More good news on the home front.  The latest S&P/Case-Shiller Home Price Index indicates that home prices gained 1.6% in July compared to a year earlier. Every city tracked in the 20-City Composite has seen prices rise for three straight months and 16 of the 20 cities saw year-over-year increases. “The positive news in both the monthly and annual rates of change in home prices over the past few months signals a possible recovery in the housing market,” noted David M. Blitzer, chairman of the Index Committee at S&P Dow Jones Indices, in a statement.

Blitzer is the latest housing expert to toss around the “r” word.  Last week, for example, the National Association of Realtors reported that existing home sales climbed about 9%  nationally in August from a year earlier. “The housing market is steadily recovering with consistent increases in both home sales and median prices,” explained Lawrence Yun, chief economist of NAR.

A growing pile of data indicates that that national-level recovery is solidifying into a reality (albeit one taking dramatically different shape on a more local level across the country). In addition to the Case-Shiller index and NAR’s sales report, new home construction — a forward-looking indicator of housing market activity — is making a comeback.

August single family home starts are up a hefty 29% since last year, according to the Census Bureau, despite missing analysts’ estimates. Home-builders’ confidence hit its highest level in more than six years this month, according to the National Association of Home Builders. Companies like Lennar, the second-largest home builder in the U.S., have been reporting surprisingly positive quarterly earnings thanks to an uptick in both orders and selling prices, according to my colleague Abram Brown. And Fannie Mae economists estimate that residential investment in 2012 will positively contribute to gross domestic product for the first time since 2005.

All that good news begs the question: what can we expect from housing in the coming months?

“We got to the point where housing couldn’t fall any farther,” notes John Canally, an investment strategist for LPL Financial. “Seven years into it and we are finally seeing a turnaround — but it will be modest at best.”

Canally likens the national-level housing market recovery to a “crooked U” in shape: home prices fell dramatically from 2006 through 2009, then bounced along an uneven bottom (falling a bit more following the expiration of the 2010 home buyer tax credits) for three years before finally beginning to turn upward in recent months.

Lauren Pressman, director of real estate at Aspiriant, also believes housing is making a U-shaped rebound. “It does seem that we are on solid ground for a recovery, or least no more continued depreciation in home prices in most markets,” says Pressman. Yet she doesn’t expect prices to rise dramatically any time soon, thanks to the lackluster jobs market, an overhang of distressed shadow inventory, and ongoing credit issues.

Stan Humphries, chief economist at Zillow.com, has expectations that echo Pressman’s. “We think the bottom is going to be a long flat affair where home value appreciation over the next two to four years, depending on the market, will be in the 1-3%  range,” explains Humphries. Zillow’s formal home value projection (which includes all homes, listed for sale and off the market) entails a 1.1% rate of appreciation from June 2012 through June 2013. Humphries believes a healthy (non-bubble) 2.5-5% rate of appreciation won’t kick in until sometime between 2014 and 2016.

Yet housing inventory levels are down and new construction will take years to move through the development pipeline. Realtors in some markets, like Phoenix, Miami and San Francisco, even report bidding wars. The rapidly diminishing supply of sought-after inventory has some analysts making larger projections. NAR estimates prices of existing homes will rise 10% cumulatively over the next two years. Barclays equity research division warns that a possible shortage of quality inventory could even fuel a “dramatic, multi-year recovery in home prices that could drive prices up 5% to 7% per year through 2015,” according to my colleague Agustino Fontevecchia.

Still, a handful of factors arguably stand in the way. Down payments and tight lending standards remain huge hurdles for aspiring home buyers right now. So does job certainty.

And while the Federal Reserve’s recently announced plan to buy mortgage-backed securities will likely push mortgage rates lower, inspiring some prospective buyers to take the plunge into home ownership, other large policy issues still loom. If the so-called fiscal cliff, in which the Bush tax cuts expire and automatic spending cuts kick in, is realized at the end of this year, it could hamper home sales and new construction starts.  If economic woes worsen in Europe, the consequent downward pressure to the U.S. economy could impact housing similarly. The same could be said of spikes in inflation or energy prices

So how will this housing recovery take shape? It will be a localized recovery in which some markets clock bigger gains than others.  Markets like Phoenix and Miami will continue to log notable gains; markets like Chicago and Atlanta will continue to struggle as distressed inventory filters out into the market. Overall, however, many markets are stabilizing and beginning to reflect positive growth. That growth will translate into a humble increase in the annualized rate of national home price appreciation for 2012. In other words, the very worst of the housing recession is finally behind us but the recovery ahead is likely a long one.

Home Depot CEO Frank Blake says a full recovery in the housing segment will take at least two years because of steep losses experienced in the period stretching from 2007 through 2009, according to a Reuters article.

Blake acknowledged that the housing recovery is already underway, but a full recovery is years off.

Home Depot’s success in the marketplace rests squarely on construction activity levels, making the recent thaw in housing good news for the firm.

Still, Blake is cautious about calling it a turnaround when chatting with Reuters.

“The way we look at it is there’s going to be a period of a workout, a fine period of one to two years and then you’re going to get a more robust recovery,” Blake told the paper.

The stalled recovery is the result of lingering issues in the mortgage credit markets and a large inventory of distressed properties, according to Blake.

“The way we look at it is there’s going to be a period of a workout, a fine period of one to two years and then you’re going to get a more robust recovery,” the CEO told the publication.

Before planning any video shoot, it’s important to have a good understanding of how the footage is going to be edited as this can make a big difference in how you approach the shoot.  There’s a big difference between shooting and then editing versus shooting for the edit.  Ideally you’ll always be shooting for the edit as it leads to a more efficient production when you know who will be editing, what equipment is needed, what shots are required for continuity, etc…

On this week’s Reel Rebel video production tip episode, Stephen explains an important concept to nail down when shooting for the edit called “eyeline matching.”

What is Eyeline Matching? Continuity Editing

Eyeline matching is a film editing technique associated with continuity editing to help establish a logical coherence between shots and make the storytelling smooth, logical and continuous. Eyeline matching is one of the basic building blocks of movie making for a narrative film or story.  Eyeline, as you might guess, refers to the trajectory of the looking eye.  Eyeline matching isn’t just about seeing what the character is looking at, it’s about the angle at which they’re looking at it.  It applies often to other characters, but also applies to anything that can be looked at.

This technique is based on the premise that the viewers will want to see what the character they are watching on the screen is viewing.  This means there will be a cut to show what is being looked at by the character on screen.  It can be:

• An object
• A view
• Another character

The eyeline match will begin with a character looking at something off-screen.  It is then followed by a cut to the object or person at which he is looking.  For instance, a man is looking off-screen to his left, and then the film cuts to a television that he is watching, a character he is looking at, etc.

If you’re watching a movie, and a character is looking off screen at something, your natural expectation is to next see what that character is looking at.  That’s almost always the case, but you can’t just get any old shot of whatever that character is looking at.  You are trying to sell the reality of the film.  This means that when you cut to the shot of whatever you’re character is looking at, the audience needs to believe that they’re looking at it through the eyes of your character.

Examples of Eyeline Matching

For example, Character A, is clearly the star of the show.  Let’s say he’s deciding which pair of shoes to wear.  In the shot, you can see that not only is Character A looking off camera, he is looking DOWN and off camera.  Your audience will expect to see a high angle shot looking down on whatever he is looking at, in this case his shoes, as if from Character A’s point of view.  In shot A you see the angle at which Character A, is looking.  This is his “eyeline.”  In shot B you see what he is looking at from that same angle.

Alfred Hitchcock’s “Rear Window,” is one example of a film that makes frequent use of eyeline matches.  The main character is confined to his apartment.  He looks out its rear window often at events in the buildings across from him.  Hitchcock frequently cuts from the character looking off-screen to the focus of his gaze.

Here’s an example from The Stendhal Syndrome (La Sindrome di Stendhal, Italy,1996) where the Director, Dario Argento has his protagonist Anna looking at Botticelli’s The Birth of Venus (c1485).

The Stendhal Syndrome (La Sindrome di Stendhal, Italy,1996)

The term “eyeline match” can also refer to the practice of setting off-camera eyelines for single shots of characters within a scene.  They are shot so that when these shots are cut together, each of the characters appear to be looking at the correct character, without any confusion. Factors influencing the position of the off-camera eyeline are usually placed off camera, but sometimes are by giving the on-camera actor a mark to look at.  These factors include the 180 degree rule, camera lens/height/distance to subject and geography of the set.  For example, you take matching close-ups of two actors in a scene.  They are shot on the same lens with the camera placed at matching heights.

The eyeline match creates order and meaning in cinematic space.  It gives the viewer what they want and are expecting to see and it can really bring a story to life for the viewer.

Nominal house prices will continue to rise for the UFA 100, a broad based composite index of 100 US cities. Under current economic conditions commonly used house price indices will rise between 8.5 and 22 percent cumulatively over the next five years, but recovery will be slow for the larger metro areas in the Case-Shiller 10 city composite.

These are the key findings of the latest UFA Mortgage Report by University Financial Associates of Ann Arbor, which successfully predicted increased defaults in Southern California in the mid-90s and the current increases in defaults.

“UFA’s nominal, five-year house price forecasts are solidly positive at both the state and metro area levels,” said Dennis Capozza, who is the Dale Dykema Professor of Business Administration in the Ross School of Business at the University of Michigan, and a founding principal of UFA. “This forecast confirms that for lenders, homebuyers and investors in the residential real estate and mortgage markets it is once again safe in most metro areas to go back in the water.”

UFA has provided accurate and timely house price predictions since 1990 -the original and most credible house price forecasts available. The research that UFA’s principals have done underlies many other popular house price forecasts.

The UFA forecast is rosier than the latest price expectations survey of more than 100 experts and economists by Pulsenomics for Zillow.  The September 2012 edition of the Zillow survey found that professional forecasters expect home prices to rise by an average of 2.3 percent during 2012. The survey was compiled from 113 responses by a diverse group of economists, real estate experts and investment and market strategists.

The Zillow survey reflects quite a change in attitude toward home prices this year given that three months ago (for the June survey), economists thought home prices were going to fall by 0.4 percent. The lowest price projection among panelist responses was a depreciation of 2.5 percent by the end of this year, while the highest was an appreciation of 9.2 percent.

By 2016, the average price increase of predictions by Zillow’s survey participants was 15.6 percent.  The most pessimistic in the survey foresaw a 5.6 percent increase in prices while the most optimistic was a 24.2 percent over the next four years.