Scott Sheriff
Forum Replies Created
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Two things.
You have to ask yourself, “why do i want/need to letterbox this footage?”.
Letterbox is usually done for two reasons. One to overcome a mismatch in aspect ratios, between the material, and where/how you want to show it. And the other is to achieve a ‘look’.
If you are doing neither, I don’t see the point.The other thing is that any alteration of you footage, whether it’s some type of cropping, or a matte to produce an aspect ratio more like scope from your 16×9 footage is still going to require some rendering. No free lunch.
Scott Sheriff
SST Digital Media
Multi-Camera Director, VFX and Post ProductionThe Affordable Camera Dolly is your just right solution!
“If you think it’s expensive to hire a professional to do the job, wait until you hire an amateur.” —Red Adair
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[Shane Ross] “Now…that said, you don’t simply use the Broadcast Safe filter to BOOM, make the show fulfill broadcast specifications. No, that requires a lot of technical skill and knowledge. So yes, make DARN sure you hire someone with the experience needed to deliver TV shows that meet broadcast specs. Editor that can read and understand broadcast spec sheets.”
Agreed, but…In my experience you have a little wiggle room with commercials that you don’t get with shows for two reasons. Shows are usually submitted at the network level, where standards and bureaucracy tend to be much higher. There are lots of national spots, but I’d say the majority of spots are local. Then there is the revenue/sales aspect of this. At the local level, a lot of stations tell the QC people to only flag large deviations in levels, wrong formats etc. Sales usually comes down on engineers/QC that constantly flag for minor things causing them to lose runs (meaning they’re losing commission) on client spots. This practice is not universal but pretty wide spread, especially in the dismal economy. I wouldn’t abuse it and turn in rush job crap, but it’s also nothing to lose sleep over if your standards are high but there’s a slight discrepancy.
Scott Sheriff
SST Digital Media
Multi-Camera Director, VFX and Post ProductionThe Affordable Camera Dolly is your just right solution!
“If you think it’s expensive to hire a professional to do the job, wait until you hire an amateur.” —Red Adair
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[Mark Suszko] “Might try this on the free Smoke demo, for that matter, I guess.”
Good idea, it’s worth a try.
[Mark Suszko] “(People still own/use Shake?)”
Absolutely. They just don’t hang out on the cow forums. If you went to the movies this year, you probably saw material that went through the Shake pipeline. In addition to a lot of freelancers, a bunch of big shops bought the source code from apple when it went EOL, and continue to use it alongside Nuke and other compositors. At the price you can buy it for now, compared to lets say, the cost of a Nuke license it’s almost silly not to own it. It’ll pay for itself the first time you use it, even if you just use it to fix a bad slomo, a unusable key or some FX or repair you can’t do in FCS.
Scott Sheriff
SST Digital Media
Multi-Camera Director, VFX and Post ProductionThe Affordable Camera Dolly is your just right solution!
“If you think it’s expensive to hire a professional to do the job, wait until you hire an amateur.” —Red Adair
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This is something you can fake with Motion, but will require a lot of labor since it’s not really something Motion was designed for. Let me throw out an alternative to Motion. You can do this with Shake. Analyze the movement on a clip, and apply that movement to another. No need to manually animate the movement like you would in Motion. The keyers are also top notch, and there are a lot of other features that make it one stop shopping for fixing production mistakes and FX work.
Even though Shake has been EOL’d for quite a while, it’s an FX powerhouse you can buy for bargain prices. There are still NOS copies of Shake available, and plenty of used. I’ve seen copies for as little as 99 dollars used, but 200 will probably get you one that is NOS, or a lightly used copy with some extras.
AE or a high end FX/compositing program like Nuke or Smoke is your other choices.For tips on installing Shake on Snow Leopard systems check out my blog: https://s290368705.onlinehome.us/2010/10/01/shake-41-and-snow-leopard/
Scott Sheriff
SST Digital Media
Multi-Camera Director, VFX and Post ProductionThe Affordable Camera Dolly is your just right solution!
“If you think it’s expensive to hire a professional to do the job, wait until you hire an amateur.” —Red Adair
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[Shane Ross] “Nothing’s changed.”
What? No easy button?
Scott Sheriff
SST Digital Media
Multi-Camera Director, VFX and Post ProductionThe Affordable Camera Dolly is your just right solution!
“If you think it’s expensive to hire a professional to do the job, wait until you hire an amateur.” —Red Adair
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The following isn’t a comment on the law, or your right to do this, or personal priorities. It’s strictly an opinion on if this is a good idea based on how the real world works.
Maybe you’re really lucky and you work for the most tolerant company on the planet, but…job performance often comes down to optics, especially in a market where there are thousands with identical skills looking for work.
So in a down economy, where it’s an employers market this sounds like a real ‘career move’ and a way to get more time off than you planned. The law aside, you run a high risk of damaging your working relationship with your employer and fellow employees. And it doesn’t matter what the law says, companies will find a way to get rid of those perceived as non-team players, replacing them with employees that see their job as their number one priority. With media unemployment running about five times the national stats, these committed employees are not hard to find. Also after costing the company a lot of money and inconvenience, don’t expect to be put on any pet projects, offered a promotion or raise anytime soon. Those 13 weeks off just ate up the budget for your raise, if not more.
You’re in even worse shape if there has been expectant fathers in your company that didn’t do this, or your supervisor is someone without children. They will smile and wish you well, and as soon as you leave the room they will question your commitment to the company. This is similar to folks that conveniently manage to take all of their paid sick days. If you think this stuff goes unnoticed by management at raise and promotion time, your living in a dream world.
Or perhaps you work for the best company in the world, and all will be well. It is really up to you to decide if risking your paycheck in a time of record unemployment is worth the time off.Scott Sheriff
SST Digital Media
Multi-Camera Director, VFX and Post ProductionThe Affordable Camera Dolly is your just right solution!
“If you think it’s expensive to hire a professional to do the job, wait until you hire an amateur.” —Red Adair
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[Marcus Moore] ”
The longer it is, the more I think they’ll have packed in there.”I remember someone on one of the VFX forums making this same exact observation about Shake. About a month later apple announced they were no longer supporting it.
Scott Sheriff
SST Digital Media
Multi-Camera Director, VFX and Post ProductionThe Affordable Camera Dolly is your just right solution!
“If you think it’s expensive to hire a professional to do the job, wait until you hire an amateur.” —Red Adair
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I remind you that the entire context of this was the production business, aka shooting and post. I have mentioned this several times in this thread, and not something new. Just to be clear. If you’re in, as your primary gig in the production business, I’m letting my remarks stand, agree or disagree. If you are not in the production business primarily then I’m not talking about you.
Scott Sheriff
SST Digital Media
Multi-Camera Director, VFX and Post ProductionThe Affordable Camera Dolly is your just right solution!
“If you think it’s expensive to hire a professional to do the job, wait until you hire an amateur.” —Red Adair
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[Ronald Lindeboom] “But you insult people with attributing it mostly to luck.”
When I read posts that come off as if the person is completely immune from the current market forces, yes I call that lucky or fortunate? How many people are in that kind of position?
If you say that despite market forces causing me problems, I did xyz and we are doing OK, that is a little different. But still there is a bit of good fortune involved. I know people that don’t work hard, do crummy work and still get gigs. What do you call that?
Hard working people, despite the best of efforts often fail in business, due to outside forces. Do you not consider that bad luck? And if those type of things don’t happen to you, would you consider that good luck? For some, being left alone without any outside forces, good or bad, influencing your business would consider themselves fortunate.
IMO business is as much a poker game as anything, you and I don’t know what the next card is. There is always an element of luck.Scott Sheriff
SST Digital Media
Multi-Camera Director, VFX and Post ProductionThe Affordable Camera Dolly is your just right solution!
“If you think it’s expensive to hire a professional to do the job, wait until you hire an amateur.” —Red Adair
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[Tom Sefton] “but I don’t agree with Andy or scott-this industry isn’t in terminal decline”
Check out this WSJ article.
https://blogs.wsj.com/economics/2011/03/28/top-10-dying-industries/So if you think the video production biz is still viable, and don’t think the industry is in a terminal decline, let me ask you a question.
Scenario:
Your best friend, sibling, adult child or other close person that values your opinion, came to you and said they were going to take their life savings, and get an additional business loan leveraged against the equity in their home, and use that money to start a brick and mortar video production business. Could you look them in the eye and tell them this is a good idea with a lot of future potential? And it doesn’t matter if they know anything personally about how to edit, etc. Because as business owners they can hire those people. It is strictly about is getting into the production business a good idea, and you say?
Oh, and you can’t dodge the question by suggesting they do support, gear sales, IT or anything like that. Because when I hear you and others say all is fine in the world of production (from your perspective), I’m not thinking IT, gear sales, selling plugins to noobs, or whatever. I’m thinking, and talking about hands on video production, as in shooting and post work for others.Scott Sheriff
SST Digital Media
Multi-Camera Director, VFX and Post ProductionThe Affordable Camera Dolly is your just right solution!
“If you think it’s expensive to hire a professional to do the job, wait until you hire an amateur.” —Red Adair