Got to meet Philip Bloom last night as he traveled through town – he had laryngitis but was delightful anyway!

My hero, Philip Bloom!

Here’s a quick Reel I put together of things I shot in the last year.  The song is called “Omens” by Paul and the Strings.

Alex’s Reel 2010

Robert Rodriguez

It’s like TMZ for camera geeks! On Philip Bloom’s site, there are photos of Robert Rodriguez using two Canon 7D’s to shoot a music video. One camera rig is insanely tricked out with monitors, remote follow focus, and caused rampant speculation about what cable is what, and why they would use that. The DP on the shoot, Jimmy Lindsey, kindly checked in to shed some light on what was used.

The fan-on-the-spot wrote the following:

“I walked into the area where they were filming and immediately was drawn to the HDSLR rig they were using. I pulled up my cam and starting shooting some pictures of it (I was about 15 feet away and realized it was a Canon 7D – wireless follow focus, Panasonic monitor with hood, and Zacuto grips/rails) when a guy politely walked over to me and said “we are trying to keep a closed set” – there was no security, just 2 camera operators, a tethered production cart, makeup, 2 HPX 170s filming BTS, and a few grips. I said I was only interested in the rig, not the music artist being filmed (which I then realized was local favorite Bob Schneider).  The guy was cool and let me take a few more and I walked away. When I told my wife that one of her favorite musicians was filming a video, she ran up to the fence and started to watch and then said “hey, is that Robert Rodriguez?”… it was. At first I felt stupid for not realizing that it was him but the rig was huge and blocking most of his head. They were shooting with 2 7Ds  - the second only had a Zacuto Z-finder, and Robert took turns shooting on both.”

The full story is at: http://philipbloom.co.uk/2010/03/02/robert-rodriguez-shooting-music-video-on-2-canon-7ds/

In 1974, Bill Macumber was simply living his life, a former U.S. Army soldier, a father of three boys, with a good job. Suddenly, in August of that year, he was arrested and charged with a double murder, taken into police custody and thrust into a nightmare.

He has been in prison for the last 35 years, an innocent man serving time for a crime he did not commit. He has no chance for parole under Arizona’s “Old Code” life statute. His story is heartbreaking and incredible as it unfolds layer by layer.

In 2009, filmmaker Lesley Hoyt-Croft learned about the Arizona Justice Project’s work on the Bill Macumber case. As she researched the story and found out more about this incredible real-life tragedy, she began putting the pieces together to make a documentary called “Life.”

I am honored to be working as the DP with Lesley on this project. We traveled to Douglas, Arizona to meet Bill in the prison complex there, and flew to Denver to interview his son and family. The film will premiere at this year’s Phoenix Film Festival and the effort to free Bill Macumber continues even today thanks largely to the Arizona Justice Project. Please visit freedom4bill.com and lend your name to the petition and come out to see the film in April.

Here’s the short film 11:11 I made for my film production class at Tecnologico de Monterrey.   The film is in Spanish, but it tells the story of a depressed unemployed Andres, who is visited by missionaries extolling the virtues of the divine hour, 11:11.  This was shot on the Red One with Arri master prime T1.3 lenses.   The Youtube compression isn’t very flattering, but the source material for this film is amazing.  4k has no comparison.

The upcoming Criterion DVD  release of Steven Soderbergh’s “Che”  includes a discussion about the RED ONE camera, and how digital cinema affected the production of this film.

Call him crazy, but Soderbergh took the RED ONE camera’s digital promise on faith, and was the first to use the system in a true production environment, and a very rough one at that. “Che” was shot on location in the damp jungle and in extremely hot conditions. The camera was largely untested for real production at the time, which led to a host of challenges for his camera team.

The latest episode of our web series, Stand Up Guy, is now available online at http://standupguy.tv and on iTunes!

Please share with your friends and let us know what you think! Aaron Seever joins the cast as Sergeant Tom.

We’re currently editing the next episode, with another just wrapped and starting post-production!

<NOTE: Click the images to see fullsize versions that are MUCH more accurate.>

Here is an interesting visual representation of the sharpness of the Canon 7D VDLSR.  This chart was posted on RedUser.net by Jim Jannard himself.  No specifications of the shoot were disclosed.  This could have been shot wide open at F1.2 for all I know.  But even assuming someone strapped a $10 lens on the 7D when they shot this video, the detail and sharpness is pretty lacking.  I would have actually expected the 7D to hold up much better than this.

For comparrison, here are some sharpness test done by Cinevate using a Sony EX1 and a Brevis 35mm adapter.  This rig would cost about $5,000 more than the 7D setup, but the difference is profound.  The gap between the detail on these cameras is about the same as the difference between an HVX200 w/ 35mm adapter and a Canon HV20 w/ 35mm adapter.

I’ll try and find more charts that I can post and update this post with, but I think it is interesting to see the real video power of these video DSLRs after I posted my comparison chart last week.

Cinematographers are all a twitter about the promise of digital SLR cameras that are bursting on the market from reliable companies like Canon, Nikon, and Panasonic. While the image quality from these sub-$5,000 cameras can rival cameras costing 10x as much, there are still many limitations to what many are calling the best value in film making. Here are the main contenders:

Canon 5D Mk II, Canon 7D, Canon 1d Mk IV, Nikon D90, Nikon D3s, Panasonic GH1

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