Tuesday 31 May 2016

Thoughts on Open Source for Film 2016

Hello,

It made sense to just review why this blog is here and to explain our philosophy towards Open Source and its myriad possibilities.

Naturally a camera of this sort, with a sensor free to be worked on and all settings to be changed and adjusted, isn't for everybody. What is being allowed though is a completely custom and open approach to realising and setting your perfect camera. Yes it will take a little planning and development work, but fundamentally it offers a wonderful opportunity, for those like minded, to really dig into the processing of the data from a digital sensor, play with the settings (voltages for example) and actually consider your own workflows and processing pathways.

As mentioned this clearly isn't for everyone, but for those with the time and inclination will benefit from increased knowledge and this can benefit everyone in the longer term.

It is easier to shoot and use the proprietary system that now exists, from Alexa to GoPro, but this new approach offers, for me, a little bit more control. And yes, given time the possibilities will be endless.

I can see new sensor development being easier to manage in such an open environment, we have now built our own Cine Lab for Research & Innovation for sensor capture and processing, to examine how much more we can capture and process from these sensors and what we can really achieve from the results.

Again I come back to the major fact this is Open Source for Film Production, narrative film making, and to go this route is not such an easy path to take for anyone with all the inherent hard work, coding, understanding required to make everything work, when previously this has all been done for you.

From the sensor though and recording truly uncompressed imaging data from a current 4K sensor we can then look forward to developing not only the processing but also the workloads and colour pipelines.

ACES is Open Source for example, Sony OCIO is OS too and many many more Open Source approaches and resources are developing rapidly, as the future for a lot of Companies revolves around an Open Source approach and ethos.

Yes not all environments and circumstances are Open Source, and it is a fairly broad term to just label to an environment that requires many factors and task to be completed to be perhaps a fully Open Source entire workflow, but it is coming and developing fast and having received the very first OS 4K Camera shipped we are hoping to help encourage and develop this approach further and further.

Many thanks

Daniel Mulligan

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