22
CREATION
September 2016
Jason Bourne returns
with a touch of Meglic
the eye, and it feels like the same
scene and style. On ‘Bourne’, it was
especially important because of the
particular visceral documentary
style of the film.”
To achieve this objective, Meglic
and his team chose Blackmagic Design’s Micro Cinema Cameras and
Pocket Cinema Cameras, and because of the cameras’ combination
of size and performance. “I haven’t
found another camera that will deliver on those two things — being
as light as they are while still delivering the image quality needed to
blend in with the A cameras.
“I always try to extract as much
as I can from a camera, so they are
dealing with good footage in post,
and the dynamic range on both
PHOTO CREDIT: UNIVERSAL PICTURES
After a nine-year hiatus, Jason
Bourne, played by Matt Damon,
is returning to movie screens this
year with the fourth instalment of
the movie franchise.
Having also worked on 2007’s
The Bourne Ultimatum, second unit
director of photography (DOP) Igor
Meglic had been familiarised with
the requirements for capturing the
thrilling chase and action scenes
before he was called upon to work
on Jason Bourne.
Meglic explained: “One of the
most important points to note
when shooting action scenes for
any movie is to stay consistent with
the established look of the movie,
so once you transition to an action scene, there’s no difference to
Blackmagic Design cameras were used to shoot Jason Bourne, the latest instalment
to the Bourne movie franchise.
cameras was very good.”
Five Micro Cinema Cameras
were used to capture the final
car-chase scene in the film, which
was shot on the Las Vegas strip.
Mounted to the side of a S.W.A.T
truck, the cameras captured all
the action as the vehicle plowed
through rows of cars.
The cameras were also used to
shoot the existing lighting environment on the Las Vegas strip. Set up
as a four-camera array system — all
shutter and genlocked together
with a single-point trigger, the
footage was then displayed on
overhead panels while shooting the
corresponding green screen plates
with the actors. The Micro Cinema
Cameras were positioned to shoot
left, right and rear, creating a 360º
shot of the area.
In another shot on the Canary
Islands, several Pocket Cinema
Cameras were used for a motorcycle-and-car-chase scene, which
required very light cameras that
could be mounted onto the helmet
and body of the stunt person on
the motorcycle, Meglic explained.
“This was pretty serious stuff,
and we have the guys going up and
down stairs, over jumps and down
very narrow alleys and streets. We
used the footage for great POV
shots,” he concluded.
AR integration brings Sky Deutschland’s
Bundesliga coverage to next level
Sky Deutschland is deploying
Ncam’s real-time camera tracking technology to generate augmented reality (AR) graphics in
support of its live coverage of the
new German Bundesliga football
championship season.
Last season, the Sky Sports
and Sky Sports News production
department of the German media
company was solely responsible for
providing the coverage of 612 Bundesliga matches and used Ncam’s
camera-tracking technology to
bring a ‘wow’ factor to its audience.
The broadcaster faced the major
challenge of having to generate
coverage from the pitch level instead of working with a dedicated
Bundesliga studio. “This way of working limits the introduction of new
technologies, of course,” explained
Alessandro Reitano, VP Sports
Production at Sky Deutschland.
“However, Sky Deutschland was
able to fix the Ncam device onto the
Steadicam camera stabiliser mount,
to bring our Bundesliga coverage to
the next level.”
Ncam’s camera-agnostic lightweight sensor bar attaches to a wide
range of cameras to track the cam-
era movements using real objects
in real time, allowing the camera
to move freely in all locations while
generating a continuous stream of
precise positional and rotational information to feed Sky Deutschland’s
Vizrt graphics engine.
Reitano added: “We were the
first German TV broadcaster covering the Bundesliga to use Ncam on
a Steadicam mount. We believe this
technology really puts us ahead of
our competitors and gives football
fans a highly stimulating visual
experience in terms of advanced
graphics.”
Miller Camera Support Equipment’s DS20 fluid head and MINI tripod joins Daniel
Hunter and Edward Saltau into wildlife Australia.
Get upclose with marsupials
with the right support
In a three-part documentary series
Wonders of Marsupials, Daniel
Hunter and Edward Saltau of The
Natural History Unit production
company wanted to bring viewers
upclose with some of Australia’s
most famous indigenous animals.
Wonders of Marsupials be gins
with how marsupials came into
existence and focuses on how
marsupials have evolved to adapt
and overcome the challenges they
face in Australia.
For this project, Hunter and
Saltau used a Sony PXW-FS7 camcorder with a Canon FD 150-600
lens with a two-time extender,
and a Sony A7s Mark 2 camera
with Canon 100-400 MKII lens for
low-light situations. Supporting
the payload of the cameras are
the DS20 fluid head and MINI tripod from Miller Camera Support
Equipment.
Hunter explained that the contained spreader space of the MINI
tripod was particularly effective
for the production of Wonders of
Marsupials, especially for filming
species such as bettongs, which are
small, ground-dwelling marsupials.
He added: “It feels necessary to
bring the viewer into the moment
by filming at the animal’s eye level,
which we’re able to do quickly and
steadily with this tripod.”
Designed for lightweight camcorder set-ups in confined spaces,
the MINI tripod is a 2.8kg, 100mm
alloy two-stage baby-leg tube
tripod. It features simple and tradi
tional toggle locks with a payload
capacity of 25kg along with an
optional baby ground spreader.
Separately, the DS20 fluid head
is designed as a lightweight solution for use with larger cameras or
additional on-board accessories.
Equipped with a dual-position
counterbalance and 60mm camera
plate, the DS20 allows quick and
easy balancing for payloads from
5kg-10kg.
For natural history filmmaking
that requires a lot of movement in
the field, Hunter added that the
DS20 “has proven to be a solid
head with excellent panning-andtilting capabilities” with a lighter
rig set-up.
He concluded: “I think our
long lenses definitely caused us to
exceed the weight capacity of the
head, but the fact that we were
still able to get quality shots is a
testament to the build of the DS20.”