Director, Stu Maschwitz, founder of legendary VFX shop, The Orphanage, creator of the Magic Bullet software suite and author of the DV Rebel’s Guide, spoke on a panel this morning at NAB entitled, Independent Filmmaking — A Million Dollar Look on a Thousand Dollar Budget: 2009 Edition. He was joined by Rodney Charters, director of photographty on Fox’s, 24 and Charles Papert of Instant Films.

Recently, Stu directed a short film, more of a camera test as he describes it, with a Canon 5D Mark II HD camera. I thought it would be fun to show you what someone with some talent can do with this amazing new camera. Take a look and be sure to check out Stu’s new blog, ProLost.

Canon’s original 5D Mark II Microsite

More excellent resources from Canon

The final installment of my interview with journalist, author and new media aficionado Scott Kirsner. In it, I ask him about his site, Cinematech.com and what motivated him to start blogging about cinema technology. Then, we talk about his new book,  Fans Friends and Followers: Building an Audience and a Creative Career in the Digital Age. Some of the things he writes about in it are; ways to connect with your audience, the Internet as a distribution channel, coming up with new business models and monetizing your work. We go on to speak about Boxee and some of the stumbling blocks that are delaying the ability to play media from the Internet on your TV. And finally, I mistakenly let Scott do the wrap-up, in which he bestows all too much praise upon the work we do at HDFilmtools.com in a sinister effort to get your humble interviewer to blush.

Andrew Burke – Documentary Reel

I can’t remember how I came upon producer, cinematographer and editor Andrew Burke’s documentary demo reel, I just remember thinking it was extraordinary. No, it’s not an example of complex studio lighting techniques, just the opposite. But his visual style demonstrates a discerning and painterly eye for composition and a confident use of natural light. His editing style and choice of music show a natural instinct and sensitivity for rhythm, motion and flow.

Andrew started out with a strong interest in animation. After bouncing around a few schools including San Jose State and North Carolina he ended up at Chico State University in northern California, where he studied Communication Design. He won a top award at the student film show, and went on to organize the event for the next few years. He attended Film classes through the Communications Department and Fine Art Photography classes through the Art Department. I found it interesting that during his last semester he was actually able to earn his tuition fees “in-trade” for the production of web videos. “The school paid for the content, I paid them for tuition. It worked out nicely”.

He cut his teeth editing digitally in a rural high school class on Adobe Premiere 4.0, where he says his claim to fame was ‘figuring out’ they could Print to Tape without rendering. “It saved the class a LOT of time!”  He’s been working in Final Cut Pro since 2004. As aspiring freelancers we take work when we can get it and Andrew recently picked up some work on a commercial set as a workflow tech. (aka DIT or Digital Imaging Technician) He said the work of managing the P2 and CF card media was rock-solid using FCP.

In terms of his Gallery reel, Andrew explained to me that the majority of shots came from commission work for various television and web outlets. The subjects range from the cousin of revolutionary Che Guevara, to the fastest mountain biker in the world. “To be sure, I am still very “on the fringe” in regard to the TV and film industries. I mainly shoot and produce short-form content”. Call it ‘backpack journalism’ (though he believes that’s become a derogatory term) his demo reel includes projects that are made distinctly with a hybrid approach: not as in-depth as PBS is, but also more engaging than the evening news.

Andrew shot most of the images with Panasonic’s HVX200 P2 based HD camera. He told me “I like to get the color dialed in the camera, so only a few of the shots have any color grading or correction”. The opening shot, with streaky lights, was shot in Buenos Aires, Argentina and is an in-camera technique that he’s been working on for a few years, which will be displayed in an upcoming project.

The animation handiwork is care of the comic artist. Burke shot the material in 24p mode on the HVX200 and gave the artist 12p QuickTime files to draw on top of. He then composited the the images in Final Cut Pro.  He cut the reel together using FCP 6 and Photoshop.

The bike sequence where the rider ends up as a bunch of images in the frame was shot on a 35mm Canon RT SLR, which he describes as “a pretty neat toy!” and has the ability to shoot 7 fps without blacking out the viewfinder. He accidentally brought those still photos into a DVCPRO-HD sequence at their full resolution. “To Final Cut Pro’s credit, I basically had 4k photos, 1080, 720, and DV all living in the same sequence. Normally I’d have to optimize the photos first.”

I asked him about the amazing shot of the bike jumper, which starts with a bee in the foreground. He told me, “I would say the bee was one-in-a-million, but it’s closer to 36-in-a-million  I’ve had many insects “ruin” shots but in this instance the bee seemed to make that shot. Nevertheless, he told me he always carries some Cutter brand insect repellant in his gear bag.

Andrew has several projects currently in progress. One is a 25 minute documentary on the making of the largest mural in North America at Oaks Bottom Wildlife Refuge, commissioned by Urban Greenspaces Institute, and a promotional piece for photographer Bryant Austin who uses a 50 Megapixel Hasselblad camera to photograph marine mammals underwater. Andrew is excited to be based in Portland, Oregon where he is now a member of Oregon Media Production Assn (OMPA).

Finally, the mesmerizing, soothing music is by Lali Puna, a band from Germany and it was used with permission. He recommends you check them out at: http://www.last.fm/music/Lali+Puna

Andrew can be reached at his website http://www.bikefilms.tv

In Part II of my interview with Scott Kirsner, I ask for his take on the current state of the Hollywood studio system. How is it adjusting and transforming as a result of new technologies and the explosive growth of online media content? What are the opportunities emerging as a result of these changes? How does he see craftspeople and labor unions adjusting to the new realities of the current economic slump and business environment? Finally, I ask him to cite some examples of people who have been successful at monetizing independent new media projects for film and the web.

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Today I present Part I of a III-Part interview with Scott Kirsner. Scott is a noted author, journalist, blogger and digital technology expert who has written about innovation for publications such as the Boston Globe, the New York Times, Wired, Variety, Fast Company, the Hollywood Reporter, Salon.com, BusinessWeek, and Newsweek and his own website Cinematech.com, for nearly the last ten years. Much of his insightful work chronicles emerging trends in media and entertainment and the new artists and business models the Internet is giving birth to. He is the author if several books including; The Future of Web Video, Inventing the Movies and his most recent work, Friends Fans and Followers: Building an Audience and a Creative Career in the Digital Age.

In this first segment, I ask Scott what interested him in the sometimes arcane world of cinema technology, talk about his first book, Inventing the Movies, in which he tells some of the never-before-told stories of the innovators who shaped Hollywood. For anyone interested in the future of media, movies and entertainment, I think you will find this an informative and enjoyable series.

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Alex Proyas has never shied away from utilizing the latest digital technology to make his films. I remember getting a call from him back in 1994 when I was cutting “Civil Wars” for Steven Bochco Productions, one of the first network shows to be edited digitally on the Avid. The company had given the director my name to give him some feedback on what is was like cutting long-form on the Media Composer as he was considering using the system on his first American feature, “The Crow”.  So it came as no surprise to me when I heard he and his cinematographer, Simon Duggan were shooting his latest film “Knowing” with the RED ONE digital cinema camera. The film, which opened last week, is the largest budget film to date to shot with the RED.

From Wired

Alex Proyas has made plenty of films in traditional fashion, shooting Dark City, The Crow and I, Robot on old-fashioned celluloid.  For his new sci-fi thriller Knowing, the Australian director decided to go digital for the first time and put the ultrahigh-resolution RED camera to the test.  Now that he’s worked out the kinks, Proyas says, “There’s no going back.”

ASL Gear is a company that designs and manufactures accessories for the Red ONE and other HD camera systems. The Remote Interface Box, or RIB Kit is comprised of two of the company’s products, RIP and RIB (remote interface breatkout box) designed to provide crews using the RED some more robust interface options for getting video, audio and timecode signals in and out of the camera.

From the company’s website.

Now you can finally plug full size XLR’s and BNC cables directly into your RED ONE® without the need for adapters. You also get Genlock and Timecode functions via the BNC panel. The ‘RIP’ provides quick and easy access to the RED’s I/O interface. The RIP easily attaches to the connector side of the camera and can be used in Stand Alone Mode, or with the ‘RIB’ Break-Out Box

In the video above RED user Jay A. Kelley reviews and explains how this product came about and how it can be used to make camera crews lives a bit easier when shooting with RED  in the field.

Frank Capria has been at the forefront of digital content creation technologies since its earliest beginnings. New England based Capria was one of the first adopters of digital editing on the Avid Media Composer upon the systems release in 1989. His credits include work on landmark PBS series including, Eyes on the Prize, Frontline, Nova and American Experience. In 2001 Frank went on to found Kingpin Interactive, a New Media services company, which created award winning programming, websites, and motion graphics for fortune 500 companies, start-ups and non-profits.

Along the way Frank has become a widely known teacher, writer, and evangelist regarding the developments in technology which have revolutionized the way post-production creatives accomplish their work. For nearly a decade he wrote about the rapidly changing landscape of his profession in the pages of DV Magazine and has taught classes at the Maine Media Workshops. So it seemed a natural seque when late last year he accepted an offer from Avid Technology to join their team as a Senior Product Designer.

On a recent trip back east I had an opportunity to sit down with Frank and ask him a few things about the state of digital editing and what’s happening in his new digs at Avid.

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Part V of my interview with Chris Dickens. In this segment I ask Chris if he had any indication that the film was going to be the worldwide phenomenon it has turned out to be. I also ask him what it is like to be in the center of the awards season vortex.

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As editors, who often live with a film for an extended period of time, it becomes like one of your children. In this segment I ask Chris about sequences from Slumdog he is especially proud of, or ones that hold a special place in his heart. We talk about some of the directors he admires who have influenced him, his fondness for stories told in a non-linear way and how his director Danny Boyle encouraged him to take risks and try new ideas while cutting the film.

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