Back in July of last year, we teamed up with Vision Research to announce a special contest centering around their newest high-speed camera, the Phantom Miro M320S. We put out a call for proposals, encouraging image-makers and artists of all disciplines to submit creative ideas that took full advantage of the unique features of the Miro. The grand prize? A brand new Phantom Miro package, courtesy of Vision Research.

At our recent AbelCine EXPO: Innovations in Lighting, cinematographer David Mullen, ASC spoke about the more unusual lighting challenges from some of the feature films and television series he has photographed. In the excerpt above, David explains how he dealt with the stylized photographing of an exterior daytime landscape that was actually a huge indoor set while shooting The Smell of Success.

On November 20, AbelCine held the first event in its new EXPO series: Filters for Digital Cinema. Tiffen, Schneider Optics, and Formatt participated and scores of clients attended or watched via Livestream. One of the more significant discussions was on the topic of IR pollution control.

AbelCine worked with action cinematographer Jim Geduldick on a project to test an early release version of the new Phantom Miro M320S camera. Jim produced and directed a test shoot at Camp Woodward in Pennsylvania, which involved skateboarders, BMX, and dirt bike riders from all over the east coast. Camp Woodward is an amazing facility that began over thirty years ago and has helped define "extreme sports" for several generations since.

It's been another exciting year in our industry, with lots of evolutionary and revolutionary changes. Many of the trends we've seen coming for the past several years came to fruition in 2011, leaving some to wonder what comes next. Let's take a look back and see if it can help inform us a bit on what's to come in 2012.