September 2006

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Earlier this year we updated our editing equipment. Before we were using a 20″ iMac with 2gig of memory, and couple of LaCie firewire drives. Then, within 3 days, two of our 4 macs had a hardware failure. This, naturally, came amidst a pressing deadline. With a speedy re-installation of FCP on the old, trusty Quicksilver G4, we managed to send the film just in time. But I learned, that we needed a dedicated editing machine.

After some soul- and google-searching, the decision was to go for a Quad G5. Upgraded to the next best grahics card (we are doing some Motion graphics, but not so much that we should pay the premium for the fastest, meanest graphics card.) Memory was upgraded to 4.5 gigs, then the question came to what sort of display. The geek in me wanted a 30″ Apple display. But after some calculation, as to how many pixels one gets for either one 30″ or two 23″, it became clear, that the two-screen solution would be the one to go for. Reading up on the Apple discussion forum I noticed some buzz around the Dell 24″ displays. Looking at the specs, it soon became clear that they were a definite contender for the Apple 23″. Yet the Apple pieces are gorgeous. Hmm…

To my rescue came a friendly Dell account manager, that came just with the right offer. I ended up ordering two of the Dells, and paid only slightly more than what one single, lonely, individual, isolated, lone, secluded, solitary Apple display would have cost. With the added advantage of being able to switch inputs.

In the future I want to upgrade our 3rd monitor - the broadcast CRT. For now it is a JVC 9″, which also doubles as field monitor. This one gets its signal from a Sony DSR-11, which we bought late last year. I also added a Behringer tactile mixing console, which looks magical when in use, if a little bit noisy. For input we use a customized FCP keyboard (which has been doing its job since I bought FCP 1.25), a contour jog shuttle and an Apple 3 button mouse (boy, was I happy the day I could remove the MS 3 button mouse - this meant that finally our office was PC free). For audio monitoring we are using some fancy-ish computer speakers, but they will be upgraded in the not too far future. For critical sound-work, headphones are used (also for reasons of ambient noise from the street; did I mention that our office is only 3 minutes from the beach?).

All put together, it does look pretty impressive. And I love the screen saver I installed. It simply displays random magic-related words or phrases on either screen. Lovely understatement.

Now, let’s finally get to the headline of this post.

The last couple of months we have been mainly working on our own projects, especially our – so far - longest project, a 45 minute documentary. Here I have enjoyed the processing speed of the Quad mainly when it came down to doing complex filters, and of course burning DVDs.

Today I had an editing session for an insurance company. New for me, the client was attending the session. So speed was of essence. And how well we worked; after 4 1/2 hours we had managed to log 2 miniDV tapes and 1 DVD, transfer the needed sections into FCP, cut it, add some nice animated graphics, do some basic colour correction, add fitting soundtrack, and put the finished 7 minute piece all on a DVD. This I could have never accomplished, had it not been for the speed of the G5, the experience with knowing which filters might be the right ones, and heavy useage of the F10 key.

So, what I learned again (and have found proven over and over again in the camera world), is that, yes, the creative mind/eye behind the machinery is the single most important factor in making a successful storytelling. But, with proper equipment, this creative mind can achive its full potential.

In other words, yes, an excellent editor can tell a story with iMovie. But (s)he will tell it much better with FCP and proper hardware.

Last night I saw Syriana, a rather disturbing (and of course very well made) film by Stephen Gaghan. Based upon real-life experiences by Robert Baer, a former CIA operative, Syriana shows the crude ways in which Oil influences politics, adds whole new layers of corruption and adds misery.
Most people know by now how poisenous oil & CO₂ is for the future. “Syriana” shows also the ways it demoralizes rich countries.
Fortunately, the film makers did not at showing the problem. They encourage people to do something about our oil addiction. First step is to read up on participate.net on what one can do.

On a side note, a lot of people praise a new documentary on why - despite existing demand - electric cars never became popular in the US. “Who killed the electric car?” by Chris Paine, himself an e-car lover, has not come out here in Norway yet, but I am looking foreward.

On my old website - which mostly dates back to 1998 - I also had a section with crew jokes from and near the set. From time to time I shall post a gem from that collection in my blog. Today we start with the art of gaffing.
For those not from the film industry, a Gaffer is the head of the lighting department. He organizes that all lights are placed according to the Director of Photograpy’s wishes, and of course he is in charge of safety. The Best Boy is the right hand of the Gaffer.)

While at lunch, the Gaffer puts one of those clip-on reflector units that you generally put a standard screw in light bulb into behind every HMI in the studio. The rub is… in every one of the clip-ons, he screws in one of those magnesium flash bulbs that look like standard household bulbs (you know, the ones that cost about 10 bucks a piece). We get back to the set from lunch, and the AD yells, “We’re Back, Light ‘em Up.” The Best Boy throws the master bull switch, and it looks like he has blown every globe in the house in the process, drops to his knees like a lightning bolt and pulls out his meters… you can guess what the expression was when he figured out the joke was on him.
by Mark Simon

I came across a fascinating site, Rasterbator. This site lets you upload any picture (up to 1meg in size), and then create a huge, multi-page rasterized printout. People have achieved impressive results. I used it to print out a large version of our logo.

Fun, and not just for your printer.

I been looking at a bigger monitor to complete our editing suite. So far we´ve been using a 9″ CRT from JVC, which doubles as location monitor. While it gives excellent colours, it is rather small, and does not have the full resolution.

So I did some research, and came up with the JVC TM-H150CG. For good prices in the US, there is of course B&H Photo at 499 USD, and Provantage at 433 USD. Trouble as always when shopping from Europe is the shipping costs. Including those, the monitor would run at 717 USD and 630 USD respectively.

So there comes a bit more surfing, and there I find a friendly french site, PBS Video which have it at 420 EUR (or 540 USD), but shipping is much cheaper, totalling 612 USD. With the added benefit of getting the right plug.