Life In Slow Motion

When I started me career in the film and TV industry as a special effects editor I had the privilege of working with Oxford Scientific Films, who were world experts at slow motion filming, using high speed cameras with four claws to keep the film from vibrating too much and very short aperture lenses that let in enough light.

This was pushing technology to the very limit and resulted in some of the most well known images the world knew such as the first meaningful images of a hummingbird.

Today, with mobile phones and YouTube we live in a different world.

As a film student each roll of 16mm film I shot and developed cost me two weeks' meals and the quality was not much better than the video I could potentially shoot on the mobile phone I'm using to write this post.

We no longer live our lives in slow motion, but there is a tendency to think that things are moving faster than they are.

Thirteen years ago I undertook my first webcast (a live event for a pharma company) and it seemed obvious to me that, one day very soon, all video would be delivered that way.

Twelve years on we're certainly closer, but still not there. However fast we think the changes in technology are, real life still operates in real time.