As I continue with video productions for both our Astute clients as well ‘my own scripts’ for some Indy movies, I wanted to share the following information that can help others transfer ideas in their ‘minds eye’ to media…
“For some next-generation students, however, the shot at a Hollywood job is no longer the goal. They’d rather make cinematic technique – newly democratized by digital equipment that reduces the cost of a picture to a few thousand dollars..” (1).
The famous filmmaker Werner Herzog fans the creative fires more with his recent statements to young aspiring filmmakers– as he dvises young filmmakers they don’t need to go to film school, but rather explore the world on foot, and not let fear of rejection keep them from their dreams. Herzog said that, with small, modern cameras, a feature film can be made for “$15,000 dollars” nowadays. “You have to go out and do it,” he told the master class. “That’s one of the basic things you have to know about the profession.” (2)
I was recently ‘blown away’ by an Indy movie made by Uruguay filmmaker Fede Alvarez gives Montevideo an NYC-style demolition — and does it for a few hundred bucks. The video has landed him a production deal with Sam Raimi’s Ghost House Pictures. The effects are sensational.
Although this effort was a major production (just look at the credits). There is much that can be done using a minimal budget. One really creative and well executed example of using the Internet media to teach how to create media can be found in the Film Riot series– http://revision3.com/filmriot/episodes.
On the other end of the media delivery spectrum, Stephen King, master of horror literature and screenplays for major motion pictures helped to make use of technology to extend his product reach (3). For his novel ‘N’ — N- www.nishere.com
He created visual comic book… to build interest and augment and highlight his book. leverages bet- running ads before playing.
I am always interested in more rapid, professional methods for communicating drama, emotion, and story line. Kings work provides a clever way of using 2D artwork (perhaps digitized photos- to expedite the creative rendering of people and faces). He uses ‘pan and scan’ technique to enable dramatic transitions and exposing key elements of the story at just the right timing. In addition, changes in depth of field, select element movement (sign in the wind, etc). This is also a great way to create a ‘storyboard’ and visualize what a production will look like- enabling the creative team to get feedback on shots, angles, casting, etc. prior to going to film… feedback is easy and cost-effect to solicit with quality and quantity online…
I had the privilege of meeting James Cameron at SIGGRAPH- the big computer graphics conference back in 1993 or so at a real-time computer graphics special interest group meeting in LA. There was only about 16 people in a hallway and his focus and determination to leverage the emerging technologies (and talent in the hallway) for cinema and story telling was very evident. He was focused on the use of computer graphics- he was passionate about it and leveraged this technology to create Titanic and most recently ‘Avatar.’ Which by the way, will provide a second round of opportunity with the game market- likely leveraging technology from Microsoft (with perfect timing) for it’s project Natal
This is amazing technology – using the most sophisticated ‘avatar’ technology that I have seen to date (and I have seen a lot of high end work for simulators and avatars).
Awesome Digital Camcorders adopt some of the features of serious cameras…
My current quick video set up consists of a Sony EX-1 – which provides 1080p as well as 60 fps of 720P – for great slow motion (BTW- I have a collection of many DV cameras including the Canon XL2 (which has a great telephoto, variable zoom lens), the Panasonic VX100, various other Sony HD, SD cameras) Most of the output is for DVD, web – and the HD is useful as it enables the ability to crop, zoom and pan video in post-production. It is very useful to eliminate a stray light pole or other items in a scene that can distract from The Sony has the long-play batteries and two 32GB SXS flash cards which pretty much last an entire day of shooting- without having to worry about changing tapes… The media can hold multiple formats of recording on the same media which is very helpful. The lens is also good for both close-in shots and wide shots. The other things that I like are the ‘histogram’ capability to monitor shots coupled with a great large lens-ring, manual iris control – its excellent dynamic range, the built in lens ‘cap.’ Of course the necessities of XLR external input for microphone with phantom power enabling power to the pre-amp in the shotgun microphone without having to worry about the charge in the microphone, the excellent HD display that is cleverly built to swing in and out to protect and keep the profile of the camera to a minimum. Digital is awesome for rapid review of footage, using thumb-nail image navigation.
Media transfer is readily enabled through use of the USB 2.0 cable. Transfer can also occur through the laptop equipped with Express bus card reader (e.g., the high-end MacBook Pro). You need to have software which enables re-stitching the video which spans two memory cards. Other features that I have not exploited include the ability to have a semi-transparent frame from a past scene to enable optically lining up sequential scenes- useful for special effects- making something disappear, change or other continuity requirements, setting custom ‘looks’ with different camera settings to again enable continuity.
A portable lighting kit (Arri with focusable Fresnel, halogen lights), a Sennheiser shotgun microphone with audio stand. It’s a pretty good, quick set-up stand. LED lights would be great to use- especially for tight areas- where the heat and size of traditional lighting does not work.
In the future, I plan on using both still cameras with HD capability (such as the Canon 7D) as well as the Red video cameras (www.red.com).
The Still DSLR (digital single lens reflex) camera morphs into a movie camera
The Canon 7D is the first ‘affordable’ still camera to provide great video capability. The camera provides a big image sensor with the capability of great low light sensitivity, depth of field, use of the Canon range of interchangeable lenses as well as the ability to shoot at 1080P as well as a number of other standard video formats.
However, this camera is a bit of a compromise, it is a great still camera that also shoots video. It doesn’t have all of the video centric controls that a video camera does; but it does have a great image sensor that provides a more ‘cinematographic’ style in a shoot. A great demo video showing the combination of the Canon 7D (which has about a 12 min video duration limit due to the FAT32 file system limit of 4GB file size) accompanied by a low cost (around $500) Glidecam HD-2000 stabilizer (I have one- it takes careful use/practice to get good footage): http://vimeo.com/7405872. Using a still camera as a motion camera involves items like lenses that offer stabilization (like Canon did with optical stabilization in its lenses on the XL series). For example, Tamron offers a nice lens with vibration compensation: http://www.tamron.com/lenses/prod/1750_vc_b005.asp. Some will try to use their old flash cards in this camera and will get dropped frames. You will need to buy new, faster read-write speed 16 or 32GB high speed cards to take advantage of the video features to avoid these issues. I tried one of the 7D’s out and am impressed with its resolution, low light capabilities- and simple to use focus. I did miss the servo-based zoom capability provided by a standard camera along with the standard video ergonomics. However, the idea of being able to record high quality video with interchangeable lenses is very promising … perhaps less is more. I am intrigued with the idea of shooting a video with the 7D and a bunch of lenses- supplemented with traditional video cameras to enable a range of capabilities.
Here is an example of why this camera is such a boon in terms of technical quality to the Indy shooter: http://vimeo.com/6475938 . Look at the quality of the images, the depth of field, range of color… fabulous. The trick is that it is relatively easy to shoot random people… and it looks good with music– it is another story to tell a compelling story with script, acting, planned scenes, etc. But, as you can see, the technology is now available at very reasonable pricing to enable high quality videography- the quality of which you see in the theater without the cost of film, and using a camera set up of less than $10-15K (camera body, memory cards, lens, tripod, Glidecam, external sound and mic, lights) and of course access to an Apple or PC with video edit software (e.g., FinalCut Pro on the Mac, AVID, or Adobe Premier Pro) as well as some post software like AfterEffects, Shake, Color, etc.
Final Thought- Regarding Video on the Web.
One key consideration in evaluating ANY technology is that frequently what you see on the web is a poor reflection of the source material. Compression artifacts (such as loss of color depth – with dithering and loss of resolution) plague the quality of much of web-posted content. It is important to design media so that it looks good on the web- be careful; more careful than usual with lighting- dramatic lights can look bad on the web since everything tends to be even more pronounced. It is better to have more continuous tones/shadows so that compression does not compromise the imaging too much. Sound is frequently compromised when people listen to pieces on their computer monitors- in their office or noisy home. Subtle sounds, music and effects are lost.
References:
1. Elizabeth Van Ness, “Is a Cinema Studies Degree the New M.B.A.?,” The New York Times, March 6, 2005.
2. http://www.cnn.com/2009/SHOWBIZ/Movies/12/11/werner.herzog.advice/index.html
3. Jeffrey A. Trachtenberg, “Stephen King Enlists Marvel in Video Plot,” The Wall Street Journal. Marketplace. Friday, July 25, 2009. B1
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