San Francisco is one of the most beautiful cities to shoot – hills, architectural variety, Mother Nature’s beauty – and the inevitable fog. That fog was something that could have hampered photographer Alex Pitt’s recent time-lapse shoot.
It was a challenging assignment even for a veteran shooter of car commercials. A major ad agency for a leading automaker asked cinematographer Dana Christiaansen if he could shoot three full commercials in 48 hours on the streets of Atlanta. The spots would include nighttime car-to-car photography of a moving vehicle, close-ups of a celebrity spokesman at the wheel and scripted vignettes. Christiaansen’s solution was to rely on the Canon EOS C300 digital cinema camera.
Mad Max: Fury Road is the fourth installment in writer/director George Miller’s post-apocalyptic action franchise and the first digital film for cinematographer John Seale.
Paul Rees, an experienced still photographer for globally respected advertising agencies and magazines, relied on his instincts as he transitioned to digital cinema to document the North American Eagle Project, a joint U.S.-Canadian initiative to challenge the world land speed record (763 mph, or Mach 1.02) for rocket-powered automobiles. Rees’ camera of choice for this task was the Canon EOS C300 digital cinema camera.
Shooting in northwest Chicago, within an old 1900s box warehouse for Lauren Santee’s music video, Let Down, provided some challenges for producer/director Kevin Otterness.
A director of photography for the past two decades, David Klein, ASC, has shot movies and television shows using numerous film and digital formats. “Every motion-picture film stock has its own look,” he said, “and that’s true of every digital cinema camera as well.”
While undertaking his numerous and diverse projects — whether they are leading filmmaking master classes in Las Vegas, Key West, and Majorca, teaching workshops in Istanbul, or filming a documentary in Forchheim in Bavaria — DP Sebastian Wiegärtner is often on the go. As one of the most renowned German DSLR filmmakers, he not only films but also inspires other cinematographers at his workshops.
Douglas Trumbull’s latest project UFOTOG, the world’s first high-frame rate (120 fps), stereoscopic 3D film, has completed production.
When an action movie script on a tight budget included such challenges as close-ups of mixed martial arts fighting, a high-speed car chase shot from a low-flying helicopter, and low-light location scenes, director of photography, David E. West, knew the solution was to capture it all using a Canon Cinema EOS C300 digital cinema camera, a Canon EOS 5D Mark II Digital SLR camera, and EF-Series lenses. Having used the EOS C300 camera on a previous assignment, West was enthusiastic about its portability and low-light advantages. He also owned an EOS 5D Mark II camera, and was a fan of Canon lenses both for photography and for shooting reality TV. West decided from the outset that the ambitious visuals needed for Blunt Force, a new film from director Daniel Zirilli, would make this an all-Canon project. Shot on location in Mississippi, the movie tells the story of an ex-soldier imprisoned and forced to be part of an Internet cage-fighting club.
While on location shooting the documentary about traditional silk weavers, Silkies of Madagascar, award-winning National Geographic stills photographer and video director David Evans decided to make the leap to Director of Photography.
