LA has a subway?

Gage made a subway short using, get this, a video camera (a Panasonic HMC150 to be precise). Apparently people still use those.

Subway Short from Devon Sloan on Vimeo.

As anyone who's read The DV Rebel's Guide knows, I made my subway short ten years ago:

The Green Project from ProLost on Vimeo.

But there must be some mistake because both of these were shot with 1/3" sensors, which everyone knows are worthless.

The Subway Short is the new Resolution Chart

Folks following me on Twitter and watching the comments here have noticed that I’m a bit obsessed with an offhanded comment made on the Rebel Café. In response to some technically sound but rather dry sample footage from the Ikonoskop A-cam dII, Gage replied:

I need to see a subway short.

After I cleaned the coffee off my keyboard, I contemplated the profundity of that statement. See, it wasn’t long ago that when a new camera showed up, we wanted to see test shots of Macbeth swatches and resolution charts. Or at least we thought we did. But lately, some crazy filmmakers have brought art to a technology fight, and they are kicking ass. There’s the D90 Subway test, and one shot with the RED One as well. And there’s Reverie, AKA The Bourne Zoolander (you know I love you Vincent). These aren’t really short films, they’re emotional trigger experiments. They’re camera tests designed to tickle our cinema bone rather than satisfy our slide-rules. They promise a cinematic feel rather than razor sharp 4K filmouts. We watch them on our computer screens and on our TVs. You know, where we watch everything. 

For every piece of footage that seemingly proves that the Nikon D90 D-Movies are unusable, there’s at least one that shows how great the footage can look if you work within the camera’s limitations. Ditto the 5D MkII. Folks seem less interested in how a camera fares on a test bench than how it handles being serupticioulsy weidled in a no-photography zone. After Gage’s comment, the Ikonoskop guys actually posted a tiny clip that’s kinda like a subway short!

I told Gage I’d make t-shirts, and I did (all credit goes here). Proceeds go toward buying Gage a beer.

A month ago I wrote that “buttons and features and resolution charts just had their ass handed to them by sex apeal,” and now that movement has a mantra. So when a camera company comes at you with specs and megapixels and data rates, you know what to tell them.

I need to see a subway short.

On the other hand...

...by the time the Scarlet Bolex might become available, we might also have the above camera. Micro 4/3 format, interchangeable lenses and autofocus (probably), HD video and 12 megapixel stills (most likely), all for somewhere in the neighborhood of $1,000 (pure conjecture, although the G1 is currently only $800 with a lens).

You'll have to weigh 3K raw vs. whatever compressed video format Panasonic chooses for the Lumix G (we usin' code names) of course. And there's always the chance that Panasonic will do something stupid to limit the G's professional use, like skipping 24p or hampering manual control. But more than any other camera company, Panasonic has shown the ability to overcome engineering inertia and do the important next thing. We have them to thank for consumer 24p—which we take for granted now, but was a monumental event that Canon and Sony were slow and reluctant to follow.

I for one can't wait to see the subway shorts.

Oh yeah, and:

UPDATE: Looks like the prototype LUMIX G has an AVHD badge on the back (thanks to dcloud for the link in the comments). That's good news, it's a post-friendly codec supported by many NLEs.

I may complain a lot...

…but this little guy looks pretty sweet.

This appears to be the fixed-lens Scarlet design. In this configuration it’s like a digital Bolex H16.

Remember that films shot on 16mm have won Academy Awards, and that 2/3” HD video cameras currently cost $14,000 and up.