December 2010

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November 2010

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October 2010

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September 2010

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July 2010

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May 2010

Special Effects and Animation in Television Production

This month’s meeting was held at the La Jolla offices of Shilo, an Emmy Award-winning creative production company, representing a group of filmmakers led by directors Jose Gomez and Andre Stringer. The evening started with networking and great food from La Salsa, with plenty to go around.

Rich Ford started things off with an engrossing presentation on what can be accomplished using only your NLE system to create special effects and animation. It’s surprising what can be done with a little knowledge of the included features and filters. Next, Dave Schweitzer took us through the creation of exploding titles in After Effects and Motion. With a little practice, impressive sequences can be executed.

The evening concluded with a fascinating presentation by Tom Green of Shilo, who dissected the production workflow of a national spot they did for Scion automobiles, showing the development from rough sketches all the way to a completed and nothing short of incredible video sequence. Everyone could feel the energy and creative juices flowing from the crowd, with many in tha audience anxious to try out some of what they learned in their own productions.

Special thanks to our presenters - they helped make this meeting possible:

May Meeting Images

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April 2010

Gizmos You Don't Leave Home Without And NAB Wrap-Up

Gizmos…toys…gotta have it…and NAB was just the place to find it! Unfortunately, many people weren’t able to go, so we brought some of it back just for you! With presentations from JVC, Panasonic, ProMax, and Sony, and equipment displayed from Video Gear and Broadcast Rentals, and an assortment of good food, and the use of Phil Ferrari’s Ferrari Productions Studio, we were treated to our own “mini NAB” show. For those of us that use Windows, Eric Addison showed us that Final Cut is not the only way to go with his presentation of Adobe’s new CS5 suite.  

We also had lots of cool giveaways, including Petrol Bags, Audio Technica headphones, and Kata backpacks,  provided by Martin Banks, owner of Video Gear! As in previous years, Brendan Wood, owner and engineer of Empire State Filters in New York, again donated four of his hand-made hum eliminator filters as door prizes. Yes, he still makes them right here in the USA!

 **SPECIAL OFFER**

 If you purchase Smoke on the Mac ($14,995.00) then you get the required NVIDIA Quadro FX 4800 Graphics card ($1,799.00) absolutely free.  This offer is valid for MCA-I members until Friday, May 21st.  Anyone interested can email Tyler Berry and he will give them all the details they need.

 Visit our vendors – they helped make this meeting possible:

JVC

Panasonic

 ProMax

 Sony

 Empire State Filters

 Video Gear

 Broadcast Rentals

Ferrari Productions

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March 2010

Bring Your Video Production Website to Life and
Attract The Ideal Clients with Social Media

The program was presented by speakers Frank Mutascio, Terry Crosby and Phillip A. Tanzilo. The speakers used powerpoint presentations showing the latest internet trends at this informative event held at the Groovy Like A Movie studio in San Diego.

The meeting was attended by approximately 60 media professionals. Frank Mutascio presented new ways to use video on your website to introduce, sell and bring your website to life. Frank's talk also covered the benefit of using video blogs to increase your organic search engine results. Phillip A. Tanzilo and Terry Crosby focused on how to use social media to attract the ideal clients. They explained how social media can be used to support your marketing efforts.  They also demystified the hidden value of Twitter and shared free tools and tips so you can develop simple strategies that work.

The meeting wrapped up with Phillip and Terry answering questions on social media best practices.  Video Gear, Saska's, and Broadcast Rentals provided equipment and door prizes.  Thanks to our speakers, host, and sponsors!

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February 2010

The first-ever San Diego MEDIA PRO CAMP was presented Saturday Feb 6th by the San Diego chapter of the MCA-I. This informative, interactive event was held at the Art Institute of California, San Diego .

MediaProCamp, an all-day gathering of media professionals, was attended by approximately 60 media professionals and students. The event was a full day of open-series roundtable discussions on any subject the participants chose--with multiple breakout sessions every 45 minutes. Discussion topics were chosen from a variety proposed by participants. Topics ranged from Social Networking topics to technical production issues such as Red production workflow and field production audio, to demo reels and video distribution.

The event wrapped up with a keynote by Philip Hodgetts . Philip, creator of the Digital Production Buzz, author of The New Now and HD Survival Handbook 2009-2010, gave a very informative talk on "Growing an Audience for your Independent Production."

We owe a big thank you to our sponsors:

for our raffle prizes and equipment display, and especially

The Art Institute of California, San Diego

for hosting the event and providing coffee and danish for all participants.

The event was very successful and plans are to make this an annual event.

2010 Media Pro Camp Images

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January 2010

Music Scoring and Soundtracking with Larry Groupé

Click here to download a self extracting audio recording of this meeting, provided by James Alburger

          About 40 of us, including a group of multi-media students from Platt College, gathered in Studio A at KPBS to cover the topic of music for the first time in years.  We reviewed all the options, from cheapest to best:

          The feeling of the group seemed to be that usually we're stuck at the cheaper end of the spectrum, which does the job, but rarely makes our projects soar.  Custom scores are what we all aspire to.

          Most notably, Larry wrote the score for The Contender starring Joan Allen, Gary Oldman and Jeff Bridges, a highly regarded political drama that received multiple Academy Award nominations. Other feature film credits include Resurrecting the Champ, starring Samuel L. Jackson and Josh Hartnett, and Nothing But the Truth, with Kate Beckinsale and Matt Dillon. Larry's latest projects are a remake of Straw Dogs, with James Marsden and Kate Bosworth, and the Monopoly documentary, Under the Boardwalk.

          Larry showed many examples of what a score can add to a scene, and discussed how to work with a composer and a music supervisor.  Among many other topics, he outlined the process of scoring a feature, how he works with producers and directors, and the typical budget for a feature score (1-3% of the total budget).

          Before the program, about 20 people toured the deluxe production facilities at KPBS.

          Many thanks to the folks at KPBS for hosting so gratiously, as well as donating several door prizes.  Other door prizes were donated by Larry Groupé and Hibiscus Real Estate.

          We also had our prize drawing for those who completed our online planning survey.  Winning the $100 gift certificate from Video Gear was Brad Olander - congrats, Brad!

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