[John Davidson]

Yeah, it totally worked out of the gate. Had to figure out how to convert to prores, but the process and setup took maybe 5 minutes. Best part was I just dragged the folder with the MTS footage into from the ‘private’ folder and it processed and found it instantly. I don’t know who made it but I’m darn thankful for it!

John Davidson | President / Creative Director | Magic Feather Inc.

[John Davidson]

Andreas Kiel is kind of the expert of SDI’s, in my humble opinion. He weighed in on the speed loss you’re referring to here:

https://forums.creativecow.net/readpost/344/19457

John Davidson | President / Creative Director | Magic Feather Inc.

[John Davidson]

Did you use the files in AE or Premiere bychance and have the ‘write XMP’ preference in AE set to ‘on?’

John Davidson | President / Creative Director | Magic Feather Inc.

[John Davidson]

Thanks Julian. Try it now. The preloader is getting hung up on iPads for some reason.

John Davidson | President / Creative Director | Magic Feather Inc.

[John Davidson]

Thanks x 2!

John Davidson | President / Creative Director | Magic Feather Inc.

[John Davidson]

Oh, and, wordpress can be installed on any web host for free, and there are also a TON of free themes you can pick from which will come in handy if you need to generate multiple portfolio websites for different clients on the cheap. You’ll find it infinitely more easy to learn if you get somebody to walk you through it in person though.

Check these out:
https://reswpthemes.com/best-free-responsive-wordpress-portfolio-themes-2013/

John Davidson | President / Creative Director | Magic Feather Inc.

[John Davidson]

Dave, dude, that’s really kind. I worked on it all weekend in advance of a convention this week so it’s nice somebody besides my wife noticed. Thank you!

Our whole site is wordpress. We use hostgator which is like 6 bucks a month for unlimited storage space. We then use a WordPress theme called ‘My Folio’ from Themeforest.net. It’s technically a photo/portfolio theme which takes a little extra jiggering to work with video. There are other themes for about $40 that might be perfect for what you’re looking for and are more video oriented.

Now, WordPress isn’t the easiest thing to learn despite what a lot of wordpress designers will tell you. That said, once you get your head wrapped around the underpinnings of it it’s not all that bad. You also might want to just craigslist a college kid to set it up for you. All our video is hosted on Vimeo because it integrates with wordpress sites better than self hosting your own video. Also, it seems like Vimeo finally got their act together and works much better these days. I do think we have that Vimeo Pro account that costs about 200 a year. You can do Youtube for free though and it also works smashingly well with WordPress. If you get a theme, just make sure you get one that says it’s ‘responsive’. This allows your site to adapt to ipads, iphones, etc.

If you look up the My Folio theme, the author Tommus created some great video tutorials that might help you get your head around it.

Thanks again!

John Davidson | President / Creative Director | Magic Feather Inc.

[John Davidson]

Thanks! Hopefully it will help people to see that we’re delivering FCPX edited elements to all these different networks. All our projects are completely FCP7 free now. Even laying back to tape is now done with Blackmagic Media Express – and it’s actually easier than with FCP7.

Only one client still requires tape deliveries, but that’s hopefully going to change soon.

John Davidson | President / Creative Director | Magic Feather Inc.

[John Davidson]

Funny thing. None of the kids I interview for PA entry level jobs use the Cow or even know what it is. I’ve tried to force the hires to use it because it’s truly a wealth of information. Pretty much everything I’ve learned about FCP and FCPX came from here. One made a comment that it’s out of date (that’s not my comment, just being honest as to what he said).

Stepping back a little. If you’re running the cow, what do you do about it? Connect with facebook user accounts? That seems difficult and annoying. I see other forum styles and they’re confusing. Navigating threads can be a huge pain. One of the nice things about the Cow is that it’s stable and once you get the navigation, it’s easy to get around.

Maybe there are some simple ways to update the cow to attract a younger audience and freshen the site up a little. Reducing the amount of extraneous data at the top of email notifications would be awesome. Perhaps some graphical elements could be updated to feel a little newer. An iPad and iPhone app would be phenomenal. More and better video integration into posts is always a good thing. Maybe some fancy javascripts could be incorporated to add a little more interesting thread navigation could be incorporated.

Problem is, all these things take substantial amounts of time and money – and could have a negative effect on the audience the Cow currently has. Tim, it’s not an enviable job you have!

John Davidson | President / Creative Director | Magic Feather Inc.

[John Davidson]

After 11 years, every time I drive into LA I still feel a genuine sense of opportunity that I never felt in Atlanta. We live and operate our business in Stevenson Ranch/Valencia, because it’s very family friendly and my commute to work is all of 2 minutes. Perhaps you should consider moving outside of LA as Tim suggests – Bakersfield, etc., and commuting to LA only when needed. You’ll get a great price on a house (Palmdale is stupid cheap) and will still be close enough to see clients and feel ‘local’ to the biggest video industry hub in the world.

We sometimes fantasize about moving to get out of the hassle of running a business here to places like Nevada, for example. It’s stressful and expensive trying to keep up with all the rules that seem designed to keep you professionally insecure. When it gets down to it though, I won’t be done with LA till it’s done with me.

Perhaps you should consider working to get a full-time job somewhere doing what you do. If the business isn’t working for you as an independent, that doesn’t mean you can’t make a great living working for the man. You may discover it’s nice as part of a larger organization that has the resources to handle the minutiae, letting you focus on just making great projects come to life.

John Davidson | President / Creative Director | Magic Feather Inc.