tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-27418406583554000852024-03-14T07:04:32.526+01:00VJK's DiariesVassily Kritishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07722927725208174562noreply@blogger.comBlogger877125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2741840658355400085.post-4760665618552420672022-12-27T16:15:00.004+01:002022-12-27T16:15:23.113+01:00<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEjNRtTgXUFEKLdaZlR7r9ihqk5t1AF4iXDzgK0GDOY2aSJi38eEqPKp_jOj7r_8F6SvZF-w_r2f8k6W0TjgtSxcr4VOQEfn0UmE7BEsClXqoKlVAakyJcNcrl21DqVwldJrNG5VACOYOOZBXRMO0dQqUc8M5Fvjrrs8vA9HpWJ91fLDEEoj4Ba_bIEkeg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="2993" data-original-width="4184" height="429" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEjNRtTgXUFEKLdaZlR7r9ihqk5t1AF4iXDzgK0GDOY2aSJi38eEqPKp_jOj7r_8F6SvZF-w_r2f8k6W0TjgtSxcr4VOQEfn0UmE7BEsClXqoKlVAakyJcNcrl21DqVwldJrNG5VACOYOOZBXRMO0dQqUc8M5Fvjrrs8vA9HpWJ91fLDEEoj4Ba_bIEkeg=w599-h429" width="599" /></a></div><br /> <p></p>Vassily Kritishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07722927725208174562noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2741840658355400085.post-89744022031052487612018-09-04T12:34:00.001+02:002018-09-04T14:02:14.043+02:00Londoners in Monochrome<div style="text-align: center;">
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An album published thru Indesign on my Adobe space, and free to enjoy by everyone.</div>
Vassily Kritishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07722927725208174562noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2741840658355400085.post-10053038559597594172016-03-06T18:49:00.003+01:002016-03-09T21:21:36.150+01:00The tricks our memory plays on us.<div style="text-align: center;">
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<br /><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"> Two weeks ago to the day, I found myself in the company of friends, in Athens Greece. We have all been students of the same ΕΜΠ class (National Technical University, or Μετσόβιον Πολυτεχνείον) with graduation year 1976, 40 years ago. The get together took place in a posh bistro, south west of the Filopappou hill. The Filopappou is opposite the Acropolis rock.<br /><br />A few months ago I was approached by Yianni, one of us, asking whether I’d join a planned 40 year reunion sometime in 2016. He and another one of us, Niko, volunteered to do all the necessary. I said "yes" in a heartbeat. Wouldn’t miss it for the world. Would be my unique opportunity to do right this time. <br /><br />In the past 25 years, I never managed to meet anyone from my class since graduation day. I almost grabbed my diploma at the end of June 1976, and off I flew to the place that was to become my new home. There has been one single exception to this however. During one of my trips to Athens ten years ago, Nikos, one of my closest pals during school, paid me a memorable dinner near my hotel, at the then famous Athens Hilton fish restaurant. We spoke about the usual, health, career, family, our kids, and, it goes without saying, we smalltalked about those we commonly knew from the past. I was starving for news. Sort of thing like, «What is X doing these days?», or, «Did you hear about such and such?». After all these years it seemed like we had never separated. Nikos was a good kid and graduated top of our class. Humble, extremely intelligent and a hard worker. It was a fun evening and I was ecstatic about meeting each other, even after so many years of separation. Unfortunately Nikos passed not long ago, before he could turn 60. R.I.P. pal. See you soon.<br /><br />When I came to this country, I literally switched off my past, emotionally and factually. At least, I thought so. Much I knew then. It was so bad that I hardly spoke my native Greek anymore. For months and years to come. Only during infrequent and brief phone conversations with family members I spoke and thought in Greek. I don’t know why I've done this to the extreme. Thinking back, I do feel shockingly ashamed about my arrogance. It’s almost against the laws of nature to cutoff one’s roots like this. Of course, one can’t turn back the clock and undo the wrong! Like convicts serving time for the crimes they committed, I’ll have to live with it for the rest of my days.<br /><br />Closing down to the event, I tried my utmost best to remember names and faces, but I repeatedly failed miserably. Yanni offered me some consolation during our occasional email exchanges, saying I was not alone in this. But still, something in my mind couldn’t find peace. I accepted the fact that I would have hard time recognizing faces, as time does continuously change people’s looks, and 40 years is a very long time. Like Yanni put it, with the amount of facial hair we all carried back then, it would be an impossible task to recognize anyone after 40 long years. I was OK with that. The one thing I couldn’t logically grasp though was that I had somehow forgotten most of their names. To the point I saw a list with names and realized that I didn't recognize many among them, far too many indeed... Didn't ring a bell, at all! Of the 35 student class I could hardly remember 5-6 names. Of whom, two had unfortunately passed. How could this be humanly possible? Cold sweat ran over me as I took the taxi to the venue. How foolish would I look?<br /><br />Almost everybody who was invited came, including our three emeritus professors and their still professionally active administrative assistant, Katia. We all seemed somehow to have the same problem. Recognizing faces. As they eventually saw me in their mind's eye as I used to be, most told me I’d taken up weight, which is fine, but some seemed to have not been able to recognize me at all. Staring at me like it was their first time. And that situation was apparently mutual. Neither the face nor their name was I able to consciously recall too. Many still knew me though. One among them, Sofronis, told me a hilarious story about an incident that happened between the two of us back then and he made me ROFLMAO! Of course, I couldn’t remember a single bit of that event, cross my heart. I must admit, after all is said and done, there are still a couple left that I have great difficulty reconciling their current looks with how they looked back then and also with their names. One or two sound like I have never come across 'em in my entire life before. Never ever. It is terribly unfair to them, I understand. How could I possibly forget so much? Alzheimer’s symptoms that I am not yet aware of?<br /><br />During the course of the event, Yanni showed us a video he prepared about our life back then. The enterprise proved fabulously emotional as it's been equally humorous. Seeing each other after so many years, flabbergasted about “the way we were”!<br /><br />And then it started happening to me. Gradually, watching Yanni's video, looking at pictures of the past, connecting people’s names with their faces, gradually but steadily kept blowing away the fog. I leaned over and half hugged Yanni, mumbling something like “great job, brother!”. Couldn’t keep my tears. My neurons kept waking up in the millions from their 40 year long winter sleep, dusting the accumulated fat off their synapses (as a figure of speech), and like an old engine that has just been lubricated, my latent memory started bringing back the vistas I had long forgotten. In lightening speed pictures were formed in my brain and I ‘saw’ them fellow students like they used to be. Names and faces became one again. I couldn’t help smiling by facing the heavy tricks the deplorable time had played on some of them, but I am sure many felt the same way by looking at me. I could say by their facial expressions when their eyes crossed mine.<br /><br />The recollection process did not complete that evening alone. The weeks that followed I have worked hard to reconcile names and renewed visual impressions from the reunion event. You see, I promised them to shoot pictures during the evening and make a slideshow about the venue later. Therefore, I wanted to know for sure “who's who” eliminating any shadow of doubt right before I started putting the slides together. <br /><br />A few weeks later, I apparently seem to have recovered most of my “lost” memory. Maybe I am still having some difficulty with one or two. But growing from hardly remembering 5 to 6 fellow students before the event to remembering faces, names and anecdotes of more than 30 today has been quite a triumph. Agree?</span><div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;">
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<!--EndFragment-->Vassily Kritishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07722927725208174562noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2741840658355400085.post-17159552140583845962015-11-18T15:48:00.010+01:002016-02-27T12:38:24.547+01:00An iPad for pro’s<a href="file:///Users/v.kritis/Library/Caches/com.blogo.Blogo.nonmas/1447856914_full.jpeg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;" target="_blank"><img src="https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-t1GoQfiFz_8/VkyPxRFfdBI/AAAAAAAAFqE/o4Chint0HL4/1447857021_thumb.jpeg" /></a>I couldn’t consider myself an Apple aficionado if I ignored the launch of the iPad Pro and looked the other way. And of course I didn’t. I went out to buy one white and gold right on the day of its local introduction. Just the wifi version, but with full GB capacity (128), not the Mickey Mouse bits (64) of the introductory model. Of course there was neither the smart keyboard and cover available, nor the Apple pencil. I would have to be a little more patient for those, although I found a similar convenient solution for the keyboard part by adding a BT Apple external keyboard that I found lying idle somewhere in my loft. As for holding it standing upright, I used an old Griffin stand that I purchased long ago, from the times of the very first iPads that came out.<br />
Coupling the wireless keyboard was a breeze, even simpler than with any desktop Mac or Macbook. The only thing I haven’t found how yet is changing the keyboard layout, if needed to. So, for now, until someone shows me a better way, I quickly disable the BT on the iPad, open the keyboard on any app that uses it, change the language and layout using the earthglobe softkey, and then turn BT ‘on’ again. I am sure there is a more elegant way to do this, but, what the heck, it worked for me.<br />
For the rest, the iPad feels like any desktop or a Macbook, only difference, you get the feeling that you are working faster as you can interact not with a mouse but with your fingers on its screen, or the Apple Pencil (stylus) when it becomes available. Fingers work fine so far, no complaints whatsoever. Right now, I am waiting for their smart keyboard that also serves as a protecting cover, before I replace my AirMac (1st gen 11 inch) with this one for good. Its screen of 12.9 inch is way bigger and far more attractive in terms of color depth and resolution that the 11 inch of my Air. I guess both configurations would be equivalent in terms of weight, but the Air is also a bit smaller in size. On the other side, the iPad is full of fun apps that I am used to, and in the past made me bring along a mini iPad each time I had to carry the AirMac with me. I guess this new iPad will somehow cannibalize the traditional Macbook sales, unless they find a different use for it (the Macbook, I mean), which doesn’t seem too likely anyways. Are they possibly going the Microsoft way with the latter’s Surface hybrids? Who can say? One thing seems plausible though. In the future, we will keep a big ass desktop workstation at home and a tablet of some sort for our needs when on the road. Suits me right!Vassily Kritishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07722927725208174562noreply@blogger.com1Oudenaarde Oudenaarde50.843233 3.616388tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2741840658355400085.post-32455409408533855342015-11-06T18:51:00.002+01:002015-11-06T19:18:30.093+01:00The Watch<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
</div>
<a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-lm9wMRoGT_0/Vjzma4O0ItI/AAAAAAAAFpc/X7WeUnuvWKo/s1600/apple-watch-1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-lm9wMRoGT_0/Vjzma4O0ItI/AAAAAAAAFpc/X7WeUnuvWKo/s640/apple-watch-1.jpg" width="640" /></a><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">The Apple Watch, or iWatch as it was initially baptised by the speculating Press has been in the mouth of fans, reporters and gadget enthusiasts long before it appeared in real as a saleable product. I believe this dates back to the days His Jobness was still alive and kicking. Eventually the watch saw the light under the name Apple Watch, and after being </span><span style="font-family: "\22 trebuchet ms\22 " , sans-serif;">gradually </span><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">launched into the world markets, it must have sold several million pieces by now, as we speak. Apple won't provide actual volumes shipped, but I saw articles projecting anything between 10 and 50 million pieces to be sold in the first year. A press article last July speculated a billion dollar revenue had already been achieved from sales back then</span><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">, but this figure was indirectly </span><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">deduced </span><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">from known incremental sales of a set of products among which the watch was one. Well, Apple is Apple, and any product it will create will typically sell in the (tens of) millions no matter what, even if it turned out to be a flop. So, for a company with $230B most recent known annual revenue, selling 10 million watches in a first year is not much of a guarantee of future triumphs. So I thought, surprisingly becoming a sceptic for the first time ever about an Apple designed product since the inception of the very company. Indeed.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Contrary to my traditional geek fan (fan as in fanatic) approach vis-à-vis any product designed by Apple, I have not been much of a Watch enthusiast from the very moment it was leaked to the press. I don't know why, but something felt like this thing was never going to cut it for consumers. Not because of lack of design, functionality, robustness or innovation. For sure, all these were going to be Apple-like, that is the best anyone could ever conceive and manufacture. It was the watch's purposefulness I was and still am sceptic about. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">By now, we all know that the iPhone and all so-called smartphones are not only about calling people on a phone anymore. Actually, from the start, from the launch of the GSM technology wave, cellphones have been offered with enhanced functionality that went far beyond than merely talking </span><span style="font-family: '"trebuchet ms"', sans-serif;">remotely </span><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">to people. They sought from early on to replace the so-called PDAs of the times, the Personal Digital Assistants. That extra functionality defined the very competitive advantage among the dominant cellphone suppliers back then. Nevertheless cellphones still remain tools for old fashioned telephone communication between human beings, but far beyond than calling grandma and grandpa, they have become a much sought after Swiss knife in a contemporary consumer's daily life. They provide all sorts of information to our finger tips that no generation before ours have ever experienced. The wealth and reach of the information provided has never been equaled by any electronics device ever before. The new mobile phone, the smartphone (actually any phone that mimics and impersonates the iPhone, </span><span style="font-family: "\22 trebuchet ms\22 " , sans-serif;">introduced by Jobs in January 2007</span><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">) became a disruptive game-changer in the telecom industry for ever. It did to the traditional cellphones what digital photography did to the film.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Is Apple's new wearable, the Apple Watch, going to enjoy the same re-write of the watch history and seriously disrupt and change the industry, as did the iPhone to the traditional cellphone markets? </span><span style="font-family: "\22 trebuchet ms\22 " , sans-serif;">It might somehow, by I have no idea how far reaching this will be in changing our watch wearing habits, culture and beliefs. </span><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Does anyone deep in one's heart believe that it is going to push to the corner of irrelevance names like Omega, Rolex, Breitling, Tag Heuer, IWC, Hublot and Panerai? Hmmm... I sincerely doubt this. Here's why.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">I always believed that the new generation, the millennials for instance, and those who'll follow, don't/won't wear watches much. Their mom and dad will </span><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">have </span><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">probably bought them a smartphone before their wrist developed a size suitable to fit a descent watch's band. If they want to tell the time, a quick look at their smartphone will inform them all they will ever wanna know. As for mature people like myself, who still remember the times of analog landline telephone devices, a watch has never been for just telling the time. It has been a piece of precious jewellery instead, for many of us still hanging around. It's been a statement of persona. Especially to men, who don't typically carry much precious metal jewellery to fit their body parts other than a (wedding) ring and a watch. Well, some might still wear a subtle earring on one lobe. Timepieces, as the Swiss call their world famous brand watches that have been handcrafted with pride for hundreds of years in relatively small workshops many of which still operate in traditional villages high up the Jura mountains, are meant to keep time and make a persona statement. Impeccably, with insane accuracy, almost perpetually. Electronics cannot and will never fit this Timepiece concept. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">You must pay a small fortune for such a watch, entirely mechanical, handcrafted by real people, a genuine Timepiece made in Switzerland indeed. I appreciate this approach because it has an element of "the human factor" in it. The knowledge that a real person with outstanding crafting skills has worked the mechanics and put together the miniature </span><span style="font-family: "\22 trebuchet ms\22 " , sans-serif;">components of </span><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">infinitesimal tolerances to build a celebrity brand watch, this feeling indeed makes you profoundly appreciate the value of such a piece in ways that you will never ever do for a product of contemporary electronics, mass manufactured in China, with its heart and soul run by software, no matter how compelling its functionality can be. Is it then because such Timepieces unfold pages of the past, when craftsmen were still human, and their crafts were universally valued, that we are still prepared to spend even tens of thousands of dollars on such timepieces? Swatch, very much Swiss watchmakers themselves, early on realised they could never be able to challenge the known brands in durability, craftsmanship, and price, and therefore jumped to capture the other market end, offering dead cheap watches of some design that could be worn as prêt-à-porter and be changed like... underwear. In fact Swatch invited consumers to buy not only one watch, but several, and keep collecting them while the company </span><span style="font-family: '"trebuchet ms"', sans-serif;">massively </span><span style="font-family: 'trebuchet ms', sans-serif;">supplied new models and designs in unstoppable fashion. And 30 years later they still do this, like the life of the company depended on this. Which it probably does.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Despite my initial scepticism, during moments of severe boredom and for lack of other compelling gadgets to buy, I eventually went out to purchase... an Apple Watch afterall, however, the cheapest model of all. I bought a 42 mm model (and still need my reading glasses to be able to read the screen messages properly), 469 euro's in all, incl. VAT! Among other, I wanted to find out for myself about whether it was going to become another iPhone or a flop Newton PDA instead.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">After a week of using it, I found that it deserves some credit after all, and you could own one among your other watches for sure, it's OK looking and all, but it needs an iPhone in the neighbourhood for full functionality, and it will definitely never be anything like a known brand Swiss Timepiece. Despite it's attractive design and functionality. It is also, even for an Apple product, quite expensive. I mean the basic and cheapest model, let alone the insanely priced in the tens of thousands dollars Watch Edition pieces. What were they thinking when they launched those? You could buy a small car instead. Even </span><span style="font-family: '"trebuchet ms"', sans-serif;">spoiled </span><span style="font-family: 'trebuchet ms', sans-serif;">Arab peninsula princes won't promptly jump to own any of those, I think. From what I heard, these folks are universally loyal to the most expensive IWC's money can buy. I wonder how many Edition pieces Apple is going to eventually sell. Even those dressed with an Hermes band. A cute combination maybe, but at what a price indeed.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Do I still use mine? Well, yes, for the time being. I will revisit this post in six months and update you. Most likely I will have fallen back to one of my low-end Swiss Timepieces by then, I reckon. Let's wait and see.</span>Vassily Kritishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07722927725208174562noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2741840658355400085.post-48732540309593467402015-09-19T12:50:00.001+02:002015-09-19T13:03:50.803+02:00How I color correct my Vlog shots<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">With this blogpost </span><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">I am sure I am not adding any original views to the community of videographers out there, especially the pro's among them, but I'm simply sharing my own experience with GH4 shooting Vlog footage.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">I am using FCP as my NLE of preference. In every new set of shots, that I usually shoot in one session, I am trying to fix a representative shot first, and then create a preset based on those fixes that I subsequently apply to the remaining shots. This approach usually provides me with satisfactory results; nevertheless, I tend to go over all the remaining shots once more, observe their </span><span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">look-'n-feel</span><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"> that the preset generated, and review their waveforms, and, if necessary, I do some further fine-tuning. I believe this is exactly what most of you out there are doing</span><span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;"> as well</span><span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">As the first shot is concerned, I work in non-aggressive iterative steps. The pictures attached hereunder show the sequence of my approach. Since the release of the Vlog-L profile on the GH4, </span><span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">I shoot</span><span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;"> in that style with +2 stops overexposure. As you can witness in the first screen-capture hereunder, this GH4 profile generates a highly washed out image that has the advantage that its luma waveform is spread between 25% and 75%. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">I first push the shadows to make the luma wave touch the zero line. Subsequently, to my personal taste, I push midtones down as well. Next, I push highlights to touch the 100% line at the top of the luma diagram. Doing this pulls the shadows and midtones higher as well. Therefore, during a second iteration cycle, I am repeating the process by fine-tuning the three exposure components to ensure the final waveform covers the best part of the entire spectrum from 0 to 100% and the resulting image shows the proper tonality and contrast, and above all it is pleasing to the eye. Of course, I don't just do that mechanically </span><span style="font-family: '\'Trebuchet MS\'', sans-serif;">only </span><span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">based on waveform shapes, otherwise even computers could learn to do that automatically. At each stage I observe the output frame to get convinced that the result is aesthetically pleasing. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">Eventually, if the white balance of the clip happened to not be to my liking I do correct that in the Color tab of the Color Board, and that after fixing luminosity and contrast in the Exposure tab. In the example below, as can be seen in the RGB parade waveform, the color balance looks acceptable, and didn't need adaptation. Only the Saturation I pushed globally a little bit for reasons of personal taste. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">A sphere look-'n-feel (colorisation) I finally apply using one of many available 'looks' plugin and if necessary some fine-tuning of its parameters, again to my personal taste. In the example shown here, I used mLut by MotionVFX and applied their "metal suit" preset. I could have used anything else for that matter. The result is shown in the last picture in this series.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">This has been a simple cycle, quick and dirty, suitable to us, gifted amateurs, who can't afford doing expert colorisation and log corrections with Pro gear like Da Vinci Resolve, regardless whether it's been made available for free by its owners BlackMagic.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<br />
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-kmpReE7eiHo/Vf02YGTmoiI/AAAAAAAAFlY/17mcOhOxH7A/s1600/1.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="316" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-kmpReE7eiHo/Vf02YGTmoiI/AAAAAAAAFlY/17mcOhOxH7A/s640/1.png" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Shot in its original state. On the left the Luma and RGB Parade waveforms, on the right the color board for tuning and fine tuning. </td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-bloYfJlrR0k/Vf02YO6MYiI/AAAAAAAAFlg/P0LmF9ehpIg/s1600/2.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-bloYfJlrR0k/Vf02YO6MYiI/AAAAAAAAFlg/P0LmF9ehpIg/s640/2.png" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">First step pushing down the shadows to touch the zero line.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-VRxoyyOfEOs/Vf02YLlGD_I/AAAAAAAAFlc/U2HPs5GZbY0/s1600/3.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="318" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-VRxoyyOfEOs/Vf02YLlGD_I/AAAAAAAAFlc/U2HPs5GZbY0/s640/3.png" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Doing the same with the midtones to my liking.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-ktKGy0pmsRQ/Vf02bDAarFI/AAAAAAAAFlw/uDzgz2qZ81I/s1600/4.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-ktKGy0pmsRQ/Vf02bDAarFI/AAAAAAAAFlw/uDzgz2qZ81I/s640/4.png" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Pushing up the highlights, that pulls shadows and midtones higher as well.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-qOoLDNkWuI0/Vf02b_VuYTI/AAAAAAAAFl0/BM9pQNC9tOU/s1600/5.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-qOoLDNkWuI0/Vf02b_VuYTI/AAAAAAAAFl0/BM9pQNC9tOU/s640/5.png" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Push shadows down again to touch zero.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-TckWzEv9e4k/Vf02cD5WIpI/AAAAAAAAFl4/nRIM99pTM80/s1600/6.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="318" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-TckWzEv9e4k/Vf02cD5WIpI/AAAAAAAAFl4/nRIM99pTM80/s640/6.png" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Same for midtones to my liking.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-Xt0XtvapEDo/Vf02dUK6-0I/AAAAAAAAFmA/tjMEof7tNRw/s1600/7.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="322" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-Xt0XtvapEDo/Vf02dUK6-0I/AAAAAAAAFmA/tjMEof7tNRw/s640/7.png" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">As highlights moved down too, push them back up again.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
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<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-Y-bvxjDjUSE/Vf02e2BA9lI/AAAAAAAAFmM/yAsA3HGC260/s1600/8.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-Y-bvxjDjUSE/Vf02e2BA9lI/AAAAAAAAFmM/yAsA3HGC260/s640/8.png" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">As exposure got fixed, do color corrections next. In my case only the global saturation was pushed. The RGB parade shows all three RGB waveforms in balance; no corrections added.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
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<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/--0D9wHD0Eo4/Vf02fdiQ1wI/AAAAAAAAFmU/p75uKnLe2IY/s1600/9.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/--0D9wHD0Eo4/Vf02fdiQ1wI/AAAAAAAAFmU/p75uKnLe2IY/s640/9.png" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Eventually, a purchased plugin look applied. In this case it was the metal suit look of MotionVFX's mLUT plugin.</td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><br /></span>Vassily Kritishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07722927725208174562noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2741840658355400085.post-6962721467852742512015-09-16T15:45:00.003+02:002016-02-27T12:42:54.523+01:00To err is human, or how Panasonic screwed up the (Vlog) firmware update 2.3 for the Lumix GH4.<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-taMityGSGC4/VflpBqGDTJI/AAAAAAAAFk4/_L31ZvVURB0/s1600/19189265-cartoon-ouch-Stock-Vector-ouch-explosion-boom.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="210" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-taMityGSGC4/VflpBqGDTJI/AAAAAAAAFk4/_L31ZvVURB0/s320/19189265-cartoon-ouch-Stock-Vector-ouch-explosion-boom.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">From the moment Panasonic's Lumix DMC- GH4 </span><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">was announced,</span><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"> first prosumer camera ever to shoot 4K video, it became a legend. More than a year later quite a few good products from competitors emerged to challenge the GH4 with similar and better specs. For instance, Sony managed to pack its sLog2 cinematic profile used by pros in its latest bridge camera, also shooting 4K and offering at the same time up to 1000 fps slow mo! Phenomenal experience! They've been able to achieve such high slow-mo rates by attaching a </span><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">storage </span><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">layer back-to-back to the sensor, shortening data travel paths from sensor pixels to storage, achieving extremely short frame storage turnaround; they thus managed to reach spectacular fps rates at HD resolution, </span><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">unseen </span><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">for a camera at this price range... Anyways, enough said about Sony... we are discussing the GH4 here. But lets have a good laugh first...</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">In its initial implementation the GH4 offered various user photo styles of which the so called Cinelike-D was the closest possible to standard log profiles used by the pro's, but not entirely. Beginning of this year they eventually demoed and promised to come up with a firmware update to implement a genuine log profile, the vLog-L that would allegedly offer cinematic quality. A little later they released the 2.2 </span><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">firmware </span><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">update that unfortunately, the goodness it offered </span><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">aside</span><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"> (like the possibility to shoot anamorphic video), it provided no log profile yet. Eventually this option was made available a few days ago (September 2015) on their most recent firmware update </span><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">release 2</span><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">.3, but with a caveat. The firmware itself was indeed freely available, but to unlock the vLog-L feature you had to follow a short procedure a part of which was to pay them 99 US dollars! The GH4 fan crowd cursed promptly the Panasonic folks for their greedy attitude. While other suppliers offered log functionality for </span><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">free</span><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">, Panasonic chose to earn some easy dough in the process.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">By googling around I got to download their GH4_V23.bin update file, not from their support page mind you, but from a mirror site, somewhere out there... In fact Panasonic's download page mentioned something like their servers were under maintenance! You see, </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">I made up my mind to install the 2.3 firmware on my GH4 body after all, but I wasn't sure I wanted to pay them 99 bucks to unlock the V-Log. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Anyways, the firmware update went smooth, and I was soon the happy owner of a GH4 on version 2.3. I even generated the serial number file that I had to send them, that after paying the infamous 99 bucks, they'd have to ship to me a personalised key-file to activate my particular camera. Only then could I in theory select the V-Log setting on the Photo Style option of my camera menu.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">As I was strolling around in the GH4 user group on Facebook, my eye caught a posting of someone claiming there was a hack that could render the VLog-L profile accessible without having to pay the 99 bucks. Curious as I am, I followed the links and found out how insane, pardon my French, generous I meant, Panasonic really is. This is how it worked.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">If you operate the camera from a smartphone using Panasonic's Image app, besides the remote record function you can also remotely select a shedload camera settings directly on the app. Here's where things went wrong for Panasonic, folks. It appears that when you select the Photo Style settings on the smartphone app, you will also "see" and be able to successfully select the VLog-L option !!! Without a camera activation necessary. Also, once you do set VLog as the Photo Style of choice, it remains permanent on the camera, even if you power it down. In other words, you don't have to operate the camera remotely with your smartphone anymore to achieve a cinematic VLog look. Once selected, it stays selected. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Pay attention... the "hack" is only valid for the 2.3 version of the firmware and the current version of their iMage app (1.9.5). I reckon they'll be correcting their gaffe in future firmware and app updates, so be careful. If you don't wanna risk accidental loss of this workaround (that's what it is, it's not a "hack" actually), configure your smartphone <b>not to </b></span><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><b>automatically </b></span><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><b>update</b> its apps; you can thus enjoy Vlog on your GH4 for ever, until you decide to get rid of the camera altogether. </span><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Naturally, if you change the Photo Style to something else on the camera's own Menu, then you'll have to repeat the remote procedure again to re-establish VLog. Unless you save the style into the <b>Cust</b> setting by pressing the <b>DISP</b> button on the camera, and recall the custom setting each time you want to re-establish Vlog.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">The pictures below show captures of the remote app screens about how to select the VLog setting on the smartphone app. In this case this was an iPhone 6 on V 9.1. Click for larger view.</span><br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="font-size: 13px; text-align: center;">From left to right, Connect smartphone to camera and tap Remote operation, select Q.Menu next, then Photo Style and subsequently select V-Log L. Then save the setting on the camera in Cust.</td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Finally, here's a shot showing the VLog L <i>look-'n-</i></span><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><i>feel</i> on a test footage and how it was improved to something else on Final Cut Pro via colour correction and subsequent expansion of its luma histogram.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><b>UPDATE</b>: Jeez, they've been lightning fast in pushing a new <a href="http://lumixlounge.com/2015/09/vloglactivationissue/" target="_blank">update</a> (2.4) this time to correct the issue. They really need the 99 bucks, poor sods. I also believe they did their best to make vanish the GH4_V23.bin file from the entire net. You definitely can't find it anymore on their sites, but I believe various mirror sites like <a href="http://drivers.softpedia.com/get/SCANNER-Digital-CAMERA-WEBCAM/Panasonic/Panasonic-DMC-GH4-Camera-Firmware-23.shtml#download" target="_blank">Softpedia</a> that initially carried the item (this is where my own download came from) are also disappearing one by one. Some were probably shut down because of the excessive traffic they recently generated. I just checked Softpedia again, and if you select the <b>manual</b> download it still does it... not for long I suppose, as the <b>automatic</b> download re-routes the link to a Panasonic textual statement in... Japanese.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">UPDATE 2: A sample short edit of my own test footage in slow-mo 96fps and VLog-L shot on my GH4 and corrected in FCP.</span></div>
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<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/i4zi1r0M6-U" width="560"></iframe>Vassily Kritishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07722927725208174562noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2741840658355400085.post-55528238245982779152015-07-31T11:28:00.000+02:002015-08-02T09:52:54.158+02:00Coupling between Edelkrone's SliderPlus+Action Module and the Syrp Genie for motion control<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Although I'm writing this as a memo for future reference, in case I forget the precise mechanics I describe, anyone with similar interests is also welcome to read.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">I recently bought a number of items from <a href="https://www.edelkrone.com/eu/" target="_blank">Edelkrone</a>, that I consider one of the best if not the best supplier of cinematography peripheral products for pro's and sophisticated enthusiasts like myself. For this article in particular, I am referring to Edelkrone's SliderPlus Small slider, their Action Module and their FlexTilt head. In the picture above, the slider is easily seen; the action module fixed on one slider end (here shown on the left) and the camera is mount on top of Edelkrone's FlexTilt head, which in turn is mount on top of <a href="https://syrp.co.nz/" target="_blank">Syrp's</a> Genie. The entire rig is mount on a video Manfrotto tripod.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">What Edelkrone's slider does is broadly known to any serious video enthusiast. It's based on a clever mechanical concept that enables the camera a total travel distance larger than the length of the slider itself. Visit their homepage to see how. Their Action module is a compact mechanism that easily mounts on one end of the slider and automates the transport of the slider belt and subsequently the camera bridge to achieve smooth video slides, or timelapses with slides. Finally the Flextilt head is an interesting tripod mount for cameras that allows a lot of flexibility. I am ecstatic about all three of these products.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Edelkrone also has another product that resembles the Action Module and attaches on the opposite end of the slider. It is called the Target module. What this achieves is, when you enter the distance </span><span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">in the module </span><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">between the camera and the object that the camera is focused upon, then, when the camera slides along the rails (courtesy of the Action Module), it is also made to rotate as well (Courtesy of the Target module) in order to maintain the focused object in the centre of the Viewfinder (VF). In other words, the camera follows the object while it moves on the slider. Shots achieved this way give the impression that the camera moves </span><span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">smoothly </span><u style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">around</u><span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;"> the object in question. Excellent and very cinematic camera movement for product ads but also in plain vanilla cinematography. As an example, almost all close-ups and medium shots, especially those with dialogs, in the <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1358522/" target="_blank">White Collar</a> </span><span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">TV series </span><span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">are shot like this. Rarely the camera remains static during shoots. They also use loads of timelapses to add a powerful dynamic to the entire show.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">I was considering purchasing Edelkrone's Target module as well, when I fell upon Syrp's Genie. This is again a very interesting concept. It's a sturdy box with two types of base to be mount upon. One aims at supporting any given manual sliders and the other is used for panning. Depending on which base you mount the Genie on, it will either rotate (for pans) or transport itself along the rails of a slider (for slides). Indeed it seemed quite an interesting piece of equipment and I therefore decided to procure that instead of Edelkrone's solution. I had a gut feel that with Genie I could still achieve what Edelkrone's Target module offered and a lot more. And indeed it does.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">This article is about using the Action module and Genie combined to achieve the same result as when Edelkrone's Action and Target modules are used in unison. Edelkrone made sure that the only parameter needed to sync the two modules (and maintain the focused object in the middle of the VF) was the distance between the camera and the target object. The rest they have calculated and embedded in their firmware algorithms. In other words, if you go Edelkrone all the way it's very little you need to prepare to achieve great results all the time.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">However, you can achieve the same results with a little extra manual tweaking and this is what I describe hereafter.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">The figure above shows my setup, whereby the object, which the camera VF is focused upon, is found at a distance L from the middle position of the camera slider travel. At position A the camera is turned at an angle a/2 with respect to the vertical direction in order to place the focused object in the middle of the VF. As the camera mechanism progressively moves from A to B, Genie (with the camera on top) rotates counterclockwise (CCW) for a total angular travel of angle a, in order to continuously maintain the focused object in the centre of the VF. Also, the total travel time of the camera system from A to B should be the same with the total angular travel (rotation) from the camera's initial angular position, moving CCW to its end position. Of course, if one plans a move from B to A, then Genie needs to rotate itself in the clockwise (CW) direction by the same angle 'a' always.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">So the process to achieve this in the setup above is as follows:</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">1. I first made the decision to use </span><span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">10 secs </span><span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">as the total sliding travel </span><span style="font-family: '\'Trebuchet MS\'', sans-serif;">time </span><span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">(and Genie rotation). Genie accepts this duration as a parameter, but in Edelkrone I had to apply trial and error to define the right speed for the travel distance. For 345 mm distance from A to B, I had to select 32 as the camera velocity and 10 as the maximum acceleration (meaning, no easing-in and -out at the start and end of the linear travel). Indeed, with these parameters the camera on the SliderPlus travels the 345 mm distance in acceptably ten seconds.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">2. The camera, mount on the FlexTilt Head remains fixed in terms of angular displacement with respect to the Genie body. It is Genie that automatically rotates about its vertical axis. Other (height or tilt) adjustments are done via the FlexTilt Head. While adjusting the setup and focus on the target, it is perhaps easier to check results on the camera monitor at the back of the body instead of thru the VF.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">3. Next, one needs to set the rotating angle parameter in the Genie settings. Measuring the distance L and applying the simple formula shown in the figure provides a first good approximation of the rotation angle that needs to be set as a Genie parameter. Also, don't forget to set (Genie's Advanced Settings) the Easing-in and -out to OFF. To make sure the angle works, you trigger Genie to rotate to its end position and in parallel you may move manually or automatically the slider to position B. You then check the camera to verify that the object has still remained in its initial VF relative position. If not, depending where it ends up to, you may have to increase the angular Genie parameter or decrease it. If the object is left of the original focus position it means that the angular parameter is set low and needs to increase a little. If the object ends to the right, the angle was too large and needs to decrease. Act accordingly and check again until you achieve perfect alignment</span><span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">4. After the angle is entered in the parameter, and the Action Module was programmed in the Wizard mode to travel from A to B in ten seconds, the system may be set in motion. First you prepare the video shot parameters on the camera and hit the Record button next. Right after that, press the Start/OK buttons simultaneously on both, the SliderPlus and the Genie. Both devices start automatic motion, with the SliderPlus sliding from A to B and the Genie rotating the camera in CCW direction. In ten secs the travel is over, and one may set the Recording function back to standby.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">This is certainly much more of a burden compared to Edelkrone's Target module. On the other hand, if you happen to own other sliders, as I do, you are actually adding value to those, even more so if motorised sliding was not previously an option. Unfortunately, Edelkrone's Action Module only fits (for obvious reasons) Edelkrone sliders. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">On the other hand, once you calculated the angles for a few practical values of L, you can memorise what goes with what, and don't have to go thru the calculation and trial and error burden each time. For instance, I know that for a distance of 85cm the angle is about 20 degrees. If I made sure my target object is at 85 cm, I could always use the Genie preset that I have already stored for these particular parameters, and Bob's your uncle. If I don't like the VF scenes at the distances I preset, I can always use different lenses or</span><span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;"> zooms to adjust.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">A common problem on similar devices, like Genie and Slider+, is the associated noise their motors produce. But as most people shoot B-rolls based on similar setups and use external audio equipment for better sound control, the noise will get suppressed in post and in so doing, it is less of a problem.</span></div>
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Vassily Kritishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07722927725208174562noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2741840658355400085.post-87537425033774033952015-07-30T12:16:00.000+02:002015-08-30T14:29:49.932+02:00Windows Version 10, or how to experience the five stages of grief in
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">When I heard Microsoft was giving away Windows 10 for free, I said to myself, why not, check it out to find out what they learned all these years, if anything. The phenomenal growth their sworn enemy in Cupertino has achieved in terms of global cash and revenue growth, but also in outpacing the global PC market by selling gazillions of Macbooks, must have taught them something about what users think an OS should be doing, right? Wrong... Continue reading.</span><br>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Couple years ago I bought me a fancy SONY Vaio laptop with all its bells and whistles. I wasn't planning to be using it for my daily tasks, though. I only needed it to run Microsoft Money 2007, since I was used to that app, and it addressed all my "personal finance" requirements. I did use the Vaio for a couple of months like this, and it proved quite a burden, I am afraid to admit, mainly in terms or response times and continuous Windows updates for newly discovered security holes. I was no more used in handling Windows tasks (I was spoiled in the meantime by the Mac OSX, you see), so I abandoned the Vaio in some corner in the loft. I went to install Parallels on my iMac instead, and thus moved Money into a Windows sandbox running under parallels. Case closed. Proven fact, Windows running under Parallels on a Mac is way faster and more responsive than on any big dog Wintel configuration you can think of.</span><br>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">One thing is certain. The Vaio was still there, shut down and patiently collecting dust, almost untouched for 2 years. No special drivers, not even printers, no fancy configurations or customisations, almost all of it in its original factory settings. It was supposed to be 64 bit Windows 8 Home edition. Didn't need more than that anyway. So, when I heard the news on the radio yesterday morning (amazing how the Media are hooked to play MSFT's marketing game all along), I said to myself, let's see what the buggers did this time. Old wine in new bottles all over again, or did they clone Apple or Google instead?</span><br>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">So, after dusting the Vaio, I humbly started the route to my software Golgotha (much I knew then of what was to come), hopeful to be able to upgrade to 10 in, say, a couple of hours. From my Mac experience of moving into a new OSX version, I never had to wait longer than half hour from start to finish, so I reckoned, since MSFT is far less efficient, probably it'll take me four times that, couple of hours max. Much I knew then and hopeful I was. <i>One day in the life of Ivan Denisovich</i> was like <i>staying in a $2K a night luxury suite at the Four Seasons in Paris</i>, compared to what I had to go through. Like I suggested in the post's title above, I went from denial, to anger, to depression and finally acceptance in less than 10 hours. After that I kept taking anything MSFT had to throw into my face with a bitter smile.</span><br>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">I started the process at 11 am on Wednesday the 29th of July, official day of the V10 launch. My "factory settings" Vaio in its V8 64 bit installed version took until 4 am the next morning (!!!!!!) to complete updating 2.5 year long fixes (last applied dated back to Jan 2013) and its subsequent upgrade to 8.1. When I opened the laptop at 8 am </span><span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">this morning </span><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">it still claimed there were even new arrivals of updates from 4 am to that moment and I was subsequently obliged to do them. I categorically refused this time. I rebelled! "F you", I shouted! It was obviously a bitter joke. I never installed anything special on that laptop, ever, and it took 18 hours to do the updates and upgrade to 8.1 !!! 18 hours of my precious and shortening life! On my deathbed I'll think of this experience again, I promise you. I just let it do its own thing by using defaults all the way. Like I said, no personal customisations were ever performed and it was in plain English that the OS was installed.</span><br>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Eventually, by this morning the Vaio was able to run V8.1 after all. Not that it was any intuitive at all to go confirm the version of Windows I was running. What in Apple OSX takes two bare clicks to find out (the OS version you are running), in Windows </span><span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">proved </span><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">a desperate search of computer settings, some place somewhere out there but not knowing where exactly! </span><br>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">I next rushed on my monitor to spot the little windows symbol on the right side of the balk, but to no avail. I read that you had to do this in order to get invited to upgrade to 10; another weird idea of Microsoft's to contain /span><span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">downloads </span><span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">queueing in the billions by their users out there. Unfortunately, no icon was to be seen anywhere among the megapixels of my laptop monitor, anywhere at all. I dug into the net next, and spotted some horror stories about how to fix that problem, some suggesting it was extremely complex to achieve that without any guarantees of success, up to someone proposing to recreate the reservation app itself via code he offered to copy paste into a Notepad document, rename it into some form of command file and run it. No way I'd do that. The times I had to do witch magic to get MSFT operating systems incl. MS-DOS in the eighties and early nineties to do the things they were supposed to do has loooong gone and will never come back, I bet you. In my age, every minute of precious life counts. I'm not gonna waste it, not a single second, in MSFT OS workarounds because they decided to become one garbage can of technicians knowing about OS development as much as I know about Mandarin Chinese! No way!</span><br>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Thankfully, and about the moment I was ready to throw the entire Vaio into the bin, with its brick and all, I found this Godsent CNET <a href="http://www.cnet.com/how-to/jump-the-line-and-get-windows-10-right-now/" target="_blank">article</a> claiming there was a way to download the V10 ISO files <a href="https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/software-download/windows10ISO" target="_blank">directly</a> from Microsoft's site, without having to wait for their Highnesses in Seattle to respond to my humble reservation request via an impossible to find app icon, and </span><span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">then </span><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">download the V10 installation files into my laptop, when it pleases them. I said to myself, why not? Let's see if it works this way. CNET is way more rational than MSFT, anyways...</span><br>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Forgot to mention though, that in the meantime, I had spent ages on the MSFT web pages to figure out how to do the upgrade, and I have to say, the feeling was that I was being pushed into the secret pathways of their makeshift labyrinths to make it extra hard, read impossible, for any casual user to ever get this infamous upgrade. I happen to be a seasoned computer user, mind you, starting with Fortran 2 back in 1973! Imagine what a poor soul with only a few years messing around with Windows would do in such a mess. One particular page of theirs kept sending me via a hotlink back to itself. Over and over. Can you figure that? Really? Looping the loop! There is no way to even think comparing them with Apple on this very issue. Apple is miles ahead... what am I saying, lightyears ahead. Things that are of no concern to a user are kept totally out of the users' sight in Cupertino,Ca. In Seattle, every bit they are doing over and over again, from closing down and rebooting to copying files, they'll inform powerless and desperate users in seriously upsetting ways, like "<i>we are taking care of a few things</i>", or "<i>checking to see if you got enough space for upgrades</i>", or shit like that, and keep busy doing that for minutes to hours! How long to you need to check on a 21st century laptop and find out if there's a few miserable gigabytes available to put a new operating system in place? Ten minutes? Half hour, you said???? You gotta be kidding me. Things like that turn you (during your "anger" stage of grieve) into a </span><span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">ranting </span><span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">Lewis Black himself, and this in a matter of secs. </span><br>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">I'm simply curious... what is so technically sophisticated for a simple security loophole fix to take so long to be installed?! And will they ever achieve a moment that their stuff has no more deep security holes like we've seen in the last 25 years? Why do they even pay those gazillion developers</span><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">, spending billions of dollars, to maintain such a monumental OS mess called Windows ? Why don't they ever do a serious rewrite, like Apple did in OSX fifteen years ago? How come is their system so vulnerable and needs to by fixed every week? And will they ever learn that their OS in the year 2015 should no more use those ugly and old-fashioned configuration windows that their 3.11 version used back in the last decade of the past century? Indeed, will they ever learn? Why should they do that after all? Bill Gates gets richer by the day even to this day, playing a role of the planet's greatest philanthropist and counting his 87 Billion of paper money from holding onto his MSFT stock. In his shoes, anyone can still believe that Windows was and is exactly what billions of users worldwide eventually need and want! </span><br>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Long story short, and there's still so much I could narrate from my last 24 hours of living the Windows upgrade nightmare, but as I said, I reached the last stage of grieve, which is acceptance of my fate. In any case, I have no issues with the Windows user experiences since, once all installs are done, I'll shut down the darn Vaio and go back to my beloved Mac OSX boxes and laptops, and to the legacy his Sainthood, Steve Jobs, may he RIP, has left us with.</span><br>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">But it would be a spoil to deprive you from my ultimate experiences from the v10 installation itself. Because I eventually managed to get it installed. That's right! Sure did! In its own, it's gotta be the black humor joke of the 21st century. After downloading the infamous ISO image, following CNET's article, with the v10 install files, I started the procedure at 8:20 am this morning and at 10:10 am, almost an hour and 50 minutes later, I can claim I became the proud owner of an upgraded Vaio into Windows 10, 64bit. On a first sight it does look nothing more, nothing less than a somewhat improved look and feel version compared to the disaster 8 or 8.1, for that matter. At least now they stopped displaying those stupid blocks at start-up, full of useless functions, while obscuring simple things like computer settings and File Explorer. As before, the install took multiple reboots and many of the likes of "<i>still a few more things to arrange and install"</i> and more like this. And the best of all, the cherry on the cream indeed, I found myself hardly exploring the new version, and a bunch of new updates were waiting to get implemented. Incroyable mais vrai!</span><br>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">I'll leave you with a few screenshots that I was served with, before the V10 was eventually confirmed. I strongly believe, this must be Satya's idea of humor for sure, and that life should be taken lightly, as it's too short.</span><br>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Update: After spending about 5 hours on V10 now, 24 hours later, I must admit that this must be their best version ever. Not just a marketing trick. They seem to have in fact rewritten almost everything I tested, had copied Google's and Apple's minimal design in many aspects, transparencies and animations all over, and the OS seemed, how can I say this... seemed humbled. The traditional Microsoft arrogance we are used of seemed to have gone away. For the first time ever I saw their apps centred around the user and his/her concerns. That's a novelty indeed. V10 is also consistent among apps and menus and such. Indeed a redesign. I'd guess, this would please Windows casual users for sure. Good for them. Not that I's consider going back to V10 from Mac OSX any time soon. Apple is still light years ahead in so many aspects, however, I feel good about the billions MSFT users out there who, after 25 years of painful experience, eventually got something along the lines of Google and Apple. Maybe I should hold to my MSFT stock a few more days... see how the market reacts. In any case, Satya Nadella appears a lot more realistic than that jumping monkey boy of Steve Ballmer. I couldn't have imagined a V10 under Ballmer for sure. Never ever. He was too thick and far too arrogant for that.</span><br>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><br></span></span>Vassily Kritishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07722927725208174562noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2741840658355400085.post-328354339883498292015-03-09T12:43:00.004+01:002015-03-09T15:31:48.466+01:00Arts and concepts<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">I recently watched a <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mc-BQZ8SvRw" target="_blank">Youtube</a> post on conceptual photography that made me think about artistic expression once more. I always struggled with the question whether a visual artist should consciously have something to communicate thru his/her artistic work, whatever that work might be. In the written word, literary or not, it is rather imperative that authors should always have a message to pass to their intended audiences, either clearly stated or in a hidden, rather ulterior way. It is universally assumed that texts are used to communicate ideas, points of view, impressions, facts, and emotions about anything authors might choose to focus upon. Is it thus the same with visual artistic expression? Do visual artists have to communicate a message preferably based on a concept as well?</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">One should reasonably expect that motion pictures, whose objective is visual story-telling, lust like in literature, do plan to communicate 'something' known to the Director and his/her crew even before production starts. Whether they are successful in achieving this effectively only their audience and/or film critics will eventually tell. In fiction movies, as well as in documentaries, there is always a story to be told, a message to be passed to the audience. Thru cinematography, actor performances, stage design, editing and the soundtrack they are also adding the necessary emotional impact to their statement to engrave the story into the memory of spectators for ever, as emotional memory is always the strongest and the most persistent.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">How about photography? This is where 'conceptual' photography enters the stage. There are 'committed' photographers who make their life's work to shoot certain subjects and those alone, in certain conspicuous styles they preferably invent for themselves, all in the service of telling their story in their own special way. There's a thought process behind each photograph of theirs and this could be around emotional impact in its weakest expression or emotion enhanced with actual information in its strongest form. Shooting for instance photographs of old people, counting their remaining days in a 'home', and using black and white sharpness to draw even stronger the sensation of human body decay, tells you something about the photographers continuous intent to illustrate a mostly hated part of human life: ageing. There are thousands of subjects that have been used by conceptual photographers in their quest for passing a message and a concept. One known Japanese artist I have read about (<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hiroshi_Sugimoto" target="_blank">Hiroshi Sugimoto</a>) made a tour of the US and visited theaters, especially older classic ones, and photographed them systematically, using insanely long exposures (for the duration of the film projection) on a 4x5 Technical camera. By doing this he managed to eliminate any moving objects from his frame (mainly men and women spectators). His concept was to reveal the element of time in photography. The result, due to the size of his negatives and the advantages of using technical cameras to manage frame geometry and lens aberrations better than any other photographic technology, was a series of stunning photographs of the interior of hundreds, maybe thousands of theaters that he eventually printed in a book for the aficionados of the genre.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">On the other side of the 'scale' we find photographers like <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henri_Cartier-Bresson" target="_blank">Bresson</a>, <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Frank" target="_blank">Frank</a> and <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saul_Leiter" target="_blank">Leiter</a> who photographed what appeared in front of their lens that happened to move</span><span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;"> them aesthetically and emotionally. They simply wanted to share that personal experience with their audience. Is there anything wrong with that? In interviews Saul Leiter has given about his art, he categorically ignored and rejected critics who tried to discover a concept behind his photography. <i>You simply shoot a frame because you just feel the need for doing it, not because you planned it like that. If it then happens to create specific emotional experiences to any future viewer of that picture, so be it, so much the better... </i>As for Bresson, and his impeccable framing of subjects, I don't quite believe that</span><span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;"> he was staging</span><span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;"> beforehand each and every frame he shot. That would be silly to assume for example that he has been waiting for hours the young boy stepping forward with an oversized in comparison bottle of wine, and catch that moment of his hilarious childish look, shining with pride about his feat under way. It sounds too improbable to believe that Breton set that up. He simply took advantage of a remarkable in those days </span><span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">portable camera</span><span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">, the Leica, and his photographic eye and personal interests made him <i>capture the decisive moment</i> the way he felt fit. He shot as a photojournalist, spontaneously</span><span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">. Anything wrong with that? Certainly, many Bresson experts, long after the facts, built a myriad stories behind each and every photograph of his to prove their point of view, that only photographs with a 'concept' can eventually claim genuine artistic value. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">I personally believe there is merit to both photographic approaches. Often, conceptual photography is not aesthetically interesting per se. As an example, I remember a temporary expo at the MOMA, NYC, not long ago of a woman artist, who filled an entire room (or was it several?) with </span><span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">frames of </span><span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">alike dimensions containing small uninteresting pictures and supporting documentation of individuals from India, who all shared a common detail in their lives. While still alive, they were declared to the authorities </span><span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">by their relatives</span><span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;"> </span><span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">as deceased in order for the latter to pocket the victims' inheritances.</span><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"> The 'concept' was an interesting one indeed, but what has this got to do with art whatsoever? Apparently, in the mind of many art aficionados, a lot!</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">I quite admire those photographers and other artists (including architects), who create works as a result of a concept they carefully developed beforehand. There is a lot of brainpower necessary to build artistic concepts. In many occasions, the artists concerned will simply and exclusively do that alone. Develop the 'concept'. <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jeff_Koons" target="_blank">Jeff Koons</a> and <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jan_Fabre" target="_blank">Jan Fabre</a> are examples of artists who often do that. Koons' Michael Jackson and his pet monkey sculpture, sold for millions of dollars, and Jan Fabre's Pietas that appeared in the Venice Biennale a few years ago were entirely built by professional craftsmen who simply followed the artists' instructions. Intriguing! At least Michelangelo and Caravaggio built their own works for the most part... Not Rubens though...</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">However, there's still a lot of value in the works of photographers, whose frames express their accidental state of mind at a given moment. Like I said, such photographers' intent is to freeze time and capture the moment for reasons of own personal excitement the very instant they decide to click their camera shutter pointing to a given scene that they are looking at thru their viewfinder. During post-processing they might possibly enhance that impression even further just to make their personal vision more explicit. Nevertheless, the original frame was indeed shot spontaneously, and not following a grand scheme of premeditated thought stream. </span><br />
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<br />Vassily Kritishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07722927725208174562noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2741840658355400085.post-74437995761394615982014-11-14T09:57:00.004+01:002014-11-14T10:03:29.691+01:00Been to Athens over the weekend...<div style="text-align: center;">
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Vassily Kritishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07722927725208174562noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2741840658355400085.post-52018685352239585542014-11-12T14:03:00.002+01:002018-05-21T20:25:27.287+02:00Alkinoos Ioannidis - A small suitcase (Μικρή Βαλίτσα)<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">I always liked this kid, and I am glad I was proven right after I saw him performing this last weekend, on a live show at the Yallino Music Theatre in Athens, Greece. Despite a bad cold he'd been struggling with, poor thing, he managed to perform a superb show that lasted longer that anyone could have </span><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">ever </span><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">expected. I personally consider this </span><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alkinoos_Ioannidis" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;" target="_blank">singer-songwriter</a><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"> one of the best ever born under the sun, certainly among the known and celebrity Greeks, alive or dead. His talent is limitless in terms of song composition, lyrics, his virtuosity in playing various musical instruments and the quality of his own vocal chords (technically and in terms of sound color and passion). Above all, his quality in terms of musical track record can only compare to Manos </span><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manos_Hatzidakis" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;" target="_blank">Hadjidakis</a><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">. I am sure, if Manos lived today, he would certainly envy Alkinoos for his musical writing-singing skills, but he would have also wanted him to sing his songs instead of producing his own. I have owned for years most of Alkinoos albums, and went on to buy his </span><a href="https://itunes.apple.com/be/album/mikri-valitsa/id935714680" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;" target="_blank">latest</a><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"> only this last Sunday (cover shown here) without the shadow of a doubt! His skill in combining local folk sounds by traditional Greek instruments (bouzouki, Cretan lyra, laouto) with the classic sounds of orchestral string instruments (violin, viola, cello and contrabass) is beyond your wildest dreams. Actually this combination takes place in two dimensions. First, in terms of harmony among the two types of instruments offering to the listener the finest taste of Greek sound dressed in the best quality possible acoustic colour, and second, in terms of combining traditional dance melodies with classic jazz scherzos and state-of-the-art electronic patterns. I witnessed the cello and violin being played in staccato like it were a guitar or a bouzouki in ways I have rarely seen before, with his band musicians's virtuoso fingers (cello, violin and contrabass) only tapping the strings on their instruments's fingerboards. The pleasure was simply unheard of. I have rarely felt so much energy as Ioannidis had found ways to lead his entire orchestra into a powerful trance that drove the audience into extreme and spontaneous applause. Entirely different than the trances people enjoy in vulgar mega dancings with vulgar DJs with electronics and massive speakers that on their own could fill an entire theater like the one I attended to. The singer-songwriter also writes his own versions of Rap music, </span><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">probably</span><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"> in order to address younger audiences, and for sure comparing theirs to these songs the big Rappers of the world would simply flush. A great musical personality he is indeed. Unfortunately, dickheads in Greece prefer many other ridiculous performers instead. Appears as if contemporary Greece is no more appreciative of quality music. Should we blame the current financial crisis for this too? </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Talking about Greece, the only negatives in Alkinoos performance were the following few (and had nothing to do with the artist; his only personal issue were related to his germs, but as I already suggested, no-one witnessed any negatives on his performance because of that):</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">a. Theater/venue management: HUMONGOUS FAIL!!! Allowed far too many people into a dangerously packed area with so many standing up during the whole 4 hours performance. In an unfortunate case of say, a fire accident, at least several hundred panicking people would have been stampeded, to say the least. I felt quite uncomfortable with being in the middle of that assembly.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">b. Allowing smokers to smoke. Especially female smokers chain-changing cigarettes during the entire show. To the theater management's credit, there was airco provided , but in Greece, with audiences chain-smoking like Turks (Greek expression) no reasonable airco could do the job.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">c. Behaviour of the audience. Bad mannered, awfully raised, smoking jungle chimps, without respect to anyone among the rest of us, who came to enjoy the artist and his orchestra, shouting most of the time, giggling, laughing loud, talking loud to their companions like they were in a bar, showing off, turning their backs to the orchestra and trying to spot a partner of the opposite or same sex to get laid as part of their Saturday night out. Mostly women it were those misfits, with blond badly dyed hair (someone must have told them that Greek men like sexing in blond), heels adding 20 cm to their ugly legs, horny faces drooling with cheap make-up. Some looking like 5-euro whores, out-of-tune scream-singing the lyrics a second earlier before the artist sang them himself, just to show off they knew the score! Such a chaos is only possible in Greek theaters. To think that 'theater' itself was invented here 3 thousand years ago makes your heart bleed. Sheer animals in a jungle. I felt sorry for the artist and all other artists in general performing in Greece, having to cope with this type of rude monkeys to earn a living. A shame really. Showing disrespect to both artists and to those few like myself, non-smokers, who came here to enjoy the sounds of a rare musical talent, staying speechless, and almost mouthless, breathing from the nose alone, hoping for the possibility in so doing to filter out the nicotine from the tobacco polluted ambient air.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">UPDATE: I found this on Youtube from the show I attended and wanted to share it with you. As far as "I rest my case" on my arguments about the disrespectful Greek audience, it is obvious from this clip. Judge for yourselves.</span><br />
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Vassily Kritishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07722927725208174562noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2741840658355400085.post-6935988690272124372014-10-19T12:08:00.001+02:002014-10-20T09:32:21.947+02:00Cinematic<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Cinematic depiction of Pluto abducting Persephone to his underworld kingdom.</td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">In video or film shooting we use the term cinematic to express resemblance to shooting and editing techniques used in feature films. Traditionally we consider a shot being "cinematic" when:</span><br>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">1. It is shot at 24 frames per second (fps). Traditional feature titles shot in film have had this frame rate, whereas traditional video uses 25fps (PAL) and 30fps (NTSC). This is kind of weird though. Does all of a sudden shooting or cutting a scene at 24fps make it... cinematic??!!! Anyways...</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">2. The shot is stylised, graded or colorised. All these are synonyms of the same editing process whereby shots are undergoing a series of digital color transformations to create a sense of 'sphere' conform the movie's storytelling.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">3. Bokeh. The effect of shallow depth of field. Larger digital capture sensors combined with the right lenses, and set at widest possible apertures, create the necessary cinematic shallow depth of field, a.k.a. the <b>bokeh</b> effect. Bokeh is a term first appeared in Japanese. This effect is considered highly cinematic. Furthermore, the effect of changing focus from a near point to a further point is </span><span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">also </span><span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">considered highly cinematic and is known as <b>focus-racking</b>. If there is excessive ambient light that makes it hard to maintain large aperture settings at the common shutter speeds used (ie shutter speeds of 1/50th or 1/60th of a sec), often cinematographers and camera operators use Neutral Density a.k.a. ND filters, practically diminishing by a number of stops the quantity of light entering the lens all the way to the sensor. All this happening in the service of bokeh and implied cinematic affect. This is actually the main reason that all of a sudden shooting video with traditional DSLRs, the so called VDSLRs (V for video), became so fashionable and even employed professionally by Hollywood and Indie filmmakers around the world.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">4. Camera movements. Using cranes, dollies, sliders, tracking, droning, panning, and handheld shooting techniques, as well as time-lapse shots and sophisticated motion control, makes scenes even more cinematic. Of course, the far more expensive and complex CGI techniques used in large multi-million dollar productions can not be afforded by low budget filmmakers and play far above the league of most professional and/or amateur filmmakers. Camera movements are indeed among the most powerful tools in cinematography to render scenes and shots cinematic.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">5. Soundtrack used. The role of background sound and music in providing cinematic experience is beyond any conceivable doubt. Sound is the invisible fourth dimension (the three other being the spatial dimensions we live in) in making a scene sequence 'feel' like a movie.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">But is that it? If I do shoot some scenes and edit them together following the cinematic rules per the points above (there maybe more, but those 5 points I found to be the most important mentioned in the literature of the film industry), can I then claim my work is cinematic? Short answer: probably <b>not</b>. For amateur video shooters without film-school education, even <b>most probably not</b>. "<i>It's not the vestment that renders someone a priest"</i>, claims a Greek proverb. In other words, it's not because you shoot 'cinematically' that your shots become cinematic. Point 1 above, about 24fps, is the living proof of this argument. I bet you, you may shoot a scene at 24 fps and the same scene over again at 60fps... you ain't gonna see the difference. I don't anyway. If someone does, please tell me and teach me to do the same. I doubt there are many around who can tell the difference, despite the far too many that claim they can.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">If that's the way it is, then, what do you need to become cinematic? Short answer as well. You need a story. In fact, cinematic is by definition everything that is related to (visual) story-telling. </span><span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">All of the techniques used in the five points above and many more so (new being invented as we speak in shoots of new feature films around the world), are used to serve storytelling. </span><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">In the same sense, a simple novel, a short story, and a still picture or a sculpture can also be cinematic. Anything that tells a </span><span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">reader or viewer</span><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"> a story that engages him/her, and makes her/him experience it with some degree of human emotion is "cinematic". Literature in all its styles and forms is mostly cinematic, scientific papers and books are mostly not. </span><br>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">In all arts in general, the human emotions triggered by the artwork largely depend on a </span><span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">subject's</span><span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;"> past experiences, as claimed by the philosophers Gadammer and (his infamous mentor/teacher) Heidegger in the first half of the 20th century. For this reason, among other, e</span><span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">motions triggered by artworks are rarely identical among experiencing subjects. I mentioned 'among other' because emotions also depend on a subject's general culture, genetic material, his/her upbringing, and </span><span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">spoken </span><span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">language. Presumably, all works of art do trigger emotions among their target subjects. Joy, sorrow, awe, disgust, laughter, tears, and more. Do artists need to trigger emotion in order to pass their underlying message to targets more efficiently? </span><span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">The stronger the emotion, the deeper the understanding and future recollection of the message; this is a scientifically proven fact. Subsequently, could we thus claim that all art is cinematic too? I don't think so. Genuine art most certainly creates human emotion among its target subjects, but it doesn't necessarily have to have a story to tell. </span><br>
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<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">Good filmmakers know that every scene counts and every scene needs to advance the story narrative and </span><span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;"></span><span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">create</span><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"> the intended emotions among their viewer community. Every object used on stage and appearing in the film's frames is put there for a reason. Nothing is accidental in good filmmaking. Therefore, there's a lot of planning going on before even shooting begins. The film Director, the story Author, the Scriptwriter, the DP and the Film Editor continuously exchange opinions about the <i>raison-d'-être</i> of each and every shot and scene in the final cut. The visual and/or technical quality of a given shot, or the masterly interpretation of a character role by an actor are not simply adequate to make it acceptable for inclusion into the final cut, unless they do 'advance' the story properly. In that respect, the role of film editors is extremely important. Among the series of takes and coverage shots available to them to cut a scene, they have a critical responsibility to select those shots, and cut them in ways most suitable to the actual script. In the filmmaking trade's literature, there are countless examples, about the same scene being cut in a number of distinct edits, based on the same available shot coverage, and, not amazingly, the results actually appearing to advance the visual story in more than one ways. The positioning and sequence of cuts in the scene, their viewing angles, focal lengths and camera movement applied, each one of them cause viewer emotions with distinct, stereotypical characteristics</span><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">. It's like emotions are transmitted to human subjects during projection following a visual code language that viewers come to learn over time by watching movies in theaters or on TV. There are literally dozens of books written about the subject. Unfortunately, most of those who write such reference material are not professional experts in psychology! They are mostly film practitioners, theoretical and/or empirical. </span><br>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">I am often amazed by the ability of professional cinematographers and editors to creep into their Director's mind and understand his/her intents and express them clearly in the final product. The team members must have mutually compatible chemistries. This is why, some great directors often stick to their winning teams and make films with the same crews as well as casts of actors. It's often even so that some outstanding actors are only used by certain Directors in their movies and are rarely seen in other productions. Some Directors even go that far to provide their own cinematography and editing too, if they don't sufficiently </span><span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">trust</span><span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;"> others (Cohen brothers, Steven Soderbergh, etc.). Each frame, to use Darren Aronofsky's claim in a recent interview, when at a given moment he has been talking about his film 'Fountain', has been carefully planned beforehand to the level of (his own) obsession and with so much passion, in order to best serve his narrative and the film's message the way he personally intended</span><span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">. No doubt why with only six films (masterpieces indeed) in his portfolio he is recognised as a real Master of the craft. The other critical element that I admired in Aronofsky was his ability to articulate the basic message of his each and every film in very simple terms. If you come to think of it, in filmmaking most often it all starts with the central theme and message of the film. What is the film to be all about? What are we left with when all is said and done? What has mostly impacted us when we exit the theater or power off the TV? Did we really get the message? To make sure this happens, Aronofsky mentioned that great Film Directors (he referred to Fellini and Kurosawa in particular) were able to convey their message in each and every scene of their movies. As an example, he referred to Marcello's dilemma about choosing between 'getting a life' or continue 'chasing hot chics' in Fellini's 8 1/2.</span><br>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Unbelievable but true... the more someone enters the domain of filmmaking the greater respect one develops for filmmakers and videographers alike. </span><br>
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Vassily Kritishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07722927725208174562noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2741840658355400085.post-69473412439665760592014-09-19T16:14:00.001+02:002016-03-14T12:14:04.729+01:00Alexander's tomb? Only time will tell...<a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-MpZzqDhKJ7U/VBxTuFRvgoI/AAAAAAAAFK8/8CM4qUK9T1A/s1600/amfipolis.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"></span></a>
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Since the beginning of August I am following the news about the excavations of a monumental tomb at <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amphipolis" target="_blank">Amphipolis</a>, Greece, allegedly Alexander the Great's. Before then, I wasn't even aware there was a place called Amphipolis. And when I heard about first, I thought it was somewhere near Athens! So much for my history and geography genius. Listening recently to friends from my youth, I was told that I should have also been nearby during school trips in the 1960-ies, and I must have definitely seen the Lion of Amphipolis.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">The lion was found in ruins during the Balkan Wars, early half of last century, near its current position, a few km away south-west from the tomb hill, at the banks and bottom of the Strymon river. The ruins were put together by a team led by Swedish archaeologist <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oscar_Broneer" target="_blank">Oscar Broneer</a> and a Greek sculptor in the late 1930ies. The project was supported by the US Ambassador Vy (?), a friend of Greece. The monument can be still admired today if you make a stop there during you travels on the Egnatia highway. That's a hundred steps away, literally, from the Strymon river banks as it flows towards its delta to the Aegean sea.</span></div>
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</span><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-76tAJckU0Wk/VBwcdMq6CEI/AAAAAAAAFKA/na5gfVDzzp4/s1600/220px-Amphipolis_Lion.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><img border="0" src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-76tAJckU0Wk/VBwcdMq6CEI/AAAAAAAAFKA/na5gfVDzzp4/s1600/220px-Amphipolis_Lion.jpg" /></span></a><span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">I was fortunate to find, from very early on, a blogger site called <a href="http://amfipolinews.blogspot.be/" target="_blank">Amfipoli News</a> that posts updated and of reasonable quality articles multiple times a day, 24x7. Since the discovery of historically significant findings in the tomb hill (aka known as Kasta), the Amfipoli News blogger seems to post almost exclusively articles related to the works. Most of the info and pictures I have summarised in this post I have borrowed from that blog. It is true that other blogs run 'professionally' by the main Media establishments in the country are not half as good, and I have abandoned those altogether. Sheer waste of time and Internet space. </span><br />
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So, the known facts are the following: (Click the Google maps satellite view above for a larger view. The arrow shows the exact location and the inset shows a closer view from above of the Kasta hill.) </span><br />
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There is a round hill of a circumference 500m, along which an impeccable marble wall 3m (10 feet) tall was unearthed. At the south-west side of the hill, facing the ancient city of Amphipolis, archaeologists discovered an entrance to the tomb that for more than two millennia was hidden away, under tones of earth. The surrounding marble wall was also hidden inside the soil 3m deep! Nothing to witness from the outside for thousands of years. The 15m tall Lion monument mentioned earlier was recently proven to have been removed from the top of the Kasta hill, presumably during Byzantine times, and was demolished to pieces to serve in the construction of a Byzantine dam at the Strymon river. It was eventually found a few km away at the banks and bottom of that river. Until recent years Kasta was merely a hill in the community of Mesolakkia (Amphipolis area). Feeding place for goats and wild rabbits.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">The compelling event that triggered the start of archaeological excavations was the discovery of few ruins as late as back in the autumn of the year I was born... 1953! Same year that Jozef Stalin passed. It took modern day Greeks 60 years to decide it was worth looking at that hill seriously. In the meantime, the US has flown astronauts to the moon and brought them back safely. An entire electronics and computer industry has popped and changed out lives for ever. The Soviet Union emerged from its Stalin era, scared the sh*t out of us in the West for decades, during the so called 'Cold War' (better that than the current hot wars against jihadists) and subsequently fallen apart. Another infamous Wall was raised in Berlin and decades later torn apart. Steve Jobs was born, raised, created Apple Inc, gave us an entire iCulture that changed our lives, and passed, far too young of pancreatic cancer. Half of the original Beatles passed too. The US (once more) has flown to Mars and beamed pictures back to earth. We entered a new millennium for crying out loud! We have even flown to the end of our solar system and continued to travel away from it, for billions of miles. We dug a hole into the ozon layer and almost started filling it back. And only now after all this has happened and much more, ourselves, 'lightning speed' Greeks, we are finally about to discover our greatest hero's tomb. Sitting under our nose for that long! We been sitting on it for 60+ years, pissing against the wind, leaving that tomb hill to the mercy of hungry rabbits and stray goats, looters and tomb-raiders. Better late than never though, one could claim.</span><br />
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Thanks to the current project manager, a very serious person, Mrs Peristeri, excavation works advance at the necessary high pace. Like I said, better late than never. Here's what we publicly know they have found so far:</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Starting at the top of the outside marble wall, there's 13 stairs leading downwards to a first chamber (θάλαμος). The entrance to that chamber was concealed by a large stone wall. After that wall was taken down, the first monumental discovery of this project emerged. A pair of sphinxes facing each other, missing their heads and wings. Needless to say, workers and archaeologists had to pour away the sand and soils covering all these structures. The original architects of the monument took good care to fill in all chambers and gaps with sandy soils to discourage and potentially trap inside ambitious raiders and looters. </span><br />
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</span><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-HNa7N8UyPtU/VBwuQIOGzNI/AAAAAAAAFKc/2Rb6dm-hWQo/s1600/66777000000000000000001.JPG_b2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><img border="0" height="247" src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-HNa7N8UyPtU/VBwuQIOGzNI/AAAAAAAAFKc/2Rb6dm-hWQo/s1600/66777000000000000000001.JPG_b2.jpg" width="400" /></span></a><span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">After the extraction of the sandy soils another prohibitive wall appeared at its other end. Taking down the upper part of that wall revealed the second breathtaking discovery of the tomb. A pair of Caryatides extending their arms together to form an entrance below them. Only parts of their bodies were unearthed to this day, the following days scheduled to clear out the wall in front in its entirety and reveal them girls in all their glory. Unfortunately one of them had her face missing probably because of pressure from the ceiling exercised upon the head of the statue. The second lady only misses her nostrils, and for the rest she looks pretty solid. </span><span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">The pencil drawing depiction shown earlier shows the first two chambers as they were found. The drawing is signed by the architect who is in charge for years now of the restoration of Parthenon and the Acropolis in Athens. It clearly shows what I described so far. </span><br />
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The second chamber, shown in the drawing as still covered with soil up to half its total height is where the team is working as we speak. As they dig further, they encounter ambient temperatures and humidity conditions like being in caves. The back of the chamber wall appears to only have one gate in front, not as glorious as in the previous two passages. The ceiling and walls show damages that could turn lethal if the whole structure is not urgently supported with the necessary means. Indeed, along the excavation works, supporting structures are set in place to keep the entire chamber from collapsing. Even large amounts of the hill soils are being dug away to lighten the gravity forces from the soils from the outside, on top. These folks are leaving nothing to chance. <br />
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Needless to say, the side walls, and the floors were found to be decorated in marbles and stones and a few rests of colours. The original engineers who built that 24 centuries ago made sure it was built not to be entered easily by your typical looter. The tools necessary to enter from this gate to the final tomb/s (one doesn't know yet) would be highly sophisticated for a small team of looters trying to enter the tomb. Peristeri mentioned ironically that she hasn't found any human remains of skeletons yet of those presumably perished in their effort to enter, thus responding to those with an 'opinion' that the tomb was previously looted and all valuables removed.<br />
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-ICtapcnSrh8/VB74o9nh44I/AAAAAAAAFLg/aBgW8AiOh2I/s1600/kar2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="640" src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-ICtapcnSrh8/VB74o9nh44I/AAAAAAAAFLg/aBgW8AiOh2I/s1600/kar2.jpg" width="307" /></a></span></div>
<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">The army was called in the meantime to safeguard the works from curious passer-by's and potential modern day tomb raiders. Prime Minister Antonis Samaras follows progress personally, step by step, literally by the minute, and the main opposition party is sitting on burning coal. We suspect they asked their own 'expert' professors and wise noses to publish articles diminishing the work of the team in charge. They'd wish that not much was eventually found as the discovery of Alexander's tomb would mean their collapse in the next polls for reasons only comprehended by Greek Political Party dogs! The entire charade by so-called experts, historian, architects and archaeologists, not involved in the works whatsoever, criticising shamelessly Mrs Peristeri and her team is beyond belief. Modern day Greeks, hardly yet recovering from the financial cluster-f*ck they managed themselves into, have plenty of time to critic the real doers and express their useless opinions about a matter they are standing so far from and are so remote to. "<i>Opinions are like a-holes, everybody's got one</i>", said Confucius and few select intellectual and poisonous Greeks are a living proof of that saying. <br />
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</span><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-J26mPZrmc_w/VBw38Px3N0I/AAAAAAAAFKw/s4ZifeGOkeU/s1600/images.watchit.gr.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"></span></a><span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">I can only applaud the works of the experts as well as their attitude towards the Public. They appear to be genuine professionals. Everytime I surf to the Amfipoli News blog my heartbeat speeds up, and the day I saw the Caryatides pictures I couldn't hold the emotion. Imagine what those expert workers felt when they saw it in real. "We all wept" mentioned Mrs Peristeri yesterday...<br />
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">How far are they still from the real thing? Some simple geometry math can easily help you calculate that. They have now reached 23m towards the centre from the stairs. There are about another 50m to the actual centre of the circle, if one assumed the tomb to be located at that spot. If the original architect wanted to fool potential raiders even more, he might have created a sort of a maze leading to blind spots. Who knows what they are going to find in the next days, or months. A picture taken of the area by academic researchers years ago with soil penetrating waves/rays (I am unaware of the exact technology used) shows strange concentrations below the hill of areas supposedly looking solid, like interior walls, and more chambers. They seemed to move in various asymmetric directions all over the place, which kind of supports the 'maze' hypothesis. That university study dates from more than ten years ago. Even then nobody asked the right questions about what to do with that hill. Civil servants sitting on their fat ass then were too busy looting the national cash safes instead. Anyways. Besides all that, it currently sounds extremely intriguing and promises to overwhelm the planet with a worldwide sensation. The greatest archaeological discovery for more than 100 years, to say the least.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">I spent the last six months accumulating video gear of all sorts, and learning about pro-level cinematography, and filmmaking in general, in all their aspects. Not much changed in my practical ability for better video work however... a filmmaker is not something you become overnight. It takes practice, persistence, plenty of creative thinking, and of course lots of skill and experience. For amateur videographers like myself, one needs to do everything on his/her own. Screen writing, directing, cinematography (staging, lighting, shooting), color correction and style-grading, non-linear editing, sound/music. Where in professional productions there are a few dozen up to thousands of specialised workers employed for many months or even years, a simple amateur videographer needs to put on all sorts of trick hats and do same tasks (far smaller in scope, though) on his/her own. One learns a lot by reading specialized <a href="http://nofilmschool.com/" target="_blank">blogs</a> and watching instructional and other films by pro's and gifted amateurs on Youtube and Vimeo. It's remarkable, knowing what it takes in terms of equipment, technical knowledge, skill, creativity, and post-production work, to watch what young </span><span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">filmmakers</span><span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;"> can achieve in practice. When did they learn to do all this, you may wonder. Eternal sceptics might claim that making a motion picture is quite simple, and anybody can do it. I think not. During many years I have performed with some success a variety of 'artistic' endeavours in my life like painting and drawing, stills photography, digital and film (I've got almost 30K pictures on my Flickr <a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/vjk/" target="_blank">channel</a>), but, despite my recent acquired knowledge and equipment in filmmaking, I can definitely state that I'll never be any near to most of these kids, who produce and direct successfully entire feature films at barely half my age...</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">I initially thought of shooting shorts, but even that requires seasoned skills. So, I basically resorted to spending leisure time by shooting simple scenes of the 'miracles' of nature... flowers, animals and landscapes. I am obsessed with </span><span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">technical </span><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">picture quality in terms of colour and sharpness, but video compression may kill all that if you don't pay the necessary attention. With professional gear, a captured signal might still be near-perfect as output by the sensor, but as recorders and NLE software use their own codecs, quality might easily be damaged during signal storage, post processing, and delivery. Furthermore, a technically </span><span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">almost </span><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">perfect video file, encoded in a high quality delivery codec, can and will be further degraded if uploaded to Youtube or Vimeo, as both streaming services need to recode those files with their own proprietary codecs for obvious streaming optimisation reasons. In analog videography we used to undergo huge quality loss from one copy generation to the next. In digital accordingly, we</span><span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;"> </span><span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">have to be quite careful and knowledgeable about the type of compression our codecs will apply in order to avoid similar degrees of quality damage as in analog.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Shooting video is like shooting stills. Sort of. Composition, lighting, depth of field, ISO, aperture and exposure times, lenses used, are </span><span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">all</span><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"> quite the same. Of course, there are quite a few filmmaking specific elements that have little to do with stills photography. Examples include the frame rates (fps), and the 'rule' that shutter speeds (exposure times) 'have to be' twice the fps to guarantee fluent movement of objects and persons in the video shots. Also camera movement during individual shots is one major filmmaking factor, as viewers are emotionally 'manipulated' by cinematographers by the way the latter hold and move the camera while shooting, as well as the camera angles used. Types of lenses,</span><span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;"> </span><span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">apertures </span><span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">used</span><span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;"> and focal distances, camera movement and points of view (angles), along with edit 'cuts' and time-length between cuts are some of the most critical cinematographic tools used to trigger viewer emotion during story telling. Some of those tools hold even true for stills shooting. Stills do tell stories as well, you see. Like painting and all man-made 'artificial' imaging. It's all about the story. Only that filmmaking is the most explicit and dominant among all known imaging art forms in the </span><span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">process of </span><span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">visual storytelling.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">The particular clip I embedded in this post above is something I shot and edited yesterday, during the usual rainy afternoon, like so many we've seen this August in Belgium. My compatriots back in the fatherland are heavily sweating, as I type this, under </span><span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">30+ Celsius </span><span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">temperatures, whereas I have to wear a </span><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">sweater to get thru the day. U</span><span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">unfortunately, </span><span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">this year</span><span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;"> </span><span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">autumn started </span><span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">in Belgium</span><span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;"> </span><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">at the end of July. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">I haven't tried any special camera movements this time, other than a couple focus tracks, and it was all done handheld, with only a few shots slightly stabilised after the facts, in post. To preserve maximum resolution and sharpness quality I avoided crops and Kern Burn effects in post as well. I used a brand new Lumix GH4 V1.0 to capture and output a clean HDMI </span><span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">1080p</span><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"> 4.2.2. </span><span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">10 bit</span><span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;"> signal and recorded it in ProRes HQ on an Atomos Ninja Blade. I used two different lenses, the 14-140 mm that came with the Lumix and a Canon 24-105 mm with an MFT adaptor. With the Canon lens, lacking aperture setting ability, I should have used ND filters too, but I didn't. Was to lazy to go back to my room and fetch them, as the shooting took place two floors below, in my backyard. Thank God it was quite dark outside and lowering the ISO solved my problem. Shooting at 24 fps meant I had to keep the shutter speed at 50, and get on with it. The GH4 picture style I used was the CinelikeD, without any further parameter adjustments (as many experts suggest to lower further in order to yield flat LOG-like footage for color correction and grading purposes in post).</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">The ProRes footage captured by the Blade was readily usable in FCP without further transcoding since Apple uses ProRes as its standard format for post processing. What I was particularly awed by though, were the fine-tuning luma and chroma adjustments made possible in post. All this due to the extra 2 bits of chroma subsampling that the Blade gave me. Most experts argue about the elimination of banding in higher </span><span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">subsampling </span><span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">bit-rates, but my personal experience points more to the ability to implement subtle color and tonality changes with more bits than the traditional 8 bit encoding of commercial VDSLRs. In other words, the extra </span><span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">subsampling</span><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"> bits help colourists in the first place, before all the rest. The final video file that I watched on a FHD </span><span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">TV, and not the YT encoded stream you are watching here, practically convinced me to let go for the time being the 4K workflow that I initially bought the GH4 for, and continue shooting 1080p at 4.2.2.-10 bit instead, until I found a way to get a similar ProRes encoding at 4K / 10bits minimum. Does this sound a bit like the upcoming Atomos Shogun? Am I looking for more excuses? I might...</span></div>
Vassily Kritishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07722927725208174562noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2741840658355400085.post-20780740066369641322014-07-30T15:11:00.001+02:002014-07-30T23:23:43.929+02:00Dedicated to Film Critics.<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Their job is to watch early previews of new movie releases and tell us, the audience, how they felt about a given film, and whether it would be worth spending our precious money and time on it at all!<br /><br />All I can recall from most professional critics’s reviews that I read is mostly a long summary of the movie story/plot, without revealing the «who dunnit» of course, then its comparison to some of the universally accepted ‘best’ movies in the genre (often doing this to boast about the depth of their own cinema knowledge, and amplify the weight of their opinion), and finally loathing or loving what they saw. Often the loathing is overly critical, cynical and far too unfairly negative. We are then supposed to simply and unequivocally trust their opinion. Also, a fact well known, it is practically a few select leading critics, whose opinion is universally respected for all sorts of reasons, who set the primary trend on a given new movie, and most of the remaining critics will continue to pompously echo the few experts’ «loathing or loving», just like a herd of «His Master’s Voice» doggies... The fact that far too often films loathed by critics became huge box-office success tells a lot about critics too.<br /><br />Compare this with product reviews we see in YouTube. A world of difference. We see and hear almost everything concerning a given product, even experience its unboxing. We won’t have to see or even feel it ‘in real’ anymore. We could easily trust our </span><span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">acquired </span><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">knowledge obtained during these online reviews, as most reviewers actually test them products right in front of our eyes. If we feel that certain aspects are not covered sufficiently, we dig further until we find someone to provide satisfactory answers to all our remaining questions. By the time we have purchased and received the product, it’s like we </span><span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">already</span><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"> used it for ages.<br /><br />Not with movie reviews, though. With most of them it seems like someone asked a few blind men to describe an elephant by simply touching parts of its body. Some feel soft, some wet, hairy, hard, huge, especially huge. Opinions are like a-holes they say: everybody's got one... Descriptions of the beast will be all over the map. Likewise, most professional critics appear too ‘blind’ for the job, as they are often much too incapable of seeing through the movie and grasping the genuine </span><span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">message of the movie's </span><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Director. This is why most successful moviemakers despise and are dreadful of critics for their poorly informed, partial, opinionated and unfair coverage of the formers' work. In a spirit of justified avenge, moviemakers will then claim that most critics are in themselves failed moviemakers. However, jokingly, they could still be ‘acceptable’ but only as critics, it is claimed. Like, bad wine can still make excellent quality vinegar !<br /><br />Movie making is an art form that is extremely complicated and expensive to execute properly. Distinguished from most other art forms, it is being pursued by large groups of people working together on the movie project, often with opposing and contradictory philosophies, ideologies, preferences, and talents. Colours and tastes, like the French say... Movies will have then to be completed within tough constraints of time and budgets, and after formal launch, they need to become genuinely popular among audiences</span><span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;"> in order </span><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">to 'cover' their incurred expenses and turn out some profit. In each and every movie, most of the ‘public’ figures involved, actors, directors, cinematographers, music composers, producers, studios, with each and every single new movie project, </span><span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">they all take </span><span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">a tremendous personal risk concerning their future survival in the industry. And that's despite how glorious their ‘past’ work has already proven to be. Unfortunately, movie failures remain strong in audiences’ and critics’ memory. In each and every new project the leading and visible contributors (especially directors and performing actors) risk to become unemployable for the rest of their careers. </span><span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">Never forget that... Movie making is as risky as gambling... maybe riskier! It can make or break the moviemaker!</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><br />First and foremost, movie making is about manipulating audiences and carrying them along a story telling adventure, in which the movie Director, leading/managing each and every member in his/her crew, will tell the audience what he/she wants them to hear, and convince them about his/her own truth of reality... the latter being the "movie story". The key words here, again, are the combined <b>conscious/unconscious audience manipulation</b>. Conscious for moviemakers, unconscious for audiences. Audiences do indeed want to get fooled by watching a movie, and experience the sense that even for the couple hours of its duration they'll live magic like in a dream. Or a nightmare...<br /><br />Audience manipulation is a difficult feat to achieve properly. The tools and techniques moviemakers use to achieve their goals are technically complex and come in multiple shapes and colours:<br /><br />a. The script and storyboards. The narrative story a Director wants to tell audiences and how he/she plans to do it with pictures.<br /><br />b. Actors and character roles. How well actors understand and perform inside their character roles and how effective both, characters and performing actors, fit the Director's storytelling approach and overall film goals.<br /><br />c. The Stage Design during location and studio takes. The movie's post production color grading as well as the appropriate lighting used during takes that will yield the ambiance and atmosphere </span><span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">aimed for</span><span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">. All objects in a scene. Costume design. Special Effects. CGI. The works. How well will they all support actor performance and story telling? Up to the wee-tiny details that camera lenses can and will see.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><br />d. Movies are made by shooting thousands upon thousands of different photographs (a.k.a. frames) projected at the rate of 24 frames per second in front of a viewer’s eyes. Frames are two dimensional depictions of the three dimensional world (the stage) in which actors perform and story-lines are being deployed. <br /><br />e. Space and time are being heavily manipulated by movie makers to create the necessary emotional reaction among audiences. Movie watching is more about emotion than it is about logic inference. As Tarkovsky, a genuine artist moviemaker, once suggested: «I want audiences to experience my films, not to understand them.»<br /><br />f. The selected camera angles used to shoot given scenes are also a critical factor in story telling. Different angles trigger different emotions. The eyes are triggered by and focus upon evolving changes in frames. Things that move or do something. Therefore, aesthetics and composition are important. Camera moves are important too for the same reason, especially with static staging and performances (a sleeping actor, for instance - to be remarked here, Warhol didn’t mind much about this particular rule). Also the covered scope during each and every camera angle is critical. Ranging from long shots to extreme closeups, they all have to be used for a reason. Like someone, whom the 19 year old, now celebrity French Film Director Luc Besson, asked to watch his first ever short, told him: <i>If you have nothing to say, shut the fuck up!</i> Every scene and cut and picture we see parading in front of our eyes has been put there for a reason. For their own specific ‘emotional’ message towards the audience. All of course serving and advancing the same story-telling, remember? The particular point, </span><span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">exactly </span><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">where in space the cinematographer decides to depict a ‘change’ occurring is equally critical. Even focal lengths of lenses used, as well as filters attached, add emotional punch in their own implementation of the movie language towards audiences. True story!</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><br />g. Sequences of frames are stitched together in what is a.k.a. «the Cut». Many cuts compose a scene. Scenes together built story lines and movie Acts. All of that put together creates <b>The Movie</b>. The very exact frames selected by film editors to cut shots are often the most critical factors used to build audience emotion. Cuts are indeed one, if not the strongest, implementation of movie language! Suspense moments, especially in horror movies, is the best proof of this argument.<br /><br />h. Last but not least, the sound and music attached to cuts, and their timely positioning in the selected sequence of frames are among the key contributing factors in emotion creation too. Moviemakers know that extremely well. Sound and music are indeed among the strongest triggers of viewer emotions. ‘Graphic’ shots without the right accompanying sound or music lose two thirds of their potential emotional impact. If, </span><span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">every time you hear Wagner’s «Valkyries», many </span><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">years after you saw «Apocalypse now», and you still experience in your mind’s eye the horror of napalm firebombs devastating Vietnam forests, and ‘smell’ the odour of burning flesh... this is the living proof of the role of effective soundtracks in engraving into audiences' collective memories unforgettable emotional experiences. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><br />Audiences progressively learn to communicate </span><span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">passively </span><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">(ie. being at the receiving end) in the «language» of movies via their cumulative film viewing experience, through their continuous exposure to movies upon movies in the different genres, over years of movie watching. This is Gadamer's point of view too. Audiences learn this language without specific knowledge of its structure and rules. Like I mentioned, the language is formed and expressed by all contributing factors described in points (a) to (h) above. It’s very much like toddlers learn to speak before they can even hold a pencil or learned to read. The learning happens almost unconsciously, a combination of feeling and logical inference, where the feeling becomes the stronger aspect. It’s how biology and evolution works. Nothing we can do about. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">On the other hand, moviemakers learn and use the movie language all too well, its structure and rules. They are all trained in exactly that at Film Schools. Directors, DPs, Film Editors, Producers, Actors, every single one of them. They learn to 'consciously' manipulate their audience's emotional 'unconscious' and guide them through the storytelling process. However, in the passage of time, and during the last 130 years of movie viewing, audiences have had tremendous watching exposure and have become quite demanding and sophisticated indeed. They have learned what to like and what not. They have become quite difficult to please and convince, for sure... by either critics or moviemakers...</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><br />Therefore, descent cinema critics should pay attention to these (not too) humble ideas of mine:<br /><br />First of all, when a movie critic decides to inform an audience about a film, all and foremost, he/she should understand, once and for all, that their own personal experience and knowledge about cinema subjects is the least relevant aspect of the review as far as audiences reading the reviews are concerned. Critics are not the subject of the review. Nobody is interested in them personally, anyways. The films under review are the real focus! Parallels and comparisons to past ‘films’ in the critics’ Knowledge-Base are not relevant either.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Critics should abandon using obnoxious superlatives and pompous language 'normal' readers happen to come across once in a lifetime, and mostly needing a dictionary to decipher. We don't need that level of intellectual arrogance thrown at our face. We need to understand the article in plain English, not requiring a PhD in literature to grasp its meaning...<br /><br />Furthermore, we, the audience, know from the start that we are destined to be manipulated by each and every filmmaker, anyways! We may decide to watch the film regardless. We actually want to be manipulated, most of the time. Rather subtly though. The subtler the better! We hate the faking being too transparent, especially in actors' performances, failing to convince about the character roles they play. Therefore, what we are interested in reading a critic’s review is his/her ideas about the skill (or lack) of the movie's filmmakers in their approach and tools used to tell their story. And how effective this all has been. Was the story understandable? Was it any good? Regardless whether we agree or not with the filmakers, that is... Shall we experience a personal change at all, or not? Shall we learn anything we didn't know before? Did we... yes indeed, did we become 'better' persons in any conceivable way after watching the movie? A movie critic who can touch upon subjects of the "movie language" used and create an accurate picture in our mind about how well or not the filmmakers achieved their goal is, IMHO, a critic worth his job-title.</span></div>
Vassily Kritishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07722927725208174562noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2741840658355400085.post-2539011853274084732014-07-15T22:21:00.001+02:002014-07-15T23:17:19.248+02:00To UHD or not to UHD? That is the question...<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">One of the most frustrating experiences of today in UHD and xK video, whereby x equals 2.5, 4, 5, 6 and 8 (as far as I know) is that there is no content available yet. Not even as a joke. Even if you find some obscure UHD content online, it's not a given that it will play on your brand new UHD TV, if you happen to have bought one. Too early for this. The best proof of this argument is the footage they demo in TV shops to show-off their goodies. All purpose made to play in mysterious ways on the TV set in question. It's the same problem we had with HDTV sets years ago. Even to this day, most, if not all, of the commercial TV programming is broadcasted in 720p. Anything beyond that is likely the result of a lame upscaling... Only Bluray disks and computer video files provisioned via externally attached hard disks or SSDs (via USB) can be used to show-off the entire FHD resolutions!</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">There's been a myriad articles about why </span><span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">eventually </span><span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">we are all going to the next wave of TV experience, the so-called UHD (Ultra High Definition) being everything above the infamous FHD (aka 1080p). Here's </span><a href="http://www.redsharknews.com/production/item/1836-oversampling-101-shooting-4k-for-hd-delivery?utm_source=www.lwks.com+subscribers&utm_campaign=d2e9a1c7db-RSN_July15_2014&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_079aaa3026-d2e9a1c7db-79170569" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;" target="_blank">one of the best</a><span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;"> I read. Just to feel what this is about, consider this. The so called 4K (not the 4K Cinematic... this is even larger) is 3840 pixels across by 2160 pixels vertical. This is exactly four times larger than your regular 1080p FHD TV you are so proud of... It's like you'd stacked four FHD TV monitors in a matrix of 2 by 2! However, the physical size of the UHD monitor itself isn't very much different than what we are used to now with our normal TVs... 40 inches diagonal and up sort of thing. In other words, your regular FHD TV has about 2 million pixels spread over the entire surface of a, say, 42 inch monitor (92.5 cm horizontal by 52.5 cm vertical, that is). However, the equivalent 4K UHD TV of the same diagonal 42 inches will squeeze four times as many pixels over the same surface! It's like you split one of your old pixels to make four new ones!</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">You may still wonder what all this means in practice. Let me give you an example that I worked out recently. I bought me two pieces of equipment first. A brand new Lumix GH4 camera that can record internally and also output 4K signals at its micro HDMI interface (4.2.2 compressed at 10 bit color subsampling per RGB channel), and a Philips 42PUS7809/12 UHD TV of 42 inches diagonal size. My previous set was a Samsung FHD, which was OK but it's native resolution was simply the good ol' 2 megapixels of the FHD resolution. No way possible to demo the GH4 4K goodies on it. To show anything at a native FHD monitor you first have to down convert the HDMI signal into 1080p, which actually defeats the purpose, right?</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Long story short, after some online chatting with a Philips Helpline kid I managed to display a full fledged 4K GH4 Live signal (!!!) via one of the Philips HDMI inputs. The GH4 was looking at my 27" iMac and it's extended second Apple display, at their native resolution of 2560x1440 pixels each. I am saying this because the iMac too isn't able to drive the Philips monitor at 4K </span><span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">either</span><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">. All it can do is mirror itself and just display 2560 horizontal pixels by 1440 vertical max. In itself this is also UHD, but not the native 4K Philips boasted and I needed to experience. As long as I didn't have a source of genuine 4K to feed the Philips HDMI ports I couldn't possibly see and feel what it was like to own a UHD TV and enjoy genuine UHD content on it. Of course, my iMac was a way to experience resolutions above FHD on the new TV </span><span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">for the first time,</span><span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;"> </span><span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">even if it was less than the full Monty... I had managed to create a few clips in 4K that I shot with the GH4 and edited in FCP. When I opened them with Quicktime 1:1 on the iMac they extended beyond the visible limits of the monitor. Wow! So, playing them in full screen via mirroring on the Philips TV screen, as I explained earlier, couldn't get to more than the </span><span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">2560x1440</span><span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;"> the Mac could manage. It was 2.5K, not 4K! Apparently only the latest Retina Macbooks, and of course the Mac Pro can manage monitors up to 4K, several of them presumably for the Mac Pro and its stunning 7 something Teraflops! So, unless I upgrade my Mac Hardware there ain't gonna be a way to drive the Philips from my Mac into its native 4K. Tough shit, pardon my French. Maybe a good excuse to own eventually the black marvel...</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Anyways, the moment the GH4 was capable of displaying its live view on the Philips monitor I almost fainted. It was the moment I realised what a resolution of 3840 pixels across with 2160 pixels vertical really MEANS!!! This is far too much for aged dudes like myself. This 4K resolution is far too big to be true. Unless you see it with your bare eyes and goggles you won't be able to tell. Words are not enough. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Nevertheless, to taste a thin slice of my experience, take a good look at the shots hereunder (click for larger view).</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">This first shot above shows the Philips monitor in all its glory, and all 42 inches of it. In front, the Lumix GH4 shooting the other side of the room, connected to the Philips HDMI 3 input (you can see the black cable). In other words, the Philips monitor shows what the GH4 sees. That's mainly two Apple monitors, one is the iMac itself and the second another external Apple display, 27" as well. On the latter, I have opened a PDF document from Philips itself, showing in a table the codecs, frame rates, AV containers, and resolutions supported in all their TVs. Needless to say, nothing above 1080p. Makes you wonder... why sell UHD TVs if you don't even support playback of video files at that resolution... let alone that the Bluray consortium is still struggling with Standards to reach agreement on the support of UHD resolutions on optical disks... no remedy short term from there either. Anyways...</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Next point... I referred to the PDF on display on the second monitor for a reason... right? That's because the following shot hereunder shows the actual goodies UHD TVs have to offer. I thus took an extreme closeup shot of the Philips monitor of a few rows of the aforementioned PDF table to show-off the level of detail that is possible thru native UHD. The size of the type in terms of Philips monitor pixels is between 6 and 7 tall (count them if you don't believe me). If you wondered what the 6-30 numbers mean, it's simply the frame rates... irrelevant for the purpose of this discussion. Take a look on the table now... (click for larger view).</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Does this make any sense to you? I won't go any further. A picture is worth a thousand words... Literally.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;"><br /></span>Vassily Kritishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07722927725208174562noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2741840658355400085.post-48786153074184725712014-07-09T11:23:00.001+02:002014-07-16T07:37:20.317+02:00#BRAGER : Another Epoch another Blitz!<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">It was the night of statistics. For winners and losers. <i>Never before a team was defeated with this score on a World Cup semi final.</i> The Shame of Shames. <i>New world record for Klose with 16 World Cup goals, stolen from Brazilian born Ronaldo.</i> <i>Brazil was never defeated by a foreign team in their own backyard.</i> And it went on and on like this. For hours... The morning papers continued the stats teasers, adding more oil to the fire of South American humiliation...</span><br>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Every new goal the Germans scored yesterday, the TV reporter dusted off more and more of those old stats. What we had hard time grasping was that this was a simple case of '<i>history in the making</i>'! We were clueless. Jaws dropped to the floor. Shocked! Flabbergasted! At a given moment, when the goals followed each other literally seconds apart, I thought some scenes were actually 'replays' of the 'previous' goals. I hadn't </span><span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">yet </span><span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">realised those were brand new smashes into Julio's nets. Unglaublich! Brazil fans wished they could ALT-CTRL-DEL and start over again. I'd lost count. </span><br>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Imagine you were on the Brazilian side yesterday, when all this was going on. Weeping faces and bitter tears of men, women, and children. A shattered dream. All their chauvinist fire and energy, conspicuous during the singing of their anthem moments earlier, quickly disappeared into oblivion. Few chewed their national colours for snack (see above). In comedian George Lopez's </span><span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">hilarious </span><span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">words... </span><i style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">these are not tears of sorrow... these are tears of frustration!</i><span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;"> </span><span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">Dutch e</span><span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">x-football international Jan Mulder, sitting on a live TV panel and watching the game, empathised: </span><i style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">"I feel so sorry for these people... you know, when things like that happen in one of our Euro countries, people say, well, that happens... forgive and forget... let's go to the beach!"</i><span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;"></span><br>
<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;"><br></span><span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">This was one of those events, that years from now we shall be asking each other... "</span><i style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">where were you the night Germany shredded the Seleção into nothingness?</i><span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">". It was like 9-11 sort of thing. (BTW, I was in my office in Paris then, and I remember I looked stunned at Paul, my Finance Assistant, when he told me that one of the twin towers had just collapsed!)</span><br>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">After the match, I stayed up for a few more hours, deep into the early morning, enjoying Twitter postings on #BRAGER hashtag. It was laughs and tears all over, together with innuendos of bitchiness and irony. Some very creative postings indeed. One that I thought was very funny was an animated GIF with a cocktail glass filled with yellow-orange based alcohol mix, a slice of orange and lime, and a tiny proud Brazilian flag on a tooth-stick, like those we usually find piercing cocktail party </span><span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">snacks</span><span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">. Strong samba music in the background... Suddenly, out of nowhere, a huge German beer-glass hits the cocktail from above, and hardly any trace of shattered glass or juice left over... samba sounds were muted in microseconds. Cemetery silence! Only leftover beer foam continued to </span><span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">slowly </span><span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">slide down the outer walls of the lager glass, like a bitter Brazilian tear.</span><br>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-xhutrzqIabk/U7z-wvW-bZI/AAAAAAAAFIQ/2sMGu-7-1QA/s1600/Screen+Shot+2014-07-09+at+10.34.21.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-xhutrzqIabk/U7z-wvW-bZI/AAAAAAAAFIQ/2sMGu-7-1QA/s1600/Screen+Shot+2014-07-09+at+10.34.21.png" height="227" width="400"></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Before the smash...</td></tr>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">...and after!</td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Someone else posted:<i> Brazilians have Neymar, the Portugese, Ronaldo, Argentinians got Messi, but... Germans have a team!</i> Where individuals are sacrificed in the interest of the whole group. 'German football prima donna' is an oxymoron! How true! In an interview right after the game, when a reporter asked Klose how he felt about his brand new 16 WC goals record, he responded (!!!) that the team was playing well and that it is their team and the coach that had to be credited for today's achievement, and more of this dry ya-di-da-di-da-da... Humility? Sense of duty? Discipline? Dry humor? What can I say? Emotionless MFs, outstanding sportsmen though, raised and taught to 'serve' with humility. Without any shadow of 'emotional weakness'. The definition of freezing </span><span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">'cool'! </span><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Even the handful naturalised foreigners in their team, Boateng, Oezil, Khedira look over-Germanised! What can you say? Any Latino player achieving Klose's feat and record... OMG, the world wouldn't be big enough to accommodate the ego. Expecting scores of virgin chicas to parade right in front of him and choose to his heart's desire... </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Not Klose though... He even blushed and felt humble at the question, looked everywhere around except</span><span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;"> </span><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">the reporter in the eyes, and came up with an answer that anybody, military camp-drilled and brainwashed to the bone, would have come up with. Androids, non-human, responding with scripted answers. Get a life, man! There's more to it than fuessbal! Die Mannschaft... ok, they are plain good... too good to be true yesterday, maybe... yep... but Mein Gott, they are so boring! Like a German colleague once said "</span><i style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">German humor is not a laughing matter</i><span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">". How could it?</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">On the other hand, what happened yesterday also proved my 'theory' about 'emotion' vs. 'discipline' and 'method'. Like Sax K., an ex-colleague, recently wrote me: <i>It's about time someone teaches South Americans a lesson in football.</i> It's about time they stopped the screaming and yelling, and it's time to put their 'brains' back to 'work'. By means of emotions and deafening noises no issues were ever reasonably resolved... This, by the way, is not only true for football matches, but in many situations of everyday life too. Especially during unjustified union actions undermining national economies, when massive crowds flock the streets to help 'solve' problems they have created themselves in the first place, due to their lack of discipline, respect for each other, and much more vice like this. All this </span><span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">in the name of democracy,</span><span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;"> goes without saying... </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><br></span>Vassily Kritishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07722927725208174562noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2741840658355400085.post-49801668955982705232014-07-06T13:01:00.005+02:002014-07-06T15:27:29.644+02:00Louis van G(enius)aal!<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Kuyt hugs legendary Krul after his second and game <br>
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The Flying Dutchmen. Literally!</td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">I have rarely enjoyed football as I did last night, when the Dutch team faced Costa Rica. The game was terrible in fact, 2/3s ball possession by the Dutch, but no goals. Many shots in the goal but (often lucky) <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Keylor_Navas" target="_blank">Keylor Navas</a>, the perfect goalkeeper, notorious for his training with tennis balls shot at him by a pro tennis player and never missing one, was able to defend his goalposts until the last minute, after a long game with extensions reaching the best part of 130 minutes (incl. the extra time at the end of each period). </span><br>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Like I said, the game was terrible. The Costa Ricans blocked the Dutch most of the time with almost their entire team defending and closing all possible holes towards their goalposts. Despite great and heroic Dutch efforts and frequent near-miss goal-shots, Navas and his co-defenders managed to keep the game to a draw until the end. I watched it on the Dutch TV with an outstanding commentator, talking quite objectively with humility, I'd say. He excused himself midway second half suggesting that it seemed like, after the game between Greece and Cost Rica came to a draw that the latter eventually won on penalties, it was obvious Costa Ricans yesterday didn't quite play 'to win' but rather 'not to lose' during regular time, to eventually win </span><span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">the penalty shootout </span><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">with Superhero Navas. Displaying a sample of 'effective' South American football tactics. No football entertainment whatsoever, but a rather calculated game to win at all costs with all known dirty tricks of the trade. Too much money at stake...</span><br>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">But this Dutch squad was not your regular cup-of-tea. They are trained and led by <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Van_Gaal" target="_blank">Louis Van Gaal</a>, you see... a Dutch legendary coach who wrote football history in the past as manager of Ajax, Barcelona, AZ and FC Bayern München. Someone on the Belgian TV reporter panel mentioned that Van Gaal may be one of the best coaches in the history of football. A comment coming from a Belgian about a Dutch weighs twice, if you know what I mean... Following his World Cup in Brazil performance, he is about to continue his long brilliant career (he'll become 63 in August this year, so there's easily another ten years until retirement), when he starts as the new manager of legendary ManU in the UK. A dream coach with a legendary career. The man about whom a Catalan ex-colleague of mine responded, when I sent him a teaser message after Spain's 5-1 defeat by the Dutch in the beginning of the tournament: <i>We're ready to have (back) van Gaal to (lead) Barcelona any day!</i></span><br>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Nevertheless, the Dutch wouldn't be Dutch if they didn't criticise van Gaal and his decisions all the time, and go in lengths accusing him of all sorts of tactics and strategy misjudgements. He is aware of that of course and stays cool at all moments, especially when ambitious journalists dare ask him irritating questions that drive him up the walls. In a recent press conference such a spineless reporter implicitly pointed at him for </span><span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">tactically </span><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">setting up a defensive game against Chile. Question was asked in English. Visibly irritated by the question, Van Gaal responded in Dutch by saying. "</span><i style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">You, who asked the question, can you please give me the definition of '<b>offensive football</b>'? Yes, you, the reporter who asked the 'smart question' (slimme vraag in Dutch)</i><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">". Then of course he continued with his professional, strategic and managerial answer to explain his decision that literally shrunk the 'ambitious' reporter into obsoleteness. I happened to have watched that particular Van Gaal clip on TV several times, and got convinced he is definitely the coach who will win this tournament, hands down. The man is simply too good to be true... A manager and a Leader!</span><br>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Unfortunately, many, out of jealousy and envy, I suppose, will not </span><span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">easily </span><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">accept any such claim. What the hell do I know about football, you may ask... Maybe not as much as most of you, but I know shedloads about 'management' and 'leadership', and I can tell a strategic mind when I see one or hear one talk! Anyways... The unconvinced will continue to blame van Gaal anyways. Only yesterday alone 'De Telegraaf', a nationwide Dutch paper, displayed in its front page a full body shot van Gaal portrait photoshoped into a pirate of the Caribbean, carrying a long pirate sword with a dozen bananas </span><span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">pierced through</span><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">. I fail to see the implied metaphor, but it simply shows the spirit of some Dutch idiots about their National Squad's coach. It's a fact of life indeed that Dutch self-awareness and self-conviction makes them often behave and think not like "<i>I know better than all the rest', </i>but rather '<i>why anyone else </i></span><i style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">should </i><i style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">know more than me?"</i><span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;"> There is this slight nuance in their subtle intellectual arrogance, you see. Often quite irritating but charming nevertheless.</span><br>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">So the Dutch and many others doubted van Gaal for a long time. Until yesterday, I hope. It was yesterday that his genius showed up like a blinding light in the darkness of cruel South American football tactics that we may have witnessed in recent tournament weeks. Leading up to last Friday's unfortunate incident of a Colombian 'player' (a savage for sure) 'tackling' the 22 year old Brazilian world-class scorer <b>Neymar</b> da Silva Santos Júnior</span><span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">... I</span><span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">t was a calculated public execution as evidenced by the slow-mo replay of the incident.</span><br>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Like I said, I have been watching yesterday's game on the Dutch NOS-1 TV channel. I am sick and tired of tactless Flemish commentators filling their discourse with useless tabloid <i>faits divers</i> about the players's personal lives, and often being that close to be called racist for their comments. Like in the recent game between Greece and Costa Rica, when the slime reporter accused Karagounis and most other Greek players for "<i>missing a career in Greek Drama theater</i>" each time they were knocked to the ground by 'friendly' South American fire. Of course, Belgians never won any World or Euro cup and will never do, seems like. Greece winning the Euro cup in Portugal in 2004 irritates sensitive Belgian reporter throats, each time they try to swallow the memories.</span><br>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">It's on decisive moments like this one in the history of football, when real geniuses shine. It was van Gaal's moment yesterday. When everybody on the Dutch supporter community was death sad about what was to come, van Gaal kept one last crucial player replacement that he was left with in his box of hattricks. That white rabbit was <b><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tim_Krul" target="_blank">Tim Krul</a></b>, and he was not a shooter! Van Gaal's last replacement was a new... goalkeeper. Who would have imagined? Who would have approved? But, Van Gaal is not your usual little town team coach. He is The Legendary van Gaal! We had to give him the benefit of the doubt for sure. Tim Krul, tall, fresh, self confident, whom we only yesterday </span><span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">saw </span><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">perform in this tournament. A man who would write Dutch football history. It was not just us, casual supporters, that were stunned though! Most important, the Costa Ricans 'lost it'. In Dick Cheney's infamous words, 'Awe and Shock allover'! Obviously, they didn't know much about the new kid, they visibly lost control and most importantly their confidence; it was plain psychological warfare that good ol' Louis resorted to. Both, friends and critics were simply flabbergasted. The NOS reporter spoke of the same emotional effect on the South Americans (to me anything south of Mexico is South America, sorry...) . It was obvious in their faces as they approached the point to shoot their turn of penalty. Krul approached them too, friendly we thought initially, as they were busy fixing the penalty ball on the grass-mat, looking them straight in the eye, drilling them into their brains to read their minds, intimidating them (I wish I knew what van Gaal taught him to tell them), and returning with his 6' 4" length between his goalposts, looking bigger than life!</span><br>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">The Dutch penalty shooters, the squad's top players Van Persie, Robben, Kuyt, and Sneijder (who else?), shot their own turn right into the nets, almost piercing them, scoring a safe goal each. Navas remained simply helpless. A good kid, and an outstanding goalkeeper, but too tired to undertake this one last feat executed by that particular Dutch machine-gun round. Navas's team had already used all their replacements and, even if they had one more to do, like the Dutch, they had no other keepers to use it on. How many shots can you still catch, even if you are Navas himself, eh? Or even legendary one-eyed <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gordon_Banks" target="_blank">Gordon Banks</a>? Navas's PR stunt with tennis balls shot against him suddenly evaporated in the light of reality, and remained a 'faits divers' for time-killers to watch on YouTube.</span><br>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Needless to say, Krul ejected himself into the direction of the shot each and every turn of the Costa Ricans, and saved two out of four penalties (50%!!!). One among them was the shot by celebrity goal maker Ruiz! Only the best will eventually win...</span><br>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Upcoming feat for the Dutch: Next Wednesday July the 9th, the facing of mighty Messi and his legendary Argentina squad in the second semi finals. This time though, our good Northern neighbours will have to deliver a 'payback' to the Messi clan for their pathetic win over Belgium that their lame attitude and an early lucky goal led them to. I strongly believe van Gaal is going for the cup. He said so publicly too. He'll leave Brazil with the cup in his hands. Will the South American emotional and cruel football style be able to stop him? I don't think so. It is clearly football tactics and brains against heartbeats and emotions. In cases like these mostly brains emerge as winners. Emotions end up in tears and deafening noise. You may not like it, but that's the way it is. </span><br>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><br></span>Vassily Kritishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07722927725208174562noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2741840658355400085.post-65788141574264354652014-06-28T16:56:00.002+02:002014-06-29T09:23:34.855+02:00Shooting Full HD with an iPhone<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">I've been reading about efforts by professional indy cinematographers to shoot entire feature films or documentaries with an iOS device. It sounded absurd to say the least. Then, the shock came when Zacuto of USA recently sponsored an all shoot-out among the greatest camera names in professional digital cinematography with the iPhone as one of the contenders. O</span><span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">ut of sheer curiosity </span><span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">I watched the entire project on YT to see pros at work and experience the difference between capturing gear of a 'toy' costing less than a thousand bucks with all those industry monsters, costing several tens of thousands dollars. Of course, to avoid shake and be able to shoot like the pros, they dressed the iPhone in all sorts of camera rigs, with matte boxes and filters and French flags. If they could mount a follow focus they'd do it too, but the iPhone is supposed to be an iPhone last I heard, so, let's be serious. The iPhone eventually managed the feat with its built-in autofocus, as expected. Anyways, the final result was more than descent, yet far below the big dogs, like Red Epic, Arri Alexa, Sony F65, and Black Magic Cinema. Footage was shot all in Full HD, ie. 1080p at the presumably cinematic 24 fps.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">This morning I read another <a href="http://www.redsharknews.com/production/item/1798-do-film-makers-need-to-take-iphones-seriously?utm_source=www.lwks.com+subscribers&utm_campaign=fe5b3d60da-RSN_June27_2014&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_079aaa3026-fe5b3d60da-79170569" target="_blank">article</a> about cinematographers getting again serious about iOS feature film productions, and I said to myself, what the heck, let's try to see what comes out of an iOS footage. I never really shot anything longer than ten seconds before, and was quick to delete it right away, after a few moments... This time however, I wanted to live the experience on my own big-ass TV in full color FHD. So, I'd have to postprocess the footage like it was coming out of any of my other prosumer gear. I'm not a pro by far, but I can stitch together simple shots with final rendered clips that look fairly OK, technically speaking. Needless to say, I dispose of quasi pro gear, like a 5D M-III, the latest 4K GH4 and a Legria G30, even a kit of cheap Samyang cinematographic lenses, and a shedload of supporting accessories, a steady camera-like thing (Merlin), couple of motorised sliders, a Manfrotto video tripod with fluid head, a motorised pan/tilt head, and full versions of FCP, Motion and Compressor. I just wanted to see for myself how far I could go compared to my other 'prosumer' footage and clips. Especially the couple I did the last few days in 4K, the moment the Lumix GH4 marvel arrived.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">I thus put my old iPhone 5 (not an S, neither a C) in my shirt pocket and came out in my backyard for a shoot. I actually shot about two dozen takes without steadycam support. Just in handheld. I tried to simulate a few dolly movements and did some pans and tilts, all handheld, trust me. Forgot to mention, I used Filmic Pro and not Apple's own camera app. Filmic is quite good as you can chose separate points for measuring light and defining focus reference points. You can also lock those, and you can separately select output resolution and frame rates. Almost like the big lads. I eventually transferred all those clips to my quad 27" iMac via the Photo transfer app, a very neat way to transfer photographic source files between iOS filmrolls and Macs.</span></div>
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<div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Reading those same source files in FCP, I transcoded them in Prores Proxy (I always do that, unless I capture in ProRes 422 with my Ninja Blade) and stitched the shots together by adding here and there dissolve transitions, trimmed a great deal, you know... the usual. I tried stabilisation on all of the shots, but some were hopelessly shaky and the FCP algorithms made a mess eventually, so I either dropped those out of the Timeline or softened further the stabilisation parameters. I eventually added a nice track from 'The Grandmaster' soundtrack (Wai Kar Wong - 2013), namely Moyou by Shigeru Umebayashi. And... Bob's your uncle. Oh, yes, before compressing to a final delivery format, I combined everything into a compound clip and I graded the latter with FilmConvert, a plugin that runs under the 'Effects' tab of FCP. Normally, to judge objectively the true quality of iPhone footage one shouldn't do too many tricks in post. But I am not a formal iPhone reviewer. IAnd never intended to be. I just wanted to see what comes out of it, if I did my regular stuff like in any other workflow I normally follow in post.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">My personal conclusion is that indeed, one could actually put an iOS device in the hands of professional cinematographers/film makers to produce something worthwhile. Using purpose made add-on lenses, they could could even achieve a touch of cinematic bokeh. And with the proper grading in post one can achieve the sphere that serves script and story. </span><span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">With a good story and plot, lighting, art direction, camera movements and editing techniques, one could actually create a technically acceptable</span><span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;"> feature indy film that can proudly stand next to a Hollywood establishment with their millions worth big production budgets. Maybe some cheap iOS gear will offer the opportunity to realise a filmic form of Arte Povera... </span><span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">Like Polaroid once did.</span><span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;"> Arte Povera is still good Arte! Why not?</span></div>
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Vassily Kritishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07722927725208174562noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2741840658355400085.post-21723319304039784532014-06-23T12:08:00.004+02:002014-06-23T15:04:38.586+02:00Video shooting adventures...<div style="text-align: center;">
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">I've been shooting a lot of video, from when my kids were still young, some 20+ years ago. Video has come a long way in the meantime, and, in the last 10 years with the advent of the so-called VDSLR based videography, ie. using traditional DSLRs to shoot video (because of their large sensors and pixel size they are performing quite well in low light conditions and are capable of cinematic bokehs), low budget videographers and indy shooters have flooded YT and Vimeo with quite a few interesting projects. Another milestone in the democratization of the medium. <a href="http://www.amazon.com/The-World-Is-Flat-Twenty-first/dp/0374292884" target="_blank">The World is flat</a> sort of thing.</span><br />
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<a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-8_lvnkv3X1Y/U6f0-mAhJ0I/AAAAAAAAFHQ/XEGC3rCCihY/s1600/8K_UHD,_4K_SHD,_FHD_and_SD-1.svg.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><img border="0" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-8_lvnkv3X1Y/U6f0-mAhJ0I/AAAAAAAAFHQ/XEGC3rCCihY/s1600/8K_UHD,_4K_SHD,_FHD_and_SD-1.svg.png" height="217" width="400" /></span></a><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">One of the nice 'little' things that occurred in digital motion pictures is pixel resolution. I picked up this graph on Wikipedia, and even so, I can't quite grasp the size of it. What is referred to as SD (standard definition) is the sort of resolution used for broadcasting by TV networks for many-many years, and made us, amateur videographers of the late last century, drool of desire for a better amateur technology. Indeed, our quite expensive analog gear back then could hardly produce 400 lines of horizontal resolution at best. Not to mention stability of edit footage after a few cycles in analog mixing tables without genloc and timecode available (far too expensive for an amateur's pockets).</span><br />
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In the last ten years, however, the world has been converted with lightning speed into FHD (1080p) or 1080 lines of 'progressive' (one frame at the time) resolution, and in recent years key industry players and Standards bodies have defined additional resolution targets all the way up to 8K UHD (Ultra High Definition). Actually, anything above FHD is nowadays termed UHD! To get the point, 8K is like stacking 16 Full HDTV monitors upon each other, four in the x axis and another four in the y. In other words, if you regularly indulge yourself by watching Bluray movies in FHD, imagine the monster I just described... what it would turn your living room wall into! Already 4K is an unbelievable improvement. It's your current FHD doubled in both x and y directions. Four times the resolution you enjoy today, that is. Strictly speaking, hardcore 4K is even more than that in the x axis pixel-count (4096 indeed), but for all practical purposes let's assume the 3840x2160 frame size (that's otherwise 4x the current FHD, 2x1920 and 2x1080) under the broadly known 4K label.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">I recently saw the picture of a camera shooting 8K, but I doubt there's much activity in that front yet, other than experimental. On the other hand, I read that quite a few mainstream movies being shot these days are already captured in 5K/6K and 12/14 bits of colour resolution. This sounds, spec-wise, like a videographer's wet dream... Why do them pro's do that, then? The film industry still delivers feature films and TV series in current consumer formats (FHD, Bluray and DVD), meaning they encode/downscale </span><span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">their</span><span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;"> UHD </span><span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">masters</span><span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;"> into current commercial resolutions, but, I guess, they are shooting UHD for future-proofing and the ability to</span><span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;"> </span><span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">remaster their work into UHD resolutions when the market is ready for it. In the next so many years... When storage petabytes become as common and inexpensive as bagels and donuts...Understandable...</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">I consider myself to be a frame resolution and sharpness junkie. Actually, I don't give a diddly squat about resolution per se, if you come to think of it, but I care enormously about image sharpness, richness of colours (gamut) and related bokeh. UHD resolutions are the unique available strategy in the pursue of this goal, regrettably. The prerequisite in preserving the tonal and color state of visible things into their captured image is of course the frame resolution, but not alone. R</span><span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">ecording </span><span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">codecs are natural born quality killers too. You can't believe how many codecs already exist, and how many different media file containers are out there used in the video universe. Gives you practically a headache. Makes you wonder why! And they all claim to be the best invention ever since sliced bread. For amateur videographers like myself the world of codecs used for capturing, post-processing and eventually delivering the outcome to viewers is a sheer nightmare. The moment you get the impression that you 'got it', there comes a use-case experience that entirely confuses you, frustrates you and makes you start all over again.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">The last few months I decided to further develop my skills as close as possible to today's State of the Art in prosumer videography. Bought some new gear to work with, rigs, accessories, even a Canon Legria FHD G30 camcorder (I wish I knew some more before making that decision... it's definitely ok, but not what I dreamed of), filters, video-mics, tripods, sliders, a pan/tilt electrical head, remote triggers, and only came short of ordering cranes and drones! A year ago I also bought a Hero3 GoPro action camera with all its usual-suspect accessories, but this must have been my worst decision ever. Among many other. The GoPro's are for a different type of videography than mine. Like they say, too old for that shite! Anyways, I normally use VDSLRs, a Canon 5D Mark III and another 5D Mark II, and maybe my old 7D occasionally, but I </span><span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">still </span><span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">dream of the day that I'll get my hands on a 4K Panasonic Lumix GH4. Pity that they only make them mirror-less MFT (micro four thirds), necessitating some sort of adaptor to be able to use my couple of dozen piece Canon and Nikon lens inventory that I built the last 30 years. You can't have it all, can you? Unfortunately, the little marvel is still out of stock in all my online supplier inventories. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">I also improved my grading and NLE skills in both FCP and Da Vinci Resolve, by following specialized Lynda.com training (about a dozen courses the last few months alone), and I came that close to order a Black Magic 4K Production camera, which idea I eventually gave up for a planned purchase of the Panasonic mentioned earlier. Tomorrow, I'm expecting a Samyang Cinema lens kit, insanely inexpensive but fairly good obviously, at least if you believe online reviews and YT demo's. The kit contains three lenses, 14, 35 and 85 mm in Canon EF mount.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">I can't shoot 4K yet, but I've still done one 4K video project in time-lapse, by capturing high res Raw stills in my Mark III, then crop-processed them in Lightroom, and imported them in a FCP 4K project, from which I eventually rendered them in the 4K format output acceptable by YT. All I had to do was export the frames from Lightroom in the genuine 4090x2160 4K resolution and compose them into a clip in FCP and encode them via Compressor. Take a look here:</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Like many out there I tend to agree that although 4K is a thing for when monitors will be able to handle it in the next 3-4 years, still cameras shooting 4K today produce visibly superior quality in FHD than many regular FHD camcorder out there, regardless their robustness, perceived quality and total configuration cost, pro codec used and frame rates captured. I speak from experience. I do shoot with the best Canon glass available on the 5D, capture the HDMI signal in Prores HQ on an Atomos Ninja Blade, and proces all this footage on an 27 inch top of the range iMac with FCP X. Nevertheless, although my 1080p outputs, color corrected, graded and all look reasonably good, 4K is simply miles ahead. I'll be the first to admit that my 1080p clips are indeed nowhere compared to some of the GH4 footage I saw on YT! Goes without saying, many other factors do play quality determinant roles as well, like the dynamic range captured (per a recent DXO-Pro testimony the 5D is rather poor on DR with only 12 stops and change), ISO used, shutter angle and above all the quality of light used in a scene. However, from what I've seen, 4K is still a blast! I mean, big time! </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">There are moments I feel that I could give my right arm for the ability to capture quality footage like some of the high-end cameras out there. RED, Arri Alexa, the Sony F5, Phantom and why not, the Black Magic 4K Production Camera. Of course most of them use glass in practical configurations of prime and zoom lenses at a cost equivalent of high-end luxury cars. Would you rather buy a 5- lens kit or an S-Class Mercedes Benz? You could </span><span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">only</span><span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;"> practically rent gear like this. As a B-day present, for instance. Like many rent a Ferrari for a day! I drool watching slow-mo footage shot by RED and Phantom cameras! Gosh, I've been in the wrong job all my life. </span><span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">Day-dreaming of one of these 4K marvels, </span><span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">I keep fooling myself in the meantime with tricks like the one I used in the 4K time-lapse above, and by doing simple slideshows. See an example hereunder : </span></div>
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Vassily Kritishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07722927725208174562noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2741840658355400085.post-32276765179526341902014-06-08T11:30:00.001+02:002014-06-09T16:38:11.843+02:00Storehouse visual stories<div style="text-align: center;">
<iframe src="//www.storehouse.co/stories/15vg-men-of-thrace/embed" style="width:100%;max-width:600px;height:300px;border:none;"></iframe></div>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">I just discovered them during the recent Apple Design Awards ceremony, as Apple selected them as one of the 2014 Winners. <a href="https://www.storehouse.co/" target="_blank">Storehouse</a> is a simple business model by a startup in which free members publish online stories composed with texts, photographs and short videos (max 30 secs). Stories are published online and viewers can read them and like and/or comment on them. Also share them with friends thru the usual suspect social networks. Your media sources are either your local photo libraries or a few media sharing networks like Flickr and Instagram. In other words, Storehouse is a pleasant extension to those other networks who weren't clever enough to come up with the idea. Flickr, for instance could have implemented this long ago.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">The app is at its best on a tablet, for both reading and creating stories. A browser is a viable alternative to those who don't own a tablet. Everything is free for the moment but maybe freemium models are down the road. They just secured a second round of VC funding of 7 million bucks they say; so I am sure they are seriously thinking about monetisation as we speak, otherwise no VC would be that interested. Maybe VCs are attracted by the 'hub' effect and a sale down the road to a bigger fish. Who knows? For the time being all we can do is enjoy their service... for free! </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">If you come to think about it, Storehouse is no more than a simple blogging facility with an attractive user experience. Nothing more, nothing less. However, the experience has still its merits and I am sure they are thinking about / or already working on possible extensions. For instance, they might offer a function of assembling books with your stories and publish them via mechanisms like Blurb/Lulu and the likes, or by themselves. They could also print them in ways that you could hung them on walls, poster-like. They could maintain privacy levels so that a published story is only viewable by those you personally select, like family and friends. A great way to share experiences. Especially with a touch of unedited video. You can say a whole lot in 30 secs, you see. Most TV ads are shorter than that. There are so many things you can do with something like this. Funny it's only Storehouse that came up with the idea. Cool stuff.</span></div>Vassily Kritishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07722927725208174562noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2741840658355400085.post-66194013582441083252014-06-03T17:00:00.000+02:002014-06-04T10:48:14.892+02:00Gigapans<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">I just bought me a Gigapan Epic Pro and created a first stitch of a Panorama as seen from my bedroom window with 21 pics (3 rows x 7 columns). Used the 100mm Canon macro lens, a 5D Mark II body, and I post processed the images in Lightroom first. I then stitched them inside the Gigapan Stitching app and uploaded the result to their hosted galleries. It's not much of a Pan, other than the workflow worked just fine first time, and the output seems technically correct (that is, no vignette effects and no stitching artefacts). It was only a 100mm tele and a bare 21 pictures (child-play), so you wouldn't expect to find bees and butterflies on flowers and leaves from a 200m distance, would you? I'm still learning, you see... Next project, using my 70-200mm 2.8 zoom with a 2x extender (if my math is right, that would yield 400mm focal equivalent) and a few hundred high res raw frames for stitching. I am quite curious about the result... Only problem, I have no idea what to shoot!! Forrests and trees? My next door neighbour's house and garden? Climb the MAS and shoot the Metropole? The Atomium? The hills of the Flemish Ardennes? The Belfort in Ghent? The botanic gardens in Meise? Brugge die schone? Het Zwin? If you got any suggestions, you are welcome...</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><b>Update:</b> Here's a brand new from this morning (4/6/14). Done with 120 frames in 15 columns and 8 rows. Not too bad but some problems with autofocusing. Some stitching artefacts here and there too. For instance, a ghost car at the far end of Aalststraat as it happened to pass by in the wrong moment. Can you spot a flying black bird somewhere? This time I used the 400mm focal. The shots were too overexposed, and the atmosphere was rainy. Overexposure was justified by the necessary dynamic range to capture detail in the shadow parts of the surrounding trees of the Liefmans Brewery.</span><br />
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Vassily Kritishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07722927725208174562noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2741840658355400085.post-56293876488642494812014-05-24T12:16:00.005+02:002014-05-24T14:02:42.843+02:00How to get a Cinematic look on amateur videos.<div style="text-align: center;">
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Long time ago, when all of a sudden video makers decided to adopt 24 fps as their preferred shooting frame rate, experts alike claimed that it was only by shooting footage at this rate one could get that special cinematic look in his/her work. It sounded peculiar, to say the least. By design, PAL video runs at 25 fps. How could one wee-little fps turn a plain vanilla PAL home video into a film-like experience? What were the ‘physics’ and ‘physiology’ of the human perception that justified that claim? I initially assumed «<i>they’d know better, wouldn’t they?</i>» and went out to shoot at 24 fps too, just like the ‘pros’. Obviously, my shoots with my regular camcorder made my footage look anything but cinematic. Never mind the 24 fps. There must have been something more to it, I concluded. I was initially, in all my modesty, so convinced that ‘they’ were right and ‘I’ was wrong, that I subsequently doubted my own visual perception of films and videos. I seemed to be too ‘incapable’ of experiencing it. I could of course see the difference of ‘film’ based movies vs. regular TV programs, like news, reality TV, sports events, and the like. In general, lightly edited video footage with no special effects, especially news videos, looked very much like footage from better quality security TV cameras, if you know what I mean. Very truthful and real. However, ‘real’ is the single thing that fiction movies on film have never been exactly! Except for documentaries. Viewers see the difference. But still, the claim about the magic properties of 24 fps remained quite intriguing to me. Would that be any true at all? Were there ‘experts’ out there seeing the difference? Or was it again a case of the ‘emperor’s new clothes’? Someone launched the idea and the rest of us simply pretended that we indeed saw the difference... I just couldn’t grasp the logic. To this day, I can’t.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Recently, I decided to explore this further, and watched a training session about the very subject of cinematic look and feel by Videomaker . ‘Make your video look like film’, it was called. And the case was eventually and largely demystified to me.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Let me share here what I learned. The bottom line, there’s much more to the cinematic look than meets the eye. At a given moment, one of the speakers attempted to justify the 24 fps myth, but what he mentioned sounded like Alice in Wonderland rather than being a rational clarification at all. Let’s just forget them 24 fps, then... it’s got nothing to do with the so called ‘cinematic look’. It’s a long line of other reasons that make the difference.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">I’d like to start by making a point about movies. In general, movies are traditionally a lot more disciplined that TV shows. They are not at all like TV ‘live’ events. That includes ‘reality’ shows too. Many of the traditional TV shows, especially the ‘live’ events, albeit well planned in advance to avoid surprise as much as possible, are still spontaneous and unpredictable. Not feature movies and TV series though. These are planned productions, designed, shot, edited and screened by experts long-long before they are released to the general public by the jungle drums of the Production and Distribution companies marcomms apparatus. Like, for years long before that. Movies have a plot and a story to tell, and, above all, an inspired and visionary message by the movie Director. All expressed in the cinematic look, and the atmosphere of the movie. The Director, assisted by the Cinematographer. The duo of ingenious artists, who make all this happen. In other words, movies are like fiction literature. There’s much more, thus, in a movie sequence of scenes, concealed between cuts, acting performances, scripts of narratives and actor body language. In movies, everything happens for a reason. Nothing is accidental or left to sheer chance. Even incidental street crowds are paid extras. However natural and unrelated they might look to us, the viewers.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Live TV programs are not like this. Lighting is abundant and seldom atmospheric, rather fun, happy and gay looking, many simultaneous cameras are handled by operators of cranes, off ground steel wires, dollies and steadycams, cameramen on headphones for receiving instructions about their live shooting, with the stage manager directing mixer panel operators which camera must be ‘on’ at any given moment. Everything is out there, revealed to us all, creating the sense that we, the TV viewers, are actually inside the studio too. That’s what ‘live’ audiences are by design meant to do. They are simple people like the rest of us, sitting in a studio and watching the show first hand. It’s like a theatrical play, but without concealed parts. Everything happens in the rhythms of a live event. In fact, this fundamental difference between live TV shows and feature films (incl. TV series) lies at the basis of what makes something look ‘cinematic’. I think...</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">There are of course quite a few more contributing factors that make a video shoot look cinematic, like 'professional' so to say. Vimeo is abundant with such short film projects by starting and ambitious gifted amateur cinematographers and film Directors. Here are some of these factors, following ‘my personal’ ranking, based on what I heard.</span><br />
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<li><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Depth of Field.</span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Consistent Colour Correction.</span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Colour grading.</span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Camera movements.</span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Cuts.</span></li>
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<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">Everybody among the ‘experts’ seems to agree that the depth of field (DOF) and associated bokeh in footage frames are at the top of the rank of cinematic look contributing factors. Most home video cameras shoot with almost everything shown rather ‘sharp’, especially in long shots, other than zoomed-in close ups. Full frame DSLRs used with a large variety of prime and zoom lenses have changed that look. Canon 5D Mark II and III cameras as well as other popular DSLRs have changed home video for ever, and are now even being used by pro’s for their distinguished handling of the DOF. Thus, satisfying the prime requirement of cinematic look. However, in shootout comparisons between top professional cinema cameras (Red, Arri, Panasonic, Sony, Phantom, etc), produced by Zacuto in 2010, 2011 and 2012, the 5D recorded footage sharpness, object definition, and lens resolution were rather on the ‘lower’ side. This has also to do with the compression applied in-camera, even if the attribute ‘uncompressed’ is used in its codec, as well as the quality of the glass, it goes without saying. I have often created video slide shows based on pictures shot with my 5D MIII and compared them with footage shot with same camera and lenses, in the camera’s native AVCHD compression, and even recorded for better results by an Atomos Ninja Blade external recorder in FCP’s native ProRes 4.2.2. codec. Either way, the delivery format for both (slideshows and video footage) being 1080p for Apple TV devices, I experienced in dismay quite a difference in sharpness and resolution between the two. Meaning that even the HDMI output signal is not capable of providing the resolution that a traditional good quality Canon lens is able to do in regular RAW photography. Good to know. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">When the footage becomes available to post-processing in one of the native codecs handled by Professional video NLEs (non-linear editors) like Avid, Vegas, and Final Cut Pro (FCP), then colour correction and grading become the subsequent cinematic look contributors. Through colour correction and matching one ensures the common look among shots, which is absolutely vital in making a home video look consistent and pro throughout. Colour grading is finally adding to the project’s special ‘atmosphere’. Do you want your ‘film’ to look like <i>The Matrix</i>, or <i>CSI:Miami</i>, or <i>The Minority Report</i>? Or even <i>Django Unchained</i>? There’s a preset for it. Either offered ‘free’ inside the NLE app or by acquiring plugin filters from suppliers like Tiffen. In conclusion, the colour look of a video project is very much a cinematic contributor!</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Camera movements is next. There’s no way your work could look cinematic or professional if your footage is shot in handheld fashion without stabilising equipment at all, and all you can do is zooming-in and -out creating the impression you are shooting in the middle of a 8.0 Richter scale earthquake (especially in the zoom-in stand). Tracking and dolly camera movements add a lot of pro look and feel, especially if your glider/slider is in the vertical position, resembling a ‘crane’ shot, and apparent parallax effects are candidly visible in your shots. Motorised gliding adds even more pro quality.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Slow-motion is an additional bonus. Especially in shots where in part of the shot duration playback gets accelerated by dropping frames (4X is a good start), and the remaing part gets slowed down by the same factor (25%). This look is very pro indeed, and is often shown on TV ads. If a crane effect gets involved too, it becomes even sexier. It’s like your camera flies around a subject pointing to it, very fast indeed, and then brutally engages the slo-mo breaks! I love this style. Nowadays they even sell drones with embedded action cameras that are capable of shooting 60 fps in 1080i/720p. This is a frame rate that by definition, when conformed to 24 fps, offers a very smooth 25% slow-mo without even any added frames interpolation. If you add Twixtor effects to footage like this, then you can easily obtain slow-mo effects of qualities comparable to a Phantom 1000 fps capable professional camera! This is not always true though, as Twixtor often adds induced artefacts. The video mode recommended for best results here is ‘optical flow’. In this mode however, when subsequent renders reveal artefacts, interpolated in-between frames look too artificial and cause the shot to look like ‘morphed’ and unreal. If it wasn't the case, why else should you go spend 100s of thousands of $ on a Phantom, then? Nevertheless, devices like the latest iPhone and point and shooters like the Canon S110 offer descent slow-mo with higher than 60 frame rates, the Canon even creating footage at 240 fps. The S120 offers higher resolution (720p?) but only reaches up to 120 fps. Very cool slow-mo that is, trust me.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Last but not least, it’s the cuts. The real pro look of cuts you can especially observe in multi camera shots of scenes with lots of actor narration. "In the Blink of an eye" is a classic book (Amazon.com) on how to do cuts. Great film editors are distinguished by the ways they handle and resolve them. Cuts are like typography. When they are effective, you'll never notice them. They come simply natural and help the story move on. No more no less. I am personally obsessed with cuts, and I have very little experience about how to do them well. A known Cinematographer (A.S.C. level) offered during the Emmy award Zacuto documentary ‘Light and Shadows’ the following advice: <i>«...always pay attention to other people’s cuts and learn from them. Learn what works and what doesn’t. Try and try again»</i>. One such case is narration with multicam shooting. After syncing the shots, editors offer different perspectives of the same stage by slicing and dicing camera shots and presenting multiple cuts of the event. To show the speaker and his/her listeners, as well as their reactions and body-language. The best cuts occur when a narrator changes sentences. The moment he/she pauses to take a breath. Typically not in the middle of a sentence and definitely never in the middle of a word! Also, cutting on the beat of background music, especially in music videos, is a must!</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">And a final remark about shot duration. Many amateur videos suffer from shots lasting far too long. Like, seconds long, even minutes. This way, home video looks very much like security footage from a CCTV system. Any frames not adding value (additional info) should be thrown away. You should of course record longer shots than you'll use to obtain long enough handles and be able to select the best parts in post, but your selected between cuts duration should be far shorter. Professional editors, especially when cutting narration multicam shots, often keep duration below the 3 secs, with ‘action’ cuts often below one second! I won't be surprised if someone told me that, we, as viewers, are practically able to experience even one single frame shots (!) flashing in front of our eyes. Professional editors do often work in sub second territories for emotional ‘effect’ in action sequences. If you still doubt, use a stopwatch to time them next time you watch a MTV clip, if you can at least, and see how right I am.</span>Vassily Kritishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07722927725208174562noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2741840658355400085.post-64176406296703816682014-05-05T16:30:00.005+02:002014-05-07T08:42:53.371+02:00Amateur video with Pro ambitions<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-QJ2XYAj4kV8/U2ed1qRRzBI/AAAAAAAAFG4/KhitxUyYdD8/s1600/Screen+Shot+2014-05-05+at+16.18.13.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-QJ2XYAj4kV8/U2ed1qRRzBI/AAAAAAAAFG4/KhitxUyYdD8/s1600/Screen+Shot+2014-05-05+at+16.18.13.png" height="320" width="268"></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">5D Mark III with Ninja Blade (shot with an iPhone)</td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Almost 30 years ago I became quite interested in electronics equipment for consumers for shooting home video. My kids had the right age, and the idea that I could 'create' short video clips, and them being able, years later, to watch themselves on TV, provided the necessary motivation to spend a shedload of dough and effort on this feat. It was around 1986-87 when I realised that home video had already been on the market </span><span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">for a few years </span><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">under the VHS recording standard and using rather bulky 'shoulder supported' equipment. I joined the crowd about around the launch by Sony of their own proprietary 8mm capturing system (was it really called that way?), whereby traditional recording technologies were replaced by CCD capture elements that promised far better quality. Anyways, the following ten years I shot a lot of family footage and even edited and created few descent clips with titles and background music and all that, based on analog tape recorder workflows. Although my gear was bulky and quite expensive, its quality was barely 'fine' (very low resolutions, hardly reaching 300+ horizontal lines at best), not to mention the fact that during analog workflows each additional copy of source footage had its quality degraded to the point it couldn't </span><span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">even </span><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">fool a newborn in its cradle... Sheer unacceptable. Also, the </span><span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">lack of</span><span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;"> timecode and </span><span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">genloc </span><span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">capable equipment at consumer prices, absolutely necessary to synchronise two source signals in order to create simple 'resolve' transitions, meant that only plain cuts were possible. As for those cuts, frame accuracy was a dream for the future. We were happy enough with sec accurate cuts... Editing was a handcraft then. You had to know the sec you had to hit the stop and record button. My Gosh, I spent hundreds of hours in frustration.</span><br>
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<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">Nevertheless, even so, the clips came out relatively reasonable (much we knew then) to watch on our TV sets of the time. Happy to watch ourselves on TV was a real motivator to keep us going! Something only the privileged could afford, TV anchors, actors, and artists; reality TV had not been invented yet those days. Those amateur clips look very much like a bad joke compared to what even amateurs of the worst kind can achieve nowadays with little money to spend on equipment. Come to think of it, it's simply beyond imagination the delta achieved in home video </span><span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">quality </span><span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">that we have seen in the last 30 years indeed. This was all made possible of course with the advent of inexpensive computer equipment, digital video processing with affordable capturing hardware and editing software and last but not least, the recent appearance of those big ass HDTV sets, which, in less than ten years, have led to the mercy of junkyards anything related to CRT built TV sets.</span><br>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Indeed, today's 'amateurs' are challenged with a much more luxurious feat of producing video in Full HD (some are even </span><span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">modestly </span><span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">trying the new 4K standard), using relatively inexpensive cameras with possibilities that would only feel like wet dreams to pioneering amateurs like myself, if we were told then what was to come! The 'age of analog' as one could term the 80ies and the 90ies, was one where no digital captures and edits existed (certainly not in the consumer world), everything was recorded on lousy and rather expensive tapes, when quality suffered at least 40% into a first gen copy and 60-70% into the second gen (with the 3rd gen only good for junkyard viewing), when Photoshop and Premiere were slowly and modestly revolutionising the early digital editing space, and when the commercial TV channels worked with Broadcast TV standards that barely provided, if I remember well, any more than 576 lines of horizontal picture resolution, only possible to achieve by using millions worth of studio equipment. It was the video Dark Ages then, it is the Age of video and digital media Enlightenment right now (called Multimedia in the nineties, remember?). Don't ask me what it will be in another ten years, I can't think of anything reasonable to speculate about a future even that close. That's quite true if only </span><span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">one </span><span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">looked at the progress we simply witnessed in the last 4 years, even in the aftermath of our recent financial tsunami.</span><br>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">What we are seeing in today's professional video and movie industry (for ads, SF TV series and feature movies in particular) is the excessive use of a 3D rendered 'reality', making us believe that we are in fact 'seeing' and 'hearing' everyday objects, landscapes, animals, plants and humans, whose only actual 'real existence' are stacks of megabytes in binary storage, interpreted by computer apps and lightening fast hardware. All made by software developers for us to enjoy with our real senses and eventually made to believe they are as 'real' as anything else around us. The new 'reality', call it <i>virtual</i>, <i>fake</i>, <i>augmented</i>, whatever you like, is there to be. It is the intellectual product manufactured by quite an ingenious 3D developer community, who turned their ideas and dreams into factual user-interface outputs that hit our visual and hearing senses as if they existed indeed. In this sense, 'The Matrix' was quite a visionary achievement</span><span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;"> about our world of the future, one has to admit for sure.</span><br>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">If you come to think of it, any given 'amateur' </span><span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">today, </span><span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">with not so terribly deep pockets, but with the right motivation and skills, can simply undertake a low budget video production hands down, which, with the exception of additional 3D rendered reality and effects, can challenge any professional studio otherwise, and that in terms of visual quality of his/her production. Everything is out there to go buy, at least if you know what you're doing, and in case you don't, simply google it. It's not only accessible to the happy few studio professionals, but also to gifted amateurs of all sorts. Full HD and even 4K capable cameras, studio lighting, sliders and gliders, cranes and dollies, professional digital capturing devices, super computers, peta level storage cloud servers, whatever. It's all there to grab, produce, shoot and edit your marvel and put it out there for potentially the whole mankind to watch... Like we saw in that hilarious Korean singer in a video clip that's gone viral not too long ago. YouTube and Vimeo are loaded with self-made productions in the thousands, not to dare say even millions. I don't mean useless smartphone snap amateur video of humans making fool of themselves trying to get their five minutes of fame, but reasonably serious video, with some good footage and maybe a modest plot to go along. A documentary perhaps? You name the stuff you need and Amazon.com with eBay, together with hoards of digital online suppliers simply got what you need and will sell to you for money, delivered to your doorstep 'courtesy' of UPS, DHL, DPD, TNT, and the likes.</span><br>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">A few such specialized items for video capture, normally used by Pro video shooters, are manufactured and sold by ATOMOS. I came across them during a recent Photography Professionals Industry Fair in Brussels. I had no idea what they were talking about and the whole fuss around it. Until I got closer, that is... Their products are simply professional digital recorders that capture directly onto high capacity </span><span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">disks </span><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">(preferably SSD) the video signals of a large variety of video camera equipment, Professional and Prosumer, including many DSLRs. They do this via HDMI or via common for Professional equipment so-called </span><span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">HD-SDI</span><span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;"> connectors. The ATOMOS recorders are basically compressing the captured signals quite loosely or even store them uncompressed. Today's Terabytes are much cheaper than the Gigabytes 15 years ago, so who cares? They typically use Apple's ProRes or Avid's DNxHD codecs, and by so doing they can preserve the maximum possible quality in the video signal, becoming literally the RAW equivalent of video, or, let's say real close. </span><br>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Having recently decided to freshen up and update my video skills after many idle years, and maybe end up shooting some descent video footage again, now that I got plenty of retirement time, I purchased the ATOMOS <a href="http://www.atomos.com/ninja-blade/" target="_blank">Ninja Blade</a> recorder to attach to my 5D Mark III, which is considered to be one of, if not, the best DSLR camera for </span><span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">mobile p</span><span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">rofessional footage capture, admitted even by the industry experts. I have also completed an </span><span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">online </span><span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">Lynda.com course on FCPX fundamentals (a great package FCPX it is, if only you knew how-to use it) and even added Apple's Compressor to my editing kit for my export encodings. I am typically obsessed about image sharpness and resolution, colour quality, and smooth video movement, so I had to try for myself what is practically available in the 'gifted' amateur space to achieve the best possible results. Initially, I struggled a lot to get this stuff working at all, but I've eventually been able to get a result real close to what I hoped for. You can watch a test here for yourselves (it's just a test of my so many). Select its highest HD quality available and preferably watch it full screen on your Mac, or even better on a HDTV set, if it's capable of </span><span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">Youtube playback. Mind you though. YT needs to recompress uploaded footage too, and the quality damage they caused in this test clip is in the range of 25-30 %, I'd argue... So, don't get too excited, my original clip that came out of Compressor configured for the Apple TV device is way better than what you'll watch here! </span><div><br></div><div><iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="//www.youtube.com/embed/q13kctisEic?rel=0" width="560" style="text-align: center; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue Light', HelveticaNeue-Light, helvetica, arial, sans-serif;"></iframe>
</div>Vassily Kritishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07722927725208174562noreply@blogger.com0