DP Curtis Clark on Technology’s Future, Receiving Academy’s John A. Bonner Medal
What are some of the council's initiatives?
High dynamic range — HDR, meaning a wider range between the blackest blacks and whitest whites in an image — and looking at display devices that will need to be sophisticated enough to handle that. We're looking at the difference between professional reference monitors and consumer monitors so we can narrow the gap in terms of what consumer monitors are able to reproduce to maintain the integrity of the filmmaker's creative look.
With an eye toward making recommendations to manufacturers?
Yes, that's in the works with UHD Alliance and DCI [studio consortium Digital Cinema Initiatives].
You're also examining developing LED cinema screens.
We've been doing testing with two manufacturers who are dealing with it at the moment, very actively for cinema — Samsung and Sony.
What are your findings so far?
We're still looking into it, but I can certainly tell you that it is immensely encouraging. It's very effective [in displaying HDR].
From a technology standpoint, what is the biggest challenge facing cinematographers?
It's HDR.
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