Filmmaking and HD:
Or How I Learned To Stop Worrying And Love The Chips

Don Starnes, Director of Photography

Until I began working with HD, I had a simple understanding of the difference between shooting film and shooting video: a film is created in the filmmakers’ minds and a video is created on a monitor.

When I shoot film, I most often work in an aspect ratio (the shape of the frame) that is more rectangular than square. Anything framed in a rectangle suggests story, movement, that there is more than meets the eye. As soon as the image appears, the viewer gets a sense that there is more going on than the image can contain. He or she starts to wonder: what is going on that I don’t see? What is she thinking? Where is that car going? What happens next? A rectangle is narrative.

I think that, for us in the west, this has to do with the fact that we read from left to right: this dimension means story to us.

A picture that is more square, on the other hand, neatly contains the image. It defines it. This is a woman. This is a car. That’s about it. Next image, please.

For example, this is a picture of a person doing nothing:

This is a picture of a person thinking about something:

Filmmakers, making images in a rectangle, can’t rely solely on blocking, framing, set design, props, and the other physicalities of filmmaking to give meaning to an image: they have to think about possible answers to the questions posed by the rectangle. This is done in the filmmakers’ minds.

Videomakers, working in an almost-square, have to work like hell with blocking, framing, set design, props, etc., to get any meaning at all. All of this must be done primarily on a monitor.

In most ways, it is easier to work in a rectangle than a square: an idea is easier to move around than a car (take it from me: I’ve shot cars in video).

When I began working with HD, which uses the 16:9 (rectangular) aspect ratio, I almost immediately noticed something: my mind was working. Shots suggested stories. As I edited the movie in my mind (as a camera person always does), the movie practically made itself. I’d seldom had that feeling before while holding a video camera.

I also noticed something else with HD: I couldn’t see what I was shooting in the viewfinder.

Viewfinders on film cameras have always been an afterthought. Early film cameras didn’t have them at all: the operator simply pointed the lens in the general direction of the action. Until recently, film camera viewfinders were almost useless: dark, flickering images. You could get a sense of the framing if you were lucky. A camera assistant does most of the actual focusing (by measuring the distance) for this reason. Video taps let everybody see the same useless image. In addition, film emulsions “see” a bit differently than a person does.

Because they can’t actually see what they are filming, filmmakers must create the movie in their minds, using their skill with lenses and film stocks.

NTSC video camera viewfinders show a pretty close representation of the final image. Until recently, the only limit that you could bet on was that the viewfinder was in black and white. A little skill was sometimes required (try panning from the blue flower to the red one). However, if you are shooting NTSC and you open your left eye, you will notice that what you see is not too different from what you see in the viewfinder. To get the viewer’s image, just add color. Then, of course, there is the color monitor: bingo. WYSIWYG. The movie is created on the monitor.

However, HD cameras have viewfinders that show around 450 lines. They shoot 720 or 1,080 or 1,125 lines. The best HD monitor is usually far from the camera, under a tent, surrounded by clients. Therefore, so far, I have most often had to look at little fuzzy images while shooting big sharp ones.

This may not seem like much, but consider this: years ago (during the pioneer days of HD), I had Sony’s HDW-700A HD camera in my house one morning during breakfast. We had a bowl of apricots on the table, a beautiful, dark, wabi-sabi earthenware bowl almost overflowing with moist apricots. Soft backlight from the nearby window. I had been shooting a demo with the camera for Sony and had been imagining rectangular images during all of the previous day. I dropped my spoon into my granola, got the camera and framed an extreme close up of an apricot in the bowl. Then I stopped and frowned.

Despite the fact that the image in the viewfinder was rectangular, it looked terrible. I looked at the apricot: beautiful. I looked in the viewfinder: TV. What was the matter? Disappointed, I shot it anyway, hoping that the image I had imagined would somehow come through.

When I delivered the tape, I asked to view it on an HD monitor. The shot came up, and everybody in the room gasped. The gentle shadows, the condensation on the fruit, the alarming apricot color against the earthy bowl, the gentle curve of the apricot’s flesh. As good, moral people, we were almost ashamed to be looking at it.

Of course now, with 24P, HD looks even better—at least on the HD monitor. Out there away from the tent, with only the eyepiece or a little LCD monitor, we still have to use our minds to make movies (just like filmmakers).

So I’m a big fan of HD: sturdy, heavy, well designed cameras. Rectangular images that you can’t see in the viewfinder. What more could a Director of Photography ask for?