Deadline Hollywood is reporting that Google is preparing to announce more that twenty-five pro-produced YouTube channels at the end of the month. If successful this could provide an opportunity for micro production filmmakers to get access to a formal distribution channel that has some budget to pay for productions.
Kevin Reilly is the entertainment president of Fox Broadcasting Company. Recently at MIPCON he presented a speech on how he used social media to market Fox’s hit shows Glee and New Girl. But the piece is so much more than that. It offers some extraordinary insight into the collision of the chaos that creativity needs to thrive and the surety required by the business side of television.
The first time I visited the production of a television show I saw three good looking people standing on the set with small cardboard signs hanging from their necks. In large black letters with a jaggedness that comes from writing the line of the letter over and over in an attempt to make it more bold, each sign displayed the first name of the one of the stars of the show.
This weekend Bionic Builders will premier on the Discovery Channel. The show blurs the line between man and machine by featuring radical prosthetic designs that empower the amputee users to surpass human ability. … Continue Reading
Canon HDSLRs are a boon to low cost visual effects and seem to shine when used for green screen work. Shane Hurlbut mentioned earlier that green is better than blue when doing effects:
We found that blue screen work is a non-starter with all of these cameras. It does not see the blue screen in a clean key image……….Green screen on the other hand is where these cameras shine. They are cleaner than all the professional HD cameras out there. It is truly impressive. Kurt Williams, VFX supervisor and producer was blown away on how clean the key was.
It’s really impressive what’s being done with virtual backgrounds. I had no idea that so many seemingly mundane scenes are shot on green screen. The funny thing here is that while watching TV, I often lean over and ask my wife, “Doesn’t that show shoot in LA?” When she answers affirmative, I assume the show’s budget allowed for location work in NY or wherever. After watching Stargate Studios Virtual Backlot demo reel, I stand corrected:
… Continue Reading
Airing tonight, May 17th 2010, is the episode of Fox’s House MD that was shot on the Canon 5D Mark II. I am pretty sure this is the first appearance of HDSLR footage on a major network’s prime time show but it is definitely not the last. A little birdie over at Redrock Micro told me that the camera department from House MD will be very well equipped to shoot HDSLR next season.
The interesting thing here is that small HDSLR cameras were more than likely chosen because of their ability to shoot in tight spaces on this episode. Being able to quickly and easily place small lightweight cameras into situations that would be virtually impossible with larger 35mm film cameras is really the game changer for a lot of productions. It opens up new opportunities for storytelling, letting a crew spend more time shooting and less time waiting on camera set up and rigging. We’ve seen how indie films like “Road to Nowhere” cut over 60% of their budget by using HDSLR cameras but the other side of that coin is when you have a set budget and a tight timeline, this camera technology can be used to stretch the number of shots captured per day. This is a luxury even on projects with healthy budgets.
