Realistic Screen Compositing

Take your TV, computer and cell phone screen composites to the photo realistic level.

Revisiting HDV’s Virtues

Among my clients and friends who are video professionals, many of those who produce commercials, corporate, and music videos have already embraced tapeless acquisition with such cameras as JVC’s high definition Everio, Panasonic’s AG-HMC150/151, and Sony’s EX1 & EX3. However, those who shoot events (Bar Mitzvahs, Quinces/Sixteen Parties, Weddings) —and some of those who shoot documentaries— are relentless in defending their need to shoot on tape. They cite the following HDV advantages over tapeless acquisition:

• There is always an original tape for future use.
• The original HDV tape is the permanent archive.
• The original HDV tape is very inexpensive.
• Although they have to capture in real time before editing, they don’t have to worry about the time or expense of other types of long-term archival methods required with tapeless acquisition.

Automated Video Production

We’ve all been there: A client asks for a job that requires complex editing and effects, and they say (as part of the negotiation over price): “Don’t you have software where you press a button and it does it automatically?”

Large Scale Final Cut Pro Installations, Part II

This is the second of a two part series on large-scale Final Cut Pro installations. Pie Town Productions currently produces nearly twenty TV shows, including Design on a Dime, Hammer Heads and (my favorite!) Color Correction. I spoke to Scott Templeton, one of the founders of Pie Town Productions and to Dana Besnoy, Pie Town’s VP of Post. We discussed the workflows and standard operating procedures that allow Pie Town to pump out around 600 broadcast TV shows each year using about 100 seats (we have 30 bays, and a staff of about 75 people total. 100 seats is a high estimate) of Final Cut Pro running on a massive SAN.

PVC: What’s the key to media management with Final Cut Pro?

ST: The key to us in media management is experience and knowledge. When you know the limitations of something, rather than yelling at the ocean because waves are crashing onto my beach, well, learn what those limitations are and how to work with that.  In an operation like ours where we have such a lot of material that we deal with, it’s really starting with the basics of understanding first and foremost how FCP handles new clips. 

Introduction to the 5D Mark II’s Video Feature

When it comes to the Canon 5D MKII, we have a ringer at our sister site – ProPhoto Coalition.  Bruce Dorn is the guy Canon hired to show off it’s glory.  A still photographer showing off the video prowess you ask?  Well you haven’t heard of Bruce then have you?  Bruce could very well have his own channel on ProVideo Coalition with the career and experience he’s had in pro video.  After you’ve digested the 5D article, peruse his bio here.

We’ve only just launched PPC, but as the video and photography markets continue to coalesce, we expect a lot of articles to be of value to the PVC reader.

The 24 fps Prayer

We at Meets The Eye have been discussing frame rates today, triggered by the article at http://www.projectorcentral.com/judder_24p.htm. We’d like to use frame rate as a creative control, not as overcranking or undercranking, but as a presentation tool to affect mood and perception. None of us are particularly enamored of 24 fps, and Tim Blackmore was feeling frustrated enough by it and its persistence as a baseline for production and distribution that he composed the following:

Our Frame Rate, who art in heaven,
hallowed be thy cadence.
Though new display technology come,
thy blur be done,
on LCDs as it is on Plasmas
Give us this day our daily motion sickness.
And forgive us our disgust,
as we forgive those who use slow frame rates to spite us.
And lead us not into 2:3 pulldown,
but deliver unto us both HD and 4K.
For thine is the look, the feel and the tired old standard.
for ever and ever. Amen. 

You might disagree, but then, that often happens with religious issues…

(Oh, and it’s © 2008 by Tim Blackmore. Pass it on, but give the guy credit if you do!)

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