As many of you may know, I sent my Ninja 2 in for repair a few weeks ago due to a faulty HDMI input that was no fault of any mistreatment on my behalf. When I sent it in (on a Wednesday) they confirmed that they had received it and promised me to have it returned within one to four business days. Theoretically, this means it should have been back to me over a week and a half ago.
Yesterday I sent an email their way, questioning what had happened with the unit since I hadn't received any updates on it yet. Today I received back a plethora of emails apologizing and confirming that my unit was officially moving along the repair process. It was put "on the bench" as they call it at around 7pm today, and had been shipped out with a new outer casing within 45 minutes. The kicker was the note they attached with the shipping confirmation - letting me know that there was "extensive damage to the outer case of the unit, but it has been repaired anyway and shipped out."
If this unit actually makes it back to me in the promised two days I will be absolutely amazed, 0/10 for customer service Atmos - zero out of ten.
Recently Atmos dropped the price of both their Ninja Star and Ninja 2 models and made them super affordable for entry level film makers such as us. But what is the real cost of this price drop?
My Ninja 2 broke within three weeks of me getting it. Perfectly kept, in its protective case, without abusing it on set at all. Then spontaneously it stops accepting HDMI input. I talked with our resident camera tech expert Phil Wacker, and although he graced me with some helpful advice it wasn't what I was hoping for.
Turns out (since PPECs owns several of them) that he'd actually opened one up in an effort to fix it, but found that the motherboard inside was so tiny and intricate that there is no way to fix it by hand. The mere fact, however, that the technology can be processed by one little motherboard is impressive within itself, but I digress. The point being that its made so cheaply that they can malfunction super easily. That combined with the fragility of the HDMI interface in general and the fact that it has no locking/holding mechanism definitely added to the problem. There is an addition that allows 3G SDI input, but at the same price as the unit itself.
Long story short, because of the cheap manufacturing tactics of Atmos I am unable to use my Ninja any further. It was too good to be true I guess.
The London based film company, Realm Pictures, brought every video game/film nerd's wet dream to life. This past August, they created a first person shooter film that allowed random strangers they found on the internet to control the actions of the main character.
Yeah. You heard me. Realm Pictures specializes in fantasy-like films, photography and visual fx, so they are no stranger to creating interesting content that pushes the bounds of reality. With a camera strapped on to a helmet, and some tricky computer work, Director David Reynolds and his team were able to live stream an actor wandering through a church yard and fighting zombies.
But here comes the cool part. Reynolds was able to live stream the video to Chatroulette, a website that allows you to talk and video chat with random strangers. And those strangers got to control what the actor did, just like a real video game. With multiple locations, a handful of hidden weapons and items, a horde of zombies and a demonic final boss, players were able to choose their own paths by giving the actor commands, and hopefully make it through to the end, where the team of filmmakers was waiting for them in their control room. Here's the awesome video:
But how did they do it?!
It wasn't as easy as setting up an intricate obstacle course and flooding it with actors in zombie makeup. Reynolds orchestrated something very innovative technologically, that could really change both the gaming and film world. By strapping one of the zombies with a wireless router, they were able to live stream HDMI from the camera on the actor's helmet back to the control room, where Reynolds and his team controlled the website, and visual and sound effects. Reynolds also provided the voice of the shooter, so he would be able to react and communicate with the strangers. They created a behind-the-scenes video, which was even more interesting than the actual film.
And their accents, am I right ladies?
Currently, Realm Pictures are starting to produce their first feature film, so a sequel won't be in the immediate future. But, Reynolds stated "our fanciful conversations about what 'level 2' could bring are now becoming a reality real quick!", so don't cry yourselves to sleep just yet.
This level of audience participation is pretty groundbreaking. It takes the concept of "Choose Your Own Adventure" games and films to the next level, getting rid of the preplanned paths and allowing the "gamers" to decide whatever they wanted in a controlled environment. Though video games almost look like films nowadays, with graphics getting more realistic by the second, this is truly a new way to combine the two mediums. If developed and expanded, this kind of gameplay may catch on, and hopefully Realm Pictures will be the leading pioneer to this new frontier.
