Filmmaking Etc

Devin Faraci on 48FPS:

The technically minded people want the next thing. They want fidelity, clarity and hyper-realism. They want the technology pushed to the edge, and then pushed some more. The reality of what they’re experiencing, be it sound or vision, is paramount. They want full, complete immersion. These people won’t be happy until they get a holodeck.

The artistically minded people are, in this case, more conservative. “If it ain’t broke…” they say, and they don’t think it’s broke. In fact, not only is it not broke, it’s already great. Cinema for them is a world of exquisite falseness made real by the shared dreaming that goes on in a movie theater. They don’t need explicit realism. They love suspension of disbelief.

And that’s the divide. The tech people want to be fooled, to be totally and completely conned by the images they see. They can’t help but pick apart every out of place pixel and flaw in the film. But the art types, they meet the movie halfway. Defects are part of the perfection, a contradiction the technical people can never understand.

Kent Tessman on the sad state of the movie-going experience:

By not seeming to particularly care about out-of-focus, misaligned lenses, under-serviced bulbs, and crackly sound systems, theaters are making a very clear statement about exactly how much they think what they’re selling you is worth. Theater chains are training moviegoers that a movie is something they can treat with as much respect as a pay-per-view wrestling event. Why should that bozo behind you shut up so you can enjoy the movie when he’s not behaving any differently than he did sitting in that same seat the night before, hooting while watching a couple of UFC thugs beat each other up? Because he’s been educated that that’s what that theater is for.

Scott Squires’s thoughts on filmmaking at 48 frames per second (and beyond).

Pre-announced at NAB, but now it’s official and available for preorder. It ships on May 7th.

See also: Adobe Creative Suite 6 Pre-Order

Oliver Peters’ nice roundup of the new products and services announced at NAB.

A timely PSA from Matthew Duclos on the importance of investing in lenses rather than cameras.

Dylan Reeve on why Autodesk’s Smoke announcement is so game-changing:

Regardles of specifics the future is bright for us. It’s now entirely possible to have a computer with Media Composer, the entire Adobe collection, DaVinci Resolve, Smoke, ProTools and much more, all for less than the cost of a single basic NLE suite from just ten years ago – and it can do more than even the most high-end tools of ten years ago.

Very nice.

See also: John Brawley’s post on his experience shooting with it.

As a long time Panasonic fan (Very fond memories of the DVX100 and, years later, the HMC150), it’s real disappointing to see Panasonic asleep at the wheel the past few years. Hopefully they’ll have a “one more thing” to unveil later in the show.

A nice rundown by Scott Simmons of what’s new in Premiere Pro CS6. For more, Adobe’s CS6 page is a good place to start.

Oddities aside (The 1D C’s price and 4k only at 24p crop mode), looks like nice additions to Canon’s lineup.

Stu Maschwitz about his experience talking with the creators of the Digital Bolex project. Like Stu, I’m skeptical as well, but it’s nice to know these two are serious.

An amusing preview of the next release of Premiere Pro. Not much substantive information, but we do get a peak at the new interface. Looks good, very Media Composer 6-esque. Looks like Adobe finally resolved some long standing interface issues (navigation controls that take up too much space, unreadable audio meters, etc).

It’s crazy how many films he watches (and novels, plays, and TV shows) considering how productive he is (He’s averages about 2 feature films a year).

Speaking of which, a clever short film directed by Simon Bonneau and Charles-Edouard Dangelser (which just happens to be shot on the recently announced Nikon 5100).

FreshDV’s Kendal Miller:

After a week of nonstop talking at NAB I have realized that there are some incredibly talented independent filmmakers out there, and they are by far in the minority. There are those people out there finding legitimate uses for the tools at hand and really using them to tell some incredible stories. However, there are far more posers than anything else. I’m fed up with Vimeo, shallow DOF, slider driven. montage sequences with credits on them masquerading as films. I’m sick of lazy, careless, pre-production, masquerading as cinema verite or so called art films. I’m completely over the pretentious arrogance put out by some co-called “filmmakers” in our industry.

I don’t agree with everything, but a worthwhile read.

Scott Simmons:

It has been just under a week since SuperMeet and I have to admit that I am a bit more optimistic today than I was from when I left the SuperMeet. Not so much because I think FCP X is going to be the NLE that blows every other NLE out of the water (far from it) but because it really looks like FCP X will bring some new thinking to the way our NLEs work and how we work with them.

Some words of sanity from Bruce Johnson:

So in the wake of last night’s Final Cut Pro X announcement, which some wags are suggesting is more like iMovie Pro, I suggest we shut down the “Pro” arms race. Let’s all decide to back down, and stop trying to passively-aggressively demean anyone that doesn’t edit on what we edit on.

I’m surprised Adobe hasn’t changed Photoshop CS Extended to Photoshop CS Pro by now with all this nonsense.

A reminder that they’ll both close on April 17 and reopen on the 27th.

A week without awesome customer service and great prices. How will we survive?

(via DPReview

They’re going to help develop the Alexa M, a spinoff of the Arri Alexa that has a separate head and body for stereoscopic imagery.

Very cool.

A summation of RED’s announcements during NAB, including:

4. We are working on a home 4K laser projector.

Wow. Uses off-the-shelf SSD drives too. This is crazy amazing for the price.

In other words, shit just got real.

More info on the JAG35 site.