And in other News....

Another series of significant events:

Well, This happened - Watch
And this - >Here

The Canon 1D Mark IV looks like a still camera - It is a Stills camera. and if you bring some talent out on the streets with you and some cool camera dollies and tripods, you can also make movies.

But I left something out.... oh wait you need to bring a truck with your lighting setup... you'll have to rent a few thousand dollars worth of lights... oh yeah.. and when you turn them on, you need generators... oh yeah, and you'll need probably need to get permits because of all the noise and attention you'll be getting with all those lights. If your are renting a crew for the lights, and committing to a location (because it takes a long time to setup lights), you'll need food, and security gaurds, and probably police to shut down a street or two. If you rent all that stuff, then you should probably rent the cheapest part of the production, a RED One camera or Sony setup and some prime lenses. And do not forget the insurance! Now you are filmmaking! Hope your script is good, and hope you have fun shooting because it's very likely (like most filmmakers) you will NEVER recover the cost of this production.

Small Game Changer: Canon 1D MKIV

Now consider this. You pick up a nice new camera capable of taking pro photography stills, you know, so you can get some great shots of the family on vacation. Between your colleagues, friends, and their friends and colleagues, together you already own basically a movie set's worth of gear. And between the rest of the people you know, you can probably get a few "favor" loaners of some high quality camera mounts/setups. This new camera you bought is also capable of filming 1080P/24fps in almost ANY lighting conditions, yet looks just as innocent hanging around your neck in the shopping mall. With this new clandestine filmmaking rig, a walk thru the mall, downtown suburbs, or busy city streets can yield limitless possibilities - car chases, foot chases, romantic comedies, restaurant dialogues, walking shots in the park... at night!

This is what Canon's new camera announcement is allowing you to do... for $5000! (body only)

Consider this: In 2004, Michael Mann directed Tom Cruise and Jamie Foxx in the motion picture Collateral , shooting in and around the streets of Los Angeles, using mostly available light for many shots. He was an early adopter of HD fillmaking 5 years ago and used Sony HDW-F900's and Grass Valley Viper cameras - These are $200,000+ setups even today! Five years later and $5000 gets this capability in what looks like a consumer/prosumer camera package!

All hail competitve markets! Canon has announced 24P/25P solutions for their existing 5DMKII and their newest extreme low light 1D MKIV in the same breath. This comes strategically before RED Camera announces their latest "giant carrot" product development cycle and features list on OCT. 30th, 2009. Canon has been able to captialize on RED's quietness by delivering two cameras that can do a lot more than take pretty still pictures.

I believe that Canon has reached out to a broader market, where RED will continue to preach to its choir - A pretty big choir consisting of mostly professional filmmakers and up and coming industry pros. While RED will most likely not compromise with a few key quality features (RAW Capture), Canon is willing to make drastic compromises in quality (H.264) and in turn gain the attention of an ever increasing multitude of frustrated filmmaking enthusiasts. This is a big crowd of "potential filmakers", the people who want to try and make creative content, without the need for all that "pro" stuff. Canon may be getting this one right - "Good enough" usually wins.

But RED and Canon may be heading towards two different users ultimately, with occasional crossover users for both camps. Some pros use Canon DSLR's and some enthusiasts use RED's products (although not many). RED is not easy to use, and a Canon 1D MKIV does NOT make you a filmmaker. RED has never led its usrs to believe their camera was for everyone - it's a digital cinema product. Canon makes cameras (and other stuff) that are targeted at anyone with interest in capturing images - a lot of people indeed. So what would you expect? Only pro stuff from Canon - No. An inadequate lens and high compression capture from RED - No. RED has obviously pushed Canon to do better, however, and Canon has made RED re-evaluate its strategy - a very healthy and beneficial atmosphere for the consumer!

Remember, a free market will always take the path of least resistance.

Exciting times for creative people using technology for sure!

October 30th will bring a new insight on this discussion. :)

Die Ende?

Check out:

http://collateraltruth.com/
Some teaser stuff shot on an incredibly inexpensive rig.

Shot On:

- Canon HV20 (with JAG35 flip hack) - $60 fliphack +$600 Ebay

- JAG35Pro DOF adapter - $300

- Canon FD 50mm f1.4 - $80 (f/JAG35.com)

- Canon FD135mm f2.5 - $198 Ebay

- Dfocus Follow Focus - $115

- IndiRails Pro 10" - $99

- Cokin Filter Adapter w/Graduated ND8 -$15 +$28

- Bogen Tripod Head -$75

- Cineform NEO HD - $499

- Misc Accessories - $200

So.. 24P HD.. that you can color correct in 4:4:4 color space (kinda), very film-like shallow Depth of Field ... a nearly complete rock bottom film rig for under $2300

No rolling shutter or wobbles, but lots of other tradeoffs... still useable.

Some more talk about using this adapter and my Cineform workflow.

Couple of other minor clips:

Here

When True Art Aligns With Tech

This is absolutely beautiful. It is, in my opinion, the best cinematic released since Warhammer: Mark of Chaos two years ago. And guess what? It's from the same guys that did that one-DIGIC Pictures in Hungary.

These guys have a serious talent for staging shots and creating extremely beautiful lighting in their scenes - Lighting that actually hides details.... that is what I love about their work. There is super realistic stuff in there and much of it gets hidden in the shadows or blurred out of focus. Our minds are left to fill in the details, which is so much more enjoyable and engaging to watch.

The camera work is real world, and really feels like it was done on set, not in a computer. They are careful not to have speaking characters for more than a few seconds... so uncanny valley problems are minimized, which leads to another point. The scenes are full of human characters, and they all look fantastically real (minor exception to the females skin feeling a little plastic).

Thank you DIGIC for raising the bar - like it was not already high enough! I think you need to make features now - you could seriously compete with PIXAR I feel.

They did such an excellent job on shadow-to-light areas, bounce light, and highlights that blow out when they should. Beautiful cinematic Depth of field is present that feels very natural. The camera angles seem very artistically thought out, and the action flows like you would expect in any blockbuster movie made in the U.S.. I would pay to see a film of this caliber!

My hat is off to the artists at DIGIC Pictures! What they are doing over there is unique to the industry, something special. I look forward to seeing more of this kind of work.

Try My Product

Steve Weiss from Zacuto said it plainly and simply: "You need to make something great" and "It needs to be tied to products". Yes. Put your best artistic visions towards exposing the benefits of a product, you can actually make a living and we'll actually watch the commercials. As long as there are only 4 of them per hour.

A Series of Significant Events - PART I

I mistakenly made a comment to someone that there should be a running chronology of events that account for how creative content - its creation, its creators, and its delivery to the masses - is rapidly changing. That person called me out and said, "What events do you mean?"

Assuming we start just 8 months ago...

I think I meant:

1. Stu Maschwitz' blog Prolost- Not really an event but as a resource it is significant. Stu brings a concise view on filmmaking, tools used in production, and insights that are being taken seriously by manufacturers and content producers alike. Like no other single Blogsite, Prolost is the definitive champion of do-it-yourself filmmaking... Stu is setting trends.

2. Sept, 2008 - Vincent Laforet shoots a "test" with a new Canon 5D MarkII - Marking the beginning of a shift in target markets that continues to ripple thru the major players product lines, and truly begins to redefine what is "filming/photography".

3. Nov. 2008 - RED Camera changes the game with announcements of an entirely new, modular cinema camera system AND open aknowledgement that they need to rethink their "entry level" camera systems - DSLR video catching on. RED Cameras being used more and more in digital productions.

4. NAB 2009 - Nothing shocking announced. But what was very interesting was the turn of events shortly afterward as freelance Director of Photography Philip Bloom takes Panasonic's new GH1 DLSR/24P Video camera on the road. He travels to a ghost town in Nevada, Austin TX, Kauai, and more shooting beautiful footage and reporting back to an anxious mass huddled around their computer screens. It seems he was one of only two professional DP's holding a GH1 in North America (Hunter Richards being the other), providing some of the best info and most anticipation for a new product since the 5dMKII - possibly more.

5. Spring 2009 - Neil BlomKamp's sci-fi epic District 9 is the culmination of years of tinkering around with consumer video cameras, picked up by Peter Jackson for a theatrical release. Alongside that, the most ambitious and well produced fan film, "The Hunt for Gollum", is released for FREE viewing. Both films show how good "no-budget" productions can be, using inexpensive cameras and a lot of effort. Avant Garde Director Steven Soderbergh releases his film, "The Girlfriend Experience" for online viewing 3 weeks before theatre release. Filmmaking - Its appreciation and its creation have never been so accessible.

Something Cool

Is it me or does the world seem to be spinning faster? I find my self casually hiring a Visual Effects TD in Rome like he was my next door neighbor (More on that later). I can be sitting around one minute... and shooting some misc event that becomes part of an effects shot for TV the next. You start your day with an agenda which quickly collapses into a frantic eavesdropping/scavenger hunt on Twitter to understand what new cool shoot or project someone else is doing from their desktop computer at home. Information and especially , collaboration, is getting to be a very fluid exercise- A death trap for for someone who may or may not have Adult ADD and a compulsion to create something cool.
Something Cool? What is that? I think what I mean is something to watch that is very short in length, available to anyone, VERY compelling, and sparks further collaboration. And guess what? Something cool is being created every day. Accidents and morbid, anonymous curiosities found on the _____tubes' of the world these are NOT. There are at least 57 VERY creative people turning nothing into something nearly every day and posting it on the web for tens of thousands to admire.
Being creative and productive are not epiphanies. But as technology quietly doubled over a few times in the last 3 years or so, and the world's economy sunk into the shadows, I believe we started to become more connected. In the creative world, we share more similarities than differences, and everyone seemed to be in the same boat... waiting to see what would happen next. Billionaires can talk candidly with a teenager about a common interest in cameras. The little guy has been empowered by people that have been there and done that and who now want them to try and do the same. Software tools have grown up and been beta tested by millions. If you need to ask someone a question, only now does it feel incredibly easy to ask - and there are many qualified people available to answer.
In my morning online stumblings (now a ritual), I came across some cool samples of visual effects work, just the sort of effects work we needed to be handled at the time. We knew that all that was needed was a fast internet connection and a workstation, the location of the individual doing the work did not matter whatsoever. It was only a few weeks later that I realized how cool it was to hire someone I never met (and yet to even speak to) half way around the world. You see, I Google Earthed his house.... and walked down his street (photobubble Streetview) while IM'ing him. I looked thru the window of a cafe across the street from his house, asked him if the pastries were good there. He said, " Oh yes! They are good... you should visit sometime?" I said "I am".
That's cool.

Barriers are falling

When you look back at what sparked major changes in an industry, more often than not the actual shift was barely perceived as it was happening. But this time around, as I write this, events are unfolding so quickly that it is hard to miss that a major shift in the way we receive and create media is happening right now. Slightly buried in all the NAB 2009 impromptu video blogs was an on camera realization/confirmation by a Da Vinci rep that RED Camera is the new standard for filmmaking. Savvy DSLR camera manufacturer reps are getting prototypes into the hands of talented DP's and letting them blog their cameras into fame (or failure). Millions of viewers now prefer watching their favorite content via an internet connected device in the now standard (4) 15 sec commercial per hour format. Barriers to entry are getting low enough that a very large amount of new content providers may enter the market very soon.

There are a few key reasons this is happening:

1. Innovation (RED camera) has sparked competition, which has added filmmaking features to their competitors low cost cameras.

2. Web based video and delivery mechanisms have started to mature and flourish.

3. The once young kids that cut their teeth using and creating all of the software tools needed to make a digital film are now older, wiser, and ready to do something different - Mark my words, these people may well be the most creatively talented workforce for the next 30 years.

4. We are probably near or at the bottom of a global economic downturn, which, as history has proven, leads to an explosion of innovation and creativity.

Get ready. Here we come.

Light vs. Dark

Dark wins. Our brains fill in the dark areas with "details". I encourage visual effects lighters out there to consider this every time they approach their shots. Turn off all the lights in the scene. In every scene, there is something that our eye will tend to "catch". Humans have VERY narrow focusing apparatus builtin, meaning that we only really zero in on a tiny portion of what is in front of us. I have been noticing lately that important things in a shot are rarely discussed, AND are rarely what you would consider obvious.


For example, in a previous project there were a few scenes that were put in the edit to merely get us from one scene to the next.... and I added a couple little nuances - A splash in a puddle.. or a glint off the character. And that was a huge difference! Those connector shots were actually what the viewer remembered the most.. they were the keyframes that stuck in their head. And they were total afterthoughts. The point is that I could have turned off almost all the effects and the lights... added those two things.. and the scene would have worked.


The idea here is that we should not be able to "see" everything in the shot. Somethings do not matter at all... so do NOT spend time on them. Slowly add the most important light source, and keep things modestly lit.