Jobs discussed in this article:

1. Canoe Instructor/Camp Counsellor
2. Flower Shop Attendant
3. Ice Cream Scooper
4. Baker
5. WORN Fashion Journal

Inheriting a long standing organisation and expecting to good by it is a daunting position to be in. But I somewhat unexpectedly found myself in that exact spot when I started working at Document. To say my position at the festival has snowballed over the past two and a half years would be something of an understatement. Coordinating means putting out a lot of fires, multi-tasking and collaborating to your hearts content. When people ask me what it’s like I’m often inclined to tell them: “I herd cats for a living.”

Looking back on my twelve odd years in the workforce is a strange activity. My past jobs feel like past lives – and the path to Document is much more like a process of elimination than a coherent career path. Growing up, friends lay the groundwork of fruitful careers while I pinged from childcare to the service industry to a smattering of arts jobs.

Before university I was a film obsessed, theatre nerd who pined for a job in journalism. Rather than volunteering or trying to gain work experience I nurtured a short attention span for part time jobs. Spending a number of summers working at camps as a glorified babysitter and canoe instructor. At 17 I worked in a flower-shop where I wasn’t allowed to touch the flowers – instead I was sequestered in the basement where I washed pots and vases and was kept company by Seabiscuit … the store cat. Then there was the ice-cream scooping where I and a staff of teenagers made thousands of waffle cones and slung ice-cream in a badly ventilated but very popular shop in Toronto’s east end.

While friends made smooth transitions from unpaid internships to salaried jobs in advertising, journalism, and politics – I was left floundering. There was this abstract career in my mind. It involved the arts and outreach but I had no idea how to make it happen. Instead I spent hours at the cinema, trolling bookstores and trying to undo the circumscribed ways of thinking that four years of liberal arts can do to a person. Throughout that process I went to a lot of events that challenged my notion of creativity and success. Most memorably Trampoline Hall which was a “bar room lecture series” in Toronto’s west end. Founded by Misha Globerman and Sheila Heti, I became enamoured by their grassroots and idiosyncratic approach to programming. It was a salon of sorts and every time I left there was a little voice in my head saying … “that is what I want to do, but how?!”

I came out of of undergrad with an Honours in English, exasperated by abstract thought, and craving practical work. Seeing a final product come out of hours of toil that wasn’t just an essay but rather something tactile was incredibly attractive. So in my post-graduation ennui I wound up baking. I’ve got the scars to prove it. The hours spent in hot kitchens and early mornings served their therapeutic purpose but it was hardly what I wanted to do for the rest of my life. Although it was tempting seeing as I was good at it – and it was delicious.

In 2011 I got the opportunity to intern at WORN Fashion Journal. Whilst there I worked on the publishing team and I got to see first hand how you develop a marketable brand within a strict budget. It was a brilliant publication and one I greatly admired. It was feminist, intersectional and intellectual but always accessible – WORN, however, did not make money but they had conviction. My time at the publication was spent entirely in a learning capacity – it wouldn’t be much of a stretch to say I was expendable. One time my editor turned to me and said: “Cayley you know so much about everything we just need to figure out how to apply it?” I took it as a compliment at the time.

By 2012 it was pretty obvious Toronto wasn’t working for me. I was so aware of what other people were doing and how they were doing it better I couldn’t focus. So I put an ocean between myself and my home town. Which may have been one of the best things I have ever done. It gave me the perspective and ability to apply all of the curiosity and passion I had for film and outreach without second guessing and comparing myself to my peers. It’s also a testament to cities like Glasgow. Where your ambition isn’t drowned out by the cacophony of competition you get in bigger towns.

Despite what I consider very separate stages in my eclectic CV, have somehow coalesced to be the perfect background to running an independent film festival. The years of running around hot kitchens, getting through a never-ending todo list, and hours of customer service drudgery have made me surprisingly adept for coordination.

There is a hell of lot more I need to learn but my time with Document has been the best education I could have gotten in confirming what it is I want to do. Which is work with communities, remain fiercely independent, and inspire conversation and change through the arts.

Document 2015 is running from October 16, 17, and 18 at Glasgow’s CCA.

More: Website | Facebook | Twitter

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We’ve asked professionals in creative industries what jobs they have had in the past to get their foot through the door (or at least pay the rent). For more in the “My First 5 Jobs” series look here.

Filmhouse Edinburgh, Kinoteka and BFI announce the UK national tour for Martin Scorsese’s Masterpieces of Polish Cinema – the first celebration of fully restored Polish cinema classics on such a large scale. The UK tour kicked off in London at the 13th Kinoteka Polish Film Festival at the beginning of April and will continue at venues throughout the UK until the end of September. Confirmed cities include Aberdeen, Belfast, Bristol, Canterbury, Cardiff, Derby, Dublin, Dundee, Glasgow, Inverness, Leeds, Leicester, Nottingham, Sheffield and the Chichester International Film Festival.

The idea for the original project germinated in December 2011 when Scorsese travelled to Poland to accept an honorary degree from the Łódź Film School. The connections he made came together to form the idea of a North American tour of fully restored Polish Classics. Martin Scorsese has personally selected 24 Polish films that have been an inspiration and influence, including many undiscovered gems, all brilliantly restored and digitally remastered. The resulting series premiered in New York City at the Film Society of Lincoln Center in February 2014, where it was hugely popular.

Ashes and Diamonds by Andrzej Wajda

Austeria by Jerzy Kawalerowicz

The season includes classic works from some of Poland’s most accomplished and lauded filmmakers such as Andrzej Wajda, the most represented director in the tour. Wajda has five films screening including Ashes and Diamonds (1958), a complex, morally ambiguous masterpiece starring the ‘Polish James Dean’ Zbigniew Cybulski. Four films by Jerzy Kawalerowicz have also been selected, including his most personal project, Austeria (1982), a tale of anti-Semitic persecution during WWI. Another filmmaker integral to Polish cinema was Krzysztof Kieślowski, perhaps best known to British audiences for his Three Colours Trilogy (1993-94). Kieślowski’s A Short Film About Killing (1987) is a grimly confrontational study of the protracted process of ending someone’s life, whether through casual murder or meticulously planned execution. This film contributed to a national debate that ultimately ended capital punishment in Poland. Krzysztof Zanussi is a world-renowned director, screenwriter, producer and author who studied philosophy and physics before graduating at the Łódź Film School in 1966, Zanussi’s intellectual and philosophical works are known for exploring the complexity of moral choices and metaphysical questions in everyday life. His films The Constant Factor (1980) and Illumination (1972) also screen in the Masterpieces season.

A Short Film About Killing by Krzysztof Kieślowski

Full details of the season and national tour along with the full programme details for the Kinoteka Polish Film Festival programme can be seen online here. The season will be at Filmhouse Edinburgh until 17 June.

More: Website | Facebook | Twitter

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Find more events in our weekly bulletin here.

Art Screen is the BBC’s inaugural festival of arts documentaries in Glasgow. Running from 10 – 13 April as part of Glasgow International, the festival is a celebration of film and creativity in Scotland, the UK and beyond.

Opening night (10 April) will see the world premiere of Rio, by director Julien Temple. The film explores the intricacies of Rio de Janeiro examining both the lighter and darker sides of the capital city as it prepares to host the World Cup this summer, and the Olympics in 2016. The film will be followed by a Q&A with Temple.

Exploring genius, hardship and occasional madness, several documentaries delve into the world of being an artist including: The Bruce Lacey Experience by Jeremy Deller and  Nick Abrahams (11 April), Fifi howls from Happiness about Iranian artist, Bahman Mohasses (12 April) by director Mitra Farahani and  Ben Shapiro’s Gregory Crewdson: Brief Encounters (13 April).

Not to be missed is Arts in the Archive which sees the re-release of several television arts documentaries from the BBC Archive. Featuring rare interviews from Susan Sontag, Andy Warhol, Norman McLaren, Graham Greene and more, the screenings present a wealth of fascinating material which will show at various times throughout the weekend. Highlights include: Francis Bacon: Fragments of a Portrait (Michael Gill), Ways of Seeing: John Berger (Michael Dibb), and Arena: Louise Bourgeois (Nigel Finch).

The festival also features a variety of events including the panel What is the Art of Arts Documentary? and Art Screen at Night, three nights of music and performance from special guests. A masterclass from Iain Forsyth and Jane Pollard is also on offer in which Forsyth and Pollard will discuss the process behind their filmmaking and their most recent Sundance winning film about musician Nick Cave, 20,000 Days on Earth.

Louise Lockwood’s Facing up to Mackintosh will close the festival exploring the creation of the Glasgow School of Art’s new Reid building. Lockwood will introduce the film which will be followed by a post-screen discussion.

Art Screen runs from 10 – 13 April at the CCA and GFT. For more details about the programme see the festival diary on the Art Screen website. Tickets are available from today from both the CCA & GFT websites.

More: Website | Glasgow International

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Like many of the very finest ideas, Berwick Film & Media Arts Festival was dreamed up in the pub. Academic and filmmaker Huw Davies, and Artist-filmmaker Marcus Coates were in the Barrels Ale House (a fine drinking establishment with a dentist’s chair at the Bar) when they developed a beer-fuelled vision to turn the small town of Berwick-upon-Tweed into one big moving image installation.

That was back in 2004, and every year since 2005 the border town has provided a platform for independent cinema, artists’ moving image and everything in between as part of a holistic festival of projections, installations, screenings and live events.

It’s safe to say that Berwick-upon-Tweed is most famous for its Walls – marking the border between England and Scotland, with the town being passed between England and Scotland 13 times in recorded history. For us, the Walls provides some of our most interesting locations, for example last year we commissioned Berwick-based artists Zoe Walker & Neil Bromwich to create a video, Dancing Borders, for Coxon’s Tower, while we also installed Croatian artist Goran Skofik’s 10-screen installation, Corpus, in the Magazine, where the gun powder was held and where the barrels are still on display. Incidentally, the Barrels is also a regular venue, where last year we screened All Tomorrow’s Parties, a documentary about the music fest of the same name, followed by a DJ spinning tracks from the film.

Last year’s event was considered our most successful in many respects – we engaged with more children and young people than in previous years, commissioned more work than ever before, attracted more audiences per day, built better partnerships with other organisations, and the event was nominated for Best Event Northumberland at the Journal Culture Awards. Since then, we were announced as one of Arts Council England’s new National Portfolio organisations, meaning we will receive regular funding for the first time, 2012 – 2015.

This year’s festival will be my third as director, and will be curated to a theme that is of a real personal and academic interest to myself: that of the fairy tale film. Under the title of ‘Once Upon a Time’ the programme will explore themes such as sexuality, transformation and otherness through everything from fiction to documentary, narrative to artist video, and live action to animation.

Once again the Festival will showcase international work whilst remaining rooted in Berwick, with contemporary moving image spilling into historical locations across the town. The Festival will very much be a celebration of the art of story-telling on screen, and its not too late to be a part of it! We’re still accepting submissions via the website until 29 July. The programme will be announced end August and the Festival returns Friday 23 – Sunday 25 September.

First up, we’re learning a little about Central Station.

[21:23] As regular readers of this blog & community will know, Central Station is an arts hub – a place to find creative people and inspiration. We’re being shown around some of the portfolios and site features.

[21:25] Central Station has been working with a number of projects. Art/Roc/Docx is a collaborative cross-disciplinary documentary featuring the band Isocele, a shooter, photographer, fixer, designers, curators, a producer and editor. At the beginning they didn’t know what they were making; ultimately they ended up with a 75 minute film that premiered at the Glasgow Short Film Festival. (I wish I’d been part of it. Sounds like fun. Who wants to make a film with me?)

[21:28] CenSta was also involved with the Glasgow International Festival of Visual Art. They’ve done a lot of work extending art in an interdisciplinary way using the Internet as both a communications and creative device; something I think more technologists should also be involved with. It doesn’t have to be all about extending XMPP and creating decentralized social networking protocols, you know; there’s a lot of human discovery and creativity that can be facilitated. Not just facilited – made. Technologists can be artists too!

InSpace is a beautiful space, by the way, but it’s a little echoey at the back. I’m straining to hear.

Central Station is being compared to WordPress and Facebook. It’s a community that involves people, says a representative of member organisation Savalas – but by implication it’s also a community about opportunities for creatives and creative organisations.

[21:34] We’re being shown a short film which links computer-generated animation and orgiinal composition in a really dynamic way. It’s like an iris reaffirming itself in a radar swoop, set to some arresting beats and atmospheric sound.

The last time I liveblogged anything, it was the Eurovision Song Contest. Alas, I don’t think the chances of anyone bursting out with a saxophone and avant garde sunglasses are anywhere near as great here.

[21:39] “Although it is global [...] There’s a tangible, physical community behind it.”

[21:43] Roderick Buchanan is talking about his soundtrack project. He’s talking about the freeing aspects of doing group shows (relatively little responsibility, the ability to see others’ work at the same time), and how independent shows are significantly more stressful. Central Station has been a useful community for him throughout the process of transitioning from one to the other, partially as a resource for help and advice.

[21:50] A discussion of the narcissism of social networking sites and how Roderick is on the “social networking rocks”. In particular, he has a problem with the terminology: calling people “friends”, for example. This is my day job, and my observation would be that it’s a cultural difference – not necessarily generational. I think people in California, where most of this technology comes from, are far happier with labelling strangers as friends than the Scots are. Generally, the most complaints I’ve heard about the wording on these sites come from Scotland; why is this, and what does it say about Scotland as a culture? (Or, indeed, California?)

[21:52] Indeed, Roderick says that when he was approached by Central Station to work on the “Composer wanted” project, he didn’t like the narcissistic aspects of his personality that the site drew out of his personality.

There does seem to be a very wide conversation that could be had here. As a half-American who lives in Edinburgh, I feel conflicted: should we all be getting used to promoting our personal brands? (This tends to be where I sit.) Or is it a worrying trend that really undermines something important in different cultures?

[21:54] Not everyone enjoys blogging. That’s absolutely true; what’s great about Central Station is that it allows for different forms. When I approached designing an open source social networking platform, back in 2004, our team made the same assumption: not everyone would be interested in writing text, or writing about themselves. Privacy and different media are crucial. CenSta has, in my opinion, made the right decisions here.

[21:56] Here’s a question (from me): do contemporary artists inherently need to be self promoters?

[21:59] Ultimately, Roderick says, his optimism has been restored thanks to the real-life community behind the site. “Giles [Lamb] and Savalas are the guys with the right trainers and haircuts on this project. I look forward to hearing what they have to say.”

[22:01] Roderick: “I was feeling all open and connective about collaborating with Central Station and Savalas on the production of a new artwork until I saw the streamed version of my video ‘Traffic’ online. Now I’m feeling naked and exposed.” But it’s surely good promotion? “Central Station is another set of opportunities, and we all try to make them work for us.” He doesn’t know if people are more connected to his practice thanks to his presence online, but feels that other people may see him (and the sountrack project) as an opportunity.

[22:04] “Technology is always making [promises] and not paying off.” I respectfully disagree, although, of course, I’m biased …

[22:05] We’re being shown a short film. I won’t describe it; hopefully it’s available to view online. Meanwhile, Sasha has uploaded some great photographs (aside from the one of me).

[22:08] Roderick: “the technology is still not there.” Technologists: opportunity! There are creatives out there dying for more tools, more infrastructure. Central Station is doing a fine job with the community – what else can you provide?

[22:10] The short film we’re being shown involves those awesome liquid-filled pen lids where little plastic characters float across the length. There was a bear. I always condone bears.

[22:12] The soundtrack project has received 41 responses; 2677 blog posts; 1641 group members; 2400 project pageviews. Much easier than trying to get that kind of participation offline.

[22:13] Those participants eventually boiled down to six shortlisted members developing soundtrack ideas for Roderick’s next piece of experimental filmmaking.

[22:15] Sasha has left us, but I’ll be liveblogging for the rest of the evening. Don’t forget to also check out the Central Station twitter account (and my own).

[22:17] We’re talking to Nils Mugel Meisel, who is one of the shortlisted musicians, and looking at some of the newly-soundtracked films. It’s inspiring stuff: original films seem to turn into completely new works when creative audio is independently applied. Makes you think about how much of a difference sound really makes, and also makes me want to get my hands dirty, or collar some of the musicians I know.

[22:27] Ultimately, Andy Sim and his team Fear Wasabi won the Central Station soundtrack competition, and went into production with Roderick and Savalas. Tonight’s event, at the Edinburgh International Film Festival, is the world premiere of the resulting film.

[22:40] Argh, we just lost 10 minutes of updates! In brief:

The standard filmmaking process can take years from inception to distribution. The process of making this film took between 6-8 weeks, which is revolutionary!

Furthermore, the team – in the end – found blogging useful. The reflection, far from being an act of narcissism, kept them focused; it ultimately ended up being an archive of their creative process.

There’s clearly a lot of work still to do in terms of creating a digital infrastructure for these kinds of activities, but this sounds like it’s been a successful project with a tangible outcome.

[22:43] We’re settling down to watch the films: Tattoo and Lament.

[22:49] Tattoo: centuries of deep conflict laid out on living flesh. Genuinely fascinating and – despite being essentially static – shot through with raw emotion.

[22:56] Lament: a shocking play on Paddy’s Lament that plays with expectations and ends like a lightning bolt.

[22:57] And that’s it – we’re closing down. Thanks to everyone who’s been following tonight, everyone who’s in the room, and to Central Station for making it all happen.

They are hosting their big event ‘Sound: Image: Art’, as art of the Edinburgh International Film Festival, as we speak, so Ben and I are live blogging the event. Everybody wave to Ben.

The event showcases the fruits of short film collaboration between visual artist  Roderick Buchanan, and one lucky composer, Fear Wasabi. Sourced entirely through Central Station, it is a celebration of what Central Station can achieve, enable and produce in the arts.

[21:26] Currently, Suzy Glass is telling the audience all about Central Station, how it works and what it can do.

[21:31] The venue, Inspace, is really gorgeous, with a performance space that spans several levels, several projection areas and some pretty epic surround sound. It also has a very cool red stagey bit (it’s hard to describe).

[21:35] A clip demonstrating how the composer, Buchanan and the animator have chosen to collaborate. Apparently, i terms of sound design each piece consists of ten layers and there is a visual element to complement each of these.

[21:39]  This project has been created in collaboration with sound design company, Savalas.

[21:40] Is anyone else really really warm? My decision to wear tights today was a poor one, even in this cool minimalist space.

[21:42] Everyone look at Ben!

Isn’t he industrious?

[21:47] Roderick Buchanan is talking about how visual art in video and film is now easier to make, due to the simplification of technology. He sounds a little wistful.

[21:56] The first post has fallen to the liveblogging gods. I just spent five minutes writing lovely words about how social media can be used to enable creative projects, and it got swallowed by the internet. Damn!

[21: 59] To make up for it, here’s Roderick Buchanan and Savalas Studio’s Giles Lam, sitting in fro of the odd red stage:

[22:01] RB feels ‘naked and expose’ by the streamed version of his film, ‘Traffic’ online.

[22:03] Has the gallery format fallen to the gods of social media; how useful is it to an artist today to exhibit their work in real time? Should they simply update their Flickr regularly instead? All questions popping into my head, thanks to RB and GL’s conversation. What do you think?

[22:05] We are now being showing ‘Out’, one of RB’s early works. Shh, while we watch!

[22:08] Ben has said my pictures of the event are ‘great’. I think he might be drunk blogging.

[22:12]Get some film action going on here; a short film comprised of shots of those awesome pens with floating stuff in. Apparently, this film was ‘mortifying’ for RB.

[22:15] Sadly, this is my time to go. Work in the morning and huge amounts of reviews to write call me homewards, as does the promise of loungewear. Some very interesting topics raised this evening and wish I could stay to hear rest of the discussion. Sasha out!

Does each character provide the right function to the story/shot?

Is this character too cliche?

Casting can change and develop a character for better or worse… keep an eye out for this.

Is this really the lead character’s story? During development, you will/should always ask this.

The more personal you make your script, the more universal it will be.

What is the meaning behind the action? Listen to feedback and always be flexible to allow for emergency changes.

Editing:

Director – Am I being over defensive about the work? Always be as open to suggestions as possible – they may save the film!

Editing is almost like writing a story all over again.

Editors need to be involved from the start in discussions because it can give them an inside view about the reasons behind a shot or part of the story. Treat a short film like a feature film and bother to have planning sessions and discussions!

Cinematography:

A cinematographer must know the director’s vision and must have open line of communications with all involved. Without that relationship, their perception and visual interpretation of the story will not work in the direction that the script and director is wanting to go.

Does this movie have a colour theme to match the moods of each scene or the story?

As a director, can I provide more direction and visual focus to my cinematographers? But am I also allowing them to make suggestions and allow my shoot to adapt to those impromptu ideas?

I’m not one of those people who reveres celluloid film as the apotheosis of cinema. To me, film is an unwieldily middleman putting technology in the way of expression. It’s nice in your hands and even nicer when you hold it up to the light, but films are meant to carry stories: not be objects of fetish in themselves. I shot my first films on Super 8 and then on 16mm. Super 8 seemed better because it corrupted what it saw in unusual ways. 16mm just looked like soft 35mm. 35mm needed the big money. We put up with film because it was poetry when compared to video. But digital cinema is not video: it’s something else.

Surely future generations will feel deprived of this celluloid poetry…?

I recently asked a class of secondary school children (12-17 year olds in a school film unit) if any of them had ever taken a roll of snap shots to be developed and printed. Not one of them had. Not one of them cared. Digital stills have taken over, and we’re all very relaxed about it. Goodbye XP4 and HP5, or my favourites: Scotch Chrome 1000 and Ektachrome 100. We don’t need you anymore; what an awful lot of money you cost us.

For some reason there’s a resistance to the death of celluloid when it comes to movies. Which is strange considering that lab costs have been the single biggest hurdle to getting a film made for as long as I can remember. Now that hurdle has gone. No more begging for ‘short-ends’, no more mind-boggling ‘edge-numbers’, no more agonising over telecine costs. I expect that by April 2013, we won’t be able to purchase or develop a roll of 16mm or 35mm film anywhere in the UK.

Film is dead. Long live Film.

For low budget film-makers, all our attention can now be given over to the stuff that really matters:

the script, the cast, the light, the lens.

Yes, the lens: because what you are shooting through is far more important than what you are shooting on. But that’s what everyone asks when you say you’re making a film: “Oh cool, what are you shooting on?” Not, “What is it about? Who is it about?” Or, if you are going to be technical, “Are you getting prime lenses?”

Why? Because everyone wants to know how close you are getting to 35mm. With tapeless systems like RED, that boring question is properly answered. And of course it comes with a box full of lovely lenses. So all that’s left now is one interesting question:

“What’s the story”

And one very boring one:

“Can anyone’s computer cope with such massive movie files?”

Yes, the Red camera produces a huge ‘negative’. It’s worth noting that at actual size, the RED camera’s rushes won’t even fit within my 30″ Apple Cinema Display. These are huge files.

Both the Interesting and Boring questions would be addressed with my most recent editing assignment: Ever Here I Be by Kate Burton, produced by Philippa Farnese for DigiCult.

The Interesting Answer

Ever Here I Be is a story about a beautiful young woman who is a terrible waitress, but an admirable spirit in a world of disappointments. One of these disappointments is a relationship she hopes to rekindle. To do so, she’ll have to convince her gloomy minded ex. After all, what is love without optimism?

Over 15 minutes we meet a number of unusual characters in an unusually bright and colourful Glasgow. Yes, it’s a bright film that’s set in Glasgow. Not everyone smiles, but not everyone feels hopeless either. They do what real people do: try to be happy despite their circumstances and self-doubts. Moreover, this film is funny and serious at the same time: even in the same shot. Like life, it’s rather rich.

Writer/director Kate Burton had visited some of these themes before in her previous film The Ice Plant, for which she had also created a hyper-real environment; but this new film would take these interests to another level: bigger cast, more locations, more evolved design ideas and only 5 pages longer. I say ‘only’, because, as any poet knows, it’s hard to do a lot with a little. The Ice Plant had 2 characters over 10 pages; Ever Here I Be has 7 characters over 15 pages. Rich indeed. It would also be a big demand on its production team (PM – Su Bainbridge, PC - Rachel Fiddes, 1st AD – Deva Smith, Designer -  Natalie Astridge, Costume – Lucy Harvey, MUA – Nicole Stafford, Sound – Chris Campion).

Ever Here I Be also has a wider colour palette and a wider aspect ratio: 2.35:1 – very cinematic, very landscapey: the stuff of adventures, fables, myths and Westerns.

And it would be shot by David Liddell – esteemed graduate of both the Royal Scottish Academy of Music and Drama and the National Film and Television School with his own team of RSAMD and NFTS trained camera and lighting professionals. Not bad at all.

But would it all work on my Mac…?

The Boring Answer

The no 1 piece of advice for rushes from the RED camera is to transcode: that it is to turn them into another type of video; Uncompressed, Apple ProRes or even DV – something normal, smaller, less scary. It’s the same as the old offline/online workflow of last century, in which Avid Media Composer would suck the life out pictures from a DigiBeta deck until up to 95% of its data had been thrown away leaving a very porridgy looking result. Editors would shy away from wide-shots because the detail was so hard to read in the offline. At the end of the process, all the tapes would have to be taken out their boxes and stuck into clunky machines all over again to recapture the footage at full-fat quality.

Transcoding is the same idea without the porridgy pics: ProRes is actually a very high-quality image – calling it ‘offline’ seems a little rude – so I shouldn’t really complain. But I will. Because this transcoding process takes time. In fact, for every hour of rushes, you need 3 hours of transcoding.

3 hours?! This to me seemed very old school. I thought the point of tapeless was no waiting? Just drag-and-drop-instant-cinema? Transcode? That’s a bit like a ‘one light rush print’ back at the film lab, isn’t it? I don’t want to make time for that.

And what’s more, I had a director who wanted to review her rushes only an hour after I came out of mentoring editing students at the RSAMD. There was no time to be transcoding. Would it really be so bad if I just dragged a QuickTime from the location-temperature drive to the room-temperature Timeline and just pressed play?

So, I dragged, dropped, pressed play and it played.

RED uses wavelet derived proxies. This means that alongside the massive Redcode media file (the ‘negative’), are three wafer-light QuickTimes designed for use in editing software. These QuickTimes use the terribly clever mathematics of ‘wavelet transforms’ to sift only a manageable number of pixels from the ‘negative’. You can choose Full Frame, Half Frame, Medium or Proxy, and once again, you don’t have to wait. It’s all created on-the-fly once the DoP presses Rec and re-created when the editor presses play. It’s like using the online pictures, but with an instant offline translator holding back all the pixels you won’t need until you get to the cinema.

For the first slate of Ever Here I Be, the Redcode media file – the ‘negative’ – is 1.2GB of drive space – rather large – but the QuickTime I used for editing that shot is only 12KB: about the size of a longish email.

I’ll say now, you only need the Medium sized frame. It’s 1000 pixels wide and a quarter of the size of image intended for the cinema’s projector holding its own next to 35mm. But it was certainly big enough for my 30″ screen; and you have to put the Half size and Medium next to each other before you notice that the bigger of the two has blacker blacks.

When I told people I hadn’t transcoded, I was variously warned that I would have trouble exporting viewing copies. But despite longer than normal compression times, I was able to export DVDs and web-sized QuickTimes without a problem. All in all there were 17 uploads and 2 DVDs (yes, DVD is following VHS to the Clunky Format Graveyard, and I for one won’t miss it).

I should say that the RED documentation includes a hybrid workflow, which involves using the Log and Transfer window to create native, Redcode QuickTimes. These are self-contained 2k files. This takes some weight of the processor when you’re editing, but this is definitely not an instant process.

My workflow: drag-and-drop to Final Cut Pro on a high-spec Mac.

Finishing

The picture-locked cut also translated to the Baselight system at Serious Facilities (for grader, Ben Mullen) without a problem. That rich script has come out looking like a rather rich QuickTime. But how will look it projected? Get your tickets: 

Edinburgh International Film Festival – 21st June 2010

Postscript

Ever Here I Be’s DoP, David Liddell has offered a thought or two on the subject of RED vs film, which goes beyond the easy pixel punch up between 4k and 35mm, and gets right to RED’s equivalent to the celluloid film plane at the back of the lens: the big and hilariously named ‘Mysterium’ sensor:

“Before, digital was only 3 x ⅔ inch sensors going through different prisms and filters each correlating to one of the primary colours: red, green or blue. So the smaller sensor produced images with too large a depth of field to be pleasing to the eye and an image area that – although a camera might have a high resolution – the sensor and lens really seemed unable to resolve those pixels in the most flattering way. Pixel count is no longer the primary goal.

“What cinematographer’s want is greater latitude ie more tonal range from black to white.”

Scouring the internet for further discussions will take you to reports on how many f–stops of exposure can be resolved using a given digital cinema camera or film stock, but a very important factor in image quality is the quality of the lighting, and that means the crew. Digital technology has turned us all into photographers, but your digital cinema rushes will never compete with the classics of celluloid without a first class DoP and team.

Image: Sir Sean Connery arrives at the Festival Theatre for the opening gala of the 64th Edinburgh International Film Festival

The opening gala of the Edinburgh International Film Festival is usually held at Edinburgh’s Cineworld. Slightly out of town and in a former industrial area the cinema never quite felt right for such a glitzy event. Sir Sean Connery would step out of his chauffer driven car just by Pizza Hut and walk the red carpet with views of the car park and Nandos. So it was with great excitement that we heard earlier this year that the venue was to change to the Festival Theatre – a large theatre tucked into Edinburgh’s old town.

And what a change! It’s a beautiful theatre with old wooden seats and was a perfect match for last night’s film – Sylvain Chomet’s The Illusionist – which starts in an almost identical theatre as it sets out the story of an ageing magician struggling to fit into a changing world. The film looks beautiful and creates a very romantic depiction of Edinburgh, although the story is somewhat slight. Lots of lovely touches though and definitely one to hunt out if you liked the director’s previous film, Belleville Rendezvous.

One of the interesting things about The Illusionist being picked to open the festival is that it is yet another example of the greater profile being given to animation. A few years ago it would have been surprising for a prestigious festival to open with an animation. Yet last year Cannes Film Festival did just that with Pixar’s Up and what a success it was. Edinburgh has followed suit and it really looks like film festivals are embracing an artform that has traditionally been kept to the margins.

Today we’re celebrating the start of Edinburgh International Film Festival (EIFF), one of the most prestigious film festivals in the world. You might have noticed that Central Station’s Bulletin page has been transformed – today it’s filled with EIFF related blogs, events, opportunities and items we’ve spotted from the web. The festival will launch tonight with a screening of Sylvain Chomet’s The Illusionist and over the next ten days will pack in hundreds of films and events.

You might already have spotted our two roaming reporters benwerd and TaxidermyMouse who will be capturing the spirit of the festival through words, images and sound. Check out Ben’s first festival blog to get a flavour of what’s to come.

We also will be hosting a very special event – the culmination of our Roderick Buchanan soundtrack project. After a call out to Central Station members we shortlisted a group of composers to work with Roddy to create the soundtrack to two of his short films. Andy Sim and his group Fear Wasabi were the eventual winners and the final collaborative films have just been finished and will be screened this Sunday at 9pm. The event is called Sound:Image:Art – it’s free but you need to reserve a ticket through the EIFF box office. We’ll see you there! And you can read about the last few weeks of the project in producer Gaia’s blog.

If you’re in Scotland and looking to explore the festival my Editor picks are a good place to start – I’ve chosen a selection of events and films which embrace disciplines incorporating film, art, sound and animation. From the best of local short-filmmaking to the first audio horror film the selection is eclectic to say the least. Embrace it and let us know what you think.

And finally for those interested in film more generally why not browse the blogs from Moving Image Month – they’ll give you a multi-faceted picture of everything that comes under that wide-ranging banner.

Right, now I’m off to dig out a posh frock for tonight’s Opening Gala… make sure you check back tomorrow for the verdict on the event.