Makes you think doesn't it.
Prolost - Blog - Cutting Through the Cloud →
We were talking about this yesterday in the office. I think this move is about the Adobe price tag. But that just me.
Conversation Series: Blackmagic CEO Grant Petty Talks Pricing and 4K →
Grant Petty:
“You want creative options; I hope someone keeps manufacturing film,” he said, adding that should Kodak [which maintains that it will continue to make film though it is currently working to emerge from chapter 11] at some point cease to make film, there might be a business there for a small company that “buys the licenses from Kodak and runs a few hundred feet of film a day. It could still be several thousand feet, there’s still a lot of film being consumed.”
Black Magic has always been a great company doing great work. Good to see. Love his take on film.
Lightning sparks high country to life →
Fantasic
davidstripinis.com - In Which I Try and Fix the Entire Film Industry →
David Stripinis:
Most every country in the world taxes the value of goods coming into their country from overseas, the US included. There are massive books which detail exactly how much each item should be taxed ( called a duty or tariff when applied to imported goods ). The detail is hilarious and stunning.
It has taken 7 months. Good to see David writing again.
VFX RESET 2013 →
Have a look. If their is anyting you don't like let them know.
Doing Better
While doing nothing does nothing, doing the wrong thing doesn't help either. This isn't rocket science. My question, and I can't find anything on this.
How long did it take the directors, writers, actors, set lighting, grips to form a union?
Weeks? Months? Years?
Are we slow, are we that disconnected with what is wrong? I don't think we are.
Lets be clear. If you want overtime and health care we are going to have to unionize. This is especially true if you work in a small shop. I do not see smaller shops offering health care and pension plans, even huge places won't. The way it's setup doesn't work. This is true in the USA. If you happen to work in a location that offers government provided health care this not a concern but retirement should be.
Here's the problem if you have been a freelancer the whole time in visual effects you should know to save money. You should know you are going to pay "X" amount of money for health care. Not having a retirement plan at 40 isn't anyone's fault but yours.
So file your rep card. Talk with the artist next to you. Lets see if we can do better.
I love visual effects. I love the problem solving and the people. Lets make it better so we can continue to do what we love.
A Picture-Perfect Lightning Strike in Front of a Wedding Photographer's Lens →
Michael Zhang:
Here’s a wedding photographer who probably wishes now that he had set up a second camera with a lightning trigger. It could have resulted in an epic “altar shot”.
No FX here. Awesome.
Stop frame animation made with atoms - yes at the atomic level! | fxguide →
Mike Seymour:
The work is only visible if you use a microscope that enlarges the ‘canvas’ by 100 million times. Using their techniques developed over years of researching atomic level data storage, IBM created 250 frame stop-motion animation of a boy playing with an atom.
This would have been better posted on 4-1-2013. Amazing stuff.
Questions
When you push images as far as we do you find out we're all the demons live. You know the secrets.
You also see a lot of mistakes being made. Now I'd like to be clear. Most of what I do is fixing mistakes to help tell a story. In the world we work in you very rarely get perfection. Let's not create problems for ourselves.
DOP's if you have a questions ask. We have on set supervisors who would love to answer your questions. Problem solving as two is always better than one. Crew members we are not in competition with you.
There is a flip side to that coin. As visual effects professionals we have to be approachable. Their not dumb because they need to ask. Be there when needed and answer their questions as accurately as you can.