Camera Decisions

#0004

What a headache I’ve given myself!

I was reading this forum about filming 3D with some more advance cameras such as the Canon 7D DSLR.

Forum Link - http://www.dvinfo.net/forum/3d-stereoscopic-production-delivery/474855-stereoscopic-two-7ds.html

Now granted this forum is a few years out of date now but some of the points made have given me quite a cause for thought.

First of all, an interesting term that I hadn’t come across before, retinal rivalry. It means that while watching a 3D film your eyes are being presented with 2 slightly out of sync images. Apparently this problem can occur if your cameras are recording as little as 20 milliseconds, or more, out of sync from each other. This adds a whole other level of complexity to filming in 3D which I hadn’t even conceived.

Alright, I knew that there was defiantly more to 3D than I understood but this forum has come as a bit of a blow in the face.

However there might be a silver lining in this bombshell.

Now the following conclusions are only my best guess with the knowledge that I have, but it seems that these problems only occur when using more complex cameras such as DSLR’s. For the past year I’ve been using 2 GoPro’s to film my 3D, these are a lot less sophisticated that a DSLR. The article also said that watching very short clips, such as the ones I have on YouTube, wouldn’t reveal these errors, yet watching longer length films could cause server headaches and nausea.

Call me mad if you like, but it seems that the only way I can tell whether my footage has fallen foul of these sync errors and may cause retinal rivalry, is to edit last year’s footage into a one hour long film and see what happens. The results of this will be posted here when available.

What this does mean for certain is that my development of my Mk5 3D rig is now on hold until I understand this mindboggling challenge enough to overcome it.

On the plus side though, this also means that my tests for my Mk2 performance capture setup can go ahead and seeing as the test script for this is nearly finished, the time to turn years of developing theories into something practical may come sooner than I think.

Performance Capture

#0003

Performance Capture

After the initial success of developing my own home-built 3D camera system in 2010 I have set about achieving something much harder. A Performances capture system.

Call me mad if you like.

Recently I started writing a short script that I can use to test if the system will work before attempting to take it to a higher level. More details on that to follow.

The main issue I’m facing at the moment is a lack of cameras that are suitable for the job. As I need a minimum of six to run the system and each needs to be capable of running at at least 720p resolution at 60fps. As you can imagine, that’s not cheap!

I’ll be able to say more about this when I’ve completed some initial tests.

I’m currently riding on the knowledge that I managed to achieve 3D video before 3D cameras hit the market, however I am starting to feel a bit out of my depth.

Part of my current 3D setup

The Winter’s Tale

#0002

My first venture onto the stage, discounting primary school nativity plays, came in the form of William Shakespeare’s The Winter’s Tale as the role of Cleomines, a servant to the king of Sicilia. Now as a dyslexic with no stage experience you’d be right in thinking that I was nervous about this undertaking. However this was the play that taught me some of the basics of acting on stage. Such as; “plant your feet” Shuffling is a something that we do without realising it when nervous; however as it has the potential to distract the audience it is best to get rid of this habit.

Secondly; how to project loud enough to be heard by all in the large open courtyard at Little Moreton Hall. It is easy to run out of air mid-sentence so planning where to pause and breath becomes a concern that normal conversation doesn’t require. Thankfully a Shakespearian text provides an abundance of commas, colons and semi colons that allow for an intake of breath.

And finally, as these lists seem to often present themselves in threes, I ignored the audience. Not to the extent that I’m blocking them but enough so that I wouldn’t be distracted by them. In fact concentrating on the other actors helped combat the inevitable stage butterflies that are only natural when over one-hundred people are staring at you.

However now that the final performance is over I feel somewhat empty. I’ve heard of after shoe blues now let’s see hope I cope with them.

Molly Sweeney

#0001

My first theatre lighting job outside of school productions gave me little in the way of technical challenges. As I was just the lighting technician the lanterns were set up for me and the operation was fairly strait forward. Nor was it a social challenge. On the contrary I was welcomed with open arms by the drama group and its members and I would be a have been a fool if I had ignored such warm sentiment in this day and age. No, what I was given on this production was time to think. Not about the worries and musings that intrude upon the mind of an eighteen year old man, no. Just time to think and appreciate what I was watching.

Each night after I helped to set out the stage and the actors had retreated to their final preparations, I would take my place behind the lighting desk. The audience bustle in. The house lights darken and the actors began to recount three months of brilliantly remembered mind stirring craftsmanship. And I. I watched and admired them, for this play in one of the most line-intensive I have encountered. A total of thirty-seven monologues divided between the three characters left me with a profound respect for the performers portraying them. They had chosen to take on these monumental parts in which all three characters were on stage throughout the production yet never interacted with other therefore they couldn’t rescue each other if they messed a line up. Having seen them play six times across rehearsals and performances I can say that they delivered a truly astounding performance for which all of us involved are in awe.