Last week Las Vegas hosted the annual NAB (National Association of Broadcasters) Trade Show. I hadn’t been in the last few years and went to see the latest gadgets and take the pulse of the video/film industry, at least as represented by manufacturers. It’s funny these days that even with our video-on-demand cultural shift that an event created by broadcasters remains relevant, but it very much does. In fact, you can divide the shows vendors into many categories – but for me there were only two – those relevant to indie filmmakers and those that were not. Huge shiny booths touting the latest bit-rate storage management system for live broadcast were passed over in order to spend more time at Canon’s showcase of DSLR & 4K cameras.
Before I get into my rundown of film toys, I have to talk for a moment about Dolby 3D. You mean 3D sound? It is Dolby after all. No, not sound, 3D picture and WITHOUT glasses. It is a collaboration with James Cameron’s company and on the TV the footage looked very close to the 3D you see in the movie theater. It didn’t have quite the same level of depth, but it looked great. What looked really AMAZING was the 3D on a retina display laptop. To experience that level of 3D on a computer screen without glasses was incredible. I want one!
Besides 3D, 4K was star of the show, mostly in the capturing of it. Lots of low cost cameras (more on that later) and some cool 4K screenings of footage (the one at the Canon booth was a standout for me). As someone who has shot a lot of RED 4K footage, it’s a beautiful format, but a pain in the butt to deal with in post. Takes up gobs of storage, is slow to down-res, and the workflow is challenging. Cheaper tools to shoot 4K are great, but the workflow learning curve on projects longer than a minute is steep. And of course, who can see it in 4K? The future of easy, cheap 4K capture is now, but easy workflow, like what we have for regular HD footage, is still coming.
CANON – Okay, I’ll admit it, I’m a Canon camera fan. I love the look of the footage and the 60D I bought for myself last year has re-energized me as a filmmaker. It reminds me of the joy I got when shooting 16mm B&W reversal film on a Bolex. Canon’s latest set of cameras is truly kick-ass. The 5D Mark iii is great and for the money a fantastic all around camera. I was drooling over the new 1D-C, a DSLR camera that shoots stills and 4K for twelve grand. And then there is the “C” line – C100, C300 & C500. I saw some beautiful 4K footage from the C500 and some vibrant slo-mo capabilities at 2K.
GoPro – VERY hip and sexy display with lots of energy and prize giveaways. There was free beer too, but you can imagine the line for it. When GoPro had it’s drawing for free stuff, half of the convention floor was at their booth. The clips on their monitors were the highlight, including one in the back showing 2.7K 3D footage that looked awesome. That and the fact that their top-of-the-line camera is $400 and can shoot 4K at 15fps – WTF? One of these should be in every cinematographers tool box.
One strangely wonderful and utterly Teutonic piece of gear was the modified GoPro camera shown at the small P&S Technik booth. It is called the Novo camera and boasted a c-mount to attached cine lenses and cracked firmware with aperture adjustment. Sorry kids, I asked and it’s only for rental from Radient Images in L.A.
Buried amidst the post-production crowd and facing each other like two pugilists were Black Magic and RED. Black Magic would love to be the new RED, and they certainly had production issues like RED for the release of their first camera. I’m a Black Magic skeptic (never shot with one) but their booth was impressive. They have two new cameras, a 4K version of their “old” camera and a small cinema camera in a point-and-shoot package that I can’t see the purpose for. They did have one of these pocket-size cameras rigged with an amazing cinema lens costing 25 times the price of the camera. If you can afford the lens, why shoot on what looks like a toy – cool sensor or not? And my own personal advice for those of you who have been waiting 6 months for your 1st generation Black Magic and are finally receiving it – SELL IT IMMEDIATELY! With the new 4K model coming (that costs only one grand more and doesn’t have the same extreme cropped sensor issues), your new toy will be a boat anchor in a few months.
RED’s booth was just okay in my opinion. They had a “clean room” with people assembling cameras, but so what. And they did have their new camera with the Dragon sensor that shoots 6K, but I didn’t see a demo. This constant desire to create cameras that shoot higher and higher resolutions made a lot sense a few years ago. when we were all chasing the quality of film. But now that we’ve reached that goal with sensor size, pixels and stops of latitude – enough already. Cheaper 4K – yes. 6K – not now! It’s like dropping a ferrari engine into the chassis of a Toyota Camry. Most of us struggle with 4K workflow on a budget. What the heck are we gonna do with 6K? What we really need are cheaper high quality lenses – it’s all about the glass, right! Start working on that RED and you’ve got my full attention.
The last time I was at NAB, Apple had a gi-normous booth, now they were only a memory. And Adobe is more than happy to fill in their shoes. Their booth was gigantic and the people working it wonderfully friendly. I’m a Final Cut Pro guy and have been since it first appeared. I love FCP 7, it does everything I need it to do, and if I were’t the President of a film school, I would stick with it. However, it’s important for educators and middle-aged filmmakers to stay au-currant and I’m gonna re-learn Adobe Premier. I’d used it a decade before and hated it, but now seems the time to forget the past and give it a chance. Also, their whole cloud-based software program is awesome. I love the idea of just paying a small monthly fee and always having the latest version of the software. And with their “team” packages, you can get common cloud storage space to share edits, etc. How cool is that! I signed up for a trial version that day.
As I wrap up, there are a few more gadgets I want to highlight. The new Phantom quad-copter by DJI was super-slick. Priced right and ready to mount your GoPro Black Series, you’ve got aerial cinematography on a budget. Mathews had an awesome slider called the FloatCam DC with a counter-weight that made it so smooth – like butter! And you could mount it vertically, turn it into a jib and add a computer controlled motor. It’s on my wish list. And another old-school manufacturer, Mole-Richardson, had a kit where you could retro fit their fresnel studio lights (tweenie, baby & junior) to LED for half the price of a new LED light. Very retro-cool. It’s like dropping a new Chevy LS7 engine into your 1963 split-window Corvette. (I know another car analogy – I like cars, okay). A “sleeper” with the good looks of old and the technology of today. And a quick shout-out to Kessler for having awesome looking portable sliders and one of the best brochures at the show.
Jeremiah Birnbaum is a filmmaker and the President/Co-Founder of the San Francisco School of Digital Filmmaking. He has been working in the entertainment industry for 24 years and has no other professional skills except his wickedly dry sense of humor.