There is a revolution quietly happening in the field of video production that should definitely be of interest to those who work across the many media options available today.
To some extent, technology is changing everything in making films, from the way they are planned and storyboarded, the writing of scripts, right up to the shooting and post production.
For those who tell stories across media, the bewildering array of choices in terms of hardware and software can quickly become overwhelming. This article attempts to explain some of the options.
The Problems with Digital
In the past, the gulf between professional film and home-movie was enormous. Film would be shot using celluloid, and the home-shooter had the option of formats like super-8. Along came digital, and without going into a long history of formats we find ourselves in the high-def revolution. Costs of shooting came down for those who could afford to re-tool their professional studios with cameras like the Red One, a digital cinematography camera created and financed by Jim Jannard, the founder of Oakley. The Red overcame many of the problems of shooting entirely digitally.
There are a few hurdles that have, in the past, kept digital shooting from being a possibility for film destined for the theater (even though distribution of film to theaters in digital has been happening for some time now)
The problems involved things such as:
Dynamic Range - the range of light and color that could be captured in the medium. The human eye has a huge dynamic range, and most digital media simply could not come anywhere close to what traditional film could. The difference was very notable.
Depth of Field - most digital solutions could not achieve the depth of field options that we have become used to in traditional film. Depth of Field is an essential storytelling element for most professional film producers and simply could not be restricted as would have to be done with digital.
Low Light Conditions - in time many digital cameras came to perform admirably, but only in great lighting conditions. At low light, most digital cameras would break up into an unacceptable amount of grain, thus revealing their digital nature and repelling film-goers who are used to the look of film.
Besides these common problems came other difficulties that had a lot to do with the availability of accessories for the digital shooting solutions. Without achieving the popularity of film, digital cameras suffered from a lack of lenses, bodies, rigs and jibs that are standard fare in traditional film-based shooting. With restricted shooting conditions, lack of hardware, and general lack of enthusiasm, it was tough to sell a digital solution to the film-maker.
Digital Video Breaks Through
Times have changed however, starting at the top. For instance, the latest StarWars movies were shot in with a Panavision modified Sony HDW-F900 24P digital camera, Lucasfilm having traditionally been a pioneer in the field of digital video adoption. This allowed them to use film accessories, created by Panavision, in shooting parts of episode 1, and episodes 2 and 3 in their entirety. The HD footage was transferred to 35mm film and previewed at Skywalker Ranch, finally making it’s way to theaters. Six Sony HDW-F900 cameras were purchased for the shooting of Star Wars Episode 2. Since then, quite a few features have been shot using these cameras, including Sin City, Public Enemies, and Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow.
While the CineAlta cameras made by Sony were a big step forward for digital, allowing incredible video quality and use of film accessories, there was a cost to be paid in dollars. The cameras used expensive proprietary storage media called HDCAM tapes or XDCAM Professional Discs. And the cameras themselves were not highly available. Even now a camera from this line will set you back a good $70k U.S.
The CineAlta camera is the top of the top. If you’re shooting the next Batman, and that’s all you’re shooting, well there’s your gear. Now the problem with the top-end gear is that it is pretty much single-purpose equipment, and therefore outside of the sweet-spot of functionality and cost for transmedia producers who will be working in various directions, needing stills, and video formatted for various uses. The cameras are expensive and bulky (though not as bulky as film), and for much of transmedia production would be extreme overkill. For instance, if I’m shooting video for the web, using a CineAlta 24P HDCAM would be a lot like scratching my back with a nuclear bomb. Every second of shooting would be killing me financially, the ROI would be negligible given the cost.
We might say ‘no big deal, we can shoot the feature for theater, and then borrow footage for use in the web production’. That is generally how it is done, but this is not the way of actual transmedia production, which insists that each medium be used to maximum effect. In other words, simply reusing content that was conceived for a big screen on a tiny computer screen is not cool (and film makers have been telling us that for years).
The little computer screen has it’s own unique advantages, as does the big movie screen, and trying to shoot once for both is a recipe for mediocrity.
So in the next part, we’ll look at a few of the options available, and dive a little bit into the DSLR revolution that is slowly but surely taking place.