Alfonso Cuarón’s Gravity has created more buzz in the digital cinema production world than any motion picture in recent memory. The (quite literally) breathtaking twelve-minute single take opening shot that begins in outer space with a satellite repair mission gone wrong and ends with Sandra Bullock's astronaut cast terrifyingly into the void is just one of Gravity’s filmmaking achievements that has captured wide attention.
Venture 3D used Signiant’s Media Shuttle as its primary file transfer solution during production of Metallica’s latest cinematic venture, Metallica: Through the Never, which premiered in Imax 3D on September 27 and will premier in theaters everywhere on October 4.
Great stories, in reality, aren’t the only ingredient needed to make a successful documentary. Filmmakers also need patience, perseverance, creativity, luck and, of course, funding. To say that co-directors Pamela Green and Jarik van Sluijs have a great story to tell is an understatement: largely unknown and unappreciated, Alice Guy-Blaché was, without question, one of the most important figures in motion picture history. Now, Green and van Sluijs are using digital cinema technology to gather, assemble and organize a wide range of information to get Guy-Blaché’s story ready for the big screen. And what a story it is.
SIM Digital recently provided production and post-production equipment, services and support for the debut season of Spun Out, a new multi-camera sit-com from CTV and Project 10 Productions.
Kamerawerk is producing Bubble Beatz's No Sleep, a story-driven music video using not only 4K acquisition but a complete 4K 60 frame per second production pipeline including cameras, editing, color grading and finishing.
Despite the fact that most of the digital cinema theatres around the world are projecting in 2K-resolution and that the vast majority of TV broadcasters in the world have not yet adopted even digital HD, a growing number of production professionals strongly advocate that all filmmakers shoot in 4K. One such advocate is Jeff Blauvelt, owner and founder of HD Cinema, a boutique rental house that also provides post-production services to a growing number of independent filmmakers from its two locations in Los Angeles and Westport, Connecticut. In Blauvelt’s mind, shooting 4K digital cinema just makes good creative and business sense.
Codex, Cooke Optics and The Pixel Farm plan to develop and deliver what the companies are calling the next generation of metadata capture for film and digital cinema cameras.
Douglas Trumbull’s latest project UFOTOG, the world’s first high-frame rate (120 fps), stereoscopic 3D film, has completed production.
In early 2010, Anna Foerster was one of the first cinematographers to shoot a feature film using a prototype Arri Alexa camera and Codex Recorders. That film, Anonymous, blended court intrigue, scandalous romance and the timeless lust for power, all set in the visually rich period of Shakespeare’s England. Foerster won the German Film Award for best cinematographer for her work on Anonymous. Now Foerster has reteamed with Roland Emmerich on White House Down, a contemporary action thriller about an attack on the U.S. president and the cop who defends him. Foerster and Emmerich chose to work with the Alexa and Codex once again. “It’s a fully developed, fantastic way of working,” says Foerster.
When Light Iron CEO Michael Cioni made the move to Manhattan from Los Angeles this past January, he wasn’t worrying about finding a good rental opportunity. After all, without really having to search, he was already set up quite nicely at 580 Broadway after a few months renovation. In a real estate deal said to go off with minimum hassle, Cioni’s Light Iron had taken the eighth floor space held by OffHollywood’s post-production operations, which included a sleek digital intermediates grading theater.
