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Saturday, June 02, 2012

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Sony FS700 test footage. Minnehaha Falls, Minneapolis, MN | AlokaKasina | Vimeo
More slow-motion footage from the Sony NEX-FS700. Some of it is quite good, but after about a minute it feels like the novelty wears off. We're all going to be sick of slow-motion by the end of the year:
Footage captured with a prototype Sony FS700. In-camera 240fps_1080p and 480fps_720p. Compressed to H.264, 720x1280, 23.976.


How to Set Up the Canon 5D To Shoot Video | Michael Britt | Photo Cine News
A setup video for the Mark II (not the III):
I just put up a short video about how to set up the Canon 5D MKII for Video. I’ve put some of this information out before in our book and some other blog posts but this time I go step by step through the menus for capturing video. I do this in my Intro to DSLR Video seminar and decided to provide this video as a resource to my students, Samy’s Camera customers and PCN readers.
If you have a Canon 5D Mark III, and want to shoot underwater, you can now buy the Ikelite 6871.03 Underwater Housing for Canon 5D Mark III DSLR for $1,599.95.



Adobe Shakes Up Premiere Pro Training and Certification | Andrew Davis
| PremiumBeat
Adobe has changed it's certification training, requiring trainers to use materials developed by Adobe, and also undergo an additional training class themselves, which is only available in a couple of places in the States:
Potential students may find it a little harder to get certified Premiere Pro CS6 trainers for the next few months while Adobe get their act together. Even when more trainers are available it will likely cost more for the consumer, as the minimum length for a course has now jumped up to 3 days. Times…they are a’changing.


AJA Supports Adobe Creative Suite 6 Software Release | AJA
AJA releases new drivers:
AJA Video Systems, a leading manufacturer of professional video interface and conversion solutions, is supporting the new release of Adobe® Creative Suite® 6 software with AJA's Io Express, Io XT and KONA family of products for both Mac and Windows customers. The new drivers supporting Adobe Creative Suite 6 are available now as a free download.


Library, title templates, template projects missing: Premiere Pro, After Effects, Encore CS5 - CS6 | Adobe
Missing some content in CS6? This technote explains what to do:
When you access the Library panel in Adobe Encore, the panel contains no content. Additionally, there is no subfolder named Library within the Adobe Encore application folder on your hard disk.
When you access the title templates in Adobe Premiere Pro, the title templates are missing.
When you access the template projects in After Effects, the template projects are missing.
To the top


RED Camera Plug-ins | Adobe LABS
Adobe updates a beta plug-in for supporting RED cameras:
The RED EPIC Importer preview release updates the RED support in Adobe® Premiere® Pro CS5.5, After Effects® CS5.5 and Adobe Media Encoder CS5.5 to support the latest Firmware for RED EPIC and RED Scarlet digital cinema cameras.


Some thought on Events and Keyword Collections in Final Cut Pro X
| Philip Hodgetts | Blog
Philip is a big user and promoter of meta data, but even he finds himself rethinking how to use and label material when faced with large quantities of the stuff:
My original thought was to use one bigger Event – analogous to a FCP 7 Project, because I was under the misunderstanding that I couldn’t filter (search) across Events. As I just said that was a misunderstanding. By selecting multiple Events in the Event Browser, the filter (Command F) will filter across all the selected Events.


Canon EOS-1D X Availability [CR2] | CanonRumors
Recently there's been some concern about when the EOS-1D X would ship, and suggestions that Canon has had some serious, unexpected problems. I think the problem they had was they pre-announced it a little too early (Vincent Laforet suggested that the mention of it at the C300 unveiling was a last minute addition to the event, perhaps in response to the Scarlet announcement.)
A few did mention that the end of June beginning of July is still the target date, but the quantity will be very small. I’m told a few sports photographers will be allocated the 1D X first. Retail availability in July was mentioned as being “optimistic”. August or September may be the months when big stock numbers hit the marketplace.


A Mind-Blowing Impossible Shot from the Movie ‘Contact’ | Michael Zhang
| PetaPixel
A shot from the movie Contact [Blu-ray] with a link to an audio commentary from Robert Zemeckis about how it was done.
For those who like them, Contact also has a great, long Steadicam shot early in the movie, just after the first contact is made...



The Best Animated Films of All Time, According to Terry Gilliam | Open Culture
The magic of Tex Avery’s animation is the sheer extremity of it all. The classic Avery image is of someone’s mouth falling open down to their feet, wham, their eyes whooping out and their tongue unrolling for about half a mile: that is the most wonderfully liberating spectacle….


Lucasfilm names Kathleen Kennedy co-chair | Post
George is getting ready to retire:
Kathleen Kennedy will become co-chair of Lucasfilm, allowing George Lucas to more forward with his retirement plans. Lucas, who will become co-chairman of the board of Lucasfilm and will continue on as CEO, will work with Kennedy to transition into her new role. Micheline Chau remains president and COO of Lucasfilm, and will continue to focus on the day-to-day operations of the business.



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Friday, June 01, 2012

Wed., June 13th Screening of Zacuto "Revenge of the Great Camera Shootout 2012"


For the last couple of years, Zacuto has been hosting a camera shoot-out where they get a bunch of cameras, shoot some test video, show the results to different people, and then release a web series on the making of, and the reactions to the footage.

For the latest go-round, the Boston Creative Pro Users Group is hosting a showing in Boston. Here's the details:

BOSCPUG is proud to host the Boston 2K screening of the Zacuto REVENGE of the GREAT CAMERA SHOOTOUT 2012, featuring footage shot with cameras including the ARRI Alexa, Canon C300 and 7D, Sony FS100, F3 and F65, Panasonic GH2 and RED Epic. Headed by Bruce Logan, ASC and featuring Rodney Charters, ASC, Polly Morgan, Nancy Schreiber, ASC, Mick Jones, Johnny Zeller and other industry cinematographers.

DATE: Thursday, June 13, 2012
TIMES: 7PM - 9PM (doors open at 6:30PM, Screening begins promptly at 7PM)
WHERE: Theatre 1/Space 57 at the new Revere Hotel | Boston Common
200 Stuart Street
Boston, MA 02116
(formerly the Stuart Street Playhouse at the Radisson Hotel Boston)
COST: Admission is Free for this event with RSVP

Quick Links

6 Filmmaking Tips From The Coen Brothers | Cole Abaius | Film School Rejects
Tips from the Coen's:
Don’t Be Afraid to Offend
“‘Taste,’ says Joel, ‘has never been something we’ve worried about.’
‘We’re not big on taste,’ agrees Ethan, his grin broadening even further. ‘And actually, if you don’t pander to undue sensitivities then it ends up usually not being much of a problem. In The Big Lebowski, we dumped the crippled guy out of the wheelchair, and no one seemed to mind that. Everyone was saying, You’re going to get a huge amount of mail from disabled people about this.


Selectively De-Animating Video | Jiamin Bai et.al. | Berkley.edu
Interesting paper (and demo) about technology for greatly simplifying action in a sequence:
via Jack Nack:
We present a semi-automated technique for selectively de-animating video to remove the large-scale motions of one or more objects so that other motions are easier to see. The user draws strokes to indicate the regions of the video that should be immobilized, and our algorithm warps the video to remove the large-scale motion of these regions while leaving finer-scale, relative motions intact


8 Rules Filmmakers Can Learn From Kurt Vonnegut | Stéphanie Joalland
| Raindance Canada
Good storytelling rules:
Rule #2 – “Give the reader at least one character he or she can root for.”
Sounds like a no-brainer, doesn’t it? Then how come so many of the scripts I read don’t have a clear protagonist? Far too often, screenplays lay emphasis on a character in the first act, shift gear half-way through, drop the lead like a stone, take another one for a ride, until a newcomer saves the day in Act 3.


A Few SIMPLE TIPS For Becoming a BETTER EDITOR! - Friday 101 | Indymogul
| YouTube
For the beginning (and intermediate) editor, some good tips on basic rules of editing, including examples:
This week, Russell does his first "Chopping Block" segment, dissecting two movies submitted by viewers to illustrate a few simple tips that can help you improve as an editor: Dialogue Overlap, Cutting the Fat, and "Killing Your Babies" (Not literally, it's a film term. I swear!)


How to Build an Audience for Your Film Using YouTube (the Right Way)
| Ryan Gielen | No Film School
Social media rules:
There are three basic ways to drive eyeballs to your videos.
1. Share them across social networks, and give others a reason(s) to do the same.
2. Get postings and links from websites that already have large audiences.
3. Advertise your videos online and on mobile devices.


HOW WE FINANCED “WHEN HARRY TRIES TO MARRY” THROUGH STAGED READINGS | Nayan Padrai | Filmmaker Magazine
Raising money with staged readings; something they were told not to do. Interestingly, they turned the readings into much more than a simple reading:
We added an audio/visual element to the reading. Bhushan and I started editing a video montage with the images of the “look book.” We added music/sound effect cues to the montage. So when the actors read scenes, a plasma TV would display relevant images to add a “visual element,” such as reference pictures of locations, wardrobe, etc. To add some comedy, we even created some funny visual gags like what you see on The Colbert Report.


Working with Layered Photoshop Files in FCPX | Danny Greer | Premiumbeat
Two tutorials on working with Photoshop files in FCPX:
The guys from MacBreak Studio present an informative, and entertaining, primer on working with Photoshop PSD files in FCPX. Discover how to bring Photoshop files in as layered graphics…and add new layers to those graphics in FCPX (once new layers are added they become compound clips). You can easily identify what elements are on each layer by taking advantage of the FCPX clip skimming feature.


microRemote Remote Focus System FAQ | Facebook
A Facebook page for Red Rock Micro's new microRemote:
What is the microRemote?
The microRemote is a powerful, professional-level system for controlling focus on virtually any rig, and in any shooting situation. You can use up to 4 different controllers for maximum flexibility and reliability.


Creating an After Effects Sunrise | Rob Mize | Creative COW
A 25 minute long tutorial for After Effects:
Rob Mize shows how to create the effect of a sunrise using only After Effects and a background graphic. This project employs techniques using masks, solids, shapes and effects that can be useful for a variety of projects. Whether creating this effect or some other, After Effects is a great way to start the day.


Thursday, May 31, 2012

Quick Links

A Cautionary Tale for the FCP Switcher | Walter Biscardi | Creative Cow
Walter very publicly broke up with Final Cut when FCPX came out. He switched to Avid, but here he documents the many problems he ran into with the kind of work they do. Now he's trying Premiere Pro:
In short, Avid has opened up the workflow on the front end of the process by allowing editors to work natively with multiple formats via AMA, but on the backend the software itself throws up a lot of roadblocks when trying to conform and export a timeline from the application. I describe as "We've made it a lot easier for you to start editing, but good luck getting your project out of our software." If you're going to finish your project inside Avid, you're good to go. But when trying to get outside the software, the tightly controlled database gets in the way.


PART TWO…”In two minds” | Philip Johnston | HD Warrior
Philip continues to be in three minds about whether to switch to Final Cut Pro X or Premiere Pro. Here he documents liking the green screen capabiltiies in FCPX:
I had read that FCP-10 was good at green screen but WOW…I had a perfect key without doing anything, obviously the Canon C300 with its 50Mbps, 4:2:2 and 50mm f1.4 Carl Zeiss lens helps but I was blown away with how easy it was to achieve such a fantastic key in a matter of minutes.


New Marshall 5.6″ Monitor Available Now | Jared Abrams | Wide Open Camera
Jared likes the new monitor from Marshall:
We got our dirty little hands on the new 5.6″ monitor from Marshall Electronics at NAB 2012. The new modular system is future proof. The build quality improved and the new feature set blows away the competition. The base model 5.6″ with HDMI inputs starts at just under $1K. Here is a rip from the Marshall Electronics website.


3 Inventive DIY Camera Sliders | Danny Greer | Premiumbeat
A look at three different budget construction jobs for DIY camera sliders:
Cost: $20 The guys from Backyard FX have put together this instructional (and funny!) how-to video for their wood and PVC camera slider. This DIY slider balances on top of a tripod, so you can easily adjust the height. Two PVC pipes are screwed down onto a 1X4 and used as rails for the sliding camera platform.


This Insane 4K Video Camera Captures Four Billion Pixels Per Second | Kevin Lee
 | PCWorld
Do we really need that much resolution?!
NHK showed off the new camera at its recent NHK Open House 2012 event. The camera, according to NHK, can shoot 7580-by-4320-pixel resolution video at 120 frames per second (fps)--which breaks down to about four billion pixels per second.


Canon C300 Menu Simulator and Other Resources | Andy Shipsides | AbelCine
Arri has had an Alexa camera simulator for about a year, now Canon has one for the C300:
Canon has posted a menu simulator for their C300 camera, which allows you to navigate the menu system of the C300 and also locate the different buttons on the camera. This is a fantastic tool for learning the C300 before actually getting your hands on it.


Reliable source says no chance Apple will ax Mac Pro | Josh Ong | AppleInsider
Jim Dalrymple of The Loop is confident that Apple will continue to sell the Mac Pro - but will they update it?!
When asked by Benjamin if there is "any chance" that Apple will get rid of the Mac Pro, Dalrymple simply replied, "No." After a few seconds of silence, Benjamin followed up by asking "You're really confident in that? You feel good about that?"

Dalrymple responded by laughing. "Good, that's what I want to hear," Benjamin said before moving on.


Incredible Steadicam shot Behind the Scenes of Hugo | YouTube
Who isn't impressed by long Steadicam shots? Here's how one was made, shot by Larry McConkey on Hugo. [Look for the moving wall]. via Daniel Freytag.




Wednesday, May 30, 2012

Quick Links

Adobe After Effects CS6 | Jeff Foster | MacWorld
A big thumbs up for the new After Effects release:
If you held out updating After Effects from CS5 or earlier, I urge you to consider this upgrade—or get left in the dust. That sounds like a strong statement, but I believe it's justified. After Effects CS6 is the most important upgrade the program has received since the first major update in version 7. It's not just a bunch of additional features and add-ons, but rather a truly rebuilt, reworked, and enhanced powerful compositing and motion graphics creation tool.


Studying 3D Camera Tracker | Jerzy Drozda Jr | Maltaannon
A tutorial on After Effects Camera Tracker:
Some time ago I’ve posted a short introduction video on YouTube about the new 3D Camera Tracker available in After Effects CS6. I’ve got a lot of comments and questions since then, so I decided to make a more in-depth video on the various aspects of match-moving. If you tried solving a 3D camera on your own either using After Effects CS6 or any other software and failed – this tutorial is for you.


PART ONE…Which way to go? | Philip Johnston | HD Warrior
Philip still can't decide whether to keep using Final Cut Pro 7, switch to FCPX, or go to Premiere Pro.
Final Cut Pro 10 has very good points not to mention the vast amount of plug-ins being produced almost weekly for FCP-10, Apple are supporting it and updating it with new features like Canon MXF and 1080 50p support… but it does not act the way you think it should act and thats a serious stumbling block and a lot of the FCP-7 style of editing is hidden. I have lost material using FCP-10 even lost edited projects and that disturbs me.


Turning Down Work Will Make You More Successful | Danny Greer | Premiumbeat
Should you work for free or at a cut price? Some thoughts on why you shouldn't:
Deferred payment rarely comes through. Don’t be swayed with promises of big bucks later when the project sells. If the organizer doesn’t have the money to pay you to work on their project, they surely don’t have the money to make it a financial success.


The Free Ride Is Over For Streaming Video | Ryan Lawler | Tech Crunch
Comcast puts a cap on streaming for their cable users:
According to Nielsen, the average TV viewer consumes about five hours of video a day, or about 150 hours of video per month. For those keeping track at home, that means that you’d have to watch even more video online than your typical TV watcher if you ever plan to max out Comcast’s 300 GB allotment.


Film is Dead. Long Live Digital? | Matt Singer | IndieWire
More thoughts on the death of film (for projection):
On the other hand, I recently attended a my first DCP projection of an archival film, and it was a slightly disappointing experience. The movie was Alfred Hitchcock's "Marnie" and while the picture was crisp and clear, and the sound was particularly good, the image felt lacking in some intangible way. We didn't have a print of "Marnie" on hand to do a side-by-side comparison, but to my slightly-better-than-layman's eyes the DCP just didn't have the same sense of depth as film. Tippi Hedren and Sean Connery looked great, but they also looked weirdly flat.


GARY HUSTWIT’S 10 WEB TIPS FOR DOC FILMMAKERS | Nick Dawson
| Filmmaker Magazine
Some thoughts on self promotion:
3. Stay in regular contact
Aside from tweeting, blog a couple of times a week and send out a newsletter every one or two months when you’re still production, and once every two weeks when your film is actually screening. When teasing your film during production, put up pictures but not footage: “The fantasy of what your film’s going to be about is often better than the reality,” quips Hustwit.


MATCHES! High frame rate comparison of 240, 480 and 960FPS on SONY FS700
| Philip Bloom | Vimeo
Philip posts an additional video with examples shot at different speeds:
240FPS is full HD
480FPS is full HD with less than half resolution
960FPS is full HD but cropped with less than a quarter resolution


Lightworks | Web site
The official 1.0 release of the open source version of Lightworks for Windows is now available. It's free (or $60 for the Pro version which adds support for additional file formats.)
For those new to Lightworks, there's a collection of tutorials on Youtube here: Lightworks Tutorials



Update on Litepanels budget LED patent infringement suit at the ITC | Tony Reale | Next Wave DV
Litepanels is suing other makers of LED panels:
The legal battle has been a slow uphill battle for them but it looks like things are making some headway. That said, I was contacted by one of the lawyers representing the companies battling Litepanels. This lawyer informed me of some crucial evidence they need to help nullify Litepanels patent claims.



A D V E R T I S E M E N T



Canon EF 24 f/2.8 IS & EF 28 f/2.8 IS Pre-orders | B & H Photovideo
The new Canon EF 24 f/2.8 [$849.95] IS and EF 28 f/2.8 IS {$799.95] are available for pre-order with expected delivery June 17

Tuesday, May 29, 2012

Quick Links

What’s in a Name? | Alexis Van Hurkman | Blog
For those interested in color grading, an interesting discussion about the use of the in-phase indicator as an approximate guideline for the angle at which human skin tone may fall:
To clarify, I would never and have never suggested that this line is a strict guideline for human hue. In my “color correction handbook” I wrote and illustrated more pages then my editor may have wished about the subtle variations of human skin tone, color interactions between a subject and the illuminant of a scene, and how the in-phase indicator under discussion is merely a general signpost. Like speed limits, nobody follows them exactly, but they let you know you’re around what you ought to be doing.


Review of Sony NEX FS700 Part 2: Pros and Cons | Philip Bloom | Vimeo
Philip finishes up his review of the Sony NEX-FS700, listing the five "cool" things he likes best about the camera, and the four "no so cool" things:
Cool:
1. Price
2. Image quality
3. Super cool slow motion
4. ND filters
5. 4K ready

Not So Cool: 1. 4K external recording only and doesn't ship with the camera. Not the biggest selling point
[uhh....but it was number five in the cool features! -Ed]
He goes on to say that if you're happy with the NEX-FS100, and don't need the new features (i.e. the ND and high frame rates) then stick with it. And he's started an NEX-FS700 forum on his website: Sony FS700



Canon vs Tamron VC vs Sigma 24-70mm 2.8 Comparison Review | Dave Dugdale
| Learning DSLR Video
Dave looks at three different lenses, and really likes the stabilization in the Tamron lens:
The first thing I wanted to know was how good was the VC or vibration control on the Tamron, [...] as you can see by these hand held shots it works amazingly well, almost like having a monopod. This shot looks like it is locked off on a tripod, but they are not, all are handheld using a black rapid strap, side to side it is usually smoother but here I did pretty well moving down. And when you put the Tamron on a glidecam like the the Blackbird I am reviewing, it makes flying a camera a lot easier for a beginner like myself.


iMacs to replace desktops, moving closer | Walter Biscardi | Biscardi Creative Blog
Lots of pros are wondering if Apple will ever replace the Mac Pro line. Maybe they'll replace it with the iMac:
With the advent of super fast RAIDs via Thunderbolt connections, there’s not a whole lot you can’t edit on an iMac. Then AJA delivered literally what I asked for a few weeks ago. A simple Thunderbolt to SDI adapter to allow quality video reference to our Flanders Scientific monitors. The T-Tap gives us both SDI and HDMI output so I can feed the Flanders and Plasma Screen simultaneously.


Editing Trailers | Tej Babra | Blog
Discussion of the art of making trailers:
Editing trailers is an art form of it’s own. Many times editors don’t even have a final film completed to edit with. We often see trailers many months, and in the case of teasers a year ahead of schedule. Editors are given a certain amount of footage depending on what is available, and a time slot to create usually 2 min theatrical trailer and a 30 second TV spot. This means the editor has to be very creative in their art to sell the film.


Inside the Iron Man armor with the HUD's designer | Jeff Blagdon | The Verge
A short piece on creating some of the graphics for Iron Man:
If you're wondering about Hansen's workflow, all of his work for the film was done in Illustrator, After Effects, and Cinema 4D, although the initial rough sketches (pictured below) were hand drawn in pencil. As far as research goes, the designer mentions he worked with an A–10 pilot on the flight menu, and it shows — the UIs are fantastic, but they never stray too far outside the possible.





Monday, May 28, 2012

Quick Links

Behind The Lens – Episode 1 | F-Stop Academy
In this episode, a discussion with Philip Bloom & Rick Young about how they got started in the business:
"In this 5 Part Webisodic Video Series Cinematographer Den Lennie and Director James Tonkin host discussions with leading figures from the Indie and mainstream film community in Europe. Behind the lens - perspectives on Digital Cinematography is an insightful look at modern Cinematography and digital production"


“Jump-start your production with Prelude CS6″ with Wes Plate, seminar recording and notes | Todd Kopriva | Adobe
The webinar on Prelude I watched last week can now be seen in replay from this page:
What is Adobe Prelude?
Adobe Prelude is an application for ingesting, logging, and optionally transcoding tapeless media and assembling clips into rough cuts for use in an NLE (a nonlinear editing application). In addition to the summary in Wes’s presentation, both video2brain and Lynda.com have summaries that answer the question “What is Adobe Prelude?” in their video training courses.


What's in your bag, Jordan Oplinger? | Jordan Oplinger | The Verge
Interesting look at what one DP has in his bag. I love the Canon 16-35mm lens too:
CANON 16-35MM 2.8 II
This lens lives on my primary camera about 60% of the time. I’m a big fan of wide, sweeping glidecam shots (I use a Glidecam 4000HD) to quickly and elegantly establish a space. While there’s definitely some edge softness and aberration, this glass renders environments beautifully at 16mm, as well as providing a decent interview option at 35mm.


The ‘Invisible Art’: A Woman’s Touch Behind the Scenes | JOHN ANDERSON
| The New York Times
With the discussion about how under-represented women are in the directing field, this article points out that they are doing a little better in editing:
according to the Motion Picture Editors Guild, 1,500 of its 7,300 active members (or 21 percent) are women. And a spokeswoman for American Cinema Editors, which will host its annual educational convention, Editfest, in the coming months (New York, June 8 and 9; Los Angeles, Aug. 3 and 4), said a third of its 650 members are women, as are 6 of the 14 members of its board of directors.


CANNES PRESIDENT ADDRESSES ABSENCE OF FEMALE DIRECTORS | Scott Macaulay | Filmmaker Magazine
Scott moderated a forum at Cannes and he asked the panelists about the criticism directed at Cannes about its lack of female representation:
One point was that the true extent of this year’s omission won’t be known until Venice and Toronto, at which point we’ll see films by female directors that may have been submitted to and rejected by Cannes. We discussed issues like female representation on selection juries, whether quotas are an appropriate response to the issue, and the specific identity of the Cannes Official Selection which, by highlighting a specific variety of highbrow “author cinema,” often by returning Cannes masters, may automatically limit the number of entries by women.


Does the MacPro Have A Future? | Larry Jordan | Blog
Larry thinks Apple could at least tell people if it's not going to update the MacPro:
It has been obvious for the last couple of years that creative professionals no longer make up the bulk of Apple’s business – and that’s fine with me, I wish Apple every success. But because we are responsible for creating the content that Apple displays so wonderfully on all its consumer devices, it would be really helpful if Apple could share with us an outline of their future hardware plans for those tools that consumers will never buy and professionals can’t live without.


Anatomy of a Scene: ‘Moonrise Kingdom’ | MEKADO MURPHY | New York Times
Wes Anderson describes a scene from his latest movie:
This scene flashes back to their introduction at a school production of Benjamin Britten’s opera “Noah’s Flood.” Here, Mr. Anderson discusses his staging and filming of that production and how he found the two actors at the center of his film.


Optimizing for high performance | Adobe TV
Video discusses optimizing your system for After Effects:
Explore the Global Performance Cache (AKA the “Hash Cache”), along with the “Persistent Disk Cache” and learn to take advantage of their strengths to dramatically speed up the way you work in After Effects. Work through a comp specifically designed with examples that help you understand the new caching functions and what you can do to get the most from them.


Q Mini Shotgun PRO - Sample Audio Video | Que Audio | Vimeo
Demo of a mini shotgun mic:
Q Mini Shotgun PRO - Sample Audio Video - Armed Forces Day Parade in Torrance CA May 19th, 2012
Audio Sample Video of the Q Mini Shotgun Pro microphone mounted on and plugged directly into a Canon 5d mkII. Manual sound recording mode on the 5d, with the gain control turned up one click from off. Q Mini Shotgun Pro set at +20db gain, used with a QSMPRO Mini Shockmount, Windscreen, Wombat, 30cm curly cable, and 3.5mm plug.
Video shot in the staging area at the front of the parade.


Sunday, May 27, 2012

Quick Links

The Five C’s of Cinematography | Matthew Jeppsen | Fresh DC
It's not about the gear, it's about:
1. Camera Angles
“Camera placement is determined by narrative significance.”This is very important. Why are you looking at what you are looking at? Is it because it looks good, or because we need to see it to move the story along? It should always be to move the story along and never solely because it looks good.


6 Crowdfunding Mistakes That Can Kill a Campaign | Scott Steinberg | Mashable
What to avoid when you start your crowd-funding campaign:
1. Nobody Knows Who You Are
Among the most common reasons campaigns croak is the lack of a meaningful brand identity. Projects with existing followings or known personalities attached (e.g. Wasteland 2) often do well. Unproven or obscure projects, such as Class of Heroes 2, don’t fair as well. In fact, according to Kickstarter, 75% of projects fail just in the video game space alone. It makes sense that building and maintaining trust and awareness is imperative in a connected world where the options, particularly to invest, are many.


SMAPP Tutorial - Basic Interview Lighting | stillmotion | Vimeo
Another lighting tutorial:
with almost every interview we feel like we could use one more stinger, one more light, an extra five minutes to tweak the setup, or an extra 5' feet to reposition the talent and camera. however, through working within these constraints we can learn to do much more with much less. half the tricks we know about lighting have all come from having to figure something out while on set, and having to do so quickly. the more we understand light, how it works and how we can work with it, the more we can make the most of whatever time, gear, and space we might find ourselves in.


Cannes chief admits: we must search harder for films directed by women
| Jason Solomons | The Guardian
"Cinema is dominated by men," he said, "and Cannes is just a reflection of cinema." However, Jacob also defended the actions of Frémaux, whom he appointed his successor in 2001 when he was made president. He said: "The selector has said it is not his intention to take a film made by a woman because it is made by a woman but because it has the necessary quality."


3D is not the answer to cinema's problems. How about better films?
| Stephen Kelly | The Guardian
I admit to not being a fan of 3D myself:
3D audience figures are falling, with ticket sales down 4% last year despite a record number of 47 films released in the format. Not only that, but with a YouGov poll last year showing interest waning, complaints mounting about headaches and, with the release of Men In Black 3 this week, a row between studios and cinemas over just who pays for 3D glasses, the cracks are beginning to grow larger.


Pico Dolly with Self Contained Motorized Trailer | ChessyCam
A little motorized dolly prototype:
Here’s a look at a prototype motorized trailer sent to me today and it’s attached to a PNC Pico Dolly. Still a prototype, it’s supposed be universal and have some mounting options to attach to several different dollies or maybe even sliders? The idea is to have a motorized push cart to have consistent movement all of the motors, batteries, wiring, and switches all self contained into one little unit.


VOLKSWAGEN REVEALS ANTHONY HOPKINS’ TRUE MODEL FOR HANNIBAL LECTER | JOE BERKOWITZ | Co.Create
It's impressive how much effort has gone into these commercials:
Created by DDB UK, the new ads pay close attention to period detail, from the clothing and facial hair to the quality of film stock at the time of each movie’s creation. Directed by Stink’s Ivan Zacharias, the Silence of the Lambs spot begins with a hair and makeup woman bemoaning the lack of actual sheep in the film, and ends with the supposed true inspiration for one of Dr. Lecter’s more memorable quirks. (It’s hard to say which is the creepier performance.)





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