Blackmagic URSA Cine 12K LF allows you to shoot in 4K at full frame and 220 fps scenes from the 'LAID' series

The central scene of the streaming service's new and successful comedy series Peacock, 'LAID' is filmed with the first camera of Blackmagic Design full-frame at 220 fps URSA Cine 12K LF.

LAID, which has become Peacock's most popular series, tells the story of Ruby, played by Stephanie Hsu, who discovers that her ex-partners are dying in unusual ways and must go through all the people she has dated to face her past and be able to move forward.

The series is directed by Nahnatchka Khan and had the cinematography by Judd Overton. Previously, Overton had worked alongside Khan on several projects, including the hit series Young Rock and the comic horror film Totally Killer, characterized by a serial killer and time travel. Both in these two collaborations and in the filming of shows such as Ghosts, Killing It, God's Favorite Idiot and No Activity, he used several Blackmagic Design cameras.

In LAID, Overton filmed using a Combining different formats, objectives and styles to capture how the scenes go from a romantic comedy to a morbid comedy to images of exaggerated violence, as Ruby's exes die in different striking or strange ways, and also when going from an adorable to charming atmosphere with abrupt jumps to reality with scenes with stunt doubles.

In this regard, Overton explains that "every moment was important, whether it was with respect to the most adorable images or those of the deaths, and the production was brutally honest. For the truly over-the-top scenes, Natch [the director] wanted me to make sure the audience was present at all times, but he also wanted it to feel like the scenes were in keeping with the world of the show."

"So we decided to show the deaths through Ruby's eyes so that the public could appreciate her reaction. Her reactions to what happens, for example, watching a baseball game in a bar and seeing how her ex-partner, a professional baseball player, receives a blow to the head in slow motion, are what really tell the story."

Capturing the untimely death of a baseball player implied doing quality work with slow-motion images, since the television that broadcast the game continued to show replays of this moment with extreme and bloody detail.

A shoot, in detail

Overton used an URSA Cine 12K LF camera to capture the image of the moment of impact and the consequent feeling of nausea. To do this, he relied on the camera's large format and 16-stop dynamic range to ensure that the post-production team had enough data to add just the right amount of damage touches.

"The URSA Cine 12K model was the ideal camera to film the sequence of the ball in the head. One of the features that really stands out to me is being able to use the full sensor without having to crop the image when shooting at different speeds and resolutions, which allows us to shoot a scene in 4K by taking advantage of the entire sensor area at 220fps," explains Overton.

Beyond the URSA Cine 12K LF camera, Overton also turned to the cinematic digital model Blackmagic Pocket Cinema Camera 6K G2 to insert some FaceTime and other call jacks.

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