pixelcadabra

Kodak Zi6

2009-01-04T16:33:00.005-05:00

We picked up a Kodak Zi6 when they first shipped a few weeks ago, and have been playing with it, taking it through it's paces and evaluating it for both professional and personal use. It's a small 720p HD "lifestyle" camera, capturing to digital SDHC media. They sell for around $170 on Amazon, including a set of rechargeable AA batteries and a charger. It doesn't come with a SDHC card, which is kind of silly, since you only get about thirty seconds of recording time with the built in memory. So be sure you've got some digital media ready to go when you get the unit. You'll need it.

It's an impressive little unit, for what it does, and for what it costs. It's almost completely automatic, with very few customizable settings. On the pro side of things, we were interested in this unit as an HD lipstick cam, being able to clamp or velcro it to just about anything. For the price it's just about disposable, so I don't get too concerned about putting it in harms way. The lens is fairly wide, but certainly not a fisheye. There's a small slider to switch the lens into macro mode, and you can do a digitial zoom if needed. No optical zoom.

I've been experimenting with using this camera as a reference camera for shooting things like people giving powerpoint presentations. Shoot the speaker with our Sony EX-3, tight, but shoot the room with the Zi6, giving a reference for exactly which slide the speaker was on at any given time during their presentation. It works pretty well for this, with a couple of limitations.

The biggest "Huh?!?" with this camera is that there is no "time remaining" indicator for the memory card. You have no idea how much remaining time you have. This sounds like a big deal (and it is) but on the other hand, you can put a 16gig card in there and be confident that your time remaining is "gobs," certainly enought to get you through a typical presentation.

The unit makes chirping sounds to indicate when you start or stop recording, and you can't disable them. This is could be bad in a pro situation.

So, over all, it's got come possibilities for pro use. I could see strapping this thing to a mountain biker or any other rough-duty location, and chances are it will perform fine. The HD video looks good, provided you've got a reasonable amount of light. (It drops down to 15 frames per second under low light situations.) The built in USB interface lets you load the footage into your Mac or PC as standard MP4 files.

What's been interesting, and unexpected, is how much we've been using this for personal use. We did a lot of recording over Thanksgiving and Christmas with this, mainly because it's just so easy to pick up and start using. Plus, you can stick it in your pocket, purse or glove compartment in your car and always be ready to capture video. The convenience factor has meant that we've been shooting a lot more video than we ever did with our Canon HV20. Havng no real zoom means it's not very practical for something like a kid's recital at school where you need to zoom in from the back of the room, but for family gatherings this thing is a lot of fun.

So, the bottom line, for us, is that this thing is a no brainer to have around for the price. We keep finding cool new ways to use it. The lack of features is somewhat frustrating from a pro point of view, but the size and low cost make up for a lot.

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Summer Movie Roundup

2008-06-05T22:28:00.004-04:00

I've seen an unusually high number of movies so far this summer. Well, unusually high for a married guy with two kids, one of them a toddler. Somehow I've been able to make it to the theater this movie season, and I've got some opinions.

Iron Man: Loved it.
I knew absolutely nothing about the Iron Man character going in to this film, not really being a Comic Book Guy. But the previews were compelling, and Robert Downey Jr. is always fun to watch. Sure enough, his performance was one of the highlights of the film, portraying an accidental superhero convincingly.
I liked the film's solution to the universal "super powered suit power supply" problem. It was internally consistent. There was still the niggling issue of g-forces on your brain while flipping around in the suit, but hey, going to the movies is largely about suspension of disbelief.

And speaking of suspension of disbelief...

Speed Racer: Loved it.
Yeah, I hear you sighing is disbelief. How could I love this piece of empty claptrap, hated by almost every critic on the planet. Simple, really: When I was a kid I used to come home from school every day and watch the original Speed Racer cartoon. Every day. The Speed Racer movie was made for people like me, people with an intimate, encyclopedic knowledge of the TV show. Throughout the film, time and time again, I noticed countless subtle nods to the TV show, quick little shots, that I'm guessing the vast majority of viewers wouldn't even notice, and many of them made me laugh out loud.
That said, if you're someone who doesn't have a deep understanding of the subtle world of Speed Racer, then yes, I could understand how the film might come up short for you. But I have to ask the critics who were harsh, who criticized the film for a flimsy plot - Well what were you expecting? It's Speed Racer, for god's sake!
I also found the film to be quiet simply stunning, visually. Bold, unique and groundbreaking, very stylistic.

Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull: Loved it!
We're all big Indy fans here at the Bittner house, and there was a lot of anticipation leading up to this film, balanced with a certain amount of trepidation. Could Harrison Ford still pull of being Indy, with his advanced age?
To me, the great thing about this film was that it felt like an Indy movie, from start to finish. The pacing, the writing, the cinematography, the direction, the humor, all fit the Indy mold. They set out to make a solid Indy movie, not to break any new ground, and they did it. Yes, the thing with the aliens was a bit "out there" (ha!) but no more so than the Holy Grail, Lost Ark or Seeing Stones, if you think about it. And it fit in the tone of the era the film was set in, the 50's, with the space race and the rush to beat the Russians.

Am I going to easy on these films? Has a year and a half trapped inside my home with an infant made me soft, made me just so happy get out of the house that I'll love anything put in front of me? Perhaps. But I think not.

My wife is going to be dragging me to Sex and the City soon, so we'll see how that goes...

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"He said it right."

2008-05-26T15:04:00.003-04:00

Reader Adam made a great point in the comments to the last post -

I still have people who try to write scripts that have had one too many English classes and try to write for the human voice with proper English. The problem is that nobody speaks in complete sentences.

Adam is dead-on right here, and we've run into this situation countless times over the years. These days, when we ask for a script from a client we frame it by asking for a "script outline" and tell them that we'll likely be fine-tuning it for the spoken word, then coming back to them for approval. That way, whoever is doing the writing knows ahead of time that there will be changes, and they're not as likely to get their feathers ruffled. Although sometimes they still get their feathers ruffled.

This clip from The West Wing sizes up the situation rather nicely -

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Why Most Execs Give Lousy Presentations

2008-05-23T11:26:00.002-04:00

Andy Craig posts a really spot-on article at chiefexecutive.net on why so many corporate execs, otherwise excellent communicators, give such lousy presentations.

"You didn’t put in the hard work in advance of your presentation. As a result, you ask your audience to work hard to follow your Death by PowerPoint presentation and the blather loosely associated with it."

Check out the entire article here.

Rehearsal is critical for any live presentation. And not just an "Oh, I'll read through this presentation and go over what I'm going to say in my head..." kind of rehearsal. Get out the projector. Use the remote. Talk out loud. Run through the slides. You will quickly find the flat spots, the transitions that don't work, the phrases that are just plain hard to say. You'll go in more relaxed too, knowing you've actually ironed out the rough spots and you won't have to deal with them on the fly.

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Inactivity

2008-05-22T16:30:00.002-04:00

Yes, I suppose some explanation is order for the lack of updates lately.

Truth be told, it's been a combination of having an extraordinarily busy time at work and not having very many truly compelling things to share. I don't want this to be a link aggregation blog, and I don't want to post just for the sake of posting.

I'm contemplating posting about things that aren't strictly industry related, but have some connection, however small. You won't see posts on what my kids had for breakfast, for example, but if I had a really good time watching the Iron Man movie (I did) and there's something worth sharing about the effects or story telling, well that seems to remotely on-topic.

I'm a big fan of Mark Evanier's blog, News from ME. Mark strikes a good balance covering things that interest him, professionally and personally.

Opinions? Anything in particular you'd like to see covered? Please let me know.

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Some Nice AE Tutorials

2008-05-12T15:32:00.002-04:00

David Torno posts some really nice AE tutorials over at AE I Owe You, his blog.

Check it out.

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ProMax Shutting Down

2008-05-07T20:08:00.002-04:00

Word came over various mailing lists and forums today that Promax, longtime VAR to the video industry and sponsor of the NAB Digital Media Cafe, is shutting down. Lots of people are justifiably lamenting this, and wondering what it represents to the industry as a whole.

Personally, we hadn't order anything from Promax in close to a decade, after some bad experiences with them selling us removable media (Jazz cartridges, when they were all the rage) that were clearly used, some even containing other people's data. The first time it happened I wrote it off as a simple mix up. But it happened again, and Promax never was able to provide a decent explanation, or, for that matter, an apology. So, needless to say, we stopped ordering from them.

Our situation must have been the exception, however, because Promax had a reputation for integrity, something that isn't always easy to find in the cut-throat world of hardware sales. Charles was a good guy, always friendly and gracious when I'd see him at industry events.

The industry has changed a lot since Promax opened in 1994. Building hard drive arrays is no longer the black art it once was back in the SCSI days, and technical information and support is readily available online, making it much easier for people to build their own systems without having to rely on VARs. Margins are razor thin, competition fierce. Our faltering economy only makes matters worse.

Interesting times...

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Multiple Monitors

2008-05-05T21:42:00.002-04:00

In the last post on using a customized keyboard, we got a great comment on the use of multiple monitors. We've been using dual monitors on all of our production machines at Pixel Workshop for as long as I can remember, certainly going back to the 8100av Mac days, as I recall.

It's a simple, inexpensive way to markedly increase your productivity. There's the obvious benefit of increased screen real estate, but I also find I like the organizational aspects of having a primary and secondary monitor. Being able to place apps, windows or palettes that I'm not using "out of the way" (but still available at a glance) is a really nice organizational tool for me. Apples recently added Spaces feature is an attempt at this via a single monitor, and it is indeed useful, but I still wouldn't give up multiple monitors.

I know plenty of editors, people I respect, who insist that a single large monitor is the way to go. Certainly, there's something to be said for having a Final Cut Pro or After Effects timeline stretch across a 30" monitor, but I still prefer the organizational aspects of two screens. Even if I had a 30", I'd have a smaller, secondary monitor, too. (Our main edit system has two Dell 24" monitors.)

It should be noted that there is a potential performance hit when running two monitors from a single graphics card, since the VRAM is split evenly between the two screens. Apps like Motion and Color (and, to a lesser extent, Final Cut) use the graphics card to do a lot of the heavy lifting, and you're essentially halving the amount of memory available for the graphics card to use on any given window. (Installing a second card would solve this issue, but alas, slots are still somewhat dear in the typical Mac Pro being used for video and motion graphics.)

I have an iBook G4 I use for email and web surfing (soon to be retired and replaced with a Macbook Pro, I'm hoping...) and I recently added an external 22" monitor to use when I'm at my office desk. Wow. What a difference! My productivity has noticeably improved.

Oh, one more thing, a bit of a blast from the past. I remember years ago, probably when we were using 9500s as our main workstation machines, setting up a machine with three monitors, one in the middle and one on each side, because there was a F-15 flight simulator that would give you front and side views when using multiple monitors. It was a gather-up-the-geeks cool moment in our studio.

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The Transformative Powers of a Keyboard

2008-04-30T16:20:00.004-04:00

Back in the days of linear A/B roll editing, CMX was a popular brand of edit controller, and the space bar on the CMX keyboard was labeled "ALL STOP." If you were in the midst of prerolling and edit and realized you have made a grace error, you could hit the space bar and the CMX would bring all of your machines out of edit mode. A nice feature.

It didn't take long for some enterprising entrepreneur out there to come up with a third part replacement for the spacebar key, labeled "Oh Shit!" instead of "ALL STOP." They sold a lot of them, and I probably saw them on about half of the CMX editors I'd ever encountered.

So what does this have to do with modern nonlinear editing and keyboards? These days, chances are you're using a Mac or PC as the core of your editing system, and you're probably using the keyboard that came with the system. Do yourself a favor and buy a custom keyboard, matching whatever editing software you use, be it Final Cut, Avid or Premier. Why?

A custom keyboard does a couple of things for you. First of all, it makes it easier to see what the keyboard shortcuts are, and I find it reminds of possible shortcuts I never really knew were there, simply because I'd fallen into a set of habits when I was editing. Second, and perhaps more importantly, from your client's point of view it transforms your generic computer system, "That Mac you use to edit video...", into a custom video editing workstation. It's amazing to me how having a colorful custom keyboard in the edit suite changes the perception of the system you're using in the client's eyes.

After shopping around at NAB a few years ago we settled on the Logic Keyboard for our Final Cut systems.

Do you have a favorite keyboard brand? Share with us all in the comments!

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No NAB for Me This Year

2008-04-14T20:55:00.003-04:00

Jonas over at General Specialist has a nice list of resources available for NAB news.

As for me, I decided to skip this year's show. Last year, while strolling from my hotel to the convention center with my pal Rob Birnholz, we agreed that with the availability of information online, going to NAB every year wasn't as critical as it used to be. Sure, it's nice to be able to see the gear in person, to heft that new camera on your shoulder or strap on the latest steadicam, but is it worth several days time and around a thousand bucks to do so? Not to me, not any more. (And hey, I'm in good company, with both Avid and Apple skipping the show floor this year.)

I miss seeing the friends I only get to see at NAB, pals from the IMUG list and the Steadicam Forum. There's a big social factor to NAB, connecting with those people in person. I don't really see a whole lot of business generated from the connections I make at NAB, so it's hard to justify it from that end, either.

If you've never been, and you're a person occasionally smitten with techno-lust, by all means, go. It's worth seeing, just to see so much technology in one place. Exciting and overwhelming.

But for me, it's become an every-other-year event.

(Rob, on the other hand, changed his mind at the last minute and went to Vegas. Rob, that's the last time I go Segway riding in Vegas with you. Do you hear me?)

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Sony EX3

2008-04-14T08:47:00.002-04:00

In a perfect example of why you never make a camera purchase in the weeks leading up to NAB, Sony has announced the EX3 camera, with many improvements over the EX1.

There's a great overview of the new camera here.

The EX3 is scheduled for "third quarter" release with a price around $13K. So now my dilemma is whether to buy an EX1 now, or to try to make it a few more months with our SDX-900 DV50 camera and wait for the EX3.

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Don't Be Afraid of the Big Cheese

2008-04-12T12:21:00.002-04:00

Last week we were shooting at a Really Big Company, grabbing little "get to know you" video snippets for a presentation they were preparing for a government project. It was a fun day, with some really smart folks who, fortunately, didn't take themselves too seriously.

One of the people we shot was the CEO of the company. The big cheese. Head honcho. Big Kahuna. I've noticed that quite often in big companies, the CEO has a collection of "handlers" around him or her, and these handlers are often very nervous about the fact that the CEO is going to be taking part in the video shoot. Sometimes it seems like they are afraid that we're going to take too much time, sometimes I think they're just afraid that we're accidentally going to leave the "make everyone look like a drooling moron" filter on the lens. (These filters are very hard to come by. Only a handful were made, back in the silent era. I stumbled across mine in a government surplus auction, although clearly the government is still in possession of several of them.)

These handlers usually have either a very nervous or confrontational quality about them, as they attempt to insulate the CEO from the situation. It has been my experience that the best way to deal with high level CEOs, military general, world leaders, etc., is to treat them with confident respect, but not to be subordinate to them. You are there to make them look good, and part of putting them at ease is to have an aura of confidence about you, to make them feel like they're in good hands and you know what you're doing.

Part of this, of course, is preparing an environment that supports this illusion. Leave yourself plenty of time for setup. Request a room that's large enough for the task. Request that only key company personnel be permitted in the room during the shoot. (People like to hang out, but everybody likes to direct, and you quickly end up with too many cooks in the room.) When the big cheese arrives, you are ready to roll, lights ups, mics ready, everything tested and ready for action.

Many CEOs are very comfortable on camera and get through their presentation quickly with a minimum of fuss. I usually present the first take as a rehearsal (but roll tape during it anyway), second take as a a real take, and get a third as a safety. If the boss (or the handlers) fight you on doing a safety take, calmly explain to them that you are protecting them from added time, expense and hassle caused by some unforeseen or unnoticed mistake. You're looking out for them, and it's time well spent. It will only take a couple of minutes.

Some CEOs require a bit more, shall we say, nurturing, and this is where it's really critical for you to be in calm control of the situation, and for you to not be a wuss when it comes to telling them they've got a better take in them. The handlers, when seeing the CEO struggling, will instinctively want to get them out of there, ASAP, and will likely start blowing false praise. Don't fall in to this trap. The CEO is looking to you to make them look good. Don't let them down. If they do a bad take, be diplomatic, but direct. Humor can be a good tool, if you're the kind of person who can pull it off with charm.

It's your job to put everyone at ease. Be confident and in control. Know your stuff, and plan ahead. Be diplomatic, but firm in your desire to make everyone look their best. That's what they hired you for.

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Putting Your Eggs In One Basket

2008-04-10T14:13:00.002-04:00

Remember how I was recently pontificating about the need to not have too much of your revenue tied up in one client? Well there's a dust-up going on right now, involving a company who was doing a large percentage of their work with Walmart. Check out the story here.

Lots of ethical dilemmas here. Technically, the production company owns the footage they shot for Walmart, and can do whatever they want with it, including selling it to the highest bidder. But I can't imagine anyone ever hiring them again, not without a specific ownership clause in their contract. But who know...maybe the owners of the production company are looking for multimillion dollar buyout from Walmart, and then planning on shutting down and heading to an island somewhere and living the good life.

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Finding Your Zone

2008-04-07T15:21:00.003-04:00

Dan Benjamin from the Hivelogic blog writes a really insightful article on the need for a proper workspace for creative people. He makes some really good points.

Most people who create things will enter a state of mind where the activity of producing something, the act of creating, become effortless (or at least easier). Writers often describe the sensation of their hands flying across the keyboard, words coming out without pause or difficulty, the message clarifying before them on the page (or screen). Artists often describe a similar sensation, as if their brush was being guided by their subconscious mind. And although many people think of software development as a kind of science, there is a great deal of creativity involved in writing code, and it works the very same way.

The rest of the article is here.

I have a friend who's a big fan of coworking, and Dan's post outlines many of the reasons I resist it. For the type of work I do, creative work that often involves deep, thoughtful problem solving, the idea of going to a Starbucks, a loud environment with lousy lighting, uncomfortable chairs, small tables...well it's just not that attractive to me. Not to mention the fact that reducing my workspace from two 24" monitors down to my laptop screen puts a huge damper on my productivity. It's nice to get out and meet people, to bounce ideas off of them, and I can see the value in that, but I have people here in the office I can hit up for suggestions, as well as a really strong online community, too. (I also happen to have no taste for coffee. Every few years I try it, tempted my the smell, and am reminded why I continue to prefer my caffeine delivered cold.)

Maybe I'd feel differently if I worked out of my home. Maybe I'd feel differently if I didn't attend nearly every freakin' charity event in town, along with weekly Rotary meetings, networking events, user group meetings, PTA events, happy hours, etc. No, in my local community I have no feelings of being disconnected.

Which is nice.

Now excuse me while I return to my tastefully lit, acoustically treated, air conditioned, technically provisioned edit suite.

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Blog 'til You Drop

2008-04-07T14:00:00.001-04:00

Remember how just a few days ago I concerned about the long hours my pals are putting in, and how it strikes me as being unsustainable? Turns out, according to the New York Times, it's affecting the blogging world, too.

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Student Film Cliches

2008-04-05T23:38:00.002-04:00

For the past several years I've volunteered to serve as a judge for a local student film festival. The films have gotten better every year, and it amazed me how much sophistication we're seeing from these high-school aged kids.

Of course, there are the cliche's...

This film was produced as a parody of the many common student film cliches. How many can you spot, and what other one's can you think of? (For example, there's no one walking through a graveyard in this one, which is something I've seen in a lot of student films...)

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Dogs and Ponies Not Needed

2008-04-02T20:54:00.002-04:00

So a long time friend and colleague of mine calls me and invites me to an Important Meeting with a potential new client. Very exciting stuff, could be a nice, steady stream of work for us, a good long-term relationship. "Bring some stuff to show."

Well, no problem, I'll just burn off the most recent copy of the old Pixel Demo Reel! Looking it up on the server, let's see, the most recent one is dated...1996?!?

Holy crap. Yep, looks like the reel hasn't been meaningfully updated in, oh, about two years. How is this possible? Thinking about it, I realized that I haven't been asked for a reel in a long time. The vast majority of our work is referrals, and for whatever reason we are rarely asked to just send out a demo reel any more. I suppose that's a good thing, that we've reached the point where our reputation and the recommendations we get are good. That, and people check us out via the web.

So, anyway, I gathered up a bunch of stuff to show, projects old and new, many different styles, to cover all of the "Why yes, we've done something just like that, and I happen to have a copy of that job right here..." bases.

And I was never asked to show anything. Not a frame of video, interactive, multimedia, nothing. Of course, had I not gather up all that stuff I surely would have been asked to show all kinds of samples. That's just the way it works.

The meeting went very well, and it looks like there's potential for a lot of fun, collaborative work.

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Working Yourself to Death

2008-04-01T16:56:00.004-04:00

Sorry things have been quiet here for a few days. We've had a handful big projects approaching delivery, and things have been hectic.

Which reminds me...

A good friend of mine, also in the motion media biz, was lamenting recently how he'd been spending every waking hour for the past few weeks working on a project, and that he was getting very little time with his family and was exhausted, too.

Which got me thinking. Occasional all-nighters seem to come with the territory in this business, typically when you've got a deadline approaching and that render just keeps on crashing, or some other unforeseen issue crops up. That's normal, and the kind of thing that happens from time to time in most lines of work. Most professionals have to put in extra hours from time to time.

But I have several good friends who have, over the years, allowed this to become a regular thing, just a normal part of how they do business. They are individuals, with no on-site staff, one-man motion graphics and editing shops. And they work crazy hours, regularly, to make deadlines. Why? There a number of ways to look at this.

First of all, maybe they're just really bad at estimating how long it should take to get a job done. We're all guilty of this from time to time, but if you've been in the business more than a few years you should have a fairly good idea of how long a project takes. (And you should have systems in place to charge for overages when things take longer and it's the client's fault.)

I'm pretty sure that's not the case, here. No, in this case I think it's a case of undervaluing themselves, combined with professional pride. They bill out a job based on what they think it "should" take, if a mere mortal were doing it, to be competitive for the client. But they know deep down inside that they are not mere mortals, and that they will tweak and fuss until the job is perfect, until it is satisfying to them. So they know they will spend many more hours than they bill, and are basically giving those hours away, because, well, most artists wouldn't take that extra time, so it's not really billable, right?

You see the flaw in this logic. Taking the extra time is exactly the thing they should be billing for, it's the very thing that sets them apart from the crowd. Sure, some clients won't get it, but many will. And the ones who do are the one's you want, because they appreciate the difference and are willing to pay for the best. You need to educate them. How?

Here's a handy technique. Let's say you put in a bunch of extra hours in the project. Track them, put them on the invoice, and then discount them out. When you deliver to the client, you say, "I wanted you to be aware of the extra time this project required, to get it to the level of perfection I know you and your company appreciate. I'm not billing you for it this time, because we agreed on a price, but we should both be aware of this when we plan for your next project."

So you're setting expectations. You're the hero for going the extra mile but staying on budget, and they know that if they want this level of quality on an ongoing basis it's going to require some extra budgeting on their part. And, framed this way, chances are they will. Some won't, and will try to get you to give it away every time, and that's where you need to be firm.

"I understand you're on a tight budget, so let's work together to see where we can't make some cuts in the scope of this, so we can both have realistic expectations."

As for my pals who put in the crazy hours, well, honestly, I worry about them. I care about them, truly, and the last thing I want is to come to work one day and get word that one of them was found slumped over his keyboard after pulling a series of all nighters.

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Simply Red

2008-03-28T20:47:00.004-04:00

I ran into a good friend of mine at a local cafe the other day, and he was telling me about a panel discussion he was involved with on digital cinema. Several cameras were on display, including HD cams from Sony and Hitachi, but the star of the show, the real reason everyone attended, was to see the Red One from Red Digital Cinema. Of course, the Red One has been the talk of the industry for a few years now, and is either the most amazing piece of disruptive technology in the history of cinema, or the biggest pile of vaporware to come down the pike, depending on who you ask.

When the Red was first announced I was as skeptical as the next guy, having been in the biz for a few years and having been through product announcements like the Play Trinity system, among others, products that were the hype of NAB for a few years running, then, if they managed to ship at all, usually

shipped with greatly reduced feature sets, greatly inflated prices, or a little of both. So, while the Red One sounded cool, I thought it best to take a wait and see attitude.

Sure enough, at NAB last year Red had a pretty amazing little short feature, directed by Peter Jackson (yes, THE Peter Jackson), using two of the beta Red cameras. I saw it in the Red theater on the show floor, and it was very impressive. It seemed like the Red One was for real, and people were signing up in droves to get on the waiting list to purchase one. The Red booth was more crowded than church on Easter Sunday, and yet there were still plenty of naysayers, people who didn't believe they could possibly ship a camera system with that kind of image quality for that kind of money.

I came home from NAB, and one of the DPs I work with sat down with me and peppered me with question about the Red One. We knew an HD camera was in our future, and the Red was certainly no more expensive than any of the other high-end or even mid-range HD cams, so it was worth considering. And consider we did, but ultimately I decided that the Red just isn't for us, not now.

The way I see it, the Red One is a digital cinema camera, not an HD video camera. What's the distinction? Simply put, the Red is designed to take the place of a movie camera, a 35mm or 16mm camera, not a video camera rig. The Red One is best used with prime lenses, instead of the servo driven zooms video camera operators are used to. For digital cinema that's great, but for a shop like ours that shoots a wide variety of shows, the limitations of the Red make it impractical for us. You couldn't use the Red to go shoot someone giving a speech at a conference, for example, one of those oh-so-boring-but-it-pays-the-bills assignments that most shooters get from time to time. (I suppose, technically, you could use the Red for that, but you get my point. It's not an ideal tool for that kind of situation.)

No, for us, we need something more versatile, and also something more mature than the Red currently is. As gorgeous as the Red One is, she's still a finicky girl, with software update coming fast and furious. Again, fine if you're doing dramatic work, and can risk the need for reshoots, but not so good for covering live events, or productions with tight budgets,

This is not the say the Red isn't impressive for what it's accomplished. It really is amazing, and I have to wonder how many sleepless nights it's caused for the execs at Sony and Panasonic. It is truly a disruptive technology, and I think having it in the mix is a good thing for everyone.

But for us, for now, if we need the super high resolution images of the Red One, we'll hire an owner/ operator who's intimately familiar with the quirks of the system, and rely on a more traditional HD camera system for our day to day work.

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Steadicam Inventor Garrett Brown

2008-03-26T23:09:00.003-04:00

Growing up, I developed a fascination with the Steadicam, after seeing inventor Garrett Brown chasing model Cheryl Tiegs around the set of the Saturday morning TV show "Kids Are People Too!"

I've never lost my love for the steadicam, and my admiration for the gentleman we have to thank for having the perserverance to invent it. I was lucky enough to have been taught how to operate steadicam by him, and even had the privilege of visiting his shop, where he showed me the original steadicam prototype. Here's a nice interview with Garrett Brown.

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Who Wouldn't You Work With?

2008-03-24T20:14:00.003-04:00

Back before we started Pixel Workshop (and before she was my wife), Ilana worked as an assistant editor for several different post production houses in Washington DC. One of them had an ongoing professional relationship with one of the largest tobacco companies in the world, doing training and P.R. video for them. They were a huge and important client for the post house, responsible for a large percentage of their annual revenue. (And remember what we said about having too many eggs in one basket!)

The funny thing about the relationship was that this client specified that they be allowed to smoke in the edit suites. (This was in the early 90s, before there were so many workplace smoking restrictions.) And they let it be known in no uncertain terms that if they weren't allowed to smoke in the edit suites, they would take their business elsewhere. So the post house went along with it. Again, times were different , even fifteen years ago, but still - quite a bargain to make. The deal drove the engineers nuts, because they were constantly having to tear down the equipment in the "smoking" suite to remove the layers of gunk left by the smoke. Other clients refused to use the room because it reeked of stale smoke.

Worth it? Well, for the post house, clearly it was. They went on like this for years, hiring editors who smoked, so they wouldn't mind the situation.

I can tell you that we never would have taken them on as a client, and certainly would never have allowed smoking anywhere inside the facility. Still, in our company history, we've done a handful of jobs for clients we didn't exactly agree with. We've done political ads (always get paid in advance with politicals...always...), we did an ad for an international "Day of Peace" which, unbeknownst to us, was actually a mass wedding ceremony for the Moonies. Oops.

And one time I did an online finishing job for a gent who, when booking the edit suite, said to me, "You don't have a problem with nudity, do you?" (For the record, that's like asking Popeye if he has a problem with spinach...) Turns out his indie film was a low-budget lesbian vampire slasher flick. And I had no problem with that.

But seriously, it's a good mental exercise. Who, if they knocked on your door, clutching fistfuls of money, would you refuse to work for? Politicals that were against your sensibilities? Porn? Religious content? Is it even our job to pass judgment on the products our clients are producing, as long as they're legal?

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Bested, Once Again...

2008-03-21T16:15:00.002-04:00

Have a great weekend, everybody!

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Diversity of Clients

2008-03-20T11:14:00.002-04:00

I came across and interesting article today from the Financial Post, about an internet marketing company who was relying on a loophole in Google's adwords policies as their primary source of revenue. They were a hundred million dollar company, until Google closed the loophole. Game over. Just like that.

It got me thinking about a situation we faced a number of years ago. I had met a producer for a huge government contracting agency, one of the many "Beltway Bandits" that do business in the Washington DC area. I had been brought on to do steadicam for a small job he was doing, and we hit it off. I sent him a production reel from Pixel Workshop, we had lunch, and agreed to keep in touch.

Not long after that he called and asked me to attend a meeting he was having with one of his clients, a government agency who needed a promotional video. This video was a tiny component of a multi-million dollar contract, but as part of the contract it needed to be done, and my new contact was looking for us to handle the job. I attended the meeting, where a lot of interesting, creative ideas were exchanged, and I left feeling like I had a clear picture of what they needed. My contact asked us to put together a proposal, and assured me that this project was ours, that he was going to take care of making sure we would get the job.

Needless to say, this was good news. It was a substantial project, in the low six figures, and put us in good financial shape for the rest of the year. We started planning for the job, making sure that we had the resources lined up, and that we didn't have too many other "little" jobs in the pipeline that would distract us from this whale of a project.

It was all good, right up to the point where we didn't actually win the contract. Despite the assurances from my guy, someone came in with a bid that was substantially lower than ours, and the government agency went with it. It hit us hard, and made for a lean year, in part because we had eased up on gathering other projects, in anticipation of this big one landing.

The lesson here is to be very careful about relying on one or two big clients for the majority of your income. You may have someone there who loves your work, but what happens when she moves on, gets fired, or when a new CEO takes over and decides to take the company in a new direction? I've seen it happen many times over the years, and as a result we make a conscious effort to not let any one client become a critical source of income.

This is not to say you turn down their business, of course, but it means that as busy as you get with them, be sure you carve out time in your schedule to continue marketing to and serving your other clients. Actually carve out the time on your schedule, block it out, and use it. When you plan out your scheduling for a new, big job, don't let it consume your entire schedule. Plan out your core "business" activities, like marketing, schedule them, and plug in that new project around them.

I know, I know, easier said than done. But it's an important concept to keep in mind, and can help smooth out the financial roller coaster that can be running a small business.

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Quick Update

2008-03-19T20:03:00.002-04:00

Busy at work today, trying to get on top of several projects that have piled up, plus I'm fighting a nasty chest cold. So nothing much to see here today. I do want to thank everyone who sent notes about Roy's insurance article. It was very popular (major spikeage on the analytics meters) and Roy promises to do a followup soon.

Stay tuned...

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Which Brain Do You Choose to Use?

2008-03-18T20:39:00.002-04:00

I'm going to ask you to carve out eighteen minutes of your life and watch this TED presentation by Dr. Jill Bolte Taylor -

I'm a big fan of the TED conference presentations, and love that they're online for the world to enjoy. The TED web site is fun to explore, and I always come away feeling like it was time well spent.

Now, speaking to Dr. Jill's presentation, what an amazing story! Notice the deliberate story arc, the limited use of slides, the use of compelling visual aids. A real human brain is tough to beat for an attention getter! Plus, once you get past the "Ewww..." factor, it's a great way to demystify the human brain. Here it is. This isn't a model, it's a real brain. There's no denying her passion for the content, and her connection to the audience. You could hear a pin drop in that room. Powerful stuff.

And beyond the actual mechanics of the presentation, there's the message itself, one that I think is important for visual storytellers. Dr. Jill spoke of choosing which side of the brain to use. For visual storytellers, we need to think about which side of the viewer's brain we're appealing to. Are we presenting details and facts, or an emotional appeal? Which has more meaning? Which is more daring? Which is more appropriate? Which will be remembered?

What do you think?