Film and Other Issues

I realize it has been quite a while since I posted a new entry to this blog. Without getting in to too much detail, I have spent the last two weeks in production on a short film entitled "The Dinner Engagement" which was produced for the Film II course I am currently taking at college in preparation for graduation this summer.

This particular short was shot on 16mm color negative film, and in light of the experience, I thought it would make a good topic for the readers of this blog.

I wanted to address the difference between film and video without turning into into an "either/or" argument. My only experience shooting on film prior to this had been on black and white reversal film, an extremely sensitive stock. To complicate things, I shot this project on a Bolex camera, which for me was not a very reliable model. Several of the cameras in circulation had defects involving the camera gate, and one had a crack in the lens that poured extra light into the aperture, ruining the film.

My experience with using the Arri SRII has been much more positive. In fact, I would now say that if given my ideal production outfit, I would choose to shoot on color negative film rather than DV. This is quite a turnaround for me, as I am a huge advocate of MiniDV for many reasons-the cost, for one; it's ease of use and accessibity to young filmmakers; not to mention the superb visual quality of a well-shot DV piece. Film requires you to pay more attention to light, which cannot be over-emphasized. In addition, film requires a great deal more rehearsal before the cameras roll for the simple fact that you want to shoot as few unnecessary retakes as possible.

The question is, does either format clearly "win out" as my format of choice? I hesistate about committing to one or the other in such a statement, but I would argue that 5oo T Color Negative film provides unparalleled picture quality and ability for artistic lighting, while MiniDV, which can achieve excellent results, overcomes the cost barrier in a way that film never will.

The Death of YouTube?

In what must seem like an ongoing series of Matt vs. the online video upload services, I have had my latest upsetting encounter, this time with YouTube.

First, let me say that I genuinely love YouTube. I think it's an amazing service. I love being able to communicate with other users, watch their videos, and get feedback. The only major problem I have with YouTube is that they don't allow users to upload more than 10 minutes/100 MB of video in one sitting. They used to offer a way around this: apply for a Director's account, in which you would fill out an online application detailing specifically how much video you had stored on your computer that you wished to upload. Well, the other day, I saw that the Director's account no longer requires the application process. So, I went ahead and registered, and had my nice new Director's account. I went to upload an 11 minute video, however, and was promptly informed it had been rejected as too long. How can this be, with a director's account? After emailing tech support, I received an email explaining that YouTube has done away with the ability to upload more than 100 MB/10 minutes, even for director's accounts.

Which probably means it will be returning as a pay service. The problem is, YouTube is all about being free...open to all video makers. Now, if it becomes a pay service, at least for selected features, it will limit the number of people who can afford to use it, thereby limiting the growing art of Internet film.

I am very disappointed by the changes at YouTube. I genuinely hope that that the site survives these changes and continues to provide the service it has in the past.

In the meantime, for those who follow my films, I will be posting longer format projects at Google Video (which, in its Beta format, is still frought with bugs), and making them available for viewing at my MySpace page:

www.myspace.com/mattbarry84

I may also, from time to time, post videos to this blog if they are relevant to film.

A Few Rants on Google Video

In the last several weeks, I have begun using Google Video more than I had in the past. I was attracted by its unlimited video length, download feature for iPod, and the ability to easily post the video to both Blogger and MySpace.

Last night, I went to upload a video to Google (my first in several months), and the experience has been one I'd like to forget.

I'll begin with the most basic bug in the Google Video interface-the ID/password login. After entering the correct combination several times, I still got a message saying "Invalid Login Information". However, submitting this same information again, it suddenly worked. This problem also presents itself anytime I try to post videos to Blogger and MySpace. Google should be ashamed of this bug as it makes me concerned about the whole security of their site. I hope my information is secure and that their security isn't as intermittent as it would appear based on this bug.

Second, let's look at the bigger issue of uploading. Google boasts about its ability to host videos of an unlimited length-but come to find out, they are still limited to the 100 MB file size if you're using their standard online uploader. My video (an .mpg), the first in a series of online video episodes that I want to post on Google, came in at a hefty 419 MB. It turns out Google now offers another one of their "specialty" products to overcome this barrier-a Google Video Desktop Uploader, for those files larger 100 MB. I downloaded the Windows PC version of it, logged in (after many failed attempts thanks to the bug I mentioned earlier), and proceeded to select my video file to begin uploading. Strangely, I noticed after it would get to a certain point, the upload would essentially "start over" and begin looping back again and again. After several hours of trying to get this complete, I went to Google Groups and checked out the Google Help group, where it turns out that this new verson of the uploader (1.0.6j) has been plagued with bugs-everyone experiencing the same problem as I have been, and not a solution in sight. In a last ditch effort, I downloaded the Linux version of the uploader, and after several failed attempts, wrote the whole thing off as a failure. I understand these are Beta products, but that should not be a code word for "Not Working".

Finally, I went back in to Studio 8 (the NLE program I used to edit the video) and re-rendered it as a .wmv file, which reduced the file size to around 8 MB and also drastically reduced the video quality in the process. I was able to upload this using the online uploader, after one failed attempt (it never did say why it failed, then later I noticed the video had been uploaded twice, suggesting that it hadn't really failed the first time).

Now the video is available, albeit in a drastically different image quality than what I'd hoped. It's ashame, too, because this is one of the best videos I have shot in regard to a good color balance and lighting, but you'd never know that from the murky, muddy mess that's up on Google Video right now.

As much as I support both Google and YouTube, I must say I find the visual image quality abysmal and at best it's a second-rate way to have to watch films. When filmmakers are forced to compress their video files even more just to be able to upload their work at all, the already-substandard image quality becomes nearly unwatchable.

I'm in the process of uploading it to this blog, but (you guessed it) it seems to be encountering some bugs, so who knows when you'll see it here.

Google has a long way to go before their video products can be called functional, or at least anything more than Beta. I challenge Google to come up with a solution to these inexcusable problems. As long as they insist on buying up every single major website on the net, they should at least have the consideration to test their products properly before making them available and promising things that can never happen.