An article by Alyssa Miller at No Film School wrote this article on Apollo 10 1/2: A Space Age Childhood being disqualified from the Academy for being rotoscoped, which is total bullshit, as only character outlines were animated.
Further proof that the academy is bullshit, and have something against Linklater.
Well worth giving an hour to learn about Fairlight Audio from Jason Yadlovski.
From Arin Waichulis at 9to5 Mac, this is worth a read.
I had never heard of StopTheMadness, which is not cheap (as you have to buy Mac and Mobile versions at $7.99 each) and the Mac version also works on Firefox and Chrome as well. It overrides websites attempts to lock out browser features, which is something I have been thinking about for a long time. It can also remove tracking tags, and URL shorteners.
I watched the Keynote and Sneaks of Adobe Max this year, but that was really all I had time for. Kenny McMillan at Pro Video Coalition has extensive coverage of all things Adobe Max that relate to video, well worth checking out.
Max is more focused on Design, Illustrator and Photography than video, but there are always some little tidbits for us video users.
OWC has an article on Softraid 7 which will add support for MacOS Ventura, and it isn’t recommended to upgrade until this is released.
I run Softraid for a work drive and a personal drive, so there is no way I can upgrade to Ventura until then. Honestly the shared iPhoto library is the most interesting feature to me.
I have been editing not for 22 years, since I started on The Lord of the Rings The Fellowship of the Ring Special Edition Behind the Scenes in 1999 or 2000. And even that far back I was also working with Assistant Editors and figuring out best practices to work in a company and with multiple editors and graphics people. And on Lord of the Rings in between the editing gigs, I oversaw the Assistant Department who were logging the thousands of hours of footage to make it searchable.
The pandemic and remote editing has made it more important, and I have helped the company I am working with develop some methodologies, though they didn’t follow all of my ideas (some of which I think are a big mistake). And example is that I break each project into 3 major categories, the project, renders and exports and this is for Backup purposes, as it is easier to back up the project and exports separately from renders, but they have combined all into a single folder making backups more difficult, especially when using software to do it (which you should always do so that you can have Checksum’s checked on copy).
Another huge issue is graphics files. We have managed to get sequences to include dates and editors initials so you can track files back to their creators, but the graphics guys have not done that at all. And it is one thing to be given graphics files and use them, but most of them have a name and maybe a version number at best, and the problem is that while we use an after effects project that has a basic look, each of us are doing variations on graphics, but there is almost no set nomenclature for anything, So there is basically no way to track anything!
I am being given a timeline like above in after effects, for a completely spot, which each graphic pre-composed in it’s own sequence, and while I have blurred the project so you can’t see it, the individual graphics projects are named text 1 and so forth, WTF!
And we have even been given footage lately straight from the set, without an assistant conforming anything so even project names are up to editors.
This could so easily be fixed with job numbers, even if they aren’t final job numbers, but just within the post department, Or even client_jobnumber_Initials. So say a 2 letter abbreviation of product name and 4 digit job number then 2 or 3 letter initials of the person working on it. And you name your project this, or at least the start of it, I think it should also have a year for the After Effects version number in there (so 2022 or 2023). And every graphic file should start the same, so client_jobnumber_initlals, I would then add a description, and a date and version number.
So for example, a FedEx commercial, job one with my initals JLW would have a project name of FE_0001_JLW_2023.aep, and my main logo animation would be called FE_0001_JLW_MainLogo_22-11-03-V01. And at the end of every job the projects should be uploaded to a central repository, so if anyone needs to modify one of those graphics you know exactly which project it is, and who did it.
If you don’t implement something like this, it is going to be such a mess finding stuff, even without freelance editors who might not be available to make changes.
And I know graphics people might complain at first, but everything will be so much easier in the future that it doesn’t matter. They are easy changes to make and implement and it will quickly so many future problems.
I am OK Adobe which has fairly regular updates, and the beta channel, but others give less value, especially than they used to, when you paid a price and had software for at least a year.
And the worst is all the iPad apps that have moved to subscription. You used to e able to buy them, but now you have to subscribe to even use most creative apps.
I have been slowly watching the The Sandman TV series on Netflix, and while I do enjoy the show, as it is nothing like any other show on TV, in that it doesn’t follow normal structure at all, as it is a comic book adaption, but the biggest annoyance is the strange aspect ratio.
This show looks like it is in scope, but it is strangely stretched tall. So many people are talking about this, that Netflix has had to respond and say it is how it is intended.
Actually Reddit seems to have the best info on what it actually is.
It is made even worse by the extreme close ups of so much of the show, and really gets obvious in pans and camera moves that become super distracting.
If they wanted to make the image look ethereal I would have rather had a true FX done to the show, like having made The Sandman seem taller and stretched out, instead of making everything stretched out.
Once again this is a distracting decision that ruins much of the hard work of the show, much like Game of Thrones color correcting for a darkened Theater with a 4K laser projector instead of for home TV with lights on. And they didn’t learn their lesson with Game of Thrones and have done the same damn thing on Game of Thrones: House of Dragon, making it too dark for many people to see.
When making a creative choice that is either distracting or hard to see for enough people to complain you are likely making a mistake.
This is pretty cool, though I have a Datacolor Syder X myself, but a way to do your own display calibration.
Already I have been annoyed by YouTube, a recent update on Apple TV, has my TV showing a lost connection at every commercial break, which means huge delays on every commercial break. I have seen speculation that it might be the addition of HDR to the Apple TV app, which means that the commercials are different than the stream, and causing the lost connection and pause at every commercial break.
And as they add more commercials in every video it gets more annoying. And now it looks like they are moving 4K to the paid tier as well.
I can honestly say that it just doesn’t reach the $12 a month that is costs for YouTube premium, but it might mean I watch less YouTube videos.