Industrial Light and Magic

April 9, 2002 2:28 PM

Industrial Light and Magic has released a new plugin to After Effects that may finally bridge the gap between DV post production and film post production. Of course, DV Cameras are just the less expensive counterpart of their film brethren. With such technology at the hands of amateurs, does this mean the home camcorder will no longer be used for just remembering birthday parties? Will amateurs be able to finally express themselves in ways only professionals have done in the past? This is certainly being set up as much a revolution for the amateur artist as the web was.
posted by geoff. (31 comments total)

Industrial Light and Magic hasn't released anything, except some former employees. Those former employees founded a company called The Orphanage, which in turn released "Magic Bullet," the software package you're talking about (as is spelled out in the link's first paragraph...). They'd probably be bummed to see ILM getting credit for their work four or five years after they left!
posted by precipice at 2:43 PM on April 9, 2002

(oh! Hey, geoff. You should know better! ;)
posted by precipice at 2:47 PM on April 9, 2002

Oops, that's a bad mistake. What's more embarrassing is how I combed the article to make sure I got all my facts right.
posted by geoff. at 2:59 PM on April 9, 2002

Of course, DV Cameras are just the less expensive counterpart of their film brethren

Not quite. For a couple reasons. First and foremost being that you can't add resolution to a picture. A DV camera only has the capacity to record a picture that has a fraction of the resolution of film.

Changing the frame rate and color correction will help, but only as much as one would be able to help shooting a film on a crappy old reel. But more importantly, the people shooting films on DV cameras will need to learn how to shoot like a professional, with regard to lighting, composition, sound, and for god's sake, direction. Technology is no replacement for talent.
posted by macadamiaranch at 3:00 PM on April 9, 2002

The Orphanage's web page, which is lacking much information about Magic Bullet.

mac, true technology is no replacement for talent and true the reel isn't the same quality as DV, but a lot of amateurs have talent and they were previously being hindered by $30,000 dollar cameras and ungodly priced equipment.

Home video cameras are quickly catching up in quality (many commercials and the movies Bamboozled and Tape are being shot in DV). A $5,000 set up can yield amazing results to teens or amateurs who previously couldn't accomplish anything beyond the basic point and shoot.

Oh, and JVC is coming out with a new 24fps DV camera with what they claim is broadcast quality ccds.
posted by geoff. at 3:08 PM on April 9, 2002

A $5,000 set up can yield amazing results to teens or amateurs who previously couldn't accomplish anything beyond the basic point and shoot.

I made a pretty damn good short film this summer using a $700 DV camera, $100 firewire card that came with a demo version of MGI Videowave 3 and about $400 in props and gasoline (it was a 'road' movie). Oh yeah, my PC cost $1K but I use it for other stuff too. The image quality is fantastic even on the 65" home theater screen where the film debuted!
posted by plaino at 3:30 PM on April 9, 2002

Funny, I spent the past week playing with a Canon XL1. I certainly wouldn't call the thing "cheap," but it was a dream to work with. I'm neither a film student nor an A/V geek, but I can see how equipment like this, combined with straightforward software like Adobe Premiere or iMovie will take the quality of amateur films up a notch.
posted by Eamon at 6:19 PM on April 9, 2002

I think quality sometimes gets lost in the hype. I'm always amazed at professionals who can afford something better, yet choose to shoot on miniDV and blow it up to 35mm film. Then they behave as though it actually looked good. NTSC-based formats just look awful on the big screen. I'm stunned that anyone would think otherwise.

I was making and editing videos back when it was all done with analog two-tape machines, and I never kidded myself that it was anything but a home video. People who talk about miniDV stuff "rivaling" professional quality work are smoking something.
posted by Potsy at 6:30 PM on April 9, 2002

Next generation of cameras...I swear....next generation..

In 10 years, and this is an extremely conservative estimate, film will be mostly replaced in theatres and almost completely for photography. Not viable yet....can't do 60 megapixel contact prints...but the technology is on the brink.

Hell, in 10 years we won't need software to smooth out our video. This, however, in the mean time, looks amazing. And although I doubt it can look as good as film, I'd think it'd make DV shots consistantly film-like.
Looking for screenshots.
posted by Settle at 6:48 PM on April 9, 2002

heh. that anamorph video? When I was in New York visiting the creators roomate (a friend of mine), he was there, and a friend i brought with me taught him how to play iron man on a xylophone. yay for random connections.
posted by atom128 at 7:07 PM on April 9, 2002

atom, do you know what tools he uses? Are they just standard, After Effects, Combustion, Premiere? The video is amazing I think. I don't even know how to begin to do that stuff and there is very little information (book or web) on how to create such effects.
posted by geoff. at 8:36 PM on April 9, 2002

yea, actually, he does just use regular tools as far as I know. After Effects I know was used very heavily, and the vector animations were imported flash movies. Didn't really think about it till now, but theres a bit of irony in linking him as the professional here, since I'm pretty sure he used a DV cam for that thing. He's just very very good at what he does. as for books, try checking the friends of ed books, I've heard good things about them.

Also, if you want you can email me (i think my address is in my profile), as I've tried my hand at doing that sort of thing myself, albiet to not quite as impressive results as found in Anamorph.
posted by atom128 at 9:40 PM on April 9, 2002

messed up on the oh so not mefi kosher self link. ohh bah. one more try
posted by atom128 at 9:41 PM on April 9, 2002

This issue is of great concern to me (film vs. video). Eventually, video technology will rival film quality and then surpass it, but it is nowhere near that stage today, not even HD. Yet some people estimate that the majority of films shown at Sundance and other festivals are now DV. My concern is that everyone is jumping on the video wagon too soon. The real bust-up will come if theatres continue installing HD systems. You wind up with picture quality that rivals - well, home HDTVs. Ebert seems to think that film and video trigger different mental states, and while I don't know a lot about that, having the same kit at home is going make a few people wonder why they should go to the cinema at all. Voila, end of film. Replaced by: TV. Whereas if we just wait a few years before getting all hopped up on video, we may wind up with something better than film, picture quality wise.
posted by D at 9:46 PM on April 9, 2002

To think about DV as a replacement for 35mm film projected on the big screen is to miss the point of DV. Most production is intended for broadcast or broadband distribution, and for that, DV is perfect. Most pros use AfterEffects now. Not only because it's powerful, but because it's on the desktop. I even carry a full production copy on my laptop.
posted by melgx at 9:54 PM on April 9, 2002

I've been pretty deeply immersed in DV for about five years as a filmmaker and toolmaker. Quite a few people think of "film-look" is the holy grail of DV filmmaking. While it's a nice look, it's probably immediately comparable to the grunge-design of 1992-95, where print designers subjugated the computer to creating organic (messy?) designs.

For aspiring independent filmmakers the difference ultimately comes down to cost. Film is incredibly expensive. The cost of stock, developing, videotape transfer and workprint for 30 minutes of 16mm color film (realistically not enough for a 15 minute short) is about the same cost as an entry-level iMac. Considering that the film will probably be edited on a computer non-linear setup and the finished result screened on TV (almost always), shooting DV can mean the difference between making one movie or making a dozen. For some, the relatively low entry cost of DV means they will be able to make a movie at all.

The real revolution of DV has only begun to happen. Television is more powerful than the printed word. Now almost anyone can tell a story or expose an injustice (there's no shortage of injustices). There are TVs in every corner of the world. In many places people have televisions even though they don't have plumbing or telephones. TV is the modern campfire, the burning bush from the Bible; TV talks and people listen. The power of television is shifting, the voice is changing.

The real revolution is in the multiplicity of viewpoints. When there was the big wilding incident at the Puerto Rican Day parade in NYC a few years back the guilty were identified because their faces appeared on multiple independent video tapes. There is truth in multiple viewpoints. The more cameras the more we know. The morning of September 11th, I walked outside before the second plane hit and noticed the steady flow of people heading downtown with tons of different cameras. Very few actual newscrews recorded the second plane hitting the world trade center but hundreds of people with DV cameras did. The video of the first plane and subsequent 9-11 CBS special were filmed with an XL-1.

Recording augments memory. When every person in a crowd has their viewpoint recorded, we can see as the crowd. I find hope in this.
posted by joemaller at 10:11 PM on April 9, 2002

Soon, in a future paradise, everyone will make crappy lightsaber movies.

What I don't understand is the rush to digital. I blame Lucas, as anyone really should for this onslaught of digital crap. If the new Star Wars movies are any indication of how digital technology enables garbage, we have a lot to worry about.

In Ebert's latest Movie Answer Man, he relays how one critic thought a movie was shot on DV because it was all fucked up. Turns out it was the digital projector.

Everyone on the "in 10 years digital will be just as good as film!" bandwagon seems to ignore the fact that it'll take 10 years for DV to get to where film already is. And who's to say that DV could ever replace the feeling of film? Light projected through a celluloid strip just feels better than pixels.

The only people interested in seeing DV replace 35mm film are George Lucas (nice obvious greenscreen in that trailer, Goiter Boy) and studio execs who are tired of print costs.

Oh, and you can bet your bottom dollar that Bamboozled and Tape weren't shot on $500 cameras.
posted by solistrato at 10:14 PM on April 9, 2002

The "grunge" analogy is perfect Joe. And for those who believe digital projection just isn't the same, the only way you could possible recognize the difference between a digital and film projection would be if there were no dirt or hair on the print. Remember, digital images come in a variety of formats and resolutions of which DV is only one. Digital Cinema, an emerging standard, is larger than the HDTV format of 1920 x 1080.
posted by melgx at 10:38 PM on April 9, 2002

Potsy: I'm always amazed at professionals who can afford something better, yet choose to shoot on miniDV and blow it up to 35mm film. Then they behave as though it actually looked good. NTSC-based formats just look awful on the big screen.

Isn't NTSC completely different from DV?
posted by bingo at 10:50 PM on April 9, 2002

NTSC is a standard to which DV conforms. If one were to buy a DV camera in Europe, it would conform to the PAL standard, but would still be considered DV.
posted by melgx at 10:56 PM on April 9, 2002

I think it's even more complicated than that. NTSC has a fixed resolution, and surely some DV cameras exceed it.
posted by bingo at 11:13 PM on April 9, 2002

What's the resolution of the "Digital Cinema" standard?
posted by D at 7:10 AM on April 10, 2002

Bamboozled and Tape weren't shot on $500 cameras.
I haven't seen either of these, but The Anniversary Party was shot on a Sony DSR-500 (list price $16,799) and I thought it looked terrible.
posted by Dean King at 7:30 AM on April 10, 2002

Everyone on the "in 10 years digital will be just as good as film!" bandwagon seems to ignore the fact that it'll take 10 years for DV to get to where film already is.

I don't think anybody's ignoring this -- they're just imagining what the quality of DV will be like 20 years from now, after it exceeds that of film.

And who's to say that DV could ever replace the feeling of film? Light projected through a celluloid strip just feels better than pixels.

I believer the theory that a sufficiently powerful computer can emulate anything. Granted, it will take a while to get there, but be patient. When pixels become smaller than the grain of film, pixels will feel better than light projected through a celluloid strip.
posted by Eamon at 8:01 AM on April 10, 2002

Isn't this essentially just another bunch of film look plug-ins? While they may be cleverer than some of those that have gone before, what they describe doesn't really sound that new or innovative.

UK television went through a phase a couple of years back where they would apply a film look to programmes, de-interlacing and frame rate fiddling with the footage and then colour correcting it to look similar to film. The colour correction wasn't too bad (especially if you're fond of deep blues), but the de-interlacing and frame rate fiddling resulted in jerky and sometimes flickering pictures. After lots of viewer complaints they seem to have now mostly given up on the technique.

If the final output was film I could perhaps see the point, but when it's just ending up on video it's just throwing away information for no good reason. If you really want a decent film look, shoot on film, convert that to DV, edit that on a desktop system and then if you get a distribution deal then it's the time to edit the original to your cut list.
posted by kerplunk at 8:06 AM on April 10, 2002

btw: Steven Soderbergh shot his latest on a Canon XL1S DV camcorder. Breathless press release here, may be interesting to those who are interested.
posted by Dean King at 2:39 PM on April 10, 2002

This is a good thread. I think there should be some sort of MeFi filmmaker mailing list or egroup. Email me if you're interested.
posted by bingo at 3:58 PM on April 10, 2002

I think it's even more complicated than that. NTSC has a fixed resolution, and surely some DV cameras exceed it.

DV NTSC is 720x480(486) at 29.97fps
DV PAL is 720x576 at 25fps
PAL and NTSC pixels are non-square so the resulting frame sizes are both equivalent to 540 pixels tall.

Cameras may have more resolution than that, but whatever they shoot has to be dumbed down to those specs to be considered DV. DVCAM and DVCPro are mostly durability variations which use the same image size. DV cameras do sometimes record colors outside the legal broadcast space, but there was room engineered into the formats to accomodate this. I don't personally think it's too much of an issue, and can be easily fixed when making duplicate tapes. (of course everyone is switching to DVDs thanks to Apple)

Bingo, if you get a group going let me know.
posted by joemaller at 10:38 PM on April 10, 2002

Cameras may have more resolution than that, but whatever they shoot has to be dumbed down to those specs to be considered DV.

...then what is it called if it isn't dumbed down to those specs?
posted by bingo at 9:24 AM on April 11, 2002

a) Still in the camera
b) not recorded
c) a still image
d) non-standard something-or-other
posted by joemaller at 9:51 PM on April 11, 2002

Yeah, it's the d) that bothers me. I'm pretty sure you can have a moving digital image that doesn't conform to NTSC standards.
posted by bingo at 12:12 AM on April 15, 2002