[Tim Wilson]

There’s also an outstanding article by Bob Zelin on this in the current issue of the COW Magazine. It’s free in PDF and print editions, and has a crazy amount of good stuff.

This issue is also chock full of cinematography goodness from Todd McMullen and Todd At Fantastic Plastic (Todd Terry), among others.

You’d normally have to subscribe to get the juiciest goodness, but we liked this issue so much that we made it available to non-subscribers.

When you get it, you’ll see why you shouldn’t miss any other issues. It’s a 9 MB download, so don’t be in too much of a hurry. But you can use your free time during the download to subscribe to the magazine.

I’m not kidding, you haven’t seen a magazine like this one. Only the best for members of the COW herd.

Yr pal,
Tim

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[Tim Wilson]

Fake it.

Create the images you want in Photoshop, After Effects or Flash if they need to be animated, and composite with your favorite corner pinning tool.

It might sound like I’m dismissing your question, but I’m really truly not. There’s a reason why every cell phone commercial that shows a screen also says “Screen images simulated.”

They’re not trying to be deceptive, and you wouldn’t be either. People want to see what they’ll see, as clearly as they can. I know you asked a shooting question, but simulating your images is the best way to do that.

[Tim Wilson]

[Tim Wilson]

Check that page again. The link to the files is just above the link to play the movie.

tw

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[Tim Wilson]

[tubaman52] “So for a businesses of this size do people use T1 or do similar small businesses use T1 bonded line at 3 Mbps or 4.5 Mbps or 6 Mbps or do they have another solution?”

If you can’t get by on 180 Mbps, you’re going to go insane with numbers that low.

When people talk about the last mile of service (cable, phone, internet) being the most expensive, they ain’t kidding. As Nick says, either the cost of building a line will be worth it to you, or it won’t.

Our choice was two-fold. We’re getting a nice clean 10 Mbps from our cable provider. Usually right near 10, too, for short enough money that I can’t remember the price. 20 Mbps is available, but I haven’t even looked at how much it would cost to upgrade. We’re doing fine at 10 for now.

Anyway, your mileage will vary depending on your last mile…but it’s worth a look.

Our second choice: FedEx. Me, I think movies over FTP is way, way overrated. Your business model is different…but there are a whole ton of advantage to not letting your business move faster than FedEx. Assuming you have that choice.

Streaming’s another story. It costs what it costs, and you’ll make what you make. Figuring out whether construction and monthly fees will return your investment in a timely fashion won’t take more than a few minutes. Compared to the other stuff we do, math is easy.

(For most people. I knew a theoretical calculus scholar. Everyone would turn to her when the lunch bill came to split, and she’d sniff and say “I don’t do finite mathematics.” And she wasn’t kidding.)

But my recommendation is the streaming equivalent of FedEx: hosted streaming. The Akamais of the world will give you more bandwidth than you can imagine for less money than you think.

One more tip for file transfer that’s crazy faster than FTP: Digidelivery by Digidesign.. For as little as $4K list, and no more than $10K list, you can BUY a server that will transfer files anywhere in the world with LAN speeds, with crazy additional features: full encryption, optional lossless compression to make things move even more quickly, automatic removal from the server when the transfer is done, and on and on.

The reason why Digidesign built such a thing was to support enterprise-class customers who need to transfer massive files, and who need security — say, theatrical releases to a scoring session. Digidelivery’s more secure than putting the movie in a car to deliver it, and in most cases, faster.

Here’s my favorite part: the client software is free, and autoinstalls a la Flash. You send a secure email, your customer clicks on an authentication code, and that’s it.

You don’t have to explain how to use FTP, create different passwords for different clients, different permissions, none of that. All automatic, and nobody has access to anything but the exact files you want them to. They never get in through your FTP door.

And it cleans off the files your customers have downloaded at an automatic interval that you set. (Maybe never if you want to manage it yourself.)

No here’s my favorite part. It uses a proprietary protocol so efficient that you won’t notice the drain on your bandwidth resources while the file is transferring at the speed of LAN. (I just now made that up. Cool.)

No, HERE’s my favorite part. You can BUY it, and forget about monthly fees, and it’s as little as the price of a workstation. Easy to configure, too.

I used it for regular ol’ business stuff — PowerPoint, Word docs, etc. — and felt like it paid for itself right quick with speed, efficiency and security. If you’re very regularly sending video and audio from point to point, this is so so so so much better than FTP.

It’s also so much fun that I started to look for big things to send, just to show it off to folks on the receiving end.

Go to the website, check out the demo. Better yet, find a ProTools dealer and take it for a spin.

Okay, end of the sermon. To summarize:

1) Check with your cable company for low double digit speads. You might be pleasantly surprised.

2) Leave cookies and milk for your FedEx carrier.

3) Use hosted streaming.

4) Use Digidelivery instead of FTP.

5) Buy me a really nice car, maybe a small vacation cottage, with the money you’ll save in the next year alone compared to building Verizon a massive line that will give them the power to charge you a whole lot more money.

Okay, NOW the sermon has ended. And, appropriately enough, with the exhortation to give me money and buy me cool stuff.

tim(at)creativecow(dot)net

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[Tim Wilson]

[Todd at Fantastic Plastic] “Oh well, I’m beginning to sound like a crank here. I wonder if I should grab Wargo and Zelin and we all get matching jackets?”

They’re a slimming shade of off-white, with long sleeves that lock in the back. One size fits all.

tim(at)creativecow(dot)net

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[Tim Wilson]

[kfrogg] “Be nice to Clint…we may be working for him one day.

I for one am thankful for the kind people in my career who took time to answer open-ended questions I already knew would take a lifetime to answer.”

That’s what I was going to say. There’d be no Cow if people didn’t feel safe asking questions, knowing they’d get the answer from people more experienced than they are.

Here are some reasons why Clint is my favorite poster among the thousands at the Cow this week:

1) He knows he’s a beginner, hence the 101 in the thread title. Bonus points for a descriptive title.

2) He came in asking, not telling. You know how rare that is.

3) He’s asking in the right forum. Also all too rare. Where else to get an answer about lenses than this forum?

4) He’s asking before he makes mistakes in buying or shooting that can’t be fixed later. How rare is THAT?

5) He’s specific about his plans, including brands, and, again, ASKS to be corrected if his assumptions are wrong.

6)Crazy, mad bonus points for even WANTING a lens adapter, for getting that depth of field is worth paying attention to. This alone might have earned my “favorite poster” status. How many posts like this at the Cow this week? This month?

7)[Clint Nitkiewicz Hernandez] “I have been in a hurry for this shoot, but you are right about going things right.”

What?!? He asked for advice, read the answers, and THANKED you? I’m getting teary-eyed, no kidding.

8)Best of all? Diving into the deep end. Dive into the shallow end and you can break your neck. Important advice because not everyone’s bones heal as well as Wargo’s.

To throw in another metaphor just because I’m so happy: Clint’s swinging for the fences. He’s daring, and yeah, maybe reckless. Reckless almost never means wreckless, but it can sometimes mean greatness.

To Chuck’s point, we may someday WISH we were working for Clint.

[kfrogg] “Excuse the rant, but you gotta start somewhere. Like I’m starting here…From lurker to ranter in one fell swoop…”

Which is why you’re my second favorite poster this week. 🙂 Gotta love a supportive rant.

Your pal,
Tim

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[Tim Wilson]

I’ve worked with a lot of NLEs for a long time, and worked at the Avid Mothership for a few years along the way.

Along the way, I’ve also learned that features and intuition are the LAST thing you should look at when considering switching NLEs.

The important question is about, let’s call it lifestyle: how much time do you want to spend in another NLE catching up with….yourself?

To answer the Vegas vs. Avid thing more directly, the only reason to think about adding Avid to your bag of tricks is if it will make you enough money to offset the time it will take to learn it.

In which case, who cares about the features, right? You do what you have to do.

But it sounds like you have a choice, in which case, invest in your own investment, learning Vegas better.

You also sound a little like you want to talk about something besides Avid:

[Gigabyte] “I am ready to invest time and money in an upgrade, or new software, and training to advance my business.”

A muuuuuch more interesting discussion to me. 🙂

In general, I think that production skills offer a bigger bang for the buck than software, and better business skills offer a bigger bang than production skills.

At least until your business skills get so hot that you need to produce and post higher-paying jobs. 🙂

In the meantime, a great place to talk about building your business is the Cow’s Business & Marketing forum. Anyone wanting to build the “business” side of the business should check it out.

Last thing from me on the ever-overrated features front: I visited an Avid facility once. So big that they have their own gift shop right inside the main entrance. And why not? They’re among the biggest entertainment companies in the world. Single titles raking in north of $1 BILLION isn’t unheard of. You know them.

Big numbers of Avids everywhere. Top of the line, the latest HD goodies, massive networked storage, machine room bigger than some places I’ve lived, on a multi-building campus, with multiple multi-layer parking garages. Get the picture?

All their audio post is done on a single Vegas system.

And no, I won’t tell you who. But you get the idea. 🙂

tim(at)creativecow(dot)net

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[Tim Wilson]

Someone here may well have the answer, but if not, you should repost this in the Cow’s web design forum.

tw

[Tim Wilson]

In the forums that have sticky posts, they’re at the top of the page. Let us know if you have a post you’d like us to add to the list.

Ditto FAQs. We’d love to have them for every high-traffic forum, but we’re a small team, and rely on members to point them out to us. Ideally, they’d help compile them, as we’re a very small team. Check the After Effects forum for an example.

As for the Wiki, well, let’s just say that, if we had one, we’d also rely on folks like you to flesh it out….but you might go ahead and drop a line if you’re interested in lending a hand. 😉

Best,
Tim

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