[Andrew Kimery]

money shot?

[Andrew Kimery]

[Scott Sheriff] “So if you think the video production biz is still viable, and don’t think the industry is in a terminal decline, let me ask you a question.”
I’m not going to pretend to answer for Tom, but I’ll toss in my two cents anyway.

First off, and I’m not doing this to be pedantic, but what exactly is the “video production biz”? Weddings? Hollywood films? Reality TV? Corporate training videos? Commercials? There are so many facets that some can be fine while others are not and I think that might part of the problem w/this thread is that we have people coming from so many different places and experiences that coming to a true consensus is impossible. It’s like having a global discussion about todays weather and trying to get everyone to agree if it’s cloudy outside or not.

On a more philosophical note I think perspective plays a big role as well. For example, is the video store business pretty much dead? Yes. Is the video rental businesses dead? No. If Blockbuster took the perspective of being in the video rental business as opposed to the video store business they’d probably be in much better shape today. Compare that to Netflix. First it was DVDs in the mail, then it was streaming and now they are producing their own original content. If Netflix just saw themselves as a DVD-in-the-mail company they’d go down the tubes right behind Blockbuster. Netflix’s core business, content delivery, hasn’t changed even though their delivery method has.

[Andrew Kimery]

[Scott Sheriff] “At times I’m perplexed by what goes on here.
Some Cow regulars will knock each other over in the rush to be first to help some undeserving noob that could easily self-help, by simply reading the manual. And then turn around and treat real colleagues that deserve help rather poorly. None of which is doing any of us any good, but I think it makes some them feel better. It’s rather sad.”

I feel like I read a different thread than you and Andy did. I saw a number of COW members give advice (some as straight up suggestions and others in the form of personal anecdotes) to which Andy basically replied, and I’m paraphrasing here, “You’re wrong, you’re delusional, we’re doomed. Why can no one else understand that we are all doomed, Doomed, DOOMED!” At which point some people got snarky because it appeared that Andy just wanted to b*tch and was getting irritated that no one was jumping onto his doomed bandwagon to the abyss and when internet rants backfire they almost always do so in a spectacular fashion (case in point, this thread).

I hope my lighting of a match doesn’t interfere with anyone else’s cursing of the darkness. 😉

[Andrew Kimery]

Yes, the engine Compressor uses is different and better than what FCP uses. If I was gonna take a stab at this here is what I’d do first. Export 1min of your timeline out as ProRes, put it into Compressor and use the ProRes preset. Once you drop the preset onto the clip go to the Geometry settings and change the Dimensions to 1920×1080 then go to the Frame Control settings. From the Frame Control settings click the gear looking icon so you can can the drop down menu from “off” to “on”. Then change the Resize Filter from Better to to Best. Going from Better to Best adds a lot of export time but it can be worth it. For comparison you could aslo do an export using the Better setting.

[Andrew Kimery]

Like Shane said there’s no way around having to redo the stills manually. Sucks, been there before, but some things still require elbow grease to get done.

Have you tried doing a test (maybe 1min of footage) using Compressor? Scaling using FCP gives pretty craptacular results.

[Andrew Kimery]

Have you tried making a high quality export in 720 then converting it to 1080 using Compressor w/all settings turned up to max quality? A hardware conversion would yield better results but I assume you don’t have access nor the budget to bring a Teranex box into the equation.

[Andrew Kimery]

I know I’m late to this party but if people can still be successful writers, singers, artists, musicians, athletes, etc., I don’t see why video production is any different. A guitar, pencil & paper, paint, etc., are much easier and cheaper to come by than even the most inexpensive video gear.

Mark,
If your son really is 20th in world at Battlefield has he thought about trying to game professionally (I agree that being good at a FPS game is a far cry from being a good fit for military life)? It’s obviously a sink or swim career but if he’s talented and dedicated why not give it a shot?

[Andrew Kimery]

Cut a promo, put it on the COW and ask for feed back.

You can’t lean to swim without getting wet. Reading about how Michael Phelps prepares for a meet could give you some insight on how to prepare yourself, but it won’t shave time off your breast stroke.

[Andrew Kimery]

My initial thought when I saw the thread was, “Assistant Editor’s have reels?” Unless you videotaped yourself capturing footage, organizing the dailies or making an output for approval I don’t think there’s a way to make an AE reel. 😉

If you have some spots you’ve edited that you want to show off then I’d put those on your Editor’s reel.

AEing is all technical, behind-the-scenes magic and people looking for AE’s know this and wouldn’t expect an AE to provide a reel.

[Andrew Kimery]

[John Sinclair] “In my Sequence settings, I have it set to 1920×1080, with the compressor set as Apple ProRes422 (HQ). If I do Export >>> Quicktime Movie >>> Current Settings, will it export the string of clips to Apple ProRes422 (HQ) or will it read each individual clip’s native format?”

Doing that will give you a ProRes HQ QT file. Using QT Movie (make sure the “make self contained” box is checked) will create a QT file that matches the codec the sequence is set to (in this case ProRes HQ).