I'm Not 100% Sure, But I Think I Hate Blu-Ray

How can this be? The highest (thus far) of the high-definition formats available to home consumers is something I don't like?

It's true.

My local Best Buy and Circuit City have had the full Blu-Ray/1080 HDTV setup on display for a few months now, and every time I go, I make a point of checking it out, especially when they have a new DVD release. And EVERY time, I get freaked out, in a bad way, at the image quality I see.

It's just TOO good. Films look like it's high definition VIDEO. It almost looks like live-action. It's too crisp. Too clean. Too grain-free.

From many many experiences watching TV and movies with non-media people, I know that 99% of the viewing public usually doesn't notice, or can't tell the difference between a video look and a film look, and even when I point it out to them, they don't care. So I know that when I gripe about the look of Blu-ray, I'm going to be in the extreme minority.

I know I sound like those nutjob audio purists that turn their nose up at CD's and mp3's, saying that only analog playback (like albums or audiotape) can truly present music in it's full glory. But my complaint is the exact opposite.

Film, or the 'film look' is NOT a pristine image. It's a purposefully grainy and/or degraded image. It's how film has always been, and how I WANT it to always be. Even films shot on HD video in recent years retain that 'film look' when projected from a film projector, because it's still film as an end product.

But now, we have Blu-Ray, which bypasses the film projection step, so the image that appears on your HDTV is perfect. What's worse, is that the studios have actually gone back and REMOVED grain from films because people with new HDTV's were complaining about it. Gah!

I don't want total clarity with the FILMS that I watch. I don't want it to seem like it's happening NOW, or right in front of me. The 'film look' allows for that layer of separation, that filter of being at least one step removed from the events unfolding on screen. It's still a story being told with some perspective, rather than something happening like a news broadcast or reality show.

I know that it's all over for me. There isn't going to be some "Let's Save the Grain!" movement that's going to pop up. This is what the masses want, even though the don't know it's not what they really want. But it's what they're going to get.

So don't feel sorry for me when in a few years when you see me scouring the plain old DVD releases as opposed to the Blu-Ray shelf. I'm there on purpose. I'm stubbornly and (correctly) holding on to the BEST movie experience available to me.

WATCHFRIENDS - I'm amazed at how many really great parody videos are out there

So one of the byproducts of creating a parody video is that you start looking to see what "the other guys" are doing. Over the past week, I've seen dozens going on hundreds of parody/inspired-by videos centering around just the Watchmen and Dark Knight. In the old days (five years ago), I'd expect about 90% of them to be crap. But I have to say that only a few of them were a waste of my time.

People are REALLY creative, and the video production tools that were once totally cost-prohibitive are now readily available to anyone with a couple of hundred bucks (and they only have to pay that if they don't want to use the crappy, but functional software that was bundled with your computer).

I'm a video producer by trade, so I look at these videos with a slightly more critical eye. But more and more, I'm seeing homemade videos that look really good, with creative angles, good lighting, cool effects and tight editing. Even the videos that maybe don't have the highest production values are still impressive with the competent-to-excellent storytelling skills displayed.

It's like with the barrier to creating these things removed from their path, people are no longer telling themselves "That's too hard to do." (Professional video producer confession: It's not)

If you're someone that's always wanted to do a video of some kind, just get out there and do it. I have every reason to believe that you inherently know how to put a story together. That after a lifetime of watching movies and TV that you've absorbed by osmosis how to tell a story on a screen. Do it! And when you do, come back here and show it to me and tell me how you did it.

WATCHFRIENDS - The Side by Side Comparison

So just for the fun of it, I placed both the original trailer and the WATCHFRIENDS trailer one on top of the other.  For me, this version of the video is the preferred version.  I find WATCHFRIENDS far more absurd (my original intent) when you can contrast it with the utter seriousness of Watchmen.  To see Gleek onscreen at the same moment as Rorschach, or Zan's ice cube disentregration synced up with Dr. Manhattan, it just makes me smile. Hopefully you'll have the same reaction.

Next time, for those of you into that sort of thing, I plan on breaking down the video, explaining what I had initially wanted to do and why I ultimately chose each of the final shots.

WATCHFRIENDS - Observations in my quest to make a video someone hadn't already done

Over the last year or two, I've lost count of the number of times my friend Corey and I have come across a brilliant little video on YouTube and smacked our heads at the obviousness of it. "Why didn't we think of that?" is a commonly heard utterance.

A few years ago, a friend of mine and I thought it would be funny if there was zombie porn, and speculated on how ridiculous that might be. A Google search later than night brought no fewer than 115,000 hits for "zombie porn".

A few months back, my brother came up with what I thought was a hilarious idea for a video spoof. "Jihad Joe!" Brilliant! Al Queda toys! Later that night, I googled "Jihad Joe" and found dozens, if not hundreds of references to it. There were at least five really well done toy commercial parodies for Jihad Joe. My spirit was crushed.


Were there NO good ideas that haven't been done yet?

So last week the idea for WATCHFRIENDS struck me, and I still don't remember what the inspiration was. Maybe it was having seen the official Watchmen trailer for the hundredth time. Maybe I'd seen a reference to Hanna-Barbera earlier in the day. Who knows? But somehow the vision of the Watchmen trailer replaced with Super-Friends footage bloomed fully-formed in my brain.

And for the first time, a Google search turned up ZERO hits. I knew I had to act quickly.

The video I actually ended up creating turned out better than the one I was amusing myself with in my brain.

So, for at least this one time, I managed to be the first one with whatever stupid idea I came up with. I can rest easy... well, at least until I finish creating the first-ever WATCHSMURFS* trailer!






* There's no way I'm subjecting myself to dozens of ours of sifting through Smurfs episodes... If anyone reading this wants to attempt to do a WATCHSMURFS video, I give you my blessing... and my sympathy.

Greatest First Dance Ever

Back in the early days of my previous company, MediaPost, we supplemented our income by doing wedding videos.  Lots of them.  I still do the occasional wedding for family and friends, but it's thankfully only once or twice a year now.  The highlight of how we do the wedding videos is making a "music video" out of the couple's first dance.  Check out here and here for some examples of wedding highlight videos I've done.  (Writing this blog post reminds me I have to get around to finally editing my brother's wedding from 2007...)

But unless these weddings are done for family or friends, they are excruciating to attend and edit.  They're all the same.  Mind-numbing after the first half-dozen or so.  Everyone chooses the same five songs as their First Dance song.

That's why this video shows what would have been the greatest First Dance EVER.  Oh, to have had something like THIS to break the monotony of the same wedding over and over.    Enjoy.