Joseph Gordon-Levitt’s ‘In A City’ 4K Video Project – WATCH

In a City, the 4K-resolution short film that Joseph Gordon-Levitt directed/coordinated, using a relatively inexpensive ($1,499 for the body only) new Samsung camera called the NX1, has arrived on YouTube and it looks pretty great to this unpracticed eye. Check it out in the video above.

Samsung hired Gordon-Levitt to create the short in what is essentially a sponsored content deal. JoGoLev then reached out to his network of collaborators on his HitRECord.com site to come up with great locations and backing music in the seven cities (on five continents) where the 2:32-minute film was shot. In all, nearly 3,700 contributions came in.

YouTube is beginning to offer 4K streams of video for some channels, such as this one for Samsung and another for high-end 4K camera company Red. The only challenge for viewers, of course, is having a screen that can actually show the video at that high a resolution. Given what’s being whisked out of electronics stores for gifts this holiday season, that issue may get fixed pretty quickly too.

But even on a fairly conventional computer screen, it looks pretty great. I’d love to hear from professional cinematographers and other “golden eye” types what they think of the image quality here, especially if they have a UHD screen to watch. Trends suggest that increasingly inexpensive ultra-high-definition cameras like the NX1, and big distribution outlets such as YouTube that offer 4K options, are going to quickly push video quality (not to mention bandwidth demands on the Internet and other distribution networks) to new levels.