Back in 2005 when Jim Jannard took off his brightly colored and presumably shiny Oakley CEO hat and set out to start a revolution in digital cinema, most of us scoffed, writing off his intentions of building a 4K tapeless camera at an "affordable" price point as the ludicrous ravings of a millionaire seeking his extra 15 minutes. We ate our words a year ago, at NAB 2007, as the first Red Camera footage was put on display in a short film by mega-director Peter Jackson. As the year went by, and the fledgling company started to ship the camera in small doses, again, we started to feel the rumblings of a revolution as Stephen Soderbergh proclaimed his love for the new format.

But now it's NAB 2008. So you'd think maybe this Red thing would pick up and start getting adopted.

Nah... -->more-->

"Screw 4K, let's build a 5K camera" said Jannard and his cohorts. "Hell, why not build a 3K 'pocket cam' while we're at it?" This bravado from such a young company comes thanks to the advent of vaporware. For those unfamiliar, let's get a deinition on that one:

va·por·ware [vey-per-wair]

–noun Computer Slang. a product, esp. software, that is promoted or marketed while it is still in development and that may never be produced.

The concept of vaporware is very simple. Say you can build something, get people jazzed about it, then hopefully follow through on the promise. Oh yeah, get their money in the meantime. Now, this is a good business practice. I believe in giving innovators the money they need to get their ideas off the ground. After all, you can't invent without capital, and aspiring minds should be as unburdened with financial woes as possible.

Which is why Red is such a fascinating company. The major camera manufacturers have their hands tied by trying to create so many damn things that innovation is a much muddier process for them. The pro video market isn't so big, and ever since the XL1 came out like a decade ago, they've spent most of their energy getting cameras into "prosumers'" hands. What this means in the end is that even Sony and Panasonic can't get out of the ditch their in because prosumers, those videographers trying to get a cam for under $10,000, are driving the market. So the idea that a startup could enter the industry without all that baggage intrigued many. Such a company, with the capital to back it, could really shake things up, and create much-needed competition in the high-resolution acquisition market.

But where is the elusive Red Camera?

Some say Soderbergh has been retooling it for the company. I don't have any proof of this, though Mr. Soderbergh has shown considerible interest in the camera. Being that they shipped in November of 2007, it shouldn't be expected that they'd be an industry standard by now, however, it is rather disconcerting that
hardly any work has been shot on them.

I have been one of the lucky few to see some footage off of the camera (secrets secrets), but it's hard to judge what it really looks like, since I saw a highly compressed 1080p downconvert from the 4K original. And with that we hit upon the fundamental problem with 4K aqcuisition: there is currently no way to watch 4K video. unless you print it out to 35mm film, the advantages of the format are nebulous, at least in 2008. Even a downconvert should still benefit from the added resolution of the large "Mysterium" chip, but my trained eye (I look at video and film all day long) couldn't see a real advantage to the latitude of the 4K format. In other words, the Red One seems to be plagued by the same problems as other HD formats. But like I said, I am yet to see a raw 4K projection of Red footage.

My gripe isn't with the Red One. I'm more concerned about their new cameras, the 5K Epic and 3K scarlet. The 5K Epic will go for $40,000 when it comes out in "early 2009", and the 3K Scarlet will run under $3,000 around the same time. The former will be big brother to the Red One, building upon its innovations. The latter is a "pocket-camera", like a fatter Canon HV10 with a 2/3" Mysterium sensor in it. A few points and then I want to wrap this rant up. First off, Red will give you a full refund for a Red One when you buy an Epic 5K. Wait, what? What does that sound like to you? To me, it sounds like the Red One, which hardly anyone has adopted yet, is already obsolete. Hold on, let's chill back here and analyze.

THE RED ONE IS OBSOLETE. When it shipped, the Red One body cost $17,500 sans lens, grips, or any kind of VTR or Hard Drive system. While not chump change, it was still cheap enough to justify a revolution. The epic 5K will cost more than twice as much with the same limitations. Panasonic offers cameras at a similar price point, which makes one wonder if Red can really compete, though their cams top out at 1080 HD.

Now, as for the Scarlet, who needs this camera? It's incredibly expensive for a system with a fixed lens. I can go on and on about this so I'll be brief. The beauty of the Red system was that it had interchangeable lenses and only what you needed to make digital cinema possible. The Scarlet seems to throw all the limitations that the big boys have been holding us back with for years into a sexier little body.

But this is all academic. Because these cameras don't actually exist yet. Will they ever? Or will they get lost in the silicon heaps of vaporware.

Mr. Jannard, please please deliver on your promises of revolution. We can only drink the kool-aid for so long.

The new site is up and running! http://www.poritsky.com This is the third iteration of this site ever since I bought the domain last summer. Poritsky 3.0! Of the three sites that I've made in the past, this one stands out in many ways and I really consider it my first "professional" webpage. I relied on a few simple crutches to get my page out the door. Don't get me wrong, my old designs were wonderful for what they were, and they were extremely difficult for me to build. This time around however, I set some simple rules for myself, creating both obstacles and guidelines within which I could create a site that made me as proud as I am right now. I'd like to share my thinking with you now, if you've got the time to listen... -->more-->

My first rule was that I would stop using [[[[[[[[[[iframe]]]]]]]]]]s altogether on this new site. The [[[[[[[[[[iframe]]]]]]]]]] structure that I have used in the past was great because it made it so that I could use the same header and footer for every page, while only changing the info in between. In other words, once you loaded the site once, the only thing that would change would be the content in the middle of the page, where I put my reel, bio, resume, and anything else. The problem with this was that certain things would have to remain separate from the main site completely, namely my blog. There was simply no comfortable blogging experience that could be achieved in the small space I allotted for my content. As a workaround, I kept my blog completely separate from my main site, and found myself foolishly advertising it at parties as "poritsky dot come slash blog". What a name, eh? Once blogging became my favorite part of running my site, I knew that [[[[[[[[[[iframe]]]]]]]]]]s, or frames of any sort, would not be allowed.

My second rule was related to colors. In the past, I have enjoyed coming up with fun color schemes for my website. For my first site, I took colors from something important to me: film. Back in college I went out of my way to shoot Fujifilm motion picture stocks on my projects. This was a bit against the grain as our professors preached the wonder of Kodak over the years. I like both for different reasons and when I bought this domain I thought it would be cool to integrate their coexistence into my page, so I took Kodak yellow and Fujifilm green and flanked my site with them. It worked, but it also looked a bit like sesame street. For Poritsky 2.0 I got rid of the green altogether and stuck to a lighter shade of yellow with black serif text and a deep gray background. Again, I was happy with it, but this time around I wanted to try and stay away from color for the most part. I felt that my old sites boxed visitors in with their color schemes, and really took away from the browsing experience. White was definitely the way to go this time around, because the internet just feels more open and expansible, which is a feel I want visitors to have.

Finally, it was incredibly important that this site be a hub for all the things in my life that I want on the internet. Though I love to blog on Myspace and post photos to Flickr, I really wanted this little slice of internet to be all me and all local. I didn't want to link to my web footprint from the page all the time, but rather I'd like my presence to be unique to this site. So it was very important for me to be able to edit and manipulate photography and blogging software on my site so that I could constantly update my content. I don't want to be held back by the visual limitations of blogger.com or myspace or flickr for that matter, but I want to be able to have as flexible an experience on my own page as I have on those alternatives. I finally found ways to make that happen, which was all the more reason to get this redesign finished.

Plus: No flash (what am I, a band?), Lightweight (quick download times!), and more PNGs (I <3 PNGs).

And Ideas For the Future: iPhone site, Internet Explorer compliant, and The Candler

A good friend (foolishly pictured right) wrote me the following e-mail a few days ago:

Subject: remember this?
Date: April 5, 2008 10:09:32 PM EDT

http://poritsky.com/thecandler/

what ever happened to this awesome idea?

Hold tight, dear friend. Hold tight...

I originally posted this on my blog at www.poritsky.com, so iut may be a bit incosistent with what’s going on here at myspace, but, uhhhh, I don’t wanna rewrite the truth.



So, the faithful out there will notice that I haven’t written in a little while, and when I have posted, it has usually been a photo from my Flickr account (see right). Well, I’m here to let you know that I’m still here, and I wanted to let you know what’s been eating my time up.

For one, I have been working on a redesign of my website.

About 10 months ago, I bought www.poritsky.com as a means to a very simple end: to find work. Back then, I was a freelancer in the middle of a 6 month contract at Present Focus Inc., (www.presentfocus.com) "a state of the art high definition video production company located on the Upper West Side of Manhattan offering the latest in HD technology as well as the finest in digital and film photography." The seven months I ended up working there were some of the most interesting of my life. At 22, to my own astonishment, I was the online editor for an eight-part National Geographic Channel International series. The project, Oceans 8, headed up by writer-explorer-filmmaker Jon Bowermaster (www.jonbowermaster.com) is finishing up the final expedition film now on Antarctica, which, sadly, I am not apart of... -->more-->

Though it was enjoyable, I knew my contract would expire and there would be no room for Jon Poritsky anymore, so it became incredibly important to promote myself as a freelancer. Of course, a website was the best way to do that. I still have no business card, but the site seems to have helped. Before I took my current full-time job at Postworks NY, one employer actually commented on how much he loved my site before telling me I didn’t get the job. At least someone looked at it!

Anyway, Once my info, paltry bio, and short reel were posted, I thought that was all I needed, until I discovered WordPress, the blogging software that created the page you are looking at now. I had been writing on my myspace blog for months before acquiring this website of my namesake, mostly film and book reviews. The concept of breaking free from the limited formatting of that social networking website, not to mention keeping my info as far away from Rupert Murdoch as possible, seemed incredibly attractive to me. So after many trials and errors, I

figured out how to get my very own blog up and running.

Of course, myspace has actually remained my main outlet for venting because it’s just easier than running it on my own. Plus, who is visiting my blog site? I was never quite able to figure out how to integrate the blog onto my website. Since the clear-cut design I’ve created for the site leaves only a few pixels of viewing space open to my audience, it has never really fit in to well. I kept the blog totally separate from my main page, opening it in a new window and giving it a different interface altogether.

Well, I’ve been doing a lot of research on this whole web design thing, and I’ve learned quite a few things about how to make WordPress work for me. So I’m happy to announce that poritsky.com will finally start to look and feel the way I want to to, not only a calling card to promote my own freelance abilities (which by the way, I’m still available to edit or do any other post stuff on the side) but an extension of my own personality.

Better yet, my recent experiences on Flickr have helped me understand how to make the most of the global audience you have with the internet, not to mention fueled my obsession with photography. So with the fun I’ve been having on Flickr with my Nikon D40, I’ve decided to start a web gallery of my very own on this site. Again, it has been rather difficult for me to figure out how to build the kind of gallery that would make me happy, without simply reposting my Flickr links or generating new galleries all the time in Photoshop or the likes. I needed to find a dynamic interface that I could update from wherever I am as long as I’m plugged in, and I’m proud to say that over the past two weeks I have now figured out how to achieve that with the free software Gallery. Again, I’ve broken through the mysteries that have slowed this process for me and found a way to make these extensions look and feel the way I need them to for them to work on my site.

So now it’s all about what the design should look like. I’ve got my technical ducks in a row, but the artistic side of it is holding me back from putting it up today. Don’t worry, kids, I’ve got a few ideas to work with, and I assure that when it goes live, just like the site you’re looking at today, it will be truly Poritsky in every sense of the word. :)

Hope to see you when it’s up, and thanks for reading.

Camel Closeup
by poritsky

So, it’s probably not a big deal in real life, but I was rather excited to find a photo of mine featured in a gallery on www.nowpublic.com. You can follow the link here Camel beauty pageant to be held in UAE. It’s a story about a camel beauty pageant, and there are a hundred other flickr pics up on it. Still, I can’t help but kvell over the whole thing.

Also, NowPublic seems like a pretty awesome idea, here’s a blurb from their mission statement:

In 2005 NowPublic became a recognized leader in the emerging field of citizen journalism. By harnessing the wisdom of crowds and tapping into the news creating potential of the hundreds of millions of Internet users, bloggers and photography enthusiasts, NowPublic is changing the way news is made and distributed.

Neat! Reporting by people who know. This is all going in the big ol’ scrap book.

From Israel last year. I love rediscovering old pics.

Nothing much to report here other than my newfound obsession with posting photos.

T-Shirt Shopping, Self-Portrait by poritsky, on Flickr

So I’ve recently become obsessed with Flickr. I’ll be updating it every day with photos, mostly older ones that have been sitting on my hard drive. Of course, I’ll be taking new pics too, and I’ll be reposting here often enough. Maybe I’ll even start writing again.

I took that picture above last year when I visited Israel. I miss that ’spensive gear I had at PFI, but c’est la vie.

As a plug, if you can get ahold of the Yael Naïm album I posted below, definitely check it out. Yes it has the Macbook Air song and yes, most of the other songs are in Hebrew, but I think it’s great. Check it out.

So Myspace now has this lightweight mobile setup, so I figured I'd quickly inform all parties concerned that I am back in the states. Riding NJ transit -- the perfect welcome home gift. I'll write something more profound later, maybe.

So I’ve finally had time in front of a computer to write to my blog here. To answer one question, I’m here packing a Nikon D40 with the following lenses: 24-120VR 3.5-5.6, 18-55 3.5-5.6, 50 1.8, 35 2.0, and 105 2.5. Overkill I knjow, but the results have been great. Exhibit A: http://www.flickr.com/photos/poritsky/2335044705/

So it’s been a blast so far. I’m here with my friend Kevin. We’re staying in Jerusalm, but travelling a ton. We spent about 45 minutes in Tel Aviv before heading to Eilat ion the south so we could cross over into Jordan! We visited Petra, made famous in the most recent Indiana Jones film. Then satyed in a bedouin tent and had a jeep tour of the desert and mountains down there.

In Hod Hasharon now (I went to high school here for 2 months) and heading to Netanya in a few minutes. Those who know Israeli geography can attest to my being CRAZY for going to all these places in a week. Oh Well. Gotta run. See you all soon. More later.

Howdy avid readers. It's been awhile, I know, but now I'm going to Israel in a few hours, so I figured I'd reinvigorate the whole blogging experience. I think for my weeklong trip I'll be doing most of the posts to http://www.poritsky.com/blog however, I'll try to keep it all up to date here. Of course, I'd rather be, ya know, traveling about instead of typing for the interweb, but I'd love to share it with yins. Expect to see TONS of pictures. SEE YA!