Art Teks

Lightheaded selected for competition festival screening

Iain Finlay's short film 'Lightheaded' has been selected for the VX Auteur Theory Award screening as part of the 4th Halloween Short Film Festival, at the Curzon Soho on Wednesday 10th January at 6pm.

links: www.shortfilms.org.uk
www.myspace.com/halloweenshortfilmfestival3

HDV coming soon!

A recent venture to 'Creative Video' in Warwickshire gave us invaluable insight into the world of High Definition Video. Bringing HDV cameras and edit suites into the Moving Image area would enable students to produce very high quality video which gives stunning results when displayed on compatible screens and projectors.

The format requires a screen or projector with a very high resolution in order to take full advantage of the HDV format, however results show that there is a noticeble improvement on any compatible display. As the cost of hardware is rapidly dropping in price we should be able to take advantage of this in the near future. It's also worth noting than some establishments such as Broadway Cinema will also invest in this technology as it will soon become the industry standard.

Looking more closely at the cameras, we particularly like the Canon XL-H1. At £4750 + vat, it clearly wasn't the cheapest model we looked at, but we liked the quality of the lens and the ability to output fully uncompressed video using the HD-SDI output.

Moving on to the edit suites we wanted to grill the experts about working with Final Cut Pro on the new Power Macs. As hardcore PC users we were a bit unsure about this jump to a new platform, but it has to be said - the performance was impressive.

As a lot of these technologies are still under development we need to make sure that we are investing in hardware that will be supported by major software companies. There does seem to be some conflicts between groups such as Adobe and Apple, let's hope these are resolved by the time we come to purchasing.

Owen

New Video Kit!

Brand spanking new video hardware arrived at Moving Image this summer including 8 tripods, a tracking dolly, a glidecam and a fig rig. A welcome addition to the departments facilities.

The tracking dolly allows you to create smooth shots on location or in the studio, all you need is a reasonably flat surface. It has approximately 6 meters of track and is highly portable.

The castors grip the track and provide smooth motion for the camera.

The kit breaks down into small compenents and can be easily transported in the bag provided.

This sequence shows how the tracking dolly can be used. The top line shows the view from the video camera on the track.

The glidecam is a camera stabilizer capable of creating super smooth shots. It will allow the operator to walk, run, go up and down stairs, shoot from moving vehicles, and travel over uneven terrain without any camera instability or shake.

The Fig rig becomes part of the body to produce smooth, steady travelling shots. As the operator walks, his/her muscles and tendons absorb all the shocks, transferring only fluid movements to the camera. The Fig rig also allows lanterns and microphones to be attached and has a remote for easier access to camera controls.