High Resolution Revolution

This Blog is OLD

2009-12-16T12:25:00.001-08:00

No new posts will go up on this blog - please keep up at Deliberate Industries.

Thank you very much,

-Anton

I've Gone to Deliberate Industries For Now

2007-04-11T20:42:00.000-07:00

Sadly, I just can't keep up with this blog anymore. I have helpful video information coming out of my ears, but there is just no reason for me to continue writing in this space. You can now find all of my posting at my official blog - Deliberate Industries.

Wh, wh, WOW --->Planet Earth

2007-03-25T18:27:00.000-07:00

As I type this I am watching the new Discovery Channel series, "Planet Earth." (Here are the promos for the show.)

Filmed in high definition, with state of the art camera technology and amazing documentary crews and producers, Planet Earth is a revolution in Nature Documentary. The most amazing shots come from the Cineflex heligimble,

used in conjuction with a helicopter, allowing the viewer to fly over animals in their majestic natural habitate from long distances, yet viewed through an extremely long yet incredibly clear lens. Planet Earth is a must see, in High Definition if possible.

Overnight, sigh, Good Film

2007-03-21T23:31:00.000-07:00

If you haven't seen the documentary "Overnight," about Troy Duffy, the writer-director of the film Boondock Saints, who had Hollywood handed to him, and yet managed to destroy his filmmaking career after nearly never even starting production on his only film, Boondock Saints, you should watch the movie "Overnight." It's a good film, and it's a must-see training session for anyone who wants to break into the Hollywood film scene. Or for anyone with a huge ego that wants to be humbled before it's too late, and they've wrecked themselves. I reccomend this one.

Video Blogging and Posting

2007-02-14T11:48:00.000-08:00

A while back I wrote an entry here and here about a website called FreeVlog.org, where they host free video tutorials on how to post your own videos to your blog. That was a long time ago and I've yet to figure it out for myself. I have two new websites in the works, one of which is DoubleAPictures.com. I am working today to learn the intricacies of posting Quicktimes on the web as well as doing a tutorial for Adobe GoLive.

As soon as I have a little more information, on web-design and video hosting, I will post at length, tutorials on how to build a site which features easily viewable Quicktime video, as well as how to post your own Quicktimes on Blogger.

For now, check out the tutorial on FreeVlog.

I just did this as a test, and I'm pretty happy about it:

Click To Play
(P.S. I made this simple Superman video as a test in After Effects to get a bit more proficient with key-framing. Since making this I've learned how to make the globe 3D, and to make it actually spin. I'll probably post that as an After Effects tutorial soon.)

High Resolution Revolution 2.0

2007-01-12T09:07:00.000-08:00

Hi there, this is Anton. Posts have been sparse lately, and I've also noticed that traffic to this site has decreased significantly. I'd like to correct this, so I'm back to continue providing insight into High Definition video production. In the last 3 months I've been to Europe and filmed 9 episodes of a HD travel reality show, worked on a 2 million dollar campaign for the 2007 Toyota Tundra, shot entirely on the Panasonic HVX200, and have been working as an editor for the last 2 months for a commercial post house on big campaigns for Sierra Mist, Lowes, Denny's, Western Union, AT&T, Jose Cuervo and a whole slew of other clients. Next week I will begin training at Panavision, one of the best camera houses on the planet, and I will be working on tests for the Panavision Genesis digital cinema camera, one of the most exciting new digital cinema cameras in use today. I have big things to tell you about and I hope you will tune-in in the upcoming weeks.

-Anton

If You Are a Serious Editor

2006-12-12T22:06:00.000-08:00

There is a website called Lynda.com, on which, one can access hours and hours and hours of really well put together tutorials on how to use various pieces of software. Here are some of the ones that I am learning:

After Effects
Final Cut Pro
Soundtrack Pro
DVD Studio Pro
Compressor
Illustrator
Photoshop

And many more. It is a great resource for any serious editor. The payment options start at $25 a month, and it is worth every penny. If you wanna be a technically proficient editor, these resources are probably better than college for that.

Jackass Number 2, and the Greater Filmmaking Implications

2006-10-12T12:59:00.000-07:00

I watched Jackass Number 2 the other night with a friend who I hadn't seen in a long time. I laughed uncontrollably throughout most of the movie even though deep-down I knew that the Jackass guys were taking it too far. I value that kind of self-expression, however, I'm a little fearful of how far the envelope is being pushed. I just as much enjoy seeing guys race down a hill on giant blocks of ice, as I do any stunt they pull, however, seeing a guy get blind-sided by an explosive balloon and nearly blinded for life is over-the-top and unnecessary. If you are a girl, don't go see the new Jackass movie, I can't imagine that you'd find it remotely interesting. But if you are a guy and you've never seen the CKY movies, look them up on Youtube, it's pretty interesting to see the evolution of these guy's filmmaking.

Project MyWorld Only on Direct TV

2006-10-09T23:07:00.000-07:00

For those of you anxiously awaiting my return from Europe, here are some clips from the first Episode of Project MyWorld.

The show airs on Direct TV "Channel 101" on Mondays at 5pm.

A Lesson in Exposure

2006-08-28T01:18:00.000-07:00

When this is all through, I will post a lesson in how to correctly expose video images. There is definitely a difference in exposing a 4:4:4 color space as compared to a 4:2:2. HDV doesn't hold up when the forground is correctly exposed and the background is blown out, this makes shooting in high contrast tricky. More news about traveling Europe and shooting a dramatic travel-documentary using the Sony Z1U. L.A. has been eye-opening so far.

Europe, 42 days, shot in HD

2006-08-15T14:19:00.000-07:00

Here is the itinerary:

Begin in LA for a few days to establish the 3 characters. Head to Spain for the Tomato festival. Drive up the French Riviera heading for Venice, Italy. Fly to Croatia, for the beaches. Fly to Munich for Oktoberfest. Take the train heading for Paris. Take the Chunnel to London. Fly to Reykjavik Icleand before heading home.

I'm really excited about this.

Short List of the Events of the Last Twenty-Four Hours

2006-08-02T22:24:00.000-07:00

12:00am - Wednesday - Finishing up project to be burned to DVD the next morning. The product of 2 months of work.

9:00am - Wednesday - Plug in drive to begin working on Project DVD, get an instant message hear a click and an electro-static noise. Get an error message saying, "improper device removal."

9:30am - Panic sets in as I realize all 11 hours of footage has gone offline. Panic more when the power button on the 500gig Lacie drive that I have borrowed does not work.

10:00am - Try to stay calm, try to find our IT guys.

11:00am - Open up the project backup and try to relink the footage that I have backed up to another drive. Panic again as I realize that I only backed up 4 hours out of 11 hours of footage.

12:00pm through 7:00pm - Everything I touch is falling apart in my hands, footage is not relinking. Pay $65 to rent an HDV camera, footage will not redigitize correctly. Learn that the hardrive is dead. Go to the Apple store and spend $370 to replace the drive that just died, because it didn't belong to me.

8:00pm through 10:30pm - Hang out with friends try to remain calm. Drink a Carlsberg and talk about the Bible.

10:30pm - Come back to the office, delete the 6 hours of recovery work from that afternoon and start fresh, create a new project backup using Final Cuts "Media Management feature" in which a new project is created using only the selections in your timeline, begin to recapture new offline clips.

12:31pm - Thursday - Official last day at work. Read and try to stay awake as I feed tapes into the HDV camera.

To sum up, I spent about $470 today and lost a large amount of the work that I having been consumed by for 2 months. It could be worse though. If I hadn't backed up the Final Cut project file before I left last night, much more could have been lost.

*Moral Of The Story - Back up your projects constantly, and never ever trust hardrives, especially Lacie hardrives.

My Hardrive Just Crashed

2006-08-02T08:52:00.000-07:00

The 500 gig Lacie drive that I had all of my footage, voice-overs, graphics and music on just crashed. It has been shutting off and then coming back on each morning when I turned it on for the first time and I knew there was a problem. This time it didn't turn back on, and won't turn back on no matter what I do. Most of what I had on it was backed up, thank goodness, however, the drive doesn't belong to me and it's overdue which is going to strain my relationship with the friend I borrowed it from (I will of course buy him a new one). Some data will no doubt be missing and irreplaceable, this is a major setback under the time constraints I am in.

Oh, and also, my sister's wedding video that I was cutting was on the hardrive that crashed and that wasn't backed up at all, which means it's gone for good. - "Deep exhale."

*It turns out that I didn't have everything backed up like I thought I did. I have to recapture my footage and I don't have a deck to do it with. This is not good.

Phase One of Three Complete

2006-08-01T09:33:00.000-07:00

With the cut now complete, the real work begins... Next step, finishing, then authoring, then packaging, then distributing. I would venture to say that this video took 200 hours to complete. This is the first long-format mission-doc that I have created. The first time is always a learning process, and usually painful, but I'm already looking forward to the next one.

Travel The Road: The Best Show You May Never See

2006-07-25T16:50:00.000-07:00

Last night a friend brought me a DVD that I had given to another friend to check out almost a year ago. After the first friend's dog ate the DVD case, that friend gave the disc to yet another friend who then kept the disc for 8 months. The last friend in the chain finally went over to the second friend's house, picked up the DVD and brought it back to me, chewed-up case in all.

I had actually never watched the DVD. I had watched episodes of the TV show that were on the DVD, but I'd never actually seen the content of that disc, which contained the first 3 episodes of a TV show called Travel the Road. Today after work I watched the first episode. I was blown away. It is the best program on television. It is the best program on television. Find out where and when Travel the Road plays in your area (on my cable system it comes on a crazy religious network at 1am), if you have Tivo, Tivo it, if you can stay up, watch it. This show is amazing for so many reasons, the story, the photography, the adventure, the passion behind it all, and the message.

Travel the Road is the product of these two men (among others):

Timothy Scott:

And William Decker:

For more information, visit Travel the Road's Website, found here.

This Don't Look Like No Mission Trip Video I Ever Seen Before

2006-07-21T08:32:00.000-07:00

After a month and a half of editing, and losing weight and procrastination...the video still isn't done. But it's getting close! So far I have cut 10 sequences, all ranging from three minutes to about six minutes. I think their will be two more, which I should finish the rough cuts of today.

Kokoyaku

2006-07-14T14:56:00.000-07:00

I saw three minutes of this film the other night on PBS, the last three minutes, and I said to myself, "yeah, I like that."

Here is a 3 minute promo.

The way this movie ends is really powerful. Maybe what I saw was actually just the trailer, because the trailer ends the same way. I couldn't find it online, but I'll try to post it later.

I found it but the quality is terrible. It is here, on this page.

Leonard Cohen: I'm Your Man

2006-07-13T21:34:00.000-07:00

There are certain concert films that capture the emotion of the performers in a way that television has completely forgotten, call it the MTV generation. Even my beloved Conan O'brien falls into this trap to some degree. There is something about a close up, unfaltering on a vocalist's face as they sing a song that moves us more than a million crane-shots and fast cuts and inserts of fingers on instruments. If you know what I'm talking about than you've probably seen Martin Scorceses "The Last Waltz," his film of The Band's farewell concert in the late 70's. It is an amazing film, and I highly reccomend it.

Which brings me to this:

Leonard Cohen: I'm Your Man, which will soon hit select theatres is another amazing concert film and documentary in the same vein. Even if you have no idea who Leonard Cohen is, and even if you have no idea who the performers who play his song are in the film, you will enjoy this movie. And chances are, you will fall in love with Leonard Cohen.

Caught In The Moment: Zeal Disguised as Admiration

2006-07-11T09:21:00.000-07:00

There is a new show on Animal Planet called Caught In The Moment, and it is fantastic. It hearkens back to the days of classic National Geographic nature documentaries, or the sort that were mastered in the 1980s and have since fallen by the wayside in favor of assembly line homogenous garbage with "Extreme!" in the title. The difference in this particular show is that it is a behind the scenes look at the "making of" process of classic nature-doc filmmaking.

The two hosts are Tristan Bayer and Vanessa Garnick, both gorgeous, environmentally conscious "Green" travelers and filmmakers. What's funny is that these young filmmakers are of my generation (early 80's babies) and thus they talk and act and think in a similar way to my own MTV generation. They say "like" a little too much, and use "awesome" as their adjective of choice, but they don't shy away from genuine emotional outpouring at the majesty of natural creation. I've only seen one episode, but the show holds great promise as a refuge from the current trend of mindless fodder disguised as "nature-loving" entertainment.
If it takes gorgeous people to get a new generation to be passionate about conservation, then that's what it takes, but these two are the real deal.

After 60 Hours, Or Maybe More

2006-07-10T17:11:00.000-07:00

Each tab is a section of the video,
usually broken up into 5 or 6 minute sequences.

Here are my 7 timelines. When it is time to export the movie as a whole for the DVD, all I will have to do is copy and paste each sequence into one master timeline. The fit back to back with audio bridges to act as handles on the head and tail ends.

An Inconvenient Truth - Worth Seeing

2006-07-07T22:42:00.000-07:00

I saw a good movie tonight. It shook me. On a scale of cinematic quality I give it a 5 out of 10, I mean it's Al Gore giving a PowerPoint presentation.But on a scale of cinematic and pragmatic importance I give it a 10 out of 10. This, along with a film called The Corporation, may be the most important movies you will ever see, at least on a worldwide scale. They offer no easy solutions, but they may well motivate you to take on the small changes in your life that will secure the possibility of a future for your children.

This Man Scares Me

2006-06-29T15:19:00.000-07:00

Larry Clark on Wassup Rockers:

A few observations about Larry Clark:

•He was born in 1943.
•He shoots beautiful and compelling images.
•His films are often about young kids living sexual
and violent lifestyles.
•He calls himself a method director, and he says that
Wassup Rockers is his best film.

I don't know if I'm going to see this one or not. His films are not for everybody.

Maximum Quality SD DVDs

2006-06-28T14:09:00.000-07:00

Mind Blowingly High Quality DVDs From Master Tape Sources, here's how to do it:

Decklink Extreme™ --> Log and Capture tool in Final Cut Pro 5 --> Export to: Compressor, use the 90min. Best Quality setting --> Import into DVD Studio Pro

Easy Peasy. Now here is what it looks like:

The picture on the left is the NEW process, the picture on the right is the OLD process.

Why Filmmaking Scares Me

2006-06-27T13:11:00.000-07:00

Because it is possible, that one day I could inadvertantly make something this bad.

And when I say "bad," I of course mean brilliant.

Donald Trump on Citizen Kane

2006-06-27T12:14:00.000-07:00

I don't know a whole lot about Errol Morris as a filmmaker and I wish I did, but I don't. But here is one his short films in which millionaire business tycoon in real life, Donald Trump discusses millionaire business tycoon in the most famous film of all time, Citizen Kane:Watch: Donal Trump Discusses Citizen Kane

P.S. I know that this has been on the internet for a long time, and I'm not trying to break ground here. But this is classic.

It Aint Pretty It's My Setup

2006-06-26T12:28:00.000-07:00

These days, I'll take what I can get, especially if it works. While one would never invite clients into a room like this, sometimes function wins out over fashion.
Here is what you see:

*G4 1.25 GHz dual processor, 1 Gig SDRam
*Blackmagic DeckLink Extreme™ PCI card being fed SDI from a Digibeta deck
*1 500-gig Lacie Drice via 6 pin Firewire (capture scratch), 1 160-gig Lacie daisy chained through an 80-gig Lacie
*17inch Apple Monitor
*Epson Printer and Scanner
*DVD Duplicator
*Final Cut HD, Compressor, Adobe Creative Suite, After Effects and DVD Studio Pro

This is the setup that I will use to edit the Brazil Documentary from now on. As per my post on burning high quality DVDs, this machine will be used for that tutorial as well. All of my voice over for the documentary will be recorded using a Mackie mic, through a Mackie board and actually recorded into an Avid Media composer through the digitize tool. (If you are interested in seeing what that looks like let me know.)

interlude: A Prairie Home Companion

2006-06-24T23:17:00.000-07:00

Two things:

1. Robert Altman is a genius.
2. I haven't enjoyed a film this much in a long time.

A Brand New Setup for Uncompressed Video

2006-06-22T20:45:00.000-07:00

Today I began putting together a new setup with the dual processor G4 that I have been using to cut the HD footage for the documentary, only now, the computer will be directly connected to our Digibeta deck through a 10 bit SDI Blackmagic card, thus enabling us to take in 10 bit 1:1 uncompressed video. The advantage to this is that we can make mind blowingly high-quality DVDs for our reels from now on. I will take pictures of the hardware tomorrow morning and post them above this post. I will also be outlining the process to make the highest quality DVDs possible.

The Tabs Feature in FCP

2006-06-20T09:09:00.000-07:00

Every cut is a learning process. This edit is a lesson in organization. With 11 hours of footage, there are a lot of ways to go about organizing your bins. Because my cut is fairly chronological I have chosen to organize by tape number instead of breaking the footage down into interviews, close-ups, sunsets etc.

One cool feature of Final Cut Pro is that it makes your various sequences into tabs in the timeline. This is proving useful for this edit because I am aranging each day basically as a seperate sequence. Then after I cut each one down I will mix them all into one timeline to produce the final product.

Finally Making Headway

2006-06-17T15:01:00.000-07:00

After switching from the 933Mhz G4, to a Dual 1.25 GHz Power PC G4 with 2 MB L3 cache per processor and 1 GB DDR SDRam, my HDV footage is actually editable. It is all running fine, without dropped frames, so it was definitely the processor before. I have 11 tapes worth of footage and I have just finished the first one with 7 minutes and 20 seconds worth of video in the timeline, so my guess is that the video in it's entirety will probably end up at 30 minutes. The majority of my footage is b-roll and I was more excited and ambitious (and nervous) at the beginning, so this may account for why I have so much good stuff so early on. Here is what my screen looks like now:

Always Bring a Hat to the Jungle

2006-06-16T12:11:00.000-07:00

The Easy Setup Feature in FCP

2006-06-16T09:25:00.000-07:00

I've been having an issue that has been keeping me from laying anything down in my timeline, because everytime I would drop in a clip, even if the propotions looked correct in my canvas window, there was still some letterboxing on the top and bottom of the image. This was causing me to have to render everything in my timeline before I could even see my edit. Even when I changed my sequence settings to the correct resolution I still had to render. HDV which I'm cutting has a screen size of 1440x1080i, but even when I manually typed in this resolution my image was letterboxed (you can see this in the image of the little boys in the post below this one).

That's when I deleted my sequence and went into the Easy Setup menu. Usually my pride doesn't allow my to use anything but the advanced settings in any program, however in FCP, selecting this feature when you start an edit is crucial. Here is how to do it for HDV:With all of the different tape formats floating around out there it is important that your timeline and import settings are set correctly at the start of your project. This is a great feature in Final Cut Pro.

HD Within Grasp

2006-06-15T14:53:00.000-07:00

I am cutting the Brazil Documentary now, and on a G4 nonethelss. I'm using, a 500gig Lacie drive with a 6-pin firewire cable, Final Cut Hd and a 933 MHZ G4. That's it. It's not a fast machine, but it's working. I can't believe how easy it all is. So, HD is in grasp. Mind you it is HDV so it is about a 5:1 compression, but it's still HD. I figure it took about 15 gigs to cover each hour long tape, so the 500gig drive I'm using is plenty. I'll give some more updates over the weekend. Here is a screen grab of my setup:Notice that there is NOTHING in the timeline...*sigh*

The Puffy Chair

2006-06-14T07:47:00.001-07:00

It's been a while. Apologies.

This movie looks like it is going to be really good. It looks indie to the max, and I say that as a kind of joke, but at the same time I am very serious. Movies like this don't come around very often, and when I say that I don't mean movies with no budget and no-name actors, I mean movies with no budget and no-name actors that win prizes at SXSW. This movie may also look so good to me because it speaks to my generation, the 20 somethings who are trying to have careers and plan for the future, for marriage and for getting older. Watch the trailer for the Puffy Chair and tell me what you think.

P.S. Can anyone show me how to make a picture a link? I think I just figured it out while typing this, but nonetheless I need some html help.

Avid and Final Cut - Together at Last

2006-05-31T10:21:00.000-07:00

This is an outline of the new edit suites my company will be setting up in July:

That's Two 24inch Dell LCD Monitors, Quad 2.5 GHz PowerPC G5s, Avid Mojo SDI, and Final Cut HD.

There's really no need to have both Final Cut and Avid on the same machine, but if the option is available, why not go for gold. In my humble personal opinion Avid is a better piece of software to work on trimming and timing, especially when clients are sitting in with you. However, if the name of the game is simple keyframing, light compositing, moving titles etc., then Final Cut Pro is the way to go. So, it's going to be nice to have both options at the click of the mouse. By the way, our original systems which consist of Avid Media Composers, 1.5 GHZ G4s, and old school monitors ran a bill of $55,000 a piece. Our new set up will cost under $10,000 a piece. And Avid has released the Media Composer software for the Mojo, which means two tracks of real-time effects. With SDI we can also connect digitally to our Digibetas, DVCAMs, and HD decks.

Sometimes You Roll With the Punches

2006-05-24T09:03:00.000-07:00

Whatever that means...The trailer that we were working on never got shown anyway. So after 48 straight hours of hard work, well, our work was in vain. And added to that, I have no way of cutting the HD footage, because I don't have access to a system that can handle it, nor do I have a deck to digitize the tapes, so for now I'm moving on.

Just a recap:
Ask various people for money totalling $2,300 to go to Brazil.
Going to various meetings for months planning for the trip.
Asking friends for cameras, tripods, cases, microphones, various equipment.
Taking on $7,000 liability for their equipment.
Going to Brazil, working butt off, getting sick, getting to see the Amazon.
Coming back after 24 hours of flying and 4 flights.
Asking a friend to edit the footage into a trailer over night.
48 straight hours of work...
Then the video doesn't get shown.

*sigh* Welcome to filmmaking.

11 Hours in Real Time

2006-05-23T09:03:00.000-07:00

This is when P2 would come in handy. I shot 11 hours of footage in Brazil, which means that it took well over 11 hours to digitize the footage. After passing the tapes and camera off to Steven on Sunday night at about 11pm, the tapes didn't finish being captured until 11:30pm on Monday night. This gives Steven roughly 16 hours to complete the trailer for the doc, and that does not alot any time for sleeping. We shall see if it is turns out as awesome as it should be.This is a very flattering shot.

Post Begins

2006-05-22T12:24:00.000-07:00

So I'm back from the Brazilian Amazon. It took 24 hours of flying and 4 flights to get back but somehow we all made it. I'm feeling extremely jet-lagged, but we have to have a theatrical trailer cut for the doc by Tuesday evening so there is no time to rest. I ended up shooting 11 hours of footage. The other people on the trip were neither encouraging nor cooperative, so instead of it being a team effort to make a film together, I became the annoying guy who was always filming everything. This has taught me the following very important lessons in documentary filmmaking: Have a crew (even if it's only one other person), make sure your subjects understand the project, the process, and the sacrifices that have to be made to capture the footage, and make sure that these details are completely taken care of before filming begins.

One light at the end of the tunnel, is that my friend Steven, who is an incredibly talented editor is cutting the trailer so that I can get back to work today (I already missed 6 straight days to shoot the film). We had a problem importing the HDV footage so he is having to down convert to SD DV which also made the footage 4:3, even though it was filmed in 1080i (16:9). At this point I could care less. I just can't wait for the members of the trip to see the footage, so that FINALLY, HOPEFULLY, they can understand why I was there.

Gearing Up For the Amazon

2006-05-11T10:16:00.000-07:00

Packing Light

Sony HVR-Z1U

Consumer Tripod with Remote

The guy who donated the camera insisted that I use Professional HDV tapes

As you can see, I don't have a Pelican case (yet). The crayons are to give to the children

These five items are some of the most important things that I will carry. A fold out bug net to cover my face from swarms of Malaria ridden mosquitos, cleaning tablets to cleanse my Nalgene bottle each morning, The Bible, because there's no better time to read the word than when you are traveling, a headlamp, to light subjects in low light conditions, to read by and just in case, and bug spray with 20% deet, because I heard there are a lot of heinous bugs in the Amazon, and I don't think it's just a rumor.

Never Underestimate the Power of Good

2006-05-09T09:04:00.000-07:00

Documentaries don't change things in and of themselves, but they can motivate that action, and that alone is an exciting prospect in a world that is desperately in need of reformation. If you are interested in documentary production, there is a book that we read in my documentary class at TCU called "Directing the Documentary" by Michael Rabinger. It get's my reccomendation. In fact I brought it to work with me today so that I could refresh on some of the techniques it suggests.

I leave on Friday for South America. I will be going into the jungle with a team of missionaries, a doctor, a dentist, and a few nurses to set up medical clinics in various villages. I will be shooting a short documentary film about the trip. We have been preparing for the trip since January, however, until today, four days before we leave, I didn't have a camera. However, as of 9:30am this morning a Sony HVR-Z1U has been donated for use on the trip, which means HD baby! Here is a list of equipment I will be bringing:

1 small, waterproof Pelican case (hopefully)
1 small, lightweight consumer tripod
1 Senheisser shotgun mic
1 Sony HVR-Z1U HD Camcorder
10 64minute DVCam tapes (capable of shooting HDcam footage)
1 fold out reflector

The Ipod Resolution Formula

2006-05-08T16:06:00.000-07:00

Will the video you are compressing play on your Ipod? Here is the formula (via Mac User Magazine):

H.264 320x240 resolution, 768 Kb/s max.
MPEG-4 480x480 2.500 Kb/s (supposed) max.

Will it play? (formula):

(Pixel height / 16) x (Pixel width / 16) =
less than 300, will play with H.264
less than 900, will play with MPEG-4

Is that criptic enough for you?

HVX-200 Blue Screen Test Footage

2006-05-08T10:19:00.000-07:00

HD Blue Screen Test Footage by Motivity Pictures.

These guys have been posting various short clips of test footage that they have shot in HD using the Panasonic HVX-200 in multiple user groups. Being that there are thousands of people desperatly wanting to see test footage from this camera, I think this was a good career move on their part.

2006-05-07T14:04:00.000-07:00

How to jazz up your crappy digital pictures. I could claim this as my own, but then I'd be a filthy liar. If you look at my profile pic, even though it's hazy and blown up and probably pixelated I think it even has the dooce effect. I probably do it a little too much. But if you wanna try it see this.

Here is the result:

Without The Dooce Effect©

Dooceified

MPEG-4 vs. H.264, for the Video Ipod

2006-05-07T02:26:00.000-07:00

So, I looked back into the issue of Mac User, which details the codec specifications for the video Ipod and here is what I have found:

H.264 is a codec designed to produce a very high quality picture with a very small size. This is very useful is you are trying to cram 80 feature length movies onto your video Ipod. However, the downside to H.264 is that is takes a lot of brain-power to decode it. Therefore, the resolution must be fairly small for the Ipod to play it, and, it takes longer to compress an H.264 file through a program like Handbrake.

With MPEG-4, the file size might be a bit larger, but it is possible to compress a feature length movie at 720 pixels wide and to play it on your Ipod at this resolution. Therefore, if you connect A/V cables, you can play movies out of your Ipod onto your television and have them look crystal clear. Your Ipod, will play videos compressed with eithere codec (MPEG-4, or H.264).

On the next post, which will be the last about the video Ipod, I promise...I will post the formula for knowing whether your Ipod can view videos, depending on their resolution as MPEG-4 and H.264.

Compression and the Video Ipod

2006-05-05T07:58:00.000-07:00

I've learned a few things about compression in the last few months and I'd like to share them with you here today. For this demonstration we will use the video Ipod as our test subject. The first thing you will need to do is (if you are using a Mac) download a little peice of software called Handbrake (if you are using a PC, I'm sure there is comprable software, but I don't know what it is, post a comment with a link if you know one).

Put a DVD into your computer, any movie you'd like to have on your Ipod. Open up Handbrake (the icon is a fruity drink and a pineapple, I have no idea why). The first thing it will ask you is to select a DVD. A few moments after you insert the DVD, it will automatically be recognized by the program, select Open (detected volume). It will take about 15 seconds to read the disc.

Once the disc is scanned a new window will open. In the top left box (Source) select the disc element you would like to compress, in the drop down menu next to "Title:" the actual movie is usually the one with the longest running time. The other elements are other special features on the disc. For "Chapters:" it will usually just select from 1 to the last chapter of the film.

In the quadrant on the lower left, "Video," go to the drop down menu for "Framerate (fps):" The name of the game in compression is to get the highest quality image and the smallest filesize. Normal NTSC video plays at 30 frames per second, because the Ipod resolution is half the resolution of your TV screen we can assume that seeing only half of the amount of frames will be all we really need. So, from the "Framerate (fps):" drop down menu select 15 frames. Leave the "Encoder:" as FFmpeg. Leave Average bitrate (kbps) as 1000, or lower it to 600 if you'd like. And leave quality at 50% (this is a good in between, as we are making our video half-resolution anyway). At the bottom check the box for 2-pass encoding, this is going to make the colors more true to the original video, but it will take twice as long to compress.

In the top right quadrant, under file format, select MP4 file. This is the type of file your Ipod reads. Under codec you have two options, MPEG-4/AAC or AVC/H.264/AAC, your Ipod can read both of them. I prefer MPEG-4, so we'll go with that. To make sure your new file ends up in the right place, click on the "browse button" and save it with a new name.

Now, there is one last step, on the bottom right click on "Picture settings..." Picture settings will open up a new window in which you can see a frame from your video. Your Ipod can read a couple different resolutions. 720x480 is what your television reads, your Ipod screen is 320x240. Unless you will be playing your video from your Ipod onto a TV screen, you don't need to make your file any larger than 320 pixels wide. On the top right in the "Size:" box click on the little down arrow next to the "width" box until the pixel width is 320. As you can see, the movie that I am compressing "Boogie Nights" is a wide screen movie so the height is rather small, 128 pixels rather than 240. This is due to the fact that an anamorphic 35mm movie has a screen ratio of 2:40:1 as opposed to a "sqaure" ratio of 4:3, in which case the picture would fill the entire 320x240 Ipod screen.

Once you've resized your video, click on "close" at the bottom right. Now click on the Rip button and you are in business. Once the file is finished, open it in Itunes and drop it into your Ipod, then booya, you have a movie on your Ipod. An hour and a half movie is about half a gig usually.

The Tyranny is Ending

2006-05-04T09:41:00.000-07:00

For a long time if you wanted to work in the world of proffesional post you had to know Avid. Not that Avid was a bad machine, but with a monopoly on the industry why be an innovator? The post house that I have worked at for the last year cuts using Avid Media Composers. They were purchased in 2003 and cost roughly $40,000 a peice. In 2002 I bought a Mac G4 of my own and installed Final Cut Pro. Total cost after everything I added on including Harman Kardon speakers, extra ram, a printer and other software, was $4,500. For $35,500 less, I had my own Edit Suite. The only problem was that I was pretty much limited to firewire as my deck control and my video source, fine for DV, but not the highest quality way to capture an image. Now, with the competition of Final Cut Pro, and Adobe Premiere, Avid is hurrying to release products to compete with this burgeoning market. Their first prosumer box to raise some eyebrows was Mojo. This little breakout box processed video 1:1 and accelerated real-time effects just like the big boys. The only problem, was that the only inputs it offered were RCA (with breakout component capabilities) and a firewire for deck control. Not exactly compatible with the top of the line equipment Avid users are used to. So what did Avid do? Silly, they released Mojo with SDI at NAB 2006 this year.

What is SDI? Serial Digital Interface (inputs) allow uncompressed digital video to be captured rather than digitized, maintaining it's quality from Tape to NLE back to Tape. If you shoot DV, and capture through a deck with firewire, this means nothing to you. But if you are looking to upgrade from your old media composer (which cost you around $40,000) and this time around the block you only wish to pay about $5,000, then Mojo SDI is a dream come true. As an added bonus Avid has also released the Media Composer stand-alone software for $5,000. Imagine that, with all the competition, noone was willing to drop 25-grand for flipping editing software. From what I can tell, Media Composer is better than Express Pro because it allows you to layer 2 Real-time effects rather than one. This is important if you are using animats along with other RT effects.

Firefox is Better for Blogger

2006-05-03T23:25:00.000-07:00

If you have a blog on blogger.com and you are using Safari, you need to go here and download Firefox right now. I've never even used Firefox, but after watching the vlogging tutorials on Freevlog.org, I realize that I have been wasting massive amounts of time publishing through Safari. Firefox handles Blogger's features much better.

P.S. These 5 or 6 Quicktime videos explain how to host and post videos on your blog for free. Michael Verdi & Ryanne Hodson have assembled this tutorial in such a way that any person who learns visually (which means most of us) can EASILY understand it. And it's FREE!

That's right my friends, get ready for Anton's video blog.

NAB 2006 Product Reccomendations

2006-05-03T08:19:00.000-07:00

I actually didn't make it to NAB this year. I was in Vegas on Friday, but the show ended on Thursday, which was painful for me. However I have been anxiously following the product releases, paying special attention to the "prosumer" and professional market of high-end HD camcorders, and solid-state memory systems. Unless you are a mechanical engineer with extensive film and video experience, I'm not going to believe you if you tell me that you understand the differences between such mind boggling format specifics such as 1080i, 720p, 30p, 24p, 3:2 pull (for 24p), 3:2:2:3 pull (for 24pA), HDV, DVCpro HD, 1080/60i, 1080/24p (over 60i), and so on...However, it is our job to understand this stuff, so that's what we are doing here. In a perfect video-world we would all shoot in 4k 10bit, uncompressed true 24p or 30p as if each video frame were a frame of actual film stock. My theory is that pretty soon we will (I guess we could be if we were all shooting with Viper Filmstreams or Arriflex D-20's), but until then we will have to settle with the slews of shooting HD on DV.

So going back to NAB, here is a list of the products that I am excited about:

Panasonic HVX-200 If you are making cinematic short films and you are on a budget, this camera is not only the best bang for the buck, it might just be the best. This HD Camcorder is solidly built, compact and user friendly,
P2 Solid state memory Just imagine, low compression HD footage, no tapes necessary. With a computer hardrive on set, load footage (dailies) into your Non Linear Editor as you shoot. This way only one 4GB P2 card is even necessary. Never have to digitize again!
Sony HVR-Z1U If you are shooting clean and crisp documentary style footage, this camera is the winner. Record HDV footage on your normal minidv tapes. If it's anything like Sony's PD-150/170 I bet this thing is amazing in low-light conditions.
JVC GY-HD200U I don't know the full story on these JVC's yet, but they also redord HDV onto standard minidv tapes. If you happen to have a set of 16mm prime lenses you can attach them to these cameras via an adapter. In which case this camera would be an incredible asset.
JVC GY-HD250U Very similar to the above camera. You'll have to read the link for the specifics. Sorry, I haven't played with this one yet.

Panasonic AJ HDX900 Um, if you can afford this, over the HVX-200 (shown at top) then, yes, this is the better option. The CCD chips that process the image imformation on a camera like this are going to be larger and therefore capture a more true color representation (i.e. an even higher quality image).
Viper Filmstream This is the camera that was used to shoot the film Collateral. It shoots an extremely high resolution progressive frame image. It is comparable to the image captured on a frame of 35mm film (debateable I know). It captures what is called at 4:4:4 resolution. Basically dv video goes through a process called color sampling when it is encoded. If the information about every single pixel were recorded it would give a higher quality image but the file size would be huge. Through compressions i.e. DV, DVCpro, DVCam, HDV, etc., the file sizes of your video is decreased so that your computer can handle the information. Cameras like the Viper FilmStream do not color sample, giving you the highest and truest resolution. Red One Digital Cinema Camera This camera is being developed by the guy that made Oakley sunglasses. Turns out he is a video buff. Basically it does what the Viper FilmStream camera does. But the Viper is around $100,000 while the Red One Cinema Camera is only $15,000. It is still in the development process, and the lenses come seperately. It's a pretty exciting development nonetheless.

For right now, you can follow the links below each picture if you'd like to read about the differences between each one of these cameras. Stay tuned and I will be posting my own information on them as well. If you ever have a question, please leave a comment. While I can't promise I can give a good answer, I would love to try.

This Is A Revolution!

2006-05-02T15:11:00.000-07:00

The following link for Freevlog.org will tell you everything you need to know in order to post pictures and videos to your blog for free. God bless these guys!

The Long Way Round

2006-05-01T21:28:00.000-07:00

I rented two films tonight, Long Way Round and Jean Luc Godard's Alphaville. I have only gotten through the first episode so far of Long Way Round (which I guess was originally produced for television) but I can already tell that it is a paragon of adventure and travel documentary. I highly reccomend it.

It looks like they are shooting with Sony PD-150s, and it looks good too.

---Ok, I will be doing research on products tomorrow. I will give you all the dirt on what's hot from NAB 2006 tomorrow afternoon. Bear with this site, it will be getting much better very soon.

NAB Ends Today

2006-04-27T15:33:00.000-07:00

The National Association of Broadcasters convention in Las Vegas ends today. This is the event where all of the different software, hardware and video equipment companies release their new products. I'll actually be in Vegas tomorrow, and hopefully I can catch the very tail end of the festivities. As soon as I find out, I'll be posting the best of the best of this year's releases. For now, here are the two cameras that are competing for my heart.

The Panasonic HVX200

And the JVC GY-HD100

The Panasonic shoots low-compression HD on tapeless P2 solid state memory, and the JVC has fully interchangable 16mm lenses. WHY CAN"T EITHER ONE HAVE BOTH!?

The Purpose of This Site

2006-04-26T09:57:00.000-07:00

Hi, my name is Anton. I am a filmmaker. This site has been set up as a resourse for other filmmakers looking for inside information and common experience in the world of visual storytelling. Posts on this site will consist of reccomendations on camera equipment, editing equipment, various production experiences, movie reviews, and any other information which might be useful to those trying to make it in the world of film and video production.

To get the ball rolling, here are some films I reccomend:

Born Into Brothels - Documentary
Bottle Rocket - Wes Anderson
Cool Hand Luke - Cinematography