Health Insurance - Freelancers Union
 

I don't know if this'll help anyone, or everyone here already knows about it, or if it's just a bunch of BS, but it's health insurance targeted at freelancers--


www.freelancersunion.org

I'm not affiliated with 'em or anything, and the plan I have now is about the same price.

Bono spotted with Z1U in hand... (2 years old, but I just discovered it)
 

http://www.deviantart.com/deviation/25286811/

Ain't he the lucky documentarist (if that's a real word...).

karmacritic.com: for those who didn't quite like On The Lot, I guess
 

http://www.aintitcool.com/node/33198

heath

Dvx100
 

Battlestar Gallactica (The new series) has just reached Europe this year and I found it so good I bought season 1 and 2, in season 2 there was an episode which really made me laugh. There was a reporter team who were allowed to follow everybody on the Gallactica ship. They had 2 camera's with them, 2 panasonic dvx100's :D
I couldn't believe what I saw, in the first episodes from season one the reporter teams had these ridiculous small cameras, considering that the series are in the future you could somewhat find it believable, but a dvx100?? That's insulting our intelligence. :)
On the other hand, if it's true, I will keep on to my dvx100 as it for sure will outlive me by hundreds of years so I can pass it one to my grandchildren.
I was surprised not to see "powered by Panasonic" on the side of Battlestar Gallcatica. :)

48hr Film Fest Buffalo
 

Did anyone from here participate in the 48hr Film Fest in Buffalo?

Interesting trademark lawsuit
 

This is OT but somewhat related to the many copyright discussions that take place around here. Johnson and Johnson is suing the American Red Cross over use of their trademark (the red cross which JNJ has been using for over a hundred years).

This might seem outrageous at first until you find out what the real issues are... will be very interesting to see how this plays out.

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?p...d=aRVCYl78iLgQ

What platform to help build a film community site?
 

I am considering launching a Web site to help people network and find crews for their film projects. I want to let users enter the details of their film, such as what crew positions are open, when, and where. This would be useful for people overseas, where craigslist and mandy are not active.

What is the best software to do this with? I just want to do this as a service to the community so I want to make the coding as easy as possible for myself.

FaceGen?
 

I've looking into FrameForge3d, which seems like a great product for storyboarding.

On the frameforge3d site, they mention an application called 'FaceGen', which allows you to scan in a picture of someone, and build a 3d model of their face that you can bring into frameforge3d.

I'm wondering if anyone has used FaceGen? I downloaded a demo version, and tried 2 different photos. One came out very close to the person in the photo, the other picture less. I'm wondering if usually you have to tweak the image further to really match the person in the photo.

If interested, this is the website of FaceGen's maker:
www.singularinversions.com.

Chasing the Light
 

I just saw a show on PBS last night called "Chasing the Light" by Louie Schwartzberg. It includes footage from New England, California, Arizona, Colorado, Illinois, Hawaii, Washington (state), Morocco, Tanzania, Tibet and Bhutan.

It is absolutely stunning work. See it if you get a chance.

Superbowl Crew Studio Rental?
 

If I'm in the wrong place, feel free to move this...

The Superbowl and the FBR Phoenix Open (same weekend) are coming to town and my wife and I were talking about how all the crews have to put up with hotel rooms and fly packs, and it struck us that there might be a crew who'd enjoy living and working out of my studio/guest house for the week.

So my question is this. How do I get the word out about it's availability?

It's not just a house - there are plenty of those starting to crop up on Craigs list, etc. This is a fully equipped small video production facility adjacent to a beautiful guest house that can handle a small crew in luxury and privacy.

Back in the day, I probably would have put an ad in TV Technology - but in this web world, I'm not sure where the broadcast types hang out.

So anyone have any ideas where I could post the info to see if any national/international working professionals might be interested?

Thanks in advance.

And if you want a look, some studio/guest house pics and some "one sheets" are at:

http://gallery.mac.com/davisbill/100003

Thanks in adavance.

Need help converting a tape
 

I hope this this is an appropriate place to ask this...

I have a tape recorded on a Sony HDV camera. I do not have a way to capture that tape. I am looking to get it captured and the file put onto a DVD so that I can do some editing on the file.

Is there anyone out there who could do this conversion for me? Anyone in North Florida maybe?

Thanks,

-Perrone

Proof of Purchase
 

Kid in my class is working on this as an art project, pretty interesting.

http://proofpurchase.com/

Radiohead's new album: you decide what to pay
 

http://blog.wired.com/business/2007/...ead-snubs.html

This is incredibly unconventional for a major band (I almost wrote major-label, but their deal with EMI expired after the release of their 6th studio album), and I wonder what will happen with other labels.

You pay what you want for download (www.inrainbows.com), or you can buy the double-CD/vinyl record set (with other goodies) for around $81 USD (40 pounds), also directly from them at www.inrainbows.com.

Prince gave away his latest album in England recently, then announced 21 dates in the country. They all sold out. Maybe he and Radiohead are onto something. Also, the fact that they announced this early Monday (October 1, 2007) and the album is coming out on the 10th is remarkable.

Before we get into too much of a tizzy, they're allegedly negotiating with labels to get it into stores next year.

Color me stunned!

heath

Laptop battery to hold charge for 30 years (wow)!
 

http://blog.scifi.com/tech/archives/...op_batter.html

Very interesting! I know I could use something like that, especially right now on my wife's PC laptop. Thing runs about 45 minutes or so until dead. Just basic apps, no music running or DVDs/CDs.

heath

Panafest
 

Covered the event over at my blog if anyone interested:

http://bscenefilms.blogspot.com

BBC online to go free over wi-fi
 

Improv Everywhere
 

http://www.improveverywhere.com/2007/10/17/no-shirts/

In case you don't know.... this group does a lot of hilarious pranks around NYC. One of the funniest ones was a getting a ton of guys dressed like Best Buy employees going to and hanging out at a Best Buy store.

Check out the videos they shoot.

LA Film School Feedback
 

I have been looking into the LA Film School's 12 month program and wanted to get some feedback from the community. Or other recommendations in the LA area.

I guess just simple ratings or comments on:

- Curriculum/Course Pacing
- Equipment
- Faculty
- Atmosphere
- Career Guidance/Placement Assistance
- Value

Thanks.

Mounting CF cards on a PC as NTFS RAID 0
 

I just came across a website that offers a number of different solutions for replacing IDE and SATA II hard drives with CF cards. Some of their solutions allow RAID 0 matricing of up to 4 CF cards. They've tested 266x CF cards at 39 MB/sec, for single CF card configurations on SATA II. Prices are quite reasonable. Using a SATA port multiplier and 16 GB CF cards, one could conceivably build an 16x5=80 Gb solid state, external hard drive. Mounting a CF card in this manner allows formatting it to NTFS.

For my own uses, I like putting an 8Gb CF card in a 2.5 inch SATA HD enclosure and RAIDing two together for 16Gb. WinXP will detect SATA devices as fixed partitions. Without testing the thruput, I would expect a speed of about 60-70 MBps.
www.addonics.com

Help identify this lens...
 

Fujinon-TVZ 14-70 F2 - H5X14HP-2N Zoom lens for Panasonic TV Camera

Anyone know what kind of a camera the above lens is used with? Below is a picture. I found this lens at a garage sale, and thought it was interesting. However, I have no idea what kind of camera it's used with. Anyone have any clues? Thanks.

http://www.revelationmediastudios.co.../11-5/fuji.jpg

ProPresenter 3 for Mac
 

Anybody out there using ProPresenter 3.
Just got back from the National Youth Worker's Convention in Atlanta
and was greatly impressed by their use of ProPresenter.
Just curious if anybody out there is using it at church, school, etc.
Thanks
Jason

Adding motion to a DSLR
 

Ok, my nephew had his fun without my consent- How do I erase this?

Plugin and tool sale
 

User has not uploaded an avatar

Hi Kids -

Digital Juice is running some amazing deals (50% off) for Red Giant's Trapcode, Boris Graffiti, Sorenson Squeeze and ZaxWorks Pro-Animator.

Link is: http://www.digitaljuice.com/enewslet...duct_deals.asp

Enjoy & Happy Chrismahanayulikah!

BC ZoomFest 48 hour film contest videos
 

I found these videos that were entered into the ZoomFest 48 hour student film contest. This years theme was "Imagination is greater than Knowledge", the prop was a umbrella.

The Dreamer (won best film)

The Great Umbrella of Yakama (not Yakima, WA; won best technical film)

And the best part, these are all students from my School, Burnaby South.

Any critical opinions from people like DSE?

MovieBeam is going out of business
 

http://biz.yahoo.com/ibd/071211/tech.html?.v=1

BSPlayer (Media Player)
 

Thought his was kinda funny...


http://i112.photobucket.com/albums/n...framescopy.jpg


"Try not to drop frames"

WalMart shuts down movie download service
 

http://biz.yahoo.com/rb/071227/walma...oads.html?.v=1

Need help, looking for a website i cannot find.
 

hi,

I've been looking for this website for ages, (12+ hours, whats wrong with me...)

its a website that sells second hand cine equipment. 35mm, 16mm, super 16mm equipment and lenses.

its UK specific, but may have a .com or co.uk address.

i have no idea whats its called.

the menu bar on the site near the top of the screen was yellow(maybe orange) and when you hover over the different categories a drop down list appears.

any help is appreciated.

thanks.

So I'm going to NAB, advice (conference-wise)?
 

My college TV station (I'm the ops manager, so I buy/fix/train everything tech) is covering the costs of flying me down for a couple of days so I can eval new equipment and tech, and hopefully learn a few things. I'm checking out the registration right now, and I'm being 'offered' the ability to attend some of these conferences like the broadcast engineer's conference, among other things. Any advice for me?

HomeFilmSchool.com
 

Anyone seen this? Some really interesting "old school" advice and tips.

http://www.freewebs.com/hlr/

Training for Dig Imaging Tech
 

I live in eastern Tennessee, and filmwise, we're pretty much in the boondocks. I run the local filmmakers group, hold an annual 10HR Film Festival, and am active in state initiatives. One key crew role we lack here is that of DIT, Digital Imaging Tech-set up HD camera for DP, run video village, provide color corrected on-site playback, liason with Post Prod to ensure proper parameters etc. Obviously, a high degree of technical knowledge required.

Does anyone offer classes or workshops fpr someone wanting to move into this area, or is the answer, move to LA and fight for it like everyone else?
Where might I send someone to look for info?

What's the name of this LA filmmakers club
 

There's a club in LA (and now with divisions all over the world) where you get together at the beginning of the month and determine a theme, get a crew and make a finished film in a month.

I forgot the name/website.

Anyone?

Profile missing from Docs & Settings
 

The weirdest thing just happened to me. I was doing some stuff on after effects then all of the sudden my pc restarted by it self and my user profile on documents and settings was gone. I looked with DOS and I could no longer see my profile's folder on Docs & Settings. Did this ever happen to anyone? Is there a solution?

Antenna Tricks for HDTV Reception
 

I had an interesting day and learned something, as I was tuning-up my rooftop antennas for HDTV signals. I just got a Vista Media Center computer and it is now getting strong and steady pictures from all 4 local stations that transmit HDTV. But, the two different antennas I have, did not work the way I had expected. The long-tined VHF antenna had been pointed at one of the tower locations and the shorter-tined UHF one was aimed 100 degrees off that position to the other group of towers. I speculated that the UHF antenna would work better for the HD channels, since they use the higher frequencies and shorter wavelengths in that segment of the range. Three of the HD transmitters were at the other location, so I rotated the antenna post to aim it there. I was pleased to get full signal strength from all 3, which are about 13 miles away.

What surprised me was that the good reception didn't come from the UHF antenna, but rather from the VHF one. Since the VHF antenna had its center rod just 10 degrees away from being perpendicular to the signal direction, it was not at the angle at which you would expect it to work well. The reception on the UHF antenna was weak and unstable, except for the one tower at the other location, which is just 6 miles away. This shorter distance may have overcome the incorrect angle of the antenna for that one station. There's another transmitter there, but its HD signal seems to be off the air at the present time.

I have separate lead-in wires for the antennas, of the thicker-cored RG-6 type, rather than the standard RG-59 and use an A/B switch at my desk to change them.

After contemplating this mystery for awhile, I came up with a theory about why the VHF antenna worked so much better for the UHF channels: Because its long tines were at a slant of about 25 degrees forward from being perpendicular to the center rod, they were presenting an effective frontal width to the direction of the signals, that was much shorter than their actual length. This effective width may be about the same as the shorter UHF wavelengths. Since the center rod was 10 degrees off being perpendicular to the signals, the tines on one side were about 35 degrees off being parallel to them. The tines on the other side were about 15 degrees off. These two effective widths may have encompassed the wavelength variations between the 3 channels.

Regardless of whether my theory is correct, the thing is working very well and once again, a discovery has been made by accident, rather than by informed calculation. If anyone has a different idea about why the antenna performance is happening this way, please reply.

What College?
 

I'm down here in Woodland Hills California, and I've been looking at CSUN, and have heard alot of good things about that film program. I have a 4.0 gpa and will be in my film program for 4 years, being the first freshman in the program, ever. SO I'm just curious if anyone has any suggestions if i should go to CSUN or shoot for UCLA? I haven't really heard anything good about their film program, someone prove me wrong? =)

First Directing experience
 

Had a week off from my IT support job to direct shooting of some footage for a commercial footware manufacturer.

The brief was to keep it simple and keep it "youtube-ish", and we spent about 2-3 days shooting skaters, bikers, free-runners/parkour, and dancers in an urban setting.

Had two friends acting as DP and Producer as we scouted locations.

Well, all I can say is ive been seriously bitten by the bug. I loved every moment of it, even when we had problems like when the brief was changed 2 days into the shoot :)

Maybe it tapped into a secret desire to point a lot and tell people what to do. who is to say.

I have noticed in the two days that I have been back at my regular job, I have found it to be dull, un-inspiring, pedestrian. People whining about the most insignifant things, and all the time Im thinking, "wow, great shooting weather outside today"

As a result, I cant wait to get to a point where I can do this kind of stuff for a living. The creative flame (oh god, thats so lame!) must go on.

In summary, loved the directing job, as a result hate my full time job.

Annoying as hell!

Sound Recorders for Video....Help!
 

Ooops, I found the Audio section for this question....Moderator please delete this post. MM

I need to find a good recorder that will compliment our 2 Canon XL H1's....What do you guys like to use, or are using? Timecode is a must, as is versatility. Can anyone out there give me some pointers? Thanks in advance, Marty

Airshow Video from 1993
 

I just got around to pulling a short clip from a Canon L-1 video I took of a Blue Angels' airshow in 1993. This shows Fat Albert, their C-130 workhorse, making a spectacular JATO-assisted takeoff. It wasn't digitally recorded, but it is a digital-processing camcorder and the long pathway this clip took from the tape, was all digital. So, I thought some of you would like to see this. Here's a vid-cap still picture and the video is on the first page of my Flickr album. Maximize the Flickr page, click on the picture to enlarge it, then wait about 5 seconds for the loading to get ahead of the running video, before clicking on the arrow. It will run through smoothly the second time, if it stalls a bit on the first viewing.

"My Thriller Video"-very impressive effect
 

Has anyone else seen this?
http://michaeljackson.com/mythrillervideo/

The effect is really impressive, as long as you submit good photos following the directions carefully. I'm wondering what technology makes this possible. It seems to be a combination of:

a) Generating a 3d model of your face from a 2d picture, or some very convincing fake perspective mapping (there are some side profile shots in the video but the pictures you submit are only head-on and slightly turned)

b) Face morphing, including facial animations and lip syncing, with automatically set control points

c) Automatic compositing w/masking, rotation, perspective, etc.

I guess they probably had someone go in and set control points for each frame of the background video in order to help with the automatic compositing, but still it is amazing for something generated automatically.

I would love to find a way to do this kind of effect using other, maybe longer videos. Does anyone know more about this effect and maybe what software or techniques were used to make it possible? Any info would be great, thanks!

China Central Television HD "officially" launches
 

Xinhua News Press Release:
http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/20...nt_8051866.htm

A experimental channel has existed since 2005, but only now it is a officially designated channel ready to deliver content.