dispatches

"Your mind will explode"

So began Mike Gurley, the NW Canon rep, on what still photographers confront in switching to video. ASMP/NW presented a panel presentation on DSLR video for still shooters, and what it looks like now. DSLR video is radically transforming the landscape in ways no one anticipated. “I don't think Canon had a clue what they stepped in,” says Mike.

The panel represented the range of current applications of video: newspaper shooters, wedding videography, corporate, feature film, equipment gurus. Joshua Trujillo, the last man standing at the Seattle PI, actually had his hands on a pre-production 5D, which reflects Canon's original intent for the camera as a tool for journalists. He showed work from a nighttime police patrol, pure run and gun style. And the frame grabs from the footage that were good enough for web and AP.

Casey Warren, of Mindcastle Studios, is doing wedding work that is remarkably cheese-free, and is producing scary-good same-day edits. The production quality of his “instant” videos is stunning. His is the first wedding video work I've seen that isn't drenched in cloying sentiment, and is actually attentive to the sensibility of the couple and the families. I'm going to watch them all and steal the good bits. You should too. 

John Jeffcoat showed one of his MTV $5 Cover documentaries, work you couldn't do any other way except with the new cameras. “The 5D files (at ISO 5000) were too clean, I had to grit them up in Magic Bullet.” 

Stephen McGehee is a DP for commercials, but he showed gorgeous and moving work he shot for the Gates Foundation. Look through the Living Proof series of videos. 

Bob Peterson talked about what he learned as a director from others who knew more than he did on how to structure scene changes. Kevin Kruff remarked on the ability to leverage your current clients into video work. You don't have to switch careers and client bases. I concur; it's the tactic I'm pursuing in my switch. Marty Oppenheimer reminded us that old school technique is still king. The cameras aren't replacing the need for production quality and production quality tools.

It was one of the best ASMP panels I've been to in years. Good on them. 

Being present, his and hers

  

It's day one of a trip through the eastern Washington desert. Robin and I had an interesting discussion tonight about being present in the moment together, and how differently we do it. 

Mine is a mediated engagement. I carry a camera. I carry binoculars. I intently engage what I am seeing, and I feel the most available to the moment by this activated attention toward it. At its best, it feels deeply trancelike and meditative. But it's a deliberate attentiveness, a journey through the moment   to somewhere else, a little like effortlessly pulling oars through water. I am moving through the moment, working out visual complexities through the camera, or focused on acquiring the identity of a faint chip I hear in the canopy high overhead. I am engaged in making something from the moment.

It can be hard for me to detect just what my partner is experiencing. She carries nothing but herself, and there is often no outward sign save when I can detect pleasure on her face when the moment is particularly nice. She is the first to admit that the dynamic range of her emotional responsiveness is much less than mine. We talked over dinner about our differences.

Most of the time, she's sensing and attending to all the sensory input of the moment in an aware, watchful manner. But it's not reactive. It's not all encompassing and engaging in the way it is for me. 

“It's because you're an introvert and an artist,” she said. “You have so much more internal sensation than I do. You have an intense emotional response to everything you see. I see what's there. I respond, but not emotionally.”

“Then how do you know you're responding?”

“That's it exactly.”

“I'm an extrovert,” she continued. “I see the objects, the relationships, the textures, I hear the sounds, feel the internal and external sensations but I don't much notice my response to it. If it's a narrative about something or an interaction with a person who is having a feeling, I'll have an emotional response. Otherwise, I notice what's there, not my response. You're an introvert, you notice how you feel about the light falling on something. You're too busy feeling inside to notice where you are.”

“That's why I always know which way to turn when we leave the hotel room, and you don't.”

Latest video

I am relatively new to video, about 2 years in. I'm beginning to find my voice in this medium, and to come to grips with the technical demands. Some people think I'm doing a great job, like my clients. But there is no video I've done yet where I don't see a gaggle of mistakes and regrets. 

It's not that I'm a perfectionist—one look at my output will disabuse any possibility of that being my issue. I welcome mistakes and failures. It's how I figure things out. I have a lot of footage that will never see the light of day. I have, just barely (by my standards) enough of a handle on the medium to charge good money for what I do, but I'm still on the steep pitch of the learning cycle.

Today's piece was one of that series of personal videos I do of music and dance, an arena which is dear to my heart and soul. I used two cameras and separate audio capture. One camera I clamped to a wall brace with a Magic Arm. The other was for all the cutaways.

I have this habit that a lot of still-to-video photographers have, of forgetting that when the video button is on, it's not a still camera. I scan and move way too much, in the way you seek a vantage point when you're looking for the photo. I should have been on a tripod for a lot of this footage, but I couldn't be bothered. I have this fantastic Manfrotto fluid head, self leveling rig on a Gitzo pod, but it's big and heavy and it was a crowded room. I should have brought over my lightweight pod with the ballhead, even though you're not supposed to use a video camera on a ballhead. But it would have been the right choice over the Blair Witch alternative.

In video school they tell you to count to ten on any take. Keep the camera still, let the moment unfold. That is so counter-instinctual to my usual M. O., and I have to face the consequences every time I edit a piece. Facing the consequences is a good argument for being your own editor. It makes you a better videographer.

None the less, I think the feeling comes through, which is the point. Video is so fantastic for communicating feeling, and that's why I keep banging my head against this compelling wall.

Snow Leopard broke printing

Finally, it's not just me saying that. Ctein over on TOP says the same thing. He knows way more than you or me, so listen up.

http://bit.ly/ddX3C6