Last weekend I thought I’d have a good chance to shoot some of the wonderful VIVID SYDNEY, an annual outdoor event using light and sound.

With near drought inducing weather in NSW over the last few months we were looking at a dry winter, until of course, I tried to take a camera out to shoot something.

Thus adding to the urban mythology that if you want to have it rain somewhere, organise a crew to shoot something. Last time I shot in Dubai it hailed ! Maybe it’s me ?

Anyhow, I pressed on and kept on shooting anyway. In the end I was more interested in the people that went along and attempted to enjoy Vivid despite the rain.

Using the Blackmagic Pocket Cinema Camera with native m4/3 lenses I moved around pretty easily and unobtrusively. Yes. The camera did get wet. I tried to keep it dry, but it was inevitable.

I shot mainly at ISO 1600, but the first few clips were shot at 800. Lens wise I had the Panasonic 14mm F2.5 (first few shots) and the Panasonic 20mm F1.7 (second lot of shots before the ferry travelling left to right) then I was principally on the Olympus 45mm F1.8 but I also had the 12mm SLR Magic T1.6 and the SLR magic 25mm T0.96

I had the terrific O’Connor 1030Ds head along for the ride too, but that was the only rig. I shot over about three hours and used three batteries.

This was all cut and finished in FCPx with a beta version of Nick Shaw’s BMC plugin for converting BMD FILM to REC709. The great thing about the plugin is that it gives you a very quick look. I could easily take the XML into Resolve if I wanted to for more powerful control as well, but it just gives you a very quick approximation and allows you to finish an edit with a quick grade.

No noise reduction or sharpening applied. Was shot all available light.

I should add, click on the title below to see it in VIMEO and full screen. Also, there is rain in almost every shot which I can see with the final finished file here, but it does tend to get lost in Vimeo (or turned into compression crawlies)

Enjoy.