Sony Pixel Power calrec Sony

Don't Peek Horror Film Shot on Pocket Cinema Camera 4K

01/05/2021

Blackmagic Design has announced that the SXSW award winning short film Don't Peek was shot on the Pocket Cinema Camera 4K by Julian Terry during quarantine in 2020. The horror film, which was also graded using DaVinci Resolve Studio, was bought by blockbuster filmmaker Timur Bekmambetov and will be turned into a full length feature film.

Don't Peek follows a young woman, played by award winning actress Katie C'etta, who discovers a frightening Animal Crossing character intent on crossing into the real world. The short film premiered at SXSW 2021 and was quickly bought to be turned into a feature film.

The film's set was Terry's Los Angeles apartment and the production gear used was limited to the Pocket Cinema Camera 4K, a small slider, two small lights, and a Nintendo Switch, which was also used for lighting on a number of shots.

There was a lot of time to do some writing, and not surprisingly also time for playing video games. I started to think about an idea for a horror film using something that people have been doing during covid as the main plot point. Then one night Katie was playing Animal Crossing and thought she saw something at the end of her bed. The film was born right there, Terry said.

Constrained by quarantine rules, Terry, along with his roommate and fellow filmmaker Alexander Anderson, who produced Don't Peek, had to come up with a way to shoot a high quality and properly creepy horror film within a single room in their apartment that did not have the space for extensive lighting or rigging. The low light capabilities and the small size of the Pocket Cinema Camera 4K worked perfectly to allow Terry to be incredibly creative with the shoot and allowing him to create the feel that the set was much bigger.

Animal Crossing is such an innocent game. You see people happily holding Nintendo Switches up to their face, so the idea of taking something so innocent but showing it as terrifying was an idea I couldn't pass up, Terry said. When we were testing the Pocket Camera and discovered how well it looked at ISO 1250, that was the a ha' moment for me. I realized with that level of low light capability that we could keep Katie's face lit with just the light coming off of the Nintendo Switch itself. I never thought I would be able to count the light coming off a game console as enough for lighting a scene, but the Pocket let that happen.

The shot of Katie holding the Nintendo Switch and watching her face react at first in amusement and then in horror to what was happening on the screen became the key shots for the film. To get the shot, Terry positioned the Pocket Cinema Camera 4K in between the Switch and Katie's face. The small size of the camera also let Terry capture the room behind her, giving the viewer a greater sense of being alone in a dark room instead of just a close up of her face.

This shot gave the perfect ambiance and creepy feeling, while at the same time let us work with the gear and lighting that we had available. And because the camera is so tiny, we were able to squeeze the camera in tight spaces making the room feel much bigger and increase the viewer's sense of horror. We could look at her and around her to capture the darkness and shadows of the room behind her. Definitely not a shot we could have gotten with a larger camera, he continued.

Terry shot using Blackmagic RAW, which he credited with allowing him to get even more details from the shadows around the room and with an easy post process. To grade the footage, he used DaVinci Resolve Studio.

I was worried about creating a monster not only as a physical effect, but as one of the animals' in the game. For the physical monster, it was just Alex in his underwear, wearing a mask, and used Resolve to match the colors between his chest and the mask. For the creature in the game and in the room, we used Resolve to highlight the creature. The Blackmagic RAW to Resolve workflow was very easy, Terry said.

Don't Peek is scheduled to be turned into a full length feature in 2022.

The Pocket camera and Resolve definitely helped with get the film noticed and bought because of it's fantastic quality. As a filmmaker, you have to have the vision, talent and drive to create the film, and Blackmagic allowed me to take that and create that vision at Hollywood level quality, he finished.
LINK: https://hpaonline.com/dont-peek-horror-film-shot-on-pocket-cinema-came...
See more stories from hpa

Most recent headlines

05/01/2027

Worlds first 802.15.4ab-UWB chip verified by Calterah and Rohde & Schwarz to be demoed at CES 2026

Worlds first 802.15.4ab-UWB chip verified by Calterah and Rohde & Schwarz to be ...

07/10/2026

Dalet Flex LTS Delivers Smarter Media Operations from Ingest to Distribution

Dalet, a leading technology and service provider for media-rich organizations, today announced the latest Long-Term Supported (LTS) release of Dalet Flex. Build...

06/09/2026

Dolby and MagentaTV Bring Fans Closer to the FIFA World Cup 2026 in Germany with Dolby Vision and Dolby Atmos

June 9 2026, 23:00 (PDT) Dolby and MagentaTV Bring Fans Closer to the FIFA Worl...

03/09/2026

NAB Backs Most Proposed EAS Changes at FCC

Share Copy link Facebook X Linkedin Bluesky Email...

03/09/2026

TiVo Expands FAST Channels, AI Discovery with Latest OS Update

Share Copy link Facebook X Linkedin Bluesky Email...

03/09/2026

Eluvio Advances Content Fabric, AI at IBC 2026

Share Copy link Facebook X Linkedin Bluesky Email...

03/09/2026

Haivision Adds Bonded 5G Cellular Support to Makito ONE

Share Copy link Facebook X Linkedin Bluesky Email...

03/09/2026

Alex Pannell Joins Gravity Media as Chief Business Officer

Share Copy link Facebook X Linkedin Bluesky Email...

03/09/2026

AI-Media To Feature Multilingual AI Developments At IBC2026

Share Copy link Facebook X Linkedin Bluesky Email...

03/09/2026

Tuxera and ATTO collaborate to deliver blistering macOS n...

Recognizing the ever-increasing demands for media throughput in challenging environments like post-production, two leaders in network technology have worked tog...

03/09/2026

EVS and Matrox Video Join Forces to Accelerate Dynamic Me...

EVS, a leader in live video technology and production infrastructure solutions, and Matrox Video, a leader in software-defined media technology and IP-based vid...

03/09/2026

AJA Debuts OG-FiDO-4 openGear Four-Channel SDI/Fiber Conversion Cards

AJA Debuts OG-FiDO-4 openGear Four-Channel SDI/Fiber Conversion Cards Brie Clayton September 3, 2026 0 Comments New product family expands 12G-SDI and...

03/09/2026

Nice Touch launches V2 of its AI edit assistant for professional editors

Nice Touch launches V2 of its AI edit assistant for professional editors Brie Clayton September 3, 2026 0 Comments Built by two editors with twelve ye...

03/09/2026

Accedo and MediaKind Launch End-to-End Streaming Solution...

Accedo, a global provider of video streaming software and services, and MediaKind, a world-leading video technology company and the number one independent provi...

03/09/2026

14 Percent of live sports viewers have considered switchi...

International research from Big Blue Marble puts a consumer churn number against a technical failure, and sets out what streaming providers must fix before 2030...

03/09/2026

Broadpeak expands CDNaaS for streaming at scale with new...

High-performance points of presence power video streaming delivery to large audiences across Latin America with guaranteed quality of experience Broadpeak , a ...

03/09/2026

Dalia Delivers New Agentic Workflows Changing How Media W...

Dalet, a leading technology and service provider for media-rich organizations, will unveil the next evolution of Dalia at IBC2026 (7.A43), its media-aware agent...

03/09/2026

CGI showcases AI-assisted newsroom and radio workflows pa...

CGI (TSX: GIB.A) (NYSE: GIB), one of the world's largest independent IT and business consulting services firms, will showcase CGI OpenMedia Evolve and CGI d...

03/09/2026

LiveU Joins IBC Accelerator Smart Stories Consortium to D...

LiveU is participating in the IBC Accelerator Incubator 2026: Smart Stories The New Knowledge Architecture for Content Production, an industry-wide initiative...

03/09/2026

Christer Palsson brings global experience to Broadcast So...

Broadcast Solutions, a leading systems integrator and provider of innovative solutions for the broadcast and media industry, has taken another major step in its...

03/09/2026

Quortex brings AI and IP transition into focus at IBC 202...

Quortex today announced that it will showcase how it is accelerating innovation and the transition to IP at IBC 2026. The company will debut its newest intellig...

03/09/2026

Grass Valley Names Ronny Van Geel Vice President Of Cameras

Share Copy link Facebook X Linkedin Bluesky Email...

03/09/2026

VisualOn and EZDRM Enable Visualization of C2PA Provenanc...

The EZDRM approach to Revenue Security on streaming video can be visualized as a multi-dimensional set of solutions. A growing dimension of that approach is the...

03/09/2026

Kiloview Brings Hybrid AV-over-IP to Life at IBC 2026 wit...

From field capture to management, control and production, Kiloview will demonstrate one connected Hybrid AV-over-IP workflow including a complete 4RU producti...

03/09/2026

Mediagenix Curation Unlocks Greater Catalog Value Through...

Mediagenix, a global leader in smart content solutions to profitably connect the right content to the right audience, today announced Mediagenix Curation, a new...

03/09/2026

LucidLink brings distributed media into active workflows...

LucidLink, the Emmy-winning cloud-native file streaming platform for instant, secure access to large files, today announced the next step in its vision to make ...

03/09/2026

Fraudulent communications purportedly from Screen Australia

Fraudulent communications purportedly from Screen Australia 3 September 2026 Screen Australia is aware of scam attempts involving fake emails and promotional m...

03/09/2026

AJA Introduces FS8, Next-Gen 12G-SDI/SMPTE ST 2110 Media Processor

AJA Introduces FS8, Next-Gen 12G-SDI/SMPTE ST 2110 Media Processor Brie Clayton September 2, 2026 0 Comments AJA Video Systems unveiled FS8, a video a...

03/09/2026

Shooting Deadheading with Blackmagic URSA Cine 12K LF

Shooting Deadheading with Blackmagic URSA Cine 12K LF Brie Clayton September 2, 2026 0 Comments Bringing a small story to the big screen with dark com...

03/09/2026

OOONA Launches OOONA Go: Professional Localization Management for Small Companies

OOONA Launches OOONA Go: Professional Localization Management for Small Companie...

03/09/2026

East of Texas Opens at American Tobacco Campus, Bringing North Carolina's First Tex-Mex BBQ Concept to Durham

DURHAM, N.C. - East of Texas Durham has officially opened its doors at American ...

03/09/2026

Is Six-Seven over? Comedian Tony Cantwell gets the low-down from kids in new RT KIDS series, First Class Take

First Class Takes is a new six-part series for RT KIDS that captures funny, hon...

03/09/2026

NBA 2K27' With NVIDIA DLSS 5 Leads 26 New Games Coming to GeForce NOW

September is here with 26 more games streaming on GeForce NOW this month, led by a slam dunk: NBA 2K27 with the NVIDIA DLSS 5 3D-Guided Neural Rendering feature...

02/09/2026

SVG Venues & Teams Summit 2026: All Sessions Now Available To Watch on SVG PLAY

Professional and collegiate clubs, leading vendors discuss current trends in stadium production On. Aug. 12, the 2026 SVG Venues & Teams Summit explored the ev...

02/09/2026

SoFi Stadium Completes Broadcast Infrastructure Upgrade

SoFi Stadium, YouTube Theater, and Hollywood Park have completed an infrastructure upgrade expanding game presentation and broadcast production capabilities acr...

02/09/2026

IBC 2026: Comcast Technology Solutions Unveils AI-Powered Workflow Applications

Comcast Technology Solutions (CTS) has announced a suite of AI-powered workflow applications for broadcasters, content owners, and operators, built on its Video...

02/09/2026

NABA and APWPT Announce Partnership on Wireless Spectrum Advocacy

The North American Broadcasters Association (NABA) and the Association of Professional Wireless Production Technologies (APWPT) have announced a partnership to ...

02/09/2026

Prime Video Lands Exclusive In-Market Streaming Rights for Six NHL Teams Beginning This Season

Carolina Hurricanes, Anaheim Ducks, Columbus Blue Jackets, Dallas Stars, Minneso...

02/09/2026

Mercedes-Benz Stadium Goes Mini: Nine-Year-Old Venue Continues to Innovate With Control Room Mini Halo Board

New LED provides enhanced quality control, quicker show prep, detailed productio...

02/09/2026

Keeley Electronics launch the Tube Drive

Combines the Phat Drive with high-voltage valve circuit The latest pedal from Keeley Electronics combines their popular Phat Mode drive pedal with an all-ne...

02/09/2026

Lewitt introduce Space Replicator Free

Free version of virtual mixing room plug-in introduced Lewitt's Space Replicator plug-in provides users with a virtual monitoring environment that aims ...

02/09/2026

Stereophonic Bundle from AIR Music Tech

Two new mixing & mastering plug-ins revealed AIR Music Tech have just introduced the Stereophonic Bundle, a pair of processing plug-ins designed to provide ...

02/09/2026

Rohde & Schwarz has achieved initial verification of 3GPP Rel. 17 power-saving feature SSSG for 5G NR

Rohde & Schwarz has achieved initial verification of 3GPP Rel. 17 power-saving f...

02/09/2026

AgileTV and Fiend MTS Complete CDN Watermarking Integration to Fast-Track Anti-Piracy Protection for Operators

Bilbao - 3rd September 2026 -AgileTV, a leading provider of end-to-end TV and vi...

02/09/2026

Agentic AI in the content supply chain

Why agentic media supply chains need experience design built around visibility, reversibility and human authority When AI can generate a functional interface ...

02/09/2026

Gracenote study: 85% of sports fans want TV home screens to show when and where to watch favorite teams

Six-country survey finds 26% of sports fans frequently unable to determine where...

02/09/2026

Manfrotto Showcases New Video Support Solutions at IBC 2026

Share Copy link Facebook X Linkedin Bluesky Email...

02/09/2026

Mediagenix Rebrands Spideo as Mediagenix Curation

Share Copy link Facebook X Linkedin Bluesky Email...

02/09/2026

Creative Technology Group Founder Graham Andrews Sets Year-End Exit

Share Copy link Facebook X Linkedin Bluesky Email...

02/09/2026

San Antonio Spurs, DAZN Ink Exclusive Streaming Deal

Share Copy link Facebook X Linkedin Bluesky Email...