Emerging formats reinvent how images circulate and herald cinema for the age of connection
Never have so many images been produced. And, more importantly, never have so many images been put into circulation. The popularization of digital cameras and the multiplication of distribution channels explain this situation. This changes the ways we produce and consume video and cinema, bringing new conceptions of images and their circuits, such as Open Video and 4K Cinema.
Open Video is not a format, but a system encompassing the discussion of parameters and principles to ensure the development, distribution, and creation of online video on free platforms and in open-source formats.
The debate gained momentum with HTML5, an update to the language underlying internet content (HTML), which aims to eliminate the need for plugins to view multimedia content (such as videos and Flash animations).
4K Cinema is ultra-high-definition digital cinema, with a resolution of more than 8 million pixels. In practice, that means four times the definition of HD video and 24 times that of the images we see on television.
Although this kind of image was conceived for projection on very large screens, it is already beginning to infiltrate the Internet, and some videos made with this technology can be watched on YouTube.
However, they still require very large, uncommon monitors and powerful video cards, as well as extremely high-speed connections, which still prevent viewers from enjoying these videos’ ultra-high definition on the web.
Both trends have important researchers in Brazil and show, as Ivana Bentes and Erick Felinto did in a recent book, that it is time to consider the ecology of digital images, reflecting on the production and consumption chain in relation to the aesthetics they generate and their contexts of reception.
In an interview with Trópico, Diego Casaes, Pedro Markun, and Daniela B. Silva, members of Mozilla Drumbeat in Brazil, the Mozilla Foundation’s “cyberlab,” discuss Open Video and related initiatives. We then talk to Jane de Almeida and Cícero Silva, from the team coordinating the 2014K project, which aims to broadcast the next World Cup in 4K.
Countless possibilities are opening up, with only one certainty: the reality of images, across small, medium, and large screens, is being reinvented.
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FIRST-CLASS VIDEO
One possible reason for the explosion of video on the internet is that producing and publishing it requires no programming knowledge. Does Open Video change this? In addition to mastering the camera and editing process, will people need to master HTML5?
Diego Casaes, Pedro Markun, and Daniela B. Silva: In fact, HTML5 makes placing a video on a web page much easier—as easy as adding an image is today. On the other hand, this new standard allows a series of complex operations to be performed on video without an editing process. For this, of course, users will need to master HTML5 and other open technologies such as SVG, but these are simply possibilities for advanced use, not requirements for anyone who just wants to publish a video on the web.
From an aesthetic standpoint, what does HTML5 change about video?
The great revolution of HTML5 is that video is now considered a “first-class citizen” on a web page. In other words, it is as simple to implement and as malleable as any other web object: an image, a link, a text…
On its own, the element offers little that is new to anyone already familiar with YouTube and other Flash players, but combined with open formats such as Canvas, SVG, CSS3, and other technologies that are also part of the HTML5 specification, it gains fresh momentum, allowing us to apply effects, work with shapes…
In short, video no longer has to remain trapped within that 480 × 360 rectangle and can acquire rotation and other transition effects, for example. All of this happens in real time and can be changed dynamically using specific programming resources.
With these new possibilities at hand, it is fantastic for artists, filmmakers, and video makers to become involved, helping create new conceptual flights of imagination that can truly transform the internet video experience.
One possibility being explored with the explosion of online video is collective creation. What is the collaborative documentary project you are preparing, developed at FISL (International Free Software Forum) in Porto Alegre, July 22–24, 2010?
The Web Made Movie Sprint proposal is this: over the first two days of FISL, a team of video makers (partners of Casa do Cinema in Porto Alegre) works on shooting and editing footage about the Forum—a powerful expression of the values of the open, free internet. On the third day, video hackers can use that footage to experiment with new ways of working on the web.
Filmmaker Brett Gaylor, of “RIP – Remix Manifesto,” will coordinate the process with collaborators from Brazil. He also participates in and leads Drumbeat’s Web Made Movie project—an innovation lab bringing together video makers and hackers precisely so they can transform internet video together.
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4K: CINEMA ON A GRAND SCALE
You recently presented an ultra-high-definition 3D film in Johannesburg during the World Cup. Is this presentation related to your project to broadcast the 2014 World Cup in 4K?
Jane de Almeida and Cícero Silva: What we presented is a demo film for the 2014K project, with footage shot in Porto Alegre of the Rio Grande do Sul championship final on May 2, between Grêmio and Internacional. It required two Red One cameras, attached to a special rig for this type of camera, in a stereoscopic assembly weighing around 150 kg; setting up the cameras alone took six hours. The making-of is available on our website.
We worked with stereographer Keith Collea, who has done several 3D projects in Hollywood (he worked with James Cameron on “Titanic,” did “Iron Man,” etc.), but this was his first time filming a soccer match in 3D with Red (4K) cameras.
How does the audience react?
Audiences always respond very well to 3D. People take off their glasses and try to touch the images. Just like in early cinema, when people would go behind the screen to investigate the trick. We have the impression that this technology is unlikely to be abandoned and that perhaps, in the future, our children will ask: “How did people used to watch in 2D?”
Since we began this project (the two of us and Eunezio A. de Souza—Thoroh), we have had the following in mind: this could be an important shift in the visual field, just like what happened with perspective before the Renaissance and with optical devices in the mid- and late nineteenth century.
Perhaps our eyes will even be able to see a “three-dimensionalized” image in the future. This can already be sensed in some 3D light demonstrations when we remove our glasses. Our key image comes from Godard’s “Les Carabiniers” (1963), in which a character in a cinema approaches the screen and tears it in order to touch the woman taking a bath!
Is any infrastructure already in place to show the matches in cinemas here in Brazil in 2014?
Nothing yet. What we have are several partners abroad who want to participate in the project. The idea is for each host city to see this broadcast of its matches. Some already have connections; others will need to be prepared.
How are television broadcasters reacting to this potential competition? And manufacturers of 3D televisions?
We are not competing with television broadcasters, since the projection exceeds the resolution required for small screens. We are talking about screens measuring at least 8 × 10 meters. However, broadcasters may benefit in the future from experiments transferring high-resolution image data between their departments. This is strategic research for a country of continental dimensions like Brazil.
At a time when so much praise is given to on-demand films that can be watched at home, why revitalize the movie theater?
For the size of the screen, the collective experience, because it reclaims public space and may intervene in cities and reposition the role of large-scale projections… It can engage with architecture and urban issues. It is a little like the experience of Arte/Cidade, an event that intervenes in urban spaces and creates new meanings for them. With soccer, this can be seen very often: people prefer to watch matches with others. Everyone has a TV, but venues with large screens are always full.
Links
Open Video Alliance – http://www.openvideoalliance.org
Guia do Vídeo OnLine – http://culturadigital.br/videoonline/
Mozilla Drumbeat – http://www.drumbeat.org/
WebMadeMovies – http://www.drumbeat.org/webmademovies/
RIP – A Remix Manifesto – http://ripremix.com/
Les Carabiniers (Tempo de Guerra), by Jean-Luc Godard – http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0056905/
Originally published on July 26, 2010 in Trópico.