Fan Chao shoots feature film ‘Dream Forest’ with Blackmagic cameras

Der Schwarze Magie URSA Mini Pro 4.6K G2, Blackmagic Pocket Cinema Camera 4K and Blackmagic URSA Mini 4.6K have been used by director Fan Chao and cinematographer An Chuncheng to bring the Chinese feature film ‘Dream Forest’ to life.

Chao leads this story starring Niu Ben, Du Yuan, Shi Ke and Ma Su that tells the story of an autistic boy and his family’s tireless efforts to fulfil his dreams with the help of various members of society. Chuncheng, the film’s cinematographer, used up to four Blackmagic cameras on the shoot: two URSA Mini Pro 4.6K G2 as the main units, a Pocket Cinema Camera 4K model as a secondary unit, which was mounted on sliders and vehicles to capture special angles thanks to its compact size, and a URSA Mini 4.6K mounted on a Steadicam system for the moving shots.

One of Chuncheng’s goals was to try to recreate a 16mm effect with the cameras in order to reproduce “delicate emotions” in the style of the film Carol. Right from the start, the DoP knew that the Blackmagic solution could help him achieve this goal on Dream Forest: “I have been using URSA Mini 4.6K since 2016, and I am very familiar with the image quality and characteristics of the camera. I was confident that the URSA Mini Pro 4.6K G2 camera, which inherited the filmic look and 15 stops of dynamic range from the original model while getting new features, such as high frame rate recording and internal ND filters, would be capable of handling the production.”

Chuncheng and Chao decided to equip the cameras with older lenses to pursue the aesthetics they had imagined in their heads. Similarly, they took advantage of specific features of Blackmagic’s shooting solutions, such as the six LUTs it created in DaVinciResolve Studio for “different atmospheres” and to create “colour consistency” between the cameras; the neutral density filters of the URSA Mini Pro 4.6K G2 model, which made it possible to “reduce exposure in outdoor scenes”; and the false colour function, with which the Dream Forest team could more precisely control exposure.

Pocket Cinema Camera 4K at Dream Forest

In addition to the two URSA Mini Pro 4.6K G2s, Dream Forest, which was released on 1 April, featured the Pocket Cinema Camera 4K as a secondary camera. The Chuncheng team took advantage of the camera’s small dimensions and its micro four-thirds mount’s adaptability to shoot various situational shots. On returning to the digital imaging technician’s room to copy the footage that night, the main shots were visualised by applying a stylised LUT to them. The filmmakers were pleased with the exceptional image quality offered by such a small unit and used it with more confidence in subsequent shots.

The film was shot in 26 days during a particularly hot summer, but the four cameras withstood the high temperatures and constant use without any hiccups in their operation: “Many indoor scenes were shot with closed windows and doors to preserve the smoke and location sound, so the temperature was also very high, and some of the shoots lasted more than thirty hours continuously,” says the cinematographer.

Once the shooting phase was complete, colourist Lyu Hongtao was in charge of colour grading the film using DaVinci Resolve Studio in conjunction with the DaVinci Resolve Mini Panel device.