Kansai TV chooses Blackmagic URSA Mini Pro 12K for ‘moments’ shooting

The short film ‘moments’, produced by Kansai TV, was shot in 12K using Blackmagic’s URSA Mini Pro 12K camera.

Kansai TV has a production team called ‘UHD-works‘, which has been driving the development of ultra high-definition formats since 2016. One of the latest initiatives of this working group is the short film moments, awarded as the best 8K production during this year’s edition of the Lumière Awards. This piece, whose theme revolves around “preserving the most precious things for the future,” narrates the life of a family on the Japanese island of Awaki under the direction of Kazuma Yano, who has served as director, editor, colorist and producer. Yano was joined on the production by Kohei Higuchi, who oversaw the cinematography.

Higuchi admits that he was initially worried about shooting a short film in 12K, but the result went better than expected: “Although I used the URSA Mini Pro 12K for the first time on this project, the URSA Viewfinder provided exceptional visibility, and I felt more confident in my shooting as we began. In documentaries, capturing the expressions, gestures and words of the subjects is crucial, making the camera’s mobility important. The URSA Mini Pro 12K is considered a cinema camera, yet it offers ease of use in documentary shooting as you can control it using buttons and knobs on the camera body without needing to navigate menus for setting adjustments.”

Yano, meanwhile, acknowledges that the initial plan was to use that 12K footage for cropping at lower resolutions. “However, during the editing process, there was little need for cropping or zooming, which convinced me that I could finish this film without losing original quality of footage, so I decided to complete the film in 12K. Also, we wanted to showcase our work on a 16K display at the Shiseido S/PARK in Yokohama. It was stunning to watch our piece on the huge screen. The picture looked so beautiful and I was so happy that we made this film in 12Km,” explains the Japanese filmmaker.

Additionally, the film used DaVinci Resolve Studio, editing, color grading, visual effects (VFX) and audio post production software.

Moments: a bet on HDR and RAW

One of Kansai TV’s plans for moments was to have two versions of the short film: one in color and one in black and white. For this process, as Yano explains, it was essential to exploit the possibilities of HDR: “I had long wanted to create a monochrome work in HDR. Monochrome allows for the most use of dynamic range to express light and shadow. In this case, I adjusted brightness and curves in monochrome. With no color to consider, I was able to refine the tonal range, particularly in the shadows. From there, I was inspired to add colors to the monochrome version, leading to the creation of a color version as well. I approached grading with the intention of reproducing the memory of colors from the shooting.”

To achieve these goals, it was essential to shoot in Blackmagic RAW format with the URSA Mini Pro 12K, according to Higuchi: “Because we shot in Blackmagic RAW, I shot with consideration that these shots would be graded later. Nevertheless, aspects like capturing light and shadow are things that can only be expressed during filming. I felt the URSA Mini Pro 12K captured light beautifully, especially when I viewed the monochrome footage. Despite the 12K resolution, the images aren’t overly sharp or excessively vivid. I was truly moved watching the graded footage.”

“Even though it was shot in 12K, Blackmagic RAW is easy to work with, allowing us to toggle between proxy and full resolution playback in DaVinci Resolve during post production. While editing, I sometimes checked the color of shots with the RAW grading tool in DaVinci Resolve. It’s incredibly convenient to complete the entire project in one software product,” concludes Yano.