The video recording quality of DSLRs has gotten to the point where you can slap them onto big fancy rigs and use them to film portions of big budget Hollywood movies without anyone noticing any difference. Iron Man was the first superhero in the Marvel universe to make use of the Canon 5D Mark II, and today it was announced that the camera was also used extensively throughout “Captain America: The First Avenger”.
[...] Action scenes in “Captain America: The First Avenger” in which [Second unit DP Jonathan Taylor] used 5D Mark II cameras for POV shots include a car chase and crash, and a high-speed motorcycle pursuit. The small size of the camera enabled Taylor to mount it on the interiors and exteriors of moving vehicles to capture dramatic action shots. The camera’s size also ensured that it was “invisible” to the film cameras shooting the same scene from a distance.
So basically, in certain scenes, a Canon 5D Mark II was actually recording from within the scene itself!
Filmmaker Philip Bloom recently helped Lucasfilm shoot parts of their upcoming film Red Tails. The behind-the-scenes video above gives an interesting glimpse into what it looks like when pretty ordinary DSLR gear meets the big budget world of Hollywood filmmaking. The cameras are hooked up to some pretty serious equipment.
You can check out a trailer for the movie here — Blooms says that a number of his shots can be seen in it, but is keeping mum about which ones.
Did you know that the original Star Wars lightsaber was made using antique camera parts?
For A New Hope, the original film prop hilts were constructed by John Stears from old press camera flash battery packs and other pieces of hardware. [#] The 3-cell Graflex flashgun was modified and used as the prop for Luke Skywalker’s lightsaber in Star Wars: A New Hope and The Empire Strikes Back. A black grip was added and the circular bulb housing was obviously removed, but little else was changed to create the lightsaber prop. [#]
Do a search on eBay and you’ll find plenty of people selling these flash units as “lightsabers”.
The superheroes that line Hollywood Boulevard for tourist pictures may have a tiny taste of stardom while on the job, but what are their lives like when they put down their masks and capes? For his project “Super Heroes”, photographer Gregg Segal followed a number of superheroes home to document their not-so-super lives when not on the job. Read more…
DreamWorks won’t be making a movie about the death of Kodachrome film after all — Fox will. Turns out the director of the movie, Shawn Levy, had a first look deal with Fox that gives the film studio first dibs on Levy’s projects.
It was the result of an honest error [...] producers initially brought the pitch to Fox 2000, which passed. Believing that represented due diligence under Levy’s Fox pact, producers next went to DreamWorks, which went for it (though sources say no money changed hands).
But 20th Century Fox caught wind of the deal, decided it ultimately liked the project and, citing its deal with Levy, yanked it back onto its development slate, where it stands today. [#]
The film is rumored to be about a father and son who take a road trip to process their final Kodachrome rolls before development ends.
Kodachrome may be gone, but it’s far from forgotten — DreamWorks is planning to make a movie centered around the closing of the final Kodachrome lab in Kansas. Author Jonathan Tropper got the idea for the movie after reading an article about the film’s demise in the New York Times, and pitched the idea to the studio. His script involves a father-son road trip in which they attempt to reach the lab and process their Kodachrome rolls before their memories are lost forever. Shawn Levy is being named as the potential director for the movie.
The Bang Bang Club is the real life story of a group of four young combat photographers – Greg Marinovich, Joao Silva, Kevin Carter and Ken Oosterbroek – bonded by friendship and their sense of purpose to tell the truth. They risked their lives and used their camera lenses to tell the world of the brutality and violence associated with the first free elections in post Apartheid South Africa in the early 90s. This intense political period brought out their best work (two won Pulitzers during the period) but cost them a heavy price. [#]
Kevin Carter is the photographer who won a Pulitzer prize for his photo of a starving Sudanese toddler and a vulture nearby. Joao Silva is the photographer who was severely injured in 2010 after stepping on a land mine in Afghanistan. The film debuted back in 2010 to pretty favorable reviews, and will hit theaters in the US in April 2011.
What you see here is every still frame of the famous 1939 film The Wizard of Oz compressed into a single frame, creating a colorful “barcode” for the movie. moviebarcode is a neat blog that publishes these images for a wide range of famous movies. Read more…
Did you know that while cameras provide the things you see in movies, most of the sounds that you hear — aside from dialogue and music — are generated by Foley artists who reproduce everyday sounds with everyday things? Here’s an interesting behind-the-scenes glimpse into how award-winning Foley artist Gary Hecker “paints” sound over what’s captured with a camera.
Julie Lewis saves the 35mm film of Hollywood movies from destruction after they’re done running in theaters by upcycling them into unique handbags and wallets. The 100% polyester films are sometimes from a mix of different movies, or sometimes from the same popular film (e.g. “Twilight”). Read more…
