The Democratization of Filmmaking – Tom, Dick and Harry now have no excuse!

Following from my post yesterday about the crash in the cost of professional colour grading and finishing tools, the news from Las Vegas is that the feature packed new Final Cut Pro will be given away at $299 from Apple’s app store.

My initial reaction was to let out a deep sigh at yet another barrier to entry dropping to the masses… but that’s really not the way it is. It never has been about that… it’s actually a very shallow way of looking at a situation which has been unfolding for years now.

It’s no surprise. Everybody loves movies… everybody… and most people have entertained the thought of writing and making one. It’s not a uncommon dream. For most, up to this point, at best all it could be is a dream. The barriers to anyone outside of the skilled, educated and /or experienced film industry elite were for the most part impenetrable.

That has changed irreversibly. Anyone can make a movie. Actually regardless of the industry, anyone these days can do almost anything they put their mind to because the tools are free, and if they aren’t you can steal them without anyone being able to do much about it. This doesn’t necessarily mean they can produce professional results with those tools or market themselves to offer a professional service.

I’m not going to go into the new Final Cut Pro now, I probably won’t write much about it at all on my blog… to me it’s non-news and you can go any number of places to find out the latest features.

I am a technologist and a creative. I’ve worked for a reputable post facility and built a reputation for excellence in my field. I’ve also lost formal employment to the pressures of the eroding barriers to entry in post production.

The point is, what I do… in terms of the physical act… is worth very little in this free market. Thanks to Apple, it just devalued another notch… in terms of the act of editing. It used to be that the tools were so expensive that just having the tools gave one license to charge extortionate rates for mediocre work.

However… it’s difficult to put a price on experience, expertise and reputation… and in post production, we are entering a space where what you charge is linked to your real value as an artist, not to the value of your toys. I think this is a much better state of affairs.

So if you are a post professional… don’t be disheartened… don’t be a hater. Make sure you give your best to your clients, let your work, your reputation set you apart… that’s what you need to build. Gear comes and goes, it is nothing.

To those on the lower end of the spectrum, who are getting into post, making a film and realising a dream… fantastic, there has never been a better time. To you, I say concentrate on story and forget about the tools. Gear comes and goes, it’s getting easier to use, it is nothing. Be a storyteller first and foremost.

The irony is that the only tools ever needed to master the most important aspect in all this is a pen and paper, or a typewriter, or a word processor… that has never changed.

The power of colour… now for Tom, Dick and Harry.

Da Vinci Resolve

Two years ago, nobody knew what a colourist was. Ok, people who needed to know knew, and if you are one of those then I’m not talking to you in this post. I’m talking about the average young filmmaker cutting his or her masterpiece in the bedroom who was happy just to have a cracked copy of Premiere.

To be honest most “prosumer” footage two years ago probably wasn’t worth grading, but as the cameras and formats have improved, and more image information exists (albeit compressed into 8-bit H.264 oblivion) grading is in the spotlight.

On the upper end of the scale, two years ago 10-bits per channel was a luxury. Now it’s normal and we’re seeing 16-bits per channel on the upper end of the spectrum.

Two years ago, a high end dual-link HD SDI capture card cost a fortune. I know, I have a dead worthless brick of a Bluefish 444 SD Greed card still in my system… it’s just archaic… even if it is 10-bit uncompressed. Now you can have your choice from Blackmagic Design or AJA for under $1000.

When it comes to the tools themselves, colour grading spent the last five years moving from ultra high end hardware down to high end workstation but remaining prohibitively expensive. It’s finally fallen completely from it’s high perch… fallen right to the floor. Yesterday Blackmagic Design launched DaVinci Resolve Lite for free. The day before we saw Filmlight announce a Baselight plugin for Final Cut Pro for under $1000, and Assimilate have announced Scratch for Mac at $17,000… which may not seem cheap, but it’s a major drop in price for a full Scratch license.

Unless Apple have some major announcements today that cause a big upset, Apple Color is nowhere to be seen… yet.

So, with Resolve Lite for free… and putting aside issues of calibrated monitoring for now, I expect to see everyone no matter how inexperienced to at least start attempting a grade and polish. There are no longer any excuses to not know what a colourist is or does.

The golden age of 4K digital cinema has arrived.

Back in the day when the DCI spec was first drafted… 4K was the baseline. It was subsequently changed because 4K technology was limited to… DALSA’s Origin back then, and Sony had not yet launched it’s 4K projector. 4K post workflows were prohibitively expensive and rare because networking bandwidth was limited as were storage capacities and throughput. So, the big studios lobbied for the baseline to be reduced to 2K… which it was.

However, 4K has always been a magical resolution… it’s long been accepted as the closest digital approximation to the optical “resolution” of modern silver halide emulsions. I would argue that in all cases where super 35mm would be used, a 4K digital format is spot on… and judging from news filtering out of NAB this year, we have finally arrived.

It’s time to move on from counting pixels and look at bit depth and total dynamic range. This is happening now with Sony’s big announcements… the F65 looks to be setting the new benchmarks with 16-bits per channel. Red’s EPIC is also a serious contender with it’s HDRx Redcode.

Sony have equipped over 7000 theatres with 4K projection… a staggering figure.

The NAB floor is full of innovative 4K post solutions… all of the previous networking and storage limitations have fallen, and the required processing power is a non-issue. We will soon see 4K post workflows possible on a Macbook Pro. The time has come.

4K as a standard, and digital cinema imaging in general is now finally coming of age. We have reached the turning point now where 4K is and will be the standard.

For a period of time, we also now have a increased gap between the world of HD and 4K cinema… and that’s a fantastic thing for an industry where increased access and “democratization” of the technology from the bottom up has eroded the livelihoods of so many. I predict that it will be a number of years before the masses have access to full 4K lens to projection workflows, if at all. It will remain expensive and specialized for a while… now is the time for rental houses and post production facilities to capitalize on this.

Building a “Hackintosh” Mac Pro Clone – Intel S5520SCR Successful Snow Leopard Install!

News on the wire from blog follower and commentator Mika on his successful OSX Snow Leopard install on his dual-quad Xeon Intel S5520SCR build. His workstation is pretty much identical to mine in all the ways that matter, only I’ll be using the 6-core Xeon CPU’s. This will form the basis of the “Rebel” workstation which I will soon be offering to clients as a turnkey system. (See announcement here – Coming Soon! Weapons of Mass Construction)

Ok, I got mine running finally. most part was just to put it together. Mac OSX installed easily using tonymac boot image on dvd and retail Snow Leopard. I was actually expecting lot more hassle, but it was quick OS installation. Nvidia 480 works out of the box too, I thought it’d also give a bit working out.

Few Notes:

- Remember to put SATA into AHCI mode!
- Initial boot disk is 32bit; i removed all but one 2GB mem module from each bank; after installation and upgrading to 64bit i put modules back and it works fine.
- For now the onboard intel network chips are not recognized. i will have to work this out either by finding suitable kext or getting addon card. docos indicate the chip used should be macosx suitable, but my machine just does not see these; except when probed directly it tells the hardware and chip info. so i’m fairly sure i can make these to work with a bit of digging around.

For PSU, remember that each CPU requires separate 8 pin power feed. you likely will need to use 4to8 expanders. be sure you do not overload the PSU 12V circuits. (i dont think this is major issue)

It’s fast.

=)

You can follow this thread of comments here.

The most interesting pre-NAB 2011 news so far

With my ear to the ground and my eyes fixed on the twitter feeds from people on the NAB 2011 floor and in the know, these are some hand picked exciting bits of here-say that I intend to expand on in the days ahead.

Apple – FCP-X to be announced. Apple took over Supermeet and ousted all other presenters from the stage.

Sony – Ground shattering new 4K camera technology announced.

Filmlight – Baselight plugin for FCP-X announced.

AJA – Kona 3G to enable 4K in a free firmware update.

Assimilate – Scratch is first to support Red Epic HDRx and Scratch for Mac announced at $17,000

*UPDATE* – Great new Assimilate website is now live at http://www.assimilateinc.com/ Check out Scratch v6 and Scratch LAB.

*UPDATE* – Blackmagic – Da Vinci Resolve Lite for free!, and new Decklink 4K card at $595

So far those are the confirmed announcements that have caught my attention the most. You know where to come for more news and views… Digital Cinema Demystified.

New Details Emerge About Sony Electronics’ 4K Camera

So I immediately reposted this article from The Hollywood Reporter on my 4K Hub site… which has been a bit bare of news recently because well… let’s face it, it’s not every day that something newsworthy happens in the world of true 4K technology.

I am a 4K snob… unashamedly so. I have been since I witnessed the unveiling of the DALSA Origin at NAB 2003, which sparked everything I now do and am about… and my entire career.

So I am a big RED fan… and am sceptical of anything to come from Sony… until now.

Here’s the lowdown:

THR has learned that the unveiling at NAB will be accompanied by a six-minute short written, directed and lensed with the camera by director of photography Curtis Clark.

With the goal of “opening up a whole new photographic canvas,” Sony Electronics will unveil a prototype digital cinematography camera capable of handling true 4K and higher-resolution imagery Sunday at the National Association of Broadcasters Show in Las Vegas.

Accompanying the unveiling will be a six-minute short written, directed and lensed with the camera by director of photography Curtis Clark, The Hollywood Reporter has learned.

Clark chairs the American Society of Cinematographers’ Technology Committee, and his credits include Peter Greenaway’s 1982 film The Draughtsman’s Contract. He has been offering his perspective to Sony during the camera’s development process, and a few weeks ago, he took the camera out for a test drive to shoot a live-action short.

THR this week got a preview of the camera, and the live-action short titled The Arrival, as postproduction was being completed.

The film noir piece was lensed in two days on location in downtown Los Angeles and includes scenes of Broadway at night, Union Station and some stunning photography using ambient light in the iconic Bradbury building.

“It basically opens up the possibility of a whole new photographic canvas,” Clark said. “I think this camera is the first major step (toward) having the details you need when you want to capture images that take advantage of spatial resolution to engage the viewer. … You are able to render shadow details with such clarity and virtually no noise.”

The camera is actually capable of recording uncompressed 16-bit 4K raw imagery. Today’s digital cinematography cameras — as well as postproduction processes — more commonly use 2K resolution. 4K is four times the amount of picture information.

Clark praised not just the resolution but the new camera’s wide dynamic range, wide color reproduction and low light sensitivity. The short includes photography of wrought iron railings in the Bradbury building and offers a range of settings and lighting situations, including ambient light from a skylight, dusk and night exteriors.

“We wanted locations that would challenge the wide dynamic range of exposures but that at the same time would be able to resolve fine architectural detail and textures,” Clark said.

Sony’s vision is being able to shoot, post and project in 4K.

The company launched its 4K theatrical projection system in 2005. Today, roughly 5,700 Sony 4K projectors are installed in the U.S., and Sony reported that it has more than 13,000 commitments worldwide. Meanwhile, Texas Instruments more recently introduced its 4K DLP Cinema chip, which enables its partner projector manufacturers — Barco, Christie and NEC — to offer 4K projection.

“With 4K projection now a reality, we want to protect that image information, that color gamut, that dynamic range. We want have all of those components for our creative use — for narrative filmmaking, for mood, for emotion,” Clark said.

National Association of Theatre Owners president John Fithian said: “Obviously 4K provides higher resolution … but whether that is something that the consumer values and appreciates remains to be seen.”

The finished camera is expected to be light enough for use on 3D rigs, Steadicams and other portable configurations.

As to its significance in postproduction, the camera was developed from the ground up to support the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences’ Image Interchange Framework and the Academy Colour Encoding Specification.

Simply put, it’s a color management system, developed so that images shot with a digital camera would maintain the widest possible dynamic range — and in turn the cinematographer’s true intent –during postproduction.

Professionals may remember a prior true 4K digital cinematography camera that was on the market for Hollywood cinematographers. However, the camera, from a company called Dalsa, was pricey and perhaps a bit ahead of the curve, and Dalsa abandoned the technology a few years ago.

While 3D has the buzz, there is a camp of industry insiders who have been hoping to see emphasis on 16-bit and 4K cinematography.

At AMPAS’ SciTech Awards in February, awards chair Richard Edlund told THR: “The reason that the Academy has not reached out and given an award to a digital camera is because they are 2K cameras. They don’t measure up to film, and film is the bar. It seemed to me that the digital camera that comes out being the ubiquitous camera is going to be a 4K camera.”

http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/new-details-emerge-sony-electronics-176231

Coming Soon! Weapons of Mass Construction

Since I’ve been out of formal employment and been looking at new ways to employ my skills the thought has crossed my mind of starting a sideline business in post production specific IT… and I’ve got a good start now that I’m officially commissioned with the task of building and installing a bespoke designed and built SAN server, fibre infrastructure and designing a data and workflow solution for a small post operation here in Cape Town.

Those of you who have been following Digital Cinema Demystified will also be aware of my 12-core Hackintosh workstation project… which will hopefully begin very soon with the purchase of components.

So putting this together logically with my love for all forms of rebellious DIY post solutions and armed with a few recipes, I am considering launching a few products to the local market.

These solutions will be offered as turnkey supercharged post platforms or can be customized to suit the client. They will fulfil a number of roles.

All my solutions will be Intel Xeon based, CUDA equipped, optimized to be truely OS independent (I won’t legally be allowed to sell you a Hackintosh but what you choose to install on your own is obviously out of my hands ) and aimed at being powerhouses for Final Cut Pro, Da Vinci Resolve, Adobe Creative Suite, and a host of 3D apps… these are Creation Stations.

The Rebel

Absolute best performance for the price… well rounded all-purpose guerilla fighter aimed at putting a proper spec workstation in the hands of the masses for less than a entry spec Mac Pro but with more memory, internal RAID and better GPU. Buy one, buy ten… equip your studio with a guerilla army.

The Revolutionary

The cutting edge… prepare to be blown away. I’m not prepared to give too much away at this stage but this one will inspire mass riots and general anarchy wherever it is employed… a fearless leader.

The Rack Rocket

Stripped down brute force… designed as the building block for a cost effective render farm.

The RAIDer

Rock solid virtualized iSCSI rack server and enterprise class RAID array… up to 48TB in a 5U chassis. Designed for a cost effective 10gE network backbone to deliver multiple streams of uncompressed HD, 2K even 4K media (to a single workstation only)… and as much Prores as you care to demand from it.

More specific spec’s and of course prices to come… start building your army.

Hi… my name is Rich, but you can call me Jack

“Jack of all trades, master of none” is how the saying goes, and in the film, television and video post / VFX industry it’s a line that I hear a lot from those running large facility type operations or those holding tightly to their niche while they watch their market disappear around them.

It makes me laugh actually. It’s the most ridiculous defence from a dying industry desperate to protect itself from technological inevitability that I’ve ever heard.

Jack is not getting any better but his trades are getting easier, he is armed with better, cheaper, and more diverse tools than ever before… and he can generate results of a sufficient quality to satisfy a large swath of the market very easily and cheaply.

More than ever post is becoming more and more integrated. A post “pipeline” used to be a series of isolated islands joined in a successive “workflow” but those days are over. Don’t get me wrong, there is still a huge need for a intelligent workflow, but it doesn’t look like it used to. Offline is now online, those two separate processes once linked only by an EDL are combined now more than ever. Fewer and fewer tasks require conforming uncompressed media to achieve visually stunning results, and when it is necessary or desired, handling uncompressed media is easier than ever. Now that “offline” hardware is “online” capable and color correction, grading and finishing tools are becoming more prevalent on the same suite… Jack is finding things getting easier.

Jack definitely has the advantage in this game.

Beware of Jack… before you know it he will be master of all his trades.