Amen. As a former pro photographer I can tell you that my image taking improved greatly as soon I stopped worrying about the inferiority of my equipment.

Brad
Broken Messenger | Homepage | 10.28.05 - 4:03 pm | #

On the other hand, as Geoff Botkin repeatedly impressed during the Academy, you do need a higher-resolution camera (if not a film camera) for movies that will be played on a big screen, simply because SD (standard-definition) resolution is low enough to appear grainy when blown up by the projector. It's good enough for television and movies that will only be played on a monitor, but not for the big screen.
Personally, I think some films didn't make it merely because the resolution was lower and therefore the quality inferior to several of the other films. A surprising number of entries were filmed in HD. Even if you can't purchase an HD camera right now, renting is a viable option.
Scottie Moser | 10.30.05 - 9:06 pm | #

Though that does involve literally thousands of dollars worth of new computer software and hardware to be able to produce that.

DVD is SD resolution, by the way. ;-)

I understand his point, but he's also speaking to people that have (or will) master audio and lighting.

See, I believe we should take a purely creationist approach to filmmaking. While we didn't do this for Bubble Trouble, we will for our next film. Our priorities are lined out in Genesis for all of us.

Verse 1.

"In the beginning God created the Heaven and the earth."

This is reference to locations and sets, as well as props. Get them lined out and in place.

Let's move to verse 3.

"And God said,"

Let's stop there. He said something. That'd be audio. Audio is more important than visuals.

"Let there be light:" That right there is lighting. So, audio, then lighting.

A person can go through Genesis and see how plots should develop too, which is interesting. I really think the first chapters of Genesis is a guide for filmmakers, not just the account of creation.

I recently saw a frame of 35mm film that looked terrible. It looked like it was shot with a cheap digital camera. Grainy, flat, and overall nasty. It was an indoor shot.

I saw the same thing shot with the Xl2. It looked identical, except for the resolution. They put just two lights into the same shot, and it completey changed the scene. The XL2 shot looked like 35mm film. Beautifully done.

I myself am just now realizing the importance of quality audio, and quality lighting. After all, lighting was God's first priority in the development of the universe.
John Robert Moore | Homepage | 10.31.05 - 11:32 am | #

Scottie, sorry to double post, but I'm curious about which films were shot in HD...

There were only 3 films shot in HD, and two of them were stop motion, so it's not considered HD.

So, that leaves 1 film, and it indeed wasn't shot in HD, but on 35mm film.

The other films there had a few HD capable cameras, but they weren't actually SHOT in HD. Just in SD.

So, really, I don't think HD makes a lick of difference here.

They were playing the films off of a SD DVD player, so HD wouldn't have made any difference in resolution anyway. The film that was 35mm film looked as though it were a Panasonic DVX100a or a Canon XL2, rather than an Arricam.

While HD is the wave of the future, and it's happening very quickly, it wasn't at this festival, and thus didn't make a difference at all.
John Robert Moore | Homepage | 10.31.05 - 11:40 am | #