The Daily Aus creates informative pieces by combining footage from the Blackmagic URSA Broadcast and an iPhone

The URSA Broadcast camera and the 黒魔術 Camera application gave The Daily Aus production team multiple possibilities to build three news pieces that unpacked all the news from the recent Indigenous Voice referendum.

The Daily Aus shot a total of nine and a half hours of footage, which was condensed into approximately 30 minutes of stories addressing the aftermath of the referendum from different perspectives. Joe Kiely, head of audiovisual production at The Daily Aus, made the decision to use the URSA Broadcast model as the primary camera along with an iPhone running the Blackmagic Camera app, which was used as a secondary recording device.

The URSA Broadcast was Kiely’s faithful companion throughout his Australian journey, given the need for a fast, portable capture solution. The Blackmagic camera had to cope with hard weather conditions such as extremely high temperatures, dust and storms, particularly while shooting on a picturesque headland among a bustling crowd of tourists in the northwest of the country: “It’s just so reassuring knowing that everything you need is bolted onto the camera itself. Your mind isn’t thinking about ND filters, spare batteries, or media cards running out. I could focus on getting the coverage we needed.”

The synergy between the URSA Broadcast model and the iPhone phone, supported by the Blackmagic Camera app, helped Kiely bridge the gap between planned and spontaneous shots. As he explains, “The Blackmagic Camera app was an amazing tool to have on our project. It turned the iPhone into a reliable pickup camera. The ability to adjust frame rate, ISO and white balance helped us get surprising quality from an iPhone, and the Apple Log profile made it really easy to adjust the grades in Resolve to do any camera matching. It uses the same interface as other Blackmagic cameras, which made it incredibly easy to work with.”

Finally, the color grading for these three news pieces was done in DaVinci Resolve Studio. According to Kiely, the “Magic Mask” feature was instrumental in unifying the material from both devices, ensuring consistency in the visual storytelling.