Ok, maybe that headline was a bit sarcastic, but I have just returned from a 20 mile bike ride (inspired by watching the Olympic bike event) so I am a bit oxygen deprived. Bear with me.
What I am getting at is a review of the NBC Olympic coverage.
Let's start with the opening ceremonies - China's so called coming out party. Whatever.
It was certainly spectacular with very nice tv coverage. But seriously, I could live without Matt Lauer's incessant political commentary. We know, Iraq, Iran, North Korea etc all have problems. We get enough of that from the regular news. Same goes for you Brokaw! Let Bob Costas talk about sports and shut your traps for once.
I recently (within minutes of this post) rediscovered Creative Cow thanks to a useful Sony Vegas thread started by Jan-Arden (see http://forums.creativecow.net/readpost/24/874713). It was so well done and so informative I decided on the spot to sign up for an account.
Having started my own creative services company in January, and its first major project being a documentary, I decided it would be a good time to join up and enjoy this great community of creative minds.
This video is a little sample of what might be seen in the documentary to be released in spring of 2009.
I'd like to say I have been so busy catching up on work that I have not had a chance to write new posts. This is partially true.
Partially, I took a week to visit my folks in insanely sunny Florida, helped my wife through some medical troubles (no, for the last time, I did not film it) and have in fact been pretty busy at work.
Oh, and I discovered I know a lot of people on Facebook.
But back to the important topic of workflow.
As described in excrutiating detail in previous posts, I make the most of to do lists, post-it notes, scraps of paper, e-mails to myself, Excel spreadsheets and various other attempts at self-organization.
I recently completed a project which was an excellent exercise in organization. I will describe it in generic terms, but give some specific example of learning points.
The Documentary/Promo/Movie Trailer to Promote OB/GYN Careers
I'm still new to Final Cut HD. I brought a project in to FC off a DVD's TS folder. I got a warning box about certain things weren't compatible with FC-HD. But I dragged it in and cut with it and it looked fine. After rendering, I used Quicktime Compression from the toolbar.
But then watching the Quicktime Movie there's bars (like Venison blinds) on the images and any panning or fast moves turns to distorted bars.
I tried making it a MPEG4 but the same problem occurred.
What can I do?
Traveling anytime soon into or out of the United States? Homeland Security is now authorized to detain your laptop for a "reasonable amount of time" with absolutely no warrant and no suspicion whatsoever. From MSNBC.com today:
WASHINGTON - Federal agents may take a traveler's laptop or other electronic device to an off-site location for an unspecified period of time without any suspicion of wrongdoing, as part of border search policies the Department of Homeland Security recently disclosed.
Wow, can't wait to travel out of the country again sometime soon. This is just getting ridiculous.
Here I am again, only my second day and I'm bitching about something. Many online casinos have tournaments in which the casino gives you a set amount of money to play with. I, am admitting that I play these tournaments. But, guess what? I could never get a high enough score to even place. So, I did some research on Google, of course. And guess what I found out to my consternation - there are ways to cheat at internet casinos. Duh, am I stupid or what? How in the hell can you cheat at an online casino?
When watching television, I rarely pay too much attention to the commercials, unless they catch my attention.I have seen the "Finally Fast.com" commercial. At first I was excited, finally a program to speed up my DSL speed. And the download was free. I could not believe my luck. Well, to my consternation, and after downloading the program, I find out, it just scans and shows you just how much junk and garbage you have on your computer. When you go to fix that junk --WHAM!!! you get - in order to continue, you must register. What a misleading commercial it was. Boy, was I pi____ed off. I hate commercials that blatently lie. This is just the first of my minions of blog listings I will be writing about that aggrevate the hell out of me. And probably many others, It it only the beginning.
I have found that when using Discribe 6.0.8 by Charismac (this is the software that runs the Primera Bravo Pro for Mac) on my MacPro running 10.4.11 the following error can occur.
When setting up the project, the first folder in the list (usually AUDIO_TS) will be renamed by the software to AUDI_001. This isn't a real problem if you're not using that folder, but it can be a real problem if you don't have an AUDIO_TS and the VIDEO_TS folders gets renamed. When this occurs, the renaming can result in the VIDEO_TS folder being renamed to VIDE_002. This will cause the DVD player to error.
In the clip you will see that if you name the project AFTER adding the TS folders the problem will occur, however, naming the project BEFORE adding the TS folders will avoid the problem.
LATEST UPDATE (29/8/08) - Charismac just sent me Discribe 6.0.9 which has now fixed this problem...that's great news! If you're experiencing the same problem email erice@charmismac.com and ask about Discribe 6.0.9.
I discovered after much trial, error and pain that the following can occur.
If you have a Primera Bravo Pro installed on a Mac running 10.4 AND you have an Epson printer driver installed on the same machine which is SET TO DEFAULT, the Primera machine will not print to the edge of the disc.
Set the Primera Printer Driver to default and the problem is fixed.
I have been using a Primera Bravo Pro on my MacPro for 2 years now. Most of that time i have experienced many problems, however, with perseverance comes the answers if you look long enough.
One of the most frustrating issues was a faded start to discs when printing successive discs. This has been reported to be a known Mac/Bravo Pro issue and so far the fix appears to be in the following information.
[start article]
If you have recently changed the image sharpening value to "12" as described in this article
I'm really happy to report publicly for the first time that we'll be providing all post production for 3 feature length documentaries that are currently destined for major film festivals and network HD broadcast in 2009 and 2010. We can trace at least part of this announcement to our investment in BluRay and in-house self-publishing of the high definition discs.
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!
We're working on a corporate documentary type of project that involves teenagers who lived through Hurricane Katrina. The project is all shot in high definition and of course, the producer was in the market for some news footage of the hurricane and its aftermath to help craft the story.
Looking around the web we found buyoutfootage.com with the most reasonably priced footage, about $450 for 19 minutes of the aftermath rescues and such. The description of the reel describes pretty much exactly what we were looking for with military personnel helping people, flooded streets, the mayor walking around, etc.... It's available on BetaSP so we naturally assumed it would all be clean, good quality footage. Being on a quick turnaround schedule, we simply ordered the master without getting the sample DVD.
That was a bad decision. When we received the tape, a lot of the footage looked like it had been captured at a very low resolution or it had been through about 5 or 6 generations of dubs. Most of it is very soft, again, like bad transfers along the way.
Well Samsung has released the supposed "iPhone killer" and I've wondered how it stacks up to the newly released iPhone 2.0. Fortunately for all of us, MSNBC has done a really nice head to head comparison of the two. In the end, they both work well, but the one thing I was surprised about is that the "live Sprint TV" they advertise in the ads is not entire shows, just snippets of shows. And the comparison of the screen brightness and clarity is pretty impressive.
Anyway, really good reading for anyone thinking about one or the other.
7 months into our BluRay authoring experience with Adobe Encore and button routing still does not work correctly in the BluRay mode. We're trying to create a very simple Chapter Selection menu, but no matter what we do, the last button in the menu is always auto selected when you choose the menu and when you want to return to the Chapter Menu, you can't, you always go back to the Main Menu.
We notified the head of the Encore team of this issue on May 28th and also notified him that we had a July 1st deadline for 5 retail BluRay titles. They were supposed to download the files that day and get to work on it. Then June 20 we were asked to upload the files again so they could get to work on it.
To date we have no solutions and essentially had to scrap the Chapter Menu on the titles. Just a word of warning to anyone who wants to plunk down money for Encore CS3. DVD authoring is fine, but if you intend to do BluRay discs, be prepared to make major concessions to the failings of this software.
Ok, my dumb advertisement of the week. I'm seeing an ad for FinallyFast.com show up again and again on cable channels. They promise to get your computer running fast again by removing spyware and all those nasty little things that can slow down a computer on the internet.
A disclaimer on screen points out this only works on PC Computers. (this is funny too, but more on that in a moment). So why is this ad so dumb? They prominently feature an iMac an an iBook. Yes, an iBook. In fact, the computer shown more than any other is the iMac.
These Macs are not the newer Intel versions so you could make the argument, "Well you can run Windows on those machines." Nope, these are classic PowerPC computers that are relegated to the Mac OS only. Sorry, this is just a dumb, bonehead, lazy move by the production company and the client to show two computers that can't even be used by the product that is being advertised.
Note: I've added an audio interview to this story on the site!
My new site www.funnynotslutty.com was selected as a site of the week recently. I have new July articles up. Note of caution, there is some adult language as many comedic projects have.
And you must see what my featured artist, Kimberly McBride can do with a pinhole camera and an enormous amount of talent! I included one of her videos. She is all the characters below!
Hold on George Lucas, don't get too excited. Let me explain.
Let's say I have a rough cut of a surgery (or any documented event for that matter).
I have cut this to the best of my ability, without any sort of Vulcan mind meld to know exactly what the client wants. Now that would be cool.
Next step is to have a meeting with the client, to review the video together. Let's say that the client has such limited time that the only time available to even review the edit is face to face for 1 hour a few days after the edit was completed.
Step 1
View edit on laptop - point video camera at laptop, lav on client, roll tape.
If you have been following my blog, you know that we use a Sony V1U primarily as another DVCAM camera, for most of our shoots. We actually shot a lot of interviews a few weeks ago with our V1 and a rental, in the hopes that matching the two cameras would be easier than trying to match the V1 with a Panasonic camera.
Here is the transcript of a conversation had this week while shooting a surgery:
Doc: So, is that an HD camera?
Me: It shoots HD, but not at the moment. Do you record HD?
Doc: No, the HD scope (medical video camera) doesn't let you record in HD.
Me: Figures. Although you are displaying it on those nice plasma screens in your OR.
Doc: It's nice isn't it.
Me: Not bad, although when you walk right up to the screen it looks kind of grainy.
Doc: What do you think looks better the plasma or the boom mounted LCD?
It's Saturday morning (at least it was when I started this post). Sleeping past 7am can be a real treat. Make a cup of coffee (as much as I like the convenience of highway gas station coffee, making it at home is so much nicer), eat breakfast whenever, and plan out my day.
Now certainly weekend time is valuable and precious, however it is also an opportunity to be productive without working too hard.
Here's my home office setup for the weekend. The morning sunlight casts a comforting glow on my workspace, normally provided by fluorescent lights:
This gives the phrase Capture Window new meaning - it is nice to be able to capture video while looking out the window, reading, eating or catching up on a week of TiVo recordings.
There have been numerous posts on the Business and Marketing forum about working with clients, especially those that demand a lot of attention.
So let's create a fictional video project. Company X wants a video touting their latest product, the Amazing Doohickie 5000. You agree upon a price and a timetable and present a statement of work, like the following:
Statement of Work
XYZ PDQ Productions will create a 10 minute video depicting the Amazing Doohickie 5000 (AD5K) in use and describing the features and benefits.
Milestones
Script - Due Jan 5
Video Shoot at client's headquarters - Jan 15
Video shoot at Bob's Doohickie Emporium - Jan 16
First edit - Feb 1 (up to 20 hours editing time)
Revisions from client - Feb 15
Final edit - March 1 (up to 20 hours editing time)
Additional hours of editing beyond estimate will be billed at $150/hour.
Upon approval of edit, client will receive DVD master, Betacam master and quote for duplication.
Not all travel is by aeroplane. No sometimes we need to drive. If you do mostly local production, you are always driving. If you are like me, your gigs are anywhere and everywhere, although we do have a lot of shoots in Boston, NY and Philadelphia.
A big concern at the moment of course is the high price of fuel. I can't take a long car trip without adequate fuel in my tank, and one must make this a priority, or you might not get to your destination. I am of course talking about coffee and the very best gas station sandwiches money can buy.
