Michael, you're so right about content trumping visuals, and about the more interesting stuff being done with lower res kit.
i've just sat for a couple of hours watching the usual amazing array of new posts in HD, DV, from phones, stills cameras, Super 8. I feel like I used to skip through more stuff a couple of years ago, but maybe I didn't. I consumed quite a lot then, too. There's so many people with skill out there, doing cool things with the short form. What I'm also excited about, though, is that the feature film was out of bounds to most people for a long time, and now it's not. And features are a hugely important art form - the cinema's equivalent of the novel. Previously, if you wanted to make one that actually got watched, you couldn't just prioritise content over aesthetics: if it didn't look like it was shot on at least 16mm, no one would screen it, sell it or watch it. So it was out of reach. Now, everyone can make a feature that doesn't *have to* compromise on aesthetics for reasons of cost. The can choose to shoot something on a low res camera, for sure - but finally, they can also make the other stuff. Partly this is just about distribution on the web - and I'm sure that even now people are happier to watch a feature length film shot on a low quality camera. But aesthetics - hi res or low res - enhance the audience's engagement with the content, and now we have the capability to craft high-end aesthetics indistinguishable in quality from Hollywood, in addition to the other stuff, *if we want*. In financial terms, film (particularly drama) is still a long way from music, art, writing or even theatre, which can be practised at almost no cost, but it's a lot closer than it was just a couple of years ago. That's an amazing, amazing, amazing thing. Great, beautiful, feature length stories will come to us from outside the system. I'm looking forward to when people start posting this exciting, engaging longer stuff, even feature length, more regularly on their blogs. At some point this weekend, I'm going to try and make time to watch Blogumentary. And I have this new indie non-linear hypervideo feature-length film that I ordered on DVD called The Onyx Project. Sounds cool. Exactly the kind of thing that I want to be able to see online. Rupert http://www.fatgirlinohio.org http://feeds.feedburner.com/fatgirlinohio On 2 Feb 2007, at 08:47, Michael Szpakowski wrote: Hmm I absolutely agree with the notion of making stuff more available, more democratic but I *do* wonder if there isn't a rather interesting compensatory process going on in us, as viewers, as the technical possibilities improve - we adjust mentally & so even though, never mind the latest HD camera, my six year old Canon MV 300i produces stuff that would have been *inconceivable* twenty years ago, those with money & the concentrated centralised resources, corporations, professional broadcasters &c, are always on the whole going to look better, *in purely technical terms* because our mental bar is constantly raised by whatever is cutting edge. Its a bit like special effects. Of course nowadays, when - what do you call it, where the motion is screened at the back?- looks wonderful and clunky & nostalgic & occasionally risible to *everyone*, I'm also finding that I read computer generated imagery, especially crowd scenes, with a much more cynical eye -the patterns leap out...& if that's true now then in 20-30 years the artifice will be completely evident. (Best 'special effect' in the world ever? - IMO the "coming back to life" reverse-thing in 'Orphee'. It's the poetry, not the technique) So the point I'm making in a rather laboured way is that a similar process is at work in "regular" image making... I think where the small independent maker of moving image can score is in the content, in the broadest sense ( I don't just mean what we choose to look at but what we do with it & how). That's why some of the most interesting work I've seen is made using mobile phone cams or fairly basic kit, or stop motion or appropriated footage -you get my drift- but with lashings of the poetic imagination that an industry which is focus grouped to death & committed to an entirely chimerical attempt to "replicate" the look of "reality" can't even begin to conceive of. best michael --- Rupert <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > Looks amazing. I love Canon cameras - i have an old > Canon XL1. > colours, low-light and lens all amazing. (even > though I mostly just > use my nokia or my kodak for vlogging.) > > Also saw this JVC on Videomaker.com's weekly vlog > last week, > announced at CES - costs more but full HD and 5 > hours of hard drive > recording: > > http://www.jvc.com/press/index.jsp?urlid=MPPress&item=565 > > It seems incredible that AT LAST we can have this > kind of image power > in consumer hands. professional cameras with lesser > quality > cost tens or hundreds of thousands just a few years > ago. 2 weeks > ago, I saw a rough cut of feature a friend of mine > had shot on a > shoestring. Visually *astonishing*, but shot on a > £2k Sony HD in the > middle of nowhere in Yorkshire. i've been waiting > for this level of > quality and price to come for so long - it opens so > many more doors. > > "to me the great hope is that now... people who > normally wouldn't be > making movies are going to be making them, and > suddenly one day some > little fat girl in ohio is going to be the new > mozart and make a > beautiful film with her father's camcorder > and for once the so called professionalism about > movies will be > smashed - forever. and it will really become an art > form. that's my > opinion." francis coppola, hearts of darkness, > 1988. > > "the future is now! the future is now! the future > is now!" > > Rupert > > http://www.fatgirlinohio.org > http://feeds.feedburner.com/fatgirlinohio > > > > On 1 Feb 2007, at 23:39, WWWhatsup wrote: > > [looks good, 24p too, I guess street price will be > less] > > Canon Coming Out with $1,300 HD Camera > > High-definition cameras are slowly trickling down to > the > point where they're affordable. And Canon, which > makes > some of the best non-HD camcorders, now plays in > that > market. The new camcorder offers real benefits over > the > previous model. Our story has details on what it > does and > when it will be available. > > Canon Expands HD Line-up: > http://ct.eletters.whatsnewnow.com/rd/cts? > d=181-805-1-411-255402-45903-0-0-0-1 > > ---------------------------------------------------------- > WWWhatsup NYC > http://pinstand.com - http://punkcast.com > ---------------------------------------------------------- > > > > > > [Non-text portions of this message have been > removed] > > > > > Yahoo! Groups Links > > > mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] > > > [Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
