Cinematographers are, at heart, geeks, so no surprise that there are now a handful of iPhone apps popping up aimed at hands-on filmmakers.
There are two such apps from Chemical Wedding.
Helios graphically predicts the path of the sun from dusk to dawn, on any given day, in any given place. That’s not only useful to cinematographers and still photographers but also to grips, gaffers, production designers, 1st assistant directors -- as well as architects, artists, landscape designers, surveyors and anyone else who needs to know exactly where the sun will be at specific times.
Since the app is based on algorithms created by the National Renewable Energy Laboratory and the National Geophysical Data Center to predict the sun’s movement, it’s accurate “to a tiny fraction of a degree.”
Also from Chemical Wedding is Artemis, a digital director’s viewfinder.
Tired of carrying that clunky thing around your neck? Go digital -- iPhone-app style -- with Artemis, which, says Chemical Wedding’s Toby Evetts, “works in much the same way as a traditional directors viewfinder, although it’s much more accurate and much more convenient.”
How does it work? The user selects a camera format, aspect ratio and lens type, and then Artemis uses the camera in the iPhone to simulate the lens view that you can expect with the configuration you’ve selected. There is one caveat. Field coverage is limited to the field of view of the iPhone camera which, says Evetts, is “more or less the equivalent of 27mm in Super 35mm.”
He says they are exploring the use of a supplementary wide-angle lens to extend the coverage to include at least 18mm and perhaps as much as the 14mm. The price for each app is $29.95.
