The Fourth Meeting
September 27. 00

The September meeting of the lafcpug was so inspiring, so full of life affirming positive vibes, so full of good work, so full of historical implications, that upon the close of the meeting, the 100 members attending, spontaneously grabbed each other in a mass group hug and bellowed out a rendition of Cumbaya with a zest not heard since the 1945 homecoming of the US troops at New York Harbor.

This month we initiated the bonus hour and instead of our usual 7:15 start time, we gave the members a 6:30PM start to bring in Audio gurus Dan Brockett and Randy Bickler of Big little Films, to show all of us "audio challenged" film makers how to get decent audio to go along with our beautiful pictures.

Dan and Randy spent a good hour lugging a ton of equipment up the flight of stairs and another 30 minutes to set up the demo. After a brief break for oxygen, they began.

Some points covered.

Don't try to do the audio and camera by yourself. Get your neighbor if you have to, but get somebody to monitor sound. The longer the shotgun mic, the smaller the angle of acceptance. Sennheiser 416s are the industry standards. Sturdy and will get the job done. Rent, don't buy your audio equipment unless you are going to be using it on an almost daily basis. Many places in LA offer great packages on audio equipment which would typically include a mixer, shotgun mic and lavs for $75 a day. Other basic packages start at $40.

Dan and Randy then brought out various mics and explained the difference, from hand helds to shot guns to lavs. Randy says don't use wireless lavs unless you HAVE to. And if you have to, get UHF ones. Many types of lavs and many types of hook ups. Countryman is a good choice.They then talked about various brands and the difference in those and the differences are major depending on price. They said trust your ears and your headphones and not the VU meter on the mixer. Calibrate your audio by having your meters match up to zero. -18 is digital zero.

They also showed us what was their audio cart, which in reality is an inexpensive Rubbermaid janitor cart which can be purchased for $79.00. Functional, breaks down to fit in trunk, and carries everything.

Not enough space to cover everything they talked about but if you want more info or have any questions, write Dan Brockett. Regular meeting was called to order at 7:15 and I announced that our web site would soon be moving to www.lafcpug.org and Chriss Coe will be doing the design and Ken Stone will handle maintenance. Ned Soltz, our crack treasurer announced we would soon be getting a bank account to handle monies currently residing in a plastic bag that looked to be from a Gelsons supermarket.

First up for Show and tell was Warren Metzler who showed us 5 minutes of his short film, "Light Sensitive" about a blind man with an attitude based on a play by the same name if memory serves me correctly. Warren shot the film on Super16mm and then telecined to Beta SP and then to DVCam, edited it in FCP, and shown to us. It was the perfect intro to our Key note speaker Dan Fort as Warren went through the process Dan was about to explain. Thanks Warren. Great job.

Dan Fort, assistant editor on "Bojangles" over at Showtime cable, spent about 5 minutes setting up everything one needs to offline a 3 million dollar movie for television. When all was plugged in, the audience sat staring at an iMac center stage, and an iBook, upper stage right. First words out of Dans mouth and in this writers opinion, historical, (and I paraphrase here) "you don't need no $100,000 system to make a LIST".

A list? Yea, when you think about it, that's about all your doing. Dan brought up Ramy Katrib to show us a 5 minute movie he put together on the film to telecined to DVCam to FCP, (using Film Logic software) to film process, and this little movie showed it ALL. From bins to negative cutters to color correctionists to folks just sitting around waiting for something to do. An engaging How2 on what Dan was to spend about an hour talking about.

Although I will cover a few of the more "cool" points of Dans demo, I would recommend you go to Film Logic and download the WHITE PAPER by Loran Kary. It is written for ALL of us and is a fascinating read especially if you find yourself in the bathroom for a good while.

Basically Film Logic will take that DVCam you telecined from your 35mm negative and "pull down" the 29.97 video frame rate to 24fps so you can cut at 24fps and get your self an accurate film cut list. (Ahh, just read the white paper)

He showed us how to capture the telecined DVCam into an iMac with an external 76 gig IBM Firewire drive using a DSR 40 with a RS 422 connection for 99% accurate frame time code. Seems capturing via Firewire gets you about an 80% accurate TC. Then Dan compresses the DV to Photo jpeg freeing up space on the HD and allowing the entire movie to spend it's life on a single external Firewire HD. Great for those times you want to edit a bit at home. And the picture was more than acceptable. Mouths were open and drool was dripping as he showed us this process with a network connection to his iBook. Photojpegs data rate is low enough to ethernet out. The worlds cheapest Video server, Dan called it.

Dan also showed us his "Digiola" a combination Movieola and a one frame at a time digitizer.

The term "cutting edge" has lost a lot of it's meaning because it's fallen into cliche, but if you had seen or get to see what Dan Fort and Ramy Katrib and Loran Kary are doing in the post production world of Film, and can come up with a better term, give me a jingle. I'd like to know

"I can't believe that", was the phrase most often muttered by the audience as Dan packed up his iMac and iBook and we took a break. More info on Dans talk can be found at:

http://www.filmlogic.com
http://www.dvfilmtree.com
http://www.magicfilmandvideo.com

Brett Spivey started out the 2nd half with a show and tell of a piece he did for the Rock group "Incubus" A heavily composited piece he cut on his PB 400 using a TRV-900, AE, FCP and Bryce. A visual delight with some fine music excerpts from a real fine band, Brett wowed the crowd with this interactive display of imagination and technical ingenuity. First question from audience was "How did you do that?" Superb work. Visit Bretts' web site for more info and some real cool screen savers.

Next up, DV Guy Steve Martin. The worlds most enthusiastic FCP guru, showed us another tip and trick from his bulging bag of FCP how2s and taught us that just by holding down the option key you can independently move audio and video in a split edit in the Timeline and it stays in sync.

Former choreographer and current filmmaker Mitchell Rose was next up and gave us all a thrill with his award winning and film festival favorite "Elevator World." A motion graphics masterpiece of wit and imagination, Mitchells' 4 minute movie takes the viewer into that space we all have visited hundreds of times before, but never quite in the way Mitchell Rose sees it. Elevator World is deserving of it's praise and we were lucky to have Mitchell show us his unique and bizarre view on the world of the Elevator and those "upwardly mobile and downtrodden people" that briefly inhabit them.

Actor and filmmaker, Kenny Blank had the tough task of following Mitchell, and certainly didn't disappoint. Within 5 minutes of showing his clip of the "boy band" N'Sync he did for the recent MTV VMA awards, Kenny had the crowd on the edge of their seats as he related his story of the process and the problems of getting this extremely complex and technical video ready for the show.

Briefly explained; Kenny shot each member of the band individually in front of a green screen using a XL1. The clips were captured into his PB using a GV-d900. Composited using an old version of Ultimatte and edited in FCP, each clip was then synced to 5 plasma screens which would on a precise cue drop down in front of each corresponding band member during the show. Since there was very little time to get this all done and facing constant pressure from nay sayers who just couldn't see this working in any shape or form, Kenny held our attention with clips of the entire process from start to finish. And he did finish it and it did work and it was wonderful. Look for it on an MTV VMA repeat. It will dazzle you. Great presentation Kenny and we look forward to seeing more of you and your work.

World famous raffle had the following winners: Thank you Apple Computer for the hats and T-shirts, René Sadae who flew in from Hawaii with a sack full of beautifully wrapped Macadamia nuts and Hawaii calendars, and Ken Stone who donated the grand prize of the evening, a six pack of Becks Dark. Who says we need software.

Apple Hat - Barbara Simon
OS X T-shirt - Ralph Fairweather
Apple Hat - Brian Eber
OSX T-shirt- Brandon Terrell
OSX T-shirt - Steve Pfauter
Apple Hat - Randy

Macadamia Nuts - Chris Teed
Macadamia Nuts - JP
Macadamia Nuts - Rick Sanchez
Hawaii Calendar - John Ciarlone
Hawaii Calendar - Ned Soltz
Hawaii Calendar - Ralph Fairweather
Six pack of Becks - Tom Weeks

Great time and great meeting. See ya all next month.

Michael Horton
HeadCutter