Andrew Rendell
Forum Replies Created
-
I scared myself yesterday. As the words came out of my mouth I heard myself saying to a Media Studies student “…the defining characteristic of a current affairs documentary is the way that a character is used as a metaphor for a bigger idea…”
aaaaaagh! I’m so sorry…. she only asked whether I thought that “Genre” was dead…
:-0
-
I don’t know what the deal is with moving stuff around, I’d just repost in the 3ds max area, and possibly in Maya and/or Blender as well
-
What’s best depends on what you’re going to do with it. Best practice is to minimise the number of times that any footage is changed to a different codec (because every time it’s changed you lose a bit of quality), so in general one would export from FCP in whatever codec it’s been edited in, then use something like Compressor to make a version in whatever codec you need for any particular purpose.
-
You might get a better response if you posted in one or more of the 3d software sections (autodesk 3ds perhaps).
3D modelling isn’t my area, so I have no opinion about software. My experience is that it’s a rather specialized field and the best way to go would probably be to find the right person for the job and use whatever software they happen to prefer.
-
+1
Some of it can make you better at your job, but most of it only really applies in the workplace if you’re sitting with a particularly artsy director who keeps using words like “diegetic” and “analepsis” – then it’s useful to be familiar with the terminology 😉
-
Inspiring story Nick.
In my own case, I had no idea what I was going to do with my life before I was 20. Got into college (studying Physics in fact) but hated it and dropped out (not so much the course, but I really didn’t like the general living environment and all the other students). After a couple of non-starts I got a job as the lowest runner/tea boy at a small tv facility, decided that tv was interesting and badgered the BBC (I’m in the UK) until they gave me a job as a technical trainee (which happened on my 3rd interview).
TBH they weren’t particularly concerned about my lack of degree, but what got them interested was my involvement in amateur dramatics (I’d had a few minor parts in some musicals when I was at school), a little (unpaid) involvement in (very) local radio, Grade 5 on the French Horn, a few gigs playing guitar in a (very bad) rock’n’roll band, had a driving license for both cars and motorbikes, plus of course my experience making tea for some big time actors and my persistence in not taking NO for an answer from themselves. Those little things are what can make one person’s application stand out when someone has hundreds to trawl through, even though I didn’t realise it at the time (I was really compensating for my poor academic qualifications when I put them down), they showed that I was the kind of person who got out and did stuff (rather than sitting on my ar5e waiting for the world to come to me) and that I was willing to work long hours for low pay.
[Thank you, thank you, thank you, BBC…. of course, being that kind of person meant that I eventually left rather than become a “company man”, but I still go back there as a freelancer quite frequently and still love it.]
Sometimes you can luck out when going for a job – I once got an editing job (a few weeks as a freelance) because I drive the “right” kind of car, and I know someone who once got a full-time job because he supports the “right” football team… so you never know… but I wouldn’t advise trusting luck, there are too many people pushing hard for the same opportunities that you want.
-
I used some orchestral based (not classical) from Audio Network a few weeks ago and it worked a treat. Don’t know what I cost, though, I just gave the website details to my Prod Manager and she said ok…
-
One of the things I liked about 7 when it arrived is the ability to open the timeline (icons down at the bottom left), drop the clip at it’s full length onto a high vision layer then put in a keyframe at the start and a keyframe on the last frame you want to see, then drag that end one to the point in the sequence where you want it to end, then trim off the end with the blade tool and drop it down into your main vision layer – instant speed ups and slow downs timed to your sequence (well, sort of, but pretty quick and easy). You can do speed changes within the clip, drop it back to 100%, ramp in and out of speed variations, etc. Check it out. (Presumably FCPX does something similar or better, but I don’t know about that yet.)
-
I usually do it by keyframing a glow effect.
-
As Shane says, there’s not really a right answer, it depends on what kind of work you’re intending to use it for.
I started on Avid (well, actually I started on tape, but Avid was my first NLE) before adding FCP to my repertoire, so I’ve gone back to using that at the moment, although I’m not intending to chuck my FCP7 away for a long time yet. That choice makes sense for me for the time being – my last couple of projects were serious docs (lots of narrative restructuring as the edit went on but very few effects) and I’m currently doing a car show (lots of Boris BCC effects to add a bit of extra zing, but the main graphics were done by someone else and imported), for which I graded one of the docs, the other one and the car show go to a Colorist for the grading and all of them are sound mixed by a Dubbing Mixer, and Avid is still the default choice in this area.
For graphics heavy or “do it all in the same box” work, one can easily make an argument for Adobe as the integration of After Effects and Photoshop with Premiere is very impressive and I certainly don’t dismiss it as something I might go to in the future.