January 22, 2007
From the desk of Jane Galt:The mystery is gone
Apparently, HD video is making porn . . . er . . . less attractive. This is not a new phenomenon--apparently, a number of stars like Cameron Diaz and Brad Pitt are in trouble from HD, because of their bad skin. But the porn industry, which works on lower budgets and relies more on close ups, is having the biggest trouble. Most interesting part of the article for me:
The movie makers assert that it is shortsighted of Sony to snub them, given how pornography helps technologies spread.“When you’re introducing a new format, it would seem like the adult guys can help,” said Steven Hirsch, co-chief executive officer of Vivid Entertainment Group, a big player in the industry. Mr. Hirsch added that high definition, regardless of format, “is the future.”
I never thought about it that way. Forget Al Gore; Ron Jeremy really invented the internet.
Posted by Jane Galt at January 22, 2007 1:51 PM | TrackBack | Technorati inbound linksCan't remember who said it (it was a blogger), but it's probably true - if you want to see the future of intellectual property distribution, look at the porn industry. I don't know about inventing, but Jeremy and his colleagues' work certainly were one of the keys to commercializing the internet. And speaking of Jeremy, since when was HD necessary to make porn "less attractive", as you put it?
This is not a new issue for movie stars. HD video is lower in resolution than 35mm movie film (let alone 70mm). A 1920x1080 HD video frame (which is 1080p) is just a 2 megapixel image. For a digital camera, 2MP is low-res (as far as I know, nobody even sells a 2MP camera any more).
It means that porn needs higher quality models. Something I think that's long over due.
"Forget Al Gore; Ron Jeremy really invented the internet."
Heh, I suppose it all comes down to who can lay the most cable.
Remember Betamax. It was better than VHF, but keeping porn out killed the format deader than a very dead format which had just been killed dead by death.
ISTR seeing some porn on Betamax.
Porn did do a lot for the home-video industry---a lot of people were curious about it, but didn't want to go to a "porn theater" (for which I can hardly blame them) and found the availability of porn tapes an incentive to buy their first VCR.
And HDTV may do for some "stars" about what sound did when it came in---Clara Bow, to name one star of the silent screen, wasn't able to make the jump to sound, mostly because she had a _really, really_ thick accent of some sort (New York or Deep South; I don't remember offhand).
Good Gracious! If Brad Pitt can be rendered unattractive with HD, what hope does an actor like Edward James Olmos have?
I wonder if we'll see a repeat of the early '30s when actors with whiney voices lost their jobs due to the move to talkies. They can only do so much with filters as anyone watching a Barbara Walters special can tell.
Anyone remember Leena LaMont from "Singing in the Rain"? THerre was a hilarious scene where they were trying to hid the mic (unsuccessfully)...
"Oh Pierre, you shouldn't have come!"
Good Gracious! If Brad Pitt can be rendered unattractive with HD, what hope does an actor like Edward James Olmos have?
I watch Battlestar Galactica on Universal HD and his skin is no big deal because his persona isn't based on his looks. But HD is death on those who benefited from the haze and blur of NTSC video. In a manner consistent with life's all-around unfairness, those most affected are actresses in their thirties. The lower resolution of NTSC obscured the lines on their face that HD mercilessly reveals. (Terri Hatcher comes to mind). IOW, it shatters an illusion, an illusion that older actresses don't depend on.
Folks, get a grip! As Slocum points out, the idea that movie stars are "in trouble" because of HDTV is Just Plain Silly. Film actors work in FILM! Film has an high resolution than HDTV.
Perhaps the short term prospects of porn will dissuade all but the creme de la creme from entering the industry (there is reputation risk entering the industry that's only overcome by sufficient long-term pay potential).
Of course, the amount of unpaid, horribly lit amateur porn hasn't persuaded some people from taking the plunge.
It does mean that the average John or Jane (sorry), will never measure up to the pros. Same for plumbers or singers.
They're not in trouble because of the movies; they're in trouble because when they appear on television, all their flaws are suddenly revealed.
Remember Betamax. It was better than VHF, but keeping porn out killed the format deader than a very dead format which had just been killed dead by death.
What killed Betamax was the fact that the tapes only held an hour of material, and they were slow in rectifying the problem. This meant that consumers couldn't record movies or sporting events, and had to keep swapping tapes to record more than one or two regular TV shows. By the time they fixed the problem, VHS had the momentum. Porn didn't have much to do with it.
Basically, Beta was only "better" in terms of video quality. Sony learned the hard way that VCR owners cared a lot more about *convenience*, an area in which VHS whipped the pants off Beta.
They're not in trouble because of the movies; they're in trouble because when they appear on television, all their flaws are suddenly revealed.
But why would the flaws of Cameron Diaz and Brad Pitt be revealed on TV if they are not now revealed on film (which is higher res than HDTV)?
I suppose porn stars might really have a complaint, since they don't appear on the big screen now, and HDTV is obviously more detailed than DVD or VHS--but that doesn't apply to Pitt and Diaz who already appear in very high res images on very large screens (but of course, makeup and soft-focus can be used with HDTV as easily as film).
This just verifies the wisdom of Trekkie Monster from Avenue Q: The Internet is for Porn.
"“When you’re introducing a new format, it would seem like the adult guys can help,” said Steven Hirsch, co-chief executive officer of Vivid Entertainment Group, a big player in the industry."
Who ever accused the customers of porn of being "adult", rather than cases of "arrested development", even if they were never arrested for it?
The first two industries to reach profitability on the internet: porn & gambling.
Trieu Truong: Folks, get a grip! As Slocum points out, the idea that movie stars are "in trouble" because of HDTV is Just Plain Silly. Film actors work in FILM! Film has an high resolution than HDTV.
True enough, but the New York Times specializes in finding the downside of progress, even when there isn't any downside. They cater to people like that guy in Metropolitan who wanted desperately to believe he was doomed. Believing this gives them a frisson of class anxiety, not unlike what poorer people get from watching horror films.
But why would the flaws of Cameron Diaz and Brad Pitt be revealed on TV if they are not now revealed on film (which is higher res than HDTV)?
In the former case, you are seated in a darkened theater for the express purposes of having your eyes, ears, and mind manipulated by the overall experience via an artistically-designed medium that was subject to extensive post-production work.
In the other case, you are seeing, from your living room, the same persons functioning as Themselves Inc. via a medium that typically has neither time resources, nor need, for studio-grade special effects and cleanup work.
They're not in trouble because of the movies; they're in trouble because when they appear on television, all their flaws are suddenly revealed.
Don't the people who watch ET also look at pictures in the gossip magazines? Have Us and People been running low-res photographs all these years?
A real, non-snarky question: Have the Academy Awards been broadcast in HD in recent memory?
But why would the flaws of Cameron Diaz and Brad Pitt be revealed on TV if they are not now revealed on film (which is higher res than HDTV)?
Because when they appear on film they spend 3 hours in makeup having all those faults covered up, and then 20 hours in post production having any remaining flaws edited out.
In a TV interview, or worse a suprise camera-man outside the door of the police station where they just got out on bail... they have none of those helpers.
Obviously if the MOVIE is shown on HDTV then there isn't a problem. It's all those other times they appear on TV.
Then there is the problem of made-for-tv shows, like Desperate Housewives. Now the TV series will need the same level of makeup and post processing as a big budget film to hide the flaws. This can only increase costs... well unless we don't care.
There is also the fact that film - even though technically higher resolution than HD - does qualitavely look different under many lighting conditions, and film is often kinder.
And of course as we are talking porn here the lighting is usually very harsh, and digital CCDs are particularly cruel to skin under harsh white lighting. There are, after all, some very good practical reasons why in real life we prefer to conduct our sexual foreplay in conditions featuring soft and very low lighting - like candles.
The other factor is that the spread of HD is being accompanied by the increased prevalence of very big flatscreen TV's - so what we are looking at is often harsher lighting (DV and HD DV are more fussy about adequate light than film), cheap make up on models who often have, ahem, been around the block quite a few times in a short time, shot with many closeups, and then watched on screens that because of their size and the general closeness of the viewer to them, will magnify all the other effects -literally.
So yes the porn industry does have a problem - because this combination of factors promises an experience more forensic than erotic.
Don't the people who watch ET also look at pictures in the gossip magazines? Have Us and People been running low-res photographs all these years?
(1) Visit YouTube.
(2) Search for "Dove Evolution".
(3) Watch repeatedly until the light bulb clicks on ;-)
Some comments:
I wonder if the notion that porn is a significant driver for technological development isn't just some urban legend. Has anyone done a rigorous study on the subject (ie, dollar figures spent, etc.)?
They sighted 7,000 movies at $3.6 billion in revenue. This averages out to just over $500,000/movie. Clearly consumers of porn aren't that hard to please, but with the volume of drek put out, putting in the types of technological advances necessary to compensate for their actor's blemishes will eat into this. I have no idea how much it costs to produce a typical adult movie, but the large dollar figures thrown around with the industry is made up in volume, not in quality.
And finally, porn is based on an illusion. The more facts you get, the less appealing the illusion. And crows feet, varicose veins and cellulite are facts of life that undermine the illusion that porn sells.
I'm just really impressed that Jane knows who Ron Jeremy is. The man has truly transcended his genre.
Is it just me, or has the NY Times been really getting more and more into porn lately?
What killed betamax is that Sony's competitors could not abide having Sony own the technology so they devised a differing technology which was a cooperative effort. Money pure and simple. Will
The reason HD is more unflattering than film, which (technically) has a higher resolution:
Because video is made of pixels, which have a binary "this color and not this color" quality, instead of film's "globs of film grain", video tends to enhance edge definition. What this means for actors is that every flaw, bump, and pimple (all slight differences in coloration that would be smoothed out by film grain) is enhanced, to the point that flaws that in person would be unnoticed become hideous. You can fix it, just like you can in Photoshop for still pictures, using gaussian blurs and other touchups, but it tends to be very time consuming and expensive, and tough to do in real-time (although there are some fantastic cameras out there that allow you to define a blur area - like cheeks and forehead - to blur, and the camera will track that area even if it moves in the shot...) Porn, with it's limited post-production budgets, tends to feel this more than $100-million hollywood productions...
Three things:
1) "Porn launched the VCR" and "Porn helped VHS win the format war over Beta" are complete myths and have been disproved many times.
2) Porn isn't snubbed by Sony at all. The quoted company Vivid, is currently working on Blu-Ray releases. The HD debate is very political, and the NYT is *wildly* biased. If you don't believe me, read their review of the PS3, which is very closely associated with the Blu-Ray HD movie format.
3) It's common to correct or "clean up" skin flaws through digital processing. Also, I suspect most viewers would still prefer higher quality video/sound with flaws and all.
Odd that no one mentioned yet how back in the early half of the last century -- the black and white era -- it was common to soften the image of the female lead in headshots (soft focus) and not so much for the male leads...
Comments are Closed.