Fremont, CA - January 9, 2017 - Blackmagic Design today announced that the URSA Mini 4.6K, as well as several Blackmagic Design live production products, were used to shoot interviews, live panels and marketing videos at 2016's Anime Expo convention in Los Angeles.
Organized by the nonprofit Society for the Promotion of Japanese Animation (SPJA), Anime Expo is the largest North American anime convention, garnering more than 100,000 attendees in 2016. Since its beginning in 1992, the convention has been held in locations such as Anaheim, San Jose, New York, and Tokyo, and since 2008 has been hosted each year at the Los Angeles Convention Center.
Aaron Green, CEO and Executive Producer at Southern California production company HALO, is in charge of all of the marketing, promo and capture for Anime Expo. He shot all marketing and live footage for the 2016 expo, as well as interviews, live panels and concerts during the show. After working with the expo for the past six years and using numerous products in each production, Aaron decided to use Blackmagic Design products as the backbone of his workflow in 2016, including an URSA Mini 4.6K EF, Blackmagic Studio Camera 4K, ATEM Production Studio 4K and MultiView 16.
"The workflow and end output of the Blackmagic Design products are as good as, if not better than, any other products I've used," said Aaron. "The URSA Mini 4.6K was perfect in pretty much every way. I loved the form factor with the handle, and the fold out viewfinder is amazing. The interface is better than any other camera, especially when you're working in a busy environment. The controls were amazing to change on the fly, especially frame rates."
Aaron and his team shot footage in ProRes, with the Blackmagic Studio Camera mounted to a tripod as well as a steadicam, while they used the URSA Mini 4.6K on the fly. The footage was broadcast throughout the duration of the convention on several television outlets, as well as Anime Expo's social media channels and crunchyroll.com, an anime streaming site. Aaron offloaded the footage every hour and incorporated his edits to be able to put out the videos for social media and international channels right away.
"We were going for a live feel, but with a cinematic look, and Blackmagic Design's products allowed us to achieve exactly that," he said. "The products exceeded all of our expectations."
Aaron also noted the seamless integration between the products, including the ATEM Production Studio 4K and MultiView 16, which he used with the URSA and Blackmagic Studio Camera during the live panels and concerts.
"It's nice to not need converter boxes for everything," he said. "The products worked together so well, and using the laptop switcher control made it so easy for us. The Blackmagic Studio Camera was also easy to use and the viewfinder let us see so much detail as we were shooting. Ease of use is everything for us, so I really appreciate that aspect of all the Blackmagic products."
Press Photography
Product photos of URSA Mini 4.6K, Blackmagic Studio Camera 4K, ATEM Production Studio 4K, MultiView 16 and all other Blackmagic Design products are available at www.blackmagicdesign.com/press/images.
About Blackmagic Design
Blackmagic Design creates the world's highest quality video editing products, digital film cameras, color correctors, video converters, video monitoring, routers, live production switchers, disk recorders, waveform monitors and real time film scanners for the feature film, post production and television broadcast industries. Blackmagic Design's DeckLink capture cards launched a revolution in quality and affordability in post production, while the company's Emmy™ award winning DaVinci color correction products have dominated the television and film industry since 1984. Blackmagic Design continues ground breaking innovations including 6G-SDI and 12G-SDI products and stereoscopic 3D and Ultra HD workflows. Founded by world leading post production editors and engineers, Blackmagic Design has offices in the USA, UK, Japan, Singapore and Australia. For more information, please go to www.blackmagicdesign.com.
