It’s very intriguing in many aspects. The first page is numbered “793″ and continues on to “884″. I gather this is a British convention, whereas, since this is issue No. 11, from a Vol. 14, that issue No. 1 would have started from page 1 and No. 12 will end in the 900′s. Looking at all the old gear and advices is mind blowing. It’s like a history lesson. It’s like what I should have been doing with my life in 1980. It may very well be what some of my older friends in the industry might have been doing in 1980.

As a late starter or a “late-comer” to this particular aspect of my life, I sometimes feel sad that I didn’t do more, earlier in life in this field, especially since I had plenty of interest in it. Coming from the sane place I want to come from, in my heart, I try not to be too disappointed in this fact and try hard to just enjoy that I have arrived here and try to concentrate on all the good to come.

Another thing that’s funny about this magazine is the line, “Twenty years ago, when amateur movies were experiencing their biggest boom…”. That means in 1960! Full disclosure, I was born in 1967.

The 1980 magazine talks a lot about Super 8 and 16mm but remember VHS and Star Wars have been around a few years by now. “Video” though was a thought as there is a review of a VHS recorder in the mag. It kind of reminds me of the Film vs. Digital talk of recent years.

There’s a ton of cine clubs listed in the mag too. Ah! Remember clubs? http://wordpress.quintessentialstudios.net/?p=350

The main reason I bought the magazine was the article title on the cover, “A Fresh Look At Film Editing”. The article turns out to be the first in a series on film editing by none other than Bernard Ashby. At the time, Ashby is credited with “…currently heading the team responsible for editing and dubbing Shoestring.” (for BBC Television.) The title of the article in the pages of the magazine is “A Matter of Choice” and this part, “Part 1: Choosing the Shot”. The advice in here is amazing! (I think I could copy the article for educational purposes and not violate any copyright laws, right? I’ll look into this and see what I can share.) I love the line “Don’t be afraid to experiment, however. Faint heart and feeble ‘scissors’ will never win a Ten Best Oscar.”

This magazine reminded me what it was like to be 13 all over again and of some of the ideas and reasons why I love film. It spawned my search for the Monster Makeup book that I have been trying to remember that I owned as a kid. And now I found it!

A recent podcast discovery of mine is Scruffy Thinking by Kanen Flowers.

I’ve known about his That Post Show podcast for some years now and his Life Zero one (now defunct) a bit too.

Since the return of That Post Show (there was a bit of a hiatus) I noticed that it was under the banner of Scruffy Thinking, apparently an umbrella moniker which describes where the idea well springs from.

I, at first, just perused the “new” podcast looking for post related content. One guest who caught my attention on That Post Show was Merlin Mann. Sorry, I’m late to the show but I didn’t know who he was. Still don’t really but he’s really smart and thus funny. I am utterly impressed with his ability to geek out on Star Wars and take you on the longest freaking tangents only to be spot on with every step of that journey and bring you right back around to the salient point of the topic at hand. I really admire his ability there, definitely a quality I wish I had.

It’s so funny how he keeps going on the tangent, all the while apologizing for doing so and still keeps going! Just fucking epic!

So, searching for more Merlin Mann content, I find Scruffy Thinking podcast episode 18, “Chasing Wildebeests”. This particular episode also has Stu Maschwitz, writer of The DV Rebel’s Guide, a book that just happens to be in a lot of independent filmmaker’s library, including mine.

I commute about an hour to work, on the days I work, and podcasts provide a great way to get more filmmaking inspiration and education (mostly inspiration).

This particular episode is also an hour and forty-four minutes long! So, it took two sides of my commute to finish but well worth it. So much so, that I’ve listened to it a number of times. I think the reason it resonates so much for me is that it talks about a lot of the things that are constantly on my mind: priorities, doing what you love vs. a “day job” and time management (which is really “priorities” isn’t it?) especially “family time”!

Kanen’s grandma, I think has had to have been one of the most amazing influences on this his life, mainly because of two reasons that I know of: buying him his first computer and giving him the advice to follow what you love to do and you won’t have to worry about making a living, it’ll happen. Looking back on my life, my Grandmothers were very influential to me as well. I think I could go on for quite a long time about how important grandparents are to a child. Parents too, obviously, but sometimes a grandparent has just a bit more of a broader view. They’ve seen a bit more of what life really comes down to and imparting that loving view to a kid brings a much needed balance, they may not get otherwise.

So, in the “Chasing Wildebeests” podcast, that particular advice is examined in great detail. Stu taking the “this is why you must do what you want to do” view and Merlin taking the “let us not forget the trail of the fallen on your ‘path’ to superstardom” view. The ying and the yang of these two on this topic is EPIC!

This topic is so much on my mind these days, it consumes almost every minute of my thoughts and I’m constantly working on solutions to answer questions related to this topic. I even mentioned trying to balance what I wanted to do with my life vs. time with my family to Kanen himself at NAB, before I even knew about this particular podcast. So, I think it’s kind of serendipitous that I happened to listen to it when I did.

I’m even going to take a Franklin-Covey class, in about a week, called “FOCUS: Achieving Your Highest Priorities”. This I’ve been planning for quite awhile. It was recommended to me by one of the most (apparently) organized guys that I know. He went on quite a while about the virtues of this class and how it’s changed his life and how it helped him be able to brush off the unimportant. In short, it sounded like just the thing I needed to take!

I am pretty excited to have the opportunity to gain another tool to help me define who I am and what I want to become and, hopefully, gain more traction in that direction, all the while being able to, hopefully, achieve the balance I want to achieve in my life.

There are so many views and ideas related to this very topic, that I think I’m going to start my own webcast/vidcast on it. I want to share what I find in this arena to others. Those that know me, know that one of the most important things to me, that define who I am, is helping people do what they want to do. I have long held the same belief that Kanen’s grandmother shared, “do what you love to do.” You can see that as a common thread in my past blog posts too. It’s who I am.

At this point, if you haven’t listened to “Chasing Wildbeests“, please do so. Then return and finish reading this blog post. Then leave a comment. Thank you.

Okay, so now you get what I mean. Right?

How many of us are that hyper tiger/lion trying to catch ten wildebeests? How many of us are chasing our dreams at all? Are you “driving a beater around the track”? Were you a skater in the mid 80′s too? Yes, I too went on the hunt for Mr. Chin in my late teens. (a motorcycle accident later ruined my balance but “good times” for sure.)

I hope we can all find balance and work better at reaching our goals. It’s, as they say, the journey, not the destination, right? To borrow a line: Happiness is the overcoming of not unknowable obstacles toward a known goal.

Kanen Flowers’ podcasts inspire me to action and I hope they do/will for you too. I hope that what I “keep rappin’” here reaches some people. I hope to improve all I do too. I hope to be passionate about “every g’damn thing I do”!

Talk to you soon!

For those of you expecting a NAB post, one’s coming. In the meantime, check out @Kyl33t’s post on Creative Cow: http://magazine.creativecow.net/article/confessions-of-an-nab-virgin. Pretty much describes what I feel about NAB!

Thank you to all the sponsors and partners and bloggers and tweeters for playing along and getting the word out!

The main point of this party is to have fun and set the mood for a great NAB!

For those of you that could pony up for the VIP tickets, GREAT! You will get to play golf for free and get the beer and food and be in the running for the sponsored prizes. There are a limited number of VIP collector’s passes (first come first served) but I think there will be enough for all of you.

For those of you who RSVP’d for a “We’ll just come hang out!” That’s AWESOME too! I can’t wait to see my old friends and make new ones!

Are you psyched? I’m PSYCHED!

I am still banging out the official itinerary but will post it here when it’s complete.

Thanks to our sponsors:
Independent Filmmakers of the Inland Empire, KISS by Monster Mini Golf, Blackmagic Design, JAG35, Divergent Media, Focal Press, DV Expo, DigiEffects, ArtBeats, Assisted Editing, RevoStock, FilmTees and iKan Corp!

I am sure there will be more before “tee time” and for those who couldn’t donate this year, there’s always next year!

So the prizes are…

There you can meet with all of your online social network peeps, learn things, see what’s new in products and technology and just be engulfed in tech geek goodness.

Obviously http://nabshow.com is the place to visit to find out all about what’s there. The NAB Show app is really cool too.

Here’s a couple NAB Survival Tips blogs:
http://adamtheeditor.blogspot.com/2012/04/adams-nab-survival-guide.html
http://www.biscardicreative.com/blog/2012/04/tips-for-attending-nab-2012/

Here’s Walter’s Post Centric “What to See” blog post:
http://www.biscardicreative.com/blog/2012/04/things-to-see-at-nab-2012/

Here are a few party list pages, that mostly have the same parties listed:
http://provideocoalition.com/index.php/nab2012/story/whats_happening_at_nab_2012/
http://www.mediamotionball.com/nabinfo.html
http://supermeet.com/
http://www.nabshow.com/2012/event_highlights/official-afterparties.asp
http://kyleesportfolio.com/blog/?p=550
http://www.thomas-pr.com/01/nab2012.html

A Couple Podcasts with something to say:
http://t.co/SML3ri1N
http://scruffythinking.com/thatpostshow/2012/4/8/hold-it-again.html

As I think I mentioned before, color correction and iPad broadcasting (not necessarily related) are my two main interests this year. I really don’t think there’s going to be too much new to take in (that I’m not already aware of but can’t talk about because of NDA’s, even though the news seems to be breaking all over the place anyway!) for me as far as products go, but I do have a couple “want to buys” on my list.

As a new iPad owner, I am looking to see what products are out there for it and hopefully see them in action. I am also trying to do as much as I can on it as far as blogging and vlogging from there as well. Yes, we’re going to give you some video this year.

I plan on buying a couple Go Pro cameras too.

I plan to get to four main parties.

As far as I know free NAB show floor pass codes have expired but this page claims to have a link that works. So, give it a try? http://www.fcxuser.com/node/164

The Thinker is one of the world’s most renowned objects to convey thought.

Driven from my slumber this early Sunday morning by a bed full of coughing, whining children who only want “Mommy” to console them, I started to my office to finish some unfinished work, namely the sending out of the remainder of sponsorship package notices that I need to for #INKMINIGT.

Making some tea and settling in to do so, I realized I had some more pressing issues to handle. So, thinking my iPod touch nor iPad would really be productive at this time, I grabbed a small book to accompany me. My mind a whirl of thoughts, I never opened the book but contemplated the amazing amount of thoughts I had running across my mind… and why.

Throughout time, your cells, in whatever form they had, even before they begat the thousands of generations to come, have been at their most vulnerable when one had to scurry off from the tribe to “drop one off”. There they were, all alone, making an easily trackable scent. One, let’s say, any predator could pick up on. Just for sheer survival of of the species, one had to be on high alert at this awkward time. All fight or flight options had to be fully at hand, as who knew when some Lion or Cougar would come sneaking up on you!

As one’s form developed safer methods of protection during one’s most “aware” time, one had the luxury of being able to pursue more future thinking options. I dare say, in the “cycle” of life, its greatest advancements have been born during these times.

It’s amazing how fast one can compute any scenario. One could “write” a whole movie in an instant. One could think of multiple endings, in conceptual form, all at once. I would go as far to say that one’s whole future could be laid out in the short time it takes to…. After all, don’t they say your whole life flashes before you just before you die? The mind is (or you are) an amazing computing machine, beyond what we are probably even capable of understanding. I say, take advantage of this most conscious of times and postulate a divine future for whatever time frame you wish but exercise your mind and explore what Earth shattering developments you could push forward out into the world. Heave with all your might and release wondrous creations into the stream of the world’s consciousness. Squeeeeeeeeze one out… for the benefit of mankind.

I know you can. I thank you. The world thanks you. (And make sure to handle all the necessary paperwork and especially remember, “Employees must wash their hands before returning to work”!)

Tweet #INKMINIGT

This April will be NAB. This will mark my 4th year of attending. Since my first trip in 2009, I’ve vowed to always return.

The first year I went, I met so many people, especially ones that I had been communicating with on Twitter, that it was like a reunion of sorts. I went to so many parties and won so many cool prizes. It was really surreal.

Through the years, I’ve met more people in “the industry” (by that I mean film and TV and post production in general, web included). So, each year the reunion gets bigger. Also, I’ve become more active with each group that I belong to and, as many of you know, I started my own filmmaking group — Independent Filmmakers of the Inland Empire.

I have devoted countless hours to this passion of mine, like many of you have.

Last year, while bored, I stumbled upon a movie on Hulu.com, National Lampoon’s Bagboy (2007). In the movie, there are some scenes in an indoor “glow-in-the-dark” golf course. I thought to myself, “Oooh how cool! I want to go to one of those. I wonder where they filmed that?” This lead me to discover that one was being built in Las Vegas and that it would be completed in early 2012. Not only that but also it was going to be KISS themed! I started to put the pieces together immediately, “indoor glow-in-the-dark mini golf”, “KISS-themed”, “early 2012″…. “WHY THAT WILL PROBABLY BE DONE BY NAB!!!”

My normal NAB schedule includes starting the week off with a Sunday night hang at The Yardhouse with some IMUG** regulars. While this is okay, I thought KISS indoor mini golf would trump the Yardhouse on any night! So, I started hounding the owners of Monster Mini Golf to find out when exactly KISS by Monster Mini Golf would open and what it would take to have a party there.

The next thing I did was to survey when would be the best night to throw such a party. Claudia Trask was the first to chime in that it had to be either Sunday or Wednesday, so as not to conflict with SuperMeet or MotionMedia Ball. Those happen on Tuesday and Monday respectively.

One thing to point out is that there are a LOT of events happening each night of NAB and it’s very hard not to step on some other happening. In fact, after I had already started to plan #INKMINIGT and approaching Michael Cioni about a possible sponsorship, he mentioned I should change the day, as there would be an announcement in a couple days and that I would not want to miss it. That happened to be the REDUser party, which, as it turns out, Michael and Light Iron are hosting!

Well, there really isn’t another night for mine, so I bumped it to later in the night to be accomodating. I, after all, don’t want to miss his either. Now to be honest, Michael’s affair starts at 6 and goes to 11 and that’s a little long for me for a RED User party. I don’t discount that it’ll be great but I think I’ll be RED Usered out by 10 for sure. At which point, I’m hoping that “KISS MINI GOLF!” will wake me up!

Now, don’t underestimate my “little” get together. We have some BIG things in store. Since it is a “golf” establishment, I’ve decided on a “golf tournament” theme, as it were. There will be prizes for 1st, 2nd, 3rd and door prizes and such.

Having run a very successful film group and with all the friends (as mentioned above), I would say “I have some connections!” So, I am trying very hard to make this a great event.

It’s not easy. There are a lot of frustrations along the way but for every frustration, there are some great concessions that result. So it should be very “rockin’”!

I have to give great thanks to the people at KISS by Monster Mini Golf, especially Christina and Nansee! They are the greatest and are helping us make this a fantastic event.

I want to thank the sponsors who have already committed to helping out as well. These include Blackmagic Design, JAG35, Divergent Media, Focal Press, DV Expo, DigiEffects, ArtBeats and Assisted Editing!

Special thanks to Liam Johnson and IFIE’s new Adobe Co-manager, Andrew Cohen for helping me travel to Las Vegas this month to check out the grand opening of KISS by Monster Mini Golf and to capture some great footage of the joint.

While this event is a pilot event and we are already “in development” on next season’s!

Stay tuned for event registration information. OFFICIAL SIGN-UP HERE.

*#INKMINIGT = [I]FIE (Independent Filmmakers of the Inland Empire) [N]AB (National Association of Broadcasters’ NAB Show) [K]ISS (by Monster [Mini] [G]olf) [T]ournament. #INKMINIGT is the official hashtag for the event. Get involved! Tweet it up!

**IMUG International Media Users Group, the ones who bring you MediaMotion Ball

***Just for the record, I’m going to RedUser Party, INKMINIGT, MediaMotion Ball and SuperMeet. I hope to be able to get into the AJA Party (maybe) and want to visit ALLINFILM.

I’ll add that we are covering NAB Show 2012 and will have some video content this year. Special things I want to see are: the above parties, Monday’s Color Correction sessions at Post Production World, the editing panel with Norman Hollyn, some Post Pit Presos, and more….

Tweet #INKMINIGT

Specific Prizes up for grabs:

A copy of Blackmagic Design’s DaVinci Resolve Software ($995)

A Three-day VIP pass to DV Expo West ($975 value)

3 Copies of DigiEffects DigiSuite ($499 value, each)

A JAG35 Straight Rig ($400 value)

A Blackmagic Design HyperDeck Shuttle ($345 value)

A prize of $500 worth of stock footage of the winners choice from ArtBeats

A JAG35 Street Runner Rig ($250 value)

RevoStock credit!

a $100 voucher to spend on any Assisted Editing products – from Assisted Editing

A copy of ScopeBox 3.0 ($100 value)

FilmTees.com T-shirts!

A copy of ClipWrap ($50 value)

9 Focal Press Books:

3-DIY

Stereoscopic Moviemaking on an Indie Budget

By Ray Zone

Plug-in to After Effects

Third Party Plug-in Mastery

By Michele Yamazaki

The Insider’s Guide to Independent Film Distribution, Second Edition

By Stacey Parks

First-Time Filmmaker F*#^-ups

Navigating the Pitfalls to Making a Great Movie

By Daryl Goldberg

Final Cut Pro X for iMovie and Final Cut Express Users

Making the Creative Leap

By Tom Wolsky

FilmCraft: Editing

By Justin Chang

Make Your Movie

What You Need to Know About the Business and Politics of Filmmaking

By Barbara Freedman Doyle

Filming the Fantastic: A Guide to Visual Effects Cinematography, Second Edition

A Guide to Visual Effects Cinematography

By Mark Sawicki

Indie Film Producing

The Craft of Low Budget Filmmaking

By Suzanne Lyons

GOOD LUCK!!! SEE YOU THERE!!!

We all want to make great visuals. Slick camera moves is the hallmark of the Hollywood blockbuster. Watching a ton of action movies is one way to figure out how great camera moves are done.

Hollywood Camera Work (www.hollywoodcamerawork.us) seemed to have dissected all that work for us with their DVD, “Hot Moves: The Science of Awesome”. Hollywood Camera Work has two DVD training sets, one is a master course on blocking and staging, the other on visual effects. “Hot Moves” is an addition to the master course, building on concepts introduced in that set. In fact, the narrator refers to the full master course set for in-depth information on designing shots that cut well, while Hot Moves is just the dessert.

Many of the camera techniques discussed are designed to be big and expensive, using long dollies, sweeping crane shots, or fly overs. Alternative less complicated or expensive options are given when possible. Animators may find Hot Moves more useful, since they aren’t facing the same real world limitations.

It’s important to realize that the narrative instruction on this DVD is purposely monotone with long pauses. While you may want to watch the whole DVD in one sitting for an overview, it’s seem to really be designed for repeated viewing to better understand the concepts being presented.

The DVD starts with a recap of some concepts from the master course. Then goes into the use of parallax, pivots, rolls and angles. There’s even some extensive information on shooting from extreme heights and aerial shots. These moves are definitely recognizable, and it’s interesting to see what works and what doesn’t.

Computer animation is used to great effect to demonstrate the techniques. The animation is visually clean and direct, and making it easier to understand the concepts.

It would have been nice to have a PDF showing diagrams of the moves presented on the DVD. While it’s nice to see the results of the move, it’s also important to know how complex it is.

Hot Moves is definitely for the advanced filmmaker, the one who’s ready to try something a bit more complicated, even attempt to cheat the more expensive shots using their available tools.

Contributing Writer Thomas Mathai works doing DI work in Hollywood for the movies.
You can follow him on Twitter: @rebeldigitalgod

Wow! I nearly went a month without a blog post. (Oops! I waited too long to finish this entry and now I’m over a month!)

Just for the record, this has been a wonderful week for me (Knock on wood!) I guess I’m “manic depressive” because the following week wasn’t so grand…

I have recently been selected to train and demo Autodesk Smoke. I’m pretty excited about that! Due to time constraints, I’ve been informed that I may not be able to do this… <- The main reason for my duldrums.... BUT... I am still going ahead with my self-study of this program. It's very complicated (and I'm a bright guy and a good study!) So, the challenge is appealling to me!

[The good week:] SaturdayA couple of Saturdays ago, I had a great call with a very helpful Hollywood editor who I will be working with to help people reach their Hollywood goals. I really love talking to guys like that who are into helping others. They’re really a great inspiration. I was also hinted to by a company head that a post job that I really would like to do was available again. I was able to get some good Smoke training in [that] Sunday and then Monday and Tuesday I was able to spend a whole lot of time with my kids, which is the best part of anything I do! Tuesday, we also went to see our accountant for taxes and that went well. Great dinner with the Mrs. after that (lots of future planning, etc.) and followed up with yesterday (Wednesday) going to LAFCPUG and hanging with a ton of editor friends and meeting some new ones! Today, [couple Thursdays ago] I got to spend some time with my kids again and shuffled off to work to no real traffic, good weather and a stop at the mailbox to see lots of editing books awaiting me! (I love getting editing books and mags, etc. It’s like Christmas to me!) I learned tomorrow is bonus day and I got a gift certificate from a co-worker to one of my favortite lunch places. So, yeah, things are good.

Following all of that, Saturday, March 25th, I am officially calling “International (well So Cal, anyway) Editor Networking Day”! Was just amazing. I started off the day carpooling to the ACE IAVA event and hung out with a lot of editor friends listening to the Oscar nominated editors talk about the films that they worked on and career, etc. Then we went to an after-event ACE Intern get-together and met a lot of great people. Then a couple of us went to the Act of Valor Q&A screening. Got to see some more twitter friends there and, even after that, met some more photo/editor people (who happened to be at the screening too) in line to the restaurant we went to. So that was definitely a WHOLE day of editor networking! And, that was a great week, Sat. – Sat., in whole.

So, what’s on my plate for this “semester” then? Apple’s Final Cut Pro 7, additional training; Avid’s Pro Tools 10, totally new to it; Autodesk’s Smoke on a Mac, as above; perhaps some Apple (again) FCP X, as it actually is gaining appeal with me and I think Adobe will have to wait until they really come through with their Adobe Prelude or another CS release (which is rumored to be soon). Which reminds me. This next post was supposed to about said Adobe Prelude but alas, there isn’t much more to add than what Philip Hodgetts and Scott Simmons have blogged about.

Above, I mentioned for “A” companies: Apple, Adobe and Avid, the “major” players in the pro editing game but there are a few other companies that are out there. Autodesk’s Smoke, I also mentioned, is a complete post workflow solution from aquisition to finish. I’ve marveled at their promo reels for years. Just stunning work comes from the talented finishers using this program. It’s almost like they were first and then Adobe and Apple came along trying to emulate what they do and they get a little closer each time.

The “big” downer is the “big” price. Smoke on a Mac costs $14,000.00. In todays environment, it seems like that’s a steep price to pay for an “editing” program. Over pizza, after LAFCPUG, one editor said “I wish Grant (Grant Petty CEO of Blackmagic design) would buy it and make it $999 and call it a day!” That would be awesome. Blackmagic design has worked hard, helping to democratize the post production line. They bought DaVinci Resolve and made it $999, after all! But don’t let the price of a program deter you from learning it. Autodesk has a 30-day free trial and TONS of on-line tutorials. They also have a free student license. So, enroll in school (Hey! like I do!) and avail yourself of it, if you’re so inclined, and we can be study buddies!

I have a feeling we’re going to hear some great things from Autodesk Smoke at NAB. I just hope they don’t make my training obsolete like Apple did with FCP X, last year!

Just for the record — Other video editing options (that I know of):
iMovie
Sony Vegas
FCP Express
Windows MovieMaker
Photoshop (yes, photoshop)
Avid Studio
Media 100
Edius
Lightworks <-Free!

Alright. That's enough for this rant. I've got a NAB party to plan! Talk to you soon.

Oh! BTW, we are touring Light Iron (the Hollywood digital post facility) March 12th. Feel free to join us!

It all started with LAFCPUG on Jan 18th. There Michael Cioni, from Light Iron, talked about the “transformation” of digital cinema. He talked about the current workflows and how people just need to understand that this is how it works these days.

After a couple emails with Michael, I decided to peruse his company’s website and discovered free classes that Michael delivers there. I wasn’t the only one, as many of the attendees at the Jan 25th class had been at LAFCPUG the week before too. This class, first in a series they teach, is called “State of D-Cinema”, D-Cinema of course meaning “digital cinema”. This class pointed out the history and major time points of digital cinema and touched on this thing called “philosophies”. This is where I had one of those “duh” epiphanies. People have different philosophies, this transcends all areas of life beliefs, including technical, and indeed it is hard to reach agreement between people with different basic deep beliefs or “philosophies”.

I’ve talked about this before in a different vein, old computer mainframe operators complaining that there will never be anything better than mainframes and thinking they will have a job forever. But I’ve also talked about this in the very same vein, film projectionists thinking that film will “never go away”. Well, and as was pointed out in the “State of D-Cinema”, as much as you may like film, you won’t be able to manufacture it yourself and soon the manufacturers, if not already, will stop making it. They do not make film projectors any more, period. Think about it. Digital projection is the majority now in theaters. “All will be digital!” (Until something different comes along!)

Where are we now?
With all of this “digitalness”, comes the awareness that the only ones in the process who have been doing things digital for some time now, are the post production people. I mean think about it. Even animation, a very “production” sided activity is lumped in with the techies in post. Why is that?

Now, with the state of digital cinema as it is, we have post personnel needing to be a part of the production phase more than ever. It is so much so, that really, post is production. We have DIT’s, Data Wranglers, etc. on the set. We have to apply coloring samples to the raw picture so directors have an idea of what they will get in post. And we have lots of technology sitting there in “production” that once was just in the editing bay.

This is just a scratch into the surface of what is all there and expected right here and now. There is wireless transmission of “instant” dailies and on and on. What the heck will the future be like? Post is Production, there’s no doubt. It’s even a little pre-production.

More on the technology of post
Post production software has transformed too and is even transforming more than the general public is aware of. Final Cut Pro X floundered on the scene last year to much disgruntlement. It was “mainframe operators” saying you can’t get rid of mainframe computers, really. Since post is really all technology (not talking about the art of cutting, just the tools), then we really have to look to what technology itself is doing.

iPads and tablets are where computing is going. It’s funny how technology goes in circles. We used to have dumb terminals in the workplace, all connected to a, you guessed it, a mainframe computer. Then we got desktops networked into the mainframe. Then the mainframe went away. Or did it?

Let’s face it. Software is going to the cloud. Storage is going to the cloud. The software companies are going to subscription based software for a number of reasons. Yes, they are! There will no longer be a need for desktops. You will be able to do all of your work on “dumb terminals”. Whether those dumb terminals are iPads, iPods, tablets or mac airs, who knows. But seriously you will only need interfaces in the future. It’s all going to the “cloud”.

Current post production consists of big computers and lots of storage hardware and personally owned copies of software. Enjoy it while you can. Before you know it, these will all change.

I’m not saying I’m for this change. I’m just saying it’s an inevitable destination. I think the very aware ones are already preparing for this. I think the next level are just going with the flow of what’s here now and maybe are the bleeding edge guys. Then come the clueless who just wonder “why are they changing things that are working just fine”. And then, even below the clueless, are the “mainframe operators” who will yell to no end that “they can’t get rid of mainframes!”

Next blog post: What is Adobe Prelude?

Since then, I’ve amassed over 100 filmmaking books, countless magazines, thirty-five film and TV and computer related college credits, some CEUs, quite a few certificate classes and seminars and a few hundred(?) hours of actual experience (including a couple IMBD credits). Even with all of this education, I would still not say I’m “ready for prime time”.

I have a firm belief in “too long a runway” will give you more opportunity to fail. So, I’m prepping for take-off soon, so that I don’t fall off the cliff. I’d rather get some miles flown away from the island toward filmmaking civilization than be forever stranded and never accomplish anything.

In my quest, I also reach back and try to help others in similar quests too. As you know, I run the Independent Filmmakers of the Inland Empire. I do this to help create a community in my area. It’s rewarding and I get more back than I put into it, so that’s cool too.

In taking off, it helps to have a flight plan and, per my earlier post, I’m defining more and more who I am, or more accurately where I’m going.

At LAFCPUG this last Wednesday, there was a career coach that talked about “Breakthrough goals”. These I would describe as steps toward a larger objective. This quarter, I am going to edit for someone else’s project. This is something a little bit off of my island that I feel will really start me on my journey.

I’m also going to start to finish reading the books I have. The key word there is finish. I seem to start a lot of them but an easily distracted toward some other thing. I guess this all fits into my overall goal for myself to be more streamlined. I think finishing what I start is a good definition for that goal. Shot.edit.learn has started a filmmaking book club, this should help me get through some books! http://shooteditlearn.com/blog/2012/01/23/book-club-for-filmmakers/

I am working with some others who want to work on their filmmaking goals this year too. Working together helps.

Here’s to you and you reaching your goals! If I can assist in any way, let me know!