HD For Indies

I've been busy seeing movies, so I haven't posted links to anything going on in the news in the HD world, so here's some stuff from the past week, in no particular order. I get some blogging critique for not including links on stuff I write, so ya folks want links? Here's links! This should pick up my averages:


Landmark Theaters buys 4K projectors sight unseen! They have agreed to buy about 60 of the as yet unreleased 4K projectors (4096x3072 pixels).
Mike's Comments:This seems dubious. Mark Cuban is behind this, he's a huge digital advocate, and for that I applaud him, but this move seems inappropriate. For starters, at present only the very very highest end special effects films are even CONSIDERING finishing their digital intermediate process at 4K (SpiderMan 2 had a 4K DI, but a lot of the effects were simply uprezzed 2K files). "OK," you might say, "they'll be ready for the future." ...but that's not right, why not wait until the demand is there? Why not wait until the product is ready for it? Why not wait until there's 4K product and demand, and THEN plunk down for whatever is the latest and greatest. These Sony projectors are around $100,000 if I recall correctly, and this is EXACTLY the kind of bleeding edge technology that drops RAPIDLY in price over time. My bet is that this is a nice deal to announce for Sony and Landmark, but the terms of the deal are 6 this summer and 58 over time. I bet they either never finish this contract or alter the terms before completion (such as drop the price or quantity of delivered units, or buy alternative units). It just seems nuts to commit to this at this point in time.

Screenwriting template in Word - eventually, you'll probably want to use real screenwriting software (aka Final Draft), but in the meantime this will get you started (via Cinima Minima).

Apple article on importing Motion projects into Final Cut Pro HD - it is straightforward, but here ya go (found via Philadelphia's FCP user group site)

Exporting clips from FCP HD to get into Motion - this is a link to the Philadelphia Final Cut Pro user group site's link to the Apple article.

FireWire out doesn't work after installing Motion if you have an older version of FCP installed. Again via PhilaFCPUG.

Issues with graphic sizes (in pixels, not megabytes) when moving stuff from FCP to Motion - details on if you've scaled a graphic in FCP and move it to Motion. Again via PhilaFCPUG.

Article on compression for shiny disks - Ben Wagonner, compresion guru, has a lot to say about compression options available for non-web usage. (found via Cinema Minima)

Apple's Blu-Ray stance - commentary on Apple's decision to join the Blu-Ray group...and all that that implies...

...plus there are a whole bunch of other links on the Philadelphia Final Cut Pro User Group Site. Just put it on your list of daily things to check, as well as Cinema Minima. Most of what they post is relevant and/or interesting.

An essay called "Back to the Future" about all the different times that video has attempted to supplant film. This puts HD in an interesting context.

Apple doc with all supported file types for import and export via QuickTime. This is handy stuff to know - is TIFF supported? What about 16 bit TIFF? What about layered Photoshop files? With layers or no? All answered.

QiPO is a simple little one trick pony application - it takes QuickTime movies in, and generates previews, either via icons or picture preview stills. Handy and useful to make storyboard stills of what you've got in your footage.

Making movies the new fashioned way - some folks wanted to make a movie about werewolves, so they asked fans what they wanted in a werewolf movie. 2 million hits in 3 months on the message boards. An interesting approach within the genre realm. (found on Cinima Minima)

Popwire ships Windows Media 9 Export Component for QuickTime. It can be used with any application that exports QuickTime, including but not limited to Final Cut Pro, Compressor, Cleaner, After Effects, etc.

Imax pushes into 3D for films. Mike's Comments: They mention Polar Express as something that has been converted from 35mm theatrical to 3D Imax. Considering that all of the material was computer generated, and most of it 3D rendered, I wonder if they went back to source files and re-rendered the multi-camera (one for each eye) passes, or if they had some quick/cheap method of matte extraction to generate depth layers for each eye? Certainly, 3D computer graphics rendered movies would be much easier to make 3D after the fact than a shot on 35mm feature.

African films go digital - because it's the only way they can afford to produce local cinema right now.

DIY Cinema - article about Tarnation, movie picked up for distribution made for $200...plus about $400,000 in music rights.

Caonpus Workflow to debut at NAB - they'll have various network, encoding, editing new goodies at the show

Boxx workstations Certified for BlackMagic cards - Boxx is now offering Premiere Pro based solutions using the BlackMagic line of cards. Somewhere I heard that it supports realtime 10 bit effects - that's good news.

Movie costs down, profits up - Average cost of making and promoting a full-on Hollywood movie dropped below $100 million dollars. Movie receipts $9.54 billion.

One for the good guys - a bill is being proposed to legitimize fair use again in a post Digital Millenium Copyright Act era.

Wanna download TV shows & stuff but getting lost in the jargon? Read this.

...and finally, dessert - a cute little video critiquing our over reliance on drugs to fix our problems.

Whew! That'll keep you busy for a while...

-mike