Moab Happenings Archive
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PHOTOGRAPHY HAPPENINGS  December 2021

Taking Video to the Next Level
By David L. Brown

We experience the world around us by using five senses. All are important, but some are more important than others. Taste is useful mainly for the enjoyment of food or to detect possibly harmful substances. Smell is a close relative of taste and used in similar ways. Touch helps us sense the physical nature of things and protect us from hot stoves.

But the senses that are the real heavy haulers in our relation to our environment are sight and sound. There is a reason why our eyes and ears are our major sensory organs. No doubt most of us would sooner give up the senses of taste, smell, or touch rather than losing our sight or hearing.

Mark Brown shows off Balanced Rock Video Productions’ new Blackmagic cinema camera, capable of producing Hollywood quality footage in 8k and even 12k quality.


But let’s take it one step further: If you had to choose, would you rather lose your sight or your hearing? I think most would agree that our power of vision is the most vital sense we use to experience our world.

When television started to catch on there was a popular song titled “Video Killed the Radio Star.” It was partly right, although radio has continued to exist as a shadow of its former self. But the phenomenon of video, digital moving pictures, has transformed far more than just the radio industry. Video combines images and sound to reach our two paramount senses of vision and hearing.

Not long ago the printed word was the primary source of information and communications. Think printed books, newspapers, magazines. and handwritten or typed letters to be delivered by mail. Today we mostly receive our entertainment and news, communicate with friends and family, conduct business meetings, and seek information through the means of digital videos.

Video has done far more than the song predicted; it has become the dominant medium as we have become accustomed to sophisticated use of digital moving pictures. Editing has become faster, with images flashing on our screens at speeds up to several per second. The quality of the images has made great strides. Along with music and sound, video images have the power to entertain and inform us, and tap into our emotions, as never before possible.

Until recently, ultra-HD 4K video, also known as broadcast quality, was the gold standard, but that is rapidly changing. Coming fast over the horizon are 6k and 8K formats that offer more detail than ever before possible. Truly, video is the wave of the future, and the future is already here. The higher resolution formats are beyond broadcast quality; they are cinematic, or Hollywood level media.

In response to these rapidly changing opportunities, my business partner Mark Brown and I have decided to ride that wave. We have both been doing video for years, and Mark is a master at the art of editing. We already had everything it takes to do sophisticated 4K productions, including script writing, location shoots, green screen effects, interviews, narration, time lapse, music, and special effects.

But 4K is no longer the leading edge in video. We have formed Balanced Rock Video Productions to get in front of that wave of rapid change. We have invested in the latest cinema quality equipment, including a 6K cinema camera and the exciting 12K cinema camera shown with Mark in the accompanying photograph. We also have a full range of equipment to handle video projects in southern Utah and southwestern Colorado.



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David L. Brown is a landscape photographer who has led photo tours from his base in Moab since 2015, now as Printworks Photo Tours. His fine art prints can be seen at Printworks Gallery, 1105 S. Hwy. 191. He invites you to visit or call at 435-355-0121.


 
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