MUST WATCH: Final Trailer Set Free For X-MEN: DAYS OF FUTURE PAST !!

OMG. Here it is. This movie looks like no other superhero movie before it! Yes there's an ensemble like THE AVENGERS. Yes there's time travel like in SUPERMAN. Yes it's all in 3D. But DOFP unites all of those qualities into one movie and amps it up! A HUGE ensemble cast. Time travel galore AND let's not forget the highest quality native 3D that modern technology (3ality Technica and ARRI) and one of the best crews can give us! Yeah, I'd say we're in for one behemoth of a movie.

Check out this trailer. I can understand wanting to hold off for a pristine viewing of the movie, but the trailer itself pulls together a better understanding of what has already been presented to us through all the marketing thus far, but in doing so uses a ton of new footage. I found that there was some visual spoilers in it, but not a huge amount. Your call.

I will say that Led Zeppelin's "Kasmir" has been over used lately, but hey - I love the tune. I don't tire of it.

Here's the storyline for the movie:
The ultimate X-Men ensemble fights a war for the survival of the species across two time periods in X-MEN: DAYS OF FUTURE PAST. The beloved characters from the original “X-Men” film trilogy join forces with their younger selves from “X-Men: First Class,” in an epic battle that must change the past – to save our future.

X-MEN: DAYS OF FUTURE PAST opens on May 23 in native 3D! Congrats on the trailer Mr. Singer!

Blackmagic URSA 3D-Capable at $6,500 Per Camera!

"The new URSA Cameras do support genlock and should work with 3D, but will also need to be frame synced."

- Rick Rivera

Tim here, and I've gotten confirmation from Blackmagic Design (via Rick Rivera, a Support Representative) that their new URSA camera will be 3D-Capable. More accurately two URSA cameras can be synced together for Stereoscopic 3D production. This makes this the most affordable 4K Cinema Camera to be able to be used for Stereoscopic 3D! Or does it?

At $6,500 roughly for the PL-Mount version of the camera ($6,000 roughly for EF-Mount), this definitely comes in as the most affordable 4K Cinema Camera. However, the media that it records on to is super expensive. It records on to CFast Cards, and to give you an idea about how much it costs: 120 GB = $1,200! How much 4K RAW gets recorded on to one 120 GB CFast Card at the normal 24 frames per second? Sadly, 6-Minutes! (Source)

Now there are 2 card slots in the camera, so that means you could technically record 12-Minutes before needing to reload both cards; but, that's a total of 240 GB at $2,400 for 12-minutes of RAW footage. OUCH! During a regular shoot you'll want a couple of cards available to continuously shoot. So if you dump two cards while two cards are in the camera that gives you 4 cards, but you'd likely want 6 cards to be safe. Thus, you're looking at $7,200 for recording media!

The price will drop as most recording media has in the past for the industry. And Blackmagic Design isn't the only company using CFast Cards. ARRI is betting on the CFast technology as well as its the primary recording media for their new AMIRA camera. The AMIRA is the lower cost ($45,000) documentary version of their ALEXA. The ARRI ALEXA can record on to three media: SXS Cards, XR Modules (XR Capture Drives), and CFast Cards (through adapter). This should help bring the price down of the CFast media, and as well increase the sizes of cards.

Coming back to the cost of the Blackmagic URSA for 3D Production we need to look at the cost of the camera body and media for each eye. Say one already has lenses and the other necessary camera accessories and just needs to know the cost of the cameras and media. Two PL-Mount URSA Cameras will cost $13,000 to the average consumer. Say one buys 6 CFast Cards per camera, then that's 12 CFast Cards total and will cost $14,400. That means that the URSA in a 3D-Capable capacity costs $27,400! Wow, that's affordable compared to the RED Scarlet or Epic. Each Scarlet will cost $14,500 for the body alone; thus, two Scarlets are $29,000 before RED SSD's for recording media. The Epic is more money than the Scarlet, obviously. The ALEXA is expensive at $75,000 per camera. In the end, The Blackmagic URSA is still the most affordable 4K Camera for Stereoscopic 3D Production!

Let's look at some of the Technical Specs for the Blackmagic URSA compared with the ARRI ALEXA since they are so similar in physical design.

	Blackmagic URSA	ARRI ALEXA
Picture of Camera
Effective Sensor Size	21.12mm x 11.88mm (Super 35)	23.76mm x 13.37mm (Super 35)*
Effective Resolution	3840 x 2160	2880 x 1620*
Exposure Latitude	12 stops	14+ stops
Frame Rates	3840 x 2160p (23.98, 24, 25, 29.97, 30, 60) 1920 x 1080p (23.98, 24, 25, 29.97, 30, 60) Sensor frame rate support: Up to 60 fps	ProRes HD 0.75 - 120 fps ProRes 2K 0.75 - 60 fps DNxHD HD 0.75 - 120 fps ARRIRAW 0.75 - 120 fps
Exposure Index	ISO Presets: 200, 400, 800, & 1600	ISO Presets: 160, 200, 400, 800, 1600, & 3200
White Balance	Presets for 3200 (tungsten), 4500 (fluorescent), 5000, 5600, 6500, and 7500 (variety of daylight conditions).	Presets for 3200 (tungsten), 4300 (fluorescent), 5600 (daylight) and 7000 (daylight cool). Automatic calculation or manual white balance for 2000 to 11000 Kelvin, adjustable in 100 K steps
Lens Mount	EF, PL, B4, HDMI (Camera body without sensor, features an HDMI 4K input with mounting plate to connect any HDMI camera for URSA quality recording, monitoring, audio and timecode.)	ARRI Exchangeable Lens Mount (ELM); ships with Lens Adapter PL Mount with LDS contacts, 54 mm stainless steel PL mount, Super 35 centered. 52.00 mm nominal flange focal depth without FSND filters.
Weight	7.5 kg/16.5 lbs	ALEXA XT body with XR Module: 7.3 kg/16.1 lbs.
Dimensions	Length: 312 mm/12.3", width: 155 mm/6.1", height: 244 mm/9.6"	Length: 332 mm/12.95", width: 183 mm/7.20", height: 158 mm/6.22"
Connectors	Output:   1 x 12G-SDI -- 10-bit 4:2:2 1 x 3G-SDI -- down-converted signal for monitoring Input   1 x 12G-SDI Reference   1 x Reference input Timecode   1 x Timecode input 1 x Timecode output Analog Audio Inputs   2 x XLR -- selected mic/line level and +48 V phantom power Analog Audio Output   1 x 1/4" TRS -- for headphone monitoring SDI Audio Output   2-channel via SDI output Remote Control   1 x LANC on 2.5 mm sub-mini -- controls record START/STOP, iris, and focus USB   1 x USB 2.0 mini type B for software updates Supported Standards   SDI Compliance: SMPTE 292M SDI Audio Sampling: 48 kHz and 24-bit	1x media slot for XR Capture Dive or SxS adapter 2x BNC recording out HD-SDI, 1.5G/3G (REC OUT 1 and REC OUT 2) 2x BNC monitoring out HD-SDI, 1.5G (MON OUT 1 and MON OUT 2) 1x XLR 5-pin analog audio in (AUDIO IN) 1x BNC return video in HD-SDI, 1.5G (RET/SYNC IN) 1x LEMO 16-pin external accessory interface (EXT) 1x Fischer 2-pin 24 V power in (BAT) 3x Fischer 3-pin 24 V remote start and accessory power out (RS) 1x LEMO 2-pin 12 V accessory power out (12 V) 1x LEMO 5-pin timecode in/out (TC) 1x TRS 3.5 mm headphone mini stereo jack (AUDIO OUT) 1x custom LEMO 16-pin electronic viewfinder (EVF) 1x custom LEMO 10-pin Ethernet with 24 V power (ETHERNET) 1x Fischer 5-pin Lens Data Display (LDD) 2x Fischer 5-pin Lens Control System (LCS) 1x Fischer 12-pin for CLM-2, CLM-3, CLM-4 or later (IRIS) 1x Fischer 12-pin for CLM-2, CLM-3, CLM-4 or later (FOCUS) 1x Fischer 12-pin for CLM-2, CLM-3, CLM-4 or later (ZOOM) BNC connectors designed for fast exchange without camera disassembly. These connectors require a special tool.

*ARRI ALEXA has 3 Sensor modes 16:9 (23.76mm x 13.37mm at 2880x1620 pixels), 4:3 (23.76mm x 17.82mm at 2880x2160 pixels), and Open Gate (28.17mm x 18.13mm at 3414x2198 pixels)

As you can see from the above comparison the Blackmagic URSA is a pretty decent camera when compared to the ARRI ALEXA. Naturally the ALEXA is higher end and a camera that would be more prefered by the professionals. However, for a lower-end professional camera the URSA is capable of delivering good quality for those looking to make a project to get them noticed. And Blackmagic will only improve the camera.

Some additional details about the Blackmagic URSA can be found in the link below, but one of the best things about the URSA is that its sensor and lens mount assembly can be changed. This means you can upgrade to the latest sensor technology in the future and keep your investment in the camera body! Now that's a sweet deal. And, the sweetest part of the whole deal is that Blackmagic Design packages the cameras with the full version of its DaVinci Resolve Software!!! They also did this with their previous cinema cameras. What this means is you get the full professional color grading software many feature films use. What's more is that DaVinci Resolve comes with a plethora of Stereoscopic 3D finishing tools. More information about DaVinci Resolve can be found here.

That's the Blackmagic Design URSA Camera for you. You can read more about it on the official Blackmagic Design Website here. The Blackmagic URSA Camera is scheduled to be released late July 2014.

Must Watch: Segment From Opening Fight Of X-MEN: DAYS OF FUTURE PAST !

The MTV Movie Awards produced this clip from the upcoming Fox mega-movie X-MEN: DAYS OF FUTURE PAST. Take note of how the mutants are using their abilities in ways we haven't seen before and the care that director Bryan Singer has taken to effectively team up the characters to defeat the new enemy.

Here's the movie's storyline:
The ultimate X-Men ensemble fights a war for the survival of the species across two time periods in X-MEN: DAYS OF FUTURE PAST. The beloved characters from the original “X-Men” film trilogy join forces with their younger selves from “X-Men: First Class,” in an epic battle that must change the past – to save our future.

X-MEN: DAYS OF FUTURE PAST opens on May 23 in stunning 3D - natively shot by the best in the business.

20th Century Fox Previews a Massive Summer 3D Blockbuster Line-Up at CinemaCon

Tim here, and I just finished the 20^th Century Fox CinemaCon presentation! They decided to show more than to tell during the presentation, and as a result we got to see a lot of footage from their upcoming movies, both 2D and 3D releases. For the 3D releases everything we got to see was in 2D because they are all still in post-production, so the 3D isn't ready yet. However, we saw the opening of X-Men: Days of Future Past, the beginning of How to Train Your Dragon 2, and Dawn of the Planet of the Apes.

The footage from each of these projects looked spectacular, and it's likely the effects are incomplete. X-Men: Days of Future Past in particular looked great, and of course the beginning was an on the edge of your seat action pumped beginning to the picture. I won't go into any spoilerish details, however it is sure to set in motion the events of the movie with panache. The film was shot with 3ality Technica Rigs and the ARRI ALEXA. 

How to Train Your Dragon 2 is set 5-years after the events of the previous film and it looks like the Vikings have adopted Dragon racing into their new pastime activities. However, where's Hiccup? He's experimenting still with his dragon buddy Toothless. I got to see some of that sequence in 3D from the previous trailer and it looks great in the format. We can be sure that this will be great in the format like the last one. It also looks like a fun second installment. 

Dawn of the Planet of the Apes is definitely my most anticipated movie of the summer, and the footage shown justified those expectations. This was shot with 3ality Technica Rigs and the ARRI ALEXA also and the footage looks amazing. It's awe inspiring how gorgeous the picture looks and how seamless the VFX are when added to the real world environments. The CGI is so lifelike, and yet I'm sure it will be even better by the time the movie is released. Heck, in stereoscopic 3D this will hands down look breathtaking.

Fox also teased us with a few images from Ridley Scott's Exodus, which just finished shooting in native stereoscopic 3D with the 3ality Technica Rigs and the RED Epic Dragon camera. No footage sadly, but considering how well Scott used 3D on Prometheus it's easy to believe this will look just as sensational.

The big three summer blockbusters from 20^th Century Fox are all released this year on these dates: X-Men: Days of Future Past - 23 May 2014; How to Train Your Dragon 2 - 13 June 2014; Dawn of the Planet of the Apes - 11 July 2014. And finally Ridley Scott's Exodus hits 12 December 2014 in 3D.

3D Geek Alert: Scorsese's 3D Steadicam Rig For HUGO CABRET And More Info On Just What Cameras He Is Using...

Got a couple of interesting behind the scenes news items for you 3D geeks out there who are following Martin Scorsese's project HUGO CABRET.

First, Andrea from 3D-Life.it sent me some cool backstage photos (which I always love receiving) which show us 3D steadicam operator Chris Fawcett using a rather interesting 3D rig setup (click for larger images). Note that you can configure the set up for an operator to stand up or sit down as needed. Be sure to click through to 3D-Life for more shots.

As these shots demonstrate, Scorsese is using a 3D beam-splitter rig (not sure of manufacturer yet) to house two ARRI Alexa cameras used with a steadicam package on a Segway! How cool is that? Makes sense that it would be quite functional too. The Segway would relieve the weight burden of carrying that equipment for the operator.

Second, I recently spoke with Vince Pace who is, as usual, extremely busy. Pace has been given the contract to supply 3D cameras and expertise for HUGO CABRET. As part of the deal, PACE has taken delivery of the first ARRI Alexa cameras and has 23 more on the way. Yes, you read that right - Scorsese approached PACE for their expertise in shooting 3D and not necessarily their proprietary Fusion 3D cameras that were used for AVATAR. That is not to say that the Fusion cameras are not being used though. To the contrary. More on that in the next post. I am sure you will be very interested...

Very cool to see PACE being tapped for their stereoscopic expertise and not just for their cameras alone. 3ality Digital is experiencing the same industry needs of late and I have pinged them for an update as well. More when I get it!