At NAB 2010 we got a hot tip that O’Conner would be showing off a new studio follow focus system, so we checked it out. You can watch our coverage of that announcement in the video embedded below. Recently over at the Able Cine blog, Mitch Gross took a quick look at a pre-production model of the system as well. It looks to be a very strong offering, with extensive adjustability and mounting options. As Mitch notes, this is a really interesting offering in the $3500 high-end professional price range, which has basically been dominated by ARRI. They are taking pre-orders here.

FreshDV’s NAB 2010 coverage of O’Conner:
freshdv_nab10_connor_adobe_pre

The Filmmakers Intensive is an upcoming intensive two-week long program that looks to be an amazing training opportunity for filmmakers and anyone that wants to take their productions to the next level. Instructors include Jem Schofield, Larry Silverberg, Philip Bloom, Skipp Sudduth, Matt Porwoll, Orlando Luna, and Andy Beinen.

The concept is hands-on filmmaking, taught by working professionals. You’ll be working with real actors, writing and developing real scripts, and shooting both documentary and narrative films as part of the nine-hours of training each day. This is a small class-size training program, and the introductory $500 discount has recently been extended till Monday, so head on over to www.thefilmmakersintensive.com for registration details. A short summary of the training follows:

WEEK ONE: DOCUMENTARY-STYLE FILMMAKING

Exploding new video & filmmaking technologies are making it more possible than ever for filmmakers to mount projects, film them and get them online to an Internet audience, to mobile devices or onto DVDs for submission to film festivals. Led by Jem, you will begin to master the Video DSLR world of filmmaking in a series of hands-on master classes on shooting, lighting, recording audio, editing and more. You will be immediately immersed in preparing to shoot - AND SHOOTING! - your week one film project, a documentary feature film concept, will be shot & edited during the week and screened at our public screening.

Some of your classes and topics include…
» Video DSLR Master Class
» Cameras & Lenses
» Lighting & Audio
» Shooting Documentary-Style
» Conducting Interviews
» On-Set Workflow
» Intro to Post-Production & Editing in Final Cut Pro
» An Introduction to Color
» Acting 101
» Directing The Actor Master Class (transitional class for week two)

WEEK TWO: NARRATIVE FILMMAKING

In week two you will take your technical filmmaking skills even further as you produce and shoot a short narrative film. Now, you will be working with scripts and with actors, learning to direct them in ways which inject life into the writers dialogue and fulfill your personal, creative vision for the production. Towards the end of the week you will learn narrative editing skills and will prepare your film for our Grand Celebration Screening.

Some of your classes and topics include…
» Screenwriting Master Class
» The Creative Flow: Storyboards, Shot Lists…
» Shooting Techniques for Narrative Film
» Working On Set
» Blocking & Rehearsing
» Directing The Scene
» Processing Dailies
» Editing for Narrative

Need to build overheads for an upcoming video or photography shoot? Check out the Lighting Diagram Creator, it’s a drag and drop way to quickly build overheads from a library of lighting sources and modifiers. Free online. It seems to be aimed at photography, but if you get creative it’s pretty good for video and filmmaking use as well. Check it out.

Here’s an interesting concept for an SSD…Seagate is soon introducing a hybrid drive that offers a standard 7200 rpm, 500 GB notebook SATA drive, but with an additional 4 GB of flash storage. The drive firmware stores small, frequently used data chunks on the SSD portion of the drive, and uses the standard spinning platter for all your other storage needs. The OS will see all this fancy magic as a single hard drive. The advantage is that you get some of the benefits of SSD drives, lighting fast boot, quick app starts, etc, but at a much more affordable price point. Announced pricing is 500 GB @ $156, 320 GB @ $122, and 250 GB for $113. Not bad.

Definition Magazine posted something very interesting today, they report that Director/DP Sam Nicholson has shared some very interesting developments in the Canon DSLR world. He talks candidly about his contacts at Canon working with them to bypass the H.264 compression (“not RAW but its not as compressed”) as well as other interesting modifications.

“We do a lot of work with Canon, in fact I’m building a ten camera circle vision rig based on the 5Ds. We’re pushing Canon to give us very high quality outputs out of the camera, wirelessly controlling the lenses and all sorts of cool stuff. We have some very interesting prototypes here that will be another step forward for HD cinematography using the Canon cameras.”

“I’ve got ten of them on my desk and using these machine cages where one camera is the master and they all slave to one camera. So you can change the stop on one camera and then other cameras all do the same thing. We’re going to show it at Canon’s Expo and I think it’s be a pretty hot item!”

He also mentions that they are looking at adding bluetooth to the cameras, so the lenses can be wirelessly controlled. These are anecdotal reports, but strong ones at that, given Nicholson’s high profile and his recent use of the Canon DSLRs. Maybe Canon will get the worm and the cheese.

This week Google announced they would be open-sourcing the VP8 codec, which was acquired from On2 some time ago. The format is being called WebM, but to be clear WebM is the container name, which will encapsulate VP8. Given the recent hullabaloo about MPEG-LA’s control of H.264, an open codec like VP8 seems like a good thing for the web. In fact, Randall Bennett says that Google needs to get a little evil and push the adoption of this new format. But others are not so willing to back VP8.

Google will assumedly be moving Youtube to VP8 delivery, and they have a host of technology partners who have agreed to implement the tech. But Microsoft has been silent on the subject. And Apple is apparently not impressed either…in a short email exchange, Steve Jobs pointed to a technical critique of VP8 that concludes it is a subpar alternative to H.264. The article also notes that the codec appears to be immature, rushed to release, and may have lingering patent issues. The MPEG-LA has already stated they are looking into creating a patent pool for VP8, which suggests that someone still owns the tech, or thinks they do.

Let’s assume that the patent thing is worked out, and VP8 goes open-source without issues. Google integrates it everywhere, because they have fingers in every pie. My concerns are that right at a point where the web seems to be moving to a somewhat standardized format, using HTML5 and H.264, that VP8 confuses the issue and creates a rift. If Apple and others decide not to add VP8 support, we’ve got Flash video all over again. Two competing formats, and devices that support one but not the other. And while these huge companies duke it out in the format wars, users lose. Content creators who have to build sites for both formats lose.

It used to be that if you wanted people to watch your content you offered multiple format options: Windows Media, Quicktime, Flash, Realplayer (ugh, I just threw up in my mouth a little). In the past few years we’ve somehow managed to narrow things down to just 1-2 of these options, and then WHAM along comes another format. We now know that VP8 is reportedly not technically superior to H.264. But is VP8 cheaper? Yes, if MPEG-LA starts charging for H.264 web distribution in 2015. So the other important question is, is VP8 better for users? It remains to be seen, but right now I think the answer is no.

The Gothamist has a short post about an indie film actor playing out a convenience store hold-up scene for a low-budget film, who nearly was shot by police. Apparently a passerby saw the fictional hold-up and notified authorities. When they arrived, they saw no cameras and lighting gear, and the actor pointing a (prop) gun at the man behind the counter. Fortunately they showed restraint and an officer disarmed the actor (oddly it seems that the actor was not complying with orders to drop the “weapon”). Chalk one up for police officers making the right call in a tense situation.

So there you have it. Big cameras and lights save lives, people. They can make your film look better too.

The first footage from the new Sony NEX5 interchangeable lens camera is hitting the web. Daniel Boswell looks to be one of the first shooters to have an edited clip online, and you can watch it below. It’s a simple midday golf outing edit, shot with the NEX5 kit lens, handheld and with a Gorillapod. Shows the camera’s DOF, highlight handling and motion characteristics. Note the autofocus on a couple of the shots…this camera has an autofocus mode in video. Watch below. (UPDATE: The video has been taken offline temporarily, I understand that it will return at some point in the future. We’ll keep you updated.)

Sony NEX5 Clip from Daniel Boswell on Vimeo.

Update: here’s another clip, this one slow shots of landscapes (so perhaps less useful in determining quality), but still a very pretty demonstration of what this ridiculously small camera can do. How small is it with a lens? Brian Smith has a few images up on his blog that show the size perspective. It’s amazingly compact, and there are a number of squat pancake lenses that help keep the package svelte.

As the creator of the successful web series “The Guild,” Felicia Day knows a thing or two about creating a loyal audience on a shoestring budget. She recently did a Q&A video for Reddit, and there were some really interesting nuggets of wisdom in that video that I think apply to independent filmmakers and content creators. The video interview is embedded below, the relevant portion I’m referring to is between 5:00 and 7:20 minutes. Check it out.

Looks like LetusDirect has some new DSLR baseplate and support kits available for pre-sale, including a new carbon-fiber viewfinder design with a hard mount. Nice.

The Letus Talon K1 is a $649 baseplate solution with DSLR quick-release design. We saw an early preview of this at NAB 2010 and it looked really sweet up close. The Letus Talon K2 adds the $385 Letus Hawk viewfinder to the baseplate and comes in at $999. There are plenty of other kit options with the telescoping rods that we saw at NAB and a new cage design as well. Ship dates on this new gear is scheduled for early-mid June. Head on over here to check them out and for pre-orders.

Zooppa is running a short film contest in collaboration with Universal Studios to promote the new King Kong 360 3D attraction. There is $15,000 worth of prize money up for grabs.

These 1-3 minute shorts need to showcase “King Kong’s journey as he heads to Universal Studios Hollywood.” The hook? You can’t show King Kong in your video. You can show the aftermath, the destruction, people’s reactions, but no Kong. The contest is now open, and submissions are due by 06/07/10. Check out the contest details here.

Over at Shockwave-Sound, Terry Wilson has penned a nice article with tips and tricks for faking the best foley and sound effects for your film and video productions. He’s got some great advice for how to creatively tackle your project. Here’s a snippet:

The two key priorities which you should remember to help you do this are:

* Create a world which has distractions removed as much as effects put in.
* Create a world which is believable as opposed to “real”.

A director of photography uses light, framing and depth of field to get the audience to focus on the most important part of the picture. The basic principle of mixing sound is the same: The focus should be clear, crisp and sharp while the background is more indistinct, helping to create the required sense of space and time.

Head on over there and check it out.

PowerMax has an interesting monitor option for Mac users, a 24″ Cinema Display knockoff called CinemaView at less than half the cost. It has similar specs that nearly match Apple’s 24″ display, and is available for $399 w/ free shipping. In comparison, Apple’s 24″ Cinema Display is $900. To be clear, there are some spec differences between the two. But the important specs are close enough, and the price difference is so significant, I thought it warranted a heads up to the post-production community. Key differences; the Apple includes an HDMI input, CinemaView does not; the Apple is LED-backlit, CinemaView is a standard LCD backlight design. Apple also includes speakers in it’s display, the generic knockoff does not have them. However, if you can live without those features, CinemaView looks like a strong offering. Here’s a comparison review from Macsimum.

For those who aren’t fans of the fruit, Dell’s got a 23″ 1920×1080 model for $300. Good deal. Dell makes great monitors and this one looks to be no exception.

Remember two years ago? In February 2008 it was the rumor of Apple shopping Pro Apps around. It was a huge deal…and nothing came of it. The latest unsubstantiated rumor (which could not be timed any better for Avid and Adobe), comes courtesy of AppleInsider; they are suggesting that Apple is reworking Pro Apps with a consumer focus. Final Cut Pro professionals are understandably worked up.

But if you’ll take a few minutes and go read this excellent rebuttal by Philip Hodgetts, you’ll likely come away with a much different perspective on where Apple is taking the Pro Apps suite. Please check out Philip’s article, and let’s save the angst until AppleInsider or someone else can dig up some evidence, or at least a more logical and compelling argument to support their claims.

Update: Apple has responded to the AppleInsider article.

“Final Cut Pro is the first choice for professional video editors, and we’ve never been more excited about its future,” Apple spokesman Bill Evans told CNET. “The next version of Final Cut is going to be awesome, and our pro customers are going to love it.”

Over at the Abel Cine tech blog, Mitch Gross has posted a great video called A Lens is a Lens is a Lens where he, ahem, focuses on how sensor size and format affect the image you see through a lens. He also demonstrates why certain focal lengths seem to affect the size of the objects in the frame, but why you are wrong to think it’s the focal length at work (spoiler alert: it’s relative distance to subject). I can see that I’ve already overcomplicated things with this description, just go watch the video. It’s good.