We lost a titan of the tech industry this month.   We lost a visionary and one of the geniuses of our century in my opinion.

Most of us have yet to realize how much of a lasting imprint Steve Jobs has had on the world at large…  I crossed paths with Steve three times while on Apple’s Cupertino campus.

The first time I crossed path with him was at the entrance to 1 Infinite Loop where we exchanged a nod and smile.   

I can unequivocably say that if Steve Jobs hadn’t created the Mac – you would not be reading this blog today.  Steve transformed the path of my life with the Mac.  Period.  

I also shared an elevator ride with him to the executive level once –  an experience that many Apple employees feared most (I know a few engineers/managers who literally NEVER rode the elevator EVER for fear of having a verbal exchange w/ Steve.. Apparently, not being able to give a satisfactory answer to Steve’s question of "What do you do here" could result in dire results…)

The last time I crossed paths with him, was when he walked past me an into Jon Ive’s car – weeks before his illness was publicly announced.  I remember being terribly startled by his emaciated appearance.  I dared not even speak with my friends at Apple about it – as I knew if was not to be a topic of public, let alone internal discussion.  It was far too touchy to discuss at all for all of us.  Anyone who understood Apple’s culture, knew better than to even bring the topic up… we just internalized our fears and hoped for a miracle privately.

While Steve was far from perfect – he strove for perfection every day.  And I admire that very much.

I think Steve Jobs left us with a special gift in the end (amongst many others) – perhaps a little piece of him that will stay for us for years to come:  Siri ….

While "Siri" was admittedly an acquired company – Apple has worked on perfecting it…   With that said:  Steve contributed to me spending 3 hours talking w/ a machine (my iPhone 4s) for the first time in my life for more than a few minutes…

I found myself speaking to my phone for 3 hours last Friday and asking it silly questions…

To Steve:  Thank you.  

For everything you have done and will do for years…

You have changed the way the world interacts with technology – FOR THE BETTER.   To Siri/Apple – thanks for having a sense of humor (I suggest you ask Siri:  "Where I can buy drugs" and "Are you HAL?"  in honor of Stanley Kubrick… (trivia:  HAL is one letter back from IBM…)

*******

I predict that November 3rd will be a big day in cinema history.  

Canon is inviting all of the Hollywood elite to a "historic event" at the Paramount theater, and Jim Jannard or RED is promising a "most watched day in Reduser history."  

Two titans making big claims.  

I think the gauntlet has been thrown – and I’m not sure the media at large has yet to pick up on it…

*****

Canon announced the EOS 1Dx a little over a day ago.  

Looks like an amazing still camera with exciting high ISO performance and new video features…  I have yet to see it but am excited to play with the camera next week when I speak at Photo Plus Expo in NYC.  

What will their November 3rd announcement in Hollywood bring?

As I mentioned above – I think we’ll see two very relevant announcements from to titans of the imaging industry…

******

Lastly:

I spoke at the College of Southern Nevada today and asked the following question to an audience of around 200 people.

"How many of you still read newspapers in the printed form?"

A dozen people or so raised their hands…

I then asked:

"How many of you (who still read the newspaper in printed form) are under 30?"

Only one person amongst 200 had their hand up…

I used to remember when more than 1/3 of the audience (under 30)  had their hand up in response to that last question when I was in college… times have changed…

I also asked how many of those same people got their news from online versions of those same newspapers – and a healthy amount raised their hands…  that was nice to see!

Then I asked two other questions:

"How many of you expect to make your living from creating or providing content?"

Close to half of the audience responded by raising their hands up.

When I asked the same audience:

"How many of you believe that you should pay for content?"

Less than a dozen people kept their hands up… 

We need to do better.

More TK.

I will be at Photo Plus Expo next week in NYC, teaching a workshop, and speaking for Canon and Lexar from Thursday through Saturday.  I look forward to seeing some of you there!

I will also be speaking at the Apple Store in Chicago on November 7th.

I had a nice get together today with famed photographer Douglas Kirkland and Local 600 President (Director of Photography union)  and ASC member Steven Poster.  As we were about to part ways,  discussion turned to the potential demise of Kodak.

Earlier today I also happen to have read a great article about Emmanuel "Chivo" Lubezki ASC and Terrence Mallick’s "Rules"  or "dogma" as they called it,  for shooting during their collaboration on "The Tree of Life."   The article described how film is still unparralled relative to digital in terms of dynamic range and how they were able to push the boundaries of what can be captured by any camera available to us today.

Ironically earlier in the week I found myself grading a piece I had directed with one of the colorist who had graded "Tree of Life" and we found ourselves in an interesting discussion about film vs digital – and all of the cameras out there.

He argued that he would only shoot film with his still photographs, yet that he felt very comfortable with what could be done in post with digital cinema files and how digital capture has distinct advantages to film in certain specific circumstances.   

I pointed out to him, that while I worked my way up through black and white, color, and E-6 labs and learned to shoot everything on film – including sporting events on color-reversal film – that I had come to embrace digital whether it was with still images or cinema / live action footage.   If anything I found that cinema film stock offered more noticeable advantages in the motion picture world over digital cinema sensors – than in the still world for example.

We came to agree that ultimately – each camera out there (whether a Nikon or a Canon, or an Alexa vs an Epic) had very distinct characteristics – pros and cons.   Trying to pick "one" ultimate camera or stocks – was somewhat of a fool’s task.  

As we see Kodak being threatened these days – and the potential for motion picture film to disappear in the upcoming years (something that I would NOT be a fan of of course!)  – I think we came to an interesting conclusion together.

Each digital camera out there,  each sensor – will effectively become our future film stocks…   The RED Epic reacts to light differently than the Arri Alexa does – or the Sony F3, Panasonic AF100 or of course the Canon 5DMKII.   Each has its distinct pros and cons – whether due to image quality, dynamic range, sharpness, resolution, RAW codec or weight and size (not to mention price.)

What I do think is important is for all of us to work with all of the digital still and cinema cameras out there – and to treat them the same way we would different Kodak or Fuji film stocks.

I love film as much as anyone out there.   And there is no question that it’s dynamic range  – especially in the highlights – has yet to be met with digital cameras.   Yet the Zacuto Shootout tests showed that digital cameras have an uncanny ability to dig into those shadows in a very impressive manner- in ways that film cannot.

Therefore, while it may be nice to wax poetic about the inherent merits of film – especially motion picture film, it would probably behoove us to spend our time mastering these new digital sensors and post workflows.   As time, and Kodak’s potential bankruptcy, may ultimately end up forcing all of us in the direction of purely digital capture regardless of what we yearn to shoot on…

While there is no question that losing motion picture film altogether would be a huge loss – it seems to be an unfortunate reality in the next decade if not less.  (I’m betting it will be around a lot longer than most people expect…)   I think we should do our best to discover some of the new ways of shooting that these new digital sensors will allow us to.  I can tell you that shooting into the dark shadows or in very low light can be extremely fun – as many of these new camera can now literally see more than the human eye can see in the dark…

This is just a sign of where things are headed – it’s going to be FUN to be a digital cinematographer in the upcoming years!   Cameras are getting smaller and lighter (not always a good thing… but often it is!)  and more affordable.    Sensors are getting better (note that this camera has a CCD sensor not CMOS)  and I love the idea/ergonomics of this camera!   I’d love to get a chance to play with it one day!   A friend of mine has one – so we’ll see…

 A quick excerpt from the Cinema 5D article:  

  "The Ikonoskop DII records uncompressed RAW 12bit with up to 30fps.

 It saves the files onto a 80gb (15 minutes) or 160gb (30 minutes) flash drive.

There are numerous lens mounting options including Canon EF, FD, C-mount, PL mount, Leica, f-mount, bnc….

One of the great things about this camera besides its quality is that you can use your Canon mount lenses. On top of that there are many many great 16mm film lenses being sold on ebay as 16mm film is meeting its doom. Here, for example, is a very high speed Schneider f0.95 25mm lens for 800€. There are many c-mount f1.4 cctv lenses starting at $10, but I guess they suck (?). The reason for the diversity of mounting options is that it optionally comes pre-equipped with a P+S IMS mount"

For more info go to Cinema 5D.