The President s Report

Transcription

1 Scanlines Where art and technology meet Journal of BRISBANE MOVIE MAKERS August 2016 The President s Report July has been a busy month for the club and I am delighted to hear of the progress on Edith s Choice and Woodhill Rural Fire Service projects that has been made. Edith s Choice is now in post-production and the final shooting is taking place on the Woodhill Project. It is a nail-biting time as the creative spirit is applied to the production teams hard work. We are looking to showcase both movies on 6 th October at the club rooms in Toowong and then give them another airing on Saturday 15 th when we get together with clubs from the Gold Coast and Darling Downs. Please do put these dates in your diaries! The Ugg Cup has gone from strength to strength with five entries in July. The competition was fierce. Jan Gordon walked away with the trophy for the month and I am sure that the Cup will take pride-of-place in the Gordon household for another month! I am delighted to announce that we will be introducing an annual competition for an original short movie. The winner will receive the John Roberts Memorial Trophy to adorn their home for one year. This Trophy has been kindly donated by Gwenneth Roberts in memory of her late husband John. So please do put together a movie for judging at the Christmas get-together more details will be shared at club meetings. On another note, Catherine Cox has been doing a fantastic job running workshops on the Promotional Video project. It has been fantastic seeing the club s creativity come together. Catherine is now in the unenviable position of turning the creativity into something that can be produced! Go Catherine - you have our full support! I will finish by mentioning that Council will be opening submissions for their Creative Sparks Program in September. This Program provides grants for creative projects within a community context of up to $20,000. Previous projects included theatre shows, a film festival and arts shows. This could be an opportunity for the Club to take on a larger project. I invite you to share your thoughts and ideas with members of the committee.

2 Editorial Er Hello. The sun is shining, winter is on the way out. All is sort of well with the world. And I have been walking for a week or two. I must apologise for the recent lack of Scanlines. I was completely unprepared for what transpired. There I was, car all packed to join the crew of Edith s Choice when I went to the local Doctor for a 10 minute minor op. That simple visit soon escalated into a week in hospital followed by five weeks with my leg stuck up in the air. Let me assure you, there is little more inconvenient than this. All the work I planned to catch up on during my enforced rest fell by the wayside. It proved impossible even to use the laptop. Boring, boring, boring! Did I learn anything from my experience? Yes, first, we never know what lies in store for us more than a second ahead so we should spend every moment in peace and harmony with our fellow man (and woman). And two, no matter how miserable I felt lying in hospital, it took little more than a glance around to realise that many, many others were far worse off than I was! So, what has happened? Lots. The big news, a couple of months ago, was the sale of the Vegas collection (Vegas, Sound Forge, Acid et al) by Sony Creative Software to Magix in Berlin. Now Vegas, for the past couple of years or more has been in the doldrums. It was as though it had been abandoned by Sony who seemed to be pushing all the resources into developing their new editor, Catalyst. This is an editor more suited to the emerging commercial workflow, part of the digital revolution that is sweeping that part of the business. Where was Vegas 14? Where were all the free upgrades that were once so common? Where, indeed, was the regular factory presence on the forum, giving advice, solving problems and just being a reassurance to users that big-brother was looking after them? Gone, all gone it seemed. So, when the announcement came, the mood on the Vegas forum was one of jubilation and relief. More so, when Magix purchased not only the software, but the remaining Vegas developers who had stuck with it since Sonic Foundry first transformed it from an audio editor in the early nineties. Gary Rebholz, the former training manager, has been put in charge of the small but enthusiastic development team with the stated objective of having a release of Vegas 14 ready for our Spring. They are even keeping their small, white building in Wisconsin where they have been since the beginning. Reportedly, when asked what he thought about the sale, one of the team said, It s like a breath of fresh air! It seems being owned by Sony was not the wonderland expected Magix, who make a respectable range of editors and video tools themselves, have indicated they intend to restore Vegas to the forefront of popular editors. Time will tell. Onward and upward Red, the camera manufacturer, has released an 8K model. I have seen some try-out shots and it looks very nice as it should. I am resisting buying one, because I m not convinced I need one. After all, the vast majority of our TV material is SD, big-time movies are still being released in 2K, it s hard to see the quality improvement unless one has a TV the size of a wall and a shed full of hard-drives should be able to handle the editing. I don t have the shed. By the time I can make use of 8K, they should be selling 24K. But, High Dynamic Range. That should becoming soon. And that should be a worthwhile improvement. In the meantime, we shall stick with our little Pangoo Chinese receiver which we purchased some 15 years ago (I can t quite remember) as a cheap, temporary replacement for our 4:3 Panasonic CRT receiver. It has never missed a beat.

3 Traveller's Tales An American decided to write a book about famous churches around the world. So he bought a plane ticket and took a trip to Orlando, thinking that he would start by working his way across the USA from south to north. On his first day he was inside a church taking photographs when he noticed a golden telephone mounted on the wall with a sign that read $10,000 per call. The American, being intrigued, asked a priest who was strolling by what the telephone was used for. The priest replied, It s a direct line to Heaven, for $10,000 you can talk to God. The American thanked the priest and went on his way. Next stop: Atlanta. There, at a very large cathedral, he saw the same golden telephone with the same sign beneath. He wondered if this was the same kind of telephone he saw in Orlando, so he asked a nearby nun about the phone s purpose. She told him that it was a direct line to Heaven, and that for $10,000 he could talk to God. Okay, thank you, said the American. He then travelled to Indianapolis, Washington DC, Philadelphia, Boston and New York. In every church he saw the same golden telephone with the same $10,000 per call sign underneath. Upon leaving Vermont, the American decided to travel to Australia to see if they had the same phone. He arrived in Australia, and again, in the first church he entered, there was the same golden telephone, but this time the sign under it read 40 cents per call. The American was taken aback. Father, I ve travelled all over America and I've seen this same golden telephone in many churches. I'm told that it is a direct line to Heaven, but in the US the price was $10,000 per call. Why is it so cheap here? he asked the priest. The priest smiled and answered, You're in Australia now, mate it's a local call. Col & Joy Snail with an attitude A guy is sitting at home when he hears a knock at the door. He opens the door and sees a snail on the porch. He picks up the snail and throws it as far as he can. Three years later there s a knock on the door. He opens it and sees the same snail. The snail says: What the hell was that all about?

4 Every boy s dream - Fireman for a day Stewart sent this item for the June edition. Due to my absence it did not appear then. But because it s so good and because it s still ongoing, here it is at last! Some time ago, club member Brian suggested we should look around at various local activities to see if there was a possible subject for a movie production. When Brian had a look at one possibility, the Woodhill Rural Fire Brigade, it didn t exactly jump out but after he spoke to the management there it became decidedly possible. The idea of a shooting exercise for our members and some publicity for the Brigade appealed to everyone It was suggested that a fire clearing exercise by them would be a good start. We were told we should be at the Woodhill station last Saturday and we could film them in action. It was only when we got there, (Don Jones and Stewart Gordon) that we discovered we were to be kitted out in full fire fighting kit and they had even made up a couple of helmets with big Media labels on them. That way we wouldn t be mistaken for someone who really knew what fire fighting was all about. Once kitted out we followed the fire truck via Beaudesert to Mt Tambourine and our destination at the show grounds. What we thought was just some local activity for them to exercise and us to film now turned into a full blown fire clearing activity with fire crews from all over the Southern area and a planned burn off after many years of a large area of the North Western slopes of Tambourine Mt. We were embedded with the Woodhill crew ad after plenty of team leader briefing each group was assigned a role and an area to manage. Then for the next four hours Don an I followed the team all over very steep slopes of dead vegetation and dust filming fire and smoke and the hose teams who are there to make sure its all in control. We left at about 2pm to go back to our cars and then home but the teams were there for 3 days to clear the area of dangerous fuel that had been accumulating for many years. Brian has also arranged that we film the Brigades other local activities including a nearby school Billy Cart Derby some time in July. We ll keep you posted over the next few months BMM Team, Brian, Stewart, Don.

5 Now, isn't that just a lot more interesting than sitting at home feeding the chooks? It shows what worthwhile and rewarding activities members can become involved in by taking advantage of club projects. Since then, there has been another day in this project with a huge turnout for billy-cart races. Yes, you read correctly! For the shooting of which, by the way, Jan won the Ugg trophy. And, there s more to come. Jumping ship... As many of you know, I have long been an advocate of Vegas as an editor. Ever since, in fact, I abandoned Premier in frustration when I found it constantly crashing (about every 5 minutes!) and quite unable to do what I needed to do. This was at version 3 of Vegas. I found it very intuitive and very capable and have long been grateful for its compositing capabilities, its audio (it was an audio editor) and its friendly, helpful factory interface, among much else. Years pass, and some five years ago I was fortunate to acquire the perfect camera. Well, almost. It was a Panasonic AF-100 which we sneaked in on about the last day of an introductory discount. At the price, it was too much to resist. There is one shortcoming though, which has always puzzled me. Although it offers almost every professional feature one could wish for, its output formats stop at AVCHD albeit at a higher quality point than usual. It s almost as though Panasonic was unsure of just which market they were aiming for. Any way, all went well through the days of HD and until the whole moviemaking scene began its current shift towards emphasis on LOG and RAW shooting and post-production colour grading and the sudden (free) availability of high-level compositing programs like Fusion. The world had suffered a seismic shift! This new world, with quality and post facilities never available before, caused me to look again at my maturing camera. I wanted the new benefits, but there was no camera available for a reasonable price. 4K was not essential as any necessary benefits were years away. Even Hollywood theatre releases are still in 2K and TV transmissions are 99% SD. My camera did have one other little quirk. As well as the in-camera recorded AVCHD, there was an HD-SDI output. Useful for feeding monitors and what-have-you, but what else? While the in-camera recording was AVCHD 8bit, the HD-SDI output was uncompressed 10bit. A quick word about AVCHD recording. This is a long GOP (group of pictures) format. That is, heavily compressed. I have read that my camera uses an 80 GOP, but I m not sure if this is correct. What this would mean is that out of every 80 frames, one is a full frame (an I frame) and pixel patterns are compared from this frame to the one before and after. If the patterns are similar, this detail does not need to be recorded. This process proceeds over the specified group-of-pictures and can result in vast amounts of data being discarded. Good for storage but not for editing, as all of this lost data needs to be re-constituted. Editors don t like this. The other problem is the 8-bit (per red, green and blue channel) colour information. This limits the amount of colour data available for editing/colour correcting, etc., and frequently results in colour banding in the output unless great care is taken. This is why the HD-SDI output was so interesting. There exists, courtesy of Melbourne company Atomos, a range of small monitor/recorders. These are fine little monitors, but the big plus is their recording capability. And, they record not AVCHD, but professional formats PRO-Res and DNxHD. These are very low compression, 10 bit formats, specifically designed for editing. And, they listed the AF-100 as a supported camera. When I checked their website I balked a little at the price and they were in the process of releasing new models. For the one I was interested in there was a note to the effect, some remaining stocks - check with resellers. I did a quick ring-around town. No, no, not us. Except my old refuge, Dragon Image. Well, no remaining stock, but we do have one on display. You could have that, pretty cheap. She was right. A quick drive to town and she had found all of the

6 boxes and bits and my birthday and Christmas presents were fixed for another year. I have to say, I m impressed by the little Atomos, both as a monitor and as a recorder. It interfaces perfectly with the camera and records a variety of PRO-Res and DNxHD files. The camera HD-SDI feed is tapped off before any processing takes place which avoids all the recording difficulties. The one downside is that the file-sizes are considerably larger (in a couple of cases, hugely larger) but that s because they contain so much more detail. Another good thing is that Atomos have, in the past few days, offered a free firmware upgrade that brings my monitor up to the level of the new model. What a good idea! So far, so good. To be continued. Edith s Choice Seeing as I was elsewhere for 99% of this shoot, it was very encouraging to hear how successful it has been. Col has borne the brunt of organising locations and cast for the opus and it was very pleasing to hear how many members responded to the call to assist in very many ways. What an encouragement for future shoots if members are prepared to donate their time, effort and skills to ensure a good outcome. Well done, everyone. There have, of course, been whispers in corners about flooding posh hotels with bubbly and drone landings on roofs, but only those that were there know the truth. All the material is now in the hands of the editor and I believe there has been some fruitful discussion between she and the director that should see a very good product emerge. All should be revealed on October 6 with a first showing at the meeting. Be there, or miss a great event. Just by the way, it should be no great secret that the committee is on the lookout for a script for a future project. If you have one, can get one, know someone who can provide one or just have an idea for a story, let the committee have it. It does not even need to be fully developed, so don t be shy. Go to the website and you will find a little widget to allow you to send it. It works and you even get a polite acknowledgment. Next Meeting August 18 Not sure what s on? Who is presenting? Well, to remind us all, here it is. The presentation this night will be, All about Drones by a man who has raised one from a hatchling. Red Baron dress-ups are optional but BYO crash helmet. In all seriousness, these gadgets have had a great impact on movie-making from many aspects by literally freeing the camera from its anchors. It gives one the freedom to use shots that would previously have required a helicopter and a large gimbal mount. It was to have been a side-by-side comparison, but the damned chopper would not fit through the door. It would not have managed much altitude in the hall, anyway. Next month s Ugg subjects Gadgets and Fashion.