[Bill Davis]

I suspect that it won’t be long before some of the iPhone storyboard products like Cinemek’s Storyboard Composer or even a future iPhone version of iMovie will make it’s way to the small handset world.

I can see doing a rough cut in an airplane seat or at the lunch counter without ever having to unfold the laptop or iPad.

Doing “real” editing is not the point. The point is that the platforms and software are already here – we’re just discussing slightly expanding the current tools with even more utility.

It’s to real editing what a small sketchpad is to fine art. Nothing more or less.

And to the kids coming up for whom editing has ALWAYS been manipulating visuals on a screen – it’s just another tool to fiddle with that may or may not help them develop a new process for visualizing work.

[Bill Davis]

I’m gonna be tough here and suggest you think VERY hard before you do this.

In essence, hiring people is the first step in moving AWAY from the creative part of any endeavor and moving toward being a business like any other business. Your productive hours start to shift from unique problem solving (creative, client, and program issues) to the most boring and common problem solving issues that human beings have ever invented. (Matching FICA reports, Time sheets, Bonus calculations, What’s the appropriate freekin HOLIDAY gift for your new employee!)

THIS is what really happens when you start to hire people. Yes, it may be necessary if you wish to grow your business. Or it may not. You might find a way to emphasize personal creative excellence over production output. And keep small but keep making more by being BETTER than the competition. Keep the work in YOUR hands, rather than subbing parts out to the junior worker and spending so much time trying to bring his or her up to your level of excellence.

It’s the fine artist verses the commercial artist conundrum. Build a reputation – or build a business on volume. Two different paths.

Just understand that if you decide to take the “whoppie, I’m now a MANAGER with employees!” route, – and you succeed – you will look up one day and you will likely have virtually NOTHING to do with the things you might have loved about being in such a creative field in the first place.

Again, I’m not trying to dissuade you. Perhaps you really WANT to be more a general business person than a creative person. Just understand the difference. The bigger your business – the LESS you get to do what you love – and the more you have to SERVE the business. And that means MANAGING rather than DOING. Approving, rather than creating. Filing the paperwork, rather than imagining possible solutions to unique problems that only YOU’ve taken the time to understand.

There are a few THOUSAND books in the library on running a business. And perhaps a few hundred on building and sustaining a true creative life.

I’m just saying be a bit careful before you make a choice as to the branch on which you wish to base your life and career.

Good luck whichever you choose.

[Bill Davis]

Please notice that the OP did NOT ask about any form of safety backup workflow.

He asked how to GET HIS CLIPS FROM THE CAMERA TO THE TIMELINE – period.

I’m sure everyone here has their pet way to backup, number, file, offload, offsite backup, and or hermetically seal a perfect clone of the original card in lucite and burry it in an anti-radiation vault deep within a mountain.

And that’s all great.

But it’s NOT responsive to the guys question.

You want to have a nice chat about how your way to backup is the ONLY right way – fine. Have at it.

Personally, I find it a HUGE waste of time. Anyone working with 5dMkii files have already seen at least 4 MAJOR changes in the capabilities, nature, included software and workflow recommendations by both Canon and Apple (who should have some reasonable ideas about this stuff since they invented it) for working with these files.

There’s a good chance in in the coming months and years, EVERYTHING we’re doing now will change as these companies and others refine a workflow that was NEVER supposed to be as professionally functional as it’s now become in the first place.

So sorry, but today’s EXPERT is tomorrow’s “old fashioned” practitioner. Heck, the way we’re doing things at 10am is likely to change before 5pm on some unlucky days.

So relax. Do what you feel best. If you’re getting work done at a rate that makes you happy – sit back and enjoy that reality. I am and I do.

Life’s too short to worry that you’re way isn’t “PERFECT” enough.

Just like popping up and telling others that their way that works perfectly fine is somehow “wrong” simply because it differs from how YOU feel it “should” be done.

My 2 cents anyway.

[Bill Davis]

Mark,

I think you’re getting me confused with Dennis Size.

*I* am the guy who hates Lowel Pro lights. (with a passion)

I also believe you’re getting the Lowel PRO light – confused with a Lowel Omni light.

BTW, I totally understand confusion. It gets harder and harder each year to keep the brain cells operating with anything approaching efficiency – so I’m pleased I still can still tell the difference.

Still, you’ll see that on the REAL Lowel Pro light, there’s not only NO HANDLE. but virtually NO PLACE TO GRAB The sucker except the body of the light (which after too few minutes typically approaches the temperature of the surface of the sun.)

Sorry, that’s my story and I’m sticking with it.

[Bill Davis]

With the setup you describe, you don’t really need ANYTHING else.

Since the VGA feed to the projector is switched – just get the proper VGA adaptor for the Mac or the PC and set it up to play the video full screen.

I’m a Mac guy – so I’d load the video by dragging it onto Quicktime Player – then use the MONITORs control panel to either MIRROR the entire desktop, or put the video output on the SECOND SCREEN which shows up automatically when there’s a VGA source in addition to the desktop.

In either case, once you have the video displaying full screen to the projector, a touch of the space bar starts and stops it.

Is suspect it’s the same using Windows Media Player or whatever the current equivalent software is on the PC.

The key is that you already have a SWITCH between the two laptops and the projector.

If you don’t have that then the next process is to EMBED the video into the PPt presentation.

This is not a holy war thing, just a practical reality that this works pretty flawlessly using a MAC with a Quicktime embedded inside a Keynote presenation. But in my experience, embedding video inside a PowerPoint PC presentation is asking for trouble.

Others here may be more up to date and PPt may have solved their internal playback issues – but all I know is that the ONLY embedded video inside a presentation system I fully trust based on dozens and dozens of conference appearances is Keynote/Quicktime.

For what it’s worth. YMMV

[Bill Davis]

And one should always “love” their children. However it’s also important to understand every child’s individual strengths and weaknesses.

It is a strength of the Pro Light that it’s so small and powerful.

It is a WEAKNESS of the Pro Light that it’s design builds and holds heat like a black car in the Arizona summer. I’ve been burned (quite literally, NOT figuratively) by more Pro lights than any other device in my career and so I don’t like them.

I ADORE Totas in soft boxes, warehouses and anywhere else a small, light, compact perfectly designed fixture needs to blast out a WHOLE lot of light. I own EIGHT of them.

I’m agnositc on most other Lowel stuff, but appreciate that the line has great value for what it is, and was designed by folks who really know video and especially the line’s accommodation for lots and lots of light control accessories.

At the point in my career where I was looking for affordable gear, I found a great deal on an Arri fresnel kit and so I built my skills with fresnels – which as everyone knows are a whole different beast from open face lights. So I had no need to ever own or get intimate with more Lowel stuff than I ran across in other guys kits.

Hence the burned fingers – figuring that a small Lowel fixture might be designed like, for example, a small Arri fixture as regards to heat dispersion and that I could grab and pack the suckers at a similar point in the “cool down time cycle.” It’s NOT. At all. Period. Ouch. Not AT ALL.

[Bill Davis]

Your workflow is unnecessarily complicated.

Install the Canon EOS utility that came with the 5dMk ii.

Tether your camera to your computer via USB with FCP running and use the EOS utility to bring your video files directly into an FCP timeline. It does the ProRes 422 transcoding on the fly and takes a WHOLE lot less time than anything else.

If you’re unsure if your timeline settings are going to be correct – open a fresh FCP project and drop some of the video files into it’s timeline or into the Browser and FCP will ask you if you want to confom the new timeline to the footage type. Say YES and you’re ready to edit without a problem.

That’s it.

[Bill Davis]

Not just “Lowel’s” but specifically (shudder) Pro lights.

Take all yokes and mounting hardware off and then make the fighters HOLD the damn things BARE HANDED!

I guarantee the freakin’ lights will get so dam hot that the whole fight will be over in 15 seconds and the only question will be who dropped theirs first.

(can you tell I’m NOT a big fan of Pro lights?)

[Bill Davis]

Jessica,

The issue is that except for VERY powerful versions of HMI lights – there’s nothing that can directly compete with the sun in terms of brightness.

So, no matter what camera you shoot, you’re going to have a problem with the overexposed window.

The issue with using a partial filter on the camera lens is that it will darken EVERYTHING between the camera and the scene covered by the area of the filter. So your talent will darken as they move behind the lens filter. This is unacceptable.

So the challenge is to get something BEHIND the talent, yet in FRONT of or BEHIND the window such that it lowers the light of the window without affecting the light hitting the scene you wish to record.

Depending on the size of the window area – one typical solution is to build or create a larger than the window area FRAME that can be leaned or affixed to the exterior of the structure that will cover the entire window area with something that limits the light entering through that window.

Common home center black or green shade cloth can be very effective in this. The issue is building the proper frame from wood, or PVC pipe, or whatever else is available, affordable, and strong enough to hold the fabric over the entire window area.

Outside of a technique like this, you’re going to be stuck with the restrictions you have.

Good luck.

[Bill Davis]

The third alternative and the one I’d probably take is to shoot two videos of the room – locked down – one exposed for the window view – the second exposed for the room with the window blown out.

Composite both in post (a foolishly simple window shaped wipe will do) – then shoot the interviewee in the studio where you can control both the sound and light. And then composite the composite with the studio shot.

This thinking, of course, comes from someone who HAS a studio and has learned the hard way just how many day to day problems shooting in a soundproofed studio actually resolves!

YMMV.