Jon Allen

I didn't say the speeds would be stupendous- if you're taking at least a couple minutes to render a frame (remember, this is a g4), then it really shouldn't matter how sloooow it uploads back to the wired server. Of course, I only have limited knowledge of the qmaster engine in maya...

At my work we've talked to the boss about going with the mac minis for render boxes for 3D stuff- our 3D guy prefers the look of stuff rendered in maya on a mac over pc (but I think he's crazy). Cabling is a thing of the past, right? It'd be awesome to outfit them all with airport or bluetooth; so basically, plug them in, set up your server and go- sweet!

That isn't exactly the reaction I was expecting- keep up the good work. lol

I'm with ya man. FCP is a VERY powerful piece of software considering the price range it's in. There are some newer pc-based HD editing suites that are not exactly par with FCP HD and they run $2000 for the baseline program- nevermind that you can get FCP HD, motion, AND dvd studio pro 3 for $1300... pretty good deal for us editors. I've been reading that more and more studios are switching to macs for at least their initial cutting- when they need to get it done fast. The simple fact that television has been produced on high end machines for so long, the idea of cutting on an off-the-shelf mac has a lot of them stupified. Isn't 'Scrubs' cut on fcp?

Looks nice, a bit random in the editing, but I know that's not you. Has anyone else been told that music video is pretty much the ass-end of filmmaking? This isn't a rip though, it pays the bills, and NBC on new year's is a lot better than "ROADance"

Seriously though, I find this whole MAC v PC thing equivalent to a refridgerator debate. The first fridge is twice as big as the other, but holds the exact same amount of food, has modular shevling, and keeps all the food the absolute coldest all the time. The other keeps each individual piece of food at the exact temperature it needs to be at, never frosts, but costs twice as much as the first. Take your pick.

That depends if you define "better" by the terms "faster" and "cheaper". I used to feel the same way, I started using a mac at work, it really does work "better" than my old PC. A lot of this might be the fact that my home PC was a 2gig p4 with a gig of ram and my work mac is dual g5 2gig, 1.5 GB ram. It really screams at after effects- unlike the ol p4 @ home. Also, a lot of the movie editing makes more sense in fcp- especially natice codecs and quicktime integration. As opposed to avi's, which seem native to nothing. Also, it doesn't have to "convert" or whatever when you import a movie into your project for it to become usable in premiere. I should explain that I've really gotten out of the premiere scene, so I don't know what's all new with 1.5.

Concerning Noah's post in 2-pop. Understanding that frames will "randomly" drop puts a bad spin on what actually happens in camera, isn't it? When you capture at 24 fps you unduce a new type of motion blur to the picture, Noah makes it seem that it would all be the same if I shot in 60i and edited at 24 in fcp and used the 2:3:3:2 pulldown. What happens when you shoot in 24 fps to the image is that even though frames are captured at 29.97 fps, that doesn't mean that your shutter and everything remains the same. I guess my biggest question with this is the point of the entire post the fact that noah believes fcp doesn't correctly detect the cadence and delete the jutter frames?

The main reason your mac "ignores" viruses is because they're probably built to infect windows machines- IE lsass and other system processes that aren't built into mac software. Either way, if they're "exe" files, they simply wont run on mac machines- exe is the executable file format in windows. Most programs need to be tailored in the compile to run on a mac or pc- and even more specialized commands to be able to be vicious. Let's talk about the ability to actually GET a virus on a mac. Macs are about 3% of the entire personal computer world. Even if a mac got a virus, where would it go to? The reason we hear about widespread virus infections is simply because more people and businesses use machines that are common- meaning windows-based computers. Take it from the virus designer's perspective: why on earth would you build a virus and only have the possibly to hit 3% of all users when you can build a window virus and potentially hit 90+%? Let's face it, it's a matter of hitting the larger target.

So this movie is basically momento meets fight club meets scream... am I getting this right? Where have all the good stories gone?

Can someone explain how the math works with an anamorphic adapter and 16x9 mode in-camera???

For myself, I wouldn't consider dropping from 1080i to 720p a big deal. What it seems we're looking at is higher actual resolution captured (1440x720) than the varicam (960x720)- which would give us true high definition images- instead of stretching 960pix to 1280. Do I sound confused?

Does this guy have any plans to do the same to the HVRZ1U once it comes out? Also, I've heard some rumors that the Z1 will have progressive, what's the deal? What are our options for outputting to fillm from this format?

I heard once that on the set of Caddy Shack, Rodney Dangerfield was worried his jokes were bad. He'd say his line, the people in the scene reacted, but no one laughed and he remarked to the effect of, "I'm dying out here!" to the director. The director asked what he meant and Rodney said "No one's laughing at my jokes! Look at all those guys behind the camera!" The director had to explain to him that the crew couldn't laugh or else they'd be picked up by the microphone. If I remember right, this was Rod's first movie, he'd only done TV and stage previously. But what can we do if something really is hilarious and we're not as self-controlled as the guys working on Caddy Shack?

LOL!!! Exponential Monster Syndrome. I agree, my friend, I agree.... sigh.... I can honestly say that I read the hobbit and the first two books in the trilogy, I started reading ROTK and I was bored senseless. I think Tolkein wrote fine books, but I honestly thought the books went into waaaaaay too much detail, especially as he plodded along through the middle book. Note that nothing really happens in the 2 Towers, a few more friends, a lot more enemies, a big battle, nothing really to further the story of the ring getting destroyed. "Whoops, we almost got killed, but now we're back where we were at the beginning of the book." (ABA structure) It's one fantastical scene after another, after another... la la la... we forget that movies aren't built on special effects and CG. IMO the indiana jones trilogy are some of the best movies made. I saw an article once that showed how they used painted glass to create the matte for the big palace in the distance, pretty cool stuff, and no CG. Not to mention stories, great stories, almost melodramatic, but hey, what's a cool hero like indiana jones without a cool villian?

So, in your opinion, do you think that LOTR was a good book for screen adaptation? One could say that if your movie needs over 3 hours to tell it needs to be told on a TV miniseries.

I've noticed we're using Fantasy/Sci Fi movies as a base here. No one's mentioning the use of CGI and greenscreen in movies, say like Forrest Gump or Titanic. Both those relied heavily on the use of compositing- mostly digital. I'm thinking of a few key shots in Titanic when you start with the CG Titanic on a huge wide shot then (completely uncut) the camera moves in to the deck of the ship where the captain is standing- apparently the seam between real and CG is somewhere in the turn of the captain's head. I don't know if this really helps the overall storytelling, but it's definately interesting what we can push ourselves to do- given enough time and resources. Has anyone else been finding themselves as of late to go see movies for the special effects instead of actual storytelling? (ie I, Robot, Matrix 3, Constantine?) Also note how most of these movies that are so fantastical (and CGI-driven) are never nominated for any awards (outside of "Best Special Effects, etc).

I've used quite a few brands, some TDK, pansonic dvc, regular maxell & sony consumerables. I try to keep panny pq and mq in my deck. So far no problems though, no dropouts, no garbled audio etc. We'll see what happens when projects become more demanding though.

Lucas did it, didn't the first star wars (ep 4) have a budget of only 13 mil? (And wasn't most of that to pay alec guinness?)

According to Apple's article (http://www.apple.com/pro/film/coon/) the movie was made for $400,000 and sold for $3.2 million. Apparently the money came from more than one private investor- the producers basically sold "shares" of the movie to fund it. Do you think they'll make a sequel?

I guess it's time for my turn. I was on the set of a student film and we were in a motel room for a shoot. There was a guy and a girl and the girl had just taken her shower, so she was in a towel. I was the mic guy, so I had to head into the bathroom with her while she said her lines. Not much of a story, but again, unusual circumstances... oh yeah, the door to the bathroom wouldn't open if you had the toilet seat down- found that out the hard way.

I agree, I remember not too long ago, just getting Maya or 3d Studio software cost like $3000. I guess it can still be that expensive, but considering what kind of bang you need for the buck, the price to product ratio is way down. I've also seen a lot of miniatures and puppets that really suck, it's not a matter of using one over the other, it's a matter of using them well.

I agree that dependence on special effects CAN lessen with experience, but on the other hand, like George Lucas, once you go down the dark path of bluescreen sets, it's hard to turn back. I'm not sure you could catch every bit of CG in any given movie you might watch. Matte and forced perspective are probably used more than most of us realize. I personally thought that the camera trickery used in LOTR was good. It was a little discombobulating however, when Frodo and Bilbo seemed to change size in relation to Gandalf due to inconsistent framing.

Yeah, I've also heard they're going to make big over-produced hollywood versions of The Chronicles of Narnia and Willy Wonka. I guess it is a matter of business, I can hear the big hollywood execs saying "Fire all the writers! We don't need them anymore!"

Votes for Annie! Seriously though, a very disturbing trend in the movie world today is remakes of relatively popular movies made not too long ago. First, it was the parent trap, then freaky friday, then godzilla, now we've hit a low spot remaking movies that were meant to be campy- thus increasing our campiness and lowering our standards for "good" filmmaking. This mostly seems to be written by a team of people that write raunchy teen comedies and "friends", relying on physical gags and worthless one liners to get an audience into the theater. Besides the fact that there are more stars in it that you can shake a stick at- it's got the same formula as "Shark Tale" except with live action. The sad thing is that my dad will probably want to go see it because he likes both steve martin and peter sellers.