DESIGN Design director Andy Jennings Designers Bruce Richardson & Lucy Woolcomb Ad production Man-Wai Wong PUBLISHING Managing directors Andy Brogden & Matt Pluck SOCIAL MEDIA Facebook @definitionmagazine Twitter @definitionmags Instagram @definitionmags

The new Blackmagic Design Ursa Mini Pro G2 camera with more off-speed options

WELCOME

t’s mid-summer and time to look back at some of the winners from our Tech Innovation Awards 2019. You saw the nominations, the shortlist, the winner announcements, the presentations etc, but we thought you might want to know why the winners, well, won. This issue, we dig a little deeper into Red’s Gemini S35 sensor, which won in our Capture category, Panavision’s Light Iron Color 2, which came top in the Colour Science category, and the innovative Arri Rental’s DNA lens programme, which scooped the Optics award. We also interrupted DOP Stuart Dryburgh while he was enjoying a film festival in north Portugal to ask him how he shot Men in Black: International – it’s all about the night shoots in London and the medina market shoots in Morocco. By contrast we caught up with an American policeman in an ITV drama, Wild Bill, an episodic shot, it turns out, in wild Lincolnshire with the Sony Venice camera. We also have the latest sports capture news and reviews from Blackmagic Design with the latest iteration of its Ursa Mini Pro, called simply G2 – as in generation 2. Enjoy!

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JULIAN MITCHELL EDITOR

Definition is published monthly by Bright Publishing Ltd, Bright House, 82 High Street, Sawston, Cambridge CB22 3HJ. No part of this magazine can be used without prior written permission of Bright Publishing Ltd. Definition is a registered trademark of Bright Publishing Ltd. The advertisements published in Definition that have been written, designed or produced by employees of Bright Publishing Ltd remain the copyright of Bright Publishing Ltd and may not be reproduced without the written consent of the publisher. The content of this publication does not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher. Prices quoted in sterling, euros and US dollars are street prices, without tax, where available or converted using the exchange rate on the day the magazine went to press.

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CHANGING OF THE GUARD The Men in Black franchise had to change to keep it fresh. But how to do it without disenfranchising the fans? W O R D S J U L I A N M I TC H E L L / P I C T U R E S S O N Y P I C T U R E S

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That big chip on the Alexa 65 pulls in a lot of detail, so things don’t get muddy

en in Black is now a 20-year-old franchise, which means that, for Men in Black: International, things had to evolve… but also stay the same. So, bring in some new characters – this time a couple of exAvengers: Valkyrie (Tessa Thompson) and Thor (Chris Hemsworth). Take the whole show to London and Morocco – hence the ‘international’ title extension – and bring in a new director and director of photography: F Gary Gray and Stuart Dryburgh. Check out Dryburgh’s IMDb entry and his experience speaks for itself, with films like The Piano, Bridget Jones’s Diary, The Portrait of a Lady and, more recently, The Great Wall, directed by Yimou Zhang and the first full feature to be made with the Arri Alexa 65 camera. Dryburgh’s experience and his knowledge of the Alexa 65 held him in good stead for MIB, as he explains: “The camera has three Alexa sensors, so is truly a high-definition camera with very little aliasing and no compression. Optically, it performs like a medium format camera, so a really wide lens would be, say, a 28mm, a 24 would be an extremely wide lens and a standard lens would be around 80 or 100mm. It has a short depth-of-field like anamorphic, but it’s not anamorphic: it’s spherical. It’s a lovely camera.”

THE GREAT WALL LINK The Great Wall and MIB: International had the same line producer, who recommended Dryburgh when the original cinematographer didn’t work out. When The Great Wall came out, it’s fair to say the

reviews were mixed, but it is a gloriouslooking film thanks to Yimou Zhang, who also directed Hero and House of Flying Daggers. Dryburgh hinted at the care the director showed with The Great Wall: “It was a beautiful movie and Yimou Zhang was so careful with his choice of colours with costume designer Mayes C Rubeo, especially for the uniforms of the different types of soldier. He was terrified of people thinking they were Power Rangers. “Yimou Zhang is famous for working with colour, but normally only one colour at a time. If you look at Hero, shot by Christopher Doyle, there are different colour themes throughout the film, but in The Great Wall, Zhang wanted the different parts of the army identifiable by their uniform colour,” Dryburgh explains. “We helped by adding an overall colour wash to the lighting, which desaturates the colours a bit. Also, that big chip on the Alexa 65 pulls in a lot of detail so things don’t get muddy. All the separations are there without the usual aliasing advancements of a digital signal.” Using such a new type of camera for a feature had its own problems, not least the choice of lenses to cover such a large sensor. Arri did have lenses for the camera – the 65 Primes – but a set of 765s were also available, which were lenses from Arri’s 70mm cameras from the eighties. “They were compatible with the Prime 65 lenses. We only had those lenses, but they were very good and we had a wide selection of focal lengths,” says Dryburgh. The other big question Dryburgh had to deal with was how to archive such a

ABOVE Dryburgh chose the Alexa XT with a Sigma 300-800mm stills lens as part of the Morocco shoot

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It was fun shooting night exteriors on a street in London, but challenging as we shot in summer, so had short nights stuff like that. There’s other tools of the trade now like pre-vis, it’s fantastic in prep where you’re essentially doing an animated version of your action scenes.” He continues: “There are also various forms of sketch-up projection, which allows you to see your actors in a virtual wireframed set with the ability to still move the camera and have the actors move. It’s definitely getting there, all that technology, and will only get better. It takes the guesswork out of things – I used to have to take acetates and put them over the monitor and then draw the set in.”

CHALLENGING SCENES One of the aims of the reboot was to expand out of the old environments from MIB 1, 2 and 3, which are largely set in New York City. Dryburgh particularly enjoyed the night scenes in London , as well as the shoot that took the whole production over to Morocco. “It was a lot of fun shooting night exteriors on a street in London,” he recalls, IMAGES To shoot at night, Dryburgh had to wait for the sky to become a very dark blue

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WHAT IS STABILEYE? DAVE FREETH

“but particularly challenging as we shot in summer, which meant we had short nights – and only a limited number of nights – so we had to do loads of work. But I always enjoy shooting in the real world.” For the London night shoots, Dryburgh had to wait for the sky to become a very dark blue before he could start shooting. To prepare, he visited the street at night well in advance and took some digital stills, approximating the camera EI and speed. “Also seeing what the natural light had to offer, because it’s quite a well-lit street. Then we looked at what we wanted to keep and take away, and there were some street lights that were right overhead of where we were shooting we didn’t really want,” he explains. To work around the unwanted streetlamps, the team utilised some big lights and some smoke, then hid more lights up in alleys and shopfronts, trying to keep the lighting as natural as possible. Dryburgh

says: “But we definitely added to the natural lighting that was there. This was very much a classic night shoot, but one that follows the style of the film. There’s not a lot of fancy camera moves, but a lot of classic square-on framing. We looked at the early movies and some Cohen Brothers movies for that as well as reference.” As for Marrakech, it was “terrific”, but not without challenges. One of the scenes for MIB: International takes place in the Medina, but it was impossible to get a truck within a mile of where the team was shooting. “We used carts and motorcycles to move everything,” recalls Dryburgh. “For Marrakech, we mostly shot in the Medina in old market streets. Getting gear in every morning was a hike. There was virtually no set dressing involved, because the bare bones of the place was so great.” Although, he admits, “we did have to cram a bit of light in some of the darker

“In the few years that Stabileye has been a part of the film industry, it has been used to good effect with ever more demanding scenarios. Through the creative ideas of the end users, it has seen more and more involvement with long takes that evolve. For instance from a crane shot to a walking shot, or starting inside a room and being passed through a window and onto a wire rig, only to be handed off to a tracking vehicle for a fast finale. “Right now we’re involved in a number of fantastic productions. We are being put through our paces on some complicated sequences in the trenches. Another project has seen us filming a horse race over a few days,” says Stabileye co-director, David Freeth. “The camera operators and first ACs were set up in a chase vehicle, while Stabileye was in the hands of the grips, who were tracking long lenses among the horses on a mule-tracking vehicle. Eventually, Stabileye was placed in the hands of the jockeys and we did some close shots at full gallop. The quality of stabilisation was perfect and the footage was stunning. “Stabileye isn’t a ‘gimbal’ in the typical sense; it’s a miniature stabilised head. It has a set of hand wheels and relies on an operator to operate them, but from time to time we are asked if control could be given to a person carrying the head. This is something Stuart asked for and it gave him the dynamic response he needed for his shot.”

ABOVE Stabileye in use for Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2

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D R A M A | C ATC H -22

CURSE BROKEN? The novel Catch-22 has long been thought to be cursed when adapting for screen, but the latest version might just be the one to break it W O R D S J U L I A N M I TC H E L L / P I C T U R E S H U LU

or the Hulu six-episode miniseries Catch-22 – available on Channel 4 in the UK, directed by Grant Heslov, Ellen Kuras and George Clooney – cinematographer Martin Ruhe relied on two sets of two Arri Alexa Mini cameras, matched with the legendary Cooke Optics S4/i prime lenses to capture this latest version. Based on the acclaimed Joseph Heller novel, Catch-22 is set during the second world war and revolves around a military by-law, which states that if you fly your missions, you’re crazy, and all you have to do is ask not to fly them. But if you ask not to, then you’re sane, and so you have to fly them. The book’s title coined the term that has entered the common lexicon since Heller’s book was first published in 1961. One thing that was made clear was that it would be its own production, and not based on the 1970 film. “We all looked at the original film, and the two projects have a different nature,” says Ruhe. “Ours is a dark comedy with a strong look for a strong visual story, as compared to the original, which was more of a straight comedy. The aerial scenes had to show the intense horror of being up in those small tin boxes. It had to be about life and death.”

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RIGHT DOP Martin Ruhe getting a perspective action shot on Catch-22 set

BELOW George Clooney directed two episodes

C ATC H 22 | D R A M A

While I used all of the lenses, the 32mm was my all-time favourite for close-ups inside the planes ABSURDITY AS A THEME Ruhe’s goal was to contrast the horror of the aerial scenes and the absurdity of the ground scenes. To do that, he made use of two identical sets of Cooke S4/i prime lenses – 14mm, 18mm, 21mm, 25mm, 32mm, 40mm, 50mm, 65mm, 75mm, 100mm and 135mm focal lengths – shooting with the Arri Alexa Mini’s Super 35mm (2.8K) sensor in Arri Raw 16:9, which would later be finished in 4K HDR. “We had two sets of camera/lens combinations as we were cross shooting as well as having some days with splinter [second] unit shooting,” explains Ruhe. “While I used all of the lenses, the 32mm was my all-time favourite for close-ups inside the planes. Although, to be honest, I did have to move to the 50mm at times due to the limited space within those planes.” In fact, one of the main benefits of using Cooke S4/i primes for Ruhe was their size. “I had to be very fast and versatile in tight places. I didn’t want to get stuck fighting minimal focus, and thanks to the S4/is, I didn’t,” he adds.

Number of uncredited pilots from the ‘70s version

Number of available tracks to mix the original soundtrack

ABOVE Martin Ruhe with director/star of Catch-22, George Clooney

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UP IN THE AIR

How the Samsung Portable SSD X5 enabled professional drone pilot and drone camera operator, Lec Park, to transfer rushes as quickly as possible for an important job in Vietnam

IN THE PROFESSIONAL VIDEO WORLD, time is money. But let’s break that down. Many people use Samsung’s range of portable SSD drives, and there has always been a time advantage with these great drives. But maybe Lec Park’s experience is more extreme than most. Park is a pro drone pilot and camera operator who has just finished filming a TV series where footage was so highly valued, drones were sacrificed just to get the footage back safely. The series was based in Vietnam and featured almost continual airborne filming from many different types of boats – from canoes to larger rib boats. Park explains: “The conditions in Vietnam are a great test for equipment. It’s very hot, humid and sticky with huge storms around as well. If you blink, the weather

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changes. We’ve been on water the entire time we’ve been here. Flying the drone over water is always risky, and there was a need to have a drone available pretty much all the time. How we arranged it and what made the Samsung Portable SSD X5 so great was, when a craft landed, we had to get the footage off the cards as soon as possible. The portable drive was so quick at this.” Its Thunderbolt 3 interface is what makes the portable drive so fast. It works with Thunderbolt systems only, but is 25 times faster than a traditional hard drive. “We were using the Samsung Portable SSD X5 as a shuttle device and transferring, say, 100GB of Raw recording in seconds. I’ve not seen anything so fast before,” he adds. Park was busy flying the drone, while DIT Joe Jamieson transferred the footage.

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“Even on the simplest jobs we would take advantage of the immense speed of this Samsung portable drive” “The portable drive was not as susceptible to heat and humidity as a spinning disc. It’s an impressive piece of kit,” Park says.

AIRBORNE AGAIN

Moving boats and launching drones are not very compatible, so Park handheld takeoff and landing on the river. “We’ve been on every type of boat, but always travelling. It was mostly rough water and very risky. The kit isn’t as important as the footage in this scenario. Sometimes, it was 50/50 whether we’d get the craft back,” recalls Park. “You’re moving along the water at 60km/h and the situation is crazy; having such a fast way to get footage backed up in such a situation is priceless. Squalls would blow in so quickly. You’d see them coming, but they’d be on you quickly and you’re still flying a drone! I just didn’t want to have to ditch a drone, because we were getting such good material. I was thinking at one point of smashing the drone into the ground so we could save the footage,” he admits. The Samsung Portable SSD X5 allowed Park to

IMAGES When on location, Lec Park and his team relied on the speed of the Samsung Portable SSD X5 to back up footage in fast-paced situations

concentrate on swapping out batteries and cards to get the drone airborne again. This was a quick process, and by the time he had done it, the portable drive had transferred 100GB to the production laptop. “Ironically, because our backup was so quick, it was the older types of storage we had to wait for. It was great for us to have something so advanced, quick and ready faster than normal,” Park enthuses.

SAFE STORAGE

Park also mentioned the Samsung Portable SSD X5 was great to use, because of its form factor and self-powering. “It could be put in a pocket or passed on to someone else without worrying about damaging it.” This is because the Samsung portable drive features a shock-resistant internal frame and rugged metal housing that can withstand drops of up to two metres. It’s also compact, making it an ideal portable storage for content creators on the go. “We were hand-catching the drones 90% of the time and still travelling at maybe 35km/h. Once the craft was safe, it was a matter of getting it under cover, pulling the media out of the aircraft and passing that to Joe, who was the DIT in the boat,” explains Park. “Joe was backing up the precious footage via the Samsung Portable SSD X5 as quickly as he could. I think he put the whole day on the 1TB portable drive. The fast drive allowed us to focus on slower cameras as ours was done so quickly,” he says. Away from the excitement of this type of job, Park is amazed at how fast this drive worked. “Even on the simplest jobs we would take advantage of the immense speed of this Samsung portable drive. At the end of shooting, editorial might want copies of different cards with certain footage on them. That might take around 45 minutes to transfer using slow, spinning disk drives. “I would happily give a Samsung Portable SSD X5 to them or another department and let them copy the footage themselves. You’re making your own life easier and they are getting a faster than normal transfer,” Park points out.

MORE INFORMATION:

samsung.com/uk/portable-ssd

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DRAMA | WILD BILL

I N A S S O C I AT I O N W I T H

Our DIT shot the Venice up at 6K, a higher resolution than we needed, but it was great to take advantage of the whole sensor

IMAGES Shooting at Christmas coincided with the largest snowfall of the year, but a Games of Thrones gaffer came to the rescue

Venice. “Our DIT, Peter Marsden, shot the Sony Venice up at 6K, which was a higher resolution than we needed, but it was great to take advantage of the whole sensor – and actually, the decision to shoot on the Venice at 6K with the Supreme lenses created a large format filmic image which, for me, was the biggest photographic decision that left an imprint on the series. “I hadn’t worked with the Sony Venice before using it to shoot Wild Bill,” continues Irvine. “So I went into filming slightly blind,” he says. Fortunately, he ended up loving the camera. “It’s ergonomic and it’s got a great interface that I found really user-friendly. It also has a native ISO, and this gave me the

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ability to rate it at 2500 ISO and shoot day exteriors as the light was about to go.”

LET IT SNOW Running out of light was always going to be an issue as shooting took place at either side of Christmas. Snowfall, however, well, that’s just bad luck. There is a day scene in episode four, where Lowe’s character is having a confrontation with another character in a barn. You wouldn’t know it when you see it, but shooting that scene occurred after sunset and coincided with the largest snowfall of this year. “The gaffer on board was Tom Gates, he had just come off of Game of Thrones and he’s a true artist, he’s got a great eye,” says

Irvine. “I knew we were going to have to create daylight beyond the day, but I didn’t expect the snowfall. We rigged up a SkyLite daylight balloon and dropped it into the barn set, this gave me the ability to extend the day, but we had to do a bit of work in VFX to clean up the snow. It created quite an extraordinary look though.” Irvine tries to be quite brave with making the decision to shoot using natural light: “You have to work out how you’re going to use it. For instance, there is a scene where Lowe and his colleagues find an abandoned car in the middle of a rural road. It was a classic tracking shot of five cops walking in a row as they approached the car, but they were all clad in black

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EVERY ANGLE COVERED

This is your chance to win a superb Canon EOS C200, worth more than £6490! Whether you’re an experienced cinematographer, or looking to make the jump into professional filmmaking, the Canon EOS cinema system has got you covered – find out more and how to enter this incredible competition here

Go behind the camera and discover how award-winning film and TV cinematographers get the best from their gear with the Every Angle Covered campaign by Canon 36

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C A N O N | A DV E R T I S E M E N T F E AT U R E

WELCOME TO THE CANON EOS CINEMA SYSTEM, where every angle of filmmaking is covered. Canon’s EOS cinema cameras offer everything you need for professional filmmaking, whether it’s full-scale movie production, broadcast TV, events or documentaries. And its EOS cinema bodies are backed up by a superb range of dedicated movie lenses. Make no mistake, these are the tools that will turn your ideas into reality. In this special guide to the Canon EOS cinema system, we’ll show you the cameras and lenses that will revolutionise the way you work, and find out how the world’s best cinematographers are using Canon cameras

and lenses to deliver their best-ever movies and TV shows. But first, let’s discover how we got here. Building on the dominance of its professional EOS stills cameras, in 2011 Canon launched its first cinema camera, the EOS C300. Quickly embraced by professional filmmakers from all disciplines, the line has expanded to four professional models, used in TV and film production worldwide. From the groundbreaking 5.9K full-frame C700 FF, built to deliver the ultimate quality demanded by the industry’s best cinematographers, to the C100 Mark II, which is quick, light and the camera of choice for run-and-gun documentary makers, the system has it all. Industry professionals know the value of good kit, and we’ll bring you some of their stories in our Canon ‘Every Angle Covered’ campaign. Head to canoneveryanglecovered. co.uk and you’ll find regularly updated interviews with Canon professional cinematographers, detailing how they get the best from their gear, and what this does to turn their creative ideas into awardwinning film and TV content.

ABOVE Since its launch in 2011, the Canon EOS cinema camera range has become widely used in TV and film production around the world

But that’s not all, Canon is also offering you the chance to experience the EOS cinema system by winning your very own camera – an EOS C200, worth £6499.99rsp. To enter and for full terms and conditions, visit canoneveryanglecovered.co.uk

MORE INFORMATION:

Visit canon.co.uk/pro

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SPECIAL | SPORTS CAPTURE

GOING FOR THE WIN THE TECH SIDE OF SPORTS BROADCAST IS CONSTANTLY EVOLVING

WITH NEW WAYS TO ENGAGE FANS AND DIFFERENT MOVEMENT OPTIONS FOR BROADCAST W O R D S J U L I A N M I TC H E L L & C H E L S E A F E A R N L E Y

FAN ENGAGEMENT

New technology for capturing sport, as well as for fan engagement, is a growing area. For instance, BriziCam has a fan engagement system that positionally

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or decades, the business of sport has relied on four main revenue streams: broadcast, sponsorship, ticketing and merch, and there is a reason for that. Sport has something that’s very rare – endless live content. Like religion, sport is passed down from generation to generation, and in many families it is often considered a sacrilege to support a team that rivals the one from your hometown. But now sport is everywhere. Families from all over the world can be devoted to a team that is a thousand miles away. Last year, a combined 3.572 billion viewers – more than half of the world’s population aged four and over – tuned in to watch the official broadcast coverage of the Fifa World Cup in Russia. Global distribution of sport content has peaked, and a new age in the field is approaching. “Technology is coming into this space for the first time and it’s changing not only the way athletes perform, but the way we consume and produce sports,” explains Angela Ruggiero, 1998 Olympic Ice Hockey Gold medallist and CEO and co-founder of Sports Innovation Lab. There is a new type of fan emerging. Ruggiero calls it the ‘fluid fan’, someone who is open to change, empowered to choose and continuously evolving – that’s Sports Innovation Lab’s three-legged stool. The challenge is, if the fluid fan is continuously evolving, they might not be around tomorrow. “You have to constantly refresh your content and engage by investing in new technology,” explains Ruggiero. “They may never have watched cable or subscribed to pay TV. They’re fans that consume sports via digital or social platforms.”

Fans directly control venue cameras to capture creative photos or looping videos of them and their friends, on demand maps a stadium and then presents fans with shots of them in their seats. DSLRs with Canon zooms take videos of selected seats for 30 seconds. Fans control remote cameras with their phone’s web browser to share branded group photos and looping videos. BriziCam’s marketing speaks of ‘putting the feeling of getting on the big screen in the palm of your hand’. Fans directly control venue cameras to capture creative photos or looping videos of them and their friends, on demand. Sports teams are going to great lengths to enrich the fan experience, bringing more thrills, deeper insights and fuller stats. The LA Clippers’ CourtVision augmented game-watching platform reimagines the way basketball fans experience the sport. CourtVision lets fans toggle across multiple modes with

ABOVE NBA’s LA Clippers’ CourtVision is an augmented reality game-watching platform BELOW Formula One has always been at the forefront of broadcast capture technology

SPORTS CAPTURE | SPECIAL

ABOVE Motion Impossible’s Agito remote camera vehicle became a firm favourite at the ICC Cricket World Cup

real-time data and augmented reality features. This past season’s release includes Coach mode, which diagrams plays as they happen, Player mode, where shooting percentages are updated in real time, hover over each player, and Mascot mode, which incorporates fan-friendly animations and digital effects. Other features enable fans to choose from multiple camera angles across the arena, select audio, including unfiltered in-arena sound, and watch live games and recaps on mobile or desktop. CourtVision is seen as a step forward in how we watch sports, with fans having

easy, customisable access to a whole set of interactive data. “Ultimately, we believe this technology will drive a revolution in the broadcast experience that translates machine learning and augmented reality to all sports, so fans can watch their game, their way,” says Clippers chief global partnerships officer, Scott Sonnenberg.

REMOTE HEADS Aerial Camera Systems (ACS) is at the forefront of remote camera systems worldwide and manages its remote systems in the air as much as on the ground. In fact, its aerial systems were used for the Fifa Women’s World Cup in France. The company has enjoyed a summer of sport, including Wimbledon, and is now preparing for next year’s Summer Olympics in Japan and the Uefa Euro 2020 football; both will feature UHD HDR standard broadcasting across all venues. For all broadcasting equipment companies, gearing up also means the journey from HD to UHD, along with HDR, which is increasingly a prerequisite for broadcast, as well as drama.

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F E AT U R E | M A K I N G O F A L E G E N D

ARRI ALEXA THIS TIME ON MAKING OF A LEGEND WE LOOK BACK AT THE DADDY OF THEM ALL; NOT THE FIRST DIGITAL CINEMATOGRAPHY CAMERA, BUT THE ONE THEY ALL LOOK UP TO

etting on for 15 years ago, as the digital cinematography world approached, Arri film cameramen and women hung on for their digital product. The rental-only cameras D20 and D21 came along which turned out to be just teasers to the main event: the Arri Alexa with the Alev III sensor on-board. This Alexa sensor is the great survivor. As Arri has extended its range of Alexa cameras and software updates, the constant has been this remarkable sensor. Arri’s basic philosophy has given it this extraordinary longevity and, of course, has put pressure on what follows. But really, it’s basic science. The sensor has bigger pixel buckets that allow larger photosites, which in turn allows for more dynamic range against the cramming of photosites on a sensor to say it’s 4K or 6K or 8K or higher. You can get more resolution that way but it’s harder to get better dynamic range that way.

Tony Miller DOP on Fleabag Series 1 Shooting for HDR was new for me and my DIT Alanna Miejluk. We did some tests in the beginning, I tested the Red and I tested the Alexa Mini. As we wanted quite a naturalistic look the Red just felt too harsh. It supposedly produces more definition, it’s a true 4K camera, but as we all know bandwidth pixels don’t always translate to pleasing images. So I decided to go with the Alexa Mini, which Amazon Studios approved for the very same reason as most of us (cinematographers) prefer it: for its look. Ben Joiner DOP on The Grand Tour I really wanted to shoot with the Amira from the get-go because I like the sensor and I like the look of it. Also I use Alexas as my camera of choice when I do commercials so I was keen to bring that look into the show. The thing I really loved about the Amira was that it gave us the little flip-out screen on the side and the access to the menus and user buttons – a very fast way of keeping up with the performance of the presenters.

I know the Alexa sensor pretty well now. I can walk into a room and know how it’s going to react to the light that it can hold the highlights, so you can allow the frame to overexpose because you know that it will bloom and look lovely like it would have with a film camera. The older or different digital cameras don’t have that, they clip and they feel very digital as soon as you’ve got too much contrast. Philippe Rousselot DOP on Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them I had previously enjoyed a good experience with the Alexa XT on The Nice Guys – my first movie experience with that camera system. I knew it would perform well with the anamorphic glass, and would cope with the dynamics of the lighting.

Andrew Dunn DOP on Bridget Jones’s Baby Because the Alexa is so ubiquitous now, because it’s such a good camera and everybody’s so comfortable using it, I suppose there is a way to try and make it a little bit different sometimes, as we did with our lens choice. John Lee DOP on Victoria Series 1 The beautiful thing about the Arri range as opposed to other digital cameras is the way

ABOVE The Arri Alexa wireless camera is now part of the range

M A K I N G O F A L E G E N D | F E AT U R E

Robert Yeoman DOP on Mamma Mia! Here We Go Again

Philipp Blaubach DOP on Gunpowder for the BBC

Eben Bolter DOP on The Woman in White for the BBC

We shot the film on Alexas. Since the transition from film to digital it has been my camera of choice – it’s easy to use and I prefer the image to other digital cameras. As I knew we would often be shooting ‘three shots’, I chose the widescreen 2.40 format so I could more easily accommodate getting three actors in the frame. Anamorphic lenses have a distinct magical quality to them so I chose to go that route (the first Mamma Mia! was also shot on anamorphic).

I was keen to use the Arri Alexa because I had done a TV series a couple of years ago and been told that the series had to be shot in 4K, so we couldn’t use the Alexa. My reaction was to say, ‘You mean the camera that shot Skyfall and went to IMAX cinemas, are you saying that wasn’t good enough resolution?’

I treat the Alexa (the Mini in this case) like 800 ASA and don’t touch it throughout the shoot. I’ve actually started rating the Alexa at 1000 ASA as a base, as you get a little bit more grain which I think looks nicer than the 800 Alexa. It gives you a tiny bit more highlight detail and a tiny bit less shadow detail. The shadows fall away quicker and

Benedict Spence DOP on GameFace for E4 I’ve been shooting on the Alexa sensor since 2011 and I love how it sees the world. The way it handles highlights, skin tones and shadows feels cinematically natural and beautiful, and I know exactly how far I can push it. Technically, there are sensors which perhaps have higher resolution or greater latitude, but none in my opinion feel as good as the Alexa sensors.

AU G U S T 20 1 9 | D E F I N I T I O N

USER REVIEW | URSA MINI PRO G2

NEW GENERATION PRICE ÂŁ48 45/$5995

The new generation Blackmagic Ursa Mini Pro G2 is a solid step up with its fast frame rates, Raw shooting and affordable price W O R D S A DA M D U C K W O R T H / P I C T U R E S B L AC K M AG I C D E S I G N

ake a great-value camera capable of shooting Raw, speed it up so it has frame rates to embarrass just about anything else on the market, add some of the very latest spec and colour science... but keep the list price the same. Thatâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s the formula that means the new Blackmagic Ursa Mini Pro 4.6K G2 is one of the best-performing, most affordable cinema cameras you can buy.

The camera shares the same user-friendly controls as the oldermodel Ursa Mini Pro, but this nextgeneration model benefits from fast new electronics and a new Super 35 4.6K HDR image sensor that gives up to 15 stops of dynamic range. The old data-hungry and largely unpopular CinemaDNG Raw has gone, and has been replaced by the faster Blackmagic Raw. And best of all, this allows the camera to shoot in up to 300fps.

D E F I N I T I O N | AU G U S T 20 1 9

HIGH-SPEED BREAKDOWN For full-sensor 4.6K images you can go as high as 120fps, while windowed 4K DCI and 4K maxes out at 150fps and windowed 2K DCI and 1080 HD gives the headline 300fps, all while shooting in Blackmagic Raw. When recording in ProRes 422HQ, this drops to 4.6K 80fps, windowed 4K at 120fps and HD windowed 240fps. That HD speed of 240fps is as fast as cameras like the Sony FS5 which is universally praised for its

ABOVE The new Ursa Mini Pro G2 is fully implemented with BRaw and offers some usable highspeed options

URSA MINI PRO G2 | USER REVIEW

“THE CAMERA REALLY COMES ALIVE WHILE USING BLACKMAGIC RAW” high-speed work and is a favourite of sports and wildlife shooters everywhere. But the Sony can’t do it in ProRes422 HQ, only in its weaker internal codec. So it’s while using Blackmagic Raw that the camera really comes alive, unlocking not only the highest frame rates but also the highestquality images, extensive metadata support and highly optimised GPU and CPU accelerated processing. You can even edit it on a MacBook Pro laptop, especially if you plug in one of Blackmagic’s eGPU accelerators which start at £599/$699. Other manufacturers also make similar products. Blackmagic Raw allows you to retain the advantages of working in Raw, such as the flexibility to adjust white-balance and rescue highlight and shadow detail as well as controlling sharpening precisely. But while many Raw formats choke up workflow as they are very large, the Blackmagic solution is to make the formats very easy to ingest and edit in the free full version of DaVinci Resolve Studio software that comes with the camera. Of course, there is a learning curve for using any software and also for learning how to get the best out of the files. But the DaVinci software makes this as painless as possible. Like the rival Apple ProRes Raw, Blackmagic Raw is a more efficient codec than CinemaDNG and can be treated like a conventional ProRes codec, albeit one with higher quality and ultimately more control.

ABOVE The camera can be fully controlled remotely

RIGHT If you’re still shooting HD, and a lot of people are, you can get 300fps

ROLLING SHUTTER The readout from the sensor is also much faster than on the older model, so rolling shutter has been reduced. This artefact often rears its head in fast pans when using slow motion, where background objects can lean. But the Ursa Mini Pro G2 handles this well. Provoke it with whip pans and you can still freeze frame and see some bending of course, but in normal use it’s not a huge issue. The new sensor and faster processing means Blackmagic Design has also been able to come up with a new Generation 4 Colour Science which is where the camera really shines. Even if the fast frame rates don’t grab your attention, the improvement in colours will, especially in skin tones. This is helped when shooting the 12-bit Blackmagic Raw which is designed to provide the maximum amount of colour data and dynamic range. But you can also tell the difference when shooting in ProRes,

too. The colours are lifelike and punchy but not oversaturated or ‘digital’ looking. It performs like a far more expensive camera. The camera now also allows you to embed 3D LUTs into Raw clips. A new LUT settings control in DaVinci Resolve makes this easier than ever and takes the guesswork out of shooting in Raw. You can also choose standard video-like codecs or flatter, filmic gammas in the menus. Shooting in Raw in contrasty light and exposing to retain highlight detail, the hidden shadow detail is incredible and you can really draw it out in post with hardly any noise. With an expanded ISO range of 200 to the new high of 3200, it’s a stop faster than the older camera was at launch. The original Ursa Mini Pro had its ISO range put up to 3200 with a firmware upgrade and the G2 also has this benefit. But it is still not a low-light monster. The Ursa Mini Pro G2 might not be the ideal camera in very low light but excels under controlled lighting or in natural daylight, especially contrasty conditions of full sunshine.

ND FILTERS Also new on the G2 are improved ND filters with IR compensation, in two, four and six stop range, designed to match the way the camera processes colour and evenly compensate for both far red and infrared wave lengths to eliminate IR contamination. Unlike Sony’s variable ND filter system which is electronic, the G2 uses the traditional optical filters that move into place when the ND filter dial is turned. The results were always neutral, but we never had any issues with the filters on the oldergeneration camera anyway. The final new feature is the USB-C slot on the left side of the