Arnieblog

Wings

Thu, 09 Feb 2012 19:23:42 +0000

I'm going to Film Forum tomorrow, 2/10/12 to see a restored digitally projected version of the 1927 William Wellman classic, Wings.

For anyone unfamiliar, Wings is the first film to have ever won the Oscar for Best Picture. It also has the best air combat sequences ever seen in a motion picture, Top Gun and Star Wars included.

The story follows two friends, Buddy Rodgers & William Arlen, from the American heartland to aerial battlefields over World War One France. Clara Bow also stars.

More info at the Film Forum website: http://www.filmforum.org/movies/more/wings

Book review: "Out of Your Own Pocket: Making Your First Short Movie, Vol 1"

Wed, 25 Jan 2012 22:05:36 +0000

Andre Campbell's new book, "Out of Your Own Pocket: Making Your First Short Movie, Volume 1" is a breezy little pep talk for aspiring film makers filled with some very good advice on how to find a script, cast, crew, locations, equipment, etc.

Campbell does not give detailed advice on plot, lighting, sound recording, choice of camera, editing or any other in depth technical advice, but he does give a nice over view of the basic nuts & bolts of film making. There is a good primer, for example on coverage, and a nice explanation of the difference between tape-based and file-based cameras.

What the book does do, is tell you where to start, what to worry about, and what to plan for.

If you've never been involved in the making of any type of narrative film, this book would be a good place to begin your learning process.

Web TV has blown my mind

Wed, 16 Nov 2011 21:55:49 +0000

Last month, I got a tour of an upstart web TV station, OnlyOneTV.com.

With not much beyond a few cheap cameras and lights, some video switching software and a fast internet connection, these guys are hosting and creating a bunch of TV talk shows on a variety of topics.

It reaffirms something that I first realized in the middle 1990s when I read Paul A. McKinley's memoir of his WWII service at his website, CruiserScout.com.

"Traditional" media like over the air TV and radio, cable and satellite, printed newspapers and magazines, theatrical films, they all put a lot of effort and money into the basic mechanics of publishing and distributing.

We now live in an age when anyone with an internet connection can distribute their own content for free or close to it. Fiction, nonfiction, video, audio, photographs, paintings, podcasts, webisodes, blogs, tweets- anyone can make them and post them. Transmitters, printing presses, film prints, none of this is necessary with web based media.

Independent film makers have been distributing their own films for decades by booking their own theaters and printing their own DVDs. Now they can also stream through services like Hulu, Netflix and iTunes. Even if they can't get their film into one of those channels, they can still post it on their own website, and maybe sell some advertising and charge per view.

But being able to distribute your own media is still only a small part of the equation. You still need to get someone else to find it, something that most independents still struggle with. But the biggest hurdle is to make something that's worth watching- even the networks and studios often struggle with that!

The Hidden Hand, 10/21, NYC Blood Center Auditorium

Mon, 10 Oct 2011 20:21:55 +0000

The Hidden Hand, for which I was colorist & online editor will be screened at the NYC Blood Center Auditorium at 310 E67th (off 2nd Ave) at 7PM on 10/21/2011.

The Hidden Hand is a provocative documentary about alien contact with humans and the effects on the contactees.

Liquid Sky, Anthology Film Archives 10/10

Mon, 10 Oct 2011 20:19:04 +0000

Liquid Sky, my client Slava Tsukerman's most famous film, will be shown at the Anthology Film Archive, 2nd Ave & 2nd St in Manhattan tonight, 10/10/2011.

Made in 1982, Liquid Sky is a cinematic acid trip about punk rockers and love.

Hacked!

Mon, 26 Sep 2011 00:35:07 +0000

Around 4 or 4:30 AM Eastern time my web host, inmotionhosting.com, was hacked. Mine was one of many that were "defaced", displaying a crude message announcing that the site had been "HackeD By TiGER-M@TE", and displaying a handful of what I presume where the hackers' handles.

My compliments to Inmotoion for resolving the problem for all of us in a timely manner.

I have to say that I'm disappointed by the hackers, though. I feel that they should have put a little more, or any, effort into their graphics package. I suspect that they simply bought some prebuilt package of hacking software on some Russian hosted website with a stolen credit card, dumped it into the first exploit they found and then went and laughed themselves silly over a beer. No real sense of craftsmanship or pride. No real effort put into it. Basically the child like work of teenage hoods.

Book review: "The Future of 3D Media"

Wed, 21 Sep 2011 03:59:27 +0000

In his new book, "The Future of 3D Media, Bringing Stereoscopic 3D to Consumers", Keith Fredericks manages to give a good, general overview of 3D displays without having to delve into the overly technical or the arcane. Mr. Fredericks makes a strong case that 3D in the home, whether by traditional cable TV or via the internet, will not become popular until glasses free displays with acceptable quality become commonplace, which he argues is not that far off. While it's not a technical primer or text, this book is a good read for anyone who wants to get a better, general understanding of 3D displays and content.

Tangent Devices Element is imminent

Thu, 08 Sep 2011 20:26:49 +0000

Tangent Devices is debuting its new Elements modular control panels for color grading software at the IBC trade show in Amsterdam. No word yet on pricing or when they will ship, but family of modular panels will be supported by Apple Color, Assimilate Scratch and SGO Mistika, among others. No word on Black Magic Designs' Davinci, but it would make little sense for BMD to support Avid's MC Color and Tangent's Wave but not the Element.

http://www.tangentdevices.co.uk/products_element.asp

Mazel Tov, EditShare on Lighworks

Thu, 08 Sep 2011 20:17:47 +0000

Another announcement from IBC is that EditShare if reaching a milestone in its redevelopment of the Lightworks editing platform for a formal, non-beta release at the end of November. The first beta of its Linux and Mac versions will be available in mid December. Moving the code base into open source is still a goal and is progressing in parallel with the other goals in their development roadmap.

http://www.lightworksbeta.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=122&Itemid=263

The new release will include a free version of Lighworks with support for a limited set of codecs and a somewhat restricted feature set. An annual subscription of $60 per year ($30 for educational users) will give you:

more codecs, including:
- Apple's ProRes
- Panasonic's AVC-I
- Red's R3D
- Sony's XDCam and IMX
- DPX
- AVCHD/h.264
all the features, including:
- titling
- stereoscopic 3D
- support for 3rd party capture hardware from Matrox, Black Magic Design and AJA
- support for AAF, OMF and EDL interchange
- shared projects and integration with EditShare's Flow and Ark platforms.

There will also be an optional support contract for $612 per year ($312 for educational users). Avid's DNxHD codec will be available for a one time fee of $55.

I have to say, $60 bucks a year for all that is a steal.

The free version of Lighworks, along with the cheap subscription models for the full versions, along with the low pricing for Adobe's Premiere Elements, Apple's FCP-X and Sony Vegas will put some pressure on he bottom end of the editing market, currently serving hobbyists, no-budget indies, events and some industrials. Those who don't need to interact with mixers, online editors and colorists will be very happy with any of these products. Those of us who do need to work with mixers, online editors and colorists can pay $60 for a year's subscription to Lighworks and get all of that, as well.

Totally cool! It may, in fact, be time for me to get off my ass and learn Lighworks.

Holy shit! Adobe buys Iridias

Thu, 08 Sep 2011 20:14:33 +0000

Interesting announcements out of the IBC trade show in Amsterdam, today.

The biggest may be the bombshell that Adobe is buying Iridias, who's two product lines are SpeedGrade and FrameCycler. From the announcement, SpeedGrade will be integrated into Adobe's Production Premium and Master Collection software suites. How, or if, it will effect pricing is not said.

http://www.adobe.com/aboutadobe/pressroom/pressreleases/201109/090811AdobeAcquiresIRIDASl.html

The acquisition of SpeedGrade, and its integration into the Adobe Creative Suite bundles, is much like Apple's purchase of Silicon Color and their Final Touch product back around 2006, which became Apple Color. Apple put some, perhaps not enough, effort into developing and integrating Color into its Final Cut Suite, but has apparently killed Color with the introduction of FCP-X and it's companions, Motion 5 and Compressor 4. Final Touch had a price range topping out at around $25,000, while various releases of Final Cut Suite ranged from $1,000 to $1,300, Apple did not offer any of the FC Suite programs separately.

Adobe also has a policy of selling its major programs separately, often in two or three versions with different price points and feature sets. SpeedGrade was also available in two or three different versions, with the top pricing, off the top of my head, in the mid seven figure range for the software. It's conceivable that SpeedGrade will be offered separately from the bundles, but I can't see it costing anywhere near that. Especially with Davinci for the Mac priced at only $1,000 and the most expensive bundle of the Master Collection currently priced at only $2,600.

Adobe makes no mention of what's to happen with Iridias' FrameCycler playback and review software. In the wake of Tweak's RV playback and review platform delivering much the same feature set at about 1/20th of the price, and taking much of the post and VFX world by storm, I don't hold out much hope for its future as a viable product, but it could wind up as a freebie in one or more of the Creative Suite bundles. Also not mentioned is whether or not Adobe will continue to support SpeedGrade on Linux, where it has no current products, or if it will only support it on Mac and/or Windows.

SpeedGrade has a much more robust and advanced feature than Final Touch/Color, and it also has better real time performance. SpeedGrade is has native support with most of the new compressed raw formats for Red, Alexa, Phantom, Cineform, etc, and it also has a robust set of stereoscopic 3D features. By comparison, Color has native support for Red, but not for any other raw format, and it has no support for stereoscopic 3D.

In terms of price and features, SpeedGrade's closest competitor has recently been Assimilate's Scratch platform, with much of the higher end going to Lustre, Baselight, Pablo and the Linux version of Davinci. The bottom of the market has been reshaped in the last five years by Apple's purchase of Final Touch and Black Magic Design's purchase of Davinci, along with the improvement of native color correction features in many edit platforms, and the introduction of plugins like Colorista and the new Baselight plugin for Final Cut.

The middle of the market may be disappearing, and the purchase of Iridias is strong evidence of that.