Brendan Coots
Forum Replies Created
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Agreed on all of these points (although a LOT of people have misgivings about the aging Meridien codec). Just be sure, as was mentioned, to use Straight Alphas. You should also render interlaced.
Also be careful with your actual alpha settings. If they are set wrong, your video will take on a strange purple look. This may not be specific to the Meridien codec, but that’s the only codec I’ve noticed this problem with.
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My read on that article is that there is a roughly 12% speed increase between the Macbook and Macbook Pro. Not all that impressive in my opinion, although I realize people like the pro for other more tangible reasons like the screen size, gfx card etc.
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That seems like a pretty reasonable size.
Depending on the source material, you may want to try compressing to MPEG-4 as well (unless you specifically need flv files), the size/quality ratio can be pretty nice.
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As you know, most of the core broadcast design principals center on principals of film design – composition, use of light, set design/color use, negative space, camera movement, foreground/background etc.
As a Creative Director who hires AE contractors all the time, I look at people’s demo reels hoping to see these principals in action, and generally choose artists that “get it.” The best way you could demonstrate how your film experience helps you as an artist is in your demo reel and the work that you present. If that experience truly helps your design, it should show in your work. Talk is cheap, so prove your assertions.
The second thing you should do is to address your knowledge in these areas directly, either in the writeup on your school experience, or in your cover letter. I would suggest doing at least some level of research on each company you apply to, view their reel, and maybe include a line in your cover letter that directly addresses how your knowledge of film will complement what that specific company does. If they do a lot of 3D space in After Effects, talk about how your knowledge of real-world camera movement etc. will complement their style. Remember, you want to show them you know what they are all about and are a good fit for their style. You can ensure success by looking for companies that truly WOULD benefit from hiring someone with film experience, and go from there.
Aside from your specific question, I would add that any information letting them know why you are a stronger candidate than your competitors will help, provided you don’t overdo the self-hype and over-confidence seen in so many resumes these days. I can’t tell you how many cover letters I’ve seen where the applicant talks as though they are a design god and they know it. I see this mostly with rookie new-grads, which makes it even more silly. No manager would ever want to work with an artist like this, so it’s a horrible tactic. If they truly ARE good at design, that would be evident in their reel and they would have no need to talk themselves up like that. Show confidence, but don’t overdo it!
Another point on this is that hiring managers have SEEN IT ALL, and tire very quickly of the same old boilerplate resume-speak. Speak like a human being who has been given 2 minutes to explain, person to person, why you want the job and avoid standard cover letter BS. I would almost go so far as to pretend you are sitting there having a beer with this person and pitching yourself to them. This industry is different than most in that personality and maturity count far more than your ability to generate some standard issue, by-the-book cover letter. Letting your true personality shine through in your cover letter will stand out amongst the dozens of boring robotic resumes people send out every day.Good Luck
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Activation and registration are two different things. You need to activate the product to use it, but you need to register it to be eligible for upgrades and support.
If the previous owner registered the product in his/her name, they will have to fill out a form with Adobe verifying that they are transferring their license to you as the new owner. Without being able to register it in your name, you will NOT get any upgrades from Adobe, ever. If it denied your registration, chances are 99% that the previous owner registered it in their name, and either knowingly ripped you off (Ebay, anyone?) or should be willing to transfer the license.
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The key is to shoot the scene in slow motion, then speed it up later. Have your actor swing the bat pretty slow, giving your other actor time to “react” to being hit and fall out of frame. If they act the scene out too slowly, the action will look wrong when sped up (and other elements such as moving backgrounds will be obviously sped up), so you need to work with them closely to find the fastest speed they can safely and accurately do it. I would try to frame up your shot where you see the back or side of the victim’s head when the bat hits, rather than trying to show the hit directly. This way, your victim can react and fall without the bat even having to make contact with his head. Rehearse the shot over and over so that your actors are comfortable and know exactly what to do, or someone could walk away with a concussion.
You can then speed up the footage in After Effects to make it seem like the guy really swings the bat fast and hard. For the blood, simple is usually better and less prone to looking cheesey. Video Copilot has a cool set of assets called Action Movie Essentials (or something) that includes video clips of blood splatters, all with alpha channels for easy compositing.
One of the things that will sell this shot more than anything is convincing sound FX. You should look around to find a good bat-hitting-head “ping!” sound effect to use. Even if people don’t see the bat hitting the head, hearing that sound on cue will really go a long way. Just be careful to mix it in with the audio properly, if it’s too loud in your mix it will be obvious that it’s a sound effect. Subtle is good.
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Personally (and of course everyone will have a different opinion) I would buy the lower end whiteBook (1GB RAM, 80GB hard drive) and upgrade it through a 3rd party. Apple charges a LOT for addons and upgrades, but you can get same or better quality parts for cheap elsewhere. What’s more, upgrading the macbook’s hard drive and RAM are insanely easy, even for the beginner.
Other World Computing (https://www.macsales.com/) has OWC ram which matches the Apple spec for WAY cheaper, as well as Seagate laptop drives that are a much better deal. For just over $200 US, you can get a 160GB hard drive and 2GB RAM from them. Combined with the base price of the cheapest Macbook that’s $1,299US. The same price will get you 40GB less hard drive and half as much RAM if purchased through Apple.
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Here’s few different things you can try:
1. Scale the entire PNG 3d sequence down to like 50% of its original size and render it out to a jpg sequence set to something like 70% quality. Then pull it back in to AE and scale back up to its original size. This should introduce some blocky artifacts. You will need to experiment with the different values above to get proper results.
2. Effect>Stylize>Mosaic in limited doses will complement the above technique to give you more blocky artifacting
3. Use the Match Grain feature (Effects>Grain>Match Grain) on your 3d sequence to match the grain of the source footage. This really works better for matching actual grain, but in this case it might help you match in the 3d plate.
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As I’m sure you know DVCPro HD has a lot of known issues in this area, all of which seem to be tied to the difference in gamma handling between FCP, Quicktime and other apps. FCP and Quicktime both seem to apply different gamma settings for on-screen playback, that aren’t present in final output to tape etc. but how confusing is that?!? Not to mention Quicktime stripping superwhite values, it’s a real mess.
The reason your conversion fixes these issues is that it strips out the existing gamma tag in the .mov header.
I am no expert on this subject by any stretch, but the workflow you are using seems to be a good bet in avoiding these issues, until a real fix is issued. Aside from that, I’ve heard that Quicktime TIFF doesn’t suffer from these issues?
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I think After Effects CS3 is slated for a July release, and to my knowledge this is the last application needed for them to fully release all Creative Suite options.