Monday, September 01, 2008

Video primer

Video primer.

"From the perspective of the still photographer looking to explore the world of video and motion for the first time there is a temptation to string together a sequence of still images."

"Note that in terms of bandwidth, 1080i and 720p require almost the same amount of data. With 1080i it is being allocated to spatial resolution, while with 720p is it allocated to temporal resolution."

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

Reichmann has written quite a lot about the convergence of still and video technologies, and I think he has a point to some extent in that the technologies for both will probably meet and cross-over at somewhere in the near future. But will the art of video and the art of photography cross over at the same time? I think they won't necessarily converge as there is something quite different about each, it may be that video and still photography remain, only to have a third form of art appear. However, this subject will be quite interesting to watch as it develops.

Alex said...

I think you've been looking at the wrong examples of the crossover between photography and video art. Comparing Ansel Adams to George Lucas is one way, but another is to look at Tarkovsky, Kirosawa Akira, and Greenaway.

Greenaway, in particular, shows a great understanding of where painting and cinema converge ("A Zed and Two Noughts", "Prosperos Books". He also show some scope of where photography and cinema meet ("H is for House" and "Dear Telephone").

Hmm, maybe I'm wrong because I am thinking about cinema, not video.

Eolake Stobblehouse said...

Well, those are merging too, even faster.

Alex said...

So what is Video?

Is this where you compose a picture of, say a waterfall, or windswept field, and get a minutes footage? Creating an animated photograph. Or is it something else? Once you start recording something animate, documentary footage.

I can see galleries with monitors running sequences in them, like a magic lantern or a zoetrope. I can imagine doing it with something natural like a coastline, volcano, pastoral scene, making virtual windows out of the building. But I can't imagine moving portraits, almost like the portraits in Hogwarts.

No, for now the only "video" I can think of are those eternal "flight over Tuscany" type films they show on the many PBS digital channels, the ones which showcase technology rather than have content. Or maybe something like Koyanisquatsi, but even that was more like documentary cinema.

"This is Sheffield, City on the Grow...".
"London to Brighton in 4 1/2 minutes".

Video as an artform, does it exist?

Eolake Stobblehouse said...

Fruitless debate I think. Film and video are just technically different ways of capturing moving images. And in ten years it's doubtful there'll even be any film left, so what's the difference?

It's like the difference between watercolor and gouache, who cares but the painter?