Archive for April, 2008

Light from windows

21 April, 2008

My friend Jean has been very good to me. She’s arranged for my blog to be linked from the Internet Movie Database. Twice. She sends me very interesting links. Here’s one that makes me seem cultured:

This is an example from one of three ongoing photography projects. This one was started in 1995.
When I start making [...]

For short runs, why make a DVD?

13 April, 2008

George Blackstone and I made The Things We Do for Love, a documentary on dating and relationships. It is made up of interviews with many people of all ages. A recent task I had was to make a DVD so that the contributors who couldn’t reach a screening would have a chance to see the [...]

Frame rates: Would you like half as much twice as often?

11 April, 2008

In an extensive interview at Variety, James Cameron has a lot to say about 3D production, but he also mentions the paper tiger that is 4K resolution for movies:
4K is a concept born in fear. When the studios were looking at converting to digital cinemas, they were afraid of change, and searched for reasons not [...]

The danger of movie gimmicks

9 April, 2008

Yesterday I wrote a post about how making your movie 3D affects the post-production process. Although 3D has been around for decades, the technology might soon be available to many more people.
We expect that one day all media will have some sort of 3D element. This technology seems to follow on in the chain [...]

3D editing secrets

8 April, 2008

Yesterday, the Hollywood Reporter announced that Avid are researching ways to making their products work with 3D footage. I would characterise the kind of footage they mean as being ‘2.5D’ - two cameras shoot simultaneously from slightly different positions to simulate human stereoscopic vision.
The article refers to the ‘Over and under’ 3D technique. In the [...]

Creating empathy with your protagonist

5 April, 2008

A pretty good film that (co-incidentally) may have to say something about the Iraq Occupation (it isn’t a War).

Downloading better quality YouTube videos

4 April, 2008

This may be old news to you, but as I’ve only just heard, here it is: To make YouTube content work on non Flash-based devices (AppleTV, iPhone), recent videos are available in higher-quality, non Flash versions.
To view higher quality MP4 (H.264) versions of videos, add ‘&fmt=18′ to the end of the address. You’ll see a [...]