Click Here to catch up the latest at Tim Ryan’s Reel Hawaii.

What is old, is new again.

So you’ve got an Arri SR series 16mm camera, and all the gear to go with it.  The lenses, the rods and matteboxes, all those little gadgets that cost a ton of money.   You put all this time and money and effort into the package, and then one day digital comes along, and there goes film.  Kaput.  Might as well put that old Arri up on ebay, along with all the BL’s and SB’s.

But wait.  Hold on.  P+S Technik, the folks who brought you the first 2/3″ 35mm Lens adapter for broadcast cameras, has come up with an interesting new piece of kit called the 16Digital SR Mag.

Bring analog into the digital age.

It’s a digital imaging and capture device that you can use with existing Arriflex SR series cameras.  Yes, by simply docking the one-piece “magazine” to your old SR , you can now capture HD/2k images just like you used to capture images on Super 16.  Pretty incredible stuff.  Can 35mm versions be very far behind?

Click Here to go to P+S Technik for the details.

or

Click Here to Download Film and Digital Times’ IBC 2009 Wrap Up — find the 16Digital Sr Mag on page 18

There’s a report on IBC 2009 over at Film and Digital Times — lots of new product sneak peeks and reviews on camera, lenses, and everything in between.  It’s available in a “low-rez” PDF.  Looks better than it sounds.

Click Here to go to Film and Digital Times.

I came across Hurlblog as I was researching the use of DSLR’s in video production.  The name of the author, Shane Hurlburt, rung a bell with me, and maybe it does with you.  Hurlburt was the DP on Terminator:Salvation — the movie where actor Christian Bale famously flipped out on a crew member, while filming.  That crew member was:  Shane Hurlburt.

Hurlburt has moved on to better things since then, it seems.  He’s really into pushing the limits of DSLR’s as filmmaking tools, and has decided to chronicle his adventures in Hurlblog.  From the jungles of South America to being embedded with Navy SEALS, Hurlburt has taken the Canon 5d Mark 2 into to some pretty amazing places, and put them in some very interesting situations — like mounting a Panvision Primo Zoom to the little DSLR.

My, what a big lens you have...

Click Here to go to Hurlblog.

Pro Video Coalition has got an article on “Battle for Hearts and Minds”, a documentary shot by independent photojournalist Danfung Dennis.  He spent some time embedded with a company of Marines in Afghanistan, as they tried to take and hold the Helmund Provice, a place that has has been, as of late, a stronghold of the Taliban.

Dennis was able to follow the action — all with a custom rig built around the Canon 5d Mark 2.  Check the article out to see how it’s built.

The footage was also used in a recent episode of PBS’s excellent series, FRONTLINE.  The episode was entitled “Obama’s War.”  You can view the entire episode for free on the PBS.org website.

Click Here to go to PBS: FRONTLINE.

He was able to capture some pretty amazing stuff — the more I see projects like this, the more I’m leaning toward buying my own DSLR.

*Caution:  Language and Violence in the video!

Click Here to go to Pro Video Coalition.

Some creative folks over at Volkswagen decided to take a bunch of stairs, and turn it into a piano.   The video is cooler than the description.

Arri's new ALEXA line of digital cinematography cameras.

The camera marketplace is getting real crowded these days.  Arri just introduced three new digital cinematography cameras at IBC 2009.  Dubbed ALEXA by the company (and BLUE by some other industry insiders — as opposed to RED, I suppose) these bad boys are the successors to the late model D-21′s that have been out for a few years.

ALEXA comes in three flavors:  A-EV, A-EV Plus, and A-OV-Plus.  Think of that arrangement as options for a car.  A-EV is the base model, while A-OV-Plus is the tricked out version of the ALEXA.

New upgrades include a totally new 3.5k, 35mm sized CMOS sensor that allows the use of PL mount lenses, and allows frame rates of 1 to 60 frames a second.  Also new for 2010, “HD On-board recording”,  ARRIRAW on-board recording ( for the A-EV-Plus, and A-OV-Plus), a F- LCOS 16:9 electronic viewfinder, or for you film purists, an Optical viewfinder (exclusively for the A-OV-Plus — they really need to give these camera better names), and an integrated wireless remote control, perfect for those jib/car mount jobs.

Output is designed for HD and 2k resolutions — Arri believing that 4k resolutions are better left to film for the time being.

Also…there’s a place for  your shoulder to go when you shoot hand-held.  Thank you, ARRI.  Down with flat-bottom cameras!

Anyways, Film and Digital Times has got a nice article on these new cameras.

Click Here to go to Film and Digital Times’ article.

Click Here to go to download Arri’s ALEXA PDF.

Click Here to go

Click Here to go to Tim Ryan’s Reel Hawaii.

The pictures turned out nice, but the video turned out like crap.

Not so with the creative folks from the Canadian based Stillmotion Photo+Cinema, and the local wedding creatives at Aria Studios.

Thanks to people like them, wedding videos have come a long, long way.   It’s not something that many of us on the commercial/docu/film side of the business might be aware of, but believe me, these guys have pushed the genre into new territory.

This one comes to us from Stillmotion, off of a pre-production Canon 7D.  Color me impressed.

Next up, a sample from the talented crew at Aria…

Awesome stuff.  And it’s not just the tech, it’s not just that these DSLR’s have a unique look, it’s the storytelling. It’s the pacing, and transitions, the editing, the camera movement — it really is cinematic in nature.  Bottom line is, this is good film-making.

Bravo.

Click Here to go to Stillmotion Photo+Cinema.

Click Here to go to Aria Studios.

Yahoo!Finance has got an interesting article on Blockbuster video, and the trouble they’ve been going through, with increased and varied competition, plus the economy.  The money guys at Blockbuster expected to close about 400 stores this year — but this was recently revised to somewhere up to 900 stores.  They’re estimating that 18% of their brick and mortar establishments are not profitable, and they want to cut losses.

It’s going to be interesting to see what the former king of video rental is going to do now that they’re behind the curve.  Netflix has got the mail-rental market pretty sewn up, and is continuing to grow it’s streaming video service, while  Redbox is making a niche for itself in a supermarket near you.  Your move, Blockbuster.

Click Here to go to Yahoo!Finance.