I read that there were a few arrests at the mostly peaceful prop 8 protests in California this week. The gay and lesbian community held protests in West Hollywood, by the Hollywood CNN building, and at the Mormon Church. The protesters started on the sidewalk but the crowd grew and the police ended up having to stop traffic to accomodate the protest!

These protests (as well as other culturally significant political events) are usually caught on video by news station professional camcorders. But footage by participants or bystanders on consumer camcorders can also prove to be just as valuable and worth watching. And apparently, even the cops take video or snap a digital photograph before arresting protesters to justify the arrest! I guess that makes sense since this is hot legal issue and California is an extremely litigious state.

Find photos of a protester (who wasn’t arrested by the way) jumping on top of a cop car last Wednesday night on KTLA.

Yesterday, while watching Michael Phelps win some gold medals at the 2008 Beijing Olympics, I wondered to myself what camcorders were being used to broadcast the event.

Turns out Sony tricked out NBC’s crew with its new XDCAM system, which included 30 PDW-700 camcorders and 170 PDW-HD1500 recording decks.

“It’s rewarding to be an integral part of one of the major HD television sports events in the world,” said Alec Shapiro, senior vice president for sales and marketing, Sony Electronics’ Broadcast and Production Systems Division. “The broadcast requirements for the Games continually increase in scope and complexity, and are a perfect showcase for our HD production technology. This year, Sony’s new 2/3-inch XDCAM HD system, as well as all our proven HD equipment, will play a major role in the coverage of the Games, bringing viewers at home an unforgettable experience.”

That’s quite a professional feat to be the major sponsor of the Olympic games! The image and sound were flawless. It’s like the entire event is one big commercial for Sony professional camcorders. Panasonic, Canon, and JVC have comparable hd systems for broadcasting, but having the Olympics as part of your company reel certainly must give Sony a leg up over its competitors.

Source: Market Watch

Flavorpill and Urban Experiment partnered together to create a new web series. They held a contest to find interesting urban city dwellers who would be tracked by a film crew as they explored small cities.

To my surprise, BWE’s Michelle Collins was the city gal having adventures in the Everglades, Florida. She went to an alligator farm, got snakes thrown onto her shoulders, and discovered the “nightlife”. Michelle is always entertaining as a blogger, but it was a treat to see her on-camera cracking the jokes.

Not sure what type of digital camcorder they employed for this series, but the camera work was quite nice. They captured the action of the speedboat navigating the everglades with pretty high resolution.

I’d guess that FP definitely sprung for professional camcorders.

Over the weekend, I watched the intriguing First Snow starring Guy Pearce, Piper Perabo, and William Fichter.

It was directed by Mark Fergus, half of the screenwriting team for Children of Men. I really loved that movie, which was totally shafted at last year’s Oscars btw, so First Snow has been sitting in my netflix queue for some time now. I basically had to force myself to watch it yesterday. I won’t lie, it was pretty slow at first.

The movie focuses on Jimmy Stark (Pearce), a floor salesman with big ambitions and a con man feel. While stranded at an auto shop in the desert, he gets a psychic reading out of pure boredom. During the session, the psychic has a sorta seizure and asks for Jimmy to leave. Well, this withheld prediction begins to bug the crap out of Jimmy, especially when some of the early predictions the guy made came true (like getting a promotion and a fluke basketball game win). After tracking the psychic down again, he learns that the psychic predicted that Jimmy wouldn’t live past the first snow. You follow Jimmy along as he tries to make sense of this revelation as it drives him to near madness.

The pacing could be a bit better, but overall I’m glad to have seen it. Definitely a good effort made by a first-time director. I think the cinematography and the acting really held my interest the most. The eerie lighting design and deliberately framed scene composition added to the suspense. I feel it would be quite difficult to reproduce these artistic choices with even the best professional camcorders on the market today.

See the trailer here.