Given that my office is a mere 4-5 minutes from LAX I couldn’t resist going out to shoot NASA’s Endeavour Shuttle as it landed at Los Angeles Internationals airport today on its final flight atop a 747.  

Some incredibly cool people actually helped me get onto roof of their building with a forklift and a few crates to make it to the top… 

NASA’s Shuttle fleet was retired last year after 30 years of flight.  Endeavour is the second of three remaining shuttles to head to its retirement home – in this case the the California Science Center.  

Endeavour, the youngest shuttle, replaced Challenger which tragically blew up during liftoff in 1986.  

During 25 missions, Endeavour spent 299 days in space and orbited the earth  nearly 4,700 times, racking up 123 million miles.

It was a beautiful day – hampered by some pretty heavy duty heat waves as you’ll see, given that the shuttle landed at 1 p.m.  

This footage was shot with a RED Epic, at 5K resolution, at 96 frames per second with a Canon 800mm 5.6 lens.

If you like this video – or would like to see us shoot with 3 camera bodies next time – consider using Vimeo’s new "Tip Jar" function by clicking on the title of this video and looking for Tip Jar icon to the bottom right of the video.  I did this for fun with Jon Carr (who edited the piece in RECORD pace) but we’d love to have more fun gear out there that we’d need to rent for next time an event like this happens…  Thanks!

Lastly – today was bittersweet for two reasons:

1. It’s sad to witness the end of an era – in this case NASA and the United State’s Shuttle Program.

2. The second was more technical and logistical.  I got to my position 4 hours prior to the scheduled landing.  When I shot the two clips below, just two hours earlier – the heat hadn’t reached the same levels and as you see in the Endeavor clip above, and the results of the "dry run" were pretty spectacular…  You can actually see the houses reflected in the underbelly of the 747 in the test shot.

I was practicing for a few hours prior to the Shuttle’s landing to get this shot… only to be met with the sudden heat waves… and the terrible realization that Endeavour was indeed landing on the South LAX runway… but not the southernmost runway that I was lined up on… "Happens to the best of us" as they say!    That being said the clip below is beautiful in its own right… especially when you see the incredible little detail all the way at the end!

I love film.  

Most of us love film.  

In fact when I told my father I wanted to follow in his footsteps and become a photographer (my father was a photographer for Gamma Press, and then the Director of Photography and principle photographer for Premiere Magazine in France)  more than 22 years ago – he was so against the idea, that he sent me to the 3 consecutive darkrooms over 3 summers, to try to dissuade me from my career choice…  

The first summer was spent in a black and white darkroom with one of the top french master printers, named Guy Ben… the next summer was C-41 and C-41 printing… the last was at an E-6 lab, where I learned to process the film, and also Cibachrome printing… after 3 summers, he finally gave me his blessing because his efforts to dissuade me had failed…

These days, I hate to say it, but I do get frustrated when I see the Kodak ads in film trade publications.  Not because I think they are wrong or irrelevant.  But because I feel like they’re not only losing sight of the bigger picture (and the inevitable realities) but also ignoring the potential of what is truly out there…

There is no arguing that film gives you an incredible image that in most cases far exceeds what can be accomplished with a digital sensor (notably when it comes to highlight retention… However – when you look into the shadows, or into high ISO cinematography… it’s hard to argue against digital cinema cameras.)

At the end of the day however, I get frustrated for the following reason:  there is no arguing that film has a unique quality.  One that in some ways CAN’T be matched by most digital sensors TODAY.  

BUT – I am absolutely convinced that in the coming years, that will all change.   I am convinced that digital sensors will come to exceed the dynamic range of celluloid in time… and that it is in every DP’s interest to focus on learning how to best master the emerging (and future) technology (namely digital sensors) – as opposed to fighting what I consider to be a lost battle, in trying to clench onto their (completely justifiable) love of film.  

In fact, what threatens the future of motion picture film the most has little to do with what stock of film (vs digital) is being shot on set… what in fact is threatening motion picture’s film the most is the fact that the industry has moved to DCP (Digital Cinema projections – or delivering films to theaters on hard drives, as opposed to film reels) and to that point, the fact that movies are no longer being distributed in an analog form.  In short:  film prints are no longer being made and shipped out to theaters across the globe – and THAT is what will in the end seal celluloid’s fate..  Hard Drives have won… as has digital distribution.

If you’re interested in seeing a cool film about the transition from analog to digital – you should check out the documentary "Side by Side"  – many of the top filmmakers such as Nolan, Scorsese, and Pfister (he’s now directing his first major feature so he more than qualifies) have some pretty fantastic quotes.  

Another key point for me has always been that there is a lot of incredible technology out there that will allow you to make a RED Epic, Arri Alexa, or Canon C300 look JUST LIKE FILM (or at least very darn close to it!)

 In fact it’s gotten relatively easy to shoot a raw digital cinema negative, and to make it look like any Kodak cinema stock, still photography stock, or black and white emulsion – AFTER THE FACT.    And that should be extremely exciting for filmmakers out there.   You can now cycle through a bevy of films stocks AFTER you shoot… as opposed to being locked into the film stock you chose to shoot your original shot with… let alone the process you chose to process it with chemically. 

With that said:  in comes FilmConvert !

FilmConvert is a plugin for After Effects, Premiere, Final Cut Pro, and Apple Motion as well as a stand alone application, that is used to to approximate the look of different film stocks with footage shot on a variety of digital cameras.  

While everyone is increasingly shooting digital these days, often times different film stocks have desirable qualities which filmmakers will try to achieve through grading in post.  And for that you often need a pretty darn good colorist.

FilmConvert helps to bridge that process.  Essentially the plugin recreates the look of grain structure, color curves, and printer spectral responses from a variety of pre-existing stocks from Kodak to FujiFilm.  

But this is no ordinary "film-look" plugin.  Rubber Monkey, who developed the software, recorded various color charts on different stocks of film and then mapped the qualities of various HD sensors to those charts which is an incredibly important distinction that separates it, from many of the other plugins out there.  

Instead of throwing a simple curve on the image to approximate the look of "film", FilmConvert accurately shifts the values of the image based on the sensor you shot, and intelligently converts the colors that sensor captured, to the type of film stock you choose to emulate.  In other words – they know not only how your individual sensor "sees" or captures a particular color, but just as importantly how each film stock would "see" or render that same color – AND HOW THE TWO CORRESPOND!

You can see example images and one of the color charts that they shot HERE.

The plugin also recreates grain structures that are specific to each stock of film.  Most plugins that apply film grain to your image take a scanned piece of grain and then layer it evenly over the entire image.  However, this does not provide a true, filmic grain structure.  

On film, grain is more or less intense depending on the color and luminosity.  For example – there is less visible grain as an image approaches black, because that is where the negative is the densest, and there is more visible grain at 80% white than at pure white.  Or for instance there is more grain in the blue channel of a tungsten stock film (don’t forget that speed and white balance can’t be changed on a film camera, these setting are dependent on stock) because the blue layer of the emulsion has a higher light sensitivity (higher ISO) than the red or green layer.  FilmConvert takes all of this into account based on whatever stock you choose to emulate.  This is incredible attention to detail.

But still my favorite aspect of FilmConvert is how it processes color, as explained above.  

Digital cameras have the resolution (and often exceed) of film, and in general continue to close the gap towards matching its dynamic range.   Digital cinema frames are progressively scanned (24p rather than 23.97), they have the same depth of field attributes as a 35mm film plane – and still people often complain about the images looking digital.  

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OK I think this is BIG!

At the very least this annoucement has the potential to be very big, and I think this is an important date on the timeline of online video delivery history. 

Vimeo is going to allow its community to start monetizing their video content (and not with annoying ads like youTube!) 

And while Video on Demand or Pay per View aren’t anything new, making them available to the "masses" if you will – IS.

There are two ways this will work:

First is Vimeo’s Tip Jar which enables us to crowdsource funds to support future work.  I’m a big fan of this!   Viewers will be invited to give tips before, during or after watching a video.    And Vimeo will give 85% of that money straight to the creator – which is more than reasonable.   And you can start doing this TODAY if you’re a Vimeo Plus or Vimeo Pro member by simply activating the feature.

I’ve been one of the many people out there asking Vimeo to do something like this for more than 2 years.   I think that if audience members enjoy a tutorial or a video, this is the best way (by giving a small "tip") for them to help that filmmaker continue to produce more of that content.   Same goes of course for short film, music videos, time lapse tips – you name it… or in this case: you "tip" it!

As far as this blog is concerned, the truth is that the majority of the sponsorship we get from companies on this blog goes right into the production of educational/promotionals/behind the scenes videos, shoots, and reviews we do on this blog.   In an ideal world I would love to be able to do these videos purely off of crowdsourcing funds.    We’d be able to make more of them, and to make them a little more impressive or just plain crazier 😉  

Vimeo Tip Jar and Pay-to-view from Vimeo Staff on Vimeo.

I think a lot of people will be activating this feature on their Vimeo accounts – you never know who will appreciate the work you put up…  

This blog has never been about making money, it’s about sharing and giving a little bit back.   But the truth is: it takes a lot of time, effort and money to get that done.  And to this day we’ve been able to do that (a team of 4 of us) on a weekly basis – thanks to the sponsors of this blog.  If you’re not already familiar with them, you should check out the gear section and the educational resources section of this blog that contains a wealth of information.

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