2017 Studio50 Honorees Revealed

Randall P. Dark was chosen as FILMMAKER in the category of THE INDEPENDENTS. Here is his interview:

Randall Dark is a long-standing innovator in digital video, having founded HD Vision in New York City in 1992, becoming one of the first specialists in the technology behind HDTV. More recently, he has been executive producer on films including Angels Sing, featuring Harry Connick Jr., Willie Nelson and Kris Kristofferson, and the documentaries Makarios: A Rising Tide and Seadrift vs. the Big Guy. He also produced the trailer for the Howard Lukk-directed SMPTE documentary Moving Images. He runs Randall Dark Productions out of Austin, TX. 

What will be the biggest challenge of 2017 for the media industry?

The biggest challenge is finding funding for projects. Ideas are a dime a dozen. 

What do you like to do when you’re not working? 

I have said during my entire career that I have never worked a day in life. I love what I do therefore it doesn’t feel like work to me. That being said, I do like to play a round of golf once in awhile.

What movie, TV show, book, music, or other media would you most recommend to your colleagues? 

I recommend seeing or reading or listening to whatever is hot. Keeping your finger on the pulse is important. 

What’s your best advice for others in this business? 

Go big or go home.

See the entire list of StudioDaily's 2017 honorees here.

High Definition Visionary

The University of Ottawa's monthly publication TABARET highlights the stories that have shaped and continue to shape the university's history. Along with discoveries by professors, they highlight outstanding alumni.

Recently, Mike Foster profiled high definition visionary and alumnus, Randall P. Dark. The following is an excerpt from the story:

Randall P. Dark (BA ʼ79, Honours), one of the pioneers of high definition television, says he embraced the technology because he believed sharper images had the power to change the world. But it wasn't easy convincing film industry bigwigs of the merits of HD.

"I was laughed at many, many times," says Dark. "After one demonstration of HD to some of the top cinematographers, directors and producers in New York City, I was viciously attacked. They were saying it looked like video, it was horrible, it was never going to happen. I remember one of my staff asking me, 'Randall, how do you feel? They tore you apart.' But I was elated. I said, 'Did you see how passionately vicious they were, how much they hated it? If it touched them that much, we're on to something.'"

Today, Dark is a producer, director, cinematographer, writer and media consultant who has shot some of the most famous personalities in high definition, including Julie Andrews, Willie Nelson, Harry Connick Jr., Lyle Lovett, Sting, Bill Clinton, Leonard Nimoy and Stephen Hawking. He is considered by the television industry to be a visionary guru who has played a key role in advancing the HD medium.

Dark compares the moment he first saw HD in Toronto in 1986 to someone seeing a Model T Ford during the days of horses and carriages.

"My brain fired and I thought this was going to be the future of so many things. I wanted to help bring it to the world and I was blessed enough to be involved in so much of the roll-out," says Dark.

"Because high definition was so real and so vivid — the colours were perfect, you could see the tiniest detail — I believed that if you had a 65-inch TV in your home and you watched a documentary about starving children, it would touch your heart in a way that you would have to react," says Dark. "I believed it was a technology that would have an impact on people and change their hearts. I honestly believed it would change humanity."

In the mid-1980s, he worked on the CBC's Chasing Rainbows, the first television mini-series to be recorded in HD. From there, he moved to New York City, working out of the Ed Sullivan Theatre, which was sometimes used in those days as a high definition sound stage for MTV's Unplugged series. He got to work with bands like Aerosmith and Crosby, Stills and Nash.

In 1992, he founded HD Vision Inc., an HD production and post-production company in New York and Dallas, Texas.

"I was one of the first in the world to build multi-camera, high-definition production trucks. I got to shoot Victor-Victoria on Broadway with Julie Andrews. I got to shoot Super Bowl XXX. We got to shoot the NBA All-Star game. I was the first to broadcast in high definition a live sporting event to the National Press Club in Washington, D.C. where members of the (U.S.) Congress and the FCC (Federal Communications Commission) analyzed the images to determine if high definition was a viable new TV standard for the United States. I ended up doing a lot of the very first events because I was one of the only people in the world to own HD trucks," says Dark.

He later co-founded HD Vision Studios in 2002 in Los Angeles and, in 2007, Randall Dark Productions LP. Over the years, he has been involved in around 2,000 feature films, documentaries, music videos, commercials and corporate presentations.

"My life is so amazing"

One of his latest projects is the film Angels Sing. Released in 2013, it features Willie Nelson, Kris Kristofferson, Harry Connick Jr., Connie Britten and Lyle Lovett. As one of the executive producers, he got to watch Nelson and Connick Jr. create a new song, which plays during the film's credits.

"I got to watch these two geniuses at work. My life is so amazing," says Dark. "I have never been star-struck working with celebrities because people are just people. I think what happens is so many big name stars get worshipped and people go 'I'm a big fan' and it gets tiring after a while. I think, because I am an expert in my field I can sit down and say, 'Hey, I know nothing about what you do but do you want to know about high definition?'"

Dark is also known for taking an experimental approach and mixing a variety of digital technologies. In his documentary Seadrift vs The Big Guy (2012), which follows contestants in the 260-mile Texas Water Safari canoe race, he used everything from an Apple iPhone to a 4K camera, which yields a resolution four times higher than standard HD.

"I used 20 different types of camera technology to do that documentary, everything from cutting-edge 4K to high-definition sunglasses to shoot it. I think I used a total of 40 cameras," says Dark.

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The full article may be read in its entirety in both English and French by clicking the proper link below:

High Definition Visionary        Visionnaire Haute Définition

Fast from the Past: An Interview with Randall P. Dark

Randall Dark. Photos by Sharon Rankin

Speed Junkies: Randall Dark and Sharon Rankin on Fast from the Past Shooting a Vintage Race Car 

Docu-Series Mixing Gorgeous 4K and Scrappy Little HD POV Cameras 

By Bryant Frazer 

Filmmaker Randall Dark brought a lot of cameras to his latest shoot. Fast from the Past, the pilot-in-progress for a proposed reality-based television series following everyday characters as they rebuild classic muscle cars into racing vehicles to take out on the track. The project originated with Mark Mcilyar, a self-taught mechanic, body shop owner and vintage race-car driver who acts as producer, host and storyliner for the program. Dark describes Mcilyar and his friends as "interesting people with an outrageous hobby" worthy of a series dedicated to their exploits. We talked to Dark, director and cinematographer on the pilot, and his colleague Sharon Rankin, who helped wrangle cameras and shot behind-the-scenes stills for the project.

StudioDaily: So how did you connect with the wild world of vintage race car drivers?

Randall Dark: I love all sports. If it's 'the best in the world,' I'm there — whether it's tiddlywinks, the Olympics, or these crazy people putting together these cars. We follow a dentist and a fireman in their adventures racing on the Indianapolis Speedway. So when the show's host, Mark Mcilyar, brought the project to me, he had me at 'hello.'

What kind of cameras were in your kit?

RD: I brought a 4K JVC camera and a Canon camera, but I also had 10 GoPros and 10 JVC ADIXXION cameras with me. Part of telling the story is that you don't want to be up in the stands. You need the wide shot, but also the medium shot and the tight shot to tell a story. And it's innovative companies like JVC and GoPro and Canon, et cetera, who've developed the technology that gets people like me and Sharon inside events instead of outside of them.

Sharon Rankin: I'm a Nikon shooter. I brought Nikon D3s with four different lenses, and I had just tried the Sony a7R II.

Sharon Rankin. Photo by Scott Rankin

Randall, all of those action cameras helped you get inside some tight spaces with the drivers, right?

RD: I've shot NASCAR and other speed events, and it's really tricky to get cameras in certain places on these cars. The cars are unbelievably expensive, for one thing, and normally the professional drivers don't want you filming where you can see them doing their secret things. But what's different about a fireman and a dentist is that they are so generous and nice. We were allowed complete access.

What was different about the JVC cameras compared to the ubiquitous GoPro?

RD: The JVC action camera has a side LCD viewfinder and a zoom lens, so I can put it on the outside of cars, inside them, on the top of them. But when I was framing, with a GoPro you're running and gunning so you set it there and hope the angle is right and off it goes. But with a viewfinder and a zoom lens, I was able to get cool shots, zooming in or out a little bit for more flexibility. The JVC 4K camera was a very portable run-and-gun camera with an attached mic. I also brought a Canon HDV camera, and we brought in the 5D Mark II. I try to keep my camera technology as light as possible. I would use a more elaborate rig with a matte box and filters on a feature film like Angels Sing, but for this project I couldn't tell the story I wanted to tell with big technology.

But could you project it on a big screen if you needed to?

RD: Yes, and here's why. When you shoot an interview, you can shoot it at 4K and light it beautifully and it looks great. When you've got a GoPro or a JVC portable camera on the outside of a car racing by and you intercut that footage, your brain forgives the difference in image quality. You accept the difference in resolution because of the type of shot you're seeing.

What shots did you get that you're especially proud of?

Photo: Sharon Rankin

SR: There was a shot that I took in the aisleway next to the racetrack where you see the car coming toward the camera. That was one of my favorite shots, partly because I was leaning out into the track and the car, in order to pass, came probably within a foot of me at 200 mph. I was pelted with stones and debris. For me, getting that shot was exhilarating and as scary as anything.

Photo: Sharon Rankin

RD: I really loved some of the POV shots I was able to get with the portable technology that I never could have gotten if I had to crawl in with the driver. I do love one shot that Sharon took. I was using one of the JVC cameras to shoot a car going by, and it looks like I've got a gun and I'm shooting at them. If you're a spectator, and you don't know that it's a tiny camera, you're wondering why that guy's following the car like he's got a lightsaber or something.

How long was the shoot?

RD: It was a three-day shoot for us. There are different events on different days, and we wanted to represent all of the different classes of cars. And it helps in telling the story to get things that happen on day one and then follow up on day two. And you have to do fun interviews. One of the race-car drivers went into the gravel pit and got rocks under the car that they have to get out before the next race. So I did one of the interviews under the car with the driver as he was cleaning out the rocks. I think other documentary approaches are valid, but I wanted people to feel the dirt and the grit [of the track] so that was a natural choice.

So how carefully did you plan the shoot? Did you plan out the shots and sequences you needed to get in order to tell the story you wanted to tell?

RD: I didn't want to know too much about the event before I threw myself into it. With a lot of my work, I get so excited about doing things that the work becomes — not childlike, but it has that enthusiasm. I don't recommend it for everybody, but I don't overplan or overthink my projects. I work them out in the moment, and I think that makes my work more organic.

But does it make it harder to stay focused?

RD: Kristen Cox produces for me a lot of the time, and she always says, "Randall, you've got to slow down." I need someone to keep me on one shot before I run across the racetrack to get that other shot over there. It's a combination of not being naive in the moment, but also not being a hardened expert in racing. I see it through rose-colored glasses, and I think the storytelling reflects that. I'm not heavily involved, but I'm a fan of what these guys are doing. I'm just experiencing it for the first time, and I can't wait to share it with the world.

Do you feel like you've developed your own documentary shooting style?

RD: When I did Makarios: A Rising Tide, I was in the Dominican Republic, shooting in a village that had no running water or electricity. In that environment, I moved slowly, quietly and respectfully. I'm going into their impoverished environment to tell their story as best I can, with as much respect as possible. My style in that world was calm, quiet. I became a different type of director because the environment required me to be a different type of person. On the Indy 500 racetrack I can get away with running around screaming and yelling because the track is so loud, but it's a type of energy I'm bringing to the type of cinematography I'm trying to create. You can't go around screaming in someone's house. If you look at the documentaries I've done, you'll see a different type of feeling and camerawork because the story I'm trying to tell demands it. Not because "Randall Dark's style is to use a shaky-cam."

What did you learn from this project?

RD: One thing Sharon has taught me is to believe in vertical marketing. A lot of the time, I'm so busy directing or shooting that I forget about getting the shots that I need for marketing. Sharon, how many shots did you take?

SR: I took at least 7,000 images for this project.

RD: It's a lot of work for her to find those shots. But all of a sudden, I'm talking to broadcast and distribution and they ask, 'What do you have [to promote this]?' To say we have an edited program and behind-the-scenes photography, it just makes it a better package for presentation.

It sounds like you've developed a good working relationship. 

SR: I love working with Randall, and I love racing and cars, so it was a great opportunity to put my passion for photography forward with this project. We did a lot of work, but it was a lot of fun.

Article courtesy Studio Daily

University of Ottawa Feature Story on Randall P. Dark

High Definition Visionary

Years before TV went digital, theatre grad Randall Dark was well ahead of the curve when it came to exploiting the revolutionary potential of HD.

The University of Ottawa's online magazine, Tabaret, is a digital publication highlighting the stories that have shaped and continue to shape the university's history. The June 2014 issue features an in-depth story on alum Randall P. Dark.

"Because high definition was so real and so vivid, I believed that if you watched a documentary about starving children, it would touch your heart in a way that you would have to react." ~ Randall P. Dark

Randall Dark using a 3D camera to film penguins for the film 3 Cities in 3D, which featured images from Gatlinburg, Sevierville and Pigeon Forge, all in Tennessee.

Randall P. Dark (BA ʼ79, Honours), one of the pioneers of high definition television, says he embraced the technology because he believed sharper images had the power to change the world. But it wasn't easy convincing film industry bigwigs of the merits of HD.

"I was laughed at many, many times," says Dark. "After one demonstration of HD to some of the top cinematographers, directors and producers in New York City, I was viciously attacked. They were saying it looked like video, it was horrible, it was never going to happen. I remember one of my staff asking me, 'Randall, how do you feel? They tore you apart.' But I was elated. I said, 'Did you see how passionately vicious they were, how much they hated it? If it touched them that much, we're on to something.'"

Today, Dark is a producer, director, cinematographer, writer and media consultant who has shot some of the most famous personalities in high definition, including Julie Andrews, Willie Nelson, Harry Connick Jr., Lyle Lovett, Sting, Bill Clinton, Leonard Nimoy and Stephen Hawking. He is considered by the television industry to be a visionary guru who has played a key role in advancing the HD medium.

Dark compares the moment he first saw HD in Toronto in 1986 to someone seeing a Model T Ford during the days of horses and carriages.

"My brain fired and I thought this was going to be the future of so many things. I wanted to help bring it to the world and I was blessed enough to be involved in so much of the roll-out," says Dark.

"Because high definition was so real and so vivid — the colors were perfect, you could see the tiniest detail — I believed that if you had a 65-inch TV in your home and you watched a documentary about starving children, it would touch your heart in a way that you would have to react," says Dark. "I believed it was a technology that would have an impact on people and change their hearts. I honestly believed it would change humanity."

Read the full story by Mike Foster online here

“Makarios: A Rising Tide”

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Randall Dark Productions and Austin Ridge Productions To Co-Produce the Story of Makarios

Randall Dark Productions, LP in association with Austin Ridge Productions, gathered a small crew and travelled through various remote villages in the Puerto Plata region of the Dominican Republic in late October in an effort to capture the story of a unique school called Makarios.

Directed and produced by HD Pioneers, Randall Dark and Kristen Cox, the documentary footage was captured in High Definition using two cameras. The crew spent 4 days shooting over 22 hours of footage. “We were shooting in tiny villages tucked into sugar cane fields where there was no electricity. I had to be very deliberate with our shoot schedule because we were limited to the amount of battery life we had. In order to make as small an impact as possible, we were minimalistic in our lighting and shooting approach,” said Kristen Cox, producer.

Makarios is a school that serves the poorest of the poor in the region. It provides opportunity for the next generation through education and dissolves bitter hatred by educating Dominican and Haitian children together. “These are the kinds of stories that need to be told; it’s why I became passionate about High Definition in the first place! When you look at these adorable little faces and learn that they only get to eat when they go to school, it’s going to break your heart. This technology opens a window to the world for viewers and will ignite a passion in them to help,” explained Randall Dark, director.

“Makarios: A Rising Tide” is currently in post production and is destined for completion early next year. Dark is in negotiations with broadcasters who are interested in airing the final program. La Cie has joined as a partial sponsor.