February 23, 2009
A Brief Post About the Oscars
I'm not usually hip to criticizing the Oscars, but one thing REALLY irritated me at last night's ceremony: The "In Memoriam" segment, which pays tribute to cast and crew who passed away since the previous year's ceremony.
In the video above you can see that this year, instead of displaying the pre-cut video directly on our televisions, the broadcast used a jib shot of a screen with the video playing on it. Ostensibly this was because behind the main screen were clips of the person's work.
I'm sure this was awesome for the live audience, but people's names kept getting cut off. I recognized the obvious ones like Paul Newman, but the producers, executives, and other professionals who aren't instantly recognizable are now still unknown to me.
The actor who played the Sergeant from Robocop passed away last year. I recognize his face, but his name wasn't even visible on the camera angle they used! I had to look him up on IMDb.
February 20, 2009
Committing Multicam Edits
Before I start this post, I'd like to thank everyone for wading through my writing style. I fully admit to not being the best blogger, and as long people gain anything from reading this blog, I consider my goal accomplished.
Anyway, on to more important things: I was asked the other day about my "special relinking technique." The situation where this arose was in relinking the offline locked to the hi-rez dummy uprez done a few days earlier, before picture lock. It's actually nothing secret, but it involves a console command that not everyone seems to be aware of:
EnableCommitMulticam
Typing that command into the console in Media Composer 2.x and forward enables a new menu item when right-clicking sequence called "Commit Mulitcam Edits". When this entry is clicked, it makes a copy of your sequence that references the original master clips directly, instead of any groups or sub clips.
For murky (to me) reasons, Symphony and Nitris will find more media to relink to than if it attempted to parse through the group information. This command has saved me and my night assists many hours of uprezzing media that already existed on disk.
Anyway, on to more important things: I was asked the other day about my "special relinking technique." The situation where this arose was in relinking the offline locked to the hi-rez dummy uprez done a few days earlier, before picture lock. It's actually nothing secret, but it involves a console command that not everyone seems to be aware of:
EnableCommitMulticam
Typing that command into the console in Media Composer 2.x and forward enables a new menu item when right-clicking sequence called "Commit Mulitcam Edits". When this entry is clicked, it makes a copy of your sequence that references the original master clips directly, instead of any groups or sub clips.
For murky (to me) reasons, Symphony and Nitris will find more media to relink to than if it attempted to parse through the group information. This command has saved me and my night assists many hours of uprezzing media that already existed on disk.
February 16, 2009
Macros for Multigrouping
Grouping sucks. For a really long time I was fortunate enough to be using QuicKeys on Mac OSX and AutoHotkey on PC platforms to automate the process, like a lot of people have. But now that I'm on Mac OS 9, which needs a separate QuicKeys license, I realize how fortunate I was. I'm grouping by hand, which kills my wrists and spirit.
So I've decided to share the not-so-secret steps for automated grouping. This shouldn't be used for evil: don't use Quickeys to automate processes you don't understand. After the jump are the steps to put into your scripts, using your own Avid keyboard settings.
For starters, you need a certain Bin View to make these work. After the Name column, place Mark IN and then Auxiliary TC1 (or whichever Aux TC your show is using). Any headings after that are fine, but keep them to the right of Name, Mark IN, and Aux TC.
Add your edits to the timeline you'll be grouping, make sure your sequence is at the bottom of your bin, park on the subclip you want to pull, and run the following steps (Avid Commands are in italics, keyboard presses are in bold):
In addition to being easier on the wrists, this process is markedly faster, I remember that on my first show as an AE, it took me and another AE two nights to group one day's worth of footage, now one AE can group one day's worth of footage in one night. With that info, you might get your Post Supervisor to pay the $80 for a QuicKeys license.
So I've decided to share the not-so-secret steps for automated grouping. This shouldn't be used for evil: don't use Quickeys to automate processes you don't understand. After the jump are the steps to put into your scripts, using your own Avid keyboard settings.
For starters, you need a certain Bin View to make these work. After the Name column, place Mark IN and then Auxiliary TC1 (or whichever Aux TC your show is using). Any headings after that are fine, but keep them to the right of Name, Mark IN, and Aux TC.
Add your edits to the timeline you'll be grouping, make sure your sequence is at the bottom of your bin, park on the subclip you want to pull, and run the following steps (Avid Commands are in italics, keyboard presses are in bold):
- Mark Clip
- Goto IN
- Matchframe
- Goto OUT
- Mark OUT
- Make Subclip
- Tab over to the Mark IN Heading
- Shift+Return to go to your sequence at the bottom of your bin
- Copy the Mark IN time to the clipboard
- Return to jump back to the clip you just pulled
- Tab over to the Auxiliary TC heading
- Paste the copied Mark IN time from the sequence to the Auxiliary TC column
- Send the window focus to the Timeline
- Fast Forward to the next subclip to be pulled
In addition to being easier on the wrists, this process is markedly faster, I remember that on my first show as an AE, it took me and another AE two nights to group one day's worth of footage, now one AE can group one day's worth of footage in one night. With that info, you might get your Post Supervisor to pay the $80 for a QuicKeys license.
August 15, 2008
Huffington Post Tackles Reality Unionization
On Tuesday, Robert J. Elisberg at uber-blog The Huffington Post took on the issue of reality TV working conditions and non-union status of most shows in the genre.
They focus on allegations against FremantleMedia but branch out to discuss the issue in general, as well as the over-use of the term "reality TV." I don't feel qualified to get too involved in the argument, but I will say that conditions vary wildly from show to show, and whether the show is union or not doesn't always affect things. I have worked for a partially unionized employer mentioned in the article on a non-union show, and found that the conditions were excellent regardless of union affiliation.
They focus on allegations against FremantleMedia but branch out to discuss the issue in general, as well as the over-use of the term "reality TV." I don't feel qualified to get too involved in the argument, but I will say that conditions vary wildly from show to show, and whether the show is union or not doesn't always affect things. I have worked for a partially unionized employer mentioned in the article on a non-union show, and found that the conditions were excellent regardless of union affiliation.
Automated Digital Clock in After Effects
Dan Ebbert's Expressioneering Design Guide at motionscript.com provides a very easy to follow guide for generating an automagically progressing clock in Adobe After Effects. With Adobe offering a 30-day demo of After Effects (free registration required), you can use the guide yourself.
As a bonus, Dan also includes a simple graphic to help you customize your clock to count up or down; include any combination of hours, minutes, seconds, and milliseconds; countdown at varying speeds; and to begin at any starting point.
The countdown clock is a staple of reality competition shows, and making them by hand with hundreds of titles is pretty tedious. I did make a 10-minute countdown by hand, with Avid's Title Tool, and I used to carry that bin with me on a thumb drive. Unfortunately, the new Nitris DX systems aren't backwards compatible with old bins, and I was faced with having to re-do the legwork until I found this tutorial.
As a bonus, Dan also includes a simple graphic to help you customize your clock to count up or down; include any combination of hours, minutes, seconds, and milliseconds; countdown at varying speeds; and to begin at any starting point.
The countdown clock is a staple of reality competition shows, and making them by hand with hundreds of titles is pretty tedious. I did make a 10-minute countdown by hand, with Avid's Title Tool, and I used to carry that bin with me on a thumb drive. Unfortunately, the new Nitris DX systems aren't backwards compatible with old bins, and I was faced with having to re-do the legwork until I found this tutorial.
July 30, 2007
Writer's Strike on the Way?
Today on KCRW's The Business, New York Times correspondent Michael Cieply was on to talk about a possible Writer's Strike, mostly over video and internet residuals.
Strikes among Hollywood's creative talent are largely responsible for two booms in reality television production: The 1988 writer's lead to Cops, and the narrowly averted Actor's strike in 2000 opened the floodgates, leading to hits like Survivor and the Bachelor.
The current contract expires on October 31, and even if an agreement is reached, the networks are likely to hedge their bets by ordering more reality programming.
Hollywood Writers and Producers at Odds by Michael Cieply
Strikes among Hollywood's creative talent are largely responsible for two booms in reality television production: The 1988 writer's lead to Cops, and the narrowly averted Actor's strike in 2000 opened the floodgates, leading to hits like Survivor and the Bachelor.
The current contract expires on October 31, and even if an agreement is reached, the networks are likely to hedge their bets by ordering more reality programming.
July 26, 2007
Rough Cut Lady
A post coordinator friend of mine sent me this today. It's geared toward commercials but I think a lot of us have met this woman.
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