[John Davidson]

Dude – 100 times better. I’d still drop font sizes down a bit so that everything will fit on one page on a monitor set to 800×600 resolution. It helps to plan your site for the least common denominator, in this case being grandma on a pc with 600×800 resolution.

Maybe copy edit some of your text, too. For example, this segment:
——–
Have a video or digital film project?
Need some editing?
Or sophisticated motion graphics?
Perhaps an original music track or bed?
Need help with a script?
Maybe some animation?

Let us work with you to make your project sparkle!
Be sure to explore our video and music samples!
————–
…could be reduced to one line like:

“Edit, Design, Animate, Compose, Write – That’s how we roll.”

That might not be the best copy for your actual brand, but it’s succinct.

You have maybe 20 seconds to get your point across before a surfer leaves. When you add a line, remember that it’s taking away from the legibility of another line that might be more important.

Less is AlWAYS more.

That’s what I told my wife on our wedding night anyways. 🙂

John Davidson____ writer | producer | director____https://www.magicfeather.tv

[John Davidson]

iWeb 2.0 has some nice templates that will suffice.

Obviously it’s not as nice as if you had some Flash pro rock you out a monster page, but it’s fast and easy to make and as with lots of template type Mac programs, it looks pretty good.

Most of your clients won’t realize that you’re using darkroom or one of the other themes.

[John Davidson]

Yeah, that stuff at the top – you should absolutely lose that. That will cost you work. The audio hits and over-modulates.

Your reel has potential, but you need to either shoot/edit some new stuff to put in it or lose the video production section altogether. If you can, make more 3D stuff, and then edit that together creatively. Camera moves on the 3D elements might be nice…

Think about the entire presentation of your work self as a cohesive unit and not just a reel or a resume. With the release of iWeb 2.0, mac users have no excuse for not having their own web page that looks decent. If you make a nice webpage, cover letter, business card, and demo reel (embedded in the web page) with a consistent font/color theme/logo, anyone you interview with will be impressed with the packaging of your presentation. These elements are cheap to create ($300 if you have to buy ilife 08, a dot-mac account, and 100 cards at kinkos).
Good luck!

Good luck!

[John Davidson]

Interesting – I’ll try to figure out that scripting thing – but it’ll take some research and learning as I don’t have even a modicum of scripting experience :-).

Perhaps ‘watch folder’ was a not the best name. What I’d specifically like would be an automatically updating folder that reflects the contents of an actual folder on the drive. You drop a file into that specific folder, the contents are automatically updated in final cut.

I’m pretty sure that wouldn’t cause any issues regardless of the naming of the project or however many versions of that project you have open. I could be wrong though – I so often am now that I’m married!

I saw a screen shot of automator in Leopard – I bet money it will recognize FCP. Not real money, but maybe spacebucks or gold-pressed latinum.

Thanks guys,
John

[John Davidson]

Well I feel alot better. I thought I was the only one lauding iPhoto’s praises on everybody I saw. You know how I shut skeptics up now? I show them the apple printed wedding book (and thank you cards) my wife and I made in about 45 minutes. The book, plus a web gallery (with 30 gigs of dot-mac space, duuuude!!!), and all 4000 of our photos color corrected beautifully on Apple TV pretty much knock ’em out.

Suddenly everybody wants it.

Probably as much as I’d stay ‘On Topic”.

iPhoto 08 rocks.

ok I’m done.

[John Davidson]

Feedback submitted to apple.

I think it would be a great feature. Imagine rendering to a ‘graphics’ folder in your project out of after effects that automatically imports to fcp. Perhaps I’m not enough of an engineer to understand why it’s not part of the system already – but it would save small bits of time that would eventually add up.

Don’t laugh but I’ve been a real fan of iPhoto over the summer and it’s got solid media management – with smart folders, even.

You know, even a ‘refresh folder’ option in fcp would help a ton….

Thanks JG!

[John Davidson]

Progress thus far:
FCP doesn’t have smart folders.
Automator doesn’t work w/ final cut

looking into folder actions – which I’m sure won’t import into fcp correctly…

You’d think will all apple’s masturbation over ‘smart’ folders in nearly every program, some variant of this feature would find itself in final cut.

Will update my results for future searchers…

John

[John Davidson]

I don’t see what good it’s going to do to talk to the guy about it. He threw you some work in down time, which was nice, but he exploited you in the process. Don’t give that kind of person an opportunity to guilt trip you into making a mistake or let him sabotage your bid.

If he can screw you once, he can screw you twice. He’s gonna be upset whether he finds out before or after – either way he won’t trust you. These jobs come and go so he’s gotta be prepared for that.

I do second the idea that you double check all of the details of what the client wants delivered. There may be hidden costs that you don’t see that your friend was doing. Producer’s don’t always get much credit, but we do occasionally do something of value, besides order lunch. 🙂

[John Davidson]

Next best thing would be to rent an avid bay that has Automatic Duck – I don’t know where you are because your profile is ” ” but there may be a facility near you. It might save you 2-300 bucks.

If you don’t use the duck, you can do it the EDL way. This book might help if you go that route. https://www.ebooks.com/ebooks/book_display.asp?IID=183898

John Davidson____ writer | producer | director____https://www.magicfeather.tv

[John Davidson]

Cool thanks. Oddly enough, I was able to get one of my backups to open and it’s been stable ever since. I stopped using multiple layers of zax in each comp, which may have helped.

As long as it’s up I’m happy!

Cheers,
John

John Davidson____ writer | producer | director____https://www.magicfeather.tv