Case Study: Ottawa Senators Shoot and Score with Blackmagic Pocket Cinema Camera

How do you turn a love for music into working for the Ottawa Senators? It wasn't that hard for Brad Crowe. Originally from Ottawa, Crowe lived and worked in Toronto after going to university there. A love of music led him to pursue live sound and audio recording, and he worked in the commercial film industry in Toronto as a set dresser on national and international television advertising campaigns.

After moving to back to Ottawa, Crowe started freelancing as an audio technician for the Senators. One thing led to another, and he was hired full time as the audio lead for the Canadian Tire Centre, the Senators' home rink, and the team. During this time, Crowe started editing and producing video pieces for the team, which led to his current role as Senior Editor of Video Content, Game Production.

In this role, Crowe is responsible for all of the television spot production for the Senators, Bell HD Screen video scoreboard production at the Canadian Tire Centre, corporate production and some web content production. Because of the variety in the types of video content he produces, he needed a high quality camera that could support the different shoots, was compact and easy to grab and go, as well as one that was also affordable.

I chose the Blackmagic Pocket Cinema Camera, says Crowe. Overall, the camera produces a fine, detailed, high resolution image that is flexible in post. For example, I used it to shoot food for a building suite commercial this past season. With a Lumix 14mm 2.5 lens, the image just looked sharper than a DSLR that we were also using on that shoot. It was very impressive in that situation.

He adds, You can use it with lighter peripheral gear, so that certainly makes things easier for transport, setup and more. And the dynamic range is very helpful. When shooting dramatic headshots in low light with the players, I was very impressed with the blacks that I could achieve.

Hundreds of Projects, Varying Scopes

I shoot mostly interviews, television spots, player promos and fan experiences, and I like to use the Pocket Cinema Camera in studio environments, says Crowe. It's a great camera for studio work. Nice and compact with great dynamic range and high bit rate recording modes.

For example, I used it to shoot dramatic player headshots that we used throughout this past season on various pieces, including our action opening videos, he explains. It was also used to shoot dramatic B camera footage for our recent player Thank You' video at the end of the season.

While the content is primarily produced for the Bell HD Screen and Canadian Tire Centre Vision, Brad and his team also create television spots for TSN, Sportsnet, RDS, CBC, and CTV, and some of the content goes on the Senators' website as well.

With hundreds of projects of varying scopes per year, we needed something flexible that also delivers high quality images as the content is broadcast far and wide, and the content is a reflection on the team itself, says Crowe.

Crowe mainly shoots in ProRes because of the need to turn projects over rather quickly. He notes, The output from the camera is rather flat, so that gives me some room in post to match other cameras or create different looks.

We also use several Blackmagic UltraStudio 4Ks in our edit suites. We use them for monitoring, routing and capturing via Blackmagic Media Express, which we use to capture game content live and push to the web, he concludes.

LINK:	http://sportsvideo.org/main/blog/2015/09/case-study-brad-crowe-shoots-...
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