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Monday, July 11, 2011

News From Here & There

Carl Zeiss Compact Prime CP.2 Lenses | Nigel Cooper | DVUser
Zeiss' Compact Prime lenses are expensive, but if you're serious about lenses, these are reportedly the bees knees. Nigel gives an in-depth review, wrapping up by stating that these are "probably the best you can buy for digital video filmmaking."
The first great thing about these lenses is that there is no focus breathing, unlike photographic stills lenses, which are not designed for video. Even some ENG style video lenses suffer from focus breathing. These CP.2 lenses are free of any horrible focus breathing phenomenon so your pull-focus shots will look amazing. They are also pretty much free of any colour aberrations and vignetting around the edges of the image. These modern CP.2 prime lenses with their ultra tight tolerances ensure low distortion, high resolution and superb colour rendition resulting in very sharp and punchy images.


How to ensure proper Audio/Video sync through a QuickTime conversion | YouTube
Had problems with sync in your uploaded YouTube videos? I haven't noticed any myself, but here's a useful reference from YouTube if you encounter this problem.
MOV/MP4 files exported from programs such as iMovie, Final Cut Pro, and QuickTime Pro have certain elements that are not handled well by YouTube transcoding. In order to ensure optimal upload quality--and specifically that the Audio and Video of the file remain in sync--use the encoding settings outlined below.


Lighting Basics Series I: Where to place your KEY LIGHT | Shane Hurlbot | Hurlbot Blog
Just in time to miss my collection of lighting resources, this post from Shane explains how to set up key lights:
The key light is the most important light you can place. It lights the actor’s faces and brings out their emotions. I like to study the features in an actor’s face. You can quickly see if one side is better to key from. This information is always in the back of my mind so when you are blocking scenes, you can make suggestions that would aid in getting the key from the correct side. Sometimes it is not possible because of the location or the blocking will not allow it, but at least it is a starting point.
See also: NotesOnVideo: Lighting Resources



Top 10 Takeaways From TV/Film Summit | Abe Schwartz | HuffPost
Want to get into television? Abe attended the TV/Film Summit and came back with tips for the aspiring TV writers:
4. When writing a pilot, it needs to be a prototype of your show. It needs to be THE show, not an origin story. (Write this on a chalkboard 100x, Bart Simpson-style.)


After Effects & Premiere Performance Workshop | Rich Young | ProVideoCoalition
Video2brain has 1 hr 20 minutes of free video training by Todd Kopriva on optimizing After Effects & Premiere and systems for maximum speed.



Another example of how dangerous lasers can be for your HDSLR sensor!
| Mitch | Planet5D
More proof that you don't want to point your digital camera at a laser light show!



Sneak Peak Leaked: Letus Follow Focus | VisionWrangler | Cinescopophilia
Letus have a special going for pre ordering their follow focus unit that is about to ship. $499 is the asking price for an essential piece of kit.


July 8, 1908: Some Movies Get Colorful | Randy Alfred | Wired
A couple of days late, but did you know that the first color motion-picture was demonstrated in Paris in 1908?
British inventor Edward Turner actually received a patent on a three-color motion picture process in 1899. The problem is, his system didn’t work all that well.



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