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Is HD too HD? Article on TheAtlantic.com

Came across this interesting article via DVXuser.com on a commentary by a Jason Baily entitled “Are Indie Movies getting too pretty?” He talks about how everybody and their mother is shooting with a Red or Cannon HD camera and how he was relieved to see a movie shot on 16mm that looks grainy and blurry.

Don’t know about you but I don’t miss the days of blurry VHS style video one bit but as you know it’s all about the story. I watched this video a day ago and it was obviously shot on some shitty VHS camera but the story and rawness was excellent can’t find the youtube link but it was about a bunch of women who jumped into boxcars riding across part of the US – very entertaining. For me I think the biggest downfall of most cheap cameras is dynamic range and color. 16mm probably has the dynamic range of a $50k video camera and the color to match, sure, sharpness will be an issue. We can also add some effects in post, Magic Bullet Looks, to give it more of a stylized look and hey, how about using more than one type of camera 🙂 Interesting read none the less.

Here is the first paragraph:


When the opening images of Macdara Vallely’s Babygirl unreeled in front of me at the Tribeca Film Festival, they proved a bit of a shock to my glossed-over eyes. After several days of indie rom-coms and evocative documentaries photographed in smooth-as-silk high-definition video, here was a movie shot in Super 16mm—and it looked it. The image was grainy, grubby, dirty. Frankly, after four films a day in pristine HD, it was a little ugly. And that was something of a relief.

Head on over to the Atlantic to read the rest of the article:
http://www.theatlantic.com/entertainment/archive/2012/04/are-indie-movies-getting-too-pretty/256367/

Written by: JASON BAILEY – Jason Bailey is a writer at Flavorpill.

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Shootout of Hacked GH2 vs Canon 5D Mark III

With the release of the new 5D Mark 3 it’s nice to see a comparison with out cheapie Panasonic GH2. I think it holds up pretty well and sure, a $800 camera is probably not going to beat at $3000 camera in a shoot out test. Does show us how good the little bugger is though .

See a comparison of screen shots here – animated gif – http://i40.tinypic.com/2rdi5wh.gif

Read the full article here – http://www.eoshd.com/content/7722

5D Mark III vs GH2 and NEX 7 from Andrew Reid on Vimeo.

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Tiny – Documentary – footage and comment from Jacana Productions

I went to check out my acquaintance Chris Smith’s Tiny house here in Boulder, CO. He also shot a documentary about it that’s currently in post production. See http://tiny-themovie.com/

YouTube Link : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AJ8n_mrJWbg&list=UUGgTH6PFh8iKDUjoB8NILUw

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Blog posting – Lillevan – Berlin Based Video Artist @ CU Boulder

Here is my latest video blog on the Video Performance Artist called Lillevan whom I saw at the Commnikey electronics arts festival on April 25, 2012 on campus at CU Boulder.

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NAB – 2012 – my take on Panasonic’s announcements

NAB is upon is, that time of year when we get to read about all the cameras and gear on offer in the very near future.

See link here – http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AVC-Intra
See the Panasonic Blog here / Great resource – http://panasonicprovideo.tumblr.com/

I’m a long time Panny user having started off with a DVX100 in 2003 then an HMC40 in 2009 and just recently a GH2. Sony has never really had anything that tickled my fancy and I’ve gone down the Cannon 7D route and not really enjoyed the picture she put out.

The Rant

The P2 cameras seemed attractive to me but the cost of the cards was a major turn off. We’ve see that SD cards on the GH2 in 2012 can record high 180Mbps bitrates right! So we’re left with the HMC40, the the newer AG130 / AG160 and AF100. The AF100 seems to be nice but Sony’s FS100 has got a better sensor although somewhat funky ergonomics. The AG’s seem to be fine but not really cutting edge. With the 5D mk3, Nikon’s new offering and now Sony’s FS700 I think Panny are behind in the race. GH2 hacked is great I have one but for run and gun and for overall stability you’d be pretty ballsy to use a hacked GH2 on a major shoot. Also, charging for updates to the AF100 wow, that’s gong to not sit well with a number of folks. They have the codec AVC Ultra just wondering what they’ve been doing with it!! ???

The Good:

Ok so what do I like: Micro P2 card, finally you can use your high end SD cards with a P2 camera up to 50Mbps. That’s kool and may cause some folks like myself to reconsider the P2 line again. (why needs the full AVC100 codec all the time) They are working on a 4k Varicam too and don’t forget as someone commented on DVXuser, the Panny Varicam was the boss for many years.

Summary

So this is just my take on Panny and don’t forget the hacked GH2, the best $800 DSLR period! Also, it’s not just that Panny are a little behind, it’s other companies are innovating at one hell of a rate, case in point – Blackmagic Raw camera – http://johnbrawley.wordpress.com/2012/04/17/blackmagic-cinema-camera-lets-take-it-from-the-top/ and wow look at the dynamic range of the vimeo footage holy *^*^*^. More on design here – http://www.blackmagic-design.com/products/blackmagiccinemacamera/design/

I think that even though Panasonic appear to be lacking they’ll come back in the near future with the AVC ultra codec.