VideoCopilot has uploaded another great free After Effects tutorial, this instructional video walks you through simulating a dolly move through a car side window. Andrew does a really nice job covering every step along the way, from motion tracking the footage to creating an extremely realistic car window complete with reflections and sky color gradients. Very informative.

The hands-on Part 3 segment of FreshDV’s Art of Pulling Focus series that we created with First A/C Bob Sanchez is now also available as a 720p HD video clip. We are sharing a 450MB ZIP archive which contains the full 15-minute H.264 Quicktime video at 1280×1440 resolution (two 720p HD clips stacked vertically). Simply download, unzip, and enjoy! You can download the video here (look for the update near the bottom).

Create Digital Motion has some super slo-mo example footage up, it was shot with the Smooth Slow Record function that is available on newer Sony HDV camcorders.

“With the last batch of slow-mo clips I had some requests to further slow down the motion in post-processing. I don’t currently have any 3rd party retiming plugins, but it turns out that the 200FPS (240 for NTSC regions) is shot interlaced, so my previous tests were only displaying 100FPS progressive. To get the full motion from 200FPS on a progressive monitor I needed to slow the footage to 50% speed and de-interlace, a trivial task in any editor.

Even this low-tech retiming gives you an idea of how powerful 200FPS can be. I actually had an ND filter in place to keep the shutter speed relatively low and keep a bit of a dreamy look for this shoot (the minimum allowed, of course, being faster than 1/200). With full sunlight you’d have no trouble getting up past 1/1000, which would result in very little motion blur and allow very accurate motion tracking, and some exciting retiming opportunities.”

They also address the issue of the resolution hit that you take in the slow-motion mode, and have shared a few full-res framegrabs to illustrate this. I should note that it is clear from those frames that the footage doesn’t really have the detail to be useful beyond SD resolutions, but looks quite nice when downscaled.

VIA YAHOO:
By MAY WONG, AP Technology Writer 54 minutes ago

SAN JOSE, Calif. - In an apparent about-face, Apple Inc. will allow third-party applications to work directly on the iPhone, Chief Executive Steve Jobs said in a posting on the company’s Web site Wednesday.

Apple infuriated developers and some iPhone users when it issued a software update Sept. 27 that disabled unofficial programs installed on the handsets.

Until Wednesday, Apple had tried to control which applications consumers had on their iPhones.

Now, Jobs said the company intends to release a software development kit in February that will let coders create applications to work directly on the iPhone and the iPod Touch. The Touch is the new iPod portable player that resembles the iPhone but lacks the function of a cell phone.

“We are excited about creating a vibrant third-party developer community around the iPhone and enabling hundreds of new applications for our users,” Jobs said in the posting.

It is easy to find many unofficial programs for the iPhone on the Internet; users just had to take the risk of installing them, knowing that any damage to the iPhone stemming from unofficial programs was not covered by Apple’s warranty.

“I’m thrilled,” said Erica Sadun, a Denver computer programmer. “I hope it is exactly as they say, full third-party development.”
Continue reading ‘Apple Accept 3rd Party Apps for iPhone!!’

Sarah Landon and the Paranormal Hour is new a feature film slated for limited release this weekend. It was shot with the HVX200 and Redrock Micro M2 35mm Adapter. More info and a trailer at the Sarah Landon movie website, and I’m sure we’ll see reviews soon at RT. I find it exciting to see affordable tools used in features that see theatrical release…it is truly a great time to be a independent filmmaker.

This is sort of offtopic…it’s a very interesting and funny list of the most outrageous ripoff “audiophile” products. Things like the $417 Furutech RD-2 Optical Media Demagnitizer, Cable Elevators Plus which protect your speaker wires from the horrors of carpet, and of course a nice set of OPUS MM Speaker Cables to the tune of $30,750.00. This is also a good time to mention that the James Randi Foundation is offering 1 Million dollars to anyone who can tell the audio difference between common audio cables and a $7,250 “Anjouâ€? pair. UPDATE: A journalist has accepted the $1Mil audio test challenge. We shall see if there is really is an advantage to using the Anjou cables.
Another UPDATE…Pear Cables has withdrawn their support of the test, and will not loan the journalist a pair of $7250 Anjou cables, as they initially said they would. JREF has all the details on this.

In a Microfilmmaker Magazine feature aptly entitled “Fund-Raising For Your Micro-Budget Film”, authors John Gaspard and Dale Newton cover the process and legalities of courting investors, getting grant money, calling in favors, and other ways of raising funds for your film budget. On a similar note, I also recommend reading The DV Rebel’s Guide.

EXCERPT:

Of course, there are moments during the money-raising process that may cause you to feel panic or even desperation. During these moments, you may feel as though you would do anything for money. Anything. There are a few situations that do not qualify in the strictest sense as found money, and we recommend that you don’t succumb to these temptations when money gets tight:

* Your distant, ailing aunt asks for a second opinion, and you arrange an appointment for her with Dr. Kevorkian.

* You accidentally place your younger brother’s kidney up for auction on eBay.

* You enter a convenience store wearing a ski mask and carrying a prop pistol, and the goofy night clerk inadvertently gives you all the money in the safe.

(Via Camcorderinfo)

Thats right folks tonight at 9:30pm CST again we’ll be discussing a variety of topics and we want to chat with you so stand by and be ready to call in you can tune by simply visiting our FreshTV page. You can email any questions you may have in advance to: Kendal@FreshDV.com

VIA APPLE.COM

Packed with more than 300 new features, Mac OS X Leopard goes on sale Friday, October 26, at 6:00 p.m. at Apple’s retail stores and Apple Authorized Resellers, Apple announced today. And, beginning today, customers can place pre-orders on Apple’s online store. “Leopard, the sixth major release of Mac OS X, is the best upgrade we’ve ever released,� said Steve Jobs, Apple’s CEO. “And everyone gets the ‘Ultimate’ version, packed with all the new innovative features, for just $129.�

ProLost’s Rebel Cafe has two new Indie-tastic tutorials for those with a do-it-yourself bent. For about thirty dollars each you can build a DIY Flag for controlling light spill, and a DIY Century Stand (with folding legs) for holding your shiny new DIY flag…or basically anything. The instructions are pretty simple, material and shopping lists are already created for you, and of course there are a healthy helping of example pictures. So if you can’t rent ‘em and are too cheap to buy the real deal, get building!

The recent 6.0.1 FCP software updated adds AVCHD ingest support via the Log and Transfer interface. However, there are a few caveats; it’s only available on Intel Macs, Standard-def AVCHD sources cannot be captured, and the footage must be transcoded into either AIC or ProRes for editing. There also appear to be a few scrubbing related bugs and in/out point wonkiness. So while it feels a bit incomplete, at least there is a supported option for AVCHD users. Read on for details on what is or is not supported. Continue reading ‘Final Cut Pro 6.0.1 Update Adds AVCHD Support’

From Imagineer Systems Press Release. Finally an affordable planar tracking solution integrated directly into After Effects at the low price of $299. All that remains to be seen is how the performancce will stack up against other solutions.

GUILDFORD, UK (October 16, 2007) Imagineer Systems (www.imagineersystems.com), creators of next-generation VFX tools, today announced mocha-AE, a powerful, affordable new planar tracking tool developed specifically for Adobe After Effects artists and modelled after the Company’s recently released standalone tracking solution, mocha.

mocha-AE is a stand alone 2D tracking tool for the After Effects community based on Imagineer Systems’ unique 2.5D Planar Tracking technology. mocha-AE helps solve problematic shots that traditionally challenge point based trackers, such as footage with objects moving out of frame, lack of detail, motion blur and heavy grain. This helps the artist to generate solid tracks, giving position, scale, rotation, shear and perspective matched tracks and exporting the data to After Effects in less time.

Continue reading ‘Imagineer Announces Planar Tracking Solution for AE’

Here is a simple tip that will save you time in the field and lengthen the life of your cords and cables. It’s a way of looping up your cables in a Over/Under coiling pattern. You basically alternate the twist in each loop as you add each coil to the loop. But the process really is better explained by seeing it in action. So here is a short demonstration video by location sound man Chris Babbie, who walks you through the process and explains different variations of the over/under coiling technique. You can read more on this topic over at the IEBA blog.

Anthony Burokas has posted a VERY detailed feature and design comparison between the Panasonic DVC 60 and the newly announced Sony HD1000U HDV camcorder. He draws some interesting parallels as he obsessively covers each feature and component of the cameras. Here is a very short snippet.

“Looking at Sony’s latest HD1000u on-shoulder camcorder and comparing it to Panasonic’s long-time AG-DVC60 and DVC20 on-shoulder prosumer camcorders, it’s clear where Sony’s inspiration came from. Both shoot on MiniDV tape. Both look more professional than they are. Both offer a stereo microphone, integrated lens, XLR audio input and plenty of space to stick on wireless microphones and other important production gear. Both only have one ring on the lens. But even though the panasonic clearly offers more direct access to control the capabilities of the camcorder, the key difference here is that Sony has taken the design and updated it for HD.”

You can read the entire article at Anthony’s IEBA blog.

Here’s another great link compliments of Film Flap. The editorial called “Wounds of a Friend” talks about the ways that people react to constructive criticism of their film and video projects, and how to gracefully handle that feedback when you are the filmmaker in that situation. Nobody likes being told they are wrong, to be certain. But learning to separate yourself from the material enough to learn from the (sometimes painful) feedback may result in a much improved final piece.