[Tim Wilson]

[walter biscardi] “We’re switching over”

Good plan. Anybody looking to save money should definitely start with a new account, including switching. Introductory offers can be truly compelling, and are meaningful even after amortizing over the life of the deal…

….during which you’ll take Ron’s advice and renegotiate. 🙂

[Tim Wilson]

I’m also remembering some ridiculously high number of frames per second for NASA recording launches. I thought I remembered 40,000 fps and figured that was impossible…before I remembered that the Phantom 65 shoots over 34,000 fps.

So, not 6 million fps, but still…..a LOT.

[Tim Wilson]

An almost on-topic observation about restaurants: there’s one here in Boston, been around since 1827, and is famous for, as Wikipedia puts it, “The service is also a partial hold-over from the time of its founding as the waitstaff have been encouraged to adopt a “surly” attitude and “backtalk” the clientele.”

Yep, 180 years of bad service.

The last time I was there, the waitress didn’t say a word, and set everything down juuuuuuust out of reach. She was definitely enjoying herself.

You have to stand in line, because they don’t take reservations — yet serve 1500 people/day. Count on a couple of hours for lunch.

You have to sit on uncomfortable wooden benches at communal tables, always elbow-to-elbow with strangers. It’s almost painfully loud.

They only take cash.

Kind of interesting — only 4 or 5 head chefs since they were founded. (I know for a fact that there had only been 3 up until 1985.)

Did I mention that they’ve been around since 1827? And that you have to wait a very long time to be one of over a dozen hundred people to pay cash to sit on an uncomfortable bench with strangers to be served by rude people?

So anyway, not to belabor the point, there are a lot of routes to success.

I’m also reminded in a little more on-topic-y way of a saying we had in the software business: shipping is a feature. There’s no such thing as perfect software, so at a certain point, get it out the door. I’ve heard at least one giant in our field saying that he had to ship the version they knew had bugs — so that he could keep the cash flow up while they fixed the bugs! They had revenue targets to hit, and there were genuinely dire consequences to innocent children if things didn’t keep moving.

The same may be true in your own business.

Which is to say, there are budgets, calendars, and reality. Pick two.

(I just made that up, and am inordinately pleased with myself.)

Of course, I have a t-shirt from Aron’s Records, one of the finest retail establishments to ever grace this earth. It says, “Fast. Friendly. Service. Pick one.”

[Tim Wilson]

THIS long. 🙂

Many’s the spammer who waited a couple of posts before doing their thing.

So welcome to the world of unmoderated posting. Use it wisely, my son.

🙂

[Tim Wilson]

Truly eloquent, Chris. Thanks for the reminder.

We here at The COW had noticed the same tendency you did. We started this nearly 15 years ago, when there were literally only a few hundred of us using these tools. Things were still fine for the first few hundreds of thousands of people…but once we crossed the half-million mark, we noticed that the signal to noise ratio was moving in the wrong direction.

As a result, we instituted our real name policy. We found that the tone changed virtually overnight. We continue to encourage things to work their way up the ladder of professional discourse. There’s so much experience across our forums, and across The COW, that we ought to be able to make it as easy to share.

So thanks for the reminder, Chris, not just on this thread, but across The COW. We’re workin’ on it, and we appreciate everyone’s diligence….and of course, their sharing. We wouldn’t be here without you.

Regards,

Tim Wilson
Creative COW

[Tim Wilson]

I get what you’re saying — there are indeed better repositories of thorough reviews….but I know you’ll get thorough answers to your specific questions if you’ve got ’em. 🙂

Now, having said that, we’ve been talking to some makers of adapters of late. Since you’ve put this on our radar, we’ll put it on theirs.

Thanks,
Tim

[Tim Wilson]

If you are seeing the ball, this makes me think you are working in the standalone Boris FX Engine, yes?

If so, then you must use the Media pop-up button to change sources. The default is V1 — the ball — but you must change that to your movie media for both the Face track and the Motion Tracking filter itself.

If you are using the footage supplied with that tutorial, your Face Track and Motion Tracking source will be the movie called Walk.mov. But whichever footage you use, the media selection must be Movie, and not V1.

Of course, if you are working with Boris FX as a plug-in, then V1 (or another video track) will probably be your source. But it sounds like you are in the standalone version.

Let us know if changing your media selection pop-up to Movie, and selecting the right movie file, makes this problem go away.

PS. I now work for Creative COW, but I wrote this tutorial when I worked at Boris! (Hello Peter!)

[Tim Wilson]

Wow, that’s gorgeous!

To anybody who wants to watch that clip the right way, choose the HD option and watch full screen. That may be the prettiest thing I’ve ever seen on YouTube.

Thanks for sharing!

[Tim Wilson]

Sorry for the late reply, Peter.

We have those discussions in our cinematoraphy forum, where these things get discussed on a regular basis. A number of people there are using them on a daily basis. Others there have worked on Oscar and Emmy winning features, and have a great deal of experience with film lenses on the other side of the adapter. Ask any questions there, I’m certain you’ll find plenty of answers.

One of the hosts there recently wrote an overview of what’s currently available, in the Visual Effects issue of the COW Magazine. Take a look here.

Tim Wilson
Creative COW

[Tim Wilson]

[Dan Barter] “As willing as I am to do all this work for my friend for free, I’m not necessarily sure that fixing the stories, formatically. (like that word?) should be my job. Is there some line somewhere that a designer should draw, regarding these sorts of issues?”

If you think about that one, you’ll see that it’s actually a question about the relationship between your “boss” and you about the division of labor. You’ll get good advice on that in the Business & Marketing forum.

Re: fixing the work of non-pro authors, I feel your pain. The one and only requirement to write in the COW Magazine is to never have been published in an industry trade magazine. Well, there’s some other stuff about professional qualifications and all, but the point is, NO professional writers. I assure you that the articles I get from some of the most accomplished film production folks you can imagine is as formatically challenged as what you see.

Short version: until you get your “boss” to take it on, you’re the one who gets to clean it up. Kind of like the guy who shovels up after the elephants in the parade. His friend asks, Why don’t you quit? And the guy says WHAT?! And leave show business???

That said, I hear you on the need for a general design forum. We have ones for film and video (Art of the Edit), web design (cleverly entitled Web Design — yes, it’s also eponymous), but nothing more general for print design.

Let us talk about it a bit. Might be time to fire one up. And if you have any more thoughts about the forum, or are willing to host it 🙂 by all means, pipe up.

And of course, with any questions about the mag itself, the Creative COW Magazine Feedback forum…

Best,

Tim Wilson
Creative COW Magazine