[John Davidson]

I’d say cut the chatter as much as possible. Tell him (assuming it’s a him) your name, tell him you’re an editor for his type of video, and ask if you can send him a reel. Odds are if your work is good it’ll shine next to their current editor’s stuff. Maybe they’ll remember you when they want a change or extra help or vacation coverage, etc. Just give yourself a nice looking label and a good DVD box and have it there the next morning at the very latest. Make that reel awesome.

I like the ‘actions speak louder than words’ approach.

John
Magic Feather Inc.

[John Davidson]

Here’s a list of traits I love in great editors. Forgive my redundancy.

Come to work with an open mind and be prepared to have fun. If I feel comfortable with you, we’ll be able to experiment and that storyboard will merely be the launching pad to something great.

Know everything. Know where the good sound effects are in the enormous library. Know how to make an amazing edit. Know how to mask things out to make a shot just a little prettier. Take initiative to be an authority so that when you tell me something, I know it’s the truth. Surfing the cow and learning all the tutorials here is an excellent place to start. Kudos!

AUDIO. Make great mixes. Just because you’re an offline editor doesn’t mean your spots have to sound like it. So many times I get approved because we take the time to add a little sfx to a graphic, ride up the music in a vo gap, etc.

Don’t be afraid to color correct a shot, even if it’s just for offline purposes. Make each shot as pretty as it can be and don’t send in something that looks bad just because you know it’s going to be finished somewhere else, later.

Take notes. Learn how to burn dvd’s, understand web codecs, be able to post a spot to a nice website (even on iweb), and understand the little details around what you do.

Know every shot – know each take – know how to pick the best one. Use common sense. If common sense isn’t working for you, ask why something is done. A good producer will recognize that you’re trying to understand the nuances of logic that sometimes seem conflicting.

Learn your quick keys. Speed is invaluable. Build macros, automation, etc. into your work flow.

Anticipate needs and be prepared for last minute emergencies.

Know little tricks that enhance edits. E.G., a reverse cymbal into a hit/music dropout adds a bit of flair to a boring edit and causes viewers to take notice.

Know how to pick out a great track of music. Know the libraries you’re using. Having a few unused tracks that are awesome in your pocket can literally save a spot from being killed.

Get slates right – always. Develop a process of check and balances to help you get them right always.

That’s all I have time for now. I think these are great traits for my editors to have.

Good luck!

John
Magic Feather Inc.

[John Davidson]

These drives are bad. The web is filling up with posts all over the place about how the drives have a cache flush issue that pops up every few minutes and freezes them for 20-60 seconds. These are not usable in a final cut solution, obviously.

I’m sending them back via Amazon prime (I got four). They’ve already been replaced with 4 WD Caviar Blacks, which work like a charm. Seagate is ignoring the issue, and when they do acknowledge it, aren’t being very forthcoming with assistance. I assume they’re pretending it’s not happening because they want people to continue buying these drives until they can come up with a firmware fix.

Pretty disappointed in Seagate I must say. From now on it’s Hitachi or WD only for me.

John
Magic Feather Inc.

[John Davidson]

I had read a few issues people were having with write-cache flushing causing these drives to freeze intermittently for approximately 10-30 seconds – however I assumed that was anecdotal. My first install came through migration assistant, so I attributed occasional freeze/lags to that. Unfortunately, after doing a completely fresh, clean install, I now see that these drives do in fact STILL have this problem. Seagate isn’t really addressing the issue.

Hopefully nobody purchased them based on my referral, however I’m posting this addendum to my original post just in case someone sees this post in a search.

I’m returning the drives ASAP and replacing with 1TB Western Digital drives. I’d rather have 4TB’s that work rather than 6TB’s that mostly work.

What a shame. These drives held such promise. I’m really glad I didn’t lose any media (whew).
For more information:
https://stx.lithium.com/stx/board/message?board.id=ata_drives&thread.id=2390&view=by_date_ascending&page=1

John
Magic Feather Inc.

[John Davidson]

I believe I used that same script before and it works. We left our dog for a few days (people were staying with her at night) and initiated video chats with her from hawaii. The macbook was put in the room and left on. We had to adjust power management so that the display would sleep but that the computer wouldn’t shut off. It worked.

Another, simpler option would be to go under ichat prefs. Switch to the ‘video invitation’ event, and then check the ‘run applescript’ box. highlight ‘auto accept’, and he’s good to go. The only issue could be if he gets alot of video invites, but at 84 I’m guessing you’re probably the only person on his buddy list :-).

In your situation, you might want to also use the same mobile me account so that you can start screen sharing via back to my mac. If his internet goes down, aol IM service is interrupted, etc., ichat will log off and cause problems.

The section about having ichat automatically come on at startup is an excellent one as well. Just be sure you teach him how to restart and that he gets that down pat. After that you should be able to overcome any difficulties you encounter.

Good luck!

John
Magic Feather Inc.

[John Davidson]

I keep backups on four IOmega 1TB FW800 drives. For the last 4 years we’ve been working off of a 1.6TB 4 drive RAID 0 and amazingly, it never had any problems. I chose to retire it from the main system because it generated a good deal of heat and sounded like a jet engine.

All my important things are copied off – just not mirrored via RAID. I may go the RAID 5 route with an additional drive in the unused mac pro disk drive sooner or later though. We’re short form so anything lost could be recreated pretty quickly were the end of the world to occur.

John
Magic Feather Inc.

[John Davidson]

They’re actually 179.99 on Amazon now – Last week they were 187 when I bought.

John
Magic Feather Inc.

[John Davidson]

Hey Chin,

Not sure if you’ll be reading this post but you’ll be pleased to know that I broke down and got a mac pro this weekend. Just couldn’t wait anymore! Please feel free to lambast me for my smart-alecky response earlier :-).

John
Magic Feather Inc.

[John Davidson]

Working with it some more today – the trackpad is truly addicting. Going from the new macbook to the old macbook pro is kind of painful now. It’s a sleek machine.

John
Magic Feather Inc.

[John Davidson]

Hey Todd, which agencies did you check with? You can email me who you checked with if you want and I’ll see if I can give you a few more leads. Off the top of my head I’d say check with William Morris, but I’m sure you already did that.

Cheers,
John

John
Magic Feather Inc.