[Todd Terry]

I think that for events like that, say a dance recital where 30 moms can’t live without a video, then yes… standard-definition regular ol’ DVDs are still the norm. That will probably start changing though, if it hasn’t already.

I don’t think you’ll find flash drives for anywhere near the 50 cent price of a DVD blank, BUT I’m pretty confident you can find them for much less than the ones on the counter rack at Staples, if you buy them in bulk.

Since we are talking about live events here, I thought I’d take the opportunity to rant about one of my pet peeves (and I never miss an opportunity to rant)…

We don’t have tons of experience with live events, as our primary specialty is producing things for broadcast television. But probably four or five times a year we do produce something specifically for a big-screen presentation, usually an event or convention or something.

About half of these clients do it right… they hire an AV company that knows what they are doing, and they handle the projection and switching and playback flawlessly.

The other half, well they tend to fall into either the “cheap” or DIY crowd. When we ask the question “How are you going to play this file?” the answer is invariably, “Oh… ummm… I guess I will just play it off my laptop.” GRRRRR usually followed by “They can hook into that, right?”

I know of at least a couple of events where we produced stuff and our content was great, but beforehand the audiences also got to enjoy multiple 15-foot screens featuring a Windows desktop image and a cursor poking around looking for a file to play.

Sigh…. people.

In fact we just produced a video for an event tomorrow, a fairly big-budget production, black-tie event, sold-out municipal shindig for a neighboring city, tons of dignitaries, expensive venue… and the video is being played out of the mayor’s laptop (“I’ll have to remember to bring that”). This is the point where I pantomime washing my hands in the air.

Every time we see these events produced poorly we toy with the idea of getting into the biz of handling the physicalities of event AV work, too. But I don’t think it’s a high-dollar or high-volume business (especially when considering the equipment investment needed)… plus the vast majority of them tend to be on nights and/or weekends, and that’s the time that I’m doing important not-being-at-work-right-now.

T2

__________________________________
Todd Terry
Creative Director
Fantastic Plastic Entertainment, Inc.
fantasticplastic.com

[Todd Terry]

Yeah Mark, I’m with Rich, we always reformat drives. I do that anyway any time I buy a flash drive, they invariably come with one or more files on them already (usually some kind of useless “backup” software) that I don’t want/need, so we wipe ’em as soon as we buy them.

You can do it as a “quick format” though, and it works just fine. Takes about five seconds, instead of several minutes. Since it’s a new drive you don’t need a deep re-format.

T2

__________________________________
Todd Terry
Creative Director
Fantastic Plastic Entertainment, Inc.
fantasticplastic.com

[Todd Terry]

I don’t know that you are missing anything, other than that is more of less the way things have moved (at least in my experience).

Any content that we produce that is for a live event (playback on big screens etc.) is these days invariably delivered on flash drives. I can’t even remember the last time we delivered files on DVD or Blu-ray data discs.

You just never know exactly what kind of devices/computers/servers are going to be used as playback sources at an event… and these days a USB/flash drive is pretty much going to be a universally-accepted source, whereas an optical disc might not. I know we’ve delivered files in the past to events where their playback systems did not have optical drives at all.

At any rate, in the distant distant past when we have delivered files on discs, I always implore their AV people to NOT play from the disc at the live event, but to ALWAYS import those files and play them from their computers. The smarter and more pro crews know that of course, but I’ve seen some do-it-yourselfers who did not. Of course you should do that with flash-drive based files, too… but it’s even more important for disc-based files.

I greatly prefer delivering files on thumb drives… it’s easier and faster than burning a disc, and the cost difference is negligible… a couple of bucks vs. 50$. Yeah the cost percentage difference is high, but no doubt it is a tiny fraction of a hundredth of a percent of the whole project’s budget… insignificant.

T2

__________________________________
Todd Terry
Creative Director
Fantastic Plastic Entertainment, Inc.
fantasticplastic.com

[Todd Terry]

Good find, Rick… a very worthwhile watch.

T2

__________________________________
Todd Terry
Creative Director
Fantastic Plastic Entertainment, Inc.
fantasticplastic.com

[Todd Terry]

Well that is weird weird weird….

I was going to ask you to check the clip properties, but since you provided a source file I was able to check it myself. I downloaded it and threw it on a 1080 24p timeline that I happened to have open…

As you can see, the clip properties show to be 1080, 23.976, and progressive. All should be good.

But it’s not… because that is not a progressive clip. Despite what the properties say it is absolutely totally without-a-doubt 100% assuredly an interlaced clip, and most decidedly not progressive.

Looking at it on my broadcast HD monitor (an LCD monitor) when video is parked on a frame with motion I can definitely see the two fields ghosting together. Furthermore, and more proving, when looking at it on the down-converted standard-def stream that comes out of my system on an old-fashioned CRT monitor (yes, we keep those around for monitoring what our projects look like in SD), you can definitely tell it is interlaced, with the still frame vibrating back and forth between the two fields.

SO, it was definitely recorded as interlaced. Now, considering that you did not make any camera changes (and are sure about that?) and considering that the clip properties still show it as progressive, something is obviously amiss.

I’m now going to say words that no one wants to hear, “I think you have a camera problem.” Not just a settings issue of operator error of some kind… unfortunately I think you have a repair issue. Most of that is based on the fact that the properties aren’t what the clip actually is, there’s no way for that to “accidentally” happen by doing something wrong.

Can you salvage the footage? Maybe, to a degree… by merging the fields. In Premiere you would select the clip on the timeline and go to “Field Options” and choose “Flicker Removal”….

…and that will merge the fields into one frame. It still doesn’t look great (you can still see the interlacing), but it looks a lot better than it did.

I think there is a way (in After Effects, maybe?) to extract the fields so that each frame is just made up of one field (I’d guess the upper) and the other field is discarded. I’m not sure because I have never needed to do that, but I think it can be done. That would give you true progressive footage. Unfortunately though you’d lose half of your lines of resolution.

As for the camera… sorry but unless there is some very wacky setting that I don’t know about, I think it needs professional attention.

T2

__________________________________
Todd Terry
Creative Director
Fantastic Plastic Entertainment, Inc.
fantasticplastic.com

[Todd Terry]

Hi Aaron…

I’m with Walter, if I’m reading what I think he is saying correctly…

I don’t think a network would have taken that deal, had you offered it. If the payment was that low it was probably peanuts to them, and the value of them retaining creative control and the name change would be far greater to them than they spent to purchase the rights. I don’t think you would have had any leverage to insist on title retention, nor do I think they would have been willing to drive traffic to your website. Now of course that’s just a guess, but I think at least a semi-educated one.

Now, here after the fact… is there any reason (such as being legally prohibited) that you cannot change the name of your film to the name the network is using? That would at least let you piggyback off their marketing and provide some continuity and name recognition, and if someone were to Google it they would have an infinitely better chance of finding your original film.

I know what I’m suggesting probably sounds like blasphemy… and you think you have already named the film what it really should be named and the network suits should have stuck with the original title because it is the best one. BUT… they just might know what they are doing. It very well could be that their new title is much more viewer friendly, marketable, and attractive to potential watchers than the one you have. Filmmakers should really rarely if ever do their own marketing, because it’s really a completely different area of expertise.

I think I’ve told this story here before under very similar circumstances….. I have a friend here, Homer Hickam, who years ago wrote a wonderful autobiographical novel, “Rocket Boys.” Universal bought the novel and made a pretty darn good movie of it. But… one of the first things they did was change the name to “October Sky.” Their marketing gurus (and probably focus groups) felt that “Rocket Boys” sounded like a film that would primarily appeal to teenage guys, whereas “October Sky” would have a much wider appeal and put more butts in the seats. He’s never told me so, but I’m betting Homer thinks “Rocket Boys” is a better title (so do I). But… he cashed the check, moved on, and if he wants to complain about it now he can do it with beautiful views from his well-deserved island vacation home on St. John. Sometimes it’s good just to get over it.

Sometimes an author’s (or filmmaker’s) title isn’t the best one. A couple of examples (two from Stephen King)… “The Shawshank Redemption” is more marketable than “Rita Hayworth and the Shawshank Redemption,” and “Stand By Me” is a much better (and more appropriate for the film) title than “The Body.”

“The Hudsucker Proxy” is a wonderful film, but I personally think it tanked (or at least didn’t do very well) in part because it had, in my opinion, a really terrible title from a marketing standpoint.

T2

__________________________________
Todd Terry
Creative Director
Fantastic Plastic Entertainment, Inc.
fantasticplastic.com

[Todd Terry]

In this type of setup, I personally like some shadows/modeling. I’ve tried the total-no-shadows look using a ringlight, but except for high-fashion stuff it just looks wrong to me.

That being said, I don’t like those shadows on the above right example. I don’t mind the quantity (or degree) of shadows, I don’t like the quality. Of course it depends on the application and the mood one is going for, but in most instances for my taste those shadows are much too hard. I’d use a much larger key light (or a 4×4 bounce for the key, or something big like that). You’d get more or less the same degree of shadows (same ratio of light to dark), but they would be much softer.

Not that I think these are all that great, but here’s a couple of examples from spots we did….

https://fantasticplastic.com/portfolio/news018.html
https://fantasticplastic.com/portfolio/news023.html

The first one isn’t a true infinite/limbo environment, it’s on a set… but it is a pure white set and I think the same thoughts apply.

So in general, I do like some shadows, but I tend to like them quite soft.

T2

__________________________________
Todd Terry
Creative Director
Fantastic Plastic Entertainment, Inc.
fantasticplastic.com

[Todd Terry]

Yeah the weather there is not good, definitely not going up this week.

Thanks I’ll holla if needed… some other Bovines have come through for me as well off-forum.

T2

__________________________________
Todd Terry
Creative Director
Fantastic Plastic Entertainment, Inc.
fantasticplastic.com

[Todd Terry]

It’s very unlike me to disagree with anything Dennis would ever say. I’ll concede that Dennis is a lighting expert of the highest level… and knows at least, oh, a thousand times more about this stuff than I do.

That being said, I’ll disagree with a little bit of his advice. 🙂

Firstly, you don’t need 12 of those shop fixtures (unless you want your talent to look like they are standing on the surface of the sun). You just don’t need nearly that much for such a tiny greenscreen space. I’d say four, maybe five of them, tops. Very likely two across the top and one on each side is more than enough. I regularly light a greenscreen that is just about this size, and I use three shop lights to do it… and even then as I said sometimes I only use one tube in each.

Secondly don’t waste a dime on Kino tubes for these fixtures. If you were using them to shoot talent, yes… but just for greenscreen washing its totally unnecessary and would be hundreds and hundreds of dollars. Accurate color temps are virtually meaningless when you are only using them to wash the greenscreen.

Dennis’ advice isn’t bad, but he comes from doing very high-end projects with available budgets/resources/fixtures that I suspect would put most of our projects to shame. Some suggestions are just waaaaaay overkill unless your project is very high-end, which I suspect it isn’t.

All that being said, his suggestion of permanently installing these instruments for the shoot duration is right on the money.

His flooring suggestion is also a good one. That stuff is not all that expensive when you consider what it does for you.

T2

__________________________________
Todd Terry
Creative Director
Fantastic Plastic Entertainment, Inc.
fantasticplastic.com

[Todd Terry]

Someone on Facebook speculated that in no time there would be a Chinese-made knockoff of it for way less than the $200+ price tag for the real thing… which wouldn’t surprise me a bit.

I think the price is a bit high for what you get… but I think it’s really pretty reasonable for what it does… which is more important.

T2

__________________________________
Todd Terry
Creative Director
Fantastic Plastic Entertainment, Inc.
fantasticplastic.com