2nd-unit.tv looking good!

[Warren Shultz]

I see that www.2nd-unit.tv quietly went live sometime last night or this morning. I just finished watching the first George Spiro Dibie interview. (You have to click on his picture to start the video).

It looks like Jonathan is on to something good here. I'm really looking forward to part two when I assume George will explain his lighting charts and we'll see more of him demonstrating techniques. The few shots we were teased with of George using the Mini Lite Panel were great. This is an excellent start to what has great potential for teaching movie techniques to the rest of us in the Indie community and outside Hollywood.

Keep it up Jonathan. I want MORE!

[Stephen L. Noe]

Great introduction of George Spiro Dibie, Johnathan. Very gracious.

The site is looking good and I like the premise very much. Hat's off..

Now for a small critique. When Dibie speaks and the interviewer speaks the audio is on the wrong side. In other words, George is on the left but his audio is on the right speaker (and vice versa for the interviewer). A suggestion would be to encode the spoken word in mono.

[Jonathan Ames]

You caught that too, huh??? Well we were fighting like heck to meet an 8:00 timeslot and there are a couple of goofs like that in there. Another is that the editing is not done the way I want it but we shot George's part of the show on Saturday and got it into capture and editing Monday morning... together with the three other actual TV shows we're doing. When we got the cuts back on Tuesday, wrote the inserts and had to schedule the insert shoot with the model on Wednesday morning at AbelCine. That footage got back into the studio Wednesday afternoon for capture, final editing and post late that afternoon and the final copy was burned that evening to meet the timeslot I had promised and uploaded to the servers. That's when I heard the audio switch! But, all in all, I don't feel too badly. We're recutting the show concurrently with the production of the second part next week so we'll straighten things out as we go. But, that said, your comments are always welcome, Stephen, as are others. 2nd Unit is all about giving indies what they want and need. It's your show, we're just the messengers so let us know what you think and what you'd like to see. We'll be at CineGear this weekend (too far for you, Stephen, sorry) at the Lite Panels booth inside the lighting tent and I invite all of the members who are going to be there to come by and say hi. The 2nd Unit Motor Coach will be parked all weekend right behind the tent where there's plenty of libations for visitors.. I truly hope to see you there. And again, Stephen, thanks!!! Oh yeah, Paolo came down from Santa Cruz to hang out so come by the booth, say hi and enjoy the Coach.

[Joel Aaron]

Originally Posted by Jonathan Ames

But, that said, your comments are always welcome, Stephen, as are others.

I enjoyed the first interview. I especially like the advice about the proper way to tell directors and others how to go F-Off by using a clever compliment. Very helpful.

:-)

[K. Forman]

Nice show guys. What would really bring it home, would be a copy of George's light chart in the downloads :)

[Jonathan Ames]

Now there's something they don't teach you at USC! As for the charts, consider it done. We'll have them digitized right after we finish up at CineGear and thanks for the suggestion.

[K. Forman]

Too cool! Thanks Jonathan!

[Jack Walker]

Brilliant!

Very much looking forward to the next installment, where I believe he demonstrates the lighting with the model.

The opportunity to hear people of this level is very rare, especially to have them discuss in detail the practical as well as art sides of what they do.

Regarding the audio:
On my my computer speakers, I would like the voice out of both sides (mono). Also, to be super critical, the moderator's mike needs to be a little sharper (less muffled, not so close in relation to the main speaker). Also, it was hard to catch the moderator's quick comments, especially when they overlap the speaker. Fortunately, we can go back and re-listen to catch what was missed. When a comment is needed it would come across better if spoken with more definiteness, rather than as if it is trying to be stuck in quickly.

But, Bravo! Bravo! Bravo! I've been to a lot of classes, workshops, demonstrations, etc., and these little shows have the potential of being more valuable than anything I've seen before (and to people all over the world)... to both new and experienced people.

Will see you at Cinegear.

[Tip McPartland]

Jack,

I recorded this sound, and during the taping I spoke with Jonathan regarding Jaime's levels. I had his mic up so high that George was virtually as loud on Jaime's mic as on his own, but still Jaime's level was lower than I wanted.

Jonathan explained to me that Jaime just has a quiet voice, and Jonathan has recorded him many times before and knows that he cannot be brought up higher by directorial suggestions. He is what he is.

During this segment of the taping, both mics were hard-wired Countryman lavs, so there was no problem with wireless transmission. Jonathan's Countryman mics are excellent, and their placement was correct as can be discerned by looking at the video. There is just no way to make Jaime speak as loudly and clearly as George. Jaime also spoke very little, and when he did, he didn't have a lot of free air in between George's pieces of business.

As for their physical placement, moving them farther apart for the sake of the sound would have been unwise, as I think that Jonathan spaced them properly for the visuals, while the sound remained acceptable. They would have looked as if they were across the room from each other if much farther away, although then Jaime would have had more audio separation.

Tip McPartland

[Warren Shultz]

Thanks Tip. It's great to deconstruct a shoot and find out why things were done the way they were. It seems nothing is ever ideal on a makeshift set and solving problems or knowing when to make compromises is part of the challenge. I appreciate the insight.

[Jack Walker]

Tip,

I'm not really being critical. The speakers I am listening to are not good.

To clarify what I meant -- what I heard on my computer was Jaime's comments came in larger than George, and more muffled, with more "proximity effect." Perhaps the character of the sound was the result of turning up the level to compensate for the lower voice as you describe.

When I said to move the mic away... I didn't really mean it was placed wrong. What I meant was that Jaime is basically off camera, and his comments, the way they came in, would be less jarring if they sounded a bit off-camera... at least not on top of the picture, especially since the picture is pretty much close on George throughout. since the only time we see Jaime, the close sounding lav voice doesn't immediately compute in the brain... we would expect to hear a voice with just a tad more distance as in the two-shot, or as if he is off camera.

I probably shouldn't have mentioned anyting, but to tell the truth, I was sitting fairly close to the monitor watching the show, listening to George, and everytime Jaime came it it made me jump. Since I was at work, at first I thought someone had come up right behind me. This effect was added to by the fact that the voice came out of one speaker on the wrong side of the screen. When I figured out what was happening, I just figured I had the speakers placed backwards. However, even then, Jaime's voice startled me when it came in. That's all. Bottom line, the way I heard it was probably my bad speakers.

[K. Forman]

To be completely honest, I never noticed any audio issues. I was too distracted by the host changing stuff on the monitor... :)

[Jonathan Ames]

That's curious. Neither the host nor the guest had any control over the monitor. All they did was refer to it when discussing the various lighting issues outlined on "cards" that were scanned into the system and made available to them via the monitor. Those cards are the culmination of George's 50+ years of 6-time Emmy winning experience. I'll look at it again, though, and see where your concerns lie and thanks. I'm glad you're all interested enought yo bring stuff like this up. It'll make the series even better.

[Jonathan Ames]

I just got all the other posts and really appreciate the comments and congrats. The sponsors share your excitement and that'swhy the're suppoprting us. As to Jaime, I spend half my time with saying "Whay...what...?" I thought at 49 I was just getting old but thank heaven it's not that! In Jaime's defense, though, no one can ever get a word in edgewise. George is like a big Energizer Bunny he just keps going and going and... We had 6 pages of questions to get through. As you can see, we got 1 out...actually 2 but that's left for next week. Thank heaven, though, because with CineGear this weekend, we're missing a week so we're airing the 2nd question this week. Then the 3rd week, George and Rob Kostichek are coning on to really drill down on the lighting, hopefully over at CineAble which is just a great place if for no other reason that they really go out of their way to help us and all indies as well.

[Stephen Knapp]

Originally Posted by Jonathan Ames

That's curious. Neither the host nor the guest had any control over the monitor. All they did was refer to it when discussing the various lighting issues outlined on "cards" that were scanned into the system and made available to them via the monitor. Those cards are the culmination of George's 50+ years of 6-time Emmy winning experience. I'll look at it again, though, and see where your concerns lie and thanks. I'm glad you're all interested enought yo bring stuff like this up. It'll make the series even better.

I saw it a couple of times too late in the show. In the most obvious case Mr. Dibie asked for chart #3 to come up and the interview host made some movements that looked to me like he was changing the screen by fussing with the computer sending output to the monitor. There was a time just before that when Mr. Dibie was talking and the monitor was being changed for reasons unknown, by someone off camera at the moment. What made that more surprising and distracting is that after the screen settled down on a new image, Mr. Dibie sought to refer to something on the chart which had been there, and it was gone. That's when he had to ask to have it brought up.

Nonetheless, for me the whole presentation was very useful, and I intend to archive it for my personal lighting 101. BTW who was the gentleman who introduced the whole interview? No name was given that I caught. Is that you, Jonathan?