We've had lots of excitment at Proper Medium recently. One particularly exciting development is our new partnership with Flux Projects. Starting this month, we are producing and distributing a series of short online films about artists and events commissioned by Flux Projects. The series, titled Flux Films, focuses on the ideas underneath particular works of art. Our first film follows Atlanta artist John Morse as he installs a public exhibition titled "Roadside Haiku." We'll be posting that one next week, so keep an eye out. In the meantime, here's a frame from our shoot with Morse.



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Proper Medium is currently filming a documentary about Le Flash, a one-night art event that takes place in the Castleberry Hill district of Atlanta from dusk to midnight on October 2, 2009 (one day away from this posting). Le Flash brings together over sixty artists to produce temporary light-based work. We're looking forward to shooting the event tomorrow. In the meantime... check out this preview video we put together. And click on the HD icon if you have a fast internet connection.

Internet users view 16.8 billion videos online during the month of April (recently reported by ClickZ). That's a 16% increase over March and a 32% increase over the 12.7 billion who viewed video online in November 2008. Most were Youtube videos with durations around 3.5 minutes. Some attribute this to the slow economy generating more free time for users to kill watching videos (interesting to think that a slow economy could be generating things). I attribute the rise to a shift in the general viewing habits of internet users, technology improvements in content delivery, and the general improvement in the quality of online video content.

With this kind of exponential increase, it's a matter of time before online video is the standard for communicating ideas online. While obviating the necessity to utilize the medium, these numbers also represent the importance of quality, compelling, user-friendly content that stands out from the crowd.

Some other interesting facts from the report, which originated from a comScore study.
• 78.6 percent of the total U.S. Internet audience viewed online video.
• The average online video viewer watched 385 minutes of video, or 6.4 hours.
• 107.1 million viewers watched 6.8 billion videos on YouTube.com (that averages out to 63.5 videos per viewer).
• 49 million viewers watched 387 million videos on MySpace.com (7.9 videos per viewer).
• Hulu accounted for only 2.4 percent of videos viewed, but made up 4.2 percent of all minutes spent watching online video.
• The duration of the average online video was 3.5 minutes.

Technology grows exponentially, and that certainly holds true for camera technology. But every decade or so, a new product hits the video industry that completely revolutionizes things overnight. In 2002, that product was Panasonic’s DVX100 camcorder. This was a special camera because it would shoot progressive video at 24 frames per second, the same rate 35mm film is projected at in the theater.

The DVX100 brought the film “look” to the masses. It opened up the industry, enabling anyone with vision and determination to make a motion picture that could finally look more like a movie than a home video. But the DVX100 still had a small sensor and still relied on tape-based media to record highly compressed, low resolution (especially considering the oncoming standardization of High Definition Video) footage. Small sensor size and high compression ratios introduce all sorts of creative limitations. It’s difficult to achieve shallow depth of field, for example, when your lens is resolving to a small sensor.

Things changed drastically again about a three years ago when a guy by the name of JIm Jannard announced he was going to develop a game-changing camera that records raw, uncompressed footage to the medium of one’s choosing. These kinds of announcements had happened before to no avail, but this scenario was different. Jannard was a millionaire who owned the Oakley sunglasses company and also happened to be a huge still and cinema camera aficionado.

To the astonishment of many and the delight of most, Jannard concept became a reality one year later with the Red One, a “digital cinema camera” that records uncompressed images at variable frame rates at the whopping horizontal resolution of 4000 pixels (thats more than twice the resolution of high definition video). At a price point of $17k, this camera certainly revolutionized the industry and is quickly becoming a standard for image acquisition with low budget and Hollywood films alike.

Which brings us to the present. Things took off for Red, and Jannard decided to sell Oakley to focus on the production of a new line of cameras starting with “Scarlet,” a camera which - should it make it through production - will flip the video and cinema camera industry on its head. Why? Because the entry-level Scarlet system will retail for less than $4k.

What does this mean for PROPERMEDIUM and the rest of the video production industry? It means images will originate in their most pure form possible. It means offering clients imagery that, before Scarlet, would have required an unrealistic budget. We’re looking forward to the release of this camera.

PROPERMEDIUM will be going to the Sundance Film Festival for the opening weekend to attend the world premiere of Zion and His Brother, a film by Eran Merav. Blake and Mary (the president and resident composer at PROPERMEDIUM, respectively) wrote the original score for the film, which is a coming-of-age story set in Haifa, Israel. We worked with the director and sound designer, Gil Torren, to create a score comprised of electronic textures, orchestra, and detuned piano. The experience was a challenge - we had very little time to compose the music and the seven hour time difference between Atlanta and Tel Aviv made for limited communication.

Before we started composing music for the film, we created an online viewing interface where we could upload scenes with our music for the director and sound designer to view. This helped immensely with the composition process, as the director could listen to music as soon as we finished it and provide his feedback quickly.

Anyhow, we're really excited about going to Sundance for the first time, and will certainly keep you up to date about the film.

We are pleased to announce that PROPERMEDIUM has been awarded a 2008 Accolade Competition Award of Excellence for our online documentary profile of Jim Curtin and Mount Everest 2008. This was a fun project for us, particularly following Jim's climb online. Check out the video below.