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Saturday, February 18, 2012

Quick Links

Announcement Soon [CR3] | CanonRumors
Excitement grows about a possible update to the Canon 5D:
Things are heating up and we’re going to see an announcement soon. February 28, 2012 is still shaping up as the day of an announcement, though it could be a week later. We’ll be seeing a full frame camera announced. We’re still unsure if it’ll be a 5D Mark III or a 5D X.


Highlights of BVE London. The broadcast video expo! Cool toys everywhere!!
| Philip Bloom | Blog
Philip talks about the BVE show. He notes that "there's nothing really sexy and new" at the show, though that might be attributable to the fact that the English hold this show two months before NAB:
I check out the MTF EF adaptor which is now for sale, the Sony F65, C300, the excellent AJA I/O XT, the JVC 4K and the Atomos Samurai amongst others…


Final Draft Inc Announce New Technical Support Policy | movieScope
In addition to their iPad app Final Draft Reader, Final Draft have changed their support policy:
As of 16 February 2012, telephone calls to their support line will cost a cool $25.00 per call. This new premium service replaces the previous per-minute billing systems which proved unpopular with many. For international (non-US) users of their software, the news gets even worse as the new service is only available Mon-Fri from 9am to 5pm, Pacific Standard Time.


Editing

Canon C300 Footage Is Now Supported in Most NLEs | Scott Simmons
| Studio Daily
Is this really a surprise? I thought the C300 was using the same basic format as Canon's existing XF300 line:
With the new Canon C300 cameras rolling out into the world one hoped that Canon would quickly release format and driver plug-ins for all the major NLEs so we could start importing the footage. With yesterday’s release of the Canon XF Plugin for Final Cut Pro 2.0, most NLEs are supported now, at least on the Mac.


Filtering a Video Clip with Photoshop Extended | Richard Harrington | TipSquirrel
How to apply Photoshop filters to video:
First, you must use Photoshop Extended to open a video clip. Other versions of Photoshop can’t do this task. If you run a filter on a video clip on its own, the filter will only apply to the current frame. This is why you must convert the video layer into a Smart Object. You can create Smart Objects by choosing File > Place or by choosing Filter > Convert for Smart Filters. Remember, a Smart Object embeds the original content of the layer inside the Smart Object.


Matrox release beta drivers for Final Cut Pro X broadcast output | FCP.co
Final Cut Pro X support expands with drivers for the Matrox MX02:
At BVE Expo in London this week we got to play with FCPX and a Matrox MXO2 with the unit outputting to a broadcast monitor. Now Matrox have released the FCPX enabling software upgrade as a public beta. The unit seemed to work well with just a bit of cut lag, the skimming was good when it worked, being slightly temperamental. Remember this is a beta working with beta software from Apple.


Final Cut Pro 7 to X | Chadwick Paul
Philip Hodgetts actually demoed his 7toX tool at this week's Boston Creative Pro User Group. Here's a short review:
Probably the biggest thing missing in the stock version of Final Cut Pro X is the ability to bring in old projects for revisions or repurposing. Philip Hodgetts at assistedediting.com and his team built an amazing little app that converts your old legacy projects into the current version (10.0.3). While I’m still confused how apple hasn’t purchased this software from them, I’m glad a small shop can leave such a huge impact on our industry.


Final Cut Pro X (Updated for 10.0.3) | ContourDesign Shuttle Forum
New drivers released for the Contour Design Shuttle that support Final Cut Pro X:
Two new sets of Apple Final Cut Pro X v10.0.3 settings are now available. One set of settings is based on the "frames per second" style of Final Cut Pro X. The other set of settings is based on the "playback rates" style of Final Cut Pro v7. Use of the "playback rates" style settings requires importing a new keyboard map into Final Cut Pro X; the keyboard map is also attached to this post.


4K Editing Setup | Tom Lowe | Vimeo
Video of the hardware setup Tom is using to edit 4K:
Here's a look at my 4K editing system as I near completion of my debut film, "TimeScapes." I am using Adobe CS5.5 Premiere and After Effects and a custom, overclocked Origin PC with Nvidia GTX 580. I will do another video soon with more details about the system, including specs.


Customer Reaction to Final Cut Pro Crossgrade with Jigsaw24 at BVE 2012 | Avid
| YouTube
Interview with Jamie Allan of Jigsaw 24 at the BVE show. The first half of the interview is about how good it is that Avid is being more open.


Gear

More Options For Sony PMW-F3 S-Log Buyers? | Sony | Twitter
After dropping the price on the S-Log upgrade from $4,000 to $900 for the Sony PMW-F3, Sony offered a couple of discounts on other gear for those that already bought the upgrade. Now Peter Crithary, the Marketing Manager for Super 35mm acquisition at Sony Electronics, suggests that there may be "other options" for those buyers:
For those that purchased CBK-RGB01 10 Bit #SLog RGB444 option at full price, we are looking into further options, #PMWF3, #F3


Do More With Your DSLR II: Building a Rig | Daniel Hayek | Vimeo
Vimeo continues it's film school series of educational articles with one on putting together a camera rig:
After learning the basics of shooting with available light from the Bui brothers, I was totally ready to start rolling. Then, out of the blue, Andrea asked me to build a rig. Not wanting to seem like a total goof, I tried making my own, with disastrous results. Luckily, the Bui brothers appeared once again and saved the day. Let’s see how it all went down:


Z-Focus Extender | Zacuto
Zacuto now offers a $95 extender pin for their Z-Focus:
The Z-Focus Extender is used to extend the distance between the focus knob and gear housing on any Zacuto Z-Focus. Moving the focus knob away from the rods is essential for compact rig setups with multiple accessories. The Z-Focus Extender is 4.5" long. The added distance provides clearance between an EVF and focus knob, making it much easier for the focus puller or camera operator to control the knob and see focus marks. This accessory can potentially shorten your overall rig length by three inches, moving the rig center of gravity closer to the user’s shoulder. Installation is easy. Step by step instructional video below!


Cameras

The Travel Channel on Location: 'No Reservations' with Sony's F3 | Jon Silberg
| DV.com
Using the Sony PMW-F3 for shooting the cooking show 'No Reservations':
“The technology is finally where we’ve always wanted it to be,” [videographer] Zamboni says. “We’ve always wanted to do this show completely in Super 35 format. We used Letus adapters early on to get that look. We’ve used Canon DSLRs for the past couple of years for certain shots, but those [cameras] really aren’t made for this kind of work. The F3 offers us a less compressed, more robust format in a design that was meant for video.


Hands on with the Canon C300 – Paul Gwilliams guest post | Planet5D
Shooting a cooking show with the Canon C300. This is actually a reprint of an article that Paul posted on his own blog a few weeks back, though it does add some new photos:
With the 70-200 on & the iso set to 8000 the low light shots were possible, useable & beautiful – having looked back on a large HD monitor these are the shots that really stand out for me – the grain at these high iso’s is really organic and very film like.


An inside look at the glass protecting the C300 sensor | John Green | Vimeo
Shows the IR cut filter in front of the sensor, and the action of the ND filters:
The video also shows the smooth action of the glass ND filters as they silently glide in front of the sensor. When you operate the camera, there are two buttons, "ND + and ND -" that allow you to go from 2 stops to 4 stops to 6 stops and back around to nothing. You can keep pressing the "+" button and the filters will cycle through from 0 to 6 stops and back indefinitely.


Screen grab from C300 blown up | Philip Bloom | Flickr
Philip posted a couple of frames grabbed from the C300, one with recorded natively, the other on the Samurai:
One side is native XF codec. Other is ProRes HQ with Samurai. Which is which?
Of course seeing it moving makes a huge difference. This is just a fun guessing game! :)
10,000 ISO


Filmmaking & Business

The making of Sentinel "Tail Wagging" Champaign - Director | Muy Lang Linda Ung
| Vimeo
Nice little behind-the-scenes on shooting a commercial. Though it's not mentioned, they are using DSLRs, and there's some interesting comments about storyboarding and planning, as well as the difficulty of getting good performances from your actors (in this case; dogs!)



Progress Billing | Richard Harrington | American Society of Media Photographers
Perhaps the most important thing when you're in business is getting paid:
Production — I recommend the submittal of an invoice once shooting begins. This is typically the most expensive stage of a project. Be sure that you have received some form of payment before production begins. Do not hand off project footage until at least 50% of a project’s budget is in hand.


Friday, February 17, 2012

Quick Links

Awesome Directors Project : Cinematic Lighting Tutorial | Indy Mogul | Youtube
A very interesting behind-the-scenes video where the director shows how he put together a scene, including framing and lighting:
Filmmaker Tom Antos, this month's Awesome Director, demonstrates how storyboarding and strategic lighting design are key to achieving a cinematic look.


Accelerate your RED workflow with Adobe® Premiere® Pro CS5.5 | Adobe
Thursday, February 23, 2012 10:00 AM - 11:00 AM US/Pacific
A free webinar from Adobe:
Join this webinar to learn how you can enable a robust workflow for editing, grading, and delivering native R3D footage in real time using Premiere Pro. See Wes Howell and Ted Shilowitz step through the RED editing workflow in Premiere Pro, including selecting RED sequence presets, quickly importing clips without transcoding or rewrapping, switching playback resolutions to meet the performance and image quality needs of every post-production task, adjusting the look of your sequence through extensive controls for RED RAW footage, and outputting it to virtually any format


Bill Roberts, Director of Video Product Management, Adobe Systems & Adobe's Past, Present & Future | Debra Kaufman | Creative COW
Bill Roberts talks about Premiere Pro CS5.5, the acquisition of IRIDAS, 3D, HDR and NAB 2012:
I know there are some Mac users who point to the fact that Premiere Pro was off the Mac platform for several years. At the time, which was the turn of the 21st century, Apple was a very different company. Avid waffled around the Mac too; in fact, everyone at the time was questioning its viability. But Mac's stronghold has always been the creative community. The Mac platform today is a fantastic part of our business and a great place to be. In fact, our presence on the Mac grew 45 percent in 2010.


New Camera: Sony FS100 | Alex Walker Studios | Blog
Alex has moved his Canon 7D to the status of B camera, and replaced it with the Sony NEX-FS100:
Below you'll find my first tests with the G-Log profile. I tested high contrast situations and skin tones specifically. I've been shooting with my Tamron 17-50mm F2.8 with a Fotodiox e-mount adaptor. No iris control unfortunately although I do plan on purchasing a live adapter. I've found that the onboard screen tends to crush the blacks a bit, so use the histogram to judge your exposure.


Samyang 24mm F1.4 ED AS IF – Review | Andrew Reid | EOSHD
A review of the Samyang 24mm (which is sold as the Rokinon 24mm f/1.4 ED - and under other labels - any you can pre-order at [$699])
Affordable 24mm F1.4 lenses for full frame are relatively thin on the ground to say the least so if you want to look above the Samyang you have to step up to the mighty Canon 24mm F1.4L at double the cost.
Is it worth it? Probably not. Though I’ve not tested the Canon and Nikon lenses, the Samyang is so good that it is hard to see what the extra money will get you optically, apart from maybe less distortion and less flare.


Older Macs voted off the Mountain Lion island | Jacqui Cheng | Ars Technica
Ouch! Some comparatively recent Macs (some circa 2009) evidently won't be supported by the new Mac OS: Mountain Lion:
Apple's next OS X release, code-named Mountain Lion, will drop support for some older machines as the company continues to move forward with the iOS-ification of the operating system. The list of supported machines has not been publicly published (yet) by Apple, but a developer source has now passed that list along to TUAW after having downloaded the Mountain Lion developer release.


John August Announces 'Highland,' a Screenwriting App That Makes PDFs Editable Again | No FIlm School
Interesting tool that may even allow you to edit PDFs!
John August has announced “Highland,” a Mac app that takes the headaches out of screenwriting file types. Though it’s still in beta, Highland could become the go-to app for converting between Fountain, Final Draft, and PDF.

Thursday, February 16, 2012

Quick Links

DP David Kruta On Shooting The Movie “Concussion” | Michael Murie | Filmmaker
I interviewed David recently about shooting this indie movie with the REP Epic:
I fought to shoot it on the Epic. I think something like an Alexa might have actually slowed us down because there was a lot of handheld shots. The movie was almost entirely handheld, so the small size and weight was really helpful. We had Zeiss Superspeeds – mainly for the price and the speed at which they can shoot – so it was great having these light, little lenses where you could shoot at 1.3. This was very important because we shot mostly available light, or modified with silks, but it was almost entirely available light and small lamps.


DSLR Video Viewing Accessories | Photo This & That
A review/comparison of two viewfinders (the Zacuto Z-Finder EVF Pro and Cineroid EVF4L) and the Marshall V-LCD50-HDMI monitor. Ultimately, he prefers the monitor:
Unlike other Marshall monitors, the five-inch version uses a rear-mounted rocker switch that can very easily be switched on by accident (when being stored, it’s essential to remove it’s batteries). I also feel that Marshall has missed a trick by not powering the unit using the Canon LP-E6 battery designed for the EOS 5D Mk II (SEE BELOW).

Despite these shortcomings, the Marshall V-LCD50-HDMI would still be my choice over an EVF.


Hands On With The New Canon 24-70 & 24mm + 28mm IS Primes
| Dan Carr Photography
Dan got to spend a short amount of time with the new Canon lenses. Despite the price, he was impressed with the sharpness of the new 24-70mm f/2.8L II, and thinks the IS in the new EF 24mm f/2.8mm IS and EF 28mm f/2.8 IS primes will be really useful for video shooting:
The first use is shown above, though the camera doesn’t need to be a C300, any video shooting DSLR will do. IS is extremely beneficial to hand held video recording and whilst many people love to make out of focus shallow DOF videos the reality is that keeping a subject in focus at faster apertures than f2.8 is VERY hard indeed. Especially if you are using still lenses instead of cine lenses. An f2.8 prime with IS makes a lot of sense in this regard.


Sony NEX 7 – Review | Andrew Reid | EOSHD
A generally positive review of the Sony NEX-7 - the video quality sometimes rivals the GH2 and 5D Mark II - but there's some reservations:
The NEX 7 is let down by middle-of-the-road compression, an encoder that smudges fine detail and a downscaling method from 24MP to 1080p that introduces too much false colour.

Also, I was excited to shoot in the super flat picture profile offered on the NEX 7 but it is a disaster.


Adobe Premiere Pro Audio Bug Fix | Richard Harrington | Blog
A solution for an odd sound issue:
I've seen this problem pop up a few times. I think it's tied to a bad audio plugin that conflicts between Apple and Adobe software. It seems to happen on only a few machines.

It seems to be with CS 5.5 where an Apple audio PLIST file becomes corrupt. The symptoms are that Premiere Pro will play for a few seconds and stop.


Ready to Wrap for Lunch? Do This First | Evan Luzi | The Black and Blue
Continuing his series of tips for cameras ops is this list of things to do when you go on break (i.e. protect your gear!):
3. Get the camera as low as possible
This doesn’t mean that you have to put the camera on a hi-hat, but having the tripod at its lowest is best. Another option is to place the camera on the camera cart if it has a mount.
During lunch you’ll be stepping away from the camera and you don’t want it falling over on its own. I know that sounds silly, but why would you risk it? Take the time to stick down on the tripod and let the camera rest at a comfortable height where it will be more stable.


Camera maker Arri denies rival's espionage claims | David Cohen | Variety
RED sued ARRI claiming that one of their execs had stolen intellectual property. ARRI claims they knew nothing about it, and besides, they didn't need RED's help to build a camera:
In its answer, Arri denies its executives knew of or approved Bravin's theft of Band's emails, denies Bravin shared those emails with its team, and and "specifically denies that any action of Bravin constituted corporate espionage on the part of Arri."

The response asserts that "Arri required no information from Red to bring the Arri Alexa to market" ahead of the Red Epic.


Confessions of a Switcher: Moving to Adobe Premiere Pro and using an HP Workstation | Todd Kopriva | Adobe
Watch this hour long webinar with Christine Steele talking about switching to Adobe Premiere Pro, focusing on the hardware requirements. Note: registration required to view it.
Also includes links to other resources (reg. not required):
Christine talked about quite a few things in this seminar:

resources for transitioning from Final Cut Pro to Premiere Pro
hardware requirements for best performance with Premiere Pro
modifying keyboard shortcuts and using Final Cut Pro keyboard shortcuts
choosing and customizing workspaces
Don't forget that you can get 50% off Adobe CS5.5 Production Premium for Mac or for Windows through March 2.



Yanobox Moods for FCPX | Tej Babra | Blog
A review of an easy to use color grading plug-in for Final Cut Pro X:
To many who are new to color grading or simply have not done it before. Moods provides you with an option to turn on a “ Help Card” . This feature tuns on a few more circles that basically explain the functions of each color wheel. This is a nice feature to help with the grading process as it can be easy to forget which wheel is which.


Editing 101 - a car chase | michaschmidt | Vimeo
Can anyone in the UK tell me; is this clip a direct lift from the new Top Gear series? It does list some tips for editing a car chase:
- work on the sound even for the 1st rough edit
- continuity is essential
- get the best actors performance

- talk with & understand/ know the directors needs


Sony PMW-F3 S-Log Update | Peter Crithary [Sony] | Twitter
Note: Sony just recently offered a heavily discounted S-Log upgrade for PMW-F3 owners
#PMWF3, #F3, reaction to $899.00 #SLog very strong, we are slammed getting upgrades done. Sorry for some confusion, sorting it out now


W O R D S   T O   L I V E   B Y
If you're going to show up late to a shoot, don't have a coffee in your hand.
@BenjEckstein


Final Draft Reader | iTunes
As expected, Final Draft Reader has been released. There is no editing capability, and it costs $20.


Wednesday, February 15, 2012

Quick Links

RED Scarlet X – Review | Greg Blakey | Melbourne Geek
An in-depth look at the RED Scarlet X:
Quite frankly this image resolution is ridiculous in most instances, but so damn good. It is a ‘get out of jail free’ card when it comes to cropping or re framing a shot. I would not necessarily go to 1-to-1 pixel’s as you lose some of the clarity, but you do have a lot of room to move. Then once you go down to HD everything pulls together, it feels crisp and solid.


Final Cut Pro X Advanced Tutorial - Multi-Cam in 10.0.3 | Dan Allen | YouTube
One of the first tutorials I've seen on using the new multi-cam feature:
In this HD Voice Tutorial for Apple Final Cut Pro 10 we learn how to use the built in Multi cam feature as of the recent update version 10.0.3 which automatically aligns your video footage, clips, material and audio streams, clips media etc based on either Timecode, audio waveforms and sounds as well as date of creation. A very flexible advanced tool.


Adobe Production Premium v5.5 | Michael Hanish | TV Technology
An in-depth review of the Production Premium Suite:
Since many of the real-time playback and effects features, as well as rendering and encoding, are based on graphics processing unit (GPU)-accelerated features built on NVIDIA CUDA, one of the biggest productivity boosts you can give to the performance of Creative Suite is through the installation and configuration of an approved NVIDIA GPU card to boost the Mercury Playback Engine.


Do More With Your DSLR: Working with Available Light | Vimeo Video School
A look at setting up camera exposure and dealing with lighting:
Certain cameras will allow you to manually adjust the white balance. On a DSLR, this is usually done by adjusting the Kelvin color temperature. As the Bui brothers explain, every type of light has a different temperature. Warmer temperatures are orange, cooler temperatures are blue, and each temperature corresponds to a number value. Daylight is usually somewhere around 5500K. Number values above that correspond to cooler light, and numbers below that correspond to warmer light. If you know the temperature of the light you're in, adjust according to that.


Canon XF Plugin for Final Cut Pro X 2.0 | Canon USA
Canon has released a plug-in for Final Cut Pro X which will allow Canon C300 owners to import and edit footage. Choose Mac OS X v10.7 from the "Choose Operating System" menu.



New Web Show: “In Production” launches! | Carey Dissmore Blog
A webcast in which Carey Dissmore and Steve Oakley discuss film production tools and topics, in the first two they talk about color grading:
This show will be produced periodically as series around specific topics. Our first series is on the topic of Color Grading and DaVinci Resolve. This series is comprised of 6 episodes, to be released weekly. The first two episodes are embedded below.


Why 4K TVs are stupid | Geoffrey Morrison | C|Net
Why you don't need 4K on your TV:
Let's put this in the real world. I sit 9 feet away from a 102-inch screen. At that distance, I can't see the pixel structure of a 1080p projector. If I lean forward a bit, so my eyes are 7 to 8 feet from the screen, I can see pixels on bright images. If I zoom the projector out to fill all 127.75 inches of my 2.35:1 screen, I can sometimes see pixels depending on the projector.


Getting Started with Film Kit in GenArts Monsters GT v7 | GenArts
Demo of using the Film Kit effects:
Join Todd Prives as he demonstrates how to use the Film Kit collection of plugins in new Monsters GT v7. Film Kit, which includes film spoil effect Burn and light leak effects EdgeLeak and LightLeak, is also available for purchase individually for $99 on select host platforms.


Young Filmmaker's Talents Are Anything But Shipwrecked | 25 Hour Day
An interview with 16 year-old filmmaker Ben Kadie:
Two film books greatly influence me: Rebel without a Crew and DV Rebel. Both say that you don’t need a lot of people and resources to make a film; you just need to use what you have. For example, between seventh and eighth grade I wanted to tell a story set in the Egypt of 1897. I filmed Murder at the Pharaoh’s Grave in my backyard, with a green screen, a tent made from cheap fabric, and 100 pounds of sand. By replacing the green with my digital matte paintings, I was able to tell a big story with little resources.


The Rewrite ~Jill Remensnyder | Zacuto
Another in this series on script writing:
To my knowledge, one of the only screenplays to ever shoot from the first draft was Chinatown and you’re not Robert Towne. The biggest problem I see new writers face is that they fall in love with every word they write. When you become emotionally involved with scenes that don’t move the story forward, or you develop unhealthy relationships with characters your audience can’t connect with, it’s going to be a rough break up with much heartache.


11 Tips For Planning A Green Screen Video Production | Chad Vossen | ReelSEO
Surprising article about shooting green screen (surprising because the site is devoted to Search Engine Optimization, not video production):
4. Consider perspectives when designing a background – If you’re using more than one camera, make sure that the background perspective changes to match the camera angle change. If the camera angle and/or framing on the person changes, but the background doesn’t, your video’s going to look like a cheap local cable spot. Think about each camera’s focal length. Make sure the close-up shot is more out of focus than the wide and that the angle of the background matches the camera’s angle change.


We’re Living in a Golden Age of Documentary Filmmaking - But you’d never know it from watching the Oscars | Eric Hynes | Slate
It seems that documentaries get the short end of the stick at the Oscars, but I wonder if comparing total grosses - rather than total number of movies - things would still seem so out of balance:
Of the more than 800 feature films released theatrically in America last year, more than 300 were documentaries. (At premiere marketplace festivals like Sundance and Toronto, the ratio is similar.) Yet at the Academy Awards, where the film industry lavishly celebrates itself, all of those films compete for one measly award: best documentary. By comparison, dramatic features get 20 chances for an Oscar.




Portable EntertainmentHome EntertainmentComputersCamcorders Digital Cameras & Gear Pro Audio You go to B&H

Tuesday, February 14, 2012

Adobe Creative Suite 5.5 Production Premium 50% through March 2nd

Adobe is running their "SWITCH" campaign again for Adobe Production Premium CS5.5 [Regularly $1699, now $849] and for Adobe Premiere Pro CS5.5 [$799, now $399].

Get 50% off. The offer ends March 2. Enter code: SWITCH

Quick Links

Flying with gear… | Philip Bloom | Blog
Philip explains how he gets lots of gear onto planes:
With smaller cameras it’s a bit easier, they can go in smaller bags like the ones Petrol make below (which take my C300 or FS100 just fine, too tight for my F3). My main carry on bag is made by Think Tank. I use the Airport Security V2 when flying to the US and back or internally there and the Airport International for the rest of the world. The US hand luggage max size is slightly bigger than the rest of the world…like the country


7toX for Final Cut Pro 1.0.1 – Details on the Bug Fixes | Philip Hodgetts | Blog
Only a few days after release, and already an update to 7toX for Final Cut Pro for XML transfer with FCPX:
  1. Bug fix for DV 720×576 sequence settings
  2. Bug fix for 44.1 kHz audio settings
  3. Bug fix for 0% Speed Rate
  4. Bug fix for markers on Generators
  5. Bug fix for non-standard frame rates.


Final Cut Pro X Multicam Editing | Webinar | FilmmakingWebinars
March 13, 2012 @ 10:00 AM PST to 11:30 AM PST
A free webinar on Multicam, though I think they mean angle, not angel in the last paragraph...
Two new tools make multicamera editing in Final Cut Pro X both fast and fun: The Angle Editor allows the editor to see all the synchronized angles at once, adjust sync, add filters and effects as well as add or remove angles at any point in the editing process. The Angle Viewer provides a new way to view Multicamera Clips viewing either a few angles or many angles at the same time while editing. Switching angles can be done by either the mouse or with keyboard shortcuts.

In this webinar, we'll take an indepth look at the Angel Editor, the Angel viewer and all the other tools included in the new version of FCP X for Multicam editing.


By the Light of the Moon | Barry Goyette | Vimeo
Really low-light footage shot with the Canon C300:
Consider this an exercise into how far the Canon C300 can be pushed in terms of sensitivity. In this new edit there are sections at the beginning and end that, with the exception of a few cars passing by, all available light is from the waning full moon a few nights ago.


In NYC on March 3rd? Don't Miss the Free Creative Conference DIY Days (I'll be Presenting) | Ryan Koo | NoFilmSchool
Ryan will be speaking at this event in a session: Building a valuable relationship with your audience:
We’ll take a look at all of the different methods of making yourself accessible in a connected age — Facebook, Twitter, and some less obvious choices — and we’ll see which ones work (and which ones don’t). Ryan will draw from his experiences building his website, NoFilmSchool, which two years after launch is currently averaging 750,000 pageviews a month.


HANDS ON: Canon EOS-1D X (sample images and video) 2-11-12 update | Ron Mart | Blog
An updated look at the 1D-X:
The biggest improvement in HD video has now been improved to prevent any moiré (i.e., that annoying effect you get when videoing someone in a herringbone suit) as well as better compression. Video will also now embed a time code which will be a big benefit to cinematographers.

I had a chance to sit one-on-one with Hollywood Director of Photography, Shane Hurlbut, and he was thrilled about the video improvements. He felt like Canon addressed his major pain points he faced when filming his upcoming movie, Act of Valor, with the 5D Mark II.


Canon PowerShot G1 X review | Sharif Sakr | Engadget
Engadget seems to have mixed feelings about this camera, though they ultimately seemed to like it:
Video quality was par for the course for a still camera -- but that's still a rookie course. Audio was good and adjusted cleverly to extremely loud and quiet sounds, and there's a 3.5mm mic jack and mini HDMI output to help matters further. Zoom works while recording, but it'll often highlight bad focusing. While the continuous auto-focus during video was better than some stills cameras we've seen, it still couldn't quite keep up with quick changes in distance


The H.265 codec brings Ultra HDTV resolution in 2013 | Alfonso Maruccia
| Neowin
The next compression standard?
H.265 will be designed to support new, still to be created video delivery and streaming technologies from day one, including devices working at 4K and Ultra HDTV (also known as 8K or 4320p) resolutions. Just to put things in perspective, the Ultra HDTV definition contains about 16 times the amount of pixels present in a 1080p video stream.


Magic Lantern firmware development | Google Groups
An update to the Magic Lantern software:
When recording movies or shooting JPEG, the camera discards the extra data above the clipping point (called "saturation level" in dcraw). On the other hand, good RAW software will use this extra data to recover quite a bit of more detail in highlights.

This update brings the ability to record extra highlight data, just like with "dcraw -H1" (see first link). I didn't do any serious testing, but I think you can get around 1 stop of extra highlight detail.



Monday, February 13, 2012

Another bash at the differences between the Blackmagic Intensity models

I thought I'd done a pretty good job of explaining the differences between the Blackmagic Intensity Shuttle Thuderbolt [$227], the Intensity Extreme [$284] and the Intensity Pro [$189] card the other day, but it appears not, because at least Patrick Inhofer expressed confusion about it (but then, he is getting old...)

To recap, these are capture devices that support 10 bit HD/SD with HDMI, analog component, composite and S-Video connections.

Here's another way of choosing between the three models*:


You're on your own from here...

*Of course, the Intensity Extreme could be used on an iMac and the Intensity Shuttle on a MacBook, but I'm trying to simplify things for you!

Installing Memory in an iMac

I installed a 16GB upgrade into the iMac yesterday. It was probably one of the easiest memory upgrades I've done, but still wasn't quite as simple as it seemed in the diagrams on the Apple Tech Note.

I should note right up front that I'm bit of a techno-phob when it comes to doing hardware upgrades/installs, which I blame on the time I practically blew up a NuBus card on a Mac II.

Apple provides detailed instructions that recommend lying the iMac down on a towel and attacking the memory slot from the side. That might work on a table, but after clearing the floor, I found I did most of the installation with the computer resting on its top edge.




The next problem I encountered was that the Philips head screwdriver I had didn't fit the screws! A quick trip to the hardware store solved that problem.


The screws are short and only have to be turned a two or three times (above). After removing the cover, you pull out the two plastic ribbons (below).


If you're replacing the original memory cards, you pull up the plastic ribbons to release the cards (you have to give them a good tug!)


Then you put the news cards in, making sure you put them in the right way. Again, it takes a bit of force to push the cards in; they don't quite click into place so much as "clunk"


Then replace the memory cover and restart. Ta dah! The computer made the happy start-up sound and came up with 16GB first time. I haven't always been that lucky.


If you don't count the trip to the hardware store, it probably took less than five minutes. YMMV.

Apple Support: iMac: How to remove or install memory



Sunday, February 12, 2012

Quick Links

Apple TVs are disappearing from shelves, could see an update next month as well | Seth Weintraub | 9to5 Mac
There are rumors of an iPad 3 announcement in early March, and now the AppleTV is disappearing from stores too:
But we also learned of another Apple Jxx product, the next AppleTV, codenamed J33 in the 5.1B software. Perhaps besides both showing up in iOS 5.1 software, the Jxx devices are also A6 devices?


Episode 41: The fallout from Bunim Murray’s NLE choice
| The Terence and Philip Show
Everyone's talking about Avid's recent profit as though this indicates a big turnaround, yet don't forget that just back in November they had a lay off of 750 staff. I think it will be another couple of years before we really know what happened in the NLE market:
Starting with the decision to go to Media Composer at Bunim Murray, Terence and Philip discuss the state of NLEs today and the business behind them. Its a long show and it covers a lot.


Casey Warren of Mindcastle on Crossing the 180 (#58) | Dare Dreamer
Podcast interview with a videographer that made the switch from weddings to commercial work:
Today on the show we have the cinematic mind behind Mindcastle Films, Casey Warren. In a just seven years, Casey’s company has gone from shooting primarily weddings and personal events, to a world-renowned studio that now primarily does commercial work for such companies as Canon, ESPN and Major League Baseball. He has a signature style born from a photography background that has won him filmmaking fans worldwide.


Bringing back the DVD | Sridhar M. Reddy | Blog
In his blog for his horror film Lilth, filmmkaer Reddy defends the extras on DVDs:
Watching a DVD with tons of special features is, for me, a huge treat. Maybe it’s because I’m a filmmaker and I love to learn about production and the magic of movie making. I love to know what goes into making a vision a reality - hence this blog. A lot of this blog wouldn’t be possible if I didn’t spend hours watching DVD features.


DIY Sony EX3 Shouldermount/ Protech st7 type | Vincent Slangen | CreativeCOW
Interesting DIY build rig to convert a Sony PMW-EX3 into a shoulder-mount camera:
After I decided with measurements the mount should have I bought some Aluminum 6mm thick. I cut the plates in halfway in order to bend them in the right shape. I am a lucky person that I have the skill and the equipment to weld the aluminum back together where it was cut. For people that do not please look at the internet en find out about Durafix for soldering aluminum is should do the job as well.


Romance of the Light | James Miller | Vimeo
Ethereal video shot using the Canon C300:
Filmed on the Canon EOS C300. Supplied very kindly by Guy Thatcher at hireacamera.com
LOG profile used at 5800K ISO 850 - 2000
Lenses: Nikon 28mm 2.8, 35mm 2.8, 50mm 1.8
Very light blanket grade added on encoding to Vimeo, untouched in edit.
Location: Brighton, UK


What people think editors do | Alanedit
Amusing little poster: