A number of big names on TV, and in Hollywood are scared of High-Definition (HD) TV. Unlike the (US) TV we’re all used to with 525 lines (there are 625 in Europe which is why US productions always look a little ’soft’ back in the old country) HD offers 720 or 1080 lines in each frame.
When TV was young, tiny screens and low resolution forced directors to use close-ups constantly, because without them you couldn’t see what was going on. In HD close-ups are brutal.
Every wrinkle, crease and imperfection in living color, despite her being a beautiful older woman, under perfect lighting, armed with a full compliment of make-up artists, surgeons and flesh-tightening bulldog-clips.
What does this mean for porn? Are we ready for what close up sex really looks like? Will this usher in a new romantic age of more beautifully shot material, or are we destined to become familiar with Max Hardcore’s liver spots?
Popularity: 55% [?]
having worked in the mainstream film industry for a number of years, I know that experienced camera operators and DOP’s use softening filters for their lenses in order to more closely match the look of film, and in terms of lighting, less is definitely more (which spells trouble for a number of hacks who light the hell out of everything because they don’t know what they’re doing)
Winter good point. Those filters won’t work for most porn though and cinema releases use a lot of mid and long shots because they work well on a large screen. I think the days of trying to emulate film are nearly (thankfully) over, but I do believe a change will have to happen or viewers are suddenly going to find their idols a lot less glamorous than they do today. Perhaps someone will release a ‘blur’ filter that leaves sharp edges (they use these on TV and in film to improve people’s skin already – see Kiera Knightly in Pride and Prejudice for an example.)
I think as the technology grows to allow for this imperfections to become visible, the need for technology that removes these imperfections will increase. This will eventually lead to solutions to this problem.
Think of how magazines airbrush out imperfections or digitally shave off a few pounds on their cover girls. If the computing power and ease of use made it so this could be done easily and inexpensively during the editing process then I see film [and then eventually porn] adopting these practices.
Or as you have mentioned before, the technology will increase we will have digitally created porn in the first place and the ‘talent’ will only be a rough sketch of an all digital and more ‘perfect’ digital actress.
Oh. Have you seen givemepink? I thought that was pretty close to HD porn.
They just solve the problem by slapping a bucklet-load of makeup on the girls and doing more close-ups on her lower regions.
Robber Baron – Personally I hope the net result is better shot porn, not tools to make badly shot porn look better.
Shay – share a link. The problem with make-up in HD is that it’s visible. It doesn’t really work, you get a ‘Damn she’s covered in foundation’ effect.
We’ll probably see shorter careers, more surgery and younger performers too…
The airbrushed, blow dried, well-dressed look is “the look” of well-produced video. Video, even HiDef video doesn’t have resolution or range to loving render the detail and imperfection of the real world. If you see “character” in the face of a televison person, it just looks like a cheap defect.
On the other hand, film loves the look of realness. It has the resolution and the range to render lines and wrinkles in a way that is beautiful, and we’re accustomed to seeing and accepting this when we see it on film – witness Edward James Olmos.
The make-up artists at NBC will figure out what to do, they’re craft will evolve and change to suit this new medium, and some (not much, but some) of that will trickle down to porn.
Meanwhile, if you’re going for a high-end look, it’s a hell of a lot cheaper to shoot on film with a make-up artist who knows what to do for film, and master then in HD than it is to shoot on HD and pay top-dollar for an HD-ready make-up person.
Porn, well, in the vast range between gauze-lensed high-budget glamour films to blemish-ridden shot-on-my-couch gonzo, what haven’t we seen? HD isn’t gonna come as too much of a shock, I think. Most name starlets know their way around a make-up mirror (or employ someone who does), and some are just rare natural beauties– lucky for us they like to bone on film.
“HD isn’t gonna come as too much of a shock”
Perhaps not at the low-end, but then the low-end isn’t going to be shooting HD; they’ll be shooting HDV.
But on the “high-budget” side of porn, HD is going to be just as interesting a challenge as it has been for NBC, ABC, and NBC. The difference is that the networks have the resources – money, time, talent – to rise to the occasion. Not porn.
Even the biggest budget porn is still rediculously under-produced. Shooting in HD is going to show off how thin the productions are to an even greater degree.
Okay, I’m ignoring the tech question for the human question:
“Every wrinkle, crease and imperfection in living color…What does this mean for porn? Are we ready for what close up sex really looks like?”
If you have to ask that wuGuess not. Who wants reality when you can have air-brushed, made-up, expertly-lit, 100% fakes?
Look, we haven’t seen images of real sex for so long in our cultural reflections (film, adverts, music videos, TV, magazines etc), we have no idea what it looks like.
When we do catch glimpses of it—in vintage erotica, for example—we smile at the low-techness, and anyway, the women back then were so FAT!
Grrrr.
DTG xxoo
I’ve actually downloaded a few givemepink videos, they are pretty cool. Here’s the link ->
http://www.givemepink.com/go/893476/19/9/n/
Edco – I’m with Tony (though I believe HDV and HD are interchangeable for the purposes of this conversation – they’re both high-res enough)
Pussy Talk – I’m not sure we’re talking about reality. An HD close-up reveals a lot more than 20-20 vision. Is a microscopic enlargement real? I suspect it’ll feel more Discovery channel than Playboy.
Shay – that’s definitely a (popular) niche but I don’t see anything HD about it. They’ve got the right type of models though…