Fred Flare’s Sherbet ColorBlock headphones. Photo credit: FredFlare.com

This is the debut column of a new series that charts the past week’s most interesting articles and news items from industry web sites, blogs, and other info sources relevant to our readers.

Last week Sony finally announced its new line of OLED (organic LED) reference monitors, delivering on what had turned into a long second stage to its initial 11-inch OLED monitor introduced in 2008.
OLEDs, as you might know, hold great promise for use in pro and civilian monitors alike, with deep blacks that you’ll never see on an LCD screen, along with a high dynamic range and wide color gamut, with color reproduction beyond anything you’ve seen. No, really. Prices though, will have to drop from their stratospheric range, you first adopters will mumble — Sony’s 25-inch “reference-grade” BVM-E250, for example, lists at $26,000. More from Sony’s announcement here.
Want to actually see one of these up close? You can, but you only have one more day before registration closes for SMPTE’s February 24th seminar on “Evaluation Grade Monitoring for Cinema and Television”. Registration details here.

Post Magazine has a look at just how advanced on-location color correcting has become with a short piece on Brian Buongiorno’s set-up for his Austin-based Tone Visuals. Buongiorno works either on-set or to in a client’s studio with his Apple Mac Pro paired with a Flanders Scientific monitor, Tangent Wave control panel and Iridas’ SpeedGrade DI app.

Fast Company points us to a social media trend that could change local reporting. Seems Silicon Valley startup Tackable enables groups to post hyper-local news assignments, with users then able to track developments by location as eyewitness reports roll in. Basing news on location, says a Tackable co-founder, “is the most logical way to organize live information.”

The always-thoughtful musings of critic David Bordwell on his blog take a scientific turn when psychological researcher and guest blogger Tim Smith details how we actually view a film at the moment-by-moment physical level, and contrasts that with how we analyze and interpret those same images.

There have been any number of blogs posting lists of the best iPhone apps for a cinematographer. But if you’re a DP who just got a shiny new Verizon version of the iconic phone, you might be as fresh to the burgeoning app market as Art Adams, who offers this round-up list on the ProVideo Coalition site.

Finally, a little media tech history from the always erudite and snappily-written blog of Mark Schubin. This particular entry–Headphones, History, & Hysteria—might seem a little ho-hum at first glance, but if you have even a slight interest in what goes on behind the technology you use every day, you’ll actually have a fun read. Anyway, why wouldn’t you want to know something more about the “19th Century iPhone”, you Apple-mad readers?

Photo credit: MoMI/Chiho Aoshima

There’s sure to be a crush of people this Saturday the 15th, but you’ll still want to catch the reopening of the Museum of the Moving Image. Pitched right across from the historic Kaufman Astoria Studios (Paramount Pictures began there), the sleek, minimalist digs offer expanses of cool, white marble-ish material that seems to swathe everything, a multitude of theaters, a chockablock historical collection (with a layout that improves upon its dingy predecessor) and even a sweeping staircase for making grand entrances.

But the most stunning experience might be the Real Virtuality exhibit on the top floor. Its six installations pull together innovative artists who use video game engines, motion-trackers, 3-D video projections, and advanced image processing hacks to create simulated worlds that pull the visitor into mesmerizing interactions with the exhibits.

Here’s the full release on the website of the Mayor’s Office of Film,Theatre, and Broadcasting.

Watch for our in-depth look at the new MoMI in an upcoming post. Until then, just go and enjoy. You won’t be disappointed.

Photo credit: Wesleyan University Press

While NYCPPNews covers the technology and trends that affect production and post in New York—along with the occasional product review or exhibition development—every once in a while we’ll also meander further afield to note smart writing on other sites and blogs.

To that end, we turn to Mark Schubin, who once again offers one of his tour de force takes on media technology history at his blog Schubin Café.

Here he takes to correcting NPR’s On the Media—a weekly show that both of us admire and listen to, it seems—which strayed out of its intellectual comfort zone a few months ago in detailing the history of television. Big mistake. That’s exactly the area Mark has been researching and writing about for the past few decades.

Mark pounced on the error, but as usual gives his readers much, much more insightful historical nuggets to chew on. If you haven’t enjoyed one of Mark’s whirlwind historical tech tours then click here to find out more, including more about the first versions of our 24/7 cable news echo chamber could be said to have roots in the early part of the 19th century. If you have read Mark before, you’ll know want to do.

For those who would like to read the original interview setting all of this–Does Science Fiction–Yes, Science Fiction–Suggest Futures for News?–you can read a transcript of Brooke Gladstone’s interview with author Loren Ghiglione here. For Ghiglione’s full article, click here.

David Leitner was there as DuArt owner Irwin Young signed off at the dry end of the “last bath” from the famed New York lab that supported the growth of the Indie scene.
Photo credit: D.W. Leitner

David Leitner, a long-time friend and colleague at millimeter magazine, has posted his final Leitner’s Cinematography Corner via one of his typical fascinating, far-ranging essays.

If you don’t know, David composed his column from a unique perspective that includes extensive R&D at Indie-famed DuArt Film Labs, lots of DP work on practically every type of film and video rig, all brought to a boil via a voracious intellect that always wants to know the story behind how things work in our media-officiated society, while not getting distracted by the bling.

But the real reason to read David’s work is to come in contact with good writing that takes witty note of the far-flung efforts of humankind to sculpt memories in a form we can all enjoy. He’s a real resource for both the New York production community and anyone interested in the real world of image production. I only hope he has another go at it.

Photo credit DW Leitner

One way to tower over any production problem.

D.W. Leitner’s writing—whether his in-depth camera reviews, wide-ranging NAB surveys, or complex production stories–remains one of my favorite reads in millimeter. While we have both written for the magazine for many years, I’ve got to be honest, it’s David who has gained a following for his writing, featuring as it does his unique blend of technical know-how, a love and knowledge of movie history, and a deep understanding of the complete production process, all wrapped up in strong, clean prose that’s all too rare in our industry…well, you get the idea, he just always seems to deliver fascinating writing.

Well, there’s a new version of that smart package if you tune into his own, recently launched weekly blog on millimeter’s site, Leitner’s Cinematography Corner.

You’re in Leitner World, so don’t expect just another digital naval-gazing cool-tool-of-the-week approach. He says it straight and plain in his inaugural blog: “The Cinematography Corner will be my ongoing effort to steer discussion of new technology away from starry-eyed worship of all things digital and back to established filmmaking practices.”

All the more reason to turn into his most recent column, EX3 x 2 = DIY 3D, a title that becomes less mysterious when you read about the success of two New Jersey filmmakers in creating a significant 3D production for the Newark Museum via their home-brew setup of a pair of Sony PMW-EX3s. Besides technical details, you see today’s results balanced out against the historical significance of Sheeler and Strand’s pioneering Manhatta (1921), a silent black-and-white song-of-the-city.

Vintage Leitner.

Mark Schubin ponders.

Over the years, journalists and tech geeks have learned to turn an avid ear whenever Mark Schubin rises to ask a question. At the trade shows, his target usually includes those in upper management of Sony, Panasonic, and any number of other manufacturers of video gear who, licking their lips in nervous anticipation, have learned to respect questions from this bearded, Hawaiian panted and sandal-shod savant–for those innocent sounding queries often puncture their carefully crafted marketing messages. Schubin, we have all learned, knows the history, physics, and engineering behind most video devices—and audio, cinema, and who knows what else–better than most anyone you can find who talks about this stuff for a living.

So even though today’s presentation The Fandom of the Opera began at the unnecessarily early hour of 7:30am, I was there at the Samsung showroom in the Time Warner Center on time, and eager to hear the scheduled talk. Bill Sobel, of SobelMedia, produced.

Schubin, a multiple-Emmy-winning SMPTE Fellow, is the engineer-in-charge of the Met Opera’s media department; he’s the techie behind their now wildly successful The Met: Live in HD broadcasts. But as usual, his slide show and talk wasn’t some dry droning of facts about the history of media technology, but dense with odd bits of knowledge gleaned from his extensive research. Did you know that the first opera sync sound movies were shown in 1900, some 27 years before the first such accredited movie, The Jazz Singer? Or that an 1886 patent was granted for the use of animated movies for background projections during opera performances, even as Edison and W.K.L. Dickson were working on their first camera system?

These and a barrage of other intriguing facts and insights are available from Schubin’s website, Schubin Café. While you don’t get the benefit of his witty comments, at his site you should still be able to find a download of the extensive PDF of the lecture. Check out the other downloads, and the daily blogs, too; you’ll always find intriguing, fun to read, tech insights.