Obama's Inauguration in Incredible Detail

Technology can be truly amazing. Take this image, for example. David Bergman, a professional photographer,while standing on the north press platform during President Obama's inaugural address on January 20 took 220 images which were knitted together for a final image size of almost 59,783 x 24,658 pixels, for a total of 1,474 megapixels.  

You can zoom in and see the smallest detail in sharp focus such as Yo-Yo Ma photographing the scene with his iPhone. 

Or you can see Justice Clarence Thomas catching a few zzzz's. It's the "Where's Waldo?" of Inaugurations.

Let's Make a Movie

We had a wonderful time filming and creating a movie trailer for Emily and Danny who were married at the Ritz at Half Moon Bay last month.  We never do it alone.  Here are some of the fine cast of characters:

Venue:  Ritz Carlton at Half Moon Bay, Tony White

Coordinator:  Jubilee Lau Events, Jubilee Lau

Beauty:  Faces by Taylor, Taylor Pham

Cake: Elegant Cheesecakes, Susan Morgan

Invitations:  Peculiar Pair, Mary Beth Fiorentino, Amy Hayson 

Here is the piece:

I thought you, dear reader, would like to know what goes on behind the scenes to create even a 3-minute piece like this.

Behind the Scenes 

1.  When we saw Emily & Danny's logo, we thought it was very nice.  So we asked for and received the Illustrator files of the logo from Peculiar Pair Press and animated Emily and Danny's logo.

2.  Emily's Mom and Dad were at the second story window looking out.  The window was too blue, due to the reflection of the sky and ocean.  Chuck masked the window and color corrected it so their skin tones looked normal. He then gave a different color correction to the area outside the window so it matched the other images of the exterior of the building.  Then, he did the same thing for each FRAME (there are 30 frames per second).  We color correct pretty much every clip in the entire wedding movie.  This adds 2-3 weeks of effort.  We also modulate and "sweeten" the sound throughout a wedding movie.

3.  Emily and Danny asked us to do a time lapse of empty to full seats.  Since this was the weekend of the women's golf tournament, we could not leave a camera outdoors unattended.  So, at our own expense we hired someone to "camera sit" just to get that 3-second shot.

4.  After the bridesmaids walked down the aisle and Emily was waiting alone in the foyer, we finally saw a bit of her nervousness.  It was charming. 

5.  By coming to every rehearsal (no extra charge), we know what is going to happen and when.  So, we were in the best positions to catch Emily hugging her in-laws and Danny hugging his in-laws.

6.  Chuck caught Emily's favorite uncle sketching at the rehearsal.  He finished the drawing during the ceremony.  We were able to scale the sketch to create the maximum impact when we dissolved from the sketch to real life.  This impact can only be achieved in a moving picture medium.  A photo in an album would not convey the same dynamic feeling nor the emotions it creates.  This unexpected event inspired the opening and closing scenes of this piece.  Chuck bought a special piece of software to create a look that was similar to the Uncle's artistic style.

7.  During the table toasts, we wanted a specific look.  It was very dark in the ballroom, so we needed small (20 watt) lights.  Instead of having them mounted on the camera which would light people from the front, giving an unflattering flat look, our assistant was lighting each scene from the side, for a softer and more sophisticated look - still using only a 20-watt light.  We aim to be unobtrusive.  In fact Emily's parents thought Chuck was the only cinematographer there.  They never saw me or our assistant!  And the only reason they saw him was because he was in the foyer with them just before they walked down the aisle.

8.  We went back to the Ritz and filmed the ocean scenes on a non-wedding day.

9.  The scene where the camera pulls back from a couple standing at the window watching the sunset?  It was shot much earlier in the day when the sky was blue.  Chuck color graded it to look like it occurred at sunset to match the other images immediately prior.

10.  Because Emily and Danny are real foodies, we made special arrangements in advance with the staff at the Ritz to be able to film the food preparation without interfering in the flow of their work.

11.  We knew the photo booth would be a centerpiece of the reception.  So, the week before the wedding we spent several hours experimenting to determine the best combination of strobe flashes per second, direction of  supplemental lighting, and a few other factors which matched the photo booth flashes best.  So, on the wedding night, we were able to flash our strobes for less than 3 minutes total time.  Everyone thought the strobes were the band's mood lights.

12.  We asked for and received the DVD of all 663 photo booth images.  We combed through every one of them to find the ones that matched our footage and found some additional ones that had a lot of energy.

13.  We strongly suggest couples engage us until the end of the evening because you never know when great moments will happen.  The bride's cousin started break dancing.  This occurred after the end of our contracted time. We had packed up and were ready to go.  Nevertheless, we grabbed a camera and shot this scene.

14.  In order to know what images we need, we storyboard a short piece like this.  That takes hours. We allow for whatever will happen at a ceremony, but we need to think through transitional elements in advance to make it happen. For example, we knew we would need to film a steadicam shot entering the front of the Ritz and a steadicam shot following a couple out to the gazebo area.  So, we scheduled a specific time to capture these images.

15.  We have close-up and wide shots, camera angles that are on the ground and way overhead.  There are small, well considered camera moves and there are times we hold the camera steady.  It is a matter of knowing when to use each of these techniques, and knowing when to be still.

16.  And, we need to know who are the key people and capture them without fail.

17.  We looked at over 500 pieces of music to find the one that had the right beat and mood to match Emily and Danny's personalities AND match the images we brought back.

How Many Film Industry People Does It Take to Screw in a Lightbulb?

Have you ever wondered how many people it takes to make a movie?  I ran across a blog called Film Industry Bloggers.  Every day of the week, except Sunday, five to six film industry specialists blog about topics of interest to them.  They have 32 bloggers in all.

How does this relate to what we do?  Chuck and I fill many of the roles listed, except for the actor of course.  Any task that goes on BEHIND the camera, not in front of it, we'll do.  We can relate to the musings of the Film Bloggers who are employed as: director (on our commercial shoots), producer, production designer, storyboard artist, music supervisor, digital expert, colorist, animation coordinator, editor, key grip, production manager and voice over artist.  Love this blog!

Is It Real or Is It Fake?

I saw a story on a blog the other day.

The author, Mark Christiansen who is well-respected in the visual effects industry, noted that parts of the Olympic Games opening ceremonies were faked for the TV audience. If you saw the opening ceremonies, the parts he’s referring to are the ‘footprints in the sky’ created with fireworks. The live audience did see footprints in the sky, but the TV audience saw a different set of footprints that had been computer-generated. It’s similar to having someone lip-synch the national anthem at the start of a baseball game.  Oh, but that happened at the opening ceremonies too!  The very cute 9-year old girl who performed the song was lip-synching to another girl's vocal track.  

As soon as the lip-synching was leaked, the world press had a field day calling the incident "Olympic Karaoke", "Hoax! Made in China", "The Great Beijing Lip-synch Switcheroo", and "China's Wrong Child Policy".

But back to the 'footprints in the sky."  There may have been very good reasons to ‘fake it’. Maybe the Chinese were afraid that the fireworks would be rained out. Or maybe the faked fireworks were more vibrant or easier for the TV audience to see. But it gives us a slightly uneasy feeling because the performance was portrayed as real when it wasn’t.

With the technology that’s available and the skill of today’s technicians and artists, you can’t always trust that what you see is the unvarnished truth. And, this sleight-of-hand can be done almost undetectably. So what’s the big deal? Well, an enjoyable pyrotechnic show at the Olympics whether real or faked is no big deal, although this was a fake on a pretty big scale. We all need be a little bit skeptical, like the folks in Missouri, the “Show-Me” state.

How does this apply to brides who are searching for the best professionals in each category? Scrutinize online reviews with a grain of salt.  Sure, there are less-than-professional vendors out there who deserve the 3, 5 10, even 20 bad reviews they get.  These are to be taken seriously because these companies routinely disappoint brides.  Chat rooms serve brides well in these cases.

On the other hand, there isn't one professional I know who hasn't been unfairly slammed with a bad review online.  In the first year we were in business, an unscrupulous competitor whom we had never met, posing as a bride, said some pretty nasty things about us that hurt us deeply since we care very much about giving our best to every bride. We provided evidence of the fraud to the hosting site, but they would not remove the post.  Thankfully, that was our only brush with 'the dark side'.

So, if you see virtually all excellent posts about a professional, and then you see a negative post, be skeptical.  Check it out for yourself.

Color Part II: Color Grading

In my last post, Color, Part I we discussed the need for color correction in a wedding movie because there are many different lighting conditions which are not ideal, and over which we have little control. Accurate color, particularly in skin tones, makes a big difference to the overall quality of the movie.  We are one of the few wedding cinematographers who color correct all of our movies.

In Color, Part II, we will discuss color grading, which is giving a specific look that enhances the mood of a scene or of the whole movie.

Here are two paintings by Andrew Wyeth.  In one he uses warm golden tones; in the other, cooler more subdued tones.  Which is preferable?  To us, the answer depends on which matches the mood you are trying to convey.

  

In No Country For Old Men, a dark drama, the colorist created a torrid, washed-out dust-bowl, lonely and melancholy look.   Mama Mia, an upbeat musical, used bright, primary, super-saturated colors.  Memoirs of a Geisha used dramatic lighting, shadow and light, which was slightly underexposed to enhance the drama and gravity in each scene.  

We will sometimes select a color palette and texture to emphasize the mood of a part of the wedding day.  For one of our very soft-spoken sweet brides, we selected a pastel palette, with an almost watercolor feel which perfectly matched her personality.  

On another occasion, as our bride descended a grand staircase, she shared some very emotional moments with her father who shed tears of joy as he saw her in her wedding gown and veil for the first time.   As they waited in a dark ballroom to walk down the aisle, they looked just like the Vermeer painting on the left, Girl with a Pearl Earring. Their faces seemed to emerge from the darkness with one side deeply in shadow, the other bathed in golden late afternoon sun.  Although we did not design the lighting and did not direct them to stand in a certain spot, we were able to recognize this great opportunity and put the camera in a position to capture it perfectly.  So sometimes, color grading can be accomplished while filming, rather than in post-production.

Until a few years ago, color grading was relatively rare in Hollywood.  But now, 95% of films are color graded.  Just as with feature films, we color grade in order to create a specific mood. We feel that color grading is just part of doing the best we can for each of our clients.

Here are some interesting websites that explore color:

Color Theory - www.worqx.com/color

Fashion & Color Trends - www.fashiontrendsetter.com

Meaning of Colors - www.sibagraphics.com/colour.php

Color Part I: Color Correction

Color is all around us.  We notice it from a young age when we are 'coloring' with our box of Crayolas.  We play with colorful toys like a bright yellow pail and shovel, a little red wagon and a bright green 'First Computer'. 

As we get older, we make color choices for the places we live and work, the cars we drive and the clothes we wear.  There are companies which make a good business of color - Pantone, Benjamin Moore, and every Paris fashion designer.

Why do we care?  Because colors have meaning.  

In our business, we believe since color is important to our brides, it is important to portray color correctly throughout a scene.  Accurate color is one of the 6 basic criteria of evaluating videography.  [See s

idebar Videography Criteria to the lower right of this post.]  We are one of the few wedding cinematographers in the country who do extensive color work in post-production includi

ng adjusting the colors, luminance/brightness, and contrast to match the shots from our multiple cameras.

First, before we shoot a single frame, we calibrate each of our cameras to produce true and accurate color, and to match each other perfectly.  Then, we fine-tune the color balance on our cameras at the event to further ensure a perfect match among cameras.  

Lighting and color can vary wildly from a bride's preparation filmed under yellow incandescent lights, to a ceremony shot in (blue) shade outdoors, and a rece

ption filmed in a (red) wine cave. In post-production, we make adjustments to ensure it is not too jarring to go from one scene to the next. It's relatively easy to make these adjustments on a single photograph 

with Photoshop. But when you're operating on each clip (clip=a series of frames that encapsulate a single scene or action) of a 30 to 40 minute movie, it's not a trivial task.  

There are about 1200 clips in one of our wedding movies.  Sometimes one clip requires several color and exposure adjustments as a bride and groom walk down the aisle from the candle lit interior of a cathedral out the doors into bril

liant sunlight.   It is more art than science, so a lot of practice and a lot of patience is required.  

We color correct because we have very little control over lighting at a wedding.  And yet, we want skin tones to look flattering and the scene to be pleasing to the eye.  So, we film as well as circumstances allow, then color correct in post-production. Here is a scene which is too blue.

Now, here is the same scene with color enhancement to make the scene warmer.   It's more pleasing to our eyes because this is what we are accustomed to seeing.  Even when the scene really is too blue, our brains correct what our eyes see.

These days, there are so many different televisions each with multiple color adjustments. When we deliver our movies, how can we be certain the true colors will be seen?   We use a calibrated color monitor. That means we can be 100% certain that the colors in the movie are accurate. And these days, we like to deliver the movie and see for ourselves how it looks on the screen. Frequently our clients thank us for making recommendations for tuning up the TV's color not just so they can see their wedding movie in real color, but so they can view broadcast TV shows and Blockbuster videos in accurate color too.

Once you've mastered accurate color, what's the next frontier?  In Hollywood, digital colorists are giving movies a certain look through the process of 'color grading'.  In Color, Part II, we'll explore color grading.

What Happens When the Bubble Bursts?

We're not usually fans of special effects, because when they are not well-done, they are cheesy. Let's face it. That's more the norm than the exception. But every now and again, an extraordinary special effect perfectly suits a situation. That's the case with this 90-second commerical with very cool slow motion effects. It was shot with a special high speed video camera.

Over a century ago, Eadweard Muybridge completed one of the first scientific slow motion studies. He was commissioned by Leland Stanford Sr, then governor of California, to photograph his race horse Occident to find out whether the horse ever had all four feet off the ground at any one point in time. Today, you can apply super slow motion as an artistic device. The frame rate of the camera that captured the scenes in this commercial was 2000 frames/second. For comparison, standard video is shot at 30 frames/second. In order to see every tiny movement of the water droplets exploding from the burst balloons in a continuous series of perfectly sharp images, you need a camera capable of very high frame rates.

Oh, and the horse was completely airborne for a fraction of a second.

World's Largest Plasma TV

Once you've bought your new Blu-Ray HD player, what HD TV should you buy to view your wedding movie on? Why the 150" high-definition plasma Panasonic TV, of course! Its screen is the equivalent of nine 50" TV sets, with an effective viewing area of 11 feet. This is a step up from the 103" version which cost $70,000 when it was launched.

If that's not quite your cup of tea, there's always the 42" Panasonic HDTV which uses half the energy but stays as bright or the ultra-thin 50" panel which is less than 1" thick. We're seriously considering the Sharp Aquos.

If you engaged us to film your wedding movie in January, 2006, right now, you'd have a beautiful reminder of one of the best days of your life - in high definition. It might not have seemed important 2 years ago, but right now, while sitting in front of your 52" hi-def TV, you've got to be silently congratulating yourself on your foresight. We didn't charge any extra for HD at that time, and we still don't. Back then our clients engaged us, in part, to advise them on realistic options based upon our assessment of where technology was likely to go. They still trust us to advise them well so that their wedding movie will be viewable for 50+ years into the future, no matter what technology changes occur. And because we "hold the cheese - no cheese, please", it will still be a classic with style and not a laughable relic of the early 21st century.

We were ahead of the pack then as now. What's the latest? We offer live internet broadcasts of ceremonies from areas with poor internet access. We are the only wedding cinematographers, to our knowledge, who offer true surround sound. And we are continually scanning the horizon for technology that will improve the images and sounds of your wedding movie, yet remain within a realistic price range.

Blu-Ray Poised to Win HD Player Wars

The war is all but over. Warner Brothers may have started the domino-effect last week by announcing at CES that they will offer their titles on Blu-ray disc, not in the HD DVD format. But it was Toshiba that may have finished the job today by slashing prices on their HD DVD players, apparently conceding defeat.

It's about time for the wars to end! During the several years that the marketplace was holding its breath and waiting for the knockout punch, no one was a winner. Not the movie studios who couldn't sell DVDs, not the equipment manufacturers who couldn't sell HD players, and not us. We could film in HD but couldn't deliver until the stalemate was broken.

At this point, Blu-ray has sewn up 70 - 75% of the market with all the titles from Walt Disney, 20th Century Fox, MGM, Lionsgate and Sony. Only Paramount Pictures, Universal Pictures and DreamWorks Animation are still releasing their movies exclusively on HD DVD. Paramount and Universal may well jump ship when their agreements expire later in the year.

Then today, Toshiba announced they were slashing prices on their HD DVD players by 50%. Even so, who wants to own a piece of equipment that will be obsolete within the year? This could be the death knell for the HD DVD format. Last time Sony was engaged in a format war - Betamax vs. VHS - they lost. This time, however, the technologically superior format has won. Fortuitously, last week Sony announced the debut of a Blu-Ray player under $200. To the victor go the spoils.

So what does this mean for the average consumer?

Q: Can you use a Blu-ray player if you don't have a hi-def TV?
A: Yes, but there's not going to be much of a difference in the picture between hi-def and standard def until you get a new HD TV.

Q: Does size matter?
A: Yes. The bigger the TV (>40") and the closer you are to the TV, the more it matters.

Q: Do you have to replace all your standard-definition DVDs?
A: No. Blu-ray players will play standard DVDs, but some will do a better job than others.

Q: What does a Blu-ray player cost?
A: Prices will most certainly be dropping in response to increased demand and in response to Toshiba's price slashing on their HD DVD players. In the meanwhile, prices are $300 - $1000. Or, buy a PlayStation 3 which is basically a Blu-ray player AND a gaming console for $500.

Q: Which Blu-ray player should I buy?
A: Depends on what quality you are seeking in picture quality, design, load times, sound and extra features. See product reviews on C|NET, Consumer Reports and HD Guru. Here's a summary:
The player with the highest ratings was the Pioneer BDP-94HD ($1000).
In the next tier were Samsung BD-P1200 ($800), Samsung BD-UP5000 ($800), Samsung BD-P1400 ($300); and the Panasonic DMP-BD10 ($1000) and Panasonic DMP-BD30 ($450).
The Sony BDP-S1 ($400) and Sony BDP-S300 ($450) were rated a fraction lower.
Or you can buy a Sony Playstation for around $500.