HD For Indies

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Hey all -

I've been back a few days but trying to catch up on my world. Here (finally) is the video I shot of the distribution/acquisition rights panel that Scott Kirsner (of CinemaTech blog fame) moderated. Officially, it was titled "Rights Licensing in the New Era of Distribution."

This is a punt posting of what I saw one day at Sundance - I could edit & improve audio, but I don’t have time. I made a quick tour of the New Frontier Lounge noting the vendors present, then went and sat in on the Distribution Rights Panel that was moderated by my fellow blogger and buddy Scott Kirsner. Also on the panel were Orly Ravid of Wolf Releasing, Jean Pruitt of Independent Film & Television Association, Tracey Mercer of Revelation Entertainment & also Clickstar (Morgan Freeman’s distro), David Straus of withoutabox.com, Linda “O”, head of acquisition of shorts and podcasts for Shorts, Intntl.

I shot this using movie mode on my little Canon S450 snapshot camera by holding my arm up for 45 minutes, so pardon the shaky camera work. I got the first 35 or so minutes than ran out of room on my camera card, purged some stuff and got about 5 more minutes, missing the last 20 minutes or so unfortunately. But there is still much info of interest on here.

Yo Sundance - it was open to the public, so I’m posting this here. If anybody has a problem with that, please let me know, link below.

Enjoy and soak in the info.

NOTE - I posted this article as the video was still uploading and I left the studio - so if the video doesn't show up or is incomplete, check back later. I'll be back in a few hours to check on it and make sure it is working.

-mike

PS - David Straus of withoutabox.com talks about new services they are going to roll out, I'm interviewing him in next few days to get more info on that, will report here about it.

Labels: distribution, festivals, Kirsner, online distribution, Sundance

So here's my last update from Sundance - it is 3:50am as I type this, and prepare to Hate Me.

So you know how you always hear about those fantastic parties at places like Sundance? Well, tonight was one of them - the New York party.

And of course, I got to go, and you probably didn't.

HUGE party at a HUGE house, waaaaaaay up on the mountain. Just go see the pics for yourself.

And I say this with all the due glibness of a 4am Sundance after party glow -

Don't hate me for being just a little bit cool, just for once.

: )

(OK, granted, maybe not cool, but at least in a cool place.)

Celeb watch - Jeff Dowd, THE DUDE ABIDES himself that the character was based on, and Mizuo Peck, Sacagawea in Night at the Museum in the pics.

I ran into folks from earlier in the week, too - the Four Eyed Monsters crew, IndieFilm.com, David Leitner I'd only known from CML, the crew from PostWorks in NYC.

I also had great fun this week hanging out with the crews from Red, OffHollywood Digital, Tekserve, and Assimilate, and hope to see them all again soon, and to all them thanks for letting me hang.

Signing off from Sundance,

-mike

Labels: Sundance

First off, YET MORE PICTURES from the last few days.

If you read the Bambi story, you can see her picture here.

Monday - got up and met the folks from HD House, they wanted me to moderate yet another panel, this time on indie post. As moderator sitting on a panel with 5 or 6 folks from post houses, didn't feel fair to push my DIY ethos/agenda on the group, so we talked about how folks could work with post houses to avoid the common pitfalls when making movies. It all boiled down to asking a lot of questions in advance.

They all recommended sticking with one post house all the way through (unless something goes wrong of course), and they all expressed frustration at the false economy of trying to shop around to get bits and pieces of your project done at different places - scans here, conform there, color work somewhere else, for instance - because there are lots of legitimate non-obvious costs in moving all that stuff around, and if there is a problem, it opens the doors to all kinds of finger pointing. Not to mention the time/hassle/difficulty of handing stuff around, nor the simple imperative that not everybody works the same way, workflows differ, and assets from one shop may not transfer cleanly to another without problems.

Travis from Sound Lounge, made the point repeatedly to make SURE you got a good sound recordist on set, make sure they are properly qualififed, check their references, and that will fix myriad audio problems.

I brought up the point about how your time is spent in post - if you prep your assets incorrectly or poorly (non-slated shots, sloppy, ill-formatted offline edits, etc.), it'll cost you more. They all responded strongly to this - even though it makes them more money, it means you end up burning time fixing stuff just to make things work right, rather than spending money making your film look good. Since you're paying by the hour to, for instance, have your online editor sift through your badly formatted ALE files, or in telecine having the operator have to roll through your footage trying to figure out missing slates or find tail slates, etc.

In general, start talking to your post folks EARLY. Now, I of course am all HD for Indies, DIY style, so I'd tweak that to recommend talk to your post CONSULTANT/S, be they independent consultants (ahem, guess who), or your contact at your designated post house. They WANT you to ask questions, early and often, to make sure all is going to go well. There used to be a pretty straightforward process when making a movie - you shoot your film, telecine to offline DVCAM or BetaSP for the Avid, then the editor sends over an EDL to the post house to conform. No more! While it certainly CAN be done that way, and done well, and that is the basic premise of most traditional films (with extra steps in there), there are now LOTS of other options on how to get things done. is it Avid? Is it FCP? Is it 23.976, 24.0, or 29.97 timeline? Where are the assets coming from - film, animation, PAL, NTSC, 720p, 1080p, 1080i video, is it log, is it lin, is it Rec 709 or 601 or full range, etc. etc. etc. etc. With more choices comes many more possibilities.

While it is entirely possible to produce high quality content at low prices with the latest digital tools, there are also a GREATER number of ways to produce crappy looking, expensive content using those same tools.

With so many choices, there are lots of ways to goof that up. Get help to make sure it is not only being done correctly, but also optimally, and also at a price point that makes sense for your project & budget.

During production, follow proper procedure - shoot slates. Smart slates (with rolling timecode) are GOOD, and will pay for themselves in post - if somebody has to manually sync up audio, it'll take time and money. Renting a smart slate isn't all that expensive. If you can't do that, be sure to slate every shot. Tail slates CAN work, but will cost you more, as the telecine operator has to hunt them down, log the info, then go back to the start of the shot to do his thing.

In post, have LOTS of coversations in detail about what you want to do, what you're going to bring them, and ESPECIALLY how it should be prepared.

I've had TWO SEPARATE conversations with post folks who lamented about all the work required to collapse a timeline and get it all ready - that's time they have to bill for.

Monday night we went out, got into some movie premiere party that was so crowded (literally shoulder to shoulder in entire place) and loud that even the New Yorkers wanted to bail - there's definitely a crucial party density that should not be exceeded at an event like this. Enough folks in there to feel hoppin', but not so much that you can't circulate without holding your drink over your head moving 10 feet per minute. Reading this, anyone who books anything? You can't actually mingle/schmooze/network under those circumstances. You have to have the ability to see someone and walk over there in 10-20 seconds tops.

So we all bailed (yeah - too crowded to take out camera and snap pics).

I ran into Hal Hartley (whom I'd interviewed the day before for HD House) on way out, asked him if I could snap a quick picture with him, he bluntly said no. Ooooooookay. Maybe he was as ready as I was to get out of that place.

We went to a bar, everyone whipped out their Blackberry Pearls and tried to find another/better party to go to (see pic, 2nd link at top), tried to get into another nicer party but weren't on the list and couldn't social engineer it at this point. Blah.

Tuesday was a slow day - we all dragged out of bed late, had to go deal with lost rental skis, and finally hit the slopes around 12:30. Skied as a group, but shall we perhaps say skill levels varied? I decided to defer humiliating certain skiers mercilessly for a later date, since he spent so much time upside down.

: )

I broke off from the group to go hit it HARD - skied a bunch of double blues and zoomed the regular blues at 40 mph or so - HEAVEN!!!!!!!!!!

Had a perfect Zen-like last run from the top to bottom of the mountain, caught up with the other guys, and we all came home and cooked a big meal of pasta - Mark's a helluva cook.

Then I cratered early - too much high speed ski time.

Wednesday I got up and saw my friend Scott Kirsner (of the great CinemaTech blog moderate a panel on Distribution Rights - it was WAY better and more interesting than I thought it would be, as the guy who ran the panels talked about inviting studio acquisition execs and they ALL deferred. Instead, he got a bunch of folks who were on the ragged edge of what's going on with acquisition and distribution. It was really interesting - this a new ballgame these days, and it is ALL up in the air and being figured out on the go. I managed to shoot most of it with my little still camera's movie mode, will compress and post as I can ASAP, should be GOOD.

Then I hooked up with Lisa McWilliams of the Mobile Film School, and Gary Walker of Tex FX, a visual effects house in Austin as well - Gary was compositing lead on Apollo 13, and now works in Austin working on small films. He is here supporting the film Teeth that he was FX supervisor on. He now does digital FX and FX supervision for indie projects and is based in Austin. And he's good, a good person, and has very reasonable rates. Hint hint.

Now I'm getting ready to go to dinner with the guys, hit the big New York party up on the mountain, then crash and get picked up early to get to the SLC airport and then on to home (when I'll crunch the videos down on the Big Box and post'em up).

I'll let you folks know how the New York party goes up on the mountain...

-mikey OUT!

Labels: Sundance

Quick and raw, here we go, here's pics from last few days, and here's the rest:

Picking up from where I left off - the Reduser.net party was in the same condo as the Red party - Jarred of dvxuser.com started a new site specifically for Red, and he also used it as an opportunity to promote a new service called Rocket Indie, a self distribution solution for independent content. They handle DVD replication and packaging and order fulfillment and credit card processing. FAQ page here, I'll find out more and report back.I hadn't realized that Jarred had been a DP and Nick (other guy involved with Rocket Indie) had been director of the film Shadow Company, a good doc I saw earlier this year at SXSW about private mercenaries working in Iraq. (Really good, go see it.)

Hung out, talked to a bunch of folks, met some new prospective clients, and after a while was ready to hit another party - I'd heard that HD House was having a party, and that sounded like a good place to hit up potential new clients (detect a theme here?).

Partying in Sundance has it's price - I was standing in the kitchen, and the attractive woman walks up, stands right in front of me, and says "Are you Mike Curtis from HD for Indies?" "Yes?" I say...."I want to f*ck you...." she says, with a profoundly effective sultry look in her eye. (Hang on, this isn't going to turn into a "Dear Penthouse, I never thought this would happen to me...." letter.)

I know this isn't right or real, but I don't know what's going on. Suddenly, somebody starts busting out laughing...and it is Thor Wixom, with whom I'd been jokingly lamenting the limits of my geek cred with the night before, saying it was fun and all but would never yield rock star status. So of course, he convinced his wife's best friend to punk me in this fashion.

What do I do? Stand there and turn beet red.

Punked. Well punked, and touche Thor - all in good fun.

And what is her name?

Bambi.

I couldn't make this up.

Jendra Jarnagin was at the Reduser.net party as well, and we decided to go check out the HD House party down in town. We got down there, but it was already over. Jendra then whipped out her Blackberry (BTW - the Blackberry Pearl is THE "lookee what I got" item at Sundance) and sent a text msg out to 4 or 5 people simultaneously to find out what was the best thing to do next. She's amazing - she's lined up over 30 parties to attend at Sundance, because she spent a huge amount of time getting ready - to the point of she even called it pre-production. As a result, she knows exactly what to do at any given moment, with multiple fallbacks.

In direct opposition to how I've approached Sundance - I'm sponging off my friends for "what's going on tonight?" - which is a valid approach, one should use all one's resources - but there are big gaps when I'm trying to figure out where I should best be. Next time - plan, plan, plan. And apply for press credentials, for which the deadline was back in December, before I'd even locked in plans to attend.

In any case, Jendra got several responses back in minutes, and we were off, meeting up with a friend of hers to try to get into a party. We got there, waited, checked out status (does signing up online count as the "Will Call" list/line to stand in?). We stood around for about 15 minutes and got another text message, and decided to go to a party we'd have better odds of getting into.

At Party # 2, the Premiere party, we ran into a journalist Jendra or her friend knew. He wasn't getting in, and as legit press he expected better response from them - so he bailed and handed his pass over to us - but it was One Only. I figured there's no way I'd get in, as the third in a group of three with no legit cred to get in. I figured I'd wait until it was definite, then bail back to the condo. Fifteen or 20 minutes later of waiting outdoors in the brutal Park City cold (see? Isn't Sundance FUN!!!...????), we got to the front of the line...and waited for another 10-15 minutes. I see Matt Dentler of SXSW South By Southwest Film Festival get whisked in, he's here and busy as hell. I wave hi and he says "See you inside!" ...If only. When at last the PR guy turns and bluntly asks who we are, the girls' answer isn't good enough. Frustrated, we all turn to leave. On a lark, I say to the guy "I'm friends with Matt from South By." (insider's name for South by Southwest) "Keep going..." he says, implying Not Good Enough Yet. Quickly, I'm thinking: "I've panelled there for about 12 years." "Keep going..." "I run HD for Indies website, I get about (insert egregiously inflated traffic number here - did I say per day? I meant per month), and one of my clients' movies is premiering tomorrow." "OK, you can come in."

SCORE!

I try to get Jendra and her friend in, but I apparently have exactly 1.0 persons worth of party access pull. I have officially talked my way in somewhere I wasn't invited, I feel proud of myself for learning how to Do Sundance, even if just a little.

: )

Once in, the place was PACKED - they were at capacity, and it showed.

I ran into:

-Mathew St. Patrick, otherwise known as "the black guy on Six Feet Under" - chatted w/him for a bit, he's here supporting a friend's project

ran into Jacob Walker of indieflavor.com, is "MySpace meets Monster.com for indie production" - sounds interesting, I want to follow up with him

he intro'd me to Matt Ostasiewski of AFI Dallas, they are starting a new film festival there, will be right after SXSW starting March 22nd

Schmoozed around there for a bit, ran into a tipsy Alyssa from earlier from Reduser.net and stood there with her hands under my arms to warm her up for a bit. Ah, alcohol and big parties- craziness.


we hunted around for a bit and finally found a place that would deliver pizza at 1:30 in the morning.

"I need to look into standby tickets to try to see John August's The Nines at 8:30am show Monday morning - my one chance to see it probably.

I may be doing an interview at 5pm at HD House, I'll have to see how that goes."

Those last two lines were written in the wee, wee hours after a long long night.

Sunday - up at 8am after NOT drinking (see? I CAN learn, albeit slowly)

Tim & Matt wanted to go ski to, so we headed over to The Canyons.

Day Of Joy ensued - after not skiing for 3 years, it was fantastic and I had a blast - I'm going to stay longer and get some more skiing in.

Got back by 4, was over at HD House again at 4:45 to interview Hal Hartley for them (3rd engagement with HD House, we're definitely getting along).

Here's what I remember about his talk on his new movie, Fay Grim, which is a sequel to Henry Fool. That first movie was shot in 35mm, but he shot in HD for this one.

Here's what I can remember off the top of my head:

-shot HD
-shot w/ Sony F900
-Sarah Cawley? Cawvey? was DP
-spent a day with a DIT getting basics looks into camera in pre-production, and just used those looks through production
-budget was what - 2-3 million?
-Zeiss lenses, he usually shoots 50mm on 35mm film, and DP told him what equivalents would be on Zeiss Digiprimes
-Hal is comfortable shooting digital and projecting digitally too
-it was an HDNet deal - working with them, gotta shoot HD, they'll do day and date release - in theaters and on HDNet same time, then on DVD the following Tuesday or whatever
-in general, if distribs can't make money on movies, then movies won't be bought (or financed)
-Hal pleased w/good digital projection - Christie 2K projector was good
-shot on HDCAM
-downconverted to DVCAM for offline edit on his own G5 and Final Cut Pro
-took EDL and tapes to SwissFX, who wanted the relationship and business (he'd worked with them on previous DV based movies), did the color work there
-made a 24p master, made a 1080i60 HDCAM for festivals
-also did a filmout, but it had greater contrast, producers didn't feel comfortable making that decision, so showing the 1080i, Hal's comfortable with that
-shot double system sound, I asked why, he said it was an aesthetic choice

asked Hal what he'd like to shoot on next, and he was happy to stick with F900, out of a sense of "it was sufficient" and it was something he knew, trusted, and felt comfortable with

lesson learned - familiarity and comfort with cast, crew, and equipment goes a long, long way

hung out and talked to the Davids from Cineform, finally met Newman I'd missed the other day, talked about workflows with RAW, the realtime 4K cineform playback they did recently, can't record realtime from Dalsa, but can convert after acquisition to Cineform and work with that compressed footage all the way through

-agreed to do one more thing with HD House at 1pm tomorrow, post for indies panel

-went back to condo

-went to Fuji party

-ran into Susan and Brian again (Four Eyed Monsters folks), Jendra again, Lowell Kay from DR Group

...and now it is time to head on out for another evening - I'm a day behind, but I'll catch up as can.

-mike

Labels: Sundance

Video Watch: The making of 'The Children of Men' - DV Guru

There are some amazing long takes in Children of Men, including a long single take that takes place INSIDE a car with five people in it. This shows how they did it, and some of the other challenging shots in the film.

Ultra techie kewl - a new standard for how to shoot these kinds of scenes. This is why having budget is NICE!

-mike

First up, see pictures from the last couple of days here, I'll post some more tomorrow as well.

My talk Friday went well - it was a small enough group I tailored it for the folks there, so we ended up talking about their particular interests and needs. A couple of folks there have been testing the SI-2K recording head, so I want to follow up with them.

Utah has some funky rules about bars - you have to be a "member" to come into a bar, which basically means a cover charge to enter. On top of that, shots are state regulated, and TINY, so you still pay $7 but get a small amount of alcohol. Harrumph.

My friends at OffHollywood Digital (a post facility & production company) and Red (edit - and Tekserve too) had a party on Friday night, and it was great - good turnout, good folks, lots of industry to the invite only shindig. Mark Pederson, one of the partners in Off Hollywood, did an outstanding job of public announcing, we All Hail. Susan Buice of Four Eyed Monsters fame showed up, she and her partner in crime Arin Crumley are shooting daily video blogs for Sundance. I chatted with her about Red, and she got so jazzed about it she tracked down Arin (who was napping on a stranger's couch) to come over and see. Arin came over and we did a long interview about Red, and he definitely Got The Fever. See his entry on the day, it's 2 1/2 minutes and a minute of it is on Red, he's into it - see more about it here, including a great quote about how just the idea of Red inspires him to make a new feature.

Update - ran into Susan Buice at the Fujinon party tonight, she said there were some problems with the audio file format or compression or something, Arin was working on it, so it is coming, just not done yet.

I continued to network and schmooze and hopefully picked up some new potential clients, so Mission Accomplished. I then proceeded, without noticing, to get unmercifully plowed. Oopsie.

Thus polluted, I managed to navigate all the way back across the road to my place and crashed out hard.

I woke up this morning and had to change my ambitions for the day - instead of speaking for a second time at HD House, I downsized my goals for the day - now I was just trying to keep down toast. My apologies to anyone who showed up looking for me, I understand Gary Adcock jumped in at the last minute - thanks man! He knows his HD shiznit inside and out - I ask him for answers to stuff I don't know.

A few hours of recovery and a LOT of "Urban Detox" later, I went to go see Ted Schilowitz of Red talk about the Red One to see if there was anything new to report. Not really, nothing I haven't reported here on before. At one point he was talking about changes, and progress on the camera, and NAB, and said something about "we'll keep you posted on progress over the next few months" or something very much like that. Does that mean they won't be done for a few months? They've been saying "engineering goals" and "no promises" and "all specs subject to change" all along - just curious when the cameras will be done. I've been idly hoping to get mine this summer sometime. If it takes until August, I won't be surprised. If it took until December, I'd be cranky about it.

Also in the same presentation, Jeff Cree of Band Pro talked about Sony's upcoming F23 camera

Here's what I can remember at 3:30am the next day about it:
-F23 names comes from F from 24 frame capable (?) and 23 from 2/3 inch sensor - simply as that. No HPC or anything in front of it, just "F23" is the full name
-it is NOT NOT NOT a baby Genesis! It is not a commercialized version of the Genesis (Sony designed the electronic guts and imaging system of the camera, Panavision did the casing/packaging/form factor stuff)
-it has a different imager and different tech - it is a 2/3" 3 CCD setup, B4 lens mount - so totally different from the 35mm sized sensor and Panavision lens mount in Genesis
-shoots 10 bit, 14 bit image processing
-1-30 fps in 10 bit 4:4:4
-1-60 fps in 10 bit 4:2:2
-CAN ramp shots, and can control ramping and offrate IN THE CAMERA
-records to a dockable SRW-1 HDCAM SR deck - that is the big deal about this camera
-is newer than the F950, shares some things with the HDC-1500
-SRW-1 can mount on top (compact) or back (better center of gravity to shoot with), or can be remoted for a two part tethered solution
-can go 100 meters with single or dual link HD-SDI
-a fiber optic option will be available in the future, can go 1600 meters
-better lattitude by 1 1/2 stops if I recall correctly than the F950 (this may be wrong recollection on my part)

Also talked to JVC guy about the new GY-HD200U and GY-HD250U cameras that shoot 60fps progressive to 19mbit HDV. Some notes:
-24p mode in those and the 110 are all 19 megabit for 24p - no frame repeating or cadence, so each frame at 24p at 19mbit means more data, less compression, cleaner image than 30p mode
-60fps is achieved by using a GOP of 12 instead of 6
-claims it looks good, since less motion frame to frame, 60fps encodes more efficiently per frame than 30p does - so doesn't require twice the data rate
-but obviously, each frame from 60p can't look as good as each from from 24 or 30p

I wandered around a bit and came back to see Crispin Glover talk about his new film. After a tiresome, wandering intro, he showed three teasers for the film - I left - it looked painful to watch, so I didn't want to hear any more about it. Color me gone.

Celebrity Watch:
-Ian Ziering was apparently at the Red/Off Hollywood party, but I missed him. He started trying to schmooze up a cute woman, but was irked when he realized she was married to the six foot seven tall guy - Jarred Land of dvxuser and reduser.
-Saw Kevin Bacon on a balcony. He looks harshed on - time to serious net that lens.
-Saw P. Diddy (or is it just "Diddy" now? I don't track that crap) - when he crossed the street, it was like this Reality Distortion Field of excitement that travels before him like a bow wave, leaving a wake of those 20something girls shrieking along behind him, trying to get their camera phones out in time
-saw (I think) Sasha Baron Cohen out and about at night tonight - he was wearing a hat pulled down low, collar turned up, and huge, dark sunglasses after midnight, and every time he walked by somebody, he held up his hand to shield his face. Seems like he's not enjoying being famous and not liking the attention here. Not a fun way to go around. Hey Sasha - come to SXSW, nobody will care...
-saw Crispin Glover speak, and he still dresses funny. Funny odd, definitely not funny ha ha.

I then came back to get ready for the Reduser.net party, but I'll save that for another entry - it is 3:45am, gotsta get to bed. This is pretty much what I'd written before, just not as witty and charming (riiiiiiiight). More name dropping, pictures, and adventures to follow in our next exciting episode...

-mike

Labels: Sundance

YouTube - Festival VIDEO BLOG from Sundance Channel: Entry #5

I'll have more to say in my day's coverage shortly, but Susan and Arin of Four Eyed Monsters fame are shooting video blog entries for Sundance. They came to the Off Hollywood/Red party last night and I talked about Red with them.

Susan & Arin's coverage is the above link, starts talking about Red a minute and a half in. The full interview that I'm in will be posted here hopefully soon.

Arin's coverage for Sundance concludes with "whether or not I ever get a chance to shoot with this camera, just the idea of doing so got me pretty pumped about doing another feature film. If that's all I leave Sundance with, I think it was worth it."

-mike

I just spent a half an hour writing about the last coupla days, and dammit, Safari crashed and I lost the whole thing. Gotta go to the Reduser.net party, I'll re-write later or tomorrow.

In the meantime, here's my first round of pics from Sundance, including a snap of P. Diddy (or is it Diddy?) on the street.

Labels: Sundance

SUNDANCE FILM FESTIVAL

...and many purchaseable on iTunes Store.

Labels: iTunes, online content service, Sundance

First off, tomorrow I'll be speaking at 11AM AT HD HOUSE, NOT NOON AS I'D SAID BEFORE.

There's no "center" to Sundance - I had to go down to town to speak at noon, and I wandered around afterwards for a bit. There's lots of foot traffic up and down the hill on Main Street. There's LOTS of twentysomethings milling about. It is also pretty quick and easy to pick up where folks are in from - long black cashmere coat, big white turtlenecks, short productified dark hair, sunglasses on indoors? New York boys. Cute blonde early 20s women looking concerned and stepping carefully in their Ugg boots? Assistants or wanna-be assistants in from LA working the scene, and clearly not used to the cold.

The ski mountain comes right down into town - my friend walked by me on Main Street as he was taking a break snowboarding to grab some lunch.

Tonight is a party I'm helping my friends prep for, so we're tooling up for that.

Tickets are pretty much impossible to come by - it is theoretically possible to get up in the wee hours and wait in line for returned tickets - bag that, I'm not that dedicated.

Tomorrow I speak, and then I'm gonna go ski!

Pics up tomorrow...

Labels: Sundance

ProLost: The Photographer%u2019s Right: "Oh, I love this. A downloadable PDF outlining your rights as a photographer in public places. There have been at least three times in the last few months that I really could have used this."

Handy thing to let you know what you can and can't do. If you're thinking of shooting guerilla style, this is a MUST read to know when to stand your ground...but don't forget to factor in when you should and shouldn't have to have a permit.

-mike

Digital Heaven: "Final Print is a standalone application which prints a list of markers from a Final Cut Pro sequence. This provides a very useful workflow enhancement when handing off a project to someone else for further work."

OS X Universal Binary, $99

I could see how this could be handy.

-mike

Hey all, real quick whilst I'm at Sundance - reservations for Red One cameas re-open for 3 days, starting at midnight on Sunday, Jan 21st, and ending midnight on the 24th California time.

So git on it if you want one - this is you last chance before NAB.

Also, there are now 35 new renders of Red in various configs up at:

RED / RED ONE Photo Tour

I've got a half-done podcast walking through all the configs and pros and cons, it'll have to wait until I get back.

-mike

Hey all -

got up eaaaaaaaarly this morning and flew up to Sundance. So far, I've been a case study in how NOT to do this - I have NO movie tickets, having not gotten on the ball at any of the several times I coulda/shoulda, and my shared room situation has devolved to possibly a couch crash since my roomie decided to bring his wife after all.

Tomorrow I'm going to see if I can wrangle a press pass, but I am sooooooo doubting that is going to work.

Tonight, I'm hangin' with a bunch of folks from Tekserve, AJA, Assimilate, & Red in the condo - so of course, after food and alcohol were secured, online access was the next priority. There are five laptops open right now - I am with Mah Peeps.

: )

No pic posting yet, I'm already surfing off somebody's shared EVDO connection until the other condo gets opened up and WiFi figured out there...

Tomorrow at noon at the HD House down on Main Street I'll be talking about HD for independent filmmaking - it will be pretty freeform, so bring your questions and get the answers you want.

Also - for the readers of the fine print - if you're somebody I know and you're here, email me - there's some private functions and stuff.

Some other tidbits - had a 3 hour meeting in the last week talking about higher end (beyond Varicam) options for a feature with some folks, and realized I knew more than I thought I did since the last time I'd talked about it with someone. Some cameras are more suited to certain workflows - software and hardware that lets you load LUTs for instance - and some cameras would be better suited with a better recording medium - I overheard somewhere the F900 described as "a pretty good camera with a low pass filter attached disguised as a recording device."

Post workflows vary for all of'em, of course, too.

Other tidbits - OOPS OOPS OOPS - that Rodriguez trailer thing only applies to screenings at SXSW, NOT the worldwide thing as I reported.

Other tidbits from around the web that I surfed offline on the plane, and YES I'm too lazy to linkify, do a little cut and paste to exercise during this ice storm, m'kay?

----------

SED not looking so good - delayed, and Canon buying up all shares of SED Inc. - http://www.hdblog.net/2007/01/16/sed-marches-on-2/

Boris RED for Intel Macs ships - http://www.borisfx.com/press_releases/fx_graff_intel.php

netflix over the internet - downloadable movies, free to subscribers (yep, no addl charge), can watch 6-48 hrs. of content/month depending on subscription plan, about 1000 movies and shows available, (1/70th of DVD title selection). Windows only, requires broadband connection (duh) - http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070116/ap_on_hi_te/instant_netflix

Avid best tips & tricks - http://www.dvguru.com/2007/01/15/avid-best-tips-and-tricks-for-2006/

Daring Fireball on the OS X in iPhone - http://daringfireball.net/2007/01/os_x

brian on the lack of cuts in Children of Men - http://www.dvguru.com/2007/01/16/the-beauty-of-a-lack-of-editing/

short video on storage options - http://www.studiodaily.com/main/training/7481.html

all about the MacGuffin - http://www.37signals.com/svn/posts/196-the-macguffin

Why Hollywood isn't playing ball with Apple - http://www.dvguru.com/2007/01/16/why-hollywood-aint-lining-up-for-steve-jobs/

How to make a dead guy (FAKE one for your movie!) - http://www.sticktowhatyouknow.com/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=1021

Many of the above links pilfered from DV Guru - thanks/apologies to those guys!

Hollywood on Youtube - friend of foe - http://www.dvguru.com/2007/01/17/nyt-hollywood-asks-youtube-friend-or-foe/

52" LCD Ultra HDTV - 3840x2160 - $50K

And as for that Grindhouse competition - if you win, it is seen at SXSW, NOT WORLDWIDE - MY BAD - that's what I get for power skim reading in a hurry....

video out from Motion or FCP sometimes sporadic, here's some possible reasons and fixes - http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=304979

Beware shady grey marketers when buying gear - http://www.dvguru.com/2007/01/16/grey-market-warnings/

remember when I said Black is Apple's New Black? http://www.hdforindies.com/2007/01/conjecture-watch-black-is-apples-new.html - here's new support for that theory...

http://www.appleinsider.com/article.php?id=2417


-mike

Labels: Sundance

HDhouse

Hey all, a quick note before I leave for Sundance - if you're going, I'll be speaking at the HD House (see link above for further info) at NOON ON BOTH FRIDAY AND SATURDAY, talking my usual HD for Indies stuff about cameras, acquisition, smart post, etc.

-mike

ProLost: More Nodes vs. Layers

Stu talks about nodes vs. layers in After Effects, and wants AE to have the best of both worlds - more show and tell, less guessing.

-mike

CinemaTech: Netflix tip-toes into online video streaming

Busy day prepping to go to Sundance, do read this

YouTube - 3D morphable model face animation

WOW. I'm usually pretty jaded about what can be done with 3D technology, but this is damned impressive on a variety of fronts - the ability to recreate a 3D face from a single photograph - it has been presumed all too often on CSI or in movies, but it is not easy and here they've done it.

Watch the 5 minute video and I dare you to not be impressed.

-mike

AppleInsider | Pentium M-based Intel chip at heart of Apple TV

Interesting from a geeky perspective - the Apple TV (not MacTV, note) uses a wittle bitty Pentium M processor, actually clocked DOWN to 350 MHz. So how does it decode that HD content then when a G5 is usually required? It is using a moderately beefy graphics card to do that decoding.

Also interesting - internet connection needed to play back content bought from Apple iTunes Store that has been synced up from a computer - just once to authorize, or consistently?

Can sync/connect over wireless or ethernet, not USB. Can you expand storage with a USB drive? Purportedly USB is strictly for "services and diagnostics purposes" which sounds a little odd/thin.

-mike

OOPS OOPS OOPS - I speed read this wrong, the winner/s will screen at SXSW, NOT world wide. apologies.

OK, here's a good challenge for you all - if you haven't heard of Grindhouse yet, read up.

They are running a contest to let you come up with a trailer for a fictional film that will run between the two sections of Grindhouse in theaters everywhere. That's right, you can get your work squeezed in between Rodriguez and Tarantino's, and be seen by millions.

I try not to run press releases, but this is a for a fun purpose, so here it is:

Austin, TX - January 15, 2007 - The South by Southwest (SXSW) Film Festival is putting out a call to filmmakers who would like to submit their best "grindhouse trailer," in honor of the April release from Robert Rodriguez and Quentin Tarantino, Grindhouse. A sample of the best submissions will be judged by Rodriguez himself, and presented during SXSW, on March 11, 2007.

Filmmakers have a deadline of February 12 to submit their “grindhouse trailer” (no longer than two minutes in length) to SXSW. The trailer should be made for a fictional feature-film, just like those being made by celebrity directors Eli Roth and Rob Zombie for Grindhouse. From those submissions, Rodriguez will determine the best of the bunch, and it will screen during a special presentation entitled “Robert Rodriguez’s Grindhouse 101” on Sunday, March 11. During the presentation, Rodriguez will share stories and footage from the making of the upcoming Dimension Films release.

“We really want filmmakers to come up with something fun, scary, freaky, and out-of-this-world for the competition,” says SXSW Festival Producer Matt Dentler. “This competition, like Grindhouse itself, is in the true spirit of innovative and fast-paced filmmaking.”

Submissions must arrive no later than February 12, to: “SXSW Grindhouse Trailers,” P.O. Box 4999, Austin, TX 78765. There is no application fee, but the trailers must be under two minutes in length, and made within the last 12 months. Films that have already been submitted to SXSW for 2007 consideration, are not eligible. The 2007 SXSW Film Festival occurs March 9-17 throughout downtown Austin, TX. Grindhouse will open nationwide on April 6, 2007.


-mike

The Long Tail: How to make a Long Tail movie

Mr. Long Tail himself talks about how Stu's Book, the DV Rebel's Guide helps to make long tail productions. Don't know what any of this is talking about? Read the link.

Has several good quotes about techniques to help make high production value, low cost decisions to improve your movie/project.

I also noticed it has A TON of interesting looking links about producing content in a long tail model - and as indies, lets face it - long tail is what most of us are likely to be able to achieve at best...

-mike

The Ultimate iPhone Frequently Asked Questions - Pogue's Posts - Technology - New York Times Blog

David Pogue got some good skinny straight from Apple on how the iPhone is going to work.

Got so many questions, he even did a Part 2.

-mike

Meetings meetings meetings! I've been in meetings or on the phone all day. So here's this week's blogwad I've been stashing up, in absolutely no order of preference or priority, just whenever I pasted the next thing at the bottom:

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CES DVR roundup

High-quality DVDs will not operate on some Vista PCs - as I reported some time ago, if you don't have a secure video card and HDMI (not DVI) connection to monitor, AND HDCP copy protection hardware, it is likely Vista won't play hi-def DVDs

"Dave Marsh, the lead program manager for video at Microsoft, said that if the PC used a digital connection to link with the monitor or television, then it would require the highest level of content protection, known as HDCP, to play the discs. If it did not have such protection, Vista would shut down the signal, he said."

-if you have an analog connection, should work (will it half-res though?)
-about 15% of computers sold have digital connections
-virtually none of those have HDMI with HDCP
-oopsie, Microsoft - this is going to hurt for a while

====================

tutorial - compression for DVDs with Final Cut Studio

=-==================

It looks like that hacker DID find the first step to break AACS - first crack in the AACS dike

"This is the framework through which the arms race is going to be fought," Halderman said. "They don't have the ammunition yet, but this is the gun."
=============

10 programs this guy can't live without for OS X

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Studio Daily | Royalty-Free HD Video Backgrounds Help Cut Project Costs: "Royalty-Free HD Video Backgrounds Help Cut Project Costs Taste Digital Media Offers a Collection of Full-Motion Video Effects Backgrounds for 1080-line HD Projects"

=============


Studio Daily | TV Magic to Host Workshop on Affordable HD: "One-day Seminar Will Illustrate the Power and Affordability of HD Technology"

===========

All the technical details of next generation copy protection - DV Guru - an hour long podcast on all the DRM stuff being used these days - and how it all works. Got a long drive coming up?

-=============

Hybrid products unlikely to end DVD format war - Yahoo! News: "LOS ANGELES/LAS VEGAS (Reuters) - The war between dueling
next-generation DVD formats is far from over despite a peace
offering in the form of new products that cater to both,
industry officials said."

"While the backers of the hybrid products say they offer a solution to the format war, many industry experts said they actually extend the battle and consumer confusion."

...and the LG multi-format player is $1200. Again, tell me why that is such a good deal for folks with 32" 1024xwhatever HDTVs...upconverted VDs make a looooooot of sense for the money, for MOST folks at MOST viewing distances on MOST HDTVs.

If you've got the budget, sit close enough, have a big enough, high res enough screen, and good eyesight, hell yeah get all the 1080p glory of all the good toys.

But we haven't hit the point where it makes good financial bang/buck sense yet I would think.

==============

Fade to Black for Next-Gen SED TVs? - legal snafus (an Austin company with patents is disputing licensing rights), and high manufacturing costs are pushing these back...too bad. A no show at CES, they were yanked in December at the last minute.

==========

FresHDV | Fresh news & views for videographers, editors, filmmakers, directors, producers & creatives. : "What the Heck is Bokeh? Rick Denney takes the time to explain, and in plain english. Why should you care about bokeh? You probably don't, unless you're a still photographer or happen to own a camcorder with interchangable lenses or 35mm lens adapter system."

============

ProLost: Make PNGs Not Suck: "Mac users, read The Sad Story of PNG Gamma, and then download GammaSlamma.In short, PNG is a potentially useful file format hampered by a well-intentioned but disasterous attempt at simple color management. But when you remove the bogus Gamma flag from a PNG file, you've got an elegant and free cross-platform lossless image format.Windows users can aparently strip out PNG Gamma flags with PNGCRUSH." - go click to get to his page with links, I'm too lazy to do it for you - oh wait - no, you need the exercise. Yeah, that's it.

===========

Pooch QuickTime Exporter 1.0 - MacUpdate: "As video codecs in QuickTime necessarily become more advanced to achieve higher compression ratios to accommodate viewer expectations, they also become more compute hungry, therefore making the content take longer to produce. To help meet this demand, we developed a way to accelerate the compression of QuickTime movies from common desktop video editing applications like iMovie, Final Cut Express, Final Cut Pro, and Motion using the Export Component feature of QuickTime.

The new Pooch QuickTime Exporter plug-in automatically parallelizes video compression from video-editing applications. It extracts the source video data"

============

Stu Maschwitz talks about his new book (DV Rebel's Guide), his new color correction software (Colorista), Red One camera, Apple TV & iPhone, and the age old film vs digital question on a podcast -

ProLost: Rebel's Guide on TWiM: "I had the great pleasure of joining the This Week in Media crew on their excellent podcast today. The episode goes live tomorrow.If you're reading this blog but not listening to TWiM, you are missing out. It's the best conversation going on the radical changes in media that are happening right under our noses. To get a taste, dig back in their archives to TWiM 16, which stands to this day as the best recorded summary of the perenial 'film vs. video' question."

=========


Westinghouse shows off the Quad HDTV | Tom's Hardware: "the Quad HDTV was our first target at the Westinghouse booth. The 52' TV runs a super high-resolution of 2160p (3840 x 2160 pixels). In absolute numbers, the device is running a stunning 8.3 megapixels - four times more than 1080p TVs (1920x1080p) and more than twice the resolution of Dell's, HP's and Apple's 30' desktop LCDs. So, what do you get from this resolution, especially if HD DVD and Blu-ray are running only 1080p anyway?

According to Westinghouse, the TV does not really target the consumer market, but high-end industrial applications."

================

CalDigit [S2VR] The First Affordable True High-Definition RAID Solution - Home - Caldigit has an 8 bay RAID 0 SATA chassis available - port multiplying (2 eSATA cables for the 8 drives). They are claiming it is suitable for 10 bit, 4:4:4 RGB capture & playback of footage up to 1080i60. This is typical of their usual claims - I'm concerned that it won't sustain that performance to the end of the drives, thus misleading potential buyers. In my experience, there is about a 10% speed penalty in RAID 0 configurations. The fastest non-Raptor drives available can do about 40 MB/sec at the inner tracks, therefore about 36 MB/sec each in RAID 0 config - so a theoretical roughly 290 MB/sec at the tail end performance, at BEST. 1080i60 10 bit 4:4:4 is about 240 MB/sec. That leaves about 20% safety margin...and 25-35% is usually recommended. I'm not saying this unit won't work as advertised, I'm just concerned. I usually recommend 10 drive setups for 10 bit 4:4:4 work, to give a bit more margin. That said, this looks like a nice unit that can operate in standup or rackmount mode, has easily swappable twin fans, removeable drive modules, and can be purchased pre-configured in 2, 4, 6, and 8 TB models (1TB drives are not available yet). I got a bit of a sour taste in my mouth when these folks first hit the market and said so, they have been kind enough to reach out to me to offer to discuss anything, I haven't gotten back to them. It may be entirely irrational, but I just don't have a strong positive feeling about the claims they make. Feel free to buy their gear, just be cautious about using it to the limits they proscribe. Otherwise, it appears to be nice looking stuff, but I haven't personally used one yet.

===============


Studio Daily | Hassle-Free HD Fiber Connections - a newer, cheaper, claimed to be easier to work with fiber optic connection cabling system. Useful for long cable runs and/or in harsh conditions. 30% less expensive than the usual military grade cabling (that you can pull a jeep out of a ditch with).

=============

AppleInsider | Macworld: High-quality images of Apple's AirPort Extreme w/ 802.11n

=========

We didn't get Octo-Macs, but here's a likely candidate for the processors they might use:
PC World - Intel Debuts Super Fast Quad-Core Processors

===========


Studio Daily | NEC%u2019s New Multi-Function Monitors: Multeos M40 and M46 HDTVs and computer screens - can be configured with HDMI with HDCP, has Faroudja scaling, VGA, DVI-D, 5 wire BNC, component, composite, s-video, audio in/out. The 40 is $2500, the 46 is $3500. Both are 1920x1080.

Hmm! Client monitor, anyone?

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This Film Is Not Yet Rated available on DVD this month - DV Guru

I was alternately interested, then fascinated, then appalled by what this movie revealed about the MPAA ratings system. While the filmmaker clearly tried to "game" the system by provoking them with a movie about themselves, even digging through their trash and following people around, in the end I'd say he was closer to investigative journalist rather than stalker, and makes a convincing and compelling case that indies are rated more harshly than studio fare. ABSOLUTELY WORTH WATCHING if you are thinking of making a movie with any R level sexual content as an indie! Netflix for sure, don't need to buy.

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Doodling around with Colorista on my Quad G5, I get NO realtime performance in Final Cut Pro - the API doesn't allow it apparently. However, in Motion, it is much better apparently (gotta try that next).

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CinemaTech: Reflections on the Consumer Electronics Show: Video Content is Everywhere, But the Game is Changing

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Creative Cow - Read Post - News & Press Releases - Lightwave 9 3D software now available as a Universal Binary

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Creative Cow - Read Post - News & Press Releases - Cine-tal updates

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Sony to Include Portable Movie Files on Blu-Ray DVDs - Kotaku

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Slashdot | Adult Film Industry Chooses HD-DVD

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Blackmagic Design: Software Downloads

From the BlackMagic website:

DeckLink 5.9 for Mac OS X 10.4 Universal
10 January 2007
This software update adds SD to HD up-conversion on capture using Intel-based Mac Pro computers and any DeckLink HD series card, 2K playback (cropped to 1920 x 1080) with all DeckLink HD series cards via HD-SDI, Improved support for HDCAM SR tape decks, and various stability and performance improvements. Please check the included 'read me' for more information.


OK, this is good - one of the things that Kona3 did that Blackmagic didn't was 2K cropped to 1920x1080 - will it do this for 2Kx1556 as well?

Note that some functionality is ONLY for Intel based Macs - bummer for me and my Quad G5.

I got the Multibridge Universal driver to install OK, but the DeckLink driver disk image wouldn't mount - so maybe give them some time to fix that before installing.

-mike

AppleInsider | Unofficial Mac tablet draws record crowd at Macworld (high-res photos)

What if you took a MacBook and a Wacom Cintiq integrated display/pen tablet, did a little Frankenstein Luv and had a Mac tablet?

It has been done! Lots of pictures at this link. My Geek-O-Meter says "Getit getit get one!" even though my Photoshop Wacom days are loooooong gone (spent YEARS making my living with Photoshop and a Wacom).

Uses OS X's built-in Inkwell handwriting recognition, and damn this is pretty slick. Drawing big crowds at MacWorld San Francisco. And YES, Virginia, there is a Santa Claus, because you CAN buy one - starting at around $2800.

LOTS more pics in the article, check it out!
-mike

In case you missed it, I've kept adding onto my thoughts about iPhone in a big, disorganized fashion at the original link, with more thoughts, questions, answers, etc., just scroll to bottom and pick up where you left off.

Also, please Digg the Gollum iPrecious page!


And here's what the wallpapers look like, click for bigger:
1280DT2 (the last one) is the best.

Blogger and .Mac are conspiring against me to get full res easily postable.

Here's that page of wallpapers. Want high res? Email me with link on that page.

Studio Daily | Quantel Makes AAF Metadata Available for eQ and iQ - not exactly a tool for indies to buy, but would certainly make onlining a LOT easier than using an EDL for conforming/grading/mastering on these higher end systems at a facility. While at first when I saw this headline I was thinking "whatever, Quantel is soooooo expensive, this isn't indie relevant" I now realize this is GOOD NEWS for indies, and actually a big deal in making workflow smoother (if it works right and well and supports all the features, that is).

Supports AAF v1.1 format metadata, and " includes segment names, effects transitions, complex effects descriptors, audio splits and fades, time-stretch commands, layer event timings and layer priority data." Ideally it would also include titling and other stuff, but one step at a time. Speaking of time, time stretch can be a horrible issue to address in a conform or post environment, so I'm glad this is handled natively OUTSIDE of an EDL.

-mike

DVXuser.com : Canon XH-A1 vs HVX

UPDATE - enough flack has come in about the camera setups here that a Large Grain of Salt should be consumed with the review about image quality, esp. out of the box.

Barry Green does a long, detailed, side by side comparison between the Canon XH-A1 and the Panasonic HVX200. LOTS of side by side, same-time-same-place comparison frame grabs, some short sample clips, etc.

While Barry has been accused of having a Panasonic bias in the past, and he does seem to favor the HVX in this article, I have to say, looking at the footage and stills (presuming both cameras were optimally set up...and UPDATE - oops, now looks like they weren't) that I'd agree with Barry on his objective analysis - the color does just "pop" better on the HVX in the raw, uncorrected footage, and the multiple frame rates from the camera, and 4:2:2 standard def video are definite advantages - among others. (Barry even quotes me from the Texas HD Shootout)

On the other hand, the ability to do long record times, with low cost tape, no archival issues as P2 has, does make the Canon a good choice for many circumstances (documentaries in remote locations, for one, or any situation where you have small crew and need to shoot a lot of footage). You could improve the looks of the Canon footage in post (to a limit, of course, and it would take you more work to get as nice a look as the HVX generates straight away).

Anyway, go read for yourself, it is long and it is thorough, and also covers many of the "how is it to shoot with?" questions that I'm usually not so worried about as a post guy but are completely crucial and critical when working with it in the field.

Do keep in mind, however, that the REAL cost of the cameras is even more different than their roughly $4K and $6K MSRP indicate - the HVX200 can't record ANY HD at that price - you have to go buy some P2 cards or a FireStor. Update: not true. From now through March 31st, buy one through an official reseller and get an 8GB P2 card included, so you can....record 8 minutes of 1080 res footage. Hmm.. And the logistics of needing an offloading solution for your P2 cards also makes matters more complicated and pricey as well. Ready to go shoot stuff, I consider the MSRP of an HVX200 more like $10K at LEAST, whereas that Canon is still about $4K - just go buy some inexpensive DV tapes and you're ready to go. The HVX is sort of in a class by itself as a not-quite-regular-camcorder tapeless device. It is fully self contained, it DOES shoot some VERY nice pictures for the money, but it is a funky beast, so not quite the same recording expectations as you'd have with a traditional tape vased camcorder.

Another issue - resolution. I keep hearing about how similar the XH-A1 is to the XL H1 in many respects, so I'd have to say in that case that the XH A1 should be making sharper looking imagery as compared to the Panasonic - more detailed. In my Texas HD Shootout last year, the Panasonic generated some of the least sharp imagery, whereas the XL H1 was definitely the sharpest/most detailed. If you were going theatrical, that'd be a reason to bias towards the XL H1, but for home viewing (SD or HD), I'd be inclined to go with the Panasonic if you didn't have access to a really good colorist.

As for the comparison, Barry Green says:

"If the footage is competitive and the price is lower, does that make the XHA1 the “winner”? Er, no. Not at all – they’re different tools in different classes, at different price points. " (he goes on to elaborate extensively from there).

If you're shopping for a sub-$10K HD camcorder, this is DEFINITELY must-do reading (see caveats below in update). Objectively, I think he's on track (having not worked with the XH-A1 but have with the XL H1), subjectively I may quibble a little bit but he certainly makes strongly defensible arguments.

-mike

UPDATE - HVX vs. the Canon XHA1 - DVXuser.com -- The online community for filmmaking - there's some complaints that the XH A1 was not set up as well as it should be from owners of that camera - they are saying the matrix etc. settings look squashed flat, "completely flattened with very little contrast" - the debate seems to be whether the camera was or was not unintentionally set up in a non-optimal way. So perhaps the XH A1 CAN make better looking source material - the debate goes on. Even given that, however, the pros/cons comparison is still out there - P2 (better for cinema style work) vs tape (easier field operation and longer shooting times), lens controls on the cameras, ease of use and shootability, HDV vs DVCPRO HD (I'll pick DVCPRO HD to cut with any day over HDV - hellllloooooooo, long HDV render times!), and others. Quibble over whether the camera was optimally set up - fine, there are full sized, uncompressed PNG frame grabs from both, take those into Photoshop or FCP and color correct'em to your heart's content to see whether either (or both) will give you acceptable results for what you need.

Also, re-reading the article, there are some examples of issues with the XH A1, without a matching sample of the HVX200 in the same circumstances.

Do keep in mind, Barry runs an HVX200 training seminar, and this review is on DVXuser.com. BUT it still does impart a lot of useful information.

Further Update - consensus is building that:

a.) the Canon needs to be tweaked "out of the box" to get a better looking image, and
b.) Barry didn't do so.

While he did mess around with the different gamma settings, folks are saying he should have messed around with the matrix settings. OK, given that - there's an extra level of "ya gotta do this" to mess with the Canon to get good results, which will take some time, doodling, and experience. Whereas my experience with the HVX was turn it on, cycle through the Cine modes until you found one you like, then get going.

If you're going to be post heavy, then a flat full range image is actually BETTER to work with, since you'll have more control and not have pre-crushed blacks or anything. More things to think about...

SO...don't make all your qualitative purchasing decisions based on the image quality presented here.

One commenter, however, did slog through all the commentary:

After reading the 8 or 9 pages of back and forth (I'm doing a lot of rendering today) it appears that Barry used as neutral as possible settings on both cameras and basically used out of the box settings. So both cameras are can produce nicer looking images if you tweak them, but Barry made it a point to not tweak them.

Red comments (link below) for more on all this...

-mike

Motionworks � After Effects Tip #10: Levels Quick Reference Guide

I've been using Levels for so long (Photoshop 1.0) that it seems like a brain stem function to me, but it can certainly be confusing to the new user. Here's a handy little visual reference that shows what it can do.

Mike's addendum - keep in mind, this can be for the master (RGB, all channels) or individual channels (R, G, or B). And there's actually another bar that goes beneath it - the left slider makes blacks lighter, and the right slider makes whites darker (again, either all channels or on a per-channel basis).

Good stuff to know for Adobe products (and Final Cut, but their visual representation is quite different, and not as easily understood unfortunately).

-mike

Blackmagic Design Announces Immediate Availability of DeckLink HD Studio, the World's First Post Production Grade HDMI and Analog Component Capture Card

If you're trying to save money by monitoring with an HDMI based consumer display, or want to capture the HDMI output of a camera (AVC HD for instance, which has no native editing in the major NLEs at this time) then this is a possible solution for you. Also does SD & HD analog in and out. The card is about $1000, Mac or PC, and works with Final Cut Studio, Premiere Pro, After Effects, Photoshop, and any DirectShow or QuickTime based software apps.

I'd made mention of this card before, it is now shipping.

-mike

FresHDV's review (in video form no less!) of the VFGadgets Pro Gripper Quad camera mounting system for vehicles. Consisting of 4 suction cups, a camera mounting plate, and extensible arms, the device is rated to hold small cameras. Matthew Jeppsen, the guy behind FresHDV, and his friend shot a video reviewing the product and show setting it up and using it in action. A very very handy way to show a review of a product. They also have some sample footage they shot - a spec Mustang commercial.

Nice work Matthew!

-mike

Take a look at Apple's front page today - a black background with a black iPhone. What is the UI on that iPhone? Colored icons on a black background.

Then take a look at their latest computer designs - in particular the black Macbook (such as I'm writing this on), aka the BlackBook.

We've seen the user interface for the new iPhone, which is scheduled to ship in late June...which is after Leopard ships. While Leopard doesn't seem to have many visual changes from Tiger according to the sample animations on Apple's site, I read on Daring Fireball the other day:

The Aqua theme is now 6 years old, which is a longer lifespan than that of the Platinum theme from Mac OS 8 and 9. I expect to see big changes, not the sort of refinements we’ve seen in previous major Mac OS X updates. At a technical level, the new UI will be resolution independent. At a design level, it will elicit both a lot of love and a lot of hate, just like Aqua did in 10.0. The subtext will be to make Windows Vista look dated before it even ships to consumers.


...and I agree with him - that logic makes sense, especially that last point.

I think the next rev of pro laptops is likely to sport a darker look too, but I don't know if that would fly for the towers. Apple is famous for tying the hardware and software looks together - maybe we'd get anodized black towers? With a black based UI for the OS? Wouldn't that be potent?

Just conjecture...I have a lot of that today...

Other conjecture - Paul was quick to point out in my comments that we didn't see iLife/iWork because there may be iPhone versions coming - that makes a lot of sense, too - that iPhone ships after Leopard (most likely), and that new versions of iWork/iLife may come along that better integrate with the iPhone - a for-pay version of iWork that includes not just Universal Binaries of the apps, but also an included (or optional?) version for the iPhone as well.

I have some research to do for a meeting Friday, but I'm dyin' to do a long piece on iPhone, even though it totally isn't HD related...but I am so getting one of those...my T616, even though it is tiny and syncs well for calendar and contacts, iPhone does soooooo much more...and is clearly the winner new product for Apple.

Apple's goal is to get 1% of the market in 2008 - that'd be 5-6 BILLION dollars in phones sold at $500-$600 a pop. If they sell hundreds of thousands or even a million Apple TVs (based on current movie availability) I'd be surprised.

I bought Apple stock for the Apple TV, but iPhone is going to do MUCH more for Apple I'd bet - and this is just the first one, too, don't forget. Keep in mind how much better, smaller, and cheaper iPods got over the last five years. Prediction - in 2 years, there will be an iPhone half the volume with more features than this one at half the price.

-mike

Update - AppleInsider | Mac OS X Leopard to sport next-gen DVD Player software (images) - yep! I'm at least partially right.

IPTV on the Xbox 360: Ars digs deep - and they do it better than I could. So just go read it if you're interested in what IPTV on the Xbox 360 means and does.

The New Yorker : critics : atlarge: "Despite the to-do in the media every weekend over what%u2019s No. 1 and what%u2019s No. 2, and how the take for %u201CCrushed Knees 3%u201D compares with that for %u201CCrushed Knees 2,%u201D the theatres bring in much less money than other revenue streams%u2014sales to television in all its forms (free, cable, pay-per-view) and rentals and sales of DVDs, which make up half of total movie revenues."

"Cruise had a deal with Paramount which gave him an enormous share of the DVD revenue on the movie. “M:i:III” cost a hundred and fifty million dollars to make, and its worldwide theatrical gross was almost four hundred million. But Paramount realized that after the theatres took their cut, and the production, promotion, and overhead costs were deducted from what was left, it wasn’t going to make much money—maybe none—while Cruise would walk away with seventy million dollars."

" Many more people go to bad movies than go to good ones, but the good small movies that do well, like “Brokeback Mountain” and “Borat,” are, in relation to cost, among the most successful movies ever made."

...and that's just the first of 3 pages.

Read on, and think about that this means for your own efforts.

-mike

Questions After MacWorld - what to make of what is and wasn't

Apple surprised a lot of folks in a lot of different ways at MacWorld this year.

Steve Jobs got up on stage, he talked about how iTunes was doing and how many iPods they'd sold, and John Mayer played a song, and that's about all that went according to the usual plan.

Instead what we DID get was Apple TV and iPhone - to non-computer, only partially music products.

And Apple even changed their name - no longer Apple Computer, Inc, now just Apple, Inc. (and wow, what kind of wrangling did Apple go through with the Beatles' publisher Apple over THAT one?)

What we DIDN'T get was also very interesting, especially compared to what we've usually gotten and what we expected to see:

-NO new Macs. At all - no new 8 processor Macs as widely expected, no speed bumps on any other products, no Minis with iPod docks, nuthin'

-no new iLife - maybe after Leopard comes out?

-no new iWork - wherefore art thou, spreadsheet app?

-no new preview of what Leopard can do or will be

Some of these I expect to get remedied at other times - the Octo-Macs will probably/hopefully be announced at a press event TBD in the next few weeks. Leopard? We'll see an overview and maybe a few new video relevant tidbits perhaps at NAB. iLife/iWork? Those have only been intro'd at MWSF AFAIK in the past - are we just skipping that this year? Or waiting for after Leopard?

All this makes me think about what Apple is doing with themselves. After years of trying to make the Mac a better computer and a better experience to try to get people to switch to Mac computers, I think Apple is realizing...it just can't be done that way. Or at least, it is going to be so hard, and so expensive, and take so long, there must be better ways to get the same result - of getting people to buy Apple products. And if you can't get them to switch to Apple computers, the lesson of the iPod applies - make a non-computer product, that integrates with a computer, that requres experience in hardware and software and user interface design to be good at, and that Apple can leverage their core strengths to achieve.

And THAT is why we're seeing iPhone and Apple TV - it is too hard to get people to switch to Mac, but much easier to get them to switch to iPods, iPhones, and iTVs (oops, Apple TVs). Why? Because the entrenchedness of computers is really, really hard to overcome. It isn't about brand loyalty, it isn't about liking how Macs work, it is that is is so damn hard to switch for most folks. They know how Windows works, it is what they use in the office, and if they had to switch, they'd have to buy all new software applications on top of a new machine and learning a new OS. Bag that, too much trouble. Apple tried to get them to switch by making Macs less expensive than before, and better looking. That helped, but not hugely. Then they made it easy to switch - the Mini was the switcher's home machine, inexpensive and leveraging the keyboard/mouse/screen you had with your old PC. Sold some, no huge numbers. Then they switched to Intel, so you could run as a PC as well. It is helping. Parallels to run OS X & Windows concurrently? Better, but again, no huge numbers. Wanna sell 5-6 billion dollars worth of product in a year? You need a new category that is easier to switch and less entrenched. A-ha - cell phones.

All this is not to say that the above is how Apple thought about it in that order - iPhone was underway at least 2 1/2 years ago according to Jobs, and plans take years to come to fruition. They chased after the business market, and it just wasn't happening - too hard to get people to switch.

But Apple is now leveraging some stuff that is pretty unique for them - they have great hardware design experience, they (now) know how to mass produce at fairly aggressive prices, they have major buying power to get component prices down and amortize R&D costs, they have the ability to not only dream up but actually IMPLEMENT good user interface design, and that is EXTREMELY rare - I know some good designers who want to do stuff like this - we talked about multi-finger touch controls 5-10 years ago in a "wouldn't it be nice" kind of a way, but knew that the OS and hardware to drive it were far beyond our means to create. Not so for Apple.

I used to work at frogdesign, a well known/respected industrial design firm. The group I work with became the user interface group over time, and all too often, it is the hardware & software folks, not the user interface folks that make the ultimate calls, because they think that is the driving force of making stuff work (there seems to be a new corrollary growing out of the old Microsoft/IBM lesson repeating itself in different ways in different industries, but everyone thinks their case in unique and different that hardware is more important than software, and the UI is a superfluous add-on to software...will that change?). The software guys say something like "We need a bigger screen, this stylus blows, we should really be able to just use our fingers. And while we're at it, finGERS, plural." The hardware guys and the software guys get together and say "That's too expensive to implement in hardware, and too hard/hassle/expensive to do in software. Let's do this cheap fix instead, and bury that feature 3 menus down. If they want it, they can find it." Spoken like a true engineer - an engineer is willing to learn and remember that functionality is there, like pushing 77 to delete a voicemail while it is playing back. Does anybody else think 77 is a natural, normal response to deleting voicemail? Me neither. So the function gets buried, and nobody ever uses it, even though the feature is there. The world is too complicated to operate that way. I have an aversion to file folders - actual, literal file folders. If something is filed, I consider it buried and hidden away, archived and difficult to find. Most power features (esp. in consumer electronics) are buried in that same way - it is there, but you'd have to know where to find it, and REMEMBER on an ongoing basis.

I think that approach just flat out sucks.

Apple had the conviction, dollars, balls and courage to dive into this thing and get UI RIGHT. It probably took someone famously swinish and demanding and "That sucks, do better!" like Jobs to get this done. It took 2 1/2 years....would any other company let a phone project run that long? That could create their own OS, hardware, and software?

THAT'S why I think Apple will e a serious force to contend with. In this increasingly complex world, the work required to make it powerful AND simple is large, and few companies both get it and are willing and able to do something about it to do things RIGHT.

While the iPod's hardware specs were good but not incredible, it was the user interface and experience that made it sell like hotcakes - the scroll wheel interface was really good, and the iTunes ease of use and power made the whole package rock, and people bought it, used it, got it, and never wanted to go back to the other way.

And that's why I bought a big fat gob of Apple late last year at 65.

: )

-mike

Studio Daily | Gorilla 4 Film Production Software Released at MacWorld: "Jungle Software announced today the immediate availability of Gorilla 4. Gorilla, the first film production software ever specifically designed for independent filmmakers to help them manage their film projects, now welcomes the ultra-indie market, the underground, YouTube generation of filmmakers with the release of version 4 and the concurrent placement of Gorilla in Apple Stores nationwide."

It is $400, I've never used this - have any of you folks? Sounds like they are chasing after the HD4NDs crowd full-on, but I don't know the details.

Whaddaya folks think who've used it in the past? Sound off with the Comments link below.

-mike

update - save 20%

To take advantage of the discount however, you need to purchase any Gorilla downloadable product from our online store and use the code:
PRCR-G4-07.
Use this code upon checkout. It will be valid until January 31st. That means you can save $79.80 off of a Gorilla Pro edition.

Sonnet | Macworld Expo 2007 New Product Announcements

They have some new FireWire and USB 2 & combo cards, but that's not particularly exciting.

Ones we care about:

Tempo SATA E2P - a two port version of the E4P it would seem, at nearly 1/4 the price -only $80. Supports por