HDSLR’s have been the craze of indie filmmakers for the last few years. Well it has been finally proven that not only is it for low budget indie’s but it works for higher budget, major theatrical releases too.
Act of Valor is an amazing accomplishment in cinematography.
I had a chance last weekend to attend a discussion panel with the Director Mike McCoy, Cinematographer Shane Hurlbut, and writer Kurt Johnstad on the universal Studios backlot.
I attended to see if it was in fact true that they shot the movie on the Canon 5D MarkII. They said that the movie was shot 75% on various Canon HDSLR’s. The other 25% was in fact film cameras. They said they were going to have all the action shot on HDSLR’s and all the family and other non action scenes will be on film.
The director stated that after having shot the movie mostly on HDSLR’s they got into a rhythm and fell in love with the cameras. When asked if they would change any of their shooting choices now their done with the movie they said they would have shot the entire movie with HDSLR’s. It is more consistent and easier to work with, now that they know about all the quirks of the Canon cameras.
“Quirks”, that was a big point that Shane really wanted to get across to everyone. The Canon’s are far from a perfect feature film camera. But every camera has a purpose and you can’t expect to film an entire movie with one camera platform. You will need certain cameras to do certain things. For example, Canon is not good for shooting slow motion. You can shoot in 60p and get a good 40% slow-mo but sometimes that’s not enough. He said that the Arri Alexa gets some of the best slow motion around other than going to the extreme and using a Phantom camera.
Shane Hurlbut is a huge advocate for HDSLR’s and he runs an awesome website blog http://www.hurlbutvisuals.com/blog/ where he goes over a huge amount of helpful tips on shooting with HDSLR’s.
After seeing the trailer for Act of Valor on the big screen a few weeks ago I realized that shooting on HDSLR’s is a real option. It looked amazing on a giant screen. If I didn’t know that it was shot on an HDSLR I would never have been able to tell.
You have to be really accurate and careful with your lighting but it can produce amazing results.
Unless something else amazing comes up in the next six months. I will most likely be shooting my next feature film Dead Team with HDSLR’s. I’m still looking into a Canon C300. That is the only other real contender right now. I have to get my hands on one and see how I like it.
