Make Film Work

Halloween

Jason — Mon, 28 Dec 2009 05:43:53 +0000

Halloween in Salem, MA, 2009. Occurring on a Saturday, it was said to have been the largest event in town for nearly a decade. An estimated 100,000 people showed up to celebrate.

Misty’s Christmas

Jason — Sat, 26 Dec 2009 17:06:57 +0000

Used our Flip Ultra HD to capture our cat’s holiday excitement.

Magic Mouse

Jason — Tue, 22 Dec 2009 20:04:06 +0000

I’m a little late to the party on this. Regardless, I wanted to say something about how much I enjoy using this thing. So, I really enjoy using this thing. Specifically I love being able to navigate back and forth in Safari and Finder using the two finger swipe. Superb.

I’m less impressed with the mouse’s integration with Final Cut Studio. Or maybe I just haven’t explored it enough. The frictionless scrolling in Final Cut isn’t quite precise enough to be useful for me. I expect more support is on the way, though. Especially in future versions of the Studio.

Anyway, there wasn’t enough room on Twitter to say all of that.

Another iPhone Time Lapse

Jason — Sun, 20 Dec 2009 21:46:52 +0000

Same basic setup as last time. But instead of scaling up for 1080p I scaled down for 720p. I thought maybe this would make the picture a little sharper, and that seems to be the case. It was still light outside which makes the image cleaner anyway.

I wasn’t sure if I was going to capture anything interesting out the window with this one, and it looks like I was right. The most note-worthy observable change here is how the snow on the street melts away — not terribly enthralling.

iPhone 3GS Time Lapse

Jason — Sun, 20 Dec 2009 19:32:49 +0000

I used the iTimeLapse Pro [iTunes, $2.99] iPhone app to capture the beginning of the first major snow fall of the season here in Salem. 760 frames total, playing at 24 frames per second. The phone was standing vertically in its dock looking out the window.

Each individual frame started 1536 wide by 2048 high. Which is almost wide enough for a standard 1080p video (at 1920 by 1080). After assembling the frames in a custom FCP timeline, I exported the video and dropped it in Motion where I added the camera movement. The video was still very red from all of the street lights, so I ran it quickly through Color to make it more blue. The graininess is from shooting in such low light.

The final version was exported using the Apple TV preset in Compressor.

The Split S

Jason — Thu, 10 Dec 2009 03:15:33 +0000

An interview with Charles Woodbury Wallace, B-17 pilot in WWII. Filmed at the Wings of Freedom event held September 19th, 2009 in Beverly, MA.

See it on Vimeo.

Boat Festival Alternate Grade

Jason — Tue, 08 Sep 2009 03:01:08 +0000

I wasn’t super happy about how I color graded the Boat Festival video. So I thought I’d take another stab at it. Afterwards I was curious to see just how much I had deviated from the first grade — quite a bit it, it turned out. You can see a side-by-side comparison below. Some shots will jump out at you more than others.

Antique Boat Festival

Jason — Thu, 03 Sep 2009 15:31:30 +0000

A video snapshot from an antique boat show here in Salem, MA. Shot with DVX100a at 24pa, with a 1/48 shutter, using polarizing and UV filters. Audio captured with a super cardioid shotgun microphone. Edited and graded in Final Cut Studio 2. See the rest of the series here.

The Witches Cup

Jason — Mon, 17 Aug 2009 08:35:06 +0000

The Witches Cup is a yearly bicycle race around the Salem Common. It’s made up of several events that attract racers from around the globe, including current and former olympians. I thought it might be fun to film this year’s race.

Hitchcock

Jason — Sun, 16 Aug 2009 03:08:47 +0000

Hitchcock [iTunes, $19.99] is an iPhone app for creating storyboards.

What’s most interesting to me about Hitchcock is how it’s meant to be used. I can’t think of any other iPhone app whose purpose is to get serious work done. It’s not something you use to jot down a few notes or use to browse incoming information. It’s a workstation, and it requires thought, planning and — most importantly — time to use effectively. That’s not something you see too much of on the iPhone.

Cinemek have put together a fifteen minute demonstration of Hitchcock’s functions. It’s clear that this was designed as a software solution, not just part of one. I believe that’s a major shift in intent for iPhone application programming — especially for the currently anemic filmmaking market.

⌘ Basic Color Correction

Jason — Mon, 10 Aug 2009 23:00:29 +0000

Say you’ve spent all day editing a video and now you’re excited to show it off. You don’t know too much about color correction but maybe noticed that your video looks a little red. And the colors are a little flat. And there’s not a lot of definition in the shadows.

Content might be king, but the big guy doesn’t wear a crown because it’s comfortable.

A Clarification

Color correction is the process of removing color casts due to a white imbalance, adjusting for poorly exposed shots, and improving contrast. Color grading is the process of manipulating color in your footage to produce a desired look.

That should answer the why. But what are you correcting? Simply, you’re looking to normalize your footage. Or maybe it’s better to call it naturalizing. Your goal is to make your video look normal. Properly exposed. Not-tinted. Uniform.

For reference, I run everything I shoot through Color for adjustments. From iPhone videos to the big-time client projects, I don’t consider it finished until it’s gone through (at least) a contrast & white balance grade. In fact, I specifically shoot in a way that gives me the greatest flexibility for correcting and grading. It’s similar to shooting RAW on your DSLR. But that’s for another day.

So here we are. Basic color correction. You can do everything here with Final Cut’s “Color Corrector 3-way” filter (discussed below), but if you have Final Cut Studio, you might as well use Color — you’ll have far more control over your adjustments.

Contrast

I always start by adjusting contrast.

Unless you’re shooting with your shadows absolutely black (which you shouldn’t — you want flexibility) you should start by pulling the darkest areas down toward the black. Not so much that you’re losing a ton of color information, but enough to create a distinction between dark and semi-dark.

On the other end, your highlights shouldn’t be blown out. By which I mean not peaking above 100%. Anything above 100% is considered super white and not broadcast safe. Here’s a quick before and after look at the RGB histogram for the clip above.

Before Adjustments

The most important thing to note here is how the highlights are squished along the top (the thick yellow line near the top separates white from super white). The shadows are spread along the lower half.

After Adjustments

With the highlights reigned in, the graph isn’t top or bottom heavy. Most of the color is in the middle and we’ve got a few shadows near the bottom.

How you shoot has a lot to do with how much flexibility you’ll have while grading. For example, many cameras include a handy zebra striping feature (see below) to let you know when you’re approaching your white limit. No striping means you’re within the limit.

Final Cut’s Color Corrector 3-way Filter

If you’re using Final Cut Express or if Color’s interface scares you, you might be familiar with this guy.

From left to right you see three color wheels and sliders to play with. The far left is for adjusting shadows. The center is for mid-tones. The far right is for highlights. Use the sliders below the color wheels to adjust contrast, and the wheels themselves for color adjustments. Take it slow — minor adjustments can produce dramatic results.

Your goal is to maintain consistency across your clips.

White Balance Adjustment

You’ll want to look at your clips for any red or blue casting. Casting comes from maladjusted white balance and can cause ugliness between shots. This is the red tinting I mentioned in the opening paragraph. Pretty much every camera you encounter these days has some kind of automatic white balance, so most of the time it’ll be spot-on. When it’s not you need to fix it by adding the opposite of whatever color you have too much of. Here’s a handy color wheel for reference.

If you’re using the Color Corrector 3-way filter in Final Cut Express or Final Cut Pro you’ll want to use the center wheel to remove most of whatever color cast your clips might have.

Again, your goal is to be as consistent as possible. When you’re done making your adjustments every clip in your sequence should be consistent from shot to shot. If you notice one clip that looks a little blue, everybody else is going to notice it too. Same goes for shadows. If it’s too light or too dark, you’ll know, and so will we.

Coloring

When you have your footage looking good (and unified) you can choose to add a little bit of style. Maybe your video is set in the summer so you want to give it a warm feel. You’ll tint it orange. Or say your characters are locked in a cold freezer, you add blue. Maybe you want to show off an afternoon by the waterfront so you punch up the colors a little bit.

This is the fun part of color grading. You’re free to create a look all your own at this point — adjusting saturation, vignetting, removing colors altogether, etc. And because you’ve already corrected your clips for color & contrast, any look you create will be applied uniformly. Experiment and take time to create a look that makes you happy.

The Maritime Festival

Jason — Mon, 03 Aug 2009 02:22:14 +0000

Video from this year’s Maritime Festival in Salem, MA. Music is “The Trial of the Century” by The French Kicks. Everything shot on a DVX100a and edited & graded in Final Cut Studio 2.

DaisyDisk

Jason — Wed, 15 Jul 2009 16:02:14 +0000

If you’re looking for a way to recover some room on your hard drives you should give DaisyDisk a try. It’s a beautiful app with a sharp focus — to help you find the crap that’s hogging space on your drives. It’s a free download and includes a fully-functional 15 day trial. A license is $19.95.

Immediately after installation I found over 3GB of hidden QuickTime reference files on my Desktop (presumably from Compressor). Not only that, did I mention that it looks awesome? Unlike other applications where your crap still looks like crap, DaisyDisk makes your crap look like beautiful, slick & polished crap.

Sail Boston 2009

Jason — Tue, 14 Jul 2009 00:55:01 +0000

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On Saturday I bought a 16GB iPhone 3GS. On Sunday Meagan and I went to Sail Boston to see the tall ships hanging out in the harbor. I couldn’t have asked for a better opportunity to try out the 3GS’s video mode, the result of which can be found above.

Overall I’m impressed. I was able to achieve a selective focus with a little bit of planning, and the quasi-manual exposure control is handy. I was expecting a frame size larger than 640 by 480, but I suppose that leaves room for the iPhone HD next summer. Even so, I cropped the frame’s ratio from 1:1.33 to 1:1.68 which gave the perception of true widescreen. It sacrifices a little bit of vertical resolution, but most people probably aren’t going to notice.

I spent a few hours doing the editing and color grading, although it should be noted that the raw footage is pretty impressive on its own. Color saturation is fantastic and the auto exposure & white balance worked well in most situations. After importing I had to render the audio before I could play it back in Final Cut, which seemed odd. Sending the project to Color went smoothly, but I must have had some old settings in there because when I sent it back to Final Cut suddenly I was working in ProRes. I went from a data rate of about 3,000 kbps to 64 mbps.

That’s not exactly an efficient use of disk space.

Anyway, I’m excited to see what other people do with the the phone, video wise. I wouldn’t be surprised to see entire filmmaking communities develop around the device. It’s just so much fun to shoot with, and to challenge yourself in spite of the hardware’s limitations.

Tracking Time

Jason — Fri, 03 Jul 2009 02:43:02 +0000

This is what I want from time-trackng software.

Tracks time in minutes
Tracks individual tasks
Ablity to group tasks for invoicing
Timer in menu bar
iPhone companion app
Well-designed interface
Doesn’t charge monthly fees
Ability to manually edit/enter time
Native desktop application, not web-based

For years I’ve been using Billable to track my time and create invoices. It’s simple, I’ll give it that. The application is focused only on tasks, clients & invoices. Unfortunately Billable’s time-tracker is stuck inside the application. It’s too often that I’ve forgotten to turn it off (or on) when switching between tasks. I realize that’s probably more my own fault than Billable’s, but without that timer out in the open, it might as well not exist. It’s a decent median application that gets the job done. It’s just not quite what I’m looking for.

Lately I’ve been using The Hit List to track tasks. Everything from household items to professional deadlines. I’m a big fan of keeping only one to do list.

I really think The Hit List could be great for my time tracking workflow except for one significant limitation — there’s currently no way to input time manually. If you forgot to set the timer when you started you’re out of luck.

Granted The Hit List is in beta still (until November? ugh) so this could just be something overlooked. Afterall you can click in the ‘actual time’ field and edit the numbers therein. They just don’t stick.

I know that other applications — Billings, for example — work for other people. Most have too many features, or subscription plans that I don’t want any part of. Everything I’ve tried feels like too much or too little. I don’t need to keep track of every single detail. But I do need to track individual items, and group them accordingly.

I guess I’ll stick it out with Billable for now. But in such a crowded market, I’m surprised there aren’t more median products to choose from.

Feelings

Jason — Sun, 14 Jun 2009 05:54:23 +0000

Sometimes you don’t know how you really feel about something until somebody like you comes along and articulates it so well.

No time like the QuickTime

Jason — Wed, 10 Jun 2009 06:55:26 +0000

As Apple throws all caution to the wind by skipping two full versions between iterations 7 and 10, I can’t help but wonder what QuickTime X — and Snow Leopard — means for the future of Final Cut Studio.

For now the only information I can find is the bit about ColorSync that was mentioned in the WWDC Keynote on Monday, and the small section under Snow Leopard’s New Technologies heading. ColorSync is Apple’s system for maintaining consistency across imaging devices like displays, printers, scanners, and digital cameras so that the color viewed on screen is the same as the color printed out.

Maybe this means an end to those tricky gamma-shift issues that occurred when exporting to specific formats in Compressor.

Snow Leopard is due out in September, so it would be great to hear something about Final Cut Studio around then, but I won’t get my hopes up. I wouldn’t be too surprised if it’s April before we hear any mention of Final Cut Studio 3. But holy cow, that would have to be some upgrade, right? It will have been three years since the last major release, and I expect the Final Cut team have been keeping themselves busy since 2007 — especially with all those new Snow Leopard goodies like Grand Central Dispatch to play with.

LEGO Architecture

Jason — Fri, 29 May 2009 22:33:27 +0000

I haven’t been this excited about a LEGO set since I was 10 or so, when all I could wrap my head around was acquiring an Aquazone submarine.

According to LEGO’s website the sets aren’t out yet, but the Chicago Architecture Foundation has been selling the Sears Tower, Empire State Building and Space Needle sets at $22.00 a piece.

I’ve also read that there’s a John Hancock Tower model out (or coming out), and a whole line of Frank Llyod Wright buildings, though LEGO doesn’t have any official information on any of it. Lame.

Apparently you can buy some of the sets here though.

Eazy Dolly

Jason — Wed, 27 May 2009 20:33:17 +0000

I’m not really a fan of swapping z’s for s’s — or crappy web design — but golly if these guys didn’t nail their product demo video. So awesome.

I tried building a track-based dolly system on my own a little over a year ago. It didn’t look nearly this good and, more importantly, only the dolly itself is currently usable. The track, not so much.

They’re asking between $500-$600 for the set and, considering my GlideCam jib cost about $500, I think it’s a bargain for something so versatile.

If I had $500 to spend on gear, I’d seriously consider giving it to these guys.

The Flip Ultra HD

Jason — Mon, 27 Apr 2009 21:26:43 +0000

On Friday I picked up a Flip Mino HD for my upcoming trip to London. Meagan is speaking at FOWD and we thought it would be fun to have a little camera just for video.

Yesterday our friend Bill Couch pointed out that, although no official word has been given, Best Buy is currently selling a Flip Ultra HD camera. Still 720p at 30fps, but with a removable battery, longer charge life, and twice the capacity. For a full $30 less. I was pissed.

Today we went down to Best Buy for what was (surprisingly) a relatively painless swap. However, they did charge us an addition $3 to cover the rest of the 15% restocking fee. I also found it odd that there’s still no mention of the camera anywhere in the store, on their website, or on the Flip website. More than that, I found it scummy that the Flip Mino HD was marked down from $229 to $209 — especially since the newer model can do more and costs just $199.

Scummy.

A Few Notes

The screen is larger than the Mino’s and appears to be much sharper. The recording indicator light now doubles as the charge indicator and can be turned off. However, doing so also disables the light as a charge indicator. Which is lame. Unlike the Mino, you can’t plug this camera directly into a USB port on a MacBook Pro without it hanging off your desk. It’s just too thick (I’m told this isn’t an issue with the new unibody MacBook Pro) .

I think I’ll be picking up a USB extension cable since I don’t imagine it’s good for either device to be using the port for support. Otherwise, I expect this is going to be a very fun little camera to play with.

Cinema Redux

Jason — Sun, 05 Apr 2009 03:36:43 +0000

This is fantastic. Every 8 by 6 image represents one minute of runtime and is meant to show how color and tone change throughout a film. I love it.

More here.

The Ozone Plug-in Error

Jason — Thu, 26 Mar 2009 20:16:28 +0000

I ran into this recurring problem recently which, in turn, spurred my semi-annual hunt for information on what it means and how to make it go away.

My search ended when I realized the problem was simply an animated vector graphic that was just too large for my video card to handle. I solved the issue by baking the animation into a movie clip then re-importing it into Motion.

For future reference, and anyone else looking for answers, here are the articles I found to be the most helpful — ordered by helpfulness.

Helpful Articles regarding the Ozone Plug-in

Fixing the Ozone Problem via Industrial Revolution
Troubleshooting Tips via AppleMotion.net
Motion 3.0.2 Update Beware via FCProducer
Discussion Thread via KenStone.net
Discussion Thread via Apple
Another Thread via Apple
Discussion Thread via MacRumors.com

HD Rentals in iTunes

Jason — Thu, 19 Mar 2009 22:01:41 +0000

I’m pretty excited to see HD films coming to iTunes. For $4.99 I can watch a new release in HD on my TV just by connecting my MacBook Pro (which is something I do almost daily anyway). I have a Netflix subscription, but I don’t have a Blu-Ray player, so the only time I really get HD content is either over-the-air broadcasts or online.

I can’t imagine renting more than a couple a month, and the bump in quality probably isn’t worth it for a lot of films, but it’s nice that HD films are no longer limited to just Apple TV owners.

Now, if only they offered Mythbusters in HD too.

Superhero on The Best Shorts

Jason — Mon, 16 Mar 2009 16:00:04 +0000

Last Thursday a short film I shot last year was featured on one of my favorite Internet-based serial shows, The Best Short Films in the World.

The always delightful and endlessly depressed Bobby Miller hosted the show as Dr. Manhattan in honor of their super hero-themed episode.

It’s good for a laugh if you have a few minutes, and I’d encourage you to subscribe and watch some of the other IndyMogul stuff. I don’t anticipate SOLMI updating anytime soon, or I’d suggest you subscribe there as well. But there are over 25 episodes just bursting with juicy funniness waiting to be consumed. It’s perfect if you’re just looking for something to kill the time between now and tomorrow’s iPhone announcement.

Introducing Screencasts

Jason — Fri, 13 Mar 2009 07:36:45 +0000

Great movies start with great footage. It’s the foundation editors need to be able to work their magic. Because as the saying goes, you can’t polish a turd (unless you’re the Mythbusters, of course).

It’s important to understand how your camera works, so you can capture the kind of footage editors typically only dream of. These screencasts focus on filming and lighting techniques that will enable you to get the most out of your camera. Whether you’re a beginner or somebody looking to brush up on your shooting skills, you’re sure to find something that will help you turn your home videos into quality productions.

The first screencast covers shutter speed, and how to use it effectively in different lighting situations. If there’s something I left out of the original video, or if there’s another area of filmmaking you’d like to see covered, please let me know.

Make Film Work Redesigned

Jason — Fri, 13 Mar 2009 07:27:39 +0000

Meagan has been working on this design since October. OCTOBER. Things weren’t helped any when I accidentally deleted everything two weeks ago after trying to upgrade WordPress.

That sucked.

She wasn’t happy. And I owe her, big time.

But now here we are. I’m on a new host as well, with many thanks to a very special Salem resident for that little bit of awesomeness. I don’t know how it’s going to work out if I end up needing to serve a bunch of video in a short amount of time, but we’ll see how it goes for now.

Something you should definitely check out is the new Screencasts section. From there you can learn how to improve your shooting skills through informative and (highly) entertaining videos. The first is on Shutter Speed, and how to use it effectively. I think you might like it.

Finally, if you have any topics you’d like to see covered in a future screencast, let me know. I’m always looking for new ideas.

Software Excitement

Jason — Tue, 10 Mar 2009 16:05:07 +0000

The other day I read a rumor about a software-related event taking place at the end of March. So now I’m going to do the rational thing and invest myself emotionally over (maybe) nothing. But here’s hoping there’s a Snow Leopard and/or Final Cut announcement, anyway.

A two for one would be great, really.

And let’s say, for instance, they announce as part of the Grand Central multi-core processing system in Snow Leopard, a side effect is that the new Soundtrack Pro doesn’t arbitrarily spit out the wrong audio track on export.

Oh, how I dare to dream.

Scripting Software

Jason — Fri, 06 Mar 2009 22:30:33 +0000

I still haven’t found a good solution for writing scripts. I’ve tried Celtx in its various releases, and I want to love it so bad. But I can’t. And I don’t. So far, my favorite app for script-writing is Pages. PAGES.

I usually don’t have to share scripts anymore, since leaving Orlando meant then end of SOLMI. So I guess using Pages isn’t a huge deal. And it means I can add whatever formatting that I want.

Still. I want something better. But it’s not like I really need any hardcore script writing software. Just something that has all of the basics plus everything I could ever imagine.

That’s all.

Reel | Late 2008

Jason — Wed, 25 Feb 2009 19:44:03 +0000

A short time ago I made this demo reel. It’s short and kind of amazing. Basically we’re talking win-win here.

GridIron Flow Update

Jason — Mon, 19 Jan 2009 13:42:18 +0000

There’s finally some news out about GridIron’s project-tracking application, Flow. It seems like it was only yesterday that I was signing up for the beta.

And, of course, by yesterday I mean last year. Like, summer.

If you’re unfamiliar, Flow aims to track all changes — every little thing you do in any application — within a project. So if you’ve got a Final Cut Pro project that has a Motion file that contains the third version of a Photoshop file, Flow will track all versions of every file, project, etc that you’ve included. Automatically. Sounds pretty amazing, right?

So what’s been going on since their last update? Well, it’s hard to say. They appear to have made a cartoon. Which sort of demonstrates what the app can do. And they’ve announced a release date — for the beta. So that’s something. But that’s not coming until February 18th.

There is an entry at GridIron’s new blog that details their own excitement for the application. I don’t doubt their dedication, or their resolve to make Flow as good as possible before release, if for no other reason than the many delays it has suffered. It’s just frustrating having to wait another month to try it out.

Then again, it’s only a month this time. And at least there’s a definitive date of release. It’s not like there’s anything else like it, either.

February 18th can’t come soon enough.