Excited to test the Canon XL-H1 with Editorial Assistant Andrew Burke this afternoon. It’s a sunny, 66 degree day here in northern California, perfect for testing this HDV camera. We’re heading down to Chico State University to shoot some footage for a documentary we will submit to Current TV (www.current.tv).

We’ll be posting here daily, hopefully a couple of web logs a day, so check back often. Below are the five editors who will be posting (sorry for my messy cube but we get so many toys in every day, its hard to keep it clean).

back row: Charlie Fulton (Associate Editor), Andrew Burke (Editorial Assistant), Brian Peterson (Editor in Chief)

front row: Jennifer O’Rourke (Managing Editor), Morgan Paar (Technical Editor)

Reprinted from a MovieBeam press release

Burbank, Calif. – February 14, 2006 – MovieBeam, Inc. today introduced the new MovieBeam System and launched its movies-on-demand service in 29 major metropolitan areas across the U.S., including New York, Los Angeles and Chicago, reaching nearly half of all U.S. households. The MovieBeam movies-on-demand service provides instant access to an ever-changing lineup of new releases and other popular favorites from virtually every major Hollywood studio. There are always 100 movies immediately available, with up to 10 new titles automatically delivered digitally each week – including select movies in high definition (HD) – via MovieBeam’s exclusive, low-cost over-the-air datacasting technology. The MovieBeam System is composed of: 1) a set-top box that stores, protects and plays movies; 2) a small indoor antenna that receives new movies to automatically refresh the selection; and 3) a simple remote control that facilitates navigation of the intuitive user interface.

MovieBeam, Inc. is a newly formed venture backed by The Walt Disney Company, Cisco Sytems, Intel Corporation (through its leading venture capital arm, Intel Capital), Mayfield Fund, Norwest Venture Partners and VantagePoint Venture Partners (see today’s related announcement).

"We have built MovieBeam to directly address what’s most important to our target customers: convenience, quality and choice," said Tres Izzard, president and CEO of MovieBeam, Inc. "Our target customers are movie lovers who want a more convenient way to rent the movies they want to watch when they want to watch them and value the overall quality of the experience. MovieBeam provides an attractive alternative to other options – bringing the sizable selection of the back wall of the video store directly into customers’ living rooms. Movies are always available for instant viewing, with no trips to video store, no out-of-stock titles, no damaged discs, no late return fees and no waiting by the mailbox for DVDs."

"MovieBeam, with its easy-to-use service, breakthrough content rights, and low-cost delivery platform, is serving a previously unmet need in the marketplace – providing consumers with a more convenient, higher-quality movie-rental experience through an unmatched combination of content, technology and relationships," said Gerry Kaufhold, principal analyst, In-Stat. "As a stand-alone company, with a strong investor syndicate, MovieBeam is well-positioned to become an important player in the digital entertainment business by delivering on the promise of on-demand movies."

Reprinted from an OWC press release

WOODSTOCK, IL (February 8, 2006) – Providing the latest technology solutions at the best prices available, Other World Computing (OWC) today announced significant price reductions on its complete line of state-of-the-art, cost-conscious Neptune FireWire solutions.

The new pricing is:

80GB 7200 RPM with 2MB data buffer, was $104.99, now $99.95

160GB 7200 RPM with 8MB data buffer, was $139.99, now $129.99

200GB 7200 RPM with 8MB data buffer, was $164.99, now $149.99

320GB 7200 RPM with 8MB data buffer, was $219.99, now $199.99

400GB 7200 RPM with 8MB data buffer, was $299.99, now $289.99

The "Value Done Right" Neptune FireWire 400 line of storage solutions is equipped with the latest Oxford 911+ chipset making the drives the ideal cost-effective solution for Audio/Visual, Music-Specialty, Graphics, Dedicated Backup, and General Storage applications.

Making it more affordable than ever before for businesses, schools, and individual users to have top quality, high performance, desktop FireWire solutions, all Neptune models are fully bootable on any system with FireWire boot support.

"You purchase a Neptune FireWire solution because you want the best in reliability and performance while keeping it affordable too," said Larry O’Connor, CEO. "Regardless of budget, Other World Computing is dedicated to doing our best to provide the best, every day for every customer."

OWC’s Neptune solutions all include all connecting cables, Intech HD SpeedTools and EMC/Dantz Retrospect Backup Software (Mac/PC), and are supported by a one-year OWC warranty. Each drive measures 1.5″ X 9″ X 5.5″ and weighs less than three pounds.

OWC’s full line of Neptune solutions, as well as flagship line Mercury FireWire solutions can be found at www.macsales.com/firewire.

Reprinted from a Panasonic press release

SECAUCUS, NJ (February 7, 2006) – Documentary filmmaker James Longley picked up a trifecta of honors at the
2006 Sundance Film Festival for his feature documentary, Iraq in Fragments, including the Excellence in Cinematography Award, the Documentary Directing Award, and the Excellence in Documentary Film Editing.
To capture the award-winning documentary, Longley spent more than two years on-location shooting 300+ hours of footage with Panasonic AG-DVX100 series mini-DV 3-CCD 24p camcorders.

Iraq in Fragments is an electric collage of hypnotic sights, evocative sounds, and arresting voices emanating from three Iraqi enclaves. In old Baghdad, buildings burn, U.S. tanks patrol, and an 11-year-old mechanic scurries amid the rubble to please his intimidating boss. Then, guided by a young leader in Moqtada Sadr’s Shiite revolutionary movement, the action moves south, where political arguments ricochet across cafés and meeting halls, and young Shiite men hit the streets to enforce religious laws and stage an anti-U.S. uprising. In the northern Kurdish countryside, a farmer, grateful to America for eradicating Saddam, ruminates on the future of his family and people. Meanwhile, his teenage son tirelessly tends sheep, intent on fulfilling his dream of becoming a doctor.

The documentary has been widely praised in the national media, Newsweek citing "its beautifully shot, almost poetic images (that) take us inside this fractured country, letting us feel what its like from the inside,” the New York Times saying it’s "one of the best in the crowded field of documentaries from the Iraq war, " and the Village Voice lauding "Longley’s astonishing feat of poetic agitation…framing fact as if it were fiction, digitally flaring colors in defiance of vérité and every preconception of a ravaged country, shocking us first with the beauty of Iraq and then with the recognition of why we’re never allowed to see it that way."

Regarding his choice of DVX100 series cameras, Longley, Iraq in Fragments’ director, cinematographer, editor (along with Billy McMillin and Fiona Otway) and executive producer, said, "Using the DVX100, I felt very uninhibited in the way I was shooting. I did things with the camera that I never would have tried with a more costly instrument. I put the camera inside the openings of brick ovens, ran full-speed with the camera down Baghdad alleys, shot during dust storms at 110 degrees. At one point the camera got so hot during the filming of a brick factory in northern Iraq that the Rycote wind cover on my microphone caught on fire. But the camera never stopped recording."

When Longley arrived in Iraq in February 2003, just before the war began, he was traveling with two DVX100s (one of which he subsequently gave away to an Iraqi translator). Midway through the shoot, a filmmaker friend brought him the DVX100A, the upgrade to the DVX100. "Having redundancy on a multi-year shoot like post-war Iraq was totally crucial, and using the DVX cameras made it possible. The small expense of these cameras lets you buy several and spread the wealth, and if you have a breakdown in the field you just pull out a back-up camera and continue shooting. All this gives you the sense of using the camera as a filming tool that you can push to the limit to get your shots, instead of a super-expensive gizmo that you’re afraid to get dirty. In Iraq, I used my cameras like crash-test dummies, and to their credit they held up fine for hundreds of hours of recording over two years in some of the most difficult conditions I can imagine."

On location in a war zone, the filmmaker also had to deal with weather extremes. "The two most difficult elements in Iraq for shooting are dust and heat," Longley recounted. "When I was shooting out in the sun in southern Iraq the camera would literally become too hot to touch on the outside. Meanwhile, it was all closed up with gaffer tape to keep the dust out, and this made it even hotter. I was sure this treatment was eventually going to kill the camera, but it just kept going.

"No matter how much gaffer tape you use, dust in Iraq has a way of getting into everything anyway, so the fact that the DVX100 cameras have self-cleaning heads turned out to be a life-saver. I didn’t lose any important material to dropouts in Iraq, which was surprising considering the conditions, and I never had any need to service the camera heads during the two years of filming."

Commenting on the native capabilities of the DVX100 series, Longley (who "grew up on film shunning video") said, "The fact that the Panasonic cameras can record at true 24p with Advanced pulldown makes them superior to interlaced video cameras that cost many times more. I think people don’t really appreciate what progressive scan actually means until they see it on the screen. Shooting progressive gives such a warm, fluid look to material. Being able to shoot at actual cinema speed again makes me love video in a way that I never thought I would be able to. For documentaries it’s perfect, like having a miniature 16mm sync-sound camera that never runs out of film, where you can have instant visual feedback of what you’re shooting. I could never have made Iraq in Fragments without these cameras – there’s no other way to affordably and practically shoot 300 hours of material so far from home, without a crew, and still achieve a beautiful, cinematic look."

Reprinted from a C|Net news release:
>

Eight cell phones, $160,000 and a good idea–could this be the future of filmmaking?

South African director Aryan Kaganof thinks so. And to prove it, he made "SMS Sugar Man,"

which is billed as the world’s first feature film shot entirely on mobile phones.

SMS Sugar Man was filmed with eight phone cameras over 11 days with three main characters for less

than 1 million rand ($164,100). As well as traditional cinema screenings, the film will be beamed to

cell phones in 30 three-minute episodes over the course of a month.

Kaganof says the tale of a pimp and two high-class prostitutes cruising around Johannesburg on

Christmas Eve is blazing a trail for a new, democratic approach to film that will slash the cost of

both making and viewing movies.

"I thought cinema in South Africa wasn’t the appropriate medium to represent who we are…it’s

a mostly white phenomenon. Then it struck me that a medium that Africans love more than any other is

the cell phone," he told Reuters.

Kaganof–who ironically bought his first cell phone last year to make the film–dismissed concerns

over quality and said the footage looked "fabulous" when blown up to the standard 35mm

feature-film size.

While films made in or about Africa are grabbing the limelight outside the world’s poorest

continent, small audiences at home–where most people cannot afford a night out at the cinema–make it

tough for filmmakers to break even.

Finding a low-budget model like in Nigeria, where the homegrown "Nollywood" industry is

hugely popular, is the only way of ensuring a future for South African film, Kaganof said.

"SMS Sugar Man," which is due to premiere around May, cost just a fraction of the 6

million rand that many low-budget local films cost. By comparison, Hollywood pictures typically cost

$40 million to $50 million and often exceed $100 million to produce.

"We wanted to make a radically low-budget film to show that anyone can do this," said

producer Michelle Wheatley. "There are a lot of people in Africa who want to make films and can’t

afford it.”

The cheap technology used to shoot SMS Sugar Man means the cameras are always rolling, making for a

fresher, more dynamic and fluid movie, with room to experiment.

"We just had a bunch of mobiles, and we let it run," Wheatley said. "That allowed

the actresses to explore the story and to improvise, to try stuff out that they wouldn’t have done if

they’d had a camera pointing in their faces."

One problem is that film fans hoping to watch SMS Sugar Man on their phones will need an up-to-date

camera-equipped handset, and while cell phone use has exploded across the continent, only a rich

minority have the latest gadgets.

With all the talk of empowering Africa, it is surprising that none of the three main characters,

including Kaganof, who also acts in the film, is black.

But Kaganof argues that "we are past all that," despite the deep divisions in South Africa 12 years

after the end of apartheid. He says the technology behind SMS Sugar Man gives Africa a chance to stop

copying the West and to set its own agenda.

"What we are doing is exciting, it’s innovative, and we are pressing the buttons that the world

will follow. It is an African film," he said.