Collision Conference Day 1

Saturday 6:30am and the alarm goes off… snooze… it goes off again… Sh!$ I have to get up… the Collision Conference starts today and there’s a raffle drawing at 8:30… I get there on time, but of course, I don’t win anything… You have to agree, though, Image Mechanics found a pretty smart way to make folks get out of bed early on a Saturday morning

So, what on earth is the Collision Conference, you ask…? It’s a pioneering initiative organized by Michael Britt and Tom Stratton bringing photographers and filmmakers together, to share, learn and brainstorm about the merging of the motion and stills world.

The advent of cameras capable of producing both high quality stills and motion picture, gives photographers and cinematographers the opportunity of having a leg in both worlds. This isn’t completely new, but the breakthrough is that now you can do it with just one camera, without too many compromises.

As I walk you through the Collision Conference weekend, I’ll do my best to give you enough information for you to make your own assessments, as well as give you my 2 cents on the matter, whenever I feel appropriate.

Michael Britt, one of the event organizers kicked off the show with an introduction to Hybrid Photography. As a pro photographer himself, the perspective of his presentation was angled from his world, enlightening photographers about the power that now lurks in their hands.

Just as frame rates might get confusing for (at least some) photographers, resolution for print applications will most likely get confusing for (at least some) filmmakers, so in many aspects this presentation was pretty valuable no matter which world you’re coming from.

Comparing resolutions from different sources.

There’s plenty of places on the web explaining print and screen resolution, but if you’d like to see an article on this blog about it, ask for it in the comments and if you’re convincing enough, I might just do it

Examples of Hybrid Photography recently shot on the Red for print, show how quickly this is becoming a reality. (If by any remote chance you don’t know what a Red is, do yourself a favor and spend some time at this link: www.red.com)

The black&white cover of Megan Fox was animated! Cool… nothing too fancy… but photographers seemed really excited about the potential.  I don’t mean to be sarcastic here, but if you deal with motion picture/graphics there really was nothing new here. We’ve all seen animated Flash adds on the web… and digital billboards…

There’s also a cover shot on the Red featuring Bruce Willis. So we can probably expect many more of these in a near future.

This brought us to the concept of Tall Video…

And this is where I think filmmakers and photographers might split opinions.

So lets look at a few facts:

Shooting motion pictures and stills simultaneously IS NOT NEW! 11 years ago I was covering the European Professional Surfing Tour, taking stills for my website and mags, at the same time as I was gathering footage for TV (and I wasn’t pioneering anything). I was using a double mount with a Canon XL1 and a Canon 30D with a 100mm to 400mm. I had to compensate for parallax (by eye), did my framing through the XL1 view finder and used a remote attached to my tripod’s handle to push auto-focus and trigger the 30D.

When you’re shooting HD with the 5D, you can also take 21MP amazing stills, but at the cost of a jump in the video, as the 5D stops recording to take the high res still. I don’t know what your opinion might be, but for me this is less then ideal… actually, it’s unacceptable, despite the fact that it is phenomenal that the camera can actually pull it off.

Lets picture this (pun intended); you come back to your mag editor and you give him a set of gorgeous 21MP pictures. He’s stoked and cuts you a fat check! All fine and dandy so far, right? Well, sounds like fun until you start cutting your footage… but that’s all that will be cut any further, in this scenario, cause the TV station won’t be cutting you any checks for… for your stuttering footage. Not to mention the jumps keep happening on the best moments… at least if you’re a photographer with a good sense of timing…

I apologize, and please don’t take the sarcasm personally (hey, besides a filmmaker I’m a photographer too), but I have to say it… This can only make sense in a photographer’s head…

Lets bring back the Red to the picture (pun intended). So you’re using a $30,000 camera because you can save money by capturing high quality motion picture, pull high quality frames out of it and impress your client… but you are still limited by the resolution if you want to print an outdoor… not to mention your video is going to be sideways… imagine if your client is so stoked, he goes: “Wow! That’s really cool! Let’s run it on TV!!!” (I know, I know… compulsive imagination, can’t help myself…)

So I have to ask; wouldn’t it be more practical, versatile, cheaper and efficient to mount 2 5Ds with a double bracket, one vertical shooting your stills and one horizontal shooting your video?! Just a thought… I don’t know… at least I don’t get what’s the big deal about Tall Video and believe me, I see the whole potential and practical use for vertical banners and animated digital outdoors/signage. I still think using 2 cameras is the way to go! You can get beautiful 21MP stills and gorgeous “Tall HD”, using the most appropriate lens and shutter speed for each medium and I would end up with no gaps for every still I’d take, better HD and better stills… not to mention that after 4 hybrid shoots I would probably have a free pair of 5Ds instead of a hefty bill on Red rentals… but I guess I could be missing something here?!

Something to account for as well, is that if you roll for 5 hours with a Red, you’re going to end up with half a million pictures to choose from… something I would definitely call a huge “quality” problem!

Moving on to show Photoshop Extended capabilities, how to enhance your picture and put together your animated mag cover. All straight forward stuff for motion graphics folks and I believe in reach of any Photoshop proficient photographer that decides to give it a try. But many people sounded surprised to see Photoshop handling video… I can remember opening filmstrips (an older file format you could export from after effects or import directly from any QuickTime clip) in Photoshop 3…

Alexx Henry

Second presentation was with Alexx Henry which took us a little deeper into animated advertising, with real world examples.

Brilliant guy! Very cool stuff! But for anyone producing motion picture content, it still all “sounds” just like what we’ve been doing all along… until you take a closer look at the conceptual side of it. And that’s exactly what Alexx (no it’s not a typo… his name does have 2 Xs) did in his presentation.

Here’s an example produced by Alexx: http://vimeo.com/5103405

Commercials are designed to communicate a message and capture your attention through a period of 30 sec, typically to a viewer surfing his couch or bored out of his mind in front of a computer at work. Digital signage needs to do exactly the same instantaneously! Your audience is no longer staring at the screen no matter what’s running… they will most likely be in completely opposite modes; running late to a meeting, stressing out their date has been waiting for half an hour alone in your favorite restaurant (that they might not even be fond of, but out of kindness won’t tell you) or just in a bad mood after the subway’s squash… you need to grab their attention on the spot! You have but a few seconds to engrave an image in their minds, as they rush by! And if you ask me, that is no easy task to accomplish.

I have to agree that an experienced photographer will be more adapted to conceptualize such type of advertising. But don’t feel bad… they might have to hire a filmmaker to shoot it, after all…

As I recently read in a very cool article (I SO wish I still had the link to provide you), that said something like this: “Filmmakers, you are now photographers. Photographers you’re not filmmakers now…”

That’s an argument that could go on forever, so feel free to disagree, it won’t matter what you or I think, anyway. The results will speak for themselves… but if you happen to have the link to this article, please post it on the comments and I’ll make sure to put it in here! That’s how cool I think the article was!

See… the 2 cameras idea does make a lot of sense after all! Alexx won’t be getting any free 5Ds on rental savings, though…

Lunch break and it was time to hit the show’s floor… another raffle and another prize I didn’t win… I don’t even know why I bother… raffles just don’t like me…

This was nothing like a DV Expo or Cinegear. Canon, Redrock Micro, Bogen/Manfroto, Smug Mug, Hollywood DI, Zeiss, APA and Sammy’s where the only ones on the floor.

It was interesting to see Canon’s sensor lineup out in the open and there were a ton a lenses and more than a few 5Ds to play around with. You were more than welcome to fiddle around with them. A very relaxed atmosphere, with plenty of time to pick experts’ brains and ask the questions you can’t find answers on all the forums and blogs that seem to repeat the same content all over the place…

For instance, I’m trying to mount a 100-400mm zoom and a 3x adapter with a 5D on a Redrock Micro follow focus rig. I already own their first incarnation of a Redrock Micro 35mm adapter follow focus rig and figuring out which is the most versatile and cost effective way to upgrade to a rig that can hold a variable length long lens through their website, hasn’t been the easiest thing.

After talking with Brian from Redrock, things started falling into place and making sense. I actually ended up bringing the lens on Sunday and he showed me exactly how it will work and I’m now confident to upgrade! Thank you so much for the extra long screw for my fat Zoom focus ring!!!!!

Next stop grabbing my attention was the Zeiss stand. You know… Zeiss! It sounds good… it looks cool… and having a chance to actually look through the view finder of a 5D with a 50mm 1.4 Zeiss, it was a joy!

These lenses are definitely built with the filmmaker in mind! Unlike its Nikon counter parts, the lens has a chip! Aperture is controlled through the camera and although focus is manual, it gives you focus confirmation on the view finder, just like an autofocus lens set to manual.

The phenomenally huge difference in this lenses is the traveling of the focus ring!!! And also the unnoticeable breathing these lenses (don’t) have. To be honest, I couldn’t see any breathing at all, but focusing hand held and with no playback on a monitor to check it out, it’s impossible to give a realistic opinion. But one thing is certain; these have nothing to do with any of your still lenses! It’s a completely different beast altogether.

The focus ring gives you almost 720 degrees to produce super precise and smooth focusing, versus the 30 degrees (or so) your still lens has. That’s why you see so much out of focus footage throughout Vimeo… we’ll see for how long will folks be marveled by blurry images…

When manufacturers are designing their still lenses, they are thinking how fast can autofocus be achieved. The longer the travel, the longer it takes… they never thought about crazy filmmakers trying to follow focus their moving subjects manually… well, Zeiss did!

At $660 for a 50mm 1.4, if you’re gathering a kit with filmmaking in mind, I don’t only think these are a no brainer decision, but a must if you don’t want to spend the whole time yelling at your poor focus puller, that will end up walking away if he has any sense in his mind…

Next at Sammy’s I couldn’t have been more excited! I first saw this interesting retro looking device through some odd link a short while ago. I got so curious, imagining how this could be put to use in the motion picture world…

I really don’t have the technical knowledge to be commenting about the VCC Pro.

Ray Olson was kind enough to give me a detailed explanation, which half of it made me think of when some people complain I’m speaking chinese, when I go into geek mode…

The only way I can explain it, is that it’s like a tilt shift lens on steroids! The potential is endless!!! The creative options… oh my God! I just wish no one beats me to using it on a film… but I have to finish the one I’m working on first… haha!

After lunch Frank Rohmer showed an introduction on how to handle 5D’s H.264 clips in Final Cut Pro.

You can find information on Frank’s DVD at planet5d.com

I’ve heard about several different workflows, from very respectable people, all claiming to be the best… I’ll throw my 2 cents in a future post…

And finally the highlight of the day… Vincent Laforet‘s Keynote: My evolution into Stills from Cinema.

Everyone has heard of Vincent!

I would like to start by saying that only a few minutes into his presentation it was so obvious, to me, why Vincent is one of the most popular photographers is the world today.

He’s charismatic, yet modest, very empathetic, knows how to captivate your attention and knows how to talk. When you couple all that with a great talent, a go for it mind with an exquisite sense of opportunity, luck by your side (as he so many times commented on how he got his shots) and you show work of his caliber, it’s a no brainer hat he is where he is today! And we’ll see where he will be tomorrow…

His presentation couldn’t have been more enjoyable. Breathtaking images with incredible stories behind them…

Only a passionate vision, sheer talent and relentless persistence can get you in the position to build a portfolio like Vincent’s.

The quality of his work could easily keep these lines flowing, but I’m sure other’s have done a much better job then I could ever do, so without further ado…

REVERIE in 2K

Breathtaking… just like the first time I saw it… so inspiring… but now in its full glory!

No, it wasn’t perfect… the 5D had a mind of it’s own then… and on the big screen you could see it… but still… amazing!

The story behind it you all know and it’s pointless to repeat, but it’s a living proof of Vincent’s sense of opportunity.

He then showed us how stabilizing the 5D has been one of the greatest challenges and one of his current obsessions. Giro stabilizers, steady cams, etc… something all we filmmakers are very familiar with… but Vincent emphasized that the fact of how the huge size of the 5D makes it more sensitive to pick vibrations. I have to confess I have never heard about this before and I’m still puzzled about this correlation…

Q&A was very interesting and probably the most precious information he shared was saying he find’s the 5D’s sweet spot at high ISOs.

Day 2 was definitely more geared towards the filmmakers and it was so rich, with so many amazing speakers and presentations, I’m even scared to go into it… so bare with me… I will be working on it and will post it as soon as I can, but it might take me a little longer then day 1 did…

T ; )~