Currently a huge box-office hit, The Hunger Games is a breathtaking journey to a future world where children are forced to fight for their lives. Starring Jennifer Lawrence, Josh Hutcherson, Woody Harrelson and Donald Sutherland, the film is a visual dramatization of the first novel in a best-selling trilogy written by Suzanne Collins. The dystopian story unfolds in nation of Panem (formerly the United States, Mexico and Canada) which is divided into 12 oppressed districts, while an autocratic government with absolute power resides in the futuristic metropolis of the Capitol. When the people of a13th district start a rebellion, the Capitol destroys the district and creates an annual competition to forever punish the oppressed. For this “Hunger Games” event, a lottery chooses a boy and girl (between the ages of 12 and 18) from each district to compete in a televised battle where there will be only one survivor.NAB 2012 Preview: New Technology for the Digital Age
Written by James Thompson
Broadcasters and filmmakers are heading to Las Vegas, Nev. to have a tech-filled good time at the 2012 NAB Show. This year’s event will have extra excitement for content creators looking to capitalize on an array of new equipment with better quality at considerably reduced costs. For these visionaries, the words “lighter, portable and less expensive” are like music to the ears — and NAB will not disappoint them. The show floor is expected to be busy, filled with many new products and approximately 100,000 attendees ready to purchase the technology of the future. Here’s the first look at some of the companies slated to appear at NAB 2012.
Read more: NAB 2012 Preview: New Technology for the Digital Age
At last month’s Academy Awards, seven of the nine Best Picture nominees were shot on Kodak film. But as digital technology continues to advance, we should expect to see more nominees like Hugo and The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo as digital filmmaking becomes more prominent in Hollywood and across the world stage.
While the last few years have seen a substantial movement toward 3D, it’s now safe to say that 3D projects are here for a long haul as it is the next wave of movie and television entertainment. Most of the television sets that are now being made will be 3D enabled while the advent of 3D theatrical viewing in multiplex theaters sprout up in record numbers — and consumers are forking out the extra cash for this entertainment. Large corporate companies, like ESPN, are also moving into 3D and consumers can now find 3D entertainment in most sports and live-event programming. “They were brave, they were smart, they are pioneers and they’ve done a really good job at it,” says Marty Shindler, CEO of The Shindler Prospective, a management consulting team for companies in entertainment and entertainment technology. Shindler promotes the 3D movement and often holds 3D sessions at trade show events, such as Digital Hollywood and the Consumer Electronics Show (CES).
It was just a few years ago that any list of the year’s best and hottest cameras would be topped by 3CCD 2/3-inch sensor models. But that seems like another era altogether since today “bigger is definitely better,” with 35mm-sized sensors predominating. Ironically, these large sensors are conjoined with smaller, not larger, cameras. Blame it on HDSLRs, the digital still cameras that have taken the HD production world by storm, thanks to the rapid response of the camera support industry’s impressive array of viewfinders, support rigs, audio adapters and more for operating HDSLRs smoothly and with stability, much like video cameras.
When planning to shoot a 3D documentary on polar bears in the Canadian Arctic, Filmmaker Adam Ravetch, an Arctic wildlife doc veteran, needed a rig that was capable of vertical and horizontal configurations. He used a prototype of Element Technica’s mid-sized Pulsar 3D rig coupled with Sony P1 HD cameras. “With the Pulsar we could configure the cameras side by side, or one atop the other in the beamsplitter mode,” reports Ravetch. “This enabled us to keep our weight to a minimum while having multiple 3D shooting options, depending upon how close we were to the subject that day.”
All Mobile Video (AMV) recently furnished its Epic 3D mobile production unit with lenses from FUJIFILM North America Corporation, Optical Devices Division for use on Sony HDC1500 Series cameras and Sony HDC-P1 cameras on 3ality Digital 3D stereoscopic rigs. The Epic 3D features six Fujinon HA23x7.6BERM HD Premier Series ENG-Style telephoto lenses and 12 Fujinon HAs18x7.6BRM Premier Series HD ENG-Style telephoto lenses. Each 3D rig on the truck includes two lenses for stereoscopic 3D production. There are six 3ality Digital 3flex 3D camera rigs on the Epic 3D truck - four TS-2 Studio Beamsplitter rigs and two TS-4 Side-by-Side rigs.