happiness in slavery...
...Although it isn't really slavery.
I just had a very busy week and a half that has left me feeling much, much better about everything in general.
Margoth and I edited a concert of her cousin's band that Jorge and I shot back in December. It's was an hour and a half, now it's 53 mins. It was shot with two cameras so it was my first opportunity to try out the new multiclip feature in FCP. I almost always use at least two cameras so this new feature (which was also added to both Premiere Pro 2.0 and Edius 4) really changes the way multicamera stuff is edited. Now you can watch all the cameras play back at once (once synced) and just click on the one you want to see, the system makes all the cuts for you. I can't even begin to explain the way I used to have to do. So, that video is done and being printed to DVD right now.
Also, a friend of my mom's recently took a last minute trip to India to participate in the memorial services for his Yoga guru of 30 years who had just passed on. I helped him buy a Handycam right before he left. He came back with 6 tapes shot in India, two of which were of the memorial. So we spent the week working on cutting that down to about 40 min. that he wanted to show to the other students of his Yogi at an event in Sedona this past weekend that they put on.
It sounded interesting so I offered to shoot the event for them. So I had an all expenses paid weekend in Sedona, which is one of the most beautiful places in the US I've ever seen. The event was Babaji's Parliament of World Religions and Yoga, which is basically a two day conference where representatives of various different religions come together and share their perspective on the idea of "unity through diversity" through lectures, chanting, music, video presentations, etc. This was the 53rd annual event put on by this order of Yoga, but it was the first one the students had to put on without their teacher, who usually hosted the event. I had a great time. It was very interesting listening to all the lectures, despite being from religions orders, none of the speakers were preachy, they all talked about really interesting aspects of spirituality and just being aware of what we are capable of doing with our minds. If anyone wants to here more or see some of the video over the Internet just contact me by email (tucson(at)shugpro.com) or go here http://www.sedonacreativelife.com/pre0644.html
We are going to cut the memorial video down to about 20-30 min. this coming week and then I’m going to be working full force on Pandora's Box, the long awaited comedy written by John Waugh and directed by me. It was put on hold to work on Rio Muerto, our western horror film. The tapes were recently released back to us so now we can get to work on postproduction, finally. I'm in the process of getting everything logged and edited on paper before I start actually loading footage into the Mac.
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Oh yeah, I sold one of the PowerMacs for as much as I’ve spent on 2 pmG4s, 1 pbG3, 2 Media100 cards, 2 sets of manuals, 2 disks, etc. Now I still have the PowerBook and the Nicer of the two Media100 systems. All profit baby, eBay is all about research and buying things below market value. I bought a Mac mini, 1.25ghz, 1gb RAM, 40GB HD, DVD/CD-RW, Wifi, Bluetooth. So that is my new pint sized editing system running Final Cut Pro. I'm trying to find another decent Mac so I can get my mom to fully switch, then I can sell this other Media100 for some big bucks compared to what it cost to build it.
http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=290018833443&ru=http%3A%2F%2Fsearch.ebay.com%3A80%2Fsearch%2Fsearch.dll%3Fcgiurl%3Dhttp%253A%252F%252Fcgi.ebay.com%252Fws%252F%26fkr%3D1%26from%3DR8%26satitle%3D290018833443%26category0%3D%26fvi%3D1
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So almost a month ago I was tired of twisting my neck to look at the CRT. (It had to sit kind of sideways on the desk) so I looked at the local stores (I won't buy a monitor I can't see in person) for an LCD panel and ended up finding a great deal on a 17" Sony with a super bright, glossy screen. I don't like the stand it has but the picture is so good it doesn't matter. Very happy with that purchase and the 19" version of the same series is great as well. (Only the glossy screen, dvi/analogue models; the non-glossy, analogue only ones are not as nice) So that went in the computer room. Right now it's hooked up to the PC since that all that's in there.
That left my room with an old 17" Viewsonic CRT. I was unhappy, so I went to the store again when I sold the Media100/G4. This time I bought a 19" widescreen Samsung (940bw). I couldn't get the contrast to be even from the top of the screen to the bottom so I brought it back. I traded it for the top of the line 4:3 Samsung 19" (931c, just won some award) that had a beautiful glossy black bezel and was supposed to have 2ms response time and 2000:1 contrast (way beyond good) but with that one whenever I move something across the screen I got weird halos and color shifting, and flashing during scene changes on DVDs. So I brought that back to Best Buy and got my money back. I then went to CompUSA, which is where I had picked up the Sony. There I asked maybe six employees if they'd had any experience with any of them and after getting little help out of most of them I went home with 20" widescreen Samsung that I am very happy with and have had no picture problems at all. The one I ended up with is the Samsung Syncmaster 205bw. 1680x1050 is very nice, especially for programs like Final Cut Pro.
http://www.samsung.com/ca/products/monitor/lcd_digital/ls20hawcbqxaa.asp
I just had a very busy week and a half that has left me feeling much, much better about everything in general.
Margoth and I edited a concert of her cousin's band that Jorge and I shot back in December. It's was an hour and a half, now it's 53 mins. It was shot with two cameras so it was my first opportunity to try out the new multiclip feature in FCP. I almost always use at least two cameras so this new feature (which was also added to both Premiere Pro 2.0 and Edius 4) really changes the way multicamera stuff is edited. Now you can watch all the cameras play back at once (once synced) and just click on the one you want to see, the system makes all the cuts for you. I can't even begin to explain the way I used to have to do. So, that video is done and being printed to DVD right now.
Also, a friend of my mom's recently took a last minute trip to India to participate in the memorial services for his Yoga guru of 30 years who had just passed on. I helped him buy a Handycam right before he left. He came back with 6 tapes shot in India, two of which were of the memorial. So we spent the week working on cutting that down to about 40 min. that he wanted to show to the other students of his Yogi at an event in Sedona this past weekend that they put on.
It sounded interesting so I offered to shoot the event for them. So I had an all expenses paid weekend in Sedona, which is one of the most beautiful places in the US I've ever seen. The event was Babaji's Parliament of World Religions and Yoga, which is basically a two day conference where representatives of various different religions come together and share their perspective on the idea of "unity through diversity" through lectures, chanting, music, video presentations, etc. This was the 53rd annual event put on by this order of Yoga, but it was the first one the students had to put on without their teacher, who usually hosted the event. I had a great time. It was very interesting listening to all the lectures, despite being from religions orders, none of the speakers were preachy, they all talked about really interesting aspects of spirituality and just being aware of what we are capable of doing with our minds. If anyone wants to here more or see some of the video over the Internet just contact me by email (tucson(at)shugpro.com) or go here http://www.sedonacreativelife.com/pre0644.html
We are going to cut the memorial video down to about 20-30 min. this coming week and then I’m going to be working full force on Pandora's Box, the long awaited comedy written by John Waugh and directed by me. It was put on hold to work on Rio Muerto, our western horror film. The tapes were recently released back to us so now we can get to work on postproduction, finally. I'm in the process of getting everything logged and edited on paper before I start actually loading footage into the Mac.
___________________________________
Oh yeah, I sold one of the PowerMacs for as much as I’ve spent on 2 pmG4s, 1 pbG3, 2 Media100 cards, 2 sets of manuals, 2 disks, etc. Now I still have the PowerBook and the Nicer of the two Media100 systems. All profit baby, eBay is all about research and buying things below market value. I bought a Mac mini, 1.25ghz, 1gb RAM, 40GB HD, DVD/CD-RW, Wifi, Bluetooth. So that is my new pint sized editing system running Final Cut Pro. I'm trying to find another decent Mac so I can get my mom to fully switch, then I can sell this other Media100 for some big bucks compared to what it cost to build it.
http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=290018833443&ru=http%3A%2F%2Fsearch.ebay.com%3A80%2Fsearch%2Fsearch.dll%3Fcgiurl%3Dhttp%253A%252F%252Fcgi.ebay.com%252Fws%252F%26fkr%3D1%26from%3DR8%26satitle%3D290018833443%26category0%3D%26fvi%3D1
___________________________________
So almost a month ago I was tired of twisting my neck to look at the CRT. (It had to sit kind of sideways on the desk) so I looked at the local stores (I won't buy a monitor I can't see in person) for an LCD panel and ended up finding a great deal on a 17" Sony with a super bright, glossy screen. I don't like the stand it has but the picture is so good it doesn't matter. Very happy with that purchase and the 19" version of the same series is great as well. (Only the glossy screen, dvi/analogue models; the non-glossy, analogue only ones are not as nice) So that went in the computer room. Right now it's hooked up to the PC since that all that's in there.
That left my room with an old 17" Viewsonic CRT. I was unhappy, so I went to the store again when I sold the Media100/G4. This time I bought a 19" widescreen Samsung (940bw). I couldn't get the contrast to be even from the top of the screen to the bottom so I brought it back. I traded it for the top of the line 4:3 Samsung 19" (931c, just won some award) that had a beautiful glossy black bezel and was supposed to have 2ms response time and 2000:1 contrast (way beyond good) but with that one whenever I move something across the screen I got weird halos and color shifting, and flashing during scene changes on DVDs. So I brought that back to Best Buy and got my money back. I then went to CompUSA, which is where I had picked up the Sony. There I asked maybe six employees if they'd had any experience with any of them and after getting little help out of most of them I went home with 20" widescreen Samsung that I am very happy with and have had no picture problems at all. The one I ended up with is the Samsung Syncmaster 205bw. 1680x1050 is very nice, especially for programs like Final Cut Pro.
http://www.samsung.com/ca/products/monitor/lcd_digital/ls20hawcbqxaa.asp