On Mon, 10 Feb 2003 19:22:13 -0700, newvideo@amug.org (Bill
Davis) wrote:
>In article <i3v1a.50130$vm2.26282@rwcrnsc54>,
"David McCall"
><davidmccall@attbi.com> wrote:
>> "Dave Haynie" <dhaynie@jersey.net>
wrote in message
>news:3e460113.42882792@news.jersey.net...
>> > On 8 Feb 2003 21:20:35 -0800,
tzedekh1@hotmail.com (tzedekh) wrote:
>> > Are they now asking $3,500? So that would push
it to $4,500 or so. You
>> > clearly reject the idea of a consumer HD
camcorder, which is fine..
>> > don't buy one.
>> Bingo
>>
>> They will probably make a 3 chip HD camera for
$3500, eventually.
>> David is right. Everybody wants to buy a pro
camera, that will stomp
>> the $50,000 cameras that the serious pros actually
use (SD price,
>> not HD), but the want it for $2500, $3000 tops.
There are news folks
>SNIP
>Personally, I find all this "price" obsession
annoying.
>
>My suspicion is that if anyone *does* achieve a sub
$6000 full-featured HD
>camera all that's going to do is foist upon the world
even MORE
>ill-conceived, poorly planned and poorly executed
"digital films" which,
>if the stories I'm hearing are true, is the LAST thing
we all need.
>
>Not long ago someone mentioned to me reading that at
last years Sundance
>festival, there were 15,000 "films" submitted.
>
>Yes - FIFTEEN THOUSAND!
>
>I can't even CONCEIVE of how much effort was expended on
making 14,750
>films that nobody except the relatives and close friends
of the makers
>will likely ever see.
>
>And Yes, I KNOW that it's not my place to judge who
should be making
>digial movies and who should not. It's a free country
and all.
>
>BUT - and here's the crux of why I find this incessant
quest for "low
>cost" production tools so difficult to justify
- no matter HOW costly or
>cheap the tools used to make a worthy work of visual art
- that cost will
>PALE in comparison to the value of the TIME and EFFORT
that people will
>expend in making it.
>
>In the olden days, young guys like Speilburg would work
in 8mm, Super 8,
>or whatever ELSE was cheap and affordable in order to
LEARN how to make
>movies. They didn't have any fantasy that their
"student" work would
>actually GO ANYPLACE. Only that at each step in the
learning process they
>could advance some - and AS they advanced their access
to finer tools
>would advance right along with them.
>
>And if they proved themselves CAPABLE at each step along
the way - they
>would eventually gain access to serious movie making
tools.
>
>Today, it seems that (as with much else in our society)
nobody honors the
>EFFORT it takes to get good at something. Everybody
wants the CAMERA to do
>the work.
>
>Well, it simply WON'T.
>
>When some manufacturer does come out with that sub$6000
HD cam - I for one
>will save my first and loudest prayers for the poor
Sundance judges. Cuz
>if today it takes a panel of 10 Sundance judges 150 days
at 10 films EACH
>a day to wade through the dreck and cull 250
"finalists" imagine what
>they'll face in a few years.
>
>Scary, very very scary!
>
>Just my 2 cents worth.
[Too early in the morning, but I will try to be
coherent...;-]
I just cannot agree with this point of view. I hate the
term "elitist", but it may well apply here. The
implication
that only the high cost of pro-level gear saves us from
the deluge of poor video productions may be true, but
that high cost also directs the productions toward
particular types of output: those that require large crews
to produce and that can financially justify their existence
by (possibly) being popular enough to return enough
money to pay for these large productions. It closes out
those who may wish to work alone, or in small groups,
and produce not only "story" videos, but
"art" videos,
"nature" videos, or whatever, in high enough
quality to
be satisfying to the makers, if not a wide audience...
When I started out, I started out in 16mm, producing
fair-quality "experimental" films - but the
financial
realities quickly closed this off, and I moved to still
photography. In still photography, top-quality gear
was and is (relatively) "dirt-cheap" compared with
video
(until recently) and motion-film - and those who use
this gear produce vast quantities of materials, enjoying
the process, if not producing a high percentage of
high-quality output. The last part is not the point, though.
The process, and sometimes the results, are satisfying
to many. Recently in video, fairly high-quality gear has
appeared for video production that permits good-quality
output at (relatively) affordable prices, permitting some
of us (with short, non-commercial budgets) to get back
into motion-image-with-sound production. While it may
take a while for people to realize that there may be other
outlets for, and reasons-for-producing, videos than for
making "movie-lookalikes", that not all need to be
done
in the "story" format, and that not all
productions
ought to be thrown into the "Sundance pot" for
judging,
I think it is more than a bit "elitist" to say
that
gear should be high-cost to keep most of us from wasting
our time producing not very good videos in a particular
format and sending them to a particular competition.
I welcome high-quality, small, relatively-cheap HD
gear, and hope that when it finally becomes practical,
I can both afford and physically be able to use it
for producing motion-images of interest to *me*, at
satisfyingly high quality... (and I will not be
submitting the results to Sundance, so relax...! ;-).