Steven Spielberg speaking at AFI in 1978.
(via @alba, @justTinGuyer, @aumantm)
Don’t forget about the DSLR Cinematography course at fxphd! Click the image for more info.
Canon Speaks Up, Special Third-Hand Unconfirmed Rumor Edition
This isn’t a camera rumors blog. It’s a whatever’s-on-Stu’s-mind blog (it’s good to specialize). Today, camera rumors are on my mind.
Recently on the Cinematography Mailing List, a member posted that at a public event, a Canon rep stated that 24p would never come to the 5D Mark II, that they would save it for the successor to the 1Ds Mark III.
It’s easy to imagine that such a camera body will be priced much higher than the 5D Mark II. The 1Ds III still sells for around US$6,900 (body only), and it’s almost two years old.
I was serious about the third-hand, unconfirmed thing. I’m telling you I heard this from a guy who heard this from a Canon guy, and that’s all I’m saying. Take it for what it is.
But of course I tweeted this, and I got some interesting replies. A few people said they’d heard the same thing, including @mikeseymour, and @planetMitch pointed out that Chuck Westfall has publicly tried to manage expectations about 24p ever coming to the 5D Mark II, pointing out that simply adding manual control took nine months.
Some folks on Twitter seemed confident that this camera is coming as soon as August.
I never thought I would own a $7,000 SLR body, but if Canon does this right, then I just might. See, I have a dirty little secret. Now that the 5D Mark II has manual exposure control, I’ve come to really enjoy shooting video with it. Even when I’m not in Japan.
Here’s what I think. I think Canon is taking video seriously, and I think they’ve heard our requests for 24p. I still do not think that they are intentionally crippling video in their DSLRs to protect camcorder sales (see the “attribute to malice” theory). I believe Westfall when he insinuates that getting 24p out of the 5D Mark II is non-trivial task. I also think that Canon is probably keenly interested in reserving some desirable features for their flagship full-frame SLR. In other words, I think the Canon SLR division worries about cannibalizing itself, not other Canon divisions. They have heard from folks like me that professional filmmakers need 24p. So they might just be saving 24p for their professional camera.
As if the 5D Mark II wasn’t used by pros.
And as if 24p wasn’t of interest to filmmakers at all budget levels.
If one wants to find evidence of excitement about 24p being offered in a truly, ridiculously affordable camera, one needs only to look to the release of the HV20, a sub-$1,000 24p HD camcorder from a company called Canon.
Canon, if you’re thinking that pros are going to line up to buy your most expensive camera body just because it does 24p, well, you might be right.
Unless someone else does it for cheaper.
Or better. If your 24p masterpiece is priced for video pros, it had damn well be a real pro video camera. That means no crappy line-skipping aliasing, no noticeable rolling-shutter jello, focus assist modes, a flip-out viewfinder, and HD monitoring while recording to a gently-compressed codec.
You know, all the stuff that Scarlet is supposed to have. For somewhere around $7,000.
You wanna go pro with DSLR video Canon? By all means, please do. But 24p is just the first step toward that goal.
I, for one, hope that you’ll still consider a 24p update to the 5D Mark II.
Tokyo
...rules.
More here soon.
fxphd July09 Term, AKA Show You My O-Week
Registration is now open for the new July09 Term of fxphd, the most in-depth visual effects training you can find. This term I’m joining Mike Seymour in teaching a course on DSLR cinematography, for which Mike, John Montgomery, and I traveled to Japan to train our lenses on some of the most tantalizing and notoriously film-unfriendly settings on the planet.
The double-chin is due to either the awkward pose or all the amazing food we ate—possibly both.
Here you see me hand-holding my Canon 5D Mark II with Mike’s Canon 70–200 f/2.8L IS in Tokyo’s teen fashion capital, Harajuku. This ill-advised activity is made somewhat more tolerable by the funky support rig I’ve created by bending my Gorillapod GP8 (the badass metal one — coolest thing I’ve added to my kit in months) into an outrigger that lets me support some of the lens’s weight with my focus-pulling arm.
Mike has a couple of updates (first, second) on his Dean’s Blog, and there’s a terrific “o-week” video (right-click to download) that provides a sneak peek at some of what we shot and how we shot it, as well as teasers for the amazing array of other classes in the term.
If you can’t tell, I’m a (somewhat biased) fan of fxphd. Mike, John, and their worldwide team of professors give you the good stuff, the likes of which I’ve not seen anywhere else. If you want to learn visual effects from real artists working in the field, fxphd is the place to do it.
Complete course listing for the July09 term here.
Got Me a Side Job
Red Giant Software today announced the addition of a new Creative Director for the Magic Bullet product line. Me!
“The Magic Bullet vision is to create software that gives any production, regardless of budget, the look of a high-end feature film. We are immensely pleased that Stu is dedicating his time and vision to enhance and grow the Magic Bullet tools in 2009 and beyond. He has already begun to work on new Magic Bullet products, and you will see many new and updated tools coming later this year,” said Sean Safreed, Co-Founder and Director of Products at Red Giant Software.
The full press release also goes into some detail about the history of Red Giant, Magic Bullet, and The Orphanage.
While the announcement is exciting, it doesn’t actually represent a big change for me. My relationship with Red Giant has always been strong, and has always been about sharing with the world the tools that I create out of necessity when making films. I promise you that my filmmaking will always come first, and that anything I design for Red Giant is a tool that I wanted or needed or found missing in my arsenal.
Colorista and Magic Bullet Looks are perfect examples of this, and to kick off the party with Red Giant I recorded a little tutorial on how to use them to match the looks of this summer’s big movies.
Red Giant TV Episode 22: Creating a Summer Blockbuster Film Look
Thanks very much to Aharon Rabinowitz, host of Red Giant TV, for tidying up my tut and wrapping it in pure (and embarrassing) pimp. Aharon does a great job with Red Giant TV—if you want to catch every episode, subscribe in iTunes.
Update on 2010-03-15 17:15 by Stu
Shortly after this tutorial, Red Giant Software released Magic Bullet Mojo, which makes it dangerously easy to give your footage this look. Check out my guided tour of Mojo.