[James Whittington]

Hey thanks for the reply Brian. No, both are set to zero right now.

[James Whittington]

Thanks Ted!

I’ve been messing around with Trapcode Form and got pretty close to what I want.

There’s one thing that’s happening that I can’t figure out how to fix. Driving me nuts! There are times when my particles go transparent. Looks like maybe there are white particles that are passing in front of the colored ones. I’m using a camera to try and give it some depth. Maybe that’s causing it somehow? Sorry…obviously not an AE expert.

Trying to embed the video so you can see it. Hope that works. 🙂

Thank you!

Particle Test

[James Whittington]

Thanks guys!

Just out of curiosity, do any of you know what the more popular 3D software applications are? Might be something I’d be interested in messing around with.

Thanks!

[James Whittington]

You definitely bring up some good points Rich!

When it comes to shooting I get kind of picky and really love the aesthetic a full frame DSLR offers. Plus, I want to be able to do professional level photography and am really into timelapse photography as well. So…I really would like the 5D Mark II (or maybe even the Mark III which is rumored to be announced soon!). Toss in 3-4 Canon L-series or Zeiss lenses and you can get to $10,000 pretty quick!

I know you can get something like a 7D or T2i with a few generic lenses for substantially less and certainly do good work. However, I feel like if I want to shoot for the agency as well as do some freelance work on the side the extra money now might be worth it.

Thanks for your input!

[James Whittington]

Thanks very much for all the feedback guys!!!

Good idea Nick. I was actually thinking about doing just that. If I invested in all that gear, there is no reason NOT to invoice my agency a rental fee each time we use it. Looking at current rates, it would come to at least $300 day. Not a bad way to recoup some of the costs.

[James Whittington]

Thanks for all that info Steve!

I am a W2 employee for the agency. That’s all a bit of a foreign language to me, so sounds like I should sit down with a CPA and go over it in detail. Not quite as simple as “I bought this stuff for work, now give me some money back!”. 🙂

Hopefully I can just talk the agency into getting the gear and not go through this mess to begin with!

[James Whittington]

Ah…yeah looks like the TV only has RCA inputs. Guess I might have to make a quick Radio Shack trip to get three BNC to RCA adapters.

Thanks!

[James Whittington]

Thanks for the responses guys. I was actually able to track down the original DVCPRO tapes…so looks like I just need to rent a deck and we’re all good!

[James Whittington]

Thanks for the help guys.

I have about 500GB’s of footage. Converting everything in compressor was going to just take way too long. I’m finding logging and transferring all the original footage as ProRes back into a new final cut project probably is quicker. I’ll just have to re-organize it like the original project.

One other question you guys may be able to help with…he had set up a couple of REALLY handy sequences. Basically synced up two angles of interview footage with separately recorded audio. If I organize my new project exactly the same…same folders, file names, etc…only difference being the footage codec, is there a way to transfer those sequences over using XML data or something?

Thanks!

[James Whittington]

Thanks for responding. Sounds like I may just have to bite the bullet and convert all 600+ clips to ProRes. I could change just the sequences to ProRes but I don’t want to have to render all the time.

I’m thinking about using compressor and just replacing the original files with converted ones. That way my original project will be in tact…just have to reconnect things. I have all the originals backed up on an external drive…so any downside or risk in this?

Thanks!