Broadcast & Video Expo

A couple of weeks ago I attended the annual Broadcast & Video Expo, the UK’s only event dedicated to technology within the broadcast, video and new media worlds. It was an opportunity to check out the latest video technologies and make contact with the industry’s key players and innovators.

Highlights included demonstrations of RED, a new digital camera system with incredibly high resolutions, and the latest incarnation of Adobe Creative Suite, CS4.

The RED camera system is capable of recording at resolutions of up to 4096 horizontal by 2304 vertical pixels (to put this into perspective, standard High-Definition has a resolution of 1920 by 1080). The exciting thing about RED is the relatively low cost and weight, considering its high resolution and image quality. The camera was introduced by the producers of the TV series “Wallander”, who made extensive use of the system throughout the production process.

As exciting a prospect is Adobe CS4, which includes essential video software like Premier Pro (for editing footage), After Effects (for creating stylish animated sequences) and Encore (for authoring DVDs). The new offering is very streamlined, allowing for dynamic, on-the-fly swapping of video sequences between the programs without the need for any rendering. It also offers a ‘media encoder’ applet independent of the programs, in which anything that needs rendering or encoding can be dumped and left to tick over in the background. For one that has spent many an hour staring at render bars this is a huge benefit.

There were many other demonstrations and seminars in addition to these – in fact, too many to see all of them. Next year I’ll have to get there even earlier!

Tom

Advent of the Online Video

Judson Laipply’s ‘Evolution of Dance’ video has been viewed online over 112 million times – and that’s just on Youtube. ‘Charlie bit my finger’, an innocuous video in which baby Charlie bites his brother’s finger and giggles afterwards, has been viewed 77 million times. And a 5-second clip of a chipmunk with a seemingly startled expression has close to 13 million views.

The list of internet video phenomena is a long and strange one. They all come from the same place: no marketing, no production budget – usually, no planning at all! Beyond the whimsical charm of these videos, and their incredible viewing figures, they speak volumes about what online delivery has done to video in general.

Bandwidth constraints on uploading and downloading mean that a lot of online videos are seen at low quality. Youtube converts all uploaded video files to Flash (.flv) format, which leads to inevitable declines in quality. Yet even with the option to download high quality files, most users wouldn’t have the patience to do this. Quality is not the major concern for the online viewer – it’s all about the idea. A video will rise and fall on the strength of its idea, how funny or bizarre it is and, accordingly, whether it has mass appeal.

Popular video virals also spawn ‘remixes’ and ‘mash ups’ with other topical icons. A little searching reveals an ‘Evolution of Dance’ starring Optimus Prime, of the Transformers franchise, a video entitled ‘Charlie bit Sarah Palin’ and a mash up of the dramatic chipmunk and Michael Jackson’s ‘Thriller’. While these videos haven’t been viewed as many times as the originals, they still reach incredible numbers (the Thriller chipmunk currently has 700,000 views). What this shows is that we are no longer passive viewers, but actively recycle and recreate what we see and enjoy. Video is no longer controlled by a small group of people with extensive training and high-tech equipment.

The media and advertising sectors have recognized the potential gains of online video, particularly the viral. If successful, a video viral will cost very little to make yet have wide exposure. There isn’t even a need to market the video. If they’re working well, virals – true to their name – will spread throughout the Internet all by themselves.

However, before businesses jump on the bandwagon they should consider two important points. First, virals and the potential responses to them are not especially open to being commercialised. Many have a subversive tone, inappropriate for broadcasting corporate messages. Indeed, reactions to an ‘Evolution of Dance’ sponsored by Pepsi would probably be negative. Furthermore, if a corporate-sponsored viral is unleashed, the creators should have every expectation that it will be warped by viewers – perhaps even turned against them.

Second, it is very difficult to predict which ideas will take off. The successful virals have the fascinating effect of snowballing – eventually their attraction becomes the fact they’ve been viewed so many times. It’s an online version of our natural instinct to be drawn to the crowd surrounding a street performer – we reason that if something is of that much interest, it must be important to us too. In theory, any video could begin to snowball – there is no sure-fire hit.

Considering Youtube has only been around since 2005, it is hard to imagine what video and its delivery will look like in five, ten… twenty years’ time. I can’t wait to see the ‘Evolution of Video’ viral on the Youtube of the future.

Tom

World in Motion

Welcome to World in Motion, the video segment of the TVF Communications blog. It is here that Nick and I will be discussing all things video: the latest technological innovations, filmmaking practices and terminology, and our experiences on the job.

Video makes up a large part of the work we do in the Studio – given its constant evolution, we make sure we keep on top (and ultimately take advantage) of any major developments. We’re interested in new and emerging technologies, such as Blu-ray and high-definition (HD) systems, as well as the changing ways in which we transmit and receive video. We’ll also be looking at how these advances have influenced the development of the industry and in particular medical communications, and their possible impact in the future.

Look out for our next update, which will kick off the World in Motion series. Before we sign off though, we’ll leave you with the first of many video ‘jargon busters’…

Crossing the line

During filming, a basic guideline states that two characters in a given scene should maintain a fixed left¬–right relationship with one another; the camera shouldn’t pass over the imaginary axis determining their relative positions on screen – i.e. cross the line. Crossing the line leads to a reverse angle, where the characters’ positions are inverted.

Crossing the line can create a number of problems, not least revealing filming equipment and crew that were previously off shot. It can also be very disorienting for the viewer due to the inevitable changes in lighting, backdrop and position.

As with any guideline, however, exceptions can be found. A director may deliberately cross the line to disorientate the audience, or rotate the camera around two characters, crossing the line multiple times, for dramatic effect.

Tom