I saw a news item the other day that got me to thinking. It was entitled, "BBC to give reporters custom iPhone app to broadcast live news". I then went on to read a posting by good friend in the PR industry, Jon Newman of Richmond's Hodges Partnership, saying that this technology's time had come.
I have the UTMOST of respect for Jon. He's a visionary, a deep thinker, and one of the best people I know in the PR industry. But I don't think we're there yet. Maybe it's inevitable. But not now.
First off, there's the logistics of editing video, voice-over, and graphics on a phone interface. Anyone who's bought iMovie for their iPhone is aware of the limitations that the limited screen real estate and current audio capabilities put on the edit timeline. Add to that the fact that the onboard camera, while nice for a consumer device, has no real optical zoom feature (the digital zoom makes things look like they're in a very jerky witness protection program). This creates a scenario where the phone-based correspondent will be rushing the stage to be within 3 - 5 feet of anything needing a close-up. There's also the "rolling shutter" issue, a common problem with inexpensive CMOS sensors shooting video that leads to objects in motion (or fast camera moves) having the appearance of being made out of jello -- essentially the image lower in frame is scanned perceptibly later than the top of the image, and so moving objects become warped.
The temptation to use these devices handheld will lead to a plethora of "Blair Witch" style stories -- and the more intrepid who try to use better mountings will find that the lack of heft will lead to a lack of stability in the shots. Yes, electronic stability controls will develop and no doubt improve as time goes on, but as the state of the smart phone motion video camera exists right now, they're outperformed by any number of reasonably priced point-and-shoots.
There ARE technical solutions for almost all of these problems, but will it be a priority for smart phone manufacturers to pursue those remedies? They're making a consumer level product.
Thirdly, if you want your news (or PR) product to stand out, you're going to have to find a way to differentiate yourself from the millions of consumer-level videos competing for your online attention. Yes, great and compelling content can help you to overcome lesser visual quality -- we've watched camera phone images of global events many times and been happy to have the first person perspective. But not every news item, or every product demo, or every on-the-scene interview is going to be of earth-shaking proportions. That's where good, old-fashioned production values can refocus viewer attention on a message that may be more subtle and complex than a Benghazi firefight or a Vancouver riot. Can we agree that camera phones are still a "court of last resort" for image gathering on the professional level for now?
Thursday, June 16, 2011
Thursday, June 2, 2011
A partisan Sony F3 review
I took a trip to NAB headquarters in Washington DC back in April to take a look at this little gem. Though it doesn’t have the imposing bulk of a traditional pro rig, it features a Super 35, 1920x1080, Exmor CMOS sensor, and with so much surface area per pixel it has amazing sensitivity in low light. Don’t let the compact nature of the camera fool you!
At the demo I went to, the blinds were closed and the room lights were turned off. Then the camera’s switch was turned to +18 dB gain. I viewed the picture on a high end Sony HD CRT monitor and it looked like a well-lit available light shot, full of detail and contrast with subtlety and no clipping, and more importantly, no noise. Andy Shipsides of AbelCine reports that this equates roughly to a 6400 ISO setting in the traditional film world. Simply amazing.
Firmware S-Log upgrades have improved the performance, with a detailed 3 day “real-world” performance test posted here. In addition to shooting on Sony XDCAM’s SxS cards with the native XD codec at 35 and 25 Mb/s, the camera head gives you a full 4:4:4 HD-SDI output that you can record on to Nanoflash or other solid state media. It shoots 1080 HD, 720HD at framerates of 23.98P, 25P, 29.97P, and 59.94i, and PAL and NTSC. You can over/undercrank from 1 to 30 fps at 1080, and 1 to 60 at 720. Besides the HD-SDI port, there’s also HDMI, Firewire and USB ports onboard.
My complaints are few. The rear viewfinder is awkwardly placed, dead center on the top rear, and the flip out VF is smallish. Still, add a follow focus, rails, and matte box, and this rig stays fairly portable and versatile. Plus, with an MTF lens adapter you can use a variety of traditional film lenses, adding to the versatility - and the stock Sony PL lens is no slouch, integrating nicely with the camera’s onboard electronic signal processing.
When comparing it to other recent options, like the Canon 5D MkII DSLRs, well, there’s really no comparison. The range, the noise, the signal processing, real SMPTE timecode, all these things lead to a better product downstream for the editor. Panasonic’s AF100 is nice (and worth a look itself soon), the ARRI Alexa is fantastic but way more expensive, and RED has become just a bit too fiddly at the post-production end to be as comfortable a shooting choice. If you have around $15K for the base acquisition, and maybe another 10K for supporting gear, you can have a good start on a rig that has true cinematic potential. Start saving those shekels.
Thursday, October 14, 2010
How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Cut
There are a lot of transitions in the motion image world, devices to take you from one shot to the next. but most of them are poorly chosen and haphazardly used, and do little to be more than cheap eye candy designed to add interest to poor entertainment. All it takes is 5 minutes with “Access Hollywood” or “Extra” to wonder why the producer is using so much flash to accessorize so little content. We need to expect more substance from our entertainment. I submit that the answer lies in embracing and mastering transitional minimalism. In other words, learn to cut.
I’ll admit it. I love cuts. They’re pure and efficient, and, in the hands of an expert, elegant. The “cut” transition has often been feared and maligned as a visual device since the invention of motion photography. Early filmmakers shied away from its directness, fearing the abruptness would be both disorienting and disturbing. Would audiences go mad? Storm the stage? Edwin Porter, in making the first edited film, The Life of an American Fireman, in 1903, was so concerned that his series of non-consecutive clips would be unsettling that he made a series of small dissolves between each discrete motion image so as to make the transitions easier on his audience. Very soon, of course, it was discovered that people could easily infer time and location from a well-placed cut, and it can be argued that efficient and deliberate cutting serves a purpose within the visual language, similar to that of punctuation in the written word.
The Russian school of filmmakers, epitomized by the works of Sergei Eisenstein, wholeheartedly embraced the brief moment of confusion and receptivity the cut brings. His montages brought together many disparate images that forced the viewer to create continuity and an internal storyline in order to glean meaning. The takeaway then becomes a matter for individual interpretation and reflection, and consequently you create art that is intrinsically more complex and satisfying.
Picture of Sergei M. Eisenstein at Listal
When I was first starting out as an editor, the technology for making dissolves or more complex transitions was expensive, especially in the electronic (tape-based) world. Not only did you need three tape machines, minimum, but you also needed gear to synchronize those machines so that they would play nicely together. Hence, most students then learned about editing in a world where the only transition was a cut. Being young, I felt this was limiting and quite unfair; why shouldn’t I have access to the full vocabulary of editing? Only in retrospect do I think that I was terribly lucky to have been given that break. Placing cuts is not an easy skill to learn for the uninitiated. It takes a lot of practice, a lot of squinting and thinking, “Why doesn’t that look right?” to get to the point where you place an edit by instinct. Visual rhythm is every bit as important a concept as musical rhythm, but they are utterly NOT the same thing. It is by no means surprising that a great many musicians find themselves working in film/video editing chairs due to their familiarity with decoding polyrhythms. Plus, there are visual rules for cutting that you learn by trial and error or through mentorship: Don’t cut (or dissolve!) wide to wide. Defy continuity with caution, but be confident when you do. Don’t cross the axis of action. The lowly, deceptively simple cut is the editor’s very first transitional device. It’s easy to mimic the motions but it takes a lifetime of learning – and then unlearning – to master the Zen of hitting the “in” marker when it just feels right.
Just as all good writers learn to write by reading a lot, editors aspiring to master the cut need to see the poets of the industry in action, and watch film with an attention to rhythm and spatial juxtaposition. I have directorial favorites: Kurosawa, Kubrick, Zinneman, Lumet – and editorial favorites: Schoonmaker, Murch, Frank Keller, Jill Bilcock. I don’t say my list should be everyone’s; I DO say everyone should make a point of populating their own list by finding motion pictures they love, and then asking the question, “Why does it work?” I will guarantee you, in the final analysis, that much of your gut level response is directly attributable to the editing, and decisions that were made in the editing room. The vast majority of those decisions? The cuts. So simple, so powerful. It is the considered application of form to chaos. It can be argued that applying form to chaos is the basis of all art. So, when you next go to make a cut, ask yourself: does this cut satisfy you, further the plot, create the desired emotion? If so, feel the power.
I’ll admit it. I love cuts. They’re pure and efficient, and, in the hands of an expert, elegant. The “cut” transition has often been feared and maligned as a visual device since the invention of motion photography. Early filmmakers shied away from its directness, fearing the abruptness would be both disorienting and disturbing. Would audiences go mad? Storm the stage? Edwin Porter, in making the first edited film, The Life of an American Fireman, in 1903, was so concerned that his series of non-consecutive clips would be unsettling that he made a series of small dissolves between each discrete motion image so as to make the transitions easier on his audience. Very soon, of course, it was discovered that people could easily infer time and location from a well-placed cut, and it can be argued that efficient and deliberate cutting serves a purpose within the visual language, similar to that of punctuation in the written word.
The Russian school of filmmakers, epitomized by the works of Sergei Eisenstein, wholeheartedly embraced the brief moment of confusion and receptivity the cut brings. His montages brought together many disparate images that forced the viewer to create continuity and an internal storyline in order to glean meaning. The takeaway then becomes a matter for individual interpretation and reflection, and consequently you create art that is intrinsically more complex and satisfying.
When I was first starting out as an editor, the technology for making dissolves or more complex transitions was expensive, especially in the electronic (tape-based) world. Not only did you need three tape machines, minimum, but you also needed gear to synchronize those machines so that they would play nicely together. Hence, most students then learned about editing in a world where the only transition was a cut. Being young, I felt this was limiting and quite unfair; why shouldn’t I have access to the full vocabulary of editing? Only in retrospect do I think that I was terribly lucky to have been given that break. Placing cuts is not an easy skill to learn for the uninitiated. It takes a lot of practice, a lot of squinting and thinking, “Why doesn’t that look right?” to get to the point where you place an edit by instinct. Visual rhythm is every bit as important a concept as musical rhythm, but they are utterly NOT the same thing. It is by no means surprising that a great many musicians find themselves working in film/video editing chairs due to their familiarity with decoding polyrhythms. Plus, there are visual rules for cutting that you learn by trial and error or through mentorship: Don’t cut (or dissolve!) wide to wide. Defy continuity with caution, but be confident when you do. Don’t cross the axis of action. The lowly, deceptively simple cut is the editor’s very first transitional device. It’s easy to mimic the motions but it takes a lifetime of learning – and then unlearning – to master the Zen of hitting the “in” marker when it just feels right.
Just as all good writers learn to write by reading a lot, editors aspiring to master the cut need to see the poets of the industry in action, and watch film with an attention to rhythm and spatial juxtaposition. I have directorial favorites: Kurosawa, Kubrick, Zinneman, Lumet – and editorial favorites: Schoonmaker, Murch, Frank Keller, Jill Bilcock. I don’t say my list should be everyone’s; I DO say everyone should make a point of populating their own list by finding motion pictures they love, and then asking the question, “Why does it work?” I will guarantee you, in the final analysis, that much of your gut level response is directly attributable to the editing, and decisions that were made in the editing room. The vast majority of those decisions? The cuts. So simple, so powerful. It is the considered application of form to chaos. It can be argued that applying form to chaos is the basis of all art. So, when you next go to make a cut, ask yourself: does this cut satisfy you, further the plot, create the desired emotion? If so, feel the power.
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