MSM on Hollywood’s Obsolete Business Model

HDFilmTools shed a little light recently on mainstream media coverage of the major upheaval in Hollywood’s traditional business model. With the credit crunch, the rise of piracy, and slacking DVD sales, the industry is in a unique position that they’ve not had experience with in the past. While these changes have not occurred overnight, it appears that they are finally seeing some major media coverage.

Why Do LA People Suck? John August Responds

Over at John August’s blog, he’s posted some feedback from a reader that asks the question “Why do LA people suck?” and rants a bit about backstabbing and shallow friendships. John does an excellent job of breaking down the themes in the e-mail, nicely explains the difference between friends and colleagues, and offers some tips on how to better network and ask for help. It’s an odd post, but a good one. Check it out.

Pimp Your Video DSLR with a monocle from Nikon

Via this machine-translated blog entry is an interesting look at a product from Nikon, the Media Port UP300x. It’s a set of headphones outfitted with a eyepiece complete with a LCOS screen at 640x480 pixels, built-in media storage, and is intended for use as a PMP-type device. But it also offers a video input, and some enterprising individuals have hooked it up to the Nikon D90 DSLR for use with the LiveView and video recording functions. Is this the future of filmmaking?

Inspiring Music Video from M83

A beautiful fan-created video for M83’s “We Own the Sky” music video contest. Particle animation done using Trapcode Form. Watch below.

Free Deshaker plugin for Virtualdub fixes shakes, CMOS wobble

Virtualdub is the free swiss-army-knife utility for Windows users that offers tons of features and plugins. One of the latest plugins for the app is Deshaker, an image stabilization filter that also offers controls to deal with common CMOS rolling shutter artifacts. There’s a great review of the plugin over at Outside Hollywood, and I highly recommend that you read the FAQ/notes at the plugin author’s website. CMOS camera shooters, pay attention to the “Camcorder has a rolling shutter” section on how to best configure settings. As a Mac user, I’m sad to note that Virtualdub is Windows only.

On Set with Red: A Weary AC’s Rant

While Red was making new product announcements in November 2008, I was busy AC’ing a 10-day Red One shoot. Between takes the crew discussed the new camera and sensor options announced by Jim Jannard and Co. The ability to mix and match sensor sizes for maximum flexibility whets my appetite as a filmmaker. However, for myself and others I’ve spoken with, that excitement is tempered with a bit of cold reality. The general concensus is, “Finish the camera you promised at NAB 2007 before you deliver another line of products.” Leading up the camera department on this project and others has really driven that point home to me. Donning my flame-retardant gear, I’m going to take a few minutes and get some of these issues off my chest. Read on…

Conveying Emotion in Cinematography with Color Themes

Outside Hollywood has an excellent post on Color Theory for Cinematographers. In the article, the author breaks down the film Blackhawk Down scene-by-scene, showing the consistent and effective color themes used throughout. In the film, Ridley Scott and DP Slawomir Idziak chose to buck the standard color theory trends…

Ted Talks - How Benjamin Button got his face

In this video from TED, Digital Domain effects guru Ed Ulbrich presents on the Oscar-winning technology they built for “The Curious Case of Benjamin Button.” Watch below…

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