HD For Indies

So after seeing The Fountain, we actually went to go see Isolation, on the theory that Edmond was going to be playing at the Alamo starting in a few days anyway, and I didn't know when I'd get to see Isolation, if ever.

So we walked in and sat down and started watching Isolation...and got up and left about ten minutes into it. Two hitmen were sent to an address, and the target turns out to be a little boy, and the movie isn't shot all that well, nor acted convincingly, nor very scary....so it was Time To Go. Turns out that was the 14 minute short, be we didn't know that (oopsie) otherwise I might have waited through, because it won some awards (more on that later).

So we hopped up and left and went into Edmond, written by David Mamet (with his usual dialog style) and starring William H. Macy as Edmond, a fed-up everyday middle aged guy. Denise Richards, Mena Suvari, and others have small roles. Basically, Edmond is an office worker guy who decides he's had enough, and walks out on his wife, and confuses the abandonment of all responsibility with enlightening freedom. Oh, and he's a racist too, which comes back to bite him in the end. It is a tough watch at times due to violence or bigoted speech, and while Edmond ironically gets what he deserves, he's happy with it in the end. It is an interesting bit of work (started as a play), wherein Edmond tells his wife he's leaving, because "you don't excite me, spiritually or sexually" (ouch!). He goes out on the town and basically just wants to get laid, but feels all the women at the strip clubs and "health clubs" are charging too much. He ends up assaulting a pimp who tries to rob him, and the energy he gets from escaping the assault enlivens him, and he picks up a waitress, whom he eventually sleeps with and then scares and then gets mad at and makes her shut up...with his knife...oops. He leaves and has some more odd experiences...I don't know how to read this movie, or frankly to review or comment on it...there are parts of it that are exultant liberation, he has this energy and spark and life and passion at times that cuts through the everyday tedium, but then it comes from having done some terrible things. In the end, it is an interesting performance he gives (Macy always rocks), but I just don't feel like talking about it anymore right now. If you're into strong performances and like the rat-a-tat-tat of Mamet's dialog, check it out, otherwise I'd pass.

Then we went to the closing night party, where I ran into Tim McCanlies (another of the organizers, I failed to mention him earlier, my bad) and talked about a few movies, and what I'd liked about how they ran the show. Ran into Cargill that I'd seen many times (he writes for AICN) as well as Rebecca (she writes occassionally) and Harry Knowles (the man behind aintitcoolnews.com) was holding court in the corner, but I don't really know him (doubt he remembers me) so I didn't want to go up and be all fanboy on him by saying hi.

Tim League, founder/owner of Alamo Drafthouse, got up and announced they were going to present the winners. I really liked the informality of the event - we'd kind of taken over a bar down the street from Alamo Drafthouse, everyone is just drinking and hanging out, and the awards themselves are beer mugs of varying sizes with little plaques on them....and they are actually full of beer! They started announcing the winners in various categories (details on winners below), and in a couple of categories, no one was there to take it...so the rules were, the judges had to drink the beer in the award. Loud chats of "Drink drink drink!" or "Chug chug chug!" on a couple of unclaimed awards (minor awards got cans of Lone Star Beer). On the one hand, totally ghetto, but on the other, I really liked the comraderie, spontaneity, and "no big deal" of how it was done - I HATE formal sitdown things with speeches and pomp and circumstance, this was just a gathering of filmmakers and folks who enjoy movies celebrating together. A very pleasant and cool vibe. After the awards, I hobnobbed and passed out a few cards and then mosied on home.

The official winners are listed further below, but my own pics from the festival:

Special commendation - Best No Budget, Ghetto Indie Production Film That I Saw: Firefly - a good idea competently done, proof that story is what ultimately matters. Even though shot on DV, I didn't care - the story and acting were compelling enough to carry me along. Total DIY indie production, I think I heard someone saying they spent maybe a few thousand dollars hard cash on it - it was all friends for extras and shooting in their own places kind of a deal. For all my discussions of techie stuff, It's The Story, Stupid - get the script right, no get that GREAT, THEN worry about everything else.

My other favorites from the festival, in no particular order:

The Host - great FX, fun, funny, scary, just a really good monster movie, kind of a Aliens vibe with Save The Girl theme, but really enjoyed it

Pan's Labyrinth - beautiful, magical, meaningful, the only film that actually almost made me cry

The Fountain - also very moving, and actually it DOES make sense, ignore those who didn't get it - Doreen saw it as a love story, I saw it as a meditation on acceptance of death. Arronofsky joked that it was either a metaphysical chick flick or a psychedelic something or other, I'll fill that in later when I remember. But in any case, beautiful, thoughtful, meaningful. And kudos to them for the organic effects - stunning and mesmerizing, and kudos again for the no blinking lights vision on the future.

Beowulf and Grendel was a bit stodgy and stiffly acted, and Sarah Polley was miscast, but still a gorgeous film to watch for the scenery and cinematography, and I liked the meditation on the pointlessness of revenge

The Listening Dead was a great little short, intentionally created to look like some long lost silent film - a cute little love story with death involved

Renaissance - INCREDIBLE look (see review from a few days ago), the story was passable but not at the level of the animation - think of it as The Matrix meets Sin City, with some moral quandaries thrown in

Rogairi (Villains) - the short before Beowulf & Grendel, truly beautifully shot little gothic revenge tale

Severance - The Office meets The Hitcher - I like my violence with a sense of humor - the only "tortured in the woods" movie I saw and enjoyed

Starfish Hotel - enjoyed it, gorgeous, worthwhile

I wish I'd seen based on good word of mouth:

Mel Gibson's Apocalypto, but I'll have to wait and see it in theaters like everyone else

Beach Party at the Threshold Of Hell - I heard mixed reviews - clearly a ghetto budget production, but some really enjoyed it

Bugs, but I'll see it theatrically

Frostbite - EVERYONE said it was good, sorry I missed it

I wish I hadn't seen

Hatchet (even though it won first pick for audience award, go figure, tastes vary)

Piano Tuner of Earthquakes - Brothers Quay, go back to music videos and your lovely shorts and STAY THERE

Glad I didn't see:

Broken - too much pain, I felt there were too many "I'm in the woods and have lots of Owies from Mean People" movies here.

As a personal aside, while I respect indie filmmakers that recognize an affordable niche to produce in (torture in the woods), it isn't exactly something to stand proud about (hey, porn is cheap to produce, too). I think there is too much of it coming onto the market, and I hope the trend passes quickly. It isn't pleasant. One thing that bugs me about some of these films that I mentioned (I think) in my Texas Chainsaw review - it used to be you would enjoy the victims Getting It - they were obnoxious, or there was the moral revenge aspect of it, or SOME motivation to make it OK for the victims to get killed. With some of the new ones, there is none of that - you're watching people that you are either neutral about or might like get killed. I'm just not into that.

OK, so that's my own opinion, here's the official winners, my comments in italics:

Films without distribution at the time of their acceptance to Fantastic Fest were eligible for awards.

AUDIENCE AWARDS
1st Place - HATCHET - I'm surprised, I wasn't into it
2nd Place - ISOLATION - I missed it, my mistake
3rd Place -FIREFLY - Really enjoyed it, surprised it didn't rate higher, may be due to audience demographics

SHORT FILM AWARDS
Best of Show - THE LISTENING DEAD - clearly the most deserving
Best Short Form - THE COST OF LIVING
Best Long Form - ROGAIRI (VILLAINS)
Best Animated - IF I HAD A HAMMER
Best Comedy - THEY'RE MADE OUT OF MEAT - missed it, wish I'd seen it

HORROR JURY AWARDS
Best Picture - ISOLATION
Best Director - Billy O'Brien, ISOLATION
Best Script - Dylan Bank and Morgan Pehme, NIGHTMARE
Best Actor - Kane Hodder, HATCHET
Best Actress - Nicole Roderick, NIGHTMARE
Best Supporting Actor - Lance Henriksen, ABOMINABLE
Best Supporting Actress - Kristen Bell, ROMAN
Best Art Direction - Alex Boynton, UNREST
Best Cinematography - Robbie Ryan, ISOLATION
Best Special Effects - HATCHET
Best Make-up - BROKEN

Of these, I only saw Roman, and wasn't that impressed with it overall

FANTASTIC FEST JURY AWARDS
Best Film -THE LIVING AND THE DEAD
Best Director - Simon Rumley, THE LIVING AND THE DEAD
Best Script - Larry Kent and Daniel Williams, HAMSTER CAGE
Best Actor - Leo Bill in THE LIVING AND THE DEAD
Best Actress - Jodie Jameson, VENUS DROWNING
Best Supporting Actor - Alan Scarfe, HAMSTER CAGE
Best Supporting Actress - Kate Fahy, THE LIVING AND THE DEAD
Best Art Direction -STARFISH HOTEL
Best Cinematography - A QUIET LOVE
Best Special Effects - PUZZLEHEAD
Best Make-up -THE LIVING AND THE DEAD

Of these, I only saw Starfish Hotel

Special Mention of the Jury, Blood Tea and Red String
"For its originality and stunning visual audacity! Blood Tea and Red String is a dark psychological fairy tail, a work of creative passion by director Christiane Cegavske. The films eccentric and unique vision will be with you like a feverish dream for years to come."


2006 FANTASTIC FEST COMPETITION FILMS
THE BEACH PARTY AT THE THRESHOLD OF HELL
BLOOD TEA AND RED STRING
FIREFLY
GAMERZ
HAMSTER CAGE
INSIDE
PUZZLEHEAD
A QUIET LOVE
STARFISH HOTEL
VENUS DROWNING
THE LIVING AND THE DEAD

2006 FANTASTIC FEST HORROR COMPETITION FILMS
ABOMINABLE
BLOOD TRAILS
HATCHET
SIMON SAYS
WILDERNESS
THE LAST SUPPER
BROKEN
ISOLATION
UNREST
ROMAN
NIGHTMARE

...and that's it for my coverage of the 2006 FantasticFest. I'll be back next year, and the Austin Film Festival is coming up in about a month, and I'll be hitting that one as well, I'm also going to be on a panel there.

-mike

PS - Special dead Stabby Post Mortem graphic just for you, Paul!

UDPATE: This is a mess as a review, but I did add some further thoughts at the bottom - what I perceived the movie to be about, versus what Doreen, my date perceived the movie to be about. See the bottom of this article.

It is DONE!

FantasticFest is over, and it has been a great ride, and it went out with a supernova bang, literally (OK not literally, but on screen).

I only listed The Fountain as that really was the center piece of the day, and the official closing night film. Darren Arronofsky actually intro'd the funky Fantastic Planet, the 60s French hand drawn animated scifi movie earlier in the day, I saw the last 40 minutes or so of that. Very wacky sense of design from another era, I'd never seen the whole thing, so was very fun to watch.

After that I walked out and immediately got in line for The Fountain. The festival has three levels of access - red badges (actually small bottle opener axes on a lanyard, nice touch!) get first priority, then the lesser green ones, then solo ticket buyers. Since the entire group gets to go in all at once, all reds get in before all greens. Pretty much every red axe sold was in line already for The Fountain when I walked out, so I was nervous about getting in.

I'd already employed RBM (Ruthless Bastard Mode) yesterday to get into Pan's Labyrinth, which there was also a huge line for - the red line was dauntingly long, and I was concerned I wouldn't get in, and I happened to have a shirt pocket that I had tucked my green axe (my "badge") into to keep it from swinging around. So I just nonchalantly walked in and wove into the line going down the hall once they started letting the reds in and basically cheated like the ruthless bastard I am to get into Pan's Labyrinth. All just for you folks, of course - definitely Evil Social Engineering, but all for a Good Cause - hey, I'm Press, right?

So when I saw the huge line, and my friend Paul Alvarado (one of the organizers of the festival) said that MAYBE 20 or 30 greens would get in about 20 minutes before they even started letting anyone in, I figured Fate was going to hand me my hat for the shenanigans the day before. This after I'd already line crashed by saying howdy to some friends from the Texas Film Commision, and then just stayed there, in typical "I'm not saying nuthin', I hope you don't feel the need to say nuthin', but I'm stayin' here so long as I don't get any dirty looks." fashion. So after all the Red Axes were let in, an Alamo Drafthouse employee comes down the line and is COUNTING us as we go...so it ain't lookin' good.

She stops counting TWO PEOPLE behind me and Doreen and says "That's it, right here."

So I got to get in, evil bad negative karma and all. I think The Gods want me to be able to review this movie. (Megalomania starts this way, right?)?

So we get in, and not only is Darren Arronofsky here, but also Clint Mansell - his longtime musical compatriot. If you never saw his first film Pi, run don't walk and go rent or buy it, and also go buy the soundtrack - I STILL listen to it in heavy rotation on my nano during runs. Darren didn't say much, other than it had been a long six years getting this film made.

Warning: TOTAL spolier alert

The Fountain stars Hugh Jackman and Rachel Weisz, and if you haven't seen the visually arresting trailer, DON'T. The trailer gives the impression that the story literally takes place over three different time periods - 500 years ago, present day, and 500 years in the future. This is not the case, and is deceptive and confusing to walk into. When asked about it, the director said that was more of a marketing thing -the future part was simply in the far far future, with no specific time involved. Having seen the trailer and knowing it was in the future helped put some context on those scenes, which are shown without context and you have to figure out WHY this bald guy is alone in a perfectly clear sphere with a huge tree out in the middle of space.

The story can be interpreted in a number of ways, especially early on - is it a literal story, with three distinct parts? Not quite - my take on it, and there's probably room to argue about it, is that it is simply as presented - the dying wife, portrayed by Rachel Weisz, has cancer and is fading. The husband, played by Hugh Jackman, is a research doctor working desperately on research that he hope will cure her tumor. He tries a plant extract and it works well, amazingly well - not only does the test monkey's tumor (later, eventually) get better, but the monkey gets healthier, testing like it did 2/3 of it's life ago.

While the doctor works frantically to save his dying wife's life, she is at peace with it. She's been writing a story, and researching different cultures and their take on life and death. She's written a story, that takes place 500 years ago, as a conquistador struggles to find the tree of eternal life in the Mayan forests, while a dark and bloody Inquisitor tries to take over Spain, one piece at a time, through blood, torture, and "confession." He means to come after the queen, whom the conquistador (played by guess who) tries to save his queen (get it in one guess, OK?).

The book is not done, and the wife wants the husband to finish the last part after she dies.

My only real complaint about the film is that very early on it is very clear what the final message of the film will be, BUT the journey is so interestingly told, and beautifully shot, that it is no problem to wait for it to get there, and is beautiful when it does. In the future segment, I really enjoyed and appreciated that the space vehicle was NOT what Arronofsky himself described as "all we've had are space trucks - metal around something." It is a clear sphere, with no visible controls. A great future vision for scifi - everything is clean and simple and functional and organic - I'd MUCH rather live in that future than in Star Trek or Star Wars as future models. Instead of CG, he found the guy that did all the Kubrick stuff in 2001 and hired him (for cheap, no less, he's been shooting through a microscope for 25 years) and got some incredible footage, all very organic, through the lens stuff, and then composited that digitally. Arronofsky had a great aside about how CG movies are done poorly, it LOOKS blatantly CG, but people like it just for the big CG-ness of it. Whereas if you go back to 2001, those effects still hold up remarkably well even today - Arronofsky clearly wanted to make a film that'd still look GOOD, and REAL, rather than just state of the art for 2006; so that in 10 or 20 years you'd still see the film, and not the obsolete effects. An excellent decision I feel. This, after the film almost got made 6 years ago - Brad Pitt was going to be in it, they spent 18 million dollars preparing, built Mayan temples etc., then it all fell apart. So he came back to this project later, and re-wrote it to be made for less, and they did it, and it's amazing. This and Pan's Labyrinth have affected me as a person more than anything else I can recall seeing this year at an emotional level. Anyway, back to the plot...

The story of the conquistador is woven into that of the present day and the future, with all three storylines trying to go through the same journey - the wife is accepting her approaching death, the husband wants to fight for her life at all costs, even working on the cure while she lies dying and suffering. Where do you, should you, spend your time in that situation? Is it better to fight for the chance of life, down to the thin, bloody wire, or to accept it and be with the one you love and who loves you?

I meander in my discussion of this, as the film meanders through the story of the conquistador, the doctor, and the traveller. The future portion on the film involves the doctor, who clearly DID figure out how to extend life, as he travels through space towards a dying star, heading towards nova, that the Mayans had picked as the symbol of death and rebirth, and his wife had become enamored of. He wants to take her there. He planted one of these trees of life over her grave, and somehow she is bound up in it after her death - he holds his hand to a portion of the tree and little hairs raise, like those on the back of your neck.

I'm giving myself permission to write in this disjointed way because the film moves and struggles through time and story. Or actually, the film moves gracefully, the doctor character struggles. He wants to find life, or life extension, at any cost, and loses sight of the meaning of death. I can't capture it all with words right now, it is too disjointed in my head.

But the message of grace, and acceptance of death, is I feel well told. I've seen a couple of reviews that call this movie trippy disjointed nonsense, but to me it all made sense, and the fungible line crossing nature of the interleaving stories is the confusing part - did the doctor literally defeat death and live on and travel to the far star, after having planted this tree that grew to huge beauty in the hundreds of years after his wife's death, or did he just write the story and learn to accept that he'd die and write that beautiful ending? I don't know, I'd have to think about it some more, and I will probably go to the movie again to see if I can figure it out...but in the end it DOESN'T MATTER, because the message is the same either way.

Arronofsky has done three films (that I'm aware of): Pi, Requiem for a Dream, and now The Fountain (which Arronofsky joked that they alternately pitched the film as either "a psychedelic fairy tale or a metaphysical chick flick") All deal with trying to find greater meaning in life, and being able to discern what is of TRUE value versus what fame or glory or satisfaction is ultimately hollow. All three are powerful films that are completely different yet still address the same core issues in powerful ways. I think Arronofsky is one of the most important filmmakers working today - or at least important to me in terms of effective, powerful films that address issues I think are important. Both this and Pan's Labyrinth deal with issues of life and death, and what is after death, and what is of true value in life, something that is particularly salient to me in my life right now (pardon the personal digression) - I'm 38, my life is roughly halfway through, and I'm STILL looking for what I think will give me my best life, and my best joy, and my best experience before I die, and what do I want to accomplish and have and experience along the way. Films like these talk about these issues and are touchstones to hold and ponder and treat as prayer beads to worry over and ponder these greater issues.

And isn't that what art should be doing?

I'll stop there - what else more could I add?

Apologies for the delay on this one, I wrote it then clicked on "Save Draft" rather than "Publish Post" by accident yesterday - this isn't much of a review, but was my experience of the film....so be it for today

UPDATE

I thought about this movie some more - to me, there were two possible interpretations:

1.) He really DID figure out a long life drug from the tree (which the present day story hints at), and in X hundred years the tree he planted (same type as made the drug) over his wife's grave was transported to that faraway nebula in a space ship, and he's thinking back on everything in flashback. The queen & conquistador story is the story she wrote about the two of them, he's remembering the story and placing himself and her in it in his mental envisioning of it.

OR

2.) The future story is how he finished the book - he never did actually travel to the star, he may or may not have made a longevity drug out of the plant, but he DID plant one of those over her grave. He wrote the story as his own closure, as he learned to accept her death and let go...finishing the story, writing this fiction about the future, was his gift back to her after she was gone.

Either way, I found it a fascinating meditation on acceptance of death - that no matter how we love someone, or how much we want things to go one way, we ultimately don't have control over it - and some things should just be accepted.

Doreen, who saw the film with me, had this to say (this was her take on it):

This is what I saw:

The Fountain was a love story set in the future, where the 2 characters are destined to be together through rebirth. The female lead is symbolically represented through the tree of life to illustrate her cyclical life from seed (birth) to death. In the conquistador setting, the earliest part of their meeting, she proclaims to be his ‘eve’ which is our beginning of the story. In the modern day part of the story Hugh’s character discovers a scientific breakthrough resulting in a fountain of youth type drug. As a result, we switch between life times and see his life extended into centuries into the future. But, the elongating of his life only delays the inevitable. Ultimately, his life and that of his love will meet and be together again, in another time. Her death, His death and the tree’s death are not the end, and not the beginning; they are at a segment of life’s cyclical fountain and will be reborn again.


...interesting how we heach had our own take on it....I plan on seeing this again when it hits theaters to get a better sense of it - I found Solaris more confusing, but had less to get out of it than this film. My own opinion, of course.

After hearing Doreen's take on it (this was all over dinner discussion Saturday night), I'm liking her idea and wnating to integrate it into my understanding of the film. It was a revelation to me to remember that part of the mythology of the Tree of Life was that OUT OF DEATH comes rebirth - that the tree in the bubble was the tree from her grave, and it was only from death that life could then begin anew - I saw it as sad that the tree "died" before arrving at the star, but that was part of the necessary process (I'm pretty sure) for the cycle to begin anew...again I wnat to think about all this, but what makes this relevant is that the movie makes me WANT to think about all this and get it right in my head. So many other movies are unclear or confusing or ambiguous and you walk out thinking "whatevah" and don't care and don't think about it any more.

OK, enough for now...

Note: this article has been updated several times since originally published (most recently 3pm Tuesday Oct. 17, 2006), newest stuff at bottom of list. I'll keep updating it as new stuff about 5.1.2 comes in, so keep checking back on this linked article.

A few notes on upgrading to FCP 5.1.2:

1.) You must already have Final Cut 5.1.x installed - if you have 5.0.x, you're SOL - gotta pay to upgrade to Final Cut Studio 5.1 or later to get this update.

2.) Beware certain Motion plugins now that you can run FXplug stuff in Final Cut - FXplug is an OpenGL accelerated plugin architecture that has previously been used in Motion, but now can work in Final Cut Pro - I predict more of this kind of goodness with the next major release of Final Cut Studio, presumably v6 at NAB 2007 next April. Wait, back on target - so far I've heard specific complaints about the Zaxwerks ProAnimator and 3dFlag plugins - so if you're updated FCP is crashing or failing to launch, start pulling 3rd party plugings out and see if that makes a difference. Zaxwerks is a loooooongtime Mac developer and got caught off guard with this issue, they are aware of it and looking into a fix. For now, uninstall'em though.

3.) As always, if you're in the middle of a project, I'd recommend against upgrading unless it is KNOWN problem that this DEFINITELY fixes a specific and significant problem you're having. And if you DO want to upgrade, I'd recommend updating a version on another boot drive, and working on a copy of your project file and then test all the way through to see if it actually fixes your problem. The LAST thing you want to have happen is to upgrade/update in the middle of a project and find out a week or two of work later that you've created a significant problem for yourself that will require going back to your old version of project and software.

4.) But there's LOTS of little stuff they've fixed (or at least worked on) in this release, I'd highly recommend reading ALL the release notes I linked to yesterday.

5.) UPDATE: Creative Workflow Hacks � Blog Archive � New FCP-XML Version Offers Exciting Project Management Possibilities - read paragraph 2, has links to stuff on metadata management in QT files and also management of project components - sounds promising, I'll read ASAP myself.

6.) I think I forgot to mention this earlier, but QT 7 no longer plays back Flash media - probably some kind of dispute with Adobe, or a contract ran out or something I'd guess. This is a problem for some folks. UPDATE: Yes it does, just off by default. See here for instructions on how to turn it back on.

7.) I've had a couple of complaints from folks saying they couldn't get the update to work, no idea why that is so yet.

8.) It appears certain codecs may cause problems, sometimes. Avid and Sheer seem to be more likely codecs that cause trouble, but not universally. Scary and odd behaviors if the concerns pan out to be true. Read more about codec issues here..

9.) So I'd recommend waiting a week or two before updating to 5.1.2 to see how it all shakes out (banzai kamikaze that I am, I upgraded my 3 G5s and Powerbook last night...I wanna find the problems ASAP).

10.) (added 4pm CST): Final Cut Pro 5.1.2 won't open after installing Motion 2.1 - see link for the fix

11.) Official response from Apple: Final Cut Pro 5.1.2: Some third-party QuickTime components may prevent Final Cut Pro from starting

12.) More official response from Apple: Final Cut Pro 5.1.2: FxPlug Restrictions and Troubleshooting

From the article:

Only FxPlug filters and generators are supported; Final Cut Pro does not support FxPlug transitions.

Some plug-ins with custom controls are not supported.

Some plug-ins that process data other than video information are not supported.

Onscreen controls, such as control points in the Viewer and Canvas, are not supported.

Effects that result in subtle gradations (such as a Gradient generator or Gaussian Blur filter) can cause colored vertical banding after rendering. This kind of banding is likely an artifact of rendering in a low-resolution codec (such as DV) and not an issue with the filter. Try setting your sequence settings to an Uncompressed 8- or 10-bit sequence preset instead.

FxPlug plug-ins that render in RGB color space may cause clipping, especially when applied to Y'CBCR clips with high chroma or luma values. This may be particularly noticeable when applying an FxPlug filter to a range of a clip, instead of an entire clip.


...but that apparently isn't quite correct - a developer emailed me to say:

Just wanted to correct one thing on your website...

FCP 5.1.2 most definitely does support fxplug transitions, I've got several running now. They work fine.
...
We believe this mention is a mistake in Apple's documentation as actually fxplug transitions are not
supported in Motion, but they are and should be in fcp.



13.) Also just added this article, which addresses RAM usage in Final Cut Pro, as well as optimal RAM install configs for Mac Pros. Read'em both to understand how RAM works with FCP and how much you might want to get for your Mac Pro box.


14.) Both AJA and BMD have updated their drivers (AJA to 3.2, BMD to 5.7.2) for their HD cards, mostly dealing with Intel based Mac Pro stuff. Worth being up to date when you update your FCP. Check with both vendors to find out if they recommend updating/upgrading, however, to make sure there aren't any known hassles or snags.

15.) Final Cut Pro 5 may fail to open with 64 or more QuickTime components installed

16.) What's New in Final Cut 5.1.2 is a detailed, screen grab laden excellent article over on Ken Stone's website, the article is by Andrew Balis, including nifty new keyboard shortcuts, behavior changes in FCP, a TON of new effects, etc.
Handy stuff to know.

-mike

AMUG Addonics Mac Pro PCI Express SATA Host Adapter (ADSA3GPX1-2EM) Review

Typically detailed long AMUG review of the only currently working SATA card for Mac Pros with port multiplying support. There are some performance issues, but for $40, this would be an excellent holdover until the $300 Sonnet E4P cards have working drivers (which are being dilligently worked on but aren't done yet, I checked this week).

-mike

About the Mac OS X 10.4.8 Update (delta)

Mac OS X 10.4.8 was released today. Some notes and observations:

1.) If installing on an Intel based Mac, will restart TWICE after installation; first restart can be slow, be patient and don't interrupt.

2.) Don't interrupt installation - if you do or lose power or whatever, use the standalone installer

3.) I don't see anything video specific that it is fixing in the long list of fixes; so I recommend NOT updating to 10.4.8 for at least a few weeks to see if there are issues with any 3rd party video drivers, hardware, etc.

4.) See above link for full details. I'm about to install it on my 1.25 GHz Pbook G4, will see how it goes...

-mike

Dell UltraSharp 30" Widescreen LCD for $1,529 - dealnews.com Dunno how long the deal lasts, so jump on it quick if you want a big screen. Apple's is $1999 for their panel of same size and resolution. Note that this Dell does NOT have TV inputs as the 24 inch model did/does.

-mike

UPDATE FRIDAY: I asked a high level game designer acquaintance some questions about the console market, the Q&A is added at the end of the article.

Microsoft unveils Xbox HD-DVD price, games partner - Yahoo! News

Microsoft finally announced a price point for the HD DVD player add-on - $200. This means that the total price for the high end Xbox360 with HD-DVD is going to be $600....same as the higher end PS3.

Mike's Comments: The good news here is these prices are barely over the cost of the currently cheapest HD DVD player ($500), so for $100 you get a very high end game machine as well. Xbox360 has been selling fairly well from what I've heard, and so far HD DVD is being better received than Blu-ray - the movies look better (since the first crop of Blu-ray were MPEG-2 encoded, and poorly at that instead of the better looking VC-1), the players cost less, and there's a decent selection of movies out. The only reason to go Blu-ray is the greater capacity and selection of Sony movies. While I've long been hoping for Blu-ray to win the format wars, because I want the greater disc capacity as well as less M$ influence on my media, I'm not so sure that Blu-ray offers a compelling argument over HD DVD. Movies on HD DVD are looking good enough, they can do dual layer for 30 GB of content if needed, and the players are substantially cheaper than the Blu-ray players so far. This is what consumers care about, if anything. For the studios, Blu-ray offers better encryption and DRM and protection from piracy in theory, as well as the fact that Sony makes both movies and the player so you know they'll be distributing in their own format. There has been a lot of hope that the PS3's ability to play back Blu-ray movies would be a huge push to get Blu-ray (or the potential to play them back) into the living rooms of a large number of gamers, but since Microsoft is offering the same advantage as an option for Xbox360 buyers/users at the same total price point, unless PS3 is going to outsell Xbox360 by a wide margin (and don't forget Xbox360 has been on the market since last year), I don't see the PS3 making a huge difference for Blu-ray.

I hereby declare that unless PS3 sells like mad, I think HD DVD is likely to win. How's that for a bold statement? Let me now wiggle and equivocate - the format will win from a consumer side, which is what drives things. Unless Sony can get a lock on enough content to make the format more attractive from a movie perspective, I don't think they can strong arm the industry hard enough. Movies so far look the same or better on HD DVD, and the cost of the players is lower. The winner tends to be driven by the consumers, not the manufacturers, so I now think it likely that HD DVD is going to win. Internally, if HD DVD is selling better, the movie division at Sony will start complaining to the player division until they are FINALLY given permission from On HIgh (if that is how their hierarchy is set up, I don't know, anybody feel free to correct me with facts) to release movies on HD DVD as well as Blu-ray - the economics will demand it if HD DVD sells better, or even if it represents a significant opportunity cost foregone.

To back this up, so far, despite the crappy remote and load times, people are still prefering the Toshiba HD DVD player over the Samsung Blu-ray player. This analysis of Amazon reviews on Blu-ray vs HD DVD is pretty informative, with lots of graphs to back it up - folks prefer the Toshiba clearly. While a sample of 1 player for each format is not indicative of how things will go over the next year as new, lower cost players come out for each format, the early momentum is clearly with HD DVD. But, now that I think about it, this addresses satisfaction with units, not number of units sold - I wish I had those numbers to compare.

I do note the irony of me talking about not trusting Microsoft to control my media, yet advocating Apple to push into the movie market - I guess it is akin to liking the Aggies or the Longhorns - just pick your team and root for'em. I prefer Apple because while they do have some annoying restrictions on DRM, and they do control things in a "my way or the highway" fashion, I think they do a better job on this kind of thing. Plus I like their elegant hardware/software integration - so my decision isn't ENTIRELY irrational...

-mike

UPDATE: And, of course, we're off to the races in the Comments. The first comment is a lengthy detailed rebuttal to my "HD DVD may win" comment, and I reply in detail myself. So consider (at least the first two anyway) the Comments section to be an extension of this article - consider it the "Turn to Page 12 for more" on this article.

Further update: ...and since then the comment count is up to 10 as of 11:18:36 AM CST, all of it interesting and valid, including such things as:

-the influence of porn on the market

-the high sales of PS2 as a predictor of PS3 sales

-my rebuttal citing technology is only as relevant as its price point

-the mixed effects of forced bundling (Blu-ray in PS3) vs not (optional HD DVD add-on for Xbox360)

-the possibility Hollywood will treat predictive sales like they do opening weekend numbers and make a long term decision early on, etc.

Have thoughts on any of this? Click on the Comments link below.

Friday Update: Game Developer Q&A

I asked a trusted source who is in a position to know stats on the gaming industry about this whole thing, here's the Q&A:

1.) How well has Xbox360 been selling?

According to Wikipedia they've sold around 6.1 million 360 units. This might be a little inflated, but 5 million is a safe bet. But they've easily sold 10 million pieces of software.

2.) Is PS3 expected to leap into the ring as a volume competitor to Xbox360?

As of a year ago I think most people would have predicted that the PS3 would ultimately out-sell the 360 by a good amount. The previous generation had Sony selling 3 or 4 times as many PS2s as Microsoft sold Xbox1s.

Microsoft bet *hard* on having a 1-year head start, which most of us devs saw as a huge gamble. But it appears to be paying off, along with Microsoft securing a ton of exclusive games. In the game world it's exclusive content that sells hardware more than anything else.

So in general I think alot of us are expecting PS3 and 360 to be much more neck and neck this time around. This Christmas Sony is going to get their ass handed to them by Microsoft, since the 360s are now in full-production and easy to find and buy at any old store. The PS3 is going to have a very limited first run, and will be super-duper hard to find.

3.) With both systems expected to be available with high def DVD options for about $600 list, does that give either one a serious boost, or is it a wash?

There are two ways to look at this... if you're Joe Blow gamer and all you want to play is Madden NFL 2007, and you walk into Best Buy ready to buy a new system and the game, you have two options:

$300 for a basic 360 + $60 for Madden = $360 $500 for a basic PS3 + $60 for Madden = $560

That's a BIG difference for Joe Blow. Throw in an extra $100 for the premium version of either system, and you're talking about alot of money for nothing besides a console and a game.

If you look at the systems as a movie enthusiast, then yeah... it's pretty much $500 (or $600) for a new game system and an HD movie player.

But it's important to note that the basic $300 Xbox 360 can play HD movies... just not off a disc. You can stream an HD feed from your PC to the 360 (and thusly onto your HDTV or projector). This might be Microsoft's secret weapon. Even if the HD disc formats flop and we all buy our HD content via some iTunes thing, Microsoft can still play ball. Sony is stuck with Blu-Ray no matter what.

4.) Another way of asking - Do you think the PS3 with Blu-ray will be a serious push for the Blu-ray movie format, or does the existence of an Xbox360 HD DVD add-on make it a wash?

No, it's not a wash. If both systems came with built-in HD movie drives, then it would be more of an apples-to-apples thing. The fact that the HD-DVD drive for the 360 is an add-on suggests to me two things:

1) Microsoft is not really commited to HD-DVD (they could switch horses and go Blu-Ray down the road if it turned out to be the winning format) 2) Most 360 owners won't purchase an HD-DVD drive for some time...

Hardware accessories for game consoles have sold notoriously poorly in the past. Sega sold 35 million Sega Genesis systems back in the 16-bit era. But they only sold 6 million Sega-CD add-on drives, which was their first CD-ROM attachment. Now granted, Sega-CD wasn't a movie player, so you mostly bought it for the games. But a 16% attach rate is pretty crappy.

As far as the PS3 having Blu-Ray built in... it could be a push for Blu-Ray. Sony has sold over 100 million PS2s worldwide since 2000. If they can repeat their success with the PS3 then that's a whole bunch of homes with a Blu-Ray player. But it's too be determined if people will take home Blu-Ray movies with their brand new PS3 or not.

My suspicion is that Sony is tying the Blu-Ray and Playstation 3 brands at the hip. It's just speculation, but most people believe each PS3 game will be in a Blu-Ray case, further driving the Blu-Ray brand into everyone's head:

http://forums.firingsquad.com/firingsquad/board/message?board.id=pc&thread.id=25434

One question you didn't ask but I think should be answered is this:

Does the fact that PS3 has a Blu-Ray drive built-in while the 360's HD-DVD drive is option affect game developers?

The answer is hell-yes. Since most games put out by third-party publishers (EA, Activision, Ubisoft, Midway, etc) come out for both systems, we have to use one of them as a lowest-common-denominator. So we have to design our games to fit onto a single 360 disc, which means we'd have to do extra work to actually take advantage of the Blu-Ray drive. And that's money we don't have to spend, so we won't. :-)

So from that perspective, buying the same game for the PS3 is probably not going to look or run any better than the 360 version. So now it's up to Sony to fund and publish the exclusive PS3 games that actually will take advantage of the storage capacity of Blu-Ray. It's their only hope of selling the who Blu-Ray thing to the hard-core gamers.


Thanks to this industry veteran for taking the time to answer, although anonymity was requested to allow direct and honest answers without getting called on the carpet by the brass at the employer.

The possibility of Xbox360's Media Extender capabilities is something I've been meaning to write a think piece about, I'll wrap that into something bigger if I have the time. Hmm..maybe I need to go subscription based for that kind of thing...IF broadband were sufficiently fast and ubiquitous (which it really isn't right now), the ability to directly download high def movies instead of buying a $500 to $1000 player is awfully intriguing - when I say HD DVD might be the winner, I just mean winner between the two formats. Long term, high def downloads start to make a lot of sense, also if and only if people were to start getting used to the idea of a home media server where all this stuff sits.

But in terms of unit and dollar sales, I think it is entirely possible that downloadable movies, even at the relatively weak resolution and compression quality of Apple's present offerings, could outsell high def movie sales cumulatively. Of course, those are two different markets really - high vs. low quality movie experiences.

-mike

This is an updated and expanded earlier article, with the further inclusion on details from Jim Jannard's update posted on DVInfo.net

Full update from Jim Jannard:

Jim Jannard, founder of Red, posted on DVInfo.net last night, stating "Time for a full update."

Salient points:

-on track overall
-still on target to get 20 to 30 cameras put together in December for shakedown testing
-THINKS they'll start shipping March/April timeframe (hopefully, and NOT a promised ship date)
-more explanations coming for REDRAW, which they feel strongly should be your preferred shooting format
-traditional RGB recording will be offered as well (Mike's insert here - yeah, I'd expect 720p, 1080p, 2K RGB REDCODE options)
-Redcine will be key, so get familiar with it, detailed explanations start Nov. 1st
-pretty much final camera, cage, rail, & lenses at that time
-specs on lenses, including MTF charts, around that time (Nov. 1st)
-thermal management is a challenge, two FPGAs in there

Mike's Comments: Read the article for more details. I think the biggest piece of news in there is this is the most specific time frame estimate for when they'll start shipping. As I've got a reservation in queue now (did I mention that? I've got a Red One and a zoom lens on order, will be for rental market), I'm especially interested in that part, and in how long it'll take to fill backorders. They've previously stated that Oct. 31st is the closing day for reservations - no more pre-orders taken after that time.

But I'm pleasantly surprised at this shipping estimate - with the complexity of the product they are talking about, and all of the other details and capability ramifications not even discussed yet, this timetable is ambitious - I had previously thought they'd start getting their first cameras out in the May/June timeframe at best, since this is practically a moon shot in terms of new frontiers and complex systems for this new company. The timetable may still slip, but for them to be guesstimating this time frame is good news - it would be out of character for Jim to pick a date he knew he couldn't make. I would further hazard to guess that this would mean it would be a short number of months to get through the 500-600 pre-orders, and new orders could start being filled sometime in the second half of 2007, probably Q3 '07 I'd guess based on Jim's estimate. But again, these are just my own guesses based on Jim's guesstimated shipping time frame. But at this point, by the time new orders are taken next year when cameras are shipping (after the pre-orders stop being taken on Oct. 31st), there will probably be 500 to 600 cameras working in the field, so there should be good evidence of how well they do (or don't) work. As with many other working professionals, I'd rather see this camera ship late and right rather than early and buggy.

Macbeth color chart image from Mysterium sensor

For the camera hardcore, here's a Macbeth color chart shot with the Mysterium sensor with their test mule camera, no color correction applied, with a digital version of what the thing is supposed to look like in the lower portion of the image - follow the link in the top posting from Jarred.

There's also a link on the second page with composited squares from the "should be" comped over what they have at the moment, makes it much easier to comprehend. Plus, apparently Graeme has done some tweaks to get it even closer.

This is all well and good, but the catch is will it be this close or closer in varying light conditions (tungsten vs. daylight, for instance), in low or overexposed situations, will skintones still look good even if it is mathematically still "right," and will all this survive compression with Redcine OK? Another random thought - will the HD-SDI have the same curves to match the Redcine output? Will the in-camera curves be upgradable/editable easily? This is a LUT issue.

Hard numbers on the ISO rating of the Mysterium sensor

There is also discussion of the ISO rating of the sensor based on empirical data here, started off by Jim Jannard himself stating that the sensor seems to have an ISO rating of 160. Much much geeky discussion ensues, gets over my head quickly (I'm just a po' post guy).

Discussion on the boards about Red

There's also just good interesting discussions in general about stuff like quick conversion for reconfiguring the camera and other stuff. As always, the Red forums on DVXuser.com and DVInfo.net are worth checking out.

Some facts and a lot of conjecture about the break-in at Red

Other Red news - looks like the Mysterium sensor and the Frankenstein test mule camera were not taken, so that's great news in terms of no slowdowns, but the shiny prototype from IBC did get stolen. I'd also be ticked if I were the Red crew if somebody got their test sensor (I'm guessing there's only one working prototype, but I don't know for sure).

In the "totally pure conjecture based on no hard data whatsoever" category, while it still smells like some kind of corporate espionage and not random theft, the thieves weren't completely competent/thorough/successful (thankfully) - while they did get a lot of data and some prototypes, they didn't get some of the most valuable stuff - the working sensor, the test mule camera, etc. One camp would posit that the thieves didn't go after the most valuable items, another would suggest the thieves got what they wanted - comparison competitive data, so that a competitor could gauge their progress and how good the results were, so that they would know how to respond in their own future product offerings. Would a competitor be so bold? I would hope in this day and age not, but there are tens of millions of dollars at stake here, if not hundreds long term. Careers are in trouble. What if some hired third party sent to get info got overzealous, or o'erstepped the intended bounds of effort?

Of course, perhaps the valuable items not stolen were kept offsite or secured somewhere, I dunno. Again, this is all uninformed conjecture, I honestly don't know any more than I've read on the boards. But it sure is a weird thing to happen, and I'll bet Red never leaves themselves that vulnerable again.

UPDATE ON THE THEFT

Some of the stolen items have been recovered it turns out - some of the more personal data, the aluminum non-functional prototype, a lens, and some other stuff. Jim Jannard, founder of Red, stated on dvxuser.com:

"What is still out there are computers that had most of the camera related development info. It appears that the "booty" was broken up into two segments. Our pro investigation team and police are still on the trail of the balance."


So good news for them to get some of their stuff back, interesting to note that the booty was broken into two groups, but the group of stuff with the most sensitive info is still out there unfortunately.

-mike

PS-for those of you waiting, I DID manage to squeak into the screening of The Fountain last night, will post after I get back from a run)

Flip4Mac - Episode Products

update: here's a chart showing the differences between Episode & Episode Pro.
Compression Master is/was a nice encoding product to pick up where Media Cleaner Pro left off (and it got left way off, since there hasn't been an update in a looooooong time (edit - oops, wrong). But Apple's bundling of Compressor obviated it's need for all but the pickiest of users and uses.

Flip4Mac has apparently picked up the product and dubbed it Episode, with a higher end product entitled Episode Pro. There is a demo version available that I'm downloading right now, I'll play with it when I get the chance. With this addition, Flip4Mac continues its surprisingly fast move to become a significant player in the realm of working with digital video formas on the Mac.

They can both encode to MPEG-1/2/4, WM9, DV, 3GPP/2, M4A, MOV, and other QT codecs. You can create and use complex compression templates, and do things like crop, scale, pad, timecode burn-in, gamma, HSV levels, etc. - LOTS of control.

I'm curious to see how it handles gamma issues when converting YUV to RGB codecs, or even just scaling YUV codecs (see recent Final Cut & QuickTime Color & Luma Woes), whether it handles 10 bit codecs at all without truncating to 8 bits, and in general just how useful it can be for high end media manipulation. In the end, it boils down to this - is this giving enough value above and beyond what you get with Compressor to justify the $400 to $800 price tag?

When I talked to the developers at NAB the other year, I was impressed with the depth of control they offered, the seriousness with which they implemented details (sine not bicubic scaling, thankyouverymuch), but was irked by the requirement that each codec supported had to be hand coded in - it wouldn't compress to just any codec you had installed, for instance, and this was a problem at the time since I was very interested in working with the Sheer codec.

Does it justify the cost and hassles of straying off the Apple app reservation? I don't know yet, I suspect it might based on the level of control offered, but I want to play with it and see the quality and speed and workflow before stating definitively. If anybody has an informed opinion on this, please chime in on the Comments using the link below.

-mike

So, now that it has happened, the sneak preview was for Pan's Labyrinth, Guillermo Del Toro's new Spanish language film. I also saw a Hungarian animated film, The District, as well as Roman, from the makers of May but with the director and lead actor switching places for this one.

First up - The District, an animated Hungarian film. Technically, it is a visual mashup - now that computer generated is "cheap" and hand drawn is time consuming and "expensive," the look on this film is an interesting mix of hand drawn textures projected onto 3D or 2 1/2D animated characters. Check out the trailer, otherwise to write about it is dancing about architecture, as they say. The energy level of this film is HUGE, and at times almost exhausting. This animated film is definitely not for children - hookers and pimps and gangs abound, but the story centers on (another) Romeo and Juliet situation - except that this time the kids try to circumvent the tragic ending. The film is very alive and feels very in touch with youth culture, feels very street and real and current and connected, not the distant Hollywood 1950s abstractions we get from some domestic studios. It is also wildly creatively divergent - when the boy decides he needs money to court the girl, he decides to go back in time and make some oil under their neighborhood to make money...and then THEY DO IT. The level of realistic reality rockets up and down through the film, but it is very engaging, if overlong. But if you're any kind of animation fan, DEFINITELY one to see. Think of it as your dirty minded teenage Hungarian buddy's response to The Tripletts of Bellville.

Next up was Roman, directed by Angela Bettis, who was the lead in May, a film with very similar themes that came out a few years ago. Shot on DV with XL2 and GL2 Canon DV camcorders (with apparently zero color correction), the film wavers in and out of "suffciently interesting and engaging" but doesn't maintain a high enough level of, um, engagement throughout. Roman is a lonely man who is a bit odd, and after spectacularly blowing a date with the cute girl in his complex (played by Kristen Bell of Veronica Mars, shot before the series started it sounds like). He then reluctantly takes up a relationship with the artsy girl in his complex, after dealing with the breakup with the first girl piecemeal (read that statement carefully if you saw May). Poorly shot, acceptably acted, sub-par editing and sound design, a predictable plot after a few surprises make this one skippable. But as a first time director in a zero/no-budget DV film, not a bad first turn, this project still needs work even the current form - color correction, tighter edit, etc.

Next up was the highlight of the day - Guillermo Del Toro's new film (Spanish language no less), Pan's Labyrinth. A shame Guillermo couldn't be here, he's contractually bound to do a New York screening as the first North American screening with him in attendance, but he used to live in Austin and is always scathingly funny and engaging to hear speak before his movies (I've seen him at Blade 2 and Hellboy, he was hilarious and fun). Similar thematically to the Devil's Backbone, it is set in wartime and involves magical realism, dark notes, death, and children. In this one, the setting is Spain in 1944, right before the Allies arrived. The movie opens as a young girl and her pregnant mother are driving to their new home - the father had died, and the mother remarried for security and convenience to a captain in the Nazi sympathetic Spanish army. The hardcore Captain is a ruthless man, set on hunting down the remaining rebels, and establishes his location on the moral compass early in the film when he encounters two men who may or may not be spies for the rebellion. The mother's health is not good. But the story centers on the little girl, and the maid Mercedes who helps her. The little girl sees a bug that she thinks might be a fairy - and it turns out to be, changing in a magical moment on camera that works - I totally bought into it. It leads her into the labyrinth that is next to the big house where the captain lives, and she meets a faun who tells her she is the reincarnated long lost queen. A series of challenges are set out for her. Meanwhile, the rebels in the woods (including Mercedes brother Pedro) have their trials and run-ins with the local Spanish authorities. The magical and real worlds slowly start to get closer together throughout the film, and at the end the question is left to the viewer as to which you believe in...or more accurately, which you WANT to believe in. Feh - I'm not doing a very good job of describing the experience of the movie - it is beautifully shot and well acted, a fairy tale for adults, riding the line between what might be and what is in terms of whether the magic is real or not. I actually was this close to crying at the end - the Mercedes character is actually the standout for me in the film, not the little girl - patient and kind, but also brave and strong - she rocks, I'd marry her in a heartbeat. She also gets some of the best lines in the film, especially towards the end. OK, I'm rambling now, it is late and I'm tired - suffice it to say it is beautiful to watch, but I found the magical realism a bit troubling. It all depends on whether you think there is indeed magic in the world. The ending requires you to pick one - real or magic - and the realistic ending is brutal and deeply tragic, whilst the magical one is happy and transcendant. I don't like being forced to the magical ending - I want to be a realist at heart, but hate where that leads to if that's the only choice, both in the movie and in life (that says more than you know right there). And that is the choice I felt the movie presented, to be decided by each viewer. Doreen liked the film too, but found it overly predictable, I didn't have as much of a problem with it as she did. Perhaps tomorrow I'll be in a more analytical mood about it, I think the structure of the film has some problems about which is it - a real world or a magical one, and that may create problems for the audience. Plus, it is in Spanish with subtitles, so that'll limit the appeal as well for a mass audience (that doesn't speak Spanish, anyway). I liked it though - it was moving and (almost) made me cry, and that's a rarity in any case - nothing else I've seen has so moved me at FantasticFest. And that's certainly enough to be worthy of praise right there - you can argue structure, plot, casting, cinematography, all that other superficial crap - but does it move you? - and here, the answer for me was an emphatic yes.

-mike

Studio Daily | Sony On Its New HVR-V1U CMOS Design, and Why MPEG-2 Isn't Going Away

Quickie post - this article has some more info on the 1/4" CMOS that Sony is calling ClearVid - the three 1/4" CMOS sensors are 960x1080 resolution, BUT they are diagonally arranged, and Sony is claiming that and the CMOS helps with low light, high pixel count, small sensor light sensitivity. There's a Flash based animation to explain all this.

Movie's is starting, gotta go, but the article also talks about how Sony is happpy with MPEG-2 for now, no AVCHD in the near term.

-mike

Yesterday was a recovery day after catching a midnight movie - I didn't feel like going the distance, so "only" saw three movies.

First up was Shinobi: Heart Under Blade. Think of it as Romeo and Juliet set in medieval Japan with Super Ninja Powers, and instead of the Montagues and Capulets, there are two villages/clans of assasins who all have specials Arts of death infliction. But instead of bad action and yelling and bad dubs, this is MUCH more akin to a Crouching Tiger, Hidden Ninja vibe, with a bit of Hero and that, um, other one with green in the title (can't think of it now, somebody clue me in). Truly gorgeous cinematography, talented leads, good action scenes, a script that gives us characters we can care about, set in a time of vast change. The two villages have had a 400 year ban on fighting each other, but are the ninjas for hire amongst the ruling elite. The Lord of Lords realizes he can't have these kinds of weapons just sitting around, waiting to be hired, so orders each village to send their best 5 to fight each other to the death, to help choose the next Shogun. Much is at stake, and of course, our two star crossed lovers who met each other at the creek between their villages are chosen to go. Each of their companions has different Arts, of course, and we get to see them revealed throughout the course of the movie. This isn't as good as Hero or Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, but it is close, and definitely worth seeing. Some great set pieces, fights, and lines in there too - after one character gets run through with a sword and is presumed dead, he suddenly appears and runs through his attacker. The dying man says "Curse you...you're immortal!" and as he fades, his killer says "No...I'm just bad at dying." OK, I guess you gotta see it to follow the vibe. This is a keeper, though, and definitely worth seeing if you get the chance if you like the other films I've mentioned here. Technically, my only complaint was some truly bad digital FX work - esp. ninjas hopping through the trees or the eagle flying around - it was so bad it was distracting. Other scenes, esp. the hair/sleeves guy, had competent CG and compositing, so maybe just a bad vendor?

I had debated whether to see Shinobi or Beach Party at the Threshold of Hell...my friend Zane Rutledge went to see it, and it sounds like I made the right call.

Next up was FireFly, a truly indie DIY effort. Shot starting in 2002 on a DVX100 (the original, right after it came out), and then in post for two years as the filmmakers continued at their day jobs, these guys have pulled off what every no-budget DIYer hopes to do - to make an interesting, compelling movie shot on DV for virtually no budget. The story involves four individuals' all having unusual experiences and the four storylines finally coalesce. Read the link above for a summary, but the important part was that the movie was interesting to watch, the acting was good enough, the story was compelling, and you just let it go that it's shot on the cheap. They did a good job making their movie that a LOT of others screw up - it is a far, far better thing to do something simple, and do it well, than to reach too far and try to make something fancy and do it poorly. Strong story, characters we care about, and a plotline that always carries that itch of "what happens next?" to keep your audience interested without irritating them with BS answers. The movie is slow to get going and perhaps overly long*, but it is a ride you the viewer are interested in taking. Kudos to the team that labored forever on this one, with some script work, I could see this not getting picked up, but being remade with a real budget and coming out as a potentially mainstream interesting film.

* as a side note, there have been shorts before some of the films, some good, some kinda "feh", but they ALL suffer from being too in love with your own product - they are too long! All could have benefited from being edited tighter and cut down to just what was needed to tell the story.

Last up was a retrospective on the portrayal of drugs in American Cinema, starting back in the 30s. Being a fan of bad governmental disinformation, and having just come back from "smoke pot with the cops, we JUST DON'T CARE!" Amsterdam, I thought this'd be fun to sit in on - they had original 16mm prints of government, military, and private industry films talking about the dangers of LSD, marijuana, etc. The author of a book on the subject, Jack Stevenson, was kind enough to come over from Sweden to introduce the films, and this sounded like it'd be fun to watch.

....but I was wrong. Jack took waaaaaaaay too long introducing the upcoming pieces, and the pieces themselves were run in large chunks, when a few minutes would have been MORE than sufficient. Plus, a problem with many screenings, the audio was just painfully too loud (am I getting into Crotchety Old Fart mode here?). Way too loud, overly long movies about bad tripping when I'm tired - it was my own Bad Trip. As with the shorts, EDIT TO THE SALIENT PART, THEN MOVE ON. As Mr. Dahlberg, my 9th grade English teacher used to say about an essay's length: "It should be like a woman's skirt - long enough to cover the subject, but short enough to be interesting."

Aside from the lawsuits that comment would instigate today, Jack failed to follow this advice...so we bailed after half an hour.

Today, I plan on seeing either Puzzlehead or The District, Roman or A Quiet Love, then the 9pm Special Screening that they have a poster up for in the lobby but I'll be nice to Paul and Tim and not say what it is yet...but it's gonna be gooooooood, and I am REALLY looking forward to it. If I'm up for a midnight movie, I'll go see Lie Still.

If you're in Austin, you can buy solo tickets for any of this stuff, and if you have time, you can still catch Firefly today at 3:30, that Special Screening tonight at 9, or The Host at 11:30pm. Tomorrow, Fantastic Planet with Darren Aronofsky introducing, The Fountain, and then Isolation (I'll see it) or Renaissance for those who haven't yet seen it will screen. Edmond is also showing, but that opens at the Alamo soon anyway - catch that David Mamet written, William H. Macy starring psychological thriller.

-mike

Monday was a full movie day - I saw several, so I'll just dive right in.

First up was Hatchet, a throwback to the 80s slasher flicks of yore (and gore.) A low budget horror movie of the "people stuck in a swamp with a possibly undead crazy revenge seeking mutated angry swamp hick" variety. You either are into it for the nostalgia, or not. Our introduction to the Bad Guy (Victor Crowley) is to see him run out of his cabin with a (you guessed it!) hatchet, and chop Midwestern Guy repeatedly through the collarbone on down through the chest. Then Victor grabs the wife's jaw and peels/snaps her head off her neck. That's either funny or it's not. There's a little bit of boob flashing (it is set in New Orleans), and some kinda fun banter between White Nerdy Guy and Hipper Black Friend (reminds me of going to Vegas with my friend Sloan, we fit those roles pretty well), but I found the movie lacking - a bit too Skinemax, a bit too All Done Before Better. For the genre fans, it's kina fun though.

Beowulf and Grendel, however, was an entirely different affair - starring Starsguard and Sarah Polley, it is a beautiful, majestically shot ode to the folly of revenge. In the 1600s in Daneland, Grendel the troll (big strong hairy guy) starts killing off the king's men, and others come to help the great king, including the legendary warrior Beowulf. Beowulf comes and starts to wonder why the beast is killing the king's soldiers, and starts to doubt the purpose of his mission. Sarah Polley plays the local witch who straddles both worlds - the civilized and the wild. Beautiful, interesting, meditative, worth seeing as a film devotee. A little slow, a little self importantly slow and grandiose at times, suffering a touch of the "I am an epic, see how important I am, so it's OK for me to be languid and slow" disease, but worth seeing, if for the gorgeously tough cinematography and scenery alone. Definitely one you couldn't shoot in Texas on DV for the same results!

Next up was The Host, which is one of my favorites of the festival so far - it is a Korean monster movie...but don't let that throw you. While subtitled, it is still thoroughly engaging, as it is more about about a loose and disjointed family banding together to try to find the young daughter/neice/grandchild girl, rather than about the monster, which is actually background for this story. To further that point, you get to see the monster in full detail in full daylight - while the movie was introduced as having similarities to Jaws, not true - Jaws was all about NOT seeing the creature until the end (a pattern started by accident when Bruce the mechanical shark wouldn't work, but is now standard cliche fare in the genre), the film starts with a long, protracted, full daylight, fully revealing attack not 10 or so minutes into the film. And the creature is GOOD - interesting design (never seen a creature quite like it before), and it is VERY well rendered - kudos to The Orphanage (Stu Maschwitz of Prolost that I like to from time to time is one of the founders) for their EXCELLENT work on the creature and visual effects in this film. The movement, design, and photorealstic integration (esp. the water integration, which is truly top notch even in the film print we saw) is all FAR beyond the quality level you'd expect in a film of this nature. Actually, especially in comparison to the truly sub-par work in the otherwise outstanding Shinobi, it is all the more surprising that a movie this "small" has effects this "big" and good. Anyway, back to the point - it is a funny, actually touching movie, and then on top of it you get this truly new, unique, scary monster, which has various interesting tricks up its many tentacled sleeves - how it gets around, how it deals with its prey, all kinds of new twists. There are a couple of scenes in particular with the girl and the creature in its lair that are especially get-under-your-skin creepy, and make it all too clear that this thing is not just a mindless beast. Again, I'd put The Host in my Top 5 from the festival that I enjoyed. Too bad it's in Korean...or maybe not - I could totally see a remake of this for the US market just by setting it in, say, Boston Harbor rather than the Han River. I'm sure the VFX crew at The Orphanage wouldn't mind doing it again with a bigger budget...

Next up was the midnight movie Severance that I'd been hearing good things about. There's some connection or analogy to Shaun of the Dead that I haven't pinned down yet (same writer? Or just feel?). The movie is about a group of employees of a defense contractor out on a team building exercise that end up in the Wrong Place, Wrong Time, and start to suffer badly as Scary Men With Knives start showing up and picking them off one by one. The characters are great - you have the Terrible Boss, the Ass Kisser, the Nebbishy Glasses Girl, The Stoner, The Sales Prick, etc. Just the staff interactions alone are entertaining as you recognize people you've worked with...and don't mind seeing them blowtorched, beheaded, etc. The script is a blast, the scares aren't too many (more on that in a minute), the gore isn't too much, and you DO care about the characters who do get away in the end. Magnolia Pictures has picked this one up, and I recommend it once it is out in the theaters.

As a side editorial note, there are a LOT of movies of the "people stuck in the woods getting hunted and/or tortured" motif, and I'm not liking it one bit. If that's all that is really going on, if that is the focus, it just isn't fun if doesn't have a point (other than a jagged one), or a sense of humor, or characters I care about other than to not see them sliced up like carpaccio and served with fava beans and chianti...fufufufufuffff. The movies Saw and Hostel started this trend as far as I can tell, and since the horror genre is the cheapest way to get into the movie game (shoot in the woods, don't need name brand talent, no extravagant sets, etc.), lots of folks are piling on. And it just isn't fun to watch. Hostel was shockingly intense when that was a new thing, and I don't mind the pervy joy of the mix of sex now, violence later it offered. At least it had a redemptive ending and took the "OK, killing and torture is bad, m'kay?" road in content if not in context. But this new crop - Texas Chainsaw Massacre: The Beginning, Broken, The Wilderness, Hatchet, and others - are just lame. Somebody said they'd expect Chainsaw to make at least $50M...I hope not. I like a good scary movie, but these are just intense for it's own sake. When the producers said they wanted to take back the gore thrown for the series, I agree with that in spirit, but I don't like the end result.

And this attitude has been getting into other styles, too - I loved how someone put it in context when talking about Mel Gibson's new vs. prior work:

"Yeah, I already saw Jesus Christ Chainsaw Massacre, I don't need to see it again."

Perfect.

-mike

Go and hit up your Software Update folks - Final Cut Pro 5.1.2 is available right this minute.

Based on what I saw at IBC, new features should include:
-24p HDV support for Canon XL H1 and JVC GY-HD100U/HD110U
-improved scopes that are live during playback
-improved XML import/export
-and more stuff

From the limited Software Update info:

Final Cut Pro Update 5.1.2 provides important bug fixes and compatibility updates for certain Canon, Sony, JVC and Panasonic devices. This update is recommended for all Final Cut Pro 5.1 and Final Cut Pro 5.1.1 customers.


Compressor also got an update to 2.3 in the last day or two as well, no useful details given.

CinemaTools gets an update as well - Cinema Tools 3.1.2 addresses inter-application compatibility and fixes some potential issues with reverse telecine when using files larger than 9 GB. ...which will be relevant for folks working with big HD files.

There's also a Pro Apps Update as well - more info here, relevant parts:

HDVCodec

HDVCodec addresses compatibility issues with Sony's XDCAM-HD 1080p24 25 Mbps CBR format and playback for the XDCAM-HD 540-line VFR formats.

This update is required for customers using Final Cut Pro 5.1.1 and the "Cine Alta" filmmaker features of Sony's XDCAM-HD cameras.

Uncompressed 422

Uncompressed 422 delivers a fix for changes in color-space and/or gamma when moving clips between Final Cut Pro and Adobe After Effects and addresses a codec issue leading to drawing errors in 16bpc After Effects projects. It also fixes discrepancies found between former AltiVec and the current Intel (scalar) code and delivers some performance improvements on Intel-based Macs.

This update is required for customers using Final Cut Pro 5.1 and recommended for customers using any of the Final Cut Studio 5.1 applications and Shake 4.1.

IMXCodec

IMXCodec delivers a fix for ARGB encoding on Intel-based Macs.

This update is required for customers using Shake 4.1 and recommended for Final Cut Studio 5.1 customers.

LiveType Support

This fix improves application stability when doing round-trip edits between Final Cut Pro and LiveType or Final Cut Express and LiveType. This also addresses an issue where LiveType could cause OverTheEdge's Unity to stop responding.

This update is required for customers using Final Cut Pro 5.1 and Final Cut Express HD 3.5.

FxPlug

FxPlug delivers a single image-processing plug-in architecture for pro applications.

This update is required for customers using Motion 2.1

Requirements for the Pro Applications Update 2006-01

Mac OS X 10.4.4 or later
QuickTime 7.0.4 or later


From the PDF on Late Breaking News for Final Cut Pro 5.1.2

Final Cut Pro 5.1.2 addresses effects compatibility issues and video format compatibility,
and resolves long-standing issues with video scope performance and audio output. For
updated information about format support, choose HD and Broadcast Formats from
the Final Cut Pro Help menu.
Note:
The Download Only option in Software Update is disabled for the Final Cut Pro 5.1.2
software update package.
HDV Format Support and Easy Setups
Final Cut Pro 5.1.2 includes native support and corresponding Easy Setups for the
following HDV formats:
Â
720p24 and 720p25 (JVC GY-HD100 ProHD camcorder)
Â
1080p24 and 1080p25 (Canon XL H1 HDV camcorder); also called
1080F24
and
1080F25
DVCPRO HD 720p25 and 1080pA24 Support
Final Cut Pro 5.1.2 updates compatibility with DVCPRO HD camcorder devices by adding
two new Easy Setups:
Â
DVCPRO HD 720p25:
This Easy Setup is used for native editing of DVCPRO HD 720p25
footage imported from Panasonic P2 cards. Final Cut Pro does not support
DVCPRO HD 720p25 capture from or output to tape.
Â
DVCPRO HD 1080pA24:
This Easy Setup is used to capture and output DVCPRO HD
1080p24 footage with advanced pulldown (2:3:3:2) to and from tape. This format uses
the same advanced pulldown technique as NTSC 24p. The footage on tape is actually
recorded at 29.97 interlaced frames per second (fps), but Final Cut Pro removes
redundant fields, resulting in a 23.98 fps progressive scan QuickTime movie on
your scratch disk.
Panasonic P2 Support
Compatibility issues with Panasonic P2 camcorders have been resolved. For more
information, see the Panasonic P2 chapter in the HD and Broadcast Formats document,
available from the Final Cut Pro Help menu.
Sony XDCAM HD Editing Support
Final Cut Pro 5.1.2 supports native editing of XDCAM HD. Ingest and export of XDCAM
HD video requires additional software from Sony. You can find out more about the
XDCAM and XDCAM HD formats at http://www.sony.com/xdcamhd.
For a thorough explanation of how to use XDCAM HD with Final Cut Pro:
Â
In Final Cut Pro, choose Help > HD and Broadcast Formats and refer to the chapter
about XDCAM HD.
Â
See http://bssc.sel.sony.com/BroadcastandBusiness/markets/10014/docs/
FCP_XDCAMHD_whitepaper.pdf.
Real-Time Support for MPEG IMX at 30 Mbps
Final Cut Pro 5.1.2 solves an issue that allows real-time playback and effects support for
MPEG IMX at 30 Mbps (this includes both NTSC and PAL standards).


There's more, just keep reading, especially pages 6 & 7 about live video scope output. Actually, just keep reading - I'm sitting in a theater at FantasticFest, about to watch Shinobi...

-mike

Phorum :: FCP FAQ

All hail acronym only headlines!

This is the Los Angeles Final Cut Pro User Group's Frequently Asked Questions page. A handy reference for a lot of FCP questions you might have.

-mike

New technology could nip DVD format war in the bud�|�Tech&Sci�|�Technology�|�Reuters.com

Engineers at Warner Brothers have come up with a way, they claim, to put all three video formats on one disc - a standard DVD on one side (single or dual layer I wonder? Dual layer necessary to get a decent sized film at good bitrate on there), Blu-ray on the upper layer of the other side on a semi-reflective surface, and HD DVD on a deeper/lower layer of the same disc. By focusing at different heights on the same disc, it could either read the upper Blu-ray layer, or see through to the HD DVD layer beneath it.

Sounds interesting in theory, iffy in practice, and might be size limiting - only single layer potentially for the 3 formats, which might not be enough space to get high enough quality (high enough bitrate) streams on the layers.

The idea is One Disc To Rule Them All, and in the dark pressing line, Bind Them.

While it would be a more expensive disc to manufacture than any single format, it would be cheaper than making three individual discs according to the article, and they claim it would have decent yields (percentage of viable discs of those manufactured).

At that point, it fixes the studios' problem of what format to produce a movie on, and also for consumers - just pick up the disc, it'll play on whatever.

That then leaves the manufacturers of these playback devices in a bit of a quandary - if the same content is available from the same studios on the same disc, and is likely to be encoded using the same codecs for both HD formats...so why is it again that there are two competing formats?

It is so stupid.

-mike

UPDATE WEDNESDAY - there's two issues going on here, one is inaccurate scopes, the other is difficulties getting unclipped YUV codec data out of FCP and into Compressor, After Effects, etc. FCP 5.1.2 has changed scopes, so that issues MIGHT be put to bed, but not sure (is still possible to have zero or 100% luma with chroma in it, something you wouldn't want for broadcast). There's a wealth of good info in the comments, HIGHLY suggest you read it. The other is a problem exporting YUV codec Quicktimes and getting non-clipped values into other apps, as well as not suffering a gamma shift. The gamma shift issue is purportedly addressed in this release, but I haven't had a chance to test it yet, but the clipping problem has been a longstanding issue in QuickTime and is unlikely that they've fixed it, maybe QT 8 with FCP 6 at NAB 2007? That's just me wishing/dreaming, though. End Update.

Creative Workflow Hacks � Blog Archive � Inaccurate Scopes in Final Cut Pro Workaround?

Read this one and shiver, my friends! I've been hearing more and more on the grapevine about inaccurate software scopes, be in in FCP, FTHD, AE, whatevah.

(FCP 5.1.2 is supposed to have more accurate scopes, BTW, due Any Day Now).

(I've also heard complaints about inconsistent blacks with FTHD)

The fix proposed is to export via QuickTime, which will clamp/clip/limit blacks to 9 IRE and whites to 100 IRE, suspected to do so in part because it gets converted t RGB in the process. Useful for broadcast limits, but for format conversions, it clips your whites! This is bad! Or at least, it is bad if you're trying to convert from one format to another and hold the color the same - such as converting a compressed format to uncompressed for a cleaner post workflow - I've been recommending to folks that shot HDV, for instance, to Media Manage to Uncompressed for their final online. The good part about that is that it'll NOT recompress the results to HDV after coloring, titles, transitions, etc., but for color work, it'll ditch any values below 0 IRE and above 100 IRE...in other words, it is tossing potential shadow detail and (esp. bad for video) highlight detail out the window in the conversion.

When I was using After Effects to remove 3:2 pulldown from the HD-SDI captured material from the Texas HD Shootout, apparently I was doing the same kind of clipping.

So for those trying to get the best possible results, to export to QuickTime is to truncate some of the values in your source material, and That Is Bad - you're potentially clipping shadow and highlight detail.

I've also been told, and need to do some testing to verify, that After Effects does this to any footage you bring in, again something to do with conversion to RGB. Ugh. Is there a correct, perfect, non-destructive solution out there? I don't know, but I need to look into it further.

So it appears that:

1.) Exporting to QuickTime will do this truncation
2.) After Effects may do this truncation on import, in terms of how it handles, interprets, and displays QT media brought in
3.) FCP's scopes (as of v5.1.1) are known to have some problems
4.) No idea if the recently released QT 7.1.3 does anything about this

I can guess where this might come from - for most folks, it is desirable to limit to legal values. But at times, you WANT the illegal values as valuable data to be manipulated in post. That QuickTime is "helping" you by clippng values is a pain for the pros, even if great for the everyday users.

I had previously done some codec testing (remember when I was bitching about 10 bit codecs in AE?), and had made a 10 bit, white to black ramp in AE, and exported and reimported it with success. That was for content generated synthetically within AE...but now I'm thinking/wondering if acquired media, created outside of AE, with values over 100 IRE, is getting auto clipped or tone scaled or something inside AE.

Anybody have any knowledge on this? Click on the comment link below to contribute.

AppleInsider | Intel roadmap reveals quad-core Xeon details [u]

Article on the quad core chips, pricing, and scheduled release. It is likely that Apple will use the quad core chips in upcoming machines, MAYBE to be introduced at MWSF...which is why I'm not buying a Mac Pro yet, when in X # of months there will be one with TWICE the number of processors involved.

Some preliminary test results are pretty impressive, too, but indicate that the chip development is moving faster than most software development - software is playing catchup to include support for multi-processor and now multi-core CPUs - so having more processors or cores doesn't always accelerate your applications - case in point, Final Cut Pro doesn't hook into all the goodness of my Quad G5 for maximum processing power on almost all tasks.

-mike

Thanks Bruce for sending in the link!

Mel Gibson - Apocalypto - Movies - New York Times

Mel Gibson came to FantasticFest Saturday night and showed Apocalypto, and as I heard it conveyed, when somebody in the audience asked about whether Mel saw any similarities between the film and the current war situation, Gibson said that sending kids off to war in Iraq was akin to the human sacrifice scenes, or words to that effect. Interesting that the press is picking up on the analogy, which the questioner started.

In any case, a bit more about the film in the article, which folks who attended are telling me looked beautiful, and I know it was shot on the Genesis camera.

-mike

At the Photokina show (still photography oriented), both Apple and Adobe updated their shipping or soon to ship RAW image manipulation tools. Apple updated Aperture (AppleInsider Aperture 1.5 report), and Adobe released beta 4 of Lightroom (AppleInsider report on Lightroom b4). Apple's update is a free Software Update for all Aperture 1.x users, the Adobe software is beta and pricing and exact ship date are still TBD.

New features include better sharpening tools, more accurate white point and color curve controls, etc.

Now, this is good news for the stills folks, but why does this matter for us video folk?

After spending the week at IBC with the Red gang and talking about their compressed RAW workflow, and talking to Ari and his gang at NAB about the already being field tested similar workflow for their Silicon Imaging camera, and then reading about how Geoff on CML is shooting with the SI mini-head, the benefits of RAW are very much in my mind.

Read the above linked articles, and note how much control they are giving you over your source image. Note how much control you have over the image, color, size, white point, etc.. Now think about Redcine software, which has been getting some online guff for using that name (come on folks, it is a METAPHOR to help people understand it, not LITERALLY a telecine machine/software!). Do you want that kind of control over your video? I do!

Jason Rodriguez, one of the guys working on/with the Silicon Imaging camera project, had some well reasoned thoughts and concerns about working with RAW images for video workflows. Speed is a major concern - if it takes 1 second per frame (semi-arbitrary guess) to process that 4K compressed (or even uncompressed) RAW to a usable RGB frame, including demosaic, scaling, color correction, white point, etc., it'd take about a day to process an hour of footage on a single