By Neal Romanek, August 30, 2007
Accurately describing Scott Billups’ role in the motion picture industry is a difficult task. He has most recently been extremely busy as a DP (director of photography) on several theatrical motion pictures shot using digital high definition video as an alternative to 35mm film. These assignments were a logical spin-off of his work as a producer of high-end shows for leading cable networks, where he combined his long experience in computer-based digital visual effects with years of behind-the-camera expertise first learned during the 1970’s as an assistant to the great American cinematographer James Wong Howe. Billups is, however, probably best known for living on what he calls the “bleeding edge” of digital imaging technology for the past two decades.
During that time, Billups was usually the first person that major effects-software developers or computer manufacturers would call to evaluate their latest code revision or hardware upgrade. He’d then put that image-making advance to the test by using it in service of A-list Hollywood filmmakers, Fortune 500 companies, or the Defense Department. Sometimes the results would be nothing less than revolutionary. At other times he’d be left with a crashed computer and real-world proof that a new animation package or digitizing board wasn’t up to the demands of the client’s storyboard, hence his use of the term bleeding–instead of leading–edge
. The author and/or subject of countless articles and books on digital filmmaking and visual effects, Billups is a frequent lecturer at motion-imaging conferences and has branded himself first and foremost as an inveterate “pixelmonger.”
Given his history in pushing the proverbial envelope of what imaging technology is capable of accomplishing, Billups is determined to propel the high resolution, user convenience, and affordability of today’s high-definition digital video technologies into a new paradigm of production power and economy. Motion picture budgets simply can’t be allowed to rise indefinitely, he argues, at a time when increasingly affordable tools exist that enable any truly creative talent to render onscreen whatever their minds can conceive. First, however, one must discover what these affordable new tools are capable of. “I recently did a film-out test of images captured using Canon’s XL H1 HDV camcorder,” Billups revealed, “and what it can do is absolutely mind-boggling.”
Click here to read the entire article at Broadcast Engineering.
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