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NAB Review

Friday, May 1st, 2009

Data Management, Stereoscopic Editing and the Farmer’s Wife

Last week, John and I attended the NAB (National Association of Broadcasters) convention in Vegas. As much as we try to follow industry technology trends throughout the year, NAB is a great place to see new things up close and get your hands on the latest video and digital film gear. I was there for only two days packing in as many flyers, pens, trinkets, stickers and, oh yeah, knowledge I could into my swag bag. Here is some information on a few of my favorite technology “toys” and observations from the show.

The most major trend I observed at the show was stereoscopic editing and finishing in 3D. So what is stereoscopic editing? It is editing video for 3D presentation on the big and small screen. Creating a film in 3D was previously a very complicated process and now you can edit this footage easily with Avid and almost every other editing system out there. With the increased horsepower of today’s computers, this amazing technology is finally affordable for more than just the big studios. It seemed like every booth was showing 3D options with software and hardware systems. With movies like James Cameron’s 3D feature film “Avatar” opening soon, the popularity of 3D is expanding past the realm of concerts and cartoons and into feature narrative films.

Another trend I observed was the sudden death of video tape and the warm embrace of file based workflows. This is the essential practice of organizing and protecting your data files shot on all the modern video and digital film cameras out today from companies like Panasonic, Sony, and of course Red.

One of the most versatile systems that we saw was called Content Agent from Root 6 Technology.With one button you can create files for web distribution, DVD, and for editing at multiple resolutions. In the recent past, this required multiple pieces of software or hardware systems. Root 6 also allows for organizing and logging these various files all in one smart and concise interface. Very cool.

One final product that caught my attention was a facility management software package called Farmer’s Wife. Their booth has a giant picture of a 1930’s era country woman scooping lard out of a bucket. It definitely set the tone for this company’s fun and functional software. It features intuitive ways to manage scheduling for editors, producers and composers. And it links employee time-tracking and billing into a very comprehensive piece of software for managing the day to day operation of a facility like ours.

NAB 2009 was definitely an important conference for us.  It was a fantastic opportunity to see new technology that will help us to continue making excellent media in the future.

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Posted in GP Life, Post Production by Kent Esmeier | No Comments

A Good Day

Thursday, January 29th, 2009

Two meetings today – first one with Krista Mason, founder and dreamer behind an absolutely jaw dropping vision called Benjamin’s Hope – a place where people with autism, downs, or other developmental differenecs can find peace and meaning in a farm-like setting. Krista hired GP to help her tell her story and raise the money to bring her dream into reality. Today she and a friend came in to review my script. Krista is everything you could want in a client – she’s smart, she’s passionate, she knows her subject, and she’s authentic. She is living this story herself. Her fifteen-year old son has autism. I felt great when she came today and said to me that the fund raising consultant she works with loved the script, and she did as well. “He sure knows how to weave a story,” were her exact words – words about me and this script. Now, I love to hear that. We are always working hard to tell other people’s stories. People come to us because they recognize that they don’t really know the best way to tell their own story. I’m thrilled that Krista Mason and Benjamin’s Hope came to us for our help. I am honored to be a part of helping Krista make her dream a reality.

Second meeting – rough cut screening for the fourth and fifth episodes of a travel/teaching series we’re producing with best-selling author and host Ray VanderLaan. Today we showed RVL, as he is known, an episode we had cut together that takes place on either side of the Red Sea in the Egyptian desert. RVL doesn’t need much help with his he is a veritable encyclopedia of Biblical knowledge. We just produce his lessons in ways that are powerful, visual, compelling, and moving. Today we showed him some initial comps of a shoot we pulled together just last Friday. I shot, here in our studio, several scenes that our graphics guys would comp together to create a “you are there” moment when the Israelites were crossing the Red Sea. Now we weren’t after a Charlton Heston moment, but we did want to get a great visual sense of the fear, the uncertainty, the blow-your-mind moment the Israelites were experiencing. It was the result of some creative mixed color temps, some huge fans, some decent costumes, a lot of shadow, a chroma screen, and a vision for a great night crossing scene. RVL saw the comps of these today, and combined with the other graphics we’ve created like Pharoah in his palace and a hoard of 600 chariots kicking up dust along the desert horizon — he was delighted and surprised.

Now, neither of these two projects are fully complete yet. But satisfaction in this business comes, for me, every day the process goes well; every day the client is satisfied, every day we can be proud of our work. Today was such a day.

Posted in GP Life by John Grooters | 2 Comments