The Editblog

If you have been an editor for hire for any real period of time then I bet you have been handed a stack of videotapes or a hard drive in a box (or maybe a grocery sack) with no labels, no notes and no identifying factors whatsoever as to the format, resolution or frame rate of the source footage. It can be a very frustrating experience. I recently posted an An open letter to DPs, camera ops, DITs – Please label tapes and disks over at the Editblog on PVC. Let’s hope it might help out at least one job somewhere in the world!

In honor of the brand new addition to my family I think this Vimeo is perfect (found via Tickelbooth):

Last Day Dream from torbjon on Vimeo.

Starting this Sunday, May 10, HBO Documentary Films is going to begin air a 4 part documentary series on Alzheimer’s disease called The Alzheimer’s Project. Normally I probably wouldn’t promote or post about an HBO film but this series looks to be a bit more important than most. Alzheimer’s disease is a cruel brain disease that affects over half of all Americans and has an indirect cost estimated at more than $148 billion annually. Any disease with that kind of broad reaching impact deserves a special event like this that HBO is producing. I’ve personally been affected by the disease as my mother suffers from Alzheimer’s and I’ve seen the toll it can take on both the victims and their friends and family so I’ve been encouraging all that I can to watch this series.

But what if you don’t have HBO? It is after all a premium channel that you have to pay extra for. It would appear that HBO is going to provide access to this entire series in almost all media outlets available today. If you have come across the printed advertisements for The Alzheimer’s Project in any number of major magazines you may have seen the list of where the program will be available:

• WATCH IT on HBO and other HBO channels
• STREAM IT on HBO.com
• OWN IT on DVD
• DOWNLOAD IT as a podcast
• READ IT in the companion book
• VIEW IT whenever you want on HBO On Demand

It may have happened before but I’m not aware of any other multimedia event that has been broadcast across so many different “new media” outlets. It’s a great use of most all of the distribution channels available today to get the message out about this important subject. Thanks for taking the time to read this post and I hope you are able to check out this documentary series. You can find out more information on Alzheimer’s disease below:

So Francis Ford Coppola is working on a new film called Tetro. According to the film’s website:

TETRO is Francis Ford Coppola’s first original screenplay since THE CONVERSATION. It is his most personal film yet, arising from memories and emotions from his early life, though totally fictional. It is the bittersweet story of two brothers, of family lost and found and the conflicts and secrets within a highly creative Argentine-Italian family.

Coppola has made some of the greatest films in modern film history. He’s also made some real stinkers. But I’m of the opinion that a Coppola failure is usually much more watchable than a lot of the dregs out there today. Someone on Twitter (I can’t remember who) pointed to Coppola’s video that he made introducing this new film. I look forward to its release.

The annoucnement has been made for the nominatons for the 81st Academy Awards. Here’s the nominees for Achievement in Film Editing:

• “The Curious Case of Benjamin Button” (Paramount and Warner Bros.), Kirk Baxter and Angus Wall
• “The Dark Knight” (Warner Bros.), Lee Smith
• “Frost/Nixon” (Universal), Mike Hill and Dan Hanley
• “Milk” (Focus Features), Elliot Graham
• “Slumdog Millionaire” (Fox Searchlight), Chris Dickens

My money (and hope) is on Slumdog!

I haven’t taken any of the fxphd courses but I have seen a couple of them and heard many praises for the classes and quality of instruction they provide. The new term has just begun and you can view the different courses offered as well as check out the preview video. One particular course of interest to Editblog readers is the course Avid for Indie Film and Commercials. Final Cut Pro classes seem to be a dime a dozen these days so a good Avid course is worth noting. The class is taught by friend of the Editblog John Flowers from LIfeZero, That Media Show and That Post Show. John has been working (more) exclusively on Avid of late and will be a great teacher. From the fxphd website:

In this course, we cover the new Avid Media Composer 3 software, available on both Mac and Windows platforms, with a focus on Independent filmmaking and new media projects. In the first few courses, we take you from Final Cut – the standard tool for most Independent Filmmakers – into Avid – the standard in Hollywood. We will focus on the similarities and differences, with many, many examples.

Click on over and read the 10 class synopsis and then sign up and get started learning Avid for the first time or studying more in-depth Avid techniques.

Have you heard of the website Snag Films? I hadn’t either until I saw that the feature length documentary Dreams on Spec is available there to view in its entirety. What is Dreams on Spec? From the Snag Films website:

DREAMS ON SPEC takes an intimate look at how far people will go – and how much they will sacrifice – for the chance to pursue their dreams. This feature-length documentary delves into the lives of three aspiring Hollywood screenwriters as they pour their hearts into their spec scripts, pitch their ideas to anyone who will listen, go to meetings, hold table reads, and work at low-level day-jobs in the hopes of one day seeing one of their beloved creations made into a movie.

The film is 86 minutes (plus commercial breaks) which is too long for me personally to watch a film online so I’m going to try and tune it in via boxee on my Apple TV. The official Dreams on Spec website has additional information about the film as well. If you want to get the doc on disc then click on over to Amazon as they have the dvd too. I think many of us make a new years resolution to write more and for me 2009 was no exception. Maybe this documentary can help inspire a bit. Happy screenwriting in 2009!

Here at the Editblog, we recently got our hands on a great little 35mm lens adapter called the GT35pro. This adapter is created by Greg Tay in Singapore. We thought this would be a great addition to the HV20 video camera kit so we are excited to shoot some footage and test it out.

The unit we are testing out is the GT35pro Advanced. Greg offers a number of different configurations that adapt a wide range of cameras and budgets. Unlike the “high end” 35mm adapters, Greg’s adapters are priced at a different place in the market. I think it might be hard to justify $1000 + for a 35mm adapter that isn’t used in a professional shooting environment to make money. And by that I mean it’s not always easy to convince your spouse or your bank account that you need a Red Rock M2 Indie Bundle for $995 when all you want to do is shoot your dog or your kid. Are there advantages to a more expensive adapter like a Red Rock or those from Letus? Sure there are but that’s part of working on a budget, compromises. That’s where an adapter like the GT35 line can hit a sweet spot.

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The current video of the moment making the rounds for professional video editors, compositors and effects artists is a little technology preview from Adobe’s Creative Technologies Lab called interactive video object manipulation. Their description says it best: “This demo illustrates our research to bring interactivity to video editing: Our system analyzes videos using computer vision techniques, enabling interactive annotation, browsing, and even drag-and-drop composition of new still images using video footage.” It’s pretty cool technology that allows a form of motion tracking and manipulation of the video that as of today is only possible through some heavy duty software like … Adobe’s After Effects!

Interactive Video Object Manipulation from Dan Goldman on Vimeo.

Will something like this put After Effects out of business? Of course not, but if this type of thing ships for real and en masse then we could certainly expect a lot of bad motion tracking popping up from local car commercials to You Tube and beyond. To me, the most intriguing aspect of technology like this is to see how it would be implemented in professional level products. If there’s a simple implementation and interface dropped into a consumer level application like Adobe Premiere Elements then it would seem natural that they would drop a heavy-duty pro version into Premiere Pro or After Effects. It reminds me of another video that make the round a few months ago Using Photographs to Enhance Videos of a Static Scene.

Using Photographs to Enhance Videos of a Static Scene from pro on Vimeo.

Not surprisingly, both of these technologies were developed with the help of the University of Washington. Whatever they do it’s just another example of technology marching along and bringing things that were once done only by dedicated professionals with years of training on expensive hardware to anyone with a video camera and a computer. So is this a good or a bad thing for the art of film and video and our profession in general? That’s a debate and a discussion for another day.

We’ve launched a new page on the Editblog, Stuff We Use. A page is part of the WordPress platform; it’s a stationary page that is always available from the front page of the blog. On this theme we’re using they are listed as tabs across the top. The Stuff We Use page is just that … stuff we use in both our professional and personal projects at the Editblog. It’s sort of a recommendation/endorsement/clearing house for software, hardware, gear and resources that we have reviewed and/or talked about from time to time. This is all stuff that we liked and actually, really, honestly use. Most of the links from the Stuff We Use page are links to buy the products from places like Toolfarm or Amazon. If you find yourself wanting to purchase and of these products please use these links as the Editblog will get a small commission.

You know, I’ve never tried to actually make any money off of the Editblog but recently I’ve been very curious if anyone with blogs like this actually do make any money from them. That’s one reason you might start seeing ubiquitous Google ads popping up. I hope that aren’t too obnoxious and somewhat out of the way. But the Stuff We Use page isn’t so about making money as it is an answer to regular questions and emails that I get about what software we use for this, what piece of equipment we use for that. Stuff We Use is a good place to gather it all. We’ll keep adding to it over the years as we work with and test out more stuff! Thanks for reading and subscribing to the Editblog.