Stanley Kubrick's street photographer sensibilities helped define his signature look. Julian Schnabel's sensational transition from painter to filmmaker shows how abstract artistic sensibilities translate into brilliant, unconventional storytelling. Now, Loic Zimmermann, a French filmmaker and visual artist based in Los Angeles, carries the dialogue between the visual arts into the digital age with A Solitary Mann.
Zimmermann's 40-minute short documentary is a compelling portrait of San Francisco-based master painter Jeremy Mann, who is known for his distinctive work on panels using unconventional techniques including staining surfaces, wiping away paint with solvents, and applying broad, gritty marks with an ink brayer. A Solitary Mann was an official selection at many film festivals worldwide in 2015, garnering a Best Documentary Feature nod from the Los Angeles International Underground Film Festival.
Through his cin ma v rit approach, Zimmermann demonstrated his subject's aesthetic to adapt the visuals to this different medium. How he realized this ambitious aim shows the power and possibilities of today's 4K production tools. Principal photography was done with Sony's FS700 camcorder capturing to a Convergent Design Odyssey7Q recorder in Apple ProRes 4:2:2 10-bit 4K at 24fps.
Mann is a true artist, said Zimmermann. We share a lot of experiences and tools. Black is a major component for him. Deep blacks, rich greys, too. Matching his palette required working with fully gradable footage, real control on (color) curves, real S-log. I needed the capabilities, the look, of working in film but without the burden.
On A Solitary Mann, Zimmermann was the director, cinematographer, editor and colorist, in addition to doing effects and title design for the documentary. Though relatively new to the director's chair, he is well-established in Hollywood as a visual effects/design artist. His recent credits include the hit movie spectaculars Guardians of the Galaxy, Ant-Man and Captain America: Civil War.
Zimmerman has applied his extensive background in illustrations, photography and 3D to his newfound love for filmmaking. Five years ago, he began to cut his teeth on video production with a DSLR shooting music videos. Then, after finishing his first documentary,Gamma Wray, he realized he needed new tools to move forward in his craft.
I decided to step up! he said. There are significant limitations to working with a DSLR, like rolling shutter. I wanted a proper video camera. The FS700 fit my needs for something compact and manageable but also shot in a 4K format that was truly gradable. All these elements converge in the Sony.
Zimmermann had two days to get up-to-speed with the FS700's capabilities, a crash-course to prep for the marathon filming sessions to come.
I had very little practice, but found the camera highly intuitive, said. The menu setup is straightforward. I put it through a full range of testing to see how the grading curves worked on highlights and high contrast shots. The camera's dynamic range really stood out in backlit shots. I have a background in post-production so I really focused in on highlights. In my testing, the amount of control I had over the image was amazing.
On Location, in the Belly of the Beast
Capturing the documentary's subject in his native environment meant working unobtrusively. The shooting schedule was simply to spend four days observing Mann around-the-clock at work in his home and studio outside of San Francisco. The FS700's relatively small size allowed Zimmermann to operate hand-held.
I was filming live, nothing rehearsed, he said. I knew the arc of the story and had the title, but nothing beyond that minimal framework. I needed the camera to be invisible, to not attract attention. I didn't want to set up on a tripod because then things take five times longer and the shots become static. I wanted to respect how he works. Sometimes, we didn't talk for hours.
The Sony's Super 35 native 4K sensor's low-light sensitivity and high dynamic range made it possible to shoot Mann's dark and shadowy painting sessions in existing light with only the occasional use of a light panel for fill. He settled on ISO 1600 for a texture to set the tone. The FS700's ND filter was essential for taking the story from dark sequences to bright sunlight.
The FS700 worked beautifully in low light, Zimmermann said. The grain looked great. Shooting candlelit models that fade into darkness, there's a lot going on. All of this information is in the footage. The ND filter brought out scenes that would have been washed out otherwise. I barely had to change the F stop.
The Proof is in the Post
The task of drawing his artistic concept from the footage frame-by-frame by applying his post production skills consumed months of Zimmermann's time. Using the FS700's S-log 2 gamma curve, he was able to capture the subtle intonations of Mann's paintings, painstakingly working and reworking light and shadow in post to the same effect.
One thing that soon became clear was how shooting in 4K was essential not just for the image quality but for how it enabled the run-and-gun shooting style. With no retakes or rehearsal, framing on-the-fly sometimes misses the marks.
4K is so valuable because it gives you room to crop corners, to reframe without sacrificing resolution for the HD final cut, Zimmermann said. It's an added layer of control over the image in post that was indispensable for creating the exact image I wanted in every scene.
Finally, after feedback from some trusted reviewers, it was time to show the cut to Mann. He posted it online for his review.
There were long hours waiting for his response; would he hate it? Zimmermann wondered. No one should be left wat
Most recent headlines
06/10/2025
France T l visions, France's leading broadcaster, has received the 2025 EBU ...
04/09/2025
Monumental Sports & Entertainment (MSE), in collaboration with Dalet, has been a...
30/08/2025
WASHINGTON The Federal Communications Commission has adopted its FY 2025 Regulatory Fees Order that establishes the regulatory fee rates for the broadcast stati...
29/08/2025
Australian Red Cross and SBS launch training to help workplaces in the fight aga...
29/08/2025
The National Film and Video Foundation (NFVF), an agency of the Department of Sp...
29/08/2025
L3Harris Technologies has concentrated decades of expertise across the entire enterprise to develop affordable and reliable best-of-breed solutions to rapidly c...
29/08/2025
BURBANK, Calif. The CW Network and the Pac-12 Conference have announced a new media rights deal that will extend their broadcast partnership beginning with the ...
29/08/2025
NEW YORK Gracenote has released a new analysis of its global video dataset showing that the number of FAST channels grew nearly 14% from Q1 2025 and 76% since 2...
29/08/2025
SAN JOSE, Calif. Harmonic has announced a series of improvements to its live sports streaming solution that the company said will improve fan engagement, protec...
29/08/2025
NEW YORK and LOS ANGELES Fox Corp. and YouTube TV last night announced a renewal of the full portfolio of Fox networks, including Fox News Channel, Fox Business...
29/08/2025
Budapest, Hungary, August 2025 - The integration of Microsoft Teams Rooms (MTR) with Lightware's Taurus universal matrix switchers delivers a new level of f...
29/08/2025
Frequency, the engine behind many of the world's best-known streaming television channels, today announced it will launch Studio Live, a next-generation uni...
29/08/2025
In an era when AI and cyber resilience are essential, Scality will mark the 10th anniversary of Scality Day on October 16, 2025 in Paris. This flagship global e...
29/08/2025
Disguise's In-House Creative and Technical Teams Pre-Visualised, Programmed and Delivered Content for the Experience, All Powered by EX 3+
Technology solu...
29/08/2025
Disguise will be demonstrating the latest workflows for TV, film and live events on a number of partner booths at the show
Disguise, the industry-leading tech...
29/08/2025
STOCKHOLM, Sweden Accedo will showcase Accedo Compose, its AI agent-powered modular orchestration layer that assists streaming providers in transitioning client...
29/08/2025
LOS ANGELES Cineverse has announced that it is working with Xperi to bring four of its streaming channels to automobiles for the first time as part of the DTS A...
29/08/2025
DALLAS & ATLANTA Gray Media has announced an agreement with the sports streaming service Victory+ to simulcast 17 Dallas Stars NHL games in 15 television market...
29/08/2025
NEW YORK AND CULVER CITY Comcast NBCUniversal and Amazon have announced new and extended distribution agreements that will expand the content available on their...
29/08/2025
FOOTHILL RANCH, Calif. RED Digital Cinema will feature its Cine-Broadcast Module supporting live broadcast workflows during IBC2025, Sept. 12-15, at the RAI Ams...
29/08/2025
29 Aug 2025
Kyivstar Rings Opening Bell at Nasdaq Marking Landmark Listing and ...
29/08/2025
More than half of all NFL games live on Sky for the first timeFriday 29 August 2025
Sky Sports has announced a new three-year deal with the NFL, extending its ...
29/08/2025
Back to All News
RIV4LRIES: The Trailer of the New Series With Samuele Carrino ...
29/08/2025
Get ready for an inspiring and emotional insight into the world of competitive Irish dancing with My Story: Tomi Champion of the World airing on RT 2 this monda...
29/08/2025
RT has today announced that David McCullagh is to be the new presenter of RT Radio 1's flagship Today programme, which airs every weekday at 10am, replaci...
28/08/2025
By Kristin Feeley, Director, Documentary Film & Artist Programs
If you want to tell untold stories, if you want to give voice to the voiceless, you've got ...
28/08/2025
Directed by Steven Bognar and Julia Reichert, Sundance Institute-supported Amer...
28/08/2025
Corridos have been a cornerstone of M sica Mexicana for generations, telling stories rooted in everyday life. Now, a new chapter is taking shape: motivational c...
28/08/2025
Los corridos han sido un pilar de la M sica Mexicana durante generaciones, contando historias enraizadas en la vida cotidiana. Ahora, un nuevo cap tulo est tom...
28/08/2025
Earlier this month, we promised our Verano Forever party would bring the heat, a...
28/08/2025
L3Harris will provide the Polish F-16V fleet with the Viper Shield electronic warfare system as part of an upgrade program....
28/08/2025
Bilbao, August 26, 2025 - AgileTV, an international television and video technol...
28/08/2025
Ken Wilkinson is an Emmy Awards nominated New York audio engineer who specialises in production sound mixing for film, commercial, episodic and documentary work...
28/08/2025
NEW YORK FuboTV today announced that it will launch Fubo Sports, a skinny bundle that focuses on sports with a subscription price of $56 monthly....
28/08/2025
NEVADA City, Calif. At IBC2025, Sept. 12-15 at the RAI Amsterdam, Telestream will debut its new Global Ingest strategy, introducing a next-generation ingest arc...
28/08/2025
Dr. Rhoda Bernard Releases Groundbreaking Debut Book on Accessible Arts Educatio...
28/08/2025
TAG Video Systems, the leader in software-based IP end-to-end workflow monitoring, deep probing, and real-time visualization, has named Oliver Gappa as Sales Di...
28/08/2025
AI-based voice enhancement will be among a series of innovations making their IBC 2025 debut on the DHD stand B46 in Hall 8 at the RAI Amsterdam Convention Cent...
28/08/2025
Telef nica Servicios Audiovisuales (TSA), the leading system integrator and service provider in the media sector in Spain, with the support of Appear, the globa...
28/08/2025
To fully immerse sailing fans in the world's biggest offshore yacht race, production company, Optical Media turned to LiveU's On-site Production solutio...
28/08/2025
Working with Calrec on its most recent overhaul, radio and television broadcaster, WNED has migrated to a fully IP infrastructure with multiple Type R consoles,...
28/08/2025
Cleeng, the Subscriber Retention Management (SRM ) inventor, has unveiled Cleeng Pro, the first-ever direct-to-consumer (D2C) subscription management platform t...
28/08/2025
Zixi, the industry leader in live broadcast-quality video over IP, today announced that French media distribution platform OKAST has selected Zixi to enable rel...
28/08/2025
Solution offers a streamlined, speaker-free architecture to optimize integration with premium external loudspeakers and advanced loudness metering
Nixer Pro Au...
28/08/2025
Cinegy, the premier provider of software-defined television technology, has announced a strategic partnership with Vision One Touch Film Production Services L.L...
28/08/2025
Telestream, a global leader in media workflow technologies, will debut its new Global Ingest strategy at IBC2025, introducing a next-generation ingest architect...
28/08/2025
Tier 1 operator selects Broadpeak to power high-performance, unified CDN solution across Norway, Sweden and Finland
Broadpeak, a leader in streaming and moneti...
28/08/2025
Leading video software provider, Synamedia, today announced that 24 Frames Digital, one of India's leading live event streaming service providers, has chose...
28/08/2025
Meet VisualOn at IBC2025: See What's Next in AI-Powered Video Streaming Join VisualOn at IBC2025 and discover how our AI-driven Optimizer and advanced media...
Stanley Kubrick's street photographer sensibilities helped define his signature look. Julian Schnabel's sensational transition from painter to filmmaker shows how abstract artistic sensibilities translate into brilliant, unconventional storytelling. Now, Loic Zimmermann, a French filmmaker and visual artist based in Los Angeles, carries the dialogue between the visual arts into the digital age with A Solitary Mann. 
