Making 'Magic' with 24p: "Dreams 2004," the third program of HD shorts sponsored by Sony and Y & R, opens some eyes

Post, April, 2004 by Ken McGorry

NEW YORK -- This year's "Dreams" collection of short films by gifted commercial directors represents the third annual collaboration between Y & R and Sony and, for many in a keen-eyed audience of film and commercial professionals assembled at Manhattan's Zeigfeld Theater recently, the series was no longer about shooting fanciful shorts in 24p HD. For many, it's now simply about storytelling. Like others at the event, Dean Winkler, executive producer at Crossroads Television, which contributed an HD short by Chuck & Clay to "Dreams" two years ago, described what he saw in this year's offerings as a "quantum leap" forward in HD imaging. This kind of talk is surely music to Sony's ears as the company works to push forward HD--and 24p as shot with Sony's CineAlta camera--as a successor to film for storytelling.

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What you don't hear a lot of, yet, is, "I'm going to start shooting my spots in HD!" and this could be a fly in the otherwise pleasing ointment.

Two reasons Y & R, spearheaded by director of broadcast production Ken Yagoda, makes such an effort on "Dreams" are to provide its favored directors with a rather classy outlet for their creativity and to bring them artistic notoriety on a different level. Besides their gala debuts in New York and LA, the "Dreams" shorts also make it to Cannes.

MAGIC

The night of the New York debut, Y & R's Yagoda was bullish about the HD 24p format and he praised especially the spirit and creative energy of the directors and all the crews--over 1,000 people--involved in the program's 10 films. Yagoda feels the scope of the program broadened this year with HD shoots on three continents and 15 HD post houses providing their services. (Many involved in the program work for free or provide services at very low prices.)

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The program's theme was "Magic" and each of the 10 directors (up from eight in past years) dealt with the idea in sometimes very ethereal but more often very down-to-earth terms. Some eschewed visual effects while others, like Erick Ifergan's Divine Presence (three disparate people suddenly find themselves levitating above the street) and David Cornell's Revenge (two young sisters fight over a seashell until one transforms into a mermaid) deftly blend in visual effects that are a must to tell their stories. Other shorts, like Elma Garcia's Real Magic (a blind orphan boy from India gets a new family and a guide dog in America) and Tim Godsall's Keep Right (two desperate men play "guns" in a parking garage--with real guns) impart a sense of hyper-reality thanks to high definition's clarity and depth.

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Sony's Andre Floyd appeared onstage at the debut and cited the "amazing breadth of change" that HD production has undergone in the past three years, particularly networks' willingness to boost production from only two shows back then to over 50 today.

"We are extremely pleased with the success of the 'Dreams' project," says Floyd. "It has significantly raised awareness about the benefits and possibilities of 24p production throughout the advertising industry, and has been, at least indirectly, responsible for an increased number of spots getting produced digitally in the last two years."

Award-winning director Cornell, with Headquarters (www.headquartersfilms.com), is also a cinematographer specializing in handheld 35mm shoots; he owns an Aaton, Working on Revenge in HD, he was extremely happy with the CineAlta output and the seamless way his digital footage married with the CG effects created by Santa Monica's Creo Collective (www.creocollective.com). In the short, the older of the two sisters (both Cornell's daughters) is pushed into a pool and transforms into a mermaid via Alias Maya and Discreet Inferno work. Cornell appreciated the CineAlta's ease of handling in an underwater shoot. However, he says it felt a bit bulky on land compared to his Aaton film camera. "But the opportunity of seeing this incredibly sharp image as part of the process of lighting was quite interesting," Cornell says of relying on an HD monitor at a shoot instead of a film camera's lens or video tap. "What you see is what you get--you're studying this large, incredibly detailed image--it was quite enjoyable. I think, in an advertising context, you could spend a lot of time looking at the monitor instead of getting on with the shot!" Cornell did miss being able to over crank for a slow-motion shot of the mermaid transformation, but he did make use of the CineAlta's 60i fps function to slow things down. But in general, if asked to shoot a commercial in high def today, Cornell says, "Oh yeah. I'd be happy to--I'm all for the progress of this format."

Crossroads'Winkler (www.crossroadstelevision.com) says he was so struck with the quality of this year's "Dreams" presentation "because the technology simply disappeared. Each piece had its own unique look, clearly driven by the vision of the DP and director. The mental exercise of comparing film to HD became unnecessary, allowing one to connect emotionally with the material--well, at least with the good ones."