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Speaker 1: Brought to you by the reinvented two thousand twelve camera.

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Speaker 1: It's ready. Are you get in touch with technology with

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Speaker 1: tech Stuff from how stuff works dot com. Hello again, everyone,

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Speaker 1: Welcome to tech stuff. My name is Chris Pollett, and

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Speaker 1: I am an editor at how stuff works dot com.

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Speaker 1: Sitting across from me, as he always does, is senior

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Speaker 1: writer Jonathan Strickland. It's time to make the music. It's

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Speaker 1: time to light the lights. You know you you you

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Speaker 1: bring this seriousness to to the lyrics at the Muppet Show.

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Speaker 1: I have a feeling that it requires gravitas. Yes. So

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Speaker 1: we're going to talk a little bit today about the

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Speaker 1: technology used to make movies, and we're breaking this up

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Speaker 1: into several podcasts because, as it turns out, there's a

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Speaker 1: lot of tech that goes into making movies and it

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Speaker 1: would be way too much material to cover in one

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Speaker 1: single podcast unless we just mentioned things and then moved

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Speaker 1: on immediately. Yeah, I agree with you. So we're going

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Speaker 1: to talk about what goes into capturing images and sound

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Speaker 1: and then projecting them for your entertainment, you lucky people. So, um,

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Speaker 1: let's let's start off with talking about We're gonna talk

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Speaker 1: about both film and digital here, but let's start with film,

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Speaker 1: because of course that preceded digital, So film is an

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Speaker 1: interesting thing already. All right, So we're talking about a

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Speaker 1: material that is photoreactive. When exposed to light, a chemical

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Speaker 1: change occurs and you can capture the light from a

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Speaker 1: particular instant and preserve it on film. And this is

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Speaker 1: this is how film cameras work. You have a very simply,

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Speaker 1: you've got a lens that focuses light. You have an

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Speaker 1: aperture which is normally blocked by the shutter. The shutter

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Speaker 1: keeps light out from the film. Because of course, if

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Speaker 1: you if you had light constantly exposed to the film,

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Speaker 1: it would just the chemical reaction would occur in an

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Speaker 1: uncontrolled fashion, so you wouldn't be able to capture the

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Speaker 1: picture that you wanted, right So, plus you wouldn't be

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Speaker 1: able to control the exposure and much light gets to it,

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Speaker 1: so washed out. Be this weird, washed out, blurry picture

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Speaker 1: of nothing, um, which could be interesting, but it's not

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Speaker 1: not going to work as a movie, at least not

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Speaker 1: unless you're some sort of grad student in Hollywood who's

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Speaker 1: trying to make some sort of quote statement unquote. So

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Speaker 1: assuming that's not the case, you need to have the

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Speaker 1: shutter there to block light out when you when you

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Speaker 1: open the shutter, light comes through the lens, is focused

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Speaker 1: by the lens through the aperture, which is the opening

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Speaker 1: that exists between the lens and the film, and then

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Speaker 1: hits the film. The shutter closes, and the chemical reaction

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Speaker 1: that takes place on the film is what preserves that image.

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Speaker 1: So uh, that's how a film camera works in general.

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Speaker 1: Now a movie film camera is based upon the same premise,

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Speaker 1: with the major difference being that film is fed through

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Speaker 1: the camera at a certain rate and the shutter opens

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Speaker 1: and closes at a particular frequency so that you take

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Speaker 1: several images all within a second, and when you play

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Speaker 1: those images back at the proper speed, you get the

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Speaker 1: illusion of movement. So that's that's the whole basis of

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Speaker 1: film right there now, the way it works. And in

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Speaker 1: the old and olden days with film cameras, you had

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Speaker 1: hand cranked cameras. That sounds like fun, Yeah, um, these

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Speaker 1: are the cameras. If you've ever seen footage of of

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Speaker 1: old movie sets or even a film where that's it's

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Speaker 1: set in that era, you see like the guy peering

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Speaker 1: into the camera and he's turning a crank on the

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Speaker 1: side of it is the shooting a film. Uh. That

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Speaker 1: is physically moving the film past the shutter which is

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Speaker 1: opening and closing at a specific rate. Uh. And if

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Speaker 1: you were a very good film operator, camera operator rather, um,

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Speaker 1: you could move that at a pretty consistent rate through

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Speaker 1: the camera. When it was played back, it would be

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Speaker 1: smooth ish. Well, because we're human, right, Well, of course

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Speaker 1: we're never going to move it at the specific speed

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Speaker 1: we need. And again, projector speeds are also variable, so um,

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Speaker 1: the theater operators might in fact, in the olden days

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Speaker 1: has happened a lot back in the silent film era,

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Speaker 1: theater operators might set their projectors to to play back

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Speaker 1: a little faster than normal because it meant that you

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Speaker 1: could fit more showings in a single day. I see,

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Speaker 1: your film would be over faster. So anyway you would

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Speaker 1: hand crank the film, the film goes past the point

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Speaker 1: where the shutter opens, closes and the images are captured.

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Speaker 1: Um as and if you if you were to crank

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Speaker 1: the film faster so that you're you're putting more film

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Speaker 1: through and you're getting more shots of the action. Uh.

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Speaker 1: This actually translated into slow motion, so uh, they back

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Speaker 1: in the silent film era, the standard frames per second

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Speaker 1: that you would have for for film. And that's another

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Speaker 1: good thing to point out film is is we talked

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Speaker 1: about film in frames, and a frame you can think

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Speaker 1: of a frame as a single still photograph. Yes, okay,

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Speaker 1: So back in those days, the standard, and I used

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Speaker 1: the term loosely, was sixteen frames per second, and that

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Speaker 1: was sufficient to give you the sense of movement when

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Speaker 1: it was played back at sixteen frames per second. If

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Speaker 1: you were to speed that up, where you take maybe

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Speaker 1: thirty two frames per second, but you're playing it back

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Speaker 1: at sixteen frames per second, the action would look very

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Speaker 1: slow to you, actually look like half speed, because you're

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Speaker 1: would be using twice as much film in that time

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Speaker 1: being Yeah, yeah, so you're using twice as much film

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Speaker 1: to capture the same action. Uh, And when you play

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Speaker 1: it back at the normal speed, it feels like it's

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Speaker 1: slow motion. Same thing if you were to if you

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Speaker 1: were to under crank, if you were to use less

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Speaker 1: film to capture the action, it would look sped up

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Speaker 1: and jerky. So when you see those old silent films

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Speaker 1: where everyone suddenly running at a speed that is not

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Speaker 1: humanly possible and everyone's kind of jerking around. That's when

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Speaker 1: they were undercranking the camera. And eventually they added motors

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Speaker 1: into cameras, which allowed you to create an actual standard speed.

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Speaker 1: And uh, it wasn't until they found a way of

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Speaker 1: putting sound into um into film as well in a

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Speaker 1: in a standardized way that they settled on twenty four

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Speaker 1: frames per second, which is the current standard of of

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Speaker 1: how many frames per second for film. And now, Uh,

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Speaker 1: you were going to say something I could tell and

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Speaker 1: I just interrupted you before you can even start. Well, no,

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Speaker 1: I was gonna point out that TV cameras shoot at

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Speaker 1: thirty frames per second, which is why TV looks different.

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Speaker 1: It's got that different feel than than watching a movie. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: and it's using video as opposed to film the film.

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Speaker 1: So yeah, there are a couple of differences with that

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Speaker 1: video is taken in. When we talk about a frame

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Speaker 1: of video, it's not the same thing as a frame

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Speaker 1: of film because with film, like I said, you take

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Speaker 1: the film from a camera. Actually, when you take the

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Speaker 1: film from a camera, it's it's in its negative format.

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Speaker 1: You have to develop the film before you can look

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Speaker 1: at it as if it were a regular image. Basically,

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Speaker 1: that's bathing it in in some chemicals that will help

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Speaker 1: bring the images out. Um. And then of course, uh,

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Speaker 1: you know, stopping the reaction and fixing it in place

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Speaker 1: right before it can be you know, preserved for the

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Speaker 1: long haul, right right. And that's another time where you

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Speaker 1: can't have this film exposed to light because then it

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Speaker 1: would ruin the process. It would, but it would it

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Speaker 1: would continue. It would be as if you were continuing

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Speaker 1: to film on that film essentially, um. And we'll probably

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Speaker 1: get into that a little bit more in our second

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Speaker 1: part of this where we're talking about post production. But

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Speaker 1: the other element of video is that a frame of

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Speaker 1: video is not is not like a single image as

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Speaker 1: it is in uh in film. Um. Television, at least

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Speaker 1: if we're not talking about progressive scan TV. We're talking

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Speaker 1: about classic television is played where each frame is made

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Speaker 1: up of two fields. Okay. I think of your TV

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Speaker 1: as a series of of lines of dots, Okay, like

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Speaker 1: horizontal horizon lines, and field number one would be all

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Speaker 1: the odd number lines, so lines one, three, five, seven, etcetera.

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Speaker 1: All the way down those would be field one, and

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Speaker 1: that would be half of a frame, and that would

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Speaker 1: that your your television would paint these these dots. Uh,

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Speaker 1: and it does at a very very fast rate. It

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Speaker 1: sounds like it's you know, like you'd be able to

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Speaker 1: see it, but it's so fast that you can't you

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Speaker 1: can't perceive it. But it would paint all the odd

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Speaker 1: lines first, and then it would paint the even lines.

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Speaker 1: That would be the second field, field one and field two,

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Speaker 1: and together those two fields would can would make a

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Speaker 1: frame of video. Um, and your television would be playing

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Speaker 1: that back. Is it thirty or sixty? I think, well,

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Speaker 1: I know that when you're when you're capturing it, it's

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Speaker 1: thirty frames per second. But um, so it's a little

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Speaker 1: it is a little different. It feels different from film,

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Speaker 1: and that translates over into digital cinema will get into

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Speaker 1: that too. So getting back to the film, uh set,

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Speaker 1: So you're limited originally with the old cameras, you were

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Speaker 1: pretty limited to stat shots. You couldn't really move the

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Speaker 1: camera very much. So if you look at old old movies,

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Speaker 1: you'll see a lot of shots that are single take

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Speaker 1: and it lasts a good long while and then it'll

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Speaker 1: move to a totally different setting and a new scene

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Speaker 1: and the point of view won't change very much, right,

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Speaker 1: just because of the you know, the setups that they had.

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Speaker 1: They didn't have the sophisticated equipment that goes along with

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Speaker 1: you know, the setting up the shots that we used today,

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Speaker 1: the the dollies and all the cranes and all those things,

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Speaker 1: right exactly. Yeah, those and back then you would have

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Speaker 1: a tripod, set up a camera on the tripod, and

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Speaker 1: that was pretty much it. You might be able to

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Speaker 1: do a pan where you you turn the camera uh

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Speaker 1: in a certain direction so that you can follow the action,

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Speaker 1: but beyond that, it wasn't There wasn't much movement. It

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Speaker 1: wasn't until we started thinking seeing things like dollies, and

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Speaker 1: a dolly is essentially a platform that's on wheels, uh,

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Speaker 1: And the tripod is on the platform, so the camera

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Speaker 1: itself is still stable, it's just on a surface that

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Speaker 1: can move around. Uh. Many dollies, in fact, I would

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Speaker 1: I would probably say most tend to be set on tracks,

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Speaker 1: so that in turn also limits the motion that the

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Speaker 1: camera will experience while you're capturing film. Uh. This is

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Speaker 1: in general a pretty good thing because most filmmakers want

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Speaker 1: to avoid the really jerk emotions you would get if

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Speaker 1: you were just holding a camera and trying to capture images.

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Speaker 1: If you've ever you know, watch any home home video. Ever,

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Speaker 1: the home video effect is something that most filmmakers want

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Speaker 1: to avoid unless they're doing something like a documentary, or

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Speaker 1: they want to evoke a particular mood. Like let's say

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Speaker 1: it's a war scene and you want that chaotic feel

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Speaker 1: where you know it's every it's very disorienting and frightening

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Speaker 1: and you're not really sure what's happening. Uh, you may

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Speaker 1: want to have a handheld camera effects so that it

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Speaker 1: gives the audience kind of a feeling of disorientation and

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Speaker 1: it helps evoke the mood you were going after. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: just just to point out for all of you amateur

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Speaker 1: home video efficionados, Yes, it can be better than that,

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Speaker 1: but most people don't take the time to invest in

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Speaker 1: the equipment and practice shooting as a professional uh filmmaker might. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: and and there are a lot of that you can't

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Speaker 1: do it. Oh sure, there are a lot of people don't.

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Speaker 1: And there are a lot of of home filmmakers who

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Speaker 1: have made their own dollies, they made their own cranes,

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Speaker 1: they made their own steady cams. We'll talk about steady

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Speaker 1: cam in a second. Um. Yeah, actually, I ran into

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Speaker 1: that in my research and it's it's pretty cool. It's

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Speaker 1: not that hard to do to build, you know, just

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Speaker 1: a basic setup for home video equipment. Yeah, it's very

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Speaker 1: it's it's very much kind of a Jerry Rigg kind

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Speaker 1: of approach to it. But really the whole film industry

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Speaker 1: is based off of that sort of ingenuity. You know.

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Speaker 1: We we look at the stuff that is used in

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Speaker 1: films today and you think, wow, it's advanced technology, but

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Speaker 1: all of it is pretty much based on some guy saying,

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Speaker 1: you know, it would be really cool if we could

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Speaker 1: get this such and such shot, but how do we

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Speaker 1: do that? And then just coming up with a way

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Speaker 1: of making it work. And really it's just refining that

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Speaker 1: mother necessity. Yes, yes, hey mama. So uh all right,

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Speaker 1: so we've talked about how how film is capturing the

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Speaker 1: light and you know, you get it the photochemical reaction

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Speaker 1: on the film. You later developed the film and you

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Speaker 1: can you can watch it once you play it back

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Speaker 1: at a in a projector let's talk about the difference

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Speaker 1: with digital. Okay, so to kind of kind of transition

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Speaker 1: from film to digital. Let's talk a little bit about video.

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Speaker 1: And we mentioned it already about how it's played back,

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Speaker 1: it's captured and played back at a different speed than film,

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Speaker 1: so it does give you a different feel. Um. And

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Speaker 1: this is this is actually perceptible. People will say, like,

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Speaker 1: you know, television does not look like visa and even

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Speaker 1: watching a movie on TV doesn't feel like it does

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Speaker 1: when you're watching it in a in a theater. And

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Speaker 1: not just because you're not watching it on in a

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Speaker 1: huge screen and you have, you know, a fifty surround

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Speaker 1: sound system around you or anything like that. It's that

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Speaker 1: the actual quality of the picture and the quality of

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Speaker 1: the movement that you see in the picture is different.

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Speaker 1: It's because there's a weird conversion process. I'm not going

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Speaker 1: to get into it. We've mentioned it before. Then the

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Speaker 1: pull down process. Yeah, yeah, there's a weird process that

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Speaker 1: you have to go in order to make the frames

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Speaker 1: of film fit the frames of video format. And it's

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Speaker 1: a very strange mathematical process. Uh. And it doesn't it

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Speaker 1: doesn't give you the most natural uh playback, which is

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Speaker 1: why it doesn't really look the way it should in

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Speaker 1: the lord of the way it would if you were

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Speaker 1: seeing it in the theater. Um. Now, video cameras have

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Speaker 1: uh an interesting set up as opposed to the the

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Speaker 1: film cameras. So instead of capturing the image and putting

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Speaker 1: it onto film, it's using something called a charge coupled device,

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Speaker 1: all right, So that's a semiconductor image sensor, and so

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Speaker 1: it's it's measuring light and it is then taking those

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Speaker 1: measurements putting it towards photo sites, which convert this, uh,

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Speaker 1: with an analog to digital converter, convert this this these

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Speaker 1: measurements of light into ones and zeros. That's where we're

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Speaker 1: getting into the digital. Now, these ones and zeros, that's

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Speaker 1: just digital information that can either be used to capture,

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Speaker 1: to to put onto magnetic tape. You actually wouldn't even

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Speaker 1: use the analog to digital in that case. You could

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Speaker 1: just put the measurements of the light directly onto the

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Speaker 1: magnetic tape, use the magnetic tape to play back in

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Speaker 1: something like a VCR and that would take those measurements

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Speaker 1: and cover them back into light and sound. Or you

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Speaker 1: could do the analog to digital conversion, um, and then

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Speaker 1: you have a digital image, right which you can play

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Speaker 1: back and lots of devices, as it turns out, things

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Speaker 1: like DVD players, computers, that kind of stuff. Uh. The

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Speaker 1: interesting thing about digital versus film. Uh, there is a

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Speaker 1: difference in the appearance. Again, you're not capturing necessarily at

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Speaker 1: twenty four frames per second. Although there are digital cameras

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Speaker 1: out there that can do that, they can capture images

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Speaker 1: at the same rate as film. In fact, the Attack

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Speaker 1: of the Clones was filmed with a camera that could

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Speaker 1: do that, and that was the as a matter of fact,

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Speaker 1: the very first major movie as I'm not if I'm

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Speaker 1: not mistaken that used digital filmmaking. And that's actually that's

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Speaker 1: that one of the reasons that you might go to

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Speaker 1: this process. You know, you might say, well, hey, why

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Speaker 1: would somebody use if there's equality to film that makes

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Speaker 1: it different from shooting it directly to a digital version

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Speaker 1: of of the movie, why would you do that? Well,

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Speaker 1: one of the biggest reasons, um, other than its flexibility,

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Speaker 1: is the cost, because there is a huge cost savings. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: you don't have to buy film. Yeah for one thing.

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Speaker 1: That's that's exactly right. And film unlike unlike digital. You know, digital,

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Speaker 1: if if something is actually there's a lot of reasons

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Speaker 1: why you would do this, but film, that is one

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Speaker 1: of the bigger ones. Right, Film you can only you

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Speaker 1: can only use once, that's right. So you buy, you

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Speaker 1: have to buy way more film than you're actually going

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Speaker 1: to end up using in your movie, because of course,

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Speaker 1: you know you're not every take is going to be perfect,

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Speaker 1: and you want to make the best film possible, which

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Speaker 1: means you have to do lots and lots and lots

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Speaker 1: of takes to give yourself as many choices as possible

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Speaker 1: in the post production process, which we'll get into in

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Speaker 1: another podcast. Um, you wanna give as many choices as

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Speaker 1: possible once you reach that point so that you don't

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Speaker 1: have to go back and do anything again, or do

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Speaker 1: a new scene or anything like that. So, yeah, that's

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Speaker 1: a huge cost buying you know, ten times more film

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Speaker 1: easy than you're ever going to Actually ten times is

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Speaker 1: not even close to how much film some of these

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Speaker 1: these movies required in order to bring a two hour

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Speaker 1: film to theaters. Um. And also distribution. If you're distributing

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Speaker 1: a film, that means you have to actually produce. If

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Speaker 1: you have to buy more film to to produce your movie,

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Speaker 1: you have to actually make another print of it, yes,

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Speaker 1: and then ship that to a physical copy theater. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: and if you have you know, multiple screens, say for

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Speaker 1: one of the blockbuster films, right, then you have to say,

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Speaker 1: you know, have your local screen megaplex and six of

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Speaker 1: those screens are showing the same blockbuster movie. Then you've

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Speaker 1: got six copies for that one theater alone. Right, that's expensive. Yeah.

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Speaker 1: And the other another really big problem with using film

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Speaker 1: versus digital I'm not I mean again, film you get

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Speaker 1: that certain quality with it, but digital you can see

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Speaker 1: immediately how well that take came out. Well. Yeah. Anybody

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Speaker 1: who has a digital camera still camera, who has used

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Speaker 1: film in the past is fully aware of the differences

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Speaker 1: of being able to, you know, go back and look

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Speaker 1: at the screen and see what you just shot, versus well,

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Speaker 1: I'll see this after I get it back from the

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Speaker 1: developer and two or three weeks and then I'll see

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Speaker 1: whether or not that that picture actually came out. Um. Yeah.

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Speaker 1: The immediate feedback to digital is a huge boon to filmmakers.

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Speaker 1: They can see, like, you know, you shoot a scene,

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Speaker 1: you take a look at the scene immediately after you

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Speaker 1: shoot it, and then you decide whether or not you

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Speaker 1: need another take. Uh. With film, you you all you

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Speaker 1: can go on is what you saw as the as

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Speaker 1: the take was going. But you can't really you know,

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Speaker 1: maybe the camera wasn't aligned properly, and maybe the light

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Speaker 1: wasn't quite right for the film to capture it. Um,

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Speaker 1: but you wouldn't know until you get a chance to

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Speaker 1: look at it later on in daily's and that you know.

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Speaker 1: By then you're like, you may find out that you

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Speaker 1: have to go back and reshoot a scene that can

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Speaker 1: push your whole production back. So yeah, digital definitely helps

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Speaker 1: during the movie making process to keep things on schedule.

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Speaker 1: Assuming you're not someone like Stanley Kubrick, who would do

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Speaker 1: a hundred takes of a single scene, whether or not

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Speaker 1: it was perfect the first time, that would be immaterial. Um, well,

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Speaker 1: you never know, there might be something in the other

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Speaker 1: and the other versions one of the other takes. It's

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Speaker 1: oh yeah, I never even intended that, but look at that. Yeah.

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Speaker 1: Another difference between digital and film, which we mentioned really quickly,

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Speaker 1: assuming that you're watching a digital movie on some sort

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Speaker 1: of digital uh playback device as opposed to because some

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Speaker 1: digital movies are converted into film, right, You shoot it

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Speaker 1: digitally and then you transfer it to film. In fact,

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Speaker 1: a lot of movies have to be done this way

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Speaker 1: because not every theater has a digital projector, so you

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Speaker 1: have to convert it into film. But assuming that you're

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Speaker 1: watching it from a digital sort and uh, you know,

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Speaker 1: like a digital projector, it's gonna look the same way

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Speaker 1: the hundredth time it's shown as it did the first

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Speaker 1: time it was shown. So if you want those little

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Speaker 1: burn marks, you have to put them in there when

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Speaker 1: you're right. Yeah, the little hair that's going across the screen. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: with film, film degrades over time and overuse. So the

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Speaker 1: hundredth time of film is shown, a physical film is

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Speaker 1: shown is gonna look different than the first time because

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Speaker 1: the film is gonna have some wear and tear on it.

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Speaker 1: So that's another thing that the filmmakers taken too consideration.

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Speaker 1: So the digital process is different when it goes to

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Speaker 1: these photo sites. The light when it's hitting the photo sites,

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Speaker 1: that then gets converted into ones and zeros. Some of

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Speaker 1: the digital cameras have something called a beam splitter, splits

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Speaker 1: the light into component colors. All right, Yeah, So the

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Speaker 1: component colors of video are red, green, and blue. And

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Speaker 1: we've actually had some listeners right in with a related

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Speaker 1: question asking why is that considered the primary colors in film? Why? Red, green,

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Speaker 1: and blue? Because in art class I learned that the

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Speaker 1: primary colors were red, blue, and yellow, because red and

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Speaker 1: yellow make orange, and yellow, blue make green, and blue

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Speaker 1: and red make purple, and a whole bunch makes a

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Speaker 1: big mess. Um. And the answer to that is the

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Speaker 1: difference between additive and subtractive colors. Now we've we've talked

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Speaker 1: about this in the past two we got into the cables,

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Speaker 1: right right, So let's I'll talk about subtractive colors first,

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Speaker 1: because that's that's kind of the you know, you go

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Speaker 1: to elementary school and you learn your primary colors red, blue,

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Speaker 1: and yellow, and you get a little color wheel and everything, um,

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Speaker 1: subtractive and it sounds it's first it seems kind of

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Speaker 1: um counterintuitive because you think of it as subtractive, but

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Speaker 1: you're adding pigments together to make new colors. But in

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Speaker 1: subtractive you start with white. All right. That's that's that's

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Speaker 1: one end of the spectrum. And the more colors you add,

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Speaker 1: the closer to black you get. So if you were

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Speaker 1: to add all the different colors together, you would eventually

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Speaker 1: get black. Um. And also I do know that if

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Speaker 1: you want to be really technical, you you really should

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Speaker 1: say mentioned to cyan and yellow, not red, blue and yellow. Um. Well, yeah,

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Speaker 1: for for print, for print and for for photos and

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Speaker 1: things like that. Um. Now when we're talking about film

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Speaker 1: and we go into red, green, and blue, that's because

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Speaker 1: we're talking about light. When you're using light, you start

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Speaker 1: with black. Black is the absence of light, so you

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Speaker 1: have no light. UM. If you use different colors of lights,

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Speaker 1: say red and uh and green, then you start If

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Speaker 1: you add those together, that's when you start getting, um,

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Speaker 1: different colors. You so instead of being red, yellow, and blue,

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Speaker 1: it's red, green, and blue. And those are the colors

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Speaker 1: that when you start adding the different colors of light together,

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Speaker 1: you start getting the other colors of the spectrum. If

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Speaker 1: you add all of them together, you get white. So

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Speaker 1: you start with black and you end with white, as

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Speaker 1: opposed to the subtractive method where you start with white

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Speaker 1: and you end the black. So it's all all has

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Speaker 1: to do with the nature of light and color. Yep.

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Speaker 1: And uh. You know anybody really who's messed with their

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Speaker 1: computer settings and started pooling around with the little color

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Speaker 1: settings on your computer. When you're you know, doing some

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Speaker 1: kind of project UM and you have the different sliders,

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Speaker 1: you probably have an idea of what we're talking about.

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Speaker 1: But now I have to confess I am singing Ludwig

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Speaker 1: von Drake's Spectrum song in my head. The red deal

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Speaker 1: gree red, blue, blue, blue, red. Can't do that or

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Speaker 1: Disney will sue me. Um you kept it under five seconds? Yes,

429
00:24:38,359 --> 00:24:41,240
Speaker 1: all right? Yeah, like like there's any hard and fest

430
00:24:41,320 --> 00:24:45,119
Speaker 1: rule to that. Um So. Anyway, with a digital camera,

431
00:24:45,160 --> 00:24:46,919
Speaker 1: a lot of these have beam splitters in them that

432
00:24:46,960 --> 00:24:49,840
Speaker 1: split the light into their various component the red, the green,

433
00:24:49,880 --> 00:24:52,760
Speaker 1: and the blue, and then has they have dedicated photo

434
00:24:52,800 --> 00:24:57,200
Speaker 1: sites that record that information converted into digital information. All

435
00:24:57,240 --> 00:25:00,920
Speaker 1: of that together combined makes the picture. The reason for

436
00:25:01,000 --> 00:25:03,560
Speaker 1: splitting the beam into the component colors is to try

437
00:25:03,560 --> 00:25:07,560
Speaker 1: and stay as true to the original image as possible,

438
00:25:08,119 --> 00:25:10,119
Speaker 1: so that what what you see in front of you

439
00:25:10,200 --> 00:25:12,399
Speaker 1: with your own eyes when you're capturing it with your

440
00:25:12,440 --> 00:25:15,160
Speaker 1: camera is what you would theoretically see when you're playing

441
00:25:15,160 --> 00:25:18,320
Speaker 1: it back. Because we all know, you know, cameras can

442
00:25:19,000 --> 00:25:22,239
Speaker 1: alter the way things look to you. Like you can

443
00:25:22,280 --> 00:25:24,080
Speaker 1: see something that you saw with your own eyes, and

444
00:25:24,080 --> 00:25:25,720
Speaker 1: then you see a picture of it and you think, wow,

445
00:25:25,760 --> 00:25:28,679
Speaker 1: that looks that looks different than the way I remember it.

446
00:25:29,280 --> 00:25:30,600
Speaker 1: And there are a couple of different reasons for that.

447
00:25:30,640 --> 00:25:32,640
Speaker 1: Some of that is because we're human and sometimes our

448
00:25:32,640 --> 00:25:35,480
Speaker 1: memories are not so so accurate. But others is that

449
00:25:35,560 --> 00:25:40,959
Speaker 1: the cameras can kind of alter the way something looks. Um.

450
00:25:41,080 --> 00:25:43,760
Speaker 1: I had another point there with that too, But now

451
00:25:43,800 --> 00:25:47,639
Speaker 1: I'm I'm gonna I'm gonna falter around until I come

452
00:25:47,680 --> 00:25:51,040
Speaker 1: back up with it. Do you need a minute? Yeah,

453
00:25:51,200 --> 00:25:56,520
Speaker 1: vamp Oh, so you know this, it's funny. Uh not

454
00:25:56,720 --> 00:25:58,800
Speaker 1: that this is on topic, but you know, we had

455
00:25:58,840 --> 00:26:00,840
Speaker 1: meant to cover a whole bunch of other stuff in

456
00:26:00,840 --> 00:26:03,880
Speaker 1: this podcast, and we are getting very close to time. Yeah,

457
00:26:04,119 --> 00:26:07,120
Speaker 1: I think this may be how movie cameras work. Well, no, no,

458
00:26:07,400 --> 00:26:09,480
Speaker 1: I'm gonna, I'm determined to get a little further in it.

459
00:26:09,600 --> 00:26:12,159
Speaker 1: First of all, steady cam because I said that we

460
00:26:12,160 --> 00:26:14,119
Speaker 1: were going to talk about it, okay, because we didn't

461
00:26:14,160 --> 00:26:17,560
Speaker 1: even touch on the higher definition video cameras or any

462
00:26:17,600 --> 00:26:19,400
Speaker 1: of that stuff. Yeah, well, we'll have to do one

463
00:26:19,400 --> 00:26:22,320
Speaker 1: where we'll talk specifically about higher definition video cameras, because

464
00:26:22,400 --> 00:26:24,360
Speaker 1: the red one is the one you wanted to talk

465
00:26:24,359 --> 00:26:26,879
Speaker 1: about specifically. Yeah, but that's that's fine, because you know

466
00:26:26,920 --> 00:26:29,240
Speaker 1: there's plenty more where this came from. Yeah. Yeah, Well,

467
00:26:29,640 --> 00:26:32,400
Speaker 1: the nice thing is this is, uh, well, we'll have

468
00:26:32,680 --> 00:26:35,200
Speaker 1: fodder for future episodes, and don't worry, folks, we will

469
00:26:35,320 --> 00:26:37,600
Speaker 1: space them out so that you won't get exhausted. It's

470
00:26:37,640 --> 00:26:41,000
Speaker 1: not how movies work after all. Um, So steady cam

471
00:26:41,320 --> 00:26:43,760
Speaker 1: is that was an approach to Remember when I said that,

472
00:26:43,800 --> 00:26:45,920
Speaker 1: you know, cameras were kind of in a fixed position

473
00:26:46,000 --> 00:26:48,280
Speaker 1: until they came up with things like dollies and cranes

474
00:26:48,359 --> 00:26:52,159
Speaker 1: and eventually things like helicopter shots and stuff. Um, they

475
00:26:52,240 --> 00:26:54,480
Speaker 1: still it's still kind of hard. You didn't have as

476
00:26:54,560 --> 00:26:57,320
Speaker 1: much freedom to follow actors as a director might like.

477
00:26:58,000 --> 00:27:01,520
Speaker 1: And so that brings us to around nineteen seventies six,

478
00:27:03,040 --> 00:27:07,480
Speaker 1: and yeah, that's that was. That was when steady cam

479
00:27:07,520 --> 00:27:12,320
Speaker 1: became an actual like thing thing. The development of the

480
00:27:12,359 --> 00:27:16,160
Speaker 1: state cam preceded that. And Garrett Brown is the guy

481
00:27:16,200 --> 00:27:18,639
Speaker 1: who invented that. Was back in the early seventies. He

482
00:27:18,680 --> 00:27:22,560
Speaker 1: started working on this in was the Steadicam brand became official.

483
00:27:23,359 --> 00:27:26,840
Speaker 1: And that is a system that consists essentially of a

484
00:27:26,920 --> 00:27:33,040
Speaker 1: vest and articulated arm and a rig that holds the camera.

485
00:27:33,080 --> 00:27:35,720
Speaker 1: And the rig is essentially a pole with some elements

486
00:27:35,720 --> 00:27:37,520
Speaker 1: on it that at the top, usually at the top

487
00:27:37,600 --> 00:27:39,880
Speaker 1: you had the camera and at the base you might

488
00:27:39,920 --> 00:27:42,520
Speaker 1: have a monitor so that the camera operator can see

489
00:27:42,520 --> 00:27:44,200
Speaker 1: what the camera is capturing because it's not gonna be

490
00:27:44,240 --> 00:27:47,840
Speaker 1: an eye level necessarily, and a battery to power the monitor,

491
00:27:48,240 --> 00:27:53,040
Speaker 1: and uh it what it does is it increases the

492
00:27:53,040 --> 00:27:56,840
Speaker 1: the amount of inertia that the camera experiences because you know,

493
00:27:56,920 --> 00:27:59,760
Speaker 1: a camera is not that heavy and the tiniest motions

494
00:27:59,760 --> 00:28:02,760
Speaker 1: can create these jerky reactions. And that's what you know,

495
00:28:02,800 --> 00:28:04,800
Speaker 1: most filmmakers want to avoid because it kind of takes

496
00:28:04,840 --> 00:28:08,000
Speaker 1: the audience out of the action at point of order. Yeah,

497
00:28:08,240 --> 00:28:10,159
Speaker 1: I just like to point out it depends on the camera.

498
00:28:10,720 --> 00:28:13,920
Speaker 1: Some of those cameras are pretty heavy. Yeah, yeah, I'm

499
00:28:14,000 --> 00:28:18,840
Speaker 1: saying relatively relatively, like alright, compared to say a hum

500
00:28:18,960 --> 00:28:23,879
Speaker 1: Vy now, which obviously has an elephant greater amount of

501
00:28:23,920 --> 00:28:27,040
Speaker 1: inertionvved through the Humvy than it would with a camera

502
00:28:27,720 --> 00:28:32,840
Speaker 1: um or say compared to a cameraman. Most cameras are

503
00:28:32,880 --> 00:28:36,080
Speaker 1: going to be lighter than that. So the steady cam thing,

504
00:28:37,200 --> 00:28:40,000
Speaker 1: it creates a bigger access that creates it changes the

505
00:28:40,040 --> 00:28:43,360
Speaker 1: cinero gravity for a camera, and it reduces the jumps

506
00:28:43,360 --> 00:28:46,160
Speaker 1: and jitters that you would get, uh as you move

507
00:28:46,200 --> 00:28:48,600
Speaker 1: around with a camera. It's more or less like a

508
00:28:48,640 --> 00:28:51,800
Speaker 1: system of shock absorbers. Yeah, because it's it's giving with

509
00:28:51,960 --> 00:28:54,320
Speaker 1: the weight of the camera, and so it keeps it

510
00:28:54,360 --> 00:28:57,800
Speaker 1: steady when all the world is bouncing around it. Right

511
00:28:57,840 --> 00:29:01,920
Speaker 1: as the camera's weight makes it move downward. The the

512
00:29:02,240 --> 00:29:05,040
Speaker 1: articulated arm actually has some springs in it, like shock

513
00:29:05,120 --> 00:29:10,240
Speaker 1: absorbers that act in an opposite upward direction, which means

514
00:29:10,280 --> 00:29:14,840
Speaker 1: that the camera itself kind of remains semi level. I mean,

515
00:29:14,880 --> 00:29:17,480
Speaker 1: there's still going to be some movement, but it's it's

516
00:29:17,560 --> 00:29:21,320
Speaker 1: much more smooth than it would be if it were

517
00:29:21,400 --> 00:29:24,720
Speaker 1: held against the shoulder of a camera operator. Yes, so

518
00:29:25,040 --> 00:29:29,360
Speaker 1: it's a it's a really interesting and useful invention. Um.

519
00:29:29,400 --> 00:29:33,760
Speaker 1: My favorite steady camp shot ever is in Goodfellas. Yeah,

520
00:29:33,760 --> 00:29:37,640
Speaker 1: there's a five minute single take of following a character

521
00:29:37,680 --> 00:29:40,960
Speaker 1: through a restaurant, and it is absolutely brilliant. Scorsese was

522
00:29:41,400 --> 00:29:44,000
Speaker 1: a master as far as I'm concerned with that shot.

523
00:29:44,080 --> 00:29:46,360
Speaker 1: That was amazing. Um, But there are a lot of

524
00:29:46,360 --> 00:29:49,880
Speaker 1: other examples of steady camp shots as well, So I

525
00:29:49,920 --> 00:29:53,640
Speaker 1: had to get that in there because I mentioned it before. Also,

526
00:29:53,680 --> 00:29:57,120
Speaker 1: there's microphones. Yes, we're going to mention that we were,

527
00:29:57,200 --> 00:29:59,320
Speaker 1: but I think we're going to have to we'll have

528
00:29:59,360 --> 00:30:02,400
Speaker 1: to do an EPI so specifically about microphones and sound

529
00:30:02,440 --> 00:30:05,080
Speaker 1: on film that will be in the future. Folks. We're

530
00:30:05,080 --> 00:30:07,120
Speaker 1: gonna wrap this up because yeah, we're hitting the thirty

531
00:30:07,120 --> 00:30:11,400
Speaker 1: minute mark now. So this was a good discussion about

532
00:30:11,440 --> 00:30:15,680
Speaker 1: film and digital video cameras for in the filmmaking business.

533
00:30:16,120 --> 00:30:18,640
Speaker 1: In our next episode, we will be talking about the

534
00:30:18,720 --> 00:30:23,000
Speaker 1: post production side of making movies, and we might get

535
00:30:23,040 --> 00:30:25,960
Speaker 1: into a little bit of sound stuff there. Um, not

536
00:30:26,240 --> 00:30:30,200
Speaker 1: too much, probably because judging how long I talked about

537
00:30:30,240 --> 00:30:34,280
Speaker 1: movie cameras, uh, it may end up being its own episode. Yeah. Well,

538
00:30:34,360 --> 00:30:37,280
Speaker 1: other than the line, yeah, I mean to be honest,

539
00:30:37,320 --> 00:30:39,640
Speaker 1: we're really scratching the surface of it. There's so much

540
00:30:39,680 --> 00:30:43,320
Speaker 1: technology involved in the production of movies that we could, uh,

541
00:30:43,480 --> 00:30:46,040
Speaker 1: we could probably do a pretty long series. We could

542
00:30:46,040 --> 00:30:49,400
Speaker 1: probably really got into Yeah. Yeah, well, we'll talk about

543
00:30:49,440 --> 00:30:52,920
Speaker 1: things like practical effects and digital effects and in future episodes.

544
00:30:52,960 --> 00:30:55,400
Speaker 1: But yeah, we'll give them a nice rest for a while,

545
00:30:55,440 --> 00:30:58,600
Speaker 1: so you guys can listen to some other podcast topics

546
00:30:58,600 --> 00:31:02,080
Speaker 1: in the meantime. If you guys have any suggestions for us,

547
00:31:02,200 --> 00:31:05,760
Speaker 1: or you know, you have a question or comment something

548
00:31:05,760 --> 00:31:08,200
Speaker 1: like that, you can write us our email addresses tech

549
00:31:08,240 --> 00:31:11,360
Speaker 1: stuff at how stuff works dot com and Chris and

550
00:31:11,400 --> 00:31:17,320
Speaker 1: I will taught you again really soon. If you're a

551
00:31:17,360 --> 00:31:19,240
Speaker 1: tech stuff and be sure to check us out on

552
00:31:19,280 --> 00:31:23,120
Speaker 1: Twitter tech Stuff hs WSR handle, and you can also

553
00:31:23,280 --> 00:31:26,280
Speaker 1: find us on Facebook at Facebook dot com slash tech

554
00:31:26,360 --> 00:31:30,400
Speaker 1: stuff h s W. For more on this and thousands

555
00:31:30,440 --> 00:31:33,360
Speaker 1: of other topics, visit how stuff works dot com and

556
00:31:33,400 --> 00:31:35,320
Speaker 1: be sure to check out the new tech stuff blog

557
00:31:35,520 --> 00:31:42,560
Speaker 1: now on the how Stuff Works homepage. Brought to you

558
00:31:42,560 --> 00:31:45,920
Speaker 1: by the reinvented two thousand twelve camera. It's ready, are

559
00:31:46,000 --> 00:31:46,200
Speaker 1: you