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Film and Video Magazine MX Entertainment Makes Sense of Multiangle DVDs SAN FRANCISCO -- Outside the porn industry, content owners have been slow to embrace DVD's multiangle function outside of the occasional "editing lab" or stunt replay buried among DVD extras. But MX Entertainment is trying to forge a creative connection between multiangle possibilities and production realities. First, the company developed the MX Remote, a low-profile indoor/outdoor camera rig with up to 18 cameras remote-controlled by several Panasonic convertible pan-and-tilt controllers. The cameras are Panasonic AW-E600s sporting Fujinon 14x lenses and a set of wide-angle adapters. "Going into a shoot, you really have to plan a production for MX Multiangle," says MX Entertainment President and Co-founder Zane Vella. "We're giving the director an opportunity to think about that from the beginning so it's not an afterthought." Shooting a performance for multiangle is a different discipline from a traditional live shoot, Vella says. "In the past, nothing mattered except the camera you're on. It gets heated, and you have to shout at people to set up for the next camera. I find directing for multiangle to be a different experience. You get consistent, widespread coverage of all the action on stage. It's more of a zen experience - you have to take a breath and then let everyone know that they're always on." On the playback side, MX integrates the multiangle options into the video image. For the first MX Multiangle release, Herbie Hancock's Future2Future Live (Sony Music), MX took advantage of the letterbox bands, fading in small video windows below the widescreen picture whenever multiple angles are available. Rather than fumbling for the "angle" button on the remote control, a viewer can simply use the directional buttons to highlight and select a different view, which then fills the screen. The result, Vella hopes, is that multiangle DVDs feel more organic and less like kludges. "Those aren't just buttons - they're moving video," he says. "They fade up and fade down at the will and creative control of the director, and when there are relevant solos or real jamming going on, those options become available." During Hancock's Virtual Hornets, for instance, viewers have the choice of seeing the full stage view, or of switching to a second thumbnailed angle with a split-screen look at the interplay between drum and bass. The 104-minute program includes about 30 minutes of multiangle footage. In planning, shooting and editing, Vella and his staff take cues from Woodstock, the concert documentary that famously pioneered the use of split-screen to showcase rock musicianship. "Herbie [Hancock] loved the Woodstock-inspired collages," he says. "When you're doing a director's cut of a live concert performance, it's pretty arbitrary. You're making the decision as to what to focus on right now. When musicians watch, they just want to focus on playing, on the musicianship. In those [multiangle] collages, the shots are held a lot longer and there's a lot more information onscreen. You're watching the interaction between musicians and the musicianship." To that end, Vella cites MX's recent work with bluegrass jam band The String Cheese Incident, which he says was excited by the idea of fully documenting the show without having multiple camera operators crowding the stage. "A jam band is all about people relate to one particular artist - these guys play for three hours, and multiangle gives you the opportunity to focus in on the bass player, focus in on the drums in a way that matches with the live experience." Some live MX Multiangle footage is included on the DVD of a documentary from Warren Miller Productions, Waiting for the Snow to Fall, which is out now. A full-length concert DVD based on MX's tour with the band is scheduled later this year. The next step, Vella says, is to move beyond the letterbox bars and look at more sophisticated ways to signal to viewers that new angles are available. "We're really looking at whether we have to limit what we're doing to the idea of buttons," he says. "We had a meeting with Spike Jonze, whose manager looked at it and said, 'It's great - but do there have to be buttons down there?' And we said no, absolutely not." |
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