Definition Christmas 2024 - Web

Nearly 25 years in the making, Ridley Scott’s Gladiator II delivers a blood-soaked, unabashedly entertaining sequel to the Oscar winning original. We dissect the cinematography with DOP John Mathieson and discuss crafting the film's look with colourist Stephen Nakamura in this issue. There's also a chat with DOP Jarin Blaschke about his work on Robert Eggers’ Nosferatu, plus we hear from Tim Cragg – one of the most in-demand documentary DOPs in the game, examine the latest innovations in broadcast camera robotics and hear from a panel of experts on the future of PTZ technology. Enjoy!

SINK YOUR TEETH INTO ROBERT EGGERS’ REMAKE WITH DOP JARIN BLASCHKE NOSFERATU: REVAMPING A CLASSIC

Gladiator II’s cinematographer & colourist share how they brought ancient Rome roaring back to life

PLUS! THE ROBOTICS SYSTEMS REVOLUTIONISING BROADCAST

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WELCOME

EDITORIAL Editor in chief Nicola Foley nicolafoley@bright.uk.com

Senior staff writer Katie Kasperson Chief sub editor Matthew Winney Sub editors Zanna Buckland, Minhaj Zia Editorial director Roger Payne rogerpayne@bright.uk.com Contributors Trevor Hogg, Phil Rhodes, Neal Romanek, Oliver Webb ADVERTISING Sales director Sam Scott-Smith samscott-smith@bright.uk.com 01223 499457 Sales manager Emma Stevens emmastevens@bright.uk.com 01223 499462 | +447376665779 DESIGN Design director Andy Jennings Magazine design manager Lucy Woolcomb Junior designer Hedzlynn Kamaruzzaman Junior designer and ad production Holly May PUBLISHING Managing directors Andy Brogden & Matt Pluck Bright Publishing LTD Bright House, 82 High Street, Sawston, Cambridgeshire, CB22 3HJ, UK Definition is published monthly by Bright Publishing Ltd, Bright House, 82 High Street, Sawston, Cambridge, CB22 3HJ. No part of this magazine can be used without prior written permission of Bright Publishing Ltd. Definition is a registered trademark of Bright Publishing Ltd. The advertisements published in Definition that have been written, designed or produced by employees of Bright Publishing Ltd remain the copyright of Bright Publishing Ltd and may not be reproduced without the written consent of the publisher. The content of this publication does not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher. Prices quoted in sterling, euros and US dollars are street prices, without tax, where available or converted using the exchange rate on the day the magazine went to press.

I n the past few weeks, cinemas have been buzzing with the blockbusting double-header of Wicked and Gladiator II . ‘Glicked’ hasn’t quite reached the cultural heights of Barbenheimer, but it’s clear that counter-programming big releases is becoming a go-to way to drum up excitement. We predict the movie mash-up will be a marketing gimmick we see a lot more of in the years to come. Will it get tiresome? Probably. But for now, so long as it gets people excited about going to their local cinemas, we’re all for it! Ridley Scott’s Gladiator II has been a long time coming – nearly 25 years, in fact – but it’s definitely been worth the wait. Packed with bloody battles, jaw- dropping action and epic visuals (yep, including sharks in the Colosseum), it’s an unabashedly entertaining follow-up to the Oscar-winning original. We dig into how it all came together with DOP John Mathieson, as well as hearing from colourist Stephen Nakamura. Head to page 6 to find out more. This issue also features cinematographer Jarin Blaschke discussing his work on Robert Eggers’ Nosferatu , a bold reimagining of the gothic classic. Plus we hear from Tim Cragg – one of the most in-demand documentary DOPs in the game. From freediving doc The Deepest Breath to Beckham , Encounters and The Manhattan Alien Abduction , he’s worked on a string of big hitters in recent years, bringing a cinematic edge that rivals high-end drama. Read his thoughts on the evolution of the genre on page 46. Elsewhere, we examine the latest innovations in broadcast camera robotics, hear from a panel of experts on the future of PTZ tech and spotlight the founders of the Female Film Club, plus lots more. Enjoy the issue, and see you next month!

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CONTENTS

06 GLADIATOR II John Mathieson, BSC helps Ridley Scott bring ancient Rome roaring back to life in this hotly anticipated sequel 12 GRADING GLADIATOR II We also talk to Stephen Nakamura about his colour grading process for Scott’s epic 18 BROADCAST ROBOTICS A look at the latest developments in camera robotics for broadcast settings, with experts from Mo-Sys and Videndum 27 THOUGHT LEADER We hear about OpenTrackIO, a free, open-source protocol to improve interoperability in VP and beyond 30 NOSFERATU A remake of the iconic gothic horror film with Robert Eggers at the helm. We get the lowdown from DOP Jarin Blaschke 37 TAKE TWO On the same topic, explore the original 1922 Nosferatu with Katie Kasperson 38 DEFINITION X THE FLINT The Flint ’s Neal Romanek sits down with Anne Lajla Utsi, managing director of the International Sami Film Institute 45 IN SHORT Red Soil follows the family of a Nigerian elder as they prepare for her funeral 46 INTERVIEW Tim Cragg, one of the most in-demand documentary DOPs, reflects on how the genre is evolving in the streaming age

52 POWER UP Tech experts from Hawk-Woods and Anton/Bauer talk about the battery innovations to watch for in 2025 54 ROUND TABLE Our panel discusses pan-tilt-zoom cameras, looking at challenges for their adoption in high-end filmmaking, advancements in automation and more 62 TRAILBLAZERS The founders of the Female Film Club join us to examine both the obstacles and

69 INDUSTRY BRIEFINGS A new virtual production studio in Gran Canaria, a boost for the VFX industry, dates for your diary, plus lots more 74 TOOLKIT Must-have tools and tech to get on your radar, from Aputure’s INFINIMAT to Fujifilm’s first-ever filmmaking camera, GFX ETERNA

opportunities for women in film 66 VFX BREAKDOWN

Vine FX gives us a rundown of its work on Paris Has Fallen , an action-packed series full of demanding visual sequences

ON THE COVER

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PRODUCTION GLADIATOR II

WORDS Trevor Hogg IMAGES 2024 Paramount Pictures

John Mathieson, BSC shares how he & Ridley Scott brought ancient Rome roaring back to life in Gladiator II

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GLADIATOR II PRODUCTION

W hen John Mathieson, BSC stepped back onto the grand stage of ancient Rome to shoot Gladiator II , he was met with a unique challenge: seamlessly blending the iconic visuals of Gladiator , captured over 20 years ago, with fresh scenes of Maximus’s descendants clashing in the Colosseum. “Ridley Scott wanted to use some unused footage,” recalls Mathieson. “This was continuing the story of Lucius and Lucilla – and there are flashbacks as Lucius tries to figure out who he is. “But then Ridley said, ‘I’m going to use some other stuff’. For him to want

to cut this footage, shot on Super 35 – a small image that’s two-thirds the size of a British postage stamp – together with a large format, modern digital camera was a surprise.” But image resolution was not a problem. “In the DI, I went right up to the screen with my eyes and tried to see the grain. I could see the structure of it and it was different, but you wouldn’t know. You’d have to tap other DOPs on the shoulder and tell them when the old shots were coming up.” Another twist in production was that the Roman fleet’s assault on a coastal Numidian fort wasn’t filmed on a new set at all – instead, they transformed

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PRODUCTION GLADIATOR II

the Kingdom of Heaven Jerusalem set to pull it off. And while the Colosseum naval battle may look like a dramatic clash on water, it was actually shot ‘dry for dry’, with just a few water tank scenes. “Neil Corbould [special effects supervisor] brought in these incredible self-propelled modular transporters (SPMTs) capable of lifting and moving massive objects like ships or even oil rigs,” Mathieson explains. “It’s a modular system you can assemble to manoeuvre with extreme precision. That allowed us to turn the ships on a tight line – something impossible on water, where you’d need tracks and a monorail system to stabilise them against the wind.” One day, an SPMT accidentally rolled over Mathieson’s track, which didn’t sit well with the grips, as its movements weren’t totally accurate. “Guys would walk alongside with remote controls, with arrows flying overhead. We knew that everything below a certain height would be ‘underwater’, allowing us to place our equipment more freely than if we’d been on water, where we’d have had to rig it on barges that might drift.” Some water tank footage was captured later. “Luke Scott [second unit director] came in to handle the real water shots – guys falling in, splashing, drowning and even getting attacked by sharks,” Mathieson adds. A cut sequence from the original movie revived for Gladiator II was the rhino battle in the Colosseum. “Ridley likes rhinos, while I like frogs!” laughs Mathieson. “The rhino fight had been lurking around since the first Gladiator ; I thought it was going to be CGI, but Neil actually built the rhino.” He continues: “It didn’t have legs but warred around the Colosseum throwing up dust – it was angry and smashed things over. I’d filmed rhinos for natural

FULL COVERAGE Using multiple cameras at once allowed Scott to capture both wide shots and intimate close-ups in the same take

history in the past, but not as big as this one! The rule is to stay out of the way. The rhino being real was important for everyone. Even though you understand CGI, when you actually have something that’s physically there, people are a lot more engaged.” At times, the production deployed up to 12 cameras on-set. “With digital cameras, you can use more of them and they’re easier to operate, so why not?” Mathieson points out. “It’s the way to go for big set pieces with lots of people and multiple actions happening at once. You don’t want to rely on pickups or little bits and pieces because those can miss the background details – the explosions, the horses charging past.

“If you can get it all at the same time, the melee might not be as refined, but it has the right feeling and energy.” Not every camera rolls at the same time, though. “Sometimes, you set up and things change. Suddenly, camera A becomes an extra camera. I usually keep a few cameras nearby because I can spot where the action is flowing and position them to capture it. Ridley might then say, ‘I like that angle more’, and those cameras become the main ones.” The primary camera was the ARRI ALEXA Mini LF. “We had a dozen Mini LFs and some larger LFs. We also used the Z CAM, which were like our GoPros. They

I USUALLY KEEP a few cameras NEARBY BECAUSE I CAN SPOT where the action is flowing ”

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PRODUCTION GLADIATOR II

are about twice the size of a pack of cigarettes and take Leica M 0.8 lenses, which are two inches in diameter and 2.5 inches long. Even in carriages, a Mini LF is quite a large camera, so we stuffed these into them,” elaborates Mathieson. DJI Inspire 3 drones gave the team flexibility on the shoot. “They’re not full- frame, don’t shoot Scope or full format, but my god they are very good,” he enthuses. “The drones can handle heavy winds and sit absolutely rock steady.” To capture the intensity of the setting, Mathieson opted for a deeper focus, steering clear of a shallow depth-of- field. “I wanted hard contrast and lots of focus. Some people love reducing depth, but why do that? It’s not how the world really looks. With all the texture, vibrancy and movement around, you don’t want a super-soft background – you want it slightly out of focus but still visible.” A shallow depth-of-field was avoided. “I wanted hard contrast and ample focus. A lot of camera people like to reduce the depth and I think, ‘why do that?’. On the glass front, the team favoured zoom lenses, with Mathieson relying on the Angénieux Optimo Ultra 12:1, which range from 36mm on the wide end to 435mm on the telephoto end. “With so many cameras, it’s tough to get close to every angle, so zooms are king,” he comments. “They’re harder to light for,

WITH SO MANY CAMERAS, IT’S tough to get close TO EVERY ANGLE, SO zoom lenses are king ”

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GLADIATOR II PRODUCTION

slower and not as sharp, but they give you a wealth of options to work with.” Generally, Mathieson leaned toward tungsten over LEDs: big HMIs and Wendy Lights especially. “LED light is soft but unkind; it travels in straight lines and picks up every pore and wrinkle in the face. Yes, LEDs are cold and don’t set fire to things but lack sophistication. What you see and get are different things,” he notes. Elaborate shots aren’t Ridley Scott’s style. “He’s more about the cuts,” states Mathieson. “He doesn’t design each shot from head to toe. Ridley knows where the cuts are as he sees them.” Every shot had to count. “You should write alongside the camera, story and character. Everything else, forget it.” The crew quickly found their rhythm. “It wasn’t like I’d never left but it still felt familiar.” One standout sequence is the Colosseum naval battle. “We’d film the top half of the frame, then the bottom half with the water and they blended beautifully. The colours are what really made it shine – the shimmering water, the Roman senators, rich emblems, wine, tapestries, grapes, gold, smoke – all that lavishness. It’s a real visual feast.”

EMPIRE’S REACH Filming spanned multiple locations – including Malta and Morocco – to authentically depict various regions

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POST-PRODUCTION GLADIATOR II

WORDS Nicola Foley

S tephen Nakamura is one of for his collaborations with visionary directors including David Fincher and Steven Spielberg, as well as celebrated cinematographers like Dariusz Wolski and Robert Richardson. His most defining creative partnership of all, though, has been with Ridley Scott. Over the past 15 years, Nakamura has worked on nearly all of Scott’s films, including The Martian , the Alien franchise, Napoleon and, most recently, Gladiator II . Initially working in editing, Nakamura started his career at a Warner Bros- owned post house in his early twenties, where he immediately took an interest in the work of the colourists. “It was like a fish to water for me!” he smiles. “Everything they were doing fit my skill set and my personality. I’ve always been a very observant, visual person,” he says. “Even as a kid, I loved photography and the artistry of creating images. I’d admire people who could create something beautiful. I’m not a cinematographer, but becoming a colourist meant I could help with the look of movies, which I love.” Starting as a telecine colourist, Nakamura honed his skills working on Hollywood’s most sought-after feature film colourists, known music videos, commercials and TV shows before transitioning to feature films. His big break came while working on digital dailies for David Fincher’s The Game . “Fincher was one of the first directors to embrace the DI process,” Nakamura recalls. “From there, I dove into features and never looked back.” GREAT SCOTT Nakamura’s relationship with Scott began in 2006 while remastering Blade Runner for theatrical release, and the pair instantly clicked. “I really understand how Ridley looks at cinematography. He’s a

Colourist Stephen Nakamura from Company 3 on his long history of collaboration with Ridley Scott and crafting the look of the new sequel

talented painter, so his understanding of light and composition is amazing,” he says. “I quickly understood his vision, and there’s now an unspoken language between us. I can create the looks he wants and likes without him needing to say anything.” As well as creative chemistry, their collaboration thrived through a shared work ethic. “Ridley is incredibly efficient and organised. He shot Gladiator II in 51 days, which is astounding! In life generally, we both also operate that way. As human beings, we’re very similar in our approach. We both don’t want to waste time and we’re also perfectionists.” CRAFTING THE LOOK When it came to Gladiator II , Nakamura’s brief from Scott was typically short and sweet. “Ridley usually gives me a 20-second rundown,” Nakamura explains. “He’ll say something like, ‘make this one a bit more saturated than the last, with this kind of contrast’, and that’s it. Sometimes he might refer to another film or send a couple of reference images, but he trusts me to take it from there.” The film’s distinct look – deep shadows, a saturated palette and bold colour choices for flashbacks and action sequences – emerged from there through collaboration between colourist, DOP and director. Nakamura began work once the film had been cut together, using John Mathieson’s dailies as his primary reference point. “The dailies are everything,” he states. “They set the

AIMING FOR PERFECTION Nakamura (top) refines the shadows and light of the digital dailies he receives from filmmakers like Scott

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GLADIATOR II POST-PRODUCTION

especially given the fast-paced nature of the director’s productions. A particularly demanding element of his work was the day-for-night shots. “He’s extremely comfortable with that stuff,” Nakamura says. “He calls it a ‘Provence moonlight’ look, which is this really bright moonlight.” Creating that effect in harsh daylight conditions requires extensive work in post. “Those shots take a lot of massaging. Not only do I have to Luma Key highlights and use a lot of windows, but I have to darken the grade a lot – so faces also come down. If people have to move around, it’s really hard to get enough light on them on-set. So it’s often a lot of Frankenstein work on day-for-night stuff.” Despite the technical demands, Nakamura embraces the challenge: “It’s fun to try to figure out how to get where we’re looking to go.” Nakamura also enjoyed helping to craft the sequences of flashbacks to when the main character was young. “The look we came up with actually emerged while working on the trailer. Instead of it just being black & white, we thought, why not cool it slightly to create a unique tone that fit the scene’s emotional context? Ridley was all for it.” TOOLS OF THE TRADE Blackmagic’s DaVinci Resolve is his go-to tool – and he’s full of praise for its ever- expanding suite of features. “The great part is that they’re always adding lots of new plug-ins, allowing us to really craft the pictures better,” he says. “There are so many tools that help enhance movies in ways people don’t even realise.” One example Nakamura gives is managing flicker from lighting. “Let’s say they’re using LED bulbs to recreate firelight. Sometimes the flicker initially looks fine, but if you grade the image brighter that suddenly becomes

tone for the entire film. Contrast, colour temperature, saturation – all of that is already established to a degree. My job is to refine and enhance those choices.” He likens the process to baking: “The dailies are the cake. Whether it’s chocolate or a strawberry shortcake – that’s already decided. I’m just adding the frosting, decorating it and making it prettier,” he laughs. PROVENCE MOONLIGHT He makes it sound easy, but working on a Ridley Scott film often requires a great deal of improvisation to solve challenges,

I UNDERSTOOD his vision , AND THERE IS NOW an unspoken language BETWEEN US”

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POST-PRODUCTION GLADIATOR II

more pronounced. Tools like de-flicker plug-ins can slow that down, and while the audience might not notice it, the improvement is significant.” Features like these enable Nakamura to tackle adjustments on a shot-by- shot basis. “It’s like adding a vignette or flagging a wall digitally – small details that seem invisible but dramatically affect the overall feel and guide the viewer’s eye. Without them, the picture looks different and the impact shifts.” COLOUR ME HAPPY Even after decades in the industry, Nakamura remains energised by his work. “Every project feels like a new adventure,” he says. “You’re constantly reimagining and innovating: maybe this scene could be warmer, or this sequence cooler? The possibilities are endless.” His expertise does come with a price: he finds it hard to simply enjoy films and TV. “If I’m fully engrossed, I can switch off. But if not, I’ll critique everything – the

SETS AND SHADES Part of Nakamura’s job is adjusting tones on fantastical scenes like these

grade, even the theatre’s calibration,” he admits with a laugh. His portfolio is ever-expanding – upcoming projects include Captain America: Brave New World and Sonic the Hedgehog 3 – but one of the things he loves most about the job is the camaraderie of

life at Company 3, the LA-based post- production studio he works at. “Working in the office, surrounded by so many talented people, sparks a host of ideas you wouldn’t come across when working alone,” he says. “That human connection is irreplaceable.”

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ADVERTISEMENT FEATURE

Always in motion The latest camera systems from Blackcam Robotics – the Pedestal RP1 and Robotic Arm ARRO – are already transforming the production process

S easoned in the art of effortless camera movement, Berlin-based company Blackcam Robotics has a slew of high-profile productions to its name, from U2’s residency at the Las Vegas Sphere and tours for major artists like Coldplay and Billie Eilish to NCAA basketball broadcast coverage. With top-performing solutions for both live events and studio set-ups, Blackcam gives broadcasters, filmmakers and other operators advanced motion control. Leading their innovative product line are the Pedestal RP1 and Robotic Arm ARRO, which combine to create the new MORO system. These versatile tools integrate with one another, as well as with third-party solutions. Trusted by international clientele, Blackcam products promise to be future-proof,

ready to take on the latest project and keep pace with the growing demand for automated studios as well as live venues. One of the industry’s big secrets is that big broadcasters are making the switch to Blackcam. EXTRA! EXTRA! Engineered for news studios, but adaptable enough for any production scenario, the Pedestal RP1 is a fully automated, free-roaming camera support system. When equipped with Blackcam’s Studio Remote Head and L1.6 Lift, it can handle a payload of 70kg with a total weight of 85kg. Designed with modularity in mind, the RP1 provides a solid foundation for robotic arms and towers, offering simple set-up as well

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CHANGING THE GAMES Whether in sports broadcasts, film production or live event videos, both the RP1 (left) and ARRO (far left) will go above and beyond for creative image making

adjustment of lens height from 1100- 1850mm and a maximum lift speed of 150mm per second.

Luxembourg-based RTL group also acquired three RP1s for their operations and have already ordered more.

. FUTURE OF AUTOMATED STUDIOS With a legacy of live production,

A HELPING HAND Blackcam’s new Robotic Arm ARRO integrates seamlessly with the RP1 (sold together as MORO as well as individually). This robotic arm covers a wide spherical space and offers ‘whisper-quiet’ dual operation, according to the company. Available in two versions to meet filmmakers’ various weight requirements, the 1.6m-long ARRO 1 supports a payload of 10kg while the 1.8m ARRO 2 supports 17kg. The arm is an ideal companion for both small- and large-scale live productions, allowing its users to record sequences and routines via Blackcam’s Remote Software for Full Automation. ARRO played a critical role in U2:UV Achtung Baby Live at Sphere, the Irish rock band’s concert residency that stretched over five months and 40 shows. There, Vis-A-Vis Video, a long-time partner of Blackcam, utilised the robotic arm to capture live footage of each night’s performance, offering innovative angles thanks to its flexible mounting options. It also stayed well out of the way, giving audiences an unobstructed view of Bono and his bandmates – essential for live event videography. Thousands of miles away in Munich, Blackcam equipped the ProSiebenSat.1 news studio with two Pedestal RP1s. It also provided a suspended B60 camera system – combining a dolly, tower and remote head – and all the necessary rigging and cabling to aid the German broadcaster in delivering content. The

Blackcam’s innovations have moved into the automated studio of the 21st century. Today’s audiences demand bold, dynamic imagery and broadcast studios are placing a strong emphasis on efficiency to serve evocative imagery. It’s no surprise that they’re embracing the latest tech to create it. The ARRO and RP1 provide a technical solution that enables bold visual ambitions. Modern broadcasting needs flexibility and precision; Blackcam offers both. With its attention to detail and ability to repeat movements, the systems save time on doing multiple takes while opening new avenues for visual innovation. Thanks to their smooth operation, DOPs can experiment with various manoeuvres, angles, compositions, frame rates and so on, encouraging them to aim for the perfect shot and capture that cinematic look – and achieve it without jeopardising on-set safety. With remote control and the ability to be pre-programmed, the ARRO and RP1 are also fully customisable, increasing efficiency – a clear benefit. While still in their relative infancy, both the ARRO and RP1 have demonstrated that, when it comes to doing complex camerawork, they deliver. No matter the field they’re in, Blackcam Robotics is a name worth keeping tabs on.

also maintaining an absolutely clean look. Even the RP1’s driving wheels offer something special – easy access for no- tools cleaning. With a company mandate to provide smooth, trusted camera positioning for varied studio requirements, the RP1 pairs beautifully with multiple compatible innovations. The Studio Remote Head provides full 360° pan range and 105° tilt range to achieve 90° rotation in about one second. Known for quiet operation, it’s designed to meet the acoustic demands of live studio environments. In addition, it integrates easily with equipment like teleprompters thanks to its 15v power output. Want even more versatility? The Tower Lift offers a variable load capacity up to 80kg. Its adjustable gas spring allows for

Learn more at blackcamrobotics.com

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GEAR CAMERA ROBOTICS

Phil Rhodes takes a look at how robotic and AI systems are revolutionising broadcast SMART MOVES

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CAMERA ROBOTICS GEAR

T he word ‘robot’ covers a lot of ground, from sci-fi villains to automated car-factory welders. In film and TV – and particularly in the increasing crossover between them – there’s a growing world of automated devices and associated systems that let broadcasters do cleverer things than ever before. However, live production remains hard, and the techniques of single-camera drama often have to run to keep up with broadcasters’ needs. Sergio Brighel is vice president for robotics and prompting technology at Videndum Production Solutions, a company with a deep background in camera support for broadcast. “Where the industry is leading at the moment,” Brighel begins, “is towards automation. Automation is being driven by the cost reduction happening across the industry – pressure from social media, YouTube, VOD platforms.” Brighel’s ideas encompass much more than just hardware. He says that, with live production inevitably relying on a wide range of processes and systems, integration is key. “Orchestrators already exist, but they’re not that different from a washing machine program. Everything changes with a rigid schedule. What we want to do is introduce flexibility to account for the unexpected, so that presenters can deviate from the schedule and accommodate surprises during interviews, debates, talk shows or breaking news. AI is the only way to accomplish all of this.” That would involve all the robotic equipment that companies like Vinten have long been building, but with much greater integration than has been the norm. “If it’s just me before the camera, it

AUTOMATION IS being driven BY THE COST REDUCTION HAPPENING

across the industry ”

could record my camera, prompting and lighting settings, audio set-ups and all sort of other things,” Brighel says. “In the second phase, I would suggest machine learning – deep learning. The system could be trained to emulate a certain directing style and suggest the next moves. I think there’s a horizon of time between three and five years for that.” The beginnings might already exist in the guise of Vinten’s VEGA platform. “The built-in foundations of VEGA allow that to happen in real time,” Brighel explains. “It’s a modular architecture, and one of these modules is an AI from a company called Seervision – now part of Q-SYS. With them, we developed the first techniques for automatically tracking people in front of the camera, and we started planting the first seeds of this digital assistant.” Eventually, the decisions made by even the cleverest systems still need to be supported by hardware. Brighel foresees a meeting of the ways between traditional camera robotics and modern enthusiasm for integrated PTZ devices. “I just published a series of white papers: in one of them, I sketch out the possible future for PTZs. The Sony FR7 is the first of a completely new style of PTZ where you can replace the lens. We might even want to replace the entire camera head – full-frame with a 2/3 head – or move the same device into different physical domains without being constrained. “It’s what I call modular robotics. In my view, it’s the future of this field of automation.” As fields mature, the user experience usually becomes

FLUIDITY IN WORKFLOWS Guillermo del Toro’s The Shape of Water made use of camera robotics (above); a Vinten FHR 60 set-up (right)

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GEAR CAMERA ROBOTICS

SPORTS SUPPORT Kit from Camera Revolution – automated dolly systems and telescopic cranes – is useful for coverage of live sports like rugby

less primitive, and it’s a process which Michael Geissler, founder and CEO of Mo-Sys Engineering, remembers well. “When I founded it, producers were swearing about motion control systems. There were a lot of frustrations, and I thought, ‘there must be a simpler way’. We designed a system where everyone on-set had their jobs back. The grip was pushing the dolly, the focus puller was focus pulling and it was recording. You say record, stop, play back or let’s do it again – but don’t fiddle around with spline curves. The idea was a film shoot where, if you don’t like it, you do it again.” In the two-and-a-half decades since Geissler’s innovation, cameras have become at first smaller, then larger again, and always with that film-to-television crossover very much in evidence. “Our new remote head, the L20, has two different versions: one for film and one for broadcast, though each can be used for both. It’s one of the highest-precision, zero-backlash camera heads, and we’ve had this for years. We’re trying, for the first time, to combine the enormous precision we have in the L40 into a really small package, which is actually not much bigger than a high-end PTZ head.”

Decades of experience in hardware notwithstanding, Geissler quickly moves onto software and the sort of systems integration that separates live broadcast from high-end film and television drama. “A typical example is in VP, with LED walls. We have a product called MoViewer,” he continues. “With multiple cameras in front of an LED wall, you have to find a way to switch the background wall image out, but then the other, off-air cameras won’t have an image. The director has nothing to look at, which is weird for a camera you’re about to switch to.”

Pre-existing approaches might have involved timing multiple cameras to capture frames sequentially and displaying the appropriate background for each one at just the right instant. The problem is that the achievable precision of an LED video wall, using pulse-width modulation, depends on how long each frame is displayed for. The more cameras, the shorter the display time for each. “For eight cameras, you have to timeslice each frame into slices that are one-eighth of the exposure time. You need eight times more light, and

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GEAR CAMERA ROBOTICS

to use a global shutter camera that no broadcaster has. “We found a solution,” Geissler says, “to have AI-assisted generation to give a multiview preview for off-air cameras. Disney, through its Star network in India, has been using this to broadcast the Cricket World Cup with 15 million viewers. And it’s not ridiculously expensive either; you can do it with any LED controller and any camera.” Camera movement has long combined precision engineering and electronics, though that alliance has become much closer as other systems start to require positioning data. Ian Speed, owner and founder of Camera Revolution, points out that “all this camera movement was doable 20 or 30 years ago, but it was all analogue. Whether it’s a camera crane that has encoded axes so you can generate graphics, or a crane for when the VFX guys want 20 passes of a shot, it’s all now doable in standard grip equipment.” The pressure to create ever more sophisticated broadcasts has attracted technology from other areas and has provoked the development of entirely new features. “It’s being driven by the requests from the broadcasters,” Speed continues. “How else can we generate an augmented-reality signal? That’s why we’re looking at the automated dolly system AGITO, and we just got a Towercam. This is the tech we’re talking about – for the football, the rugby, the flying wire cameras, the Spidercam systems. Being digitised means you can put graphics over the top of them. We’ve never really utilised Technocranes before, but we’ve been asked for a completely encoded Technocrane.” Making these things possible is one challenge; making them creatively usable is another entirely. “For the AGITO

remote dolly, rather than having a fixed track down the side of a cycling or running track, it instead runs on a magnetic track – you just have to run a mag strip. The gallery can programme shots into the dolly, while the new telescopic cranes we’ve got have the ability to output encoded data. “Technocrane now has the Technodolly, and it’s possible not only to record a job but also get the set-up to repeat the shot. The grip and operator can do the first pass – the hero pass – then the system can take over and do seven more passes. We can now do it with a wire system that’s all digitised.” Crew might worry about reduced opportunities, though Ryan Turner, equipment development technician for Camera Revolution, is an experienced crane technician who has found his niche in a world of increasingly ambitious broadcasts. The job, as he puts it, “without sounding too showbiz, is to spice it up a bit. Not too much – you don’t want to upset the blokes down the pub watching the football – but especially with augmented reality, we’re trying to put something different on the screen. Especially in what we’ve been doing on the rugby, which is heavily presenter- based – the presenters now interact with the virtual world. Things like players popping up out of the ground!”

CUSTOM CAMS VEGA robotic control set-up (top); FHR 60 with bespoke support (above)

THE grip and operator CAN DO THE FIRST PASS – the hero pass – THEN THE SYSTEM TAKES OVER”

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MO-SYS THOUGHT LEADER

W ith VP becoming a mainstay of modern filmmaking, manufacturers have rushed to create their own protocols that allow cameras to talk to render engines and then to LED screens, and vice versa. With all these custom codes flying around, a clear problem arose: a lack of satisfactory standardisation. Until now. OpenTrackIO – developed by the SMPTE Tracking Committee with Mo-Sys’ James Uren at the helm – is a camera tracking protocol that promises to greatly improve interoperability. “It means that systems will work with a greater number of other systems, which is generally better for everybody,” states Uren. Besides tracking a camera’s position in space, OpenTrackIO also records metadata and lens distortion, ensuring VFX teams have all the information they need to create and implement realistic virtual backgrounds. “We have to send mathematical parameters about the lens, and it has to be every single frame – in the same way we have to send the position of the camera – so the render engine can distort the CG environment to match the natural distortions in the lens,” describes Uren. “Again, somebody needed to step up and standardise it.” Although VP might seem a relatively recent phenomenon, OpenTrackIO is several years in the making. SMPTE’s On-Set Virtual Production (OSVP) group started to discuss standardisation of camera metadata half a decade ago, creating a framework called Cam

WORDS Katie Kasperson

James Uren, technical director at Mo-Sys Engineering and chair of the SMPTE Tracking Committee, outlines OpenTrackIO, the new protocol for camera tracking in virtual production

D Kit, which also forms the basis of OpenTrackIO. “When I joined the OSVP group and became chair of the SMPTE Tracking Committee, we decided we should standardise all of the tracking metadata as well,” Uren shares, having been responsible for writing some of the Cam D Kit code. “Once this protocol is adopted by manufacturers, render engine providers and software engineers, you’ll be able to plug any device into any system. From a user’s perspective, that makes it all much easier to handle.” Although SMPTE plans to officially release OpenTrackIO version one in January 2025, major industry players like Stage Precision, Assimilate Inc and Epic Games – proprietor of Unreal Engine –

have already pledged adoption of the protocol. “On the manufacturer side,” Uren adds, “lens manufacturers like Canon and ZEISS have already reached out to us to get involved as well. It seems like everyone is keen.” Putting the protocol together required industry-wide collaboration – often between direct competitors. “That’s what has to happen if you want to make everyone’s lives easier,” argues Uren. Mo- Sys played an especially significant role in getting OpenTrackIO off the ground. “For us, it’s a constant frustration that, in order for our StarTracker system to be used with other render engine providers, they have to implement our custom protocol,” which is likely a common problem among companies. Besides leading the project, Uren and his Mo-Sys colleagues co-authored a white paper on lens metadata titled OpenLensIO. “This hopefully opens up the ability to use our hardware with other people’s software,” Uren supposes. “We’ve been a key part in pushing this over the line.”

ONE FOR ALL OpenTrackIO will help Mo-Sys StarTracker communicate with more systems

Learn more at opentrackio.org

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ADVERTISEMENT FEATURE

The big 3-0 As Camera Revolution celebrates its 30th anniversary, managing director Ian Speed reflects on the last three decades, noting the continuous evolution in camera stabilisation tools, and shares his most memorable on-set moments 3 4 years ago, a man named Nick Phillips invented the Libra, the ‘very first self-stabilised remote head’

according to Ian Speed, managing director and co-founder of Camera Revolution. Built to sit atop a Land Rover as it drove across rocky, uneven terrain, the Libra helped DOP Harvey Harrison ( The Mummy , V for Vendetta ) film content for Camel Cigarettes’ clothing line. Though the initial Libra was ‘a bit basic’, says Speed, it worked well enough for Harrison, who continued collaborating with Phillips on stabilisation equipment. A few years later, Camera Revolution – as it’s known today – was born. Credit where it’s due Speed’s background in helicopter filmography allowed him to become Camera Revolution’s ‘on-set guy’, working as a technician on projects like the James Bond , Harry Potter and Mission Impossible franchises. “The best fun we ever had was on The World Is Not Enough because the opening sequence of that was a boat chase up the Thames,” he enthuses. “The camera was strapped to a powerboat and the national women’s powerboat champion was our driver. They literally closed the River Thames from Parliament all the way to Canary Wharf. We had the river for six weeks.” This is just the tip of the iceberg; Camera Revolution has hundreds of credits to its name, from feature films ( Paddington 2 , The Social Network , The Dark Knight , Saving Private Ryan , Love Actually ) to high-end TV series ( Game of Thrones , Black Mirror , The Crown ) and even sports broadcasts. Over the years, the company has been responsible for

some of film’s most iconic scenes, a notable example being Harry riding his first broomstick in Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone . When a project calls, they answer, often customising bespoke equipment to the DOP’s needs. “For the current Mission Impossible , they came to us and said, ‘The existing underwater remote head’s not going to work.’ So we went and built them an underwater remote head which can be submerged up to 10m, enabling them to do some crazy stuff,” shares Speed. Big-picture progress For 30 years, Camera Revolution has watched the industry evolve, seeing what was once a luxury now become

commonplace. Speed recalls the invention of the telescopic crane, which required remote control – a perfect match for the Libra. “Over the years, the telescopic crane has become a standard piece of equipment on TV dramas, let alone for feature films,” he claims. “And more cranes need more heads.” As the world of camera stabilisation became more competitive, Camera Revolution kept pace by incorporating external manufacturers’ products – like the M7 Evo from SpaceCam and the Scorpio – as well as offering its own. “Everyone has their own preferences. We don’t ask why they want it; we just go with it,” Speed explains, though he suggests the ‘completely waterproof’ Libra to those submerging the camera in water.

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GETTING AROUND Speeding down the Thames with 007 (far left), and out on various sets and locations for feature film shoots (left, above)

The Camera Revolution team itself is highly technical; employees come from car mechanics, engineering and other similar fields rather than film schools. “These are the people we need,” argues Speed. New employees spend their first two years in training before being sent out to sets, with the option of going freelance or staying in-house. “We have 23 freelancers and 15 in-house technicians, five of whom are trainees,” Speed says. “Once you’ve earned your spurs, you can do what you want to do.” Barring a few lulls during the pandemic and the strikes, Camera Revolution has seen consistent success over its three decades. “The industry has always been feast and famine. It’s been cyclical since I started,” Speed explains.

“You’ll have a bad year, then you’ll have two good years, then two amazing ones. We’ve generally been very fortunate.”

stabilisation gear like remote heads and rigs. “Certain sports are commanding bigger budgets and starting to use some of this tech that years ago would have been too expensive,” Speed describes. “It’s been helpful this year in keeping us going and the work ticking over,” he adds, guessing that this market will only further expand in the future. Speed attributes Camera Revolution’s success to its technical prowess. “The film industry is a slow-moving beast at the best of times,” he argues. “Traditional rental houses don’t have background in tech development, whereas, because we’re a tech company and not just a rental house, we can ride that wave.”

Entering new arenas These days, the film and TV industries are inspiring other areas of production, like broadcast, which now incorporates high-end equipment to offer coverage in HD and 4K. Speed supposes that streamers have partially led this charge by their releases of originals shot in the same manner as feature films. “It’s all big cameras and big lenses now. In sports,” he continues, “the cameras are tiny but the lenses are massive.” Camera Revolution has entered the sports broadcast realm, renting out

Learn more at camerarevolution.com

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PRODUCTION NOSFERATU

R obert Eggers’ Nosferatu is a retelling of the 1922 German expressionist film Nosferatu: A Symphony of Horror . A harrowing gothic horror tale of obsession, the film tells the story of Ellen Hutter and the vampire infatuated with her, playing out in the fictional German town of Wisborg in 1838. Nosferatu was hauntingly captured by DOP Jarin Blaschke. The two met in 2007: “Robert first reached out to me to shoot a short film,” begins Blaschke. “I received an earnest, polite email, calling me Mr Blaschke, even though I was essentially a homeless 29-year-old crashing on my friend’s couch. We met up in Brooklyn; he had a waxed moustache, I wore some tattered, thrift-store clothes. I had been working for an antiquarian book dealer for years because I wasn’t really making it in film, just building up my reel one 35mm short

film at a time. He was a waiter and doing street theatre, but artistically we had a lot in common.” Blaschke went on to shoot Eggers’ feature debut, The Witch , followed by The Lighthouse and The Northman . Eggers had originally planned to tackle Nosferatu after completing The Witch , but it didn’t get made then because the studio wasn’t fully aligned with Eggers creatively. “We first looked at making this movie in around 2016,” adds Blaschke. “But when you sit with it for longer, for years on end, the best ideas have more time to present themselves. “You know the original exists and you know you’re not going to surpass it in what it’s already done. Rob’s film had to be distinct and have its own path,” admits Blaschke. “As far as tone goes, Robert was interested in how the inhabitants of the film see things,

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NOSFERATU PRODUCTION

WORDS Oliver Webb IMAGES Universal Pictures

DOP Jarin Blaschke breaks down how he lensed Robert Eggers’ gothic horror remake

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NOSFERATU PRODUCTION

BACK TO THE 19TH CENTURY The crew rigged up an Arriflex ST camera to shoot the true-to-the- time scenes for Nosferatu

meaning that he wanted to represent the culture of 1838, not of 1922. “That’s what makes it its own film, inherently; 20th-century expressionism isn’t part of the equation. Artistically, it’s romantic and religious ideals that are in the relevant zeitgeist.” Blaschke opted to shoot the film with an Arriflex ST camera provided by Panavision. “We had flickering bulbs in The Lighthouse , then it got more sophisticated for The Northman but it was still mostly electric lighting. One of my ambitions was to return to using real flame and candlelight, like we did in The Witch , but on film this time. “The only way this was possible was to have a high-speed lens set, which was made at Panavision by Dan Sasaki. These lenses required the area behind the lens port to be as spacious as possible. The mirror clearance is a little better on an Arriflex than a Panaflex, so Dan could actually make the rear element of the high-speed lens a little bigger and closer to the film. It probably gained us only a third to a half of a stop, but I asked for as

ONE OF MY ambitions WAS TO RETURN TO USING real flame AND CANDLELIGHT”

much light from him as he could give me. I used T1 lenses and an incredible focus puller – everything at my disposal – to make it work.” Blaschke has also collaborated with production designer Craig Lathrop across all of Eggers’ films and was reunited with him again for this one. Lathrop previously constructed all of the turf buildings that made up Fjölnir’s farm in The Northman . For Nosferatu , the goal was to recreate 19th-century Germany. Doing so required most of the sets – and almost all interiors – to be created from scratch; about 60 builds in all. “You could go to the most

preserved city in Germany and you still won’t find a city block that’s completely pure,” explains Blaschke. “On a given block, something will have been torn down, amended, freshly painted or a ground floor turned into a Starbucks.” Additionally, despite Czech and Romanian castles being very well preserved, most of their interiors were too cramped to allow for creative camerawork, and walls were always freshly whitewashed, a mood killer for Eggers. “We scouted in Romania, and went to Transylvania, where we looked at Corvin Castle in Hunedoara,” Blaschke

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PRODUCTION NOSFERATU

explains. “Rob scouted it the first time around in 2016, when the patina was rich. When we went back a couple of years ago it was completely freshened, lime washed and painted. It’s supposed to be a crumbling castle, but that atmosphere was just sort of scrubbed off it.” Production also scouted Pernštejn Castle, which featured in Werner Herzog’s 1979 film Nosferatu the Vampyre . “It has a courtyard in the centre that was very tight,” Blaschke details. “When you watch Herzog’s movie, it’s shot quite awkwardly on an 18mm lens, just to see the thing, which is not what we were about. We wanted these formal compositions. However, we did find a good place there for Thomas to meet Orlok. We had to build our own door for the first reveal of the vampire; it was quite a build to put in one that opens on location. Lighting-wise, only certain compact lifts can drive to set through these medieval doors, and we could barely light the scene well enough.” Herzog’s Nosferatu the Vampyre was notoriously riddled with problems when it came to rats. Eggers’ film required roughly 5000 live rats, with the rest added digitally in post. “To fill that chapel would have required at least 20,000 rats,” notes Blaschke. “So you want enough rats to be crawling over each other. Beyond that, we also used what we call rat mats. These make a tile of rat shapes, and you have the real ones climb over the mats. They were incontinent and pooping all over the place – it’s a horrible, sour smell. We even had them pooping on Emma Corrin during one scene, but she was a real trooper and kept very calm about it.” Blaschke felt that a lot of his ideas over the last two decades came to fruition making Nosferatu . “I think I finally got night lighting down. I got to expand into

moonlit interiors, which is a finicky realm. There are so many moonlit shots in this movie, which are very tedious and slow because of how delicate they are to achieve. The realm that exists between too dark and too fake is narrow, and with light quality, what works for moonlight doesn’t really work for daylight. With Rob, he will not shoot under direct sun for day scenes, period. There are a couple of times when we had direct sunlight in The Northman – it was OK because it wasn’t horror, but even those he really didn’t like. Nighttime exteriors need the opposite – soft moonlight doesn’t work well.” For interiors on stage, Blaschke invented a somewhat beleaguered

system, using mirrors to distance the light source as much as possible. “A smaller source is a harder source. If you can’t physically shrink it, you have to move it further away. Our 18K ‘moon’ or ‘sun’ was often at the most distant wall on the other side of the stage, shooting across the set to strike a mirror, which then sent it back through a window. Each window got its own light and mirror. I used two kinds of mirrors; one is flat – normally a 4x4 mirror on a stand. It’s standard lighting equipment, but will only illuminate a 4x4ft space. I also got some 5x5s to cover larger windows, doubling them up for the tallest, gothic-style windows. “In addition, we used convex mirrors to spread the light, which makes it harder since it optically shrinks the source,” he adds. “It’s like a wide-angle lens on a camera, with its image being your light source. It’s a shortcut for when you can’t get the source far enough away to make it as hard as you want it. This is how we created the sharpest shadows in the film. One of the drawbacks is that it spreads the light very wide, so that the sliver you end up using is diminished – by about three stops. We only used it with 18K ARRIMAXES that were installed with spot reflectors. Spreading out the rays also

CHECKING THE LIGHTS Blaschke (right) worked hard on the effects that would create Eggers’ (middle) singular vision for scenic lighting

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