KitPlus | Articles

Key Grip Woolf Secures the Gear for GUILLERMO DEL TOROS P...

Jonathan Woolf has gathered a wealth of trade secrets from half a century working in the motion picture industry. His recent chapters have led him to key grip the miniatures unit on Peter Jackson’s Lord of the Rings Trilogy and act as a lighting technician on the 2022 Guillermo Del Toro’s Pinocchio. Woolf’s big job on Pinocchio was to find reliable...

Submitted by Kathryn Ferentchak

Published 08 September 2023

Cinematographer Matt Ryan pairs ZEISS Supreme Primes and...

LA based cinematographer Matt Ryan’s enthusiasm for finding the most capable technology to support his creative process has enabled him to shoot across genres and formats. As a Director of Photography, Ryan has shot television for such networks as Disney, FOX, Warner Bros, MTV, PBS, and TruTV. Outside of narrative, Ryan has lensed high-profile comm...

Submitted by Kathryn Ferentchak

Published 08 September 2023

DIT Sam Petrov Taps AJA ColorBox for Live Grading Flexibi...

Whether working on a feature film, episodic series, or unscripted show, crafting the look of content before it reaches post requires technical acumen and a creative eye. The DIT (Digital Imaging Technician) is integral to this process, bridging the technical realities with the creative goals on-set to ensure the team can achieve its desired aesthet...

Submitted by Anna

Published 27 June 2023

Meeting the specification

A good technical specification will detail precisely what is required, from the equipment to the cables connecting it. Many specifications will give particular manufacturers and model numbers. On many occasions, this makes tendering simple and gives vendors a secure and fair way to bid. The challenge comes when specifications are not aligned with c...

Submitted by Chris Smeeton

Published 12 November 2021

How to engage students with live projects

For many employers, how and what we teach at university is sometimes considered to be very mysterious. The responsibility for creating the structure and content within the curriculum is the responsibility of academics. In my experience, the best method for making sure that students and staff are kept up to date with current working practices is to...

Submitted by Martin Andrews

Published 26 March 2020

The Importance of Audio Production Systems

Large-scale entertainment programming presents a unique set of challenges for broadcasters. Often extremely high-profile keystones of a broadcaster’s schedule and increasingly billed as live ‘event television’, as well as delivering the very best audio quality they demand a huge degree of flexibility and agility in terms of their production. With m...

Submitted by Tom Knowles

Published 26 March 2020

Creating A Signature Look With Lighting

As an LA-based DP, I view my role as a narrative storyteller. For me, cinematography is not just about getting some nice images – it’s about telling truths. I love being able to weave a story with imagery and capture something that’s real, whether through performance or visual symbolism. Lighting is one of my most important mechanisms for capturing...

Submitted by William Hellmuth

Published 03 November 2019

State of the Nation - Getting Connected

We are all familiar with statistics about the growth of the internet. Cisco’s latest report, for instance, says that global IP traffic is increasing at 26% a year, and will reach 4.8 zetabytes a year by 2022. The number of connected devices will be three times the world’s population by the same date. There is a nice chart in the Cisco report: in 19...

Submitted by Dick Hobbs - new

Published 10 September 2019

Increasing Diversity in the UK Indie Market

London director Sam Addo tells us more about how he aims to change the status quo when it comes to onscreen diversity with his new feature, Cards on the Table. “Over the past thirty years, filmmakers have made movies telling a wide range of stories, however, in my humble opinion, those with disabilities, from the LGBTQ+ community and or those from...

Submitted by Sam Addo

Published 10 September 2019

The LED Lighting Revolution

Back in April 2019, the National Association of Broadcasters hosted the annual NAB show in Las Vegas where over 90,000 people from more than 160 countries came to see the latest broadcast technology from around the world. Honouring the highlights of the show were NAB’s 2019 Product of the Year awards, where the newly launched Chroma-Q Space Force o...

Submitted by Neil Vann

Published 10 September 2019

REVIEW Canon UJ111x8_3B UHD Lens

Shooting in ultra high definition and high dynamic range has become the preferred option for all television productions with a potentially long commercial life. The hir-ing charge and indeed the outright purchase cost of cameras of this standard are not significantly greater than those of high definition standard dynamic range models. With half the...

Submitted by Andy McKenzie

Published 10 September 2019

The Making of Zero

The Brothers Lynch explain how they created the sinister atmospheric world for their new sci-fi shortIn a post-apocalyptic world where humankind has emerged victorious in a war against artificial intelligent machines, a young girl dares to venture into the unknown. This is Zero, the new sci-fi short film from acclaimed British writer-director duo T...

Submitted by Keith and David Lynch

Published 10 September 2019

Keeping Pace with the Content Revolution

These are uniquely challenging times for broadcasters and their technical teams. Not only are they having to negotiate the move to IP-based infrastructures and the introduction of new formats and techniques such as 4K and HDR, they are also having to generate more content than ever before to support OTT and web services as well as traditional linea...

Submitted by Kevin Fitzgerald

Published 10 September 2019

Behind the Scenes of Wild rose

Financed by BFI Film Fund, Wild Rose tells the story of a musician from Glasgow who dreams of becoming a Nashville star. The only thing in the way: her own penchant for crime and violence. Starring Jessie Buckley, the film begins just as its talented antihero, Rose-Lynn, is first released on parole after having spent a year in jail on a drug charge...

Submitted by KitPlus

Published 04 June 2019

State of the Nation - Drama

If you can remember as far back as the 1980s, then you probably remember a Saturday night drama called Hill Street Blues, written and developed by Steven Bochco. Made for NBC in the States, it was widely shown around the world, including in the UK. It was a pioneer ensemble drama, with no star characters but a lot of individuals – the police office...

Submitted by Dick Hobbs - new

Published 21 March 2019