Drones: Flying Into Action

Broadcast: Drones Directory 2015

From local news items to adrenaline-fuelled action sequences in Hollywood blockbusters, shots captured by drones are cropping up everywhere. While other systems have their benefits – for example, a helicopter can go longer distances, fly at higher altitudes, carry heavier camera payloads, and hover – a professional cinema drone is flexible and can be operated for a fraction of the cost. It also moves in three dimensions, overcoming the limitations of using a crane, dolly, or wire rig, which are fixed. Broadcast spoke with TV, film and commercials producers about their experiences using UAVs.

http://www.broadcastnow.co.uk/home/digital-editions/drones-directory-2015/5097065.article?blocktitle=Broadcast-digital-specials&contentID=40497

Emmerdale

ITV's drama has used drones on several occasions, including in a driving sequence of a episode to be TXed on 11 November. The UAV was used to reveal the jeopardy of the character's situation.

“The beauty is the flexibility it offers in shot selection,” explains Steve Ross, production manager, ITV Studios. “If the director has a different idea, the drone can cope immediately, whereas using a crane could potentially delay the shoot in having to relocate it. A drone can also offer 360-degree views from any working height, which are hard to imagine with your feet on the ground.”

For example, drones offer the ability to go from a very wide high shot and behind a speeding car, taking the camera down, tracking back above, then turning the camera round to see the driver with the camera now traveling in front of the car.

“This single shot could not be achieved without numerous different set-ups and equipment,” says Ross.

However, when a director begins to see the potential, they may want to use it more and more. “The audience can be shocked or amazed by the impact of a drone shot, but if you use too many it becomes commonplace and loses impact.“

Location choice is important. Ross cites tall overhanging trees, telegraph poles and overhead cables as potential obstacles to negotiate.

“One downside is the number of people who purchase a drone and think they can make a career out of it without any real background or experience in camera work,” he says. “It's not just about flying and seeing what you can see. Framing and composition are just as important 50 metres up.”

Now You See Me 2

Twenty scenes of the horror sequel (on release next June) were captured using the drone as C-camera (alongside main A and B-roll units), including on location in Macao, China and in a tunnel mocked up as a metro station.

“Drones bridge the gap between a crane arm and helicopter,” says NYSM2 producer Kevin De La Noy (Saving Private Ryan, The Dark Knight). “They are so much less intrusive. You don't need to avoid filming camera tracks or cranes so you can be much more creative. Beware that a drone will create a downdraft on loose leaves or dust which may give its presence away.”

While a Technocrane will give you 50 feet of movement at its longest extension, a drone can provide 200 feet in any direction.

“Drones are ideal for high and wide shots but if you need close-ups then go with a normal camera and crane,” advises De La Noy. “UAVs will buffer and be unusable in wind, whereas a helicopter fitted with a gyro-stabilized Wescam even with a IMAX camera filming in 6-8 knots will be rock solid.”

On Now You See Me 2, the drone was paired with a Phantom Flex4K camera which, in the filmmaker's opinion, provided better resolution than a RED to accommodate VFX in post.

Safety considerations included demarcating a zone of restricted access and giving onlookers a chance to remove themselves out of harm's way.

“Safety is vital. If a drone engine dies it become a 5kg meteorite. If it fails with rotors running it becomes a 5kg meteorite with a chainsaw," he says. “Anyone can put a rig into airspace without any safety checks."

De La Noy would like to see a standardisation of UAV rules. “Drones are becoming such an important creative tool for filmmakers who want to base productions out of the UK that there needs to be a policy shift to address exactly what the rules are, who is licensed and who will police the industry.”

The Mosque

The East London Mosque, on the Whitechapel Road, is the largest in Europe but it's also hemmed in by tall buildings restricting conventional camera positions. To give a sense of its geographical location in Tower Hamlets with Canary Wharf as backdrop, filmmaker Robb Leech used a drone during the busy Friday prayers for BBC Two documentary The Mosque (Grace Productions/Vagabond Films).

“It was quite a laborious process with strict filming limitations in built-up areas plus weather conditions to contend with, but we got lucky,” reports Leech. “We got those epic sweeping shots that establish the mosque at the beginning of the film and used more aerial angles as a device for reflection between scenes and to avoid feeling claustrophobic [since most of the film is set inside the building].”

Given the budget Leech would have closed off a street to fly the drone. In the event, UAV filming was only possible if the drone was kept within the space of the roof of the building opposite.

“The open roof of Booth House gave us a buffer zone to fly adjacent to, but not over, the mosque,” says Leech. “We did the same on the roof of the mosque itself, capturing amazing shots of its minarets.”

Filming 150 feet up but keeping within the footprint of the rooftop brought the wind into play. “Any higher than 10 mph winds would have prevented flying and we would not have had the budget to come back another Friday,” says Leech. “We had a 20 minute window to film the prayer-goers exit from the mosque and within that period we flew three times, alternating lenses on the Sony FS7 to give us different framing options.”

Lexus NX Laser Harp

This summer's promo launching a new Lexus featured a musical game in which three cars play a will.i.am tune by hitting 350 projection-mapped motion and audio sensitive laser lights to the right beat.

“Additional vehicles or car-mounted cranes would have interfered with the whole concept of the laser,” explains Max Yeoman, head of production at Mind's Eye Media. “The UAV wouldn't get in the way of the ground camera's line of sight and it wouldn't interfere with the physical light installation on cranes arrayed to one side of the track.”

The shoot was made on a disused Spanish airfield affording ample room to manoeuvre the drone in safety. “Creatively, a UAV gives directors more scope because you can move the camera up, down and sideways,” says Yeoman. “Drones are not better than any other equipment. You have to use the most appropriate tool for the job. With a Russian Arm you can drive alongside the vehicle you are filming, which with a drone is considerably harder and carries more risk.”

A license to fly does not necessarily mean a UAV operation is able to film what you need, advises Yeoman. “You go with reputation, price, how long they've owned the gear and whether they supply cameras or whether the kit needs hiring but first and foremost is a recommendation from another producer, director or crew. If the agency is booked then you have to take a punt on someone else.”

Henley Royal Regatta

Drones are increasingly part of the sports director's armoury. “Any new angles in sports are like gold dust,” says James Abraham, digital strategy director/executive producer, Sunset+Vine. “For the Henley Royal Regatta [live streamed to YouTube] audiences were easily able to see which boat was leading from an aerial tracking shot, and a section of the spectators were revealed as a sporting amphitheatre like Henman Hill, both dramatic views not possible without a drone.”

The UAV repeatedly flew the same section of the river course filming two or three races before returning to ground for a quick battery swap.

“Henley was quite straightforward in that we knew the exact route of the race. With other events you may not know those details beforehand,” says Abraham. “You are also beholden to the weather so that has to be at the back of your mind.”

Operator permissions can differ quite dramatically, he warns. “You need to make sure an operator has got the necessary permissions which in turn should be passed on to your insurance company.”

Sunset+Vine has pre-recorded fly-through beauty sequences for the MCC of test match venues and live UAV material as build-up for the 2015 Aviva Premiership Rugby final from an area outside Twickenham stadium.

“Using RF links means the payload goes up, though sight lines are often easier [than with ground RF cams] since the view is straight up,” says Abraham. “I'm not sure drones are a viable alternative to [wire-slung] Spider-cams for match coverage inside stadia purely from a health and safety perspective. The potential of something going wrong means that no rights holder or producer has got the stomach for that kind of risk.”

Drones: Tech For Every Occasion

Broadcast: Drones Directory 2015

UAV selection often comes down to weight and keeping below the 7kg limit of standard CAA flying regulations. Doing so at the budget end requires use of lightweight fixed lens cameras like GoPro Hero, the Blackmagic Pocket Cinema Camera or gimbals with built-in cameras such as the DJI Zenmuse X3.

http://www.broadcastnow.co.uk/home/digital-editions/drones-directory-2015/5097065.article?blocktitle=Broadcast-digital-specials&contentID=40497

Currently available choices won't provide the data rates suitable for more than limited broadcast though DJI's X5, the latest version of its stabilisation mechanism includes a Micro Four Thirds 4K camera designed to achieve better quality. One to watch is the kickstarter-funded Z Camera which aims to develop the world's smallest UHD imager with interchangeable lenses.

While the just released Solo drone from 3D Robotics provides an alternative for GoPro users, the most popular off-the-shelf rigs at this end of the market are DJI Phantom 3 and Inspire. While a Phantom can be flown by a single person and is therefore cheaper, the Inspire offers dual operator control - of the aircraft and of the separate pan, roll, tilt motor of the gimbal - providing for smoother and more accurate dynamic camera movement.

The next step-up in camera quality are bulkier DSLRs like the Panasonic GH4, Canon 5D Mark III and the mirrorless Sony a7S II. There are customized gimbals for some of these models, such as the DJI Zenmuse Z15-5D for the 5D series, which efficiently minimise weight. Still in the sub-7kg category, the DJI S900 is routinely used to carry Panasonic GH4s on a Zenmuse with a 6-12mm Olympus lens.

Freefly Systems' Alta will permit mounting of such cameras underneath or on top to obtain fresh angles, using its MoVI stabilizers. It has a folding frame for easy transport and therefore useful for factual. The DJI S1000 and DJI S900 also fold-down and can be a better solution for a hostile environment, or if you’re travelling abroad and don’t need a full broadcast-spec camera.

For cameras more exacting of a broadcast spec, including the Canon C300, Sony FS7 and F55, RED Epic/Weapon or ARRI Mini, you will need platforms capable of carrying heavier payloads. Even the GH4 married with a different lens may push total weight over the 7kg mark. With a cinema package you will need control over the camera's exposure with a lens control system which adds to the weight. A plus in moving up the weight scale is that larger battery packs can be carried, upping flight time from an average 15 minutes to 30 minutes.

Airframe options here include the DJI S1000 octocopter, Intuitive Aerial Aerigon hexacopter and Freefly Cinestar 8 HL with Movi 15 gimbal; the additional rotors generating greater lift.

Productions with a more specific requirement, such as significant payload capacity or ultra-precise movement, might try custom-built airframes. These will be more expensive than out-of-the-box systems but the makers are said to provide better customer service. Gloucester's Vulcan UAV, for example, will design and build drones from the ground-up.

If live broadcast is required then links from Teradex or Paralinx, used in conventional ground systems, are an option. Amimon, developers of the core technology behind those units, has launched Connex HD specifically for the aerial market and capable of delivering an HD link over 1km.

For unique mobile lighting there's the LED Light Heli system from Digital Sputnik. A drone is able to carry the system, controllable by Wi-Fi, which has an output equivalent of 1.5kW HMI, perhaps lighting night time action being filmed from a second drone.

Autofollow tracking systems require no pilot or camera-op and can be controlled from smartphone apps. Intended for the extreme sports market, care should be taken if used professionally since no vendor, let alone those with pilotless technologies, have developed failsafe collision avoidance systems.

Profile: Brother, Brother & Sons

P28 British Cinematographer Nov 2015

A belief in the power of LED as the future of professional lighting technology inspired Danish duo Peter Plesner and Thomas Brockmann to start up Brother, Brother & Sons (BB&S) in 1999, although it took a decade for their vision to be vindicated.

http://www.imago.org/images/pdfs/BRITISH_CINEMATOGRAPHER/BC%2072.compressed.pdf
“LEDs were not at all useable in 1999,” says co-founder Plesner. “We believed that LED would be the big thing for the future but it took a while for the quality to reach a point that we could use them.”

Between 1999 and 2007 the company concentrated on developing motorised or manually operated lighting fixtures or engines for lighting manufacturers. The Warp for ADB-TTV was the first product developed. In 2007 BB&S started its first LED product development with the Evenled (later acquired by Martin Audio), followed by LED-based retro-fits for De Sisti, Robert Juliat and ARRI. The Aledin-AR backend light engine, for example, mounts into ARRI ST 1 Fresnel. It also created a LED light engine for the De Sisti Leonardo Fresnel.

Then, in 2011, BB&S began development of a proprietary product portfolio of it own high-end LED lighting products and to transition from a development house into full-scale manufacturing, sales, marketing and distribution.

“The first step was for LED technology to reach the same level of output as Tungsten or daylights,” says Plesner. “That has been achieved. We next moved to developing the quality of colour rendition. That goal has also now been attained.”

Its key product is the AREA 48 Soft, introduced in 2012. Instead of LED arrays, the AREA 48 uses remote phosphor, widely viewed as an elegant solution to one of the biggest problems to plague LED lighting technology; how to produce a wide spectrum white light and achieve a high colour rendering index for accurate colour rendition.

By swapping phosphor-coated panels of the AREA 48, light can quickly change from daylight to Tungsten or other colour temperatures. The system’s colour rendering accuracy is over 95 TLCI (Television Lighting Consistency Index), and the source is comparable to a traditional 1K soft light.

“Every test made to date clearly shows the AREA 48 will reproduce the exact same skin tones as daylight or Tungsten even when shooting in RAW,” says Plesner. “There is absolutely no colour shift when dimming, no green or magenta mess up and therefore less work in post even when used in conjunction with traditional light sources.”

Recently debuted accessories include a new reflector, an octagonal soft box and frames for ganging two or four AREA 48s together for a more powerful soft light. Also new is the AREA 48 Soft Studio, made especially for front of house applications, TV or motion capture studios where extremely smooth dimming in the last 5% is needed.

At face value LED fixtures can be more expensive than Tungsten, a reason attributed to the greater R&D cost to make an LED fixture than an old-fashioned Fresnel. “However, you also have to factor-in that for traditional fixtures you need thick cabling and dimmers to be installed in studios, whereas with LED you just need an inexpensive DMX cable so the cost of running LED is less,” he argues.

AREA 48s are used on a wide variety of TV and feature productions including the Eurovision Song Contest, in their hundreds on Pirates Of The Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales (2017 with cinematography by Paul Cameron ASC), and 2016 Lionsgate fantasy Gods Of Egypt, whose DP is Peter Menzies Jr. The gaffer on both features is Shaun Conway, of Conway Film Lighting with AREA 48s supplied by Barbizon of Australia.

The second innovative product using remote phosphor is the Pipeline. These are modular, cylindrical fixtures built with a diameter of less than an inch to be installed in banks of up to four pipes, or deployed in a single reflector for modelling faces and illuminating backgrounds.

“The Pipeline is very slim, allowing gaffers to create a lot of different reflector forms,” he says. “It also matches the TLCI of AREA 48 which means it will match Tungsten or daylight fixtures so you can confidently use existing or older kit alongside the new which is not the case with all LED fixtures.”

The product has been packaged into Pipeline Reporter to address the challenges of travelling correspondents who often deliver their reports via Skype or Microsoft Messenger from a webcam on a desktop. BB&S’ founders share experience in designing lighting for TV, theatre and feature film.

Plesner himself spent the first 25 years of his career as a lighting designer for opera. “In a small country like Denmark lighting for different disciplines was par for the course, but we see this merger happening in larger markets too, especially as film and TV cameras get closer together in terms of application.”

The company is based 2km outside of Copenhagen towards the airport in an old industrial area that is undergoing urban renewal. There, the R&D team comprises experts in optical physics, electronics, mechanical design and software processing. All assembly is housed there too with distribution over a worldwide network of 37 dealers.

Plesner is in no doubt that LED will replace virtually all Tungsten and daylight fixtures. “If you go to Singapore and mention Tungsten they don’t know what you mean,” he says. “South East Asia has already moved to LED. It is just the more conservative markets of Europe and the US, which are slower to transition. The introduction of new technologies is bound to retire all the older, heavy, extremely overpriced and power- consuming fixtures.”

Whether LED will supplant 12k and 18k HMIs is another matter. “There are occasions when you do need a large point source, to make strong shadows coming through a window for example. But for smaller luminaries it makes no sense to use that amount of power and heat when there are far more economical technologies available.”

The next step for the company is to find new ways of creating lighting instruments that fit the more extreme resolution and sensitivity of the most recent digital cinema cameras. Sony’s A7S II full-frame mirrorless camera boasts an ISO range from 50 to 409600 and the Canon ME20F-SH claims an ISO in excess of 4 million.

“The picture quality from imaging systems will rise significantly and therefore the quality and usability of the light source must follow,” he says. “Lighting will continue to play a huge part in creating skin tone granularity and crisp images.”

BB&S collaborates in scientific research with the Danish Technical University (DTU) Photonics Unit in order to prepare for future leaps in lighting technology.

“We hear a lot of feedback from DPs about being asked to light for two locations in a day,” says Plesner. “They have to be able to run everything off a battery, there is no time for cabling. There is a demand for greater speed on-set and for more efficient workflows. All we can do is listen to users and try to give them what they need.”

12 Tips For Using UAVS

Broadcast  - Drones Directory 2015

http://www.broadcastnow.co.uk/features/12-tips-for-using-drones/5097064.article?blocktitle=Production-Feature&contentID=1169

Vet suppliers: Common sense, maybe, but with around 1000 CAA-licensed UAV services in a fledging industry which do you trust to undertake your project? Showreels should be a guide only, word of mouth often a better bet. One differentiator is to ask for certification to fly 20kg payloads. This should mean the outfit will have wider experience with dual pilot and gimbal control.

Two better than one: You can get great results with a single person flying the system, but the more dynamic moves happen with a dedicated gimbal operator moving the camera in accordance to a DP's instruction.

Pick the team, not the hardware: Sure, rigs and cameras are important but not as important as the crew you'll be working with. Competent UAV teams will understand professional broadcast, meaning an appreciation of the workflow, the language of pans and tracking shots, and the format you need to walk away with.

Understand the law: Each country has a different approach, and regulations are playing catch-up with the explosive trend. Key UK parameters include staying more than 500 meters away from people and buildings and to a maximum altitude of 400 ft.

Look for CAOSC: Staying under the 7kg limit was mandatory for all UAVs in heavily populated areas often to the detriment of onboard acquisition quality. Operators can now obtain a year-long CAA regulated Congested Areas Operating Safety Case to fly rigs up to 20kg anywhere, increasing your options and speeding up planning for jobs.

Speed: How fast do you want to fly/track? Drones are good for about 35 mph. Any faster and you will probably need a conventional helicopter.

Camera package: Check that the camera package proposed suits your purpose and does not require great amounts of post stabilisation. Note that most drones cannot fly a larger cinema sensor camera and zoom lens.

Plan ahead: Shooting views of a presenter walking up a hill is straightforward but only if your UAV operator has worked the logistics of access and securing permissions. While staying below the magic 7kg can speed the process, note that some air traffic permissions can take up to 10 days to secure.

Force 10: Weather can play havoc with any location shoot but excessive wind will ground flights, so have a contingency plan.

Storyboard it: A drama director may have a specific aerial vision in mind. Bring the UAV team in at pre-production to fully understand the requirements which will have a baring on hardware choices, safety concerns for stunts and complex camera moves.

Do you need one? When a jib, balloon, helicopter, kite or Russian Arm is best? The latter is a remotely operated vehicle-mounted gyro-stabilized crane. If you need to track a car at 70 mph and keep the camera consistently within 6ft of the bonnet, you'll want this.

Think space: The bigger the open space, the more you will get out of the drone. Large controlled areas mean you can place the camera wherever you want. Drones unlock aerial shots in confined spaces like caves, tunnels, hangars. Beware the noise of the rotors though.

Don’t fly uninsured: If you engage an operator to fly something with mass and moving parts, you should think about what happens if there's an accident. An insurer will require CAA permission to fly.

For your budget: Rates vary between £800 to £2000 per day with the more experienced pilots commanding a better rate. The average fee is around £1000 and usually includes pre-planning, site recces and permissions as well as the camera and rig.

Profile: Brother, Brother & Sons

British Cinematographer 
P28 Nov 2015



A belief in the power of LED as the future of professional lighting technology inspired Danish duo Peter Plesner and Thomas Brockmann to start up Brother, Brother & Sons (BB&S) in 1999, although it took a decade for their vision to be vindicated.
http://www.imago.org/images/pdfs/BRITISH_CINEMATOGRAPHER/BC%2072.compressed.pdf
“LEDs were not at all useable in 1999,” says co- founder Plesner. “We believed that LED would be the big thing for the future but it took a while for the quality to reach a point that we could use them.”

Between 1999 and 2007 the company concentrated on developing motorised or manually operated lighting fixtures or engines for lighting manufacturers. The Warp for ADB-TTV was the first product developed. In 2007 BB&S started its first LED product development with the Evenled (later acquired by Martin Audio), followed by LED-based retro-fits for De Sisti, Robert Juliat and ARRI. The Aledin-AR back- end light engine, for example, mounts into ARRI ST 1 Fresnel. It also created a LED light engine for the De Sisti Leonardo Fresnel.

Then, in 2011, BB&S began development of a proprietary product portfolio of it own high-end LED lighting products and to transition from a development house into full-scale manufacturing, sales, marketing and distribution.

“The first step was for LED technology to reach the same level of output as Tungsten or daylights,” says Plesner. “That has been achieved. We next moved to developing the quality of colour rendition. That goal has also now been attained.”

Its key product is the AREA 48 Soft, introduced in 2012. Instead of LED arrays, the AREA 48 uses remote phosphor, widely viewed as an elegant solution to one of the biggest problems to plague LED lighting technology; how to produce a wide spectrum white light and achieve a high colour rendering index for accurate colour rendition.

By swapping phosphor-coated panels of the AREA 48, light can quickly change from daylight to Tungsten or other colour temperatures. The system’s colour rendering

accuracy is over 95 TLCI (Television Lighting Consistency Index), and the source is comparable to a traditional 1K soft light.

“Every test made to date clearly shows the AREA 48 will reproduce the exact same skin tones as daylight or Tungsten even when shooting in RAW,” says Plesner. “There is absolutely no colour shift when dimming, no green or magenta mess up and therefore less work in post even when used in conjunction with traditional light sources.”

Recently debuted accessories include a new reflector, an octagonal soft box and frames for ganging two or four AREA 48s together for a more powerful soft light. Also new is the AREA 48 Soft Studio, made especially for front of house applications, TV or motion capture studios where extremely smooth dimming in the last 5% is needed.

At face value LED fixtures can be more expensive than Tungsten, a reason attributed to the greater R&D cost to make an LED fixture than an old-fashioned Fresnel. “However, you also have to factor-in that for traditional fixtures you need thick cabling and dimmers to be installed in studios, whereas with LED you just need an inexpensive DMX cable so the cost of running LED is less,” he argues.

AREA 48s are used on a wide variety of TV and feature productions including the Eurovision Song Contest, in their hundreds on Pirates Of The Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales (2017 with cinematography by Paul Cameron ASC), and 2016 Lionsgate fantasy Gods Of Egypt, whose DP is Peter Menzies Jr. The gaffer on both features is Shaun Conway, of Conway Film Lighting with AREA 48s supplied by Barbizon of Australia.

The second innovative product using remote phosphor is the Pipeline. These are modular, cylindrical fixtures built with a diameter of less than an inch to be installed in banks of up to four pipes, or deployed in a single reflector for modelling faces and illuminating backgrounds.

“The Pipeline is very slim, allowing gaffers to create a lot of different reflector forms,” he says. “It also matches the TLCI of AREA 48 which means it will match

Tungsten or daylight fixtures so you can confidently use existing or older kit alongside the new which is not the case with all LED fixtures.”

The product has been packaged into Pipeline Reporter to address the challenges of travelling correspondents who often deliver their reports via Skype or Microsoft Messenger from a webcam on a desktop. BB&S’ founders share

experience in designing lighting for TV, theatre and feature film.

Plesner himself spent the first 25 years of his career as a lighting designer for opera.

“In a small country like Denmark lighting for different disciplines was par for the course, but we see this merger happening in larger markets too, especially as film and TV cameras get closer together in terms of application.”

The company is based 2km outside of Copenhagen towards the airport in an old industrial area that is undergoing urban renewal. There, the R&D team comprises experts in optical physics, electronics, mechanical design and software processing. All assembly is housed there too with distribution over a worldwide network of 37 dealers.

Plesner is in no doubt that LED will replace virtually all Tungsten and daylight fixtures. “If you go to Singapore and mention Tungsten they don’t know what you mean,” he says. “South East Asia has already moved to LED. It is just the more conservative markets of Europe and the US, which are slower to transition. The introduction of new technologies is bound to retire all the older, heavy, extremely overpriced and power- consuming fixtures.”

Whether LED will supplant 12k and 18k HMIs is another matter. “There are occasions when you do need a large point source, to make strong shadows coming through a window for example. But for smaller luminaries it makes no sense to use that amount of power and heat when there are far more economical technologies available.”

The next step for the company is to find new ways of creating lighting instruments that fit the more extreme resolution and sensitivity of the most recent digital cinema cameras. Sony’s A7S II full-frame mirrorless camera boasts an ISO range from 50 to 409600 and the Canon ME20F-SH claims an ISO in excess of 4 million.

“The picture quality from imaging systems will rise significantly and therefore the quality and usability of the light source must follow,” he says. “Lighting will continue to play a huge part in creating skin tone granularity and crisp images.”

BB&S collaborates in scientific research with the Danish Technical University (DTU) Photonics Unit in order to prepare for future leaps in lighting technology.

“We hear a lot of feedback from DPs about being asked to light for two locations in a day,” says Plesner. “They have to be able to run everything off a battery, there is no time for cabling. There is a demand for greater speed on-set and for more efficient workflows. All we can do is listen to users and try to give them what they need.”

Go Compare-style Portal For Post Production Possible, Say DPP

BroadcastBridge

Trading and booking post production resources could be streamlined by an online comparison service, similar to how many of us search for car insurance, according to British industry alliance Digital Production Partnership (DPP). It is conducting research into the future of production and has already sized up implications of digital tools for content creation, programme distribution and the business model that has cemented post house and producer relationships for years.

https://www.thebroadcastbridge.com/content/entry/4390/go-compare-style-portal-for-post-production-possible-say-dpp

“We feel we are entering the biggest moment of potential change in how programmes are made for a decade,” explained Mark Harrison, Managing Director, DPP. “If you are starting out now as a content maker you would not have grown up in the established TV culture of linear broadcast. Consequently, you would take a very different approach to how to make content. You would use web-based editing tools and cloud storage. You would likely shape your finished output using a range of non-geo-specific services. And of course you might be publishing direct to the web.”

Perhaps most fundamentally, the trading relationship between facilities and content producers might change. 

“You would likely shop around for these services using the web rather than running or ringing around Soho for the best deal,” Harrison suggested. “I can imagine a time when even makers of high-profile, long form programming might seek to identify – and buy – all their creative services for dubbing, grading and finishing through a Go Compare-style web portal. The question is how far away this is.”

Harrison added that such a scenario did not mean that craft talent would go unvalued. “On the contrary, craft talent will remain extremely important at the higher end. It is just whether the buying model, and the way content is delivered, might start to move online.”

These ideas will be detailed by the DPP in a far-reaching report it is announcing the start of today as part the organisation's 2016 road map.

“We're looking at the extent to which digital tools are now becoming appropriate to the broadcast domain and how it will fundamentally shift the way we position product,” he said. “It is about the opportunities that now exist to use internet-based production tools but also the opportunity to create audio visual content for suppliers and distributors other than mainstream broadcasters. Market distribution is much more diverse now and tools and technologies are beginning to much more diverse.”

The DPP won plaudits for its remarkable smooth oversight of a file-based delivery standard into UK broadcasters which has been in train for over a year. 

Other aspects of its 2016 road map includes a version of the AS-11 delivery specification for North American broadcasters and collaboration with the EBU on a common international programme mastering format.

“There is a lot of support for an international exchange of content and with the EBU we can try and ensure this comes about more quickly,” he said. 

Earlier this year the DPP became a limited company and introduced a fee structure for members, which was somewhat controversial among post production facilities which felt that they had contributed enough investment in new equipment, plus feedback to the DPP, to get file-based delivery up and running.

As a result, the DPP dropped a proposal to introduce a Kitemark (certification) endorsement for post firms in March.

“We've always prided ourselves about the benefits of our work to the whole industry and now we have members we can interact with directly,” Harrison said. “The quality of insight and engagement they give us is second to none, and so it feels as if giving us [their participation] gives us that extra relevance.”

He continued, “By being part of the DPP you get to shape [the future]. The quality of insight members are getting into the industry is enormous. They get that insight very early. 

“We are the only organisation that can bring all the parts of the supply chain into a room together at the same time to share insight into how to integrate change or create market opportunities that nobody else can bring. That's the thing our members tell us is important to them.”

Since introducing fees, the DPP has collected 48 paying members including UK broadcasters (including BBC, ITV. BT Sport, Sky, Channel 4 and Channel 5 plus nations broadcasters STV, TG4 and UTV with Fox); vendors including Sony, SAM, Vizrt, Tektronix, Ericsson, Suitcase TV and Fujitsu; service providers Deluxe, Sohonet, Aspera, Screenocean, Dock10 and Arqiva and a handful of post production facilities including Envy, Deluxe brand Encore; Gorilla TV and The Farm.

Annual fees for a UK broadcaster are £25,000; for service companies or kit vendors up to £4000 depending on turnover; and up to £4000 for facilities depending on turnover.

Eye Spy: John Mathieson on Man from U.N.C.L.E

British Cinematographer

Guy Ritchie's new spy-fi action comedy pairs a duo of special agents on opposite sides of thc cold war. In roles popularised in the 1960s MGM V series starring Robert Vaughn and David Mccallum. The characters, like the cars featured in the movie are vintage. But the story is new.

https://britishcinematographer.co.uk/john-mathieson-bsc-the-man-from-u-n-c-l-e/

For the film, Ritchie and co-writer and producer, Lionel Wigram, conceived the idea of an ‘origins’ story that would reveal how CIA operative Napoleon Solo (Henry Cavill) and KGB agent Illya Kuryakin (Armie Hammer) met and arrived at their unlikely collaboration for the mysterious United Network Command for Law and Enforcement (U.N.C.L.E.).

Philippe Rousselot AFC ASC, who had lensed Sherlock Holmes: A Game Of Shadows for Ritchie was assigned to the project but unfortunately had to withdraw at the eleventh hour. So the ball passed to John Mathieson BSC – a more capable substitute you could not imagine.

As far as Mathieson can tell, he got the gig following recommendations from co-producer Max Keene, gaffer Chuck Finch, and camera operator Chris Plevin – all collaborators with Ritchie on Sherlock and each with connections to Mathieson, the two time Oscar nominee (Gladiator, The Phantom Of The Opera), through their work together on films such as 47 Ronin, Robin Hood and Kingdom Of Heaven.

“I kind of got the show by way of a few references and the misfortune of a fellow DP,” explains Mathieson. “It came rather quickly and the technical crew and much of the key decision-making was already in train.”

The timing wasn't ideal for this avowed enthusiast for film. In early 2013, in the wake of the pending closure of Technicolor's processing lab at Pinewood but before Deluxe-owned Company3 joined with iDailies, and long before Disney landed Star Wars in the country, UK film processing was on the verge of collapse. “There wasn't a choice about U.N.C.L.E.'s shooting format, we had to shoot digital,” he says.

Mathieson had shot with REDs and ARRI Alexas previously but doesn't favour one over another, viewing all digital cameras as essentially inferior to negative. “I couldn't really care if I never saw a digital camera ever again,” he says. “With digital you don't have to be a craftsman. You can shoot and add colour and exposure in hindsight rather than sculpt instinctively in stone. But U.N.C.L.E. was not a bad project to do digitally. Digital cameras will give you synthetic primaries, rather than burnt Renaissance painting colour, but then this is a Sixties’ pastiche comic-strip with bright, bold colours. So I thought, 'let's just go with it and not be a Luddite about it’.”

Principal photography began in September 2013 on Alexa XT with some B-roll shot on GoPro Hero (unused in the event). Canon EOS 5Ds proved more useful for stunt sequences, including one which resulted in a car being submerged underwater. “We sank the vehicle and couldn't retrieve the footage until a week later but it was perfectly serviceable,” he says.

Like Ritchie's Sherlock Holmes films and his 1998 feature debut, Lock, Stock And Two Smoking Barrels, The Man From U.N.C.L.E. inhabits a world of both flash and toughness. The director largely left Mathieson to his own devices, concentrating on working with the actors rather than engaging his cinematographer in animated shot-by-shot conversation or suggesting a definitive look.

“We tried to tip our hat to the period,” says Mathieson. “We shot mainly with Panavision E Series Anamorphic primes and older Technovision spherical lenses, which all had the feeling of the time. They possessed aberrations and a fogging or veiling which helped to set the film back, not as far as the Sixties, but certainly a throwback to the past.”

Other glass included an old Cooke Cine Varotal MKII 25-250mm T3.9 zoom, Cooke Varotal 40-200mm, an Elite zoom 240-1040mm and Cooke Varotal T3 for night work.

The closest filmic references for The Man From U.N.C.L.E. were the early 007 James Bond movies of Dr No (1962) and From Russia With Love (1963), both shot by DP Ted Moore BSC. “A lot of the look of those films was achieved in the styling – of two-tone suits, jet-black waxed hair and skinny ties with girls in polyester dresses and classic cars, but the look was quite colourful too,” observes Mathieson. “The film stock of the time is quite rich and contrasty with strong blacks and deep colours. That's not quite so easy to achieve on digital.”

Some 16mm Bolex negative was shot as a transition between the title sequence, containing scene-setting newsreel of President's Kennedy and Khrushchev during the Cuban missile crisis, “to bring us into the digital world as gently as possible,” he says. “You couldn't really cut directly to the Alexa. It's about bending the format to taste. This the look of the 1960s from a 2015 lens.”

Mathieson's lighting package was generally in keeping with the period, mainly met with Tungsten 5K – 20Ks. “We were not using HMI, Kino or LEDs. The Sixties had a lot of fantastic design conveying an opulence and optimism about how things should be, but the computers in our world flash like car indicators. It's not high-tech. The palate for this film is colourful and warm and we felt Tungsten lamps suited that mood. We'd probably have gone with LEDs and fluorescents if we were shooting a more modern type of film.”

Although some Steadicam was deployed, the period nature of the piece lent itself more to track work. “I think we'd all rather track if we could,” he says. “In some ways it can be much quicker to work on set using tracks. It doesn't take long to run a track around and it means you can stop and interrogate a frame, talk about a shot, redress the set or adjust for lighting as necessary while the camera operator isn't bending their back.”

Being a Warner Bros project, Leavesden was the show's studio home supplemented with a considerable amount of location shooting. The Royal Victoria Docks near London's City Airport was a mock-Mediterranean harbour. An old mill near City Airport and derelict buildings at Chatham Docks provided a backdrop for bombed-out East Berlin. A scene set under Brixton's railway arches was used for “spies coming out of greasy garages exchanging packages, picking up fast cars”, and Greenwich's Maritime Museum doubled as Berlin and the backdrop for a car chase. Various London interiors in keeping with the ‘60’s period were also used. A café was specially-built in Regent's Park.

The mission itself begins in Italy on location in Rome, Naples and Neapolitan islands, including interiors of large municipal buildings of the La Dolce Vita period “with shiny floors, columns and lots of glass. A certain degree of elegance you wouldn't get anywhere else,” Mathieson recalls. “We shot in the Grand Plaza hotel near Rome's Piazza del Popolo which we just shot for what it was – falling down rococo with old-fashioned décor, a wonderful staircase and reception areas.”

The Alexa data was handled by DIT Francesco Luigi Giardiello on-set and on to Technicolor for post, using the Codex workflow, but Mathieson professes to be more interested in getting the images right and controlling the final look than the technical process that happens in between.

“If you give it the right exposure you can achieve a very different feeling within the same lens,” he says. “If you want a hard look or a soft, swimming look with flare you can do so within the iris. Some of the older zooms have had their front elements taking quite a beating which was great to play with.”

He continues: “When you look at the Log or at the RAW image in digital it's horrifying, but you want to make sure the images are as good as graded rushes. When things are in editorial the scenes will move up and downstream and the story arc and time of day will change and, therefore, so will the look. You might then have to soften the lighting to move from a dawn to dusk scene.”

He worked with colourist Paul Ensby over ten days, locking the picture down by summer 2014. “I'm not someone who spends hours in the grade finessing each detail. I view the DI process as a piece of music with shades of fortissimo and mezzoforte and that the more you tinker with the image, the more you risk ruining its rhythm.”

He says, “The way I like to grade is to take the best shot in a particular sequence then grade around that, rather than trying to add in windows which just tends to average everything out. Maybe the end result is rough around the edges, but I'd rather have that than a piece which is bland and boring. I got it to where I wanted it to be. But I would have made it look better on film.”

This from a craftsman who learned his trade on U-Matic and BetaSP before graduating to film. “It's a great shame that there's a generation of kids who have never had a chance to try 16mm. Now everyone graduates to shoot digital. Even if they want to shoot film they are not given the confidence to expose film.

“We're talking about the key craft skill of using one's eye to judge exposure, to really look at the light rather than looking over your shoulder at a monitor with a waveform and vector scope before pressing a record button.”

He adds: “I can't tell the difference between the looks of a lot of the big VFX films. Did any cameraman put their stamp on it or even design it?”

Mathieson is well aware of the irony of currently filming the hefty CGI fantasy Knights Of The Roundtable: King Arthur, also for Ritchie, back at Leavesden.

“There is a place for massive stories told in VFX using a computer, but the sadness is that we've lost a generation unable to make the leap to shooting film,” he says. “I could teach twenty students how to light for greenscreen in just half a day. When I shoot greenscreen my arm is tied behind my back and I just glaze over since my input is redundant. If I sound disillusioned, I'm afraid that's how I feel.”