Unsurpassed live webcast: the Digital Concert Hall - 16 nov '09
A live webcast often offers some excitement because of the notion that it happens at that moment, hence the usage of the word live. Unfortunately most of the time I find the quality and overall experience disappointing. Especially with the current availability of broadband connections and improved video-codecs, more should be possible.
A short while back I came across the Digital Concert Hall of the Berliner Philharmoniker. There you can watch both live concerts as well as previous recorded concerts in HD quality. After watching some impressive demonstrations, I purchased my first ticket of 10 euros for a live concert.
Shortly before the concert started I connected my laptop to my television and stereo. Then the webcast started. To put it simply, it was impressive. The orchestra performed a beautiful Hungarian orientated program with composers Like Kodaly, Liszt and Bartok. And the broadcast itself was very well thought off. Not only were you able to enjoy the warmup time before the start of the concert but there was also an interesting intermission program.
The HD resolution video quality was convincing and the sound quality very good. It looked like the concert was recorded with 5 or so remote controlled camera's. Although that is not a lot, the result was a very complete and appealing coverage, probably because of carefully thought off and programmed camera angles.
Obviously even a great webcast can never beat the thrill and experience of a live concert. But as an alternative the Digital Concert Hall of the Berlin Philharmonic is outstanding and unchallenged.
If you have the slightest interest in classical music, or you are just curious, treat yourself to a ticket.
Process management: Agile scrum - 29 jun '09
Last week I took part in an workshop Agile at KroesKontrol. In the past I studied various project en process management methods like Prince2. Although these methods obviously contain interesting elements I found them largely unsuitable for interactive, film and cross-media projects. Most of these methods are too rigid (waterfall) and don't leave enough room for creativity.
The workshop given by Joris Boeren from LBi was quite interesting. Agile and especially the Scrum framework seems quite close to my own idea of developing projects. Especially for larger and more complex projects Scrum could be very useful. Because of the workshop, I'm now considering taking part in a Scrum master training in order to really apply the agile/scrum to certain projects.
Red HD camera: from hype to hoax and back to hype again - 4 mar '09
A few years ago the word started to spread, that there was a business man who claimed developing an HD video camera that could equal film quality and be affordable. It supossedly would be the HD equivalent of what DV meant for the film and video market in the mid nineties. But soon after the buz was that is was of course a hoax for that was impossible. That is now history for the RED camera is more than just a hype. Commercials big feauture films, television and corporate film are often shot with the RED camera. Besides it's relatively low price it is also... really good.
I once witnesed a keying test between the Sony CineAlta and the RedOne, the latter won confincingly. Wired wrote an interesting arcticel about where you can get a good idea of how the specs and quality hold up agains film an the video competion.
IFFR: Among the Clouds - 26 jan '09
Previous years I was not able to visit the International Film Festival Rotterdam. Fortunately this time a friend of mine invited me to the Iranian film; Among the Clouds. It is a story of a teenage Iranian boy who earns his living carrying luggage for tourists at an Iranian-Iraqi border. When he falls in love with the beautiful Noura, a young Iraqi woman, he finds him self in a dangerous spot. The question is how true their love is. Or more accurately put; how true their love can be.
After the screening of film there was a Q&A with the director Rouhollah Hejazi He explained a lot about the origin and background of the story, that has a lot to do with both the Iranian-Iraqi war and more recently the invasion of Iraq. Lacking that information at first, I looked at the film as beautiful but problematic love story. But with the background information the film became much more layered.
The film is sincere, touching and confronting. The cinematography is unpretentious and intimate, which suits the story very well. The main cast is excellent and it is a film you should definitely see in the cinema.
Word Clouds - 4 jan '09
A cool applet is wordle. This is an online tool for generating word clouds from a text or a link. It renders a visual depiction of the text and that results in an interesting way of looking at a certain piece of content. It is a nice way to present scenarios and presentations or just to create a cool illustration. The lay-out is customizable and you can even save the word cloud as a vector graphic.
House of Stories captured in a cloud. Click image to enlarge, will open in new window.
Getting Things Done (GTD) - 26 dec '08
There are many task management methods and related software programs. Depending on your own needs, most of the time a simple list will do just fine. But the Getting Things Done method - abbreviated as GTD - can be useful, especially when working on multiple, more comlex projects. Personally I would use it mainly to keep track of the main milestones and not to keep track of every little task. Otherwise you could be more busy working on a list than actually doing something.
For mac users I can recommend OmniFocus from the developer that also makes OmniPlan, which is a great project management planning tool. OmniFocus is a simple but elegant piece of software that can also easily sync with iCal.
IDFA: Interactive Documentary - 2 dec '08
To me an interactive film or documentary can be a paradox. Obviously the interactive element should not be there for the reason that it just sounds interesting. Interactivity should arise or be developed from within the story or concept and it has to add something. Although the technical possibilities needed for creating an online interactive film are now great (not the least because of the greatly improved video codes), I have not seen that many convincing projects yet. Therefore, I was really looking forward to the presentation of the online interactive documentary Gaza Sderot.
Gaza Sderot is an ambitious interactive web documentary portraying the daily life of people in Gaza (Palestine) and Sderot (Israel). Every day a short film clip of around 3 minutes is produced and put online. There are many interesting ways of going through all the available content to create your own program. For that Upian - the producers of the website - developed a navigation that is simple, intuitive and enables you to focus on the story lines and how they relate to each other via time, location, characters, and themes. Overall a very interesting project with big a compliment for the interaction design.
to HDV or not to HDV - 10 okt '08
HDV has the same resolution as a comparable HD format, but it uses far less data to store the video image, because the amount of data that can be stored is limited to the original (SD) DV specs of 3.6 MBps. Because of that HDV contains 2 to 50 times less data than other HD formats. Thus the image needs to be compressed heavily. This immediately excludes shooting for green screen since it is impossible to key with HDV. Depending on your final delivery platform, creative and (of course) budget considerations HDV can be an interesting option because of the low price and still full HD resolution. But with the very sharply priced RED cameras, it is tempting to spend just a little bit more and go for the real thing.
Peter's Principle and Parkinson's Law - 14 sept '08
More than forty years ago Dr. Laurence J. Peter formulated a theory in his humorous book called; the Peter's principle. It states that: In a Hierarchy Every Employee Tends to Rise to His Level of Incompetence. The book is filled with hilarious anecdotes that obviously support the main principle. Although it does not offer much more than that, it is still a good read.
Even before Peter wrote his book, Parkinson wrote his well known essay; Parkinson's Law with the famous and undeniable true adage: Work expands so as to fill the time available for its completion. That essay was bundled with several other interesting essays that deal with well-known management principles.
Both books are a revelation compared with most of the management books that can be found nowadays.