Notes On Video

Inspiration vs. Plagiarism | Casey Neistat | Tumblr A frenchman named Maxime Barbier copied one of my movies, the concept, the idea, nearly scene for scene, and in places line for line.  Then he sold that movie to Coca Cola.  Then he thanked me on Facebook for the ‘inspiration’. DOWNLOAD THIS CINEMATOGRAPHY CASE STUDY OF JANUSZ KAMINSKI, ASC | The Black and Blue Stephen Murphy [...] created a series of “personal study documents” – PDF files that compile quotes from a particular cinematographer placed next to stills from their cinematic efforts. Now we’re able to look at the frames of a cinematographer’s film while pairing it with their opinions on how they did it, why they did it, and what it means. 6 Lies of Film Distribution | Writers Store Truth #2: All major distributors track the movies that have been listed in the trades under their production columns. If you were in those columns, you’re going to be phoned. Do not send them a rough cut. Do not send them a...

Reader Paul Antico of Anticipate Media passed along his initial thoughts on the new Mac Pro : So.... my very preliminary testing with our new Mac Pro using the plugin I use most (filmconvert -FC), shows that Premiere CC needs more optimization for the dual GPUs. In fact, I'd say the CPU utilization is not up to snuff either. I know FC only uses one GPU presently from the developer. That will change. In the meantime, using a couple of typical projects with that plugin as an example, I'm only seeing 25-45% speed up in exports over our maxed out late 2012 27" iMac exporting the same project. That's significant of course but not the 100%+ one would think we would be seeing at the least given the MacPro config of 8 cores and dual D700s. Premiere Pro CC seems in fact to never maximize CPU (never mind GPUs). I have yet, in my very limited testing, see it "pin the meters" like I did on the iMac. Of course that's just testing now two short (under 5 mi...

B& H sent me a list of new devices they have arriving soon or that are just in stock. These are the ones I found interesting (though not sure I'd actually buy any of them!): Sony PCM-D100 High Resolution Portable Stereo Recorder | $799 This looks like a nice recorder, I'm sure it is. But for that price, I think I'd want XLR inputs! The PCM-D100 High Resolution Portable Stereo Recorder from Sony is capable of recording audio from its built-in stereo mics in up to 192 kHz/24-bit PCM, 2.8224 MHz DSD, or 320 kbps MP3 files. It has 32 GB of internal memory and supports external memory via its SD-XC card slot. The PCM-D100's stereo mics can be arranged in 90° XY or 120° wide stereo positions, depending on the subject being recorded.  Moog Theremini | $299 I suspect this would be little more than a toy for me...but I always liked the sic--fi noise they make: To assist in learning to play the instrument, the Theremin features a built-in tuner that allo...

Drowned Drones: When a Multicopter Hits the Water | MAKE Even if you manage to retrieve your aircraft, you will likely lose all of your electronics, your camera, and your gimbal. Getting footage back is about all you can hope for, and even that isn’t a given. A fully-loaded DJI Phantom 2 quadcopter with gimbal, GoPro and first-person view transmitter (FPV) is currently worth about $1,400. Losing a rig like that is very painful, but losing a larger multicopter with a gimbal-mounted SLR can cost upwards of $10,000. Netflix ends 2013 with 44 million subscribers, will keep experimenting with pricing | Engadget Netflix had a big year in 2013 with award-winning original content, new features and millions of new customers. Now, the company's fourth quarter report reveals it wrapped up last year with over 44 million customers worldwide. Interestingly, an entire section of the letter to investors is related to the recent appeals court ruling that struck down key parts of net neutra...

Evolution of the Dolly Zoom | VashiVisuals Nice compilation of clips from movies from Vertigo to Jaws: The Dolly Zoom is a camera shot made famous in Alfred Hitchcock’s VERTIGO (1958). It was invented by cameraman Irmin Roberts to visually convey the feeling and effects of acrophobia by zooming in with the lens while simultaneously dollying the camera backwards…or vice versa. Since 1958 it has been used hundreds of times in motion pictures…sadly most of the time only as a trick shot. UK Colourists Want Their Say On New Cameras With Newly Formed DCA | Definition Magazine  “The idea was basically with the advent of more digital cameras and the need for on-set monitoring or LUTs that we all try and get together to try and share some information and find some common ground. It is quite tricky as we’re all from different companies - no one wants to give away their trade secrets. Mac Pro Shipping Times Slip To March; Is “Made In USA” To Blame? | Cult of Mac A month later,...

Getting Started in Aerial Video | Make The most popular quadcopter for aerial filming is the $679 DJI Phantom because it’s ready-to-fly (RTF) out of the box and was designed to hold a GoPro camera. (The new Phantom 2 Vision has a built-in camera instead, plus an FPV system — see tip 4 below.) The Phantom is the perfect platform, even for beginning hobbyists, because it’s easily hackable — there is a vibrant third-party accessories market, mostly consisting of enterprising individuals selling mods online. Open Source Apertus Axiom 4K Camera Project Exploring Swappable Sensors, Lens Mounts, & Filters | No Film School The Axiom Alpha prototype with the CMV12000 image sensor is just the beginning, we want to offer a wide range of different image sensor modules in the future. Whether it be a Super16, Four Thirds or Full Frame Sensor or a module that allows fine-tuning the sensor alignment shift for Stereo 3D, there are so many possibilities.  Tutorial: Making an eye in 3...

Joseph Oxford and Bradley Stonesifer Create a World in Cardboard for Me + Her | Filmmaker Magazine Director Joseph Oxford and cinematographer Bradley Stonesifer created an imaginary world using cardboard boxes and rubber bands for their animated short film Me + Her. A labor of love that evolved over four years, their work was rewarded when the film was accepted into Sundance’s Short Film program. Blackmagic Design Announces DaVinci Resolve 10.1 with FCP X 10.1 XML Import Blackmagic Design today announced the release of DaVinci Resolve 10.1 software which adds new editing and 3D stereoscopic features as well as support for Final Cut Pro™ X 10.1. DaVinci Resolve 10.1 is available now for download free of charge for all existing DaVinci Resolve customers from the Blackmagic Design website. Calibrate That Display! | Alexis Hurkman One of the most frequently asked questions I’ve gotten over the years is “I’m planning on using a plasma display for color critical monitoring, but...