Blackmagic Design announced that multiple Blackmagic Micro Cinema Cameras and Video Assists were used to shoot the web movie for new Lexus car, LC500. It was shot by Kei Takahashi, a cameraman and founder of Tokyo-based KID Co. Ltd., on location on and above the highways of California.
With power and comfort, the LC500 was born as a luxury coupé which symbolizes Lexus’ next generation. To bring out the attractiveness of the car, the production shot the car driving along the stunning Angeles Crest Highway in California. Shot using a number of cameras, including six Micro Cinema Cameras, the movie captured the intense nature of California and the LC500 powerfully running through the curvy road from various angles. Along with the Micro Cinema Cameras, Takahashi used two Video Assists for monitoring.
Takahashi said: “We temporarily blocked about 4 km of the road for the shoot, and let the LC500 run the 4 km. When the car came back to the starting point, we started shooting again. We repeated this several times. It took 15 to 20 minutes for each round, and we only had one day to shoot the entire movie. And since we were at an external location, we had to finish while the sun was out. It was a very tight schedule, so we wanted to capture as many angles as we could.”
The Micro Cinema Cameras were set using a single pipe across the car with grips. Tripod mounts were installed via the grips, where three Micro Cinema Cameras were mounted. Another Micro Cinema Camera with a suction cup was stuck to the window on the driver’s side, while the last was installed near the driver’s foot. With this setup, Takahashi was able to shoot five angles such as the speedometer, the driver’s hand, gas pedal and a number of other specific features of the car in action. Takahashi used another Micro Cinema Camera to shoot a vertical size movie.
“The director and I were thinking that it would be interesting if we put the Micro Cinema Camera rotated in 90 degrees on top of another camera when shooting the LC500 from the camera car. The idea just came up and we decided to shoot the vertical size movie in case we could use the footage for something,” said Takahashi.
Also, DaVinci Resolve was used for on set grading, with the final postproduction process completed in Japan.
“The Micro Cinema Camera’s advantage is its compact size. It can be installed where regular cameras cannot fit. The main advantage that allowed me to shoot the vertical size movie was that it can be rotated in 90 degrees. As the schedule for this project was very tight, it was very beneficial to shoot many angles at a time”
The Video Assists were used to set up the Micro Cinema Cameras. Takahashi talked about Video Assist: “It’s easy to connect and easy to see. It’s easy to use and compact and I like that I can use the Canon battery. The Video Assist is versatile.”
“I work with Murakami, the director of this project, for other projects. The Micro Cinema Camera has become a real stable for us for use on car related jobs. For car commercials, small cameras are often used by installing them in a car like this project or mounted on a head. However, the picture quality of those cameras usually did not look good, and is missing richness in the picture. We are shooting something luxurious, so we want the image to match that. The Micro Cinema Camera, on the other hand, can capture a rich image and is easy to match with other cameras,” concluded Takahashi.
From Restoring To Hopefully Preserving Multi-Camera Categories At The Emmys
When Gary Baum, ASC won his fourth career Emmy Award earlier this month, it was especially gratifying in that the honor came in a category--Outstanding Cinematography for a Multi-Camera Half-Hour Series--that had been restored thanks in part to a grass-roots initiative among cinematographers to drum up entries. Last year the category fell by the wayside when not enough multi-camera entries materialized.
In his acceptance speech, Baum appealed to the Television Academy to keep multi-camera categories alive. He later noted to SHOOT that editors also got their multi-camera recognition back in the Emmy competition this year. Baum hopes that after resurrecting multi-camera categories in 2024, such recognition will be preserved for 2025 and beyond.
A major factor in the decline of multi-camera submissions in 2023 was the move of certain children’s and family programming from the primetime Emmy competition to the National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences’ (NATAS) Emmy ceremony. For DPs this meant that multi-camera programs last year were reduced to vying for just one primetime nomination slot in the more general Outstanding Cinematography for a Series (Half-Hour) category. It turned out that this single slot was filled in ‘23 by a Baum-lensed episode of How I Met Your Father (Hulu).
Fast forward to this year’s competition and Baum won for another installment of How I Met Your Father--”Okay Fine, It’s A Hurricane,” which turned out to be the series finale. Two of Baum’s Emmy wins over the years have been for How I Met Your Father, and there’s a certain symmetry to them. His initial win for How I Met Your Father was for the pilot in 2022. So he won Emmys for the very first and last... Read More