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by Josh Mellicker

The World’s Movie Camera Makers Have All Quietly Stopped Production Of Film Cameras | TechCrunch

Oct 17, 2011 at 11:07 am in cinematography, delivery, film, production by Josh Mellicker · Leave a Comment »

Most people reading this website will not be surprised to hear that the era of film is coming to an end. Even those of you who, like me, spent days in darkrooms perfecting your dodge technique, are likely unruffled at the notion. But in Hollywood film has been clinging tenaciously to life, if only out of a sort of traditionalist inertia. But this last year was marked by a sort of quiet final surrender by the film cadre: Arri, Panavision, [read more →]

by Josh Mellicker

iPhone 4S / Canon 5d MKII Side by Side Comparison on Vimeo

Oct 16, 2011 at 5:32 pm in cinematography, production by Josh Mellicker · Leave a Comment »

iPhone 4S / Canon 5d MKII Side by Side Comparison on Vimeo on Vimeo

via iPhone 4S / Canon 5d MKII Side by Side Comparison on Vimeo.

by Josh Mellicker

GovernmentVideo: Tax Breaks For Some Film, TV Productions Are Made Permanent

Oct 11, 2011 at 10:50 am in planning, production by Josh Mellicker · Leave a Comment »

Producers will continue to be able to deduct the costs of producing qualified film and television productions from a production company’s U.S. taxes because the federal government has made those deductions permanent.

On Sept. 30, 2011 the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) posted a notice on the Federal Register—Deduction for Qualified Film and Television Production Costs—that lists details of the film production tax deductions, which were already in use, but which became permanent Sept. 29.

The notice contains final regulations relating to deductions [read more →]

by Josh Mellicker

Apple – Final Cut Pro X – Software Update

Sep 20, 2011 at 4:45 pm in broadcast, delivery, editing, post audio, post production, post visuals by Josh Mellicker · Leave a Comment »

Version 10.0.1 introduces some new features that, while not addressing Final Cut Pro X’s major flaws, include XML import/export and a Camera Import SDK, both good things. And a highly uncharacteristic promise of two more features coming in “early 2012″, showing that someone at Apple wishes to send a vague ray of hope to those of us who believe that FCPX could [read more →]

by Josh Mellicker

Automated Video Editing Site Makes Movie Magic Out of Raw Footage | LinkedIn

at 2:01 pm in delivery, editing, post production, web video by Josh Mellicker · Leave a Comment »

Editing in the cloud will someday come of age.

Automated Video Editing Site Makes Movie Magic Out of Raw Footage | LinkedIn.

by Josh Mellicker

YouTube Introduces Video Editing Feature

at 2:00 pm in delivery, editing, post production, post visuals, web video by Josh Mellicker · Leave a Comment »

“We noticed that a lot of people were uploading videos to YouTube that we can say are somewhat unpolished,” says Jason Toff, product manager at YouTube, adding that rougher amateur footage tends to be a lot more common than professionally edited work on the site.

But isn’t that the whole fun of it?

via YouTube Introduces Video Editing Feature.

by Josh Mellicker

Canon plans Hollywood event, ready to roll out the red carpet on November 3rd — Engadget

Sep 18, 2011 at 12:33 pm in cinematography, production by Josh Mellicker · Leave a Comment »

By Zach Honig posted Sep 15th 2011 6:21PM

Oh, what’s this, Canon? You want your turn in the spotlight as well? Well, we suppose a hint of an announcement is better than a non-announcement, so bring it on! The imaging company just sent us word of a presumably star-studded SoCal event on November 3rd, giving its cameras a chance to walk the red carpet in a rather surprising Hollywood role reversal. We’re not sure exactly what Canon plans to unveil [read more →]

by Josh Mellicker

Get your video to viewers’ TVs through the new Roku 2

Aug 17, 2011 at 11:49 am in broadcast, delivery, web video by Josh Mellicker · 2 Comments »

As filmmakers, we need to stay on top of not only video production, but also video delivery, especially in this rapidly changing environment. Creating great video projects is only the first step; getting your videos to your viewers is the next.

From the 1940′s to 1970′s, delivering video content to the living room TV was controlled mainly by three companies: ABC, CBS and NBC. The 1970′s brought many more channels, with cable television, and later with satellite, but it still cost [read more →]

by Josh Mellicker

Mimic Lite

Aug 13, 2011 at 3:25 pm in editing, editing products, post visuals, production by Josh Mellicker · Leave a Comment »

Description:

Mimic 3 Lite is a fun, easy and powerful 3D facial animation solution. You can use it in conjunction with DAZ Studio and Poser, or you can use it as a stand-alone by rendering movies directly out of Mimic. Mimic 3 Lite is powerful enough for professionals yet easy enough for younger customers, too.

Regular price: $19.95

Our price: $4.98

Here’s a weird short video done with Mimic Lite, the only one I could find. This [read more →]

by Josh Mellicker

“Captain America: the First Avenger” Action Shots Captured With Canon EOS 5D Mark II Digital SLR Cameras

Aug 2, 2011 at 1:20 pm in cinematography, production by Josh Mellicker · Leave a Comment »

The feature film, “Captain America: The First Avenger”, used Canon EOS 5D Mark II Digital SLR cameras to capture many of the movie’s action shots. Throughout the super hero action picture, the 5D Mark II was used to shoot motion sequences that were seamlessly integrated with the production’s 35mm film footage.

More compact and lightweight than traditional motion-picture cameras, the 5D Mark II offers creative advantages such as compatibility with Canon’s wide range of high-performance EF lenses, user-selectable [read more →]

by Josh Mellicker

Blackmagic Design Announces DaVinci Resolve Lite – Free Download

Jul 22, 2011 at 3:25 pm in digital video news, post production, post visuals by Josh Mellicker · Leave a Comment »

Milpitas, CA – July 22, 2011 – Blackmagic Design today announced DaVinci Resolve Lite, a new reduced feature version of DaVinci Resolve that includes many powerful color correction features in a downloadable software package available free of charge, is now shipping.

Download for free here.

To help promote the art of color correction, DaVinci Resolve Lite includes many powerful features found in the full version of DaVinci Resolve for an extremely powerful toolset that anyone will able to download. [read more →]

by Josh Mellicker

Bare Feats tests FCPX speed

Jul 9, 2011 at 9:41 am in delivery, editing, post production, post visuals, web video by Josh Mellicker · Leave a Comment »

Kind of amazing how the iMac is faster than the Mac Pro with blurs!

Click here to read the whole article.

In this first pass at evaluating Final Cut Pro X (FCPX), we decided to compare three different popular Macs. We chose three initial tests. Our test project was a 32 second ProRes 422 (HQ) video, 1888×1062, 23.98 FPS, 172.22Mb/s data rate (with Surround audio 48KHz).

DIRECTIONAL BLUR EFFECT
With Background Render disabled, [read more →]

by Josh Mellicker

Final Cut Pro X update from London

Jul 7, 2011 at 2:30 pm in digital video news, editing, post production by Josh Mellicker · 4 Comments »

Apple held a private Final Cut Pro X (FCP X) briefing for enterprise contracts in London on July 6th. One first hand report has been posted to the internet detailing what Apple discussed during the event. Alex4d summarizes tweets by @aPostEngineer which reveals the following points:

1. FCP XML in/out is coming via 3rd party soon…no FCP 6/7 support project support coming ever it seems…

2. Ability to buy FCP7 licenses for enterprise deployments coming in the next few weeks…

3. FCPX EDL [read more →]

by Josh Mellicker

H.264 is taking over the web

at 2:27 pm in delivery, digital video news, web video by Josh Mellicker · Leave a Comment »

MeFeedia reports that H.264 is currently the dominate native video format and continues to be broadly adopted.

H.264 continues to grow with the rise of modern browsers & the massive growth in mobile (mostly iOS & Android).

WebM currently accounts for < 2% of total videos in their index, however, this could change with YouTube recently announcing it was transcoding all of its index into WebM.

via HTML5 Video Available on the Web – June 2011 Update.

by Josh Mellicker

Read this before installing Final Cut Pro X, Motion 5, or Compressor 4

Jun 24, 2011 at 11:28 am in broadcast, delivery, DVD, editing, film, post audio, post production, post visuals by Josh Mellicker · 15 Comments »

Final Cut Pro X, Motion 5, Compressor 4: Installation best practices

Last Modified: June 23, 2011
Article: HT4722

Summary

It is strongly recommended that you install Final Cut Pro X, Motion 5, and Compressor 4 [read more →]

by Josh Mellicker

What does the guy who led the original Final Cut Pro revolution think of the Final Cut Pro X release?

Jun 23, 2011 at 7:14 pm in broadcast, delivery, digital video news, DVD, editing, post audio, post production, post visuals by Josh Mellicker · 184 Comments »

Yes it did!

In case anyone is interested in my take on the release of Final Cut Pro X, here it is.

First, let me say this first article is just about the release, and not about the software itself. I promise that henceforth I will focus on the actual FCPX software and forget all the hullabaloo.

But this article is about Apple’s business strategy (or lack thereof), my industry perceptions, and looking back a bit to [read more →]

by Josh Mellicker

Our Final Cut Pro X forum is live!

Jun 21, 2011 at 2:33 pm in broadcast, delivery, DVD, editing, film, post audio, post production, post visuals, web video by Josh Mellicker · 11 Comments »

NOTE: This page is not the forum. Click here to visit the forum.

by Josh Mellicker

BlackMagic demos UltraStudio 3D capture box with two Thunderbolt ports | 9 to 5 Mac | Apple Intelligence

Jun 18, 2011 at 10:15 am in broadcast, digital video news, editing, film, post audio, post production, post visuals by Josh Mellicker · Leave a Comment »

Third-parties are prepping new Thunderbolt products ahead of the upcoming Final Cut Pro X release. Japanese site Macotakara.jp got a chance to play with Blackmagic Design’s UltraStudio 3D, a Thunderbolt-enabled 3D capture and playback for SD, HDMI and analog. Although BlackMagic’s site lists the device as having one Thunderbolt port, the unit on display has two ports. Engineers apparently haven’t yet made the final decision on that. The above clip shows a cool portable editing solution consisting of an early-2011 [read more →]

by Josh Mellicker

Get Final Cut Pro X for $255 (Update: sale is over)

Jun 10, 2011 at 2:29 pm in editing, post production by Josh Mellicker · 3 Comments »

Want to get Final Cut Pro X for $255?

Buy three of these (reportedly redeemable in the Mac App Store)

Apple® – iTunes $100 Gift Card – APPLE.

The Mac App Store certainly looks like you can redeem Gift Cards, though I have never tried it:

(Obviously, you’ll have to wait until it is available!)

by Josh Mellicker

Images of Motion 5 and Final Cut Pro X?

Jun 8, 2011 at 9:33 am in post production, post visuals by Josh Mellicker · Leave a Comment »

“New Rig”… Hmmm… did one of those “you got peanut butter in my chocolate” moments happen with Motion 5 and Shake? I hope so!

(Click on images to enlarge)

Ah, dropzones are still alive and well! Yay for that!

These pics were posted by a Canadian fellow on Twitpic, and apparently Twitpic not only removed the pics, but his Twitter account is now gone! And, he’s been missing since this morning. Okay, that last part was a [read more →]

by Josh Mellicker

What’s new in Adobe Premiere Pro CS5.5?

May 11, 2011 at 2:19 pm in digital video news, editing, post production, post visuals by Josh Mellicker · Leave a Comment »

Adobe Premiere Pro CS5.5 is available, and you can get it now. You can also download a fully functional free 30-day trial version.

Here’s a link to the [read more →]

by Josh Mellicker

TidBITS Macs & Mac OS X: Secrets of Thunderbolt and Lion

May 10, 2011 at 1:26 pm in post production by Josh Mellicker · 2 Comments »

by Glenn Fleishman

You can read a thousand articles about the new Thunderbolt input/output technology in Apple’s latest revision to MacBook Pro laptops, and the new revelations from Apple about Mac OS X Lion. But via Twitter, I discovered that many people are unaware of or concerned about certain features close to their hearts. From online sources and a briefing with Apple last week, I can provide some reassurance and additional details.

These seem to be among the [read more →]

by Josh Mellicker

What’s the best way to deinterlace in Final Cut Pro?

May 5, 2011 at 4:45 pm in editing, post production by Josh Mellicker · Leave a Comment »

Interlacing looks bad on a computer screen. Even if your footage is progressive, if you’re editing in an interlaced timeline, elements like motion keyframing and transitions will still be interlaced. Let’s set up a deinterlaced Master Sequence to get the best possible quality.

1. First, right-click in your Browser and create a new Sequence.

2. Name it “Master”.

3. Open the “Master” Sequence and drag your edit Sequence into it.

[read more →]

by Josh Mellicker

US online video usage surges | News | Rapid TV News

Apr 18, 2011 at 12:51 pm in delivery, web video by Josh Mellicker · 1 Comment »

Bouncing back from a slip in February, online video usage in the US is on the rise according to new research from The Nielsen group.

The survey for March 2011 showed that total video streams also increased 7% to 14.5 billion streams. There were in all 144.2 million unique online video users, a 3.6% rise year on year. These users spent on average 4:41 minutes watching each stream, an 8% increase in terms of time per viewer. There were on [read more →]

by Josh Mellicker

RIP Google Video: Download Your Videos by May 13 or They’re Gone Forever

Apr 17, 2011 at 3:07 pm in delivery, web video by Josh Mellicker · 1 Comment »

Google‘s decided to shut down its Google Video service, and in an email sent Friday night (4/15/2011), reminded those who’ve uploaded videos to the site that they have until May 13 to download them before they are removed.

Google says that on April 29, Google Videos will no longer be viewable on the site, and the download function will still be available for a couple of weeks to allow users to retrieve their work. Perhaps many of those users will move [read more →]

by Josh Mellicker

Apple previews Final Cut Pro X – arriving in June for $299

Apr 12, 2011 at 8:22 pm in broadcast, delivery, digital video news, editing, post audio, post production, post visuals, web video by Josh Mellicker · 1 Comment »

Apple revealed the new version of Final Cut Pro, dubbed “Final Cut Pro X”, at the FCP User Group SuperMeet in NAB Tuesday night.

Here’s some creative video of the event:

and a better video of the demo only:

The editing software has been rewritten from scratch, here are the high points:

64-bit, with OpenCL support
Uses Grand Central Dispatch to utilize all cores
Editing during import
Ingested media ready for editing immediately
stabilization, audio and shutter correction, shot detection and preliminary color balancing automatically applied during ingest
Scalable [read more →]

by Josh Mellicker

Adobe Unveils Creative Suite 5.5 Production Premium

Apr 11, 2011 at 2:16 pm in broadcast, delivery, digital video news, DVD, editing, post audio, post production, post visuals, web video by Josh Mellicker · Leave a Comment »

Sweeping Productivity Enhancements and New Creative Innovations Boost End-to-End Workflows for Audio and Video Professionals

SAN JOSE, Calif. — April 11, 2011 — Adobe Systems Incorporated (Nasdaq:ADBE) today announced Adobe® Creative Suite® 5.5 Production Premium, the complete software solution for video and post-production that helps deliver content to virtually any screen. Breakthrough performance, workflow improvements, creative innovations, and powerful new audio editing capabilities build upon the huge customer momentum Production Premium [read more →]

by Josh Mellicker

March 2011 Editors’ Lounge discussion

Apr 7, 2011 at 11:01 am in broadcast, delivery, digital video news, editing, post audio, post production, post visuals, web video by Josh Mellicker · 1 Comment »

PreNAB Editors’ Lounge 2011 Part 1 from Editors' Lounge on Vimeo.

The March 2011 Editors’ Lounge HTTP://editorslounge.com/ was the 8th year of our annual NAB discussion panel and featured guest speakers Steve Cohen, Terence Curren, Mark Raudonis, Michael Bravin and Lucas Wilson. Debra Kaufman moderated a lively discussion on post-production trends and predictions for NAB 2011.

Once the video is loaded you can jump to the subjects below:

3:00 The New Final Cut Pro, as seen by [read more →]

by Josh Mellicker

Predict a feature of the new version of Final Cut Pro!

Apr 5, 2011 at 6:20 pm in broadcast, delivery, digital video news, DVD, editing, film, post audio, post production, post visuals, web video by Josh Mellicker · Leave a Comment »

Please add a comment with a feature you predict will be in the next version of Final Cut Pro, and you’ll have a chance to win a the Final Cut Studio 4 upgrade!

Here are the contest rules:

You can post a prediction, or a wish!
There is a FIVE PREDICTION LIMIT PER PERSON!
Vote other people’s comments up or down by clicking the balloon!
The winner will not be determined by who is right. The winner will be chosen on how many “points” their [read more →]

by Josh Mellicker

Canon T3i vs 60D – Which one should you buy?

Mar 31, 2011 at 8:31 pm in cinematography, production by Josh Mellicker · 1 Comment »

At this point, there are several choices for HDSLRs, but my philosophy is this:

If your budget is limited at all, spend the minimum on the camera and spend the money where it will really count– on the other goodies that really make an impact, like lenses, (especially lenses!), a decent tripod, mics, lights, stabilizers, dollies or jibs, and other valuable and essential tools of the trade.

If you are an expert cinematographer, the viewers of your final video project won’t have [read more →]