Broadcast Show Leeds With Philip Bloom: Shooting 4K

Morning Session starting at 11am

Technology update: Why shoot 4K? Why Shoot Raw? How can the new technology help you and what will hinder you? We’re in a rapid evolution of technologies and despite what some manufacturers say you may not want to be complicating the task with unnecessary tech. Distilling the equipment and tools to the essentials plus what to avoid, what to invest in now and what to wait for…

Philip Bloom – Shooting 4K

Background: worked as a news cameraman for 17 years

Worked at sky when it was the poor brother, the underdogs. Now its bigger than the BBC

At Sky I was the first person to be taught to edit

Last 5 years at sky worked with

Used the same format of filming for that whole time

easy one of the most eye opening things in the world

most important thing for me was that it taught me how to work really fast

I now have the ability to walk into a room, know what lighting I need, what set up I need etc.

Who has shot raw?

Who has shot with a 4k camera?

Raw is wonderful

If I could shoot 4k raw I would

Is 4k/ultra hd the new standard?

-       yes its totally inevitable

4k tv on amazon - £19,699

but getting more affordable, now around £3-5,000

does it make any sense to buy 4k now or shoot 4k? No

can you see a difference? With a 4k tv you need to be closer to the screen than an HD

(add pic look for a standard deff, HD and 4k graph to see difference)

4k has 4x the resolution

is 4k for the consumer or the professional using it?

Why do I shoot everything in 4k? because it looks better

Whats changed since I did a  talk last week in Belfast? I’ve bought a 4K tv

First off 4k scaled down to 2k is stunning

Reframing & Interviews = 2 cameras in one

Creative freedom is amazing

Fiction

Who works with actors?  Actors are inconsistent, some prefer being shot from a wide angle rather than a close up. 4k is amazing to crop and zoom in when editing.

Another practical use is that you can get shots that you couldn’t get optically

What is future proofing?

I shot a wedding cut edited it to 11 minutes

Canons c100 - my favourite camera, its small

Canon c500 has a screen and a recorder

Sony f4/455  - shoots 4k internally, shoots raw, unlike the epic, the 5 only shoots raw, very flexible camera\

Sony fdr-axi - handicam

Red epic/ scarlet – very nice camera, red 1 came out before these

Sony fs700 with v3 firmware – doesn’t like it

Blackmagic 4k production camera – doesn’t know what its like could potentially be very good

4k smartphone? Makes no sense, why would you want that?

4x more data = 4x more hard drives (at least)

sony f5/f55/fs700 4k raw £1450 for a 512gb card

roughly 60 mins per card in 4k sony raw

rroughly 30 mins in motion jped 4k £594 for this 128gb card

this is a problem… an expensive problem

very few production companies can deal with it

4k is the future but does it mean you should shoot it now?

-       I don’t think you should

My most popular video I have made this year has been on an iphone 5

The additional cost in time means additional financial labour cost not just hard drives and cards

Raw – raw data, its what comes off the sensor meaning you have the ability to make losts of changes in post – what cant you change in post? Focus, aperture, shutter speed.

If your in a very high contrast situation, you need to make a decision am I going to keep the sky or the shops? Can edit in post.

I shoot normally prores – when it’s a challenging shot I switch to raw

Its got massive plusses but I have to go through each shot and decide how its going to look, and then export it.

With the f55 it does record HD at the same time internally

Plusses

Dynamic range is increased

Human eye (about 24 stops of dr)

Film (about 16 stops of dr)

Digital (about 12 stops of dr)

Digital you can see straight away

Film you cant see until the next day

When would I shoot raw ? very challenging situations

Every camera will most likely shoot raw and 4k at some point, why? Because it’s the evolution

Should you stop shooting HD and switch to 4k?

only if the customer wants to but most companies and individuals cant handle it.

scalingg down 4k footage to 2k footage still looks incredible.

Movie industry are shooting 4k for some stuff, but not for alexa because there is no 4k for alexa, only 2.7k. most tv shows use alexa, are they shooting raw? No, time and money!

A general drama show episode is shot over 7-8 days

Breaking bad is shot 35mm film and walking dead is shot 16mm but since a few years ago, every tv show and drama is shot digitally.

Apart from the 1dc you shoot on the dslr and we aren’t even being shown the full potential of HD

Technology has jumped too quickly and we aren’t ready for it.

Once you’ve had a taste of shooting in 4k and you revert back to HD, you see the differences and that it is better.

4k looks too real – great for sport and documentaries, not so good for drama – start seeing make-up lines, props wont hold up and set wont hold up. 4k shows everything.

48 fps (the hobit) looks horrible, better for 3D.

red format is beautiful, f55 format isn’t

will we see 8k? ofcourse we will see 8k

progress is too fast these days

phones, cameras come out every 6 months – amazing how the xbox 360 came out 7 years ago.

Rolling shutter jellow effect (talking about Rush)