DOCUMENTARY SERIES HAUNTED
 RELIES ON A CAMERA TO POST WORKFLOW FROM BLACKMAGIC DESIGN

Manchester, United Kingdom - Wednesday, June 5, 2024 - Blackmagic Design today announced that the Blackmagic URSA Mini Pro 12K digital film camera is the principal camera for “Haunted,” a new docuseries created and produced by Mineworks Film for the broadcasters ARTE, Saarländischer Rundfunk and Hessischer Rundfunk.

“Haunted,” was developed by Mineworks Film as a fresh addition to the “Discoveries” series, broadcast on ARTE, the European culture TV channel. This project sprang from the desire to craft a mini series with a twist on the traditional nature and wildlife program format. “The challenge lay in bringing to life the ancient tales of the beast of Gevaudan, ghosts in Scotland, Dracula in Romania and Voodoo in Louisiana,” reveals Frank Mirbach, series director and DP at Mineworks Film.

With the series’ focus on ancient legends and stories from various cultures, Mirbach has adopted a cinematic approach to the storytelling. “Our goal was to visually represent these tales in a way that emphasizes perception's role in what we find spooky. We intend to show how the ambiance of a location can dramatically alter how we perceive it,” notes Mirbach.

Acquiring in 8K for a 4K UHD deliverable to ARD and ARTE, the URSA Mini Pro 12K serves as the production’s principal camera.s. “We chose the URSA 12K and Blackmagic Pocket Cinema Camera 6K for additional coverage, paired with DZO Film’s Pictor Zoom lenses,” explains Mirbach. “This combination blends both a modern sensor with vintage lens qualities, giving us the soft visual aesthetic for the series we sought.”

Mirbach adds, “The 8K resolution offers two main advantages: visual quality and practicality. The URSA's image output is stunning, producing a beautiful, smooth look that isn’t as harsh as other cameras, and the ergonomics are good, with essential features such as Kelvin, shutter speed and ISO adjustments readily accessible on the body.”

With the series set to deliver in 2025, providing the post production team with access to media quickly was a crucial consideration when deciding on the workflow. “After each day of shooting, footage is backed up redundantly using a MacBook Pro M3 Max, and the clone tool in DaVinci Resolve Studio.

The Blackmagic Proxy Generator then renders the 8K Blackmagic RAW files into smaller HD proxy files and then automatically syncs those to Google Drive through a Blackmagic Cloud Store 8TB network storage solution, saving significant time. “Our post production team is then able to create rough cuts for each scene from those proxies while the crew continues shooting on location. This accelerates the post production process and allows for immediate feedback, which can be incorporated into the shooting process,” says Mirbach.

Post production is utilizing DaVinci Resolve Studio and Blackmagic Cloud, which enables Mirbach to supervise post while on location. “I have access to the editing process in realtime, allowing me to work with our team of editors and finishing artists as the edits come together, helping us to save time and speed up deliverables given the tight turnaround,” concludes Mirbach.

PRESS PHOTOGRAPHY

Product photos of URSA Mini Pro 12K, Pocket Cinema Camera 6K, Blackmagic Cloud Store Mini 8TB, DaVinci Resolve Studio and all other Blackmagic Design products are available at www.blackmagicdesign.com/uk/media/images

ABOUT BLACKMAGIC DESIGN

Blackmagic Design creates the world’s highest quality video editing products, digital film cameras, color correctors, video converters, video monitoring, routers, live production switchers, disk recorders, waveform monitors and real time film scanners for the feature film, post production and television broadcast industries. Blackmagic Design’s DeckLink capture cards launched a revolution in quality and affordability in post production, while the company’s Emmy™ award winning DaVinci color correction products have dominated the television and film industry since 1984. Blackmagic Design continues ground breaking innovations including 6G-SDI and 12G-SDI products and stereoscopic 3D and Ultra HD workflows. Founded by world leading post production editors and engineers, Blackmagic Design has offices in the USA, UK, Japan, Singapore and Australia. For more information, please go to www.blackmagicdesign.com/uk

