Issue link: https://digital.copcomm.com/i/1230474
TECHNOLOGY www.postmagazine.com 35 POST MAR/APR 2020 discussing and formalize the interchange format. So when it is commercially avail- able, we'll be able to put it to use because we have an exchange format." How does this relate to the post production community? "I have talked to a lot of people in post and, it's really tough because the workflow is already so complex and so diverse. You know, there's many different ways to skin the cat. And even with things like HDR, which is pretty well understood, there [are] still a lot of opinions about the best way to be able to take the assets and create multiple masters for that. So my initial take on opinions there is that everybody is really kind of interested in this and say, 'Oh, what will this do? How will this help me?' However, it seems far enough out that they're not going to drop everything to go and drill down into it right now. There are a number of people that I think are really interested in sort of tracking this and sort of understanding that they know it's to prepare for the future." One of the things you discussed at SMPTE last year was how light field cameras and camera arrays are being used for live-action cinematography. Can you elaborate on that? "Yes, well, light field cameras are being experimented with in cinematography. I don't think you're going to find those on any camera crew for major productions, because that would be going beyond what the current needs are. At the same time, especially for immersive media, such as VR, there are a good deal of experi- ments in several of the studios — at least two have been experimenting with light field camera arrays in order to capture those very rich set of all angles from a device or an object or person or an actor. And from there they could extract just what they need for their VR release and archive the rest. Or, they can experiment with making this into a light field, which maybe it's not going to go into the movie theater first. Maybe it's going to go into a theme park. So you can kind of imagine that there are studios that are interested in taking their assets and capturing them in a way that gives them all the flexibility necessary to create, in effect, a holo- graphic type playback when the place and the time is right to do so. "So, they want to get ready for that. There's a good deal of experimentation going on. I'll also say that the American Society of Cinematographers (ASC) has a committee, which I'm proud to co-chair on the topic of light field cinematography. And the ASC's goal in all this is to stay on top of what's happening, to be educated and to understand the implications on the creative community so, as these new things are invented by these brilliant sci- entists, it's done so in a way that matches what we need from a creative intent. And we maintain artistic control as all these options are brought to light." What market are you seeing the most interest from? "The people that could afford to invest in and deploy these sort of systems are going to be more unique, high value. I would expect maybe theatrical. It's high-end storytelling. It's in the Star Wars, Avatar, Avengers area more than it is a little script- ed drama. Also, if you're going to try to roll this out to a thousand movie theaters or a million homes, [it's] a pretty big task that will take a while. So I think it's more likely to go to an attraction some place that's in a shopping mall at what are called location-based entertainment. Or it may be at a specialty cinema or a theme park. But let's say it's a high-value, out-of-home en- tertainment, done by people that have the budgets to be able to put these together." What's next for IDEA in the year ahead? "We closed 2019 with our seminar that was aimed at educating people, not only about what light fields are, [but] how to do storytelling or the implications. But we're all still learning. We have a list of the things we need to learn to start with and we talked about the road map and let that out and put that up on our Website. We have a framework. "In the year ahead, we expect to be doing further demonstrations to get feedback from people. It's really for us to learn how the system works and the interoperability limitations, and how to solve those limitations. It's also to educate so that other people can begin to come up to speed and understand where we are and contribute their good ideas to it. So we're able to take what we're doing now and continuously add onto it, add additional features make it better than the last demo. That's what we'll be working on. We have a specific road map to add to the specification to increase the func- tionality and to fill in some of the gaps that exist there now to make it perfectly suitable for this agnostic interchange of light fields as a royalty-free standard. We'll probably have two new releases during the 2020 calendar year that work towards that goal." Pete Lude currently serves as chief technology officer at Mission Rock Digital, a San Francisco-based engineer- ing firm that specializes in next-generation media. Location-based entertainment could be the first adopter of light field technology.