PASO ROBLES DIGITAL FILM FESTIVAL UNCORKS IN WINE COUNTRY NOVEMBER 20-25 WITH HIGHLIGHTS INCLUDING A TRIBUTE TO CLINT EASTWOOD, MUSIC FROM THE BACON BROTHERS, THE KYLE EASTWOOD BAND, RAMBLIN’ JACK ELLIOTT AND MORE Paso Robles, CA, October 9, 2008
In the heart of Central California’s “Cowboy Wine Country,” the inaugural Paso Robles Digital Film Festival (PRDFF.com) will take place Thursday, November 20 through Tuesday, November 25. The theme for year one of what will be an annual festival examining the film industry in the digital age is “Music In Film.” Headlining music acts include The Bacon Brothers (actor Kevin Bacon and his brother Michael), folk legend Ramblin' Jack Elliott, the Kyle Eastwood Band, The Brubeck Institute Jazz Quintet and more.
Last season I started watching Terminator; The Sarah Connor Chronicles. The first episode was not impressive, but it got better and is now a pretty good show. You certainly need to leave your logical mind at the door, but it is fun. This week's episode takes its cue from past seasons of 24, also on FOX. The episode had fewer commercial breaks, all of them from Dodge, promoting the very truck featured in the show. Seriously, most people I know fast forward through the commercials anyway.
Here is the problem for me. Sarah, John and Derek Reese (Michael Biehn's brother) are on the run from both the law and the various pre-Ahnold Terminator models (if these things are made in a factory, why do they all look different?). However the cars they drive get nicer with each episode, culminating this week with the exact same Dodge pickup being promoted in the commercials. Presumably they steal a new vehicle whenever they need one, but this pushes the limits of believability (in a show about cyborgs from the future).If you want to be inconspicuous, don't drive around the latest model. Didn't these people see Goodfellas?
BCM has completed all BluRay disc production for Season One of "Assignment Earth," airing nationally on PBS stations.
Assignment Earth covers environmental and wildlife stories from the front lines around the world. Lead by Producer Gary Strieker, the series has traveled to Mexico, Thailand, China and Africa in just the first season bringing back stunning 720p and 1080i High Definition footage. Artists Walter Biscardi, Jr. and Aaron Stewart teamed up to create the first 5 episodes on BluRay disc, bringing the full quality of the original shows to the home viewer.
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.
BCM has completed all color grading for the feature film, "Keepsake" from Stormcatcher Films.
Shot on location in Virginia, the film was Directed by Paul Moore and shot over a 24 day period. D.P. Todd Gilpin did an incredible job with setting up the look of the film. He created a very rich canvas from which Colorist Walter Biscardi, Jr. was able to create an incredible palette of color. Biscardi worked closely with Moore, Gilpin and Producer Scott Tanner to bring out the gritty details and haunting images of the fight for survival.
BCM is proud to have recently completed a fund-raiser for the Preeclampsia Foundation. When we started this project, we honestly had no idea what Preeclampsia is or what it can do to pregnant women and/or their babies.
From the Preeclampsia Foundation website: "Preeclampsia is a disorder that occurs only during pregnancy and the postpartum period and affects both the mother and the unborn baby. Affecting at least 5-8% of all pregnancies, it is a rapidly progressive condition characterized by high blood pressure and the presence of protein in the urine."
Biscardi Creative Media recently completed a series of animated elements for EyeOn Creative. The animations are used in short video presentations for children that all feature a Christian theme. Artists Walter Biscardi, Jr. and Aaron Stewart worked with EyeOn editor Roger Mahr to develop and complete the animations for four videos. Tools used: Photoshop, After Effects, Final Cut Pro.
Social Organization - the discovery of music
It is a history of fiction about social evolution of the man and the discovery of music, click here to see it, thanks Robson dos Santos.
Attention ladies and gentlemen. Thank you for choosing Creative Cow Airlines. We have a few important safety reminders for you. Please stow your belongings in the overhead compartments and keep the aisles clear. Please observe the lighted signs and placards to the left and right of this blog...
Last week I had to go to New Orleans for some pickup interviews and b-roll. I booked a reasonably priced ticket to fly out on Sunday, got to the airport early, paid my $140 for luggage. Let me stop there. In an effort to keep ticket prices down, US Air now charges $15 for the first bag checked, and it goes up from there. Excess baggage fees have always been a staple of travel. Back in the 90's when I was flying with my herniacam and sciaticapod, 3 to 5 checked bags was the norm. These days with DV and HDV cameras, we check a golf club case (tripod, cables etc) and in this case a light kit and small luggage cart. I stuffed my change of clothes and toothbruch in the tripod tube. But $15 for the first bag? This will only dissuade people from flying.
As many readers know, Richard Nixon famously lost the first televised debate against John Kennedy because his five o'clock shadow made him look old and haggard on television.
Tonight we had the first Presidential debate between John McCain and Barack Obama. I'd like to offer a few observations, taken straight from Intro to TV Production 101, a course which the campaigns and tv networks ought to revisit.
The last live Presidential debate that appeared on American television was between Jimmy Smits and Alan Alda. I think it was a draw, like most debates full of talking points, sound bites and cliche. Perhaps Smits had a slight advantage given Alda's diminished bump after naming Jamie Farr his running mate.
Well, it's been an incredible ride so far this year: the COW has grown remarkably, with many wonderful new additions to the site, both in the infrstructure of the site itself and the people who now make this site a part of their online home — sadly, there have also been some horrible tragedies on the personal front that have brought solemnity along with the great joy that we find in building the COW.
THE GOOD...
According to Google Analytics, we will soon exceed 900,000 totally unique users a month — a staggering number when we remember that when we started building media professionals communities online back in June of 1995, we were thrilled when we went over our first 100 members. If you would like to see how the COW now compares to other magazines and web communities, you can see the comparisons online.
As more and more PowerPoint users incorporate video and video backgrounds into presentations, it’s more important than ever that it’s done in a way that produces eye-catching and effective results. Adding video and video backgrounds to PowerPoint can be a bit tricky for the uninitiated, so this article gives seven quick and simple tips for using video backgrounds successfully in a PowerPoint presentation.
1. Be Sure the Video Background Motion Isn’t Too Fast
The PCIe (PCI Express) standard will have a disruptive impact on the business and workflow processes in video/production/post production/etc. Leading storage vendors are catching on to the idea as we speak. The industry currently faces technology challenges in dealing with the continual purchasing of storage equipment to keep up with the rising needs of performance and archiving – and how the PCIe standard will be the enabling tool to keep capital and operational costs down.
Many production folks, especially independent operators and those like me working in a small shop, wear many different hats. Allow me to elaborate:
Baseball Hat
I wear my team colors and logo as my primary hat. In other words, describing myself as an employee of my company, and representing the best interests of my employer in every activity, both interally and externally. A baseball hat also keeps the sun out of my eyes, but many hats do that.
Cowboy Hat
This is sometimes the hat that mavericks wear (keep those comments about you know who to yourself please). Cowboys ride horses, rustle cattle, herd sheep, carry six-shooters and sleep under the stars. In other words, cowboys are adventurers, even if the adventures are a regular part of their jobs. Perhaps we the non-cowboys consider the cowboy's job duties adventurous, whereas to the cowboy, it is just part of their job.
There are more stock footage video clips than ever before but that doesn't mean there is consistent quality with each stock footage clip you search for. There is a vast array of options and choices when hunting for the perfect stock footage clip to use in a video, advertising or PowerPoint presentation project. Searching for a stock footage clip that fits the bill in terms of subject matter and quality of execution can often times be tedious and frustrating. Below is a list of ten tips for picking a great stock footage clip for your next project.
Well, we've got our HP workstation up and running with DoStudio's Trial Version now installed. The Trial version is the complete application with only the commercial replication features turned off.
First impressions are this thing is definitely NOT DVD Studio Pro or Encore. This is a very serious tool along the lines of Apple's Color compared to the 3 Way Color Correction filter in Final Cut Pro. There is a learning curve as a lot of programming is manually done rather than simple drag and drop type of operations. This feels more like a professional authoring tool and less like a toy. Don't get me wrong, I love DVDSP and it's simple drag and drop functionality, but it's nice to essentially have almost endless possibilities open to us and forcing us to actually learn what we're doing. Anybody can drag and drop, but it's nice to be able to get your "hands dirty" and go under the hood to see how to really operate authoring software.
RealMedia Variable Bitrate (RMVB) is a variable bitrate extension of the RealMedia multimedia container format developed by RealNetworks. As opposed to the more common RealMedia container, which holds streaming media encoded at a constant bit rate, RMVB is typically used for multimedia content stored locally. Files using this format have the file extension ".rmvb".
Here we are in the busiest time of year, the 6 weeks leading up to, you guessed it, the big Fall surgical convention. I'll bet you thought I was going to say something else!
For the past year I have been managing a book / multimedia CD project, with a release date of Oct. 12, no questions asked. This past two weeks has been the home stretch. Here are some highlights:
Starting in January, we handed our edited Word docs and about 300 pictures to our graphic designer for book lauout. Upon receipt of the first draft, we next identified misplaced images, or missing images, and remedied those issues.
Next we received about 150 original medical illustrations, and put those where they belong, and began the editorial review. Each of about 30 authors were sent their chapter as a color printout, plus a copy of their interactive chapter on CD, along with a deadline.
About 15 of the authors missed or ignored the deadline, so the project was delayed, and delayed, and delayed.
Over the past few weeks I have intermittantly watched breaking Hurricane news coverage, breaking political news coverage and of course, the sweet delight of a blank tv screen with the power in the off position.
In college I thought I might make a career in tv news, either as reporter or shooter/editor. Plenty of talented folks have chosen this career.
Let me comment on the coverage of Hurricane Gustav. I flip flopped between the Weather Channel and MSNBC. The Weather Channel had dispatched their team of meteorologists to some dangerous locations along the Gulf Coast, reporting via satellite while being buffeted by increasing winds. However, even while holding on for dear life against the gale force winds, the Weather Channel pros continued to produce useful information, and tossing to one another to continue the enlightenment.
Could be the better place to share information with other professionals?
However it is the one of my favorite sites about world of video.
So good day everibody and peace and luck.
Above is the link for the first two episodes in my weird little new web series, Footastic Theatre. This is a study in producing for web as opposed to producing for video and encoding down to share.
The premise is really short amusing engaging scenerios. Video crack. Watch one and you need more and you want to see them over and over. That's what I'm working toward. We are showing only the feet of the talent. Why? Web video is best with close-ups and all headshots are not that exciting to me.
No doubt the Obama campaign had aspirations of reaching a huge audience both at Mile High Stadium and on broadcast tv networks.
First, a critique of the staging.
Was this a U2 show or a political rally? It was difficult to tell the difference. That magically appearing hydraulic podium was like something out of a 1977 era KISS concert. Was Peter Criss waiting in the wings? For a candidate trying to be one of the common people, he sure looked like a rock star. That is not a political opinion, that is based upon the staging and fireworks.
Now on to the deplorable MSNBC tv broadcast. I should have set my TiVo to record the unfiltered C-SPAN feed, but in a last minute on the way out the door that morning decision, I hit the MSNBC broadcast. Having first watched a few Doctor Who episodes with my wife, I started watching the broadcast around 10pm Eastern Time. Thankfully I could easily fast forward through the commercials and most of the hateful political commentary from Olberman, Matthews, Brokaw and the rest of the biased NBC gang.
To paraphrase a famous quote from a political convention of the past:
So many of you have read of our failings with Adobe Encore trying to create BluRay discs. Today we start a new chapter in BluRay authoring by transferring all our needs to NetBlender's "DoStudio."
NetBlender has instituted a really neat month to month licensing option that's approx. $250 per month to use the software. This is truly a month to month deal. So I can activate it for September for $250 and then sign up again in December. There's no extra fees, nothing. They have several plans for 6 months, 12 months or you can outright purchase the software if you want. But in my case, we plan to produce maybe 10 BluRays all of 2009. Probably in batches of 3 or 4, so I might spend $1,000 total next year in the licensing fees, which is significantly less than $8,000 for the permanent license. So to start out, I can just go $250 per month which is easily charged back to the client per job.
