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The Second Sight Podcast, © 2007 Alexa D. O'Brien, (27:52)
The Second Sight offers insight and analysis on the media and entertainment industry - an often misunderstood or mischaracterized sector of the American economic and cultural landscape in the midst of its own technological and cultural shifts - from globalization and the emerging creative economy; to digital technology and the evolving aesthetic and nature of content; to the growing technological cross fertilization between media, defense, and medicine.
My name is Alexa D. O'Brien Gault. For the next two months, we will focus our attention towards understanding the evolving nature of the below-the-line training cycle for motion picture technicians, in the face of both digital technologies and newer end to end digital workflows; and the coming of age, so to speak, of the game generation - the older cusp of which, now in their mid thirties, having finally entered their productive years as journeymen technicians and content creators.
Jendra Jarnagin is one of a handful of New York based directors of photography who has shot with the Viper. She has over thirteen years of professional shooting and lighting experience, and her cinematography credits include numerous commercials and over thirty short films. She also worked as a lighting technician on major Hollywood films and episodic television, such as "Sex and the City" and "Law and Order". Jendra recently collaborated on the recent Alexis Krasilovsky documentary, Women Behind the Camera, featuring interviews with camerawomen from all over the world. Jendra Jarnagin, shot, field produced, and directed the projects New York interviews: including Ellen Kuras, ASC; Sandi Sissel, ASC; Lisa Rinzler; and Giselle Chamma. I am pleased to have Jendra Jarnagin for a Second Sight Podcast interview. Welcome.
Jendra Jarnagin
Thank you.
Alexa D. O'Brien
Tell me about Women Behind the Camera.
Jendra Jarnagin
Women Behind the Camera is a feature length documentary that has interviews...I think they interviewed over eighty women from all over the world. I am not sure the final count in the edit. Cinematographers, documentarians, journalists, camera operators, even some camera assistants...about their jobs in different countries and partly of course some of it deals with being a woman in that job.
The Second Sight Podcast, © 2006 Alexa D. O'Brien, (26:35)
The Second Sight offers insight and analysis on the media and entertainment industry - an often misunderstood or mischaracterized sector of the American economic and cultural landscape in the midst of its own technological and cultural shifts - from globalization and the emerging creative economy; to digital technology and the evolving aesthetic and nature of content; to the growing technological cross fertilization between media, defense, and medicine.
My name is Alexa D. O'Brien Gault. For the next two months, we will focus our attention towards understanding the evolving nature of the below-the-line training cycle for motion picture technicians, in the face of both digital technologies and newer end to end digital workflows; and the coming of age, so to speak, of the game generation - the older cusp of which, now in their mid thirties, having finally entered their productive years as journeymen technicians and content creators.
Today, we are talking with cameraperson, John Clemens. For seventeen years now, Clemens has ac'ed and operated for directors of photography like Lance Acord (Buffalo 66 and Lost in Translation). His most recent work with Acord was on a Mercedes Benz spot that Acord shot and directed. John has also worked with Joseph Yacoe, known for his commercial and music videos work. Clemens most recent job with Yacoe included a hair product commercial with Penelope Cruz. Director of photography, Darren Lew, who has shot commercials for the likes of Clinique, Versace, Nike, and Adidas, and who began his own career as a still assistant to renowned fashion photographer, Steven Meisel, has said of John Clemens:
"I have never worked with a camera assistant who had it more in his blood than John. He has got a sixth sense for focus and a working method of military precision and consistency, it is no wonder he works with the greatest DP's from all over the world. His skill goes beyond the technical--he quietly contributes to the art of camera work each time we work together everyone else becomes second best after working with John."
John Clemens' credits include Buffalo 66, Naqoyqatsi: Life as War, and Requiem for a Dream. I am honored to have John Clemens on the line for a Second Sight pod cast interview.
Alexa D. O'Brien Gault
Hi, John. How are you?
John Clemens
Good. How are you doing?
Every Oscar for Best Picture since the first Academy Awards in 1928 has honored a motion picture recorded on film from the Eastman Kodak Company. Since the dawn of the motion picture industry, Kodak has served as a driving force in filmmaking science and technology, providing negative, print, and sound film, digital intermediate post-production work, and digital cinema products and services. In a November 2005 Lehman Brothers Equity Research Report, analysts Sabbagha and Talbott, estimated that Eastman Kodak earnings from entertainment film revenues were $1 billon annually, forty percent from their origination stock and sixty percent from their print stock. I wanted to learn more about how Kodak intended to protect is legacy brand in the midst of the emerging digital motion picture marketplace. Last month, I spoke with Bob Gibbons, Director of Marketing and Communications at Kodak Digital Cinema.
Alexa O'Brien
How has Kodak been preparing for the digital marketplace in regards to motion picture film?
Bob Gibbons
Let me just give you my view of digital cinema, because I have been involved with it since the beginning at Kodak. Around 1980, probably around the time of Disney's TRON, postproduction started going digital. The problem with computers in 1980 was that you needed a lot of power. You needed silicone graphics. Even if you had big computers, the quality of the postproduction, the special effects and so forth, was far less than film quality. So we said, why don't we come out with some sophisticated scanners and recorders to help maintain the quality of the product? So, we came out with a brand called Cineon. We also opened up a laboratory so we could improve those products and that was Cinesite, an effects company. As it turns out, other people started to come out with products. Pretty soon, there was a lot of good quality capability out there. Prices came down and there were more competitors in the marketplace.
Then we said, maybe we don't need to be in the product side of things. Maybe we ought to be in the service side of things, and continue to do effects. So we have two digital service companies: one in Hollywood called, LaserPacific, and one in London called, Cinesite that has done effects for Harry Potter and Narnia.
If you watch television or go to the movies, you have already seen Grass Valley™ brand products and their Emmy® award-winning technologies at work. Mark Chiolis is the Senior Marketing Manager of Thomson Grass Valley’s Strategic Marketing and Business Development Group, based in Burbank, California.
Alexa O'Brien
How does the Viper FilmStream fit into the marketplace against digital cinematography cameras like to the Panavision Genesis and the Arriflex D-20?
Mark Chiolis
Both the Genesis and the D-20 are using single CMOS based sensors that are capable of using legacy 35mm cine lenses. The benefit of a single sensor is that you eliminate the prism but there are trade-offs in having to split out the Red, Green and Blue signals from the single sensor. Our philosophy on the Viper is to utilize three high-quality patented Frame Transfer (FT-DPM) Digital Pixel Management CCDs that take advantage of today’s latest design technologies in optics, providing a combination that yields what we at Grass Valley believe is the highest quality digital image available in a production camera today. The Viper also has four distinct modes of operation which makes it the most versatile of the digital cameras. Depending upon the project it is possible to shoot in the “raw” 4:4:4 FilmStream mode, a fully color corrected and processed 4:4:4 mode, a semi-processed 4:2:2 mode (which is perfect for cost conscious television work) and of course “regular” fully processed 4:2:2 HD mode. Additionally, because of our unique ability to reconfigure our sensors to different formats, the Viper is the only digital camera that is capable of shooting widescreen (2.37:1) aspect ratios that use the full vertical resolution of 1080 lines. Because other digital cameras are not capable of reconfiguring their sensors they are forced to “chop off” the top and bottom of the picture creating a faux widescreen image. This lowering of the vertical resolution can really display itself especially when going back to film for release.
Since its inception as catalyst for cinema’s transformation from black and white to color, Technicolor’s history now spans ninety years in the motion picture industry. Even as parent, Thomson, leverages the rainbow’s magic brand to advance its digital cinema venture, Technicolor still processes over five billion feet of motion picture film a year. DreamWorks, Sony Pictures, Universal Pictures, Warner Brothers, and Twentieth Century Fox have all signed agreements to use digital projection systems from Technicolor Digital Cinema on five thousand screens in the United States and Canada; and under the terms of a strategic understanding with Century Theatres, Technicolor will begin to install digital projection equipment with a beta-test deployment of ninety to hundred-and-twenty screens, in the first quarter of 2006. With an initial rollout plan for complete digital projection systems on up to five thousand DCI-compliant screens over the next three to four years, Thomson intends to deploy at least fifteen-thousand digitally-equipped screens in the United States and Canada over the next ten years.
As president of Technicolor Electronic Distribution Services, Joe Berchtold is responsible for the strategic development, growth, and operations of the Thomson Services division worldwide, including all aspects of Technicolor’s digital cinema initiatives, on-demand content, and IPTV distribution services. Since joining Thomson in 2003, Berchtold has been co-head of strategy and acquisitions, leading key initiatives that include the acquisition of DirecTV’s set-top box business; the company’s investment in Content Guard with Time Warner and Microsoft, where he now sits on the board of directors; and the forging of an agreement with VeriSign to jointly develop an online content authentication and authorization service bureau to support secure delivery of electronic entertainment content over digital networks.
Alexa O’Brien
Do you think digital cinema will reverse the declining box office trend?
Joe Berchtold
Well, I think that the hope of that is what has driven a lot of the energy behind digital cinema over the past year. I think people have come to realize that the savings from digital cinema on the cost side are some ways out, and the real opportunity here is the top line. It's getting customers back. If you think about a movie theater as a retail business, it’s among the most constrained retail businesses you can imagine from a merchandising standpoint; because as a physical reel of film is tied to a physical room, there’s just no flexibility. Digital inherently creates a lot more flexibility. People are talking about some of the things. You can add more screens. You can move screens. All of which will help on the margin. But, we also think, and I’m not creative enough, but we also think that five years from now, what are some of the most creative people in the world going to have figured out to be able to take advantage of this technology?
Selected to photograph Warner Brothers' highly anticipated feature Superman Returns, the Genesis is the first fully portable, digital imaging camera that utilizes all existing spherical 35mm lenses including Primo primes and zooms. Other features include full bandwidth, dual link 4:4:4 HDSDI outputs, single 4:2:2 HDSDI monitor output, dual viewfinder outputs, fiber optic camera adaptor, integrated lens control, camera control via Panavision RDC or Sony MSU, RMB series controllers, and digital lateral chromatic aberration compensation for improved visual effects cinematography. With a 12.4 mega pixel, true RGB sensor, 10-bit log per color output, the Genesis has a greater dynamic range than other available digital cameras. Bob Harvey is the Senior Vice President of Worldwide Sales at Panavision in Woodland Hills, California.
Alexa O'Brien
The rumor on the street is that both Arriflex and Panavision have made their last 35mm cameras. Arriflex will not make anything after the Arricam and the Arricam Light and Panavision will not make anything after the Platinum, so neither will create new film cameras. They will just maintain what is already out there. Is that true?
Bob Harvey
I don't know the answer to that. We try to put into the market place what the market place is demanding. We have designs for new cameras certainly. We are concentrating right now on lenses, but I have no answer to that.
Alexa O’Brien
What is an accurate picture of current and future digital acquisition? Where do you see things moving in the next three to five and five to ten years?
Bob Harvey
I think that features films and dramatic television are moving towards digital at a pace we can all live with. Three to five years out it’s tough to say. I think with the development of the Genesis you are going to see an awful lot of what we call hybrid projects, where it is a mixture of both film and digital. Will digital take over completely? Years from now I am sure that can happen. Something will happen. Nothing lasts forever. In the case of film, it has a long life ahead of it.
Pat Kaufman is the New York State Film Commissioner and President of the Association of Film Commissioners International.
Alexa O'Brien
Why do states, regions, and countries compete for production dollars?
Pat Kaufman
Because production is a very clean and efficient industry that comes in, spends time in your area, spends a lot of money and then either puts down roots and becomes, if you can get enough of it, you can become a production region, and have your own indigenous companies, or at least, it means that companies come and go from your area, spend money, don't pollute, you know, advance your area, bring your area to the attention of the world, and while there at it they spend money.
Nowadays competition is fierce among states, regions and countries vying for production dollars. Jeff Monks is South Carolina State Film Commissioner. I spoke with the commissioner on January 12, 2006 via phone.
Alexa O'Brien
Why do states like South Carolina compete for production dollars?
Jeff Monks
First, I can tell you why South Carolina does. It's a knowledge-based industry. You know it's a beautiful blend of the technical meeting the creative, and it draws from so many different pools of talent in South Carolina. It is what our governor and our legislature are after: build a knowledge-based industry in South Carolina. This industry fits beautifully into that. Then you get into things like, above average wages. It's a clean industry. It can easily have come to a small community as to a large community, and the cost of recruiting compared to recruiting a manufacturer for example is significantly less. When we recruit a manufacturer, you are also looking at developing infrastructure. You have to build roads; you have to improve your sewer system. What's the effect upon your schools? Whereas this industry doesn't have that. So, the recruiting costs are significantly less. Finally, it promotes tourism, as films and television shot in South Carolina are shown around the world.
Recently brought in from Munich by Simon Broad, Andreas Weeber is the Supervisor of the new Digital Imaging Department at Arri CSC in New York. He is also responsible for introducing the Arriflex D-20 Digital Camera to the United States.
Alexa O'Brien
The rumor on the street is that both Arriflex and Panavision have made their last 35mm cameras. Arriflex will not make anything after the Arricam and the Arricam Light and Panavision will not make anything after the Platinum, so neither will create new film cameras. They will just maintain what is already out there. Is that true?
Andreas Weeber
No, that’s definitely not true. Arri doesn’t see the D-20 as a replacement for film cameras. The D-20 is aimed for different applications, let’s say commercials or something, you know whatever is not going to end up on a film screen or something. But, you know, movies in the theater still should be done on a 35 mm camera. We never pretend the D-20 is as good as a 35 mm camera, resolution wise and color wise and all this. So that rumor is just not true, and Arri would be really stupid to do something like this.
