The Far West RTTC was a sponsor and
participant in the Hawaii International Film Festival held recently in Honolulu, Hawaii.
FWRTTC participated in two workshops devoted to "Frontiers of Digital Media
Technology". These two NASA outreach workshops were conducted to promote transfer of
advanced film and video imaging technology to commercial uses by independent film
producers, business professionals and entrepreneurs in Hawaii. The Hawaii Technology Trade
Association served as the local logistical planner and co-sponsor for the workshops.
The technical workshops attracted a sizeable audience who
heard a presentation on "NASA Technologies for Transfer" delivered by Ken
Dozier, Executive Director of the Far West RTTC. Dozier's presentation highlighted three
technologies from NASA Ames that are relevant to the field of digital media. The three
Ames technologies are:
- Digital Video Quality (DVQ)
- Spatial Standard Observer (SSO)
- Contextual Information Retrieval (Perilog)
The technical workshops that FWRTTC sponsored covered
"Production and Live Action" and "Low-Cost Post Production."
The "Production and Live Action" workshop
examined in detail how filmmakers can use digital technologies to capture images during
production. Specific topics included: using off-the shelf cameras, gain settings, image
sharpening & enhancement, selection of lenses, pulling focus, pulling F-stop,
lighting, sound quality, and tradeoffs between bandwidth and compression. Don Miskowich,
the instructor, is the former VP for Business Development for Sony Pictures High
Definition Center, and has more than 30 years experience with digital feature films,
computer animation and DVD publishing. The Hawaii Technology Trade Association also
presented key provisions of Hawaii’s Act 221, new legislation that provides the most
generous state tax incentives to qualified technology companies and producers of digital
performing arts products in the nation.
The "Low-Cost Post Production" workshop focused
on how recent technological developments are rapidly reducing post-production costs, and
creating new business opportunities for independent video, film and webcasting producers.
This session also featured a pioneering Hawaii company, Six D Studios, that is working
with NASA to adapt advanced digital imaging technologies to commercial uses. Specific
topics included: inexpensive computing configurations, down-converting for off-line
editing, time code translation issues, digitizing formats, off-line editing and on-line
conforming systems, color correction tools, digital video processing, compositing &
special effects, compression for streaming/DVD, computer-generated animation, and output
to film. Footage from Polynesian voyaging will be used to illustrate the techniques.
FWRTTC filmed the event and streamed it live on the web.
FWRTTC used a high definition projection system to project images to the audience from a
desktop computer. With off-the-shelf parts, FWRTTC was able to build a system that can
project high-definition images to a projection screen in real time from an ordinary hard
disk drive. Such projection screens are typically over 20' x 35' and the high definition
projector, in combination with the special computer system that FWRTTC built, provides
clarity equal to a movie theater. In this way, FWRTTC was able to demonstrate to the
audience the experience of what digital films will look like in the future.
