William Higgins, the pioneering gay porn director who founded Catalina Video in 1978, has issued a statement announcing that he is henceforth only going to present video shot in the Ultra HD 4K video format. The first-person statement, which explains the thought-process behind his decision to become the first gay production studio to shoot exclusively in 4K, is posted in its entirety.
PRAGUE, Czech Republic—2014 is our 35th anniversary. So, we’re doing something very special. We are becoming the first gay production studio to acquire all videos in 4K (also known as Ultra HD). What is 4K and why is it important? Put very simply, 4K is four times the resolution (quality) of HD or 1080P.
It’s easy to see how much bigger the 4K (light blue) image [See Graphic] is than the HD (1080p light green) image. If you’ve been to large electronic stores recently and looked at the enormously expensive 4k or Ultra HD TVS, you’ve probably been blown away by the quality of the images. There are a few problems with 4K delivery, however: Currently there are very few 4K TVs and they are extremely expensive. There is very little 4K product available because currently no TV stations or cable TV services broadcast in 4K. Further, at the present time the broadband Internet pipes are mostly not large enough to easily transmit 4K. And, oh yes, it is extremely expensive to acquire everything in 4K. There’s generally four times as much data than with HD. Much more hard disk storage is required and much stronger and faster computers are required to edit and compress 4K material.
So, you might ask, “Well, Mr. Higgins, with so few 4K monitors and virtually no 4K delivery channels, why are you switching to 4K acquisition?” First, my colleagues and myself noticed that YouTube videos acquired in 4K and converted to YouTube resolutions looked at least twice as good as videos acquired in normal HD. 4K has much sharper resolution than HD and almost as important, 4K has a much better dynamic range than HD. That means you can see into shadows and there’s still detail there (the all important crotch shots that are so hard to light). Further, the new 4K camcorders with much larger sensors seem to deliver much more vibrant colors.
Right after this year’s NAB, we started 4K acquisition tests. When we compressed the 4K videos to normal HD, it was obvious they looked much, much better than videos shot with HD cameras and compressed. Almost immediately, we stopped testing and moved to video acquisition in 4K.
Further, 4K is the future. A little history: about the time of Avatar, several of my colleagues rushed to me and said, "We need to start shooting in 3D." I replied, "I don’t think so. It’s a flash in the pan." They replied, "Have you ever seen a 3D movie?" "Oh, yes, in the ’50s I saw all of them and was greatly disappointed when they went away. This 3D revival is a fad. It will go away." Who has been proved right?
4K, however, IMHO, is the future. Maybe you've noticed the wonderful 3 dimensionality of 4K on the display 4K TVs. It will be a very long time, indeed, before 4K becomes the norm. However, today, by shooting in 4K and compressing to HD, we will make our videos look exponentially better. Viewers will be able to see this on williamhiggins.com any day now. Check the daily updates and you will soon see 'shot in 4k' appearing on opening graphics. Then you will be able to see the great viewing improvements we have managed to achieve. Later when 4K monitors and pipes become the norm, we will simply go back into our archives and recompress everything shot with 4K into full 4K for delivery.
We are now shooting almost exclusively in 4K, the first gay studio to do so. We still have a large backlog of material acquired in HD so we’ll gradually roll out new material acquired in 4K. Soon everything on our gay sites will be shot on 4K for HD.
Back when I started directing gay movies in 1978 (yes, I know, that makes this the 36th year, but last year another studio was celebrating its twentieth year in business, and I didn’t want to rain on their parade), I hired a movie doctor to help me salvage my first movie (and it was a movie, not a video). He told me several axioms that I’ve always kept in mind, one of the best was, ‘When you spend money make sure it goes up on the screen, not on parties or limousines." That has always served me well. So, in lieu of a big party, we’re spending a lot of money to convert over to 4K acquisition. I’m absolutely certain the expenditures will show up favorably on the screen.
I’ll say this about my 35th Anniversary, and plagiarizing one of my favorite "mainstream" directors, first of all to be working at my age, you’re already on your knees with gratitude, it’s not how the world is meant to be. 4K is my anniversary gift to our viewers.
For more information, contact me at [email protected].
