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Allowing one actor to play two roles in the same scene has been possible, at some level, at least since 1961’s The Parent Trap, in which one of Hayley Mills’ arms disappears visibly behind a soft-edged split screen. To put it mildly, techniques have improved, but keeping the necessary technology out of the way of a director whose tastes run to very freeform moviemaking is a challenge in itself.
It’d be easy to think that when Bryce Bayer’s name appeared on the Kodak patent for single-sensor color cameras in 1976, it was a new idea. Sufficiently new to be patentable, perhaps, but actually the idea of covering a sensor with a pattern of primary-colored filters goes back to the earliest days of color photography.
The way consumers engage with content is constantly shifting and at a faster pace than ever before, leaving the television industry playing catch up. Broadcasters, production companies and content producers around the globe are seeing the complexities in production and distribution soaring, increasing costs with lower revenue per asset. At the same time, the TV production world has struggled to keep pace with the twin drivers of technological advancement and evolving consumer viewing behavior.
The industry experienced futureshock head-on in 2020. The impact will take a long time to unwind but it’s already clear that some changes will be profound and not all of them bad. In part 2 we look at what sports and sportscasters need to do to change the live experience to make money and AI’s growing role in the ecosystem.
With Blackmagic recently introducing a new 12K camcorder, the question arises (once again) how much resolution is enough. After all, even the most fervent resolution junkie would have to agree there is a practical upper limit to resolution and how much is actually discernible and worthwhile.
Often, performers at a strip club are fleeting characters in a film or television production, sometimes reduced almost to the level of production design. P-Valley, produced for Starz by Chernin Entertainment, is based on Katori Hall’s stage play Pussy Valley, and defies that expectation by concentrating on the lives of the people who put on the show.
If we could have a “Year of the Engineer”, then I am firmly of the opinion that 2020 would be it. Lockdown has demonstrated unprecedented imagination, ingenuity and tenacity, especially for our engineering community.
The industry experienced futureshock head-on in 2020. The impact will take a long time to unwind but it’s already clear that some changes will be profound and not all of them bad. These changes include remote workflow permanency, virtual production shifts from exotic to routine and genuine efforts to save the planet. Here’s hoping.
