Since the Sony BURANO 8K Digital Cinema Camera was added to Urban Cine's fleet of cameras, five Filmmakers we asked to share their thoughts on using the camera.

A common denominator was that they were all looking for a big budget look without the big budget spend.

Dancing Dragon

Director - Grace Liu / DP - Grace Liu, Producer – Wei Gao

Mark, a fallen Aussie Rules footballer rediscovers his spirit through an unexpected encounter with a Chinese dragon dance team.  As he hesitantly steps into their vibrant world and begins to realise that healing isn’t about erasing the past, but about choosing to move forward.

Grace's thoughts on the Burano

Shooting Dancing Dragon on the Sony BURANO was both a challenge and a joy. The footage looked incredible, and the X-OCN codec was a lifesaver for a micro-budget film — it kept the workflow smooth and the storage costs down.

What surprised us most was how compact and mobile the camera was; we could throw it on lightweight rigs and still get those energetic, moving shots essential for a dragon dance. Plus, having in-body stabilisation on a PL-mount camera was a game changer.

We mixed NiSi Athena Primes, Sony GM lenses, and some vintage glass, swapping between PL and E mounts to give the story a mix of looks and textures.

Mockbuster

Director - Anthony Frith / DP - Maxx Corkindale

Local filmmaker Anthony Frith lands a gig with The Asylum, the studio behind Sharknado. Tasked with directing a schlock film, The Land That Time Forgot, in Adelaide on a shoestring budget, he turns the camera on himself, filming a behind-the-scenes documentary. Both productions will push their director to the brink.

Maxx's thoughts on the Burano

The camera has some very useful features, like being able to shoot in Super35 in 5.8K Raw LT! Good for documentary work, where you want a balance of really good quality and also data saving where you can. And it can seamlessly cut in with other cameras in the Sony family.

Mockbuster and The Land That Time Forgot both premiere at the Adelaide Film Festival October 15 to 26.

The Red

Director - Zac Steele / DP – Kris Jenkinson

Elysius, a morally conflicted young man and his equally disturbed mentor (Strax), learn to understand an ability known as “The Red” whilst on the run from a group of malevolent beings called “Reapers”.

Kris' thoughts on the Burano

Shooting The Red on the Burano was about creating a controlled, atmospheric look where shadow played as much of a role as light. We worked almost entirely in low-light environments and the camera’s ability to hold detail in the darker areas was a standout.

The base ISO of 3200 became one of the most useful tools on set. It gave us the flexibility to push into darker setups without introducing noise while still protecting highlights when a scene demanded more contrast. For horror, where the line between too much and too little light is razor thin, that balance was crucial.

Mind Awake, Body Asleep

Directors - Lucas Bugeja & Matthew Bugeja / DP - Carl Swart

Desperate to contact his dead brother again, Jake turns to the practice of astral projection. Despite the protests of others, Jake spirals into a dangerous odyssey he may not return from.

Thoughts on using the camera

The decision to use the Sony Burano came from the want for a camera that had great low light capability; could capture high resolution for post effects; and pair well with other available B cameras for action work – in this case, the Sony FX3.

The Burano was used in RAW 6k for most of the film. The film takes place entirely at night, and so we really appreciated the low light capabilities of this camera. Despite much lower native ISOs than the FX3, the amount of data recoverable from the shadows far exceeds the FX line, and the noise pattern is much tighter and easier to clean up in Davinci Resolve. The Sony BRAW format has been really responsive in the edit suite as well.

We would highly recommend the Sony Burano for any short or feature projects going forward.

Whispers - Adelaide Ballet

Run Wild Productions / DP – Scott Baskett

Shoot background plates for the latest Adelaide Ballet show, "Murray Whispers". The show was to be performed at ILA - Immersive Light and Art, Adelaide in front of their virtual production wall. The specs of the virtual production wall are 10416 x 1512, stretching 24 meters wide and 3.5 meters tall (a very extremely wide aspect ratio). We were to create an environment that felt like it immersed the dancers within the environment that the plates were of - effectively bringing the audience to the Riverland (the setting for the performance).

Scott’s thoughts on the Burano

The Burano was amazing! We coupled it with a quiver of lenses, ranging from extreme wides of 10mm to Zeiss Compact Primes @ 35mm and 50mm. The challenge of the shoot was that we needed to shoot landscapes at focal lengths beyond infinity while only using less than a quarter of the height of a normal 16:9 ratio. Being able to maximise that quality of the 8k format of the Burano at full spec meant we could push the end footage as far as possible in post, allowing us to do additional compositing seamlessly also.

* Adelaide Ballet Photography by Hugo Ramirez

The Sony BURANO is a great fit for solo-shooters and indie productions alike.

If you are looking for that next step in image quality without sacrificing the ergonomics that you loved in the FX6 and FX9, then explore the Burano.

I look forward to assisting you with your next production.

Bye for now

Pete