My name is Andrew Howe and I am a workshopaholic. OK, so its out there, I can relax now. When they ask me difficult questions in the surveys for NAB like “What is your role in the media industry?”, the most accurate answer is probably Workshop Chair Grip. It’s a toss-up between that and Credit Card DoP.

First up was Adam Duckworth. I felt a bit sorry for Adam as a projector failure meant he had to do his presentation without slides but he still managed to make it engaging. Adam’s career is mainly in photography but he transition more to multimedia in recent years so he was in a good position to explain both the differences and similarities between photographic and film lighting. I think I am right in attributing one of my favorite quotes of the day to Adam “Once light has left the lamp, it has no idea how expensive the light that made it is.”

Ed Moore also did a presentation on lighting. My first exposure to Ed was on a recent course I did through FXPHD. It was great to meet him and some of the lights which I had seen him use to great effect in that course. Ed expanded on some of the topics covered by Adam and introduced some additional lighting types and grip. Some of these were great budget tips for trying to build up a low cost but flexible lighting kit.

Ed Moore explains a lighting set-up

There was quite a strong Post element to the day. We had two presentations on Final Cut: one on multi-camera from Steve Sander and another on DSLR workflow from Byron Wijayawardena of Apple. I have never had to shoot or edit multi-camera so I had not really come across it before. It quite an interesting way of working. I have edited footage where there were multiple takes from different angles and I found it a real challenge. If you can get more coverage of the same performance it makes the editors life much easier. Byrons’s attempt to go through the whole FCP workflow including Color was probably a bit ambitious. Despite being from Apple he did throw in a lot of third party options which meant it was a very comprehensive and real-world view despite the time challenges. Byron used footage shot for a music video and this was shared for a presentation by James Tonkin on Davinci Resolve. This was deliberate to allow for a comparison. I had seen Resolve demos before but this was the first by a customer. Not just a customer, but one who had only been using it a few weeks. Now, one look at the FCP timeline that was imported showed that James was no novice but it was still impressive how quick James was able to work given the different methodology and UI. The speed and control you have in Resolve is astounding. Even a relative newb like me has spent more hours than I care to recollect staring anxiously at render bars when grading. Its an inevitability when shooting DSLR with flat profiles that you will be grading. If my deadlines were commercial rather than just sheer impatience, then I would definitely be investing in Resolve.

Richard Jobson, the driving force behind Converge, did a Directing session with 2 actors. He had a new script which the actors had barely seen which is making use of the lift set currently taking up Richard’s garage where it was built for the zzz need a lawyer short. The situation and the language in the script were very Pinteresque. Richard explained what he wanted from the actors particularly around the pacing. For the first couple of read throughs it didn't quite work. The script editor in me (a mode I have only recently discovered I have) was mentally starting to kick in. However, on the next read-through Richard got them to the pace he wanted and suddenly the language found its rhythm and the performance was transformed. Watching this process was quite a revelation as I have never really seen this direction/performance interaction before. I look forward to seeing the film when its complete.

The final presentation was from Sloan U’Ren (Director) and Simon Dennis (Cinematographer) about the feature they are working on called “Dimensions”. Sloan and her husband Ant Neely are the originators of the project. Both have successful careers in the industry and are fulfilling an ambition to make their own film. DSLRs were one enabling technologies which made the project feasible for their budget whilst delivering the look they wanted. Dimensions is a period, character driven movie with a twist. Simon showed us some ungraded footage (using 5D) which looked simply sumptuous. Simon told us that he still lit the scenes as he would for film. He wasn’t looking for super-shallow depth of field. He is more interested in the results than the technology. The film is currently in post and its one to look out for later in the year.

Converge has plans to increase access to training workshops and their recently revamped blog has become one of the best sources of information on the web with a host of respected guest bloggers contributing.

I have been to all 3 Converges and it's interesting to see how things have changed. The first one was very much about spreading the word. Many in the audience had yet to experience DSLR video and it was about exploration and spreading the word. The second was more about technique and workflow. In the third, DSLRs are pretty much proven, it was more a celebration of what has been achieved. In fact one of the key issues is whether we were starting to enter a post-DSLR world. There was also a broadening of the scope of convergence looking at the route to market opportunities presented by the web and mobile devices. I attended both days: the festival day and the more technical workshop day.

Panel Discussion
One change is that I took someone with me. My son Alex is hoping to study Film and Television at university. Armed with a 550D, courtesy of his recent 18th birthday, it was the first time he had been to an event like this.

Its a few weeks after the event and my detail memories are starting to fade like they do when you pass 40. Andrew Reid did a great (and considerably more prompt) job on recording the first day's proceeding so I am going to point you there and I going to concentrate what stuck out for me.

Post DSLR?

Nah, not going to happen. Not that the manufacturer’s won’t try and drag us back to the highend and their old margins, but I agree with Philip Bloom, DSLRs are here to stay. The primary reason is cost. There are a lot of disgruntled photographers who are annoyed at having to subsidise these frivolous video modes. We should shake them by the hand because they do! A Sony F3 kit is around £18,000. Now despite the nice tie in between £18,000 and 18 years it was never going to happen - sorry Alex.

Secondly, there is form factor. The may not be optimised for video work but they are comparatively small for the image quality they produce. The also, strangely enough, take very good stills. We may not get everything we want in the DSLR format but I can’t see any camera being produced that does not have a video mode and the manufacturers will always be scrambling for spec supremacy in this hard fought sector.

The 5D MkII is still King

OK, I might be a bit biased here as an owner and it might be just that 5D has just become interchangeable with DSLR as a term. I also know that there are cameras out there which can claim superiority in lots of areas even within the Canon range. However, most of the stuff we saw seemed to be shot on the 5D. This is despite many contributors being cautious about super-shallow depth of field.

The Old Rules Don’t Apply Anymore?

The advent of the DSLR has often been described as a revolution and I would tend to agree with that. For a technology that only arrived just a couple of years ago it has made huge inroads and a high profile. Reading an article about Paul Williams, attendee and monopod winner, in Photo Pro this week it told how Jamie Oliver had suggested the camera be used in his new show. Did that ever happen before?

So the irony for me is that a lot of the properties of operating a 5D are so “old school”. They don’t run for very long, they need separate sound and no-one but the operator gets a decent view of whats going on. That sounds a lot like film to me. If you want to get the very ultimate out of your DSLR then don’t skimp on the craft. Simon Dennis’ footage from a new film called “Dimensions” was some of the best I had ever seen out of a DSLR and it wasn't even graded. In chatting afterwards he told me that he lit it the same way he would for film.

Where the rules are really under the most stress is in the whole production model. DSLRs are an enabling technology. They remove a barrier to entry. I am not a member of the film world but it seems to me that it is a mass of historical barriers to entry - many of which are under stress. There is more demand for content now than there has ever been regardless of what sector or medium you chose. Unfortunately, that demand is also a fairly incoherent mess. We have everything from a Hollywood establishment fighting a desperate 3D fueled, megabuck rear-guard to unmonetarised cloud services like Vimeo. Trying to make sense of this for us was Robin Schmidt of El Skid Blog fame. His explanation of the non-traditional opportunities through the story of his Super Massive Raver project were very thought provoking. There are threats and there are opportunities and to navigate these turbulent waters there are a lot of new things to learn - even for experienced filmmakers.

One of the great things about Converge is getting to chat to everyone in the bar afterwards about the day. It was great to meet people like Andrew Reid of EOSHD and Robin whose blogs I follow. Also Sam Morgan-Moore of Half Inch Rails who had brought some prototypes with him. Also the chance to catch-up with old friends and acquaintances like Philip Bloom and Julian Harding who I met at Phil's London Meet-up