Setting up audio for film shoot, Binary Recording Studio in Bellingham Wa.

Wireless system with two actors in car. Binary Recording Studio

Legos used in set design?

I read this great article in Raindance by Patrick Tucker. "When you are planning a production – for screen or stage – it is important to get it obvious to you what will happen on the day. How often do we imagine how it will look with a sofa and a table and a chair, but when we get on the set, it is quickly apparent that there will be no room for all the moves and business you have planned with all that clunky furniture around. This is where Lego comes in."

Built out of Lego, you can construct tables, chairs, sofas, all in the approximate relative sizes, and then fit them in to the model of your set (or just on top of the ground plan) to see how the space works, and how you can fit your planned moves and business into the available furniture arrangements.

History and Evolution of the Dissolve in film Editing

Something as editors we do everyday,  and interesting look at the dissolve.

What can CD Baby do for me as an independent artist?

Many artist that record in our studio ask us "how do we get our songs on i-Tunes.  The best answer is CD Baby
CD Baby offers a number of artist services, including:

• Worldwide physical distribution for your CDs, DVDs, and Vinyl
• Digital distribution to our digital distribution partner companies such as iTunes™, Rhapsody, eMusic (and many, many more)
• Download sales on CDBaby.com
• Free resources and informational podcasts
• Affordable web hosting and design through HostBaby.com
• Short-run disc duplication
• Download Cards customized with your album artwork
• Access to over 2500 retailers and etailers through our distribution partnership with Super D One Stop

Gumroad a platform to sell your creative content

Gumroad is providing a social based platform for selling your creative content directly to your audience.

One newcomer to the scene, Gumroad, boils the process down to a few simple steps. CEO Sahil Lavingia — a former designer at Pinterest and builder of Turntable.fm‘s iPhone app — just raised a cool $7 million with the pitch that his startup will “democratize the ability to sell stuff online.”

Here’s how it works: Authors choose one of their digital products — a Wordpress theme, Photoshop file, or e-book — and attach a price, accompanying image, and promotional copy. Gumroad then creates a unique webpage and the budding designtrepreneur shares the address with fans via Twitter, Facebook, or any other channel where they have a following. There is no central Gumroad website to browse like Amazon; the service was designed explicitly to connect creators and fans via social media.

Production Guidelines for mixing Dolby 5.1

Here is a link put out by Dolby on the specs and guidelines for mixing 5.1 audio.

LINK:
http://www.aesnashville.org/PDFs/Technical/Dolby/5.1%20Channel%20Music%20Production%20Guidelines.pdf

DJ Shadow distributes through BitTorrent… and gets paid for it!

I posted the possibilities with distribution with BitTorrent on a earlier blog.  Here is a article about musician DJ Shadow using the platform for his music and art.

LINK: http://musically.com/2012/07/24/dj-shadow-distributes-bittorrent-gets-paid/

The Art of the Video Interview with Philip Bloom

At Binary Recording Studio we do documentary films. What makes a good doc. film is the interview.
Here is a article about that from Philip Bloom.

LINK: http://themusicbed.com/blog/2013/05/tmb-presents-the-art-of-the-video-interview-with-philip-bloom/

First Music Video Shot in Space

Here’s a little bit about how it came about:

The task was in front of me. I came up with a piano part. I then enlisted my friend, producer and fellow Canadian Joe Corcoran to take my piano idea and Chris’ vocal and blow it up into a fully produced song. Drums! mellotrons! fuzz bass! We also incorporated into the track ambient space station noises which Chris had put on his Soundcloud. I was mostly blown away by how pure and earnest Chris’ singing is on this track. Like weightlessness and his voice agreed to agree.

And voila! An astronaut sings Space Oddity in space! I was so honoured to be asked to be a part of this. You wouldn’t get too many chances to make a recording like this and not only that, to make music with someone who – through his vibrant communications with kids in schools to his breathtaking photos to his always patient and good-humoured demeanour – has done more for science and space than anyone else this generation. Planet earth IS blue, and there’s nothing left for Chris Hadfield to do. Right.

Safe travels home Commander!

Raw video 24p from Canon 5D Mk lll, Magic Lantern

Magic Lantern managed to pull 24p RAW footage out of the Canon 5D Mk lll.

The test video isn't anything special in terms of content, but the difference between the RAW video and the H.264 video is huge in terms of both dynamic range and resolution. By cropping the video to 1920×817 he gets a 2.35:1 wide screen aspect ratio, resulting in 1080p RAW videos with black bars on top and bottom.
Read more at:   LINK

Film Producer Ted Hope talks about film industry

Film Producer Ted Hope talk about some things indie filmmakers should think about.

 "I will unleash what I think is necessary to recognize about our industry if you are a filmmaker looking to survive from the work you generate."

1. Filmmaking is not currently a sustainable occupation for any but the very rare. It is not enough to be very good at what you do if you want to survive by doing what you love.

2. Presently speaking, artists & their supporters are rarely the primary financial beneficiaries of their work – if at all. Filmmakers are not sufficiently rewarded for their quality creative output under current practices.

3. The film industry’s economic models are not based on today’s reality. They are predicated on and remain structured upon antiquated principles of scarcity of content, centralized control of that content, and the ability to focus the majority of consumers towards that content.

4. Film audience’s current consumption habits do not come close to matching the film industry’s production output. America remains the top film consumption market in the world, and is thought to be able to handle only around 1% of the world annual supply – consuming somewhere between 500-600 titles of the annual output of approximately 50,000 feature films. We make far more films than we currently know how to use or consume. We drown our audiences in choices.

5. The film industry has not found a way to match audiences with the content they will most likely respond to. It doesn’t even look like this is a priority for the business. Everything is spaghetti against the wall, marketed in the same way & only to the most general demographics of race, gender, & income.

6. In order to reach the people who might respond to a film, the film industry remains dependent on telling everyone (including those who could not care less) about each new film. It is a poorly allocated dedication of resources. We spend more money telling those who will never be interested, than focusing on those who have already demonstrated support. There is no audience aggregation platform exclusively for those who love movies, no place where all people who love movies engage deeply about films – if there was, marketing costs could shrink.

7. Digital distribution is an emerging market and will continue to evolve over the next decade. The value for titles for the long-term has not been specified for digital distribution; currently only short-term value is derived – and as a result films are licensed without full understanding of future worth. We are doing a business of ignorance.

8. Predictive value of films is primarily currently determined by an incredibly imprecise method:“star value”, a concept that grows less predictive by the day. Ask anyone and they will tell you that people do not go to movies anymore to see specific stars but interesting subjects. Granted, that is not a scientific method, but we know it to be true.

9. The “fair market value” of a feature film’s distribution rights in the US that multiple buyers want has dropped astronomically: from 50% of negative costs 25 years ago, to 30% 15 years ago, to 25% 10 years ago, to 10% today.

10. International territorial licensing of American independent feature films has dropped by approximately 60% over the last decade. Major territories no longer buy product. Most have given up on “American Indies”.

11. Everything that has ever been made, has also been copied. The logic of a business based on exclusive ownership or limited access to something can not sustain. In the digital era, the duplication of data is inevitable. The unauthorized copy will never go away. People can choose to try to avoid unauthorized versions, but they will be made or shared. This does not have to always be a bad thing, either.

12. Competing options for film viewing have diminished the comparative value of theatrical exhibition. A consumer can not justify the cost of a movie ticket when that ticket costs more than the cost of a month of unlimited streaming. Home theaters’ quality surpasses many theaters, and the seats are always better. Soon, 4K Televisions will be the norm, while movie theaters are stuck in 2K.

13. The film business lacks a long-range economic model for exhibition. What is the business of movie going? Exhibition gathers people together to sell them a 15 cent bag of popcorn for six dollars. We can profit from a large group’s interest in more and more meaningful ways, but the infrastructure is not yet designed to exploit this.

14. The film industry foolishly rewards quantity over quality. Producers are incentivized to forever take on more and the films’ quality suffers as a result. The best work is not rewarded. Once upon a time, filmmakers got overhead deals and that made some difference, but those days are long gone.

15. Movies have a unique capacity to create empathy for people and actions we don’t know or have not experienced. Science has shown that the imagined releases a similar chemical response to the actual experience. If this empathic experience is virtually unique to film, can it be utilized more? I think so, tremendously so, in fact.

16. Movies create a shared emotional response amongst all those that view it simultaneously. What other product can claim that? As a unique attribute, how can you emphasize that more? Shouldn’t that be the takeaway that your audience remembers and shares?

17. There has never been a better time for most creative individuals to be both a truly independent filmmaker and/or a collaborative creative person. The barriers to entry are lower, the cost & labor time of creation & distribution are lower than ever, and there are more opportunities and methods than ever. We just need to abandon the old ways and unearth the new ways.

Wireless HD Video, Camera to Monitor

At Binary Studio we are big fans of Marshall Video Monitors, they are well built, look great and can take a beating. I know from experience, my camera setup flew off the slider and hit the cement pavement.   The lens on the camera was broken but the monitor is still rockin.
Marshall is coming out with a wireless system. Example: you might want to hand the monitor to the producer or director while shooting without being attached with cable etc....  Range about 100 ft.

Check it out!

DSLR Camera Stabilizer, The "MōVI"

One of the issues using DSLR camera's for video is being able to get a stabile shot while your in motion with the camera. Steadicam has been the tool that is used in the industry and here is a new approach that is built with the DSLR in mind made in Seattle Wa.

MōVI BTS from Vincent Laforet on Vimeo.

A motorized parabolic track slider for Video Production.

I shoot documentary films often with a small crew. Many times I have to handle the camera, capture sound and interact with the subject. More often than not, I have to settle for a static shot, or hide behind the camera while trying to speak to the person I am interviewing.  Redrock Micro’s has come out with a  new “parabolic track slider” — the One Man Crew — aims to add graceful motion to your shots, while freeing your hands to focus on other aspects of the shoot.  Check this video out:

i-Book publishing "The Balloon Man" Children's Book.

We have been publishing children's books on i-Book because I believe its is one of the best interactive formats out there. We have been including audio, images, and video on this multi format e-books. Here is our free new release, age 3 to 5. Check out the video on the last page.

https://itunes.apple.com/us/book/the-balloon-man/id626628300?ls=1

Free Peer-To-Peer Video Streaming

Here is a interesting method for sharing your broadcast, films and video content with live streaming technology. You can broadcast directly to your viewers. Each viewer in turn becomes a miniature broadcaster and amplifies your broadcast across the web.

BitTorrent Live is a powerful new web-based live streaming technology. Designed to eliminate barriers to broadcast, Live is an entirely new protocol, designed to deliver high quality video to large audiences - with significant reduction in infrastructure cost and network delays.

BitTorrent Live is currently in open beta.   http://live.bittorrent.com/

                                                  

"Spotting" A Locked film Cut for Audio Post

What is the locked cut ? 

In short, the final version of the finished film. Although it may receive a small edit here or there in the next few weeks, the film is essentially "locked" into this form.   

What happens once the cut is locked ?  

Audio Post begins now in earnest. Once the cut has been locked, the film can be spotted for the placement of sound effects and music. The Sound Editor, the Director and possibly the Composer will gather at one or more spotting sessions to determine the film's audio post needs. "Spotting for music" is the process of viewing the locked cut and deciding where the music score will be, and where the source music will be needed. "Spotting for sound" is the process of determining:  

• if and where any dialogue problems may exist, so that ADR can be cued to be recorded

• where sound effects are needed and what kind 

• what Foley effects will be needed in the film, and where 

• If Sound design (the creation of special sound effects), will also be needed.

After the spotting cues are determined the audio post progress begins.

In the next weeks the sound editors will locate and synchronize all of the sound effects needed in the film. 

I will be getting into more elements of post audio in the next postings on this blog.

Adobe Media Encoder or Apple Compressor H.264

You have just put together this beautiful looking high rez film and now you have to compress it down for streaming content or DVD.   I have spent alot of time trying different compression methods  so that my footage will be represented the way I see it in my editor.  I started reading Jan Ozer's post on what he has learned.

Link:

Tutorial: H.264 Encoding in Apple Compressor and Adobe Media Encoder

Why do films entertain us?

To be entertained a good film has to engage us and this is done with how well the film maker can bring us into their visual creation. How well they use the tools of film making determines their success.

Being provided with amusement or enjoyment is entertainment for us. We are entertained by film in many ways and not always the same way for each person. That is why we have different genres of film to enjoy.

We do alot of post production for independent film artist. I have seen many films that come in that are technically great but don't provide the entertaining discovery of a story.  This can be as simple as the sound effects are great, but are used in a way that is so predictable that they don't lend to the movement of the mood or story.

In my opinion a good film should be a journey.

Don’t hit them over the head with the effects, sound and a story that is so layed out that there no engagement from the viewer.  Let your audience discover as they watch, created some curiosity that promotes interest.

Here is a quote from independent French director and musician Woodkid’s (aka Yoann Lemoine) approach to music videos. 

“I create these stories with missing pieces. Missing pieces are very interesting because then people wanna fill them. People are afraid of emptiness and they wanna fill those gaps…. That’s exactly what I want to do with my art. I want people to think about what they see and wonder if what they see is real. If what they see has a meaning.”

Here is one of his video's with 24 million views!

Woodkid - Iron from WOODKID on Vimeo.

Camera Dolly System for DSLR, $300 dollars?

When you need more then a slider to get your shot this looks like a good alternative.