HD For Indies

Friday Morning Update - made it! Got in last night about 7:30, after about 12 hours of driving for the second day ina row. Blech. As always, took a zillion pictures, cut down to best 20 if anyone wants to see saguaro, lizards, wind farms, pretty skies, etc.

Wednesday morning update:

On the Road Again....

Me, Mac Pro, 30" Apple Display, Red One & all accessories...and oh yeah, clothes and stuff....and ties...heading out this morning in VFA (Volumetrically Full Acura).

==============
Hey all -

in case you're wondering why things have been so slow around here lately, it is because I've been prepping for a major life change - I'm moving to Los Angeles, for purposes of doing work more in line with what I want to do with my days - high(er) end digital moviemaking.

Almost exactly 4 years and 4000 blog posts ago, I put up my first entry on HD for Indies (Really? Yep. Really.). My intent, at the time, was for it to be a way to force myself to stay organized and on task with my goal of learning more about moviemaking with digital technology, and to build an identity, and eventually a client base for consulting services. By putting my thoughts, musings, learnings, and eventually links of interest on here, I wanted to get myself known on the Interweb Tubes. It has gone through several phases - heavy research publishing for a while, then mostly links, a period of tracking Red as it was brand new, etc.

Things have slowed since last fall due to a variety of reasons - heaping helpings of travel, for one - I think three trips to New York, three or four trips to Los Angeles, two trips of 10 days or more to Spain, etc. But also because I had the gut feeling a change was coming. The benefit I could get from spending 2-5 hours a day, trawling the web, linking, writing up the results of testing (which takes longer than testing does)...was about tapered out - HDforIndies.com had done about all it was going to, and doing more if it wasn't a very high ROI anymore. While I grew up in Austin, LOVE it here, have friends, family, a house, a girlfriend, etc., Austin, as great as it is, just isn't the place to do cutting edge digital moviemaking (Yet. Ahem.) whilst making a living at it. So it was time to look elsewhere. I nearly took a position in New York, but it didn't quite work for me, kind as the offer was. I had some project work suggested to me in Los Angeles, and lost it because I wasn't local...and it was a coooooool project. While exploring other project work and establishing a foothold (really toehold) residence in LA, a possible full time position popped up, and, pretty much, It Beckoned. So I'm driving out, hopefully tomorrow, to Los Angeles to follow up on that job opportunity, and to look around at what else is out there.

So if you'd like to engage my services, and/or my heavily accessorized Red #417 in Los Angeles, get in touch. Because I'm making decisions SOON as to whether to take this full time position that sounds like a great match for me, or see if anything else is more promising and interesting. I can be reached at mike (at) hdforindies (dot) com, same as always.

I'm definitely going to keep writing, mostly over at ProVideoCoalition.com, because that is a great new site with some great other authors I've known, read, respected and admired over the years, such as Adam Wilt, Chris and Trish Meyer, and a whole slew of others that I have gotten to know over the last few months. HDforIndies.com will be tapering down as I figure out how to post over there what feels right, but of course I'll be leaving this site up for the indefinite future as well, if only as a resource. I'm working with Scott Gentry, the founder of PVC, to migrate relevant back content from this site over to PVC, where among other things, we should have a better search engine than the one at this site. Oh, and a little thing called "design" that I've heard of but apparently never implemented on this site.

: )

In the meantime, my girlfriend will be staying at my house until it is time for her to move out there (hey, I'm not leaving EVERYTHING important behind!), and I hope to arrive in LA with my VFA (Volumetrically Full Acura - me, Red, Mac Pro, and oh yeah, clothes) Thursday night.

This also, regretfully, means I'll be bowing out of SXSW this year. It was a matter of pursuing full time work, or being on the "No Budget Filmmaking" panel - you can guess which way I needed to go.

If you're going, have fun, and have a beer at the Alamo Drafthouse for me - I'll miss it dearly.

I'm going to be in transit for a few days, thinking more about writing up more Red One stuff based on doodling done to date - codec testing, datarates, more unboxing pics, all that stuff.

And I hope to keep writing about the Very Cool New Things I'll be working on in LA as well.

The western horizon beckons...

-mike