Sorry, I meant to say Mb. Not Gigs.

[QUOTE=Noel Lising;1393184]Until NLE came out my recollection is that it wasn't possible to do dissolves unless you were working with One Inch or Betacam (-SP) ie frame accurate/genlocked in a very swish edit suite - or am I wrong?

I do echo the same sentiment though because my first dissolves were made by backwinding the film in a Fuji Single 8 camera. Now that did require some production planning!

[QUOTE=Philip Howells;1395033][QUOTE=Noel Lising;1393184]

Until NLE came out my recollection is that it wasn't possible to do dissolves unless you were working with One Inch or Betacam (-SP) ie frame accurate/genlocked in a very swish edit suite - or am I wrong?
/QUOTE]

As far as I know that was the only way, and back then the U-matic player has a plus minus differential of being off by 5 frames so it was no easy task, once you matched the frame, you have to manually do the dissolve. We use to shoot in VHS and dub it to U-matic for editing, the high end clients are being shot in U-matic

lets be thankful for NLE

[QUOTE=Noel Lising;1396217][QUOTE=Philip Howells;1395033]Hear hear to that!

The only trouble with NLE's is that racks of gear with blinking lights, knobs and buttons sure looks cooler than a monitor.

I've often times thought about setting up a refrigerator sized rack right next to my edit desk and hooking up tons of old gear that you can get on the cheap off Ebay or just tossing some multi-colored blinking LED's in metal cases that look like they're doing something just to impress clients.

Actually, I did that in my last edit bay! I picked up some used surplus TBC's and distro amps from a live venue client and hooked them all up with the blinking lights next to the edit computer, my Mac G3 Blue and White 450. The only problem was the acrid smell of burning electrical components and the heat they darned things gave off made me rethink my choice.

I DO like to keep my edit bay suitably "technologically cluttered" though...

Your clients are way too young Ethan.

Raise your prices, that seems to keep the kids away!

On topic: My first Kodak 8mm film camera had a fixed lens and a wheel you rotated to adjust the aperture. Looking back at those films from the 60s to 80s, you don't even notice there is no zoom. I think nowadays we are all caught up in technology far more than in the past. But at least our current day on camera lights are not (4) 200watt spotlight bulbs any more. That was a little crazy even back in the day.

**EDIT**
I think I'm just grumpy today, nevermind.

I remember distinctly my first experience with a real NLE for the first time back in '94. I rented some studio space to edit a doc I had shot on Hi8 and the studio had something called D-Vision. I was completely blown away - looking at the first frame of every clip on a monitor, that you could then trim, and rearrange, even set up dissloves..., I used to rave about the MASSIVE 20 gb hard drive that this system had.

It was off-line only but spat out an EDL at the end that you could then take to the on-line suite.

To get back on topic... Personally, I dislike on-camera zooms - unless there is a real good reason for it, and the thing I think that is overdone these days is overprocessed color grading. And while I don't think using shallow dof is bad, I think too much rack focussing can take a rest for awhile.

I agree with lots of what has been said here regarding overuse of any given effects. I think the bottom line is always whether a transition or effect enhances (or distracts from) the storyline. Beyond that, some transitions definitely look dated. I tend to stick with the simplest of transitions - cuts and dissolves, which will never go out of style. And, it's amazing the subtle ways in which you can manipulate a dissolve - just within that one basic transition is a multitude of speeds that can make a statement or move a transition along smoothly almost without being noticed at all. Same with cuts in the right places.

I will only use a transition, when the cut really needs it.
A far cry from the first time I did create a video, zooming in and out, transitions at every cut' did you know I remember they even had falling cows transitions. Huge transport wheels coming towards you ugghh!
Thankfully they seemed to have disappeared a long time ago.