The News

How to succeed as a creative long term: know your C.O.D.B. | Vincent Laforet
Vincent Laforet put together a good guide for calculating your cost of doing business. I think it's a useful and interesting piece for succeeding in the long term. However, I don't know how much use it is to those just starting out. Until you have an established customer base, there's practically no way to know how much income you will have, or how much to charge.

C.O.D.B stands for "Cost of Doing Business."    Basically it’s a number that represents what it costs you to operate your business for every day that you work.
On a basic level, you add up all of your purchases and expenses to run your business, as well as your salary (I suggest you add your salary, but some people don’t)  and divide that by the total number of days you expect to work each year.

9 Important Insights if You Work in Film | Michelle Brooks

2. Smile - Or at least don't walk around like you hate your life.  There are a lot of people on sets that are slightly miserable. That's not my opinion. Its a fact.  Its the best experience to work with people that are serious about what they do, wicked professional, but still enjoy themselves, even when its a terribly challenging day.  You'll also make more friends.

RED EPIC DRAGON - ITS THE REAL DEAL | Mark Toia | Vimeo

The Red Dragon sensor has 3 F STOPS more than before. 1 in the hight lights which rolls over wonderfully !, 2 solid extra stops in the darks…. maybe 3 once the colour science has been perfected. But there is still noise, but nothing like before. I ran some 250d 2k film rushes next some of my 4000asa stuff, And silly as it sounds, it looks like film grain, not noise. Don't ask me how, as I wouldn't have a clue. But it looks great !

Pocket Cinema Camera Status Update! (Interview) | Two Nerds Flip Out

We just got that yesterday afternoon so the first few cameras that we’ve kind of already been receiving actually left Blackmagic U.S. yesterday (Tuesday, July 30th), and I think the rest of the world will start shipping their cameras today (to retail outlets). So the pocket cameras are now shipping.

BMCC M4/3 Demo on 2.5k Version from Ferguson Sauve-Rogan on Vimeo.
This is a demo showing how the BMCC handles wide ranges of lighting. With 13 stops you now have to ability to expose for shots that were impossible or required a lot of G&E work. 100% natural lighting, no bounce cards, no LEDs, no HMIs, just some good old fashion sunlight.

Industry

George Clooney launches tirade at Sony Pictures “carpetbagger” Daniel Loeb | EOSHD

To have this guy portraying it that Sony management is the bad stepchild and doesn’t know what it is doing and he’s going to fix it? That is like Walmart saying, let me fix your town, putting in their store, strangling all the small shops and getting everyone who worked in them to work for minimum wage with no health insurance.

The Chilling History of How Hollywood Helped Hitler (Exclusive) | Hollywood Reporter

In devastating detail, an excerpt from a controversial new book reveals how the big studios, desperate to protect German business, let Nazis censor scripts, remove credits from Jews, get movies stopped and even force one MGM executive to divorce his Jewish wife.

Something Interesting To Finish

They've posted the script to Shaun of the Dead, which includes images from the film and sketches from the storyboards. Not sure that it's really interactive...
Shaun of the Dead / Interactive Screenplay | Edgar Write Here