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Do You Have a Copyright Issue?
Wedding videographers recently discovered a problem having their videos on vimeo. That problem may be solved by a different kind of video hosting package. Visit iPlayerHD and Copyright Music – What you need to know.
Correct Focus After Taking A Shot
Lytro, Inc. (http://www.lytro.com) unveiled the first Lytro consumer light field camera, introducing a new way to take and experience pictures. Conventional cameras record light rays, but this camera uses a new concept of a light field. A light field completely defines how a scene appears. It is the amount of light traveling in every direction through every point in space.
This dramatically changes photography for the first time since the 1800s. Unlike conventional cameras, the Lytro light field camera captures all the rays of light in a scene, providing new capabilities never before possible, such as the ability to focus a picture after it’s taken.
This evolved from a Stanford University experiment in the 1990s that had 100 camera in a room. The Lytro camera fits in your pocket. It will be available in 2012 in several models and colors starting at $399
The photos are embeddable, in Flash for the web and HTML5 for your smartphone. Click here to see a gallery of examples
Amazing 360 Degree Video Camera Lens
Click the video and move your mouse left or right.
A company called EyeSee360 makes lenses that record in a complete circle. Actually more like a doughnut. The viewer uses their mouse to pan around and see everything around the camera. These products were originally designed for military and aviation use, but now they’re available for videographers and consumers.
There’s an $80 version of the lens made for iPhone. It’s called the GoPano Micro, but there’s a $700 version of the lens for more serious cameras. The rough video sample above is the result of vibrations severely affecting the video. A better mounting job would have produced much better results as Roy Furchgott acknowledges in his NY Times Blog. You can see more video examples at Go Pano.
The way it works is that the camera records video images on a 360-degree mirror attached to the lens. The images are distorted, but then the GoPano software un-wraps the image and turns it into a continuous 360-degree video.
Just an interesting gimmick? Or does it have serious applications. Could it be used in a dramatic video to show both participants in a conversation? If so would this re-write the rules of “shot-reverse shot” shooting for dialogue scenes? But the wide angles distortions would rule that out. Perhaps it’s more appropriate for sports POV shots like race cars and extreme sports.
Video Producers, I’d like to hear your ideas for using this lens.
What We Learn From The Movies
All beds have special L-shaped cover sheets which reach up to the armpit level on a woman but only to waist level on the man lying beside her.
It’s easy for anyone to land a plane, providing there is someone in the control tower to talk you down.
Once applied, lipstick will never rub off – even while scuba diving.
The ventilation system of any building is the perfect hiding place. No one will ever think of looking for you in there and you can travel to any other part of the building you want without difficulty.
If you need to reload your gun, you will always have more ammunition – even if you haven’t been carrying any before now.
You’re very likely to survive any battle in any war unless you make the mistake of showing someone a picture of your sweetheart back home.
Should you wish to pass yourself off as a German officer, it will not be necessary to speak the language. A German accent will do.
If your town is threatened by an imminent natural disaster or killer beast, the mayor’s first concern will be the tourist trade.
The Eiffel Tower can be seen from any window in Paris.
When paying for a taxi, don’t look at your wallet as you take out a bill – just grab one at random and hand it over. It will always be the exact fare.
If staying in a haunted house, women should investigate any strange noises in their most revealing underwear.
Computers never display a cursor on screen but will always say: Enter Password Now.
Cars that crash will almost always burst into flames.
When a person is knocked unconscious by a blow to the head, they will never suffer a concussion or brain damage.
Any lock can be picked by a credit card or a paper clip in seconds – unless it’s the door to a burning building with a child trapped inside.
Television news bulletins usually contain a story that affects you personally at that precise moment.
Smallest Camera Dolly
The Pico Flex Dolly is a miniature dolly for DSLRs. Ideal for table top product shots where the camera is inches from the subject. It’s on the 4 wheel two axle design like the earlier SpiderTrax Dolly which was designed and built by Emm of cheesycam.com. It’s $65 for pre-order from http://photographyandcinema.com. The latest shipment is due in soon.
When filming with a DSLR from inches away, focus will be critical. The Pico Flex Dolly can be set to run in a precise circle around the subject and this should help keep focus constant. Aside from tabletop photography for product shots, you could dolly sideways framed on subjects further from the table.
Let’s Re-Play a 1922 Film Test
Ed Note: This post was first published on VideoUniversity on September 17, 2010. We’re bringing it back one more time because frankly we think it deserves another viewing.
The comments from my last posting of this video included questions about the historical accuracy and the dates of the Kodachrome tests. But most people found the film beautiful, but sad with an ethereal quality. What’s your opinion?
Here’s the original posting:
http://www.videouniversity.com/kodachrome-film-tests
Errol Morris, One of America’s Greatest Documentary Directors
Film critic Roger Ebert says that Morris ranks alongside directors like Hitchcock and Fellini. “He’s like a magician. You’re looking at the left hand which is the subject of the film and the trick is being done over here (on the right hand). When the film is over, you realize it is about a lot more than you thought it was and it’s about a different subject than it seemed to be. You think the film you’re watching is about one thing, but the trick is it’s about something else.”
Morris’s first film, “Gates of Heaven” is on Ebert list of the ten greatest films of all times. It’s about two pet cemeteries and as Ebert says you can’t get to the bottom of it. You can can’t decide if it’s a comedy or a tragedy. It’s available on Netflix and other places. From Netflix you can get an instant download or a DVD in the mail. Your assignment is to watch it and post your comments here.
Morris has a very interesting way of doing interviews. He prefers to shut up and let the subject go on without interruption. The subject feels compelled to fill the silence. As Morris says, “People want to tell you their story. If you let them talk, they will reveal to you who they really are.” He was granted a MacArthur Fellowship also known as a “genius grant.”
His films are collections of revealing monologues. They have no narration.
His interview technique is unusual. He has the subjects speak directly to the camera, as opposed to speaking to the interviewer who is slightly to the side of the camera. Morris uses a teleprompter-like device he created, the Interrotron. This devices shows the subject the interviewers live face via a monitor directly in front of the lens. The result is that the subject has a conversation directly with the audience.
Some of his other films include:
The Fog of War, a profile of former Secretary of Defense Robert S. McNamara, received the 2003 Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature.
The Thin Blue Line is about a man on death row in Texas convicted of murder. Morris’s interviews and re-enactments revealed that the key witnesses against Randall Adams had lied. After the movie was released, Adams was cleared of the charges and released.
Standard Operating Procedure explores the meaning of the photographs taken by U.S. military police at the Abu Ghraib prison in late 2003, the content of which revealed the torture and abuse of its prisoners by U.S. soldiers and subsequently resulted in a public scandal.
Errol Morris has never made a living from his films. He supports himself directing commercials for clients such as Levi, Honda, and Miller beer. His Miller Time commercials
were beloved by many. Here is one of my favorites: Miller time – 5 O’Clock Shadow.
In 2003, The British newspaper The Guardian put him seventh in its list of the world’s 40 best directors. Morris says he needs to make movies. It’s his way of finding out about the world.
Final Cut Pro X – Conan’s Editors Give Opinion
What happened to the Conan Final Cut Pro video from YouTube?
It was pulled for “copyright claims,” but I’ll bet there is more to the story than that! Any information would be very appreciated.
We found another copy and reposted it above.
Conan’s editors aren’t too impressed with FCP X. Take a closer look.
First of all, Final Cut Pro 7 will not be upgraded. This $1000 editing program was used to edit feature films like “The Social Network,” which I loved and “True Grit” which I hated (for Jeff Bridges’ unintelligible grunting which they passed off as dialogue.) But that’s another story.
Final Cut Pro has had 54% of the video editing market which includes wedding and event, corporate and other producers. That’s more than Adobe and Avid put together. But Final Cut Pro 7 is being dumped. The new version Final Cut Pro X (pronounced 10) has been created completely from scratch so it is not backward compatible.
Conan’s editors, like other early adopters are not happy, even though the price is only $300 compared to $1000 and it does have native support for DSLR h264 footage. The program is available only as a download from the Apple Store.
Here are some of the comments we see in the VideoUniversity Members Only Forum. ( Join here.)
- The workflow is way different than FCP 7. It is almost like going to a completely different NLE.
- There is no multicam support.
- Lacks the ability of having multiple timelines.
- Lacks a DVD Studio Pro upgrade.
- No Soundtrack Pro or XML import. Currently, there is no way to get a FCP7 project into FCP X
- Apple seemed to have taken away ProResLT in FCPX
- Motion and Compressor which were included in Final Cut Studio are now available separately.
It seems that this is similar to what Apple did to iMovie in 2008. They killed it off and replaced it with a new version with fewer features that lacked many capabilities people had taken for granted. Three years of upgrades later, the new iMovie catches up to the old version and surpasses it. In fact even Apple calls FCP X a “foundational piece.”
Now some of the improvements:
No more waiting to render. Final Cut X renders in the background. You can’t organize files or delete clips while rendering, BUT you can keep on editing.
Now, audio and video are always in synch and can be locked with other clips they can all be moved as one. It used to be very easy to accidentally move audio or video a few frames out of synch.
The Auditions feature lets you try alternative shots in the timeline without having to place them individually. So you can look at different editing choices more easily.
A new feature called Color Match let’s you easily match the white balance or color cast of one clip to another.
You can adjust the playback speed of a clip to slow-mo or fast-mo by pressing a key and dragging the clip’s right edge. The clip will longer or shorter on the timeline. This action does not require rendering.
This version of Final Cut Pro will be much easier to use than the previous version IF you have not used Final Cut Pro before. If you have version 7 down pat, you will have some unlearning to do. In the long run it may be worth it. It seems like a much simpler design and Final Cut X is now a 64-bit program, meaning it can exploit Macs with more than 4 gigabytes of memory for faster speed.
For those looking for an easy transition from 7 to 10, forget about it. You’ll have to wait for some of the inevitable bug fixes and upgrades, but if you can wait, you’ll see that this new program is intuitive and powerful.
“The Greatest Music Video Ever Made!”
That’s what film critic Roger Ebert calls it. This remarkable YouTube video has racked up nearly 3 million views in just two weeks, and has received favorable press from all the U.S. news networks and many international news sources. Some talented people from Grand Rapids, Michigan produced the video in answer to a recent Newsweek allusion that Grand Rapids was a “dying city.”
Urban artist and Grand Rapids native Rob Bliss designed this awesome nine-minutes-plus lip-synch production to be shot in one single, sweeping take. It includes thousands of Grand Rapids celebrities and residents, a marching band, kayakers, fireworks and much, much more -all carefully choreographed from start to finish.
The video had a $40,000 budget which was underwritten by local sponsors. Bliss directed five takes; the last one was the keeper. As one viewer said, “I wish EVERY American City had as much pride as Grand Rapids.” The video will bring a tear to the eye of anyone with an ounce of civic pride… and certainly should provide some serious food for thought for ambitious videomakers and producers!
How Did They Stage This?
Watch “The Grand Rapids LipDub” once with the sound off, and imagine the directions that are being shouted to the groups of performers, each waiting their cue to jump into the event. The video was shot from a John Deere Gator by a cameraman wearing a Steadicam. He jumps off the Gator at various points in the production, and finally backs into a helicopter cargo bay for the final aerial sequence.
This video was a complex production that was very well planned and executed. Just read the end credits to get an idea how many people it took to make.
Here’s a behind-the-scene look at the making of the video: http://youtu.be/5mEfDka4w6Mheighth
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