Blackmagic Design has announced Uphill Cinema used URSA Mini Pro 12K to shoot commercials for Joot Inc. and the DotDot Dream clothing company. The camera was also used to shoot Grant Victory Cares, a feature length documentary shot in Kenya looking at the impact of Covid-19 on the country and its citizens.
Uphill Cinema is a US based production company that provides both production and post production for films, documentaries, commercials and corporate videos. Award winning DP Levi Whitney heads up the company and began using the URSA Mini Pro 12K in September of 2020 after years of working with other Blackmagic Design cameras and DaVinci Resolve Studio software.
I am looking to inspire change and laughter, and to help people stay informed. I want to talk about the uphill climb it took to achieve the success, Whitney said. The URSA Mini Pro 12K absolutely has let me do that with story driven content that I can provide in high quality and affordably. The 12K has a look that is for me is amazing. It doesn't have a digital look, or overly sharp unless you want that, because it can give that to you. It has been vital for my career and creative freedom.
Whitney's first project shot on the URSA Mini Pro 12K camera was a series of nature videos in California and the Pacific Northwest where he tested the camera's ability to shoot on the road and capture details in natural lighting. From there, Uphill was hired to shoot a commercial and launch video for Joot Inc., a visual AI software company based out of Utah, and then a commercial to launch Utah based DotDot Dream's new DreamFit line of products. In between, he traveled to Kenya to shoot a full length documentary for the Grant Victory Cares charity organization.
For the Joot commercial spots, the client asked Whitney to keep the look and feel natural and simple. Capturing Joot's CEO and staff at work, the spot was shot run and gun style as Whitney followed Joot staff as they moved in a corporate setting. Whitney shot the commercial in 12K and 8K, using the camera's dual card to record in Blackmagic RAW, allowing him to get 120fps in 8K and 75fps in 12K at 2.4.1.
Joot had sent me some photo references they had seen from another commercial and I took those and went location scouting. They wanted a simple look too, meaning no crazy color grades and no more than two looks, Whitney said. The URSA Mini Pro 12K gave me everything I needed to easily meet the vision the client had. The sensor is amazing, and there's a lot to the features. I loved the fact that I could do my own audio, have good internal ND filters, frame rates with no cropping and an easy to use user interface that didn't force me to go through menu after menu.
Traveling to Kenya during Covid with few resources available due to quarantines, Whitney was faced with having to be entirely self sufficient and had to rely on his production gear to be completely reliable. He traveled and shot in remote villages, interviewing people to show how they were working and living through Covid.
I shot 90% of the doc in 12K and the nonprofit used 12K RAW stills pulled from the footage for artwork in their office. The film was also delivered in 4K and shown on a 60 foot screen, which down samples the footage to 2K. The footage all looked great, he continued.
For the documentary's shots not done in 12K, which included the film's slow motion scenes, Whitney shot in 8K, 6K and 4K to manage his memory cards.
12K on these last two projects, Joot & Kenya, have made a huge difference and having 12K is a massive bonus. The ability to punch in and reframe, the ability to have an insane amount of frame rates, and no cropping! I also took the 12K to the African heat of 115 degrees, to the cold of Utah and wet rivers of Washington all within a couple of months of ownership of the 12K, and it has performed flawlessly, he said.
Oh, and did I mention all of the footage edited perfectly on an $800 Mac Mini with the M1 chip using Resolve! The 12K is a beast of a camera and is a perfect tool for me and my productions. Overall, the URSA Mini Pro 12K has been amazing, and really a fantastic purchase for me. It really is one of those cameras, can't find too many flaws in it, he finished.
Most recent headlines
05/01/2027
Worlds first 802.15.4ab-UWB chip verified by Calterah and Rohde & Schwarz to be ...
04/08/2026
Dalet, a leading technology and service provider for media-rich organizations, t...
04/07/2026
April 7 2026, 19:00 (PDT) Detective Conan: Fallen Angel of the Highway Opens in...
01/06/2026
In its sixth year, the broadcaster's coverage has become a global brand and ...
01/06/2026
Designed to solve a common problem in broadcasting, the automated workflow detects, identifies, removes, and documents copyrighted music
AudioShake has introdu...
01/06/2026
The sports-analytics company combines its data with proprietary AI to help leagu...
01/06/2026
Category line-up & sponsors announced
Photo: Paul Clarke
The Production Music Awards (PMA) have announced that submissions are now officially open ahead of...
01/06/2026
New hybrid sample/synthesis instrument revealed
Excite Audio have just released the latest instalment in their Evolve series, which has been developed in co...
01/06/2026
Latest TONEX expansion captures three rare vintage amps
The newest addition to IK Multimedia's ever-growing TONEX line-up introduces a set of three incr...
01/06/2026
Musically intelligent soft synth gets upgraded
Scaler Music will be probably be best known to many for their music theory tools, but their product range al...
01/06/2026
SBS confirms its broadcast sponsors for FIFA World Cup 2026
1 June, 2026
Media releases
SBS has secured Hyundai, Hisense, Macca's, Rexona, bet365, Com...
01/06/2026
Rohde & Schwarz Satellite Industry Days 2026 guided by the motto From Earth to ...
01/06/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
01/06/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
01/06/2026
Marshall Electronics is showcasing a comprehensive lineup of next-generation POV cameras, purpose-built to power today's connected AV environments, at InfoC...
01/06/2026
Adobe Announces Concept to Vector
Deepa Subramaniam June 1, 2026
0 Comments
One of the biggest frustrations we hear from designers is how difficult it...
01/06/2026
Vampire Feature Night Patrol Graded with DaVinci Resolve Studio
Brie Clayton June 1, 2026
0 Comments
Colorist shapes dark, gritty tone for horror thri...
01/06/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
01/06/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
01/06/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
01/06/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
01/06/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
01/06/2026
Mardi 2 juin 14h00
FilmLight (ARRI), 10 rue Ren Boulanger, 75010 Paris
Rejoignez-nous pour d couvrir comment FLAPI (l'API FilmLight) peut transformer e...
01/06/2026
January 6 2026, 05:30 (PST) Dolby Sets the New Standard for Premium Entertainment at CES 2026
Throughout the week, Dolby brings to life the latest innovatio...
31/05/2026
Olivia P rez-Collellmir to Premiere Original Work at Gaud Centennial in Barcelona The Berklee graduate and faculty member will debut her choral symphony with...
31/05/2026
Back to All News
Netflix Wins 15 Awards at the Canadian Screen Awards - See Pho...
31/05/2026
Taiwan is home to more than 500 NVIDIA ecosystem partners. More than 1 million N...
31/05/2026
As factories move from isolated automation to plant-wide intelligence, manufacturers need AI systems that can connect live machine signals, quality systems, wor...
31/05/2026
The NVIDIA AI Cloud ecosystem is accelerating the global buildout of AI factory infrastructure. Partners are expanding capacity to meet growing demand from ente...
30/05/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
30/05/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
30/05/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
30/05/2026
Zero in on one that says yes (and no)
Andy Marken May 29, 2026
0 Comments
Hero image courtesy of Deposit Photos
For content creators the most difficu...
29/05/2026
With InfoComm 2026 just weeks away, NDI is giving attendees plenty of reasons to...
29/05/2026
Reaffirming a partnership that has defined Canadian sports broadcasting since 19...
29/05/2026
Mobile/tablet is No. 2 device for watching TV, suggesting that the sports-production industry needs to take another look at the format
Ring Digital's Sprin...
29/05/2026
Berliner Ensemble, one of Berlin's five major theater companies, has expande...
29/05/2026
Solid State Logic will showcase its new compact, fly-away TCA Tour audio product...
29/05/2026
Gerald (Jerry) Pierce, a pioneering technologist who helped shape the digital transformation of the motion picture industry, passed away last month on April 12 ...
29/05/2026
Paramount+ will be the English-language U.S. home for Barclays Women's Super...
29/05/2026
Further strengthening its virtualisation strategy to fully support broadcasters ...
29/05/2026
Swiss broadcaster Canal Alpha has deployed Harmonic's award-winning, software-based XOS Advanced Media Processor to modernize playout operations across cant...
29/05/2026
PTZOptics will showcase a new generation of intelligent video workflows at InfoComm 2026, June 17-19, Las Vegas. Visitors to booth N8227 will see how PTZOptics ...
29/05/2026
Arizona's Family has launched the Arizona's Family Sports (AZFS) streaming app, a new direct-to-consumer destination for live, local sports. The app is ...
29/05/2026
Starting in 2027, DAZN will be the exclusive home of The Canadian Football Leagu...
29/05/2026
Comcast Business has detailed the advanced network infrastructure it has deploye...
29/05/2026
In two-day event, leaders from academia and industry explored solutions to chall...
29/05/2026
The Basketball Tournament (TBT), now entering their 13th year of competition, ha...
29/05/2026
Roku has launched FOX One as a Premium Subscription on The Roku Channel in the U.S. Roku customers can now subscribe to FOX One using their Roku account for liv...
Blackmagic Design has announced Uphill Cinema used URSA Mini Pro 12K to shoot commercials for Joot Inc. and the DotDot Dream clothing company. The camera was also used to shoot Grant Victory Cares, a feature length documentary shot in Kenya looking at the impact of Covid-19 on the country and its citizens.
