Shawn Miller
1
COW Coin
Forum Replies Created
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Thanks Bob, I think you make some good points. Although, I should be fair and state that my comments were rhetorical and more for Chris.
Our trade imbalance (as I understand it) has more to do with our tax policy than excessive regulation (though that’s part of it). Our market is flooded with inexpensive (and sometimes dangerous) foreign goods because our import taxes are low in some cases and nonexistent in other cases. But on the flip side, it’s difficult to get US goods into countries that protect their own markets. In short, we export cash and raw materials, and we import cheap goods, while our financial institutions hold on to free/cheap money they got in the last few bailouts… and they’re not lending it to small/medium sized businesses. I’m not an economist, so hopefully some of the smarter business folks will jump in and correct me if I’m wrong.
Thanks,
Shawn
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“VFX: Done and done. Already that work is global, chasing the cheapest labor pool available.”
Right, that should have occured to me as I was writing. But thanks for the reminder. Perhaps I should brush up on my Cantonese and start learning Mandrain… I’ve been told that it’s easier to pick up. 🙂
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So true, Mark. It might be worth noting that, China really is doing much of what the US did for the past 150 years to build it’s (the US) economy… i.e. invest in the infrastucture (and dictators) of third world countries to extract natural resources… of course, this was also backed by military assitance and action. See Cuba, Guatemala, Iran and Costa Rica to name a few.
To stay a bit more on topic though, I wonder what it means to those of us who work in film/video postproduction that China has one of the largest high speed internet infrastuctures in the world? So far, I’ve seen a number of print and web design jobs fly south and west because of “cheap” labor… are editors, motion graphics and VFX artists so far behind? How do we turn this possible future into an opportunity?
Shawn
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“Despite its thousands of years of history, China still is still severely lacking in the western civilities”
“…I think the culture attempts to emulate (or maybe ‘copy’ is a better word) the West in many ways but lacks its maturity and sophistication. China is still a second-world country.”
Hmmm… western civilities, I’m not sure I understand what you mean here. For a second-world country, we sure seem to borrow a lot of money from them. And how is it that an immature, unsophisticated country like China can maintain a 228 billion dollar trade deficit with the US?
Shawn
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Hmmm… good questions. I haven’t used either camera, but people seem to be doing good work with both of them, so it probably comes down to your individual needs. I love the low light abilities and shallow DOF of the D5/7, but I (personally) would lean toward the HM150 because of audio, form factor and familiarity with Panasonic controls (I’ve shot a lot with the DVX100, HPX200 and HPX500). Because of that, I would be tempted to get the HMC150 with an Audio Technica BP4073, a PSC DV PROMIX 3 mixer and one of the cheaper Gitzo fish poles with a fish pole holder… but that’s just me. 🙂
Thanks,
Shawn
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Just curious, have you considered the AG-HMC150?
https://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/575992-REG/Panasonic_AG_HMC150PJU.html
I haven’t used this camera before, but I’ve seen some great images come from it. I think the 5D/7D is great too… I’m acually thinking of getting one next year (depending on how good the Panasonic AG-AF100 or Red Scarlett turns out).
Shawn
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Check out https://www.lynda.com. They have a pretty good 100 level “course” for AE 5. They also have a TON of other training titles available from AE to Finalcut to Avid MC (all for a monthly $25 US subscription). On the more expensive side, there’s also https://www.digital-tutors.com, they have some decent training but maybe not as much variety as Lynda.com. and for the Uber expensive courses, there is https://www.FXPHD.com... really good training, but @ $330 US for a ten week course, it is a bit spendy. Then again, that does include two other couses of your choice… you just have to make sure that they’re offering two other subjects that you’re interested in that quarter.
Anyway, that’s my .02 cents (us),
Shawn
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” Do you think someone at Blobby’s will forward it on to the CEO at Panasonic?”
Nope, not unless that letter is written on letterhead from a major customer BY a C level executive and followed by a call from her or him. The CEO of Panasonic will likely never know your letter exists.
This is how it works in big companies; an executive (or group) administrator (probably not the CEO’s) will read your letter and forward it to a mid level group manager (maybe someone who manages tier one support), that manager will then task a program manger (someone who owns a process but doesn’t manage people) with tracking down the incident/trouble ticket and determining if the ball got dropped somewhere. If it looks like your case has merit, you’ll probably be moved up in the queue and you’ll likely get the service you expected in the first place (hopefully). What might be an easier route to follow is to find out who (regionally) manages the reps that aren’t giving you good service and talk to them directly. Regional managers are (usually) powerful enough to get things done, but not so powerful that they can ignore customers. 🙂
FYI, VARs (value added resellers) can get a company’s attention faster than you because they usually have SLAs (service level agreements) in place that specify how fast and to what level Panasonic HAS to respond to issues. SLAs probably exist for Panasonic’s customer service (when dealing with individuals) but it’s not a contract between you and them.
Thanks,
Shawn Miller
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I upgraded last week. So far everything works as advertised and I’m quite happy with the new features and performance (especially the performance) of AE, PP and Photoshop. Then again, I haven’t started any new projects from scratch, so I probably won’t have a really informed opinion for another few months.
Shawn
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Are you using the same settings to try and key the entire clip? If so, you might consider creating different mattes for the most problematic areas of your comp. In my own work, I find that I have to make holdout and edge mattes for about 40% of the footge that I have to key. In some cases, you may even need to roto footage in addition to creating two or three mattes for a single shot.
BTW, do you have a shot of just the matte? Sometimes it’s easier to spot issues by looking at a grayscale image instead of a composited clip.
Shawn