BlackMagic Design Goes Big at NAB2023
10,000 square feet didn’t seem like enough. There were people stacked on each other trying to get a look at the new products, watch demos of the new tools, and just take it all in. That was the scene at the Blackmagic Design booth at NAB this year. Massive!
The announcements from Blackmagic Design leading to NAB were massive and I questioned what they were going to be able to bring to the table at NAB or if they were just going to be pushing those releases from earlier. They brought it!
The new ATEM Television Studio 4K8 puts 8 inputs and 10 outputs in front of you in a switcher that does it all from Fairlight audio to the live streaming at the push of the button it’s all there. The third in the new ATEM family that was released this spring was impressive. This behemoth of a switcher is so simple to use that it can even be used like a webcam… seriously with all of the power that this monster has, if you want to do an 8 camera zoom meeting, you simply plug in a USB-c cable. If you are a new teacher and your admin wants to do a studio show, the ATEM series is an answered prayer and the 4K8 is a way for you to get started with a simple show and build to a major show with multiple cameras, use of the mix/effects buses, and more.
The thing that often gets left out of the conversation when it comes to the ATEM switchers in the classroom is the fact that it can be networked so you can have several students involved in a production and not just one. You could have a student sitting in front of the ATEM switching cameras, another on a computer mixing the audio, and another making sure the current graphic is loaded! The ATEMs are no joke and can really solve a lot of problems when it comes to how to build a studio show.
Prior to going to the studio to produce your show, if you need to edit content, check out Davinci Resolve. It’s a top of the line non-linear editor that is a must have.
Here’s why you need it:
It’s free
It’s powerful
It’s constantly being updated.
If you go with the studio version of Davinci Resolve, it’s only $295 per license. That’s extremely inexpensive for what you get. Once you buy it, it’s yours. No monthly fees. No reordering at the beginning of the school year… it’s yours!
Finally the last thing that I think was really important for your classroom when it comes to BlackMagic Design is the update to the Pocket Cinema Camera. The latest update allows you to shoot vertically in the camera. The footage will be meta tagged within the camera as vertically shot so when you drag the footage into your editor, the editor already knows how to set the footage up.
Make sure to listen to the episode of Teaching To The Test Pattern below for more from Blackmagic Design where Tom talks with Bob Caniglia from Blackmagic about what’s new for 2023.
If you are interested in Josh’s initial thoughts on the Blackmagic Pocket Cinema 6K G2, click this link.
Meet the Author, Tom White
Tom White is the Broadcast Engineer at Grady College of Journalism and Communication at the University of Georgia. Prior to that role, Tom taught at Morgan County High School and Rockdale Career Academy where he and his student produced thousands of live streams for sports, news, and community events. Tom’s program at the Rockdale Career Academy received the NFHS Network Program Of The Year in 2016 and his program at Morgan County High School received the New Program of the Year title in 2018. Tom has been a long time contributor to many publications and is the host of Teaching to The Test Pattern Podcast.
Adam, your resident IB film teacher, wants to help your students walk the talk. How understanding the Big 4 (mise-en-scene, editing, cinematography, and sound design) can transform student analysis and filmmaking.