News posts from 2006 Q4

[Paulo Teixeira]

Rallies protest against limits on digital copying

http://today.reuters.com/news/articl...c=66&type=qcna

[Paulo Teixeira]

I don’t know if this was already posted someplace else but here it is anyway.
http://syphaonline.com/SYPHAnewsitem...061005-05.html

[Paulo Teixeira]

16.5 gigs and a possible 33 gigs in Mini Blu-Ray discs to be used in future Blu-Ray camcorders.

http://www.newlaunches.com/archives/...uray_discs.php

[Joe Carney]

The open source compositing app called Jahshaka has a new stable ver 2 for download. They also have a new media player that they claim can play back 2K and 4K images/video in realtime.

From the Email they sent me....
<<
Jahplayer
--------------------------------------------
We’re also delightfully pleased to announce the arrival of Jahplayer 0.1.0. It is nothing less than a pro-quality media player capable of playing 2K and 4K files in real-time. Jahplayer sports an Open API architecture that makes it infinitely customizable, and it’s Python-based to facilitate scripting.

We expect Jahplayer to generate intense interest and, frankly, to take the industry by storm. But you can be the first to take it for a spin!
jahplayer is really a high end tool with 2k/4k playback, sequence support, opengl acceleration, overlay visualizations, ab previews, asset management, etc<<


www.jahshaka.org.

[Wayne Morellini]

So, that's 3 hours of 24mbs according to this article:

http://www.camcorderinfo.com/content...-at-CEATEC.htm

It is shame they haven't also figured out that 8cm disks are so large that they can make a small camcorder seem unsightly. Heres hoping for an extra min dual layer format. I'd still prefer to do memory card then backup to a portable hard drive or Blu-ray disk.

Also, a 4cm disk would have been practical, if they had designed the new dsk standards to use a small triangular mounting hole and used the surrounding dead area for storage.

[James Bridges]

The Southern Winds Film Festival announces a call for entries. First deadline is December 25, 2006. The Festival will be held September 12th-16th of 2007 and will hold a special category for Native American Films. In the historic heart of downtown Shawnee, Oklahoma this will be our first year of operation. This film festival concentrates heavily on the "festival." Whether you are a filmmaker or a festival lover, you will definitely enjoy this one. Packed full of audience members from the outlying communities as well as fellow filmmakers, this is what a film gathering is all about. Filmmakers be sure to submit in time to make this amazing event. Patrons get ready for what is going to be a great time being surrounded by artists from the film and music industry.

The website:

http://www.southernwindsfilmfestival.com/

Native American
Any Length. Films that are made by Native Americans and/or about Native Americans.

Narrative Feature
Anything over 60 minutes in length.

Documentary Feature
Documentary of any genre over 60 minutes in length.

Narrative Short
Short films are under 60 minutes in length.

Documentary Short
Documentary Shorts are under 60 minutes in length.

Student Feature
Student produced features must provide documented proof of enrollment at the time of production and be longer than 45 minutes in length.

Student Short
Student produced shorts must provide documented proof of enrollment at the time of production and be no longer than 45 minutes in length.

Okie Home Grown Feature
As an Okie Home Grown Feature the project in it's entirety will have been made right here in Oklahoma. The running time is anything over 60 minutes. Documentary Features made in Oklahoma will be in this category as well.

Okie Home Grown Short
As an Okie Home Grown Short the project in it's entirety will have been made right here in Oklahoma. The running time is anything under 60 minutes. Documentary Shorts made in Oklahoma will be in this category as well.

James Bridges
Festival Director

[Obin Olson]

Date: Apr 2005
Location: Wilmington NC USA

www.MobiJokes.tv LAUNCHES SONY CONNECT CHANNEL
Hello guys, thought you would all like to hear about our new channel launch on the Sony Connect site for the new Sony PSP unit, now you can get our stupid work on your PSP to show your buddies...

psp.connect.com

We are looking for really funny well done work to fill the channel if you have some, send me an email.

[Michael Wisniewski]

From the New York Times

... as Hollywood power shifts more to Wall Street investors, financiers are starting to bypass studio bosses by dealing directly with successful producers...

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/10/14/bu.../14studio.html

[Paulo Teixeira]

Its about time.

http://bluray.highdefdigest.com/news...ray_Player/310

[Jack Zhang]

A specialized unit (I think it's a PC, but I'm not sure yet.) is on the International Space Station and is to broadcast LIVE UNCOMPRESSED HD from orbit using the KU band system using a "Space Video Gateway" ultra-high bandwidth transmission system. The uncompressed footage could possibly be stored on a hard drive for scheduled transmission later.

Uncompressed HD transmission in space... Who would've thought of that?

http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/st...ain/index.html

Unfortunatly, the system's not on the station forever, it is a temporary system.

[Paulo Teixeira]

http://techon.nikkeibp.co.jp/english...061018/122390/

[Jacob Mason]

This sounds great, except one thing...
From the article: "... the company reportedly achieved durability that allows data playback after 100 years."
Ummmm, didn't everybody claim the same mojo with CDs and DVDs back in the day when they first came out?
Now we know the figures weren't accurate...oopsie...go buy more!

[Peter Ferling]

Those figures may have been based on perfect prototypes made in ultra-clean grade labs using highly controlled materials. It's the mass production, dirty enviroments, poorly mixed plastics, don't buy one made on monday, etc. etc. that determines the true life of an optical disk that you and I wind up with.

Pits in the plastics, trapped air, and impurities and inks that break the plastic coatings down, all exposing the metal recording surfaces to corrosion. (Yeah, rusted disks).

There is a company that claims a special archival grade gold disk with a 300 year shelf life: http://www.delkin.com/products/archivalgold/index.html

[Michael Horton]

The next meeting of the lafcpug will be Wednesday, October 25, at the Gallery Theatre in Hollywood beginning at 6:45PM. It will be “From FCP to the Web” night, where we hope to show you everything you need to know about getting your movies onto the web so that they not only look good but play good.

Booked so far are FCP and Compression Guru, Philip Hodgetts who will show us a number of “Compression Recipes.” so you don’t have to guess. Also set to appear will be Dan DiPola who will discuss what tools and techniques the "Big Boys"(such as the folks who do those movie trailers on Apple) use to produce the results they do.

Also appearing are Brian Gary, author of the upcoming book “Compressor Quick Reference Guide.” Brian will show us how to export a widescreen movie to the web without those annoying black bars.

And if that is not enough Emmy award winning editor Michael Friedman ("Amazing Race," "Laguna Beach," "The Sureal Life") will talk about the path from being on the 'outside' to moving up the food chain to a Emmy winning network show. - Including - how to get hired - do you need a reel? - getting asked back - who to call - etc.

Plus we will have another round of Stump the Gurus, Show and Tells, and of course World Famous Raffle, with this month prizes totaling over $3,000.00

This meeting is open to the public. Seating is first come, first seated

A $5.00 donation will be respectfully requested at the door.

For more details and directions to the Gallery Theatre go to the lafcpug web site.

http://www.lafcpug.org/user_schedule.html

[Jipsi Kinnear]

Thanks Michael, an excellent article. For several years I've been trying to convince "the money people" that there is viability in producing films. The problem has always been that they themselves do not understand the production business. I've found that the powers that be have always seen the industry as only black and white. Hollywood has always been known to have one of the more "creative" accounting practices out there, barring the enron's of the world.

About a decade ago, a group of us working in the business had decided enough is enough, it's time to start producing our own product. Many of us had already been in the business for years, me being an AD, LM and Co-prod on many Hollywood style productions shooting north of the border. We pooled our resources and figured we had everything we needed, from prep to post to complete a project. Remember, back then it was still "film" with the digital revolution in it's infant stages. We grouped together, shot a series of 16mm and 35 mm short films, which I was going to package as our calling card of sorts. At this point, I decided we needed a base of operations, our own studio/stage as well as production space.

It was at this point that I decided to go the VC route and try to raise money to build our "dream". Our first step was to somehow secure a modest sized warehouse with offices so that we could reno it for our use and rent it out for others as well who couldn't afford "pro" space. We started small, with one building which became quite popular and morphed into our second than third property. It was at this point that I decided to become a full time producer and production provider, provided I could raise the proper capital. In '96, with three buildings converted, the 'net just starting to come into it's own and the digital/HD era just around the corner I figured it was time to go all out and try to raise a HUGE amount of cash, WALL STREET here I come. I was 26 yrs. old and I thought I was ready to do it, take the next step.

http://www.playbackmag.com/articles/...t&word=kinnear

The link above gives you an idea of where I was trying to take our business. As a creative type, I'm not so much, I found my strengths lie in putting together the team. So with a business plan in hand and a proven track record with production facilities, albeit small ones, it was time to take on the world. Ahhh, ain't ignorance bliss. My goal was to raise $50 million CDN. to build our "real" studio and produce five $4 million CDN budgeted films. The studio itself represented a tangible asset that was supposed to align the fears of those on Wall Street and Bay Street, with the ultimate goal to take the company public. Anyway, after several months of selling my soul in numerous boardrooms from Vancouver to New York, spinning stories about which "stars" I've worked with and what not and burning through all our intial cash, we went went belly up. Investors were more interested in meeting celebs and trading stories then they were about the business itself. This article demonstrates to me, that maybe those times are changing and that I should possibly take a second kick at the can. In fact I believe that in todays production industry this idea seems more relevant. the fact that one can not only control from prep to post we can now take a step further and control from "concept to release" evidenced by the forthcoming release of RED ONE among other new emerging technologies.

Ok, I'll shut-up now... humblest apologies for the long post...just started typing and voila....