DIY video depth-of-field contraption

Here are some interesting, DIY plans for a depth of field reducer for video cameras courtesy of the always-great Make Blog.

One claim on the site is that it will help your video "look like film." In a way, yes: Shallow depth of field is more common with film than video, generally speaking. Newbies should keep in mind, however, that film and video work entirely differently: a video CCD is essentially like a scanner, while film is a series of unique frames, each with a different pattern of silver halide crystals (think: snowflakes). It's because of this fundamental difference that video (as long as it continues to work the way it does now) will never completely look like film.

Anyway, I would be interested to see how footage using this thingamajig looks, especially in comparison with something like the P+S Mini35, which is a more professional version of the same thing. (The Mini35 is $7500, the DIY thing would probably run you 1/100 of that.) Some guys tested the Mini35 with a JVC GY-HD100 -- I was impressed with the close-ups, but not the night shots.

UPDATE: It looks like the Mini35 will have some competition soon from an outfit called Cinemek. The demos -- particularly the one that begins with the cat -- look good. And they say they're working on one for the HVX-200. Stay tuned.

UPDATE #2: A reader of this blog alerted me to two other commercial options for shallow DOF. One is the M2 -- AKA the Micro35 -- from RedRock. Another is from Dan Diaconu.

UPDATE #3: Yet another one... this time with instructions in PDF format.

First Post: Declaration of Principles

The virtue in most request is conformity. Self-reliance is its aversion. - Ralph Waldo Emerson, "Self Reliance"

The purpose of this weblog is to talk about and to encourage the practice of making high-quality films at a low-cost and/or with small-labor systems. A good term for this practice is "Self-Reliant Filmmaking."

Self-reliant filmmaking is interesting for at least two reasons:

Less interference, more production: Self-reliance can let filmmakers bypass in whole or in part the common gatekeepers of cinema production (i.e., studios, production companies, etc.) and exhibition (i.e., major distributors). Needless to say, not needing a corporation's permission to make a movie can free you to make more of them.

Handcrafting: We believe, quite simply, that the way something is made shapes the nature of the thing itself. Self-reliant films are by definition handcrafted, and this is a good thing for today's cinema, which needs as many human, soulful works as it can get.

While some might consider this naive, we see examples of self-reliant filmmaking throughout the history of cinema -- from the Lumiere Brothers' first films up to works by some of today's leading filmmakers, like Abbas Kiarostami and Lars Von Trier.

This weblog will discuss:

- Current and past motion pictures and/or filmmakers that are part of the self-reliant tradition

- Strategies and models for sustaining non-corporate, especially regional, filmmaking

- The distribution of this work, including the opportunities afforded by new technologies

- Tools of the self-reliant filmmaker, including the making, modifying, and/or hacking of equipment

In addition to the above, the weblog will serve as a forum for makers and critics to reflect on the philosophy, theory, ethics, and praxis of self-reliant filmmaking because, in all of its different embodiments, self-reliant filmmaking is both a practice and a principle.

Put another way, self-reliant filmmaking does not help the so-called "independent filmmaker," it is what makes a filmmaker independent.