Sony Pixel Power calrec Sony

The Vampire Next Door Created with Pocket Cinema Camera 6K and DaVinci Resolve

20/05/2024

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
LINK: https://creativecow.net/the-vampire-next-door-created-with-pocket-cine...
See more stories from creativecow

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 ...

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...

04/08/2026

Dalet Announces Commercial Availability of Dalia, Bringing Media-Aware Agentic AI to Enterprise Productions

Dalet, a leading technology and service provider for media-rich organizations, t...

07/07/2026

Open call: Apply for the Media Innovation Europe Validation Booster

Applications are now open for the Validation Booster, a six-month acceleration programme supporting journalists, media organisations, content creators, media in...

07/07/2026

HAND Issues Persistent Digital IDs to 50 Top 2026 MLB Draft Prospects

The Universal Talent Identifier (HAND) has issued HAND IDs to 50 top prospects ahead of the 2026 MLB Draft, including consensus top-ranked players Roch Cholowsk...

07/07/2026

Cisco and McLaren Mastercard Formula 1 Team Extend Technology Partnership

Cisco and the McLaren Mastercard Formula 1 Team have announced an extension of their partnership, expanding the scope from networking and communications to incl...

07/07/2026

LucidLink Announces Enhanced Integration with Adobe Frame.io

LucidLink has announced a workflow integration with Adobe Frame.io that gives production teams unified access to Frame.io projects alongside supporting producti...

07/07/2026

Chyron Appoints Ahmed Magd as Middle East Sales Director

Chyron has announced the appointment of Ahmed Magd as Sales Director for the Middle East. Magd joins from previous senior commercial roles at Riedel Communicati...

07/07/2026

Leader Electronics T&M Equipment Used in Live Broadcast of Pope Leo XIVs Visit to Sagrada Famlia

Leader Electronics of Europe has announced that its PHABRIX Qx rasterizer and Le...

07/07/2026

eCLUTCH Secures EMEA and MENA Broadcast Rights for Esports World Cup 2026

eCLUTCH has announced it has acquired broadcast rights to the Esports World Cup 2026 for EMEA and MENA, covering the Middle East, Africa, the Balkans, Sweden, a...

07/07/2026

Riedel and ARRI Support Cinematic Live Production at Eurovision Song Contest 2026

Riedel Communications and ARRI supported ORF's host broadcast of the Eurovis...

07/07/2026

ARRI Releases ALEXA 35 Live Xtreme With High-Frame-Rate SDI Output for Live Production

ARRI has announced the ALEXA 35 Live Xtreme, a camera that adds high frame rate ...

07/07/2026

IBC 2026: LiveU To Exhibit With LU900Q, Sony Integration, EcoSystem Expansion

LiveU will exhibit at IBC 2026 (Stand 7.C24), showcasing the LU900Q Intelligent Production Unit, expanded Sony collaboration, and additions to its open IP-video...

07/07/2026

Peacock Advances Spanish-Language World Cup Streaming With Visin de Campo, Dolby Vision, Real-Time Highlights

Telemundo's coverage is packaged with Multiview, Catch Up with Key Plays, in...

07/07/2026

Australian Rugby League Commission Secures $5.3 Billion Media Rights Deal with Foxtel, Nine, and Sky NZ

The Australian Rugby League Commission (ARLC) has announced a seven-year media r...

07/07/2026

BYUtv Partners With Big 12 for Football Media Days Production

Produced onsite at The Star in Frisco, TX, live coverage of the two-day event airs on ESPN platforms The season for Football Media Days is here, and the Big 12...

07/07/2026

Rogers To Become 100% Owner of Maple Leaf Sports & Entertainment

Rogers Communications Inc. has announced an agreement to acquire the remaining 25% ownership stake in Maple Leaf Sports and Entertainment (MLSE) from Kilmer Spo...

07/07/2026

Mobile TV Groups Nick Garvin on Success of MTVG Production Platform at New Mountain Media Center

End-to-end broadcast solution includes fleet of mobile units, Cloud Control, and...

07/07/2026

SVG Executive Perspectives 2026: Industry Leaders Discuss Biz and Tech Trends for the Year Ahead

Sports-production-tech experts sound off on the state of the industry...

07/07/2026

Mix Buddy instrument mixer from Heritage Audio

New mixer aimed squarely at instrument-level sources Heritage Audio have clearly been busy recently, as alongside their all-new Tubestrip, they've also ...

07/07/2026

Heritage Audio unveil the Tubestrip

New channel strip combines popular hardware designs The latest arrival to the Heritage Audio line-up brings together a selection of their praised hardware d...

07/07/2026

Clear-Com Powers Ross Production Services Mobile Productions

eds3_5_jq(document).ready(function($) { $(#eds_sliderM519).chameleonSlider_2_1({ content_source:......

07/07/2026

New Nielsen data shows Kiwis' wellbeing is shaped by fitness, finance and mental health

New Kessler 10 data now available in Nielsen CMI gives brands a deeper view of h...

07/07/2026

Vitamin brands boost ad spend by 27% as 11.8 million Australians turn to supplements

New Nielsen Ad Intel and CMV data reveals rising competition in Australia's ...

07/07/2026

DAS Disputes Wiegels 3.0 EAS Limitations

Share Copy link Facebook X Linkedin Bluesky Email...

07/07/2026

LiveU to Showcase Q Era Innovations at 2026 IBC Show

Share Copy link Facebook X Linkedin Bluesky Email...

07/07/2026

LucidLink Unifies Adobe Frame.io, Enterprise Storage

Share Copy link Facebook X Linkedin Bluesky Email...

07/07/2026

ARRI Introduces ALEXA 35 Live Xtreme Camera

Share Copy link Facebook X Linkedin Bluesky Email...

07/07/2026

Riedel and ARRI Bring Cinematic Live Production to the Eu...

Riedel Communications and ARRI played a key role in one of the most technically ambitious Eurovision Song Contest productions to date. For the first time in the...

07/07/2026

Berklee Valencia Honors Eric Whitacre at the 2026 Commencement Ceremony

Berklee Valencia Honors Eric Whitacre at the 2026 Commencement Ceremony The Grammy-winning composer was celebrated alongside this years cohort of masters degr...

07/07/2026

Disagreements Abound Over the Adequacy of C-Band Replacements

Share Copy link Facebook X Linkedin Bluesky Email...

07/07/2026

Cameras Become More Connected to Production Workflows

Share Copy link Facebook X Linkedin Bluesky Email...

07/07/2026

NFL on TV: Time to Move the Regulatory Goal Posts?

Share Copy link Facebook X Linkedin Bluesky Email...

07/07/2026

Building a Future-Ready Facility for Tomorrow's Broadcasters

Share Copy link Facebook X Linkedin Bluesky Email...

07/07/2026

Rewriting the Control Room: How Broadcasters Are Going Remote

Share Copy link Facebook X Linkedin Bluesky Email...

07/07/2026

Fincons Group appoints Andrea Fravega as Global BU Media...

The appointment will drive growth and innovation across the Media Business Unit Fincons Group, a leading IT business consultancy and systems integrator company...

07/07/2026

Big Blue Marble debuts next-gen ultra low latency MoQ str...

International broadcast and streaming expert Big Blue Marble has announced a multi-month Proof of Concept (PoC) for Media over QUIC (MoQ) during a major interna...

07/07/2026

Leader provides Test and Measurement for global broadcast...

Test & measurement innovator, Leader Electronics of Europe, is proud to announce that two of its leading products, the PHABRIX Qx rasterizer and LeaderPhabrix L...

07/07/2026

Clear-Com Powers Ross Production Services Mobile Producti...

Clear-Com announced that Ross Production Services (RPS), a leading provider of mobile production solutions for live events and broadcasts, has standardized on ...

07/07/2026

Q Era Innovations Take Center Stage for LiveU at IBC2026

LiveU redefined live newsgathering with the invention of cellular bonding. At IBC2026, Stand 7.C24, the company will show how that foundation is evolving into t...

07/07/2026

Camera to Cloud Meets Camera to Timeline LucidLink Unifi...

LucidLink, a leader in cloud-based file services for content creators, today announced an enhanced workflow integration between LucidLink and Adobe Frame.io tha...

07/07/2026

Comcast's Sky to Acquire ITV Media and Entertainment

Share Copy link Facebook X Linkedin Bluesky Email...

07/07/2026

Digital Alert Systems Details ATSC 3.0 EAS Capabilities to FCC

Share Copy link Facebook X Linkedin Bluesky Email...

07/07/2026

New appointments to Screen Australia board

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 to their creative guns.

The right team. The right time.' How The Killings at Parrish Station stuck t...

07/07/2026

Toby Regbo, Harry Gilby and Jessica Barden lead cast for The Cadburys - the true story of the Cadbury family - with filming now underway in Birmingham

UKTV commission with BritBox and Sony Pictures Television and inspired by Deborah Cadbury's book, Chocolate Wars The six-part series is produced by Fable P...

07/07/2026

Record audiences tune into the ICC Womens T20 World Cup 2026 on Sky Sports

Tuesday 7 July 2026 Record audiences tune into the ICC Women's T20 World Cup 2026 on Sky Sports The ICC Women's T20 World Cup 2026 was the most watche...

07/07/2026

Official trailer released for Fightland, a revenge drama from executive producer Curtis 50 Cent Jackson coming August to Sky and NOW

Tuesday 7 July 2026 Official trailer released for Fightland, a revenge drama fr...

07/07/2026

Riedel and ARRI Bring Cinematic Live Production to the Eurovision Song Contest

Wuppertal July 7, 2026 Riedel and ARRI Bring Cinematic Live Production to the Eurovision Song ContestRiedel Communications and ARRI played a key role in one o...