News From Here & There

Thinking of Using Kickstarter to Finance Your Project?
Filmmaker Nathaniel Hansen offers 7 tips:
Through trial and error on over a dozen kickstarter projects, hours of lectures at Emerson College, and countless meet ups, phone calls and emails with artists and innovators, I’ve refined a “best practices” list that I share when I decide to get involved with a project.
NathanielHansen: 7 Things to Consider BEFORE you Launch your Kickstarter Project



Movie Nerd Humor
Cracked.com has a really interesting article looking at the "5 Annoying Trends That Make Every Movie Look the Same," and what's interesting - apart from the fact that it ignores that movie studios have always been derivative - is how technically nerdy the article is:
To be fair, it's not necessarily laziness per se. Your average colorist has to grade about two hours of movie, frame by frame sometimes, in the space of a couple of weeks. It doesn't take that many glances at the deadline bearing down on the calendar before you throw up your hands and say, "F*&k it. Everybody likes teal and orange!"
Wait! Colorist? What is this site? Is Cracked no longer a humor site? It says "America's Only Humor Site Since 1958" at the top. Is that 19:58 yesterday?

Here's the complete list:
  • #5. Movies are Color-Coded by Genre
  • #4. Everything Else is Teal and Orange
  • #3.Ramping (aka, Everything Slows Down Then Speeds Up)
  • #2. Faking the Documentary Look, Even When it's Not a Documentary
  • #1. 3D That Somehow Makes the Movie Look Worse
And the article actually has frames from movies as examples, and explanation and everything. Let me say, the list is actually interesting, but I'm not sure why it's on a humor site...
Cracked: 5 Annoying Trends



Web Video Text
Richard Harrington offers tips on how to review on-screen text to make sure it's readable when played back:
We recommend staying in your desk chair but reducing the playback window to 50 percent (or even 25 percent) magnification. You can also change the resolution of the Program Monitor to quarter or half quality.
RichardHarrington: Testing Font Readability



The State of Digital Media Players
Peter at Gdgt Weekly Newsletter looks at digital media players like Boxee and AppleTV and wonders if it's really about the media libraries (Netflix, YouTube, iTunes etc) rather than the capabilities of the boxes themselves:
Once everyone starts offering more or less the same set of features and services on their box, it makes it tough to differentiate on any other basis than price, which is why it’s really not that surprising to see how aggressive prices have already become.
Gdgt: Discussion about Digital Media Players



A 48 Hour Film Competition
Benjamin Eckstein took part in the recent Boston 48 Hour Film Competition, and writes about it, providing some tips for those considering entering a future competition:
48HFP Tip #1: I think picking a location and deciding no matter what, that you’ll shoot there, is a great way to go about the 48HFP.) 
BenjaminEckstein: And yet another... 48 Hours



Apple Upcoming Event: Never Mind
Now they seem to think that the BIG upcoming event at the Apple stores is just a Back-to-School promotion and store rebranding.
AppleInsider: Sources: Apple gearing up for back-to-school promotion as early as next week



Just For Fun:

For the Final Cut Pro editor: Final Cut Pro: A Day In The Life, a rap music video.

...and if you like your humor without music, Inspiration Studio's does their bit on the Sony PMW-F3:

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