This fall will see the opening of the first major Norwegian production filmed entirely with Canon DSLRs. The show is titled Dag, and the first teaser trailer is worth checking out:
Category: Technology Page 3 of 4
This week I attended a masterclass with DSLR-video guru Philip Bloom in Oslo. Bloom has quickly become the go-to-guy when it comes to Canon’s excellent HD-DSLRs with 1080p video. The buzz is mainly over the 5DmkII and the 7D models – with the 5D already being used in big professional productions.
Bloom took a very concrete and practical approach to the subject. He took us through the DSLR workflow, and presented solutions to the various problems you could bump into – like rolling shutter and moire. The masterclass was held in an excellent movie theatre complete with a 4k projector, so Bloom spiced his lecture with several videoclips. We saw a couple of minutes of the much dicussed season finale of House, that was shot on three 5DmkII cameras, as well as a handful of Philips own short films, also available on his website.
How did these cameras perform on the big screen?
Amazingly well!
Undoubtedly the next generation of Canon HDSLRs will see further progress in video capabilities. In many ways we’re witnessing a video revolution here – and not surprisingly some grumpy naysayers are unhappy with the changes. How somebody can manage to be unhappy with small and relatively affordable cameras with excellent video capabilities, I really can’t explain. Of course the DSLRs aren’t perfect and still have issues with audio, codecs, bad HDMI-out, and so on. But it’s just plain stupid to focus on the small problems when the opportunities are so amazing.
Here’s an interview that NRKbeta did with Philip Bloom in Oslo this week:
NRKbeta interview and article on Philip Bloom (in Norwegian).
Our local cinema centers are finally going completely digital. The work to convert every single one of the theaters in Trondheim starts in March, and about half of them will be fitted for 3D projection as well.
I’m thrilled! Let’s keep the cinema clubs for celluloid, nostalgia and the old indie vibe. Let’s leap into the digital age with our commercial cinemas. With Avatar pointing to the ideal future of cinema technology, the digital projection (2D and 3D) is what people will be happy to pay for.
I saw The Road the other day. The film itself left much to be desired, and the celluloid print was a joke. Patchy and uneven colours, a less than satisfying sound reproduction (although that might be down to the terrible score…), in a theater perfectly capable of flawless digital projections.
A decade ago people ridiculed George Lucas for filming Star Wars on digital cameras. I liked his reply: When people ask me if the time is right for this, I say we should have been doing it 20 years ago.
Amen. Let’s go!