The art of directing is a tricky and oftentimes intangible thing.
On one hand there are specific art and craft concepts, tools for guiding the project. Directors might readibly be termed 'Caretakers of the Vision' and it's the skills in constructing and defining that vision, communicating it to the collaborators, that will result in engaging cinema.
On the other hand it might well be argued that you cannot teach Directing; that good Directing is what rises from knowledge of the other areas of cinema. When you understand the fusion points where performance, design, cinematogorahy, sound, editing and post intersect then you'll be ready to direct.
In any case, insight and multiple perspectives on the role and function of the Diretcor are crucial in framing and shaping the kind of Director you wish to be.
FreshDV have been collating together an excellent video series Director's Course which features intervoews and insightful perspectives from down-in-the-trenches digital indie filmmakers.
It's the much maligned, beaten red-headed step-child, of indie film production. The dreaded 'i' of interlacing.
But amid the chanting of 'progressive' virtues there is much misunderstanding of the value of interlacing. Similarly the processes for removing interlacing are also often poorly handled.
This video from Videopia is probably the most succinct and clear expanataion of Interlaced issues and how to deal with them.
Companies measure the penultimate achievement of their brand building and marketing of their product when the public at large adopt the brand-name of that product as a common noun (or in some cases verb).
When people say "pass me the Kleenex" meaning generically 'tissue' of any kind, describe the act of manipulating a digital image as "Photoshoping" or download a "Podcast" regardless of whether its to an I-Pod or not you are seeing the results of the ultimate in brand-awareness.
Seminal documentary maker Ken Burns can lay a little claim to this kind of fame. When a common (and, indeed, old) filmmaking technique of Pan & Scan animation or Document Camera animation - giving motion qualities to still images - becomes generically known throughout both professional and amateur circles as the "Ken Burns Effect" you know you've made a mark.
This fascinating interview from FORA.TV with Ken Burns brings out some thoughtful perspectives on the relationship between image and sound. As Ken says "too often in film, the word is the enemy of the picture"
More information has surfaced about the much exciting announcment of Adobe having native suppourt for RED R3D files. Dave Helmly from Adobe has posted an overview of the internal Beta test version he's been kicking around and, more interestingly, has posted a couple of videos showing off the workflow.
What I find most interesting in the demo is the performance on the 2k files. Premiere has a good resolution independent engine (arguably not as efficient as Sony's Vegas which is extrodinary in being totally agnostic of both res and format but in many ways PP is more fluid than FCP at scaling performance and working res with better real-time) In simple terms this just allows for a good fast display/preview res independent of the source.
The demo shows the RED footage played back realtime happily on a MacBookPro laptop, swapped back and forth with After Effects and even keying in AE direct on the R3D. If they keep working on this it could make for a really effective workflow for low-power computers and in-the-field laptops. Particularly because there's no intermediate step - R3D's straight of the card/drive straight onto the timeline.
The unexpected process detailed in the videos is the movement of native R3D files from Premiere to Encore and authored out to BluRay. The famed integration between Adobe apps makes for a pretty slick source to HD delivery workflow. This is potentially an awesome way to handle RED dailies. Straight from the card to the laptop and out to BluRay before the set is wrapped. Screen the dailies that night from a BluRay player.
This is obviously early beta of the Adobe RED workflow but there's some exciting stuff here and some good, forward thinking, ideas. Im sure im not the only one looking forward to see where Adobe take this.
If you're time poor you can check out the short version of the workflow or if you're a total nerd for this kind of stuff with too much time on your hands you can sit back for the 20min version below.
I love a good title sequence. I love the efficiency; maximum meaning, minimum time. I love the density; multiple images in simultaneity demanding deper more complex relationships to be forged by the viewer. I love the audacity; the simultaneous definace and celebration of cinematic language and the crafting of the hybrid new. I love the diversity; the sheer span of posssibilities thrown up by the humble Alpha-chanel that makes layered composition possible. I love the fun; the playfullness, the celebration of light, movement, texture and form.
The Hacker Mantra of "Information wants to be free" has been taken to heart at the International Film School Sydney.
We've setup a new student production resource site called IFSSPRODUCTION.NET which collates together a wide array of resources for production and makes them not only openly accessible to IFSS students but to every filmmaker with a net connection.
The heart of IFSSPRODUCTION.NET is the Production Bible which makes openly available a diverse set of production guides, documents, forms and tutorials. From the creative to the technical to the unavoidably practical. Checklists for all major production roles, guides to software settings, forms for documentary releases and location scouting, sound cue sheets and hazard forms, technical specifications and workflow charts, recipes for fake blood and hard drive formatting guides.
IFSSPRODUCTION.NET also hosts a Readings page collating together interesting, thought provoking and information-rich articles, essays and websites designed to re-enforce ideas explored in classes. Also as Resources page which locates together in one place a comprehensive lists of free applications, utilities, plugins and tools for the digital filmmaker.
On top of this is the IFSSProduction Blog which sports new posts weekly on all manner of topics related to cinema production in the 21st century.
The IFSSPRODUCTION.NET site is designed not just to open the resources of the International Film School Sydney up to the public but also to invite a more open exchange intended to ensure that the site remains dynamic and fluid, every changing and updating.... just like the film industry.
So all are welcome come and explore and utilize the collection of resources and we also invite you to contribute, comment and share to help the site grow.
I confess... I was a RED camera skeptic. When i first heard the rumors and read the idea for a 2k/4k digital cinema camera shooting RAW and costing WAY less than anything else on the market i was like "yeah right..."
My skepticism was simply born from the disbelief that a small out-of-nowhere start up company could do what the unlimited resources of Sony/Panasonic/Canon/Thomson/Panavision etc could not. That and the fact that over the past decade we've seen a host of small companies promise big innovative things only to never eventuate.
I stand corrected. RED is real, its working, its amazing and despite all the niggling flaws in workflow and system build updates, the proof is in the pudding.But there's a new frontier that allows me to redeem me previous skepticism of the RED..... And it's name is SCARLET.
No Skepticism this time. Im right on board and so excited I think im gonna wet myself.... whoops, i think i just did.
Strap on Depends Undergarments and view image below.
It's the Teacher part of me - the part that's focused on educating new cinema makers of the future; forward thinking, bold, dynamic, independent filmmakers - that is truly excited by the prospect of SCARLET.
Imagine a dedicated film school where on the shelf of the tech office sits a class set of SCARLET's...I
Imagine, for a second, the antiquated, archaic, backward-thinking, mindless detritus of stale and pedantic film industry attitudes being obliterated as students glue a palm-sized SCARLET to their hand and re-invent the cinematic wheel....
Image all the old dead ideas about how cinema is supposed to be made dying and writhing on the floor in death throws...
Think of all the banal, pointless and absurd discussions of 'broadcast quality' and 'professional standards' being relegated to the dung heap of ignorance where they belong...
Last post I wrote that Composition is Everything. Well I need to expand that a little - Language is Everything. The secret to a dynamic, engaged career in professional media production is learnign to speak the language.
The great failing of software Help files and manuals is that for them to be any use at all you need to know the Name of the thing you're looking for or the process you need to employ. So if you didnt know that moving video clips aside on the timeline of you NLE was called a RIPPLE EDIT you have bugger all chance to find the answer to your question of how to move cips out of the way while insert another.
Is it any wonder that people not only dont read Manuals or Help files but rarely even think to even refer to them - a broad-based universal assumption that they are useless. They are useless if you dont spak the language, if you dont posess the vocabulary to drive further investigation and knowledge building.
E-PRO is a superb searchable reference library of terms, ideas, concepts and technologies related to media production. The entries are detailed and very well thought out. Moreover, using the Articles Index you can peruse the collection and begin to build you're vocabulary without having to specifically know the extact names of things.
E-PRO was developed in Canda by Golden Frame Entertainment and describes itself as "A broad range of reference materials and data on Film, Video and Audio
Technologies, Motion Picture Production and Distribution, Entertainment
Industry, Business & Financing, Media Law, World Cinema and more.
The sections are hierarchically arranged by subject from broad to
specific." Which points firmly to the depth and breadth of its coverage. Its a superb resource and should sit on the BookMarks Bar of every filmmaker's web browser.
Knowing the mechanical and technical ins and outs of a given camera system is all well and good - an important skill base - but such knowledge is a support structure not an end goal. A Cinematographer, a Director of Photography, does not Aim for camera familiarity, they Aim for Good Composition - meaningful, emotive, dynamic, engaging composition.
The great beauty of studying Composition as a conceptual paradigm and artistic framework, is that the rules stand the test of time, having governed Michel Angelo as much as Vittorio Storaro. Moreover, as we move into a cinematic landscape where the camera is just one option among many for image acquisition and construction the rules of Composition are none the less universally applicable.
This article by CG Artist Philip Straub is absolutely superb in succinctly laying out the fundamentals of image composition. He is writing in the context of graphic art but the concepts are directly applicable to the moving image as well.
What underlies Straubs article is the idea of focus and strength in the image. How to draw the gaze of the viewer, how to build balance that gives subjects strength and context. The article is compelling and compulsory reading for anyone who looks through a lens - physical or virtual - or builds and image - either ink or pixels.
Until now Apple's Final Cut Pro had an intimate and almost exclusive relationship with RED albeit through some convoluted workflow, transcoding/proxy processes and a lack of real 4k resolution support with suite apps like Color.
Adobe joining the Red-ready club isn't unexpected but they have done what Apple have failed and/or refused to do; support R3D files natively. As the RED site itself saids "FCP only uses the QT reference files which access the RAW R3D files, it does not actually use the Native R3D files to edit with." (Apple have a history with playing loose with the truth when it comes to 'Native' suppourt. But we'll come back to that...)
The new REDsupport in After Effects and Premiere Pro will allow the native R3D files to be dropped straight on the timeline without an intermediate format conversion, reference files or transcoding process. The surface significance of this approach may be increased efficiency and flexibility in the post workflow but there is also a deeper issue with broader industry contexts.
This is not the first time we've seen the underlying engine of Adobe's video apps aim squarely at accommodating native no-fuss direct support of new formats. An approach that amounts to a very nonproprietary universal and inclusive perspective. Sony's XDCAMEX format uses an MP4 wrapper to mount an Mpeg2 essence on the SxS card and here Adobe took the approach to able to work directly with the MP4 rather than utilize any re-wrapping process.
Apple by contrast with XDCAMEX refuse to use the non-proprietary open MP4 standard wrapper and instead enforce a mandatory re-wrapping to a proprietary Quicktime MOV wrapper via a software app external to FCP. (Indeed, even HDV is not truly native in Final Cut Pro. This article points out the issues, namely that whilst FCP reads the Mpeg2 codec natively it cannot read the universal native MPEG and M2T wrappers or indeed work to the true HDV spec. Instead, as per XDCAMEX, FCP insists on a re-wrap from the native format to QuickTime MOV. The negative result is that HDV files captured with FCP to MOV wrappers are often unreadable by other software despite being HDV compliant.)
I say 'refuse' to use MP4 because there really is no technical reason why FCP couldn't work directly with MP4 files around XDCAMEX mpeg2 codec (or if there is then FCP's architecture is even more archaic than many have long suspected) Therefore the only conclusion that can be arrived at is that Apple deliberately enforce a strict proprietary policy of Quicktime exclusivity that is arbitrary and unnecessary. Moreover one that requires extraneous processes to re-wrap files just to meet FCP's intrinsic restrictions/limitations.
This pattern is a repitition of that of Panasonic P2 footage which natively uses the open MXF wrapper but which again FCP cannot read or use as-is. Instead again a re-wrapping process is used to transfer the essence from an MXF wrapper to a MOV one. Likewise with Sony ProDisc XDCAM-HD which also uses MXF.
What do Apple have to gain by this insistence on QT at the expense of native suppourt of open formats? Certainly users don't benefit; there's no advantage of this non-direct support. Whilst it may be argued that the QT rewrapping processes are effective there are no tangible gains and an invariable lack of efficiency from not directly supporting camera native formats (along with the aforementioned issues of HDV)
The only conclusion to come to is that Apple are clinging on to the idea that the world revolves around QuickTime. I hate to break it to you Steve J but the world has moved on. Whilst QT may have been the engine that underpinned the digital media evolution a decade ago, the universal appeal of QT is now substantially diminished.
Instead we have seen the increasing use of corporation-independent, open standard wrapper/containers such as MXF, MPEG, M2T and MP4 .
What this has meant for good ol' QT is that it is no longer a default wrapper, no longer a universal engine, no longer a video default. Apple fought long and hard to try and have MOV cemented as the standard for the h.264/AVC codec and thankfully for all they failed with the international standard being set to the open MP4 framework. A victory for nonproprietary thinking and a significant step toward open standards.
So whilst Adobe are embracing this trend toward open, inclusive and efficient direct native support right across their product line for video production, Apple by contrast seem to clinging to an isolationist, befuddled attempt to protect QuickTime at all costs.
Is it loyalty to their own product? Is it ignorance? Defiance? Or just arrogance?
The ability to work natively with R3D files in AE and PP is a major step forward. If Apple were headed by a different CEO director other than the mighty Ego of Steve I would have no doubt that such a development would have Apple developers scrambling to join the party of native support and start letting go of antiquated QuickTime loyalty.
But I fear they won't. I fear Apple will continue to display their very own brand of insularity. I fear we will continue to see Apple play protectionist with QT and avoid at all costs moves towards open formats and system flexibility. I fear MXF, M2T, MP4 will all be wrappers that Apple refuses to really play effectively with for some time to come - "give me quicktime or give me death" sings the tired mantra...
Sadly the detriment will be to FCP users as other NLE?s move toward a more flexible future. Hats off to Adobe, who dont always get it right but should be applauded for these moves toward openess.
Of all the technical arts in the production of a work of cinema there are two that stand out as the most dramatic in their ability to profoundly make or break you movie.The first is sound. A bad sound track, poorly recorded dialogue, noisy location will kill the cinema experience for your viewer quicker than a dose a cyanide.The second, that is less talked about, is Focus. An film can have a great script, great performances but if the shots are out of focus when they should be in-focus then everything falls apart. Poor focus is one of the quickest ways to cement your film with the air of the amateur. Thus the art and technique of the Focus Puller is paramount.
For those not up on the lingo, the Focus Puller is responsible for focusing the camera, for moving the lens focal length to specific points at particular times during a shot. The art of the Focus Puller is to craft a complex ballet of movement where precise points of focus, on particular subjects are hit at specific points of time.
The rise of affordable follow focus systems for mid-range digital cameras such as those from P+S and RedRock has opened up the art of the Focus Puller to a much wider range of productions and particularly to the digital rebel indie filmmaker. FreshDV has produced an outstanding set of videos that look at specific ideas, concepts and practical techniques for focus pulling. The use of split screen view in the videos showing the shot and the operator simultaneously is a fantastic way to get a better understanding of the process.
Of course the need for sophisticated follow-focus systems stems directly from short depth-of-field cinematography - if you shoot deep-focus there is virtually no need for focus pulling. So whilst youre at it you better watch the FreshDV video on depth of field which expands in more detail on the post I wrote a little while ago. Understanding Depth-Of-Field
Justin Snodgrass also provides a 6-part video series (20mins in total) that gives a very comprehensive look at the relationship between Aperture, Focal length and Subject Distance in the construction of Depth-of-field. Depth of field explained
If you're a regular reader of the DigitalBasin you will have no doubt encountered my rantings about Workflow (such as this one) Too often mistaken for just another vacuous buzzword, Workflow - and more particularly the idea of customizable, flexible, project-specific workflow - is one of the cornerstones of the digital cinema evolution.
In this vein I stumbled across a fantastic online video series from ExpertVillage that examines in detail post-production workflow components and processes. Presented by US-based editor Travis Johns the series breaks down each stage in post; from the management of files to the end delivery. From the highly pragmatic to the difficult art of staying creatively motivated over long projects.
The whole series is well worth a watch. In particular this one below examining file management in post-production should be compulsory viewing as the number of 'so-called 'professional' editor's I know who couldn't organize a f&%k in a brothel let alone organize files in an Edit session is quite disturbing. Every minute spent on file management is 10minutes saved for being creative.
If I have one crticism of the series it's the overview blurb for the site which opens with a statement that i just couldnt look past. The blurb starts with "The development of film came alongside the rise of America as a world empire." World Empire...?At what point did America become a 'World Empire'? The British made an empire colonising a good proportion of the known world. As did the Spanish in the New World. The Belgians gave it a good go in Africa and the French punched high and mighty from Prussia to Canada to North Africa. But if my knowledge of history serves America is rather exempt from the Empircal colonising club. Is this just historically misguidence? Linguistic misunderstanding? Or just an over-inflated sense of national self-importance? Now if the blurb had read "The development of film came alongside the rise of Team America as World Police" I could have had a good laugh recalling vivid cinematic images of puppet sex scenes....
It can sometimes feel like there is a dark art at work when it comes to encoding video for the web and getting good visual results.
The visual quality of heavily compressed video has a wide variety of factors at play. The first is of course the bitrate of the compression, how much data is available, but this is not the only factor. How much the image moves is also a major element; the more kinetic the motion of the subject the harder it is to compress well as video codecs rely on grouping the similarity between frames. Fast moving subjects have less consistency between frames and so compress more poorly. As opposed to still subjects like documentary talking heads and dialogue scenes which can compress very well because little changes from frame to frame.
There is another factor that contributes to encoding quality that is often misunderstood or even not widely known; that is encoding blocks.
Contemporary video codecs use fixed blocks to group the image data so the best results come from exporting to frame dimensions that are equally divisible into data blocks the codec uses.
Sound like a head trip? Its really quite simple. Adobes FLV format using the On2 codec uses blocks of image data in groups of 16x16, so to get the best image results you should export your video to match these blocks. Adobe have published a table with frame dimensions to best utilize the data blocks in FLV encoded files.
The good folks at FreshDV have also pointed to a handy FLV bitrate calculator for working out before hand the best size for quality ratio.
Let online video encoding be a dark-art no more....
