HDSLR cinema snuck up on us all. My first short movies were shot on the Canon L2 Hi8 mm video camera. When I was doing doctoral work at NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts, I enrolled in the NYU boot camp one summer, and we shot on 16 mm black and white film with no sync sound—Arriflexes that had three fixed lenses that you could rotate into position. After that, I purchased the first generation Panasonic DVX100 24P miniDV camera and shot two fiction shorts and several documentary projects. When I consulted with reporters in Spring 2008 at The Christian Science Monitor, our budget allowed only for consumer HD cameras (a mix of Panasonic and JVC tapeless cameras), and they cost around $1,200. I shot my last documentary on a Sony A1U HDV miniDV camera, a $2,200 camera, nearly the price of a Canon 5D Mark II body! And none of those cameras match the image quality of the Canon Rebel T2i for $800!

I know digital video.

But none of the footage from these cameras looked as good as the two-minute rolls of film I shot on that Arriflex at NYU. Not even close. The smooth, creamy shots were unlike anything I’ve seen on video. The sharpness of the glass was incomparable. But I lived with shooting on video because it was affordable, and artistic sensibility—that cinematic feel I had previously seen in 16 mm film—was compromised.

Until now.

Once I picked up the Canon 5D Mark II, there was no going back. The footage coming out of the camera—if not the same as those shorts I shot with an Arriflex—was the best thing I’ve seen since then. It was cinematic. I, like Philip Bloom, dismissed the camera at first because of the lack of controlling aperture.

But in the fall of 2009, I started watching videos on Vimeo by HDSLR shooters. The stuff looked good. I wanted one. I did more research and convinced my colleagues at Northern Arizona University’s School of Communication to get one—the Panasonic GH1 (the only other serious contender at the time). One of my students, Shannon Sassone, shot her short fiction project with it in my intro video production class. She was amazed at the quality of the image. And I became convinced.

Later, I decided to write a book proposal that would address the cinematic needs of these students shooters, as well as for independent filmmakers who saw the potential of these cameras but didn’t know where all the resources were to make effective use of DSLRs as cinema cameras. I wanted to bring together some of the best thinkers and practitioners engaging with this form of cinema—from Philip Bloom, who pioneered the sharing of information about DSLRs on his blog; to Rii Schroer, who is primarily a photojournalist who wanted to make movies with this camera; to Shane Hurlbut, ASC, who had access to nearly any camera in the world but wants to shoot films with the Canon 5D Mark II.

It’s one thing to ignore shooters who get excited about putting up test shots online. It’s another thing to look at Philip Bloom’s San Francisco People, Cherry Blossom Girl, or Skywalker Ranch, or even his Salton Sea Beach (shot on a Canon Rebel T2i), and not realize that there’s something going on here—something different from the kinds of video we’ve seen over the past 15 years.

Then Philip Bloom announced 10 million views on his website as of June 1, 2010, and we’re not talking about a celebrity site, but a working man’s view of HDSLR cinema and how he’s doing it. This indicates a democratization of the cinema look, an inside peak at how it’s done. And when Lucasfilm jumped on board, the tremor became an earthquake. As Shane Hurlbut, ASC, is fond of saying, Canon knocked over the applecart, burned it up, and decided to make applesauce.

How cinema and television are being done is starting to change. Hollywood is beginning to embrace the new aesthetic offered by these cameras.

The season finale of House MD (2010) was shot on a Canon 5D Mark II. “We started testing on episode 19, which I was directing,” Greg Yaitanes says in an interview with Philip Bloom.¹ “We would run the 5D next to our film cameras just to see how the 5D was reacting to our lighting, what our sets looked like, how actors looked, anything we needed to be aware of. And we were very happy with these tests.” Everyone was surprised by how good the image looked. Everyone on the production and postproduction team agreed—including those handling special effects; even the studio executives said it was good enough for broadcast, Yaitanes explains.

In the end, Yaitanes said it looked “gorgeous. … It allowed us to tell a story that we never told before.” The HDSLR camera changed how the story was told. There was no examination of test charts. There was what they saw onscreen, and there was the emotion of the story.

Yaitanes embraced the aesthetics of the camera. And despite banding issues, which does tend to occur when the camera overheats, he and his team didn’t let that bother them. “We struggled a bit with banding.… That was every once in a while and frankly it’s part of a look,” Yaitanes says to Bloom. “You can try and fight these things away and wish they weren’t there, but then you’re just comparing that aesthetic to something else. I’m not trying to create a film aesthetic. I’m trying to create its own aesthetic. I want it to be its own look, its own style. If there’s some banding, … some motion blur, then for me, who cares? I feel like the story trumps all. These are, again, tools. These are, again, things that give you a look”.²

If anything, I hope this book shows how you can develop that cinematic look—if not the look of film, then something else that looks as cool. When Yaitanes went to film school, there was only film. But he wished that it “was not the only medium in which people would look at [motion pictures]. Back then no one would take something you shot on video seriously in terms of a narrative.” Conventional video just didn’t have an alternative look that felt aesthetically strong.

But that has now all changed. The HDSLR cinema movement embraces a new kind of digital video aesthetic, an HDSLR cinema aesthetic made possible by an HD codec combined with a large sensor, small form factor, and interchangeable lenses.

The image quality of these cameras outweighs the price by leaps and bounds. Yes, by the time this book is released, there will be small consumer cameras coming out with interchangeable lenses, and the entire prosumer video camera market will be retooled to keep up with the DSLR revolution. But what began as a 30 fps video on a stills camera (Canon 5D Mark II) designed for print journalists needing the convenience of shooting “a little bit of video” to supplement their in-the-field assignments for newspaper websites has now become a tool for cinema.

It’s not just a tool for the Hollywood elite budget, but for you and me, the independent filmmakers, as well as event video shooters, students, video journalists, documentary filmmakers—the do-it-yourselfers who have been desiring cinematic quality on an affordable camera but had to simply make do with miniDV and prosumer HD cameras that just weren’t quite there due to their fixed lenses and small chips.

We can now gear up for a cinema-type project for around $2,000 and not worry that our vision’s being compromised. There is no excuse to shoot crappy-looking movies. You can still shoot bad images with these cameras, but that’ll be due to a lack of skill, and not the camera.

I hope this book helps you make the best-looking movie on the lowest possible budget.

It can be done. And you can do it.

NOTES