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Annual Holiday Party December 2003 About 30 people gathered for holiday cheer at the now-annual Holiday Happy Hour at Dave & Busters on 12/11/03. Everyone had lots of free food and beverages, and all chapter members received free gaming cards. As usual, a good time was had by all! Breaking The Myths And Understanding Some Of The Lighting Process Over 60 people gathered at the San Diego Production Centre (www.sdpcentre.com) for an informative meeting on lighting. Production Centre partner TV Magic (www.tvmagic.tv) provided snacks, and Digital Outpost, Jan Baxter with AdGap/Newton, and Panasonic provided door prizes. Shooting in High Definition KPBS, on Montezuma Mesa, hosted October's MCA-I meeting. Thanks to KPBS, Val Reynolds and Dhanendra Patel of Sony, Broadcast Rentals and Convoy Audio-Video, HD night in San Diego was an informative success.
August 2003 Meeting
About 45 people gathered in the beautiful new Mission Valley branch library to hear Kris Koch, DVD Trainer from Sonic, give us a special crash course on Sonic DVD Producer and ReelDVD, as well as answer questions about other Sonic products and DVD authoring in general.
Door prizes were provided by Sonic, Time Warner Cable, and the Creative Directory. Below are highlights from Kris Koch’s powerpoint presentation. • Two basic types of DVD authoring professionals…• Highly technical and highly creative • Both want professional DVD authoring capabilities • But want to achieve results differently…
Sonic Expands DVD with OpenDVD™ DVD Compatibility SD-500 Video Encoder SD-1000 and 2000 Video Encoders July 2003
June 2003
June’s meeting was the largest attendance we’ve had to date, almost 70 people! JM Digitalworks, our host, put on the spread and red carpet treatment. Ken Kebow and his staff pulled out the stops and welcomed our group with open arms. Thanks to JM and Broadcast Rentals for their donations of door prizes
Mike Kurtz our first presenter spoke about better planning in the beginning to manage a production. In the early stages of a production changes can be handled without a major cost and expectations can be better addressed. Once the production begins, he suggested to keep your eyes open for the natural shots that are available to add to the overall production value of the project. Be creative and take the effort to try new, unusual and different ways of shooting. Keep the camera moving, literally, move the camera about along with the subject. “Warm cards”, can be used to warm up faces. Blue cards tend to add more warmth to a normally washed out subject. Mike specializes in time lapse video and showed how just a bit of this style of footage can greatly improve and emphasize your project. Next up, Mark Nelson spoke about interview techniques and how to spruce up trade show pieces. Sound being difficult, he suggested to use external microphones for the interviews and also use natural sounds to give the feel of the show. In his productions he takes standard interlaced 60 frame video and changes it to non-interlaced 30 frame to accomplish a softer look. He also uses lighting and techniques for interviews to give them a softer look when ever possible. The key to great trade show footage is to over shoot because you never know when you’ll get the truly expressive shots. Ken Kebow our host spoke about what he looks for when hiring independent producers and crew. Outside people should not only have the technical skills, but also should have good people skills. Being able to work well with people and bring the best out of them is very important in making the end product what is expected by the client. Knowledge of the project is most important to its success. Keeping good time code notes is the key to make the editing process flow smoothly. Break down the shoot with the client so that they know what to expect when the crew show up. Be sure there is enough staff on the shoot to handle the complexities of the day. Finally our own Vice President, Mark Schulze, spoke about shooting with a “green screen”. He suggested a green screen over a blue screen because more people wear blue than green clothing. Keep the subject 7 to 10 feet in front of the screen in order to avoid spill onto the subject. The use of an inexpensive light meter will assist in attaining even light across the screen. Usually a half stop to a full stop hotter on the screen than the subject. Q&A was fielded from the attendees and many had good tips to share with the group. Next month’s meeting is a party! It is time for our annual beach party at Crown Point. It’s a good time to let your hair down, enjoy good food and games and network with your peers. Be sure to RSVP early so we can have all the fixins there for you! May 2003 Nearly 50 people crowded into the Time Warner Cable Public Access studio, Channel 19. Our social hour was spent sampling the delicious fare presented by Stephanie Emerson of “Essentially Stephanie”, an all occasion catering company. Stephanie was this month’s Vendor’s Corner and is available to cater an upcoming shoot or business meeting - (619/218-3658). The food was outstanding -- everything homemade and creatively displayed. Carol Paddyfoot, the Production Supervisor for the studio briefed us on the free facilities for producers wishing to create non-commercial programming. Ritchie MacAlaguim gave us an overview of Time Warner Cable’s Road Runner Internet access and provided us with the high speed connection we used during the meeting.
Starting off the main part of the presentation was Tim Napoleon of VitalStream (vitalstream.com), a company that provides services for broadcasting audio and video content and other communications over the Internet. Three ways to get your content delivered via the Internet: 1. Posting & downloading - Initially the only method of delivering video to an internet viewer was by making small video files available which could be downloaded to a local PC or Mac, normally a very time consuming process. Once the file had been completely downloaded, a standard player could be used to actually open and view the resulting files. 2. Progressive downloading (or "http streaming"), helped to reduce the waiting time by allowing users to start to play the video before the entire file had been saved to a temporary folder on the local computer. The most common use for this type is movie trailers or short production demos. 3. Within the last year or so "true streaming" video is starting to catch on, allowing users to play back a video from a "streaming server.” This is what VitalStream does. True streaming is the process of sending media over a network for viewing in real time and functions more or less as the web version of a TV or radio broadcast, i.e. users can turn it on or off and switch to another channel. Streams can originate from a live source, such as a video camera, a webcast, or an audio feed from a radio station, or the source can be a compressed movie stored on the server. In any case, you aren’t downloading a file when you stream ("true stream") a movie. The data is simply being displayed as it arrives by the designated software and in any one of three players, Windows Media, RealMedia, QuickTime. No copy remains on the viewer’s hard disk. How are these three formats different? QuickTime and Windows Media Player both allow easy support and pricing of streaming services through ISP’s like Vitalstream, while Real Media is difficult because of the proprietary conditions establishing their use fees. Is there an industry standard? Will there be? Though there is currently no standard defined for the delivery of streaming media on the Internet, there is an effort going on to define one within the IETF: The Real Time Streaming Protocol (RTSP). For additional references please visit: For additional information on streaming, visit: http://www.terena.nl/tech/projects/approved/proposal4.htm Our second presenter of the evening was our web site host Dan Biggs, owner of Designed Internet Solutions – www.designedinternet.com. (Dan has been letting the organization camp on his servers now for several years at no cost, so please let him know that you appreciate his generosity.) Dan’s company has developed comprehensive website marketing solutions for his clients and was willing to share a few tricks of the trade with us. Here are a few of his tips. If not weekly, at least monthly, resubmit your website to search engines. This will put you higher in the search results when people are looking for services such as your own. Completely fill out meta tags including Title, Description and Keywords. Review the source code for your web site – (click “View” – “Source” to see it). You should see your current Meta Tags near the top of the page. • For description, Dan suggested using this format: <meta name="description" content=”then your description here”.> Pay attention to the copy on your pages. Spiders get a lot of information about your products/services when they are able to crawl page copy. Use alternate text for any images on your page and include key words and other content. The more informative and relevant (keyword-rich) the copy, the better chance you have to rank higher in search results. Links are a great way to get spiders to your website. Create and maintain the links by checking them regularly. (There are software programs that do link-checking automatically for you.) Checking your web hosts’ statistics page gives you a lot of information. Like where your hits are coming from and how many actual visits there are to your pages. Hits represent every file and image that were accessed (could be dozens on one page), so the visits number is the truer read. Dan also talked about software his company has that can track your website’s placement for individual search terms in various search engines and directories. To get great statistics about websites and browser usage, visit www.echoecho.com. To find out which websites get the most traffic, by category or subject, visit: http://www.alexa.com/ After the meeting, we were given a tour of the Time Warner facilities by Mark Peterson. We were shown the back room where the servers are located. Tim Griffen < www.tntdv.com>, (who wrote the technical part of this recap) was amazed by Time Warner’s ability to handle huge numbers of clients with each server. Mark also showed us Time Warner’s newly installed Movies-on-Demand set of servers that will be in direct competition with Hollywood and Blockbuster Video Rentals. What an impressive operation. April 2003 Annual NAB Wrap Up
NAB came to San Diego and Televideo was kind enough to host it. Our chapter's NAB wrap-up was an interesting look at some of the highlights of this year's show held in Las Vegas the week before. If you missed NAB, this meeting was an excellent way to see what you missed.
Brian Collins began the meeting with a short talk about some of the benefits of joining MCA-I. Befuddling some in the audience, his talk was verbatim from a brochure projected behind him. Afterward, he revealed he was using an ear prompter. Connie Terwilliger then mentioned a special deal MCA-I is offering for a limited time. Associate members can upgrade to national status for $80 and get a full year on national membership from the time they upgrade. The NAB portion of the meeting began with Steve Milley from Panasonic showing some of Panasonic's newest cameras and decks. Panasonic is coming out with a 1 gig SD memory flash card which can be inserted into a PCMCIA card, which in turn is inserted into the camera. One PCMCIA card will hold 4 of these flashes for 18 minutes of video. The camera will hold 5 cards. What this translates to is 0 moving parts, meaning durability and reliability in bad weather. Next, Val Reynolds from Sony showed some of their newest goodies: Susan Taylor from Studio Productions followed the Sony presentation with footage she shot at several NAB booths. She also discussed outfitting videoconferencing trucks. Craig Bentley wrapped up the meeting with brief descriptions of new offerings from Avid (Express Pro, Mojo, Nitris), Apple (Final Cut Pro 4, DVD Studio Pro), Media 100 (iHD), JVC (HD camera for $6K) and Pinnacle (Cinewave 4). Door prizes were provided by Televideo and Panasonic. March 2003
f you missed the March MCA-I meeting at Solar Turbines, you really missed out. Starting with Vendor's Corner, we had a short presentation from Michael Scott of Network Music. They not only provide music, but sound effects as well. He demonstrated how to use their Trakfinder CD to locate the appropriate music for your project. Trakfinder is also available on the internet at www.networkmusic.com. If you stop by their booth at NAB they will be giving away free trips and other prizes.
The next presentation was given by Henry Devries, president of Henry DeVries/Communications, college instructor, newspaper columnist and author of "Client Seduction," a marketing handbook. Using an organized and professional powerpoint demonstration, Devries says that expressions like the one in the movie"Field of Dreams, "If you build it they will come", are lousy business models.One has to create new clients using a system. And his company can make that system happen. Here is a quick summary of his talk. 3 SYSTEMS: LEAD GENERATION - HOW TO GET PEOPLE INTERESTED BEST PRACTICE #1: Marketing works when it demonstrates how to solve others' problems. BEST PRACTICE #2: Proprietary Moves Law of compensation Brochures can be a waste of money. They assert not demonstrate. They are boastful and go out of date by the time they hit the printer. Get a website and update it. Use PDF files. Have a design firm design it Create an Image Folder and use a toll-free # and web address on it. Clients gauge service by tangibles.Measure return on investment. Cost relates to cash flow. A new kiss principle Website Blunders Tactics There is no silver bullet, no panacea. Everything works a little. Referrals are important. Cold Calls POOR LEAD GENERATION TACTICS BETTER LEAD GENERATION TACTICS SECRET WEAPONS The last presentation was by Michael Jones (www.jonesgroup.com), who has been directing, producing and writing films and videos for over 30 years. Here is what Michael discussed: Marketing is everything seen or heard by your existing or potential clients: 2 types of audiences: Ways to get noticed Making Contact Be Clear about what you want Send a Follow-up Letter-it Be Businesslike I February 2003 Over 30 attendees heard meeting host
Our Vendor's Corner featured Jodi Bonenfant (jodi@accentsus.com) from Accents, who presented her services: script translation, subtitles, voice-overs, dubbing, localizing, formatting and interpreting. Because
Among Geof's topics were: Geof also shared two tips that were worth the price of admission by themselves: At the beginning of the meeting,
January 2003 Thanks to everyone who came out to our annual planning meeting. The
Meeting days will continue to be on the 4th Wednesday of the month. Mark your calendars now and then keep your eye on your e-mail for specifics. A list of meeting topics for the coming year will be posted shortly on the main web site. But for sure you can count on the annual NAB wrap up in April/May time frame, the August Beach Party and some sort of Holiday Happy Hour in December. After the planning portion of the meeting, we enjoyed a special After Effects presentation by expert Chris Karcher. Chris has worked with teams from the Discovery Channel, PBS, E! Entertainment, and many others. He has worked to create one of the first operational models for enhanced television: creating broadband internet and real-time interactive television programming. Here is an overview of his presentation (prepared by Dean Schanbaum, Multimedia Production Solutions). Time Re-mapping and time warping in After Effects Example and Chris showed some of his excellent work for Mercedes Benz and Direct TV (very cool stuff, very nice high-end work) Understanding the technique and The ability to smoothly ramp up and down the speed and velocity of any given video clip. (presently, a very hot technique) Setting up the project and Bring your video into After Effects in a full frame Quicktime movie. Rendering Considerations and A.E. renders the pre-comp quickly (seconds, not minutes) so don’t be afraid to try different looks within your video clip. Time re-mapping allows you to create very smooth slo-mo and quick Velocity changes for any video clip. Just like the big boys. Nice! Other Stuff Chris captures his video with a component Kona Video Card. It captures uncompressed video at a 10 bit rate. He suggested lots of plug-ins for AE. Shine, DFT Plug-ins and a shareware site AEFreemart.com
Tips for Animating Logos and lower third text. File Formats Best file format is an Illustrator /.eps format because it is vector based and can be scaled a thousand percent with getting jaggy edges. Second best is Photoshop .psd, but try to bring in all the layers separately for independent motion paths for each element. What to do if a digital file does not exist. Create your own with scanning or in Illustrator, stay vector based for the best results. F curves and Set function Curves and utilize AE motion curves whenever possible for smoother animations. Other tips: For D1 NTSC Keep playback of video in lower field dominance with alpha channel. You want your resolution size ready for NTSC delivery so keep it at 720 x 486 Rendered out with the animation codec (millions of colors +) Enable motion blur in AE to smooth the image as it glides through the motion path. Techniques for great blue- and green-screen composting in AE Editorial / Format Considerations First and foremost take the time to light it right, shoot it right and flag off reflective bounce lighting on the face of the talent. Smooth even light on the proper key color. Best format and Uncompressed video over 8 bit depth Levels and import your video into AE and select color key Examine the image for the amount of alpha channel you've created. Adjust tolerance to key out almost all of the green. Then switch to the spill suppressor to dial out any additional green with pixel by pixel accuracy. Next go to the matte choker to reduce and smooth any radical pixels remaining. Add some drop shadow to set your talent off the background image. For additional help with keying use what the pros use and Ultimatte and Primatte plug-ins for fine control over green screen and blue screen compositing. Understanding Quicktime formats and Alpha Channels Square vs. Nonsquare Pixels. Unfortunately pixels on your computer screen and your television screen do not match in format style. This is why you should adjust the output from AE or DV to NTSC by adjusting the resolution of your final output to tape. Compression The output should be set to 720 x 540 to get a true scale of image from computer image to NTSC image ready for broadcast. If you don't adjust the image, circular images will expand and present as ovals instead of rounds. Also, you should set the output format to animation compression for the best picture image quality. Alpha Channels When exporting your finished work, always export in setting And RGB - Millions + and colors . The + is the alpha channel. Without it, black areas in your images will become a black matte instead of being transparent when layering over other images. For the best results, create a small project that forces you through the learning curve. You’ll get great results. Links to more After Effects Information (provided by
Digital Media Net Forums http://www.dmnforums.com/htm/homeset.htm
http://www.sandiegocet.net/bit/north-cc/classes7.php • Would you be interested in holding an .Email your suggestions to: Communications@sdmca-i.org Meeting Recaps for: |
