The Fighter
“Cristina is this amazing up and coming director, who is connected in the boxing world. She was a professional dancer so she really understands movement and what it takes to be a world class boxer!”
“The first thing I noticed when I met Seniesa, is that she’s the sweetest girl you could ever wish to meet. When she goes into the ring there is such a transition in her personality that you can’t believe she’s still the same person.”
“The boxing gym we shot at was in East Los Angeles. Seniesa has since become the WBA flyweight World Champion and this was the very same gym that she had trained for the last two and a half months.”
“On the day of the shoot, it was 95°F outside and over 120°F degrees inside the gym. There was no AC in that place at all, so basically all Seniesa had to do was stand to start sweating. It was hot! I shot this film with a Blackmagic URSA Mini Pro 4.6K G2 and I have to say, the camera didn’t miss a beat shooting in 120°F all day long.”
“The lighting setup for this project was pretty simple. I had two film style fluorescent lights on the back wall and the one in the middle was actually just my LED shop light. I had my Hudson Spider parabolic LED set clean with no diffusion that I hung dead center above the ring. Working this way meant that I could move around the ring without worrying about casting any unnatural shadows.”
“Sigma Cine kindly loaned me a set of Cine Prime lenses for this project. Most of the boxing footage in the ring was on the 35mm, the wide shots were all on the 20mm and then I had a couple of longer lenses for close ups, such as the 85mm. But mostly I was living off the 35mm and 40mm range.”
“I have shot film for thirty years, so I inherently shoot at the base ISO. When you push film, like when you push digital, you’re going to pick up grain or noise and I didn’t want to do that. So I just stuck to ISO 800.”
“As far as aperture, I was around T4 and then opened up when I shot in darker areas to T2.8 to T3.5. That was just because I wanted to keep that top light hot without digging into the shadows too much!”
“I tend to expose a little fat on this camera. When you go into the grade, as long as you're holding detail in your highlights it gives you a lot more range, cleaner blacks and shadows in the final grade. So, my exposure approach for the URSA is very much how I would expose film.”
“We were finishing this project in 4K, but we were capturing in 4.6K on the URSA. I used Blackmagic RAW Constant Bitrate 3:1 and then 8:1 for the 120fps, the exterior footage was all 3:1 at 60fps.”
“One of the great things about this camera is that it has awesome dynamic range. I actually think this camera has a little more dynamic range than ‘factory stated’. I really love the way the URSA rolls off in the highlights. It’s really clean when it rolls off into overexposure. It doesn't get too nasty and clippy like other cameras can.”
“As for the sound, I just captured wild sound off the internal mic in the camera that we then used for boxing scenes. For the voice over we just recorded in Seniesa’s home. Our mixer at Shindig in LA did a really great job. If you know what you are doing and you don’t have all of the big toys for a shoot, you do what you need to!”
“Although, I didn’t have a decent budget for this, we did have the right people giving their time to it. All of the people with us on this project were high-end A-list people. They were all pros, like our colorist Marshall Plante who is one of the top guys in Los Angeles.”
“The combination of camera and lighting really paid off with this project and allowed me to capture beautiful rich images in several frame rates up to 120fps. I have used the URSA with an Arri Alexa together in multiple situations now, and I have never had any problems matching them in the grade.”
“My URSA is the PL mount version. I have also made a number of custom plates for this camera, a new top-plate, side-plate and a base-plate. The new bottom-plate now matches the center of other high end cameras, so that I can literally pull those cameras out of a rig and drop the URSA right into it. This means I can use the same custom base-plate to line it perfectly to the center point of say an Arri configuration. Having it set up this way, means that I can easily take my URSA straight into a Hydroflex Mk5 underwater housing.”
“I wanted my URSA to be configured like a more professional cinema camera, so that I could interchange it with say an Alexa or a Sony Venice using all of the same configurations. In addition to these new custom plates, I also have D-Box power with 12v 2 pin Lemo and 24v 3 Pin Fischer power connections which allows me to run a Preston remote focus as well as additional P-Tap and USB power.”
“I also used an Ikan wireless video system which performs beautifully with the Bright Tangerine matte box and Tilta Nucleus M wireless follow focus system. So you could say that my URSA G2 is very heavily cinevised.”
“One of the things I truly love about Blackmagic Design, is their OS and menu systems. If you pick up a Sony or Canon camera and try and go through the menu system, I find them overly complicate with too many sub-menus. Whereas the URSA’s menu is very intuitive.”
With the UI you can quickly see your settings. You've got separate pages for all of the different functions so you can easily swipe through the pages from record mode to monitoring mode to audio mode etc. It's just very user friendly when you are working under pressure on set.”
“The number one thing any cinematographer is looking for is image quality. And the URSA really delivers on that. With the Blackmagic RAW format, HDR sensor, combined with Generation 4 Color Science and 15 stops of dynamic range, this camera gives you incredibly beautiful images with very accurate skin tones.”
“I have read some complaints about noise in the blacks and shadows with this camera, but I have found this to have no merit. All the examples I have seen of these problems are obviously under exposed or not lit well. So this is on the DP and not the camera. Any image will have noise if it’s under exposed and lifted in color grade, including film!”
“I find this camera and the DaVinci Resolve software work flawlessly together. This was a real world test for me to decide if I should shoot my next feature film in spring on the URSA. The answer for me, is a resounding yes.”
