My fascination with shooting with a DSLR is apparently a trend. Nikon was actually a sponsor of SXSW this year, but the canons were the ones you saw everyone carrying and talking about. Coming from a photography background, photographers all love DSLRs because they are slowly adapting video from photography and many photographers can slowly transition over into video. I find kind of the opposite to be true about videographers. Videographers have tons of resources to record, mix and finalize their stuff, they feel comfortable with those cameras and they’ve worked pretty damn well so far. But the thing is that the more photographers with access to these video options are bringing the art form of photography with its shallow depth of field into video, the more directors, artists, and the film community are beginning to love what they are seeing. I love what we are seeing. Its gorgeous film. Its photographyvideo. And its more travelable also…smaller, lighter, more easily tug-a-roundable. And in the age of small budgets, that’s a serious plus. Videographers are looking for that when there is less ease on the travel schedule. This has created a lot of new editing software also. To adapt to the use of card readers and 21 gig transfers with a usb cable, to adapt to audio complications, to adapt to 12 minutes at a time being the limit to film. And this is where it gets tricky for me, despite my obvious love of the look of the DSLR footage. For short form editing, which is what I mainly deal in, I think having a DSLR, and a strong set up around it, is becoming more and more a necessity. But for long form editing, which frankly I don’t know much about, what’s the deal with how different a picture would be when you can only film for 12 minute increments? Remember the great films…some were shot in one long take! That is technologically not possible with the DSLRs and I wonder if as long form movie editing moves toward that more and more, they will start resembling short form editing more. Short cuts to cuts, less cohesive story line verbally, more cohesive story line visually. Again, I’m no genius in this area or any other area, but it begs the question right now. Luckily for me (maybe), technology grows exponentially. I am sure that next year at this time we’ll have a DSLR that shoots film for more than 12 minutes at a time, and the memory cards will house 50-100 gigs at a time, being easily transferable by something not yet invented. I’m personally looking forward to being able to shoot with a canon 5D and not having a mini heart attack about the sound quality of any dialogue. With tech, comes change. With change, comes new abilities to see things. I just wonder if this will more easily allow the art of videography and editing to find its way to a more beautiful craft, or simply a way to make it more visually appealing, but less "videoy"- the difference between photography and video- a traditionally audio based cohesion. This will be resolved with time, as this is the nature of tech. But until we resolve it, I’m curious to see the interim product.