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	Mike Cohen's Blog


	This video project is barely alive. Gentlemen, we can rebuild him. We have the technology. One year ago, I completed a project for a new client. Turnaround time was fast. Recently, anticipating some revisions, upon inserting the eSATA drive containing the project, I was dismayed to learn that the drive was no longer viable. All it did was spin up, click and repeat. Bummer. Luckily I had saved a backup of the project to my laptop - not the final project, but close enough. Not since 2003 when I cut my final Media 100 project have I needed to batch digitize a video project. Media 100's original LVD ultra-wide SCSI2 drives were originally quite expensive. Thus, we did a lot of deleting of raw footage and batch re-digitizing/babysitting from 1999 until about 2002. eSATA drives on the other hand are quite inexpensive, so Premiere projects and video tend to stay put where they live. Thus, the need to batch digitize a Premiere project has been a rare occurrence. Until now. First I copied the backup of my Premiere CS3 project and associated non-video assets (photos, music, narration) to a new drive and imported the old project into a new CS4 project. Next I right clicked on each video file (offline in the project) and performed a batch digitize. Crazy as it sounds, it worked great. One file however would not digitize due to the clip's in-point being so close to the start of a tape. I manually captured this tape, did a "replace media" and no worries, worked like a charm. Turns out the version I saved to my laptop did not include the final narration or music, so I had to find those elements and manually insert those. What I did have, thanks to our robust client review website was a WMV file of the absolutely latest edit. I downloaded the WMV file and imported it into Premiere. I placed this file on the uppermost video track and lower most audio track, set the video opacity to 60% and the scale to match the project, and hit play. Because the sequence and the WMV were 80-90% the same, I saw basically a blurry image as it played, and it was obvious where the edits were. Same goes for the audio. It became immediately obvious that the music was different. That was easy to fix. Finally, having lined up the narration and music, I used the Razor tool to cut the WMV at each edit point representing the difference between the old and the new versions. I deleted the portions of the WMV that were the same, and then proceeded to rebuild titles and two PSD files to make the sequence perfect. I then saved a copy of the project in 10 different locations both at the office and at home, e-mailed myself a copy and forwarded this e-mail to all of my e-mail addresses. Ok that last part was made up, but the important lesson here is to backup final projects, something I do religiously now. Thanks for reading. Mike Cohen

Posted by: Mike Cohen on Feb 10, 2009 at 8:48:47 am

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premiere, adobe, media, management

Posted by: Mike Cohen on Jan 24, 2009 at 10:57:11 am

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video, conferencing


	Cash in the Attic While this is the title of a popular show on BBC, I borrow the name for this post because I have come across some treasures of my own in my soon to be former office/loft/former attic. It is time to relocate my office temporarily. In cleaning up my mess, I have come across boxes of old papers - mostly junk destined for the bin. Here is the first gem, directions for setting up your edit suite. Honestly I neither remember writing this nor doing most of it. How quickly we get used to newer technology! Enjoy: The Finer Points of ACE 25 Editing I. Before you can edit, you must align the source decks through the switcher. A. Place tapes in each source deck, making sure the decks are in "remote", are attached and assigned to the ACE 25, and have the proper crosspoints on the switcher. B. From the ACE 25, hit "ALL" and "PLAY" to roll all your decks. C. Now, choose a deck, usually MIIA, and dissolve between that and color bars on the Program bus. D. Does it dissolve smoothly without a shift? - If it dissolves smoothly, move on to the next source, and try a dissolve. - If it does not dissolve smoothly, follow these directions: 1. Place Color Bars on Program. 2. Look at your switcher in the Waveform Monitor. 3. Make sure the Waveform is on "External Reference." 4. On the waveform, press "magnify" and, use Vertical, Horizontal and Variable Gain to place the leading edge of sync on a large vertical line on the 0 IRE horizontal line, with the bottom of the signal resting on the -40 IRE horizontal line. 5. Now that you know where the sync (reference) is supposed to be (because no one should be messing with the sync settings of the color bar generator), cut to your first video source on the switcher. 6. Using a small, flat-head screwdriver or "greenie", turn the H-PHASE pot on the source VTR's TBC so that the sync is As Close As Possible to where the color bars are (on the waveform). 7. Now that the sync is the same going into your first source as it is for the switcher, try a dissolve between your source and the color bars. Incidentally, the color bars and house reference are generated from the same unit, so color bars represent correct house reference. This is why reference is called "reference." Get it? 8. It should be OK. You may have to adjust the V-PHASE pot on the source TBC so the position of the picture lines up, such as when editing animation or artwork. 9. Finally, your SUB-CARRIER, or color phase needs to be checked. The best way to do this is to perform a dissolve from the source to the Color Bars on the switcher, stopping the fader bar before it completes the transition. Look at the Vectorscope. Are all six vector color points in the correct boxes? If they are, you're good to go. If not, make sure your setup, video, chroma and hue pots are all in detent position. Now, using your small screwdriver, turn the SUB-CARRIER (SC) phase pot, the Coarse control, to get the vectors in the correct range, then the fine to rotate to exactly the correct position. 9a. Everything up to here has been for synchronization of your source - that is, confirming that the electronic signals are compatible for A/B-Roll editing. You also must check your color bars on each tape to ensure that the TBC Hue, Saturation, Luminance and Setup controls are in the correct ranges on the Waveform and Vectorscope. Without setting up your source tape's bars, you may not get correct video color and luminance values in your edited tape. This is why you record bars in the field. What? You didn't record bars in the field? Naughty! Thus, your scopes serve multiple purposes, both from an engineering point of view, as well as a visual check against your less accurate eyeballs! 10. Now, check your other sources, using the First correctly timed source as a guide, not the color bars. 11. Once you've gone through this process for each source, you should be ready to begin editing. II. But first, you must setup your record VTR. If it is a 1" Machine: A. First black a new tape (for insert editing, or for your first edit in assemble): 1. Find a used or new reel of 1" type C tape. 2. Load your tape onto a VPR-80 1" machine, properly threading the tape according to the diagram inside the front cover. Don't forget to turn on the TBC and make sure the input is correct. 3. Go into "Setup" and set the time code, Press 20, enter, 58:00:00, enter, backspace. 4. Set Full Frame time code, while in Setup, Press 24, enter, 1, enter, backspace. 5. Press "Setup" to exit the menu and press "Ready" to start the machine a runnin'. 6. Make sure you have video going into your 1" Machine. Patch your switcher OUT to 1" IN on the video patch bay. Patch your audio as well (either from the audio mixer OUT to 1" IN, or directly from the source deck to the 1" as the case may be. 7. Now, you must check the RF level going into the 1" machine. With the machine in READY mode, press STOP. Now press SETUP, 1, ENTER and PLAY and RECORD. If the tape starts recording, press STOP and start over. The tape should not roll. When done properly, the red RECORD button should be illuminated, and you should hear a fast clicking noise coming from the scanner. 7a. Now, with a small screwdriver, turn the REC RF LEVEL pot so the needle in the Video/RF meter is in the center of the green area. 8. Press STOP. 9. Punch up BLACK on your switcher. 10. Press PLAY and RECORD on the 1" machine, and record until you have adequate length for your program. 11. Be sure to record an extra minute or two past the intended length. III. Non-videotape sources. A. The main non-videotape source is the Targa 2000 Photoshop computer, which we use as a still store. This is a RGB signal that goes through the Integrated Graphics Module (IGM) to be encoded into composite video, which then feeds the Vista switcher and the patch bay. B. Go to the IGM and open the front panel. You will see a SC Phase pot, with two lines, one marked GVG the other Vista. With your small screwdriver, or your fingernail if need be, turn the pot to whichever switcher you are using. The SC Phase should be the only necessary adjustment for this source. If you do a transition, and there is a shift from the previous source, you may carefully adjust the Video Position. Remember, Video Position is a visual adjustment. Time to Edit I'm not going to teach you how to edit, you should already know this. If you have followed the above steps carefully, you should be able to produce a beautiful program without any color or H Phase shifts. Good luck! _______________________________________ The above should take about 30 minutes on a good day, or all day on a bad day. We had some gremlins which seemed to live in the equipment racks, so some days were pretty dicey. I had forgotten all about the RF level check on the 1". I have never forgotten, however, the task of disassembling the VPR 80 scanner head assembly, replacing a $600 video record head and who could ever forget manually cleaning carbon dust out of the scanner motor brushes to delay purchasing new ones. For readers who have only ever used NLE systems to edit, be thankful. For those who started with on-line editing and are now using an NLE of choice, I hope you all survived the online days with your sanity. There was nothing worse than trying to tell a client that these delays in the edit session are normal. Pay no attention to the exposed parts and the extra screws on the floor! Those were the days, Edith. Now, where did I put my greenie? I have a SC pot to adjust! Thanks for reading. Mike Cohen

Posted by: Mike Cohen on Jan 17, 2009 at 1:16:07 pm

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editing, engineering


	MacGyverisms - ingenous and simple tricks to make your life easier - in Production and Life Although lampooned recently on SNL, Macgyver was once a 80's tv show and it is now a noun, verb and adjective. To "Macgyver" something is to improvise, to use Yankee ingenuity to get the job done. In video production, there is a lot of thinking on one's feet. Sometimes it is simple, sometimes more complex. A bag full of tools and gadgets can make or break a shoot. The C-47 Someone started to call the common clothespin a C-47. Apparently Warner Brothers stored clothespins in a bin marked C-47 - or a fancier name was needed to make it sound like something other than a clothespin. Whatever the reason, you can do a lot more than just clip gels and diffusion to a light. You can fasten a piece of cardboard or paper to any number of materials, to create a makeshift teleprompter, flag or bounce card. You can keep cables, headphone wires or other parapharnelia neat. And should you pack too few socks in your carry-on bag, you can do laundry in your hotel sink and hope it dries by morning. The Ponytail Holder I sometimes get strange looks when I buy a pack of these at the drug store, but there is nothing cheaper for holding a coil of audio or video cable wrapped tight. Actually you should see the strange look I once got when buying some nylon stockings - I was trying to soften the image of a wrinkly interview subject! You can also use them to secure cables to a tripod leg, utility cart or to keep cables together. The slightly less cheap multi-colored Velcro® strips available at your local home center are good also. Scissor clamps These doohickies, though seldom used unless you are in an office with a drop ceiling, are a great way to secure a light without a stand. A solid utility cart For years we used a pair of stainless steel and aluminium carts. These were well balanced and held our 70+ pound OR tripod. This tripod was a beast, originally designed to support a 16mm camera back in the 70's - we used it up until 2003 with our D700, now it is in the basement with the large Anvil cases and the lost ark of the covenant. Now we use a pair of Rock-n-Roller carts. These things are lightweight and so far indestructible. We got one in 2000 and it still has its original parts, and you can move a VW Bug with it. Gadgets in the OR In the OR, when shooting surgery, we use a combination of our own gadgets, plus we get to see the latest gizmos used by surgeons. There are some amazing devices, all of which should make you quite optimistic about surgery. Retractors When opening up an abdomen for surgery, you need to keep the small intestine, omentum or colon out of harm's way. There are some pretty cool choices. The Army-Navy retractor is very useful, compact and has two sized blades for retracting smaller structures. Malleable retractors are basically flat pieces of metal with rounded edges, and are bendable (malleable in medical-ese) so they can be shaped around a particular structure. Self-retaining devices, such as the Wheatlander have the handle like a pair of scissors but the business end looks like two serving forks with the tines bent outward. You squeeze the handle and the tines extend and lock into place, keeping a smaller incision wide open - hands-free (very useful in hernia and axillary surgery). The Thompson retractor, and others like it, use a large ring with ridges, mounted to a vertical support, over the incision. Then several retractor blades are attached to the ring with spring-loaded clips, widening the operative field, also hands-free. From a video point of view, the fewer hands the better! Electrosurgery Devices Most people know the term "cautery" or "cauterize." Cauterization is using heat to seal tissue, as is often done in the eyes or nose. However the electrosurgery device, usually called the Bovie, uses electrical current to cut or coagulate tissue, such as blood vessels or other connective tissues. You can basically cut anything with it. There is a grounding pad placed on the patient's thigh, which takes the excess current and gets rid of it. Another form of energy is ultrasonic energy. A cutting blade vibrates at an extraordinary frequency, cutting or coagulating tissue in the process. Kreskin would be impressed. Staplers Many people who have had surgery are familiar with Skin Staplers, an alternative to skin stitches. In ancient Egypt doctors would use the pincers on an insect to close wounds - for real! However another type of stapler is the surgical stapler. This is hard to explain, but it is a device which uses several rows of staples and a blade to both divide and join structures, depending upon how it is used. These are used to cut bowel and to join segments of bowel together, and for other uses, such as in obesity surgery. Gamma Probe No, this is not the device that turned Bruce Banner into the Hulk. In some types of surgery, notably breast cancer surgery, a radiation-detecting probe is used to find the extent of the spread of cancer. Let me explain. Prior to surgery, the patient is injected with technetium sulfur colloid, a specially designed radioisotope designed to adhere to cancer cells in the lymphatic system. A pre-operative scan shows lymph nodes which have captured the material. Then during surgery, the surgeon moves the probe over the patient's axilla (armpit) and monitors the radiation level detected. A higher number indicates a large take-up of the cancer-adhering material, and that lymph node is removed. They keep at this until the radiation level decreases. The last lymph node detected that is removed indicates the extent of cancer spread, and prevents the need, in some patients, for a complete lymph node dissection at the time of breast cancer lumpectomy. A similar technique uses a blue dye in the same manner. This is about as close to Dr Crusher's medical tricorder as you can get. Some years ago I helped produce a monthly course on this procedure. We had two OR's wired up with remote control pan-tilt cameras, wireless mics and a video conferencing touch screen control panel, connected by fiber to a conference room in another building. I would sit in the control room, operating the cameras and switching sources (and sometimes recording the non-synchronized switched feed to DVCPRO), while my colleague in the OR would manually move the camera booms, wire up the surgeon for sound, and communicate with me via wireless land-line telephone headsets. We did this two days a month for 6 months in a row at a hospital in Tampa. Fun stuff. Lots of troubleshooting. Radiofrequency Ablation Huh? Let's say a patient has metastatic cancer. This means cancer originated in another organ, but cancer that spreads tends to go to specific organs, such as the liver. If a patient has tumors inside the liver, detectable using ultrasound, you have limited choices - remove a portion of the liver, or destroy the tumor from the inside. There exists a metal probe, inserted into the tumor guided by ultrasound. Once in place, 5 thin metal tines are extended out to the edges of the tumor. Then an RF signal at a certain frequency is fed into these tines, to destroy the tissue surrounding the tumor, thus cutting it off from its blood supply, and saving the patient from a major operation. Radiofrequency Navigation Patients having surgery in the brain or sinuses often have a mass or other offending material that needs to be removed. In the case of a mass inside the brain, you can't go removing large pieces of brain. In the case of the sinus, surgeons use a video endoscope either up the nose or through the room of the mouth along with suction and cutting devices to remove mass quantities of goobers. In either case, how do surgeons know where they are going? A system of radio frequency receivers is placed near the patient's head, while a transmitter is attached to the tip of the endoscope. By triangulating the position in X-Y-Z space, and synchronizing this 3D position with a 3D reconstruction of the brain or sinus created by a CAT Scan machine, the surgeon gets a real-time 3D roadmap of the surgical field. Motion capture systems work on a similar concept. Thinking on One's Feet Troubleshooting your own video system is pretty straightforward. Troubleshooting someone else's system can be a problem. In an OR, the cables are often hidden in conduits, the ceiling or are simply not labeled. Thinking on your feet can also relate to finding yourself in unexpected circumstances, such as, oh I don't know, being approached by security guards while shooting the exterior of a hospital - hypothetically, or so I have heard :) Many of the thinking on your feet experiences seem brilliant at the time, but they are not memorable. You do what you gotta do to get the job done. Truth be told, I used to carry a Swiss Army knife and a roll of duct tape in my leather jacket at all times. Even on airplanes pre-2001. Now most of my multi-tools are property of TSA, but a roll of gaffer's tape still has 1001 uses, but that is a whole blog post of its own. As always, thanks for reading. Mike Cohen

Posted by: Mike Cohen on Jan 15, 2009 at 7:57:46 pm

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production, tricks of the trade, medicine, surgery, macgyver


	Customer Service This is a well-used phrase, but in my experience, an underused skill. Any business or website should have a level of customer service - that is, showing signs that the customer's needs are most important. A happy customer is a repeat customer. In my daily life, I am a stickler for expecting good, or at least adequate customer service. I have learned not to expect much from the youth dominated retail industry. Aside from the odd store manager who is of legal drinking age, most of the retail clerks and sales people you encounter are very young and clearly not trained in customer service. Indeed, minimum wage barely puts food on the table, let alone encourages a smiling face. Recently our 10 year old Proscan 37" TV exploded. Well, my wife claims there were sparks and smoke, but the unit was intact, aside from its inability to function. I was waiting for the day when I would have an excuse to get a new HDTV. I first looked online for reviews, then visited my top choices for a local purchase - the two warehouse clubs and both a local and a national electronics retailer. The warehouse clubs offer low prices and not a single human being within earshot. Thus one makes a first recce to write down model numbers and prices, then you do research online, then return for another look. The local retailer perhaps had the best service - knowledgeable staff, albeit with a used car salesman attitude, and the highest prices. Finally the national electronics chain gave both sides of the coin. The first kid more or less told me that unless I wanted the latest features at the higher price, I was not welcome there. A few minutes later a young lady gave me a completely different story. She told me the benefits of both the latest and the less-new models, and let me decide. Clearly there is no uniform strategy for the sales force at this branch - it is a free for all full of good cops, bad cops and detectives. I happened to have some gift cards for this store, so I ultimately made my purchase there, thanks mainly to the young lady with a sense of customer service. In my own business dealings, the moment I hit "reply" to an e-mail or pick up a call from anyone from my banker to my best client, my own adherence to principles of customer service apply. Speak with a smile. This sounds like a cliche, but people can tell if you are having a bad day. Never be rude to anyone. I read somewhere "be as nice to your janitor as you are to your stockbroker." In other words, treat others as you wish to be treated. Although I guess it depends upon who your stockbroker is! The customer is always right. Even when they are wrong, treat them like they are right. Let's say a client calls to say the DVD you sent does not play. You could find out or you may already know that their DVD player or computer is old. But you need to tell them the remedy with respect. "Hmm, it sounds like your computer is a piece of crap," is insulting, true or not. In other words, give people the benefit of the doubt. Educate your customer. If you are asked for specific information, be forthcoming. Don't worry about giving away your trade secrets, unless you are being asked for the specific herbs and spices you use, or so to speak. Your customer is giving you their business and their trust, respect that fact and realize this trust is earned. Manage expectations. A customer may ask for something ASAP. It is an emergency. It may well be, but be sure they know what to expect given a short time line, incomplete resources or inadequate attention to detail. I once had a client who was so meticulous in reviewing our project, it made me realize there was room for improvement in my own methods. "Just be the ball, be the ball, be the ball. You're not being the ball Danny." This classic line from Caddyshack may be paraphrased as "Be the customer." Put yourself in your customer's shoes / walk in their moccasins. However you want to say it. Look at the end goal from your customer's perspective. "Quality is Job One." This cheesy Ford tagline from the 80's rings true in any business. Only sell a product you yourself would buy. Would you send your grandmother a birthday card with typos? Would you send your kids to school wearing ripped jeans? Ok, maybe you would if they were supposed to be ripped. But you can be sure those rips are in the right place on every pair of jeans. Do the best job for your customer to meet the customer's needs. In summary, do a good job. However a "good job" seems to vary among different business sectors. You need to define for yourself what constitutes a "good job", deliver this to your customers, and demand the same level of "goodness" from others. Thanks for reading. How may I be of assistance? Mike Cohen

Posted by: Mike Cohen on Jan 10, 2009 at 1:43:09 pm

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customer, service, business


	How do I Spell Relief? J-K-L-; If you grew up in the late 70's or early 80's like I did, you could not go five minutes without seeing one of the now famous spelling commercials on tv. First came the Oscar Meyer jingle: Oscar Meyer has a way of B-O-L-O-G-N-A. Next came Tommy Lasorda spelling relief R-O-L-A-I-D-S. No wonder I can spell so well! The subject of this post, thus, is about the letters (and symbols) that mean a lot to me: Relief from endless mouse clicks and eye movement in Premiere is spelled J-K-L-; Let me explain. Back in the day I was edited a video on our old ACE 25 edit controller. For the benefit of those younger than say 25 we used to cut video machine to machine, using DOS-based editing controllers to not only sync up the decks, but also control via GPI signals the switcher, CG, DVE or ADO and in some cases the audio mixer. The ACE-25 actually had a built in audio mixer. Thus during a preview, you could set the timing of the switcher effect and setup your audio levels. Then when you hit "execute", actually hitting the preview and record buttons together, the machines would pre-roll, roll and record your edit automatically. Pretty sophisticated work for a 8088 processor with half a megabyte of RAM and a lot of dust bunnies inside the CPU. Here's a picture of the ACE 25 and the VPR-80 1" to get you in the mood: The whole reason for this trip back to Hill Valley, circa 1955, was to talk about motion memory. In other words, do something enough times and you can do it with your eyes closed. Operate the ACE-25 long enough, and you know where the keys are without looking, even the keys that change function depending upon what the CRT display shows. Touch typing is the same, although as I get older and my typing gets faster, I Make the sammee errorsa with greater frequencyu./ Enter Nonlinear editing. The AVID has always had the custom keyboard with labeled functions. For Premiere you can buy such a keyboard, however some of the built-in factory keyboard commands are logical, while others cause two serious problems. Anytime you need to use the mouse, for functions that are used with any frequency, you are putting yourself at risk for RSI. Also, anytime you need to move your eyes from the screen to the keyboard, just to change finger positions, you lose focus. Do this 500 times a day and you could lose hours of productivity. Now to the subject of this post. J-K-L are the default Premiere keys for Play in reverse (J) - Stop (K) - and Play forward (L). A lot of the editing I do is cutting a full reel down using the razor tool, then ripple deleting the whole sequence to get my first edit. I have thus changed the default Razor at Cursor command from CTRL + / to ; - thus I can easily park my ring finger of my left hand on J, made easier to find by that little pimple on the key, my middle finger on K and my index finger on L, and without moving my eyes or my mouse, move my index finger to ; to razor at the cursor. I still need to use the mouse to select and delete a clip, but there must be a way to do that with keys also. I have thought about changing SAVE to the H key, so I can save my work without changing positions of hands or eyes. And to boot, you can hold down K and either hit J or L one press at a time to go forward or back one frame at a time, meaning you don't need the arrow keys, and you can hold down K and press and hold J or L to move forward or back slowly. This is like switching a machine gun from burst to full automatic. (As if I have so much as seen or touched a machine gun; I read all of Andy McNab's books and pretend to know what I am talking about!). Here, in the very latest HD video quality known to us insiders as Samsung Cell Phone Video, here's what I call "dance of the digits": So in summary, learn your keyboard shortcuts, but change them to suit your workflow and habits. I have weaned myself away from some of the Media 100 shortcuts, which I depended upon for the first year or so of Premiere usage. However CS4 has changed selected functions, such as Target higher or lower track, so it's time to retrain my brain yet again. I am going to have to start doing crossword puzzles in order to keep my brain firing on all cylinders. Maybe I can run an RS-422 cable from my cerebral cortex to my dusty old ACE-25 and call upon the unprecedented power of MS-DOS 3.0!! Thanks for reading. Mike Cohen

Posted by: Mike Cohen on Jan 5, 2009 at 5:41:57 pm

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editing, premiere, cs4


	Adobe Media Encoder CS4 - Improvements all Around! When I read about the new and improved standalone Media Encoder that comes with Premiere CS4, I was very excited. Gone are the days of exporting files one at a time from Premiere, a potential savings of hundreds of hours per year. If this works, it would be like Space Mountain - worth the price of admission. Can you tell I grew up in the 70's when Space Mountain was the best ride Disney had on offer? For those of you unfamiliar with the pre-CS versions of Premiere, let's take a look back. In Premiere 6.5 and earlier, you were limited to one timeline per project. This is the main reason why we did not use Premiere very much, even though we had it on a G3 going back to about 1999. Come to think of it, we had like Premiere 3 on a Power Mac Quadra 650 around 1997, and we were offered, get this, an SGI Indy2 running Premiere around the same time. Imagine cutting video on a UNIX computer! What's next, a portable telephone you can fit in your pocket?! Crazy talk. So in the early versions of Premiere, you could export the video flavors of the day, Sorenson 3, RealVideo, maybe WMV or MPEG1. However you were still limited to One Timeline - One Export. Always two there are, a master and an apprentice. No worries, we used a media batch encoder the name of which escapes me. It was full featured, but ridiculously slow. At the time, late 90's, we were encoding Sorenson 3 Quicktimes for our CD-ROM library and selected websites. Sorenson 3 on a G3 400mhz computer was like watching paint dry. Actually the paint may have been a bit faster, given prevailing conditions of relative humidity. So we purchased a PCI card called the "Magic Encodomatic" or something very different than that. This was a card with 6 Pentium processors, cost about as much as a Geo Metro two-door hatchback with power windows and the sports package, and accelerated Sorenson only rendering by about 600%. This saved us hundreds of hours of time. Fast forward to Premiere 6.5. The timeline limitation and media encoder remained about the same. However you could now do Batch Encoding. You could, in fact, do most of what the new CS4 Media Encoder can do, video format options aside. in other words, you could batch encode both files and Premiere projects. Since 1 Premiere Project = 1 premiere Timeline in version 6.5, you could edit your project, save, close, repeat, then load each project for encoding and walk away. The formats available for batch encoding were limited to everything but MPEG1 and 2, which were components of the included Main Concept MPEG encoder. Separate but Equal - somebody call the Post! However a poorly promoted download from Main Concept allowed access to the MPEG encoder from the batch encoder. This download was well hidden on the internets, so I used to keep a CD prominently displayed on my desk for any future re-installs of Premiere. Enter Premiere Pro 1.0, 1.5, 2.0 and CS3. Batch Media Encoder - gone. Nice one. So we purchased Sorenson Squeeze, a reasonable substitute, but alas a 2nd program to run, and pretty slow for most formats. Oh bother. The improvements in Premiere from multiple sequences to pretty much every other feature were worth the trade. I guess the Media Encoder became a free agent and nobody drafted him. Presumably he went back to the minors and played shortstop for the Pittsfield Mets until he was called back up to the big leagues. So finally, the good folks at Adobe must have found a dusty old copy of Premiere 6.5 in a supply room, read the manual, and realized the error of their ways. Premiere CS4, as has been discussed at length elsewhere on this website, is a big improvement in so many ways. The Media Encoder (AME) works as advertised. However, unless you have perhaps a quad core system, running AME and Premiere at the same time may be an issue - it is for me. With AME only running, and encoding, the system performance goes up to 100% - presumably it is using all cores with no interference. With multiple apps running, you can get a bottleneck. I recently learned, on the Premiere forum, that you can right click on a process in the Windows Task Manager, and set the affinity of an app, telling it which CPU to use. Depending upon what you are doing in Premiere, this either helps, or it doesn't. The best use of AME is to ronco it. I will not go into the various formats AME will encode - pretty much all of them, as would be expected in this day and age. The only bad thing I have observed so far is that Still images, exported through Premiere, now have to go through AME. This is a chore. What used to take one keystroke, now takes half a dozen keystrokes, mouse clicks and waiting for AME to start, render and finish, and to add insult to injury, Premiere does not import the still into your project. Seriously? Yep. Print Screen, paste into Photoshop, crop and save is faster and with HDV, the quality is great. To save you the nausea, I will leave it up to you to click this link for a screen-grab-in-lieu-of-AME-still-encoding sample. fallopianhd2.jpg As you can see, this batch I set off before I left work and it was done a short time later. Thanks for reading. Happy New Year. Mike Cohen

Posted by: Mike Cohen on Dec 31, 2008 at 5:56:31 am

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premiere, media, encoder, adobe


	Fine Dining Many of my blog posts include mentions of food. Alas, a good hearty meal before and after a shoot is a good idea, especially since you are on your feet for 8-14 hours a day. If you are one of the 5 people who have read my blog from the beginning, you may see some repetition, but in the great tradition of "the man who made lists", I shall make a list. Boston I have had a few conferences and numerous shoots in Bean Town. There are enough hospitals in Boston to care for millions of people. One of my favorite restaurants is in the North End and is called Limoncello. Rumor has it the owner won Powerball and opened this restaurant with his winnings. Good move. The butternut squash ravioli are worth the trip. Next time I'm in town my gluten-aversion will be placed in my hotel room safe and I'm there. The owner treats every guest like family. A trip to the North End would not be complete without a trip to Mike's bakery for the best Italian pastries this side of the Atlantic. Connecticut Although I have lived in CT since 1990, I rarely eat out. My wife and I prefer to cook at home. When we do go out, it is usually a special occasion. For fancy schmancy eating, we have a few great steakhouses. However steakhouses tend to be pricey, so these are not frequent destinations. Carmen Anthony's Steakhouse in my hometown of Waterbury, CT is supposed to be pretty good. Don't tell Carmen, but we like the Outback! Texas Speaking of steak, what better place to sink your teeth into some dead cow than Texas (sorry Bessie). I have been to Dallas the most number of times. There are some great restaurants there. Most recently I was there for a conference, so that meant 4 nights of fine dining. Ok, so I didn't have a big steak dinner on this trip, but bear with me. Il Sole, arestaurant and wine bar had a prix fixe chef's menu featuring 3 mini entree items, including braised short ribs and a dessert, each accompanied by a glass of wine. The food was astoundingly good. As for my ability to walk straight, luckily I had taken a cab from the hotel! Another great place is Uncle Julio, a Mexican restaurant serving a combination of classic dishes and dishes you would never expect to see at a Mexican joint. As for the classic steak place, there are a few good choices in the West End, just a stone's throw from the grassy knoll. Oddly, I usually find myself having Cajun at Pappadeaux at least every other visit. Overall, there is no shortage of good eats in Dallas. Now if you want a great steak, travel downriver to San Antonio. The famous Riverwalk, as depicted in film classics like Cloak and Dagger with Dabney Coleman, is a mecca for tourists, and mediocre restaurants. Here's a tip - ask a local for a good restaurant. And by "local" I mean someone who does not work at your hotel. Kids working at the hotel desk making $8 an hour don't go out to eat. I asked my local colorectal surgeon for a recommendation, and he led me to Little Rhein Steakhouse. Housed in the first two-story structure in San Antonio, it was here that I had the reigning Mike Cohen Best Steak of All Time World Champion. I can't explain it, but this tenderloin remains the tastiest hunk of cattle I've ever eaten. I recently experienced #2 (see San Francisco below). We can skip Houston since that was another wannabe steakhouse, and move on to greener pastures. LA In LA, and any other city with a PF Chang's, I choose a meal there if I have the time and the choice. Other good meals have included Gladstone's right on the beach in Malibu, where you can see the odd movie star knocking back raw seafood if you keep your eyes peeled, but a nice sourdough bread filled with clam chowder makes a nice early dinner, if you happen to be catching a red-eye and have the afternoon to kill. On my most recent trip, pre-red-eye, I had a bowl of hearty Guiness Stew and a pint of the main ingredient at you guessed it, an Irish Pub. Could have been Finn McCool's. I have enjoyed this same hearty meal at pubs in San Diego (The Field in the Gaslamp area) and Toronto (Irish Embassy on Yongue St). San Francisco You can throw a dart at a map and likely find a good restaurant. There are too many to name them all. My dad always asks if I am going to Scoma's down around Fisherman's Wharf. I have been there once, but the wait was not worth it in my opinion, although I was by myself. More recently I have discovered the E and O Trading Company, a trendy fusion restaurant and Ideale, a simple wholesome intimate Italian eatery in North Beach. The list goes on... Seattle deserves a quick mention for the odd 13 Coins - again, if you have time for dinner before hitting the airport, this place is in fact, across from the airport. The decor is unique and the menu is roughly the size of the Yellow Pages. Other unique eating experiences have included: Phoenix - Haus Murphy's in Glendale. Glendale is a little village with lots of "antique shops" if you take "antique" to mean "tag sale." Hey the place was packed. St. Louis - The trendy Central West End has a few good restaurants, an historic old art deco hotel and a surprisingly gourmet supermarket called Straub's. From the outside it looks like Big Bob's Beer and Groceries. On the inside it is Zabar's. Look it up. Omaha - Aside from the great zoo (Mutual of Omaha's Wild Kingdom ring any bells?) the town has a "warehouse district" filled with shops and restaurants. If you are ever stuck there with no earlier flights home available, you won't go hungry. Philadelphia - Another town with an abundance of great dining options. You have to try Geno's or Pat's for cheese steaks. If you are looking for a nice dinner, head over to Rittenhouse Square and you will find a number of cool places. Ok this is getting old, let me finish up. Hey, can I please get another soda. Thanks Cities one might not equate with fine dining This is a misleading statement, because most cities large or small have a few local eateries that are both well-known and good, even to a non-local. Tampa Bern's Steakhouse. Here I go with the steakhouses again. Oh well. I saw this one on the Food Network. You walk in and the 1960's velvet wallpaper hits you and you wonder when the scantily clad ladies will begin to parade into the room. But I was with a female co-worker, so I knew there would be no shenanigans. The main dining room is low-key, dimly lit but the real magic happens after the meal. The food was typical steak house - a bit pricey, but good. I had the filet mignon and the onion soup. When you order your dinner, you need to make reservations for dessert and the tour. Let me explain. Betwixt dinner and dessert, you get a guided tour of the kitchen, the salad station, the indoor live fish tanks and the wine cellar featuring a $10,000 bottle of something dusty and old. Apparently there are more fish tanks on the roof. Perhaps the proximity to Busch Gardens and Sea World got the better of the owners, but no worries. After dinner you are taken upstairs to the dessert dining room. The seating consists of cozy booths made out of disused wine barrels. In each booth is a Jetson's control panel that lets you pick your mood music, select the live piano music or even use an intercom to send requests to the pianist. I don't know if this is still the case as it has been a while since I was there. Definitely a memorable meal. On a more recent trip to Tampa I discovered the Fly Bar in the up and coming yet not quite there yet downtown area. They have a nice selection of small plates, including Boneless Kobe Beef Shortribs. Youch! Orlando Ok, so Orlando is known for a lot of restaurants, however many of them involve costumed characters. That being said, if I happen to be in town for a few nights, I cannot help but visit my favorite Disney Resort, the Polynesian, and have dinner at O'Hana. The grilled meats on skewers may be similar to Brazilian restaurants, but the view of the Magic Kingdom fireworks show makes it extra special. No admission required. Plus you can take a free monorail ride after dinner. I could continue with a list of cities and restaurants, but these are the memorable ones. Then there are the cities I never see in the daylight - arrive, get a car rental, find the hotel, find a meal (Olive Garden (blech), Macaroni Grill (glauch), Bertucci's (hmm, sometimes ok) don't get me wrong, chain restaurants can be ok but we have those at home. What we don't have at home is a Duo of Elk Filets or Buffalo Prime Rib. Nice.), go to bed, wake up at 5am, go to work, get out get to airport fly home, get home at 1am, eat beans on toast. In the end, we need to eat. A hearty, healthy alcohol free meal the night before a shoot is a great idea. A hearty meal with a celebratory drink after a successful shoot is a nice reward. May I interest you in one of our locally made desserts or a cup of coffee? Perhaps you'd like to try the cheese plate? No, ok then let me get your check. Please tip generously, waiters often make minimum wage. Thanks for reading. Mike Cohen

Posted by: Mike Cohen on Dec 28, 2008 at 6:09:56 pm

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food, dining, travel


	Project Management Redux As the year comes to an end (or a screeching halt if you are heavily invested in the market) it is time for my annual self assessment of...myself. This year I feel I have made the most progress in project management. I have blogged previously about various workflow improvements, experiments and systems for managing multiple projects, and/or managing a single project to completion. Rather than looking at these nuances or exingencies of workflow, in this post I will analyze my overall project management philosophy. Some Background Over time I have figured out the right way to manage..er..managing, and of course the wrong ways to do the same things. There is, in fact, no definitive right or wrong way but trial and error weeds out the errors. Anyone else confused? In project management, as in MS Proect, you have dependent and independent tasks. You've gotta stay organized or there will be gridlock combined with chaos. The goal is organized non-chaos, although chaos often prevails. Solution to chaos is organization. Some people may use lots of sticky notes while others may use MS Project. I have used MS project and to quote Mr. Horse from the Ren and Stimpy Show, "No sir, I didn't like it." You become a slave to MS Project. I once tried to make a Project file for a client with multiple long time range projects, and it became unweildy quickly. In fact if you look up "unwieldy" in wikipedia, there is a picture of my GANTT chart for this project. Nothing? Tough crowd. Not a fan of the GANTT chart, although if a client sends me one it is usually a sign that the client keeps organized, which is a good thing. Moving on...Lately I have been using Excel, another MS creation, but one based upon simplicity. You could just as easily use a Word table or a large markerboard. But e-mailing a large markerboard to others really clogs up the server. Plus without the sweet licorice smell of the dry erase markers, it just isn't the same. Mmm, licorice... Excel lets you get as fancy or non-fancy (simple) as you want to, and is easily updated. Thus I am using Excel not for its spreadsheetness, but for its easiness of information dispersal (infomersal?!) I have experimented with Basecamp, Campfire and other web-based PM tools. But again, you need to keep these updated, which eats into limited time to actually complete project tasks. A project task should not have to include managing the managing of the project. The managing of the project is part of the project itself. You should not have to remember to manage your project - managing the project IS part of the project itself. This IS getting confusing, but I couldn't resist the opportunity to invent some new words. Let me climb into my hover car and get back to my point. Insert Jetson's car noise here "bbbblllllloooooooeeeeeeaaaahhhhhhhoooooooeeeeeeeowww...!" Now once you have organized your chaos using an assumedly simple yet flexible solution, you need a method to manage your managing. To do lists work for me, usually revised or re-written daily. I have tried using web and MS Office-style methods, but a great new portable technology works the best for me...paper! I re-use misprints from the printer and other scraps of paper that would otherwise go to the dump. My Grandpa Morris used to use the backs of envelopes for note paper, so it is in his memory that I too recycle! He was "going green" when gas was $1.00/gallon. The to-do list tends to get packed with other last minute tasks, phone numbers, phone messages and the odd drop of mustard or mayo from a sandwich, so I go through a lot of to-do lists. But there is nothing like the satisfaction of crossing out tasks with a pen or the mother of all task completing instruments - the yellow highlighter. It is also important to set reminder alarms for planned conference calls or time-sensitive tasks. I use my phone's calendar. I stopped wearing a wristwatch years ago, although I do miss the watch outline on my wrist, proving that despite my pale appearance I do get sun exposure. Now if you want to check my Vitamin D intake you need to be married to me. Sorry ladies, I'm spoken for. So I have a method for organizing and sharing project status, a schedule from important communications and a habit forming way to track my own tasks. Next is the much hyped management philosophy. • Get stuff done in a timely manner • Own the project. You can't "sort of manage" a project. It's all or nothing. • Avoid procrastination • Practice delayed gratification (anything involving the word gratification sounds good to me!) • If something is unpleasant to do, do it first. Often these tasks only take an hour or so and don't seem so bad once finished. • Stay organized. • Keep up with correspondence. If a paper trail is important to fully understanding or explaining a project, review the sequence of events from time to time. • Be your own best critic. It is easy to be your own cheerleader. It takes courage ot be critical of oneself - be constructive. • Finally, take care of yourself - eat, sleep, exercise, floss (seriously, keeps your co-pays under control), laugh, sing, paint, whatever. I mentioned owning the project. I think this is most important. Even if you are not an expert in the subject matter, you can and should become an expert in the subject matter of the particular project, if only so you can notice things to correct before the client does. In other words, know your content. If you have a book with 300 pages, of course you cannot know the material by heart, but you can have a decent understanding of each chapter and will probably remember one or two important aspects of each chapter, each author and the layout and images. Same goes for a video project. Perhaps you cannot view the video in your head with your eyes closed, but you know all of the key moments in the video (which is why you wake up in the middle of the night humming Acoustic Underscores Track 20 and you start seeing the furniture in your living room as a series of Photoshop layers). Sometimes in project management, it pays to take the extra time to review something one more time, sometimes in such detail that if you ever have to look at it again you will surely go mad. Such attention to detail may not catch every mistake, but you have done your due diligence as a means to respect the client and the client's money. So in summary, my project management philosophy is to get stuff done. My way. However my way needs to comply with the company's way, that is, in the interest of the bottom line. Thanks for reading. I'm gonna go practice infomersalizing. Mike Cohen

Posted by: Mike Cohen on Dec 5, 2008 at 8:14:14 pm

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workflow


	Talking Heads Many video projects include one or more on-camera interviews those involved. Sometimes these interviews are run and gun like news, other times they are more organized, and sometimes a combination. Run and Gun Very often, an interview may be done between cases, either in an empty OR or ideally in a corridor, away from the hustle and bustle. Granted, in a busy hospital, hustle and bustle is just around every corner. The thing I like about a long corridor, is I can position the camera far enough from the subject so I can zoom in creating a shallow depth of field. To do this, you really need a 2^nd person to conduct the interview, or at the very least a warm body to serve as an eye line for the subject. Run and gun interviews don't afford a lot of setup time. A single omni light with an umbrella or good diffusion may be all I get. The locations are usually very bright to begin with. Thus the lone key light, if I am lucky, will add a bit of modeling to the subject's face. If I happen to have a 2^nd light, I can either setup a hair light, or a background light with some color. In a bright location, it would not add much to try to add color in the background, but it can add a bit of dimension to a flat background. More Organized More organized interviews sometimes equate with setup time. In these cases I will do the proper 3-point lighting we all learned, and a kicker with a gel for the background, and turn off the room lights to really have a blank canvas to work with. Now, in an empty conference room, there may be not much you can do but separate the subject from the back wall and use a slash of light for interest. A library full of books or a credenza with some trinkets is even better. Sometimes happy accidents create desirable effects, such as creative use of cast shadows. More organized interviews, however, may be relegated to a small room, such as an office or awkwardly shaped conference room, with little room to have distance between background, subject and camera. These scenes can look flat, and there is not much room for light falloff. You have to live with it. If shooting in front of a bookcase, make sure the subject is not directly in front of the intersection of a vertical and horizontal piece of shelving. Sometimes you can use the longest dimension of the room to your advantage. You may need to move some chairs, tables or stacks of books to work for you. Half and Half Finally, sometimes you are run and gun, but with a bit of time for setup, but you have each interview in a different room. Here it helps to have your lights, gels, stands and camera gear ready to move at a moment's notice, and an extra helper or two so you don't have to break things down just to move from location to location. On a recent shoot we were given use of several medical students for the day. In addition to interviewing them, they made great PA's. I have had several projects where I interviewed 6 to 10 people in a day, each in a different location, with 15-20 minutes between locations. So here we are run and gun but with 2-3 lights and the ability to either choose the locations or do what we like with the assigned locations. Conducting the Interview Often, I both shoot the interview and conduct the interview. Getting the eyeline right, as described above, can be a challenge. If someone has not spent a lot of time on camera, you need to explain they are not speaking to the camera, unless they are supposed to be speaking to the camera that is. If you have a warm body to create the eyeline that is great. Sometimes you have a dedicated person for interviewing, but not always. When I am doing the interviewing solo, my job is to watch the subject's eyes, since I am sitting or standing so that I can monitor the camera and audio, but also trying to keep eye contact with the subject. I ask the questions, and most importantly, ask followup questions on the fly, based upon the subject's responses. Another job as interviewer and as producer is to help the subjects say what they are saying in a concise manner that will help the project. For example: Q: Tell me about how you decided to be a fire fighter. A: Well, my dad was a fireman, and his dad was a fireman. When I was about 12 years old our house burned down and I lost my collection of baseball cards. I decided then I would not let that happen to another kid. So, ah, you know, when I graduated high school I went to the fire academy, and then got a job here in my hometown of Smalltown, USA. And I married my high school sweetheart, you know, because she was my high school sweetheart, and well, it was meant to be. So, you know, things are pretty good and I'm doing what I've always wanted to do, you know? Q: That was good, but can you maybe say it this way, "I come from a long line of firefighters – I'm the 3^rd generation. I decided when I was a kid…" see what I mean? A: You mean say it without the run-on sentences? Q: Exactly. This type of questioning and counter questioning, if you will, is a key ingredient in conducting an interview solo. As a producer you need to know what you need for the edit. Sometimes, if working for a client, you have an outline, script or list of questions and desired answers. Sometimes, you have questions only and your wits. In either case, conducting interviews on the fly is a great exercise in many aspects of a shooter/producer's arsenal of talents. Sometimes you get some duds, sometimes you get some jewels. If you conduct the interview according to your plan, hopefully you will get exactly what you need. Thanks for reading. Mike Cohen

Posted by: Mike Cohen on Nov 17, 2008 at 9:03:58 pm

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documentaries, interviews, lighting

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Mike Cohen

I have a passion for my job, which entails training for medical professionals such as surgeons, nurses and administrators, not to mention various industries.

Technology is great, but know how is what pays the bills.

Years ago I canceled my Media 100 support contract upon discovering what a treasure trove of helpful advice can be found on the Creative COW website. I am proud to be a part of this fantastic community.

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