Manchester, U.K.-based ABF Pictures recently used the Blackmagic Production Camera 4K to shoot national television commercials for Clevercards and MandM Direct.
ABF is a production company and advertising agency specializing in TV commercials, having handled campaigns for global brands such as Virgin Games and VistaPrint.
With the series of Clevercards spots, ABF was tasked with showing how easy it is to use Clevercards’ application by connecting to Facebook to create greeting cards. For the MandM Direct campaign, ABF showed the fun that families have while shopping online, while highlighting MandM Direct’s sponsorship with Britain’s Got Talent.
“We shot both spots in 4K, and the Production Camera 4K worked like a charm,” said Tim Folin, DP for both commercials. “The ability to shoot in 4K and get that Ultra HD look at an incredible price and with an easy-to-use workflow from production to post is really amazing.”
Both campaigns were shot in ProRes using the camera’s film mode, with footage being sent from the camera straight into Final Cut Pro. Throughout the production, ABF used a mix of Nikon, Voightlander and Canon lenses.
“For the Clevercards spots, I wanted to get a flat, filmic look, and the images that the Production Camera 4K gave us were amazing and fit that perfectly,” said Folin. “We also had to plan for postproduction to add in different greeting card art work and wording, so we shot all of the actors holding blank, black card and added graphics later. All of the data and detail that comes with the 4K images from the camera really made it very easy to work with adding content after the shoot was completed.”
“The Blackmagic Production Camera 4K gave us a much sharper picture than with any of the other cameras I have worked with, and the images are just amazing,” Folin concluded.
