This next part of the book examines five strong story projects created by those with a flare for experimentation, a desire to push the capabilities of their DSLRs. Most of them used the Canon 5D Mark II, whereas two projects utilized the Canon 7D. Hundreds of others could have been chosen for the book, but these are the projects and people that fascinated me and represented some of the best cinematic documentary and short fiction projects in the DSLR world from an international perspective. Each chapter in this part explores a different aspect of filmmaking to reveal the capabilities of the cameras. It examines the approaches filmmakers took in attaining a cinematic look utilizing a variety of techniques1—from taking advantage of locations to engaging documentary cinema techniques to working with the blocking of actors.
In Chapter 8, Brazilian director Bernardo Uzeda, along with cinematographer Guga Millet and producer Isadora Sachett, envisioned a film look in their short Casulo that earned them a Brazilian Society of Cinematographers award. Their look relied on a strong primary color palette, the use of visual texture, and a postproduction process that not only included serious amounts of color grading, but also involved removing video noise from each shot. The process resulted in images of such pristine richness that one would be hard pressed to say it wasn’t shot on film—and, indeed, it was transferred to 35 mm film to screen at film festivals in Brazil (some viewers thought it was shot on 65mm!).
In Chapter 9, photojournalist Rii Schroer found the 5D Mark II a welcome fit to her intimate photography style, which includes building a rapport with her subjects, resulting in her characters shining through with not only cinematic flare, but with personalities that shimmer with depth. Furthermore, Schroer practiced a documentary style in her work that forthrightly challenges the need to engage in a TV news style, a style that looks and feels like video, rather than cinema. Schroer is a journalist who listens to her subjects, gives them a voice with respect, and at the same time weaves a story with strong images. Rather than let images simply illustrate a narration—as we typically find in TV news—Schroer practices visual journalism to be able to tell the story visually and cinematically.
explores Philip Bloom’s A Day at the Races. Bloom is a self-made guru of DSLR cinema and has become one of the strongest promoters of the HDSLR movement. In this short, he practiced his technique with a modified Canon 7D fitted out with high-end Cooke cinema lenses. He not only engaged his trademark style by covering his subjects with close-ups of faces, providing textural detail in the film, but captured the atmosphere of a horse stable and racetrack by doing so. His unique style stands out and he represents one of the most prolific powerful DSLR shooters working today.
In Chapter 11, Jeremy Ian Thomas, a colorist by day at Hdi RAWworks, and a director by night, put together the otherworldly feeling of The Chrysalis—taking advantage of California’s Death Valley to evoke a purgatory for a young man who walks in between the liminal space of life and death. Thomas’s wizardly skills in Apple’s Color allows him to eke out a cinematic style from flat and superflat settings of Canon’s 5D Mark II and 7D. In this project, he engaged the Cine Marvel picture style and integrated those images with CGI special effects.
In Chapter 12, Shane Hurlbut, ASC, teamed up with writer-director Po Chan to present probably the most engaging cinematic and heart-breaking short fiction shot on a Canon 5D Mark II to date with The Last 3 Minutes. It’s certainly one of the most ambitious short DSLR films made—utilizing 18 different locations as we see an older man’s life flash before his eyes (and all shot in five days). The impeccable detail in setting up each shot, getting the light perfect, choosing the proper lenses, and working with actors to shape the performance just so helped achieved a compelling cinematic look desired by so many aspiring filmmakers shooting digitally.
Note: All quotations of filmmakers in this section of the book are from interviews with the author, unless otherwise noted.