While the Blackmagic Design announcements have a marketing perspective and are a way to promote the products from Blackmagic Design, those real-world examples give an interesting window into how cinematographers work and are worth sharing. We picked the digested information shared by Blackmagic Design about each of the projects and publish here those notes, pointing to the links to the whole stories, so readers wanting to know more can check each project independently. Here are the five projects shared by Blackmagic Design:
Festival Short Film In Memory Of Shot with URSA Cine 12K LF
Robert Hewitt recently shot the short film project “In Memory Of” using the Blackmagic URSA Cine 12K LF digital film camera. According to Hewitt, shooting on the URSA Cine 12K LF’s full frame sensor brought a unique dimension to the film. “The full frame sensor gives you a larger image area, which translates into a more immersive field of view and shallower depth of field,” added Hewitt. “Once we had the camera up and the set lit, the director and producer were all wowed by the image right away. After dialing everything in, it was just incredibly beautiful.”
What often differentiates a cinema camera is its dynamic range, and both Hewitt and Jeremy Hill, first assistant, were impressed with the URSA Cine 12K LF’s ability to handle wide exposure. “The opening scene of the short probably showcases the remarkable dynamic range of the camera, from the darker interior with the harsh sunlight highlights coming into the room,” said Hill. “It was nice to see that the image was still very flattering even considering such a wide range of exposure.”
For Hewitt, the dining room scene showed off the camera’s abilities the best. “We started with a wide, slowly creeping shot and then moved into all the table details and the intense conversation between the three siblings,” continued Hewitt. “There were large windows behind two of the actors, which made balancing the exposure a little tricky. My longtime friend and great gaffer, Mikie Pederson, was able to help with scrims outside, but it was still very bright, and I was a little worried. However, once we got into post production and loaded up the Blackmagic RAW files, it was amazing to see how well the camera handled those highlights.”
Large Format Capture with URSA Cine and PYXIS
DP James Tonkin of Hangman filmed the stage production “Musik,” employing a multicamera package that included the URSA Cine 17K 65, URSA Cine 12K LF, PYXIS 12Ks and more. The 60-minute, one woman performance was captured across multiple nights in one of London’s oldest surviving theaters.
Across the three performances, Tonkin managed up to 16 unique camera angles, ensuring no overlaps between positions and giving the editor maximum coverage for continuity. “We varied a couple of A and B angles so we were closer for one performance,” Tonkin said. “I shot two cameras one night, eight on the matinee, and then another six on the following shows. That gave us 16 camera angles. It was key to make sure none of those angles were doubling up.”
Neil Finn’s Latest Infinity Sessions Completed With Blackmagic Design
Musician’s Neil Finn’s latest incarnation of his Infinity Sessions series, “Make Us Feel Good About Life,” was captured and live streamed using a full Blackmagic Design workflow, including Blackmagic PYXIS 6K, ATEM Television Studio HD8 ISO, Blackmagic Cloud Store Max 24TB, Web Presenter 4K and DaVinci Resolve Studio.
Sundae explained his workflow: “With the session streams, it is always about the live event itself. But what we put up online after is super important as well. Which all means that we have to capture as much as possible at the highest quality. We had two camera operators using the Blackmagic PYXIS 6K cameras, and then we had three lockoffs which were Blackmagic Cinema Camera 6Ks. I was operating the ATEM Television Studio. The physical panel and feel of the ATEM is what I needed to be creative with the t-bar.”
Vanguard Powers Esports World Cup Festival with Blackmagic Design
For the Esports World Cup (EWC), Vanguard needed a solution that would support continuous live broadcasts for nearly two months, while maintaining creative consistency and technical resilience. The festival, which spans seven weeks and combines elite esports competition with a vast live entertainment, features more than 2,500 players and 200 clubs from over 80 countries. For it, Vanguard deployed a 12G-SDI production ecosystem built around Blackmagic Design across all festival venues.
LittleBig Transforms African Energy Week Content Delivery
African Energy Week (AEW), the African Energy Chamber’s flagship event, has become one of the continent’s most significant gatherings, with the annual four day conference bringing together African energy leaders, global investors and senior policymakers. Delivering content from an event of this scale, with simultaneous sessions across multiple venues, was a formidable task.
Production company LittleBig ran eight venues in parallel with 21 camera feeds live for eight hours a day. Each session was captured using a mix of Blackmagic URSA Broadcast G2 and Blackmagic Studio Cameras, all vision mixing using ATEM Television Studio HD8 ISO live production switcher, with vision mixers splitting duties between IMAG projection and streaming. ISO recordings were ingested either directly to a Blackmagic Cloud Store Mini 16TB network storage device via 10 Gb Ethernet or handed off on SSDs to a DIT. From there, one of seven editors began work immediately in DaVinci Resolve Studio.