Post-Production
Filmmaking - Post-Production
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The State of 4K
Technology tipping points – when something goes from the unusual to the commonplace – can happen with unexpected rapidity. Has 4K reached a tipping point, and if so what aspect of 4K? Acquisition, production, distribution, or all three? If you’re shooting a film today, should you be shooting in 4K? The answer to these questions is complicated by cost, complexity and the long-term shelf-life of your project. Today, a convincing argument can be made for shooting in either 4K (future proof) or HD (cost effective and most people won’t see the difference). One thing seems for certain; we will be […]
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The Blackmagic Design Cinema Camera: A Review
The Blackmagic Design Cinema Camera is pretty much the perfect post-DSLR camera. I spent a month with it, shooting a short film around the New York Film Festival, running around guerrilla-style, putting it through its paces, and I had a lot of fun. I liked the size and the touch screen functionality. And I liked the DaVinci Resolve 10 workflow. The BMDCC is a camera that introduces itself from a distance. Everywhere I went with it, people either knew what it was and wanted to ask me about it, or they didn’t know what it was and wanted to ask […]
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Autodesk Smoke 2013 – Super NLE?
Once life was simple. NLEs were NLEs. They did offline editing of conspicuously compressed picture with unmixed audio tracks and limited titling. Maybe it started with the MiniDV revolution 15 years ago, but over time low-end NLEs competed with high-end NLEs in tools and feature sets, becoming today’s desktop online systems and sealing the fate of many midlevel post facilities. Along the way several NLEs became suites of applications called “studios.” Back in 2005, for instance, Final Cut Studio arrived as FCP bundled with DVD Studio Pro, Motion, LiveType, SoundTrack Pro, Cinema Tools and Compressor. Two years later, Color, for […]
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A Fresh Look at Apple’s Final Cut Pro X
Hard to believe, but FCP X is well over two years old and already into its ninth iteration. Its popular multicam tool arrived with version three in January of last year. In the past 12 months alone, no less than four new versions have been released, bringing dual viewers, a unified import window, support for native REDCODE RAW, MXF, Sony XAVC (up to 4K) and optional Rec. 709 display of ARRI ALEXA ProRes captured in Log C. Recent improvements also include a handy freeze-frame tool, chapter markers for QuickTimes and DVDs, better audio channel editing tools, and FCPXML 1.2 to […]
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What Elmore Leonard Can Teach You About Editing
Kylee Wall at Creative Cow has posted a good piece in which quotes from three writers (Elmore Leonard, Kurt Vonnegut and Chuck Palanhiuk) are applied to the film editing process. This first one, from the ace, and recently deceased, crime writer Elmore Leonard, touches on a pet peeve of mine: gratuitous, montage-y, B-roll-driven establishing sequences: “Don’t go into great detail describing places or things.” – Elmore Leonard In unscripted stuff particularly, I’ve seen a tendency for editors to use a whole bunch of b-roll at the beginning to describe a place. It’s kind of like the editorial equivalent of four […]
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Review: Audio Scanning Tool Boris Soundbite
Boris Soundbite is a handy tool that scans the audio in your media files and lets you search for words or phrases. Useful for documentary filmmakers, supercut editors, and anyone needing to search an archive of media. Best of all – it actually works. This is an idea that’s been around for a while. I was skeptical at first as I’ve tried other solutions like this before with less than favorable results (like Premiere’s transcribe feature), but where Soundbite succeeds is it only returns hits for a search, not a verbatim transcription. It matches the audio based on words or […]
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Listen Up Philip at The Edit Center
With the official launch of the Made in New York Media Center by IFP this week, news of its imminent offerings was not far behind. One particular course that’s setting up shop at 30 John Street already boasts an impressive track record. The Edit Center, which is housed around the corner on Jay Street, will bring their hands-on framework to the nascent Media Center beginning this November. An intensive six-week course, The Edit Center offers students the unique opportunity of cutting their teeth (pun intended) on a real, live independent film currently in post-production. Guided by a professional instructor and […]
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“We Treat the De-Aging Process Like Plastic Surgery”: Edson Williams on +1‘s Visual Effects
You may not know Edson Williams’ name, but odds are you’ve seen his work. Since the mid-’90s he’s built his career not behind the camera but behind a monitor, creating special effects for well over 100 of the most visually arresting films of the last twenty years, from high-concept films like Titanic, Avatar, Hugo, Prometheus, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2, Iron Man, Skyfall, and J. J. Abrams’ Star Trek reboot to just as many films where the visual effects are much more subtle, including Cruel Intentions, The Princess Diaries 2, The Devil Wears Prada, J. Edgar, and […]
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Kyle Patrick Alvarez on How C.O.G. Wrapped in Mid-November — and Still Got into Sundance
It’s every independent filmmaker’s dream to have their film have its world premiere at the Sundance Film Festival, but realistically the chances are very slim. The festival gets over 12,000 submissions annually, and only around 200 of those are chosen. However, when the deadline to apply for the 2013 Sundance Film Festival came around this time last year, writer/director Kyle Patrick Alvarez faced a much steeper challenge than most. His sophomore feature, C.O.G., based on an autobiographical essay by David Sedaris about a formative summer spent in Oregon after graduating college, hadn’t even started production. Delayed from its original August […]
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Seven Tips on How to Utilize Your Audience from Peter Broderick
The IFP Independent Filmmaker Conference’s “Blitz Wisdom” panels are quick, TED-like talks from filmmakers and folks in the industry discussing their projects and/or offering tips and pointers. During Monday’s “Blitz Wisdom” session with Peter Broderick, President of Paradigm Consulting (helping filmmakers develop distribution and social media strategies), we learned some great tips on how maintaining a relationship with your audience after they’ve left the theater can help you develop a sustainable model of revenue. Here are Broderick’s seven key ways your audience can be utilized to help your independent project: 1. Direct Funding – Once you’ve identified your audience and have their […]
