TECH: A Midwest freelance video geek travels to NAB.
The saying, “I still have not yet recovered from Vegas!” means something totally different when spoken by a video-geek that went in mid-April.
The NAB Show (National Association of Broadcasters) is nearly a week long conference for vendors come to show off what they have to offer to film makers large and small. The exhibit hall is roughly the size of Kansas and every square foot is packed. From software giants like Adobe to hardware kings Canon and Sony, most major players are represented (we miss you Apple). The attendance was estimated at 85,000 people and it is common to have a studio producer, film student, and freelancer all staring in awe at the same live demo… I was the freelancer in this group.
The most exciting news was Sony’s new NEX FS100u camera. This brick looking camera has a Super 35mm sensor on it, which is huge for the price point of $5,800 (estimated and w/o a lens). So why should the film makers of the world be excited? This camera looks to address the problems of HDSLR’s video short falls. All over indie filmmakers are falling in love with making short films with these HDSLRs and at the same time getting frustrated with the fact that they are not designed primarily for video. Sony is first out of the gate to fix that.
Biggest disappointment for me was the lack of big news from Canon. Canon’s 5D Mark II is a revolutionary leader for video on DSLR (not to mention it is one sweet photography camera), but it is also a couple years old now. We tech geeks can’t wait that long Canon! Sure you gave us the 7D which was a pretty cool improvement. But we want another break through! Mark III? Tell us something! We will wait. Video RAW codec? 100 frames per second? 2K resolution? Something.
And finally, the most expected news. No news. For anyone in the film world (with budgets under $250,000) the company REDhas a project called Scarlet, a mystical creature like a leprechaun or a unicorn. In fact, that is what I call this project. The Unicorn… doesn’t really exist but would be pretty cool to have. Closing off my rant, this camera will change indie film making for the next 10 years. The punch RED is talking about at a very manageable price point makes all of us drool. To all my drooling peers, I ask you, would you rather have RED start taking orders today? On a product that may be 80-90% done? Or do you want the company to make sure the Scarlet is 110% ready, and we wait?
Bottom line, if you have anything to do with film, video, audio, in any way whatsoever. Make the pilgrimage to NAB next year.
My name is Nick Schale http://www.nickschale.com I’ve been a freelance videographer and photographer since 2003. I run a video user group in Kansas City called KCVideoCore. Our Adobe User Group is free and we give out door prizes every meeting. Please check us out at http://www.facebook.com/kcvideocore
