Blackmagic Design announced that URSA Mini 4.6K EF was used to shoot the music video for “Lights Down Low” by MAX. Blackmagic Design Video Assist 4K was used for 4K monitoring and recording on the intensely packed two day shoot, while DaVinci Resolve Studio was used for color grading the video.
MAX collaborated with production company and full service music management label Crush Music on “Lights Down Low” to create a music video emblematic of MAX’s personal experience behind the song, telling a love story over the better part of a lifetime. “We wanted to show what it would be like to be a fly on the wall,” explained Jade Ehlers, creative director at Crush Music. “It’s a one shot video that we shot with just one camera mounted directly above the room, and you watch MAX experience various relationships. The music video depicts what one’s life might look like if they lived in one apartment their whole life. And when it came down to choosing a camera, the Blackmagic URSA Mini 4.6K was ideal for the shoot.”
With just 15 feet between the floor and the ceiling, Crush was challenged with capturing the full scope of the studio built bedroom, complete with fake windows and artificial lighting. They paired a Sigma 8mm super wide angle lens with the URSA Mini 4.6K to account for the lack of distance between the camera and subject. “We wanted to be sure we had a lens that would give us a wide enough angle to capture the whole room, and the Sigma 8mm worked perfectly with the URSA Mini, which gives us as full frame as we can get.”
Because the video for “Lights Down Low” is shot entirely from the ceiling looking down on the room, the production crew had to mount the URSA Mini 4.6K camera above the set using C-clamps and a dolly. Once the camera was set in place and the shoot began, it was imperative that the camera was not moved, so as not to compromise the steady shot, not to mention the camera was far out of reach from the ground. To work around the physical limitations, Crush hooked up the Blackmagic Video Assist 4K to the URSA Mini 4.6K, which enabled them to manage all camera operations as well as to frame and focus their shot perfectly.
“Everything came out great, we were really stoked on it. Being able to shoot RAW, which gave us tons of information to use in post, and capture 4K was super important for us to be able to deliver an amazing looking music video for MAX,” said Ehlers. “Even before we went into grading with DaVinci Resolve Studio, when we just had the base color, I could already tell the color was going to be amazing.”
“The video for MAX’s ‘Lights Down Low’ was a unique concept because there was so much we had to do in regards to getting the camera just right, and in most music videos you can just shoot something and then scale different angles. This one was more complex in trying to find something that worked perfectly. Luckily, the Blackmagic URSA Mini 4.6K and Video Assist 4K did just that.”
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