David A Smith – Sign Artist

Here’s a nice short documentary style film for inspiration.
http://www.vimeo.com/14985356

Projection Bombing

“Outdoor digital projection in urban environments is a great method for getting your content up big before the eyes and in the minds of your fellow city inhabitants”
Click on the image above for a tutorial.

Augmented City 3D

by Keiichi Matsuda
keiichimatsuda.com

The architecture of the contemporary city is no longer simply about the physical space of buildings and landscape, more and more it is about the synthetic spaces created by the digital information that we collect, consume and organise; an immersive interface may become as much part of the world we inhabit as the buildings around us.
Augmented Reality (AR) is an emerging technology defined by its ability to overlay physical space with information. It is part of a paradigm shift that succeeds Virtual Reality; instead of disembodied occupation of virtual worlds, the physical and virtual are seen together as a contiguous, layered and dynamic whole. It may lead to a world where media is indistinguishable from ‘reality’. The spatial organisation of data has important implications for architecture, as we re-evaluate the city as an immersive human-computer interface.

Letting Go

On Design in a time of disruption

Slideshare.net is also a great presentation tool

Welcome

Liam Birtles at Sundance Film Festival

Congratulations to Digital Media Senior Lecturer Liam Birtles for showing the piece ‘Bugs’ at this years Sundance Film Festival. Watch short interview with Liam below.

Oldboy director Park Chan-wook shoots new film on iPhone

Thanks to Jamie Milligan for spotting this:

click on image for more details.

Award-winning South Korean film-maker says phone ‘creates strange effects’ in 30-minute movie Paranmanjang

“South Korean film-maker Park Chan-wook is wielding a new cinematic tool: the iPhone. Park, director of Oldboy, Lady Vengeance and Thirst, said his new fantasy-horror film Paranmanjang was shot entirely on Apple’s ubiquitous smartphone.”

Spicynodes

Thanks to Phil Andrews for finding this one:
Spicynodes

www.spicynodes.org
Fresh from the oven and piping hot, SpicyNodes is limited only by your imagination. Entice visitors to explore and savor the experience of visiting your web site, add visualizations to your blog, create a mindmap or organizational chart, or encourage students to delve deeper.

Equipment Booking

Hello,
Could you all please register yourselves on the new equipment booking system.

http://aucbfilm.siso.co/

Please note you will not be active on the system until you receive a system induction from SISO.

The Rapidly changing world of digital video.

Over the last few year or so we have been watching carefully the increased use of Digital Single Lens Reflex  (DSLR) cameras to shoot high quality video. In particular cameras like the Canon 5D and 7D have opened up new possibilities for budget film makers.

These cameras use large sensors up to 35mm which allow high quality 1080p to be shot with the added advantage of shallow depth of field and increased low light sensitivity. They also have the added advantage of using interchangeable lenses allowing a more filmic look to video footage to be obtained and the sort of versatility that has previously been impossible with video.

In addition many third party manufacturers are making rigs and add-on’s that take these cameras to a professional level of image acquisition. Companies like Red Rock produce rigs that allow greater control of the camera with improved focusing and exposure control rivaling cameras 10 times the price.

With the increased use of DSLR’s we are seeing a rapid increase in the quality of video produced and the ability for small production companies and individuals to produce professional content on a budget. This is feeding a developing market of products as well as increased support through a wide range of distribution systems. For instance youtube has now added support for 4K (4096 x 2304) resolution to their video hosting service. This opens up extreme high quality content like that from the Red Camera which costs $17,500 for the body alone, to be distributed and shows that youtube is serious about maintaining its top position in video hosting. Streaming of 4K content though will require an extremely fast internet connection.

Another interesting updates is that Vimeo has updated its list of features to include ‘creative commons’ licencing. Creative commons licences allow the owner to decide what happens with their work from an ‘attribution licence’, which allows others to make changes as long as the author is credited, through to ‘attribution non-commercial no derivatives’, which allows distribution with a link to the original only.

Camera wise Sony have bought out a new video camera in response to the move towards shooting video on Digital SLR’s. The new Sony NEX VG10 is the first consumer camcorder with interchangeable lens. It offers similar quality to DSLR’s but being a camcorder shouldn’t require so many work arounds as DSLR’s. It is available from October for around £2,000.
http://www.sony.co.uk

iPhone 4 users will soon be able to attach DSLR lenses to their phone through a custom rig by a joint project between Owle and Vid Atlantic. Owle produce a video cradle for the iPhone called the Bubo which allows it to be held stably whilst shooting. Vid Atlantic supply a small adaptor which allows traditional SLR lenses to be added. This will allow iPhone users to shoot with a very narrow depth of field.
http;//wantowle.com
http://vid-atlantic.com
http://www.vimeo.com/13402704

Panavision have launched an interesting iPhone App called Panascout for location scouting. Using the iPhone camera the App simulates the perspective of a range of professional cinema cameras allowing the user to shoot stills in widescreen formats 2.4:1, 1.85:1 (super 35mm),16:9 and 4:3. Photos can be tagged with notes and GPS data can be recorded along with date and time and voice notes. This should allow shots to be completely repeatable on the final shoot.
http://www.panascout.com/