Digital filmmaking roundup

Film will only become art when its materials are as inexpensive as pencil and paper.

--Jean Cocteau

Much exciting stuff going on right now for the world of indie film production. "Affordable HD" seems to be becoming a reality. Imagine being able to make a feature film in HD with just a $3500 camera and a Mac. True, it will take more than that (a good script would be nice, for starters) but that setup is becoming a realistic starting point, and the implications are jaw-dropping. Three people could get together to make a feature film in HD and only need to contribute the price of a low-end used car each to have resources that used to cost hundreds of thousands. And they'd still have those resources when they were done to make another feature film (or to sell, if they realized they sucked at making films).

We're not there yet, but it's definitely getting so close it can be considered virtually a sure thing for the near future. Filmmaking is getting closer and closer to an art form...

The HD for Indies blog is chock full of news and notes from the National Association of Broadcasters convention in Las Vegas. Kudos to Mike Curtis for putting in the time and effort to provide this info. He's blogging like crazy. See also his earlier stab at estimating the best-bang-for-the-buck HD editing system.

The Live from NAB site reports that the competition is heating up between Sony and JVC in the HDV camera market. Excerpt:

More than a year after JVC introduced the first HDV camcorder to the masses, Sony will introduce its own solution to U.S. video professionals at NAB2004, while JVC will preview a 3-CCD ENG-style HDV camcorder at the show.

The news follows a demonstration of Sony's prototype HDV camcorder at its booth at CeBIT 2004, an information technology and telecommunications trade show in Hannover, Germany, last month. According to a Sony spokesperson, there will be a Sony HDV camcorder on display at NAB as well, though details were not available at press time.

Competition: good.

More on the upcoming Sony camera ("DSR0000"? "HDV-G1"?) in this report from abcdv.com.

On my wish list for the near future: Something like this camera with three chips and seamless integration with Final Cut Pro--right now you apparently need workaround tools for the weird-ass MPEG2 that JVC HDV creates.

(For the Cocteau quote at the top of this entry, a tip of the hat to Gerry Fialka.)