Who needs textbooks and seminars when you have online resources and presentations as good as those by David Tames of Kino-Eye?
David has made his amazingly detailed presentations on topics such as Web Video 2.0, Documentary Lighting and Interview Technique freely availible on his website. This set of presentation slides in PDF format are an absolutly invaluable resource for novice and pro video makers alike. Accompanying them is also some highly detailed notes and back up resources related to Video on the Web and Interviewing subjects. In particular David's presentation on lighting is virtualy the only textbook you'll ever need on the principles of low budget lighting.
Here's a lovely little quote: "If you think that the HV20's 24P mode makes video look like film, run,
don't walk, to an optician. Maybe to a psychiatrist as well!"
And it seems Stefan has dug up a host of comrades in his tirade...
Peter Inova says, "The real-world need for 24p HD video is smaller than the need for another hole in your head."
And
Larry Jordan. "consider spending your money on a 1/4 warm black ProMist camera lens
filter and improving your lighting, both of which will do far more to
improve your look than shooting 24 fps."
Perhaps Im not the only one who loves the Look of Video....
Circumventing MAC/WIN hard drive format incompatability
One of the last great pains in the arse for PC Mac compatibility is Hard Drive format. Where virtually all other hurdles of cross platform compatibility have been leveled over the past few years, Hard Drive format remains a significant obstacle.
The native format for the Mac is HFS+ and for reasons best known to Microsoft drives formatted in HFS+ cannot be read, written to or even seen by a Windows OS.
The native format for Windows is NTFS and for reasons best known to Apple NTFS drive can be opened and read from on the Mac but cannot be written to. This is obviously a better situation than HFS+ on Windows but still dysfunctional.
The much older FAT32 hard drive format is fully cross platform but comes with a highly problematic short coming; 4gb file size limit for individual files. Since a simple 5min lossless 422 video file will exceed this FAT32 is simply not functional for video producers.
All is not lost however and simple freeware utility might be the answer to your cross platform woes. HFSXplorer allows for HFS+ formatted drives to be mounted and seen on Windows and files copied over to a local NTFS partition or drive.
Until Microsoft and Apple cease their pissing contest this simple software is a very effective solution for cross platform file transportation; especially for those running BootCamp.
Avid's 'New Thinking' isnt 'new' to anyone but themselves.
The news that Avid were discontinuing their Xpress Pro line came as a surprise to noone. Consolidation of their absurdly varied and disjointed product line was a no-brainer business decision that should have been made a long time ago.
Similarly the big price drop for the remaining Media Composer (software only) system was also written on the wall for some time. Economic physics dictates that offering a product on the market that does Nothing more than any of the other players on the field, but charging twice as much for it, is never going to do well. Consumers are often stupid but theyre not THAT stupid. The new breed of media-makers have been voting with their feet away from Avid for the better part of a decade, the price point obviously wasnt helping.
That Avid has massively cut the academic price for Media Composer is also a move that can hardly be seen as bold. Software developers have been using the drug-dealers strategy of get em hooked while their young and theyll buy from you for life for (literally) decades. Apple, Adobe, Sony have all been working the education market hard fro many years and have reaped the benefits (to Avids detriment) as a result.
That Avid have launched a new online support portal for Avid users that utilizes a peer/user ranking system to rate the usefulness of posts and tutorials is positively laughable for its lack of vision. Where have you been Avid? The rest of the digital production world has been fully engaged developer-sponsored, on-line peer-exchange for years. Welcome to the 21st century, we hope you enjoy your stay.
This set of changes have been termed by the geniuses at Avid HQ as New Thinking
With a startling lack of newness the only people who will find anything New in this 'New Thinking' are existing Avid users living in the Avid silo who havnt yet peered over the bubble's edge to see the brave new world outside of the cloistered Avid mentality.
Free utilities that make the production suite sweet.
When setting up a computer system for post-production work its easy to focus on the big tools; the NLE's, DAW's, Imaging and Authoring systems. But very often the tools that really make production workflow efficient, flexible and successful are the small utilities and add-ons, many of which are free.
Here's my latest list of free utilities for production.
Mpeg streamclip Cross platform encoding tool that is extremely effective. Will read program and transport stream formats and transcode to a host of MOV and AVI wrapped files.
DVD Shrink Shrink is the long standing Windows-based tool for ripping and recompressing DVD's. Of course many may use such a tool for illegal copies but with a good feature for selective DVD extraction its perfect for extracting individual scene clips. Such clips are great as examples for developing a films design or for those teaching filmmaking to demonstrate techniques and ideas.
Mac the ripper For Mac users who don't have access to shrink Mac the Ripper is your best option for DVD extraction. Though it lacks the detailed extraction of Shrink it can rip by DVD chapters.
VLC When you've finally hit the wall and can no longer tolerate the absurdities and incopetantcies of the QuickTime player (like its inability recognize widescreen anamorphic flags) move yourself on to VLC and never look back. VLC pays just about every format known to humankind. No mess, no fuss, just a better media player for all OS's. Lean, mean and effective.
Java aspect ratio calculator This is a simple java app that runs directly without installing and allows you to quickly calculate pixel dimensions based on 4:3 and 16:9 aspect ratios. Just plug in a horizontal measurement and the utility will calculate the vertical dimension (or vise versa). Great for scaling videos for online deliver in correct ratios. Cross-platform.
Video space widget For Mac users the Digital Heaven VideoSpace calculator runs a very useful widget. Elect your video format (hdv, dvcpro, dv, prores, uncompressed, xdcamhd, imx) and the duration and the widget will do an immediate calculation o the fie size.
Gspot If you wrestle with online video, downloaded video and video scrounged in all manner of weird and wonderful codecs Gspot is your best friend. A simple drag and drop of the file will reveal everything you need to know about it - data rate, codec, format and what application you may need to open it. Windows only.
Following on from recent posts about the evolving cinematic language of title sequences and motion graphics, David Dunkley-Gyimah (of Viewmagazine fame) pointed me towards this interesting article from WIRED, an interview with Title Sequence guru Kyle Cooper - most famous for his seminal title sequences in such films as Se7en and Spiderman.
The article points towards the idea that all too often Cooper's title sequences are 'too good', better than the films they hearld deserve.
As a follow up to my previous post entitled 'I love the look of video' I felt a need to repost this superb response from Australian-based cinematographer John Brawley.
Whilst you could read his post in the 'Comments', I feared too many might miss it there and that it deserved a much more prominent spot with a chance for wider readership. John's response is insightful, challenging and distinctly articulate to my deliberately controversial post and presents an informed and broad-based perspective on the make up of Moving Image. It would a misrepresentation to think of this discussion as crudely about Film vs Digital. Its not. Its really about the creative impetuous for acquiring the moving image and valuing its techno-aesthetic qualities on a range of levels.
---
I actually couldn't agree more with the last paragraph. Why on earth
would you want something to look like film when it's clearly not.
Surely the best thing is to use a given acquisition technology that
best suits the story or delivery mode required.
Your assertion that digital images have no innate look in
themselves is not true however. Even the RAW data from a digital camera
is the product of it's sensor. And different manufactures make
different sensors. And they all have subtle differences. The idea that
that a digitally encoded image is *untainted* is simplistic. They all
have differing and measurable signal to noise levels, that will affect
the way the image is encoded. Colour science also differs from each
manufacturer. So even RAW images will be take on the inherent
characteristics of the sensor with regards to noise, colour
reproduction and dynamic range. So although it is just DATA, each
camera produces a different set of DATA and a different look. Just like
film stock.
Your misleading history of colour timing is simply not true. It has
been possible to colour grade films for many many years. In fact the
whole use of the phrase *timing* comes from the optical process that
colour grading was and is still done by today. And for that matter, so
are the terms one light and best light. Day for night looks, not to
mention scene matching and sheer creative grading is very easily
achieved and created using this process. This year's AFI award winning
Romulous my father was all finished photochemically aside from a single
4K VFX shot. Obviously it can't be all that bad.
What digital processing has made possible, was much finer control
of the colour correction process. And this perhaps is what you meant
when you referred to as, "more recently". Pleasantville (1998) was
probably one of the first films to be graded in this manner, but mainly
because every single shot was a VFX shot by nature of it's storyline.
Oh Brother Where art Thou (2000) is considered to be one of the first
DI or digital intermediate films graded in this manner, where colour
effects were achieved that weren't previously possible using
photochemical grading. Both films of course, where shot on film.
And this is my next point.
How is an image scanned from a film negative any less *digital* than a digitally acquired image ?
Once the film frame is scanned it is JUST as digital as a digital
image rendered by a digital camera. It starts from exactly the same
point as a digitally acquired image. If you argue that film is anti-
creative, then all of your arguments about it's post production
workflows are neutered when you consider that a scan of a film frame
can have all the same image manipulations as a digitally acquired one.
A flat LOG scan of a film frame is just as flat and dull as a RAW image
from a still camera. The same blank canvas. So let's assume then, that
a scanned film frame can be just as digital as a digital acquired
digital frame.
What's anti-creative about film in production ? Cost. ? Setup time
? availability ? These are all valid arguments to some degree. But it's
also not as simple to look at a single cost on the film's budget and
point to it and say AH HA !
While film stock and processing is expensive compared to acquiring
digitally, if you factor in the cost for the higher end digital camera
platforms, you'll find that the post production infrastructure is
significant.
The much championed RED camera, which uses the D-SLR approach to
imaging provides some very fine useable images with it's own unique
look. And then there's the terrabytes of data it generates. Plus now
you have to back all this data up in a safe and redundant way, because
you can't go back to the negative for a re-scan if a drive fails. And
then there's the actual infrastructure of trying to even edit and view
these files. To do it well and safe costs. And again, I would say that
it's inherent look is great if that suits your project, and it's as
digital as a digital scan of a film frame so all the post grading and
VFX work well.
On set it's reduced dynamic range compared with film, like with all
digital cameras, means that you in fact often spend more time lighting
because you need to ensure that you get it right on the day. Film
allows us to be somewhat lazy in this regard. Now this is not film
look. This is being cinematic.
The idea that digital is faster to light and requires less light is
also a fallacy. Sure, you can turn the camera on and you'll get a
picture right away without any lighting. And the same goes for any film
camera really. If you want it to look *cinematic* (not filmic) then it
still requires a great deal of care and attention on set. You still
need a dolly or a steadicam. You still need to be able to light for the
camera. You need the same crew and level of experience.
Plenty of people are happy to use digital for what it's great at.
Russian ark (2002) for it continuous long take. Films like Blacktown
(2005) couldn't be made without digital shooting technology allowing
intimate access to non professional actors.
Progressive displays have been around since..well computers, and
we've been using them for at least the past 20 years. But most US Drama
has been film acquired over the years. We tend to associate video with
lo-fi and disposable, simply because that's what most news footage is
and that's how we consume it. And it's natural to associate that with
*real*.
By dissing the film look, you're actually engaging in the same
debate you're pretending you don't care about. The digital mantra that
digital is better leaves behind a lot of valuable film-making
techniques that lots of people don't seem to be in a hurry to leave
behind even though digital film origination as been with us at least a
decade.
I think it's naive to dismiss any form of image capture, and hitch
your wagon to any one acquisition platform, they all have a place. I
recently shot some sections of a film finished to 35mm on a mobile
phone.
If this revolution is happening and has been happening for the last
few years, why hasn't there been a bigger rush ? Why does all of
Soderburg's film originated films sell squillions of tickets while
people don't even know he's cranking out other digital films....
How about we just use the best paintbrush we can skilfully use and
afford to paint the best picture we can for the story we're trying to
convey.
jb - I love the look of what ever the story teller has chosen to use....
*i wait with bated breath to see what David (i'll never shoot film
again) Lynch will do after his underwhelming PD150 shot Inland Empire.
I LOVE the look of video, I love the aesthetic of the electronic image. I see chemical image of film and it just seems soft and dull and lifeless to me. I see the razor sharpness and the infinite flexibility of video, its density and dynamism and vibrancy and I think nothing but film is dead.
Now there's a statement to draw the ire of the purists and the technologically insecure. Should I go further...?
The film look is bullshit; a product of marketing representation and the digestible distillation of an association with a particular mode of viewing. The 'film look' is a cultural rather than aesthetic understanding; one drawn from our legacy of personal cinematic experiences in the movie theatre from a projected image. Thus, when it comes to making 'films' in the digital age for ourselves we innately want our films to evoke those same nostalgic memory associations we have with celluloid. This we translate as the aesthetic of film, the 'film look', but in truth it's more about cultural and personal association.
Certainly there is a 'film look', a set of visual characteristics derived from a medium made of celluloid and silver emulsion, but specifically seeking or choosing this 'look' because of a perception that it 'looks better' or is somehow visually superior is an argument very difficult to sustain on a technical or scientific level.
Film looks like Film, no doubt. The organic nature of its grain and distinct visual imperfections delivers a particular characteristic. But it would be a fundamental misnomer to then surmise that in the same vein Digital looks like Digital. Digital is not a medium in possession of innate characteristics as celluloid is. Digital is just Binary; representations, in Zeros and Ones, of visual information. Digital looks like whatever you want it to look like, so long as you know what youre doing and understand how to manipulate the Zeros and Ones.
So what really is the process of crafting the 'film look' in digital? It is an elusive thing. Strangely the 'film look' is often referred to as a specific technical element but that technical element is very difficult to qualify.
The simple truth is that any camera image source will, first and foremost, look like the quality of the camera lens. Shallow depth of field is often cited as key to the 'film look' but DOF is purely a product of lens and aperture exposure. Put a good fast lens with wide aperture on a digital camera and you can have every bit as much DOF control as a film camera. Defining the 'film look' by shallow DOF is technically bunk since DOF has nothing to do with recording medium.
The second element, much associated with the 'film look', is the cadence of its progressive movement; its visual rhythm. With digital and electronic video originally rooted in TV there was a long association with interlaced imagery. Interlaced images, by the nature of how they're assembled (as 50 or 60 fields rather than 25 or 30 frames) creates a distinctly smoother moving image lacking the slight staccato feel of film flicker.
Stu Maschwitz, one of the founders of The Orphanage, developer of Magic Bullet and author of Pro Lost (one of the most information rich blogs on the net) wrote this about the relationship between Human beings, Flicker and Storytelling.
Video's frame rate being as close to reality as we can discern jibes with our ingrained perception of how video is traditionally used: to document real-life events. The TV news, reality TV shows, and our own home movies have a documentary quality to them that subconsciously suggests to the viewer that they are seeing actual events. Even sitcoms and soap operas are less like movies than they are like simulations of being in a studio audience watching a live performance. Video clues us in that we are watching reality, and by showing us everything, it invites us to passively absorb it. : OVERVIEW Movies are anything but reality. Ironically, by showing the audience less (40% of the temporal information of NTSC video), they trigger a part of our brains that works to fill in the missing information. In this way film creates a more participatory experience and at the same time informs its audience that what they are viewing is an authored, narrative work. This is backed up by our historical associations as well we have learned to associate film's flicker with storytelling and video's unflinching detail with reality.
Since before history mankind has sat around campfires and told stories, and there are those who suggest that this association with narrative and the flickering image is so deeply ingrained in our collective unconscious that it in part explains our love for movies. Whether this is true or not, applying Magic Bullet to your video instantly transforms it from feeling like just another bit of DV camcorder footage to something more.
But following Stu's argument, this association of the flickering image is a purely cultural one rather than one drawn on the basis of 'quality' which is so often cited with film. Similarly, and by contrast, the 'undesirable' smoothness of video is not a product of digital/electronic means itself but rather of the Electrical Power and Broadcasting infrastructure that traditionally supported it. US NTSC uses 60 fields per second for no other reason than US power grids use 60hz oscillations. Most of the rest of the world on PAL uses 50 fields because the power grids are at 50hz oscillations.
Again, digital images, of themselves, have no innate 'look', they are just data manipulated and its the manipulation that defines a 'look'. As the old infrastructures, that have traditionally defined much of the aesthetic, dissipate the manipulation of digital data is left more to the filmmaker than the infrastructure of electricity and broadcasting. Hence we have the dramatic shift in recent years to Progressive Scan cameras, 24p, 25p and 30p shooting as well as the very 'filmic' technique of over and under cranking of frame rates.
From there the rest of what defines a 'film look' to the common observer is the colour and tone of the image; how the media is treated, processed and manipulated in post-production.
In the long history of celluloid production this processing of colour and tone was a photo chemical process; a manipulation of the visual information by means of chemistry. But in truth such processes where not particularly common with the tone of an image being largely pre-defined by type of film stock selected and the manipulations of exposure in-camera during shooting.
Whilst there is indeed a long history of such manipulations in cinema, the process of colour grading (or colour timing) as a common, widespread and accepted part of post production is a relatively recent development - a shift that has seen the practice move from the fringes of experimentation and special effects to simple mainstream commonality.
Arguably one of the preeminent focuses of colour grading processes in the digital age has been on getting digital to emulate the visual characteristics of celluloid. Such choices impose on digital cinema two categories of manipulations; the recognisable characteristics of film which are otherwise absent (namely grain and flicker), and particular colour tonnings for style and mood (tone, colour wash, contrast and so on). All these are focused in popular perception on the 'film look' and 'better' visual quality.
Yet there are distinct conundrums and contradictions here. The artificial insertion of celluloid artefacts of grain, organic emulsion, removal of frames to force 24p, jitter and flicker are all acts of deliberate degradation. Any way you slice it, putting such elements into an image where they don't previously exist is an act of degrading and lowering the visual quality of the image. An overtly strange act when the intention is to get the 'film look' because it looks 'better'...
The second set of process actions associated with colour and tone are those often designed to emulate the particular chromatic properties of specific film stocks. But this is really just a process of using a film stock as a reference point. The digital colour manipulations in grading processes far exceed what is possible from film stock itself. Digital image data is simply that, data. It's an almost infinitely flexible set of data waiting to be given a 'look'; a concept fundamentally divorced from film stock which has an inherent 'look' based on brand, type and chemical make up.
At the risk of public lynching from the film purists I'd argue that in the digital age, film as a medium is a distinctly anti-creative format. By its very nature shooting on film limits, restricts or cuts off the filmmaker from a host options creative options that would otherwise be open to them. Celluloid is not a blank canvas, not an open slate onto which to paint with all the available colours. Digital, by its technical make up, a blank and unformed ball of clay that can be shaped into any conceivable form.
I cannot help but be confronted by the irony that as we, creative cinema makers, are handed the most flexible form we have ever know, one unrestricted and infinitely open, our first overriding instinct is to degrade it, limit it, deform it to enforce upon it the restrictions of its predecessor.
Perhaps this is simply a techno-aesthetic derivation of Bolter and Grusin's theories of 'Remediation' where by new media begin life by replicating the tenets of old media before finally breaking free to find unique properties. Photography remediated painting until it found its unique paths; Cinema remediated Theatre until it forged new languages; it seems digital media as a production format is destined to remediate celluloid media until filmmakers embrace and/or discover the unique properties and possibilities of digital as its own platform - one that has shaken off the shackles of celluloid limitations.
Until then a Google search will continue to reveal the term 'film look' as one of the most common discussion topics amongst filmmakers.
I may well be the only one but I can't wait for the day we all 'get over it' and stop seeking to limit and curtail the evolution of the moving image and focus on exploiting its new properties. Colour, style, form, look, visual delight are what we should be aiming for, . the 'Film Look' for it's own sake is bullshit.
If you havnt heard of RED then you have truly been living under rock these past 3 years. The marketing for the era alterting digital cinema camera has been nothing short of a superb PR archievment, so much so that the achievement of actually delivering the RED camera itself is almost secondary.
With working models now in the field and in production there's nothing to deny the RED ONE a solid place in the history of cinematic media. But if you have in mind a camera you simply pull out of a box like a Sony, Canon or Panasonic then thinking again. The Red is a fundementally different beast, a Lego-Set of add-ons and extensions to form an almost infinate assembly of options.
Forunately you can watch someone else go through the sorting/sifting/searching motions of deciphering the RED.
Mike Curtis over at the new (and increasingly impressive ProVideo Colalition) is making public his RED adventure in a very step-by-step fashion. This first part is a detailed look at opening the box on the RED. (its actually far more interesting than it sounds).
Of course once Mike has unpacked the RED ONE and managed to point it in the right direction to film soemthing the fun will really begin as we get an insight into RED workflow. Its fairly certain this aint no DV/ Firewire affair.
The (less than) humble Mac is much lauded for it's simplicity and the word 'intuitive' is often bandied about when conversing in 'MacSpeak'. The examples of this 'intuitiveness' are of course obvious and rational - throwing a 'CD' into the 'TRASH BIN' is a perfectly Rational and Intuitive way to EJECT a disc from a CD drive ..
But it seems the endless quest for simplicity and the mythical grail of utmost ease of use often leads Apple to rather problematic software design cul-de-sac. On a Windows system the process of uninstalling an application is often much derided for the relatively complexity of the operating systems registry, registry keys and dedicated Uninstaller system.
As alternative (and perhaps marketing driven deliberate point-of-difference) the Mac OS has championed the perceived logical simplicity of simply tossing the application in the bin; just drag and drop the app in the trash and its gone or at least thats the plan.
The truth is that for just about anything other than simple utilities, this process of bin-tossing is a profoundly ineffective method for uninstalling. It may remove the core application but none of the associated applets, files, folders and general detritus that goes along with the software. The uninstall system (or lack there of) on Mac OSX is profoundly ineffective and a sure fire way to a polluted system of orphaned files.
One can only assume that Apple software engineers are not stupid people, that they are in fact very smart people. So the conclusion one is forced to come to when encountering this problematic uninstall pollution on the Mac is that Apple seemingly persist with the dysfunctional toss it in the bin approach out of an indignant desperate to not be Windows mindset. Style over substance perhaps? Surely not
Fortunately, the DIY ethic prevails and Digital Rebellion have come to the rescue for Final Cut Studio uninstalls by creating a dedicated uninstaller app that allows for a clean and total purging of FCS.
If Apple wish to counter the perspective that they are focused on the experience of uninstalling rather than the effectiveness of the uninstall process, they would by this little app from Digital Rebellion and bundle it in the FCStudio
Continuing the discussion of motion graphics and title design I found this video a perfect example of both RemixCulture and the interpretative, stylistic power of Motion Graphics.
If Saul Bass (the father of modern motion graphics) had designed the titles for Star Wars this may well ahve been the strange love child....
Title Sequence Montage - 25 of the best title designs
For a tour through the annals of title design and motion graphics history, and to get a sense of the trajectory of complex visual cinematic language over the past four decades, you could do much worse than to sit back at watch this 10 minute montage. the piece draws together 25 of the more significant, inlfuential, clever and dynamic title sequence designs; and whilst there may be arguments to be had over what was left out, it still serves as highly informative collection.
What i find most interesting about the art of motion graphics is that for much of the past 3 decades it has been resigned to a specific role in constructing condensed visual meaning for the 'introduction' of larger, more traditional, cinema - title sequences for movies and TV shows. In many ways the more interesting evolution for motion graphics going forward will be the saturation of motion graphics as a common visual language, not only for 'intros' but for the consumate telling of cinematic stories and evocation cinematic meaning.
Many may scoff at the idea of a layered, dynamic, complex and visually dense array of media elements being a mainstay of a movie rather than the introductory, special purpose, fringe. But those same people, a few decades ago, would have also scofed at the idea of hand-held camera or fast cutting. Cinematic langauge evolves and the literacy of cinema's viewers evolvs with it. To the 'digital native', who's minds work at twitch-speed, for whom digital, screen-based multitasking is a everyday practice, for whom the senory overload of immersive gaming is their mainstay of cinematic media, such a proposal for Motion Graphics is hardly far fetched.
The roots of traditional media run deep and thus the tree above ground is very bloody difficult to knock over.
TV broadcast, theatrical release, the film festival circuit - these are the standards by which the cinema maker (of what ever form or mode) turns to as the means to reach an audience. This structure is as much cultural as it is industrial, technological or financial. For the indie filmmaker the process of an audience 'seeing' a work via these three - TV, cinema or festival - is fundamentally a process of legitimization; of being legitimized as a creative professional. Other forms of distribution such as online, whilst much lauded for their growing importance, fail (in the minds of many) to legitimize either the maker or the work.
This same pattern can likewise be seen in professional writing and publishing. Online journalism is a major part of any professional writers income and professional practice and yet no writer would argue that an article 'going live' has anywhere the personal satisfaction or professional standing as those lovely printed characters on paper in newsprint or magazine or book.
It seems that in both these cases very often the culture of perception is rooted down irrespective of the audience reach (which it is safe to assume is a primary driver for filmmakers and writers alike; to have the work seen/read by as many as possible).
In this regard I can take my own work as an example. As a writer and journalist I have written near on 300 published essays, articles and reviews as well as three books and authored content for a number of resource websites. All this is professionally paid work and a significant part of my income. (This is also not including the 4 posts per week here on Digital Basin)
Now, the ratio of online content to print content of this body of work over the past 10 years is roughly 65:35- 65% online, 35% print. And this ratio is not even close to indicative of the ratio of readers where the number of people who've read my stuff online massively eclipses the number who've bought my books or flicked through my printed magazine articles with geographically limited circulations (excess copies of my books prop up more than a couple of dusty tables).
And yet despite this massively outweighed ratio of readers for my online writing to my print writing, what is it that sits at the top of my CV? It aint the online articles...! Its the books and magazines despite the fact that they are read by little more than 4 guys and an over eager pet dog. It is the books and print magazines that gather weight on the CV far more than copious online articles that gather a 1000 readers a day.
In the same vein we can see film and video projects. Broadcast and theatrical screenings have the legitimizing power but my recent online documentary series, Motion Sketches, has garnered more than 10,000 viewers and its only 3 episodes in. There is no documentary film festival in the world that would let such a small, tiny budget production, reach 10,000 viewers (and growing daily).
And yet despite this numerical truth there is still the cultural perceptions that get in the way; a perverse fact that a film at a festival seen by a few hundred people carries more 'weight of legitimacy' than 10,000 viewers online.
The old media tree stands with great indignation but its status is no longer born of audience reach, but rather simply of legacy and historical association. But, all that said, the times they are a changing and the observations of this article now, in 2008, will not be true in a mere few years from now.
If you haven't seen Motion Sketches you can join the 10,000 here with the latest episode, number 3: Aural Architecture.
You can also view Eps 1 and 2. Eps 4 and 5 are in production right now. Stay tuned.
When it comes to digital production formats it would be a mistake to think that Quality is everything...
A statement like that is bound to the purist cat among the pigeons but the overriding truth prevailing a holistic sense of production is the workflow and set of balances being more significant than image quality on its own.
If this wasn't the case then there would be no production other than 444 12bit Uncompressed production. A notion ludicrously un-viable in any practical sense for anything but the biggest budgets.
So instead we have 'workflow' and a host of choices to be made to form a balanced production suitable to the project. Purity of image quality is but one of those choices. 422, 420, Intra and GOP, lossy and lossless, spatial and temporal compression, constant and variable bitrates; all point towards the process of manipulating the visual data as much as the qualitative properties of the data itself.
It seams that Sony have now added to the choices available by striking a new middle ground in acquisition HD formats. Until now the debate concerning HD has centered on extremities - intra-frame, highbitrate, high bandwidth HD such as DVCProHD and AVC-Intra on one side. Long GOP, lower bitrate formats such as HDV and XDCAM on the other.
HDV and XDCAM, as 420 long GOP formats, are lauded for their enormous efficiency and derided for their lack of color space and perceived motion image issues. Conversely DVCProHD and AVC-Intra are celebrated for their 422 colour space and frame accuracy and derided or their gross inefficiency and perceived minimal benefit for their massive data rates and file sizes.
Both formats are perfectly valid in context of a production needs but it now seems Sony have sought a middle way that retains the acquisition efficiency of Long GOP Mpeg-based XDCAM at modest bitrates whilst attaining the visually lossless colour space of YUV 422.
The new flavour of XDCAM moves the format from its traditional 420 35mbps to lossless 422 50mbps. The move is highly significant and strategic for Sony as it effectively eliminates most of the criticism that has been leveled at XDCAM in the past. In particular XDCAM is moved to a more viable format for greenscreen and effects production whilst retaining its high efficiency.
Completing the equation for XDCAM is the doubling of capacity of the blu-ray-based ProDisc recording media. With all the non-linear attributes of solid state memory but circumventing the major shortcoming of solid state by also serving as shelfable cost effective source master. With 50gb capacity for US$60, recording 95min of 50mbps 1080p HD, there really isn't anything not to like about the new edition of XDCAM.
For many years the concept of developing a technical workflow process for a project was a largely irrelevant idea as the means of constructing a movie varied not at all.
In traditional celluloid the processes of work-prints, telecines, edls and answer-prints remained largely unaltered from project to project. Likewise in video; a consistent workflow process regardless of size or nature of the project.
But amoung the myriad of changes that have come with the digital age one of the most significant and challenging is the notion workflow options and multiple possible solutions.
Weaving together separate elements of software tools, codecs, formats and resolutions the craft of constructing a workflow to meet the specific needs of production in a dedicated way is a remarkably new concept.
Moreover the development of a project-specific workflow is essentially a process of defining aims, priorities, biases and hierarchies and thus is ultimately about deciding and facilitating creative direction and focus. The same project with a different workflow, using different tools and prioritizing particular areas over others might well turn out a very different film irrespective of writing, direction and performance. Colour grading, compositing, motion graphics, 3D, sound mixing, encoding, delivery medium - all processes directly dictated by workflow - have profound impact on the aesthetics of a work.
It's in this light that an article such as this from Studio Daily that explores the development of a dedicated workflow for working with the RED camera is so interesting.
Even more so is the notion that this workflow is just one of many possible solutions that will quickly evolve over coming years
