River City

I had an iPad/Alexa/DSLR/DaVinci dream in 4K/3D last night.

Am I the only person out there who gets weary of all the shuck and jive going on in the creation of culture?  Blogs that are promoting technology, selling dreams to sell themselves by association?  Tweets that are just personal brand building?  I have to admit that, at times, I find it extremely discouraging that the new normal for making ground-level culture seems to often be so cynically capitalistic, particularly when we have so recently seen on a large scale just how likely this mindset is to fail and leave us all to flail on our own.  I'd like to think that we are all more than personal brands.  Don't get me wrong, I love technology and know that there are extremely liberating aspects to what is happening right now.  But just how real are these "relationships" that we claim to be building in the ether?  Are we all just salesmen?

Every time I log into my Blogger account, there it is, the monetize button.  Is that all we can aspire to now, to be little Mad Men?  Is that all culture makers can aspire to, being productive sub-units in Adam Smith's dream?  It seems to be an unquestioned assumption now, internalized by even the most ground-level culture makers.  My hope is that people will realize at some point, you are doing it all on your own anyway, create your own path and do what feels right for you.  You don't necessarily have to follow the "new" rules any more than you need to follow the old.

And for heaven's sake, please stop buying technology and throwing it away, replacing devices every few months.  Somewhere, there is an extremely poor person disassembling your "recycled" piece of technology and most likely getting poisoned (and poisoning their local environment) doing it.  Really, it's not ok.  The questions I ask myself are:  Can I do what I want without the new upgrade?  Will I make any money off of it?  Not perfect, I know, but at least it keeps in check the mindless upgrade beast that lurks in all of our hearts.  OK, no more cranky posts for a long, long time.

On a positive note, I'd like to mention a blog that I've found that I like quite a bit by Brad Bell.  It's really quite nice, beautiful and an interesting mix of technology, film, social concerns and their intersection.

Working with a Colorist, Preparing a Sequence for Color

I guess this post should really be titled, "Working with Me as Colorist," as I can only speak for my own preferences. I am briefly going to touch upon prepping a Final Cut Pro sequence for grading in Color 1.5.

Color has come a long way from version 1.0 as far as stability and its ability to work with various types of clips.  However, there are certain best practices that I like for people to follow before they provide the Final Cut sequence to me for grading.  I have created written guidelines which can be downloaded here.  Some of these best practices are absolutely necessary, others are optional but if not done will limit options for working with a clip in Color,  affecting things like to ability to do things like key framing.  It may seem like a hassle, however, remember that Color is a powerful professional tool and it is absolutely worth the effort.  Your editor, if they have sent any projects to be graded in Color, will probably be aware of most of these.  I just want to make it as straightforward as possible and save everyone time.

If anyone has any questions or corrections regarding these guidelines, please feel free to drop me a line.   The main point of this is that it's better for you to have your editor prepare the sequence for me than it is to pay me to do it.  I will do it, but personally I'd rather spend all of the money you pay me to make your project look awesome.

Out-Innovated Again

Everyone Here for Free iPhone Bumpers Please Line Up to the Right

Sorry for the video only post, I am in the middle of a grading a project and several other deadlines. But, trust me this is hysterical.  Leave it to the Chinese to come up with the funniest, over the top, anti-Apple animation ever.  Their view of Steve Jobs' solution to the iPhone 4 antenna issue is worthy of Peckinpah.

Why Can't Vimeo Get It's Act Together?

Who is behind that curtain?

Oh, just try doing a mobile site with Vimeo.  Cute, cute, underdog Vimeo.  That's why they're always behind the curve and doing everything patchwork, right?  But they have such a cute site!

Um, sorry but they're owned by IAC, a  super gynormous company that has bought and trashed sites like bloglines.com, ask.com.....and own properties from Collegehumor.com to match.com.  The Gannett of the Internets?  But wait, Gannett at least innovated the idea of a national newspaper, USA Today.

Fortunately, you, my 5 loyal readers, do not have to fear me selling out.

I Want My (3D) YouTube TV

Come with us on a trip to the 3D future!

Zowza.  It's starting to look like the early 90's all over again.  Sony has just announced that they will be supporting 3D YouTube video on the PS3.  Why is this like the early 90's?  Well, they are supporting Flash and promoting that as a 3D video player, lining up Sony, Google and Adobe against Apple.  The stars are aligning again for another battle of a generally inferior technological standard (Flash) promoted by "PC" against the upstart technologically superior HTML 5.0 (at least in non-3D, I need to research HTML 5.0 and 3D) being promoted by Apple.  I wonder where Microsoft stands in this battle.  Frankly, I liked the world a lot better when Google was lined up with, and not against, Apple.

This whole 3D thing is either going to bust open and be ubiquitous or is going to be another spectacular flameout, with dens across America littered with unused/unusable 3D televisions.  Click here for a short and interesting history of 3D film.  The most interesting fact is that prior to Avatar, the most financially successful (adjusted for inflation) 3D movie was a softcore porn flick, The Stewardesses.

New Site Up

Shakes, the camera assistant

I am still working on my first blog post about working with a colorist.  In the meantime, in addition to doing some production work and development work on a couple projects, we launched the newly revised version of my website yesterday.  A color grading job or two are in the immediate future. Welcome to the new film economy.

Documentary Colorist Reel

Important: for optimal viewing in full screen mode, turn scaling off.   Trust me, it won't look like it should otherwise.

I uploaded one of my colorist reels yesterday.  This reel is focused on more meat and potatoes type of corrections particularly pertinent to documentary films (especially footage shot under less than ideal conditions) rather than more flashy Hollywood-type effects or putting a subtle sheen on really well shot and lit footage.  I understand and do that type of work as well but will showcase that on a separate, narrative reel. 


My next couple of posts will focus on working with a colorist, well working with me as a colorist.  There is no one approach to color grading. Working with a colorist can encompass a wide range of experiences from  paying $600/hour in a high-end house to working with someone in their bedroom, and a whole world in-between.  The thing that is important for me is that people understand what to expect when they start the process and to be able to make intelligent choices.  


I am very interested in getting feedback on the reel and also hearing questions/topics filmmakers would like me to talk about with regard to the process of color correction.  Please feel free to email/IM me.