DP Ben Saffer chose the URSA Cine 12K LF’s large sensor and colour science for a film that uses light and shadow to capture wide landscapes and the relationships between young siblings.
Cinematographer Ben Saffer and Director Caitlin McLeod have collaborated on a short film with a story that focusses on childhood relationships. Ben’s main concern for the project was to capture the emotional nuances and the landscapes central to the production.
Simply titled Dog, the film’s main characters are three siblings growing up in the north of England. “Their parents are present but distant, and leave the kids to figure things out for themselves. It’s a lovely script that follows the challenges the three of them encounter as they try to connect,” he said.
He has shot more than 50 short films and said he always aim for a fresh approach to storytelling. In particular, this project offered something unique. When he read the script, his instinct aligned with Caitlin’s idea of shooting on 16mm film. The story is set in the 1990s and with that time setting, the film called for a visual style that felt both nostalgic and grounded. However, Ben ultimately opted for the Blackmagic URSA Cine 12K LF digital film camera, a decision driven partly by practical needs.
Children, Landscapes and Shooting Digital
“Working with children means being flexible. Shooting digital would allow us to keep rolling and not miss anything and so, given the amount of time we wanted to be running camera, we chose to go down a digital path,” he noted. “Handheld shooting was also essential to keeping up with the young cast. The camera’s weight gave it a grounded feel, which I prefer for handheld work.”
The large format sensor captured the expansive Yorkshire landscapes, essential to the film’s tone. To soften the high resolution of the URSA Cine 12K LF, Ben paired it with Cooke S8i primes, using their forgiving nature to evoke a cinematic warmth. He said, “We shot close to wide open and let more light reach the sensor, creating a kind of intimate gentleness that balanced the camera’s sharpness. It gave us the nostalgic aesthetic we sought, filtered through my own memories of the ‘90s.”
Emotions in Light and Shadow
Central to the visual storytelling was Caitlin’s concept of ‘pools of light’, where characters move through shadows into isolated areas of illumination. “Caitlin wanted the lighting to feel functional rather than welcoming, which added to the emotional distance in the story,” Ben said.
This approach is evident in the scenes when the children gather inside a tent. “The natural inclination was to light it warmly, like a holiday advert, but Caitlin wanted something colder and more distant. The production designer Liz Simpson used practical props from the farm to enhance this tone, while I worked with minimal lighting to create just enough shadow to evoke a sense of isolation,” he said.
With lighting equipment supplied from Panalux, Ben employed indirect lighting for interior scenes to create dynamic silhouettes. “In the farmhouse hallway, for instance, we lit through bedroom doors, which created the natural pools of light and interesting shadows Caitlin was interested in. This let us shape the environment subtly, while keeping the focus on the children,” he said.
“Rather than lighting the entire room, we could focus light through doorways or from the side to produce the shadow effects. The URSA handled these contrasts beautifully, capturing the silhouettes and illusion of depth in the images. The URSA Cine EVF was another advantage here, delivering an image so accurate I could light directly from it without needing a constant reference to an external monitor.”
In a key kitchen scene, Ben also took a minimal approach to lighting, allowing the camera’s sensitivity to work with natural shadows. The children gather at the table for dinner, and when their mother enters to serve them, her presence is felt but not directly seen. “We wanted the focus to remain on the kids while the background subtly fades away,” he commented.
URSA’s Colour Science with RAW Processing
The combination of high resolution and the Blackmagic RAW codec allowed enough flexibility for Ben to capture a crisp, but nuanced look that he describes as ‘almost like a memory’.
“The URSA Cine’s colour science was a key factor in our choice,” he said. The camera’s sensor records a large amount of colour data, and its film curve is designed to render skin tones and saturated colours in high contrast scenes in a satisfying way. This colour science applies to Blackmagic RAW image processing as well, preserving colour and dynamic range data from the sensor via metadata for use in post.
URSA Cine has an optical low pass filter matched to the sensor. Its IR filtering improves the far red colour response which, when combined with Blackmagic RAW processing, also preserves colour and image detail. “Blackmagic’s pipeline is straightforward and consistent, and allowed us to capture rich, beautiful skin tones and colour textures that felt true to the ‘90s setting,” said Ben.
Working with Blackmagic RAW and acquiring in 8K at Q1 (the RAW codec’s Constant Quality setting), Ben was able to optimise for high quality images throughout, while managing file sizes that suited the film’s indie budget. “BRAW is one of the best codecs available, offering a fantastic balance between quality and storage efficiency. It works in a short film budget while retaining everything we need in post,” he noted.
“The URSA allowed us to strike a balance between technical precision and emotional resonance, capturing both the vastness of the Yorkshire landscape and the intimacy of the characters’ journeys.” Currently in post production, Dog is scheduled for a 2025 festival release.
Netflix Approved Camera List
Blackmagic Design’s URSA Cine 12K LF digital film camera was recently added to the Netflix Approved Camera List. Officially titled Cameras and Image Capture: Requirements and Best Practices, the list sets out the capture requirements necessary for qualification as an approved camera by the streamer, including dynamic range, resolution, codec, workflow compatibility and other characteristics. Netflix requires 90% of a program’s final total runtime to be captured on approved cameras. The list already includes the Blackmagic Design URSA Mini Pro 4.6K G2 and Blackmagic URSA Mini Pro 12K OLPF among its approved systems. www.blackmagicdesign.com
