Production-Now Blog

The Life Within

2009-11-09T19:39:00.007-07:00

I guess I haven't blogged about it, but I was really unimpressed with Beowulf. The CG just wasn't there. The motion was very poor and the animation suffered from a claymation feel.

A few days ago we got to talking about Final Fantasy: Spirits Within which came out a good six years earlier than Beowulf.

Here are my impressions after watching the DVD. I had seen the movie once before in theaters...

Aki's Eye

Good skin detail. They added freckles because perfectly smooth skin looks plastic. Overall, the motion was better than the modern stuff, but there were still many places where it felt like I was watching my wife play Sims 3 rather than a ground breaking animated film.

Also, hair just wasn't very good back then. They really worked hard at it in a few key moments, but it still wasn't anywhere near that of Sulley in Monster's, Inc. I'm not blaming Square, considering Zemeckis hadn't improved on their look.

The other major problem with "photo-realistic" animation is that objects just don't interact with each other properly. It just didn't feel like they were connecting in the kissing scene. Rather, they looked like two puzzle pieces that didn't quite fit.

Unfortunately, the DVD quality was horrible. For a movie that was originally rendered on a computer, having the image grainy and washed out is simply unacceptable. Also, I think the sound was a few frames off which can also happen when you have poor compression. Both of those facts made it really difficult to judge the quality of the animation.

Was the lame fire effect because it was made in 2001, or because the DVD was put together so poorly?

Fire

I'm pretty sure that primitive particle engines--that fling dust and debris around virtual space--are part of the issue. But the bad compression certainly didn't help anything.

The lesson? Your movie can be "hurt" at every point... even when you put it onto a DVD. So be careful at each stage.

~Luke Holzmann
Your Media Production Mentor

Literal Music Videos

2009-10-18T19:43:00.003-06:00

There is no doubt that Meat Loaf's "I Would Do Anything for Love" is one of the greatest rock love song's ever written.

And the music video is super wicked cool too. Of course, I've long been a fan of the Vampire genre, and this seems to fit nicely with more modern tellings of Stoker's story.

But now check out the Literal Video Version:

Meat Loaf: Literal Video Version

I absolutely love these kinds of creative projects. There are so many good film terms used. And, honestly, you begin to question why anyone thought this made sense. And it totally cracks me up because... yeah... they're right. If we were to take the video literally, we'd be laughing rather than rocking out.

Here's the thing to remember for your productions, though: The original music video still rocks. So even if you can epically poke fun at a production does not mean it's not good in the original context. How it Should Have Ended proves that with major blockbusters all the time.

Of course, there are some really odd music videos out there. Things like "Total Eclipse of the Heart" which... well...

The literal video version is much, much better. At least, it makes more sense:

Total Eclipse: Literally

Okay, okay... for those of you who aren't as up on awesome '80s rock, check out the literal version of "Penny Lane" and think about it: Music videos are really, really odd at times.

~Luke Holzmann
Your Media Production Mentor

Deja Vu

2009-10-17T08:43:00.007-06:00

You Can Save Her

I realized two things this morning while the girls were playing with the fridge magnets:

The letters would not have been on the freezer portion of the fridge because that is out of the reach of children who would play with these letters.
Claire has a kid... but he comes and goes as needed.

Suspension of disbelief is required even for great films.

~Luke Holzmann
Your Media Production Mentor

Bad (film) Grammar

2009-10-14T21:23:00.012-06:00

I've watched the first three episodes of Stargate Universe (SG-U).

First, it's Battlestar Galactica all over again. Many of the exact same characters just with different actors. Same plot points. Same story arch. Same conflicts. Same shooting style. Slightly more Myst-esque lighting. Some really terrible acting (which Battlestar mostly avoided).

But the makers of SG-U have used terrible film grammar in several scenes.

The grammar of film has to do with the accepted meanings of certain shots. Use the wrong one at the wrong time, and you'll confusing you audience. ...er: confuse your audience.

Throughout episode 2, there are moments when the camera goes to an angle or position that, grammatically, says, "I'm someone watching the actors from the shadows" but thus far they have done nothing else to indicate that these were nothing more than "artistically interesting" angles.

Example one:

Someone is hiding in a crevice watching

This camera position tells us that someone is watching this conversation without anyone realizing it. Someone, or something is on board the ship without anyone's knowledge.

Example two:

Someone is hiding in the ventilation shaft

Seen through a grating or some other shaft, a spy is looking down from above. That is the standard interpretation of this angle, framing and camera motion. But the next shot is back to normal with no indication as to why they may have gone into the rafters to get this take.

Example three:

The watching eye

A security/surveillance camera would take a shot like this. But this is not part of a security or surveillance system. Perhaps the editor failed to include the "grimy" filter they put over the roaming camera balls aboard the ship, but I don't think that is the case. This shot is wrong for even that (wrong position and static).

The lesson: Do not break the rules of film grammar just to get a pretty/different shot. Mixing things up is not worth mixing up your audience. It is far too easy to send the wrong message with an improperly used camera angle. So plan and think about your shots. And if you're editing the show, don't use 'em just because they look good.

On the other hand, if you are trying to communicate something subtly with your angles, you need to provide more than just a few glimpses now and again. Subtlety is not the same as cryptic hints. Subtlety allows your audience to slowly connect the pieces and get excited with you. Cryptic hints merely frustrate or confuse, and ultimately detract from your payoff.

~Luke Holzmann
Your Media Production Mentor

Spending that Much

2009-10-08T17:11:00.005-06:00

I was approached by a potential client who asked for a quote. I gave him one, with a few details about what I would do, how I would do it, and hinted at a few of the benefits I bring with my experience.

He wrote back and said, "Hmm....I wasn't thinking of spending that much."

...

He then went on to tell me that he didn't need a "professional" shoot, that he didn't need fancy special effects, and figured that there'd be "little to no editing" required and that an hour should suffice for his needs.

It took me three days to get back to him because, well, I couldn't figure out how to say it nicely:

I didn't base my quote on how much I thought you'd like to spend!

I based my quote on my understanding of the production process. I've shot this kind of thing many times and have a pretty good handle of what's required. And, hello: If you shoot for an hour or two, you will need to edit it to make it your requested 15 minutes in length.

Have you done pre-production? No? Well, that's more stuff I'm going to have to help you do. Seriously: I'm not going to sell myself short just because you are completely ignorant of the production process and so think I've got to be overestimating this.

And if you don't want a professional, need no editing, and figure you can just set up a camera and shoot: Please, by all means, get your Uncle Earl to produce the video for you. If what he creates is what you want: Fantastic! We've both won.

If not, then next time you ask for a quote, remember that you're asking me.

I ended up suggesting he watch the video linked through this post.

He wrote back and confessed that he didn't know much about the production process and realized he had made some false assumptions. He said he'd get back to me.

He hasn't yet.

~Luke Holzmann
Your Media Production Mentor

Why the DSLR Video Camera Now?

2009-10-05T19:41:00.005-06:00

Last Friday I was chatting with Nathan Rigaud about the latest in Digital Still Cameras that now all seem to have high definition video capabilities as well. I was not aware that these cameras now offer audio in, which makes them pretty ideal for young filmmakers.

It's been pretty crazy to watch the explosion in this area of technology. When I entered college, DVD burning was not yet an option. Three years later and you could burn as many DVDs as you wanted on a reasonably priced laptop. Video web compression went from a 120x240 Ream Media file to today's common video sites streaming HD Flash footage for free. And back in my day, you had two options for video: Stand Definition and Uncompressed SD.

Now, my pocket camera shoots HD footage and lets me drag it into YouTube with pretty good results.

But why, someone asked me, are digital still cameras all the rage these days? Why are they shooting HD and surpassing many of the video cameras of just two years ago?

Why indeed.

I think there are three reasons:

Larger sensors: Digital cameras have long had larger sensors than their video counterparts. Larger sensors give you bigger/better images.
History of flash media: Granted, the first digital cameras captured to floppy disk, but rather quickly switched to solid-state memory. This long preceded Panasonic's P2 hype, and now that flash memory is so cheap and wicked-fast, the Digital SLR is the inexpensive, proven, open option.
Do it all: I have a $10,000 HD video camera that rocks. But it's stills are hardly even a megapixel in size and not very good. For a couple grand, on the other hand, I could have a camera that shoots at a higher resolution in video and takes gorgeous stills.

I'm sure there are other reasons that have to do with lenses, accessibility, price-point and all that. But the three outlined above, I think, made the rest possible.

So will I get myself one of these beauties?

Not yet. But they sure look like a great option.

~Luke Holzmann
Your Media Production Mentor

Wake Up! This Isn't Hard

2009-09-25T16:55:00.008-06:00

My formal position is currently the "Media Relations Specialist" for a company. My job--among other things--is to be on top of the latest in social media and how it pertains to business.

My manager continues to push articles my way and ask my opinion on the latest ideas from marketing "gurus" who pretend to know how to use social media to make oodles of money. Most of the articles reaffirm that I'm on the right track. A couple actually contain a new twist on how to get involved in the "new media" that is rocking the marketing world. So, it's fun to read these articles, smile and nod, and then rant and rave when they get something horribly wrong.

But in all honestly, the concept isn't that hard.

Let me give you a very clear, easy to remember and apply example:

You are a major brand interested in getting your name out there. You spend millions of dollars on market research, hundreds of thousands of dollars on producing a carefully crafted commercial which is then meticulously placed in a time slot that matches your ideal customer's demographics.

Multiple millions of dollars later and you've got a great commercial that speaks directly to your target audience and makes them daydream about your product in the shower. In fact, the commercial is so successful, your target market is dying to share it with their friends.

You have heard about this wildly popular "new social media" thing that some companies are using very well called YouTube. So, you spend tens of thousands of dollars setting it up and making it branded with your fancy logo and other specialty components that some no-name Luke guy can't replicate. This sets your YouTube profile page light years apart from the rest of the crowd.

And then you only upload three commercials to your account... none of them the excellent ones.

Oh, but you do have a clip of Lindsay Lohan saying she's having fun at one of your social gatherings.

...you've got to be kidding me.

Of course, I shouldn't be too hard on you. I mean, it's not like your website works either:

Website Fail

So, for the rest of you out there interested in how to use social media, do this: Post every single halfway decent commercial you produce on YouTube, or Vimeo, or your own site even. Just make it possible to embed (or at the very, very least: link to) your commercial.

If you did that, I'd have four to six of your commercials in this blog post right now instead of a posting about how much you've completely failed.

<sigh>

Now I feel like I should offer my services to them as a consultant. They need me.

~Luke Holzmann
Your Media Production Mentor

Tutorial: Isolating Colors in Gimp

2009-09-18T17:20:00.019-06:00

You've likely seen those pictures of roses that don't have any color except the red. Here's how you do that:

First, you'll want a picture that has a lot of color so the effect will be noticeable and cool. If there aren't a lot of colors, it will be far less impressive. So, I found a nice patriotic picture I took with reds, greens and blues.

Flags

In Gimp, go to Colors->Hue-Saturation...

Select the B (Blue) radial button and drag the Saturation level down to -100:

Blue Radial

Notice how the blue is now gone from the flag, but the sky is still blue. What's going on?

Still Some Blue

Well, the sky is actually more Cyan in color than Blue, so you'll need to select the C (Cyan) radial button and also get rid of the saturation for that color as well.

Desaturating Cyan

Repeat this with all of the colors except the one you want to keep:

Only Red

But wait, there's some red in the tree! That's no good. So duplicate your color isolation layer by dragging it to the "Duplicate Layer" icon:

Duplicate Layer

Go to Colors->Desaturate...

And pick one of those options: Ok

Now your whole image is black and white, so select the Pen tool and draw a path (by clicking on various points) around the flags. You don't need to be too careful here because you only need to keep the red parts of the flag.

Pen Tool

Again: The pen tool doesn't really draw on your picture. It merely creates a "path" that you can use for several cool things. But one of the most useful is creating custom selections. So, once you've made it around your object, right click and choose:

Select->From Path

Right click again to Edit->Cut

Wait... what?

Why is there a big while spot? Shouldn't the selected area have gone away?

Yes, it should have. But if this happens to you, right click on the layer in the layer box on the right you want to cut out and select:

Add Alpha Channel

Now when you cut or delete something the Alpha channel will make that part transparent instead of white.

And you're done!

Flags with Isolated Red

~Luke Holzmann
Your Media Production Mentor

Why Isn't Sony Winning?

2009-09-17T21:41:00.003-06:00

I just got my latest Sony product catalog in the mail today.

Granted, I haven't been a big fan of Sony since that day in film school when I tried to capture a MiniDV tape shot on a Sony camera that wouldn't play on my Canon.

Made me angry.

But I know people who have sworn by their cameras, own their computers, use their software, play their consoles, and I've even watched some of their movies. And as I flipped through the catalog and noticed that they make everything except an operating system, I asked myself: Why isn't Sony winning?

I read part of a book that praised Sony for their business acumen, solid practices and even great products. So why don't we hear about them? Sure, a few of their products are commonly mentioned, but never with the brand.

PS3

Do you ever hear someone talk about the Sony Playstation the way people mention the Apple iPhone? Why the brand disconnect? And why isn't Vegas mentioned more often? From everything I hear, the software works great and is dirt cheap.

Curious, especially after Apple's continued rise, I googled "Sony profits" and found article after article that talked about the 90% decrease they had in 2008. I can't imagine this year's going much better.

Just like Apple, Sony makes hardware and software and is proprietary. They have their fingers in much more than Apple producing major gaming consoles, movies as well as cameras, phones, mp3 players and more.

What is Sony missing?

It's not the OS. Windows is on far more computers.

Are they missing a hip brand? A development platform? An "it" gadget?

I thought writing this out would give me some clarity and a guess as to the answer. But it's not. I can't figure out why Sony isn't winning...

~Luke Holzmann
Your Media Production Mentor

Stuff I'll Never Learn: Modding

2009-09-04T20:25:00.004-06:00

Every once in a while I come across something that I think, 'I'd like to be able to do that.' Unfortunately, these are typically pretty technical things that require thousands of hours to master.

And I don't have the patience or the time for that. I have plenty of other things to do. Yet, given eternity, there are things I'd like to do.

Like learn how to build 3D objects and meshes to mod the Sims. So, I poked around for a while today and started reading some meshing tutorials.

I was following along just fine until I got to the part where he started talking about how you can make "65,536 different values into just 16 bits, while the floating point numbers I talked of before take 32 bits [so] we can define each face using 3x16 bits and sharing locations instead of using 9x32 bits each."

Umm... okay. Yeah.

I think this has something to do with what he was saying about using triangles as the base shape for all game polygons, but... <cough> yeah.

Thankfully, this set of tutorials seems a little more hands on. But, again, this would take years of practice before I got to the point where I could do what I want to do right now, so I don't think I'll ever get very far.

~Luke Holzmann
Your Media Production Mentor

Indie Films

2009-08-29T22:20:00.002-06:00

This is brilliant.

~Luke Holzmann
Your Media Production Mentor

Inspiring Creativity

2009-08-21T19:20:00.008-06:00

The creativity of others, when applied well, can be incredibly inspiring. Like the latest from the talented folks of The Guild:

Do You Wanna Date My Avatar

Of course, it can also be depressing because here's a bunch of talented and creative people working together. And people like us? Well, we're alone. And it's hard to do major productions when it's just us... especially if, like me, you can't play music, can't dance, can't act, and struggle with coming up with a great story--not to mention find time in your busy life to put something together.

And that's why I'm in favor of a limited application of illegal derivative works.

Things like this:

Anime Music Videos (AMV)

These kinds of projects let you practice crafting a story--though editing--based on a "script"--a song's tale--while using really quality elements--great animation of things blowing up and professional mixed music--that you'd never be able to make on your own.

Also, the good fan flicks use backstory and themes from the original series to spin things in a while new way, like this one^*:

Kyo Will Make A Man Out Of You!

I think these kinds of videos should become legal to post as well because sharing projects like these with the world can inspire others to try their hand at creativity.

~Luke Holzmann
Your Media Production Mentor

^*If you haven't watched Fruits Basket you should, and this video will be so much better if you know the inside jokes.

Printing Pictures

2009-08-13T21:35:00.010-06:00

So you need to make a filer for an upcoming picnic.

You go through your pictures and find an awesome one from a recent camping trip you went on. You do a little tweaking to get it looking just so, and you're ready to go.

Hot Dogs

You take your flier file to your nearest Cos Wal Ko's, stick the CD/jumpdrive/flash card into the reader thingy, request 5,000 prints, and pay the nice person behind the counter who informs you your prints will be done in two hours.

...

Two hours later and all your prints look like this:

Not So Hot Dogs

The grill now looks teal instead of black, the dogs are more yellow than meat, and the whole thing is worthless now.

Lesson 1: Before any print job, do a single copy just to make sure. These proofs are essential. And it's a good idea to ask for one in the professional world too (even if the duplication house balks at the idea, make 'em give you a proof copy anyway).

Lesson 2: What you see, is rarely what you get. And there are sevearl reasons for this:

Every screen is different. Even if it's made by the same company, one screen may be lighter or more blue. There are ways of calibrating monitors, but most of us can't do that and wouldn't know exactly what to do if it was "right" anyway. And if screens can be different, there can be huge variation between what you see on your monitor and what comes out on paper.
The "color profile" is different. Your computer screen images are made up of Red, Green and Blue pixels (RGB), but printers use Cyan, Yellow, Magenta and "Key" [Black] ink (CYMK). While modern technology has made it relatively easy to switch between these two "color spaces," things can be lost in translation. And if you don't translate, the printer has to guess how much Cyan and some other color it needs to mix to make your Blue.
Physics. What you see on your monitor is created by photons emitted from your Liquid Crystal Display (LCD). What you see on a piece of paper are photons bouncing off a specific ink that reflects only a certain part of the color spectrum of light. This huge variation makes it really hard to match darks and lights because one is active and the other passive.

I'm sure there are many other difficulties in all of this--ink and printer quality, software used to interpret the image, paper type--but suffice it to say: Getting a match is really, really hard.

So what can you do about it?

Lesson 3: Shop around. My best friend, when he was trying to find a printer for the photos he meticulously adjusted, sent the same six images to five different printers. Then he compared the prints to what he saw on his computer. By doing this simple experiment, he was able to disqualify three of the printers because the images weren't sharp enough. And after carefully looking at the colors, he decided that one of the printers more closely matched what he saw on his screen.

But even then, it wasn't perfect. He ended up having to always tone down the yellows in his "final" images so they'd look right in print.

~Luke Holzmann
Your Media Production Mentor

This is How They'd Remind Me...

2009-08-08T06:42:00.023-06:00

A few weeks ago, Scott Johnson mentioned on this podcast a Nickelback mashup that combined some songs and showed how they were the same (it starts at 10:55 in the show). [NB: the "d" word pops up now and again]

This put me on a quest for this audio file (because it wasn't linked in the incredibly short "show notes"). This page indicated that there may have been some editing involved, so I dug deeper. Google finally landed me here which includes links to both the song and an NPR article on the subject. It turns out that editing was involved, but that doesn't make the combination of these two songs any less impressive or incriminating.

Nickelback isn't the only group to have similar sounds show up on their albums. Angels and Airwaves has several songs on their debut album that repeat each other (though I am not skilled enough to match them up without many hours of work, not to mention the copyright issues; sorry).

So, what's the difference between these incredibly popular artists and today's worship music that contains about the same number of chord progressions?

Mixing and complexity.

Good bands tend to have slightly more to offer than a couple of guitars, a bass and a piano all playing the same three chords over and over again. Plus, they are often much more subtly mixed and therefore more blended. Which isn't surprising since they spend hundreds of thousands of dollars to get their sound and people like me mix the morning worship set.

And for as much as I'm amused by repeated sounds, it doesn't get much better than City on a Hill where two songs start with the exact same words on the album... twice (tracks 4&5, and 11&12).

~Luke Holzmann
Your Media Production Mentor

Graphics Cards

2009-08-07T14:20:00.007-06:00

I like to know the about the technical side of computers and cameras. But when we walked into computer store today, I really had no idea why one graphics card could be $45 and another $390.

And now I have a slighter better idea.

New and Old Graphics Cards

These cards have more than just Graphics RAM--the extra space dedicated to providing space for giving your pretty pictures. They also have image processing power. The problem is that this number is not made public on the boxes.

So, look for the RAM size and speed (1gig DDR2 vs. 512 GDDR3...), but if you can find out the difference between the 4650 and the 4820, or the 9600 and the 9720, you may discover that the $200 swing is due to the number of processes it can handle (320, we were told, is pretty good for our price range).

<shrug> Who knew?

What to learn a little more? Check out the How Stuff Works article on the subject of Graphics Cards.

~Luke Holzmann
Your Media Production Mentor

Pasted Plastic and Liv's Nose

2009-07-10T18:54:00.009-06:00

I noticed something watching Hulk: They really liked Liv Tyler's nose. And, I'll admit, it's a very nice nose. But I don't recall Lord of the Rings focusing so much on her profile and her pout (which she seemed to give us the whole movie).

Liv's Nose 1

Liv's Nose 2

Nothing particularly interesting in this observation, just something that kept happening again and again.

The other thing that kept happening in the movie was that every time Hulk was in the frame, I got pulled out of the film. There was something very wrong with him. And what struck me was just how plastic he looked. Every frame made him look pasted in.

Hulk Pasted In

Plastic Action Figure Hulk

Part of it is lighting. He just doesn't meld well with his environment (even though the lighting effects blend well between the background and him). But another major aspect of his plasticity is, I think, his eyes:

Hulk's Eyes 1

Hulk's Eyes 2

The Incredible Luke Hulk

~Luke Holzmann
Your Media Production Mentor

The Fuzziness of 24P

2009-07-09T21:53:00.004-06:00

I've said it before and I'll say it again--I'm sure: I really dislike the look of 24P.

Granted, most of the time I don't even notice, but fans and camera motion give it away. Like this shot from the opening of The Incredible Hulk:

24P Blur

This beautiful camera shot is completely ruined by the fuzzy/blurry image that 24 frames creates. I don't care how "high rez" the image is, if it's blurry then the resolution doesn't matter. In fact, it looks much better squashed down to fit in this post than blown up on an HD screen because of the way the blurriness detracts from the image resolution.

The lesson?

I don't remember who said it first, but he was absolutely right: If the image is out of focus then it isn't HD.

And motion blur is very similar to an out of focus shot.

So don't buy into the hype of 24P or HD if you can't get a good image from it.

~Luke Holzmann
Your Media Production Mentor

Cloverfield, the 2000 Edition

2009-07-03T20:03:00.003-06:00

I really enjoyed Cloverfield. There were, of course, things that bugged me--like, starting out the movie with, "Oh, I don't know how to use cameras very well" so they can get away with their film style... cop-out--but by the time the film ended I was satisfied.

[Aside: The same could not be said for The Happening which did nothing for me at all and consisted of acting on par with 10,000 BC, only without Camilla Belle to make up for it.]

But I just realized that Cloverfield was a remake of a 2000 music video, only they just added monsters this time. That's right, Cloverfield looks and feels just like Eve 6's Here's to the Night. Don't believe me? Watch the music video.

See? Deja vu.

Almost as creepy as the monster. Almost...

~Luke Holzmann
Your Media Production Mentor

Licensing Photos

2009-06-18T19:28:00.006-06:00

Now, you already know that you can't use images you find online unless you have been given specific permission to do so. Those pictures belong to someone else and you need to keep your grubby little mouse pointer to yourself. Don't copy, use, or duplicate those images as they aren't yours.

And if there's someone in the picture, you need to make sure the photographer has permission from the models so you can use their image in your project.

But pictures of yourself?

Knock yourself out. If you want to be crazy and post pictures, go for it. Though, you may want to be careful. And if a family member decides to take a sweet picture of you, you can probably post that too without too much concern.

My Family Hiking

But here's the kicker: Your Senior Picture, family portrait, wedding photos... nope.

You are not allowed to post those online. You don't own them.

Crazy! I know. They're of me, for crying out loud! I hear ya. I paid them hundreds--if not thousands--of dollars! You're right. I bought these pictures, so they're mine!

Wrong.

When you pay a professional photographer to take pictures for you, you are paying for their time, their work, and a license of the images. That license may include web distribution, reproduction, and extra printing... but probably not.

Why is this important?

Well, it means you can't legally take a picture of, say, your firm's president from a recent family portrait session and use that image on your firm's advertising materials.

Hypothetically speaking, of course.

First, you need to purchase all the rights to the image for a few hundred bucks, and then you're good to go.

So, remember: Just because the image is of you, you may not have the right to reproduce it or share it. You may only have the right to look at it--courtesy of the wonderful thing called "licensing" within media law.

~Luke Holzmann
Your Media Production Mentor

When Killers Die

2009-06-16T21:17:00.008-06:00

Hype is more exciting than normalcy.

Duh.

But at a certain point, very early on, it also gets old. Like, in the case of all the "killers" that come out. In fact, there are so many "killers" that I feel like we're not human at all anymore, but rather dancer [sic].

Red, the P2 Killer. Android, the iPhone Killer. Blu-ray, the DVD Killer. Silverlight, the Flash Killer. ...on and on...

What's interesting to me is that thus far none of those have killed anything, and none of them have really taken off.

So imagine my reaction when I heard about Microsoft's Wii Killer: Natal.

[guys, it's not a good sign when your official homepage doesn't exist... just so you know. Thankfully, Wikipedia has you covered]

Actually, it's very cool technology (if it works). Their demonstration (sorry, the person added some very lame annotations to the video--including an f-bomb) isn't very good--they need a better speaker and a more polished presentation. Their trailers aren't all that credible, and we really don't know how well this system is going to work. But the idea is cool. ...except... Nintendo appeals to kids and grandmas who like racing cows, whereas Xbox appeals to people like my brother who like FPSs or games where you brutally rip people apart in a spray of blood.

Different market.

So how will Natal do?

It's really hard to say because of where it is right now (i.e. not here yet). But my guess is that this will be yet another "killer" that dies.

~Luke Holzmann
Your Media Production Mentor

The Language of Computers

2009-06-15T21:12:00.004-06:00

File->New
Edit->Copy
Shift Click

If you use computers on a daily basis--and I assume you do--then these all make perfect sense. Completely normal. Even the Escape Key is perfectly comfortable on your keyboard, though you've probably rarely found a use for it. But this normalcy is completely foreign to some.

This evening I went over to visit with a family from our church--their daughter is in our Sunday School class--to help the woman figure out how to put music and pictures onto her iPod Nano. Within the first few minutes of sitting down at her computer we had covered:

The difference between a Folder and her Desktop
Documents vs. Music
User accounts
Left click vs. right click
Devices, hard drives, and media
Folder sorting/organization
and the iTunes interface

After that we showed her how to "import" music from her CDs, drag and drop them onto her iPod, and how to rename music files that did not automatically update. And I realized again that computers are anything but "intuitive". Rather, we learn where to expect to find things and can typically figure it out. As we encounter new programs and interfaces, these layouts shift and we have to go hunting again.

Left or right click? Well, is this a function that you want to activate or possibly alter/further define? How do you decide?

Why is it called "File" that ultimately lets you Open, Save, Create New, while "Edit" is where you Copy and Paste? I'm not totally sure. I mean, I get it, I do, but it's not the first thing people think of... unless they've been in computers for a long time.

And honestly, as I poked around the latest version of iTunes on a Vista machine, I felt a little lost now and again. 'Where did they move that feature now?' I found myself wondering every now again. 'I know where it used to be...' And so I'm lost as well, but I just happen to know roughly what I'm looking for.

~Luke Holzmann
Your Media Production Mentor

It Cuts Both Ways

2009-06-11T21:52:00.008-06:00

I was watching a TV episode this evening and we cut to a scene with a little boy. It was a funeral and the coffin was headed out of the church to the cemetery.

The scene was mostly closeups on the boy's face as the coffin moves in the foreground:

Coffin

The pallbearers move on toward the waiting hearse.

But wait, the coffin is moving past the boy again.

Huh?

This scene is horribly cut! They are repeating action in the cutting. I can't believe how shoddy the editing it for this scene. You've got to me kidding me! I mean, here they are putting the coffin into the hearse.

Cut to the pallbearers opening the hearse doors...

...wait...

There are two coffins?

Oh, that makes sense. Got it. Okay, not so bad anymore.

"Son," the man on the screen says, "I'm sorry about your mum and dad."

But the scene was bad. I was confused. I didn't know there were two coffins until they practically came out and told me. And if I wasn't slightly more astute, it would have taken until they said the line before I would have figured it out. And that makes it a very bad scene.

How could they have avoided this problem?

An establishing shot. And they could have had their pick:

Two hearses in front of a church
Two coffins in the viewing room
A wide shot of the processional exiting the church
The boy's POV of the two caskets
A slightly wider angle of the boy so we could see what was happening

But no. The entire scene was close in, personal, an individual experience focused on emotion and loss. And because of that, the audience was Lost.

I think many student films suffer from this same "claustrophobia" in that we rarely establish our scene. Establishing shots are difficult to pull off--in fact, I don't think we ever talked about them in film school--but they are essential to give your audience context for what is happening and where.

And here, a major scene from an excellent show was ruined because they never gave us a glimpse at what was going on.

~Luke Holzmann
Your Media Production Mentor

F Is For Font

2009-06-10T17:06:00.013-06:00

I've written about the difference between owning and licensing media before. But now I'm delving into a whole new world of media production:

Graphic design.

And with graphic design comes fonts. Fonts of every shape, size, style, and feel.

Fonts -- Yes, yes, I know

You have to buy fonts to use them--unless you can find them legitimately for free. But what can you do with them? What does it mean to have a "copyrighted font" at your disposal? I mean, if you read some of the legal documents it appears that all you can do it buy the font and look at it on your own computer and no where else (not even your other computer).

So I started digging. Here is what I have found:

Fonts are technically "software" now which means:
- a) You can't give copies of it to others, or put it on another computer unless you have permission from the people who hold the copyright
- b) You can't modify the font or change the name as this would be like altering code
- c) You probably shouldn't embed a font into a document unless you're sure you're allowed to
If you have any questions about what you can and can't do with a font, check the EULA (end user license agreement)
Every EULA is radically different from all the others, so check the EULA if you have questions
Seriously, no one can give any legal advice; the EULA is supreme
...it is impossible to find a copy of any font's EULA

Yep, that wasn't helpful.

Here is what I have concluded: If you have a license to use a font--and you do if you purchased a copy of Word, Photoshop, or paid for your computer's operating system (which is typically included in the price of your computer), or have downloaded a program/operating system legitimately for free (like a Linux distribution or GIMP), or have paid for a font you downloaded--then the following rules apply:

1. Do not share the font. Just like software and other digital media, you can't share, copy, or give away this font to anyone else.
2. Feel free to use the font. The big, scary copyright laws seem to have much more to do with protecting the font file, and less to do with how you can use that font file in your programs. For instance, yes, the EULA may say that you can't "modify the font" in any way--which would seem to imply that you can't take your Liquify tool and stretch the bottom of the "R" a little, but this is not the case. You just can't go into a font editing program, stretch the "R" a little and resave the font (as that would be a derivative work).

So, near as I can tell: Feel free to use the fonts in your programs however you like to make logos, header images, layouts, and other fun images. It is absolutely within your licensed right to do so.

~Luke Holzmann
Your Media Production Mentor

I Am Not a Videographer

2009-06-06T15:23:00.005-06:00

I graduated with a degree in Motion Picture Production. Ever since I started to study film--and not just make movies for fun--I have focused on filmmaking. When I shoot events, I shoot them like they were a movie as much as possible. I attend rehearsals, I practice my motion, I consider my options for angles... and I work with everyone at the event so I can get the best shots possible.

And I tend to like what I get after cutting an hour long event down to a few minutes of brilliance.

I am not a videographer. I've only shot two dance recitals in my life, and neither of them went how I would have liked. The first was a mad scramble to try to get everything set up properly and then grab some good shots from the back of the theatre--which, from my experience shooting weddings, is not the way to get good footage. In the end, I didn't even get the kinds of shots my friend wanted and the whole thing ended up almost completely unusable.

Which, going from a professional filmmaker to a worthless videographer didn't help endear me to the process.

The second event was last night. The location was over an hour and a half away and traffic was unaccountably slow. This meant I only had a few minutes to set up. I arrived and no one knew I was supposed to be there. My one contact was busy trying to get the event started, so I just did my own thing. I was told where I could shoot (which turned out to be great because I was right next to the sound guy who was kind enough to get me an audio feed), and the event just started. No warning whatsoever.

As a filmmaker, all of this smacked against my production values. Where's the "lights, camera, action"? Wouldn't it be good to check the audio feed before we get going so we know we have the microphones in the mix as well? We didn't. And, again, I found myself in the videographer's position: in the back.

I couldn't white balance between dances--where they change the light colors and throw everything out of whack. And I had no say over the color of the lights or the costumes--several times cherry red, which "bleeds" and smears on camera. I had no idea where the action was going to be next. And, honestly, since I haven't shot very many dance recitals, I found myself panning to the wrong place and missing the interesting action.

Oh, and the event was well over two hours long.

Six hours after I left, I was back home. I had footage I wasn't proud of, of an event that wasn't particularly interesting, with no focus on a particular person or event that an audience would want to watch again. Granted, I've been to dancer's houses when they've shown me their recital tapes. I realize that seeing the thirty seconds of themselves on a two hour DVD makes it worth watching the whole thing to them.

But me?

Editing is what makes dancing worth watching.

Sorry, this post drifted into my personal frustrations a wee bit much. Let me sum up. I am not a videographer because:

I like to control my shooting environment
I like to rehearse my shots
I like to edit events down
I like to be in the midst of the action
I like to work with those I am shooting, not for them
I like to know the equipment is set properly
I like to adjust everything to get a better shot
I like to be in control
I like to like what I've produced at the end of the day

I have a new respect for videographers. They have a rough job, and I see now that it requires many hours of practice to get good at it.

But I'm not sure I'll ever get those skills because I hate not producing stellar footage for people in the mean time, and I hate driving to places I've never been (as I tend to get lost). It's just not worth the stress on my end, and the potential failure to get anything usable.

~Luke Holzmann
Your Media Production Mentor