Blackmagic Design announced today that URSA Mini Pro 4.6K and Pocket Cinema Camera 4K were used for live shooting of The Birthday's TOUR 19 NIGHTS 2018 AUTUMN, the sold out recent tour by the popular UNIVERSAL SIGMA Japanese rock band.

Fremont, CA - May 22, 2019 - Blackmagic Design announced today that URSA Mini Pro 4.6K and Pocket Cinema Camera 4K were used for live shooting of The Birthday's TOUR 19 NIGHTS 2018 AUTUMN, the sold out recent tour by the popular UNIVERSAL SIGMA Japanese rock band.

A total of 10 Blackmagic Design cameras, including four Pocket Cinema Camera 4K and six URSA Mini Pro 4.6K's recording in Blackmagic RAW, were used. DaVinci Resolve Studio was used for post production editing and grading workflows.

The Birthday is a popular Japanese garage rock band, and the tour was recorded by Japanese production company MAZRI Inc.

Mr. Toru Nomura of MAZRI Inc., who directed live shooting, said: "I decided to unify all workflow from shooting to editing to grading with Blackmagic products. Because I wanted to get the most in grading in order to make the live image wonderful I used the Blackmagic cameras to record in RAW. Combined with the Blackmagic camera's high mobility, they were the best choice."

"The Pocket Cinema Camera 4K was mounted on a hand held gimbal and shot the seated audience. When shooting with a conventional hand held camera, an external monitor was always required, but with the Pocket Cinema Camera 4K there was no need for an external monitor because there is a 5 inch rear monitor, and a very compact camera setup can be realized. The user interface is so simple that you can operate without getting lost and I was able to capture the gradation of concert smoke beautifully with the camera. The dynamic range of the Pocket Cinema Camera 4K is really amazing. The highlights and shadows remained beautiful" said cameraman Mr. Masatoshi Toyonou.

"The built in ND filter of the URSA Mini Pro 4.6K was really active. Shooting a concert live could not be done without an ND filter because the lighting varies widely depending on the stage. This was also the first recording we did using Blackmagic RAW format" said Mr. Nomura. "I was really surprised at Blackmagic RAW! Data recorded for more than 2 hours had a very small file size. Its data can be read in a short time, and we could start work on editing immediately. Blackmagic RAW is a much faster workflow, and does not require large capacity recording media. Blackmagic RAW is the best for live concerts that require long shooting and many cameras."

For the concert, they used six URSA Mini Pro 4.6K, including a mix of EF mount, PL mount and B4 mount, while using active MFT lenses with the four Pocket Cinema Camera 4Ks. "The versatility of the URSA Mini Pro allowed us to be able to handle various situations with one camera system. Both the URSA Mini Pro 4.6K and Pocket Cinema Camera 4K capture very beautiful skin tones and provide a unified cinema look and was really surprised at the wide dynamic range of the two cameras" said cameraman Mr. Shinya Yamada.

Mr. Yamada was also in charge of color grading. "I used DaVinci Resolve Studio for color grading. I was conscious that I would finish the look to feel the presence of live. Even if the material was shot in various live lighting conditions, if it is a RAW material, many colors can be drawn out during grading, and adjustments can be made to fine parts. The performance of Blackmagic RAW with DaVinci Resolve is much faster than the other RAW formats, so it is very easy to handle and speeds up all workflows."

Press Photography

Product photos of URSA Mini Pro, Pocket Cinema Camera 4K, DaVinci Resolve Studio and all other Blackmagic Design products are available at www.blackmagicdesign.com/media/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.