{"id":1195,"date":"2016-06-07T14:58:31","date_gmt":"2016-06-07T14:58:31","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/endcrawl.com\/blog\/?p=1195"},"modified":"2016-06-07T15:44:11","modified_gmt":"2016-06-07T15:44:11","slug":"post-production-is-a-kung-fu-movie","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/endcrawl.com\/blog\/post-production-is-a-kung-fu-movie\/","title":{"rendered":"Post Production is a Kung Fu Movie"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>I recently posited a simple\u00a0premise: Post Production is a lot like a Kung Fu movie.<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" data-width=\"500\">\n<p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">1\/ the post production landscape is like a Kung Fu movie. <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/hashtag\/postchat?src=hash\">#postchat<\/a> <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/hashtag\/filmmaking?src=hash\">#filmmaking<\/a> <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/hashtag\/postproduction?src=hash\">#postproduction<\/a><\/p>\n<p>&mdash; Pliny (@iampliny) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/iampliny\/status\/732615458545750016\">May 17, 2016<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><script async src=\"\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<p>Every post facility is a dojo unto itself. Each dojo practices its own style: different workflows, different tech, different philosophies. Some dojos have famous <em><a href=\"http:\/\/www.urbandictionary.com\/define.php?term=Sifu\" target=\"_blank\">sifus<\/a><\/em>. They all employ eager practitioners who diligently\u00a0memorize their <a href=\"http:\/\/www.blackbeltwiki.com\/heian-shodan\" target=\"_blank\">Katas<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>And true to the <a href=\"http:\/\/tvtropes.org\/pmwiki\/pmwiki.php\/Main\/RivalDojos\" target=\"_blank\">Rival Dojos Trope<\/a>, each Dojo likes to contend\u00a0that \u201cThe Kung Fu from my Dojo is Superior to the Kung Fu from your Dojo\u201d.<\/p>\n<p>So far, so good: healthy competition is great. In fact, I\u2019ve gone so far as to argue that the film world could use a bit more hip-hop style feuding and the occasional flying elbow. Artists on both sides of the camera calling each other out would sure\u00a0be an improvement to\u00a0the endless mutual back-scratching and awards-seasons in-cliques that bedevil us\u00a0now.<\/p>\n<div id=\"attachment_1196\" style=\"width: 1034px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-1196\" class=\"size-large wp-image-1196\" src=\"http:\/\/endcrawl.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/06\/la-et-mn-oscars-ellen-degeneres-jennifer-lawr-001-1024x681.jpg\" alt=\"Pictured: a robust exchange of ideas\" width=\"1024\" height=\"681\" srcset=\"http:\/\/endcrawl.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/06\/la-et-mn-oscars-ellen-degeneres-jennifer-lawr-001-1024x681.jpg 1024w, http:\/\/endcrawl.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/06\/la-et-mn-oscars-ellen-degeneres-jennifer-lawr-001-200x133.jpg 200w, http:\/\/endcrawl.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/06\/la-et-mn-oscars-ellen-degeneres-jennifer-lawr-001-300x199.jpg 300w, http:\/\/endcrawl.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/06\/la-et-mn-oscars-ellen-degeneres-jennifer-lawr-001-768x510.jpg 768w, http:\/\/endcrawl.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/06\/la-et-mn-oscars-ellen-degeneres-jennifer-lawr-001-1680x1116.jpg 1680w, http:\/\/endcrawl.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/06\/la-et-mn-oscars-ellen-degeneres-jennifer-lawr-001-1240x824.jpg 1240w, http:\/\/endcrawl.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/06\/la-et-mn-oscars-ellen-degeneres-jennifer-lawr-001-860x572.jpg 860w, http:\/\/endcrawl.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/06\/la-et-mn-oscars-ellen-degeneres-jennifer-lawr-001-680x452.jpg 680w, http:\/\/endcrawl.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/06\/la-et-mn-oscars-ellen-degeneres-jennifer-lawr-001-400x266.jpg 400w, http:\/\/endcrawl.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/06\/la-et-mn-oscars-ellen-degeneres-jennifer-lawr-001-50x33.jpg 50w, http:\/\/endcrawl.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/06\/la-et-mn-oscars-ellen-degeneres-jennifer-lawr-001.jpg 2048w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px\" \/><\/p>\n<p id=\"caption-attachment-1196\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Pictured: a robust exchange of ideas.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p>But in the world of post production Kung Fu there is a more pernicious tendency that goes well beyond friendly rivalry.<\/p>\n<p>I\u2019m thinking of those Dojos that don\u2019t just\u00a0consider their Kung Fu better; they consider their Kung Fu to be the <em>One True Path<\/em>\u2014and by extension, all other Kung Fu to be\u00a0a confused,\u00a0crass fallacy.<\/p>\n<p>Ironically, this dogmatism\u00a0is\u00a0not\u00a0only\u00a0correlated with some of the <em>worst<\/em> Kung Fu out there; it also emanates more and more from some of the most famous Big Dojos.<\/p>\n<p>If you&#8217;ve been around post production for any period of time, you&#8217;ve probably stumbled across\u00a0this hubris already: <em>We are correct because look! at\u00a0the logo on our door<\/em>.<em>\u00a0Please stop asking questions now.<\/em><\/p>\n<h3>Anamorphic Dreamin&#8217;<\/h3>\n<p>One brief\u00a0example.<\/p>\n<p>I was working on a\u00a0film that had shot a\u00a0file-based anamorphic format. I\u2019ll spare you the gory details, but at the time, this workflow resulted in original camera media\u00a0that was 1836\u00a0x 1536 pixels. The final outputs, of course, were digital cinema deliverables, which are\u00a02048&#215;858.<\/p>\n<p>For those playing along at home: that\u2019s a 1.8k workflow for a 2k finish. The frame was vertically over-sampled, but it was <em>under-sampled<\/em> on the horizontal axis.<\/p>\n<div id=\"attachment_1200\" style=\"width: 1034px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-1200\" class=\"wp-image-1200 size-large\" src=\"http:\/\/endcrawl.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/06\/anamorphic-lens-distortion-1024x301.jpg\" alt=\"If the camera files were undersampled at 1.8k, then everything must be undersampled at 1.8k!\" width=\"1024\" height=\"301\" srcset=\"http:\/\/endcrawl.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/06\/anamorphic-lens-distortion-1024x301.jpg 1024w, http:\/\/endcrawl.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/06\/anamorphic-lens-distortion-200x59.jpg 200w, http:\/\/endcrawl.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/06\/anamorphic-lens-distortion-300x88.jpg 300w, http:\/\/endcrawl.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/06\/anamorphic-lens-distortion-768x226.jpg 768w, http:\/\/endcrawl.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/06\/anamorphic-lens-distortion-1680x494.jpg 1680w, http:\/\/endcrawl.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/06\/anamorphic-lens-distortion-1240x365.jpg 1240w, http:\/\/endcrawl.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/06\/anamorphic-lens-distortion-860x253.jpg 860w, http:\/\/endcrawl.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/06\/anamorphic-lens-distortion-680x200.jpg 680w, http:\/\/endcrawl.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/06\/anamorphic-lens-distortion-400x118.jpg 400w, http:\/\/endcrawl.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/06\/anamorphic-lens-distortion-50x15.jpg 50w, http:\/\/endcrawl.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/06\/anamorphic-lens-distortion.jpg 1700w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px\" \/><\/p>\n<p id=\"caption-attachment-1200\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">If you&#8217;d like to start a &#8220;Bad Workflow&#8221; Tumblr, please DM me on Twitter.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p>Now the precise reason for this raster came down to hardware and signal processing limitations that existed with the hardware at\u00a0that time. Not a good starting point, but there was\u00a0nothing\u00a0the Dojo could do about that.<\/p>\n<p>But the fun part was Big Dojo\u2019s next decision: <strong>they mandated that all VFX, titles, and other elements must be delivered in 1.8k as well.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-1206\" src=\"http:\/\/endcrawl.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/06\/for-like-no-reason.jpg\" alt=\"For, like, no reason.\" width=\"400\" height=\"400\" srcset=\"http:\/\/endcrawl.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/06\/for-like-no-reason.jpg 400w, http:\/\/endcrawl.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/06\/for-like-no-reason-200x200.jpg 200w, http:\/\/endcrawl.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/06\/for-like-no-reason-300x300.jpg 300w, http:\/\/endcrawl.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/06\/for-like-no-reason-50x50.jpg 50w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 400px) 100vw, 400px\" \/><\/p>\n<p>That&#8217;s a damned\u00a0shame.<\/p>\n<p>Also a shame: the hour-long conference call it took just to explain to Big Dojo what they had just done. Upon which they explained, again, what the name of their company\u00a0was and then quickly ended the call.<\/p>\n<h3>Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Kung Fu<\/h3>\n<p>So why does so much of the most Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Kung Fu emanate from Big Dojo?<\/p>\n<p>To answer that, we\u00a0need examine\u00a0the nature of Big Dojo itself: how it becomes\u00a0Big in the first place, and how it\u00a0persists. The next several\u00a0posts will\u00a0dive deeper into this.\u00a0Here\u2019s a\u00a0preview:<\/p>\n<ol>\n<li>Big Dojo rises to prominence for\u00a0all sorts of\u00a0reasons\u00a0\u2014\u00a0and\u00a0superior Kung Fu is the <em>least<\/em> of them.<\/li>\n<li>Big Dojo doesn\u2019t stay in business by offering its clients better Kung Fu. It stays in business by selling its clients job security.<\/li>\n<li>Big Dojo attracts a certain type of practitioner: call them \u201ccity planners\u201d as opposed to \u201cpioneers\u201d.<\/li>\n<li>Big Dojo erects\u00a0all sorts of internal incentive structures that catalyze\u00a0lousy Kung Fu and actively punish good Kung Fu.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n<p>I\u2019ll be unpacking this over the next several posts. But let\u2019s start with disabusing ourselves of the idea that <em><strong>Good Kung Fu<\/strong><\/em> and <em><strong>Big Dojo<\/strong><\/em>\u00a0must necessarily go hand-in-hand.<\/p>\n<p>If that were true, Microsoft would make the best operating system, McDonald\u2019s would make the tastiest burgers, and the world\u2019s greatest martial artists would all hail from Tiger Shulman\u2019s Karate.<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" width=\"500\" height=\"375\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/IUWm2G02GTQ?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I recently posited a simple\u00a0premise: Post Production is a lot like a Kung Fu movie. 1\/ the post production landscape is like a Kung Fu movie. #postchat #filmmaking #postproduction &mdash; Pliny (@iampliny) May 17, 2016 Every post facility is a dojo unto itself. Each dojo practices its own style: different workflows, different tech, different philosophies. Some dojos have famous sifus. They all employ eager practitioners who diligently\u00a0memorize their Katas. And true to the Rival Dojos Trope, each Dojo likes to contend\u00a0that \u201cThe Kung Fu from my Dojo is Superior to the Kung Fu from your Dojo\u201d. So far, so good: [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1215,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[13,16],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/endcrawl.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1195"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/endcrawl.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/endcrawl.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/endcrawl.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/endcrawl.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1195"}],"version-history":[{"count":16,"href":"http:\/\/endcrawl.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1195\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1214,"href":"http:\/\/endcrawl.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1195\/revisions\/1214"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/endcrawl.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1215"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/endcrawl.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1195"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/endcrawl.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1195"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/endcrawl.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1195"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}