Who hasn’t always wanted to build an underwater Remotely Operated Vehicle, complete with onboard video camera? Well now you can, and on a tight budget. For $250 you can buy the ROV-in-a-Box Project Kit, a DIY project pioneered by the fine folks at Carl Hayden High School that “includes all the parts needed to build a working underwater robot: a frame, motors, underwater light, camera, 50-foot tether, operator control box, and a dry-cell battery.” You simply add the labor to build it and a monitor display. Sweet! Doubtful about it’s performance? Check out a video of the ROV in action below.
Continue reading ‘DIY Underwater ROV for $250′

From the Do It Yourself Design Community comes these instructions on how to build your own rain maker for filmmaking. The design uses a lightweight wooden frame to support a loose spiral of garden hose that has been pierced every few inches. The parts list is simple, and it looks like you could build the rig for well under $30-$40, depending on what you may have on hand. The author notes that more natural-looking results were obtained by inverting the rig to spray water upwards above the scene.

“This rig provided at least 50 square feet of quality rain. Roughly a 5′ by 5′ space to shoot in. This is perfect for dramatic scenes between 2 or 3 characters. You could always built a few and create a bigger rain area.”

Spotted at CCI, via Film Flap.

Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute student Everett Bradford shares the steps he took to modify a one-time-use CVS camcorder for use with an infrared light source (i.e. “night vision”). Paris Hilton would be proud. So break out the el-cheapo cameras, warm up your soldering iron, and dive in! And for those that literally do enjoy a good dive, Everett has another DIY tutorial on modding CVS camcorders for underwater use. Creative hacker…

 Scott Kirsner on Alternative Distribution [48:31m]: Download

Variety columnist and brains behind Cinematech, writer Scott Kirsner spent some time with the FreshDV team recently and dished on alternative distribution options for indie films and where the market is heading. We discuss the challenges of self-distribution, the state of the mainstream film industry, and Hollywood’s perceived reluctance to embrace new digital business models. It was a very informative and helpful conversation, and one that independent filmmakers should not miss.

A few links that we mentioned in the podcast:
The Future of Web Video (book or PDF)
Illegal Bittorrent Usage Survey
Getting Paid: Sites that Pay for Video
Customflix
Amazon Unbox

Click the Download link above or listen via our FreshDV iTunes Podcast Feed.

 Mike Curtis on Independent Distribution [1:09:26m]: Download

Recently we had a chance to pick the brain of Mike Curtis (of HD For Indies) on the topics of Independent film production and self distribution. We discuss his take on alternative distribution options, what it takes to reach wide theatrical release, the importance of brand identity, when to aim at the direct to DVD option, DRM and rights management solutions, etc. Mike has some very strong opinions on the subject, and we found the conversation enlightening.

Click the Download link above or listen via our FreshDV iTunes Podcast Feed.

Steve Mullen outlines a workaround that will enable Sony V1U camcorder users to edit 24p footage in Final Cut Pro or Avid. It’s a multi-step hack (“Step 17: Sacrifice a chicken”), but until either NLE delivers support for Sony’s wacky new cadence it will have to do.

Okay guys we live in world daily pushing the technological envelope but sometime the most ingenious solutions come in places that use technology that has been around for years. One such project I recently encountered was a guy who setup his own telecine transfers using his home computer and an inkjet printer. While the picture quality was shall I say, less than optimal at best. I found the entire process very interesting. Perhaps I’m just drawn to people who creatively come up with solutions to problems. Anyways to see some results and exactly how he accomplished this check it out here. While an Oscar isn’t in his future for technical achievements he gets a FreshDV leaf from me for creative thinking :)

There’s a fantastic article at DV.com by Mike Curtis on the topic of configuring a solid HD editing workstation. Detailed, in-depth, and informative. A must read for anyone getting into that workflow.

And in typical handy fashion, it’s broken down into 3 different feature levels, to allow for budgets of all shapes and sizes. The scope of the article focuses on building a Final Cut Studio editing workstation, but there are tips and info for Windows users as well. Plenty of good info to go around.

Mike has posted a few corrections to typos over at HD For Indies, so that’s a must-read also.

It’s a new tutorial from the industrious crew at Ken Stone’s site, and it’ll show you how to use Compressor and DVD Studio Pro to author up to 50 minutes of hi-def content to a standard, plain-jane 4.7GB DVD-R blank. The resulting disc can be played back on “most modern Macs.” So obviously it’s not a delivery medium to the client, unless your client happens to have a newer Apple computer. The author sums up his own article by saying, “if you want to make HD Dvds onto 4.7 GB DVD-Rs then set the preferences in DVD Studio Pro to the HD format required, encode your assets through Compressor, and then follow the same procedure as one has used to make SD DVDs.” But I’d suggest reading the whole enchilada, there are quite a few steps in between, and author Rick Young does a nice job of documenting all of them clearly.

In a post entitled “How to edit AVCHD M2TS files from Sony HDR-SR1 camcorders“ Jake Ludington outlines a workaround for editing AVCHD footage. Nifty. You’ll need Windows + PowerDVD Ultra, VirtualDubMod, and AVISynth to get the job done.

(Via Camcorderinfo)