Ron Lindeboom
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COW Coins
Forum Replies Created
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[Jonathan Shohet] “I’m not saying my tests were scientific or conclusive. All I am saying is, as long as you realize that working with HDV shot footage is a compromise in any case, After Effects CAN “play nicely” with it. Please don’t tell people it CAN’T.”
I have stayed out of this to see where it goes but at this point I have to jump in here and say that I do not know a single working professional that works this way.
Disk space is cheap nowadays and I can’t imagine for the life of me a pro putting up with the hassles of working within HDV to do things like compositing in After Effects — which MAY work okay with HDV, but I can think of a myriad places where the GOP intraframe compression is going to bite you.
Just because you “can” do something does not mean that you “should.” I can garden my yard using a teaspoon but I’d rather use something designed for the task.
[Jonathan Shohet] “STILL… for uncompressed you need LOTS of disk space. Even the link you gave mentions that. If you are working on a few minutes in AE, maybe it does make sense to go uncompressed. But what if you are working on a complex project that uses lots of HDV footage?”
This site is for professionals and hobbyists are welcome to visit and learn here but the focus is for pros. To any pro I know of, disks are the cheapest they’ve ever been and are falling steadily all the time.
Many of us remember when we paid the better part of $2500 for 4gigs and $3500 for 9gigs. $100 or less for 500 to 750 gigs on sale, that is nothing if you are working for a living.
If you are not, then I guess it’s an issue.
Ron Lindeboom
co-founder, creativecow.net -
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Here in San Luis Obispo County, California we had a similar situation wherein the university launched a company a few years back with major equipment and backing that competed heavily in the local area. It rankled the established business community so much that there became so much backlash against it that they pulled the plug on it in a year or two. This, as they found that no one in the related business community wanted to lift a finger for the school anymore. It was quite ugly and thankfully the school came to its senses; after all, if all universities set out to pillage and plunder their local business communities, then where are the graduates going to get jobs when they leave school?
I would second Walter’s suggestion that you keep to the facts and keep emotion out of it. The more that you keep your head, the more your words may find favor in your circumstances.
Best always,
Ron Lindeboom
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Sad news about Pushing Daisies. It is one of my and Kathlyn’s favorite shows. We have bought the DVDs and hope many others will do the same in hopes that WB will look for a new home for the show.
Best regards,
Ron Lindeboom
Creativity is a type of learning process where the teacher and pupil are located in the same individual.
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[Ed Gilbert] “I got caught up in how pretty the Trapcode Shine was and didn’t think to pull back enough to highlight the fingers more.”
One of the things that you could do in this instance is to use the blend modes to overlay yourself playing into the shine clip. Add a layer of the exact same footage of you playing the guitar (but without the shine technique) at the exact timecode number so that it lines up perfectly, and play with some intense contrast effects on the upper layer (the one without shine) and then try different blend modes on that layer to see how the layer interacts with the one below it (the shine layer). If you get it right, you can then keep the light effect and get your hands and action back.
Just a thought.
Best regards,
Ron Lindeboom
Creativity is a type of learning process where the teacher and pupil are located in the same individual.
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One thing that strikes me, Jody, after seeing your work, is that you tend to think as a person who comes from a background of print and still images. It is almost as if you are presenting “slides” rather than thinking of motion as an artistic element in and of itself.
(I can relate to this, as I came into video and motion graphics from a background of print, and so it took a lot of work to break out of the still-frame mindset.)
One thing that I wish had been available to me at the time would be the COW Library of video tutorials. Find one that is a technique that you would like to do and work through the steps. This way, you are increasing the “chops” that you have in your design palette and options. The more techniques you understand, the more options that you have at your fingertips.
One of the best ways that I know of to understand the fundamentals would be to begin watching the Creative COW After Effects podcast, even if you do not yet own After Effects. (You said that you were going to be getting the Production Bundle.) Much of the battle in learning new things is mental. By immersing yourself in the early podcast episodes — and working towards the newer episodes — they will introduce you to ideas and concepts that will give you many inspirational jumping off points for your own works.
Have fun, Jody.
Best regards,
Ron Lindeboom
Creativity is a type of learning process where the teacher and pupil are located in the same individual.
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Impressive Ed.
Like Bogie, I would have preferred that the Trapcode light effects not be used when you were going into some of the more intense passages of the playing — so that you could see the finger action — but other than that, a pretty remarkable job.
I am sure that Bill O’Neil looks at this and feels like a proud Dad seeing one of his boys do well.
Too bad you don’t live in California, as our home has what Kathlyn and I jokingly call “The Man Cave” where I have my drums and all of my music gear. You look like you’d be a lot of fun to jam with.
Rock on you crazy diamond.
Ron Lindeboom
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Yes, and you are one of the most creative people I know, Abraham.
It is an honor to work with you.
Ron
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[Bill Dewald] “I forsee this cramping my style.”
It’s REALLY helped ours. It has kept us from having to remove tons of duplicate, triplicate and quadruplicate posts when people get itchy trigger fingers.
We’ve been doing it for about six months now.
Best regards,
Ron Lindeboom
Creativity is a type of learning process where the teacher and pupil are located in the same individual.
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[Sebastian Alvarez] “OK, let me ask you this. What if your first camera has a drop in a crucial place and your second camera chews the tape at the same time? I know I’m pushing it, that most likely that wouldn’t happen, but that was the point of my post, to talk about what happens when you take every possible step to prevent something going wrong and yet it happens.”
You are, to use a technical term, hosed.
But a creative type could cover their butt and still make something nice. How? Let’s use your wedding incident as a case study and let’s say you flubbed the kiss and didn’t get all of it.
Me, I’d call the bride and tell her that I had a great idea for the video that I would like to stage to get a close-in shot of the kiss and would she mind putting on her dress one more time to get the kiss.
“But Ron,” says our bride, “my hair is not done and it isn’t going to look the same.”
“But ah, Mrs. Bride, I am going to be shooting so tight in that we are only going to see part of it.”
Then, if she agreed, I’d shoot it and edit it in a blurred soft-focus around the edge so that the kiss is vignetted in the center — a move that would also hide the hair in great part, while drawing attention to the face, the eys and the lips — and I would render the frames in a time remap that would so accentuate the kiss on-screen that Mrs. Bride would not be the wiser as to what happened to the real kiss. (I would use the lead up and the pull away from the tape that was bad and all the rest would be me covering my tracks.)
These are the tricks that a pro uses and they cost you time to cover your tracks when you were too cheap to do what you should have done in the first place.
Give ’em what they want or don’t charge them. I can’t say it any clearer.
Best regards,
Ron Lindeboom
Creativity is a type of learning process where the teacher and pupil are located in the same individual.