Enter the next level of cinematography

As a film-maker I always keep my eyes open to find new products that would help me make better movies. You also know that I blogged about "filming without any shake" not so far back. Anyway much along the same lines, here are two cool products I recently learned about.

Have you heard about SoloShot?
Check out https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tc7AZWaHm4o

Do you think it is cool? Now check out this; it is called Lily... I think this is amazing!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4vGcH0Bk3hg

Did I hear you say "I want that" :) I too want that... See its tech spec here.

By the way I am not associated with any of these products.

I think products like these open the doors to the next chapter of cinematography and hence fiction and non-fiction movie making.

Let me know if you know of any other cool products that would help make neat movies.

Art of Lens Whacking

I liked the look of the video http://vimeo.com/25705873 so much that I was thinking about it for a few nights and then started to explore to find out how Hugo could have achieved it. Now I am very confident that he has used what is called the "lens whacking" technique. But he has really mastered the art because his video looks so very nice and dreamy!
Simply put it is to detach the lens from the camera body and keeping it closer to the mount when recording so as to allow light leak and achieve some kind of tilt-shift effect.
See here for some write-up on this technique:

• Film Roit on Lens Whacking
• The art of “lens whacking”
• Jeff's blog post "So… What Is ‘Lens Whacking?’"
• The Art of Lens Whacking (Vimeo School/Lessons)

Let me know if you have employed this technique to shoot your videos.

Canon's 35mm full-frame sensor

Check out: http://www.canon.com/news/2013/mar04e.html

How to shoot a scene?

Have you wondered where the camera should be placed, what lens to use, what camera motion to add etc to effectively shoot a particular scene? Here is a book that talks about these: Master Scenes by Christopher Kenworthy (http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/master-shots-vol-1-2nd-edition-christopher-kenworthy/1110949440?ean=9781615930876).

I would like to keep a copy of this book on my reference book shelf. I think it will definitely get you thinking in the right direction.
What do you guys think? How is this book?

By the way I have no material connection with the books or authors or the publishers or brand or services I have mentioned here.

Color for cinematographers

I landed on this interesting article while searching for something: http://www.outside-hollywood.com/2009/03/color-theory-for-cinematographers/
I had always wanted to come up with my scheme to convey emotions using cinematography alone. This article seems to be ingratiating very alley.

Do you guys have anything more to add?