Heavy Digital

A Boston-based Video Production Company

Will Filmmaking Be No More?

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According to this article on Creative Cow Magazine ARRI, Panavision and Aaton have ceased production on their film cameras to focus solely on digital video cameras.

I suppose this shouldn’t come as too much of a surprise to anyone, and frankly, I welcome the change. I’ve always had a love of film, and more specifically cinema; there’s something special about the look of film, with the shallow depth of field resulting in beautiful bokeh, saturated colors, the fine grain and everything else that makes up the cinematic experience. The catch is, that for the most part, the industry has been moving away from film for years, proving over and over that digital is here to stay.

We’ve all heard about the cameras that RED has been putting out, but a slightly quieter revolution has been brewing with the usage of DSLR still cameras, which in recent years have started being equipped with Full 1080p HD video capabilities.

As I said, I love the look of film, and I don’t have to lose that just because film cameras are no longer being produced. Thankfully, with technology rapidly changing, DSLR cameras with CMOS sensors have enabled everyone to have the ability to record film-quality video with a wide range of options available. My current rig, a Canon EOS 60D with a set of prime lenses, including a Tokina 11-16/2.8 AT-X 116 PRO DX Ultrawide, a Sigma 30mm f/1.4 EX DC HSM Wide and a Sigma 50mm f/1.4 EX DG HSM Standard give me that beautiful bokeh, while post-production software like Red Giant Magic Bullet Suite allows me to dial in the look of any number of film stocks. The cost of all of this gear is minuscule when compared to a full film camera setup, even before you consider the cost of buying and processing reels and reels of film stock.

It’s also important to note that the CMOS sensor in a 1.6 crop sensor camera is roughly equivalent to a frame of Super 35mm film, as show in the chart to the left. This is why you’re starting to see many independent and small to mid-size production houses utilize these DSLR cameras for their shoots, as they are highly cost effective and allow significant savings to be passed along to the client which is a huge bonus in today’s competitive marketplace.

Truth be told, there are some drawbacks to using a DSLR as a video platform, because there are limitations due to the fact that it isn’t a fully featured camera. In the future you will see a whole new generation of video cameras with large CMOS sensors, as well as all of the features we already associate with professional video cameras, including XLR inputs, zebra striping, longer record times, etc. One of the early cameras of this nature to hit the market is the Canon XA10. Of course, this isn’t without it’s drawbacks, as it uses the AVCHD codec, which is not ideal for processional videography wor, and the lack of interchangeable lenses is a negative for many. That said, it’s still a wonderful camera and is just a preview of things to come.

It’s good to see the big boys like Panavision and ARRI joining the digital bandwagon. Now, the only question, at least for me, is when the dust settles, will we still call it filmmaking?

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It’s funny sometimes how much synchronicity there is in our lives. A couple weeks ago I was perusing the StudioPress Developer Resources and happened across a couple articles, How to Use the Genesis Grid Loop and Genesis Grid Loop Advanced, which explained the finer points of the new Grid Loop in Genesis 1.5.

As it was, I also happened to have a client project at the time which required a grid type layout for some posts in various templates. The site was fairly complex, with multiple templates required for different parts of the site, and my approach was to have multiple widget areas to display the Genesis Featured Pages & Posts widgets. This was all well and good for the list type display elements, but unfortunately the plugins didn’t have the capability to display anything other than that, and I had been racking my brain trying to figure out what I could do to address this issue. Needless to say, seeing the grid tutorials was quite fortuitous.

My first instinct was to search around and see if StudioPress or anyone else had already developed a grid plugin. Unfortunately it seems that one hasn’t been rolled out yet. I could have hard coded the grid formatting into the theme, like in the tutorials, but I’m not a big fan of reinventing the wheel, and it seems that there is potential for this to be reused over and over again, so I decided to create a widget.

The plugin itself is really straightforward. It’s based on the code from the Genesis Featured Posts plugin, but has been modified to assign odd and even style classes to each post, and inserts a new style sheet reference into the header with the proper CSS for aligning the grid. Simple yet elegant. If you’d like more information click over to the Genesis Featured Grid page I set up here.

I’ve submitted it to the WordPress.org Plugin Respository, so feel free to download it and give it a whirl. It requires the Genesis Framework already be installed on your server, and if you don’t have it, you may purchase it directly from StudioPress.

As I said, it’s pretty basic right now, and is limited to two posts across. I intend to update it in the future to allow the user to select different grid sizes, but alas, more client work calls first.

As with all Genesis Framework content, it is released under the GPL, so tinker with the code to your hearts content. I’d love to see what you come up with!

I really love getting feedback, so please feel free to post any comments or suggestions for future revisions below!

Download Now

http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/genesis-featured-grid

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Congratulations, your website is now up and running on the latest version of WordPress, the most popular blogging and content management system in the world, and the preferred CMS of Heavy Digital Creative.

This is intended for the you, the end user, to guide you through the basics of adding and editing posts and pages on your new site.

Note to Clients, Fellow Designers and Developers: This guide is a work in progress. Please comment or email me and provide feedback on how this can be improved. If you need to know something that is missing here, please let me know!

Required Information

  • Admin URL – The address provided to you for site maintenance. (http://www.yoursite.com/wp-admin/)
  • Username & Password – We will provide this to you

Topics

The Dashboard

The WordPress Dashboard is the home base of your website, and provides information and links to control various aspects of your website.

Posts & Pages

The content that is seen on your site can be divided into two categories: “Posts” and “Pages“. They behave similarly to each other, but there are some differences that should be understood.

Posts are the bread and butter of most WordPress installations. They are used primarily for more fluid forms of content, such as blog entries, new updates, articles and other items that are meant to be displayed at a certain period in time and then superceded by new information.

While posts are fluid, Pages are static. They are utilized for content that stays unchanged over time, such as an About Me page, biographies, contact information and other things of that nature.

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Today, I want to talk about something sort of dry, but something that I find is often overlooked. Lightbulbs.

That’s right, lightbulbs.

As a visual artist producing through a fully digital workflow, I pay very close attention to the images on the screen in front of me, and I’m sure the same is true for you. I also spend a great deal of time working from my home office, so it should be no surprise that for a long while, I had regular CFL lightbulbs throughout my house, including my office. Makes sense right?

What never occurred to me for a long time was the way home lighting was affecting my work. You see, “normal” home lights give off a very unnatural cast, and as such really aren’t suitable for any type of visual work. I mean, we spend hundreds, sometimes thousands of dollars on monitors, calibration tools and software, color correction filters, and other countless items to ensure the images on screen represent the images on the television or the printed page, yet, if you are like I was, the lighting in your office was less than stellar, but even moreso, was working to undo all of the meticulous calibrations and calculations you have done.

I came to this revelation while talking to my friend, who had invested in some natural light bulbs, not for the reasons listed above, but rather because he found himself suffering from a pretty severe bout of the winter blues, and if you’ve been in Boston anytime this winter I’m sure you could commiserate. He got some of the full spectrum bulbs, and has felt devoid of the winter blah’s ever since.

As soon as we had this conversation a lightbulb went off (See what I did there?). After doing some research, I decided to invest in some Phillips 5000K Full Spectrum Bulbs, and the difference is astounding.

I still have “normal” CFL bulbs in an adjacent room, and looking out the door of my office the other room has a very noticeable orange cast, while my office is purely lit by white light. As an aside, while it is difficult to quantify, I definitely feel better overall than I did with traditional lighting, so maybe there’s something to this full spectrum thing beyond the benefits to visual artists.

While alot of the major design studios have long known this, I feel like it’s something that slips past us sometimes, and a small investment can go a long way in improving your work, as well as your demeanor. Try it out, and you’ll see your work, and your world, in a whole new light!