Broadcast salutes young talent

I would like to give a big shout to Tim Burton, Technical Manager over at Unit Post Production, and David I’Anson Editor at BBC Post Production, who I will be working with on Blast Friday which airs episode 1 on BBC 2 Friday night at 1130 or 12. These are two of a great group of folks featured in last week’s Broadcast as shit hot young talent in London. Well done to all who were featured. Now go on holiday. You are too young to be working that hard!

Apple + Google = ???

Sorry, but am running a bit late today, so only a few mentions.

Some big news (well, maybe) is that Google CEO Eric Schmidt has joined the board of Apple to sit alongside Steveo, Al Gore (wonder what the champion of earthly causes thinks of Apple’s recent humanitarian record), and Bill Campbell (intuit) among others. GigOM questions if this is good or bad and whether it will effect the industry in the way many are reporting. Mostly they think the video and multimedia markets will be challenged especially if Microsoft keeps pushing into the sector. Check out the great discussion that follows the article.

RED - IBC Showcase

Ted Shilowitz at Red has sent out their first official letter from Red. In it they announced their IBC plans including Demo sessions which will include 4K projection in the D-Cinema, which is where Pogo Films held their screening of Fast Lane Roogalator when HD on FCP was but a dream in the UK!

The Red letter said:

For those of you attending IBC, there will be various screenings of our first 4k images at IBC in the D-Cinema Theater, on the 4K Digital projector. Show times are as follows:

Friday, September 8th

@ 16:30 (4:30pm)
@ 17:00 (5pm)
@ 17:30 (5:30pm)

Saturday, September 9th
@ 11:00 (4:30pm)
@ 11:30 (5pm)
@ 12:00 (5:30pm)
@ 12:30 (6pm)

We hope that a lot of you are planning on coming to the show in Amsterdam. For those of you not making the trek to IBC, please check the Red.com website on 9/9 for updates.

So, go down and check it out!

Entourage Coming Soon

So, I previously reported that Entourage was soon to be aired on ITV4. I was wrong and don’t know if it was a turn around, or if ITV realised they should milk the star power of the show by pushing it onto ITV2, but last night I saw the commercial that it is due to start in 2 weeks time 10th of September, I think. There is a new Flash 9 site dedicated to the Show’s launch. In with Vince is a bit daft, but you can also see another use for new flash technologies.
Additionally, Broadcast Freelancer is reporting the show has a £1.5mil Off Air Budget for marketing, quite healthy I should think.
Viva le Entourage!!!

P2 720, 25P Workflow Explained

Mike Curtis at HDforIndies linked this German Site, aulich-adamski, where a pair of consultants out of Cologne have done some investigations into PAL HD workflow on FCP. The P2 PDF is 24 pgs so will print and read tonight and update. But for now have a look HERE.

Autodesk 2007 Offerings

Autodesk have updated their high end range and added a few additional bits and pieces reports creative cow. Smoke 2007, Fire 2007, Flame 2007 and Flint 2007 all provide improved performance and functionality as well as greater cross platform integration (FCP/Avid).


Smoke

• Improved performance in Burn, Clip History, Archiving, and file I/O.
• Architectural changes to increase robustness and better performance to accelerate project turnaround time.
• Increased ability to create effects in the DVE and Timeline
• New Rotoscoping tools to control edge softness and add motion blur to multiple shapes selectively.
• Redesigned clip library.
• Increased archiving options.
• Storage options including firewire drives (hmmm could this be important for FCP)
• AAF support for Avid conforms
• Improved FCP support fro XML rebuilding timelines with most transitions and effects in tact.
• Improved 3d support.
• Varicam variable frame rate in tact.

Flame

• Improved performance in Batch, Burn, Clip History, Archiving, and file I/O.
• Architectural changes to increase robustness and better performance to accelerate project turnaround time.
• New Rotoscoping tools to control edge softness and add motion blur to multiple shapes selectively.
• Redesigned clip library.
• Increased archiving options.
• Layer-based Paint offers new brush effects and attributes with very responsive, high-quality paint tool.
• Paint on any layer while simultaneously viewing the final composition for fast and accurate results.
• Add and animate cameras within a source node independently of the main scene camera for sophisticated compositions and effects.
• New Motion Estimation technology.
• Improved 3d support.
• Storage options including firewire drives.

Also, the new Backdraft Conform provides a way for auto-conforms to happen on the network utilising another workstation and work in the background while editor/creatives can crack on with the important stuff. I will try to wrangle a demo at Discreet to see how the workflow actually happens in practice as the details on the Discreet site is relatively sparse. But the gist is: finish your fcp offline and fire off an xml to the smoke which will conform the media in the background.

Finally, Autodesk Wiretap 2007 enables remote project management and third-party file exchange by allowing platform independent access to media and metadata in the Autodesk Stone file system. You can now take advantage of Infiniband networking with throughput of 400 MB per second. I will write about Infiniband in the not too distant future, but for now I will just say that it is a new networking standard similar to Ethernet, but LOADS faster which has been developed by Inetl.

In a nutshell you can write a little software to let your other workstations access the media and project information so you can run tasks which would normally need a Suite. The site doesn’t give specifics, but I imagine you could do things like input, output, encode, conform networking media. They do give examples of third party companies like Telestream, Inc., Fairlight ESP Pty., Maximum Throughput, Inc., and Creative Technologies.

Cant Decide Which HD Telly is Best?

A quick note about TV’s. HD Beat reported that the European Imaging and Sound Association Award winners were recently announced. Some interesting bits. I had a look at the best LCD which is a Sony Bravia. Here’s a great review of it on DVD Times. The reason I was interested was a few weeks back I went around the electronics shops staring at flat panel as the majority of them are crap full stop. The Bravia and a Samsung, (can’t remember model), seemed to be the best, but all of these are difficult to examine in the store settings.

Brightcove Secures First Major UK Contract.

OK, now that Brightcove has secured its first major UK contract, only Sky Sports, so not that major, really. Brightcove is taking internet television by storm! Their clients include; Sony BMG, About.com, TIVO, NY Times, AOL and others.  Brightcove came onto my radar about 7 months ago, when they started grabbing headlines in the states. At the time, I was looking at Flash 8, thinking how it would revolutionize web content delivery, especially in terms of video. If you don’t believe me have a look at the flash demo. I think this sort of technology is expanding the way we enhance video with interactivity. Brightcove has based their business around this solution and within the last 6 months the amount of web content that was only possible with Flash 8 that I see while surfing is countless. Brightcove has taken a flash encoding video codec and built a bespoke player around the technology. The only complaint I have is that the encoding quality varies so greatly from site to site. The TTF site has nicely encoded selection of clips, but the Sky stuff looks a bit dodgy.  I am planning on looking into the encoding method and will get back to you with thoughts.
Additionally, Brightcove cleverly built a distribution and revenue generating advertising structure to assist content owners in maximising their reach and earning potential while Brightcove takes a cut.  Much in the way Google Ads work, Brightcove acts a middle man, but the client becomes very dependant on the relationship to distribute their content and sort through the finances. I thought that small players would originally make up the breadth of Brightcove’s business, but the big contracts they have scored puts them in a good position to  corner an emerging market. Born out of the part of the world with some of the brightest minds, Cambridge Mass (home to MIT and Harvard and others) Brightcove is a geeky company as well as marketing triumph. One to watch for sure!

Review: Toshiba's HDDVD recorder

Digit reviewed the first HDDVD recorder to hit the market, but at £1700 I wont be rushing out to my local Dixons. They do say that Toshiba’s HD-A1 is easy to use and with over a TB of storage, (130 hours of HDTV) it is more than adequate for everyday use.

Not Quite The Blockbuster Hollywood Hopefulls Were Dreaming Of.

FYI, snakes fell short of all the hype which put an overzealous expectation on the film at upwards of $20million opening weekend. In reality, the super-marketing and web-craze counted brought in $15.2M. I guess, no matter what the hype is, people still need to like the film to make it a blockbuster. Yet without all of the headlines, the film would have meekly fell into oblivion. I suppose this is a successful exorcise. If you’ve got a bad film, do your best to create a cult following!  However the feeling in Hollywood seems to be that Snakes has faield where the Blair Witch succeeded. The reason given in The Hollywood Reporter was that the film had one big negative. No one wanted to see it, well, 20% of the tracking figures were negative. And with the film securing an R rating thereby limiting the amount of teenage boys able to see it, the reality of blockbuster business was never possible.

Can Apple Provide Customer Care to the Professional Market

I don’t know if any of you followed this story, but here’s gist. A man in Dublin, Karl Hayden, bought an iMac with Apple care. It broke. Apple sent bits to fix it. It didn’t work. They agreed to replace it, but a week later, hadn’t arranged to collect the broken one. He got fed up and decided he could deliver it to them on foot faster then they could arrange to collect it.  In the end, the head of Apple Corporate Affairs in Ireland called him, said sorry and got him a new mac in 90 min.

Ok, apple got them selves out of a bit of bad PR with a handshake and phone call. But this leads to I wider issue which plagued us at Pogo Films. There is no justifiable use for Apple Care in the professional market. Apple are servicing businesses with loads of machines but is unable to fix the problems fast and in the Post Production world is unable to help because the systems are built as much around third party hardware as anything apple. Take for instance an HD editing suite with a G5 (Even a top notch £6K dual core job). Well, that box is surrounded by some £20-30K + of hardware and is potentially generating upwards of £1000 per day in revenue for the facility. If that Mac goes down and it takes Apple a week to fix it, not only are the clients pissed and have long since gone elsewhere, but the loss to business exceeds the cost of the machine outright. The only solution is a same day replacement contract through your supplier, or as we did. Buy 2.

How well then, can Apple compete with its DIY post solution against the likes of Avid Quantel and Discreet. Pretty well it would seem, but even with large scale adoption, I don’t see it taking over the BCC. I think as much as engineers and assistants can stem the problems, every facilities or Ops Manager wants the corporate company they can trust.

This description of Apple’s customer care services as nonexistent, seems to rise from there view of themselves as a personal computer company. Massive enterprise solutions excluded (They pay attention to those clients), more and more businesses are relying on Apple servers, towers and SAN solutions as part of wider infrastructures, yet Apple focuses its attention on personal customer service as personal computers remain its core business. They are selling boxes, not services or editing systems. Their focus is ipods, not capture cards.  I have seen a number of praises for Apple’s Customer Service. Recently, Ramit over at iwillteachyouoberich.com wrote about how Apple gladly replaced his ipod headphones and in turn generated a positive review of Apple. I too have faulty ipod headphones, but have not bothered calling because of my painful experiences dealing with them when working with a top end editing suite. The issues are just beyond their support. Ultimately, Ramit’s livelihood did not depend on his ipod headphones being replaced that day. In this case Apple shines. Your success on a project or with a client may depend on how fast you can get another G5. So have a backup plan! Ultimately Apple is huge and the cost of implementing an effective worldwide support service for its professional clients is unrealistic. And yes, I do know of Apple Care Pro. It just sucks.

DI workflow for Indies

Studio Daily has a report on DI workflow for indie films which reads a bit like an ad for Assimilate’s Scratch DI system, but has all of the principles of the DI route using today’s available technology. They purport the rise of DI to come out of A-List directors wanting more control over the look and finishing of their films. When technology allowed the break away of DI work from proprietary systems, the rise of Indie DI workflow was imminent. The workflow I would adopt most readily would work around Final Touch as follows:

• Film 35mm or 16mm or Solid State 2K


• Telecine to DV and edit at 25fps


• Create editorial in FCP and EDL for TK to 2k DPX files and Conform in FCP to 2K pre grade online.


• XML to Final Touch and do Primary and Secondary grading.


• Use Film and HD LUT’s to create final grades.


• Test grade output with test 35mm prints.

Additional options as needed:

• XML from Final Cut to Smoke for any finishing touches and credits before going back to print.


• Export Film grade LUT’s as Shake node for composites

For my money the Final Touch route is a simple solution that yields great results. And with the added benefits of integration with Shake and Smoke(linux based systems have halved the price in recent years) , this is a solid workflow on affordable solutions, but I don’t know of a facility in London that can offer the full service at a price that meets today’s indie market. I do know facilities that are touting their £60K Linux smokes at old Tezro system’s prices £300-400 per hour. Unless you have got the best op in Soho, or a suite complete with masseur, you should be forking out about £200 - £250 and no more!
So with a 2k grading suite, Smoke and Online FCP  under £2000 per day (one pound per pixel line) editing a film can come in at the same cost per day as SD Tele.
Yet even with all this bang for your buck, people will remain number one.

MTV is Old, Itunes expensive, You Tube too much work. Enter the Music Genome Project

Additionally list weekend in the Times, there was this piece about the greying uncle MTV as it starts wear lots of gold, a dead badger on its head, driving a convertible and whatever else it can muster to remain “hip” and “cool”. Yes, as the babyboomers turn 60, their brainchild for marketing to the youth outgrows its audience at the ripe old age of 25. Of course kids now want interactive music TV, in fact they demand it. Mike at HDforIndies discussed today how You Tube is set on offering all free music video downloads, which undoubtedly puts a damper on Apple’s plans to sell them for $2. I recently discovered a great site that was listed in Time’s tope 50 websites. Pandora allows you to enter a name of an artist or song and creates a radio style playlist for your aural pleasure. This is great because it potentially introduces you to new music and requires minimal effort on your part. This is key, because interactivity is great, but lets not forget how lazy we are and generally need something to do the work for us. I mean I grown, when I have to flick through itunes to create a new playlist when people are coming around. But I digress, my point is two fold:

1) MTV is for vegetating and seeing new music videos. You Tube gives access to the music videos you want to see. Pandora does the hard work for you by searching and giving you what you like.

2) The problem with MTV and channels like it is that you often don’t like the majority of what they play, and the problem with You Tube is you have to sit at a computer and search for what you want to see.

By combining the Music Genome Project with the mass distribution of online music videos such as You Tube you get the ideal combination of music you like, videos and ease of use. This I think will be the death nail for MTV. Or if MTV can corner this market, it could lead to their revitalisation.

Little Miss Sunshine is out in the UK, Check it ou!

Monitoring 24fps project work around

So, I got an email the other day with a question of how best to monitor 24fps for an offline with no budget for and HD monitor & not wanting to use an LCD. The idea was how they could monitor their 24fps output on an SD CRT.
The ideas I came up with are as follows:
Best I know is the following options:
- HD CRT – Rent a 14” one for under £200/week
- Aja mini converter HD10MD3, 1080 24fps in NTSC 60i out.
- Decklink converter to LCD - Although need to look closer if it does 24 fps
- Nattress Conversion Software depending on render times:
- You could speed up everything to 25fps via 4% speed increase, or media managing your timeline to 25fps.
- If everything is being shot on film, do the Telecine down to 25 ot 29.97 using 3-2 pulldown.
- Playback at 24fps and deal with the frame jump on the monitor.

In the end, they came up with an interesting work around. They set their FCP to output via firewire and hook it into a DV Deck, then loop the comp signal out the DV Deck and into the CRT. This is not a perm solution as you are sacrificing a deck just to get your output. But as an interim work around until they get a mini converter, I think its pretty clever.

Any other suggestions out there?

Tribecca Streaming discussion Panels

I am going to be covering these shortly, as I was really bummed I missed them when I was in NYC. The only film I did see at the festival was Kill Your Darlings. The only thing I have experienced more vein than this production, was Bret Easton Ellis’ Lunar Park. If you read the book you’ll know what I mean. The shame with Kill Your Darlings, is that it was unintentionally this way. Yet hidden within the narcissistic scenes of the director (Bjorne Larson) prancing in front of the screen topless attempting to act, is a very sweetly developed story of love, life, disappointment and personal discovery. Flanked by deft performances by John Larroquette , Greg Germann and others, the film misses out on its potential by a mile. But I digress… The reason for this post is to say there are some great discussion posted by Tribecca FF on their site including, JJ Abrams (lost), Edward Burns, Jeff Garlin (Curb Your Enthusiasm), Morgan Freeman and more.
Check out the list here!

Studio's Take a chance on period film fronted by the album from Outkast

Outkast, have established themselves as a tour de force that goes beyond simply creating music. The filmic nature of their past videos combined with their aspirations to act in movies have prompted Universal and HBO Films to take a gamble on the duo leading an all star cast in the up coming Idlewild. The cast reads like a who’s who in black entertainment, but the appeal will be interesting to gauge. How well does Outkast’s eccentric taste carry over to mainstream black culture, or white culture for that matter? The film is a period piece, set in the prohibition era, but thematically and musically the film speaks to a contemporary audience. I am hard pressed to find a film that fits in this same mould. Perhaps Spike Lee’s Bamboozled, or Eddie Murphy’s Harlem Night’s. I say well done for getting the green-light from Universal, perhaps off the back of Big Boi’s performance in ATL. Also to secure the directing role for first time feature director Bryan Barber, whose stylistic music videos will lend itself to contemporising of the early 1900’s period, in the way Baz Luhrmann did with Moulin Rouge. Perhaps some of my examples here have been a bit of a reach, but I am all mixed up whether to be excited or fearful about this upcoming experiment. The marketing structure shown by the studios is also adventurous in that the success of the film will be determined largely by the success of the album, which is to be released several months earlier.

Monkeys with Guns

I’m thinking about writing a script about a gang of monkeys who through scientific experiments, take on the intelligence of humans but have a violent streak in them and begin to terrorise the planet. Kind of Gremlins meets Planet of the Apes. What do you think?
Can we start a hype like Snakes!

Actually, saw this pic on sploid.com where I get all my important news and couldnt help it.

Paul weighs in on 'Snakes' hype

So, when I first heard of Snakes on a Plane, I nearly choked-expletiving. Where have the studios dug this up from, I asked. And questioned the highest grossing film actor's intentions when signing on to such a predeter flop. Even the studio’s decision to not hold press screenings for the film reiterated the film’s destine failure. I suppose only, time will tell, but the marketing of the film has given it a fighting chance. The hype surrounding the film fell largely under my radar until I say an interview with Sam Jackson. They have pulled out all of the tricks they can think of and relied heavily on net hype to bring in the crowds.

• 1.5 million people got personalised recorded phone calls from Jackson in the first week of this promotion.


• Snakes on a blog.


• Snakes on a plane toast

Scrubs all on Final Cut with the help of Digital Film Tree

Digital Film Tree were the brains behind enabling Walter Murch cutting Cold Mountain on Final Cut Pro. Following that success they have gone from strength to strength. In this article, the crew at scrubs describes how and why it decided to become the first network TV series to be edited entirely on Final Cut.

Cheating makes movies that much more fun

I like nerve.com. Not for the pics ;-) But rather the creative spin they throw on films. Like this a list of infidelities and the movies they belong to.

Choice examples:

“A cheating fantasy can ruin your relationship faster than actual cheating. See: Eyes Wide Shut, American Beauty, Lost in Translation”

“Married professors, even after a lifetime of fidelity, will inevitably begin an affair with that one special student. See: The Squid and the Whale, Husbands and Wives, The Rules of Attraction, Terms of Endearment, Wonder Boys, What Lies Beneath, The Oh in Ohio”

ITV aquired one of HBO's Flagships and stuck it on ITV4, is this a clever move?

Recently, when I was staying in NYC, I fell in love with a little show on HBO called Entourage. I will occasionally use this site a forum to shout from the rooftops about things I think are really worth attention. The reason I think Entourage is important is two fold. Firstly, it is an HD production and second, it is a wonderful example of art mimicking life in terms of behind the scenes wheeling and dealing. A great example of this was reported by one of my fav blogs Hollywood Reporter’s Risky Biz is the sequel of Aquaman (Entourage) and Spiderman (real life), where the main character, Vince, delays signing on to Aquaman 2 and loses out to Jake Gyllenhaal. This was nearly the case for Toby Maguire during a contract holdout hold-out. Sorry for the plot spoiler, but its bloody season 3 in the states and do we get it over here in the UK? We’re about to! Probably not in HD, but ITV 4 is to start the show in September, I believe. I say, what, ITV 4? The third season of Entourage opener in June hauled in 2.7 million viewers in the US. I think ITV has a winner for there 18-34 multi-channel. Much the way Sky 2/3 has with Weeds. These high profile, award winning, US cable showers with multimillion viewer figures are put on the multi-channel perhaps for a number of reasons. Weeds and Entourage are both very US focused shows and further than that they are very regional California shows. Having lived in both LA and SF, I find both shows strike the core of life in the areas. So maybe the execs feel a main stream audience wont relate to the LA life in Entourage, but can they relate to life in suburban New Jersey (Sopranos), Utah (Big Love)? I think it is that the story focuses on young people with lots of money having lots of sex. Perfect for Channel 4/5 if they bothered to take notice. But, beyond that Entourage gains much from the stellar performances by my new idol, Jeremy Piven, and Debi Mazar. I think this could be ITV4’s tent pole. So lets spread the word!

Final point, without announcing the show, ITV has started littering images of the shows star Adrian Grenier in their channel montages. From the look of him, you hardly need to guess why. But it is interesting to see how channel branders work to get people recognising faces well before explicitly advertising the show.

D-Cinema UK Rollout Set to Increase Indie Film Distribution Ten Fold

I think this is the kind of thing that keeps independent cinema alive and hopefully thriving. The scoop is that a £12 Million Digital Cinema Network is about to rollout across the UK.  This is a part UK Film Council and Lottery Funded project which has just completed a pilot project of 50 cinemas and now will see 240 screens put into 210 cinemas across England. D-cinema is great and the advantages to studios and theatre owners is obvious, but this article focuses on where it will make a real difference:

• Access to otherwise under-exhibited films. There are a great number of indies and British films that are not in cinemas for people to see. This has a really negative impact on culture, and through greater access, people will have the opportunity to experience great contemporary and classic cinema.


• Reach for indie producers. Apparently the Uk is one of the worlds most expensive places to distribute a film. £18 million or 6% of total spend is on specialized film distribution which mostly see less than 20 prints for distribution compared to about 1000 for the likes of Harry Potter.  Digital distribution costs allow for 10 fold increase in distribution for specialised productions. Ultimately, this will increase the reach of such films to around 30 million people annually in the UK.

So, even with the changing tax laws threatening the UK film industry and in turn post industry, there are glimmers of hope. I really believe that initiatives like these are so important for national identity and culture. One forgets when living in London or NYC or LA that many people live near you, yet have completely different access to films.

So check out the D Cinema Today article.

Whats the hoohaw about Woodcrest

Curious about the new Woodcrest 64Bit Xeon Processors being touted by the apple sites as the next great thing from Apple.  Macworld has a nice write up on what the processors do and why there are so special.

Its not HD-But 3G is causing a fuss

KRM Cinema chain in Malaysia is offering cash rewards to staff telling on people recording films illegally. This comes after two men were arrested after being caught recording 2 fast 2 furious on a mobile phone!

Newsweek writes of ‘Spike’s Katrina’

Spike Lee has teamed up with HBO for the third time and creates a documentary following the fall out of hurricane Katrina. In the four part doc "When the Levees Broke: A Requiem in Four Acts", Lee interviews people directly effected by the catastrophe and several icons from the media coverage, including Sean Penn, Ray Nagin and the guy who told Dick Cheney to ‘go fuck yourself’. Additionally interviews include my fav CNN American Morning Host Soledad O’brien and Kanye West. The structure of the Doc is as 4 x 1 hour pieces. “Act I covers the storm's arrival; Act II chronicles the failure of the emergency response; Act III follows an abandoned community coming to grips with all that it lost, and Act IV addresses the halting, haphazard effort to begin again.”

This is HBO’s longest Doc ever and with a $2m budget it isn’t modest for the subject matter. "We've never had a four-hour documentary," says Sheila Nevins, HBO's president of documentaries and family programming. "But we could tell early on that the story needed more time."

Socially, Lee appears to be as critical as ever, taking this as an opportunity to address issues he takes with the American administration. Al Sharpton is quoted as saying; "I knew that what I had to say about this administration would see the light of day with Spike. Many times the mainstream news will cut you off when you have something negative to say about the White House. This documentary will make up for all those times."  However, I question lee’s ability to be colour blind. The Newsweek Piece claims Lee has not made a “racial polemic”, stating; “Some viewers will be surprised to find that Lee views the tragedy as a national betrayal rooted in class, not skin color.” Personally I think Lee has so strongly portrayed the psyche of  black Americans in films like Bamboozled, Malcom X, Jungle Fever and Inside Man. Inside Man is particularly emblematic of Lee’s ability to create strong black characters, but lacks a voice to share with white ones. That being said, Lee’s ability to devise strong black male leads has succeeded where many have failed. I hope this doc will find its way onto Channel 4 this year and am eager to see what will at least be engrossing in its criticism of a dismal effort on the part of the government.

The Lost Art of Film Editing

Within Sunday’s Boston Globe lurked a sweet little gem about current trends in film editing. Jessica Winter, author of the upcoming ‘Rough Guide to American Independent Film’, wrote a piece called ‘The Lost Art of Film Editing’ where she criticizes the need for speed, which has diluted the process of creating meaningful editorial and briefly reminisces about the editing in some of the great films.

In order to examine how editing has changed, she sets the mood by citing the Miami Vice remake and the quarter century of MTV exposure as emblematic of today’s style.  With film directors & editors starting in the commercial industry, it is all but expected the style of cutting features will be affected by this discipline.  She quotes Walter Murch (Godfather, Cold Mountain) and Tim Streeto (Squid and the Whale), both very respectable figures, and who still adhere to a filmic style of editing which nurtures pace as opposed to cutting “back and forth between two characters like a ping-pong match."

For further reading I suggest ‘Behind the Seen’ by Charles Koppelman which describes Walter Murch’s efforts in cutting Cold Mountain on FCP and Ralph Rosenblum’s ‘When the Shooting Stops’ which was first recommended to me by an editor friend of mine Joe Haughey.

Oman 3rd city gets new megaplex - Does new cinema distribution models effect world culture?

At times when looking at the biggest and best that the movie industry has to offer, it is interesting to read about a place where cinema is still the early stages of cultural integration. Sur is Oman’s third largest city and although I believe there are options for people to go to the cinema in or around Sur, this new two screen multiplex is touted to bring a new experience to people who are ‘starved for entertainment’.

The article goes on to state that due to the city’s infrastructure development combined with the new Hollywood practice of simultaneous worldwide distribution, the public are now more than every excided by the prospect of the cinema and less worried by the safety issues of leaving the house for entertainment.

So, cinema and culture are intrinsically linked with not only technology but urban development, an idea we in major western cities perhaps take for granted. Also, as Hollywood battles piracy though releasing its tent poles around the world in a matter of weeks, it is worth questioning the psychological impact this collective global viewing experience has on people in developing countries.  What I mean is; when a person in Oman sees Pirates of the Caribbean at the same time as those in NYC, there is a sense of jointly participating in a cultural experience. Does this bring the two worlds closer? Is this further solidifying western hegemony?  Good or bad. I do feel there is a connection that has cultural impact worthy of noting on both sides.

3D - Several options explained

This is a great breakdown of 3D technology as it tries to come back into the mainstream read it HERE. The article give a bit of history and a breakdown on the polarisation process used to create 3D images.

The article also describes a new technology which uses what are called LCD shutter glasses which “synchronize with images displayed on a movie screen or video game monitor. The screen alternates between frames for the left and right eyes, while the LCD shutters rapidly open and close to let the correct images through to the designated eyes”
George Lucas gave this system ‘rave reviews’ after they brought sections of Star Wars into 3D for demonstration purposes.
Finally, the iZ3D is a “monitor (that)creates a 3-D image using two LCD panels, one on top of the other. Players also wear polarized glasses.
The monitor creates separate images for each eye through its two LCD panels. The back panel, which is a standard LCD similar to off-the-shelf computer monitors, generates most of the pixels of the two images. But it has no way to split the information into separate images. That is done by the front panel, which is a modified LCD.”

This new technology is planning on becoming big for gamers who can invest in a 3D display and glasses.  

UFO Moviez buys new exhibition technology

One to watch. UFO Moviez, an India based company has bought the rights to distribute DG2L Technologies Mpeg 4 Digital Cinema System. It is being reported that “This move by UFO Moviez to invest and bring in next-generation technology to pan out its footprint in the markets, will revolutionise the way cinema is viewed both in India and around the world. Already, with over 350 plus digital theatres under its kitty, UFO Moviez has the single largest digital cinema network in the world!”

FYI the Mpeg 4 based system displays nearly 2K res end to end solution which encompasses digitising footage from HD source material, encoding and encrypting, as well as a patented ‘Reliable Transport Architecture (RTA)’ which delivers content via DVB Satellite, cable or IP (Ethernet) based networks.

At the moment, we are all waiting to see how and when widespread digital cinema will take effect. The way that film companies, execs and similar moan that people don’t go to the cinema, should inspire them to adopt such distribution models much more quickly. Digital distribution of content will save cinema owners a bundle in the long run if it means a drop in the cut of ticket prices being sent back to the studios.

Dolby to roll out 3D to cinemas

Dolby has teamed up with German company Infitec to challenge the prevailing Real D systems.  Dolby was instrumental in converting 100 cinemas to Real D systems with Disney for the release of Chicken Little. Having learned from the process, Dobly now feels the main drawback of having to replace the screens in cinemas with bright silver ones. The Infitec system is therefore much cheaper.  Dolby expects this to be in theatres next spring.

You will buy this product! HD DVD fights for hearts and minds

HD DVD is to launch a massive $150 Million marketing campaign to tout its platform it was reported a few weeks back by Video Business. The campaign will be flagged by a 18 wheel truck roadshow! Additionally, “The HD DVD campaign will cross print, TV, online, cable and outdoor channels and is expected to run over six months through February. All spots will be stamped with the tagline “The Look and Sound of Perfect.”

Apparently, Blu-ray has already run an advertising campaign. Did you see it? But surely this will further solidify HD DVD as the market leader.  Although I am still not putting money on either.

Where's all the HD content?

It would seem that our reluctance is coming back to bite us in the arse.  Engineer Live is reporting that even though the Govt has addressed the issue of regulating HD and the hardware is available to consumers, we are still missing out on wide spread HD adoption. DTV services are not transmitting HD to its customers. At least not enough to inspire new customers into the market. Why buy that new TV, when there are no shows which are going to benefit from it. They go on to say:

“However, a majority of consumers in the United States receive digital content through subscription services from satellite or cable providers. Although this programming arrives via a digital cable or digital satellite signal, it doesn't mean it is in HD format, that is a minimum resolution of 720 lines with progressive scan, or 1080 lines with interlaced scan… Concerns among content providers are limiting the amount of HD programming that is being broadcasted, inhibiting greater consumer purchasing of DTV sets.”

This problem extends from the broadcasters and cable companies in another direction as well. Producers are just not making the programmes.  Truth be told this baffles me. When I left a medium sized broadcast post house three years ago to join Pogo ( a much more nimble outfit). I think my perspective got clouded because we focused on HD almost exclusively. After a break in work in the new year, I returned this summer with the assumption that every TV programme would now be produced in DH with the exception of low budget day time programmes that were topical and therefore dated quickly.

I have since discovered that I was very wrong. I wonder where is all the hard work that has gone into establishing cost effective workflows which minimize post budget increases to under 20% in most cases.  In some cases HD can even be made cheaper than SD.  What is the delay I ask?

HD DVD fast to the mark on Soprano's

HD Beat is reporting that HBO will be releasing The Sopranos on HD DVD this November. This was promptly followed by the news that Disney won’t be able to get Pirates 2 or Cars out on Blu-ray until next summer. Ouch, does this seam like a format war?  Or has a clear winner taken hold.
I had been in the Blu-ray camp due to the capacity and what I can tell of the development path. However, I feel the public will adopt the early to market, easy to remember and cheaper HD DVD.
I was thinking that I would like to get some of the Soprano’s sets, but am holding off all DVD purchases until I upgrade once a format truce is announced.  I just wonder if they will be releasing the old box sets re-mastered in line with the conclusion of the series.

Dolby E?

Dolby E is something that crossed my desk last year and I was forced to scramble to find out what it was, why it was important and when I needed it. Today, while trolling through Dolby’s site , I found where they describe what Dolby E is.

To start, Dolby E is a way that broadcasters can transmit an encoded multi channel surround sound from 2 tracks. My discovery of this came in Sky’s HD delivery specs which required HDCam SR tapes which has 8 tracks audio, with 4 separate mixes on one tape including M&E versions and Comm versions.

Basically this has a massive impact on the cost and required attention to detail in the sound stage of HD productions.

Need to shoot a Blue Screen?

Here is a nice little discussion/debate for camera guys on setting up proper Blue Screens when shooting in HD.

How important is HD to Doc Producers?

High Definition magazine has a current article looking at the 17th annual “Sunny Side Of The Doc”. In it, Dave Brewis writes up what is truly an international perspective on the role of HD in documentary film making. Key points include:

• How The U.S., France and especially Japan are marching ahead with HD commission and acquisition


• There is a gap in the demand and supply of quality HD productions


• A comparison of Carrier Project and BBC’s Planet Earth


• How HD Channels are helping ease the burden of HD production


• The duality of HD Doc production life on the big and little screen


• Most interestingly is a point raised to suggest there is room to challenge the cost of HD production through the birth of the VOD market.

Worth a gander if this interests you.

Starting on the cusp of a revolution, well, maybe that's a bit of an overstatement

So, in starting this blog, I thought needed an event. one which I say as a beginning. There have been a couple of these over my not too long career. Firstly, the introduction of FCP and the emergence of Apple as a serious contender in the video post production market.
Two years ago, when i signed on to help launch one of the first FCP facilities in London, it came at an exciting time. Apple said their software could cut HD out of the box and across the industry there were cries of delight and anguish. The biggest grumblers were the resellers whose high-end systems traditionally came with high price tags and margins to match. However, FCP was to pave the way for a new era of competition within the industry. From my perspective this came at a much needed point. The explosion of multi-channel broadcast in the UK lead to the spreading of advertisement funds added onto ever-growing internet advertising simply equalled less money to make the majority of projects. This is a much discussed topic which I am briefly touching on now, but it importantly lead to a market for small, economically minded facilities with major reductions in equipment costs being able to offer cost effective post solutions. Targeting Pogo Films at this market we were able to ride a development wave of Apple technology which has lead to this point. Now on a Mac, we can work with all resolutions DV to 2K and all formats including HD to 35. I have since parted company with the boyz and girlz at Pogo, but keep in close touch. funny enough I find myself at BBC Post Production where we are just installing a Final Touch suite.
This brings me to the beginning which is a bit of an end. Apple's World Wide Developers Conference sees the end of the Power PC and wraps up Apple's transition to Intel. These new towers signify a specific step to finishing high end productions in a new way. As Mike Curtis of HD For Indies said this week of Red Camera:

"...future film school students will be shown a graph with a time scale with a dramatic bend and point of inflection on the chart, and the professor will point at that sharp break in the line with his laser doohickey and say "...and this is when Red came out."

So, now is an exciting time and I feel it is an appropriate time to start a discussion on all things HD to 35.

My new £6000 machine

Following the exciting yet expected news of release of Mac Pros i have speced my new machine. Or the one i imagine we will be getting for the enw Final Touch Suite at work. The price: just over £6K. This is a massive step up from the price we paid for the dual core. However, mac are providing more cost effective boxes, but c'mon for hd and 2k work we want a bit a muscle. For the full specs check out the store as it has a clearer list. But here is the specs i chose which should get us going out the box and have room for drive and ram upgrades through cheaper avenues.

Mac Pro

Part Number: Z0D8

NVIDIA Quadro FX 4500 512MB, Stereo 3D (2 x dual-link DVI) 065-6364
Both Bluetooth 2.0+EDR and AirPort Extreme 065-6725
Apple Keyboard & Mighty Mouse - Int'l English (wireless) Z065-6280
Two 3GHz Dual-Core Intel Xeon 065-6508
500GB 7200-rpm Serial ATA 3Gb/s 065-6745
Fibre Channel PCI Express Card 2Gb 065-6522
Country kit 065-6244
8GB (4 x 2GB) 065-6414
1 x SuperDrive 065-6251
Mac OS X 065-6245
500GB 7200-rpm Serial ATA 3Gb/s 065-6367

Ready to ship: 2 - 4 weeks

Subtotal:	£5,165.71
Shipping Charge:	£0.00
VAT:	£904.00
Order Total:	£6,069.71