Yes… yes indeed, off to San Antonio again. What? SIGGRAPH doesn’t start until Sunday the 21st, you say? That’s correct - gold stars and extra ice cream for you.
So I’m going to the beach* for a few days beforehand, a beach with no web access (oh darn), and won’t report on that or SIGGRAPH until the next weekend at the soonest, with the excellent wireless access in the Gonzalez center.
* There’s a movie about it, too.
——-Make Your Demo Reel a DVD
Sonja Schhenk’s Part III in a very good series, clearly explaining hows and whys of demo reels on DVD, including different DVD media capabilities and compatibilities, MPEG compression formats, using Adobe Photoshop for menus and buttons, and recommendations for using video tools from basic to professional – from Apple’s very easy iMovie and iDVD and Adobe Premiere and Sonic Solutions’ MyDVD, to powerful tools such as Apple’s Final Cut Pro and Avid Express DV for editing and Apple’s DVD Studio Pro and Sonic Solutions’ DVDit! for DVD authoring.
There’s a huge amount of information in these three informative articles, and you need more background on all the techniques she discusses, but she seems not to have left out any important consideration. If you’re a creative pro in dynamic media, or if you teach future pros, get out front and read this series. *
Apple, Avid vie to make trailer cut from the Hollywood Reporter: “Competition and different systems that serve different clients is only beneficial to our marketplace,” [Roberta] Margolis [of Runway Editing] said. “More than one system is an added value to us all.” Trailer cutting shops are often the early adopters of what becomes mainstream tools… so students ought to have some exposure to both, if possible. Thanks to Videography.com’s daily email newsletter for the link. *
Read the latest tips and news from the LA Final Cut Pro Users Group’s June meeting – including comments on Avid vs. Apple as in the post above. *——-
Cameras and other stuff
Digital Media Net’s DV Format page has some good links:
Hey, this is from the Digital Video Editing part of the DMN site: “Build Your Own Monster Editing Workstation.” A how-they-did it for the do-it-yourselfer with $5000 and a lot of time to throw at the project; you pays in time, or you pays in money, but you pays. It’s fun though when you can build it yourself.——-
The ITC received a grant for a digital audio workstation, and we’ll order it soon. We had to specify the equipment almost 8 months ago, and much of it has been upgraded and/or discontinued, so we get to choose again. So – surprise! – I found “Mixing Audio for Video in a Non-Linear World” at Creative Cow, and I just think, “Timing is everything.”Permalink
Patsy Lanclos, an Apple Distinguished Educator, has posted links to other ADE’s examples of iMovies used in education. These are people who make technology work for their students, and the work of their students show it – from tours of colonial Williamsburg to African folktales, these demonstrate how the right technology gets out of the way, becomes functionally transparent, and lets the teacher and student just do the work of teaching and learning.
Permalink——-
Analysis and Some Freebies
Charlie White:”Let’s face it: We all realize that HD is inevitable, but we’ve been saying that for the past four years. But people who have tape to edit today don’t give a damn about HD. They need devices that can help them turn that raw footage into a TV show, and they need it now. HD isn’t going to do them any good. If they want to produce HD, they’ll rent the gear from time-to-time. But for the vast majority of programs that are bound for air in the US and elsewhere, garden-variety NTSC or PAL is the standard and will be for a good while to come. And, DV is a format that’s just about as good as Betacam SP, and sure, it’s not perfect, but it’s good enough to do the job. And, you can own all of it yourself, and edit it in your underwear.”
This person would seem to have a handle on something that broadcast journalism students and independent film/video makers should understand. DV, and MiniDV especially, will survive as a viable format well into the age of HD. *
At Mac Alert on the Digital Media Net group of sites, I found a “sponsored link” (that means it’s an ad) to Trilab Productions’ Digital Hotcakes animations, really nice animated backgrounds for graphics, titles, intro sequences, and so on. Download a free sample, and see these useful Adobe Premiere and Final Cut Pro tutorials. While you’re there, read Dave Nagel’s discussion of copyright issues, “Copyrighting the Future,” and Charlie White’s review of the Pinnacle CineWaveRT. *
Likely the last post of the day, as a camcorder workshop starts in 45 minutes and a visit to digital audio workstation vendors follows after lunch. Anyway, see the tutorials section at Creative COW for an ongoing series on working with After Effects 5.5. Well done; good site, goofy name, generous and helpful membership. *——-
The Folks in Redmond are Not Kidding Around *
Though I primarily cover Macintosh-based DV applications, I often try to look at programs and tools for other platforms. Here’s a significant reason to reconsider using Windows-based computers.
The Register: If you caught our recent coverage of the Windows Media Player trio of security holes you may have followed a link to the TechNet download site for a patch, or you might have activated Windows Update. If you did the former (though, oddly, not if you did the latter), you would have been confronted with an End User License Agreement (EULA) stating, most ominously, that:“You agree that in order to protect the integrity of content and software protected by digital rights management (‘Secure Content’), Microsoft may provide security related updates to the OS Components that will be automatically downloaded onto your computer. These security related updates may disable your ability to copy and/or play Secure Content and use other software on your computer. If we provide such a security update, we will use reasonable efforts to post notices on a web site explaining the update.”
“Reasonable efforts to post notices” somewhere on the Web. I think it’s clear from the wording that MS has absolutely no intention of bringing this behavior to our attention.
Instead, Microsoft has just assumed the right to attack your computer and surreptitiously install code of its choosing. You will not be warned; you will not be offered an opportunity examine the download or refuse it. MS will simply connect remotely and install what it will, or install it secretly when you contact them.
Nice Boris Freebies *
BorisFX.com also has some nice freebies for Final Cut users: a Generator for making heart-shaped cutouts, a nice edge Edge Light filter (look at the documentation, it’s nice) and a collection of preset 3D type styles. If you use Final Cut you’ll find uses for at least two of these; and you can make your sweetie a video with the heart generator. It’s cute.
It’s July, and It’ll Be Busy *
Well, there’s the whole Christmas in July thing, if I get lucky; my wedding anniversary which coincides with American Independence Day (and man, I love fireworks); the SIGGRAPH conference course/workshop, and prior to that a week at the beach.
But here’s some DV-related news for you now.
Canon has released the new GL-2, which will likely become the new primary ITC video production camera if reviews and other videographers like it. Otherwise, I may stay with Sony for my main cams.
Ken Stone (remember him?) has posted a nice review of Boris Graffiti 2.0, from the folks who licensed the very good Calligraphy to Apple for FCP 3; he likes it a lot.——-