Last weekend I walked down the streets of Paris, near Place de la Concorde, and bumped into a Nazi soldier

At first I was shocked - either I drank too much, or it was possible to travel through time and space, or Europe has gone crazy again...

Much to my relief (I am Jewish after all...) I found myself standing in the middle of a historical movie set, taking place in occupied France. All around me were WWII cars, news stands, and people dressed in long coats and hats. It was surreal to see old army tracks and buses full of extras dressed up in 40's fashion, only to get distracted by a modern day cars passing by.

I was also amazed to see the amount of equipment and staff that were on set, besides the actors. The scene was simple - two women meet at the entrance to a Metro station, and two sinister SS detectives follow them (nothing like long leather rain coats to get you typecasted)...

I counted 5 tracks of equipment, at least 30 people around the set, 2 cameras, projectors and loads of audio equipment. It made me think about how crazy all of us are, trying to create content on the cheap, as we are up against these huge productions.

For me it was an amazing experience - step into a different period in time, and see how much effort is invested in each film we see.

One of the extras told me it is the set of a film "The Lady in The Dark". I didn't find any info on it online - but it might be that there is only information in French, or that it is a working title. Hope you enjoyed the pictures.

Technorati Tags: Film, filmmaking, French Film, Lady in the dark, movie set

Last week Heather Green from BusinessWeek published a short post about N3, a new video startup. The most interesting quote there was from Jeff Jarvis:

"It's the first minutes of this new medium, and we don't know how this model is going to work... Like with the first wave of the Internet, The smart people got in and the dumb people stood back, you have to get in and learn."

I couldn't agree more. It is almost impossible to write a meaningful business plan for web shows. But, taking risks in early stage of the industry is crucial in my opinion in order to gain insight to the the media world of tomorrow. So, buy a camera, and start filming...

I recently bought a professional video camera, in order to start producing web shows. I wanted to share with you some of my considerations when I chose my camera - you might find it useful:

Buy or rent – you can rent pro camcorder in every major city. The pros here are simple – you can get a great camera for a low price. However, god is in the details. You should first check the cost of rental as % of a brand new camera. For instance, I found that I can rent a camera for 250$ per week, while a new pro cam (though not HD) will cost me approx 1500$. Hence, if I buy a camera and use it for ~7 weeks, I am better off then renting one. Add to that the fact that with a rented camera you probably have a limited time experimenting (cause you won’t just rent it to play with it) and you see that in some cases it is better to buy one.

HD or not HD – HD is hyped a lot these days, and no one argues that the picture is as crisp as it can be. I decided to go SD. HD requires stronger editing computers. This is a major consideration, as I am going to use desktop for my editing. Also, as I am producing web and mobile content, it seems that HD is not my top priority. Due to the fact that HD is hyped, you can get a decent SD camera for a relatively low price.

Part II coming soon....