Is 4K Right for Your Next Production?

Recently an out-of-town client called asking if I would be willing to help his internal “web guy” with a video production problem.  He wanted to buy a new piece of hardware for their internally produced web videos.  My first question was “What issue are you trying to overcome?”  Long story short, he was trying to fix a pre-production planning problem with hardware.  I told him that he should save his money and then gave him suggestions on how to fix the issue with proper pre-pro planning.  Experience beats equipment every time!

In the coming weeks, months, or year you are going to be asked if you want to shoot in 4K (miano.tv is one of the companies that will be asking clients that question).  But is 4K the best choice for your next project?  The truth is, a knowledgeable producer/director (slight plug here for yours truly) can help make that decision easy for you.

If you don’t know what 4K is – frankly, even if you do – you owe it to yourself to walk into a Best Buy (or your favorite technology store) and take a look at a 4K television.  The difference in image quality will blow you away in much the same way High Definition did when compared to Standard Definition.  This little “field trip” will only take a few minutes but will be well worth it.

You may ask: “But how many people actually own a 4K television?”  That’s really not the point.  Let me give you a few reasons why 4K may or may not be the right choice for your next production:

The images captured by 4K cameras are four times the size of High Definition (meaning four HD images could fit in a single 4K image)!  Yes, that means the resolution is stunning but it also means that if your end product will be an HD production, capturing in 4K will allow you to “zoom in” to the footage in post.  So, if you are shooting an interview and plan to post in HD, with 4K you’ve essentially captured both a medium shot and a close-up with a single camera.

Another example?  If you want to impress your customers with a gorgeous video playing in your corporate headquarters lobby or bring customers into your trade show booth, a 4K production shown on a 4K television will definitely get their attention!

And of course, if you’re capturing images that you know you’ll want to use again in the future, 4K should give you the most flexibility.

Why wouldn’t you want to shoot 4K?  Well, for one thing, 4K can significantly slow down the post-production process.  All that quality takes more storage, more rendering, more horsepower.  To a certain extent that depends on the camera.  NOT ALL 4K CAMERAS ARE THE SAME!  A select few offer the choice of capturing images in a wide variety of file formats – some are more efficient than others.  This is where it gets tricky and it’s beyond the scope of this simple blog post to explain why one camera is better than another (and why not all “4K” cameras truly shoot 4K).

NOTE: Not to give too much information to my competitors but, depending on the camera and file format, 4K files can be more than eight times larger than what production houses are used to working with – this can cause significant challenges in post production, as well as massive storage issues.  In reality, a project might not need the “extra information” those large files hold – for instance, if you are not considering heavy image grading in post. As a corporate client, you need to be wary when a production house suggests shooting in 4K. Ask about the additional time, costs, and storage involved before you commit.

Is 4K the right choice for you right now?

So here is the million dollar question:  Is 4K the right choice for you right now?  4K is a production tool.  Like so many production tools, you need to work with a production company that has the experience and knowledge to pick the best tools for each production – camera, lighting, audio, make-up, etc. – and the experienced production personnel to use those tools.  miano.tv is certainly one good option.

There’s a fitting story about violin virtuoso Jascha Heifetz:  An audience member came back stage after one of his performances and said “Mr. Heifetz, your violin sounded so good tonight.”  He picked up the violin, held it to his ear and said “Funny, I don’t hear anything.”