Ad

Sunday, June 10, 2012

Quick Links

'Dark Knight Rises' Director Christopher Nolan Isn’t a Fan of Digital
| Alex Ben Block | The Hollywood Reporter
It's not news that Nolan doesn't like digital, but here's more quotes from him:
Nolan said he thinks film is still best because it provides the filmmaker the most range, captures the most depth of image and works best as a tool to tell a story. Nolan said that moving to digital creates a risk of “devaluing what we do as filmmakers.”
“The problem with the push to digital is its has been given a consumer aspect,” says Nolan,” who suggests it confuses the camera with an Ipad. “It’s not what is best for the film,” he insists.


Celluloid no more: distribution of film to cease by 2013 in the US | Megan Geuss
| Ars Technica
It's also not news that celluloid distribution is going to end sooner rather than later:
While economics may be spurring directors toward digital movies, theaters aren’t following quite so quickly on their heels. "51.5 percent of worldwide screens had digital projectors at the end of 2011," said Deadline. While that's an 82 percent increase from the year before, the move from film to digital will almost certainly create a burden on theaters to invest money they may not have on new projection technology. Digital projection systems can cost between $70,000 to $100,000 and small town movie houses will have trouble coming up with that cash.


What should the long-awaited Mac Pro update look like? | Chris Foresman
| Ars Technica
Interesting thoughts about why such a long delay on an update to the Mac Pro, and what a new Mac Pro might look like:
As we noted above, Apple could easily ditch at least one of the internal optical drive bays. The company could also switch some or all of the internal storage bays from 3.5" to 2.5". That alone could allow Apple to make the Mac Pro thinner and significantly shorter, even if it keeps the number of internal bays constant.


DIY Catering Part II: 4 Easy Ways to Go Green(er) | Ashley Maynor
| Self-Reliant Film
Ideas for reducing costs on catering:
2. Require BYO-Bottles & Provide A Refill Station: Our film sets are BYO-water bottle for all crew. I also keep a few extra stainless steel bottles on hand for talent, PAs, and the inevitable forgotten bottles. Having designated, labeled bottles helps to cut down on waste–no more unidentified, half-drunk plastic bottles lying around! And I’ve found that many crew will keep their bottles attached to their belt loops with a carabiner. This constant access equals more hydration and less fatigue on set.


Just say NO to vertical videos | Nino Leitner | Blog
Sure, BUT I have seen one use for vertical video that was very effective - when the screen was mounted vertically!
This is an issue I have come across MANY times with amateur shooters who are mainly using their phones to shoot video – they shoot vertical videos and don’t even realize that it’s utterly stupid.
Vertical videos make absolutely no sense for a lot of reasons, and I want to smack the phones out of people’s hands whenever I see someone doing it. That’s for photos only!!!


HBO’s future is in standalone streaming. It just doesn’t know it yet
| Farhead Manjoo | Pando Daily
Today I was talking to someone who used to work in the local video store (now defunct) and we talked about how video stores are virtually a relic; will television channels be a thing of the past soon too?:
One morning during the next five years, you’ll wake up to news that HBO has seen the light. The cable network will announce that it has decided to take your money—maybe $12, $15, or $20 a month—and from that moment on, you’ll be able to watch its shows without a cable subscription.


Five Ways a 2nd AC Can Impress Their 1st AC Beyond Belief | Evan Luzi
| The Black And Blue
Many of Evan's articles could be easily re-written to apply to almost any career:
The demands placed on a 2nd AC are tremendous because they are expected to accomplish tasks the 1st AC would do themselves were they not metaphorically strapped to the camera. The more you, as a 2nd AC, can meet those demands without the intervention of the 1st AC, the happier you keep your department.
And the happier the department, the more likely you are to get hired on another gig.


Check out the winners of the 2012 Vimeo Awards | Philip Bloom | Blog
Philip collects together the award winners from the Vimeo awards (I didn't even know they were going on):
I was lucky enough to be asked to judge the “Lyrical” category. It was very tough as there were very strong entries but one stood out amongst the others and that was Symmetry by EveryNone. I presented the award to them tonight at the Vimeo Festival and they fantastically went on to win the Grand Jury Prize. Well done guys. Incredible work.


Meet Tom Lowe, The Filmmaker Who Talked Back To The Pirate Bay
| John Biggs | Tech Crunch
A director posts on Pirate Bay:
When I saw the torrent, I felt like letting downloaders know that this was a small, self-financed film, and there are not any Hollywood fatcats in the revenue stream. We have also gone out of our way to offer like 15 different types of paid downloads, from standard-def resolution up to 2560×1440, for those with 2560×1600 monitors, which we believe is a first. If you want reduce file sharing, I think you should offer fast, secure, relatively inexpensive, DRM-free downloads in as many flavors as possible. The only people DRM hurts are your actual, paying customers.


Cool Text Effect with the Puppet Warp Tool in Photoshop CS5 | Abduzeedo
A step-by-step tutorial on creating an interesting effect. Not for video, but then Photoshop can edit video, so maybe it could be used for a video effect:
When Adobe started announcing some of the new features of the CS5 version of Photoshop they showed the Puppet Warp tool in which they played with an elephant's trunk. I was really impressed with that tool but never used it that too much, because of that I decided to give it a try, especially after seeing a screen cast with Russell Brown in which he was showing how to manipulate a rope with the Puppet Warp Tool.

No comments: