News From Here & There

Danny Cohen on The King's Speech
StudioDaily has an interview with Danny Cohen, cinematographer for The King's Speech.

The montage scene where Colin Firth is going through his vocal exercises, for example. We shot almost all of that handheld, save for one dolly shot, in 20 minutes at the end of the day. We had a time constraint (we were losing the afternoon light) so we had to figure out the quickest way to shoot it. We decided it was best to put the camera on the shoulder and shoot it really simply. The process of filmmaking invites so many ideas and strong points of view, but the reality on set is most decisions are made by necessity.

StudioDaily: Cinematographer Danny Cohen on The King's Speech



How to be a better Focus Puller
The Black and Blue blog provides three tips for improving your focus pulling skills:

The easiest way to become a better focus puller is to become exceptionally accurate at guessing distances. You should strive to become a human measuring tape. The best 1st AC’s will walk into a room and have a real, tangible sense of the space they’re in.

theblackandblue.com: >3 Simple Ways to Become a Better Focus Puller Over the Weekend



Blackmagic DaVinci Resolve Mailing List
Patrick Inhofer (The Tao of Color blog) has started a mailing list for those interested in the Resolve color editing application.

This is a forum for video professionals to seek and share information regarding Blackmagic's DaVinci Resolve color grading software. This forum is not intended for hobbyists or novices.

Yahoo Groups: >resolve-l · DaVinci Resolve -L



Cineroid EVF Review
Both Redrock and Zacuto have received a lot of attention for their upcoming EVF's, but Cineroid has gone and beaten them both to the punch; their EVF seems to be shipping, and James Stoneley has a review:

Overall I’m very impressed with the EVF. It’s light, well built, has a ton of useful features and I think it’s quite good value for money. It’s not cheap but you get a lot of bang for your buck and it’s the first of its kind to come to market. I love the freedom it gives you to shoot accurately without a cumbersome monitor.

TheConvergence: >Cineroid EVF Review



Avid changes name of Euphonix MC units
Avid purchase Euphonix a while ago, and now they have changed the names of their products. The MC Color is now know as the Artist Color. Similarly, the MC Transport, MC Control and MC Mix have all changed their names. It's unclear why; maybe so people don't think the MC stands for Media Composer and that the units only work with Media Composer?
Avid: Euphonix
B & H: MC Color - Color Grading Control Surface [$1,459.95]
B & H: MC Transport - Compact Media Controller [$388.95]
B & H: Euphonix MC Control v2 - Touch-Screen Control Surface [$1,499.00]
B & H: MC Mix - Control Surface for Audio and Video Software [$1,259.00]