Eventually things settle down.
I had an interesting call from a publisher last night, who mentioned his new I-pad version of their magazine, going interactive, the move away from print . . . etc. etc. etc.
I listened said sure, but how do you plan to do this on the budgets you now have? The phone got very quiet and he said, well you know we just have our photographers shoot video and shoot stills and then we put it in the magazine.
OK. I can see the point of making an interesting photograph, I can see the point of making an interesting video, but since I'm in the "Making Interesting Images For Money Business", I wondered how this is gonna play out?
Most advertisers and their agencies that have experience in broadcast understand the cost of editing video/motion/film/whatever, but few from the publishing world of stills have a grasp of what it takes to go from still to motion and even on the client (advertiser) side of the chain, unless they just purpose over their broadcast commercial to I-pad play, I doubt seriously if they're gonna spend the minimum 6 figure range to make an interesting single page ad that moves.
Now on the supplier side of this chain, I know what a black hole of time video can be, even on the very fastest of computers. Just to cut 1 minute of decent footage that doesn't have obvious glitches can take a long, long time.
It's nothing to walk into the editorial suite on Monday, and come out blurry eyed, unshaven and staggering silly on Thursday and that's just the first cut. Wait until you get to revision 12.
Now let's say the Photographer doesn't want to be involved in the edit. OK, that saves a few weeks a project, but you still gotta know how to shoot it and know how to devise a combination still and motion shoot that works in both mediums.
Trust me on this. Telling a widescreen story that moves (think Ridley Scott) is a hell of a lot different than telling a story in a single frame and even if you never want to know the words pro res 422, .avi, fcp, or Avid, until you even take a watered down editing class you'll never really understand why it's impossible to have "enough" footage or why a camera that stays stationary is very boring.
Wait until you point your 16x9 camera at a vertical set. Lightstands, sandbags, assistants eating those little breakfast sammiches all come into view unless you shoot the face, shoot the waist, shoot the feet and try to cut together something that doesn't look silly.
Then there is the issue of working in the same style of motion you worked in in stills. Sure in motion you can shoot and bleach out backgrounds, mask out subjects, add filters, bump the curves, but something as simple as cloning out a power line that cross a street or a piece of trash that blow through the frame, can go from a 15 minute still retouch to a 2 day post production process.
I guess eventually this will all work out, but right now with the state of the economy nobody is asking for million dollar video projects that they purpose over to stills, or vice versa. Once the economy improves they probably will, but today, first we need the device, (I-pad), then we need every magazine on the news stands designed for it, then publishers and image makers need to find a way t o get paid for all of this extra work.
We also need, more than anything, a base standard of viewing. Will it be quicktime, wmv, flash, html 5 and will it stream quickly on 3G, 4G, 5G, at home on cable, or dsl, or will it take fiber optics?
All of this makes a hell of a lot of difference and bits per second mean a whole lot more than frame size or progressive vs. interlaced.
You can make a beautiful video that plays on your desktop Full rez, but try to optimize that out to anyone that can view it within the week and if you think every person in the world has quicktime 7 loaded on their computer it's just not so. I can't count the number of times I've had an AD ask for me to repurpose a file in wmv so his client can see it.
Actually it would be nice just to have one standard of shooting, mpg2, Redcode, avhcd, avhd lite, whatever, but no maker's camera shoots the same file type and few if any can just be thrown up on the web for review without batch conversion, unless all production moves to flip tv.
As far as equipment, get used to reading stuff like this;
http://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/find/newsLet...on-Firmware.jsp and buying stuff that probably will find it's way on the shelf in 12 months.
OK, i've probably gone on too long about this but I should add that the day an I-pad appears I will buy one because it looks like an easy way to show an updated portfolio and motion imagery on one device and of course there is the wow factor until they become commonplace.
The thing is I really wonder if the I-pad will be universally adopted. It's really too big to carry in you pocket, too fragile to carry around in your hand and in reality does less, (not more) than any small laptop.
I guess it will all change and somebody will devise an I-pad collar brace or necklace, or fanny pack or maybe take all those tan photo vests and line them with i-pad, Kindle, I-phone, Blackberry, Newton holders.
That way you can play any of the 15 formats and never miss a thing.
Sometimes I get this feeling that the people that make this stuff (Apple) seems to think that there only two markets are NY and LA and most the world never steps outside, they just sit at home and look at computers.
I'm not trying to be negative on this and I think in a few years, things will be much different than today, but to really step forward and make a profit from this stuff, the economy has to improve.
I do know that I am sure of one thing that the skill sets needed for professional image makers isn't going to change, it's already changed, the trick isn't in doing it, it's getting paid well for it.
BC
