Electronic music duo Bob Moses used an end-to-end production pipeline that featured seven Blackmagic PYXIS 12K digital film cameras and a URSA Cine 12K LF digital film camera, which allowed the production to leverage matching 12K sensors with 16 stops of dynamic range to deliver stunning image quality for a cinematic live production. 

Produced by Denver-based Butter Creations, the event was shot in 3:2 anamorphic open gate, which was the team’s main goal according to Butter Creations’ Founder and Director of Photography Tomas Morgan. Having used numerous Blackmagic Design products previously, Morgan noted that the URSA Cine 12K LF sensor was their top choice for the project. “The 3:2 open gate on the URSA Cine 12K and PYXIS 12K sensors was the unlock for this whole project,” he noted. “Shooting anamorphic on a sensor that gives you that much real estate meant we could deliver a true 2.25:1 image, without throwing away resolution—and still have headroom for reframing in post.”

Morgan explained that he felt this was a good opportunity to demonstrate the capabilities of the 12K sensor in a live music environment. The sensor design produced clean footage, while the cameras provided the flexibility to shoot in whatever aspect ratio, resolution, and compression that the team wanted.

The show employed six camera operators plus a drone, with Morgan and Engineer John Houston producing the show, and Alex Kolb directing. The cameras were paired with a combination of zoom and anamorphic lenses, with video run down fiber lines using Mini Converters Optical Fiber 12Gs on both ends. They were then fed into an ATEM 2 M/E Constellation 4K live production switcher, controlled by an ATEM 1 M/E Advanced Panel, in the control room that contained additional Blackmagic Design live production gear, inclluding Blackmagic Micro Converters BiDirectional SDI/HDMI, an UltraStudio HD Mini capture and playback device for graphics, HyperDeck Studio HD Mini broadcast decks for line cut and ISO recordings, and a SmartView 12G monitor.

According to Morgan, “The broadcast side of the flypack is just second nature at this point and works without question. The ATEM 2 M/E Constellation 4K paired with the ATEM Advanced Panel just stays out of our way and lets the director be creative in the moment instead of fighting with the switcher.” 

The fiber ecosystem allowed them to run 12G over fiber with the Optical Fiber Converters, which meant that they could put cameras wherever the show needed without worrying about cable runs. This is especially helpful at a venue the size of Red Rocks.

Butter Creations is currently in post-production on a full-length concert film for the Bob Moses show, using DaVinci Resolve Studio editing, color grading, visual effects (VFX) and audio post-production software. Morgan noted, “We're using the built in multicamera switching feature in DaVinci Resolve Studio. We built macros to enable the number of cameras we needed as preset keyboard shortcuts. Even working with multiple 12K camera files in a multicam timeline, playback on our MacBook Pro M2 Max is shockingly smooth, allowing us to maintain a real time editing experience without relying on proxies or reducing resolution.”

Bob Moses and Twitch both gave the team the creative freedom to simply make something awesome. “I knew the Blackmagic Design ecosystem very well going into it and, as expected, the gear stayed out of our way during the creative process,” Morgan said.

For information: 

Blackmagic Design 

PYXIS 12K

URSA Cine 12K LF

Butter Creations

Bob Moses 

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