To speak of technology as an advancement to many may seem obvious, however not everyone feels that way. Some people speak of the good old days and the magic of cinema with a glint in their eyes. As humans we are nostalgic beings and our relationship to motion pictures is no exception. – Anthony Lee Martin
When we were young our parents were told that if they put new technology on their kitchen counters their lives would be so much easier! They did, and it was.
Microwaves completely changed the way homes operated. Our parents were willing to potentially sacrifice quality in exchange for the time it saved them. We call this process convenience and as a culture we’re addicted to it. So when someone comes knocking on our doors offering us more of anything for a little bit of extra money, it’s a no brainer! We’re keen!
Technology like this is called technology, until it’s called a microwave. We don’t walk into people’s homes today and exclaim, “Wow! I love your technology, do you guys enjoy using it? How does it work?” The truth is we don’t say anything at all. After all, it’s just a microwave.
Personally, I’m not the greatest fan of microwaves but I am a great fan of one of its conveniences, microwave popcorn. The thing with popcorn though, is that as long as it’s still popping you don’t want to take it out. It’s all about timing. I find technology to be like this. It is often offered to us while it is still being perfected.
Right now, there are a couple of technologies going round and round in the microwave in front of us. Among them are the abilities carrying 4K, UHD and HDR all the way through to broadcast. At first glance they do look nice and are beginning to seem mighty enticing! But what are they really offering us and are these technologies ready to be consumed?
Without going into too much detail (or any at all). 4K is what it sounds like, about four times the resolution of HD. Unfortunately though the difference to the human eye is close to imperceivable. The improvement is mostly in the reproduction and broadcasting of these images, resulting in the final image appearing vastly better than HD. In and of itself 4K is not a massive selling point as much as it is the next logical step in screen resolution technology.
Secondly, we have Ultra High Definition, or UHD which offers us the ability to more closely broadcast what the human eye is capable of seeing. In layman’s terms this allows us access to around forty per cent more colour, along with greater highlight and shadow information, than we were previously able to reproduce.
The last of the three is High Dynamic Range, or HDR. This is not necessarily new technology in and of itself, but the recent ability to successfully broadcast it seems to be enough of a pop to bring it back into the spotlight. The simple idea of HDR is that identical images are captured at varying exposures and then combined to access greater detail in the final image.
To speak of technology as an advancement to many may seem obvious, however not everyone feels that way. Some people speak of the good old days and the magic of cinema with a glint in their eyes. As humans we are nostalgic beings and our relationship to motion pictures is no exception.
When HD was first introduced we did all we could to emulate what we had previously been used to seeing on screen. We even went so far as to actively degrade the footage just to try soften the edges! Although HD was a more detailed image, it removed a lot of what we had come to recognise as beautiful and cinematic. What was once designed to capture our imagination now captured our attention and distracted us!
Nevertheless, over the last couple of years not only have our viewing expectations moulded, but the post processing and broadcasting of these formats has become infinitely better and more refined. This has created in audiences a new understanding of what constitutes the beautiful and cinematic and, along with it a new set of expectations.
So I guess the question is potentially not if, but how long will it take for us to adopt these new technologies as our expected cinematic norm?
The one thing companies promoting these technologies don’t like to draw attention to, for obvious reasons, is that it will cost more to stream 4K media than HD currently costs. Although a lot is being done in the world of compression technology to help this along the math is simple, if you want to consume media at a higher quality it’s going to cost you more.
That said, internet speeds may be a greater restriction to this technology than one would have hoped. On the odd occasion when a streaming video automatically upgrades to a higher resolution we are pleasantly surprised. However, the last thing we’re going to do is increase the resolution if it’s struggling to stream, which all too often is unfortunately the case. Unless it’s something I’m super excited to watch, I’ll settle on the fastest streaming resolution available to me at the time and I guess that’s the key. If you’re asking people to watch your latest film in the latest technology it better be worth watching as it’ll cost them a lot more time and money to watch.
For years the marketers have been telling us as filmmakers that our workstations can now handle advanced technologies and higher resolutions, but the first thing anyone wanting to accomplish anything in post-production does is create HD files to work from. This is simply because, for the most part, it’s currently impractical to work in any higher resolution. Even if you are finishing in 4K you’d be crazy to edit in 4K, unless you have a hidden agenda to take more coffee breaks in your work day while you wait for your renders.
Time is money and anything that slows down one’s ability to watch what they want to see makes no sense, regardless of the quality. Simply offering these new technologies is not enough. They need to be offered at the same, if not better, operational speeds as previous technologies. We want more but not if it slows us down. In today’s fast paced world, speed is more highly valued than quality.
What excites me the most about these technologies (and popcorn) is when the end users get their hands on them. Currently we are being invited to take the journey from the popcorn counter to the salt table and to taste the popcorn as it was prepared for us along the way. But, we all know that once we get to the salt table the whole game changes. Popcorn comes alive when we’ve added our own flavour to it, and the same can be said of technology!
Once the marketers let go of their creations and let us discover for ourselves how we want to use it, I doubt we’ll know the full potential and beauty of these new technologies. After all, that’s where the true magic happens!
If you are looking to adopt any one, or all of these new technologies into your world, keep an eye on the product developments, listen to the rumblings and time the pops to know when the best time to reach in is. You don’t want to dive in too early and realise your itchy fingers have left you many kernels shy of the full bag of popcorn.
ANTHONY LEE MARTIN is a husband, father, son, brother, friend and film editor at Deliverance Post Production. He has a Bachelor of Arts in Film and Media from the University of Cape Town which he completed at the University of California, Santa Barbara. For over a decade he has tucked himself away in grey rooms around the country editing locally and internationally awarded commercials, short films and branded content. www.anthonyleemartin.com
By Anthony Lee Martin, film editor, Deliverance Post Production
