Timothy J. allen
Forum Replies Created
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This sounds like a job for the new Roto Brush in After Effects CS5. 😉
Even in CS4, I’d probably still use After Effects to motion track it and cover it up, but it depends on how close and how long the shot is and what you use to cover up or replace the hole. I just hate working frame by frame with Photoshop if there is another way to accomplish the job that will be invisible once the work is done.
Of course, the “content aware fill” feature in the new version of Photoshop would also save tons of time if you do it frame by frame. I’m itching to hear when that ships.
But back to current reality, Mark’s method will provide the most accurate results, the process is not much different for Media Composer as it is for his workflow in FCP.
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The coolest thing I saw at NAB was Ron, Kathlyn, and Tim Wilson all in the same room at the same time. 😉
Oh, you meant equipment?
There were quite a few things that make my list. Adobe’s CS5 improvements may have been announced well before NAB, but some of the new features such as content aware fill will save enough hours of work that it’s well worth mentioning. To actually try it out first hand was nice.
The DaVinci Resolve announcement from Blackmagic Design is just about enough on its own for me to add a Mac to the shop. As I overheard during the show, that price point means there’s simply no longer an excuse for video that’s not beautiful.
Another thing on my wish list now are Lightpanel’s Sola Fresnel lights. Relatively cool to the touch with no color temperature changes as they dim, they are very nice. I’ve been wanting some Litepanels of my own since using a 1×1 a couple of years ago and I think the Sola Frenels will pay for themselves by reducing my power bill within just a few months.
More to come, but that’s some of what was on my mind on the flight home.
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I know a lot of wives that might pay 99 cents for that app, but they won’t have to because I heard the Association of Divorce Attorneys is making it available free with their ad support.
But in all seriousness, the NABShow iPhone App is working pretty well, except I’m a little disappointed that I’m forced to download the alert updates every time I open it – before I can just open the maps.
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Leave it to Grinner to be so concise! 🙂
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Oh, and by the way, the human astronauts have been showing support for cows in space for years! Here’s a photo from the aft flight deck during the STS-30 space shuttle mission all the way back in 1989:
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Bessie, I offer you my humblest apologies. I would say that you single-handedly changed my perception of what cows can achieve. Forgive me, but until about ten years ago, most of my experience with bovine were on my wife’s family’s farm in Kentucky – and we didn’t get along too well ever since I was assigned the job of “banding” the calves by my future father in law.
That said, my perceptions have changed since seeing what creative cows can accomplish, and I’ve been trying to drum up support for the “Cows in Space Moovement” for the past several years.
We already have Longhorns training at Johnson Space Center in the hopes that we soon have a heavy lift vehicle ready. Here’s a picture of some old-school Rocky IV style strength training near rocket park:
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I’m not sure I really thought cows were terribly creative until…
😉
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The minor that will serve you as a film editor might not be the same one to serve you best in the near term at a news station. You really can’t go wrong with minoring in business. That’s a field of knowledge that many creative professionals wish they had time to go back and study. It could make a world of difference in how much money you eventually make – and it will force you to get out early and do some of the other things that we all eventually end up having to do in the “real-world” such as make presentations, negotiate salaries and draw up contracts.
That said, when I hire an Editor, I usually look for someone who has a well-rounded liberal arts background. English, history, geography, psychology, sociology, engineering, music, science and yes, even (maybe especially) philosophy.
The best Editors and Graphic Artists are like the best musicians; they draw upon a wealth of experiences to create stories that speak with their own unique voice.
So, while its true that time is the only way to get some of that experience, you’ll do good to find a minor that distinguishes you from the others who will be competing with you for jobs – a minor that’s not related to media production as much as it’s related to something that feeds your other passions and interests. For instance, where I work (a NASA Research Center), having an Editor that understands the written and visual “languages” of physics and mechanical or materials engineering really helps save time as they “translate” what the Engineers or Inventors are trying to convey and turn those ideas into effective videos.
So… where do you want to end up? Study that.
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I was just about to wrap up my work for the day when I ran across this thread. I think any of us who have worked our way up through the ranks did so because we were always willing to grab a broom if asked – or volunteer for other tasks anytime we can do that and still get our primary duties done.
I will offer one counterpoint that hasn’t been mentioned. There is a time not to do things that your boss asks you to do. Put simply, it’s when what they are asking you to do is unethical or illegal. (Notice I didn’t say “and” illegal, I said “or”.)
By the way, if I’m hired to edit and someone wants me to wash dishes when I’m there, I’ll do it. But, I’m a much better value as an Editor than as a dishwasher – especially since I still charge the same rate for either task. 😉
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It really varies. I’ve done multi-camera shoots where post was done faster than the original shoot, but I’ve worked on documentaries and commercials that had closer to a 15:1 ratio of post/production time. The documentaries took a long time because of all the tape that we had to sift through in post to “find the story” and the commercials took longer to edit because we used to have to wait much longer for rendering graphics and composites.
What type of show are we talking about? And do you consider compositing and graphics work as part of “editing”? I used to save tons of time by making sure the producer brought me really good time code notes in a format I could import but that hasn’t happened in a long time.
When I started posting in HD back around 2003, I remember leaving things to render at night with nothing but careful planning and hopes they came out OK the next morning. Come to think of it, I also did that back in 1997 when I was running Media 100 on a Power Mac 8500.
I’d better stop now that I’m getting all nostalgic. As fun as it was, I don’t really miss the “good old days” that I spent watching a cartoon watch icon spin on a CRT monitor. 😉