Jesse Rosten

I’ve been thinking a lot lately about the relationship between Art and Science. Below are a few over-simplified and rambling thoughts on the topic.

Art and Science
When I was a kid I was fascinated by bugs. Something about their alien-like bodies and bizarre behaviors captured my curiosity. I would wander around outside turning over rocks to see what new googly-eyed or slimy specimen I could discover. I collected them, anesthetized and skewered them with mounting pins. I kept my six-legged treasures in an oversized Sees Candy box lined with styrofoam. Yes, I was that creepy kid depicted in all the Far Side cartoons. I was sure that when I grew up, I wanted to be an entymologist, paleontologist, archeologist, or meteorologist (anything that ended in “gist” would have been fine with me). It wasn’t until I picked up a camera in highschool (in order to photograph bugs) that I started my love affair with visual arts. When choosing a major in university, I felt like I had to decide between two paths, Art or Science. I didn’t realize at the time that the two disciplines were so closely related.

Typically, Art and Science are thought of as polar opposites. On one side of the hall, the science geeks hang out and discuss computers, chemistry, mathematics, and chess club. Across the hall the art freaks lean against their lockers discussing band class, painting, indie films, and skinny jeans. What the kids don’t realize is, at the core, they’re really not that different. I think Art and Science are deeply entwined. I’ll explain…

It is impossible to create art without science. If you look back in history you’ll see that every artistic movement has followed some sort of scientific breakthrough in communication technology. There were no painters until someone invented paint. There were no poems before someone invented language. Even those primitive cave drawings would have been impossible without a cave-man writing stick and dinosaur ink. Art cannot exist without science because all art is made from, and with science. In the words of my favorite comedian, Demetri Martin, “Think about it.”

Now what about the flip side? Is there creativity within the discipline of Science? You bet your pocket protector there is! It takes a brilliant and clever mind to take seemingly disparate data and form a universal scientific theory. It’s not unlike Mozart (an artist, by the way) looking at a sheet of music and hearing the song in his head. Think about the great scientific discoveries in the modern era: the theory of relativity, the atom, space flight, vaccines, dinosaurs, the double helix, plate tectonics, Facebook – some single mind had to be so insightful, so in tune with the “notes” that they were able to compose these wonderful symphonies of scientific discovery. Every scientific breakthrough is ripe with creative (and thus artistic) expression. The act of discovery itself is a form of art.

Science and art have a very circular relationship. Art leads to Science, and Science begets Art. James Cameron is not a scientist, he’s a filmmaker. Yet Cameron had to personally develop the camera systems and workflow for his 3D epic ‘Avatar’. The tool for Cameron’s artistic expression did not yet exist; he had to invent it. He needed the science of filmmaking to catch up with his art of storytelling. Cameron’s art was the impetus for technological advancement, and, now that these 3D tools exist, no doubt they will be used to create more art. And the cycle continues.

Still with me? Good ’cause here’s where I think it gets juicy. I believe that artists and scientists operate with the same goals in mind: to describe the world around them. We are all human beings after all. We all have the desire to catalog, order, and describe our world. We just use different tools. Both artists and scientists have to be keenly perceptive and observant in order to describe and interpret reality. Now of course there are differences. A scientist would describe a sunset differently than a painter or photographer might. But their motivation is the same, they seek to understand. They are looking for truth. Science can describe why a sunset is red, and art can describe how that sunset makes us feel. I got into filmmaking because I wanted to understand more than just cameras, lenses, resolution, compression, and waveforms, I wanted to understand the emotional side, the story-telling side as well. I used to watch television and movies and wonder not only how a particular shot was done, but why it made me feel a certain way. The “how” is science, the “why” is art. And I use both “how” and “why” in every creative endeavor.

For me, the process of creating art is like running thousands of micro experiments in my mind. I’m constantly asking myself, “I wonder what would happen if I tried this?” The only way to find out is to run the experiment and analyze the results. Did the 85mm create empathy? Did the color red communicate urgency? Did that edit create excitement? If so, then can I create an “emotional theory” (for lack of a better term) surrounding that particular technique? The more micro experiments I perform, the more I learn about the craft, and the greater my understanding of art (specifically filmmaking) becomes. Even though my job title doesn’t contain any variation on the “gist” suffix, I still get to be a mini-scientist. I’ve just traded a bunsen burner and a thermocycler for a camera and computer.

There’s no question in my mind that Art and Science are bedfellows. I don’t think we can have one without the other. Ultimately, their goal is the same: the search for truth, be it empirical or emotional, objective or subjective, absolute or relative. I’m a lot older now, but still looking for bugs, both real and imaginary.

p.s. Congratulations on making it through such a long post. Feel free to add your thoughts in the comments.

Here are a few MadMen inspired shots of my friend Jim. Though I’d never seen Jim smoke a cigar before, this is how I always picture him in my head – a bit of daring, with a dash of dashing. Jim has a long resume that is full of acronyms like CEO and MBA. I don’t know what any of those mean but I do know that Jim is a nice guy and a good friend.

Lyn and I set up a little photoshoot last week to test out the newly arrived backdrop (ordered it here: neutral gray), and the new high-output beauty dish. The lighting setup for these shots was pretty simple: beauty dish boomed over head (with AB1600), and two speedlights in small silver umbrellas as kickers (with the exception of one shot where they didn’t fire).

Now how about that HOBD? If, like me, you’ve been on the fence on whether or not to pick up the new High-Output Beauty Dish from Paul C. Buff, let me save you the worry. Just get it. You will not be disappointed. Now, I’d used the old dish before and liked it. But the HOBD has been completely redesigned for efficiency and I really didn’t know what to expect. The light spread on the HOBD is about 45 degrees (old model dish was 140 degrees). That’s a pretty focused light. In order to get that kind of narrow beam on the older, less efficient dish, you needed to lug along a grid modifier. Let me tell you, it’s a lot easier (and more efficient) to *diffuse* hard light than it is to *focus* soft light. So far, I’m really liking the narrow focus of this dish. I figure if I need a softer look from the HOBD, I’ll just throw the sock on it and approximate the light spread of the old dish. Boom. Done. The HOBD is made of aluminum and is very light weight compared to the older, Webber-BBQ-inspired dish. My only complaint is the way the direct-light blocker mounts. It is not connected to the dish itself but runs through a hole and into the umbrella holder of the Alien Bee. It’s a clunky, and somewhat proprietary way to mount the blocker. I have no idea if the hole on the HOBD will match up on any other monoblocs.

Overall I’m very happy with the dish. Next project is to test its efficiency by doing some daytime shots a 580 EX mounted to the dish.

Last spot in the Better to Play series. I just watched all four back-to-back and I must say I’m pleased with their consistency. Yay for branding. This spot was shot on Red and posted in FCP with some help from Magic Bullet and After Effects (for the motion graphics). I’m pretty sure the idea for this spot came from an episode of Arrested Development. RIP Arrested Development. We’ll always have the banana stand.

Had a little free time last week so I pulled together an impromptu shoot with some friends. This was an experiment to test out some lighting setups with on-axis fill.

On-axis light is light that is on the same axis as your camera lens; e.g. your on-camera flash. This kind of light illuminates everything very evenly, creating a flat, and generally unflattering image. It’s akin to xeroxing your subject. The idea here is to create shadow and depth with some off-axis lighting and then let the on-axis ring flash (AB800R) act as a fill and lift those shadows out of the dark. Daniel (pictured) mapped out the the setups on his nifty Strobox iPhone app. Also, the first pic in the gallery below is a 100% crop of the pic above. I put a lot of post work into these photos and don’t want the finer details to get lost to web resolution.

My wife is slowly teaching me what it means to be well dressed. Thus far I’ve learned: shoes and belt color should match, and denim does not go with MORE denim. During this little impromptu photo session with Lyn (wife) and Kallie (friend), I also learned that with you can never have too many layers.

This is true in Photoshop, too. I’m all about the layers. I usually make a new layer for every step in the edit. Healing brush, dodge and burn, sharpening, curves – each major step lives on its own layer. And I always keep the original layer in the stack, too. That way I can go back if I get lost. Plus, if you’re like me, you love soloing layers to see how far a photo has come.

Here are a few test shots with the new AB1600 down by Whiskeytown Lake. Using the PocketWizard Mini and Flex I was able to get a useable strobe sync speed of around 1/640. Strobe was boomed overhead with a small silver umbrella. Looking forward to setting up some more daylight blasting sessions soon.

We have a rad dog named Stella. She’s a unique little creature. Here’s a little flick Lyn and I created to show a typical day in Stella’s life. This was shot entirely on the Canon 5DMKII. It’s a good proof-of-concept to show that you don’t need a Red camera to create interesting visuals. You just need, well, interesting visuals. The small size and low weight of the MKII made it easy to get some of these hard to reach POV shots. Huge thanks to the talented Jef Gibbons for his musical contribution.

Enjoy and Merry Christmas to all.

Thankfully, the majority of my projects require no DVD authoring. Recently though, I needed to make a simple DVD menu and sub-menu with scene selection buttons. I ran into a peculiar DVD Studio Pro quirk that irked my skirt. In brief, this problem had to do with restarting a DVD after hitting stop twice. After hours of combing the web, and heading down dead-end rabbit trails, I finally came up with a solution. Figured I’d pay-it-forward to any bleary-eyed editors out there who’ve been pulling their hair out over this.

First the problem: When you hit ’stop’ on a DVD and then ‘play,’ normal behavior for a DVD is to ‘resume’ playback from the stopped point. If you hit stop, and then stop again, this should reset the disc as if you’d just inserted it into the DVD player. The problem with my disc is that, after hitting stop twice and then play, the disc would start on track 1 and not the first play menu. (My log read, “User action: System initialization. Jumping to Track: Track 1) How annoying is that? I still don’t know why this was happening. But it’s likely an issue with the way DVD Studio Pro writes it’s GRPM and SPRM values. Now you could buy expensive software and learn how to program DVD discs from the ground up, or you could try this…

My Solution: No matter what I tried, I could not get DVDSP to return to the menu after a double-stop. I tried scripting it, I tried rebuilding the project, I even tried some demo versions of that expensive software I mentioned but it quickly got over my head. Since DVDSP was being stubborn, and completely set on restarting at track 1, I finally gave up and said, “fine you can have track 1, stupid software, but I get to tell you what’s going to be on track 1.” And that’s the solution: put 2 seconds of black on track 1 and then tell the DVD to end-jump to the main menu. Hey, it’s not perfect, but it works.

If anyone has another way to solve this problem, please let me know.

I’ve been doing a little bit of house cleaning and have decided to unload some of the gear that is not getting used. If you know me, you know I do a lot of research before purchasing anything. So I can assure you, all of this is good quality gear that I would recommend to anyone. The pictures feature the actual items for sale. If you are interested in anything let me know or make me an offer.

First up are some audio goodies. There was a time in my life when I thought I was going to make hit records and wear gold-plated diapers. Well, that hasn’t happened. So I’m reluctantly letting go of some of my recording and monitoring gear. Here is a like-new pair of Dynaudio BM6A mkII monitors. These are beautiful near-field monitors that create stunningly clear sound. If critical monitoring is important to you, (and it should be), do a little research on these. But do it fast ’cause you’ll get the best deal through me and supplies are definitely limited. I bought these new about a year ago through Sweetwater Sound. Only used them a couple times.

Next up in the audio department is a sweet little audio interface, the Mobile I/O 2882. The big selling point for me on this box was the high-quality pre amps (there’s eight of them); and it’s completely BUS powered through Firewire. Just mate this to a Macbook Pro and you’ve got a portable recording studio. 

And lastly, let’s move over to the video side of life. Up for sale is a used Matrox MXO. Great for monitoring and color correcting video on an external monitor. The MXO converts your secondary DVI output to a true REC709 broadcast signal. It also allows you to calibrate an Apple Cinema Display or other DVI monitor using a proc amp. Works with the lappy tops too! Great little box that I simply no longer need.

A little news update: Cart was accepted into the Mammoth Film Festival and will be screening this December. I am tickled a very particular shade of coral. I created the film with a Redding audience in mind and am thrilled that the film has legs outside of this town. Another honor is that Cart will be the opening short of the festival. It’ll appear along side the feature Rock Slyde, a comedy starring Patrick Warburton (AKA Joe from Family Guy) and Andy Dick. Check out the trailer for Rock Slyde. It looks really funny. If all that news isn’t exciting enough for you, consider this: Mammoth Mountain has over 3500 skiable acres. See you on the mountain?

Finally finished up the edit for my cousin’s wedding back in Colorado. Here’s a gallery with a few of my favorites. It was fun seeing some of the extended family, many of whom I hadn’t seen in 10 years or so, including my cousin Matt. He was a great resource for me when I was first learning about photography. Back in ‘those’ days we shot film and had to walk to the photo lab, through the snow, uphill, both ways, etc, etc, kids these days with their rap music and digital cameras…

Since I traveled to Colorado by plane, my gear was limited to what I could fit in a carry on bag. No worries; perfect excuse to summon the strobist ninja inside and find ways to do more with less. A single speedlight (580ex) and shoot-thru umbrella seemed to do the trick. Avoiding direct sunlight meant I didn’t need lots of watts to over power the ambient. In fact, we had to move fast after the ceremony to make use of what sunlight was left. Thankfully, Matt was a not only a great photo assistant, but an excellent VAL (voice activated lightstand).

The photos were processed in Lightroom, DXO Optics, and Photoshop. Yes, all three. DXO is a great piece of software that automagically removes distortion, vignetting, and chromatic aberrations. It does this by peeping your EXIF data, and applying custom corrections based on your lens+camera combination. This is particularly useful with wide angle lenses like the 17-40mm that have a lot of barrel distortion. I didn’t realize just how much distortion was present with this lens until I compared the corrected and non-corrected photos. Yikes. Now, if only we could get DXO to work as a Lightroom plugin the trifecta would be complete.

The pic you see above was processed by creating two exposures from the RAW file, one for the foreground and one for the sky. Neat thing about shooting RAW is all that detail is hiding in there you just have to coax it out. RAWr.