Flash back to October 1996: a review of the Mill Valley Film Festival was my first story for Film/Tape World. This scrappy San Francisco-based monthly covered Bay Area media production with an affectionate scrutiny like no other.
In those days, the “Tape” in the title was a risky trope. Born in a Portapak, videotape, in all its PAL/SECAM/NTSC/VHS low-rent disorder, was an emerging format struggling for validation as a production solution.
By the time of FTW’s last issue in 2007, and the phoenix-like emergence of Oakland-based CineSource, forged by veterans of that dog-eared paper, it is the “Film” on the masthead that itself had begun to flicker.
Tape had finally come up to the plate, only to be swallowed up by the omniverse of “digital.” Today, many of our CineSource readers have never cut so much as a frame of film—let alone an inch of tape—in their growing careers.
Film and tape have shared the same production fundamentals of camera, editing bay and projection screen. Now there is new rolling wave of change that is dissolving and splintering those pillars.
From the Big Screen to many screens: image capture, editing, distribution and exhibition are being constantly miniaturized, reconfigured, shared and re-shared in multi-tasked digitized hegemony.
Making and Sending Moving Pictures
At the Macworld/iWorld show in San Francisco last month, new products displayed there reflect the continuing transformation of smartphones and tablets into expanding links in the new media production chain. Here are a few I came across on the floor.
Olloclip
Olloclip (http://WWW.olloclip.com) offers a series of quick-change snap-on lens assemblies that will play well with available photo and video apps. The powerful circuitry behind their built-in cameras are giving these device platforms greater range and focus.
4-IN-1 Photo Lens
The 4-IN-1 Photo Lens supports four modes: Fisheye, Wide Angle, Macro 15X and Macro 10X. Their 2X Telephoto lens includes a Circular Polarizing Lens for controlling glare and reflection. The Macro 3-IN-1 Lens supports 7X, 14X and 21X.
iPro Lens
iPro Lens (http://WWW.iProLens.com) presents a lens system that starts with the iPhone & Galaxy S4 Trio Kits. There are a 2X Tele, a Super Wide and a Macro, and includes a solid iPro Combi handle. Single lenses are a Wide Angle, a Super Wide, a Fisheye, a 2X Tele and a Macro. The iPro Clip supports these lenses on an iPad Mini and an iPad Air.
The CS grip is linked to the case-mounted camera by bluetooth.. photo: courtesy CS
Getting a Grip
Camera support for an instrument less bulky than a pack of cards is an entirely different challenge than mounting that Bolex or Arri. Square Jellyfish (http://www.squarejellyfish.com) has some very compact pocket-able tripods.
Their Jelly Legs Micro Tripod’s foldable legs let the lens lie low on the table. The Jelly Long Legs Tripod lifts some elevation to that, for vertical or horizontal positions for your tablet. The one-piece Pocket Tripod can be a quick add-on for steady placing. All three can be enhanced with the Square Jellyfish Micro Ball Head for photo angle flexibility.
Grip&Shoot
One of the best support packages for iOS gauge production is the CS Grip&Shoot. You Insert your phone into the CS case with its locking shoe that attaches it to the robust pistol grip. Its shutter trigger and thumbable +/- buttons can control zoom or whatever function you may assign it to through the CS App.
The grip speaks to the case in bluetooth, so you can place the case-mounted camera wherever you want, and the grip performs as a remote.
The Whoosh3D App can control and direct many modes of media. photo: courtesy Whoosh3D
A Fistful of 3D
The mobile handheld ecosystem has been rocketing along in such an accelerated rate of development that it can be hard to keep up with. It is redefining the reaches of distribution and exhibition. Whoosh3D has packaged it in multiple dimensions.
Central to it is its 3D App with which you can stream any 2D movies directly from the Internet, convert, and watch in 3D, in real time, glasses-free.
Whoosh3D's film overlay screen protector provides the user's phone or tablet device to be both 2D and 3D enabled. Their 3D Phone Case is a snap−on cover, with an auto-aligning feature engineered for iOS and Android mobile devices.
There, in the palm of my hand, without glasses I could watch James Cameron’s blue Avatars make their 3D moves. But I could just as well be looking at a mechanical assembly manual or a medical surgery review in 3D.
Tony Reveaux is a writer, educator and film and tech expert, who has served as the senior CineSource writer since 2008 and can be reached .