Runaway Production

One of the reasons we were happy to live in Los Angeles for so long is because it was where “it” was Happening - there was a critical mass of talent and infrastructure that made it one of the best places to create a film or television show. We also got started just when desktop production was becoming viable, which drastically reduced costs in many cases.

These are different times now. The cost savings of desktop production has already been fully priced in. Throw in an economic crisis, and producers are looking for other ways to save money - including filming in states that provide deep financial incentives (such as our new home state New Mexico’s 25% rebate).

Cool Video Prodution Widgets for Your iPhone or Laptop *UPDATED*

Monday, June 02, 2008
I often find I have too much information to remember (and for some reason people expect me to be able to spout pixel aspect ratio numbers like a multiplication table). Fortunately the fine folks over at Digital Rebellion has solved this (and for free). They offer several video widgets that do important math, these run on a web browser or iPhone (and a couple can run offline as well).

Video Footage Calculator – Calculates how much storage you’ll need for your footage type and duration.
Web – iPhone version – Offline version

Film Rate Calculator – Determines how much film you need for a particular scenario.
Web – iPhone version – Offline version

Aspect Ratio Calculator – Determines the aspect ratio for different footage formats.
Web – iPhone version

Depth of Field Calculator – Calculates depth of field for many camera sensors.
Web – iPhone version

Pixel Aspect Ratio Calculator – Determines relationship of Pixels for many digital formats.
Web – iPhone version

Lens Angle Calculator – Helps calculate the lens angle for a given sensor size and focal length.
Web – iPhone version

Power Load Calculator – Calculates the load on a circuit to see if it is excessive. You can also calculate the minimum circuit breaker size for the given load.
Web – iPhone version

These tools are cool, free, and useful…. three points that make them a must have for my iPhone.

NAB 2008 Super Session: A Million Dollar Look on a Thousand Dollar Budget

With big exhibitions like The NAB Show falling out of favor, and some disappearing altogether in the 21st century, NAB struck back this year by offering more educational fare than in years past, featuring keynotes and panels of experts from the industry, as well as day-long classes. On Wednesday was “A Million Dollar Look on a Thousand Dollar Budget,” a keynote and panel on getting cinematic production values out of equipment you may already have sitting around your studio.

The session was kicked off with the Legend of Zelda fan trailer “linked” here (nerdy pun for gamers paying attention) which appeared on April Fool’s Day, followed by a keynote by Stu Maschwitz of The Orphanage (and author of a fantastic blog) and then a panel featuring Dave Basulto of Clarity Pictures,  Alex Lindsay from Pixel Corps, D.P. Taylor Wigton (447 Productions) and moderated by Brian Valente from Redrock Micro.

The Second Revolution in Desktop Video

If you’re reading this blog hoping to learn - with post-humus apologies to Douglas Adams - The Answer to Life, The Universe, and Everything (view on Amazon), I’m afraid we may disappoint you from time to time: We don’t know all of the answers. But sometimes just asking questions is important, because it starts the discussions which eventually lead to the answers.

One question that’s floating around these days is “How the heck do I make money creating video content for the web, such as podcasts?” Indeed, it seems there is more money in teaching podcasting than in podcasting itself!

Free 7-day Passes for lynda.com

Sorry for the blatant plug, but there’s a payoff: A free week of as much online video training as you can watch!

We’ve been getting into creating online video training, focusing on specific topics and techniques rather than creating long-form courses (that’s what our books are for). Our current titles are available either pay-as-you-go through Toolfarm or to subscribers of the lynda.com Online Training Library.

If you’re not currently a lynda.com subscriber, and are curious to check them out before signing up, you can try them out for free for seven days by clicking here. Feel free to pass this link around. In addition to After Effects, they offer training on a variety of 3D, DVD authoring, NLE, and business applications - even tutorials on operating systems.

For those who are considering creating their own tutorials that they’d like to make money off of, we’ve been testing the waters for the past year trying out a couple pay-as-you-go services in addition to lynda.com’s subscription model, and - with all due respect to the excellent folks at Toolfarm and other places - lynda.com has been the hands-down winner from the content creator side. We’ve found them to be a great company to work with, and we plan to be doing a lot more with them in the future. We’ll keep you apprised as we release more titles, or if our opinion changes.

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