Bill Davis
Forum Replies Created
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And let’s not forget that if an actual comedic actor were to read #2, he or she would likely nail the final line with the kind of wry precision that would leave the average audience laughing.
So that if you put it EITHER first or second, you’d need to hold for the laughs to subside. And that would greatly change the rhythm of the piece.
If it’s the ONLY joke, then a short hold, maybe. If it’s the perfect 15th joke in a Vegas style “Dean Martin’s tipsy” routine and the house is rocking, you might need to hold for a full minute.
This is precisely why machines can’t yet edit for us.
Too freekin’ many variables to EVER make a rule about something like this.
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If you’re unfamiliar with the differences you really need to do some more research before you make your choice.
Try Wikipedia and read up on both choices.
Animation Codec is virtually lossless at it’s highest quality setting but it relies on run length encoding which works best on large areas of a consistent color such as you get in 2D animation. It’s typically less efficient on “real world” video footage and can actually increase artifacts in such.
Photo JPEG OTOH has some problems with large image and/or high frame rate videos which often don’t play back smoothly.
So the choice is often a balance based on the complexity and content of the actual footage and/or who’s going to need to play it back in what kind of circumstances.
Ain’t digital video fun!
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Looked at one way – NOTHING is ever strictly worth it’s retail price if you think of that price as ONLY covering what’s in that particular product.
Because that price doesn’t cover just the cost of the stuff. As with all retail pricing you’re paying for not only the design, engineering, construction and manufacturing that went into THIS product, but you’re supporting a company with the PROFIT to continue to manufacture, build and maintain it’s infastructure, pay the costs of human resources (including hopefully, smart key people who can do an exceptional job of developing the technology!) pay taxes and the opportunity cost of capital and survive, develop and support their existing line while investing in developing new products.
Oh, yeah, and the people who are taking the risks with the capital necessary to do all this want a RETURN on their capital. That’s how business works.
So the people who are running and attempting to sustain this particular business have set their prices at what they believe the market will support in order to meet those overall objectives.
You have a single choice.
Buy their stuff and support their view of how the business should work. Or buy something else and support something more or less expensive.
Like Walter Cronkite used to say when signing off…
That’s the way it is.
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I use Gelly Rolls as well. It’s really just PVC Pipe with caps on the ends. The hollow core is a nice place to store C-47s or small binder clips. The rest is just a vinyl pocket that wraps around the core.
Make your own or buy one to see how they’re made. I don’t have time to separate gels much, so I just always carry a bunch of CTO, CTB, Plus and Minus green, diffusion and some ND in mine, all mixed up.
Only major flaw in the commercial ones is that after a while, the elastic loops that hold it together get stretched out.
Such is life.
The big bonus is that it fits nicely on the shelf over the stands pocket in a standard Arri kit.
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Not that it will make any difference…
But you might try to help you boss understand all of this by telling him that buying a scalpel does NOT make someone a surgeon. And he would NEVER ALLOW someone to cut on him that didn’t understand that basic concept that tools are tools – but what produces good surgical results are PEOPLE (doctors) with the training and experience to know how to use the tools to drive results.
Clearly, no one in your organization actually understands how to use these tools – clearly demonstrated by his quite ignorant comment about lavs verses boom mics. So any money you spend on equipment is a crapshoot.
Listen, nod and learn. But also prepare yourself to move on. This boss is NOT going to help you learn how to practice your craft intelligently – simply because he obviously has little practical experience in this stuff himself.
Good luck.
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Digital signage is a reasonably seasoned and robust industry these days.
Call in a few vendors and I’m sure you can get bids galore.
If you have the time – the industry expo – DSE – starts in 2 weeks – Feb 23rd in Vegas.
One area that people new to the subject tend to overlook is display hardware life cycle and how frequently you’ll need to replace expensive components, like your screens. A “mostly on” cycle on big screens can age them up pretty quickly with static element “burn in” and other factors important to their useful life cycle. Some technologies like Plasma display have BEAUTIFUL pictures – but may burn in more quickly than LCD displays.
So ask alot about costs over the ENTIRE expected useful life of any system you consider.
Oh, and be careful about companies who subsidize the hardware with long-term hard-to break service or content management contracts. Be clear about who will update the content – on-site, remote, or a combination – and what that’s going to cost over the life of the system.
Good luck.
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I’ll make it even more simple and clear.
You work at a business. Your business leaders understand how much it costs to make their product and to distribute it and the RETURN they require on their capital in order to stay in business.
Same with video production.
Run the numbers like any business would.
Let’s say they budget $60,000 for their video production studio. And they want it to pay for itself over the next 5 years so that it doesn’t become a drag on the companies bottom line.
If your company works on a net margin of say 10% on it’s sales. Then they need to sell or save the equivalent of $600,000 in extra sales or “video driven cost savings” in order to pay the costs of the video operation over that period.
You’ll probably also have to factor in the labor and management cost. Let’s call that $400,000 again spread over 5 years.
If you can identify a way to either increment sales or reduce current expenses by $1,000,000 over 5 years BY BRINGING VIDEO PRODUCTION IN HOUSE, then it makes good business sense to expand the company’s expertise and add video production to your company’s core competencies.
If nobody in the organization can demonstrate how adding video production would do that – increase sales or limit costs by $1,000,000 over the next 5 years – then it’s basically BUSINESS FOOLISH to do it.
It’s a very “dumbed down” shorthand answer – but it’s more accurate than just “guessing” what the financial impact would be.
Work with your companies CFO, or the accounting dept and put YOUR projected numbers where mine are – and you’ll at least have a first round rough estimate of a “sink or swim” ROI for the project.
Good luck.
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Fernando,
If you can keep most of the spill from the greenscreen OFF your talent, you should be fine. All your keyer cares about is that the GS lighting produces an even and consistent single color – no matter really, what that color is.
That leaves you lighting the subject with tungsten. Which has been done for decades.
The only issue you’ll have is if, for example, your talent has a shiny cheek, or shiny black hair, or anything else which would reflect the GS background and cause a “carve out” to appear on the talent’s outline. You can’t blame the keyer for that – it’s just keying what it “sees” as green.
This is why separation is so important. The more “forward” your talent is, the weaker the spill from the key background will be on the talent – as the light follows the inverse square rule and moving the talent from 2 feet in front of the background to 6 feet drops the spill intensity by a factor of 9. Moving the talent out from 2 feet to 8 feet drops that spill intensity by a factor of 16. More depth from camera to subject to GS will ALWAYS make for a better key right up to the distance where the log relationship makes further separation insignificant.
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Can’t imagine it for editing….
However, I’m kinda surprised that my wife has been out to the studio at least 3 times since the announcement to remind me that SHE WANTS ONE asap.
She’s a huge consumer of magazines and apparently the coverage on the network news has her very excited.
Actually, me too since when we travel, while I’m content with 2 or 3 paperback books, she insists on taking a stack of the kind of fashion magazines that typically print on 300lb ChromeKote stock such that her carryon tote always seems to push 100 lbs.
Maybe the’ve got another one right.
Who knows?
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YES.