Skate lines to storylines

Long before he was shooting commercials and documentaries, Mason spent his days at the skatepark with a camera in hand. “I discovered cinematography through my love of skateboarding,” he says. “I was the skater who always wanted to film the tricks and get a bunch of different angles.” What began as a hobby with friends steadily grew into a full‑time career. Today, Mason is a cinematographer based in Minnesota, working at an advertising agency where he films everything from broadcast commercials to documentaries, short films, and testimonials.

His go-to setup is the Sony FX3 camera with anamorphic lenses, paired with the Ninja monitor-recorder. “The desqueeze features on the Ninja have played a big role in making it possible for me to film with anamorphic lenses,” he explains. The monitor has also helped keep everyone on set aligned. “Another thing that makes these monitors so great is being able to hand one to a director or client so they can see the actual image themselves. It’s a simple way to make sure everyone is seeing the same thing, which has made our workflow noticeably smoother.”

Recording in ProRes RAW has changed the way Mason thinks about image quality. With Ninja, he can capture high-quality 12-bit footage from the FX3, giving him greater color depth and flexibility in post. “I’m always trying to get the highest quality out of my image and the Ninja lets me do that,” he says. Capturing in ProRes RAW gives him the latitude he needs when shooting in difficult lighting conditions, especially during sunrise and sunset shoots. “You get harsh exposure contrast between the subject and the sky, so having that extra color depth to pull back bright highlights is huge.”

Audio is another area where Ninja has helped him work more efficiently. “Being able to record an audio source straight to my Ninja has been amazing,” Mason says. With an XLR adaptor, he can run a shotgun microphone into the monitor while recording a second source into the camera body. “This gives me two inputs and four tracks of audio. It’s a clever setup that saves time and keeps things simple, especially for interviews where I need both a shotgun and a lavalier mic.”

“Atomos has helped elevate my work and given me the ability to capture images I never thought were possible.”