Hi-Def DSLRs May Be Cheap, But Talent Is Priceless

By Brendan Seibel

When Vincent Laforet released Reverie last year, the digital revolution seemed poised to sweep across the world of moviemaking. Shot entirely on a prototype of Canon’s then yet-to-be-released EOS 5D Mark II, the short film revealed the camera’s extraordinary low-light sensitivity and HD video capabilities, all with the photographer’s choice of lenses. It appeared to be an all-in-one movie studio replacement.

The fact that HD video and cinematic quality was being offered at consumer rates thrilled the online video community. “Laforet’s, in particular, showed off the real upside of working with the 5DII’s light-sensitive sensor: When you can work with smaller lights, your production budget goes much farther,” said photographer and End User writer Ryan Brenizer in an e-mail.

It seemed that a few big Hollywood studios would no longer dominate our viewing agenda, that an indie revolution was imminent and that the dam on a reservoir of creativity had been destroyed. But that has not been the case. So why are we not awash in studio-quality, low-budget flicks? The answer is complex, and it zeros in on an ever more important relationship between the tools of production and the actual talent of filmmaking — the two of which people often confuse.

Canon’s announcement last month of their latest model, the EOS 1D Mark IV, was coupled with another release by Laforet, using a Mark IV prototype. Again shooting under tight time restrictions and using no additional lighting, the short, Nocturne, immediately became the subject of intense internet chatter.

Video enthusiasts were thrilled by news of the expanded ISO range and ability to shoot at 24, 25 and 30fps at full 1080p, but before many had the opportunity to see the movie, Canon requested it be pulled. No official explanation has been offered by either the company or Laforet himself, although it has been noted his use of Zeiss lenses during production may be the cause. The incident is just the latest in a series of missteps and blunders which has caused consternation amongst potential subscribers to the DSLR as movie camera.

Following Canon’s Mark II and Nikon’s D90 entry into the market with beautiful full-frame HD video capabilities and swappable, high-quality lenses, early adopters began to showcase their videos on YouTube and Vimeo. In June, a group of independent filmmakers from Oregon announced they had completed shooting a feature-length movie using the D90, also named Reverie.

Sound Designer Alex Stowell on the set of Reverie, courtesy Alles Mist

 

“Effectively, a 35mm Digital Cinema Camera [sic] had become available to the masses,” e-mailed Reverie cinematographer and producer Alles Mist, “[t]o artists who haven’t the benefit of studio funding and giant crews. That alone was enough to thrill me.”

Online viewers of trailers for Mist’s feature-length Reverie were torn between criticizing the movie as much as the quality of image. Reverie screened in Grant’s Pass, Oregon, for friends and crew and is being shopped for distribution.

“It’s not the format, it’s the content,” says independent filmmaker Jon Moritsugu in an e-mail. “I think the ‘YouTube revolution’ … has already unleashed a tsunami of indie and home movies. I don’t feel that a particular type of cheap DSLR camera is gonna really cause that much of a stir.”

Jon Moritsugu with 2nd Unit gear for Scumrock, courtesy Jon Moritsugu

 

Camera enthusiasts were quick to point out some immediate problems with the technology. Dubbed the jello effect, a catch-all phrase for visual distortions caused by the rolling shutter, straight objects wobble and lean due to the sensor’s construction of the image top to bottom. When Nikon released their prosumer D300S, claims of improvement were made, although hotly contested. Those fortunate enough to have seen Laforet’s Nocturne complained that his methods of cutting and post-production manipulations didn’t allow for honest critique of how the HD video handled movement.

Another sticking point was most cameras’ lack of manual function while engaged in video recording. The Canon and Nikon models lock in automatic, requiring some work arounds.

During shooting of Mist’s Reverie, the filmmaker circumvented the camera by locking the camera to its highest f-stop and focusing with a swapped lens. “These automatic systems should not be relied upon to perform these functions for the operator. Once that happens, the resulting piece is no longer the work of the artist — it is that of the mechanism,” he says.

Canon responded to complaints in June by introducing a firmware update for their 5D Mark II which allowed manual aperture, ISO and shutter speed control, but not allowing manual control of the video function. Nikon similarly refused to relinquish full control to the user with their subsequent DSLR models.

In order to compensate for the inherent shortcomings of the D90, Mist employed 10 years of film experience and some additional gear. “We had three main lenses — a Sigma Fixed f/2.8 28-70mm, a 50mm Prime f/1.4, and the Nikkor 18-105mm f/3.5-5.6 which comes with the D90.” An additional investment of over a thousand dollars required to correct for poor specs is a slap in the face to the Nikon faithful. However, this may not act as a deterrent to first-time buyers gearing up for another Christmas shopping season.

Once would-be filmmakers make the investment and the first footage is shot, initial excitement will undoubtedly yield to frustration. “The main block there,” said Brenizer, “is what happens when 1080p video in particular gets pushed down into a truly consumer market and people encounter how much time and computer power it takes to edit the footage.” While the Nikon D90 shoots video at 24fps, the Canon Mark II records at 30fps, which would need to be converted before using many popular editing programs. Using a process called “pulldown,” film shot at 24fps is converted to run at 30fps. “Pulldowns are concentrated insanity,” says Mist. When a new camera is released, it often requires people to change their workflow. The video editing giant Final Cut Pro has been taking steps to accommodate would-be directors by introducing patches designed for DSLR footage.

Experienced filmmakers are accustomed to long hours spent in post production, but most dabblers in video will probably lack the time or initiative to fully understand the process involved. “We shot the entire thing for five grand with a Hi8 analog camcorder,” said the award-winning Moritsugu, in reference to his 2003 film Scumrock. “I edited on a VHS cuts-only system; then we transferred everything to AVID and did sound-design work.”

And just because it’s digital, he says, doesn’t mean all the problems go away: “Horrifying scheduling nightmares, chicken-neck dinners for vegetarian crews and scabies infestations (DO NOT furnish your production office with couches and chairs found on the street from garbage collection night).”

If nothing else, the growing market of amateur filmmakers could create a financial incentive for companies to simplify all the video formatting madness. The more one learns about necessary software and conversions, the more one realizes how desperately the whole industry needs universal hardware and software standards.

One bright light to emerge from the darkness of change has been in the world of multimedia journalism. The PBS series Frontline used footage shot on a Mark II by embedded photojournalist Danfung Dennis for the documentary Obama’s War.

While the camera’s size certainly enabled Dennis more flexibility in coverage (he was denied a full film crew), the technical limitations were pronounced. He had to employ a rig to compensate for the unsuitable design, use filters to compensate for overexposure, and be a slave to Canon’s 15-minute take limit. The post-production process required extreme patience as the large files caused havoc for his laptop and needed to be converted to Apple ProRes 422 LT to ensure quality.

“From a professional standpoint,” says Brenizer, “video DSLRs’ primary strength is within mixed-media projects. It’s easier to switch between photos and video, and you have less to carry.”

It’s been an uncertain year for investment in the world of DSLR cameras. An excited flurry of product launches has caused confusion, debates and severed allegiances while complaints rage. The manufacturers are obviously investing heavily in the new HD video capabilities, continuing to showcase new videos as each new model is released. And people are buying — Canon showed a 10 percent increase in DSLR sales over the past year — but how long before companies are contemplating a substantial upgrade?

“As the manufacturers make updates to them, there will definitely be increased interest, and undoubtedly an escalation in productions where the cameras are utilized, particularly among independent filmmakers,” Mist says. “The more demand for enhancements that consumers and professionals provide for this new breed of camera, the more changes will be made to them.”

http://www.wired.com/rawfile/2009/11/video-dslr

Parts Imitating Life: Sculptor uses car parts to make cars… and animals

James Corbett’s car parts art – Click above for image gallery

One man’s junk is… well, you know. Watching the shiny metal grommets roll through his auto recycling plant in Brisbane, Australia, James Corbett doesn’t appear to know the word “junk” when it comes to cars. He takes all of those leftover bits and makes superbly detailed sculptures of mostly vintage racers and, of all things, animals. None of the parts are bent or altered to help make the pieces, either. Corbett even built a full-size car out of parts and stuck a flathead V8 in it, and he still takes it racing.

Corbett has an exhibit coming up in London this month and then takes his show to Palm Desert, CA next year. If you don’t get a chance to see the real things, we suggest you have a well-worth-it look at the images in our gallery below.

http://www.autoblog.com/2009/11/13/parts-imitating-life-sculptor-uses-car-parts-to-make-cars-an/

Seiko Ocean Theater alarm clock brings the life aquatic to your bedroom

For this price I would hope for a nicer image, but the idea is cute.

Article by Laura June

If you’re anything like us, you’re terrified of whales for pretty much no reason. Seiko’s newest alarm clock — the Ocean Theater — probably isn’t for you then. Fair enough, but plenty of people are not maladjusted, and we’re willing to admit that it’s pretty cool, even if it’s terrifying. The clock, which responds to touch, can project various marine life upon your walls, and we imagine it’ll be a huge hit with children. As you’ll see in the video after the break, if this thing works as advertised, it’s really rather impressive. The Ocean Theater also doubles as an iPod dock, and will be available from Japan Trends; it’s up for pre-order now and runs $235. Like we said, definitely check out the video after the break.

[Via Uber Gizmo]

Follow the link for a video – http://www.engadget.com/2009/11/12/seiko-ocean-theater-alarm-clock-brings-the-life-aquatic-to-your/

Designer Duo Create a Dress With 24,000 LEDs

By Priya Ganapati

Next time you compliment a woman at a party that’s she glowing, it may literally be so. Two London-based designers have created a dress embroidered with 24,000 full color LEDs .

Called the ‘Galaxy Dress’ it claims to be the largest wearable display in the world  and will be the center piece of an exhibit at the Museum of Science and Industry in Chicago.

“We used the smallest full-color LEDs, flat like paper, and measuring only 2 by 2 mm,” say designers Francesca Rosella and Ryan Genz in an email. “The circuits are extra-thin, flexible, and hand embroidered on a layer of silk in a way that gives it stretch so the LED fabric can move like normal fabric with lightness and fluidity.” The duo run an interactive clothing company called CuteCircuit.

Beyond the LEDs themselves, the Galaxy Dress is crafted in a way that should make the pickiest seamstresses proud.

To diffuse the LED light, the dress has four layers of silk chiffon and a pleated silk organza crinoline skirt. The extra-thin electronics allows the dress to follow the body shape closely like with normal fabric.

Instead of having one large and heavy battery, the dress is designed to run on many tiny iPod batteries hiding in the crinoline, says Rosella. “They are not visible or uncomfortable,” she says.

With the batteries, the Galaxy Dress wearer can walk around–all lit up–for anywhere from 30 minutes to an hour.

The areas without LEDs are decorated with more than 4000 hand-applied Swarovski crystals that range from clear crystal to bright pink.  “The dress looks good even when it is switched off,” say the designers.

So far, the dress hasn’t been worn by any real woman. It went straight from the fittings model to the museum.

More photos and a video of the dress

See a video of the LED Dress that, according to the designers, consumes about the same electricity as two household bulbs.

http://www.wired.com/gadgetlab/2009/11/led-dress/

Carbon Fiber Ribbon of Light

I would have assumed this lamp was aluminum, had designer Marcus Tremonto not explained:

“The complexity of curves and required thinness could not be duplicated in any other material while still maintaining its ability to support itself completely…”

Usually when I picture carbon fiber, I imagine that monotonous, slate-colored slab that’s delicately thin but mostly flat—or I picture the Ossur cheetah legs that are curved but only for industrial utility.

I’d never imagined carbon fiber as a ribbon of light.

[Contemporist via cribcandy]

Send an email to Mark Wilson, the author of this post, at mark@gizmodo.com.

http://gizmodo.com/5402189/carbon-fiber-ribbon-of-light

Kibardin Design’s anti-holey chair

Posted by hipstom

Kibardin Design’s suh-weet Deep Forest chair is the opposite of all of the “holey” chairs we’ve been seeing lately; it’s made from 374 dowels, joined and shaped into a comfortable seating surface. As you might guess, this amount of craftsmanship doesn’t come cheap–the chair goes for 4,399 Euros.

http://www.core77.com/blog/object_culture/kibardin_designs_anti-holey_chair_15145.asp

Your Own Personal Vertical Farm from Philips

Philips Design

by Lloyd Alter, Toronto

We love vertical farms on TreeHugger, but some question whether they make any sense. But perhaps if they were downsized and brought into our homes they might be just what we need. “This Biophere home farm contains fish, crustaceans, algae, plants and other mini-ecosystems, all interdependent and in balance with each other.”

Clive van Heerden, Senior Director of design-led innovation at Philips Design says in a press release:

“People are increasingly concerned about how their food has been manipulated and processed, genetic modification, global shortages, environmental degradation through monoculture, the distance food travels before reaching their plates and many other related issues,” says van Heerden. “One way of addressing such legitimate concerns is to source the food yourself by having a biosphere in your living room.”

Via Inhabitat and Designboom

More vertical farms:
Vertical (Diagonal?) Farm from Work AC in NYC
Vertical Farm in Dubai Uses Seawater

http://www.treehugger.com/files/2009/11/vertical-farm-philips.php

Bringing back Mickey Mouse’s dark side

Click image to go to Gallery

by Daniel Terdiman

In a world in which Disney defines its brand and the content it releases under its own name as being aimed at the broadest possible audience, Mickey Mouse is known largely as a feel-good, happy-go-lucky cartoon character.

But that’s not how Mickey was in the early days. Back in 1928, when he first hit the world stage, he was a very badly behaved mouse. And now, one of the best-known video game designers in the world wants to bring back a little of bit of Mickey’s dark side.

And he’ll get his chance to make that a reality. Warren Spector, the game designer behind the Deus Ex franchise, is working on a new game, Disney’s Epic Mickey, which is being positioned, in part, as a “re-imagining” of Mickey Mouse.

Planned for a fall 2010 release, Disney’s Epic Mickey will be an adventure-platforming game exclusively for Nintendo’s Wii. The story is built around a world–crafted by the sorcerer from The Sorcerer’s Apprentice–in which a series of forgotten Disney creations live, and thrive. Among those characters is Oswald, Walt Disney’s earliest cartoon star. As the years pass and Oswald becomes bitter at Mickey’s success, Mickey inadvertently destroys Oswald’s comfort zone in the cartoon wasteland and he must face the consequences of what he has accidentally wrought.

“It’s a game where we remind (people) that Mickey is a hero who solves problems by dynamically changing the world around him and deciding how to interact with the people and places and problems he encounters in this strange new world,” Spector said.

In 2005, Spector formed a start-up, Junction Point, which Disney bought when it commissioned him to work on the Mickey Mouse game. “I’ve wanted to work for Disney forever,” he said, “so that was not a stumbling point for me at all.”

And because Spector is a lifelong Disney fan and animation “freak,” everything came together in 2007 for him and his Junction Point team to take on perhaps the best-known cartoon character of all time. On Tuesday, Spector talked with CNET News about the project.

Q: How did you get involved?
Warren Spector: I was out pitching a near-future science-fiction game and an enormous epic fantasy role playing game, and my agent suggested we talk to Disney. They turned things around and asked me if I wanted to a Mickey Mouse game, and I told them no, because I don’t do kids games and Mickey’s been kind of a kid property for a long time. But they said, No, no, we want someone to bring Mickey to a gaming audience in a whole new way and make him a hero for the 21st century. Pretty much at that point, I was in.

What was it like to get a chance to re-imagine Mickey Mouse?
Spector: How often do you get a chance to work with the most recognizable movie star character property on Earth? That’s an opportunity most people never get. There was pretty much no way I could say no. Mickey touches everybody, and none of us will ever meet a human being who doesn’t know about this character.

What’s the best-case outcome for this game, in your fantasy?
Spector: The best case is to change the way people think about Mickey Mouse. He’s not just your 8-year-old kid’s best buddy, or a character who teaches infants colors on Mickey’s Clubhouse. He’s a hero again. In his early days, he appealed to every body. From 1928 to the mid-1930s, moviegoers around the world, everybody, men, women, old, young, you name it. Everybody loved Mickey. And the opportunity to bring him back to that place, where he’s not just an icon on a watch or a T-shirt, but is actually a character that people care about in a narrative context, or want to be, to look up to as a character whose skin they want to inhabit for awhile, Boy, I can’t think of a better (challenge) for someone who tells stories and makes games for a living.

The logo for Disney’s Epic Mickey.

(Credit: Disney Interactive Studios)

Why does Mickey need re-imagining? And why now?
Spector: There’s these characters, like Mario and Link (from the Zelda games) and Sonic, and I don’t know if it’s true, but you’ve got to believe that those characters–who are three heads tall and cute and iconic–at some level were inspired by Mickey Mouse. So why shouldn’t Mickey be at the top of the gaming heap? Mickey deserves to be at the top of the game hero pyramid.

What are some of the things you’re doing to make this new Mickey recognizable for everyone?
Spector: I came into this with a pretty good idea of who Mickey was. I wanted to remind Mickey that it’s okay to be mischievous and badly-behaved. For so many years, he hasn’t been allowed to do anything remotely mischievous. But if you go back to those early cartoons, he was very badly behaved, and we’ve got to let him get back to that. And in his early cartoons, he was very cartoon-y, he squashed, he stretched. He could remove his tail and use it as a sword. That was the second thing. And the third leap was mischievous cartoon character made of paint. So we talked about what we could do if we gave Mickey control over the stuff that he’s made of and let him paint and then use paint thinner to remove stuff.

Were there other things that were essential for bringing Mickey to this medium?
Spector: One major challenge was finding a look for him, especially a 3D look. With a couple of rare exceptions, Mickey’s always been in 2D and the animators cheated all the time, with the way his ears work and the way his nose fits relative to the rest of his face. In 3D you can’t do that, so I looked at the few previous 3D Mickeys and I didn’t feel anybody had gotten it right. We went through probably thousands of concepts trying to find the right look.There are a lot of people at Disney who care a lot about Mickey Mouse, and so getting a look that people could get behind was tough. Rendering it in 3D was tough and then getting it to move like a cartoon character was a huge challenge and tons of fun, and you’ll tell me if we succeeded.

How much control did you have and how much control Disney assert?
Spector: I was really worried about that when I first started on this. There are lines you don’t cross with Mickey Mouse, OK? But the thing that surprised me was how far out those lines were and how obvious it is where the lines really are.

There are people who say, ‘Oh, give Mickey a big knife and put a gun in his hand, and then I’ll like him.’ Well, come on, nobody’s going to do that. And you’re not going to make Mickey evil, you know? And when you have an icon, where any combination of three circles defines Mickey Mouse for most people on the planet, you’re not going to make his head square. I’d say it was a pretty easily negotiated deal, creatively.

Talk more about where the story idea came from?
Spector: During a meeting with the Disney guys, they showed us a PowerPoint with the concept of cartoon wasteland, a world of rejected and forgotten Disney creativity. And the foundation was making Mickey relevant to a gaming audience and a modern audience. It was funny because I watched this presentation thinking, Holy Cow, this is phenomenal and the seed of an amazing thing. And then all the execs were saying, Oh, you don’t have to use any of that, this is just our think tank’s concept. And I’m sitting there, going, Are you guys crazy. That’s a great idea. Why would I not use all of that? I just thought it was so funny because they were trying so hard to make it clear that I had all this creative freedom, and I was like, No, I don’t want it, I want this as my starting point.

Can you tell me something about working with these famous Disney characters that would surprise us?
Spector: I think the thing that surprised me the most is how easy it is to get these characters almost right. It’s like, drawing Mickey or any other character in the Disney archives, they are so well known and defined and recognized and have such strong personalities that getting them 90 percent right is very easy. But that last 10 percent that just nails them, that’s really, really hard. And that goes for how they look, and how they act and how they move, which is one of the reasons why I was so proud of my animators. I didn’t tell them to do this. They came up with this idea on their own, of going back to the old cartoons, and rotoscoping them. They took the old cartoons and took our model and rig and then duplicated classic 2D animation, and composited our guy into classic Disney 2D cartoons. When you couldn’t tell if it was our model or the original 2D animation, that was when I knew we had it.

Why only the Wii?
Spector: At the beginning, it was supposed to be on all platforms. I remember vividly how nervous I was about that. The idea was we were going to do a Wii port and I was never comfortable with that because the Wii really deserves its own design, something that takes advantage of what the Wii does best. We were talking about this one day and (Disney Interactive Studios executive vice president) Graham Hopper basically said, What does it take to ensure quality? I said, you can never guarantee greatness, but you need enough time and money to be competitive and it helps if you can focus. A single platform would be great. And it was an easy step from there to, Hey, we should do a Wii exclusive.

What about the Wii “stalling?” Does that worry you at all?
Spector: Yes and no. I’ve been doing this for 20 years, and I’ve had this saying, That I just need to sell one more copy of a game than is necessary to get my publisher to fund my next one. So I’m looking at this as, I’ve got a responsibility to Mickey Mouse and to Disney, and if I do something really good, commercial success will follow. I’ve got to believe that. And once you start talking about painting, people’s hands (on the Wii) just immediately start moving as if they’re holding a brush. It just totally works. I think we’re on the right platform.

Daniel Terdiman is a staff writer at CNET News covering games, Net culture, and everything in between. E-mail Daniel.

http://news.cnet.com/8301-13772_3-10390179-52.html?tag=newsLeadStoriesArea.1

Designing cars for people who haven’t even been born yet

Posted by hipstomp

The Youthmobile 2030 Design Challenge asked some of the world’s leading auto design studios based in SoCal–Audi/VW, Honda, Mazda, Nissan, Toyota, and GM–to design a car we might see some 21 years in the future that would be coveted by the young demographic.

With an emphasis on out-there technologies–Honda’s concept incorporates human DNA, for chrissakes–the descriptions are a little more complicated than we can sum up in a caption, but you can check out more about each entry at the links below.

The winner of the competition will be announced on December 3rd. Click here for more info.

http://www.core77.com/blog/object_culture/designing_cars_for_people_who_havent_even_been_born_yet_15111.asp

Sony’s new L Series still maintaining their own design edge

Posted by hipstomp

The thing I appreciate about Sony: When they go into “design battle” with a competitor, they don’t ape the opponent’s design as every other company seems to do these days, but come up with their own lines instead. Such is the case with their recently-released L Series Vaio touchscreen PC, which forgoes the silver gloss and gooseneck stand of Apple’s iMac, opting instead for a positively Bauhausian screen-frame that provides a space for the keyboard to be tucked into when not in use.

Ironically, it seems Sony is taking their competitor’s old motto, “Think Different,” to heart.

http://www.core77.com/blog/object_culture/sonys_new_l_series_still_maintaining_their_own_design_edge_15107.asp