When Apple released FCPx in June last year, the response from FCP users was universally (very) bad - well, almost universally bad.  While I wasn’t thrilled with the new release, I thought the biggest problem was not with the software, but with how Apple presented it.  This was, after all, something completely new and people have trouble with change even when the change is for the good – and whichever side of the fence you fell on FCPx, almost everyone knew that FCP7 was getting long in the tooth and needed a change.

What I said then was that if Apple had released FCPx as a free “time limited beta” – where they would gather user feedback and address problems in the final release, the response from the community would have been significantly different.  Today, Apple released FCPx 10.0.3, and from what I’ve seen, this is the release that should have followed the free beta period.  Many of the features that people have rightfully bemoaned losing in the 7 to X transition are back – most notably multi-cam editing – with mixed formats and mixed frame rates, media relink (thank whichever deity you wish to thank), broadcast monitoring (huzzah!), and perhaps most importantly (but far less sexy) XML support – which has allowed the big brains at Assisted Editing to release their FCP 7 to X conversion tool, allowing you to bring your FCP7 projects in to FCPX – I honestly think I heard a choir of angels sing when I read that.

Time will tell if Apple has also squashed the most persistant bugs, but 10.0.3 is, so far, is the first version that I think FCP users should have had to pay for.  Better late than never, and I think FCPX now is a true contender for professionals.

If you haven’t tried FCPX yet because of all the negative press, I highly recommend it.  Once you wrap your head around this new way of working (and you do have to forget almost everything you think you know), FCPX really is a powerful, professional editing tool – at least, NOW it is.

Our EPIC is on the way, and I’ve been playing around with some footage shot at this September’s REDucation in preparation of delivery.  Here is a little sample:

Click here to view the embedded video.

Our EPIC is on the way, and I’ve been playing around with some footage shot at this September’s REDucation in preparation of delivery.  Here is a little sample:

Click here to view the embedded video.

Our EPIC is on the way, and I’ve been playing around with some footage shot at this September’s REDucation in preparation of delivery.  Here is a little sample:

Click here to view the embedded video.

Our EPIC is on the way, and I’ve been playing around with some footage shot at this September’s REDucation in preparation of delivery.  Here is a little sample:

Click here to view the embedded video.

Film Fading to Black is a really interesting look at the current state of film from the team over at Creative Cow.  What hooked me is the first paragraph (emphasis mine):

While the debate has raged over whether or not film is dead, ARRI, Panavision and Aaton have quietly ceased production of film cameras within the last year to focus exclusively on design and manufacture of digital cameras. That’s right: someone, somewhere in the world is now holding the last film camera ever to roll off the line.

And by “film,” I mean the celluloid medium (as opposed to tape or a digital storage device).  The last time Groovy Like a Movie shot on film was circa 2004 for a car commercial (when I was seriously considering purchasing an A-Minima), so while this has no real practical effect on us as a business, I think there is a mind-set that is different when shooting with film vs shooting with video – and I fear the loss of this way of thinking.

Once while shooting video, I heard a director say “just keep rolling – the tape is the cheapest thing on set.”  While this “just keep rolling” mentality may catch some happy accidents (unintentional moments that are good, but couldn’t have been planned for), I think overall it is bad for a production.  When shooting film, every movement on set is choreographed.  Everything is planned.  Everyone is careful.  There is artistry – there had to be – because making a mistake when shooting film could be costly.

Don’t get me wrong – I’m not pining away for the good-ol days of changing bags, maxing out at 8-minute takes, and not knowing for days if you actually had the shot you needed.  Digital is an improvement in almost every way over film. However – the artistry – That’s hard to achieve when everything is so easy.  People get lazy.  It’s in our nature to do the least amount of work necessary – conserve energy whereever possible!

That’s part of why I like working with our RED ONE (and soon our RED EPIC).  These cameras have all the benefits of a digital workflow, but many of the trappings of working on film.  Because they’re not simply point and shoot cameras, it brings the necessary artistry back to production.  Crews and directors take their time; We carefully choreograph moves, but we can instantly call up the shot* and make sure we have what we need.  And if we have to improvise, it can be done!

So a moment of silence for the passing of film – not tomorrow, and maybe not soon – but with no major manufacturers building new film cameras, it is now inevitable.

Film is dead – long live film-style production!

*OK – Epic playback isn’t “instant” yet – but a few minutes at a DIT station is much better than 48 hours at a film processing house!

We have often struggled with the concept of renting our equipment – particularly our Mysterium-X RED ONE system.  Because we’re not a rental house, we didn’t necessarily have the resources to tech out a rental, nor provide service and support during a rental.  This meant we were always hesitant to provide our RED to the local filmmaking, commercial, and corporate community.  Now, thanks to our friends at Video Gear®, that has changed.

We are proud to announce that Video Gear is the exclusive rental provider of our RED ONE camera system.  With three packages, and discounts for multiple day rentals, the power of the RED One is now available for productions at nearly any budget level.

I just got done reading a fantastic article over on FreshDV. Kendal explores a lot of things I’ve thought but never been able to quite put into words.  In addition, he provides some inspirational backup in the form of quotes from fantastic cinematographers.  Go read it.

If it pisses you off then you need to go out and prove him wrong.

Of course, by proving him wrong – you’ll likely end up proving him right.

The central premise is that just because you have good equipment, that doesn’t make you a filmmaker.  Just because you make pretty pictures, that doesn’t make you a cinematographer.  Making pretty pictures with good gear isn’t enough – you have to practice your craft make good, defendable decisions, and understand why the decision you made work in that specific situation.

There is lots of room for experimentation, montages, test footage, etc in the world Kendal describes.  Just don’t (always) call those things “art.”

When I teach at both the high school and college level, I always ask the kids “What prevents you from producing films at the highest level?” I consistently get two answers:

1. Not enough time
2. Our equipment sucks

The not enough time argument is legitimate, I tell them.  While there is NEVER enough time to do everything you want when you are a filmmaker – the pressures of student life make those time constraints even more restrictive.  So #1 – check… not much we can do about that.

However – the second reason – Once I get that answer, I call bullshit and show them this:

Click here to view the embedded video.

Ayz Waraich (@ayz on Twitter) is a fantastic up-and-coming filmmaker.  He is consistently honing and improving his craft.  He understands how his choices affect the story.  Everything on the screen helps move the script forward.  He is humble and thoughtful, eager to learn, and he shot that film on what is essentially a Sony Handycam.

It ain’t the gear, folks.  Its the person (or more often the team) who wields it.

So go out and prove Kendal wrong.  Go make a film and learn from it.  Then make another (and learn from it).  And another (and learn from it).  And another…

I made this comment on Twitter the other day (retweeting the entertaining and insightful tech columnist David Pogue):

#facepalm RT @Pogue: Did you hear about this? Google’s Chrome browser won’t play H264 videos anymore. Idiotic… http://bit.ly/fBTNIL

I received an interesting reply via Facebook from one of the smartest people I know, Robert Mason of Doghouse Productions:

This is interesting. Sounds like it might mean short term pain, but long term, high quality Open Standards CODECS seems like a good thing. In my audio class we have been discussing Vorbis and FLAC, which are the audio equivalents of Theora. Interesting times…

This led me to a little (semi)rant, that I thought might be relavent for the Groovy audience.

I understand the sentiment, but the problem is the current open standards are measurably (even with an untrained human eye) not as efficient as h.264 (similar bitrates produce noticeably different results).

While Vorbis compares favorably with .mp3 (in many cases being even more efficient), the same can not be said for VP8 and Theora vs h.264.

As much as it can be hard to swallow, sometimes private industry does it better than the open source community.

On top of that, this decision has a tremendous impact on professionals – like… oh… say… me. All of our video is distributed in h.264 format (granted, not everything is html5 compliant, yet). So now I’m faced with a decision both for my company’s website, as well as every client I’ve delivered media to in the las 24 months or so – either their website (potentially) now doesn’t fully support the Chromium Browser – and that means possibly the Chrome browser, or we’re going to have to re-encode every piece of video and deliver in 2 formats (because while a browser may support VP8 or Theora, the client’s laptop may not).

And on top of that, none of my professional software provides adequate tools for encosing VP8 or Theora – which means I’m having to rely on shareware or open source tools with very little official support mechanism behind them. Which means if something goes wrong, I need to rely on the wisdom of the crowd to save my ass when I’m on deadline. And the crowd is, in my opinion, a little hit-or-miss.

I’m generally agnostic when it comes to tools a person uses. I think you should be able to utilize whatever makes you fast and efficient. Where I get frustrated is when people place roadblocks to me using the tools that work best for me. And in this case, Chromium (and I have no doubt that this decision is being driven by Google – aka private industry – even though Chromium is technically a separate organization) is putting up a potentially huge (and expensive) roadblock!

I consider myself a lifelong learner. I love learning new things, and I do my best to keep up on technology and filmmaking techniques. Our clients rely on us to be “the experts,” and the only way to do that is to continually seek out educational opportunities.

Over the last year, I’ve been tentatively dipping my toes into 3D production. However, I’ve found the learning curve to be daunting – and I’ve found it difficult to locate a good, fundamental 3D resource. That is, until I discovered NewMediaWebinars.com. For $25, I was able to download an on-demand seminar given by James Neihouse, a cinematographer on (among many other things), the 3D Hubble IMAX film.

Think this guy knows his stuff? Um – yeah. I think he does.

The specific seminar I watched was Stereo 3D Filmmaking Bootcamp. While I found the seminar to be a little dry at times (there’s a TON of technical information that he throws at you), this was one of the best primers on stereo cinematography I’ve ever seen. At the end, I not only understood the basic techniques, but also quite a bit of the “why” of stereo cinematography. James does a fantastic job of giving you visuals that illustrate not only how the 3D works, but also why!

I have to say the seminar wasn’t perfect. I tend to struggle a bit with the powerpoint/audio nature of most online seminars and this one is no different – there’s just something more engaging about seeing a person’s face while they’re presenting that I always miss with webinars. That, combined with the dry nature of some of the technical details, meant I wasn’t able to sit through the entire 90 minutes without getting up from my computer and grabbing some caffeine.

However, at the end of the seminar, I was fired up to go out and shoot some 3D and try his techniques. I’m probably not ready to have a paying client, but I’m confident I have enough of a foundation that I can learn what I need. Now we just need to get a 3D monitor… oh, and a stereo rig (or camera)… and a script that calls for 3D…

Finally, as part of the download, I got the entire slide deck, a bonus podcast with James Neihouse, a file with reference links, and some stereo footage to play around with in FCP.

Overall? Well worth the $25 – and absolutely satisfied my lifelong learner craving.

Full disclosure – after viewing the seminar, NewMediaWebinars.com and I began a dialogue about having me teach a future class. It now looks like I’ll be talking about asset management in Final Cut Pro in March. Hopefully I can avoid some of the presentation pitfalls I identified in the Stereo 3D Filmmaking Bootcamp. If not, feel free to call me out on it!