Lying nearly horizontal, managed to catch some 180 degree immersive films recently, at the Melbourne Planetarium as part of MIFF.

Under The Dome
The Melbourne Planetarium (at the Scienceworks Museum in Spotswood) features a ‘16m domed ceiling, reclining seats, a stereo surround sound system and has recently been upgraded to incorporate Sky-Skan’s DigitalSky projection system’. In practice, this means craning your neck around everywhere to see what’s happening beyond your peripheral vision. MIFF featured 3 compilations of dome films, and I opted for the experimental collection – which could’ve been called screensaver collection and only a couple of films would’ve suffered by that description.

Domefest / Elumenati
Part of the compilation came from Domefest, an annual screening curated by Artslab, an interdisciplinary arts centre in the New Mexico desert. A big of googling reveals that festival to be connected with another group, Elumenati, virtuoso specialists in the field immersive projection design. Which also happens to be a group that Johnny De Kam ( founder of VDMX and vidvox.net ) has done a lot of work with. Small world dome thingy.

Anyways, best film of the evening? Celestial Mechanics by Scott Hessels (2005), which aimed to visualise the manmade aerial technologies between us and the heavens, starting from police and news helicopters, and working through a range of transmitters and satellites, beautifully evoking their processes as it unfolded. Less good? Cosmic Dance, self-described as ‘astrophysics meets Bollywood’, and a painful 48 minutes of a patronising female host, who when not speaking down to the audience, was being washed in cliched special effects and dancing with the universe. Or something.

DIY DOMING
“DomeXF is a content plug-in for Adobe After Effects, Windows version. For fulldome producers, it is a key tool for transforming flat-screen content to the dome. The DomeXF plug-in for Adobe After Effects is available from Sky-Skan for $395USD”.

DomeXF offers the three standard Full Dome video transformations: standard, panoramic and fisheye.
• Standard transformations give the artist the ability to represent true geometry on the dome allowing the composite layer to appear flat and undistorted.
• Panoramic transformations force the bottom of the composite layer to align with the horizon, even when resized.
• Fisheye transformations give the composite layer depth, akin to the traditional all-sky transformation.

And a vast array of potential filming and projection transformative possibilities await you at Paul Bourke’s site of maths and video surfaces.

Fulldome ANAT Masterclass Opportunity
Dome Lab 2010 wants you, applications due Friday 3 September 2010, masterclass to be held 31 October – 5 November 2010 :: Perth, Australia.

“… most fulldome content to date has been educational and comprised of computer-generated animation, data visualistion, or a combination of both. Now, however, there is a shifting focus, with producers turning their sights to the entertainment potential of live-action story-telling for large-formats such as fulldome. Dome Lab is a world-leading intensive workshop investigating this potential and the specific challenges involved in creating compelling live-action narrative content for large format and frameless screens.

Filmmakers and artists excited by the chance to leap beyond the frame and into the expansive creative potential of large-format, immersive screen experiences are invited to apply. Participants will work alongside a team of creative and technical luminaries including Academy-Award winner, Ben Shedd, 2010 Peter Rasmussen award-winner, Peter Morse and international fulldome pioneer, Hue Walker Bumgarner-Kirby.”

Unimpressed by the climate policies on offer for Australia’s upcoming election? You need to read Chris Goodall’s book with the above title. The Executive Summary? Shifting from the ’shackles of fossil fuel dependence’ to a low-carbon economy, is just like the transition from VHS to DVD. Kind-of.

To Be Specific
Chris actually notes at the book’s beginning, the transition away from fossil fuels should never be expected to be anything but immensely difficult, nothing at all like shifting from VHS to DVD. The last century of industrialised oil burning has an enormous infrastructure built up around it, and it will take a long, long time before we are able to shift away from it. That said, he does manage to paint a compelling picture of how we could successfully combine new technologies and a variety of energy reduction initiatives. That anyone can write a book in this arena, and come off sounding even vaguely optimistic, is commendable in itself.

Recommended Tech
The list can probably be guessed, but Goodall’s skill is in usefully framing the technologies and the problems surrounding their more widespread implementation, while noting realistic limits and expectations. Wind and solar take up the first two chapters, and while success stories are pointed to ( Denmark gathers 20% of it’s electricity from the wind, concentrated solar power techniques are improving energy gains using more accessible technologies than photovoltaics), he also mentions that even in a best case scenario they will still supplement rather than replace fossil fuels.

More Energies
From where else? The ocean ( tides, waves, currents, temperature differences ). From our homes ( fuel cells, and micro generators of power that allow us to harness the heat too, instead of losing most of it at power plants ). From savings within super-efficient homes and electric cars. Motor fuels from cellulose – which means land battles ahoy ( 600 million cars competing for the food needs of 6.6 billion people), though potentially combined with carbon sequestering ( burying carbon ) in ways that both improve soil and food yields, as well as reduce carbon footprints. Reforestation gets a shout out too, for the potential to soak up carbon.

M.I.A.?
Goodall explains in his epilogue why he didn’t include nuclear power stations (bad economics), geoengineering ( need to research but not prioritise now )and energy efficiency ( not really a technology ) in his list of technologies, and manages to end on a note of optimism.

See also: Carbon Commentary, a site run by Chris aiming to be ‘a critical appraisal of issues in a move to a low-carbon economy’.

DSLR cameras extend the possibilities of macro (close-up) photography to video. Aside from the expensive macro lens options, there are a range of super-cheap DIY modifications available, that let you capture miniature worlds in motion.

All below are cheap options, and can be frowned upon by photography purists – you’ll lose some of your camera controls ( eg autofocus), but when used for DSLR video, image quality is still fantastic compared to traditional video cameras in the same price range, and really, you’re swimming in miniature worlds, and potentially capturing them in HD video.

Macro Conversion Lenses
Option one – find out what diameter size your lense is ( it’ll look like this on the lens – Ø72, meaning 72mm ), then buy a cheap lens add on magnifier of the same diameter that will screw on. An Ebay search for ‘macro lens kit’ will deliver a cheap collection of lenses with a variety of magnifications.

Reverser Rings
Again, the diameter of your lens is needed her, and when you flush the reverser ring search through Ebay, a small package will arrive from Hong Kong in a week or so. The reverser ring attaches to the front of the lense, which let’s the lens go onto the camera backwards. (Or DIY Reverser ring )

Extender Tubes
These cheap metal cylinders extend the distance your camera’s innards and the end of the lense, enabling a closer minimal focal distance for shooting from.

Bellows
There’s something perversely analogue and satisfying about these, kind of like attaching a small piano accordion to your digital pixel capture magic box. They allow easy fine tuned adjustments, moving the lens with respect to the focal plane for focusing. ( Crazier, more expensive tilt-shift bellows option, with full Canon EOS controls retained by camera: Novoflex have you covered.)

Or You Could Just Use
A Pringles can. And aye, naturally, there are many DIY iphone macro photography tutorials ( eg Instructables ). Mostly they involve magnifying glasses of some sort in front of the camera lense. Or maybe a video endoscope’s more your flavour?

Challenges?
Depth of field will be a problem. Even very, very small movements with the camera will take objects in and out of focus. Stability is key then, and DIY stages / environments for objects, even better. Lighting can also be a problem, both in terms of having the camera so close to the object, and with the extra lense lengths being added, letting less light through to the camera. This can be solved with ring lights which fit around a lens, or thoughtful side lighting / reflected light.

Be off swimming with the micro-beasties now, won’t you?

In an alternate universe you have been asked to do some live remixing of Tim Burton related films. However, in that universe, inter-universe messaging systems are commonplace, and your alternate self received the following, hopefully helpful note about possible films to sample.

Take Me Back To Wonderland
Congratulations on your assignment, you are going to have fun – there’s plenty of room to move here, from the whimsy of Pee Wee Herman’s Big Adventure through to much more macabre and grotesque cinema. And this little known fact should help: Bit Torrent works the same in all known universes.

Alice in Wonderland is a great place to start digging. Try the Ravi Shankar soundtrack soaked 1966 BBC production (one of the most psychologically engaging Alice films), with Sir John Gielgud and Peter Sellers. And there are twenty or so other versions, but Jan Svankmajer’s stop motion Alice packs more invention than most. His short film Ossuary, about visiting a cathedral of bones will cross-edit nicely too.

If you lived in a universe where Prince wasn’t a newly religious recluse who complained about the internet killing culture, you’d probably find the combination of his Batdance music video ( half joker face, half batface, 80’s music video aesthetics representing) and the unaired pilot episode of Batgirl irresistible. Especially say, when paired with matching shots of his purpleness on the rain era motorbike, and Batgirl swaying on her batbike in front of a green screen, while a presumably expensive blow-drier makes like wind with her hair.

Hit Tim Shiel / Faux Pas up ( iamfauxpas.com = alternaverse friendly) for some Major Beetle Juicy Lazer file transfers. Sadly, Tim is unavailable in other universes for live soundtracking and sonic manipulation of video clips, but if you’ve got the bandwidth, he’ll bring the Day-O / Beetlejuice dinner / remix party – with Harry Belafonte and the muppets, karaoke dreamers, ableton live splinter video cut-ups, and a Major Lazer infused Day-O for dessert.

Tim will also remind that Janelle Mondae’s ‘Wondaland’ is great accompaniment for Alice’s rabbithole comedown. He’ll also likely recommend a deluxe edit of Janelle Mondae’s The Archandroid album – “delete tracks 9, 10, 11, 18 and try again – another bloated over-ambitious r&b/futurefunk record saved by some judicious editing. 78 mins of blah becomes 47 mins of pure gold!”

In your universe, Ed Wood wears budgie smugglers and complains about boat people refugees while he directs films – and the Political Opposition leader of your country, Tony Abott, slinks about Parliament after hours in a blouse and skirt, with matching stockings and heels. Work with that.

In this universe, The Tim Burton exhibition runs until Oct 10 at ACMI, Melbourne.

Japanese audiovisual performance that takes in Super-Collider, NES emulators, circuit-bent Pikachus and custom iphone controlled sound synthesis programs and video sampling systems? Ah, that’d be Craftwife. They play “70-80’s style techno pop music in the special costume that may remind you (of) a German band (.. in a miniskirt).” Takeko Akamatsu took time out from touring Australia’s East Coast, to answer a few questions.

[ Above, Craftwife @ Horse Bazaar, Melbourne, Wed Jul 28, 2010. ]

How do you describe your show?
It’s an audio-visual performance and it looks like a techno pop music live. But I combine many elements in a show with many thoughts. So I’m very happy if audiences can see my performance in different, various way.

Kraftwerk liked machines playing notes, claiming it freed them up for composition… What have Craftwife been freed up to do?
Making music with computer is something special for me. I found many musicians are still following the traditional way, i.e imitating a physical phenomena with machine. I’m not interested in it, I’ve been trying to find the new way to play music with computer programming and technology. I really don’t like keep on doing a same thing, “Practice”. So that I’m happy I don’t need any sweaty practice to perform as Craftwife.

How does a circuit bent Pikachu fit into your show?
I have a project called “Craftwife + Kaseo + “. Kaseo (is the author of Pikarumin – bent Pikachu) plays powerful and loud noise music. The style of our music is very different, but we have common thoughts about the sound and music. And visually, you may find some Japanese “Kawaii” or “character” culture. Also I love the contrast of my “clean” programming, software and his messy, physical hardwares.

What has been your favourite / ( or would be your ideal?)  place to play a Craftwife gig?
Craftwife plays everywhere if audiences are waiting for us. I had played in different places such as a small cafe to a nice club or fashion museum  even at an academic conference. I cannot choose which was the best, we’re going to have a show in planetarium of my small town in this September and I’m really looking forward it. Hopefully, it must be fantastic if we can play with my favourite German band someday.

What do you enjoy about super collider?
It’s difficulty. Memo: sometimes people are used….. to be used by technologies. bababa .. too sleepy…..

[ Above, Craftwife + Super Collider + custom software + iphone + bonus Kristin... ]

[ Side-note: First discovered Craftwife via a blog post by David Lublin, one of the VDMX head-coders. Popped off an email to see if Takeko would like to do an interview. As well as agreeing to one, Takeko mentioned she was touring Australia soon. Which later turned out to include Melbourne. On my birthday. Thereby continuing the weird sensation that VDMX pulses somewhere near the centre of a cult universe, an electromagnetic conduit for a small but growing band of dispersed pixel gypsies.]

Part 1: The Hustle

Hassle Canon to sell a 7D at cost price in exchange for review, knowing from using the camera, and seeing online videos, that this is a most desirable camera for shooting video.

Part 2: Zoom In

Focus the review on the video qualities of the Canon 7D, knowing that the Canon 5D MK II has much better photo image quality, and that while other video cameras are on the horizon, which promise similarly large sensors but better video handling controls ( eg the SONY NEX range), the 7D holds a unique position for video capture at this point.

Part 3: Dirt, Meet Fingernails

Run around with the camera a bit, see what it can do ( it sucks light in! ), see how it feels ( sturdy, solid, well built). Think back about shooting video with it, and analyse each component.

The Body
Jumping inside, the camera’s sensor is APS-C sized which means the focal range of all lenses used with it need to be multiplied by 1.6 ( eg a 50mm lens which gives a natural perspective on a full framed camera, will look like an 80mm lens on the Canon 7D – 50×1.6 = 80mm = a lense which gives a slightly zoomed in perspective.) Lenses are separate, and not something being considered here, but the camera itself feels great. Controls are precise and reliable, built to last. That said, this is not a traditional video camera, with ergonomic focus and zoom adjustments within reach. The small size ( relative to a big video camera) also means stabilisation is needed to prevent too much wobble-cam. There is a smorgasbord of companies rushing to supply supporting rigs, but the cost of these also needs to be considered up front if video is your goal.

Software
- Highly customisable interface ( hardware buttons can be re-defined / has 3 custom global settings for easy access to specific settings to suit particular shooting conditions )
- Saves files to a Compact Flash card, in the H264 codec. (Good quality, but needs transcoding into editing software)

Image Quality
Utterly gorgeous. Induces giddy laughter in low-light. It’s not without issues ( google 7D + jello-cam, rolling shutter, moire and aliasing ), but if you’ve come from any other video camera in the same price range, you’ll mostly just be slack-jaw amazed at what the camera is capable of.

Audio Quality
As lame as might be expected for what is essentially a photographic camera slowly morphing into becoming a video camera. A work around? Record using an external recorder such as the Zoom H4N, and use PluralEyes software to auto-sync up your high quality audio files with your lower quality ones, within your video editing software. Once synced, delete the bad audio, and your filmic masterpiece now has rich sound to match.

Part 4: Duel at Dawn

Compare the 7D with the 5D Mk II, the 7D’s only true competitor in the field.

5D: Full frame sensor, greater image quality, more depth of field. Better for wide shots. Use up to 25600 ISO ( ie great for low light). 3.9 FPS for photos. 1080p at 30p only. ( ie 1920 x1080 HD progressive / non-interlaced footage at 30 fps ).

7D: Smaller APS-C sensor ( means less image quality, but also means closer to 35mm movie sensor size and possibility, after adding mods, of using cinema lenses ). Better for telephoto shots. Use up to 12800 ISO. 8FPS for photos. 1080/30p (29.97), 1080/25p, 1080/24p (23.976), 720/60p (59.94) and 720/50p ( 50p + 60p footage can effectively create slow-motion footage at 25p and 30p ).

Aside from the above specs, the 7D also has a dedicated video record button, a better LCD screen for viewing in daylight, and better ergonomics for handling. Plus, this guy recommends it for video.

Part 5: Signing Out

When offering some final words of critical acclaim for this most desirable video camera, don’t forget to crowdsource, and point to the huge range of support material online developing around the 7D and it’s enthusiastic fanbase. People like to see it for themselves.
vimeo.com/groups/eos7d
vimeo.com/groups/canoneos7d

See also:
The skynoise intro to DSLR cameras and an overview of
steadicams and video stabilising systems DSLRs.

Thanks to Canon Australia, and to 3DWorld for printing the review.

Considering cinematography as a dynamic flow through time and space, it’s hardly surprising that skateboarders often demonstrate a flair with the camera. Most are familiar with the skate background of Spike Jonze, but let’s tilt the hat to a few other skate creatives.

What’s Up, Stacy Peralta?

After developing a public profile in the 70s as a sponsored skater with long blonde Californian hair, Stacy later used this to form the influential skateboarding company Powell Peralta ( with George Powell). As a marketing move, they gathered some of the best skaters ( such as Tony Hawk, Steve Caballero, Lance Mountain etc, to represent the company as the Bones Brigade. Crucial to their wild success was a series of videos directed by Stacy, which fruitfully combined 80s skate gymnastics with collaged graphics, cleverly repurposed weird locations and artful editing. The Search For Animal Chin probably reigns as the most notorious of those, as the skaters wander between skate locations trying to find the kidnapped grandfather of skating, ending their search at a giant custom built ramp when they realised Animal Chin represented the true spirit of skating, and was within everyone. Further refined, Stacy’s technical skills were again well employed on his first feature, Dogtown and the Zboys ( a history of early Californian skating), then Riding Giants ( about big-wave surfing ) and Crips N Bloods ( a history of racial violence caused by segregation in Los Angeles ). From there, apparently he went onto sell hamburgers : whoppervirgins.com.

Breaking News from image above: Animal Chin found by Ilana Taub.

Macho Tail Drop
Pitched as a Michel Gondry influenced Charlie and the Chocolate Factory for skaters ( If that sounds implausible, check the trailer ), MachoTailDrop zooms out from the celebrity skate circuit and tries to examine the skate stardom making machine and it’s impact on a young skater. While this terrain is covered by Stoked, The Rise and Fall of Gator ( a true and sad story of a skater succumbing to the pressures of the public limelight ), MachoTailDrop explores this from a wildly imaginative perspective. It’s a promising feature debut from co-writers and directors Corey Adams and Alex Craig, who won a $1 million prize to shoot their flick, and a teaser click will have you watching flaming riverside halfpipes, underground caverns, horses wandering inside a mansion and some quite decent skate tricks.

Paper Cut Grinds
Tilles Singer has fantastically reimagined the classic skate magazine photo sequence, by cutting out skaters in each stage of their tricks, then having them perform as stop motion animation skaters on his table top, alongside or on top of various props. It’s a gorgeous effect and well worth a few replays.

Pool Dreaming
I had a dream ages ago that involved skating a curved pool – that was full of water. It was easier to balance underwater – you could lean away from the pool wall while riding up it, and could really carve up towards the edge of the pool in a really controlled way, kind of like skating in slow motion. At some point my underwater skating brain thought it’d be good to get some air ( as in the skateboard move, not oxygen, I seemed to be able to skate fine without needing to breathe ), and I started skating towards the surface. Do you know what it feels like to grasp your right hand on the edge of a skateboard as you approach the top of a pool, then burst through the water surface, rise like 3 feet in the air, turn 180 degrees and then dive down again, splashing through the water, letting the wheels hit the pool wall just under the edge, and riding through the pool again? Let me tell you, it feels AMAZING. Watch Bob Burnquist if you need some help imagining. (Found via coolhunter.

Even More Skate Flicks
Cannonball by California is a place, via good.is. Apparently there’s a lot of newly empty pools in California these days, while people re-boot the American Dream. If the Trans-Siberian railway is more your flavour, 10,000 Kilometers is a skateboard documentary that documents the two-month-long journey of skaters who travelled from Moscow to Hong Kong by train, skateboarding the unique architecture of various cities in Russia, Siberia, Mongolia, and China along the way.

UPDATE: A timely tweet by William Gibson, points to this “Tarp Surfing” video ( which, yes, features skateboards.. )

UPDATE 2: Ok, so I’m not going to update this post with every single new weird skate video, but this was too good to pass up: Flaming skaters in Mexico, via Dangerous Minds.

One makes songs about gay dentists, the other is a legendary French comedian and director no longer with us. Between them, they’ve delivered us this year, a pair of French feature films about serial killing car tyres and struggling magicians.

French Rubber

Mr.Oizo, already somewhat notorious from his audio exploits at Ed Banger records, has earlier branched out into music video and film making. Steak, a feature released only in France in 2007, had a plot based around kidnapping, plastic surgery and the fashion world, and handily, featured cameos from French artists Sebastien Tellier, Kavinsky, and SebastiAn ( who appeared as wheel-chair bound car thieves ). Apparently Mr.Oizo himself, Quentin Dupieux, is the only person who has an English subtitled version, after the French producer lost interest post-release in France.

Rubber on the other hand, is already popping up all over the web video radar, with quirky trailers available at vimeo.com, or fresh from the leathery horse’s mouth at rubberfilm.com ( and as it turns out, writing rubberfilms by mistake, delivers a premium fetish gallery. Not to be confused with Rubber, the 1936 Dutch flick, or Chris Cunningham’s flickerfest, Rubber Johnny ). It’d seem easy enough to think of this as a quirky road movie ( and yet another feature film shot on the Canon 5D), but this rubber tyre serial killer flick might just transcend the genre’s usual offerings. Also on the soundtrack alongside Mr.Oizo, will be Gaspard Augé of Justice ( another Ed Banger ). Make of it all, what you will. See Rubber at the 2010 Melbourne International Film Festival.

And In The Other French Corner..

Being both a master of comic timing and carefully orchestrated cinematography, Jacques Tati’s films inevitably unfold with visual charm, and an abundance of surprise for the eyes. Playtime, his most famous film, took 9 years to make, was shot on 70mm and involved a set on the outskirts of Paris which resembled a small city in itself. Like his other films, it too took a sword to modern society, lampooning social attitudes and obsessions with gadgetry and convenience, and being near dialogue-less, requires viewing to see just how funny it and Tati are. Interest is high then, for The Illusionist, an animation based on a script by Tati, and directed by Sylvain Chomet ( who also directed the gorgeous Triplets of Belleville animation feature). Tati intended to make the film as a live action film with his daughter, with the plot revolving around ‘a struggling illusionist who visits an isolated community and meets a young lady who is convinced that he is a real magician.’ And being a French production, naturally everything is a little more complicated.

See The Illusionist at the 2010 Melbourne International Film Festival

Aside from the vuvuzela filtering and the demand for video replays of controversial decisions, there was also another newsworthy technology at the South African World Cup, 3D video.

3DTV
Wheeeeee! For those with 3DTV sets, SBS and some broadcasters from other countries beamed out select games on a 3D channel. That’s all fine and well, but the mammoth production needs of 3D meant the World Cup was both a test and a serious step up in live 3D production. Broadcast Engineering summarises the technical achievements well ( for both on-ground filming and MPEG4 compression and beaming to each country), and notes that each game uses 8 cameras ( Sony HDC-1500 ), mounted on Quasar 3D rigs from Element Technica ( for mobility, and built in motors that allow for remote focus/iris/zoom control.), and are fitted with Canon HJ22ex7.6B lenses ( 7.6mm to 336mm with 2X Extender, f1.8 ). Pro-tip: After some quick googling, better keep aside $30K for the lense, $67K for the Quasar rig and $90K for the camera when budgeting for this kit.. )

3D Cameras Under $200
Available for pre-order through Amazon : the Aiptek 3D HD (720P) camcorder for $199. $199. USB, SD card, HDMI connect to HD-3DTV – and “additional software for the camcorder should allow you to upload the stereoscopic 3D videos you made directly to YouTube 3D. And you’ll also be able to watch the recorded content on your PC with the help of anaglyph red-cyan glasses coming with the device even if you don’t have a better solution like 3D Vision, 3D TV or anything else that is better.”

3D on YouTube
Apparently this has been available for a year, the fruits of Pete Bradshaw’s spare “20%” time at Google. Stereoscopic 3D clips can be uploaded to Youtube, which will mix in real-time in your browser, and which allows a 3D pull-down menu to choose 3D options ( eg red/cyan glasses / mirror split etc ) Tag your video with yt3d:enable=true to enable the pulldown menu of 3D-viewing options. Example clips?

360 Degree Cameras
Available since January, and a weirdly named competitor to the portable Flip cameras, SONY’s ‘Bloggie’ camera comes with a 360 degree view attachment, and software which translates this into an extremely wide panoramic video.

3D or Not 3D?
As Brazil prepares for hosting the World Cup in 2014, they may do well to heed Mark Pesce’s advice: “Keep doing that and you’ll go blind“, where he notes that humanoid depth perception requires 10 different cues, and that the slightly different imagery in each eye ( parallax vision ) is just one cue. Watching 3D means we eventually ‘turn off’ these other depth cues while watching, and with lots of 3D viewing, this can cause serious problems ( known as binocular dystopia ). Watch those banana kicks!

How’s this for a decent software pricing model : rent QLab for $3 a day? QLab is a pretty amazing looking piece of event software that allows control audio, video, and MIDI from a single workspace. It offers sample accurate synchronisation of audio and video across different machines, sync for incoming timecode, real-time video and animation, camera control and quartz composer integration for customisation. Browsing through the features, plenty of well considered detail is evident, and it looks to be a powerful and flexible solution for controlling many sources of media during a live event. You can buy the pro bundle for $599 US, but for a lot of people, the $3 a day licence would be pretty ideal for one-off events. It’s a wonder more software companies don’t get in on this sort of model. And other industries too.

Car Sharing
Taking a leaf out of Kurt Vonnegut’s book, and looking at civilisation from a distance – we do seem to be a species of oil crazed demons, intent on paving the planet over, and shuffling ourselves around in vehicles that weigh a whole tonne all by themselves. In cities with better urban planning and public transport, it’s obvious to citizens living there that not every single person needs to own a car to survive. Extending this idea another step, car sharing is about renting out cars for short periods of time and thereby reducing the amount of cars needed for a suburb. Some people need a car daily for various reasons, but for others who only need the occasional trip, the car sharing service can save a lot of money ( and other problems such as maintenance etc ). If you drive less than 15,000km a year you will probably find carsharing will save money. There’s three main car sharing groups operating in Sydney and Melbourne, each blowing their own eco-trumpet about the benefts of having access to a newer, fuel efficient car when you need it, and through sharing it with others, effectively reducing the amount of cars needed.

Flexicar, phone 1300 36 37 80 GoGet, phone 1300 769 389 Charter Drive, phone 1300 135 358

Renting Two Wheels?


Like car rentals, daily bicycle hire has long been an available option for visiting tourists and wandery folk. Arguing that the short trip rental could appeal to the general public, and potentially encourage them to leave cars at home, the Victorian Government has launched a $5 million scheme which will see 600 bicycles available to pick up or drop off at 50 different bike stations across Melbourne. Subscriptions cost $50 a year, $8 a week or $2.50 a day – and the first half an hour of every trip is then free, $2 for the next half an hour and so on. A credit card is needed to participate, and helmets aren’t included, so it’ll be interesting to see whether people find bringing a helmet into the city more convenient than bringing a car. [ Yet to see a single blue bike 'in the wild', though plenty of them seem missing from their racks around the city... ]

While South Africa is busy getting their plastic horn on – the rest of the world has responded with a flurry of filtering techniques to keep the vuvu drones from our ears. Mostly the filtering is aimed at audio, but there are some implications for video too.

Buzzkill
Audio nerds the world over must love soccer, because there’s been a huge outpouring online of ways to filter out the drone. Create Digital Music have done a pretty great round-up of these, tackling everything from EQing with onscreen TV controls ( get rid of 233, 466, 932 and 1864 HZ if you can), free VST plug-ins for mac and pc, acoustic engineers explaining the science of why vuvzelas are annoying ( I actually enjoy the medieval carnival / sacrifice kinda vibe they add ), vuvuzela orchestra ( yes, really ), vuvuzela radio ( uhuh ), and how to re-route audio signals using JACK or Soundflower into another application that has better audio filtering and VST capacities.

Audio Re-Routing
Wormhole2 – allows routing of audio between machines on a network. Now you can make use of all the processing power in your studio. For example; set aside a machine for complex instruments or effects, route audio out to it, then back into your favorite DAW. Or route audio between your PCs and Macs to get the best of both worlds. Or share audio between laptops on stage.

Soundflower is a Mac OS X (10.2 and later) system extension that allows applications to pass audio to other applications. Soundflower is easy to use, it simply presents itself as an audio device, allowing any audio application to send and receive audio with no other support needed. Soundflower is free, open-source, and runs on Mac Intel and PPC computers. IS often used for podcasting to combine tow different audi streams, or to combine skip interview voices etc.

Jack (the Jack Audio Connection Kit ) is a low-latency audio server, written originally for the GNU/Linux operating system, and now with Mac OS X support. It can connect any number of different applications to a single hardware audio device; it also allows applications to send and receive audio to and from each other. Jack is different from other audio server efforts in that it has been designed from the ground up to be suitable for professional audio work. This means that it focuses on two key areas: synchronous execution of all clients, and low latency operation.

Video Re-Routing?
But let’s say you want to send a video signal from one program into another program – how to do that? No such re-routing software currently exists, but there is at least a work around through Vade’s excellent ( and free ) Screen Capture utility. This is a Quartz Composer patch ( and therefore mac only) which allows a portion of the screen to be selected, then sent into another compatible program. This can mean web browsing / web-flash games / computer games etc can all be displayed in one corner of a screen, and then accepted within VJ software such as VDMX and used as a live signal, and filtered, mixed or processed to your heart’s content. ( Be warned : Removing plastic horns visually is likely a bit trickier… )

But Wait, There’s More..
Vade has more in the pipeline, a video re-router that will work fast, and on the graphics card rather than CPU. Tests so far allow easy re-routing between Max MSP / Jitter / Quartz and VDMX. Bookmark his site for announcements to come. And in other news the Auvi Objects have been updated for Max 5, which will please live visualists who remember it.. )

“Auvi was designed with an attitude of sympathy towards beginners. Even now, Auvi can be a lot of fun for those who are less technically advanced — for example, those who don’t want to mess about with shaders and GL. I like to think of Max as a haven for artists whose needs aren’t met by standard software. Auvi was my attempt to increase the fun-factor for these newcomers.” Kurt Ralkse

Soccer Video Remixing
Because you need something to do with all those pipes, right? Recommendo : the 1981 Escape to Victory starring Sylvester Stallone, Michael Caine + Pele in a German prisoner of war camp. Or maybe? Pele’s viagara campaign, where he offers these last smiling words to the camera:
“Talk to your doctor, I would..”
An amusingly careful phrasing, which allows Pele to retain all suggestion of athletic virility, but let anyone else know – Pele says it’s ‘ok’.

Once you’ve figured out your DSLR camera, the next problem for shooting video with it, is going to be removing shakiness. Walking around with a handheld video camera generates jerky footage, especially with smaller cameras such as a DSLR. It doesn’t need to be this way.

The Cheap Option: Steadycam.org
Johnny Chung Lee has an infamous tutorial for building a steadicam with $14 of parts and needing one hour of your time – or you can order a kit for $39.95 if you wish. Bingo.

The Even Cheaper Option
A ’string tripod’ is an old photographers trick, which simply involves finding a bolt in a hardware store that fits the underside of your camera, and attaching a 1m or 2m piece of string to it. Carry this around in your pocket, and when needed, attach bolt to camera, let string fall to ground, step on the string, and pull the camera upwards until the string is taut. Instant stabilisation.

The Bling Option: Steadicam.com
Aside from their Hollywood rigs which effectively turn camera people into stormtroopers, Steadicam also deliver smaller systems for smaller video cameras, and even a version for the iphone – the ‘Steadicam Smoothee‘ ( though you’d really have to question spending any money on that rather than getting a better camera). For smaller cameras though, there’s a whole new range of emerging players coming through.

Given the armies of DSLR wielding hipsters roaming the streets, an inevitable side industry has spawned to fit them in thin exo-skeletons for their auteur adventuring. A few of the key players include :
Redrockmicro.com – handheld, shouldermount and cinema style rigs.
Glidecam.com – These have nice ‘gimbals’, a kind of gyroscopic ball bearing system, which allows movements to be transferred to the handle, rather than the camera. Found one of these on ebay for $250.
Zacuto.com – Aside from a range of DSLR rigs, they also make add-on viewfinders, which can make the mobile filming process happen much more smoothly.
Cinevate.com – Large range of rigs

There are a quite few other manufacturers too ( eg The Blackbird Camera Stabilizer
The CB 105 counter balance video camera stabilizer), but in general these kits tend to start at around $1000 for anything vaguely useful, and spiral upwards quickly. A recent addition to the list is slightly cheaper. The “Indi System”, made in U.S. and distributed in Australia by Dragon Image – is $950 for a complete rig, including focus follower, shoulder mount, adjustable handles, and rail sections for attaching externals ( lights / monitors / microphones etc ). I was able to try one out recently at the Camera Expo – felt good, solid, reliable.

Still Need More Camera Movement?
A dolly is a wheeled platform that rides on a track or smooth floor – which generally means a lot of weight and volume to carry around for shooting. There are a couple of interesting alternative solutions around though. The Wally Dolly and Track System is a portable and minimal weight rails system made in Australia. Another option is fitting a rails system on top of a tripod, allowing the addition of smooth motion to framed shots – eg Glidetrack. Or a DIY Dolly? Sure. Built with skateboard wheels if you want. And when it’s time to graduate to a motorised dolly system, you’ll be ready to shoot the next ash spewing volcano…

See also: steadishots.org – “Where the skills of the men and women responsible for some of the most memorable shots in television and cinema history are put on display.”
How Steadicams work – see how they eliminate shaking and rolling..

The Internet is a becoming a great place for people to whine about their first world problems ( The wi-fi at this airport lounge is so slow! My HDTV has a dead pixel! The Supermarket is out of my favourite French cheese! etc ). Turns out others are listening…

Some Context
During the last week, Australia was ranked by an Adelaide University study, as being in the top 10 countries for doing environmental harm (using indicators including species and forest loss, water pollution and carbon emissions). At the same time, the Australian Government announced it was postponing progress on it’s climate change agenda, despite being part of the world’s wealthiest 20% who are responsible for 80% of the world’s energy consumption. Does this sound like the sort of country you’d like to offer a helping hand? ( Particularly if living in one of the developing countries likely to be first effected by rising sea levels? )

The Rest Saving The West
Dx1W (Design For The First World) has pro­claimed 2010 Inter­na­tional Year of the First World in Need, and has defined four main areas to address: Food Pro­duc­tion and Eat­ing Dis­or­ders, Aging Pop­u­la­tion and Low Birth rate, Immi­gra­tion and Inte­gra­tion to Soci­ety, Sus­tain­abil­ity and Over consumption.

“What does it mean to be a devel­op­ing coun­try? .. let’s stop to con­sider for a minute whether devel­oped coun­tries are some­thing we want to turn into. Are peo­ple in devel­oped coun­tries hap­pier or health­ier? Do they live a bet­ter life? Do they have a bet­ter under­stand­ing of nature and live in a bet­ter equi­lib­rium with the envi­ron­ment? Do they live in peace?”

“Our fellows in the first world often come to visit and give us their well intentioned but often very problematic “solutions”. We thought, why don’t we pay back? Dx1W is a competition for designers, artists, scientists, makers and thinkers in developing countries to provide solutions for First World problems. We’re call­ing artists, design­ers, tin­ker­ers, mak­ers, and thinkers with an idea to par­tic­i­pate. Two con­di­tions only: you were born in and live right now in a Devel­op­ing Coun­try and you are 13 years of age or older.”

The Ghana ThinkTank
The Ghana ThinkTank is solving the First World’s problems, one by one. Founded in 2006, the Ghana ThinkTank is a worldwide network of think tanks creating strategies to resolve local problems in the “developed” world. The network began with think tanks from Ghana, Cuba and El Salvador, and has since expanded to include Serbia, Mexico and Ethiopia. In their most recent project, they sent problems collected in Wales to think tanks in Ghana, Mexico, Serbia, Iran, and a group of incarcerated girls in the U.S. Prison system. These think tanks analyze the problems and propose solutions, which they put into action back in the community where the problems originated — whether those solutions seem impractical or brilliant.

By applying a typical process of community development against the grain, traditional power-roles are inverted, places are exchanged, and stereotypes clash with reality as disconnected cultures work together in detached but physical ways.
This project is an attempt to transpose parts of one culture into another, exploring the friction caused by solutions that are generated in one context and applied elsewhere, and revealing the hidden assumptions that govern cross-cultural interactions.

Garbage Dreams
Garbage Dreams is a 2009 film set in Cairo (and no, it’s not an Egyptian Slumdog Millionaire ), documenting the Zabbaleen tribe that lives off of collecting and recycling trash from Cairo. Remarkably, using primitive techniques, they manage to recycle 80% of the trash ( compared to 32% in the U.S. ). The tribe’s livelihood is under threat however, by foreign companies ( oops! Just trying to help.. ) taking over some of the recycling ( yet who recycle much less ). It’s confronting viewing, with campaign related links at garbagedreams.com.

Other Forward Thinkers : asmarterplanet.com – building a smarter planet – aiming to provide thought provoking content and a place to discuss it… a starting point for conversation about world issues. See also worldchanging.com.

Perth artist Bennett Miller has been in the global spotlight recently for an artwork that involves 141 live sausage dogs masquerading as United Nations delegates, ‘Daschund UN‘ ( as part of the Next Wave festival). No stranger to complex logistics, previous artworks of his have included topiary mazes and retelling the story of a war in Iraq across nine mini-golf courses. He was kind enough to take time out from juggling canines to answer some questions:

Golf. Is it a gentle sport for the elderly, a grotesque misuse of land and resources for elites, or a chance for a good pun? In other words, what inspired your ‘Golf War’ series?
I regret the pun a bit- but the ‘grotesque misuse of land and resources for ( a game for ) elites’ is very close to the mark. The golf war was an ever expanding mini golf course that imitated the events and structure of an actual war in Iraq. It started as a landscape, then it was gradually turned into a game, then it was turned into an unplayable game. The architecture of the course is from the perspective of those waging the war I guess.

In the majority of instances it was shaped like a cross – like a contemporary ‘crusade’, but by the end of it this cruciform had been consumed by an islamic pattern. I liked the work at the very end, which was kind of a simple homage to the failure of the whole exercise, but before that the work was chaotic and peppered with obstacles and characters from the conflict. I made it ‘fun’ and interactive/playable to implicate the audience in the spectacle. The Dachshund UN has a lot more optimism in it than the golf war series ever did.

Was there a specific UN incident that triggered your thoughts for developing this project?
My interest in the reputation of the UN was triggered when the ‘coalition of the willing’ bypassed the UN during the Iraq War. Since then I’ve been interested in the public perception of the value of the UN- and what forces are at play in shaping this perception. I’m also very interested in the conflicts between the UN and Israel, which had a few flashpoints last year after the Goldstone Report. I developed this work in response to the festival theme ‘No Risk too Great’. The UN is a very good fit for that idea, and while my work seems like a piss-take, I’m actually a huge fan of the UN (whilst it has some massive failings- the idea of it alone is quite important).

What qualities makes the dachshund a good choice to pose as a United Nations delegate?
They are physically restricted via a breeding history that has literally ’shaped’ them. Yet they always persevere- blissfully unaware of their stature and limitations. They often look very proud, like a statesmen or diplomat, but in faintly ridiculous dog form.

They also have a racial diversity comparable to humanity- eg ‘different but the same’, there are short, long and wire haired dachshunds, red, black, tan, dapple, chocolate and even ‘piebald’ whites. I don’t know of another dog breed with that racial breakdown, outside of all those poodle subgroups with silly names.

I love dachshunds, I don’t know whether other people see the same thing in them as I do or not, but they really make me happy and seem to represent the beauty of endeavor and personal struggle, alongside the absolute folly of it.

I wanted the audience to expect the work to be critical of the UN -but wind up affected by it in a different way. Like how ‘dog’ or ‘bitch’ is an insult but really everybody loves them. The dachshund seemed to be the right dog to mimic how the UN is both flawed and fantastic.

How did you possibly manage to get 47 dachshunds?
The Kickstart program by the awesome folk at NEXT WAVE helped get the project off the ground, and get callouts placed in the Age newspaper. I also had a lot of help from Corrienne at the Dachshund Club of Victoria. I actually needed 3 separate groups of 47 dogs- for a total of 141 – which took a full year of recruiting and meeting (pleading) with the owners. It got much easier as the momentum grew and interest in the project snowballed.

How did they seem to feel about seeing each other?
Many dachshunds only like other dachshunds, it’s not always true- but it often is. The truth is I don’t really know what they feel about it, so whilst I like to think the dachshund UN is an exciting event on the dachshund social calendar, it may not always be the case. Certainly there have been some barking incidents, but on the whole the dogs have been remarkably well behaved and fall asleep more often than they get upset.

Did the large number in a small place seem to affect them?
It can be hard to tell what they think about the experience – I wonder what the dogs make of suddenly being placed in a large sculpture full of other dachshunds, in front of a large human audience. Based on the only evidence I really have, some get a little angry and some fall asleep, the bulk of them react somewhere in between… interested in the surroundings- but only to a point.

How have the dachshund dog owners responded to the work?
I am eternally grateful to the owners for making the project possible. Some owners have responded to- and really supported- the theme of the work and some have just wanted to involve their dog for the sake of the novelty. With so many people involved I have found it hard to keep up with everyone properly- but I was pretty astounded at how generous they have all been with their time.

What kinds of unexpected scenarios / strange logistics have you encountered with the work?
The whole project has been a bizarre undertaking. Logistically it was massive and difficult, and generated all kinds of weird databases and spreadsheets. The structure itself had some strange requirements too. As the deadlines approached it became super serious- with risk assessment forms and engineer approvals. I became completely humorless about it, which was a bit strange for what is essentially a gathering of sausage dogs.

What breed of dog do you think best represents Kevin Rudd and Tony Abbott?
I keep getting asked if I think ‘politicians’ could learn from the dachshunds but it’s hard to answer because I actually love dachshunds and the UN, and intended the work as a (balanced) celebration. If I was making a work about australian politics it would be two chihauhas in a room full of mirrors.

Above: Bennett being interviewed by Marcus Westbury.

[ Related: Videohuahua, an interview with Fernando Llanos about his VIDEO-PROJECTING-CHIHUAHUA! ]

Joined the old Digital Single Lens Reflex camera club recently (hello video capable Canon 7D), which has meant learning about photography (shout out to photo guru Dan Murphy), and about technologies that bridge the old and the new. And haunting Ebay a bit more than usual.

To DSLR or not to DSLR?
The benefits of digital image recording ( cost / workflow etc ) combined with the advanced light controls of a SLR camera – make DSLR cameras great for photographers, and now that they’re often capable of good quality video, DSLRs are lluring in a lot of film-makers too. It’s not all win though – videomakers expecting DSLRs to have the same ease of shooting will be disappointed. Weighing it up for those interested in video, David Torcivia has summarised the pros and cons over at Poetzerofilm.com:

Nay
Ergonomics – too light / small / awkward screen and controls
Moire and Aliasing – skipped lines in video, during process to shrink large image down to video size
Shutter Rolling – fast moving objects can be in different places in the same frame
Resolution – they don’t actually shoot as well as advertised
Compression – Canon records to lossy H264 format ( which needs processing before editing )
Audio – terrible on DSLR, need to record externally ( eg with Zoom H4n) + sync (pro-tip: Plural Eyes! )

Yay
Ergonomics – The small size can also mean shooting easily in cramped spaces, and more discreet filming.
Depth of Field – Hey look, it’s blurry in the background! Beautiful, but as the web fills with it, David helpfully notes:
“Don’t wear out the effectiveness of a shallow shot by making an entire “test” film filled with nothing but micro DoF. Shallow depth of field is just another tool in the cinematographer’s box to better tell a story. It is not a crutch or a gimmick to sell a shot or a product, an idea which cheapens the art.”
Low light – Zowie! For the price, DSLRs can shoot in hearts of darkness that video cameras cannot even see. Believe.
Price – Fantastic quality and value.
Photos – Oh yeah, do they do those too – 10 stops of dynamic range, full RAW files, 18 or 21 Megapixels – all great for timelapse .
Lenses – The variety of glass available for DSLRs vastly outweighs that possible for video cameras ( hello eBay, or hello rent-a-lense for important occasions )
Media – Tapeless workflows. Drag n drop, rather than slowly capturing footage.

Plunging In…
So in the end – disregarding all the science and numbers, you’ve found yourself swooning over luscious, colour-ripe non-grainy video shot by someone in such low light conditions that you’d packed away your video camera an hour ago. THAT’S OKAY, you’re with friends.

And if being the new owner of a DSLR finds you bewildered by the array of options available – Wikipedia’s photography page is incredibly useful for getting up to speed with photographic terms and principles, and pointing to a huge range of future learning. For starters you’ll be needing to understand :
Aperture – the lens opening, measured as the f-number ( eg f2.8 ), which controls the amount of light passing through the lense.
Shutter speed – time the imaging medium is exposed to light for each
ISO speed – The higher the ISO, the greater the sensitivity to light.

There’s plenty more, and plenty more starting points too..

Which Lenses To Get?
If you need, you can actually mount cinema lenses to a DSLR, using add-ons from hotrodcameras.com. For most people though, the existing range of photography lenses will be a vast enough jump in quality from handheld video. Things to note? Lenses with lower f-numbers are preferable ( and more expensive ). Aside from lenses specific to your camera, there are also a wide range of cheap adaptors that can be fitted to any DLSR, which will enable lenses from other manufacturers to be used ( functions like auto-focussing can be lost with some of these though ). And one more complication – the Canon 7D doesn’t have a full frame sensor, and it’s smaller proportion of a frame means you have to multiply the below numbers by 1.6. In other words, a 50mm lense on the Canon 7D is the equivalent of a 80mm lense (50 x 1.6), and the perspective it brings.

50mm - The classic lense. A lense this size renders perspective in a way similar to a scene is perceived by the human eye.
Wide Angle Lenses ( Below 35mm ) – allow you to fit more in frame from closer range ( think fish eye), but exaggerate distance between objects and can distort.
Telephoto Zoom Lenses (Above 70mm ) – allow magnification of distant objects / skateboarders / small furry animals etc ( though tends to compress distance between objects ).

Macro lenses – Want to shoot close-ups? These are the lense for you – or – seek out extension tubes or adjustable bellows ( both which are placed between another lense and the camera, changing the dynamics so that close-up is possible ), or get an auxiliary close-up lense to attach to the front of a lense, or get a reversing ring ( an adaptor that allows the lense to be attached to the camera backwards, which creates extreme close-up vision ). http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Macro_photography

( See also Tamron’s guide to lenses, and Cambridge in Colour about lense focal lengths, zooms vs primes etc )

A range of trick filters which can be added onto existing lenses for various effects ( find out what diameter your lense is ( eg 72mm), to find appropriately fitting add-ons ). And then there’s the tilt-shift lenses ( see also lensbaby ), and other trick lenses… ( on it goes.. ).

Time Lapse?
The image quality is significantly higher quality for photos in DSLRs, than it is for video. Correspondingly, animating a series of high quality photos in sequence for timelapse bumps the ‘video’ quality up even higher. Strangely the Canon 7D doesn’t have an automated sequencing function built in, and needs an external ‘intervalometer’ to do this. Canon sells one for around $200. Hong Kong vendors on Ebay sell adequate imitators for $30. There’s also an iPhone app for remote triggering / viewing of photos – but it requires the camera to be attached to a computer ( not great for out and about shots.. )

Stability… Later…
Someone walking around with a handheld video camera, will produce jerky footage, no matter the camera… but especially so with a small camera like a DSLR,, and then there’s the additional desire to avoid troubles like the Jelly Vision mentioned above. The image quality is good enough though, that a whole industry has spawned in providing ways to minimise trouble. And so…

Next DSLR Update : Stabilisation, active filming + Steadicam Systems ( from pro to DIY )