Drones For Life

One thing I have truly been fascinated by is the growth and development of drones for cinema. This past couple weeks I really got to get up close in personal with one, and see how they work. You would think that it would be pretty simple to fly because they are so attainable, but thats completely false.  The controller has two pannels, one that deals with the flight pattern and another controlling the camera. Im so proud that I developed a true appreciation for how difficult it is to pilot one. Now heres a sick fucking drone video

http://devour.com/video/air-time/

Drones, Regulations, & The Holiday Season

In the recent years drones have been skyrocketing (ha) in popularity. With the holiday season approaching experts are estimating that over a million drones (WOW) will be given as gifts.

This rise in popularity has been a cause for concern among the FAA (Federal Aviation Association), as drones are still mostly unregulated. Drone companies such as DJI, 3DR, Parrot, etc. have been ramping up production in hopes of a successful holiday season. They have been making deals with distributors such as Costco, Sam's Club, Walmart, Amazon etc. to make the purchase of drones more available.

With the recent rise in drone popularity many people and organizations are calling for regulations to be placed on drone use. Drones have already been in the news with cases such as one landing on the white house lawn and another almost colliding with a commercial aircraft. 

Currently there are very little regulations placed on drones and their operators, with very little room for punishment for misuse. There are no licensing or registration standards, with the only current laws being that they must not fly above people and must stay in the pilots line of sight. I fully expect more strict laws to be created soon. 

The DJI OSMO

Needless to say one of the most up and coming camera companies is DJI. With their state of the art drones, portable 3-axis gimbals, and the new line of cameras they are releasing, they are changing the world of cinema as we know it. These kind of technologies create a more immersive experience and allow filmmakers to create new and unique shots. The newest item to their arsenal is the DJI OSMO, take a look at the video below to experience the magic.

As you can see it is quite the gadget. I see large resemblances of GoPro type features, including stills, variable frame rates, high resolution of 4k, and they even added a panorama feature which will be interesting to see results of. However, it doesn't seem that the OSMO is waterproof, this is the edge that GoPro still has going for them.

The gimbal is truly amazing as well. DJI is very good at combing all of their products together, and the OSMO is a fine example of this. Taking the gimbal features that were originally used with their drones and Ronin, and adding a true handheld design is amazing. The shots of the boxer in the video above took camera moves to a whole new level. The new Zenmuse cameras for DJI's drone series can also be interchanged on to the pistol grip OSMO to have the ability to change lenses and take advantage of the micro 4/3rds sensor. The additional viewfinder via iPhone is also genius. With cameras like the GoPro, the bluetooth signal to your phone is never strong enough and the LCD viewfinder is just too small. You can also change settings of the camera like shutter speed and ISO through the app on your phone.

This new device packs a powerful punch and I am interested in seeing how it is put to use within the next few weeks. The film industry is in a constant stage of progression and this is a clear example of what we are capable of and what is in the near future. Storytelling has never had so many resources available, now just to get out there and capture the moment.

OK, How'd They Do It?

The band OK Go is known to have some crazy music videos that really go above and beyond but in their latest video the band goes even further. The video directed by Morihiro Harano starts in a studio as the members of the band ride these little machines called UNI-CUB's. We dolly out of the studio and into the streets surrounded by bright and colorful buildings and out of nowhere the camera flies up into the air. The camera was attached to a drone that was then attached to a dolly and the camera continues to soar into the air.

Below the members are joined by dancers with umbrellas and the camera shoots back down. It locks back into place on the dolly and continues rolling down the street. And just like that the camera goes up again, but this time it doesn't come back down. The band is joined with now hundreds of dancers and we keep flying up and up. The crowd shapes forms with their umbrellas even spell out words as the camera flies over a half a mile into the air. To think how long it took to block the whole shot and to then get the choreography down perfectly is mind boggling. Check out the video below! 

OK Go - I Won't Let You Down - Official Video

The Eye Writer

Tempt1

We live in interesting times, no question about that. Plague, famine, kids killing people in remote villages from their drone playstations in Las Vegas, sipping RedBull. It is quite difficult to know how we can provide an ounce of balance to a ton of misery, so that ounce must be something really special to rescue our impossibly damaged spirit.

The influx of very damaged very young humans, the broken byproduct of that biggest business which is war, ends up in the landfills of society, the eternal superfund from which some people pick up the pieces and try to put things back together, albeit in a very different way. A leg here, an arm there, an eye or two, perhaps a brain? Can we pull us back together?

I will call him Luis

While searching for an appropriate picture to help me cut through the fog I had trouble finding one of the millions of miserable children which survive doing such a thing, because Corbis Corporation, the photo "service" owns most of them. I wonder, do those children get a percentage directly deposited to their pig accounts?

I guess you get the point. What triggered all this diatribe was me thinking about what we do on a daily basis, our "job" in other words. Do we really do something useful, something that tips the balance and creates a positive change? I think one of the reasons that the Open Source movement is so important is that it is a sort of groundswell, difficult to perceive because it is so pervasive and widespread.

But this movement, so dangerous to the monopolists of the world will tumble the most arrogant of them. There is no corporation, not even the most technically sophisticated that can evolve as rapidly as thousands or millions of people working together for a common cause.

As a little sample, I offer this movie about such an endeavour, one that ends with a call to hackers all over the world to collaborate, in this and any other way that might become the glue that binds us together again, into our cyborgian future.

The Eyewriter from Evan Roth on Vimeo.

Open Frameworks, F.A.T., Graffiti Research Lab, graffiti legend Tempt1 and of course EyeWriter got together to produce that ounce of energy for each and everyone of us...

Here is the how to and all the good monopoly-breaking stuff for those DIY's among us. Keep on DIYing...!