CELLULOID SATURDAYS: is this goodbye?
Written by DC
Welcome to this week's edition of The Geek Beat, your weekly mediation on all matters Geek. Like Socrates ruminating on the nature of true wisdom, here at The Geek Beat we too are prone to ponderous bouts of philosophising - just with a little less Greek and a little more Geek. Whether debating the finer points of a new teaser trailer or deconstructing the opuses of legendary comic creators, I don't want to say that what happens in this blog is crucial to the advancement of Western civilisation... but you know, some truths are so self-evident that you simply don't have to give voice to them.
Okay. I digress (as usual; seems to be a trademark - I mean, habit!) - self-aggrandising done. This week's blog is a pretty short one. If you're a regular reader you'll know that The Geek Beat follows a rough monthly pattern. You get the RETRObituary, a fond look at retro games from halcyon eras of yore; The Gutter - my once-in=the-lunar-cycle take on the world of comics; The ANA Project, my monthly blog on the comic book/film project that I'm part of and... Celluloid Saturdays - the red-headed stepchild, an ever-present spectre at the feast during The Geek Beat family picnic. Why do I call it that? Well, for a start it's a reconstituted blog: It consists of a bit of new fluff at the start then older material from a training blog I wrote a couple of years ago when I was learning the basics of videography... and let's be honest here: reconstituted anything is never really good. I sometimes pick up packets of reconstituted meat in the supermarket, mainly because I'm strangely attracted to foods that look overly processed, (like cheese that's so smooth and plastic and yellow that it must have come from future robot space cows) but I always decide against it because logic dictates that if they're selling a load of meat over there advertised as 'prime cuts' then where's all the rest, the cuts that aren't prime (or even edible)? That's right stupid. They're sitting right in your hand in all of their reconstituted glory.
We can't have a conversation about meat without involving this guy.
It's not just the reconstituted thing; I use this blog to post new videos that I've worked on and lately, work and writing projects have left me with little time to actually pursue the filmmaking side of things. But this is you dear reader. And to put not too fine a point on it, you're special to me. If you weren't then why would I spend countless hours writing words for your edification? So here's a little something; this is a teaser for the talented Alexandra Jayne and her new music video for I Won't Break which launches on Monday and is available on iTunes then too. Filmed and cut by myself and the workaholic Andy Evans, it candidly documents the recording of the single which was produced during a sunny day in Worcester a little while back. Hit the jump below to check it out.
Man, that girl can sing.
The final reason for a change? The title. Celluloid Saturdays. I went for it because of the alliteration but it's actually a misnomer; I haven't yet had the opportunity to shoot on film - everything so far has been digital or on tape. Quibbling over semantics? Sure - but words matter... if they didn't then we'd all be grunting unintelligibly whilst communicating our pleasure or displeasure with our fellow human beings by throwing different coloured shit at one another. And whilst that may sound cool, I'm pretty sure after a while we'd miss words.
So there you go. There are myriad reasons for ending this strand of The Geek Beat and replacing it with something new. But don't worry, I'm not just going to pull the plug on you like that. There'll be one final installment of Celluloid Saturdays next month; a farewell edition packed to the rafters with awesomeness before I replace it with a different monthly blog. On that note, feel free to hit me up on Twitter if you've got ideas regarding what I could use this slot for. Movie reviews? Geek TV? On that note, exciting things are happening with The Geek Beat behind the scenes. Reads are significantly up and although I can't say too much about it just yet, plans are afoot to take the blog to the next level. Exciting times!
Without any further ramblings from me then, here' this week's slice of reconstituted goodness. The week 5 blog references interview techniques that I learned during the video production course. If you want to see them in action, I've also included a link to the the final project where I put them into practice. Enjoy!
Week 5
So this week concerns interview techniques. This is
more familiar ground for me as communicating and questioning happen to be part
of my day job. The work that we covered in class was still enlightening
however. In particular it made me reflect on how different circumstances would
dictate different levels of preparation for the interviewee. I like the idea
that you should never give the interviewee the questions in the interest of
creating a natural interview...
I also like the idea of interviewing the subject in
their natural environment to preserve the sanctity of the interview; the idea
that questioning the subject in a location suited to the nature of the
interview or even specifically related to the events discussed within the
interview is really appealing to me and I can see (although the thought had
never before occurred to me until it was explicitly outlined!) that evoking
actual feelings and memories from the event concerned would be much easier if
the subject is placed directly within the context of those events. The ultimate
aim of any interview, whether it be a quick vox pop on the street or an
extended sit-down studio interview is the same as any journalistic endeavour-
to find an aspect of truth.
It seems to me that eliciting genuine emotion
and feeling would so much easier when the subject is in an environment that
promotes such feelings. Consequently, I have decided that my Assignment Two
submission will hopefully involve interviewing a subject for the web video that
I have to create in their natural surroundings. This will require a great deal
more planning and legwork but I feel it will make for a better interview. A
location shoot where I will have to deal with a different lighting scenario
will be a greater challenge rather than simply using the setup in the studio
that I have already practiced.
If you don't have a multi-camera setup then the there
is a real onus on the camera operator to quickly reframe shots whilst the
interviewer asks questions. It's a tricky thing to pull off because a variety
of camera shots is important so that the audience doesn't get bored but at the
same time it is equally vital that the reframed shots aren't too jarring. A
good selection of cutaway shots would also be needed; not only to hide the cuts
between shot that had been reframed but also to provide an interesting visual
narrative to the interview audio.
Anyway. That's all for now.
The Noob.
Hit the jump to see those interview skills in practice...
Week 6
Greetings Noobites. This week was reading week so I was given
carte blanche to choose a particular area of interest within the field of
technical production and look into it. I decided to choose the emergence of 4K as a new format for multi-platform broadcasting and assess whether or not it
will supplant HD as the industry standard.
4K as a
term is used because it describes the number of pixels used along the length of
the shot. Compared to the 1080p that we accept as being ‘true’ HD, 4000 pixels
is a significant increase (almost four-fold) meaning that the gap in quality
should be startling and it is; anyone who has ever laid eyes on a 4K display
will know that the image quality is awe-inspiring. But the cosmos will seek to
realign everything... or maybe the cosmos is super-grumpy and clearly
doesn’t want us to have nice toys because although it may deliver much in
terms of sheer visual fidelity, 4K creates a massive amount of logistical
issues on the workflow side of things. Now for 4K (I suppose 4K is better name
than Ultra High Definition because what comes
next? Ultra, Ultra High Definition? Followed by Ultra,
Ultra, Ultra High Definition? Doesn’t work!) it won’t reach a
consumer base until the industry first adopts it and are they willing to do
that?
It’s taken what seems like eons for all broadcasters
to finally hit the ‘standard’ that is now HD. The BBC only got round to opening
their new HD studios in Salford in the last couple of years and yet suddenly we
are in the throes of another seismic format shift in the broadcasting
landscape? Perhaps not. Consumer electronic giants would sincerely like it
to be so. 3D didn’t sell like they wanted to (who knew?) so they’re already
looking for the next big cash cow and 4K appears to be mooing dollars for
fun...
Early adopters of bleeding-edge tech like Sky will
trial it of course; they’ve already filmed one Premier League match in 4K as a
test but will only continue to fully support it if it looks like it’s turning a
profit. A large portion of the ‘success’ of Blu-Ray (more on that in a
minute) has been attributed to the installation on a non-specialist device with
'crossover' reach such as a games console like the PS3 but with the next
generation of multimedia consoles launching this week and not being 4K compatible (at least not for games) one wonders where the push may come from?
Broadband speeds in this country certainly don’t support that level of
streaming (although Netflix have said they plan to have a 4k movie service
running by next year) and the 4G infrastructure in the UK is simply not that
good, not to mention the massive amounts of data that we could be talking
about. A huge proportion of video is moving to the web where 4K isn't needed
and not is it practical meaning the demand for 4K may simply not be realised.
So does that mean it won’t happen? I really hope
it does, not least because it gives every guy a stone-cold reason to demand a
TV of 55 inches plus without debating the finer points of
feng-shui with his other half but as to whether it really happens?
The jury is still out. Content creators clearly want to work with the format; I
know I do. The creative solutions offered are vast: it improves zooming,
keying, digital effects, even 3D (although generally, simply closing your eyes
improves 3D) not to mention that achingly beautiful resolution BUT these
creators of content have to craft something beautiful, magical, something the Wow Factor otherwise the install base won’t
grow and it’ll end up in the great Format Graveyard in the sky, wearing wings
and playing a harp next to Betamax and Laserdisc. (My spell-check
doesn’t recognise them; the sure sign of an also-ran.)
Going back briefly to Blu-Ray, there’s apparently
a ‘magic percentage’ known only to consumer electronics analysts and the men in
ties who unleash them which a format has to hit in terms of market share to
supersede the previous format. The number is believed to be somewhere
around the seventy percent mark. Ever wondered why you can still buy DVDs years
after Blu-Ray has been released? That’s because a surprisingly large
amount of the market share is still taken up by DVD sales (40-50%) meaning
that Blu-Ray has yet to succeed and trump the previous format
despite all of the technical superiority it possesses. In fact, conspiracy
theorists are suggesting that newer Blu-Ray releases containing limited
extras are an admission that the format is failing to sway public opinion and
that instead all focus should be aimed on... yep, you got it: 4K.
The point here of course is that it doesn’t matter how
technically wonderful your format may be; getting a large enough install base
to make it a reality is an entirely different proposition altogether. James
Cameron’s use of 3D in Avatar pushed 3D into the homes of a lot
people (and in the humble opinion of this noob, way further than it
deserved to go) but until someone harnesses the potential of 4K and couples it
with stellar content that blows our tiny minds...?
Well until then, put me down for a maybe.
Thanks for reading.
The Noob.
(Sitting
on a fence, albeit proverbial.) 
That's all from The Geek Beat this week folks. This has been a
Vertigo production.
Head back this way next week for the monthly RETRObituary with myself and Shaune Gilbert..
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