Timothy J. allen
Forum Replies Created
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Grinner,
Our NASA emails changed a few months back. I’ll send you an email with my NASA and home email address.
Tim -
Even if someone has a right to take a photograph of a person in a public place, they still don’t have the right to portray that person in a way that would make people think that they endorse a particular product (or the right to defamation of character)without that person’s knowledge and release of rights.
For example, you could tape a man walking down the street and use it in a story that says “the average man walks 6 miles every day”. You can’t play the same footage with a voice over that says “this man’s own wife doesn’t know that he’s a psychotic killer”. You will get sued, and unless the man you taped has been convicted of the charge, you will probably lose. (Even the truth can be a shaky defense, depending on how and when the person was portrayed in the bad light.)
Heck, you can’t even say “This man loves to eat at Jim Bob’s Barbecue”… unless either he does – or you have a a release from him giving you rights to use the footage for that purpose.
Now, on the other hand, a crowd of unidentifiable people can be used to support concepts about general “groups”. (Such as “One in three men will develop colon cancer in their lifetime.)
Now, if you take a persons picture without their permission, that doesn’t mean they can take your camera or even your tape. It just means you can’t use their photo for other than private use, unless it’s a “news” type event (like if you took video of the person mugging someone or getting mugged) If it’s valid news, all bets are off as far as rights issues.
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Troy,
Here at JSC, did a short video a couple of years ago where we animated a car driving to Mars. We rendered it in Digital Fusion. If you want a copy of the animation, or the source files I might be able to get it for you. Are you on the NASA global email list?Timothy J. Allen
NASA Johnson Space Center -
I recommend the book “Producing Great Sound for Digital Video” by Jay Rose. To paraphrase a few tips from the section on audio mixing:
* If you can afford to take a break before your final mixing starts, do it. Give your ears an overnight rest (or at least take a lunch break, or a short walk). Starting with “fresh ears” will save you time in the long run and it will result in a better mix.
* Images can distract you. Listen to the final mix at least once with your eyes closed.
*Video mixing is not a subtle medium. If a sound effect or music cue sounds best when it’s barely heard, try turning it off entirely.
* Boosting the midrange, particularly around 1,200 Hz to 2,500 Hz, tends to bring voices forward. Cutting those frequencies from the music will leave more room for dialog. Mid-low frequencies, between 100Hz and 250 Hz can add warmth and intimacy to a voice.
* Be careful about too many low frequencies, they might add muddiness to your overall sound.
* When two tracks are mixed together, the result will usually be slightly louder than either one of them. Make sure you use a properly calibrated digital audio meter so you can catch any level problems that could cause distortion.
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I am, and my guess is that at least 75% of the “technical” folks I work with in the office play at least one musical instrument. There’s at least four people in my small group who have been paid to play drums at some point in their career… and there’s at least one who has been paid to STOP playing drums. ;-0
All you editors out there… even if you don’t play drums live, I’ll bet you’d be better than most at programming a drum machine and making it sound like a good drummer.
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I noticed it too. Maybe the Saddam and Gerald Ford news stories having been taking the air time in which the packages would normally run? Usually the week between Christmas and New Year’s Day is really slow “news-wise”.
Or could be a combination of smaller budgets (and smaller teams having to do the work?)
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I actually would have them capture the whole tapes (at least at low-rez) and have them “subclip” the portions they think will be useful. (If I do this, and there are multipe shots from multiple tapes, we organize the project bins by a 6 digit reference number for each tape. One bin per tape.)
It’s my opinion that being able to at least scrub through the rest of the footage is an important part of the creative process. Unless I absolutely have to get something out of the door so fast that there’s no time to look at the “extra” footage, I’d rather have it there just in case. Hard drives are so much cheaper these days that it makes sense to buy as much spacce as you can, even if it’s for “luxuries” such as that.
Once I’m done, I consolidate the programs so that only the portions I used are taking up space on the hard drives.
-TJA
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Great question. As with any edit session, I try my best to let the content lead the edit. In other words, you want your “style of cutting” to match the feel that you want the viewers to walk away with.
If you want the audience to get energized and excited, you
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What application are you using for editing?
If I don’t know which application I will be posting on (which is rare), I’ll create my logs in Microsoft Excel. I have a handful of small applications that will convert the excel files to formats that Avid, Media 100, Final Cut Pro and Incite can read. It’s been a while since I’ve used any other type of NLE, but excel can be a good “middle ground” to translate files to various formats.
If I know I’m editing in Avid (which is most common for me these days), I’ll just create an Avid Log Exchange File (.ale) with the media logger application that comes included on the Avid install disk.
-Tim
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I’m SO happy to hear that Tim Wilson is back in a role where he can contribute more to Creative Cow. Tim has been a big influence on me through his forum posts, even as far back as the old Media 100 group on the WWUG. I look forward to learning even more in the near future.
Congratulations to Tim and to the rest of the Cow team on what promises to be a great new chapter in the Cow’s history.
-Tim