Notes On Video

It's the holidays! Time for some Do-It-Yourself projects! How to make a rockwool acoustic panel A short how-to-video on Vimeo on making acoustic panels with rockwool and costing about 1/4 the cost of professional panels. I just wish the music in the background wasn't so in the foreground. Vimeo : How to make a rockwool acoustic panel How to build a dolly "Well, I know I'm not the first to do this, but I won't be the last. What follows is my Dad and I building a skateboard dolly. It came out great. For around $100 here is what we came up with... " mike.miller.producer: Skateboard Dolly Build A Panasonic AG-AF101/AG-AF100 test shot We had the opportunity to make a test shoot with Panasonics new AG-AF101 in order to see what this baby can do. We shot on a cold and snowy hamburg day in an old, dark factory with a small crew. We had about six hours of shooting and a hell of a time! 101 Images - AG-AF101 from Saubere Filme on Vimeo . An...

Sebastian Wiegärtner shot this corporate film for pralinen-pieger.de on the Canon 7D using Canon 24-70 mm 2.8 and Canon 100 mm 2.8 L IS macro lenses and the Kessler Pocket Dolly Traveller 2.0 and Manfrotto 504 HD w/ 546 GBK legs. Shot in 720p / 50fps and graded in Apple Color , with additional exposure adjustments in Magic Bullet Looks . Looks like the holidays to me!! Image Film Chocolate Manufacture from Sebastian Wiegärtner on Vimeo .

Marshall V-LCD50-HDMI 5" Monitor Review Michael Reichmann of The Luminous Landscape reviews the new Marshall V-LCD50-HDMI 5 " Monitor: If you're a camcorder or DSLR user shooting video you likely already know of and understand the advantages of a small HDMI monitor. The LCD50 will be found attractive because of its small size and low weight, its modest price – just over $500 at B&H – and range of attractive features. The Luminous Landscape : Marshall V-LCD50 HDMI Monitor Redrock Micro NANO Running Man Rig Review Eric Koretz at The Image Hunter reviews the new light-weight Running Man rigs from Redrock: The video definitely wouldn’t have been as stable if I didn’t have that Nano. The Running Man handheld rig is quick to build, stable when using and easy to pack away. It fills a need that is surprisingly hard to create in hand held rigs. The Image Hunter : Redrock Micro NANO Running Man Rig B & H : Redrock Mico Nano - RunnningMan [$439.95] In...

Amazon says the Panasonic Lumix DMC-GH2  [ $998.19 ] is temporarily out of stock, but Engadget reckons that some are turning up in the hands of lucky buyers... Engadget : Panasonic's Lumix GH2 now shipping in America

How to Speed up rendering in Final Cut Pro In Red Giant QuickTip 26 :, Apple Certified Master Trainer, Simon Walker, shows you how to speed up rendering on the Final Cut Pro timeline. RedGiantSoftware:  Red Giant QuickTip 26: Faster Rendering in Final Cut Pro Comparing the Sony PMW-F3 to the Canon 5D Mark II Fxguide has some video that compares these two cameras, and demonstrates that the F3 has less rolling shutter, and doesn't have the artifacts you can get from the 5D because of it's line-skipping algorithm (the 5D has to go from the high-resolution sensor image down to a 1920 x 1080 image very quickly, so it uses a fairly crude algorithm to do it. This can cause moire patterns in fine details.) Some commentors think that the cameras shouldn't be compared because they aren't in the same price range, but that's wrong; independent and some big-studio filmmakers are using the 5D Mark II (just see Canon's recent television add) and the F3 is going after...

I previously mentioned that Aaron Williams has been tweeting color grading tips. Clearly the effort aroused some attention, as he is now blogging the tips with more detail (and graphics) The latest tip concerns using RGB Parade to make simple color adjustments. AaronWilliams.tv

Amazon's Deal-of-the-Da y today is $20 off the Roku XDS Streaming Player . $79.99 Roku allows you to instantly stream tons of entertainment on your TV. Watch over 100,000 movies and TV shows from Netflix, Amazon Video On Demand, Hulu Plus and more. Listen to music on Pandora, or listen to your own iTunes playlists. Watch major sports, news, or original Internet programming. Amazon: Deal of the Day

Stillmotion Photo + Cinema was hired by Canon Canada to make an advertisement about a new service they are offering where they will turn a photo into an oil painting (using real oils and real artists!) Interesting . But what I found particularly interesting is the making-of-video. I actually like it better than the commercial! ...we wanted to bring the viewer into the scene where they are hammering on the deck but to do that we had to get very low to the ground where the action was. one of the things i like most about the cinevate atlas30 is the ability to shoot underslung. we actually removed the legs and just rested the end blocks on apple boxes so that we can quickly go between standard and underslung mode throughout both shoot days. There's a blog post explaining how the project was planned and shot, working with a slider, etc. There's some nice shots in there... canon artworks behind the scenes from stillmotion on Vimeo . Stillmotion blog : Artworks By Canon...

...here comes the Mac Apple Store . It's been reported that the Final Cut Pro download site will close on January 6th...that's the same day that the Mac Apple Store opens, so I don't think you can take that as an indication that Apple is abandoning Final Cut !

Noise Industries has released a free update to FxFactory, 2.5.3 . This update adds two new effects; an Analog TV filter which adds scan lines, distortion and the curve of an analog tube TV to footage, while the Channel Switch transition  emulates a channel switch on an analog TV. PHYX Stylist is a new set of filter effects that includes Skin Light (for adjusting skin tones) as well as Fog Generator , Cathode Ray (emulates night vision, old or damaged televisions and electronic rifle scopes), Haze Removal and Sparkle Star (photographic star filter) All work with After Effects , Final Cut , Final Cut Expres s and Motion . Video demos : Analog TV , Channel Switch & P HYX Stylist . Noise Industries

Creative COW DSLR Video Podcast Richard Harrington and Robbie Carman have started a podcast on DSLR Video. You can download it from iTunes . CreativeCow : Creative COW DSLR Video Podcast DSLRs for Digital Cinema DP, effects cinematographer and VFX supervisor Dave Stump talks about how he thinks HDSLRs fit into the film cinemtographers toolkit. He's neither totally for or against them, seeing both the advantages and disadvantages: It obeys a really old axiom, that when the only tool you own is a hammer, everything looks like a nail. If you know only one kind of camera, then every job you do looks like a job for that camera. But ultimately, what we learned from CAS is that every camera has its strengths and weaknesses. If you let the job tell you which camera to use, rather than just your knowledge of only one camera, then you are ultimately doing the greatest service to your producer. Creative COW : DSLRs for Digital Cinema: Their Potential, Your Responsibility Dian...

Philip Bloom has run a few short movie challenges over the last few months, and now he has an end-of-year competition that even has some prizes. You have until December 31st to produce a video no longer than 5 minutes that reflects what this year has meant to you. More Details: The biggest and best “weekend/ holiday challenge” so far…PRIZES TOO!