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Bird Watching
Sometimes when you go for a walk you spend time watching birds. In the video below you see a flock of gulls flocking around a tractor as it prepares the field for a crop. You see hundred of gulls wait for the tractor to open up the ground and then they rush in to find some snacks. I think they’re happy with worms, insects and small rodents. Anyone that thinks that vegetarianism doesn’t result in hundreds of animal deaths is wrong. These birds love to explore behind tractors.
Rewriting Books For Political Correctness
As a child I read Roald Dahl and I enjoyed the books. These were some of the first books I read. Recently the English decided to re-write books. According to sources they replaced “boys and girls” with children, “mothers and fathers” with parents and more. They replaced words like “fat” and more. Someone thinks that fat is worse than enormous.
In the age of Brexit and more we should not be rewriting old books. We should have fought against ideas like Brexit, against ideas that are xenophobic in nature. We should also work to de-stigmatise topics and identities, rather than make them neutral, or neuter the conversation. Every one of us goes through life being teased or attacked for what we are.
A few years ago I read plenty of James Bond books and I found some passages and ideas questionable, but rather than request for changes to be made I thought, “plenty of people would hate to read these books today. I am certain that people would like to re-write James Bond books, but I see the language as historic artefact. I see it as a step back in time, a time capsule.
The aim shouldn’t be to change what was written decades or generations ago. We should ensure that modern values are instilled in human beings, rather than books. Remember, Brexit and related spreading of hate are the real issue. I don’t want to go further down this thread.
I think that society, rather than editing old books, should remember to teach people about history and context. I was disgusted to find that people I went to university with did not study 20th Century history. People who have not studied 20th century are vulnerable to make the same mistakes in the 21st Century. Look at Brexit, Trump, and the rise of the Far Right. Historical context would do a lot more to advance society, than rewriting old books, in the current social context. Brexit England does not represent 21st Century values. Brexit normalised xenophobia.
And Finally
A book is a book. If the ideas within are old fashioned or redundant we do not need to finish it. We can dump it and read something else. We can get through school without reading books in full. When I liked books I read them in their entirety, but when I tried to read Jane Austen I gave up. I struggled with Willian Faulkner. I enjoyed all Roald Dahl books as a child.
The Dawn Wall film
One of the reasons for which this film is so powerful is that it’s written in the way that Heinrich Harrer wrote about the Eiger. It’s documenting not just a single attempt but the entire process. In doing so we get to know the people well. It gives us some context about their early days and then it spends a big amount of time on the process that led to a
When we watch short films about climbing we sometimes see the trials and errors but those trials and errors are over days and weeks, not seasons and years. It documents the process by which Tommy Caldwell spent years exploring the entire rock face to find a route that was practicable. This is the level of detail that we got in The White Spider. You even have some of those ice falls in this film although only briefly.
One of the nicest moments in this film, and in this story, is when Tommy Cadwell gets to the Wine Tower and decides that, instead of continuing up the climb he would wait until Kevin Jorgenson made it across pitch 15. That’s a great example of friendship, companionship and compassion. It’s great when people suspend their own goals for another person in this fashion. That’s what makes climbing and practising other people so much better. It’s finding people that want you to succeed as much as they want to succeed themselves. “I don’t want this victory to be alone,”
I also like how this film is shot. I like the use of tight shots on the hands, of tight shots on the feet, of shots from down in the valley looking up and of wide shots where you see the climbers and the crew filming. I also like the use of timelapse. This, to a great
It does have some great mapping of the routes on that wall. These maps are used to show the routes that other people have created, the routes that he climbed to get to know the wall and then the routes that he opened himself. The most fascinating use of mapping is when you see all of the variants that he explored before climbing the Dawn Wall successfully. You see a few metres here and there, you see how some create longer routes, and then you see the variants. You also see the gaps where they’re facing a challenging climb.
I think that one of the strengths of this team is that it’s made up of a boulderer and a rock climber. With this combination you have two distinct climbing specialities, that when combined offer a great pairing. One example is the dyno move. As a boulderer part of the game/art of this discipline is being able to make jumps that catch tiny finger holds. The strength of having a rock climber is that he has gained experience of climbing techniques, route finding. In this case the fact that Tommy Caldwell has spent so long studying this problem is that he knows the climb by heart.
I would definitely recommend watching this film if you like climbing as a sport, like reading about climbing and like watching it. I would also recommend it if you want to see a film about collaboration and compassion. How it was filmed and edited is also worth the time. I never found bits long or boring. It’s an excellent film.
Red Epic Dragon test footage
Nice dynamic range, nice variety of test subjects.
“The single one sentence i can say that can sum up everything is this..
It’s the first camera ever that I have used that captures exactly what I see with my own eye.
Never have I seen this before. !” Mark Toia
A 360° cooking Show would be interesting to watch.
For a few weeks now I have been thinking about how you could make a 360° cooking show. For this video I would like to be able to see the process from an angle where I see the person cooking. I would also like to see all of the ingredients and the preparation of various stages of the recipe. For this you would need an open plan kitchen where preparation takes place in the middle of the room.
If it was to be filmed with just one camera then the camera should be lower than eye level but not by much. I would want to look straight ahead in to the eyes of the person preparing the meal and talking. As the person speaks about ingredients I would like to be able to look down and see all of the ingredients. You would need enough room for chopping and marinating. I would think about having a camera above the cooking surfaces so that we can see how the textures change from the start of cooking to when the mix becomes “saucy”. That’s how they describe it in recipes.
I want the 360 approach to be justified. I want to make it so that the viewer has a reason to wear VR goggles. The video above justifies a 360° video whereas the video below does not. The camera needs to be placed as close to the action as possible. It should be designed so that the viewer has to turn his head to see what is happening.
This video does not justify the 360 approach because the action happens in front of the camera and although you can look around the background is not relevant. The action is too small on screen. You can’t see what they are doing.
The camera operator and the producer should learn the recipe and identify what the stages of preparation are. They should have a shot list of every thing that is relevant and place the camera accordingly. Is an oven or a grill used? is sauce prepared? Is something timelapse friendly?
A few years ago we were up in a swiss chalet with a friend and we decided to cook a pizza with a log fire rather than an oven. We started the log fire and then we placed the pizza next to the fire. As the fire was only on one side we rotated the pizza to get it to cook in full. In watching the playback you see the pizza cook as well as the logs go from being logs to embers and “melt” downwards as they burn. If the camera can safely be placed close enough to the fire then you could look down at the pizza as the ingredients change appearance and look up to see the logs decrease in size.
I believe that 360° cooking shows have a future. In theory you need just one well placed camera and editing is cut down to a minimum. Instead of editing and vision mixing from two or three cameras you need just one. I believe that the programme should not be more than 5-10 minutes. People, for now, are still getting used to VR headsets and may find extended periods of time more tiring to watch.
How long will it take before someone like Jamie Oliver uses VR cooking simulations to teach people to cook in the real world. With enough time they could emulate real cooking times at different heats so that when you transition from VR to reality you have the right intuition to successfully cook for yourself and others.
Netflix provides a better opportunity for documentary content distribution than Discovery
In the 1990s when satellite distribution of television content was in it’s infancy we got a satellite dish and I would watch the Discovery Channel from the start of the broadcast day to when the programmes were played for the second time that day.
By watching so many documentaries I learned a lot about the world. I watched Mythbusters, Lonely Planet, Modern Marvels and many many other documentaries. It is only ten years later that I stopped watching Discovery. By that time I was no longer in the family home and so documentary viewing was more restrictive. Whilst at the University of Bournemouth and the University of Westminster I did take advantage to watch as many documentaries as I could find. The dissertation I wrote during my third year of studies was about the documentary genre. I had an academic reason to watch these documentaries. It was no longer a hobby.
Aside from the selection of Discovery channels and University VHS tapes documentaries can also be found on national and European channels. I am thinking of Temps Present, Passe Moi Les Jumelles and other factual programmes and current affairs content. These documentaries fit within a specific format to be broadcast at the same times every week.
We then have artistic documentaries like those broadcast on Arte, shown at independent cinemas, festivals and more. These documentaries are not adapted for mainstream viewing. They fill a niche. They are sometimes hard to watch and other times so niche that aside from those with that passion or interest no one will ever watch them.
The Discovery Channel network broadcasts set documentaries at set times on set channels for a set number of hours per day. Viewers can either watch documentaries as they are broadcast or on demand. As PVR arrived viewers could shape their viewing habits around their lifestyle rather than the other way around.
Discovery channel documentaries have two serious flaws, that as a documentary professional cannot stand. The first of these is commercial breaks. When I watch content I want to watch it from start to finish. I don’t want it to be interrupted because it means that for two or three minutes I have to find something else to do. This could be a serious trigger to people having a laptop or tablet with them when watching TV. The second very big flaw with Discovery TV documentaries is sensationalism and repetition.
I found that when watching hour long documentaries on Discovery television channels more than half of the time is spent repeating what has happened and what will happen with very little content left over. You will spend an hour watching a show that could have been over in just 24 minutes. This is an excellent way to lose viewers.
Netflix is a video on demand platform. This platform makes available all of the content it has licensed to it’s customers. This content is ready to play within seconds and has no adverts. This is great for content creators. It means that they can spend more time moving the story forward. There is no need to worry about viewers starting to watch a show half way through. It means that if you have a 42 minute slot you can spend 52 minutes telling the story. This is great for content creators.
The flaw of Discovery Channel documentaries and commercial television in general is that they make mediocre content and then add adverts every few minutes. This means that a mediocre programme will be watched from one commercial to another before the channel is changed. They live under the misconception that sensationalism and excited narration will keep viewers. It has the opposite effect, at least on me.
Netflix allows you to watch the BBC Blue Planet and Planet Earth documentaries with no adverts. This gives documentary makers an advantage. Imagine watching Planet Earth documentary episodes that are 52 minutes long with an extra 15 minutes or more of adverts thrown in. For this reason Netflix is an excellent documentary distribution platform.
‘Make what people want to watch and the rest goes with it’. I don’t think that has changed at all. My job every day is to make what people want to watch.â€
I have written several times about my notion that documentaries are encyclopaedias. Planet Earth and Blue Planet documentaries are a perfect demonstration of this. Each episode is about a specific biome. By watching each documentary your knowledge and understanding of the world around you increases.
Compare this to the sensationalist hyperactive content that the Discovery channel network places in between adverts. Their content is so sensationalist and so condescending that I switch programme within minutes, if not seconds, of tuning in. Through having to appeal to a mass audience the Discovery Channel documentary network fails me as a viewer. Their content is too unpleasant to watch.
I want to learn, I want good camera work, good editing and good narration. When documentaries have all of these features I will watch them. I want both the content creator and the content distributor to treat me with respect. Although Netflix is not perfect it does a better job than Discovery.