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editing treats & media snacks from montyedits.com
12 January 2011
08 January 2011
Light Touch projector makes any surface a touchscreen - Pocket-lint
A previously little-known company from the UK called Light Blue Optics has demoed a projector at CES which allows users to interact with the light image as if it were a touchscreen.
The Light Touch throws a 10-inch image at WVGA resolution at incredibly short distances thanks to the holographic projection technology involved. At the same time the infra-red touch sensitive system allows users to interact with social networks, multimedia sharing and any other applications that can use the Wi-Fi or Bluetooth support in the device to connect to the Internet.
It comes with 2GB of onboard flash memory, a microSD card slot for expanding the storage and the battery life will last 2 hours. Expect to hear more from this one on the OEM front as interest grows.
04 January 2011
03 January 2011
Open your eyes FCP users
Its really time that FCP users start to do what Avid users have been forced to do for so long, use another type of system. Avid MC 5 has in every way eclipsed what FCP do and now is actually cheaper, yes cheaper then FCP. Some bits n pieces you should be aware of;
extracts from www.zachogle.com
CS5 has gotten on the AVid bandwagon in a big way.
Most post-production workflows involve combining footage from the edit suite with graphic treatments from the Creative Suite. Some use it more, some use it less, but most everybody uses it. Now the days of exporting to be able to reimport into the edit suite are gone. The CS5 can import OMF files directly from Avid, allowing existing sequences and media to stay in tact throughout the process.
MC5 left behind the idea of Media Composer and Final Cut editors being at each others throats because of proprietary formats. Instead, Avid improved on a good, if under utilized, idea from MC4: AMA or Avid Media Access. The AMA tool allows Media Composer editors to link to almost any type of file, instead of relying lengthy imports only to find that the file is incompatible. The use of AMA would not only make Avid more compatible with other systems, but it would speed up the editing process by cutting down on time spent ingesting footage.
One of the largest complaints about MC over the years has been that it has been difficult to use and learn if you weren’t an Avid editor already. The transition from Avid to Final Cut or Premiere was far easier than vice versa. In MC5, Avid has utilized the new Smart Tool, making the Avid environment a far more friendly place for Final Cut and Premiere Pro users.
With these massive updates to both Avid and Adobe products, one of the biggest questions that remains is to the future of Final Cut. Apple has let Final Cut become stagnant, leaving much to be desired in their updates. Many experts would argue that Avid and Adobe have both become stronger editing solutions than Final Cut. Since NAB, Apple has announced a new version of Final Cut will be appearing in 2011. While this is promising, Apple has only gone so far as to say that the new Final Cut will be faster than previous versions, leaving the future of Final Cut basically a mystery.
27 December 2010
25 December 2010
Xmas Mix
What I listened to this year.
Merry Xmas 2010
Ian
http://dl.dropbox.com/u/13401628/Xmas%20MIx%202010.zip
Placebo Buttons « You Are Not So Smart
Placebo Buttons « You Are Not So Smart
Placebo Buttons
FEBRUARY 10, 2010
tags: Conditioning, crosswalk, dummy thermostat, elevator, placebo buttons, thermostat
by David McRaney
The Misconception: All buttons placed around you do your bidding.
The Truth: Many public buttons are only there to comfort you.
You press the doorbell button, you hear the doorbell ring. You press the elevator button, it lights up. You press the button on the vending machine, a soft drink comes rattling down the chute.
Your whole life, you’ve pressed buttons and been rewarded. It’s conditioning at its simplest – just like a rat pressing a lever to get a pellet of food.
The thing about buttons though is there seems to be some invisible magic taking place between the moment you press them down and when you get the expected result. You can never really be sure you caused the soft drink to appear without opening up the vending machine to see how it works.
Maybe there’s a man inside who pulls out the can of soda and puts it in the chute. Maybe there’s a camera watching the machine, and someone in a distant control room tells the machine to dispense your pop.
You just don’t know, and that’s how conditioning works. As long as you get the result you were looking for after you press the button, it doesn’t matter. You will be more likely to press the button in the future (or less likely to stop).
The problem here is that some buttons in modern life don’t actually do anything at all. The magic between the button press and the result you want is all in your head. You never catch on – because you are not so smart.
For instance, the close buttons don’t close the elevator doors in most elevators built in the United States since the Americans with Disabilities Act. The button is there for workers and emergency personnel to use, and it only works with a key.
Whether or not you press the buttons, the doors will eventually close. But if you do press the buttons, and later the doors close, a little spurt of happiness will cascade through your brain. Your behavior was just reinforced. You will keep pressing the button in the future.
Non-functioning mechanisms like this are called placebo buttons, and they’re everywhere.
Sound engineers and video editors sometimes press a key on their computer keyboards or click around with the mouse and change absolutely nothing, or make the screen go blank for a few moments. When clients ask for nonsensical changes to a project while hovering over the worker’s shoulder, they can press the placebo button and tell the client they’ve made the requested change. Most people will be satisfied and convince themselves they’ve seen a slight difference.
Computers and timers now control the lights at most intersections, but at one time little buttons at crosswalks allowed people to trigger the signal change. Those buttons are mostly all disabled now, but the task of replacing or removing all of them was so great most cities just left them up. You still press them though, because the light eventually changes.
In an investigation by ABC news in 2010, only one functioning crosswalk button could be found in Austin, Texas; Gainsville, Fla.; and Syracuse, NY.
The city deactivated most of the pedestrian buttons long ago with the emergence of computer-controlled traffic signals, even as an unwitting public continued to push on, according to city Department of Transportation officials. More than 2,500 of the 3,250 walk buttons that still exist function essentially as mechanical placebos, city figures show. Any benefit from them is only imagined.
- New York Times, 2004
In many offices and cubicle farms, the thermostat on the wall isn’t connected to anything. Landlords, engineers and HVAC specialists have installed dummy thermostats for decades to keep people from costing companies money by constantly adjusting the temperature. According to a 2003 article in the Wall Street Journal, one HVAC specialist surmises 90 percent of all office thermostats are fake (others say it’s more like 2 percent). Some companies even install noise generators to complete the illusion after you turn the knob.
In a survey conducted in 2003 by the Air-Conditioning, Heating and Refrigeration News, 72 percent of respondents admitted to installing dummy thermostats.
“We had an employee that always complained of being hot,” recalls Greg Perakes, an HVACR instructor in Tennessee. “Our solution was to install a pneumatic thermostat. We ran the main air line to it inside of an enclosed I-beam. Then we just attached a short piece of tubing to the branch outlet (terminating inside the I-beam without being attached to any valves, etc.).”
The worker “could adjust her own temperature whenever she felt the need,” Perakes says, “thus enabling her to work more and complain less. When she heard the hissing air coming from inside the I-beam, she felt in control. We never heard another word about the situation from her again. Case solved.”
- The Air-Conditioning, Heating & Refrigeration News, Mar. 27, 2003
Placebo buttons are a lot like superstitions, or ancient rituals. You do something in the hopes of an outcome – if you get the outcome, you keep the superstition.
Dancing to bring the rain, sacrificing a goat to get the sun to rise – it turns out these are a lot like pressing the button at the crosswalk over and over again.
Your brain doesn’t like randomness, and so it tries to connect a cause to every effect; when it can’t, you make one up.
22 December 2010
20 December 2010
16 December 2010
The Epic
The name is not an overstatement. The much anticipated addition to the RED family is the answer to the professional's wildest dreams and exists as the most sophisticated and capable camera ever engineered and built. In a package one third the size of a RED ONE, resides a 5K Mysterium-X™ sensor and a 27 layer ASIC, the most advanced processor of its type in the world, enabling EPIC to capture up to 120 frames per second, each frame at full 14MP resolution. EPIC is engineered to be a DSMC™ (Digital Still & Motion Camera), a camera that excels in both worlds ... by design. Providing native dynamic range of over 13 stops and resolution that exceeds 35 mm motion picture film, this is the camera of the epoch. Add to that RED's newly developed HDRx™ extended dynamic range technology and EPIC boasts an amazing dynamic range of up to 18 stops. Purpose-built for perfect multi-camera synchronization, EPIC comes to market at a time when 3D capture requires the sophistication of a new generation of innovative technology. EPIC, very simply, is epic.
15 December 2010
Sally Menke
Sally Menke, longtime film editor for Quentin Tarantino, found dead near Griffith Park [Updated]
September 28, 2010 | 6:27 am
Director Quentin Tarantino's longtime film editor, who went hiking with her dog amid the extreme heat Monday, was discovered dead early Tuesday morning by searchers in Bronson Canyon, according to law-enforcement sources.
[Updated at 1:59 p.m.: An earlier version mistakenly said she was found in Beachwood Canyon.]
Award-winning film editor Sally Menke, 56, worked on such movies as "Pulp Fiction," "Kill Bill" and "Jackie Brown."
[Updated at 7:49 a.m.: A previous version of this post incorrectly listed Menke's age as 53.]
Menke had gone hiking in the morning, and her friends alerted police after she failed to come home.
Search dogs, an LAPD helicopter and officers from patrol units spent hours in Griffith Park searching for her.
Her locked car was found in a Griffith Park parking lot. Menke's dog was found alive, according to the Los Angeles Police Department.
The sources, who spoke on the condition that they not be named because the investigation was ongoing, said Menke's body was found at the bottom of a ravine near 5600 block of Green Oak Drive.
No cause of death was immediately reported, and it's unclear whether the heat was a factor.
[Updated at 8:42 a.m.: LAPD Lt. Bob Binder said Menke and a hiking buddy set out about 9 a.m. to hike a trail in Bronson Canyon, in the shadows of the Hollywood sign. An hour later, Menke's partner decided to turn back. Menke and her Labrador retriever continued on.
That was the last time she was reported seen. Friends and family contacted authorities about 4 p.m.
First on the scene were officers with the city's General Services Department, which patrols the park. Searchers with the LAPD Metro Division and Los Angeles Fire Department were called in around 6 p.m. Her family and friends aided in the search.
Menke's body was found just after 2 a.m. at the bottom of a ravine near the 5600 block of Green Oak Drive in Bronson Canyon.
Her dog was sitting next to her body, which was about a football field's length from nearby homes.
Ed Winter, assistant chief of the L.A. County coroner's office, said there did not appear to be a jump in deaths Monday because of the extreme heat.
Sources familiar with the death investigation believe Menke became disoriented and collapsed, and the weather conditions contributed to her death. Winter said the coroner's office is trying to determine whether the heat played a role in Menke's death.]
-- Andrew Blankstein
12 December 2010
Steve Cohen, A.C.E. Talks Editing | Hollywood Reinvented
Steve Cohen, A.C.E. Talks Editing | Hollywood Reinvented
FROM THE WEBSITE HOLLYWOOD REINVENTED.
Today I present a 6-part interview with Emmy and Eddie Award winning editor Steve Cohen, A.C.E. Steve is a highly respected feature and television editor and a pioneer in Hollywood’s transition to digital editing. He helped create the editing department at the American Film Institute and was the first publisher of the Editors Guild Magazine. He worked closely with Avid, helping them to develop the first 24-fps editing systems and cut “Lost in Yonkers,” the first studio feature to use the Media Composer. He also edited “Teamster Boss,” one of the first Avid television movies for HBO. He subsequently demonstrated the system to the technical wing of the Motion Picture Academy, which led to Avid’s Academy Award. His new book, “Avid Agility” is an in-depth master class in Avid techniques and is the first to cover the new features in Media Composer 5. You can learn more about it on his blog Splice Here. It’s available from Amazon.
FROM THE WEBSITE HOLLYWOOD REINVENTED.
Today I present a 6-part interview with Emmy and Eddie Award winning editor Steve Cohen, A.C.E. Steve is a highly respected feature and television editor and a pioneer in Hollywood’s transition to digital editing. He helped create the editing department at the American Film Institute and was the first publisher of the Editors Guild Magazine. He worked closely with Avid, helping them to develop the first 24-fps editing systems and cut “Lost in Yonkers,” the first studio feature to use the Media Composer. He also edited “Teamster Boss,” one of the first Avid television movies for HBO. He subsequently demonstrated the system to the technical wing of the Motion Picture Academy, which led to Avid’s Academy Award. His new book, “Avid Agility” is an in-depth master class in Avid techniques and is the first to cover the new features in Media Composer 5. You can learn more about it on his blog Splice Here. It’s available from Amazon.
Steve discusses his thoughts about how has digital technology changed the style of editing?How have tools like Final Cut Pro effected the editing craft? What is his opinion on why Final Cut Pro been so widely adopted? Has the introduction of low-cost edting tools helped or hurt the craft of editing? Are digital editing tools eliminating the need for editors?
His credits include “Before the Rains,” “15 Minutes,” “Blood and Wine,” “Material Girls,” “The Prince and Me,” “Three Wishes,” “Angie,” “Rambling Rose” and “No Man’s Land,” as well as many pilots and TV movies, including several in the Jesse Stone series. He received an Emmy for “LBJ: The Early Years,” an American Cinema Editors Eddie Award for “Don King: Only in America,” and A.C.E.’s distinguished Robert Wise Award for writing about editing. He recently co-founded the Avid Editors Advisory Committee, a group of prominent editors that advises Avid about software features.
Steve Cohen, A.C.E. Talks Editing | Hollywood Reinvented
09 December 2010
Lightworks Is Back
A non linear edit system 'Lightworks' is back. It was one of the first ever non linear editing systems available. What really made it popular was the controller was alot like the old plate editing controllers. It was quite nifty really.
What is significant is that lightworks is being released as open source and free of charge. Meaning anyone can develop plugins etc for the system - anyone. Pretty great idea and might take another step forward into killing off FCP.
http://www.editshare.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=155&Itemid=203
20 October 2010
11 October 2010
Amazing Art
Amazing!! These are all photos, not paintings.. well sort of. These are all actual people who have been body painted to appear as if you are looking at some sort of canvas
09 October 2010
This is a very interesting listen. Its from Louis CK speaking about editing his tv show himself.
http://gizmodo.com/5658621/how-louis-ck-shoots-and-edits-his-own-show
http://gizmodo.com/5658621/how-louis-ck-shoots-and-edits-his-own-show
30 May 2010
Hard Drive Repair
I’d read a few times that bringing the temperature of a
failing drive down will increase its reliability long enough to salvage
important files. When the drive in my trusty Powerbook decided one day
last week to stop booting and make horrible clicking sounds, I decided
to test the theory.
Not feeling particularly motivated to dissect the powerbook, since that would void the warranty I planned to invoke to get the drive replaced, I set it on a relatively uncluttered shelf of the fridge when I got home from work. Ten minutes later, I took it out, and the drive booted like new. I copied my iphoto libraries to an external drive and once that was successful, begun the copying of the only other important file on the drive: a giant iMovie project (~ 30 GB). About halfway through, the drive had warmed up, the copy progress bar had stalled and the clicking was back.
Fair enough. Back in the fridge, for 20 minutes this time. I took it out, booted up (painlessly), hooked it up to the external drive and started the copy again. This time it made it to 75% before the clicking took hold. At this point I considered going after the video clips that made up the iMovie project in small batches, but decided I didn’t feel like doing that if it wasn’t absolutely necessary. I also didn’t want to play guess and check to discover the ideal length of time to chill a powerbook, so I devised a devious plot.
This plot consisted of cooling the powerbook down again, carting my external drive to the kitchen, booting the laptop in the fridge, beginning the copy, and closing the door. Success! I share this experience with you, the internet, in the hopes that it is useful.
Not feeling particularly motivated to dissect the powerbook, since that would void the warranty I planned to invoke to get the drive replaced, I set it on a relatively uncluttered shelf of the fridge when I got home from work. Ten minutes later, I took it out, and the drive booted like new. I copied my iphoto libraries to an external drive and once that was successful, begun the copying of the only other important file on the drive: a giant iMovie project (~ 30 GB). About halfway through, the drive had warmed up, the copy progress bar had stalled and the clicking was back.
Fair enough. Back in the fridge, for 20 minutes this time. I took it out, booted up (painlessly), hooked it up to the external drive and started the copy again. This time it made it to 75% before the clicking took hold. At this point I considered going after the video clips that made up the iMovie project in small batches, but decided I didn’t feel like doing that if it wasn’t absolutely necessary. I also didn’t want to play guess and check to discover the ideal length of time to chill a powerbook, so I devised a devious plot.
This plot consisted of cooling the powerbook down again, carting my external drive to the kitchen, booting the laptop in the fridge, beginning the copy, and closing the door. Success! I share this experience with you, the internet, in the hopes that it is useful.
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