Making “One Man, One Vote”

Ten years ago a fellow named Marshall Spight posted a challenge on DV-L called “Throwing Down the DV Gauntlet”, in which he said, “everyone talks about shooting serious dramatic films with DV, but does anyone actually do it?” I responded, and we wound up making a 20-minute short called “The Beautiful Thing” using Sony DCR-VX1000s, the first 1/3” 3-CCD DV camcorders. It came out so well (it was for a time the top-rated dramatic film on iFilm.com, an early and long-defunct predecessor to YouTube) that we set about making a short political drama/comedy (?), “One Man, One Vote”. This one gave us a few more challenges.

Autodesk+RED Workflow Guide

The RED One camera and its ability to capture large frame size, RAW-format files has certainly ignited the imagination of filmmakers and videographers. But its unusual file format and requirements has also created a lot of head-scratching among users trying to find the most efficient way to send RED footage through a normal production pipeline.

To this end, Autodesk just released a white paper that covers using RED One footage with their Smoke, Inferno, Flame, Flint, and Lustre systems. It covers shooting, lighting, color spaces, proxies, going from offline to online, audio, finishing and final output including suggested settings, as well as an appendix on RED-specific applications and where they fit into the workflow. In other words, this isn’t a brochure; it’s a mini-handbook for users that describes the current recommended practices in some detail.

You can download the white paper here. Here’s a thumbnail sketch of some of its suggestions:

After Effects CS4 is Shipping

For those who might have missed the news, Adobe Creative Suite 4 started shipping this past Wednesday. Users are already receiving their pre-orders.

After Effects users looking to upgrade need to be mindful of two issues:

• As reported earlier, AE CS4 will not run on pre-Intel Macs.
• Not all CS3-compatible plug-ins are compatible with AE CS4; some will need upgrades. So far, most of these upgrades seem to be free or available for a nominal charge.

Fortunately, there’s information out there to help you through this upgrade decision and process:

Optical Flow Speed Effects

If you want amazing slow motion effects, consider sending your Final Cut Pro sequence clips over to Motion to apply Optical Flow.  Optical Flow is technology inherited from Shake and Steve Martin will show you why Optical Flow will help you avoid mushy-looking slow motion effects.

Interview over on Motion.TV

One of our plans for this blog is to also talk about the business of being a motion graphics artist - how to work with clients, as well as how to keep your own ship in order. Unfortunately, we haven’t had time to do much of that so far (among other things, we’ve moved). However, Lilian Dregalla interviewed us for the motion08 conference, where we had a chance to muse about subjects such as understanding the purpose behind each motion graphics task you take on, as well as some of the philosophy behind our books. You can read it here.

Meanwhile, we’re about to hit the road, speaking at VidXpo in Denver next week, and then speaking at motion08 in Albuquerque the week after. Hope to see some of you there! Afterward, we’re hunkering down to finish a new edition of After Effects Apprentice (for CS4), and then hopefully this winter we can get back to some of the topics we want to blog about up here.

The content contained in our books, videos, blogs, and articles for other sites are all copyright Crish Design, except where otherwise attributed.

The End of the DVD Reel

There. I said it. DVDs are done like dinner. Disappered like dodos. Disposed of like dirty dishes. Dissapated like disparaging alliterations that I’m now going to stop, please and thank you. Yes, I’ve burned my last DVD, and I’ll be a richer, more dynamic and connected man for it.

Handheld Camera Script

    Introducing a new script that creates an AE camera that not only has handheld motion, but can be easily adjusted to mimic a variety of camera motion effects like running, being on a gravel road or even being intoxicated to name a few.

Camera Raw 5.0 - Photoshop CS4 Sneak Peek

Richard Harrington shows you how to develop your camera raw files with Camera Raw 5.0 and CS4.

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