I'll be the first to admit that I'm a bit of a geek. I love technology, and the more it bleeds, the more excited I am.
However, in this day of bells and whistles one-upmanship between Canon, Panasonic, and Sony, the role of the artist is being lost in the dustcloud. Many of us struggle just to get that one project completed so that we can show it in our living rooms on our 32" 720p TVs. Being tempted and distracted by the latest and greatest chunks of technology does not help us as artists. Frequently, it's enough of a distraction that we are paralyzed into inaction. We hear through the blogosphere and through the myriad video forums that what we have just isn't good enough, and we believe it.
A while back, Stu Maschwitz, a guy who is a lot smarter than me where the technical side of film is concerned, and someone whom I respect tremendously, posted a mellow rant against Canon about their approach to the market. You can read his comments here (and I suggest that you follow his blog).
While I do agree that the 4k solution is ill-conceived, I disagree with what I perceive to be the spirit of his sentiment regarding the 7D and 5DmkII cameras. The gist is that Canon hasn't properly handled the job of combining the technologies required to pull a usable picture stream out of the camera. While I agree that they could have done a better job, I think that this blog post might panic and immobilize recent buyers of one of these cameras. "Oh, my God, what did I just buy?"
To be fair, the unmodified Panasonic GH1 has a problematic image processing stream as well, resulting in muddy shadows and moire effects.
This is just part of the deal with a hybrid camera like this. We want sensor size, high sensor resolution, and a pristine 1080p image. Someplace in there, something's gotta give. You see, in order to keep the shallow focal depth of a full-frame sensor, the manufacture needs to use the full sensor to capture the image. This image then needs to be downsampled to fit the HD format. Data must necessarily be tossed for that to work. It's just the nature of the beast.
Blah, blah, blah. My eyes glaze over. The cameras serve their purposes.
Could it have been handled better? Probably. But it's important to take a step back and realize that the image looks really good for a $2000 camera with so much operational flexibility. Is it up to Hollywood standards? Probably not, but the image quality is good enough that George Lucas is using Canon DSLRs on his new film... Point being, the image quality is good enough for us.
As is the image off my old Panasonic PV-DV953 miniDV camcorder. The picture is a tad small, but it can be gorgeous!
It is a tool that captures the image and sound that corresponds to all that stuff we wrote between Fade In: and Fade Out:
Don't get wrapped up in the tech. Use what you have, and tell your story.
Ramblings and pointed opinions about the philosophy, art, and appreciate of film production.
Thursday, October 14, 2010
Mutual goals, compromise, and when to stick to your vision
Last night I chatted over beers with a very enthusiastic special effects buddy. I asked him what it would take to do a car crash at highway speeds into a concrete barrier, edge-on. I said that I wanted a very simple crunch, with the rear being lifted up, swinging sideways a bit, and dropping to the ground. An understated yet visibly lethal crash.
This artist is a friend of mine, aims to please, and as I mentioned earlier, very enthusiastic. I said simple crash, crunch, a bit of aerial swing. What he wants is to do something like this, with a flip (sorry about the ad in the video):
The effect would be spectacular...flashy, noisy, lots of smoke, and a bit of flame. But, my vision is much simpler, because the nature of the scene demands that it not be flashy. It must almost look mundane, as if it is background action.
I should also mention that this will be an "out of pocket" effect. We will need to be very creative about how we stage it so that it doesn't become a multi-tens of thousands of dollars effect. So, he will likely need to sacrifice a bit to make it cost effective for me. Essentially, he will be doing me a big favor if we are going to get it done at all.
The challenge becomes how we both get something we want. He has been looking for a platform to perform a specific effect...a car hitting a sloped barrier and flipping sideways onto its roof, then sliding on the asphalt.
So, if he offered me the effect essentially for free, but done the way he wants to do it, would I take the offer?
No. I wouldn't.
All too often, the cohesive style and vision of a project is sacrificed because there are too many interested parties with their spoons in the batter. Our intimate scene with an understated, yet lethal car crash suddenly becomes an action scene, and in doing so, it loses its identity.
In business school, the end result would be called a "sofa-bed". It's effective as neither one nor the other; it's a bland hybrid.
So, my message is to be clear about your vision, and communicate the vision well. Do no turn this into a turf war or personality conflict. It's about the cohesiveness of the look and pacing of the film, which is the master that you and all of the other artists on your film are serving.
Another take-away is this: if someone agrees to do something specific for you at a reduced rate, karma requires that you do the same. In this situation, if he did the stunt that my vision calls for, and in a way that I can afford, my solution would be to write and direct something for him that uses the effect that he is dying to execute.
This artist is a friend of mine, aims to please, and as I mentioned earlier, very enthusiastic. I said simple crash, crunch, a bit of aerial swing. What he wants is to do something like this, with a flip (sorry about the ad in the video):
The effect would be spectacular...flashy, noisy, lots of smoke, and a bit of flame. But, my vision is much simpler, because the nature of the scene demands that it not be flashy. It must almost look mundane, as if it is background action.
I should also mention that this will be an "out of pocket" effect. We will need to be very creative about how we stage it so that it doesn't become a multi-tens of thousands of dollars effect. So, he will likely need to sacrifice a bit to make it cost effective for me. Essentially, he will be doing me a big favor if we are going to get it done at all.
The challenge becomes how we both get something we want. He has been looking for a platform to perform a specific effect...a car hitting a sloped barrier and flipping sideways onto its roof, then sliding on the asphalt.
So, if he offered me the effect essentially for free, but done the way he wants to do it, would I take the offer?
No. I wouldn't.
All too often, the cohesive style and vision of a project is sacrificed because there are too many interested parties with their spoons in the batter. Our intimate scene with an understated, yet lethal car crash suddenly becomes an action scene, and in doing so, it loses its identity.
In business school, the end result would be called a "sofa-bed". It's effective as neither one nor the other; it's a bland hybrid.
So, my message is to be clear about your vision, and communicate the vision well. Do no turn this into a turf war or personality conflict. It's about the cohesiveness of the look and pacing of the film, which is the master that you and all of the other artists on your film are serving.
Another take-away is this: if someone agrees to do something specific for you at a reduced rate, karma requires that you do the same. In this situation, if he did the stunt that my vision calls for, and in a way that I can afford, my solution would be to write and direct something for him that uses the effect that he is dying to execute.
Me + Blogging = grrrr
So, I lead a filmmakers' group in Portland that meets every month. I typically have some pearl to bestow, just some nugget to crack the shell of their collective experience and help them grow for themselves a larger conceptual world in which to navigate and explore. My ideas are frequently geeky and are usually a bit off the wall, but that doesn't matter. I just want to stimulate those grey cells so that people realize that realizing their vision is not necessarily bound by the bits of flotsam and jetsam that we frequently view as being "video tools".
I've thought about teaching workshops, and there has been interest. This is cool.
However, how will I teach a workshop if I can't even handle the simple task of maintaining a blog?
Perhaps this is because I am a recursive thinker...I value the art of conversation and brainstorming...how to take a bit of braindust and bounce it around with others until an idea is formed, and if we're lucky, is workable. I thrive on interaction, and blogging feels like it is done in a vacuum.
What does the future hold? Well, I have seventeen stories in my writer's morgue, three of which are currently being written as features. Another one that I just cooked up will likely be a short, and I hope that the script is done by the end of next week. I'm already talking shop with some of my pals, cronies, and fellow artists. But, I'll discuss those in other posts...
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