Fremont, CA – November 18 – Blackmagic Design today announced that Christy Carlson Romano’s “Bucket List Bistro,” which airs twice a month on the Taste of Fox channel and Hulu, is shot using four Blackmagic Pocket Cinema Camera 6K digital film cameras. The camera setup is also used for Romano’s popular weekly YouTube series where she cooks, sings and reenacts famous scenes movie and TV scenes with her friends and family.
Christy Carlson Romano is an American actress and singer that is best known for her starring role on the popular Disney Channel sitcom “Even Stevens,” as the voice of “Kim Possible” and a number of Broadway roles, including starring as Belle in “Beauty and the Beast.” On “Bucket List Bistro,” Romano and her husband Brendan Rooney create international meals from her travel bucket list. The show, along with her own weekly YouTube series, is shot at the couple’s home in California with Pocket Cinema Camera 6Ks providing a mix of wide shots, close ups of the couple, and overhead shots of cooking being done.
“Bucket List Bistro” aims to provide an escape for people not able to travel and help them feel closer to the places they are hoping to visit. The eight part series began airing in August of 2020 and has quickly become a top viewed show, while Romano’s YouTube channel now has more than 237K subscribers and more than 12 million views.
“COVID-19 has made creating quality content difficult but not impossible. We knew we needed smaller cameras that could be positioned to give the viewer something beyond a static face shot, while also having a cinematic image. The Pocket Cinema Camera 6Ks met that need perfectly,” said Rooney.
“We also had to be conscious of budget and deadlines. We shot the first full season for less than $120K, which is not much for a four camera broadcast quality show. Not only are the Pocket Cinema Camera 6Ks affordable and fit in our budget, but they are incredibly reliable and let us focus on content versus costly reshoots,” he continued.
The show’s DP Matt Oliveira combines a mix of tripod and handheld rigs to shoot “Bucket List Bistro,” and has relied on the Pocket Cinema Camera 6Ks’ compact size to come up with a number of creative angles.
“The cameras have been an amazing tool and are very reliable to use. They give us the mobility to move extremely fast and because the cameras are a powerhouse in a compact form, we are able to easily attach them to an overhead rig and get out of sticks for some handheld shots, in general making the whole process a lot easier,” Oliveira said.
One angle in particular that has brought viewers right into the cooking process is the overhead shot looking straight down on the hands of the couple as they prepare and cook. Since the show is shot in their actual home kitchen and not on a studio set built with running power cords or room for extra crew in mind, Oliveira was faced with how to keep the cameras powered up and how to manage the overhead camera without interrupting the action.
He said, “For the overhead shot, we use a really lightweight rig set up, with a Pocket Cinema Camera 6K and a Canon 16-35mm lens. The camera is running on its own power supply the entire time, which gives us room to connect an HDMI cable running down to the monitors so we can frame the shot. Moreover, the Pocket Cinema Camera 6K can be managed remotely on an app. Having a camera that is compact and easily controlled has been really helpful.”
“When Christy and Brendan approached me to shoot this show, the first camera on my list was the Pocket Cinema Camera 6K. It’s the perfect camera for our show. These cameras made everything so easy and I would use them for almost everything. It’s hard to beat the Pocket Cinema Camera 6K from the price point, to all of the options the entire system offers,” Oliveira finished.
About Blackmagic Design
Blackmagic Design creates the world’s highest quality video editing products, digital film cameras, color correctors, video converters, video monitoring, routers, live production switchers, disk recorders, waveform monitors and real time film scanners for the feature film, post production and television broadcast industries. Blackmagic Design’s DeckLink capture cards launched a revolution in quality and affordability in post production, while the company’s Emmy™ award winning DaVinci color correction products have dominated the television and film industry since 1984. Blackmagic Design continues ground breaking innovations including 6G-SDI and 12G-SDI products and stereoscopic 3D and Ultra HD workflows. Founded by world leading post production editors and engineers, Blackmagic Design has offices in the USA, UK, Japan, Singapore and Australia. For more information, please go to www.blackmagicdesign.com.
