Editorial has been completed on the new business television pilot developed by Biscardi Creative Media, ideaWercs and Arriving with BB Webb. BCM Principal Walter Biscardi, Jr. served as Director, Editor and Post Production Supervisor on this project.
Additional credits include Brian Mead for logo design, Aaron R. Stewart for graphics design and Brian Little for opening title design. The episode was produced in 720p HD. More details will be provided as the series moves towards full production of Season One.
Biscardi Creative Media principal, Walter Biscardi, Jr., will be Directing the Pilot episode of a new business television series. Being developed jointly by BCM, ideaWercs and Arriving with BB Webb, the series will feature success stories and inspiration from women in the business world.
"I'm honored to be launching this new series as the Director and have always believed that editors make great directors," notes Biscardi. "As an editor you know what you want to see and what you wish you had when cutting the show together. Knowing what will make the show better in Post helps me in making sure we get everything we need, and then some, in the studio and on location."
Production is scheduled for late October, 2008 with all editorial scheduled to be completed by early December, 2008. The series is tentatively scheduled to go into production by the 2nd quarter of 2009.
BCM has completed a new historical animation for Good Eats with Alton Brown on the Food Network.
Artists Walter Biscardi, Jr., Aaron Stewart and Brian Mead worked closely with Alton Brown and producer Dana Popoff to create the latest in a series of historical animation that have been created for the Good Eats. This time it's a look at crackers, which have a surprisingly interesting story to tell! Animated by Biscardi in 720p HD, the one minute animation will appear in an upcoming episode in Winter 2008.
Tools used: Photoshop, After Effects, Canon 30D camera, Crackers.
Sony and Samsung announce a wireless HD signal that would send HD signals to multiple TV's in your home from a single box. But Sony is also involved in another effort to achieve the same goal. Wonder if the signals will ever been good enough for smaller Post houses like mine to send signals wirelessly to our production monitors. that would be pretty cool actually!
Folks I'm a big dog lover and the happy new father of a 4 month old Labrador mix named Molly. We found her through a local Lab Rescue society called the Labrador Friends of the South. These folks rescue labs from local shelters where death is their next option.
Now today I found this incredible website that seeks to save animals of all breeds from local shelters across the nation.
http://www.dogsindanger.com/
The site's only purpose is to expose dogs who are about to be euthanized to see if anyone out there can adopt them before they are put down. It's a great idea and if anyone out there is looking for a dog or knows someone who is looking for a dog, certainly go to your local shelters first and also look at this site to see if there's someone perfect for you.
Our little Molly has been a welcome joy to our lives after losing our other two "children" last year. A greyhound mix named Niki and a Chocolate Lab named Baxter. And just this past week we lost our oldest, a cat named Peabody who was 15. Maybe the rest of us can help other dogs find a happy life too.
Oh and for you folks in the Atlanta area, here's the Labrador Friends website too!
The New York Times reports that Warner Brothers has now lined up in Blu-Ray DVD corner effectively giving the Sony format about 70% of the high definition DVD market. They'll continue to release movies on both HD-DVD and Blu-Ray until May and then switch exclusively over to Blu-Ray. This leaves Universal and Paramount along with Dreamworks as the only major studios backing HD-DVD.
As a production company that had to jump into Blu-Ray production in support of one of our clients, this is welcome news for us. I have to say, if you have not seen Pixar's "Cars" and "Rattatoule" on Blu-Ray disc, you have not seen the true capabilities of Blu-Ray. Jaw dropping is the only way I can describe what these movies look like in HD. Better than what it looked like in the theater.
Going out on a limb here, but figured I'd take a stab at predicting today's game. I'm a Big Blue fan all my life so it's hard to go against my beloved Giants. They played a very tough game that last week of the seaon and while the Patriots are going to score a lot of points, I think it's the Giants by a field goal.
Amazon has put together a nice links page to update your HD-DVD and BluRay players. If you don't already know, many machines require firmware updates to be able to play the latest discs, particularly the recordable discs, such as BluRay BD-R discs.
If your machine won't play that latest HD disc, check to see if there's an update for your machine.
For those last minute holiday shoppers, GameStop in introducing an idea that is long overdue. On Dec. 20 and 21 they will issue rain checks for the Nintendo Wii at the standard console price of $250. This will guarantee the holder a console no later than January 29th.
With the difficulty in finding these units at normal times, let alone the holidays, I'm not sure why they didn't come up with this idea sooner. We have one and I have to say it's the most fun gaming console on the market today.
So if you're looking for one for the holidays, it may not be under the tree, but at least your family will know it's on the way. And you don't have to purchase a $650 "bundle" from any other online retailers.
So MSNBC.com has a story about Comcast pulling the accounts of internet users who "hog too much bandwith." Wait a minute. How many of you have seen those ads on TV or in your magazines / newspapers?
Cable offers you Unlimited Access. High Speed. Downloads 50% faster than dial-up. And so on.
But now if you actually try to use too much of these services, you might get cut off. Comcast says they're trying to make sure everyone can access the internet properly. Well, then either improve your bandwith capabilities or make it VERY CLEAR what you are and are not allowed to do each month on the internet.
"Unlimited Access" apparently doesn't truly mean "unlimited." If there are going to be restrictions on internet access, then they need to be very clear about this. Don't advertise that you have the 'fastest connection available for unlimited downloads' and such if you're not going to support that.
What's going to happen when folks really start downloading feature films for products such as Apple TV? Two movies and your account is suspended? Maybe community-wide Wi-Fi is going to be a better answer to the Cable companies? Would be interesting to see how that develops.
When I was 17 and it was summer, that generally meant lazy days out by the pool with friends. For George Holz, it was 500 hours to unlock an iPhone so it can run on any carrier, not just AT&T. The times they are a changin!
Along with a secretive group of online collaborators, the 17-year-old broke the restrictions that make Apple Inc.'s iPhone, arguably the hottest gadget of the year, work only on AT&T Inc.'s cellular network.
The feat took him 500 hours, or about 8 hours a day since the iPhone's June 29 launch. The equipment used included a soldering iron and a large supply of Red Bull energy drinks.
Full Story: http://www.ajc.com/business/content/business/stories/2007/08/24/IPhoneUnlocked_0824.html
According to the article, George took an AP reporter's T-Mobile SIM card, placed it into the iPhone and was able to place calls on the T-Mobile network. I think this kid is going to have a great career in the technology sector!
You can buy the phone or get more info on his blog: http://www.iphonejtag.blogspot.com/
Hi all. We're entering the wonderful world of Blu-Ray authoring and with it, we've discovered that not all Blu-Ray DVD Players are created equal. To author our discs, we have to use BD-R media, as in Blu Ray Disc Recordable. We're using Sony Discs and to my surprise, my $999 Sony Blu Ray player does NOT support BD-R.
Worst part about it is we purchased this machine two months ago, it's been used a total of one hour, and Best Buy will not let me exchange it for a machine that does support BD-R. I even said I don't care about the 15% restocking fee, I just wanted to purchase the correct machine.
So now we have to go out and purchase a new Blu Ray machine while also trying to sell off this machine. So if you plan to start doing any Blu Ray authoring anytime soon, be sure to verify that the machine supports BD-R so you'll be able to play back whatever it is you burn in-house.
Funny I haven't been able to find a Sony model yet that does, but Samsung has one for only $599. Heading down to Fry's tonight to pick it up.
I was really looking forward to seeing the new Harry Potter film in IMAX next week and even the fact that they had digitally enhanced it into 3D wasn't all that disappointing. Until I read an article about how once again, as they did in Superman Returns, only approx. 20 minutes of the film is actually in 3D. The finale.
So I'm going to skip the IMAX presentation because quite honestly, putting on 3D glasses at the end of a film (on cue) will simply break the experience for me. Either make a film in 3D or don't. I'm not going to justify a $12 - 15 IMAX 3D ticket when only 10% of the film is actually IN 3D.
Very disappointing for me when IMAX pulls a stunt like this. We've seen about 8 films in IMAX now with Batman Returns, Harry Potter and several Disney films just being flat out amazing on that screen with the sound system. The films are just so amazing in regular IMAX presentation they really don't need to junk up the show with a gimmick.
Very interesting article posted on CNN.com that iPods can potentially interfere with pacemaker monitoring equipment when placed too close to the chest. In some instances as far away as 18 inches. As the article notes, most people with pacemakers are not the iPod listening audience, but still a very interesting development here. As the study notes, only iPods were tested to date and it will be interesting to see if they get around to testing other audio and small electronic devices.
So as many of you know, in addition to being an editor and owner of Biscardi Creative Media, I'm also the animator for the Food Network's Good Eats. As such, most of our animations are based on food or food history. Now generally I rely on clip art / artwork books, websites like clipart.com and istockphoto.com along with my own photographs of headshots and hands to pull together the necessary elements for the script. But there are times when you just have to take matters into your own hands.
Take our latest animation for example, it referenced a very specific cake, one I had never heard of before and of course I could find no royalty free images of this thing. All the cakes baked for the episode had been devoured already (of course nobody called me for a taste!) so I couldn't get a photo of one of those. So what do you do? You get the researcher to send the recipe, take some pans and flour and get baking! Well, ok, what I really did was ask my wife if she would take out some pans and flour and get baking because I was snowed under with deadlines. My wife is wonderful and agreed to make this sinfully delicious cake.
After a night in the fridge, I was able to assist (and very ably mind you) with the frosting which was the sweetest, most delicious frosting I have ever tasted. Sugar, Heavy Cream and Vanilla. Wooooo, heaven! So for all of you considering a career in graphic design and / or animation, be sure to include some culinary classes as part of your training. You never know what skills you'll need to complete your projects!
Note the style and grace in how I apply the frosting. 4 years of college and 17 years of production experience paying off BIG TIME!
The finished product ready for its close-up which you'll see in an upcoming Good Eats episode about Milk.
At long last, my Creative Genius will be unleased on national television. I will be appearing as the Negative Guy in a scene to be shot Friday, March 8, 2007 for an uncoming episode of Good Eats on the Food Network. The scene will actually be a family affair as my mother-in-law, father-in-law and brother-in-law are all in the scene with me along with my current edit assistant, Aaron.
It should be a lot of fun and hopefully I'll have some photos to post in the next few days. Can't tell you the episode details yet, but as soon as I'm permitted, I'll fill you all in!
We brought a Nintendo Wii to the office a few weeks ago and lunch breaks have never been the same! Bowling high score is a 205, though I seem to be averaging about 170. I'm really enjoying the Wii Sports Golf game too and can't wait for the Tiger Woods '07 to come out in a few weeks. Seems like I never have time to get out for golf since I started my own business, now I can hit the links over lunch.
Honestly I laughed at the Wii when I heard about it because I was a hard-core XBox 360 fan. But the Wii is just fun! Get one for your office and get out of your chair for an hour!
Professional Video Editor, Producer, Director since 1990.
Credits include multiple Emmys, Tellys, Aurora and CableAce Awards.
Owner / Operator of Biscardi Creative Media, a full service video and film production company with about 65% of our work in HDTV. The show you know us best for is "Good Eats" on the Food Network. I developed the HD Post workflow and we also create all the animations for the series.
Favorite pastime is cooking with pizza on the grill one of my specialties. Each Christmas Eve we serve the Feast of the Seven Fishes, a traditional Italian seafood meal with approx. 30 items on the menu.
If I wasn't in video production I would either own a restaurant or a movie theater.
