A Digital World
“01001001 00100000 01110000 01100001 01101001 01101110 01110100 00100000 01101101 01111001 00100000 01101111 01110111 01101110 00100000 01110010 01100101 01100001 01101100 01101001 01110100 01111001” – Frida Kahlo
What are your thoughts on the above quote?
Don’t you understand the language? You use it every single day when you send text messages and emails, check social media, or watch a show on your streaming platform of choice.
The language of the computer is known as binary code, and it is a language in which everything from words to images to sounds is translated into a series of ones and zeros. Think of these as little light switches (called bits) that are either “on” or “off,” depending on what they are saying.
In the case of words, letters are represented by eight such “light switches,” with different combinations for each letter. (8 bits = 1 byte).
For instance:
- “A” is represented as 01000001.
- “B” is represented as 01000010.
- “C” is represented as 01000011.
So, if we translate Kahlo’s quote back into English, it reads as follows.
“I paint my own reality.”
Technological innovation has always been at the heart of filmmaking, and it has advanced in leaps and bounds since the early days of photography.
You may take for granted the digital world that you live in, but it wasn’t always like this.
Long, long ago, there were piles and piles and piles of film.
This photographic film was exposed to light by cameras not unlike those of today and then sent to the lab to be developed. There, “work prints” were made from the negative, and these were sent to editors to cut.
Back then, all it took to edit a film was a razor blade for cutting, a roll of splicing tape for connecting shots, and a solid understanding of emotion, story, pacing, and rhythm. Being able to make a strong decision about a cut was essential. After all, when you are physically destroying the film every time you make a cut, you don’t want to get it wrong.
Once the editing was complete, the original negative was cut to match the edited work print, and a series of new negatives and exhibition prints was generated. These new prints were sent to theaters to be screened before a delighted and awed audience.
And then the digital revolution changed everything.
In the past, the work had a much more tactile quality. Everything was physical, from the film itself to the flatbeds, the splicing machines, the Nagra tape, and so on.
What happens when you remove the physicality of the work from the process? How does it change your decision-making process?
Now that we understand where we’ve been, let’s look at where we are now. There are three elements that are essential for working in a digital world.
Processing Speed
At the heart of every computer is a central processing unit (CPU). This is the part of the computer that carries out the instructions given to it—everything from simple addition to complex effect rendering.
Given the vast amount of information contained in even the lowest resolution image, not to mention the number of images required for seamless video playback, computer processors need to be fast. The faster a computer can process information, the more effective it will be at processing complex video images.
Storage
When you shoot a film or video project, you always shoot more material than you are going to use. This abundance of material, which is the result of multiple takes, varying angles, and so forth, gives you options in the editing room as far as telling your story.
Assume for a moment that you are making a short, 10-minute video. You plan to shoot approximately 1 hour of material, which is a perfectly reasonable shooting ratio. Depending on the format you shoot, you may need anything from 3GB to over 7TB. Do you have a memory card or hard drive that is big enough?
Now, imagine you are shooting a feature-length project. How much footage will you need for a project lasting over 1 hour? How much storage are you going to require?
Storage devices have rapidly increased in capacity over the years. The first mass-produced floppy disks, released in the 1970s and 1980s, had a capacity of between 100 and 300 kilobytes. That’s a far cry from the multiterabyte drives that are common today.
Interface
All hard drives are connected to the computer via a cable interface. The cable passes information back and forth between the CPU and the storage device.
Internally, most drives (and motherboards) are connected via a serial SATA interface, which is fast and efficient.
Externally, you have several cable interface options:
- HDMI: A High-Definition Multimedia Interface (HDMI) cable is commonly used to connect an external monitor or projector.
- USB: Universal Serial Bus (USB) refers to a variety of different cable interfaces. There are a few USB interfaces that have become standard for external hard drives that require rapid processing. They include USB 2.0 and USB-C cables, which are sufficiently fast for video work.
- eSATA: An external serial advanced technology attachment (eSATA) is another external interface suitable for video editing, but it is less common.
Use the cable interface that meets your workflow needs.
Check the back of your storage device to see which connections are offered.
We often talk about issues of speed, such as the speed at which a computer processes data or how quickly a project can be edited now that everything is digital.
Are we really saving time?
Consider the implications of always being able to “undo” a mistake. If you know you can always undo something, how carefully will you make your decisions in the first place?
Remember the editors of yesteryear and how careful they had to be when making a cut.
