Working on video taken in the arctic in 1985 and the quality is absolutely horendous. VHS smearing, noise, globs of out of focus junk and color variable horizontal pastel lines on the top of the picture. No pluggins have any affect as there is nothing there to affect. Have to make something out of nothing with tricks and slight of hand. Even God can't help this stuff.

JJK

Working on 2 wedding videos at the same time and 1 documentary about the story of this 85 year old man, Its very interesting and very funny on how he went thru life...avoided the war..

Geeze---that is probably the first 100 cam wedding video ever. Call Guiness and get your names in the book!!!!!!!!!!!!

A streaming video/flash for a website demoing how to cook a speciality bread

Is the 100 cam wedding an all access event? I'm in Sac and would love to see it. Heck I'll make it 101 cams if needed!

I just got back from Washington, DC where I videotaped a three-day "Politics and Spirituality" conference with Jim Wallis, Fr. Richard Rohr and Anne Lamott. It was held at the Capitol Hill Hyatt Regency. The conference ended with a march and rally on the steps of the Capitol on Monday, which was Martin Luther King day. There were a few thousand people at the conference.

I was just a block-and-a-half from the Capitol, so everytime I had a couple of hours to spare, I hiked over to one of the Smithsonian museums and saw whatever I could see before I had to get back to the conference. I've spent a lot of time at the Smithsonian over the years and I never get tired of it, nor do I ever get to see it all.

John

Trying to get someone to define the theme of a capital campaign video for my church. Has to be ready for distribution of 600 copies by Feb 12, and I'm just shooting stock footage, scanning stills and WAITING for a SCRIPT.

Be careful that when you retire, no one else knows about it - otherwise you will then have numerous full time jobs.

However, I'm happy to be alive, healthy and capable of bitching about everything....

RalphM

Rebuilding my uncompressed workstation for the second time in 30 days, sigh. Royal PITA.

Calif. sales tax returns are easy for me nowadays. Not just because I have been doing them for 20 years for my own business, but because a) I spent a lot of time going over the regs and found some things that reduce the complexity of my filings dramatically, and b) I file online so everything that can be filled out beforehand is already in place each time, and all calculations are performed automatically.

The bigger job for this is actually in Quickbooks, where there are a lot of issues I suspect many are just skipping, but I like keeping my nose clean.

I'm also storyboarding two new videos I'm producing in parallel, and over the years I have slowly come to like this more and more as an outlet for my creativity (and making sure that the damn thing sells too! :O).

I'm training online (lynda.com) to become more proficient in several packages I need to use more. My annual subscription to everything they produce, including all course files, saves stress and money.

Still dreaming about going to see the 15 movies left on my most wanted list...

I've got 4 projects on my edit desk:
1. Just got back from Nicaragua with footage for a 20-minute promotional piece for a microcredit loan program to promote small-scale economic development. The program is run by a Wisconsin-based nonprofit and they're looking for a promo to attract new investors. We talked to a florist, a cinder-block manufacturer, a women's sewing cooperative (the only worker-owned factory to be declared a free-trade zone), and a cattle rancher. We also got to do a one-hour interview with Ernesto Cardenal, Nicaragua's poet laureaute, sculptor, Catholic priest and Sandinista revolutionary.

2. Still working on a documentary about Wisconsin's abortive attempt to legalize the shooting of feral cats.

3. A documentary about a Madison-area throat singer, street musician and gourmet chef.

4. I have to put together some general VJ weirdness for a "Sex & Politics" cabaret variety rock 'n' roll show.

I'm modifying a very nice 16mm Eiki projector so I can make high-speed HDV copies of 16mm film. Think Rank Cinetel or Workprinter (i.e., frame capture).

This involves removing the shutter and slowing down the drive train (like the Workprinter), but not as much as a Workprinter (hopefully about 12 fps capture rate, which is twice as fast as a Workprinter). Also, since there is no way to capture individual frames in HDV (because it uses GOP structure), I will capture the film continuously and then, in post production using proprietary software, throw out the redundant frames and frames where the film is moving, and keep only the good frames. The key advance in this design is to eliminate stop-motion capture (necessary for HDV) which has the side benefit of operating at a faster speed (meaning much faster throughput).

If this works, I believe this will be the first low-cost HD 16mm frame-by-frame film transfer machine.

I have close to 50 hours of film to transfer, so this thing has got to work. I'll post here when it's up and running.

Working on a DVD motion menu for a female muscle girl website/film company.

Weird stuff.

Is the 100 cam wedding an all access event?

The World Record Wedding Video Event

painting my house,, uhhh!!!

Have a racing commercial next week.

Johnmeyer,
That's quite an undertaking. The EIKI is quite a bullet proof machine. I modified an NT-0 to do flicker-free 24fps using a 5 bladed shutter, but operating in the mode of the Cinemate line from Moviestuff.

One thing I was dismayed to find is that a synchronous motor was a rare option on those projectors. Had to rig a little speed control.

I'd be very interested to hear how this goes.

RalphM

Just finished editing 6 hours of footage shot by one of a group of motorcycle riders on a guided tour in the Spanish mountains. Great camera work, and a really interesting client to work with. Nearly 30 hours of editing to get the project down to a manageble hour and 40 minutes.

Going to spend the week end shooting 16 hours of instructional material (read "talking head") by a lady who is marketing franchises of a very profitable weight loss program and wants buyers to know how to run the business. Will spend several days editing this, as it's a two camera shoot with lots of cut aways and cut-in PowerPoint slides.

Have a shoot with Allstate Insurance on Thursday.

Keeps pasta in the pot and beer in the fridge.

Jack

Building :30 and :60 spots for the NAB show and hotel broadcast.
Training DVD for Detroit Diesel.
Wishing I was Stonefield right now.

Currently working on a mountain board centre promo, as well as a one hour documentary about Matt Coulter The Kangaroo Kid and the insane quad bike jumps and stunts he performs. All sorts of archive footage to sift through, and its shaping up well. Just got to figure out whether to aspect convert the archive footage (from various sources. Everything from VHS, SVHS all the way to SP, but all 4:3, arrrggghhh!) Its aimed at 16:9 broadcast, so all my interview footage, and present day GV's and footage are all 16:9.

Whats the highest quality way of doing an aspect convert in Vegas?

Just finished two 6 minute aerial videos for an international commercial real estate company for a "State of Real Estate" conference for the St. Louis bi-state area. Shot with Z1U and dual Kenlabs gyro with help from Deshaker.

I am also working on a number of corporate video presentation for commercial builders and architects.

I will post links shortly.

Duncan

I am working on a recruiting video for my high school marching band. One minute done, nine left to go, curse this new day job that takes up all of my time.

It will be done on time though.

I'm finishing up photo documentary dvd on Hurricane Katrina. 15 photographers from Mississippi and Louisiana newspapers have provided content (pictures and voice overs). I have spent 17 hour days this entire week compiling, editing, rendering and authoring. The DVD master gets mailed to the replicator tomorrow! Yeah!

Wishing I was Stonefield right now.

Does anyone ever wish they weren't stonefield??? :)

Working on some 2D animations for a company out of state (using vegas for it too :) - expanding my knowlege on how to make what I got go further :) )

I have a monthly gig for a place here locally that I'm working on comming up with a smoking intro for, and then the first one will show in Feb. (not broadcast - just large group showings on Closed Circuit, I consider 1-2K of ppl. large groups though so that's up for interpretation).

Dave

just got my new lounge in for my theatre.. but yet to find time to wire everythign up properly...

cutting 3 weddings, with 2 of em, im waiting for client approval (assholes) and the other her mum passed away so im being a lil more pedantic with it..

im over weddings though... CBF cutting them anymore..