The era of deepfake, revealed with Blackmagic Design

Digital cinema cameras Blackmagic URSA Cine 12K LF and Cinema Camera 6K were the protagonists of the filming of 'Tsukurareta Shinjitsu DEEP FAKE no Jidai' ('The fabricated truth: The era of the deepfake'), an episode of the documentary series NHK Special on Japanese public radio and television.

NHK Special It is the most acclaimed documentary series in the world. NHK, and is distinguished both by its rigorous research and by the high quality of its production. DEEP FAKE no Jidai It is a unique mix between documentary y fiction that explores real-life issues related to images deepfake generated by artificial intelligence.

The director of photography Hiroaki Nishimura recorded the dramatic parts of the format using the models URSA Cine 12K LF y Cinema Camera 6K. The first camera, the main one of the project, was deployed with fixed focal length lenses of Sigma. Although most of the scenes were captured in resolution 4K, some were filmed in 12K: "For example, in a scene where the characters walk under a bridge, since I didn't have a telephoto lens, I shot in 12K resolution and then zoomed in during post-production. That kind of flexibility is one of the best features of the camera." Nishimura accompanied the team with the scope BEAR Who EVF.

The story also required that some of the scenes include footage recorded with a telephone. To do this, the production team used the application of Blackmagic Camera: "There are some scenes that were filmed with an iPhone; in one of them, the protagonist's daughter films her family, so we had the young actress film those shots herself. This added realism and, being part of the digital native generation, she did a great job."

The grading process was led by Ryota Kobayashi (Omnibus Japan), who decided to bet on the software DaVinci Resolve Studio and one unit DaVinci Resolve Advanced Panel. Although the story is fictional, the grader wanted to maintain a “certain level of realism” that would help reflect how artificial intelligence is progressively integrated into the daily life of society: “As Nishimura leans towards a slightly sharper visual style, I focused on creating strong shadow nuances, while keeping the colors pure and without noise. Even though the theme of the show is artificial intelligence, we didn't want the look to be too digital, so I added aesthetic adjustments to make it look like a movie as well. We exclusively used Blackmagic cameras for this project, so the color space was consistent and easier to control.”

“It was the first time I graded material recorded with the BEAR Who 12K, and from the test shots I could already tell that the result was far above what you get with other cameras. Even when examining the images isolating each of the RGB channels, the color had no noise or inequality that could be seen. From my point of view as a colorist, with the URSA Cine you get beautiful images with exceptional sharpness and quality,” concludes Kobayashi.