URSA Cine 17K 65 Captures Images of Triumph for Southern Cancer Center
Powerful campaign uses URSA Cine 17K 65 across broadcast, social media, newspaper and magazine deliverables.
Blackmagic Design today announced that creative agency Craftshow Digital relied on the Blackmagic URSA Cine 17K 65 digital film camera to bring an honest and unfiltered advertising campaign to life for Alabama’s Southern Cancer Center, capturing powerful narratives of patients navigating cancer with honesty, clarity and respect. The campaign included 17 video spots appearing on broadcast television, YouTube, Meta and digital OTT ads throughout Alabama, Florida and Mississippi, as well as high resolution still imagery for print newspaper and magazine advertisements.
As Creative Director and Co Founder of Mobile, AL based Craftshow Digital, Drew Hall spans narrative, documentary and commercial production in his work. Southern Cancer Center, a community based multidisciplinary oncology practice, hired Hall and his team to create a series of narrative driven spots focused on stories of triumph, not promising a cure, but instead presenting an authentic portrait of life during and after therapy.
“We wanted to showcase a reality,” said Hall. “These are human stories, and the campaign needed to feel grounded, respectful and cinematic.”
While the emotional tone drove the creative direction, the technical demands of the campaign ultimately led Hall to choose the URSA Cine 17K 65. Originally planning to only test the URSA Cine 17K 65’s capabilities, Hall and his team were so impressed by the camera’s image quality that they decided to use the footage they captured in the finished campaign.
“We didn’t expect such incredible results, as we’ve worked with cameras at significantly higher price points, but the URSA Cine 17K’s clarity and resolution were unlike anything we’d seen,” said Hall. “Knowing we could shoot 17K for print pulls, then seamlessly move to 8K or 4K for shots not intended for print, gave us a level of flexibility that genuinely affected the final work.”
Hall highlighted the impact of the camera’s production focused design, including the side monitor, which helped streamline the pace of the shoot.
“As I was directing and shooting from the dolly, my first AC was able to prep the camera for the next take without having to clear me out of the way,” Hall noted. “That efficiency detail seems small, but it bought us extra takes and variations we wouldn’t have otherwise had. I’ve used them all, and this is hands down the most production friendly camera in years. Every camera team member said at least once, ‘Oh my gosh, I love this camera.’”
Post production for the Southern Cancer Center campaign was handled entirely in DaVinci Resolve Studio.
“We are a 100 percent DaVinci Resolve house. We assemble, edit, cut, color, mix and deliver from a single DRP file,” Hall explained. “That united workflow saves us an enormous amount of time and allows us to stay creative instead of getting bogged down in the minutia of transforming timelines. I have not edited anything outside of DaVinci Resolve since 2021.”
Outside of the Southern Cancer Center project, Hall has been using a Blackmagic URSA Broadcast G2 camera for years, from narrative work to high concept documentaries.
“The URSA Broadcast G2 is one of my favorites,” Hall said. “It just simply works. The menus are intuitive, the audio setup is incredibly simple, and it allows us to focus on the storytelling rather than technical hurdles.”
Hall concluded, “The emphasis Blackmagic Design puts on intuitiveness, user operability and integration between products from production to post is mind blowing.”
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