The Vampire Next Door Created with Pocket Cinema Camera 6K and DaVinci Resolve
Brie Clayton May 20, 2024
0 Comments
Blackmagic Design today announced that New Zealand Son Films used Blackmagic Pocket Cinema Camera 6K digital film camera to shoot The Vampire Next Door horror film. The film, which was also graded using DaVinci Resolve and Blackmagic Cloud, is the latest in a string of popular horror and comedy films from the prolific filmmakers, who have made 16 feature films since 2015 that have been viewed by millions of people around the world.
Starring Alex Matthews, Jessica Ferguson and Bella Chadwick, The Vampire Next Door is a coming of age horror film that follows 20 year old Cameron as he discovers he has a female vampire, Victoria, living next door who enlists him to help her avenge the murder of a former lover. Cameron, who is also desperately in love with his high school crush Diane, reluctantly agrees and goes along on the adventure, until he discovers all is not what it seems.
The film from Sean and Taylor King, the father and son founders of New Zealand Son Films, is now available around the world on a number of global streaming services. Together they have written, directed and produced all of the company's films, which can be seen in 160 countries on Amazon Prime, Apple TV, Tubi, Flix, Plex, and 16 other platforms.
Both filmmakers take pride in creating films with blockbuster quality visuals at independent film budgets, mixing physical and digital effects and using different visual styles, such as shooting their recent film noir Devil in a Dress in black and white.
Sean described their process for creating the look of the film: For The Vampire Next Door,' we wanted to create our own lore. Without spoiling anything, our goal was to have Victoria and Diane be variations of past vampires in film, with subtle differences in features between the two.
We started playing with a look for the film in Resolve months before production and would pull in stills from films we liked in these genres to see how they looked on the scopes. Then we did some lighting tests and using that footage, created a LUT in Resolve to load into our Pocket Cinema Camera 6K.
Shot almost entirely with the Pocket Cinema Camera 6K paired with vintage Nikon manual lenses, the majority of The Vampire Next Door was shot at night or in low light situations. The film also includes a large number of moving car shots, fight scenes and has a mix of practical and VFX work. It was shot in 6K 5:1 compression and delivered in 4K and 2:35 formats. The versatility of the Pocket Cinema Camera 6K was an important reason why the filmmakers used it on The Vampire Next Door.
The Vampire Next Door' was shot with the Pocket Cinema Camera 6K using a variety of rigging. Steadicam, car mounted, a crane, sliders and a monopod were used a lot for small camera moves. The size of the camera allowed us to move it quickly and get it in tight places, Sean said.
For the car shots, we used a 60W LED mounted to the hood for a face fill light. For the basement shots, we used small tube lights mounted to the ceiling with some flickering and others for color. And during a big flight scene, we had the Pocket 6K on a gimbal and monopod. Taylor could push in or pull back to create more action in the frame. The scene was lit with candles, practicals in the lamps and one soft box, he added.
The workflow between Pocket Cinema Camera 6K and DaVinci Resolve gave the filmmakers a lot of options for creating scenes, especially with shooting at night or in low light situations. This was especially important since any vampire film needs to embrace the art of working in the near dark.
We found that even in scenes where the actor was moving from dark to light, by overexposing the actor's face by one stop, the dark areas would have very little noise. In Resolve during post production, any noise that was left was easily removed with the combination of noise reduction tools that Resolve has built in. And with the Pocket's large image, we could reframe and push in shots during post.
For drone shots that were done with a different camera, the Kings also relied on DaVinci Resolve to make sure the footage perfectly matched the look of the film shot on Blackmagic Design cameras. By using DaVinci Resolve's color management features and creating a node tree, they could quickly apply a set look to all drone footage, saving time better used for creative editing instead of repetitive matching of each shot.
Taylor explained: We stared using Blackmagic cameras in 2017 because of price, and they gave us the most value for the money. We've stuck with the cameras because of the look and reliability. Over the last seven years, we've shot in South America, Europe and all over the US. From the Mojave Desert in summer to below freezing temperatures, the cameras have never failed to perform.
The Vampire Next Door' is our 16th film using Blackmagic cameras. The skin tones look great and the workflow from camera to Resolve is seamless. Over the years, Blackmagic keeps improving the color science, and now with Blackmagic RAW combined with cloud proxies, our workflow is more streamlined than ever, he concluded.
May 22, 2024Creating a Particle Man Resolve FusionA simple but effective use of particles driven by an animated 3D
May 22, 2024J SPORTS Installs Blackmagic Design Workflow for On Demand StreamingBlackmagic Design today announced that J SPORTS Corporation has adopted a Blackmagic Design
Enjoying the news? Sign up for the Creative COW Newsletter! Sign up for the Creative COW newsletter and get weekly updates on industry news, forum highlights, jobs, inspirational tutorials, tips, burning questions, and more! Receive bulletins from the largest, longest-running community dedicated to supporti
Most recent headlines
05/01/2027
Worlds first 802.15.4ab-UWB chip verified by Calterah and Rohde & Schwarz to be ...
06/09/2026
June 9 2026, 23:00 (PDT) Dolby and MagentaTV Bring Fans Closer to the FIFA Worl...
04/08/2026
Dalet, a leading technology and service provider for media-rich organizations, t...
07/07/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
07/07/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
07/07/2026
New appointments to Screen Australia board 7 July 2026
The Albanese Labor Government has made new appointments to the Screen Australia board.
Dr Tania Chamber...
07/07/2026
The right team. The right time.' How The Killings at Parrish Station stuck t...
07/07/2026
Berklee College of Music Alum and Faculty Perform at Boston Public Library's...
07/07/2026
Scripps Research scientists train the immune system to make antibodies against numerous HIV strains Preclinical findings mark progress toward a long-sought vacc...
06/07/2026
Long-developed relationships and informal access, three production models, and c...
06/07/2026
The deal follows Lumine's recent acquisition of Synamedia's video-networ...
06/07/2026
This former SportsCenter producer is shaping local-team studio coverage to surro...
06/07/2026
IMS Productions and FOX Sports deployed more than 100 cameras, 32 onboard feeds,...
06/07/2026
Lumine Group Inc. has announced the completion of its acquisition of the Video Network Business from Synamedia. The business will operate as a standalone compan...
06/07/2026
NASCAR has announced a content and commercial partnership with Motorsport Network, a motorsports and automotive media platform, to distribute NASCAR original co...
06/07/2026
Versant Media Group has announced a definitive agreement to acquire Full Swing, a sports technology company, from Bruin Capital and a group of minority investor...
06/07/2026
DAZN has announced global broadcast rights to 3ICE, a professional hockey format featuring three skaters and a goalkeeper per side, with no power plays or offsi...
06/07/2026
Bundle gains 100 new synths & more
Synth Anthology 5 the largest and most feature-packed edition of UVI's hardware synth emulation bundle, bringing toge...
06/07/2026
Available now via free firmware update
MOTU have just announced that three of their popular audio interfaces now boast official Milan Certification. The 16A...
06/07/2026
Rohde & Schwarz completes Hunter Preliminary Design Review for the Integrated Co...
06/07/2026
The R&S IMAGER from Rohde & Schwarz uses millimeter wave imaging to inspect the ...
06/07/2026
The National Film and Video Foundation (NFVF), an agency of the Department of Sp...
06/07/2026
Digital Domain Appoints Industry Veteran Patrick Davenport as Executive Vice Pre...
06/07/2026
Gravity Media USA appoints Brittney Boston as Head of Business Development
Brie Clayton July 6, 2026
0 Comments
The strategic new appointment supports...
06/07/2026
Remote Editing Without Cloud Storage in Resolve
Michael Cioni July 6, 2026
0 Comments
This is a step-by-step guide that demonstrates how to setup your...
06/07/2026
Automatic Caption Translation in Adobe Premiere Pro
Colin Smith July 6, 2026
0 Comments
Here I showcase the innovative automatic caption translation f...
06/07/2026
Flavor's First Ever Managing Director Neal Cohen Retires; Longstanding Execu...
06/07/2026
How Adam Rosenwach Pivoted from Music to Medtech Without Missing a Beat What do the rehearsal room and the boardroom have in common? More than you might think...
06/07/2026
Zhongyi Optics unveils the Dreamy Zone T1 FF Cine Lens Series on Indiegogo with ...
06/07/2026
Open source AI has shown how quickly developers can innovate when models, data a...
06/07/2026
Techtel debuts insyght: making ST 2110 media discovery easy
intellisphereinsyght2026
6 July Written By Suzanne Costello
Sydney, Australia - 06 July 2026 T...
06/07/2026
Monday 6 July 2026
Sky agrees to acquire ITV Media & Entertainment, creating a ...
06/07/2026
Fresh from his World Cup heroics with Cabo Verde, Roberto Pico' Lopes will join the RT panel for Argentina v Egypt tomorrow and for the England v Norway q...
06/07/2026
Nations have long invested in domestic infrastructure to advance their economies, protect and use their data, and take advantage of technology opportunities in ...
06/07/2026
Every year, the International Conference on Machine Learning (ICML) reveals where thousands of AI researchers have decided to put their work.
This year's ...
06/07/2026
A death can be unsuspicious, but it has to be explained
What happened to Ke...
05/07/2026
We've gone to another level of integrating the graphics into the set architecture' - Zac Fields, SVP, Graphic Technology and Integration, FOX Sports...
05/07/2026
Browser-based and desktop apps available
Digital Sunset Studios have been busy working on an interesting project: a free software tool that provides compute...
04/07/2026
When Canada qualified for the FIFA World Cup 2026, OneSoccer knew this wasn'...
04/07/2026
Celebrates company's 80th anniversary
Rhodes have recently revealed that they will be producing a limited run of electric pianos in celebration of their...
04/07/2026
Blackmagic Design Cameras Empower Youth Broadcasting Program
Brie Clayton July 3, 2026
0 Comments
Blackmagic Pocket Cinema Camera 6K Pro and Blackmagi...
04/07/2026
iZotope Joins Boris FX
Boris Yamnitsky July 3, 2026
0 Comments
iZotope, the team behind RX and Ozone, is joining Boris FX. A letter from founder Boris...
04/07/2026
April 7 2026, 19:00 (PDT) Detective Conan: Fallen Angel of the Highway Opens in...
03/07/2026
New bundle & three Single Packs
Continuing to expand their already sizeable orchestral collection, VSL's latest release introduces three new Single Pack...
03/07/2026
Venue installs new ATC-equipped control room
LSO St Luke's, a unique music venue that also serves as the home of the London Symphony Orchestra, have rec...
03/07/2026
Caden Pearson appointed new Commissioning Editor for NITV
3 July, 2026
Media releases
National Indigenous Television (NITV) has strengthened its commitment...
03/07/2026
1 February 2023
SHARE Facebook Twitter Linkedin Email
Munich, Germany, 1st February 2023: Cinegy GmbH, the premier provider of software technology for digit...
03/07/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
03/07/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
The Vampire Next Door Created with Pocket Cinema Camera 6K and DaVinci Resolve 
