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Digital Bolex was a partnership between Cinemeridian, Inc. and Ienso Canada, an engineering company, to develop the Digital Bolex D16
digital cinema Digital cinema refers to adoption of digital technology within the film industry to distribute or project motion pictures as opposed to the historical use of reels of motion picture film, such as 35 mm film. Whereas film reels have to be ...
camera. Development was funded via a successful
Kickstarter Kickstarter is an American public benefit corporation based in Brooklyn, New York, that maintains a global crowdfunding platform focused on creativity. The company's stated mission is to "help bring creative projects to life". As of July 2021, ...
in March 2012, raising $262,661. On June 27, 2016, the company announced on its website that it would no longer be producing cameras as of that month, and would shut down its online store on June 30, 2016.


Company profile

Digital Bolex is headquartered in
Downtown Los Angeles Downtown Los Angeles (DTLA) contains the central business district of Los Angeles. In addition, it contains a diverse residential area of some 85,000 people, and covers . A 2013 study found that the district is home to over 500,000 jobs. It is a ...
and Toronto, Canada. Cameras were designed and manufactured in Canada.


Name

In 2012, Cinemeridian licensed the named Bolex from
Bolex Bolex International S. A. is a Swiss manufacturer of motion picture cameras based in Yverdon located in Canton of Vaud. The most notable products of which are in the 16 mm and Super 16 mm formats. Originally Bol, the company was founded by ...
International, the Swiss camera company that created the first consumer 16mm film camera, the H16, in 1927. The name Bolex is derived from that of its inventor, Jacques Bogopolsky. The Digital Bolex D16 is named after the H16.


History (2011–present)

The Digital Bolex was initially developed as a side project of CEO Joseph Rubinstein's LA-based photo booth company Polite in Public. Rubinstein wanted to develop a video booth that would require a raw-capable video camera under $10,000. He decided to start a new company to pursue the endeavor in early 2011, and partnered with Canadian design firm Ienso in summer of 2011 to produce the first prototype camera. In Fall of 2011, Rubinstein hired
USC USC most often refers to: * University of South Carolina, a public research university ** University of South Carolina System, the main university and its satellite campuses ** South Carolina Gamecocks, the school athletic program * University of ...
grad and filmmaker Elle Schneider to co-develop the camera. Both film school graduates, Schneider and Rubinstein collaborated on a short film entitled ''One Small Step'' to test their prototype. The film premiered at the Short Film Corner of the 2012
Cannes Film Festival The Cannes Festival (; french: link=no, Festival de Cannes), until 2003 called the International Film Festival (') and known in English as the Cannes Film Festival, is an annual film festival held in Cannes, France, which previews new films ...
. Digital Bolex announced its camera at the 2012
SXSW Film Festival South by Southwest, abbreviated as SXSW and colloquially referred to as South By, is an annual conglomeration of parallel film, interactive media, and music festivals and conferences organized jointly that take place in mid-March in Austin, Te ...
where it had a trade show booth. Unable to announce the licensing of the Bolex name before the event, they are listed in the festival catalog as Cinemeridian.


Kickstarter

Rubinstein and Schneider announced their collaboration with Bolex via the
Kickstarter Kickstarter is an American public benefit corporation based in Brooklyn, New York, that maintains a global crowdfunding platform focused on creativity. The company's stated mission is to "help bring creative projects to life". As of July 2021, ...
crowdfunding platform on March 12, 2012. Billed "the first affordable digital cinema camera", the project came to the attention of notable film bloggers Philip Bloom and
Stu Maschwitz Stuart T. Maschwitz, commonly known as Stu Maschwitz, was the co-founder and chief technology officer of The Orphanage, a visual effects company that was based in California. He has worked as senior visual effects supervisor on several films. ...
, and by the campaign's second day the $100,000 goal had been met. Within the first 48 hours the campaign exceeded $250,000 and the limited run of 100 cameras had been sold. Rubinstein and Schneider have said they purposely limited the number of cameras to 100 in order to avoid the manufacturing delays that had plagued other runaway
crowdfunding Crowdfunding is the practice of funding a project or venture by raising money from a large number of people, typically via the internet. Crowdfunding is a form of crowdsourcing and alternative finance. In 2015, over was raised worldwide by cro ...
successes. As of December 2012, the Digital Bolex was one of the top 50 Kickstarter campaigns of all time, alongside the Oculus Rift,
Double Fine Adventure ''Broken Age'' is a point-and-click adventure video game developed and published by Double Fine. ''Broken Age'' was game director Tim Schafer's first return to the genre since 1998's '' Grim Fandango'', and was released for Microsoft Windows, ma ...
, and Pebble watch, all of which were profiled by
CNN Money CNN Business (formerly CNN Money) is a financial news and information website, operated by CNN. The website was originally formed as a joint venture between CNN.com and Time Warner's '' Fortune'' and ''Money'' magazines. Since the spin-off of Time ...
for their late deliveries. The Digital Bolex had an original estimated delivery date of August 2012, and cameras began to ship in December 2013. The Digital Bolex received a large amount of press in print and on the web during and after its launch, including stories by
Mashable Mashable is a digital media platform, news website and entertainment company founded by Pete Cashmore in 2005. History Mashable was founded by Pete Cashmore while living in Aberdeen, Scotland, in July 2005. Early iterations of the site were a ...
, Engadget,
PBS The Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) is an American public broadcaster and non-commercial, free-to-air television network based in Arlington, Virginia. PBS is a publicly funded nonprofit organization and the most prominent provider of educati ...
,
CNET ''CNET'' (short for "Computer Network") is an American media website that publishes reviews, news, articles, blogs, podcasts, and videos on technology and consumer electronics globally. ''CNET'' originally produced content for radio and telev ...
,
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and Intel's The Creator's Project, and
Wired ''Wired'' (stylized as ''WIRED'') is a monthly American magazine, published in print and online editions, that focuses on how emerging technologies affect culture, the economy, and politics. Owned by Condé Nast, it is headquartered in San Fran ...
. With 440 backers and $262,661 raised, the Digital Bolex Kickstarter had an unusually high average pledge of $597, nearly twice the average pledge of similar Kickstarter project Oculus Rift ($256 average pledge) and four times the average pledge of the
Ouya The Ouya ( ), stylized as OUYA, is an Android-based microconsole developed by Ouya Inc. Julie Uhrman founded the project in 2012, bringing in designer Yves Béhar to collaborate on its design and Muffi Ghadiali as VP of Product Management to ...
game console ($136). With 77 backers pledging $2,500 each, the Digital Bolex may have the highest median pledge of any Kickstarter project.


End of production June 2016

On June 27, 2016, the company announced on its website that it would no longer be producing cameras as of that month, and would shut down its online store on June 30, 2016. After the company made the announcement the remaining 50 to 60 cameras sold out in just two days. Digital Bolex founder Joe Rubinstein has said there is a possibility for the product to be relaunched but it would require new investment.


Products


D16 cinema camera

The Digital Bolex camera was the second camera to feature Adobe's
CinemaDNG CinemaDNG is the result of an Adobe-led initiative to define an industry-wide open file format for digital cinema files.Adobe Press ReleaseAdobe Starts Initiative to Develop Open Format for Digital Cinema Files CinemaDNG caters for sets of movie cl ...
open RAW file format after the Swedish-made Ikonoskop which debuted in 2008. Both cameras use a Kodak-designed CCD sensor. The Digital Bolex D16 shoots raw still frames per second instead of a traditional video stream. In addition to its raw capabilities, the camera is notable for its Super 16mm sized sensor, allowing the usage of vintage 16mm lenses with no crop, and its unique crank wheel encoder. The Digital Bolex is the only digital cinema camera with a native
C mount A C mount is a type of lens mount commonly found on 16 mm movie cameras, closed-circuit television cameras, machine vision cameras and microscope phototubes. C-mount lenses provide a male thread, which mates with a female thread on the camera. ...
, a nod to the original Bolex 16mm film cameras. The Digital Bolex was the first-announced camera aimed at the consumer market to offer a 2K recording resolution, however competitor
Blackmagic Design Blackmagic Design Pty Ltd. is an Australian digital cinema company and hardware manufacturer based in Port Melbourne, Victoria, Australia. It designs and manufactures broadcast and cinema hardware, most notably high-end digital-movie cameras, ...
started shipping its Blackmagic Cinema Camera (announced a month later at the 2012
National Association of Broadcasters The National Association of Broadcasters (NAB) is a trade association and lobby group representing the interests of commercial and non-commercial over-the-air radio and television broadcasters in the United States. The NAB represents more tha ...
convention in Las Vegas) in December 2012, one year before the Digital Bolex began to ship.


D16M monochrome

At the 2014
National Association of Broadcasters The National Association of Broadcasters (NAB) is a trade association and lobby group representing the interests of commercial and non-commercial over-the-air radio and television broadcasters in the United States. The NAB represents more tha ...
convention, Digital Bolex announced it would begin selling a monochrome cinema camera, the D16M. The D16M is one of a few dedicated monochromatic cinema cameras developed in the last few years. Other monochrome cameras have been created by
RED Red is the color at the long wavelength end of the visible spectrum of light, next to orange and opposite violet. It has a dominant wavelength of approximately 625–740 nanometres. It is a primary color in the RGB color model and a secondary ...
, Leica, and Ikonoskop. The first units shipped in July 2014.


Kish/Bolex Series 1 primes

Digital Bolex released its first series of lenses online in September 2014.


Digital Bolex in use

The Digital Bolex has been used in mainstream film and television, including Netflix series '' Hemlock Grove'', Fox series '' Glee'', a
Kelly Rowland Kelendria Trene Rowland (born February 11, 1981) is an American singer, actress, and television personality. She rose to fame in the late 1990s as a member of Destiny's Child, one of the world's best-selling girl groups of all time. During the g ...
music video directed by Spike Lee, and an
Airbnb Airbnb, Inc. ( ), based in San Francisco, California, operates an online marketplace focused on short-term homestays and experiences. The company acts as a broker and charges a commission from each booking. The company was founded in 2008 by ...
commercial directed by '' Bombay Beach'' filmmaker
Alma Har'el Alma Har'el ( he, עלמה הראל) is an Israeli-American music video and film director. She is best known for her 2019 feature film debut ''Honey Boy (film), Honey Boy'', for which she won a Directors Guild of America Award for Outstanding Dir ...
. Rubinstein, Schneider, and the Digital Bolex are subjects in the documentary ''Beyond the Bolex'', a biographical film about Bolex founder Jacques Bogopolsky (later anglicized to Bolsey), directed by his great-grand daughter Alyssa Bolsey.


See also

*
16 mm film 16 mm film is a historically popular and economical gauge of film. 16 mm refers to the width of the film (about inch); other common film gauges include 8 and 35 mm. It is generally used for non-theatrical (e.g., industrial, educ ...
*
CinemaDNG CinemaDNG is the result of an Adobe-led initiative to define an industry-wide open file format for digital cinema files.Adobe Press ReleaseAdobe Starts Initiative to Develop Open Format for Digital Cinema Files CinemaDNG caters for sets of movie cl ...


References

{{reflist, 2


External links


Official Website

Digital Bolex Kickstarter Campaign
Digital cameras Movie camera manufacturers Kickstarter-funded products Products introduced in 2013 Manufacturing companies based in Los Angeles Manufacturing companies based in Toronto Companies based in Ontario Digital movie cameras Cinematography Lens manufacturers