I love the video embedded above. It just looks so cinematic, something out of a romantic comedy, indie or otherwise. It was shot with a Canon 7D, but there are several other stealthy DSLR cameras that are just as capable of shooting high quality stuff.
The death of film has been heralded several times over the last 50 years of video camera development, but now it’s finally coming to a head. Passing hundreds of feet of celluloid through a camera is dead, dead. The only projects still being shot on film are big Hollywood films and boutique art projects that delight in their antiquities.
Everything else is and will be capture on a digital camera.
That in and of itself is rather boring, but what’s further fascinating to me is the world remixing ability that these tiny cameras give the filmmakers. You can now go anywhere, shoot anywhere — anywhere. This is going to be especially irksome to the owner’s of false commons, say like Malls and theme parks and even airplanes.
I can imagine a whole feature being shot inside of Disneyland with a crew of one, with two actors and a cast of 40,000 extras. Sure the ticket says that such filming is prohibited, but in this YouTube world, who cares?
We’re already seeing this sort of thing with a show like Ikea Heights, a show shot entirely inside an Ikea store without the store knowing it.
Will the stores and theme parks and other places catch on? Maybe, but some of those places need to let tourists take pictures and the tools for high quality production will continue to blur the lines between consumer and professional.
6 Comments
November 10, 2009 at 7:46 am
I agree, almost anyone can now make movies with the existing world around them and noone will notice. Well, noone will notice until they publish it on YouTube… Well even then noone will notice until they make something with a good story.
November 10, 2009 at 8:26 am
Great point! This is another reason why there should be more & more great content out there.
Video DSLRs & camera phones are also going to keep fueling citizen journalism. There is going to be so much more news footage to cull from in the future.
November 10, 2009 at 10:25 am
This is a great video – tons of beautiful shots. I guess I’ve always (still) been a fan of the SLR kits that work with almost any HD video-cameras you want… not sure if I even have a real list of reasons why I lean that way.
But your point on being able to film almost anywhere with these digital cameras is very true. A few wireless microphones streaming into a multi-channel box hidden away in your backpack and your set to create a movie almost anywhere without people ever knowing.
November 10, 2009 at 11:10 am
Hot stuff, Kent. Smaller, cheaper, faster, better.
November 13, 2009 at 11:26 am
The crowd scenes in Slumdog Millionaire were shot this way. Sneaky.
November 23, 2009 at 9:42 pm
so true bro. I just gave a talk at PodcampAZ about videoblogging on the go and how having a camera with you at all times changes the dynamic of what you shoot. With cameras shooting video better and better and even our phones, anything is possible.