#145 Sony EDCAM EX-1 Review

Ergonomics, slow motion and media

I recorded the review of this camera before I began the One a Day series and I'm not going to hold on to it until December. Since making this recording I've been able to use this camera several times and it's been a real pleasure.

It's well designed and I believe that's why it hasn't been difficult to learn how to use it. The media is easy to use, really not that much different from the P2, but it feels more comfortable to work with. I mentioned the Hoodman in this episode as a low cost replacement for the SxS from Sony. Kensington also has a low cost alternative you should look into.

• CDIA
• Over/Under crank (slow motion)
• Keystone Cops
• Creative Cow Pros and Cons between P2 and SxS
• Wikipedia article on HDV and different screen resolutions
• Thorough review of the EX-1

#115 CDIA Screening and Graduation

As you know I've handed in my final project and this show is about my class's screening and graduation at CDIA. Yes, I'm done, but it's not over, it's never over.

Working up to and over the last minutes of my deadline left me very tired. As a result the remainder of the week's activities were a blur. I should have been able to talk about events in greater detail, but the truth is that I had very little capacity to absorb the experience. In some sense I was living in the moment, not anticipating the future or recalling the past.

I'm not much on ceremonies or "special events" in any case. They are what you make of them. I think the people who share them with you carry more weight in your memory, so I guess you could say that what I recall here is what I considered the important part.

I certainly was nervous about the screening and showing my film in front of a lot of strangers, it went off well though. People laughed in the appropriate places and I got a number of kind and constructive comments, which demonstrated more than anything else, that some people were paying attention.

The I want to give a special nod to Bob Daniels, the guy who runs the school, for some intelligent and brief comments about what lies in the future for the graduates.

What's next. As I said, it isn't over by a long shot. I'm doing a little polishing of the film so I can submit it to a local film festival, coming up shortly in Boston, called the Ruff Cutz Festival. As the name implies, you can submit the film where ever it is process. Some money is on the line, but I'm not holding my breath. I'm more interested in preparing my film for submission, and if it makes the cut, having the chance to watch another crowd of strangers judge my film.

Independent of that, I plan to meet with several instructors over the next month and discuss ways to enhance the film. Essentially I'm going to have the critiques I didn't have time for, before I handed it over for graduation screening.

Once that's done, I'm not completely sure what to do with it, other than use it as a calling card. I plan to create a site for it as well as other videos that I produce about craft - all crafts I hope.

There are two reasons I want to do this:
I want to continue to exercise all the skills I've been exposed to and hone this filmmaking craft. I don't want what I've learned to atrophy due to disuse. I don't have any plans at all to set out on a filmmaking career, I don't know yet what the next step for me is.
I really like this subject matter, it's really a big part of who I am and finding the stories are sort of like discovering parts of myself. I also think there's a lot of people out there who have the same feelings and creating a link between us seems like a the way to begin this odyssey.

#105 Subclipping Hell

Subclipping is a necessary part of organizing your project, creating structure. Doing that will allow you to rip through your media as you pull the story together. With the deadline I have, about 3 weeks when I recorded this show, what I feel I really need to do is begin editing, but that would be disastrous and lead to chaos with the amount of footage I have to work with.
Editing

I'm using Avid over FCP. I've chosen to use Avid for this project even though I have more experience using FCP. I've discovered a few drawbacks that could negatively affect meeting the deadline.

Finally I have begun editing the footage, starting with discrete topics, keeping a general story order in my head. I find this process works for me. Once I got enough footage cut together I moved the contents of these sequences into a single timeline sequence to see how well everything pulled together to tell a cohesive story. It's still incomplete, but I'm very encouraged.

#94 Podcasters Across Borders

I'm attending a new media conference called Podcasters Across Borders in Kingston, Ontario Canada this weekend. There's going to be lots of interesting people to meet and things to hear and learn. There's not much else in this show except my expectations.

I created this episode so that I could pare it down to under 3 minutes and submit it to the PAB site as a teaser for this show. They're taking audio submissions from attendees that represent their own show. I figured I would just use the opportunity to talk about my expectations of the event, how I feel about the potential of new media and tie in what my show is about.

It is an interesting experience cutting down something to meet a another purpose - sort of like creating a trailer of a movie.

Take a look at the teaser page and listen to my audio and compare it to this show. And listen to the other shows, there's a lot of great entertainment and information represented on that page.

I'll give you updates when I get back next week and hopefully include some interviews.

#81 Wk61 Shooting

Lots of episodes this week and not a lot of time to write notes.

In this show I run down the film project status of each person in class. I also managed to get in two days of shooting for my own film and I try to describe the lighting work I did over the weekend for John's film.

#79 Wk59 Preproduction II

Lots of activity this week, but little to do with my own film project. Almost all my attention was devoted to Directions, the annual networking event sponsored by my company. I spent four days shooting interview spots of about 30 people. Add to that a lighting gig I'm doing for John's film. John is a classmate, we've worked together on a couple of class projects in the past. He's way ahead of the curve as far as film projects. He's already rounded up his cast, location, got the crew and is shooting throughout April beginning the first weekend of the month.

Somehow I've become the lighting guy. I did a significant light role in our last class project, the Killer, I obsessed about the lighting for the Directions promotional interviews and the video I just shot at the event. That's only because I felt it was a really weak facet of my skill set. Now I think I'd like to work with the camera.

I'll have time to work with the camera on my own project. I'm anxious about getting some footage shot before leaving for Las Vegas. NAB is putting a huge who in my schedule as far as shooting is concerned. I'd feel better taking off the time knowing that I've begun. With all the distractions and obligations it's difficult to get started, but it's harder on my stomach if I don't.

NAB is beginning next week. The exhibition begins Monday April 14 and the seminars start the Friday before. Let me know if you want me to check out specific vendors and you're interested in learning more about a particular technology.

#70 Wk50 On Location

Get ready for a slew of episodes this week. I'm finally catching up.

I'd like to thank Mike Jones from Digital Basin for leaving a comment in show #68. Check out his thoughts there and on his site. Also Brian from Galway left a comment in show #69. Thanks for the encouraging words Brian. I'll be around for a while. Let me know what you're doing and interested in doing.

Check out the song on Coverville.com - Itchycoo Park, covered in show #393. It was one of the first two podcasts I subscribed to and continues to be in my top 5.

After a brief rundown of my adventures over two weeks of shooting on location I update you on the type of work that's starting to come to me at my day job. It may be a small dream, but it's my dream all the same to become the video go-to guy at my day job. That's the point of going to school in the first place.

Right now I'm working on a project for both web and tape delivery using video I shot here in Massachusetts and footage shot in other places in the world where the standard broadcast TV format is PAL. Quite an adventure figuring the conversion process for that. Thank God for the internet eh?

#67 Wk48 On Location

A brief show this week, describing the many different aspects of filming two scenes. The learning this time around is all hands on. The entire class is working together to shoot two scenes from a script. We've each taken on at least one role, in some cases two. My primary concern is creating the lighting with a secondary responsibility for sound.

Once we determined our roles, we broke into two groups. The technical people: cinematographer, sound and lighting worked together while the producer and director spent their time setting the location, set design and casting.

The cinematographer or director of photography took the lead by creating a shot list or storyboard which came from conversations with the director. Once that was done, sound and light could be configured.

We stumbled a few times, lost some momentum because we didn't really know our jobs well (that's where the learning came in), but we regained our footing and finished the week with some preliminary storyboards, a look at one of the locations and our first casting call.

#66 Aimee Corrigan Interview

This week's show is an interview with Aimee Corrigan, the Director of Practicum at the Center for Digital Imaging Arts (CDIA). The Practicum is a unique part of the CDIA learning experience which takes place at the end of each student's course of study.

The Practicum is an opportunity to take part in the production of promotional material in each student's field of study for the benefit of local non profit organizations. This could include a film documenting the services of a refugee support center, complete business websites for organizations or creating a mulitmedia documentary for an innovative after school program using digital photography and recorded music. The 3D program recently created a short for the Dana Farber Institute that explains Cancer to children. Every Practicum offers students the chance to work on a project for a real world client. It's as real as it gets.

Aimee Corrigan is an accomplished photographer and filmmaker. Her photography has been published by BBC Online and Wired Magazine. Her film credits include the recent award winning documentary, "This is Nollywood", and the just completed film "After the Storm", about the the hurricanes of 2005 that ravaged Houston, New Orleans and their impact on the lives of the children in Mississippi.

#61 Howard Phillips Interview Pt.2

The second half of the interview with Howard Phillips, Associate Director of the Filmmaking program at CDIA at Boston University. Lots of talk about the role of technology in creating films and CDIA's goal of developing a filmmaking community.

#60 Howard Phillips Interview Pt.1

Howard Phillips is the Associate Director of the Filmmaking program at CDIA and has been my instructor in a number of classes, including lighting and Avid. No need really, to introduce him though, he does an excellent job himself in this, part one of the interview. Let me just say that his willingness to participate in this podcast is an extension of his generosity of spirit to all students at CDIA.

In this show you'll hear him talk about his own experiences learning production filmmaking techniques as well as some interesting tangents he's followed that gives him a unique approach to teaching. You'll also hear him explain the ideas and goals behind the curriculum.

I'll post the 2nd half in a few days. In that episode he'll talk about the present state of filmmaking, the role technology plays in the process of realizing your vision and the possibilities that lay in the future.

#40 Wk28 - Visualizing Fiction

Due to a change in the curriculum at CDIA, this module was broken into two parts, the first two were about production audio, this one is called, well, you can see what it's called in the title, and it's about film studies, history and what we call film grammar, which is the construction of the story through camera frame, sound, editing and everything else that goes into creating a film.

There's a great deal that we covered, but of course I'm going to talk about all the interesting things. Genres are discussed briefly, we review some films, such as Manhunter that demonstrate how to build suspense, not as easy as you think.

For some reason I use an analogy of Impressionism vs Jackson Pollock and then from there move into the horror genre, specifically zombie movies such as Night of the Living Dead, Shaun of the Dead and 28 Days Later.

There's a number of guidelines for judging the value of such movies as Heat and Memento like intention, 30 degree and 180 degree rule, misdirection and the concept of filmmaker as Auteur.

For a number of reasons I've divided the week into two episodes. The next one will be about screenwriting and how important the formatting of the document is.

#39 Filmmaking Manifesto #3

This week is another installment of my review of CDIA, the school where I'm enrolled as a film student, where I'm grading the film program using the points presented in a filmmaking manifesto written by blogger and educator, Mike Jones, who writes the Digital Basin. By the way, Mike is in Australia and I make reference in the podcast to a presentation he delivered on Sound and Space at the University of New South Wales. I'm afraid it came out as South Wales, and I don't want you looking for Mike in Great Britain.

Here are the topics for this week:
• Multi-channel and Spatial sound
• Screen studies
• Working with clearly defined obstructions
• Working Lo-Fi but High-Concept

These episodes are independent of my weekly journal and it's been exhausting and enjoyable putting out two each week. There's one more post about the Manifesto and then I'll do a follow up show with my personal thoughts about this topic and how it's impacted doing this podcast.

Do some reading on Neil Postman, he has lots of food for thought.

#36 Wk26 - Production Audio

Production audio, hands on, boot camp like. Lots of opportunity to run and trip, and learn.

Frank DeAngelis is the instructor. Providing us with real world experience with a run and gun edge. Just another example of the variety of resources the school provides for our benefit.

So relieved, I'm really tapped, energy wise. Not afraid to work at learning, but between stress and tight deadlines I needed to use a different part of my brain. It was like someone knew we needed a breather.

In this module we get practical information about handling equipment, bringing to the set what you need to get the job done and working with what you got (not always the same) to get the job done. Often during class we came up short when we went through the kits. Something was missing, batteries, clips, connectors were bad. The motto of the class was "pack your own parachute" because if you only find out on set that something is missing, it's too late and no one gets the blame but you.

The focus was on using a boom and wireless mics (Sennheiser eW100 G2 wireless) and a mixer (Sound Devices 320) to control the audio from 3 sources going into the camera.

Another mantra was"treat the equipment with respect". As students it's easy to treat any of the equipment as casually as Stretch Armstrong, but you have to remember to develop good habits now, because there’s more important things to do when preparing for a paying gig than cursing yourself for breaking a wire connection or dropping a wireless transmitter, for the fifth time. How often do you expect you'll get rehired.

I don’t mean to sound like your mom, but you know, students are the worst and it gets old faster than finding your roommate's underwear in the freezer, again.

For those of you interested or with enough patience I've added a little detail about how a mixer fits in the production workflow, what it's used for, how it operates. I've tried my best to simplify things, it's still a very involved process.

#35 Filmmaking Manifesto #1

I recently discovered a blog about filmmaking and filmmaking education called Digital Basin. The author, Mike Jones has written a number of posts about 13 issues that he feels are critical to the success of a film student in today's world, but which aren't getting the attention they deserve in the curriculum at most film schools. He calls it his Filmmaking Manifesto.

Read the posts, he makes a lot of valid points. I've always felt that CDIA was quite progressive and I thought it would be interesting to measure my school using his ruler.

I'm not interested in bashing the school, or promoting anyone’s agenda, but I feel his blogs have given me an external perspective on how well CDIA is preparing me for my future.

I'll continue my weekly journal shows, these will run alongside as a special topic.

I hope your find the ideas interesting and more importantly, it gives you your own ideas.

Submit a comment or drop me a line at videostudentguy@gmail.com

#33 Wk24 - Non-Fiction Narrative

I've played around with a different recording device, the Mbox 2 plus a Sennheiser mic. I think the quality is vastly improved, but now I have to deal with keeping my head in one position so that you don't get dizzy listening to my voice move back and forth. Isn't learning fun?

This week is the middle of the module on creating a non-fiction 2 minute film. I've tried to describe how we organized ourselves, developed the story and set up the shots. I think the biggest issue during our shoot was the pressure of trying to get the shooting done in time. Also still a big concern is the confidence of knowing how much coverage was necessary. Our footage ratio was 1:25, which is 25 minutes of footage for every minute of the final cut. I think that's acceptable.

The best part is how well we all worked together. It was a real pleasure to be part of a focused, dynamic team. Considering how little time we had, it was a necessity.

#32 Wk23 - Non-Fiction Narrative

I'm back after a week on the road and on vacation.

In the musing department I reflect briefly on the differences between the highways in the US and Canada and the filmic charms of upstate New York.

It's the beginning of a new module, this time I'm working with some guys on a 2 minute film that would be used as a warm up for a live presenter. The client is a film distribution company called Enterprise Media. You can see more examples of what we're trying to accomplish at John Cleese's video training site. There's 3 weeks to complete this, so there's lots to cover in a short amount of time.

Not in this episode, but coming soon, I'm going to talk about a site that has sparked my imagination and prompted me to create a series podcasts about the future of filmmaking education. Mike J0nes at Digital Basin created a manifesto for filmmaking educators a few weeks ago. I thought he was on target regarding the changes that dynamic media schools will have to make in order to adequately prepare their students for the rapidly evolving media production marketplace. I've always considered CDIA to be in the lead of adopting new technology, with a healthy sense of pragmatism, so I was interested in how my school measured up to Mike's idea's. Take a look at his manifesto and stay tuned, the series begins in a few weeks.

#26 Wk18 - Final Cut Pro

Continuing with the Final Cut module, for the second week

I was looking for some new production video and audio podcasts on iTunes and was reading the comments when I got curious about this podcast's page. I checked it out and was surprised that there was a comment. The writer was very generous and encouraging and indicated that while he hoped one day he would be able to do some filmmaking, this podcast gave him a look inside the process of learning filmmaking. Just one comment, but I was both humbled and gratified. It doesn't take a lot of encouragement to lift your spirits.

I haven't done much since I began to promote the podcast and I know of several things I could do. Frankly getting an episode out each week is often a struggle in time and effort. I have yet to check my stats on Libsyn, my hosting site, to see what, if any number of downloads there have been. Occasionally I check the blogs to see if there are any comments and even rarely do I check my email. I think that's the least I could do. Already I'm making myself busy. I'll do better, I promise.

This definitely points out my main goal though, which is to create a journal of my school experience, regardless of anyone else's participation. I don't mean I don't give a damn if no one listens to this podcast, or sends me comments and emails. I've already said how good an experience that is. I mean that my primary motivation, apart from any other consideration, is to create the podcast consistently through the end of my program at CDIA and in the process incorporate the best production values that I can. I don't know how much time I could devote to developing a community, no matter how small, of people interested in talking about my experiences in school, or theirs for that matter, unless it were to happen. I do know that I can learn a lot from creating this podcast and using it to reflect on what I discover each week at school. I'm just as glad that other people can do the same.

More stuff about Final Cut Pro editing strategies. Placing shortcuts to menu commands using the Button Bars in the top of every window pane, Timeline, Browser, Viewer etc. Option-J brings up the Button command lists, Option-H brings up the virtual keyboard that displays all the command key combinations. Rendering, which applies a special effect to a selected clip and then writes a file that stores that effect, can be a big time saver, and at the same time a disk hog. You'll need to remove these files from time to time. The wise thing to do is to delete them within Final Cut Pro, as opposed to deleting them from the Finder, otherwise you could get headaches from persistent alerts that media files are missing. Use Command-R to generate a render.

By the way, I'll always refer to the Apple Command key as the Command key, not the Apple key as I hear it often referred to in class and by other students. Maybe it's just old school, but I can't think of it as anything else.

As far as transitions are concerned, there are four which are recommended for their consistently effective impact:

• A Straight Cut
• dissolve
  
• Fade to black
• Dip to Color

Finally I discuss a variety of export options, depending on the medium you're sending you film to. Most importantly, from an archival standpoint, send your film to tape (DV tape on your camcorder). Also I mention exporting using Current Settings, Flash for web and Audio to OMF.

Thursday night was the Practicum showing. Student projects that created products in their media for local non profit organizations under the direction of a professional filmmaker. Great professional looking work.

Finally I mention a recent episode of This Week in Media, show # 53, Learning to Learn. TWIM is produced by Pixecorps.tv. I listen to this podcast weekly, very new media oriented with an emphasis on filmmaking issues. This one is about learning strategies for professionals that help you keep current.

Leave a comment or send me an email.

#25 Wk17 - Final Cut Pro

This is the first week of the Final Cut Pro module. Tuesday night was a special topic class, separate form the module.

Our speaker was Robert Patton Spruill, director of Squeeze and a documentary on Public Enemy which is in final production.

He brought some fresh perspective on how to live your life as an independent filmmaker. I also appreciated his perspective on the program at CDIA versus, Emerson College, where he teaches as well.

Federico Muchnik, the video program director is our instructor for the Final Cut Pro module. He has an easygoing style that he uses effectively to cut through all the mucky details and focuses specifically on the need to know stuff for filmmakers. We’re covering a lot of ground in a short time, the point is that we’ll do the real learning once we start cutting. I cover the things I think are most important to the editing workflow.

Somehow I got into a rant about archiving files. It’s definitely something you need to consider before you go to far into a project. Finally I bring up an important point about capturing video. Don’t capture video to an external drive connected via USB. Just don’t’.

#23 Wk15 - Film Project 1

Our team chose to shoot both projects at the same location. In the How To, our guest biologist, Steve, who works at the Jackson Estuarine Laboratory, demonstrates how to devine the genetic fingerprint of bacteria The profile is on the very same lab which monitors marine biology on the coast of New Hampshire.

We had a number of temporary setbacks because we didn't check our equipment but we end up with quite a bit of usable footage.

I'm still recording using the built-in mic on my Mac Powerbook. I've discovered you can do some decent audio correction using the Channel EQ. I'll talk about that in the next post.