MŌVI: The Future of Filmmaking

As I sat on my porch today enjoying the nice sunny weather, my roommate came out and showed me this new piece of technology made by FREEFLY.

Link to their homepage.

MŌVI (pronounced moe-vee) is a camera rig that breaks the process of cinematography into two pieces. Normally, the camera operator is focused on framing, focus, and the general movement their body needs to make in order to get the right shot. This can be very difficult, especially when you want a panning shot of someone in a car or someone running down the street. The steadiness of a camera can really define a quality film. With MŌVI, the process is broken up between two different operators. One is focused on getting the camera where it needs to be, and the other is concerned with framing and focus. How does this work? Think of it as advanced remote-controlled steadicam.  They have a few demo videos that explain it best.

The taxi shot they get about 3 minutes into this clip is incredible. To get a shot like this in the past you would need a substantial budget with several camera operators. They had two operators and a pair of rollerblades. Amazing. 

These rigs are not available to the public yet, and pricing has not been set. They say they will release them in the 4th quarter (October-January) and they probably wont be cheap. 

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I would consider a purchase like this a heavy investment that would pay off in the long run. If you put it to good use, you could probably compensate the price of the rig after just a few effective shots.

This second video goes even further into the possibilities of their products, especially the CINESTAR, a helicopter-like rig. We will probably have to be ready to drop several thousands of dollars for any of these products... but holy crap what a payoff. I myself will probably not be ready to purchase something like this for a while. But if anyone else is, let me know! I may want to borrow it. You know... if that's cool. 

Photography and Videography

Photo and video.

Yes, they are two completely separate beasts. One freezes a memory into a single frame while the other records its entirety.

Some schools of thought think that video triumphs all — you can view things in real time, never missing a single emotion. Others believe that photography is more traditional and can be more powerful if done right. Are these purists right? That depends who you ask.

I have worked with both photo and video for a fair amount of time (well, for being a 19-year-old that is): about nine years doing video and about three in photo. Ever since the third grade I have been mystified by video. I took classes in middle and high school to further improve my skills. I have learned how beautiful of an art videography can be, both by creating and consuming it for almost my whole life. I was 100% in the "video is better than photo" mindset.

Everything all changed once I purchased my first DSLR. I'll admit first off that I did not but my Canon T2i for  photographic uses; it was all for video. Once I got rolling, however, I realized how majestic photography can be. Even going out into your backyard can bring about some amazing shots. This photo was one of the first I took with my camera. I love it: the flowers blooming from dead leaves, a bee precariously perched on the purple plant, everything. I'm not saying that video wouldn't be able to pick us these same things, but seeing it as a still adds some charm and pleasure to it. It's also easier to view it as a single shot, rather than in a video.

I do not think that one is superior to the other. Both photo and video have their strengths and weaknesses. Knowing about one can really help you with the other. Getting interesting angles, correcting white balance, and adjusting exposure are needed in each. Knowing where to look for the perfect shot is something that I personally found helpful in my transition to photo from video (I still do both currently, in a matter of fact).

Video was born from photo, and its silly to argue over the superior one (if that argument even exists). I look forward to expanding my skills and both, and translating the skills gained from one to the other.

Stories without motion

    A lot of people, when I talk to them, think that in order to be visually engaged something must be moving.  A car exploding, a person running from police, or even just a conversation between friends.  This idea however neglects the amazing storytelling abilities of still images. A single image can capture emotion and explain an entire story.  The frame is what makes work difficult for both still photographers and videographers.  A photographer has to capture the moment in just one frame, known as the decisive moment, a term coined by Henri Cartier-Bresson.  On the other hand a videographer has to fill 27 frames a second with interesting imagery that helps tell the story.  Personally I think both are difficult to accomplish successfully.  However I find telling a story in a single frame much more challenging.  The Concord Monitor did an excellent job at telling a story that is engaging and emotionally involved with only still images and words. Their work will not be seen by the masses nor win an Oscars, but the quality of storytelling is just as powerful.  This is the quintessential example of great stories without motion.

http://www.concordmonitor.com/sites/all/storage/media/rememberme/index.html

                                             Photographs by Henri Cartier-Bresson.

Social Network Tilt Shift Sequence

So I watched the Social Network for the first time this weekend and I was really interested in this scene (the link to the clip is the title of the post). What struck me was the use of tilt-shift videography. It's a technique used to make the objects in the picture look miniature and not real. I didn't know that this could be used in video, I thought it was just photography. It gives the scene a really cool effect, almost as though what's going on in the scene isn't real.
Here are some more examples of tilt-shift photography. I think it's pretty cool.