Waiting On A Train

My friend Dave Joyce’s short film, Waiting On A Train, is an official selection of DC Shorts Film Festival. I served as D.I.T. on set using the short lived Storm from The Foundry. Anyone remember that program? <crickets> Right. At one point they were even writing an article featuring Waiting On A Train as an early adopter of Storm. C’est la vie.

I had a much larger role as editor of the film, for which I used FCP7. I cut the above trailer based on an idea Dave and I discussed before I shipped off for sunny L.A. If you’re in D.C. catch a screening and Q&A with director Dave this weekend as a part of Showcase 13, September 8, 10, & 15.

Automatic Duck For Free

The Original Port Huron Statment. (Not the compromised 2nd draft)

I’ve recently found myself finishing in After Effects more and more. Anything to do with motion graphics is just easier to use in AE than in FCP7 and much more intuitive than Motion. Not to mention there’s the weirdness of After Effects created titles rendering really badly in FCP7. Anyone else notice that? Automatic Duck recently made free their industry standard plugins Pro Import AE, Pro Import FCP, and Pro Export FCP. Co-owner Wes Plate was hired by Adobe (good news for Premier Pro users I’ll wager!) and can’t offer enough support to justify charging for his plugins.

You mark that frame an 8, and you're entering a world of pain.

Here’s the link to his customer thank you. These plugins used to cost ~$500 each. Trying out the Pro Import AE plugin was a breeze. Simply export your FCP7 (or FCPX) project into XML format. Then open up After Effects and click Import Automatic Duck Pro Import AE. It references all the media from your FCP project file without creating any new media. This is a boon for those of us still using FCP7 or FCPX with After Effects. It should be noted this will only be good through AE 5.5 after which I can’t imagine it will be updated, but who knows. FCP7 is certainly a dead end anyway. I’m gearing up to take my Premier Pro training at Future Media Concepts here in DC as I think it’s poised to take the place of FCP in the Professional NLE Wars.

In related news Popcorn Island released the latest version of their Final Cut 2 After Effects script for After Effects. Now this is a script and not nearly as simple to use as Automatic Duck plugins. However, it does provide for some nice control over how your FCP project displays in the After Effects timeline. For instance, the default setting is to hide all of the audio tracks and filters. This really cleans up your timeline in a big way. And, this one will probably continue to receive updates and support. However, according to one commenter on Popcorn Island’s web site, the script is still a bit buggy. Use with caution.

Avid. November 3rd. Bleeeaaaarrrrg!

Not exactly a lightweight.

If you’re reading this you probably know about Thursday’s Canon and RED announcements. Now Avid enters the November 3rd fray with a webcast for what will be a look at Media Composer 6. Based on past screengrabs and Avid’s recent realization that they should start listening to their user base instead of dictating…well damn if this doesn’t look like it could be kind of awesome.

Don't run away from this, Dude! Goddamnit, this affects all of us!

UPDATE

It appears details on Media Composer 6 have been leaked ahead of Thursday’s webcast.

Rarevision Releases 5DtoRGB Batch Application

It seems like every DSLR shooter I know uses a different program to convert their footage to an editable format. There’s Mpeg Streamclip, Canon EOS plugin for FCP, and Compressor.  Or some people just edit the raw h.264 file in FCP X or Premier Pro. I don’t know what Avid folk use. I’m a big believer in the “it’s all about the efficient post production workflow”. Even for projects that may be personal or don’t have a “due date”, who wants to spend more time than they have to on a project? So it’s a balance between time and quality for those h.264 conversions. I’m a big believer in Rarevision’s 5DtoRGB.

I’ve seen several reviews from people who don’t seem to quite understand the benefits of this software. Rarevision’s site provides a laundry list explanation of why it’s the best thing to use on your HDSLR footage, but from my experience here’s the biggie – it does chroma smoothing. This helps get rid of the chunky chunks in your blacks. Big time. Anyone who shoots with a Canon DSLR knows what I’m talking about. The noise is one issue, but the way the blacks and other darker colors come out in ugly pixelated blocks can really take away from an otherwise beautiful shot. It also does things like provide increased latitude and more color information. We’re talking superior image quality.

5DtoRGB Pro Res conversion

h.264 from camera

Big gripes about 5DtoRGB include no batch processing and slowness. The improvements in quality don’t outweigh the increased transcoding times. Me don’t like fire. Yadayadayada. Recent updates take advantage of your computer’s GPU. Additionally, Rarevision released a pay version of their software to the Mac App Store ($50) called 5dtoRGB Batch. So now you’ve got high speed batch conversion software that maintains the highest image quality of your DSLR images throughout the post production workflow. You make the pretty picture, now keep the picture pretty. No more excuses. And for those of you (like me) living through the current Great Depression II, Rarevision is keeping 5DtoRGB free! Albeit as 5DtoRGB Lite. And it remains to be seen what the differences in support are. But for now one could get away with using the free version and Remi Sello’s brilliant 5DtoRGB Batch Python script and still GPU-accelerate-batch-process like a rock star for free.

That’s A Swiss Fucking Watch

Scientists recently discovered how to record the way the brain sees/processes images in the “mind’s eye”.

Anyone remember the 1991 movie “Until The End Of The World” with William Hurt and Sam Neill?

It’s an ok movie, nothing great, but it does talk about scientists developing the technology to record dreams. And a quote from the ABC article above:

If you can decode movies people saw, you might be able to decode things in the brain that are movie-like but have no real-world analog, like dreams,

The implications for filmmakers of the future is staggering. What if you didn’t need cameras, lights, a crew, or actors? What if every night you could create a feature length movie, record it, and distribute it the next day on the Internet? Time to start working on my lucid dreaming.

What do you do for a living, son? I’m a dreamer sir. Large and small.

Were You Listening To The Dude’s Story?

A couple of weeks ago I shot and edited an interview with the band YACHT for DC music blog All Things Go. Their post is here. This post is about the production aspects from my point of view.

Location And Talent

I shot the band on the patio at Standard beer garden on 14th Street. The location was perfect for YACHT since they were performing just a few buildings away at the Black Cat later in the evening.

They had been doing interviews all day including one with NPR’s All Songs Considered. ATG’s Stephen and Will were a bit nervous the band would be tired, or worse – not into doing the interview. Our fears were allayed when Jonah and Claire arrived and proved to be very passionate about their projects and a pleasure to work with.

Production

The set up was pretty simple. My 5d Mark II and, Canon 50mm f1.4, and VideoRode Shotgun Mic on the hotshoe. No lights, but since were shooting outside at magic hour I didn’t think we’d need any anyway. Since I was solo I decided to experiment a bit and use my newly purchased FlyCam Nano camera stabilizer.

I wanted to give the interview a bit of a floating feeling as I felt it would compliment YACHT’s (it’s always all caps) image. I also wanted to experiment with the focus. I tried to keep one member of YACHT out of focus at all times, with differing degrees of shallowness.

I haven’t perfected the balance on the Fly Cam Nano, but I was pretty close. What really gave me problems was attempting to manually focus. Yes, I know you’re not supposed to be pulling focus when using a camera stabilizer like the FlyCam Nano, but this was experimentation.

Post Production

I shot using Philip Bloom’s old recommended neutral picture profile. This was just before Technicolor released their CineStyle picture profile for the 5d. This shoot was so basic I decided to keep the edit that way too – I only used L-cuts during the interview.

The grade was finished in Apple Color. I’ve been working with this program for several years and I often hear it referred to as the stick shift of affordable grading programs. It’s true, the learning curve is steep and I’ve only recently begun to feel that I’m starting to wrap my head around it. The complete control of the image that it offers the Colorist is really nice. I did two different primary grades and a max of two secondaries for each shot. Some shots also received a primary out as well. I gave the image a filmic look and saturated the image a bit. I really like the skin tones, but I think I’ll desaturate those just a bit in the future.

Conclusion

It felt great to film musicians again and I hope to be doing more of these with All Things Go. Thanks for the opportunity guys! Special thanks to Sebastien Tobler for getting me involved with ATG.

Wheel Spinning

Oh neglected blog, I can’t seem to find the time to update you properly. So the die has been cast. The cards have been laid down. The older brother is making the move to the City of Angels. Its up to me to drive him out West in his ’98 4 Runner with a U-Haul trailer. I’ll keep you updated via Twitter @JonSalvia dear readers, don’t you worry your pretty little heads. We leave tomorrow…

Keep spinning those wheels, you’ll make it.

Shane Hurlbut Shares Secrets of the Universe

Shane Hurlbut is turning into my favorite DSLR internet guru. The guy is a bonafide pro and he’s sharing a lot of his cinematography, lighting, and film making knowledge for free. This video is a great primer for on set 5Dmarkii/any DSLR camera protocol

The video below includes really cool info on choosing picture style  for your DSLR, and a new program coming out from Cinnafilm called Dark Energy that eliminates *all* aliasing and artifacts from DSLR footage in post. According to Shane, Dark Energy allows you to get a true “Digital Film” look color grade. Very intriguing indeed. Plus, green filmmaking in the 21st century. It’s worth the watch.

Shane recently posted an incredibly detailed account of his first feature length film as director of photography. This is the first of a *15 part* series on lighting. I will be reading/watching these in preparation for my Cinematography & Lighting class (taught by The Wire director of photography David Insley!) in March. I remember watching The Rat Pack on HBO when it debuted and really enjoying the “look” without appreciating why.

Learning how to make the images look how I want them to in camera and not having to “fix it in post” is pure enlightenment. Understanding the principles of cinematography only helps with telling one’s story, even if you never plan on lighting a Arri 150, in this visual medium. Not to mention increasing one’s post production skills (important for my day job as a video editor). There’s really nothing like editing and color correcting something you shot. So thank you Mr. Hurlbut for sharing your passion and secrets that take a lifetime to master.

Three Must Read DSLR Champions:

Shane Hurlbut

Phillip Bloom

Vincent LaForet

Slaughter Across The Water

In 1997 the Spa Creek bridge was shut down for repairs. This was the neighborhood of Eastport’s main connection to the city of Annapolis. Residents worried about the negative effects on their local economy and businesses. Out of this quandary the Maritime Republic of Eastport (MRE) was born.

In 1998 the MRE challenged Annapolis to a tug of war to celebrate their triumphant independence now known as “The Slaughter Across The Water”.

“The longest international tug of war over water in the world” (although the Guinness Book of World Records doesn’t recognize tug of wars due to their danger) draws thousands of onlookers, participants, and merrymakers.

In 2009 I followed MRE members from the planning stages of the tug to it’s inevitable aftermath. My camera, a Canon HV20, suited my run and gun style and allowed me to shoot handheld and remain unobtrusive.

I felt a larger camera that screamed “professional” would have made people uncomfortable. The only shots that contained any direction were the interviews. Everything else was just being in the right place at the right time.

To document the tug of war I positioned one camera crew on the Annapolis City Dock with an HV20. On the Eastport side we had two cameras to cover the several thousand people enjoying the tug festival which includes food, booze, and live music. I was on the ground with an HV30 and my dad was positioned high above  with an HV20 locked down which also streamed live to the Internet.

 

The Vaunted Canon HV20

 

I cut the film using Final Cut Pro 7. The look of the Canon HV20/30s allowed me to get a “cinema” look at 24fps. I can’t compliment these cameras enough. Finally, I worked with my brother Peter to grade the film in Apple’s Color. He’s well known in the DC area for his color grading wizardry and I highly recommend him for your next project.

The Tug of War, now in it’s 13th year, continues again Saturday, November 6 on 2nd Street in Eastport and City Dock in Annapolis. Details about this year’s event (including booze on the Annapolis side for the first time!) can be found at the MRE’s web site here.

I hope that my humble little film serves as an entertaining and historical account of the mysterious practices and often misunderstood people of the MRE who are ‘still revolting’ 13 years after their founding.

p.s. I’m proud to finally release this film to the public after nearly a year of keeping it under wraps. It was nominated for a Visions Award at American University. Big props to everyone who helped out with the production including Yuri Ozeryan, Andrew Gay, Wendy Marxen, and my professor Larry Engel.

Crazy Creative Canadians

Oh, Canada! Ever since the dawn of the 21st century you’ve consistently put out some of the best music and visual art in North America and the world. Let’s take a 2010 sampling.

The Arcade Fire love them some interactive Internet videos. Taking advantage of this multimedia era they’ve done a few amazing things.

In their latest “experiment”, The Wilderness Downtown, your childhood neighborhood becomes the setting for Arcade Fire’s  “We Used To Wait”. Music video director Chris Milk (Chemical Brothers, Gnarls Barkley, Kanye West) made the visuals. Here’s his trailer

“People at Google” put it all together to showcase HTML5 in their broswer Google Chrome, which is the best way to watch. Click the picture below to get engaged…

Web Cinema 2010

Google chose one of, if not the, coolest bands in the world to make something really, really fresh. Think Apple’s iPod launch back in 2000 with U2. Might this be a test of some kind of music service/hybrid 21st century business model between Google and artists (and filmmakers?)? Time will tell. In the meantime Win Butler might revise his quote to include “web developers”.

Director Chris Milk, also out of Canadia, has directed music videos for everyone from Kanye West to Courtney Love to The Chemical Brothers.

Speaking of crazy, creative, Canadian based artists, Spy Films’ Areve Manoukian’s award winning short film Nuit Blanche still blows my mind on a regular basis. All Our Noise wrote a nice review back in February.