a film production blog
My apologies for the lack of blog posts lately, but the weeks after our Cam Busters workshop tour have been filled to the brim with work and therefore I’ve been too busy to do anything else. A round-up blog post about the Cam Busters tour will be posted in the coming days.
IBC 2011 in Amsterdam is around the corner. Right after NAB, it’s the most highly anticipated professional broadcast event of the year. It’s Europe’s NAB, so to speak.
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I wrote this post originally for OMM! – the Open Media Magazine, a new iOS publication by talented young filmmaker/designer Daniel Freytag, who asked me to contribute to his first issue. It’s definitely worth checking out, it’s absolutely free for your iPhone and iPad, and the design and interface is very innovative and fitting to an iOS device. There are many other great articles included, among them one by my friend Mario Feil, who actually talks about why film schools were unnecessary for him 
Future versions of the magazine will be web based and therefore available on all devices.
I love the community that has sprung up around the revolution of DSLRs in recent years. The accessibility of cameras delivering a cinematic quality for low budgets has opened up opportunities to almost anyone interested in becoming a filmmaker. People who used to feel excluded from what used to be an elitist profession now have a better chance of making it simple because the gear is cheaper and quickly becoming ubiquitous.
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And here we go, the 2nd episode of our gear review show GEARAMA is online!
This time we talk about the Cinevate Simplis Dual (or Pro, how it’s called with the Cyclops viewfinder included) DSLR rig. In case you missed the first episode, check it out here - we talked about the Cinevate Cyclops DSLR viewfinder.
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For our incredibly successful HDSLR/AF101 Masterclass in Majorca in June, we had some really generous sponsors who supported us along the way.
Three of them were so generous that they actually donated equipment to be given away to participants.
Philip, Sebastian and I did not want people to compete for these prizes with their filmmaking on the three-day course, because we figured that would distract them from actually learning things – and that’s what a Masterclass is all about in the end. We did a random prize drawing on the last day, and Philip Bloom picked all the winners.
The biggest price, worth about $4,000, was a brand-new CamDolly – a full-size dolly rig with incredible versatility, which I have already looked at several months ago. Check it out here.
Months ago, it was still winter, I went out shooting with my buddies Gunther Machu and Peter Hainzl to test and compare the GH2 to the GH1.
Check out what we came up with … thanks to Peter for shooting most of the BTS stuff and to Gunther for editing such a nice piece out of it:
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Check out the first episode of GEARAMA & tell us what you think!
Beware that this was really a test and we will move on to more scripted reviews in the future.
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Last week I returned from our 2nd 3-day HDSLR / AF101 Masterclass in Majorca. Sebastian Wiegärtner & me did the first one last September, which was a great success, and so we got our friend Philip Bloom on board for the first time this year in June. We had around 30 attendees and it was sold out over 8 weeks ago. The great thing about a three-day workshop is that people can actually get to know each other and shoot a short film under our supervision. You are essentially able to shoot a short with Philip Bloom (and us) prying over your shoulder, giving you tips and ideas on how we would approach a shot or scene like that.
Before I get too much into detail already: I will be doing a separate blog post on the Masterclass shortly, we are just waiting for all of the 6 shooting teams to put their finished short films (which they planned, shot and edited in less than 24 hours during the Masterclass) on Vimeo. Once they are up, I am going to present you an extensive round-up of everything that happened during the Masterclass.
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I am very happy to announce that Sebastian Wiegärtner & I are going to bring the one and only Philip Bloom for the first time to Austria and Germany for a workshop tour with the three of us.
Visit our dedicated website www.filmmakerstour.com for booking details.
Check out Philip Bloom admitting on camera in German that we shot all of his films! 
Using the Zacuto EVF on the new Sony NEX FS-100
As most of you might already have heard, Zacuto has released a new electronic viewfinder (EVF) for use with your DSLR cameras or any other cameras with an HDMI connector.
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Corporate film for Austrian Public Railways (“ÖBB”) that I shot, directed & edited a few months ago.
The film was produced by beeline productions (producer: Katharina Setzer)
in cooperation with Stalkerfilm (producer: Igor Orovac).
It deals with the introduction of the new operation management strategy of the public railway system in Austria. The target audience are outsiders who are interested in the inner workings of the infrastructure branch of the ÖBB, for example applicants for positions.
Around 70% of the film were shot by me, the rest was archive material shot by Filmquadrat GmbH (they also did all the aerial shots). To match all the archive material in XDCAM EX, we shot on a Sony EX3.
Directed, shot & edited by Nino Leitner.
Big thanks to all the assistants involved in this production.
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An unknown dancer, my sound guy Andreas Pils, me, & the line Producer Anna Kwak
I have been looking forward to this for quite a while, and Sunday May 29th is the day: The French/German broadcaster ARTE will screen the 90-minute documentary “À chacun son bal” (French title, something like “To each their ball” in English) or “Alles Walzer” (German title, something like “Let’s waltz” in English), in which I was lucky enough to be one of the three cinematographers alongside Xavier Liberman and Alexander Boboschweski. The documentary, directed by Barbara Necek, deals with the Viennese tradition of dancing balls. For more details on the documentary please read the English description below.
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UPDATE:
It’s finally June and Final Cut Pro X is available for download from the App Store. It’s time to start learning all the new stuff!
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I know NAB 2011 has been over for more than a week now already, but I’m busy traveling across the US and therefore had little chance to keep you guys posted. Apart from meeting all these amazing people – and that’s what it really was about – let’s dive right in and have a look at the major product that was introduced while this year’s show was taking place – Apple’s unveiling of their all-new Final Cut Pro X editing software.
The sneak peek at Final Cut Pro X was one of the relatively few real innovations I found at this year’s NAB. They took over the Final Cut Pro User Group meeting aka “Supermeet” in the Bally’s Hotel and ousted many other sponsors (among them Avid) and keynote speakers (among them Philip Bloom) on very short notice. Of course they didn’t announce officially that Apple had taken over beforehand, but it was rather obvious that something was brewing … especially because Apple invited a select group of editors to an exclusive early preview of it a few months back to get their feedback. Most of them were amazed but they couldn’t talk about it.
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Before I go into detail about sliders and the KesslerCrane CineSlider that I have reviewed in particular, check out his little test short that I shot a while back in Vienna’s famous “Wurschtlprater”, a luna park, months before it’s opening to the public again. The people in charge of the rides (there is no general admission fee, you have to pay individually for access to the operators’ rides) were testing their rides on this unusually sunny winter day.
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English subtitled version just for many of you to understand the German voiceover
In a few short days, it’s finally here – NAB show in the City of Sin, Las Vegas, Nevada – and I’m going there!
I’ve been to Vegas before, but not yet to NAB. It’s particularly exciting to finally come to the most important camera technology event of the year. Lots of new products are to be expected from all sorts of companies in the business of filmmaking gear. Absolutely everybody and their mum will be there! And me too
We have all been following the unfolding tragedy that has hit Japan about a week ago – first an earthquake of unprecedented power, followed by a devastating tsunami that left much of Japan’s shores absolutely destroyed, thousands dead and hundreds of thousands homeless. And if that wasn’t enough, the danger of a nuclear catastrophe looms as the Fukushima power plant – positioned directly at the shore – was destroyed, exposing radiating fuel rods to the atmosphere. That country has been beaten hard from all sides within only a couple of days.
Rescue workers carry a bodybag through a devastated neighbourhood - Dan Chung for The Guardian
Philip Bloom has started a fundraiser on his blog to help victims of the Japanese earthquake - I beg and urge you to take part and chip in a little money. As a by-product of being super-awesome by helping people, you can win great prices (for example equipment from Kessler Crane worth $2.000!) – so there’s really no reason not to take part, every little donation counts.
In such times of crisis, the UK newspaper The Guardian often seems to fall back on one particular member of their photo journalists, Dan Chung, and send him right in the middle of it all. For example, they sent him right there after the Arizona shootings a while back, he also went to North Korea when Kim Jong Il introduced his son during a military parade, and so on – he practically seems to be the fire brigade of the DSLR journalist world.
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My Twitter / Facebook followers might have seen it already, but the dedicated website for the Majorca HDSLR/AF101 Masterclass 2011 is now online!
After the great success Sebastian Wiegärtner & I had with last year’s first masterclass (check the behind-the-scenes video out below), we are happy to make another one this June, this time with Philip Bloom, in the beautiful Majorca!
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I know this isn’t particularly filmmaking-related, but I have been raving online on how great Dropbox is for a while now, and people keep asking me why I think it’s so great – so let me explain briefly.
This is part of a series of guest blog posts by the screenwriter and director Gregor Schmidinger will try to reveal the mystery about how to reach a million views with a (narrative) short film on the Internet. Find out more about Gregor at the end of this article.
Previous Posts:
• Part 2: The Art of Filmmaking
Odysseus and Polyphem by Gustav Schwab
Last week, I talked about philosophic concepts such as life, truth, intention and originality. These are all concepts that are fundamentally important in order to create art in general. This week, I want to talk about the nuts and bolts of compelling stories.
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I produced, directed and edited this little trailer for the Goethe-Institut London’s “Meet the Germans” website last year. DP was my dear friend Alexander Schönauer in Berlin. (Though some of the shorter interview shots in this clip were done by other Goethe Institut centers around Europe.)
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This is part of a series of guest blog posts by the screenwriter and director Gregor Schmidinger will try to reveal the mystery about how to reach a million views with a (narrative) short film on the Internet. Find out more about Gregor at the end of this article.
Previous Post, Part 1: The SetUp
Over the course of the next 5 weeks, a series of guest blog posts by the screenwriter and director Gregor Schmidinger will try to reveal the mystery about how to reach a million views with a (narrative) short film on the Internet. Find out more about Gregor at the end of this article.
I just realized that I crossed the magical barrier of 15,000 followers on Twitter – WOW!
To celebrate the occasion, ZACUTO are very generously giving away a Z-FINDER PRO 2.5x! That is an incredible $395 value – a huge thanks to Zacuto for this!! It’s certainly the most popular DSLR viewfinder in the world, one of the best out there – I’ve reviewed it and compared it to other viewfinders here and here.
Last month, the uncompromising Robin Schmidt denounced that DSLR cinematography is a revolution. Read his excellent article right here on The Convergence. This is a response to that article. As usual, Robin was right in several points:
As mentioned in another recent blog post of his, he talks a lot of bollocks – as do I, by the way (so please don’t take any of us too seriously, I’m sure Robin agrees).
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A while back I produced, directed, edited & graded one of the most sophisticated corporate films I have ever done. I’m very glad that I’m finally able to share it with all of you, just in time for the holidays. It’s an industrial image film for the cookie and pastry company Gaber Backwaren. Their products are available in many parts of Europe and even specialty shops in the United States. It’s premium pastry quality available in the supermarkets – with natural and high-quality ingredients.
I’m sorry it’s all in German, but I think the images speak for themselves!
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Jump to my other DSLR viewfinder reviews:
- Epic DSLR Viewfinder Review & comparison (5 viewfinder solutions)!
- Letus Hawk VF – comparison to the Z-Finder
So here it is finally, my long overdue review of the Varavon Pro Finder.
First of all, watch my video review, it covers a lot … below you find further information!
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I have recently received the DitoGear DriveCam slider [edit: it's now called OmniSlider, but it's basically the same with a few improvements - I'll get the software upgrade, but it will make no difference for this blog post, that's why I renamed it!], which can be used in all sorts of ways. Two of its main uses are of course making super-smooth realtime camera movements using the joystick, or doing moving timelapse shots, which have become very popular in the last year mainly after everyone watched in awe how Tom Lowe from Timescapes is cranking out one masterful timelapse film after another.
(If you want to get a DriveCam slider or another product from DitoGear.com, use discount code “TheNino5″ to receive 5% off any order, an exclusive offer to my readers!)
You’ve probably heard about the amazing-wonderful-phenomenal Apple “Back to the Mac” event that took place on October 21st. At first sight, it was a rather insignificant event for us professional filmmakers, with a preview of the new Mac OS X Lion (which is taking a lot of its new features from iOS), some new MacBook Airs and the introduction of iLife ’11.
Jump to other DSLR viewfinder reviews:
- Epic DSLR Viewfinder Review & comparison (5 viewfinder solutions)!
- DigiFinder.pro Review
- Varavon Pro Finder DSLR Viewfinder Review
Like many others, I’ve been waiting for this shipment for quite a while, so I was very happy when it finally arrived at my doorstep: the Letus Hawk VF.
You might have read my EPIC DSLR VIEWFINDER blog post or the separate review of the DigiFinder Pro. I think these posts already make up the most comprehensive guide on DSLR viewfinders on the web, and any addition only adds to it. My aim is to review all DSLR viewfinders on the market as a viewfinder is the single most important piece of equipment for DSLR cinematographers.
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I was in France this past July on vacation, and of course, my T2i/550D came with me. I recently purchased my first intervalometer and thought it was a great chance to give timelapsing a first shot.
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My name is Nino Leitner, aac and I am a filmmaker, DP and producer based in Vienna, Austria. I focus mainly on commercial & corporate work as well as documentaries.