B-Scene Films

Pending review of Zeiss CP.2 and Redrock Micro Matte box

2012-01-19T09:38:00.000-08:00

Stay tuned... I have not blogged in over a year now as I have been too busy. Tomorrow we will have the Zeiss CP.2 50 Makro and 100mm lenses in our hands and I will do a review of these and the Redrock Matte box - Both written and with sample video etc.

Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays to everyone!

2010-12-23T10:19:00.000-08:00

December from 328 Stories on Vimeo.

DSLR and the revolution part 1

2010-09-02T15:17:00.000-07:00

Nance and I have watched with interest the development of the inclusion of HD video into the realm of the DSLR world. Nance has been wanting a full-frame DSLR ever since she saw the Kodak one around 2004. Then we saw "The Last Three Minutes" shot by Shane Hurlbut and his crew, using a Canon 5D Mark II. Then we saw the last episode of House, which was also shot with the 5D.

Since we loved the results of those two "films", we knew we just had to have that camera! Almost all of the lenses that Nance uses are manual Nikkors. In conducting our research, it was clear to us that the Canon was really leading the pack here in terms of value. We also determined that we could use the Nikon glass with the help of a simple adapter. Actually, she got 10 of a different brand on ebay for about $12.50 each. They work great! She almost forgot the Canon back caps.

The first day with the camera, Nance was messing around with it after shooting a bunch of still tests and decided to check out the video. She shot a 10 second clip in natural light and loaded the clip up into FCP after using the EOS capture utility.

She was very excited. She had me look at the footage and I was just blown away by it. It was truly stunning. Clear and vibrant. Just beautiful. At that point I suggested we do some side-by-side testing against the EX3. We have been VERY happy with the EX3 and were anxious to see what the difference was. There was a big difference. And while the EX3 produces stunning results, there was just something very different about the 5D's imagery.

It was very cinematic - Film like. 24p or 30 - It still had this certain quality about it. We were both very surprised by this. Now, we understand the issues with this camera. Specifically:

Fast camera movement distorts the image (rolling shutter "jello" cam)
Moire issues
12 minute recording time
Rolling shutter artifacts (especially with flash)

I tested the moire issue by shooting the roof of a house across the street from us and indeed it was terrible. However, lens selection can be used to minimize this effect. Moreover, I tested the same focal length on the EX3 and got similar results.

For moire effects, if you properly plan your shots with this issue in mind, you can eliminate or at least, minimize this effect. From what we can see, the main drawback for us with this camera is the 12 minute clip length. We do some event shoots and they can involve the camera running for more than an hour at a time. So, for that, we will tend to favor the EX3.

For film narrative, 12 minutes is not a real issue since most shots are a few minutes tops.

Oh - yeah, and this thing takes WONDERFUL stills.

Nance has since purchased a few accessories for the camera and has started testing a workflow that uses Premiere CS5 instead of FCP as Premiere is much more adept at consuming this highly compressed format natively. This past weekend, Nance attended Shane Hurlbut's HDSLR Bootcamp and learned a great deal. I will detail some of the things she learned over the weekend in the next installment of this as well as post up some images from our tests with the camera. Here is a link to Shane's blog about the weekend.

Stay tuned.

Visual Storytelling

2010-07-07T20:45:00.000-07:00

Once in a while you run across something that just speaks to you. Something that transcends culture and language. Sometimes it's a film. Momentos is just such a film. Shot on the 7D, this 6 minute short embodies the concept of visual storytelling. No dialog. Just an emotional story that will touch you.

You can see it HERE.

BTS can be seen HERE.

Zacuto DSLR Shootout part 3 is up

2010-05-29T09:56:00.000-07:00

http://www.zacuto.com/shootout

This is a great series that compares a sampling of the current crop of HDSLR cameras to film. Part 3 is up that covers keying, simulated raw and frame blowup as well as a couple of shorts shot on HDSLR.

If you are at all interested in the future, these are a must see. Highly respected industry professionals share their insights with the results as well. These videos can be a bit talky at the beginning but if you let them queue up a bit you can skip that.

Our lives in the cloud

2010-05-21T16:37:00.000-07:00

We have all heard the flap over Facebook's sharing of private user data with advertisers. And recently about Google collecting data on users. Google. You know, the "Don't be evil" guys. Well, Facebook is a primary resource for lawyers to research their opposition, potential jurors, plaintiffs and defendants...

Recently, in a custody case, a father was testifying to obtain custody of his child and asserted that he had reformed and had not had a drink in over a year. The lawyer for the wife presented a picture of him from his facebook page that showed him drinking a few months prior to the trial...

Many of us maintain email accounts on Gmail, Yahoo and Hotmail among others. All web based services that maintain all of our data on their servers. Additionally, services such as Google Apps or even the more recent Adobe online screenplay authoring tools and Photoshop online products place our information, preferences, location and proprietary works onto the servers of companies with whom most people just tend to place blind trust into.

The public posture of these companies regarding user privacy tends to be one that sounds like they are acting in good conscience. But we as consumers of these services need to be diligent in our use of said services and to assume that these companies will not act appropriately with our privacy.

This is not to say that these service providers will act maliciously against us. However, the assumption that their agenda is aligned with that of their consumers is naive at best and dangerous at worst. It is incumbent upon the consumers of these services to protect ourselves. The assumption that the service providers will do that for us is, again, naive.

So what do WE as consumers need to do? It's very simple. Two things:

Place ONLY information into our online activities that does not compromise our personal privacy. We must ALWAYS assume that there is no privacy on the internet. Not in emai, not in online applications, social websites - NOTHING.
When we see that privacy is being compromised by any service provider we MUST speak out about this. However, our tone must be one that gives the benefit of the doubt to the service provider. This method of raising concern is more likely to be taken seriously than a "Sky is falling, everyone is spying on me" approach.

That's it. Simple. Do not depend on any service provider to maintain your privacy. They may have a policy that protects the user but there are always individuals at any of these companies that can compromise our privacy without the knowledge of that company.

What does this have to do with filmmaking? Nothing, specifically, however I know that a lot of my readers are active on forums, run their own blogs, use cloud based applications and it is important for all of us to act responsibly in the information age.

Be careful out there.

UPDATE: I should also point out that deleting your content from an online service provider only ensures that it is out of the public eye. Service providers do backups and maintain historical records that are obtainable via court order. And, then there is always THIS.

Story boarding and inspirations

2010-05-18T08:05:00.000-07:00

After many, many iterations, I finalized the script for Thicker Than Blood recently and those that have read it have urged me to get this made. And so it begins...

I began story boarding it about a week ago and I have the first scene completed (about 2 minutes and 40 seconds total). It takes me a while to do this as I do not do it in the traditional fashion. I do it with a 3D application called Lightwave 3D. Basically it's a competitor to Maya or 3DS Max. In this process, I have to build all of the sets and props, set the scene and animate all of it. I create a VO of the dialog in the film and bring the final animations into FCP and edit it all together, adding the VO and sound effects.

This allows me to create every setup that will be in the film, to pre-visualize all of it and basically create the entire film on the computer. This is really a wonderful way to do this since I get to see everything before I ever roll the camera. I know what each setup will be. I know how long each shot will be. I can experiment with multiple camera angles on a scene to see which of these best serves the story.

Then, once we are on set, we have already shot the film in the storyboard. We have every aspect of it planned out to the most minute detail. This makes for a fast paced shoot and minimizes wasted time on the set. It does not, however, preclude changing it at the last minute. If some improvement presents itself on the day of the shoot, it will be explored. But, when all else fails, we have the plan to fall back on. To quote the old addage: Plan the shoot and shoot the plan.

One thing that Nancy excels at is over-preparation. Invariably when we do a gig, we are prepared for every contingency. But this makes for a very organized and fast shoot. When noon hits and people are getting hungry, we are ready for it and we are on schedule. Hitchcock always story-boarded every shot in his films. When he got on the set, the film was already shot. He just had the mechanics of putting it on film to deal with...

OK, enough rambling about story-boards. Now for the inspiration...

I have not really spoken about the new DSLRs that are being used for video. However, that does not mean that I have been stuck in a dark room with my head in the sand. Nancy and I have been tracking these developments with great interest. We watched the season closer of House M.D. last night that was shot on the Canon 5D MkII and it was very impressive. These cameras are amazing. And SO small that you can really get them into a very tight situation with ease. I love that idea.

With all of that being said, and with no further ado, I offer to you a short film shot on the 5D MKII by Shane Hurlbut ASC. It's called The last 3 Minutes and it is just stunning. This, my friends, is truly inspiring work:

The Last 3 Minutes

Making of part 1

Making of part 2

The Maltese Falcon

2010-05-11T13:30:00.000-07:00

Nancy and I attended a screening last night at the AMPAS HQ's Samuel Goldwyn theater last night as part of the AMPAS's Film Noir series. Last night they presented The Maltese Falcon. The show was preceded by a series of cartoons and trailers. The idea being that they wanted to emulate the theater going experience as it was in the 40s. The screening was introduced by Lawrence Kasdan who offered a number of insights into the film

The Good

The print was very very clean. The SG theater in the AMPAS HQ is clean as a whistle. None of the normal theater issues were present. No one talked during the film. No cell phone went off. My feet did not stick to the floor. The sound was excellent. Mr. Kasdan offered some nice insights into the film and it was very clear that he is a HUGE fan of this film (as am I) admitting to having seen it more than 20 times. The daughter and granddaughters of Dashiell Hammett were in attendance and informed the MC and Mr. Kasdan that his name is pronounced DASH - EELE. Not DASH-ALL as most folks would have assumed and have probably heard Hollywood say countless times in the past.

The Bad

Well, not too much bad here. Nance had not seen the film in many years and was displeased that Mr. Kasdan pointed out a large number of the humorous gags in the film. She likened it to a trailer that has all of the good jokes in it. Other than that it was a packed house. We got there around 6:45 and it took the ushers quite some time to find 2 seats together for Nance and I.

If you have the opportunity to attend one of these I highly recommend it.

The NAB Wrap up

2010-04-25T11:32:00.000-07:00

Well, the show is over and the number of changes that we are seeing is occurring at an astonishing rate. I think we are not that far from the point where digital imagery can supplant film in terms of look, latitude, and dynamic range, not to mention resolution. Mark my words, there will come a day when content producers will wonder why people were obsessed with the "film look" back in the dawn of the digital image revolution.

The first time I looked at making a film was around 1988. It was a simple short that had both interiors and exteriors and was about 15 minutes in length. After doing my research, I determined that my cost to do this was going to be around $33,000. An amount that far exceeded my fiduciary wherewithal at the time.

A mere ten years later, the landscape had changed so significantly as to reduce this cost by half. And in another 10 years the cost had come down so low and the quality had gone up so much as to rival the same trends that we have seen in the computer world.

So, with all of that perspective in mind, let's look at what some of the more significant announcements were at NAB that I did not cover in the previous blog post.

DaVinci Resolve

Blackmagic Design's announcement of the pricing of DaVinci Resolve truly exemplifies the type of lower cost / higher quality that I spoke of above. DaVinci color correction has been the bar to which all others have aspired in this arena. In the past, this color correction system has been used by all of the big Hollywood studios and the big post houses. After all, they were the only ones that could afford such a high end tool (some configurations topping $1M in cost).

And now, Black Magic Design is offering DaVinci Resolve in a software only configuration for the Mac for $995. That's just insane... Now you won't be doing 2K footage on this platform but you can do HD footage all day long. Just as a caveat, it does require a control surface. Also, performance can be increased by the addition of GPU based video cards and Resolve will leverage the additional processing power of the GPUs.

There was a ton of very cool stuff at NAB this year. I think that this one tops the list.

Arri Alexa

Clearly targeted at the RED ONE, the new Arri digital camera looks to be a real game changer. Coming in at around $65K with accessories, it is competitive in price to the RED ONE, similarly equipped. The Alexa is a 2K camera rated at ISO 800. Admittedly, at these prices, most of the users are renting, but it's still significant in terms of reduced costs. AWN's blog covered a side by side test of the new RED Mysterium X equipped camera and the Alexa HERE. One of the clear advantages that Arri has here is their infrastructure for professional cameras and their experience in the pro world. But, at the end of the day, it's the image that matters. And people are stunned by what they have seen.

I think we can all thank RED for precipitating developments like this. Competition is good.

LITEPANELS Sola series

LitePanels introduced a set of Fresnel LED lights that look to be pretty incredible. For me, the Sola 12 is of particular interest. This is a 2K Fresnel that draws 250 watts of power. It's also dim-able with no impact on color temp. That's huge. You can have 4 of these running off of household current. This is really nice when you are on a practical set and have no generator. Most of your typical household circuits are rated at about 2K watts or so. This is very slick. Speaking of LitePanels, we have one of their smaller on-cam lights that we use to do things like stuffing a light into a cramped space (We used it recently on a shoot to light the interior of a refrigerator). The name used for these is Grenade - Because of the similarity of the array of LEDs to an old style "Pineapple" Grenade. So make sure you don't drop it :)

OK, I am going to stop bending your ear here. If you want more highlights from the show, be sure and check out FreshDV's coverage of the show. It's second to none. But, I will leave you with this lame joke:

Q: How many grips does it take to screw in a light bulb?
A: Two. One to hold it and one to hammer it in.

NAB 2010

2010-04-13T08:56:00.000-07:00

Wow. The stuff showing up at NAB this year is just stunning... I'll do some brief coverage of some of the elements that are essential to what we do here at B-Scene.

Adobe CS5

One of the big items to get announced is Adobe's CS5 suite. Before I get into AE, I want to point out a technology in Photoshop that looks just amazing. It's called Content Aware. Check out this preview from Adobe Labs:

Some folks are saying that GIMP has had this ability for a while now. I tried GIMP a long time ago and found that I preferred the UI in Photoshop. Now I have to go back and have another look at GIMP and see how it compares to the new Photoshop...

After Effects new big feature is Roto Brush. If you have ever done rotoscoping, you know the challenges that this can represent and the tedium associated with it. If you look at the first shot in our Post Production reel (HERE) you can see where we had to roto out a tripod leg from the bottom of the shot. This kind of thing is particularly challenging when the element to be removed starts out of frame. It will be interesting to see how well RotoBrush can deal with this kind of situation. You can see some of Mark Christiansen's tutorial on RotoBrush HERE.

Premiere Pro's updates are pretty big as well. The addition of the new Mercury rendering engine is pretty huge. The offloading of image rendering to the GPU is a major paradigm shift for an NLE like this. The addition of Script-to-Screen is also interesting. Not sure how useful this will be but we will have to give it a try. You can see a discussion of that HERE as well. The integration with Adobe Story is an interesting direction. Adobe Story is a cloud based app for screenwriting that is clearly aimed at products like Final Draft.

Oh - And ALL of the CS5 apps are now 64 bit. ONLY. That's right, if you are still running a 32 bit OS, you will NOT be able to run CS5 until you upgrade. So, what does 64 bit buy you? It's huge, I tell you, HUGE!

64 bits means faster. And, at the end of the day, faster is what it's all about. I have always said that the fastest computer in the world is too slow. And I meant it. With 64 bit applications, the application can move elements around in memory twice as fast as 32 bit. Oh, and it means the apps will be able to use more memory. With 32 bits, the upper limit of physical memory was 4GB. With 64 bits it is (in theory), 16.3 billion gigabytes, 16.3 million terabytes, or 16 exabytes of RAM. I say in theory because some CPU manufacturers limit this...

Not that anyone is going to max that out anytime soon (famous last words, I know...).

Redrock Micro Remote

As owner/operators of a Steadicam rig, the new Redrock Micro Remote is HUGE. The integration of an iPod Touch or iPhone to the remote to run Redrock's focus application is just genius. This is a real game changer for folks like us. Rather than blather on endlessly about this device, I'll let FreshDV's NAB video coverage do the talking for us:

freshdv_nab10_REDROCKMICRO_FOCUS REMOTE

That's all for now, I will post some comments on the AMAZING new cameras that were released so far at NAB. Some of which answer the question that my friends and I have been asking for two years: Why can't they take the big imagers from the still cameras and make a pro HD or 2K camera at low cost?

The Mantra of the Five

2010-04-08T20:22:00.000-07:00

Many times, we get footage for post that exhibits a clear disregard for the 5 steps that should be used for any given setup in a narrative context. This always creates more work for us and a greater cost to the client. The client does themselves a disservice by not taking the time to do each setup on the set with the 5 steps.

Performing the 5 steps takes longer than just jumping in and shooting. But this will pay off in spades in terms of both the look and the performance of the talent. The mantra of the five is:

Block
Light
Rehearse
Tweak
Shoot

Let's take each one in turn...

Block

The director blocks the action with the actors. During this time, the lighting crew can also be doing rough setup for the lighting phase as long as it does not interfere with the director. Typically, the AD will be putting tape marks down on the floor for the talent to use to repeat the action for the scene. Sometimes the marks are numbered so that the director can tell the talent to start a take at a given point in the scene (Everybody back to 2, etc. called by the AD)

As the blocking is taking place, the DP is watching how the talent is placed in the scene and formulates a plan for lighting the shot that meets the needs of the particular scene. The DP may also, at this point, rehearse any camera moves that need to take place.

Light

Once the blocking is complete, the talent typically gets made up and is off the set. The DP can now direct the gaffer to set the lights. In this process, it is generally a good idea to have stand-ins doing the action for the DP while the lighting is taking place so that the DP can see how the light is going to fall onto the talent.

Rehearse

At this point, the lighting should be correct or at least very close. The talent returns to the set and the AD calls "Rehearsal is up". The director then goes through the scene with the talent as many times as the director deems necessary. Any camera moves associated with the scene are also rehearsed here.

Tweak

Once the rehearsal is complete, the DP can make final fine tuning adjustments to the lighting. Once the DP is satisfied that the scene is lit correctly, they let the AD know that they are ready.

Shoot

That's it. You shoot the scene. When you are ready for the next setup, you repeat the mantra of the 5 before you put ANYTHING down on tape or film or digital media...

In other news... I put a short post showreel up on the website. You can see it HERE

Lots of projects and a new web site

2010-03-31T17:00:00.000-07:00

In general...

So far, 2010, has been insanely busy. We have been busy with 2 jobs. Both shooting and posting a romantic comedy indie film and a local talk show. Our business has always been through word of mouth. We never need to advertise as we always seem to have plenty of work in the pipeline. We are just about done with these two projects. I had to roto a number of shots to remove things like an errant china ball and someone's face in the shot that should not have been there...

Nance has picture lock on the romantic comedy and I will finalize the sound for it tonight so that it can get into the mail tomorrow for a festival deadline. Once these are done, we are meeting with some clients to discuss the possible production of a dramatic web series. Considering the economy, it's surprising how busy we are...

New web site!

As I mentioned above, we don't advertise. For a LONG time our web site has just had a static graphic logo on it and some contact info. Nance has long wanted a nice update to the site so I took a weekend and re-did the site. I used an old design that I had had up on the site long ago that I liked. The problem with the old layout was that it was done all in tables and was a nightmare to update.

So, for the new version, I decided to do two major changes:

A pure CSS implementation.
An ASP.NET database driven site with content manager.

So, what does all that geek speak mean? Well, it means that making changes to the site is MUCH easier as a result of using CSS to control the position and appearance of all of the elements on the pages. And, should I decide to change a specific repeating element, it only has to change in one place and the ability to make precision changes to the pages is much simpler.

Another goal that I had was to make the site DB driven so that we do not have to change the web site to update it but rather use a web interface that lets us update the content in the database and then have the site gather it's content for display from there.

As of now, the web site is fully DB driven. I am currently waiting for a free time window to finish the content manager pages so that Nance and I can make fast, error free updates to the site. You can check it out at: http://www.b-scenefilms.com

In other news...

We recently augmented our venerable Sony Z1 camera with a new Sony EX3. The Z1 has served us very well over the years but recently it started to introduce a digital glitch into some of the footage. The issue is intermittent and we have no real way of predicting when it will occur. We noticed the issue just prior to taking on a gig and decided the time was right for an upgrade.

We are VERY happy with this camera. About 11 stops of latitude as opposed to the Z1's 8 or so. Big difference with the 1/2 chips. Getting good focus can be a real challenge. The other issue is that with a new camera, you need new accessories...

We still need to upgrade the Redrock M2 adapter for the EX3 as the newer M2E version is better suited to the camera. The Redrock Follow focus works fine with the EX3 but I had to buy a D size gear ring to fit the larger lens. I also had to remove the zoom ring stud on the EX3 since it would interfere with the FF unit. Other than that, works fine.

And, since we still wanted to use the old tripod and head for the Z1, we had to buy a new tripod and fluid head for the EX3. And, the EX3 does not support LANC so you have to get a zoom / record controler specific for the EX3 - Another $200...

Now, all of that being said I will say that we are VERY pleased with the EX3. I think it will serve our needs for a long time to come. The ability for the camera to output 4:2:2 HD from the HD-SDI connector provides a nice path to a better output medium as well.

So, other than that, we are bored :)

For all you editors out there

2010-03-23T12:24:00.000-07:00

Friend of mine sent me this audio clip. It's a rip on the "Real Men of Genius" Bud commercial series - This is focused on rough cuts.

Enjoy:

Real Marketing Genius

Rear projection

2010-02-23T09:52:00.000-08:00

Last night, Nance and I were watching a bit of Hitchcock's To Catch a Thief and we got into a discussion of rear projection. For those that are not familiar, this was a technique that was used before blue (and subsequently green) screen chroma keying techniques for replacing elements in a shot or providing backgrounds. Basically, a large translucent screen was placed behind the talent and a projector whose shutter was synchronized to the camera projected footage onto the screen. This was used a great deal for car interior shots where everything was shot on a soundstage, the car set was mounted on springs, and grips would rock the car to simulate the car driving down the road.

Nance pointed out how obvious this technique was in the films. We made a game out of guessing what scenes were using this technique and to be fair, there were some scenes where it was pulled off very well. Others, not so much. Today, audiences are MUCH more sophisticated and demand a much higher quality of compositing in films. To give you an idea of just how much this technique is employed in popular content, check out the demo reel for Stargate Studios here:

Also note that not ALL of this is green screen. There is also a lot of matte shot replacement techniques in use here as well.

Le Cliche

2010-02-08T10:13:00.000-08:00

For Christmas this year, Nance got me two books about movie cliche's. Both edited by Roger Ebert. They are:

Ebert's Little Movie Glossary: A Compendium of Movie Cliches

And

Ebert's "Bigger" Little Movie Glossary

These are great resources for writers that want to avoid the old worn out stereotypes and cliches that populate most of today's filmed entertainment. I HIGHLY recommend these for non-writers and writers alike. Both of these books make great bathroom reading as you can read a few of the entries at a crack :)

To get a taste of what this is, you can check out this list of 100 movie cliche's that just wont die HERE.

Nuit Blanche

2010-02-05T12:15:00.000-08:00

I don't usually post indie short films on here but I ran across this recently and just had to share.

This is a combination of live action, 3D animation with Maya and 3DS max, compositing still plates and greenscreen.

Check it out HERE.

Jinni

2010-01-26T08:08:00.001-08:00

Just a quick note - Ran across this great search site called Jinni. If you are looking for a fast search engine that lets you put in plot keywords or sub-genre keywords and find matching films, this site is well worth a book mark.

Check it out HERE.

The 3rd and the 7th

2010-01-10T16:47:00.000-08:00

I am a huge fan of 3D computer art. Especially photo-realistic. Photo-realistic is particularly demanding work. In something like Avatar, since it is representing a world that is unknown to the audience, the artists can take liberties that ease the burden of creating a world. However, photo-realistic art requires that the artist create a world that IS known to the audience and as such they must maintain a significantly higher level of detail. As such, this represents the most exacting form of 3D computer art.

I recently came across what has to be the most stunning example of this that I have ever seen. And, while there is little to no story here, I think that it truly stands on it's own in terms of pure imagery.

So, as you watch this, remember that this is all computer rendered and created by the CG artist Alex Roman. Make sure to enable HD and watch this full screen.

Enjoy.

http://www.vimeo.com/7809605?hd=1

Merry Christmas!

2009-12-25T09:04:00.000-08:00

Wishing all of you a very Merry Christmas and a wonderful holiday season!

Mike and Nance

The Auteurs

2009-08-25T11:55:00.000-07:00

One of the complaints (and I share this complaint) regarding the NetFlix streaming service is that you cannot get the commentaries on the films. Another complaint that I have is no CC track but that's another story...

So, we have a startup that intends to fill the gap. They will stream films with commentaries as well as maintain a focus on classic film and art film. They are already in talks with Criterion to provide their content and commentaries as streams.

I hope they succeed. There is clearly a market niche that can be filled here nicely.

Check them out HERE.

The importance of slating.

2009-08-03T08:41:00.000-07:00

I have always been a huge proponent of slating all shots. I cannot begin to describe the importance of this as well as to stress the impact that the clapper loader can have on a scene.

Now, finally, someone agrees with me. Check it out HERE.

ProRes 444 + PAL in Color 1.5 = NFG

2009-07-27T17:13:00.001-07:00

I just love this:

Apple KB Article.

Thanks Apple. Clearly related to the Quicktime gamma shift that has been in Quicktime for like - well, forever...

I see it all the time if I try to render out of AE. Then you have to apply this:

After rendering into a QuickTime/h.264 file, open it up in QuickTime and select “Show Movie Properties.” Highlight the video track then click on the “Visual Settings” tab. Towards the bottom left you should see “Transparency” with a drop-down box next to it. Select “Blend” from the menu then move the “Transparency Level” slider to 100%. Choose “Straight Alpha” from the same drop-down and close the properties window and finally “Save.”

Apple really needs to fix this. I am going to guess that it must be an overwhelming task to fix it as they have, long ago, acknowledged that it is in issue.

FCS 2009 first impressions

2009-07-25T14:31:00.000-07:00

Well, after the obligatory 6 hours of installing the software, Nancy and I had a little bit of time to check things out. We took the feature that she is re-editing (Surviving in LA) and loaded it up. It asked to convert the project from version 6 to the current version 7 and then proceeded to load the project just fine.

We LOVE the new TC overlay window. VERY nice. Would have been nice to also be able to specify a TC to jump to using this but alas is it display only. Still a very nice improvement. Nance loves the new marker system as she is a marker junkie.

For grins, I rendered out some animation from Lightwave to the new ProRes 444 codec (since I do not have access to a camera that produces an uncompressed colorspace) and looked at it in FCP and it is truly stunning. And very fast as well. This is a really nice addition.

We also tried out the iChat theater system that will truly prove to be a boon. SO nice to be able to show the client a WIP and get approvals that way. I played with Motion briefly and the new features look to be a nice addition to the app. I tend to prefer doing quick and dirty motion graphic work in Motion as opposed to AE which I reserve for more complex projects.

Nance will dig into the changes for Color next week I suspect and after she does I will post her thoughts here. The update to STP includes a thing called Voice Level Match. This will allow you to match dialog amplitude across multiple clips simply by clicking once on the clip that you want the other clips to match to and then click on the errant clips to level ONLY the dialog to that first clip.

I admit I was sceptical. So I did a test where I setup a bunch of background cacophany in my studio here - Mostly music and other sound effects. I then recorded some dialog in the room at two different distances from the mic. Then I tested the Voice Level Match. It was VERY simple to use and it worked amazingly! Very cool.

As has been noted elsewhere, DVDSP has NOT been updated. They did add the ability to burn right from Compressor including Blu-Ray, but DVDSP still remains stuck at version 4. A friend of mine speculates that Apple wants physical media to go the way of the Dodo and as such will not invest development time into DVDSP.

So, all in all, $300 (x2 for each machine) is money well spent on this. I HIGHLY reccomend the update as well as the new package if you are not a current user. While there were a LOT of things I was hoping for that Apple did NOT do in this release, it is still a solid update and well worth the money.

There are some nice training resources for free online now for this. lynda.com has about 3 hours of training and Ripple has training that covers only the new features. So the combination of the two make a nice free training suite.

Additionally, Apple has put ALL of the ProApps docuementation online HERE.

Final Cut Studio 2009 packaging

2009-07-24T16:32:00.000-07:00

Well, FCS arrived and I was a bit amazed. Previously, FCS was in a huge box that weighed a ton with all of the manuals. Now what we have is a small box, the size of a stack of DVDs. All documentation is provided on disk.

Thank you Apple. This is a very green solution, adds convenience to the user, is less wasteful and reduces costs which Apple has clearly passed on to the customer.

Nice work.

Final Cut Studio 2009

2009-07-24T11:29:00.000-07:00

As I am sure everyone is aware was released yesterday morning at about 8:30 AM EST. I have been under NDA on this for a while so I was aware of what this was going to be feature wise. It's an incremental update and the update price is very cheap at $299. I won't go into all the new features here right now as there are plenty of blogs doing that as I write this.

I will have my copy of it this afternoon and this weekend I will blog about the install / upgrade experience and how it handles my existing projects in each of the apps. I'll also put together a set of links for reviews and comments on it as well as links to the plethora of free training that is now up on the net that Apple partnered with to create.

Stay tuned.

Snow Leopard, QT X and FCS 2

2009-07-20T18:21:00.001-07:00

Just a quick note that I had a chance to test FCS 2 under Snow Leopard. I did a variety of tests with all of the apps except DVDSP. I had NO issues with any of it. FCP worked just fine as did Color, STP, Compressor and Motion.

Saul Bass

2009-07-17T20:34:00.000-07:00

Saul Bass was, among other things, a title designer. He had 61 feature film credits to his name and he had a very distinctive style. Starting in 1954 with Carmen Jones, his career spanned 5 decades up to doing the title sequence for Casino in 1995 (He is credited with the title sequence for 1998's remake of Psycho but it was the title sequence that he had designed for the original film). Saul was active in this art until his death at 76 in 1996.

Saul Bass had done it all. Films. Packaging. Products. Architecture. Corporate identification. Graphics.

Saul Bass's client list included United Airlines, Continental Airlines, Frontier Airlines; North American Rockwell, Hunt Wesson, Quaker, Alcoa, Lawry's, Dixie, Saturday Evening Post, Warner, Minolta, The United Way, Girl Scouts and many more.

A classic example of Saul's style can be found in the opening credits of Otto Preminger's Anatomy of a Murder:

And a look at what Star War's might have been with Saul's touch:

Saul also directed a film that was a personal passion. The film was crewed by friends and family and I had only heard of the film but had never had the chance to see it. Recently, I ran across it on the net. So, with no further ado, I present Quest:

Part 1:

Quest 01
Uploaded by FreeSaulBass. - Watch feature films and entire TV shows.

Part 2:

Quest 02
Uploaded by FreeSaulBass. - Check out other Film & TV videos.

Saul Bass's Film Title Design Credits:

Psycho (1998) (title designer)
Casino (1995) (title designer)
A Personal Journey with Martin Scorsese Through American Movies (1995) (TV) (title designer)
Higher Learning (1995) (title designer)
The Age of Innocence (1993) (title designer)
Mr. Saturday Night (1992) (title designer)
Cape Fear (1991) (title sequence by)
Doc Hollywood (1991) (title designer)
Preminger: Anatomy of a Filmmaker (1991) (title designer)
Goodfellas (1990) (title designer)
The War of the Roses (1989) (title designer)
Big (1988) (title designer)
Broadcast News (1987) (title designer)
The Human Factor (1979) (title designer)
Alien (1979) (title designer) (uncredited)
That's Entertainment, Part II (1976) (title designer)
Rosebud (1975) (title designer)
Phase IV (1974) (title designer)
Such Good Friends (1971) (title designer)
Grand Prix (1966) (title designer)
Not with My Wife, You Don't! (1966) (title designer)
Seconds (1966) (title designer)
Bunny Lake Is Missing (1965) (title designer)
In Harm's Way (1965) (title designer)
The Cardinal (1963) (title designer)
The Victors (1963) (title designer)
It's a Mad Mad Mad Mad World (1963) (title designer)
Nine Hours to Rama (1963) (title designer)
"Alcoa Premiere" (title designer) (1 episode, 1962)
Advise & Consent (1962) (title designer)
Walk on the Wild Side (1962) (title designer)
Something Wild (1961) (title designer)
West Side Story (1961) (title designer)
Exodus (1960) (title designer)
The Facts of Life (1960) (title designer)
Spartacus (1960) (design consultant)
Ocean's Eleven (1960) (title designer)
Psycho (1960) (pictorial consultant) (title designer)
North by Northwest (1959) (title designer)
Anatomy of a Murder (1959) (title designer)
The Big Country (1958) (title designer)
Vertigo (1958) (title designer)
Bonjour tristesse (1958) (title designer)
Cowboy (1958) (title designer)
The Pride and the Passion (1957) (title designer)
Saint Joan (1957) (title designer)
The Young Stranger (1957) (title designer)
Edge of the City (1957) (title designer)
Around the World in Eighty Days (1956) (title designer)
Attack (1956) (title designer) (uncredited)
Storm Center (1956) (title designer)
Johnny Concho (1956) (title designer)
Trapeze (1956) (title designer) (uncredited)
The Man with the Golden Arm (1955) (title designer)
The Big Knife (1955) (title designer)
The Night of the Hunter (1955) (publicist) (uncredited)
The Shrike (1955) (title designer)
The Seven Year Itch (1955) (title designer)
The Racers (1955) (title designer)
Carmen Jones (1954) (title designer)

Sign of the times

2009-06-22T21:53:00.000-07:00

Well, they did it. Kodak has officially retired Kodachrome. I know there are those that will disagree, but I think that film's days are numbered. As digital technology advances (although it seems to have slowed recently), the ability to produce images digitally with the latitude and resolution of film are quickly approaching. MSNBC has the story HERE.

Sad in a way. I shot many hundreds of rolls of Kodachrome and loved the images it produced...

Kodak's Kodachrome gallery can be seen HERE.

Pixar

2009-06-21T09:40:00.000-07:00

I have to confess, I love what Pixar does. I have seen every film they have done and while some are better than others, I have thoroughly enjoyed every film. The company has an amazing history. A small group of computer geniuses at ILM who had a dream for computer animation. A dream that Steve Jobs was able to see when he purchased the division from Lucas and spun it off into Pixar.

Pixar's original product was a very high end rendering package. In addition to this, the company was winning awards at Siggraph with their amazing animated shorts as well as making about 5 animated commercials for products such as Listerene. When it became clear that sales of the rendering product and revenues from the commercials were not going to sustain the company, Steve Jobs, John Lassiter and Ed Catmull struck a deal with Disney to produce a feature.

And the rest, as they say...

I have been a Lightwave 3D user for many many years. Doing good 3D work is hard. REALLY hard. I know how much work I put into my Lightwave projects and I look at Pixar's work and I am always floored by it.

This morning I ran across a story about a 10 year old girl that was dying of cancer and whose dying wish was to see Up before she died. Her cancer was advanced to the point that she was bedridden at home. The family frantically contacted Pixar to ask for their help. They responded by sending an employee to the girl's home with a DVD of the film. They screened the film for the young girl who passed 7 hours later.

Pixar does not acknowledge that this happened nor will they say who the employee was.

Thanks, Pixar. You guys are, as I always suspected, a class act.

You can read the news story HERE.

Thy Will Be Done

2009-06-13T10:49:00.000-07:00

One of the folks I work with, Jacob Cunningham, recently completed his first film. It's a documentary about a paraplegic. I had the opportunity to view the film and I thought it was just stunning. A number of elements of this film differentiate it from the typical doc and I wanted to get the word out about it. The film recently opened the Ventura Film Festival.

Jacob met Carl Erickson at the apartments where he lived and the topic of what Carl did for a living came up. Carl said that he was the caregiver for Kevin Natale, a paraplegic. Carl went on to describe the circumstances under which Kevin was stricken down at the age of 14 by a bullet.

Kevin was at home when his 21 year old neighbor, Brian Adams, came over to the house and shot Kevin. To this day, no one really knows why Brian did this and Brian, now serving time, is not talking.

The film, chronicles the events leading up to the shooting and what Kevin has endured in the intervening 19 years since the shooting. The lives that have been shattered and all of the impact that this single event has had on those directly involved as well as those on the periphery.

Some of the things that stand out in this film are the truths that are presented. Some of it inspiring, some of it sad. Jacob does not gloss over the ugly parts of the story (such as Kevin and Carl's shared drug addiction) as many films of this type tend to do. This type of storytelling is, in my opinion, a much stronger form than many other docs that tend to gloss over the underbelly of a story.

Another aspect of this film is the fact that it it has had a measurable positive impact on the lives of those in the film. Jacob has a number of interviews with Brian's mom, Joyce. What struck me about this is that she is one of the innocent parties whose life has been forever changed by these events. Typically, in stories like this, the peripheral folks are glossed over or are judged. This is not the case here. You come away with a real feeling that this is really one of the true victims in all of this.

Jacob facilitates a meeting between Kevin and Joyce for the first time since the shooting. In the intervening 19 years, Kevin had reached a point of forgiveness for Joyce and Brian and conveys this in their meeting. Without Jacob's film, this might never have happened.

The film is very well paced and very engaging. It's well photographed and the viewer's interest is constantly maintained. There was only one shot in the film that I felt needed adjustment and after talking to Jacob he knew exactly the shot I meant before I described it and said this was one of the places he was planning to make a final adjustment on.

If you have the opportunity to see this excellent film, I urge you to do so. You will walk away with an insight into some lives that have endured a real tragedy and see some very strong people deal with this in both positive and negative ways.

Bravo, Jacob.

Media package vs. Streaming

2009-05-25T10:50:00.000-07:00

Last year I wrote about the fact that my perfect home movie delivery mechanism would be HD on demand for a fixed price such as the NetFlix model. Well, since that time, NetFlix has started a service to implement just that.

I own an xBox 360. NetFlix first partnered with Microsoft to provide delivery of content via the internet to the xBox. When this was announced, I jumped all over this... I had to update my xBox account to a paid online account. This was done by buying an account card from a local video game store.

Once this was done and I had setup the account, I had access to a new que in NetFlix for on-demand content. I qued up some HD movies and some SD movies and set about watching them.

The upside:

It's great being able to jump onto the NetFlix web site and add a film to my que and watch it immediately. For example, Nancy's sister is visiting us right now for her last week in the U.S. before she moves to southern India. As we were discussing India, the topic of Ghandi came up and she said she had never seen the film. I was able to jump onto Netflix and add it, go into the family room and immediately watch it with her.

Nice...

The Downside:

This is new technology. As such, it still needs to mature a bit. Rewinding or fast forwarding can be a bit painful as it has to re-que the video before it plays it and this can take up to 20 seconds to do. Moreover, when you start a film, the system guages your connection speed and scales the quality of the video to match it.

Many times, it has decided on a very high bitrate only to encounter a connection slowing at which point it stops the film, resets the sample rate and rebuffers the video at the reduced quality. This can be disruptive and annoying.

Overall, the feel of this system is clunky. But, I suppose, this is to be expected with a new system like this. Additionally, they have a lot of catching up to do in terms of converting titles to their streaming system. So you have a significantly reduced set of titles to choose from vs. the DVD library offered by NetFlix.

Conclusion:

We're close. This system needs finessing but it's damn close. They need to add the extras that DVDs offer and clean up the video buffering model that they are using so that the viewer's experience is uninterupted. As it is right now, I use it and I am mostly happy with it.

I think this is the future. No more buying DVDs. Why would you? If a film has repeat viewing value, just add it to your que again. The addition of NetFlix's excellent web site for adding and managing titles as well as tracking your preferences is an added bonus.

And, finally, NetFlix has also added this to TiVo. The TiVo interface is a LOT more rudimetary than the xBox incarnation. However, if you have a NetFlix account and a TiVo with lifetime subscription support, there is no added cost unlike the xBox where I had to spend $40 on an anual account upgrade. Still, $40 is not the end of the world.

Gearhead Revisited

2009-05-19T19:15:00.000-07:00

Back in June of 08, I was pining for a low cost gear head for the indie crowd (original post HERE). Almost exactly one year later, there is an answer from a company called GearNex. They demoed this at NAB 09 and the folks that I talked to that got to see it were very very impressed. Multi-speed transmission for both tilt and pan providing adjustable turn ratios.

The unit is priced at $4995 pre-order and expected first units to be shipped in June. They are saying they have a 6 to 8 week delivery time due to back orders now. Now, while $4995 is not a drop in the bucket for most indie folks, it IS a huge difference between the cost of an ArriHead or Mitchell gear head. And, rental is always an option as well.

If I get my greasy paws on a unit, I will post a detailed review here.

Back to the grindstone

2009-05-17T20:57:00.000-07:00

Dateline: May 2009, Moorpark, CA:

Well after an insanely busy few months, I am FINALLY back to doing a bit of blogging here. And, there is a LOT to blog about! First off, what have I had going on in my life?

Well, I went through the joy of a kidney stone and I have another on the way. Not fun...
I lost a friend of mine in a motorcycle accident about 2 months ago. Danny Mourning, who played the tough guy in our film "The Aquarium".

Nancy has been re-editing a feature film "Surviving in LA". It's an independent feature that was shot on 35mm. Some of the original edit was "interesting". One sequence in particular I looked at and my initial response was that it was so bad it should just be cut entirely but Nancy re-cut it and it's stunning now.

I finished the conversion of the main web site of my employer from classic ASP to ASP.net. This was an insanely time consuming and difficult task. The web site is one of the most complex systems I have ever worked on. 16 hour days, 7 days a week but we finally got it done and it is 99% good to go. Still a few glitches here and there.

Nancy got her SteadiCam certification completed and then had to have surgery so she has not been able to do any vigorous physical activity but she is almost 100% and should be back in the rig soon enough.

The Aquarium has an IMDB page after all these years LOL. After the folks at IMDB are done updating it, I will post a link in the blog.

After about 20 drafts, Thicker Than Blood is finally complete and we are starting pre-production on it. I have started storyboarding it in Lightwave. I will be blogging the progress of the film as we move through the process.

So that pretty much catches us up, dear reader.

Media Updates:

And speaking of Steadicam shots, this was pointed out to me recently: A Steadicam operator using a Segway. Amazing stuff. Check it out on the ProVideo Coalition site HERE.

Recently, someone pointed out this Spanish commercial on YouTube to me:

Just a STUNNING masterwork of storytelling. In about 48 seconds, we are introduced to a character that we are immediately invested in, watch her as she goes through the creation of her gift and finally come to see her selflessness in the end. No dialog.

Nice.

OK, I have a list of topics that I have piled up here to blog on, so I will leave you this this for tonight. More this week.

Mike

Long time...

2009-04-06T21:47:00.000-07:00

Don't ask.

Just read this if you are an Indy fan:

HERE

Wow - Over a month since I have posted

2008-09-28T09:13:00.000-07:00

Has not been a lot to report here lately. Most items of interest are covered elsewhere and Nancy and I have been busy posting 5 shows.

However - In case you have not heard of the short film Reverie that was shot on the new Canon EOS 5D MkII still camera, you HAVE to see this. It's just amazing stuff and the author, Vincent Laforet has been VERY generous with this. He has posted original raw clips right from the camera that you can download at his site and play with.

All he asks is that you comment on his blog regarding the need for 24p on the EOS 5D camera so that he can get the message across to Canon.

Check out the blog HERE, the film HERE and download footage HERE.

New David Mullen thread for Stay Cool

2008-08-30T11:28:00.000-07:00

David Mullen A.S.C. is doing another journal over at Red User on his latest film "Stay Cool". His descriptions and wealth of filmmaking knowledge make these journals a MUST read for any indie filmmaker.

Check it out HERE.

Sunday I should have part one of my review of the Focus Enhancements FS-5 online with lots of pics as well.

Stay tuned!

Poor video quality + digital stills = good results

2008-08-17T10:20:00.000-07:00

I ran across this on the net this weekend. The practice of shooting video and photographing the same material. Using standard DV and enhancing it using higher resolution / dynamic range still photographs. The results are quite interesting. Of course, this presumes that the stills that you take will be better than the quality of the video. Nevertheless, the results here can be pretty nice. This can also be easily applied to wire removal and object removal.

Check it out HERE.

Going Postal

2008-08-03T12:23:00.000-07:00

As in post production. Nancy and I are in the midst of doing post for 3 operas and Nancy is finishing up post on a photo session that she did prior to this last batch of operas.

We have about 30 DVDs to produce for each opera as well as artwork for the labels and DVD cases, so we have a lot of work in front of us. On the second opera the Tascam HD-P2 dropped about 2 seconds of audio in the middle of the second half of the opera. We were recording backup audio using a shotgun mic that was place further back in the theater so we had to use that to fill that gap.

After that incident I did extensive testing of the HD-P2 and was never able to re-produce this problem again. Very strange but shows it pays to have a backup on events like this where there is no take two, as it were.

The audio quality is just stellar with the Tascam and the Oktava mics. We recorded 192k 24bit and the sound is just top notch. I am REALLY happy with it. Using 8GB CF cards, I get about 1 hour and 45 minutes per card. This worked out fine as the operas are 2 hours with a 30 minute intermission between the hours so I could swap cards.

On the last opera, Nancy used the new Focus FS-5 DTE unit and recorded to tape for backup. The FS-5 worked flawlessly. She controlled it through her LANC controls and had no issues. Capture time was about 30 minutes instead of 2 hours.

So Nancy was REALLY happy with that result. She did not need the tapes at all but the backup is nice.

Next week - Or the week after I think, Nancy will be doing more training from Tiffen on using her Steadicam flyer. Once I get a little camcorder, I will shoot some video of her flying the Z1 and do a PIP thing so you can see her operating and the resultant footage.

We are still getting used to the FS-5 and getting a handle on it. Once we have a better feel for the unit I will post a review.

Little bees of the busy variety

2008-07-18T23:21:00.000-07:00

Been real busy around here. Last weekend we went and filmed an opera for the Casa Italiana opera company in LA. It was a 2 hour show with a 30 minute intermission. Nance had done one of these last year but it was a 3.5 hour opera and she had to do 2 shows in one day (7 hours total!). She had to stand on a chair to operate the camera and it was a really bad experience for her.

Adding to that, we had 1 day's notice for the gig and the sound gear failed so all we had was the on-camera sound. All in all, it was a terrible experience. The sound gear belonged to the guy that was supposed to do the gig but his gear was all crap.

So this time, Nance put together a little platform for herself to be able to sit and operate the camera. She used a swivel bar stool on the platform and it really worked well. We used a pair of Oktava condenser mics with the hypercardioid cartridge in them, positioned them on stands by the corners of the stage and then I operated the Tascam HD-P2 field recorder.

The results this time were excellent. Sunday, we will be doing it all again at a center out in the valley and then the following Sunday we will be in Santa Monica at a theater doing it yet again. We generally spend most of Saturday before the gig prepping and testing gear so it makes for a full weekend.

LAFCPUG bonus!

We went to the LAFCPUG meeting last month and as always we participated in the raffle. We won a copy of Shane Ross's excellent DVD "Getting Organized in FCP" that we already had a copy of so we gave that away to another attendee. We also won a portable 100GB USB drive. Nance also entered us in a drawing that was being done by Focus Enhancements where they were giving away one of their FS-5 recording systems. Well, they called Nance up today to let her know that she won the drawing.

So I will be posting an in-depth review of it as we plan to use it for the Santa Monica opera shoot (yes, we will have a backup system in place a'la tape). Check out the website and watch the demo on this. It is AMAZING!

Gas Prices.

I commute about 60 miles a day in a Camry that gets about 26MPG. Since gas prices have been going insane (they are FINALLY starting to ease up a bit now), I started considering alternatives to driving the Camry. There is a MetroLink commuter but it only runs in the morning...

Hybrid cars are expensive and the milage they get is not *that* great. Years ago, I was a hard core biker. I gave it up when traffic in the valley was just getting far too congested. We live out in the sticks now and my commute is across a couple of farm roads. Pretty mellow. So I went out tonight and bought a Suzuki DL650 that should net me about 55MPG if I drive it right. And it was a hell of a lot cheaper than a hybrid car. And, lets face it, bikes are fun :)

So, other than all of that, we have been bored.

PVC and lighting rigs

2008-07-13T09:20:00.000-07:00

Back when Nance was at the UCLA film school, she built a PVC diffuser panel using muslin cloth and a 4' x 7' self standing PVC frame. We have used this a lot and it's really nice and easy to deal with being very light and simple to assemble.

There is a GREAT PDF that describes how to make this and a TON of other very cool rigs for filmmaking using PVC.

Check it out HERE.

iPhone film apps

2008-07-13T08:49:00.001-07:00

With the release of 2.0 of the iPhone software and the opening of the iPhone app store, we now have access to a slew of new applications for the iPhone.

Self Reliant Film has a nice list of the apps that are film related. Check it out HERE.

And now, Nance and I are off to film an opera :)

Mann's HEAT vs. LA TAKEDOWN

2008-07-08T08:09:00.000-07:00

Over at Lee Goldberg's blog "A writer's life", he points out that the film HEAT is a remake of a failed TV Pilot that Mann did years ago called LA Takedown. The comparison of the two films is fascinating. Take a look for yourself and be sure to read the comments. Check it out HERE.

Interview with Garrett Brown - Steadicam Inventor

2008-07-07T09:13:00.000-07:00

Interview with Garrett Brown,Inventor of the Steadicam

This is a classic interview with Garrett, originally published by the magazine FILMCREW, Issue #16 1997

In 1972 the dolly got its first real competition with the invention of the Steadicam. From that point on a whole new world of shots that were never before possible suddenly were. Some of the most memorable--the Philadelphia Art Museum steps scene in Rocky, the Big Wheel shots in The Shining--were done by the inventor himself, Garrett Brown. FilmCrew recently interviewed Garrett in between shoot days while he was working on Warren Beatty's film Bulworth photographed by Vittorio Storaro.

FilmCrew: How did you get into the industry?

Garrett Brown: I was a folk singer in the '60's, one half of "Brown & Dana". I was 20 years old and it was a great young man's job. Al Dana and I drove thousands of miles a year to play colleges that couldn't afford groups like Peter, Paul and Mary! I thought showbiz was going to be it for me for life. But after 3 years and an automobile accident, I ended up with no career and no job. I had left college and I had no diploma and no idea what to do.

It was 1964. A friend of mine had gotten into advertising and pointed out that it was the current bolthole for all ne'er-do-wells. Generally, souls with some creativity but with no particular qualifications could get into advertising in the '60s. I ended up as a copywriter. Eventually I became the agency producer and, as I looked at my suppliers who were operating fun, entrepreneurial film companies, said, "This is for me". Meanwhile, I read my way through the 30-foot shelf of film books in the Philadelphia Library, so I knew the language and could speak the speak but I had never actually produced anything.

Finally I left the agency, bought a bunch of used gear and started a little motion picture production company. I made commercials with a Bolex, an Eclair ACL and bought a Rommel-era Arriflex still covered in camouflage paint. I also had a very heavy dolly which came with all this used gear, a Fearless Panaram 800lb dolly. It offended some deep part of me inherited from my inventing ancestors that I couldn't move a camera stably without putting this contraption under it.

Even my little Bolex couldn't be carried along smoothly without 800lbs of cast iron under it. We broke our hearts lugging this dolly around in pickup trucks and laying it on my rusty rails but I loved the moving camera. I think I'm a moving camera junky--I love this two-dimensional medium when it has the illusion of three dimensionality. Commercials with technical challenges interested me the most. In the early '70's a client, Connecticut Gas, wanted a commercial showing numerous artisans in an old two-story building, each in their own room. The client wanted shots entering each room.

I came up with a camera rig that allowed my cameraman to walk in and out of the rooms. The spot was unique and successful and I felt I had an idea to pursue! There had to be a way to intercept the unwanted motions that a human being constantly makes and prevent them from getting to the camera. I began to build a series of gadgets aimed at this goal. I went down a couple of unproductive roads and though I could actually make stable shots, they were not conceivable commercial devices.

(Some of them were 70' long and you couldn't smoke near them!) Eventually, I had a reel of otherwise impossible shots. I brought the footage to Ed DiGuilio at Cinema Products [CP] who made a deal immediately. Within a day we had the bones of a contract and CP launched on building the Steadicam. The Steadicam prototype worked and I had the only one in the world. Almost immediately I started working on films. Bound for Glory, Rocky and Marathon Man were all shot in 1975, and we never looked back.

FC: You mentioned that you have ancestors who were inventors. Who?

GB: My father has a number of patents, and one of them is for something you use everyday. He invented the material that binds all paperback books and that replaced the animal glue they used to use. It's called Hotmelt but he did it for DuPont and although they sell hundreds of millions of dollars worth of the stuff a year, he only got the watch and the retirement dinner. That kind of put me off of doing the inventing job inside a big company. I've done all of my things outside and then licensed them.

FC: How old were you when he invented Hotmelt?

GB: I was two years old. And my son was two years old when the Steadicam was invented. I guess Browns fall into the inventing business at that age.

FC: Was your dad inventing gadgets the whole time you were growing up?

GB: No. He was a chemist at DuPont and then became a manager of their industrial finishes for cars. Other ancestors were railroad men. I think there are a few genes knocking around in there that help me with mechanics. I'm not trained as an engineer, I just have a reasonable ability to visualize things. Inventing is a job that is misperceived by people.

It's mostly about indentifying the gaps in your life that might be filled by something. People take for granted and gloss over the gaps, the missing things. My clue that something is worth working on is if I really really want one myself. I'm not into inventing things that one thinks can be sold to other people. It's somewhat unreliable and you can break your heart and lose your money.

But if you really want one and you figure it out, the worst case is that you at least own one. The rest of it is just dogged hard work, trying every damn thing you can think of and a willingness to spend your own money. I get a lot of calls from people who wish they could invent or have an idea for something and they frequently falter when they realize it's going to cost something--their own dough. Then I ask them, "Do you believe that much in it?" People who might invest in the stock market or in a franchise seem strangely reluctant to invest in their own ideas.

FC: What you have created has had a major impact on the industry and movie making. What does that feel like?

GB: We never thought that the Steadicam would have the kind of legs that it has. I was afraid it might be knocked out of the ring by some mysterious black box that stabilized by pushing a button. But, twenty-three years later it's bigger than ever and still growing. It has taken its place as a production tool. Cinema Products and I have continued to refine the technology and operator skills keep improving. What the Steadicam does for a movie is now rather fundamental and irreplaceable...like the tripod? It's like a violin. With a good violin operator you get music!

FC: Out of the thousand or so Steadicam operators in the world, how many of them are masters?

GB: There are probably 150 "living masters" in the world. Someone who could air drop into New Guinea and shoot anything. They speak dozens of languages and are immune to heat and cold, and they can levitate!

FC: Do you think there will ever be "black boxes"?

GB: Eventually there may be programs that aim your camera, make a judgement based on light and shade and diagonals and golden means and spit out perfect pictures. But they'll be a big pain in the ass with a manual a foot thick and I don't want to run one, thank you very much. That's not for me.

FC: So I remember these great Molson radio spots in the 80's. Rumor has it that you were one of the voices?

GB: It was an offshoot of my agency days. I worked with a woman named Ann Winn. We were copywriters at adjacent desks. The agency thought we were amusing because we were always making jokes so they asked us to knock off Nichols and May and do a funny radio spot in 1969. We did it. We ad-libbed them and it was a hit. We worked for a lot of clients including Kodak. When the Steadicam came along and Ann went off to raise race horses, I stopped. In '79 Molson dusted off a demo we had done and tested it.

It pinned the needles on all their focus groups so they asked if we would do some more. We said, "No, we don't do that now." They kept calling and finally as the ante got high enough, we looked at each other an said, "Hell yes we'll do it!" We did Molson for thirteen years and also American Express. We stopped when I started working on the Olympic cameras. Now someone has lured us back.

FC: Can you tell us who?

GB: It's a new product and it's secret. It'll be on the radio. SO LISTEN!

FC: Another rumor has it that you built a super-lightweight camera weighing less than 8 pounds. Is that true?

GB: I have a camera that may be the lightest in the world. We built it for an early Skycam Prototype. It's a Filmo that weighs 4 1/2 lbs. John Russell of North Hollywood built it for me. An amazing job. He hogged it out so much that it has the general thickness of aluminum foil.

FC: Let's talk about the Master Series. Besides a great look, what's new about the latest Steadicam?

GB: Cinema Products' introduction of the Master Series represents the culmination of our efforts to support the new Steadicam techniques. For example, with what we have learned about dynamic balance, we have made significant advances to help with whip panning. Steadicam gets up to speeds of 150 rpm in the middle of a whip pan, therefore it needs to be dynamically balanced around the line of the post.

This new rig is designed to remain in balance as you add accessories and change its configuration. It also has radio-controlled trimming for the camera's attitude--even during a shot. Motorized trim is analogous to the trim wheels on a plane. Picture flying along in a private plane without trim wheels. For hours you would need to maintain steady pressure on the stick to stay on course.

The trim wheels allow you to set it so that it's a virtually hands-off operation. The idea of having to land the plane in order to trim is inconceivable but that's where we were with the Steadicam. You couldn't lay hands on it during the shot. And it's an instrument that needs fine tuning. It's a dynamic process in the sense that you do it all the time, during every take. Before, for all those long shots we had to pick one trim and we were stuck with it.

We picked the trim attitude for the most difficult part of the shot or the part that went on the longest, and everywhere else we were fighting against it and the framing, in a microscopic sense, moved around a little bit. My son Jonathan Brown is a camera operator and he and I worked side-by-side on Bulworth with two Master Series rigs. We have put more than 800 rolls of film through our Steadicam cameras.

Most of the shots we have done are with 75mm or 100mm lenses. In order to do that happily you must be able to burp the trim of the stage so the tiniest influence of tilt up or down is exactly what's needed. The actor rises a little in his chair, and a trim change stays with him. Also I wanted a bigger monitor and the Master Series has the biggest, sharpest monitor available, which is a 6" diagonal 16x9 aspect ratio.

The rig now has the ability to alter its rotational inertia so you can slide the components inboard to do a whip pan or you can pull them apart and get twice the inertia of the old 3A for a shot like a title sequence that needs to be very stable.

It also has a new vest and a complete no-tools design so everything you need to do can be done by flipping hand clamps and levers and moving things instantly that used to require going to the stand, getting a wrench, locking it, unlocking it. Just the snap clamp that locks the gimble in place is so fast that you adjust it more often because it's easy. I've observed that the Master Series is twice as fast to work with as the old Steadicam.

FC: Where did you get the idea for the arm? Was it watching someone carry a cup of coffee?

GB: That kind of thinking was responsible for the general idea of isolating the camera. The arm itself was inspired by looking at those old articulating lamps and imagining new ways for two arm sections to work together. The Master Series has a fantastic arm. The old one had a rough "ride" and a strong float point and if you boomed up you would have to hold it and invest a lot of British thermal units to get it to stay at that height. This one can be put anywhere from top to bottom and, with a couple ounces of force, will stay there.

FC: How long have you been running the Steadicam Workshops and what percentage of the working Steadicam operators have been through the course?

GB: The first one was in Rockport in 1980. Almost all good operators have been through "the system". I figured out the other day that I have taught nearly a thousand souls worldwide, while others, including the late Ted Churchill , have taught as many more.

FC: In addition to having created the Steadicam, teaching and working on your other inventions you also operate, you still shoot to this day. Is that right?

GB: Yes, I do. It's a lot of fun. Over the past few years, I had cut back on operating to work on the video camera technology for sporting events. I worked the '92 Olympics with Mobycam, a camera that follows the swimmers underwater, for NBC. And then this past year in Atlanta, we brought 18 new systems to the Olympics. (I over-extended myself, somewhat!) We had Dive Cam, which drops with the divers. (It is up for a Sports Emmy this year.)

We also did a thing called GoCam that chases the runners and was used to follow fencing, wrestling, gymnastics and soccer. We also did six or so sports and the Opening and Closing Ceremonies with four new-generation, ultra-light SkyCams that "fly" over large-scale events. In order to recover from the Olympics spiritually, I went back to operating Steadicam when Storaro asked me to work on Bulworth.

FC: I would consider that recovery might consist of a visit to the Cayman Islands.

GB: I agree but, physically, Steadicam is a lot less difficult than people imagine. It's a great deal more work to lug 1000' mag cases back and forth to the truck than the average Steadicam shot. True, every now and then you get a brutally difficult running shot, which I don't encourage, frankly, because there are a lot of other ways to transport a camera. I love to ride on a western dolly and concentrate a little more on the operating.

Steadicam was perceived as a running camera for the first few years but basically it's just an all-around camera support and a very capable aiming tool. I enjoy imitating a dolly very closely, but with the mobility and the chance to look straight ahead that Steadicam makes possible on rough ground and in tight location sets. This is the most fun because you're tucking into corners and the camera is on one side of you and then the other side and the viewer has no idea where the operator is.

As Ted Churchill once put it, "You're an arty pack mule." You're doing the athletic job of schlepping it around--which approaches an almost balletic grace among people who do it well--and you're making those artisitc choices with the lens, moving in three axes and three dimensions. It's a great job.

FC: Who would you say has influenced you the most in the business?

GB: Haskell Wexler and Vittorio Storaro. I also really enjoyed working with Stanley Kubrick. The Shining was a fine experience and I'd do it again in a flash.

FC: When you're operating, is it a Zen thing, much like what in sports is called being in the zone?

GB: Yes. I just did a shot that I think will illustrate the point. Warren Beatty had dreamed it up the night before and when we got on set it boiled up in a quick meeting in his trailer. Storaro is a joy to work for for a number of reasons, not the least of which is that he loves to light.

He is one of the few cameramen that I've known who is perfectly content if the director says to him, "Well, I want to shoot from the other side." Instead of evil looks and grumbling, Vittorio says, "Great. No problem. Watch this." And he'll enthusiastically relight the reverse angle. It's fun to watch him. He does it very rapidly with his system of dimmers and "Jumbos", which are big multiglobe lights made in Italy.

So Vittorio roared off to light while I started walking through it in order to memorize the terrain. My style is oriented towards rehearsing and trying to learn the ground like a dancer. The shot unfortunately required me to walk backwards which I seldom do. I prefer the "Don Juan" position (walking forward, looking to the rear), but I had some obstacles to pass that I couldn't manage without backing up.

The shot had three or four moments that had to be seen very precisely as we flew by, and required very specific choreography. The process is immediately Zen-like. Early rehearsals involve aiming the lens purely by instinct because most of your attention is on navigation. "Where's that curb? Where's the tree? Will I crash into Oliver Platt?" It is amazing to look at these playbacks because some instinctual part of your brain must have been aiming the damn thing even though I barely had a chance to look at the screen!

I like doing multiple takes because, like a dancer, you find yourself continually improving--beginning to really make a movie out of a long difficult shot, until you can master the smallest nuance. In this case, since Warren had sprained his foot the day before, we were under tremendous pressure to get it on the first take as he wouldn't necessarily be able to get through the course more than once.

My incentive was tripled, and I nailed the first one in a rush of adrenaline. Warren then mysterioulsy found the energy and inclination to do eleven more and, I'll tell you something, by take three I was in the "zone" that you're referring to--almost a dream state. The legs are doing what they do, and you're thinking about the framing and odd little things you can improve with three inches to the left here and a slight pan at this point or a deceleration there to allow someone to catch up a little bit.

It is pure joy as long as you don't absolutely wear yourself out. I think it's still the best job in the business! I intend to keep operating until I'm ancient, and maybe then I'll just hardmount the arm to my walker!

Kubrick revistied and some links

2008-07-03T08:25:00.000-07:00

Channel 4 in the UK is running a series of Kubrick's films and to promote it, they re-created the sets from the shining and found look-alikes for the cast and crew.

You can see the promo shot HERE.

You can also see a lot of behind the scenes for the actual film on YouTube HERE.

One of the things that struck me in the promo that Channel 4 did was the beautiful Steadicam shot that constitutes the entire ad for the series. VERY nicely done. And speaking of Steadicam, there is a great site that tracks great steadicam shots and includes comments on the shots by the operators. Here you can see Garrett Brown's (the inventor of the Steadicam) very first Steadicam shot in the film "Bound for Glory" and many many other great shots.

That is over at Steadishots HERE.

And now, for a couple of links...

The GREAT open source media pre-production tool Celtx is finally out of beta and they have released version 1.0. This is a GREAT resource and if you have never looked at it, you owe it to yourself to download this and check it out. Check out their site HERE.

FREE FCP and Motion tutorials on Youtube. Over 40 for each app. Check them out HERE.

Overclock your MacPro - ZDNet has a freeware application that will allow you to overclock your MacPro. I played with this a little and my results were mixed at best so proceed with caution here. You can check it out HERE.

And, finally, a study of camera motion in film. Check it out HERE.

Have a great weekend everyone and if you live in the U.S., have a great and safe 4th of July!

Mike and Nance

David Mullen A.S.C.

2008-06-23T08:09:00.000-07:00

Real quick post to point out that DP David Mullen is documenting his work on his current film over at REDUser. Check it out HERE. He is fielding questions on his process as well. Don't miss this!

Keep it simple

2008-06-19T10:50:00.000-07:00

In 1977 I wrote my first computer program. In the 31 intervening years, I have worked for a number of large organizations (GE, Bell Labs, Countrywide, Universal Studios et. al.). During the course of this career, I have come to embrace the idea of simplicity. Now, that might seem to be at odds with the fact that I typically work on very complex systems.

Typically, these systems are only complex when viewed as a whole. However, when broken down into the many components that make up these systems, there is simplicity to the individual components. Consider systems like Windows XP or Vista or Mac OS X. Viewed as a whole these systems appear terribly complex.

However, it’s important to understand that no single individual understands how this complex whole functions in its entirety. There are teams of developers that specialize in specific components of these systems. There is a team that works on the GUI. Another that works on the file system. Another that works on networking. And so on.

It’s easy to get overwhelmed by these systems if we try to gain an understanding of them as a whole. But, broken down into functional components, they become much easier to understand because, taken at this level, they are much simpler. Early in my career I was intimidated by systems of this nature until I understood how to break them down and attack only the relevant components.

Now, so far, I have just been blathering on about computers. What the hell does this have to do with film making or post production? Patience, grasshoppah. All will be revealed.

When the solution is simple, God is answering – Albert Einstein

It has been my observation that typically, the simplest solution is the best solution. For many years as a software engineer, I would receive requests from the business side of the company that I was working for to request some new software feature.

Invariably, these requests would be convoluted, complex explanations of how the business felt that a particular feature should be implemented. Before I understood the magic of simplicity, I would go back to the business to have them clarify what they were asking for. More often than not, these sessions did not result in any clarification.

And then, one day, I had an epiphany. The next request that came to me that obfuscated what the business actually wanted, I very quickly resolved by asking the business one question:

State your goal.

Simple. Direct and to the point. What is the end result that you wish to achieve? This new approach worked wonders for me and it serves me well to this day. And, the beauty of this simple approach is applicable in almost every aspect of life and the tasks that we all seek to perform.

Simplicity breeds excellence.

I am a big fan of Sting. I think he is a great composer. If you look at a lot of the hits that he has written, they exude simplicity of composition – Every breath you take, Shape of my heart and many others. Simple and beautiful. It takes real talent to pull that off.

The Log Line

And now we come to the part where I relate this to film making and story telling. Last night, Nancy and I attended the LAFCPUG meeting in Hollywood. We have been to many of them but we tend to be selective. Last night was the 8th anniversary of the LAFCPUG and had, as a speaker, feature editor Norman Hollyn.

Norman was there to give a talk on the craft of editing. Unlike most of the meetings, this talk was specific to storytelling. Typically, LAFCPUG focuses on how to use the tools. Not how to tell the story. Norman brought up a couple of things that reminded me of my “State your goal” approach to problem definition.

The first was the log line. A log line is a way to describe a story, regardless of its length, in one or two sentences. Doing this, forces you to boil the story down to its most essential elements. For example, a log line for Raiders of the lost Ark might be:

An archaeologist finds the ark of the covenant. The Nazis steal it from him. He pursues the Ark, recovers it and turns it over to the US government.

Simple. Taking your story and converting it to a log line can allow you to objectively tell the story with only the most essential information necessary to convey the story. We have all sat through films where there were scenes that were boring, slow and did not move the story forward.

The log line can assist us in eliminating this type of issue by allowing us to ask simple questions about every scene in our story such as “how does this scene serve the essence of the story?”. “Does this scene move the story forward?”.

Norman related a number of anecdotes pertaining to his experience as an editor and dealing with a director or producer when he is struggling to understand a scene and is trying to make the scene work. He asks the director “What is the impact on the film as a whole if this scene was removed?”

Simple. Direct. This forces the director to look at the essence of the contribution of the scene to the film as a whole. How does this scene contribute to the story? If you cannot tell me that, then the scene needs to go away. It’s superfluous. Or the director may realize that the scene needs to be moved – before or after the current place in time in the telling of the story.

The point being, when you break down a complex system to its simplest element– Be it a computer, or a story, you will find that the issues that you thought were insurmountable, now become manageable and clear.

Smooth Operator

2008-06-07T08:42:00.000-07:00

Gear Heads

Pronunciation:
\ˈgir-ˌhed\

n: a person who pursues mechanical or technological interests (as in automobiles or computers)

But this has nothing to do with the gear heads that I am talking about here today. Gear heads are a mounting system for cameras that provide very precise control over the panning and tilting of the camera.

Fluid Dynamics

Today, most of your low budget indie filmmakers use what is called a fluid head to mount their camera. This type of head uses a thick fluid to dampen the movement of the camera. These types of heads are very effective and reasonably priced.

Some of the lower cost fluid heads make it very difficult to have nice smooth starts and stops. You always end up with some jerky movement at the start or the end of the pan or tilt. Some of this can be overcome by doing simple tricks like putting a rubber band between the head and the tripod to add pressure to the movement in question.

And this brings us to Gear Heads. Gear heads have been around for a LONG time and are a mainstay in studio productions. They provide VERY precise, repeatable control over the panning and tilting of the camera. Here are two examples of gear heads.

A Mitchell:

And an Arri:

These heads use a precision gear transmission and most examples provide the ability to select the gear ratio so that you can have very fine or very coarse control with the head. They take some practice to get used to, but once you gain some proficiency with them, they are an amazing tool to have at your disposal.

Years ago I was on the set of Knott’s Landing with an operator friend of mine (King Nicholoson S.O.C. now retired). The talent was tossing a football around and the director told King that he wanted that football in frame when they threw it no matter what.

Well, one of the throws went wild and the football landed at the base of the dolly that the camera was on. But, King never let that ball get out of frame as he furiously spun the gear head's controls and followed that ball until the camera was pointed at the base of the dolly. I twas an impressive sight to see.

If you have ever used a gear head, you know what I am talking about. Problem is, most Indie filmmakers have never seen what they can do or had the opportunity to use one. Most of the ones I have talked with, don’t even know what one is.

Budget Head

In the world of budget filmmaking we have some amazing tools at our disposal. Redrock Micro makes low cost cine lens adapters, rail systems, follow focus and matte boxes. Varizoom makes low cost Steadicam rigs, jibs and remote heads.

And a host of other manufacturers provide gear for the budget filmmaker. Even Tiffen, makers of the $55,000 Steadicam professional rig, makes lower cost rigs for the indie filmmaker such as the Merlin.

But NO ONE makes a gear head for the indie filmmaker on a budget. I think this is a huge gap. If you buy a used Mitchell gear head that is 25 years old, it will cost you $5000+. An Arri gear head will run you $10,000-$15,000. FAR outside the typical budget of the indie filmmaker.

Last year, at the DV Expo I was at the Redrock Micro booth and I asked them if they would consider making a gear head. They said that I was now the second person that had ever asked them for this.

I explained that I figured that the reason for this was that their customer base had no clue what one was or what the benefits of using it are. If someone could make one for about $1000 for the indie market and promote it properly, I KNOW it would sell. Well, I know that it would sell to at least one customer: Me.

So here is my call out to you low cost indie filmmaking gear manufacturers: Make a low cost gear head!

Please.

On editing

2008-05-28T09:15:00.000-07:00

David Bordwell has a post up over at his great blog on some of his favorite edits in films.

Read about it HERE.

It got me thinking about some of my favorites. The scene in Lawrence of Arabia where the match is lit and the head of the match dissolves to the blistering sun of the desert. The opening sequence of Apocalypse Now where the shot uses a split dissolve between Willard on the bed, the jungle and the choppers and then the ceiling fan. Wonderful stuff.

What are some of yours?

Hot Sunday

2008-05-18T07:28:00.000-07:00

Sunday morning. 9 AM. It's 88 degrees on my patio. I think we are in for a long, hot summer.

Been working on a commercial for victims of utility vehicle crashes. Since the commercial has to depict the vehicle in a roll over accident and since I cannot use any specific branded vehicle for this, I am having to do it as a 3D animation sequence. This has been a good challenge. Every time I take on any project that involves using Lightwave, I always learn a LOT about the tool.

PANAVISION

In other news, Panavision has a great set of videos up that attempt to de-mystify digital camera specifications. It's a 7 part series and it's well worth watching. You can check it out HERE.

OPENCUT

OpenCut is a new contest for editing. But this one (unlike the Tori Amos one) actually looks to be a pretty decent deal. The top prize is an AJA IoHD unit, credit in the finished film and credit in IMDB for editing the film. There is a $25 entry fee and you will need to ship an HD to them that they will load up with 185GB of RED ONE footage, the script, storyboards etc.

Check it out HERE.

If nothing else, check out the FCP / RED Workflow video that they have up there. One of the things I noticed in that video was the use of an on-camera LED Light array.

Nance's last shooting gig was a run-n-gun doc that she had rented a mount for the Z1 as well as a light. The mount was mostly fine for her but the battery pack for the light was just debilitating. VERY heavy and the quality of the light was crappy.

So she recently bought one of these LED arrays for doing run-n-gun and WOW what a difference. The light is MUCH nicer, much more controllable, and the unit weighs NOTHING. Check these out if you get a chance. They are very nice!

FREE CRANE

That's right, free. Well, free if you have a tripod... You are going to look at this video and think "Why the heck didn't I think of that?". Check it out HERE.

TIME REMAPPING

And, finally, check out this video on Kiteboarding. I personally have little interest in this sport. However, the guy that did this video does some REALLY slick stuff with time-remapping / Bullet time. Check it out HERE.

All Mac, some of the time

2008-05-06T16:50:00.000-07:00

I use Windows XP, Windows Vista, and Mac OS X. They all have their issues. They all have their positive aspects and negative aspects. None of them are perfect. However, Vista managed to bring me to the apogee of despair this week. More on that in a minute.

Today marks the 10th anniversary of the iMac. Ten years ago today, Apple announced the iMac computer. It did not get a warm reception. The decision to fore go a floppy drive in 1998 was considered crazy. But, alas, ole Steve was right. Not to say he was right on every decision (the single-button mouse comes to mind here among other things).

So, Happy birthday, iMac. You are significant in that you mark the beginning of Apple's return to profitability. Apple today is enjoying great success. Which made me think about Apple...

For a long time, Apple has enjoyed a certain cache. A certain exclusivity appealing to a niche market that consists largely of creative professionals and people who prefer an exclusive product that does not appeal to the hum-drum mainstream. Something with a...uhh, certain je ne sais quoi...

I own Macs because of client demand for projects done in FCP and for some other tools that are Mac only. But, the latter "exclusive" group are now able to see Apple becoming more mainstream. Less exclusive. For many of them, they are evangelists of the product. Extolling the merits of the machine in order to convert the Windows user to the Mac.

As this erosion of exclusivity continues, I suspect that the evangelists of the product are not going to like the results of the Mac becoming more mainstream. We live in interesting times. Apple faces many challenges going forward. It will be interesting to see how well they can meet these new challenges. I suspect they will do OK. After all, back in the early 80s, Apple was the number one producer of personal computers...

VISTA: The Apogee of despair

This past Sunday, I had gone into the office to write some code for a web site as part of a project to switch that web site from one e-mail vendor to another. My deadline to get this ready for testing was Monday and today was the deadline to do the first production run with it.

After finishing my changes and letting the testing folks know it was ready, I came in Monday and got an e-mail telling me about some minor fixes that needed to be made. Some cosmetic and a couple of coding bugs. No problem. About 1 hour of work.

Now, in the office, I use a Vista machine for software development because the main web system is a Microsoft based system. I generally use Dreamweaver CS3 and TextPad for coding and design work. My process is that I make the changes on my local machine, then copy them across the network to a testing server and then test the changes there.

So I make the changes and copy them over to the test server. I start to test it and now it's worse than when I started. The code is behaving VERY strangely. it makes NO sense what it is doing. I spend hours in a panic now because nothing is making sense and I am under the gun.

Finally, I figure out what is happening. When I would copy a file from my local machine running Vista out to the testing server, only certain files would get copied. Vista was telling me that it was copying everything correctly but in reality, it was not. Once I figured out what was going on, rebooted the workstation, everything was fine.

Suffice it to say, I am NOT a Vista fan. There was a time when I would have said Vista was OK. Not as bad as the media has made it out to be. Today I would advise anyone against it. I have NEVER had an operating system perform in such an egregiously poor manner.

Whatcha been doin?

Well, we have been busy working on some commercials for local business. I had the opportunity recently to composite a 3D model into a still photograph. That was a fun challenge getting it to match:

The Audi is comped into the image. I have a music video in the works here that will include animating a pin art toy for part of the video. Should be a great challenge. I'll post that animation once it's done.

OK, back to work for this slacker!

Saying what you think

2008-04-25T14:04:00.000-07:00

Flippant news had this up - what a GREAT video. this is NOT safe for work due to profanity used in it.

Enjoy :)

Persistance of vision

2008-04-25T08:17:00.000-07:00

Logan and Noah Miller had a vision for their film. They wanted Ed Harris to play the homeless alcoholic father in the film. The trouble is, they are novice filmmmakers with no money. This is where persistance paid off.

Check it out HERE.

I love stories like this.

Cinema is lies told at 24fps

2008-04-20T12:03:00.000-07:00

Over at Variety is an interview with James Cameron. You can check it out HERE. I have always had kind of mixed feelings about Cameron. Having never met him, all I have to go by is his body of work, behind the scenes footage of him at work and interviews.

He has always seemed like an egotistical self important elitist to me. Ahh but there is always the adage that one must separate the artist from the art. And I DO try to do that.

I really thought that the Abyss (the abuse, according to the crew on that shoot) was a very entertaining but flawed film. For me, his best work was:

Terminator 2. I watched part of the filming of this as I lived a few blocks from one of the locations (the scene where the semi-truck crashes into the flood control channel). The film is not perfect by any means (the desert scene slows the pacing needlessly, Edward Furlong could not act in the film to save his life).

But I still love the film.

So why am I linking to this article about Cameron? Because I think he says some things here that I seriously agree with. And while the majority of the article is about 3D (and having only 1 good eye, 3D is meaningless to me), he does point out a few things that I do agree with.

One of those things is that Godard had it backwards. I always thought that cinema was a contrivance meant to fool us into thinking it was reality. Otherwise, if it WAS truth, we would not need to exercise a willing suspension of disbelief. Because Godard was held in high esteem in many of the art circles, his statement of "Cinema is truth told at 24fps" tended to be unassailable.

24p - Please die.

The other thing that Cameron mentions is that 24 FPS needs to go away. That this is a framerate that has seen it's day and now needs to be replaced. Douglas Trumbull did research into determining the best framerate for the human eye and settled on 60FPS:

A 16 fps rate was the first speed established as the minimum required to sustain the illusion of continuous presence of a motionless image presented through a sequence of stills. The 24 fps rate was adopted later to improve the fidelity of optical sound tracks. The perception of an uninterrupted flow of motion, free from stroboscopic effects, requires a still higher frame rate. Through experiments conducted at Future General Corporation, the joint Trumbull/Paramount Pictures research division, Douglas Trumbull determined that the effective maximum frame rate should be 60.

Today, in the indie film world, 24fps tends to be upheld as the holy grail of film look. This combined with narrow depth of field, cinematic lighting and cinema style camera handling are all being pursued to make video look like film.

Now, if you are going to be distributing on film, 24p makes sense to me. But if the final delivery medium is video, then I think it is not necessary. The visual cadence of 24 fps provides a level of psychological deception since this cadence is what we have become accustomed to watching films for the last 70 years or so.

Guess what? HD and it's higher end bretheren are here to stay. Film is going to go the way of the dinosaurs. It's time to acclimate to what video is. It's time to embrace the superior look of 60 FPS. It's time to let go of the past.

I have posted about this in the past and been vilified for it. Stephan Sargent posted about it a few weeks ago HERE and was vilified for it. Mark my words, those of you in the 24p camp will come around eventually. I long for the day when 24p is used only to provide a retro look.

New Tangent control surface

2008-04-16T09:30:00.000-07:00

Well, around this time last year I was whining about the cost of control surfaces. At that time, only JL Cooper offered one on the cheap for $5000 (since lowered in price to about $3100). I felt that with the availability of Final Touch as part of the Final Cut Studio suite (under the name Color), that this was a golden opportunity for some resourceful hardware manufacturer to provide a control surface for the masses.

Enter Tangent.

Announced at NAB this week is their new, affordable, control surface. Priced around $1000 this looks like a REALLY sweet tool for using Color in FCS on the Mac.

You can read ALL about it HERE.

Very cool.

Good weekend

2008-04-14T12:23:00.001-07:00

Well I updated FCP on our test machine to 6.0.3 and ran it through the wringer and no issues were found.

Nance had her client over on Sunday to review her final onlined version of the doc project and the client loved it. She finalized the menus for the DVD and it goes out today.

I secured an actress for the Zombie debt commercial and I think we are good to go for the opening shots in about a week. Nance has to get a new 1K key light for it but she should be able to nail that down this week.

Seeing some very nice announcements out of NAB today. I won't re-hash all of it since it is plastered all over the net today. Red's Scarlet looks nice but the fixed lens is a deal killer for me. The new Sony EX3 (what happened to EX2?) looks VERY nice. If you can put a PL mount on that and slap some real cine glass on it, that will be huge.

I have to say, that I am not a fan of the psuedo shoulder mount (a'la Canon's XL series). Either do it right or leave it be IMHO. My only other concern with the camera is the potential for rolling shutter artifacts.

FCP 6.0.3 released

2008-04-11T12:05:00.000-07:00

Here are the specifics: FCP 6.0.3.

I'll update one of the machines this weekend and see what they broke - Stay tuned for a report on this here.

Supposedly fixes that weird error that I was getting opening projects telling me they were incompatable...

Celtx writing videos

2008-04-11T09:29:00.001-07:00

Celtx is an open source screenwriting application. They have some nice videos up on writing and story development.

Check it out HERE.

The reality of Digital Effects Work

2008-04-11T08:07:00.000-07:00

Gotta love it - SO true! I loved the inclusion of the Guru Meditation error from the old Amiga system.

Interview with Walter Murch

2008-04-09T08:04:00.000-07:00

Prior to the LAFCPUG Supermeet at last year's NAB show, an interview with Walter Murch was conducted and filmed. Part one is up on the net HERE. The Edison film that he talks about can be seen HERE.

Larry Jordan's Newsletter

2008-04-08T09:47:00.000-07:00

I just wanted to point out Larry's newsletter to folks that have not seen it. It's free and it's a wonderful resource for editors and indie content producers alike.

You can check out the current issue HERE.

I always learn new things from this great resource. I have no relationship with Larry or his business. I just wanted to point out this great free resource to the readers here. I will also be posting Larry's Tips on the site here for the FCP folks out there.

Continuity and other things

2008-04-03T17:20:00.000-07:00

Over at the Rebel site I started a thread about continuity that was triggered by this NYT article HERE.

Someone pointed out an excellent illustration of this effect with this video here:

Excellent.

Other things:

FINALLY we are done with the current project and we will be delivering it this weekend YAY! The following weekend we will be setting up the opening shot for the Zombie commercial. This will involve dressing the set, setting up the dolly shot and lighting and rehearsing the shot. The following weekend we will shoot it with the actress.

I'll post on here some shots as we do this.

IMDB for movie guns

2008-04-01T08:13:00.000-07:00

Gage over at Rebel Cafe pointed out this site. It's a wiki that documents the types of weapons used in films. Very nice resource. Check it out HERE.

Soundtrack Pro 2.0 video tutorial now online

2008-03-30T10:39:00.000-07:00

Part one of the tutorial is now online. I used SnapZ to record this and it worked very well. Please feel free to critique the tutorial as it's my very first one. If I get enough interest in these I will continue to do them from time to time. Part 2 of the tutorial should be up next weekend. This tutorial is a 10MB Quicktime h.264 file and it runs just over 5 minutes. You will need Quicktime 7.0 or later to view the file.

You can download the tutorial HERE.

Enjoy!

Stu's Challenge

2008-03-26T20:55:00.000-07:00

One of the blogs that I frequent is ProLost, Stu Maschwitz's blog. Stu is one of the founders of The Orphanage, an FX house up in the bay area.

Stu had an interesting challenge recently. Save our Skin. You can read about it HERE.

One of the things that I love about Nance is that she is so easily distracted. I can point out a challenge like this to her and she will dive right in. So I did just that. Nance decided to just use the 3 way color corrector in FCP to meet the requirements of what Stu laid forth on his blog. Stu's instructions are to push the picture to blue and maintain the skin tones. His image that he used for this is here:

And here is Nance's results. Her comments and CC settings follow.

Nance: I used the Color Corrector 3-way in FCP, masking the skin tones and inverting the selection. The hardest part was including the shadow under her eye with the skin tones. It came out blue in the first one. I cranked up the softness a little more to include that shadow:

It's an interesting challenge. Give it a shot if you get bored :)

Recording on the Mac

2008-03-25T08:02:00.000-07:00

Well, I searched the boards over at ShinyWhiteBox.com for the error I was getting and I found a number of folks bringing this issue up. Neil, the admin over there, responded to the threads and never really offered a solution.

So I e-mailed Neil about the issue. He said he had never heard of it. He suggested that I purchase and use their Stomp audio application to seperate out the system audio from the MOV file.

I responded that I did not want to add additional steps to my process and that I felt that purchasing another application from them was not a reasonable solution. I also pointed out the numerous threads on his website that he has responded to that detail this issue.

That was a couple of days ago and I have not heard a word back. So, it's on to SnapZ Pro I go. At this point, I have to say that if you have a need to record your session on the Mac and you want to be able to capture not just the video and your narration, but the system audio as well, do NOT buy iShowU.

I did a concept test of the Zombie Debt commercial to show to the client. I was on the phone with them when they played it last night and I could hear them laughing like crazy. They love it and we are moving forward with this concept.

This weekend I will record and post the Soundtrack Pro audio cleanup tutorial and get it posted up here.

Stay tuned :)

Soundtrack Pro 2.0 video tutorial

2008-03-23T14:59:00.000-07:00

With my recent frustration with picture posting using Blogger, I had decided to do my next Soundtrack Pro tutorial as a video tutorial. To accomplish this on the mac, there are basically 2 choices: SnapZ Pro and iShowU. iShowU is written by a small company in New Zealand. I looked at both applications and decided to buy iShowU.

Buying iShowU supports the little guy and should meet my needs for the tutorial.

So, today I recorded the tutorial and then attempted to bring the iShowU file into FCP to clean it up before I converted it to FLV for the web. But FCP would not accept the file. After some experimentation with iShowU, I found out that it works fine as long as I do not record audio generated by the Mac. Well, a tutorial on an audio application is DOA without that ability.

It appears to be a bug in iShowU. If I record just audio of myself talking into the mic, FCP digests the file just fine. It is only when I record system audio that FCP generates a General Error and will not allow me to work with the media.

I fired off an e-mail to the author about this issue. He is pretty responsive (having answered my questions before I purchased the product). Hopefully he will have a reasonable solution to this issue. I don't want to have to introduce additional steps into the process just to overcome this audio issue.

I'll post my findings here in the next day or 2. I know this is not directly film making / Post related but hopefuly, some of you readers will gain some benefit from my experience with this.

Free Boris 3D text filter

2008-03-20T14:27:00.000-07:00

Boris is giving away a free copy of their 3D text filter for AE and FCP. Check it out HERE.

Arthur C. Clarke dead at 90

2008-03-18T16:12:00.000-07:00

Report HERE.

Sad day. He was an amazing visionary and scientist. He theorized the possibility of geo-synchronous orbit. The satellites that orbit the earth using his theory do so in an area above the earth's equator called the "Clarke Belt".

His visionary books such as 2001: A space oddessey were stunning reads.

Rest in peace, Mr. Clarke.

OT: iPhone 2.0 beta stuffs

2008-03-18T15:38:00.000-07:00

Endgadget got ahold of a beta of the 2.0 firmware. You can read about it HERE.

Now, with the SDK out, I want all of you xCode HaXoRz out there to implement copy/paste!

I'm your beta-testing huckleberry!

Soundtrack Pro Round Trip

2008-03-16T16:09:00.000-07:00

NOTE: I originally wrote this with screenshots of every step but stupid blogger's picture management made the pics unsuable. So I am just going to publish it without the pics.

Nance and I have just finished our current project. Nance used both Apple Color and the FCP 3-way corrector tool in the onlining process and I did the music, voiceovers and audio cleanup.

I thought I would blog a little bit about some of the processes that we went through. Nance kept copious notes on Color and I will be using those to post an article about that experience. Today, I will focus on Soundtrack Pro. Specifically, how to do roundtrip editing in conjunction with Final Cut Pro and following that, how to do some simple audio cleanup using Soundtrack Pro (hereinafter referred to as STP).

You must be trippin, dude!

We’ll start with the roundtrip process taking an FCP project, sending it to STP and then sending it back to FCP.

In the FCP file menu is the Send To option.

Note that if the Soundtrack Pro Audio and Multitrack project options are disabled, it is because we need to select either a clip from a sequence or a sequence itself from the project window.

Once I have selected a clip in the timeline, the STP Send To options are no longer disabled in the send to menu. For our purposes, I am going to send a full sequence to STP.

With my sequence selected in my project window AND my project window is the active window, I now have the option to send this sequence to STP as a multitrack project.

Having selected that option, I am prompted for a name for the project that STP will use and I have the opportunity to specify where I want to save it. Save it in an appropriate folder and let FCP create the STP project. Note that FCP suggests a filename that includes the sequence name and (sent) appended to it. I usually just accept this option.

Once this process is complete, STP is launched automatically and our new project is loaded into STP.

Let’s assume that you have now gone in and added tracks and put in music / foley / VO, or whatever. Now it’s time to send it BACK to FCP. From the FILE menu we select EXPORT.

We are presented with the file browser screen to specify a location for our file that is going TO FCP. But, here we have to come up with a name - I generally use the original name (without the (sent) portion) and add (Sent to FCP) and then select an appropriate location for the file to be saved.

Now, we have a number of options that we can choose from in terms of how the audio will be treated when it is sent to FCP. Under the Exported Items, we have a few options:

MASTER MIX generally means that STP will take ALL of your tracks and do a final mixdown into a singe stereo pair and sent that to FCP. All Tracks, on the other hand, will retain all of your original tracks in FCP.

Unless I am COMPLETELY satisfied with the final mix and I know I will not be doing anything more with it, I tend to pick the All Tracks Option. This way I can still tweak a few discreet audio elements inside of FCP.

You can also use the Selected tracks option so that you can selectively include and exclude what tracks are going to be sent to FCP.

Now, following this you can select audio bitrate and format options. Set these to whatever is appropriate to your project (24 bits makes a larger file and few devices out there can play 24 bit - A CD is 16 bit for example).

And Finally, the last option allows us to tell STP that we want all of this audio deliciousness to end up in FCP. So set the After Export option to Send Files to FCP Sequence.

Once you hit the Export button, STP will begin the process of exporting.

Now, if FCP is already running and it gets a signal from STP telling FCP that there is a new file for it to process. FCP then prompts us for what to do with this new file.

We are offered the option of creating a whole NEW project in FCP for this file or we can just add it to the current project as a new Sequence.

Most of the time you will just be adding this as a new sequence and not creating a new project. Once we click OK, FCP imports our new STP sequence into our existing project.

Once that process is complete we will have a new sequence with the name that we gave it in the export process inside of STP and we can then continue on with our project. This naming convention allows you to quickly see what sequences have been sent to FCP from STP

Final Notes

Once in a while, when I send a sequence to FCP, FCP gets into a weird state where the dialog box that asks if the files should be a new project or a new sequence becomes hidden. In that instance, I will bring up another application over the top of FCP and then click on the FCP icon in the dock and that seems to straighten it out.

A lot of folks like to work in STP a clip at a time instead of as an entire sequence. The process described here is basically the same. Play around with this. Make a test project and play with sequences and clips back and forth until you are comfortable with the workflow.

I will publish Part 2 of this article this week. That will focus on cleaning up audio in STP including accurately replacing noise with room tone and not affecting sync. Stay tuned!

Zombies and HD For Indies comes to LA

2008-03-06T08:17:00.000-08:00

Mike Curtis over at the HD For Indies blog is moving from Austin to LA. I have been reading Mike's blog and chatting with him in e-mails for a few years and it's always been one of my favorite blogs. Mike is moving out here to persue his career. Welcome home, Mike!

On the current project front, Nance has finished up the VO script so I will be recording that tonight as well as fixing a few last minute sound issues in the current project. While she has been slaving away on this, I have been working on some music with my friend KC Phillips.

KC is a talented professional musician and he has been graciously helping me record a composition of mine using Apple Logic. KC has been a longtime user of Steinburg's CuBase. I am new to using Logic so KC and I have been learning it together and I have to say I am TOTALLY blown away by this product. What a WONDERFUL tool it is. It is cool enough that KC has decided to dump CuBase, get a Mac and switch to Logic.

Zombies....

There is a thing in the credit world called Zombie debt. This is debt that is no longer valid but that creditors still persue. The victims of Zombie Debt harrassment have legal recourse and can collect damages as a result of this.

So, B-Scene has been retained to do a Zombie Debt commercial for a local legal firm. It will be done in a cheesy 50s Sci-Fi look. Very tounge in cheek. As soon as we are done with the current project, I hope to start getting this rolling. I will be taking the proposal this weekend and writing up a script for it.

We will blog about the process and get a copy of the final product up onto YouTube once we are done for all to see and enjoy.

BUSY weekend

2008-03-02T11:43:00.000-08:00

Well, the current project is ALMOST done. Nancy was up until 8 AM this morning grinding this thing out in Apple Color. Today I will be finishing up the sound for the project. I spoke to the client yesterday and they are excited to get it done and love what they have seen so far.

Due to NDA, I can't really blog about what the project is but I will be glad to get it out of here. Nancy shot it before Christmas and we have been posting it since then...

Once it is done, we will start on a commercial. This will be a LOT of fun and a real hoot to do. It will be a bit of an homage to 50s b-movie sci-fi. I'll blog about that as we do it.

Shane Ross over at Little Frog pointed out a REALLY nice utility that will completely uninstall FCS. Back when I went from FCS 1 to FCS 2, I ran into all kinds of ugly licensing issues and I could have really used this item.

Anyway, check it out HERE.

And, yes, the MB Frames review is in process - but running late still as we are trying to get this current project finalized and out the door.

Life is what happens to you

2008-02-25T08:46:00.000-08:00

when you're busy making other plans - John Lennon.

Well this weekend I was supposed to get the review of Magic Bullet's Frames done and posted this weekend but instead I spent the weekend doing VO work for a documentary. So the Frames review is postponed until next weekend.

In other news, with the demise of HD-DVD, one of my fears with HD disk delivery mediums has been that whoever won would now have ZERO competition. They would have this market all to themselves. Guess what? This is exactly what is happening. Consider this quote from the DP Buzz with Larry Jordan:

"In a recent conversation with Bruce Nazarian, president of the DVD Association, during The BuZZ podcast, we were discussing the sudden shift toward Blu-Ray HD DVDs. While Blu-Ray may be good for Hollywood, it won't be good for small independent producers.

This is due to all the hidden fees tacked on to replicating a Blu-Ray DVD.For example, producers of industrial and non-broadcast content are required to pay a $2,500 licensing fee to author and distribute Blu-Ray.Then, each producer is required to pay a $3,000 one-time AACS license fee, plus a per-title fee for EACH replicated Blu-Ray disc. Currently, Sony DADC is quoting that fee at $1,585 per title (per complete Blu-ray disc project).

Then there's the per disc replication cost, which varies by quantity, and finally, there's a $0.04 per disc fee for AACS and $0.01 per disc if you want SONY DADC to administer the payments to AACS on your behalf.

As Bruce indicates, we may be standardizing on Blu-Ray, but the prices won't be cheap."

My fears, realized. *sigh*.

Well, on a positive note, Brad Bird got an Oscar as did Daniel Day Lewis. On the DD Lewis front, I thought this was a great choice. I have not yet seen "There will be Blood" but I had heard about it and heard that DDL was starring in it. So I watched the trailer and got about half way through before it dawned on me what role DDL was playing. It was absolutely jaw dropping.

And finally, two of my favorite filmmakers, The Cohen Brothers, walked away with 3 oscars - Best Screenplay adaptation, Best director and Best picture. Nice.

OS X keyboard shortcuts

2008-02-22T12:09:00.000-08:00

So today I was trying to remember how to take a screenshot in OS X so that I can include it in a presentation that I am doing (Applications/Utilities/Grab is the app you need for this...). A quick search on the net turned up a VERY nice site for keyboard reference on the Mac.

Check it out HERE.

HD-DVD - An editorial

2008-02-19T18:26:00.000-08:00

Many years ago (more than I care to think about) I was an avid collector of Laserdiscs. Attracted to the format because of letterboxing and director commentaries, the format was a film geek's dream. During this period I went into a video store to peruse their selection of discs and met Steve, the manager.

Steve and I have been friends since that day many years ago. Steve was the only person I had run into who had a passion for films and collecting Laserdiscs that exceeded my own (at the end of my disc collecting days, I had about 1000 movies - I think Steve had 2000 when he stopped).

As the HD format began to take hold, Steve bought a D-VHS deck. I laughed and asked him why. To answer that, I can say that he is the only person that I know who has the ability to record HD. When HD-DVD and Blu-Ray came along and the players were about $1000, I demurred figuring that the format wars would be short lived and the player prices would drop.

Well, the war is over. The player prices dropped long before the war ended. I bought the HD-DVD add on for the xBox 360 for $200. $200 was my "oh what the hell" price point for this stuff. Since that time, I have purchased about 8 HD-DVDs. I have no real regrets there. I still have the films that I wanted in that format and I will be able to enjoy them until my drive fails.

Ahh, but Steve - His passion still reigns supreme. After the fall of HD-DVD, he made a posting over on the AVS Forums. I thought that the post brought up some great issues and also conveyed a point of view that was rational and pragmatic. I'll let you read it for yourself here:

Thanks to HD DVD, I own 90% of the titles I'd want from ANY 'exclusive' studio already. With BD, the rest are rounded out. Sure, we don't have Alien, Star Wars, Jurassic, etc., but I have had those on at least two formats already. I'll buy 'em when they come out, but not excited like I was for HD DVD.

Even if, when, the HD DVD studios begin releasing the content on BD, it could take years to 'catch up' on what already exists. I don't know about you, but I am certainly glad to have had the opportunity for the last few years to have these movies in HD. Movies like "The Thing," were a must for my collection, and I'd probably have bought a player if it was out on SHMSHQX DVD Aquamarine-ray.

Case in point. I don't know about you, but I like the movie "Fight Club." I had the DVD with all those special features, etc., but thanks to D-VHS DTheater, I could watch the MOVIE in HD! I've watched that tape quite a few times over the last FIVE YEARS! Five years is a long time.

So when the first HD format on optical disc was released, I jumped in with a who cares attitude. I committed to buying the G1 HD DVD player, along with the Blu-ray G1 player. And every movie that comes out on both formats for the first year. I did, and I don't regret any of it. There have been many superb releases out of nowhere, and even I was surprised at the catalog selection the studios chose to release as their early HD movies.

When I went to a DTheater love-in at Widescreen Review back in 2000, there was lots of talk on AVS about "HD Discs in a year." I said three, we were both wrong. It took a lot longer than I thought it would, but HD DVD was a little quicker at the bat.

Like a good "Scooby Doo" episode, it could be said that Blu-ray might say "We would have gotten away with this if it weren't for you meddling kids..." Toshiba beat them to the punch bad. So bad, 'they' (not Sony), are now getting sued for their G1 player (which I own). It really does suck they didn't have a 'complete' spec out of the gate. I still bought one, and so did a few others. $999. Now = doorstop.

Sony only pushed BD out when they did because of HD DVD. Period. We all know it wasn't ready, and any happy BD person likely had a PS3 (still the fastest, most reliable player). Loading times were similar between the two previously, and both had firmware updates in order to play new titles.

HD DVD was exciting, something cool & new, like when DVD first came out. I was a LaserDisc guy, and DVD was not nearly as cool when it came out. The whole first batch of Warner DVDs was recalled due to quality issues (my store was in the test market). When they got it together, it opened a whole new angle. Anamorphic DVDs on widescreen TVs, and (sometimes) better sound than LD. Way better than VHS, which didn't take much.

As they refined encoding & mastering, studios like Disney & Fox began to unload their classics, and the format took hold. VHS stuck around for a long, long time. People are stupid, you know that. You have no idea how many times I've explained widescreen/letterbox & resolution to people. Not any more. If you can't figure it out, then bummer for you!

I said at the beginning of this whole thing, if you don't have a player, you don't "care" about HD. Most people didn't, and a few saw something at their friend's house, etc. By HD DVD coming onto the scene, it forced BD to up their standards (Fifth Element anyone?), and rethink the entire strategy.

So much they were essentially forced into buying friends, which really is just business. One thing I did notice is, BD marketing often slammed HD DVD, whereas never the other way around. I actually heard a voice over in a demo in BB while walking by that said "HD DVD is more compressed, so the audio is compressed, and it doesn't sound as good as Blu-ray!" True or not, crappy.

Does anyone remember the first HD DVDs from Warner?

"Welcome to HD DVD, you put the disc in and the movies starts!" Freakin' Finally! I hated Disney for their 12 previews on VHS, the first unskippable previews on DVD, etc. Now what did oh lovely BD bring us? Stupid 12 previews in front of the movie! I counted 11 skips I had to do to get to the movie (that I purchased). Too bad, so sad.

Fox makes some great movies. Fox makes some crap, no extras catalog titles for $39.99. You know what they can do with those. I paid $59.99 for Fantastic Voyage and Planet of the Apes on LaserDisc. In 1990. Oh I'll probably still buy em on Blu-ray. BUT I WON'T BE HAPPY ABOUT IT!

I think that is the main difference here. HD DVD was a new, logical choice to follow DVD. Likely the last ditch of optical disc formats before downloads (or what have you) become prevalent. Remember the picture outside of BB and the video of the guy getting his A1? Show me one "Yay I got Blu-ray player" video. :)

We were corned into Blu-ray, because the dominant company wants format royalties. There is no winner here. Has there ever been a winner of any WAR? Ever? Not really. I personally know people who work in BD, and I like to tease them with "Be careful what you wish for! Now you have it all! Yay!" Should be interesting.

Heck, I remember getting angry at the studios releasing New Releases 30 days after video to Pay-Per-View, because it cuts into rentals. That was 10 years ago! How are we renting or buying anything still? Shouldn't we have long ago had instant on-demand HD super-duper everything right at our fingertips?

I own lots of HD discs, and I will continue to enjoy them. After getting an A1, an XA1, and then an A35, it will sit nicely under my BD30, with a PS3 for love. Yes you would need them all now, if you want to enjoy the full benefits of HD optical media.

- A35 for bitstream, and all those awesome HD DVDs that won't be out for a while on BD (even if they start tomorrow)

- BD30 for bitstream, and way faster than the BD-P1000

- PS3 for PCM, games, streaming, etc. Pretty cool box, does a lot.

IMHO, the A35 is 95% perfect (XA2 theoretically better upscaler), but I wish I could say the same RIGHT NOW about any of my BD pieces. PCM issue on BD30, no DTS-MA on PS3, BD-P1000 not even worth a hundred bucks now!

And Fox not releasing ANYTHING all that time? Shame on you. Delaying the rest of the titles in to oblivion? (Red Dawn, From Hell, etc). And shame on Weinstein, you should have given us Grindhouse Day & Date.

Unfortunately, it is common knowledge that certain directors have some control over their content, or we would have many more A-titles on either format. I do know that SS saw CE3K on BD, and up until then had no idea what EITHER format were. So there.

They have all been seriously wasting our time, and I hope now they get their stupid act together and start giving us what we want. Isn't that the point of this whole entertainment industry thing? You give us what we want, we give you money. Is there some basic problem with that? While I have purchased more HD discs than should be allowed by law, I would have more if they existed. Ya can't string this one out forever like DVD! This is 2008!

I don't know about you, but I'll still buy their (good and bad) movies if they keep releasing them, but the love is LONG, long gone baby...

Beautiful camerawork

2008-02-18T19:33:00.000-08:00

I am a frequent visitor over at the Rebel Cafe and through that discussion group I met a young filmmaker who goes by the handle GageFX. Gage has been working on an indie feature that he wrote and is directing. He recently posted some footage that he did while messing around with a steadicam and some rollerblades. Check it out HERE.

He calls it the Bladecam.

Game over for HD-DVD - Updated

2008-02-17T09:16:00.000-08:00

MS-NBC is reporting that Toshiba is considering abandoning the HD-DVD format.

Article HERE.

With the number of studios dropping the format and Netflix, Wal-Mart et. al. supporting only Blu-Ray, I think it's safe to say... Game Over. Finally.

UPDATE: NHK confirms it HERE.

Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull

2008-02-16T11:19:00.000-08:00

Anyone who has read this blog for a year or more knows that my personal favorite film is Raiders of the lost Ark. I hated Temple of Doom. I really liked Last Crusade. Well, the trailer for Kingdom of the Crystal Skull is up over at Yahoo.

Check it out HERE. Go watch it and then come back for my comments on this.

I had seen a still of Harrison Ford on the set of this film 6 months ago. When I heard that they were doing another film and that Harrison would reprise his role I was VERY skeptical. I felt he was too old to pull it off. After I saw the still I thought OK, maybe he CAN do this.

Now I see the trailer and while it's clear, he has the physical acumen to do the role, there are a couple of issues for me. He looks a LOT older than he did in Crusade. That's fine. But the film appears to take place in the late 40s, early 50s (I could be wrong - just going on what I see in the trailer). I find it implausible that the character would have aged this much in that short of a period of time - Yes, you can rationalize it by saying that with all he has been through on his adventures, it's amazing he looks as good as he does.

But that is a rationalization that just won't fly for me. So, age issues aside, I liked the trailer except for the line he used when he falls into the windshield of the truck. "Damn, I thought that was closer". I just sounded BAD to me. Maybe I am being too harsh, after all, this is just a trailer. But the bar is set pretty high here. I would like to see them just hit the bar. They don't have to leap over it. Will I go and see it in the theaters when it comes out? Damn right I will :)

FCP Tip and the next review.

2008-02-16T11:06:00.000-08:00

Been a slow week for news for us to blog - Yes, Aperature 2 is out, yes Apple TV Take 2 was released, yes it looks like HD-DVD is dead after all. But you can read about that stuff on 21 jiggazillion blogs out there. So here is an FCP tip to hold you over until our next article.

(Thanks to Nance for this one)

Matchframe

If you position the playhead over a specific frame in the timeline and you want to know exactly where that frame is located in your media, press f. This will load the clip into the viewer and position you at the same frame that you have the playhead positioned over in the timeline. The menu command to do this is View->Matchframe.

Hope everyone had a great Valentine's day - I am sure Hallmark did :)

The next review

Oh yeah - I mentioned the next review that I'll be doing. That will be coming up next weekend. I'll be reviewing Red Software's Magic Bullet Frames. Since we shoot 1080i HDV, this software has some real potential value for us here at B-Scene.

Stay tuned :)

10.5.2 Intel update

2008-02-12T20:44:00.000-08:00

Well, I applied the 105.2 Leopard update to the first of our Intel machines here at B-Scene. I tested out all of the FCS applications just as I did on the PPC machine. Also tested Color and Logic 8. No issues on any of the applications.

I'll still wait to update Nance's machine since she is mid-project at the moment.

Leopard 10.5.2 PPC update results

2008-02-12T08:03:00.000-08:00

Updated the G4 laptop last night. Tested out FCP 6.0.2, did some capture, choppin, filters, CC and some rendering. No issues. Exported to a couple of formats with Compressor 3. No issues. Tested Soundtrack Pro 2, Motion 3 - All worked without a hitch.

Gonna update the first of the 2 Intel machines tonight. I'll post my results after I am done testing.

Users ARE reporting issues as you can see over at MacFixIt HERE.

OS X 10.5.2 update now available

2008-02-11T20:48:00.000-08:00

Apple has release the 10.5.2 update for Leopard and it looks to be a doozy. Added functionality to stacks and added the ability to kill the transparency in the menu bar (yay) and a ton of other updates. You can check them out HERE.

I'll be updating the Laptop first so that I can check to see that there is no impact to FCS. I will post my findings here in the next day or so. in the mean time, HOLD OFF ON YOUR UPDATE!

The Laptop is my experimenter machine - Let's see if they have broken anything significant.

Netflix to go BluRay ONLY

2008-02-11T14:51:00.000-08:00

Got an e-mail from NetFlix today - Seems they are going Blu-Ray ONLY now. They will not purchase any new HD-DVD titles after this month. Older (read: we already purchased them) HD-DVD titles will be available until the end of the year.

Maybe this stupid format war is drawing to a close. Boy I hope so. Here is the e-mail they sent:

We're Going Blu-ray

Dear Michael, You're receiving this email because you have asked to receive high-definition movies in the HD DVD format. As you may have heard, most of the major movie studios have recently decided to release their high-definition movies exclusively in the Blu-ray format.

In order to provide the best selection of high-definition titles for our members, we have decided to go exclusively with Blu-ray as well.While we will continue to make our current selection of HD DVD titles available to you for the next several months, we will not be adding additional HD DVD titles or reordering replacements.

Toward the end of February, HD DVDs in your Saved Queue will automatically be changed to standard definition DVDs. Then toward the end of this year, all HD DVDs in your Queue will be changed to standard definition DVDs. Don't worry, we will contact you before this happens.You can click here to change your format preferences.

We're sorry for any inconvenience. If you have any questions or need further assistance, please call us at 1 (888) 638-3549.-The Netflix Team

Roy Scheider dies at 75

2008-02-11T08:23:00.000-08:00

NY Times article HERE.

Wow, what a loss. Jaws, The Seven Ups, French Connection, All that Jazz and on and on...

One of my favorite actors.

Writer's strike may be over

2008-02-08T08:14:00.000-08:00

Slashdot is reporting Michael Eisner quoted as saying it's a done deal.

Check it HERE.

I hope it's done. More than that I hope that the writers have gotten the remuneration from online sales and a new deal for DVDs that they so richly deserve.

Apple joins Avid in blowing off NAB

2008-02-07T15:34:00.000-08:00

HERE

Read into this whatever you feel is appropriate.

Quicktime 7.4.1 will release TODAY

2008-02-06T09:14:00.000-08:00

This update will correct the issue with After Effects but will NOT correct the issue with Premiere Pro. This update will also correct an intermittent issue with the browser plugin component that caused some streaming video to fail.

It will be live for download this afternoon.

Movie sets

2008-02-05T12:18:00.000-08:00

GageFX over at the Rebel Cafe pointed this one out.

A montage of various film a TV sets, behind the scenes HERE.

FCP tip

2008-01-31T20:11:00.000-08:00

There are times when I want to apply a filter to more than one clip. I might adjust some settings and decide that I want that same thing applied to another clip. Easy enough, I right click on the filter in the filter pane and select copy. Then double click on the destination clip and paste the filter and it's settings so that they are applied to the new clip.

Easy enough :)

But if what I want is to apply a crop to another clip, I don't have the option of copy/paste in the settings window like I do with the filter window. Try as I might, no amount of right clicking on the crop effect in the motion tab window will give me a copy option...

Additionally, what if I want to copy a filter effect and apply it to more than one clip? Or the motion pane's settings for that matter? Well, this tip solves both issues.

Once I have the motion pane and filter settings that I want to apply to one or more clips, I right click on the clip in the timeline and select copy from the context menu. Then I select the destination clip(s) - One clip or a bunch - And I right click anywhere in the selected clip(s) in the timeline and select paste attributes.

This will bring up a pop-up menu that will allow you to select what attributes you would like to have pasted into the destination clips (such as crop, motion, filters etc). Select the items you want to have applied, click the OK button on the pop-up and voila!

Apple Mac Pro 8 core system review

2008-01-27T13:02:00.000-08:00

Preface: I had purchased iWork about a year ago and I also upgraded it recently when Apple added the Numbers Application to the suite. When I write articles for the blog, I write them in Pages before I post them. For this article, I found Pages to be very unstable.

This is the first time that I have made significant use of the application since we went Leopard here at B-Scene. I had multiple application hangs and crashes and resorted to using Microsoft Word 2008. So for users of the current version of Pages under Leopard, you have been warned ☺

Now, on with the review!

Apple Mac Pro 2.8GHz 8 core system review

At B-Scene Films, we have had a quad core Intel Mac Pro for about 9 months. It is the 2.66 ghz model. It is configured with 6GB of RAM, the standard 250GB drive, 2 750GB SATA drives in a RAID 0 configuration for the storage of captured footage. It's name on our network is BigMac since it was the most powerful Mac in our stable.

Towards the end of last year, we determined the need for another machine. I decided that we would wait until MacWorld to see if an updated Mac Pro would be announced. Low and behold they announced the updates a week prior to the show (god forbid it might infringe on Randy Newman's wonderful singing...).

So we picked up the base model 8 core 2.8 GHz machine. We named it Angus on our network in keeping with the McDonald's theme that we had going with the BigMac (Angus is a new burger at McDonald's).

It comes with a 320GB drive and 2GB RAM standard. I ordered 4GB of RAM for the machine for $199 from Other World Computing and it arrived last Thursday. OWC is a great vendor for Mac products, I highly recommend them.

As a side note, I will refer to the 4 core machine as BigMac4 and the 8 core machine as Angus8. That way you will know which machine is the 4 or 8 core instead of trying to remember what silly names we used on the machines here at B-Scene.

Normally I would have bought the RAM from Crucial but they do not carry the newer 800 MHz RAM. In fact, it was backordered at OWC. Then we added 2 1TB SATA drives from Fry's at $259 each. Now, as I have stated in the past, I am not an Apple Fan boy - No koolaid for me, sorry. But, that being said, I have to give credit where credit is due...

In my office I have a WinTel machine that I built myself. Over the years, I must have built 50 of these things. And in that time, almost NONE of the hardware vendors have made any strides in simplifying this process or cleaning it up.

Adding memory, an expansion card or an HD to the machine is a nightmare. You are fighting with cables like crazy both inside and outside of the machine. On some of these systems, you have to pull out an HD to get to the DIMM slots to add memory. It's just ridiculous and in the years that I have been building these, it has never improved.

But the Mac Pro... This is another story.

Memory Installation

To add the memory, I turn the machine so that it's side panel faces me (I don't even bother to disconnect the cables in the back connecting the network, sound and video). I flip down a latch and take the cover off. There is not a cable in sight. I pull out the 2 memory riser cards, pop my 2 new 2GB modules into the upper riser card, move the Apple installed 1GB module to the upper riser, shove the 2 riser boards back into the Mac.

Done.

Total time to install new memory: Less than 7 minutes. On the Wintel machine it would have been 45 minutes and MUCH less pleasant.

Hard Drive Installation

To install the 2 drives, I push a lever to unlock the drive carriers. I remove the 2 carriers and attach the carriers to the 1TB drives using the 4 screws that come pre-loaded in the Mac’s drive carriers.

The screws are held in place by grommets so that you are not dropping them as you install. Nice touch. Since the carriers are outside of the machine, this process is very simple. No fighting with screws inside of a case where there is no light and no room to maneuver.

I then slide the drive carriers back into the Mac, press them at the end of their travel to ensure that the SATA socket in the Mac has mated with the drive firmly. Replace the Mac's side panel, push the locking lever down and we are all done.

About 15 minutes total time to upgrade the RAM and add 2 drives. Apple has this down. It's done right. It's the way ALL systems should be set up.

I have seen some Wintel cases try to emulate the drive tray system that Apple uses, but invariably it's made out of cheap sheet metal and, providing you don't cut yourself on the edges of it, is still a challenge to deal with due to poorly fitted parts.

If people wonder why you pay a premium for an Apple product, this is a big part of that reason - They are built properly with quality components.

NUMBERS

OK, now on to the numbers. Just how fast is this machine compared with the older Mac Pro that we have? Bear in mind that I am not MacWorld Labs. My approach is much more oriented towards real world results as they apply to Final Cut Studio.

All of these tests are being run under the current version of Leopard and the current versions of all of the FCS applications (FCP 6.0.2, Color 1.0.2, Motion 3.0.2, Compressor 3.0.2).

MULTI CORE USAGE

As to which applications use multiple cores, I ran Activity Monitor throughout these tests to see which applications leveraged the multi-core architecture of these machines.

FCP, Color and Compressor all used multiple cores. FCP makes very good use of the multi-core systems in both rendering and in real-time playback. Color uses them but in a very strange way that I suspect is a bug more than a feature. More on that after the Color tests.

During FCP and Compressor rendering the Activity monitor showing what cores are being used generally looked like this:

(Each horizontal bar is 1 core and the green shows how much of the core is being used.)

The test footage that I used to measure performance is footage from the DVD that comes with the Apple Pro Training series book Soundtrack Pro 2 by Martin Sitter. The footage was shot on a Sony F900 by Brian Terwilliger for his wonderful documentary One Six Right.

The clips are 1920 x 1080 and are in Apple ProRes 422 format (non HQ). These tests will focus on the following:

• Application load time
• Render time

For the render time tests, I will be taking a single clip of the One Six Right footage and applying color correction and brightness contrast adjustments in FCP to affect a day for night correction. In Color, I will undo the day for night correction and add a bleach bypass.

I will output final version from FCP using compressor. I will output the following formats:

• Uncompressed 10 bit full HD
• Compressed for iPhone / iPod
• Recompress H.264 full HD
• Output for standard NTSC DVD

Let's get started!

LOAD TIMES

The following are the load times for the applications:

BigMac4:

FCP - 30.5 seconds
Soundtrack - 10.6
Color - 5.7
Motion - 14.3

Angus8:

FCP - 18 seconds
Soundtrack Pro - 7.5
Color - 6.2
Motion - 9.1

Well, load times have improved for all except Color. Not sure why that is. Color loads VERY fast on both systems regardless.

RENDER TIMES

Project details:

One clip of full HD, 44.1 KHz stereo audio, 3 way CC added (white and black levels set), project duration 00:00:09:12.

Render Full Time Line:

Angus8: 22.2 seconds.
BigMac4: 30.0 seconds

Compressor output:

Angus8:

Full HD, h.264: 34.2 seconds
Full HD, 10 bit uncompressed: 43.8
iPhone preset 640x480 34.8
DVD Best Quality 90 minutes: 32.2

BigMac4:

Full HD, h.264: 49.7 seconds
Full HD, 10 bit uncompressed: 48.0
iPhone preset 640x480 36.6
DVD Best Quality 90 minutes: 40.0

COLOR RENDER TIMES

The sequence was sent to Color where the CC that was done in FCP was UN-done in the primaries room and a bleach bypass effect was added. The following number is the render time for each machine:

Angus8: 32.2 seconds

BigMac4: 33.9 seconds

Watching the Activity meter while Color is rendering presented a very different picture from the other applications. Processor usage appears to be flawed in that it uses all 8 or 4 cores sequentially instead of in parallel. Very odd…

Conclusion

Well, the performance areas that most impact our workflow here have seen a decent bump in speed. I suspect that the reason that Color’s render times are very close between the two machines is because of the bizarre way that Color uses one core at a time and sequences through the available cores instead of using them in parallel. One other nice benifit is that while projects that had an orange render bar on the Angus8 would play back in real time, that same project loaded on the BigMac4 would have a red render bar. So there is a nice bump in interactivity.

No buyer’s remorse here!

iPhone DOF Applet

2008-01-26T19:28:00.000-08:00

VERY nice - Check it out HERE.

New MacPro review pending

2008-01-24T08:09:00.000-08:00

We have one of the new 8 core MacPros here at B-Scene and this weekend I plan to run it through it's paces. My review will be focused on FCS performance. I'll contrast it to the 2007 MacPro quad that we use.

Most reviews on these boxes tend to be focused on raw benchmark numbers ( Like MacWorld's tests HERE). I will be looking at the machine from a more post production real-world perspective. One that uses FCS 2.0 as my benchmark software.

Stay tuned!

Do not update to Quicktime 7.4 UPDATED

2008-01-22T13:12:00.000-08:00

you are a user of After Effects. There is a serious bug in the current version of Quicktime 7.4 that causes renders in AE to stop pre-maturely and forces AE to issue a permissions error.

Aparently this is tied to the DRM changes that went live in the current 7.4 version of Quicktime.

I have done a bunch of output from FCP 6.x using 7.4 and I have had no issues whatsoever. The issue has only been reported in After Effects so far.

UPDATE: Seems that it is causing an issue with streaming quicktime through the browser plugin - I have had it fail on Safari, Firefox and IE7 so far. - Bottom line: DON'T UPDATE TO 7.4. If you already have, consider using Time Machine in Leopard or a restore point in Win XP or Vista to roll back. Sorry, Tiger and previous OS X users - No fix for you :(

Shane's Stock Answers

2008-01-21T18:13:00.000-08:00

Shane Ross is a broadcast editor in the LA area, a frequent contributor to LAFCPUG meetings, author of Getting Organized in FCP, Blogger Par Excellance and all around nice dude.

Being an all around nice dude he tends to get the same FCP questions over and over and over. In response to that, Shane has developed:

Shane's Stock Answers. It's posted over at the cow - Check it out HERE.

Nice work, Shane!

Exterior shot planning

2008-01-20T12:25:00.000-08:00

When Nance and I did the Aquarium short, we spent time at the location beforehand photographing the location at different times of the day so that we knew where the sun would be and what to expect in terms of natural lighting.

An alternative to this is to look up the location on Google Maps, get the GPS lat and long values and then use this sun position calculator HERE. You can then overlay that onto the Google satellite picture and get an accurate map of the sun's position for any time throughout the day.

It won't take into account weather conditions. You are on your own for that.

Thanks to Coffee and Celluloid for pointing this out.

Apple: New iPhone update unbricks iPhones

2008-01-18T20:22:00.000-08:00

Ars Technica covers this HERE.

Apple took a lot of heat for bricking modded iPhones. And, rightly so? Yes, that is a question. As Apple continues to partner with other companies in order to do business (The majors for movie rentals, Google, ATT et. al.), it becomes more and more difficult to understand the source of certain decisions.

Did Apple purposely brick iPhones? Was it inadvertent? Did ATT dictate that to Apple? We will never know. One would hope that mature corporations such as Apple and ATT would have the foresight to understand the negative press associated with such a decision. But, stranger things have happened. When it comes to Apple, they are FAR to tight lipped for any of us to ever expect an answer about this.

As of now, Apple has redeemed itself with this update. How big of a PR hit did Apple take with regard to the original updates that bricked the iPhone? Well, I read a TON of negative press about it. Lots of pros and cons. But during that time, Apple stock continued to climb.

It's interesting to see how much a company can screw up while it's in Wall Street's good graces and still thrive. At the end of the day, I have to blame Apple for the bricking. It's their phone product. Good or bad, they are the ones that will get the credit or the derision.

Apple announcements redux

2008-01-18T10:25:00.000-08:00

As I have stated previously, I am not an Apple fan boy. For the most part, I like their products and for me they provide solutions that are applicable to my work. We have 3 Windows XP machines here at B-Scene, a quad core MacPro, a Powerbook G4 and an 8 core MacPro. The Intel Macs are also running Windows XP. Nance runs Parallels and I run VMWare.

The Windows machines as well as the Macs provide us with issues and challenges as well as solutions. I will admit that, for the most part, The Macs tend to be more stable. I have an annual ritual with my Windows machines whereby I clean off the boot drive and re-install Windows from scratch in order to get it back to a stable condition. I have never had to do that with a Mac.

A few people have taken me to task on my recent comments regarding Apple's product announcements at MacWorld. Some of those comments have made me re-think my position on some of these products.

MacBook Air: I pointed out a lack of FW on this machine. Other people have also pointed out the inability to change the battery, no optical drive standard, small hard drive, high price etc. Well, in fairness to Apple, I think this machine is really targeted at the individual that is traveling a great deal or has a long commute on a train.

I think for that market, Apple has a winning solution on their hands. The machine is very elegant, very lightweight (there are lighter machines out there), and has a very small footprint. The addition of the multi-touch technology is also very nice.

For myself and the majority of the readers that come here, this machine is of no value. That's OK. It's not meant to be.

Apple TV: Two of my main beefs here are with time and cost. I suspect that Apple had to acquiesce to the demands of the big movie studios in order to get this rental service off of the ground. And, I must admit, it's a start. A jumping off point for this new type of service. In order to be successful, the model will have to be adjusted IMHO. The 24 hour limit has to be addressed as should the cost of the rentals.

James Hendrick commented on my previous rant that the Apple TV is targeted at homes with WiFi. His experience in streaming 720p across 802.11g is different than mine. I have attempted to stream 720p material from my computer in the home office out to the xBox 360 in my living room with little success. Maybe that is a fault of the xBox or the distance from the PC in my office. For me, I have little confidence in it. I stream MP3s just fine. Not video.

Having worked in the tech sector for 30 years now, I have adopted a pragmatic approach to solutions. Too many times I have seen failures occur because of a brand loyalty or technology loyalty that brought in products inappropriate to apply as solutions.

My loyalty lies with the company that provides the solution that best fits the problem being addressed. That might be Microsoft, Apple, Dell, Sun or any other number of tech solution providers. This pragmatic approach has served me well in the past. I do not plan to abandon it.

As a final side note, I neglected to mention that I have one other PC here. It's a Mac Plus from 1986. It still runs like the day it was made.

Free Boris FX Snow Filter

2008-01-16T21:12:00.000-08:00

The folks over at Boris (Makers of the incredible Continuum effects package for FCP) are giving away a slick snow filter for FCP - Lots of parameters to play with, lots of fun!

Get your copy HERE.

Why Apple TV 2.0 is DOA

2008-01-16T12:51:00.000-08:00

Well, here we are. All of the hype about what the Steve would announce is behind us and the reality of what was actually announced is here in our faces. Apple's stock took a pounding today. Dipping to $156 at one point to close at $161. While some of that was attributed to Intel's disappointing fiscal reports, analysts are also attributing Apple's announcements yesterday as part of the cause for the drop.

I don't need to re-hash the announcements here, you can read about them all over the net or watch the keynote on Apple's website. I will, however, offer my take on a couple of items...

Macbook Air: When I saw this I thought about how great that would be to have on location. When I saw that it had no FW interface, it killed my interest in the machine. I am not the only one that had this reaction either. I would have taken that over the stupid mini-DVI connection any day...

iPhone 1.1.3 update: This rocks. All of the features that they added are great and I use them all. I hope they have fixed some of the irritating bugs (like clicking a link on a web page and having it go back to the home page. Then return to safari and all of my open pages are gone...).

And finally...

Apple TV 2.0: Great work getting all of the movie studios on board for the iTunes movie rentals. Too bad the business model is going to make this fail. Let's consider a few things here.

In order to get HD movies downloaded to the Apple TV, you need a broadband connection. Or you can select what you want to watch for tomorrow night, today, and start your wireless download now...

How many people have a broadband connection in their TV room? Only my geekiest of friends have this. I don't have it because I have vaulted ceilings and no elegant way to run the cable to that room.

But, OK, for argument's sake, let's say that the target customer DOES have gigabit ethernet in their TV room. This brings up the second deal breaker for me: Time and Money.

I spend $15 a month for Netflix. For that I get about 10 movies per month on average. I don't generally find that I need more than that. I get HD or SD versions of films - Same fee. It's easy. I like it. It's far from perfect...

iTunes HD rentals are $4.99 per - moreover they must be watched in 24 hours once you start watching the rented film. Both of these are deal breakers for me. Here is what would work:

A flat fee for a fixed number of downloads per month. Say $20 for 10 or 15 movies a month. Once I start to watch it, give me 72 hours. Lots of times Nance and I start to watch a film and it's too late in the evening to finish it and we don't get back to it for a day or two. I am SURE there are plenty of parents out there with similar issues.

So, a $20 per month flat fee. 72 hours to watch it. HD or SD. a beautiful interface for selecting the film I want to see (the Apple TV already has this). Broadband in my TV room so that I can start watching the film NOW.

That's my dream.

As it stands today, Apple TV 2.0 is stillborn. Mark my words.

Robert Rodriguez's film school

2008-01-12T09:17:00.000-08:00

A bunch of bloggers have been linking to the 10 minute film school clips that Robert did up on Youtube. As a general rule, I try not to parrot what every other blogger out there is spamming. I try to come up with my own, original spam to bore you with. With that in mind, don't bother with the 10 minute film school.

I mean really. Why waste 10 minutes when you can get it done in FIVE.

Check it out: