Vapidly Insipid

So now the new short, RELATIONSHIP CARD is out there and racking up the views. I’m so proud of George and Amanda. For two people who had never met, they certainly had a great chemistry on camera. George thinks I should categorize this movie as science fiction. Not because of the graphics and animation but because he thinks no one will believe he could land a hot hot hot chick like Amanda and it comes off as unrealistic. Eh, people say the same thing about me and My Sexy Girlfriend Veronica ™ because no one understands why a hot chick like her is with a fat guy like me. Since I based the short partially on that reality and aspects of our relationship, it seemed oddly fitting to cast it this way.



Hopefully the video will find legs and other people will pass it along from to people they know. So far, the unbiased, I don’t know these people responses have been a great majority positive. It seems people who have been in a relationship “Get it”, and get it completely. That’s cool.

It took me months to do the graphics work. TJ designed the elements, but choosing the look, color, texture, etc. all were vexing me. It was a little too overwhelming to have limitless options. Most of my time was spent experimenting with looks, styles, and ideas. Once I established the basic “look”, it was only 2 weeks to animate and finish the rest. I may still revisit this piece in the next week and shorten it by about 10%. Vince Rocca, director of KISSES AND CAROMS actually took it upon himself to re0edit the movie and sent me a link. I liked some of what he did, but he cut more than I would have. Still, it was nice to have someone else edit the piece and have that give and take like you’re supposed to have with an editor. I wish I had more editors that I could approach to work on my stuff for free, but the best ones are too expensive these days.



Not much else going on. I feel like I’m knocking these “past due”, or “pending” projects down so I can keep on trucking. Work is busy this week (a nice change considering how dead it’s been of late). One of our annual big projects that dominate my life for about a week and a half has hit and “V” is NOT taking it well. 12-14 hour work days are unusual for me and my cat doth protest. Loudly and as soon as I walk in the door.

Last night My Sexy Girlfriend Veronica ™ went to see the new TERMINATOR movie. Dinner came out quicker than I realized and we had 30 minutes to kill in the empty theater. Out came my handy ZUNE ™ and we watched a DAILY SHOW WITH JON STEWART in the theater with one ear piece each. That passed the time with actual entertainment as opposed to re-reading the same 6 “trivia” slides. Is it really trivia to ask “What Oscar ™ nominated actor returns in this summer’s ANGELS AND DEMONS?” whilst showing a picture of Tom Hanks? That’s not trivia; it is trivial. Anywho, I’m getting some great usage out of the new toy my friend Moe sent me. I have also used it to walk a mile each day for the last 3 days during a break from the long work day. I am in piss poor shape and I need to address that even more.

Until next time,
Peter John Ross

Anagrams and Deviant Art

I have a minor secret. I want to tell people, but devilry and not a small amount of childishness prevent me from being forthright. So I came up with a fun way to delay the inevitable revelation.

Here are two anagrams, a free DVD of the latest Sonnyboo HD shorts to the first to get them correct:

am so free man, join

and

sore Nina Joss



The answer to one of these is also the password to seeing the latest sonnyboo produced short film, directed by Joanne Fromes on VIMEO.COM. http://www.vimeo.com/4110271


Refractory from Peter John Ross on Vimeo.

I named the short REFRACTORY, as the word significantly relates to the subject matter. Here’s a secret, I like big words; as if the titles to my blogs were not a giveaway to that little secret. A huge hint to the anagrams is in the paragraph above, as one of those words is in both…



I finished the edit today, at least for now. I am tinkerer, so I expect some revisions and changes at some point. Thank God for a Terabyte drive because for color correction I used uncompressed video files. I chose a vignette look for this to emphasize characters and it worked out in my opinion. The images were pretty good as is, with a consistent color and look. I chose not to over process it too much. I pulled about 15% saturation from the overall image to “depress” the look. We set out to make a green or blue tint, but since the location was primarily red and burgundy, that really didn’t work out so well. I’m not at all disappointed, though.

To emphasize some dialogue and other points, I digitally added two small camera moves. The beauty of HD is that I can manipulate the images a lot in post to do this. I had not considered these camera moves on the day, but here I am 9 weeks later popping in tighter, zooming in. I love the control that editing has over the whole process. You can rethink almost anything and in the High Definition world, we have latitude to affect the picture a lot with little loss in quality.



The music should be sparse. In some ways the sound design and score is same thing here. The sound design is rhythmic and musical, and the music is more ambient and environmental. I love a good sound mix, and one of the lessons I have learned over the years is to bring the volume down and keep it balanced so that you can boost it later more cleanly. If you go for the volume it distorts and no matter what you do later, you can’t un-fuzz the sound, as opposed to being a tiny bit low, you can boost it cleanly.

I’m sending this out to a few peers for review before I make it public. I don’t know if it will be a web video for a while. It’s a drama and not the most appealing to the masses or of interest to many, but it was a story I wanted to tell.

I knew that all I needed was a day or two with a solid block of time to just hone in and focus. I had no new Blu Rays from Netflix, no TV shows to catch up on, and no lingering freelance or day job work handing over my head. I wasn’t particularly in the “mood” to edit, but without these distractions I was able to zero in and get ‘er done.



The sole inhibitor wound up being my kitty “V”. Every time I’d start to cut, he would cry and whine, demanding attention. He was not satiated to sit on the desk and be pat. He brought me many toys that apparently I was meant to play with along with him. Luckily the later processes required a lot of render times, so we could play fetch or in “Cousette’s Cave” (which is me holding a blanket over our heads whilst holding a flashlight). In “V” world, if I am home, my sole purpose is to be his playmate. Cousette is perfectly happy to lie in a ball nearby and pass out.

Starting this coming week, I have one more short film to complete. That includes some pickup shots and one helluva lot of FX shots, but at least it’s edited already…

Now I am to dance the dance of joy, pantsless as usual. Mayhap My Sexy Fiancé Veronica ™ and I will get around to watching CASABLANCA on HD tonight. Or maybe I can get THE SPOONS ®; it is after all the Zombie Jesus Holiday weekend.

- Peter John Ross,
- All loosey Goosey
Great ZOMBIE JESUS!

The Man-gina Chronicles

Last night’s shoot went great. That’s 2 in a row where things were pretty much spot on. We shot in my parent’s house and that was odd because there are pictures of me from all ages all over the house, so it was like a “Ross Museum” or more akin to freak show as people tried to figure out where the svelte good looking teenager disappeared into the fat hairy guy who must have eaten him.





Because of the rush nature of putting this together, I did not get to rehearse and that does bother me. I very much prefer to work for at least an hour or two with actors without a crew standing by or working so we can build some kind of rapport, and work without a net. There needs to be an environment of trust so that when we talk about things I like or not like, and what they prefer and want to try, we can experiment and talk without it being under pressure or with an audience. I don’t want an actor to be self conscious if I tell them I don’t like something they are trying because with 10-12 people watching it might seem like I’m shooting them down and embarrassing them. Similarly, I don’t want to have an argument if they don’t like the way I want a line to be read and we’re in the thick of the shoot with me behind the dolly, camera, and bank of monitors.







Now for this shoot, we shot with the Sony Z1U. Since I have Cineform’s ASPECT HD codec, I read up on it and they recommended shooting in the European PAL format of 25CF (cine-frame) mode. This is a Sony workaround to get the “film” like image, they shoot in an HD PAL format into a 50i image, and my software can extrapolate the 25 progressive frames from it and converts it down to 24 frames per second, but then re-works the audio so that it keeps the pitch normal without slowing it down too. It’s all very technical and makes sense to me. If you’re reading this and feel dumb, that’s okay. Maybe you are, or at least you aren’t as super-duper intelligent like me. Or maybe if you watch Star Trek and Battlestar Galactica and the techno babble makes perfect sense to you, we can be friends. It’s a miracle I have a girlfriend, and if I have to tell you that the last 2-3 sentences contained incredible amounts of sarcasm, then you are in fact dumb and that’s not a facetious stab.







What is cool for me about working on some shorts again is trying out several HD camera makes and models. As I gear up for 3 features later on, I want to have some firsthand experience with several cameras and see how they edit, handle color correction, effects, etc. Before I shoot on another feature, I will have seen how these cameras’ footage looks projected too. All of this combines to make more informed decisions about what to shoot the features with when the money is on the line. Shorts can serve a VERY important piece of the process and be multi-beneficial if you use your noggin.







I am proud of John’s sister Joanne Fromes who is doing well with her first few projects as a director. Again, My Sexy Fiancé Veronica ™ had to work, and there is some tension over the amount of time I spend with this young nubile girl. The editing sessions will begin tomorrow and she’ll see that not many hot young chicks are into hoggin’ it with the biggies. It’s very weird to not be the director on these pieces and just a co-writer and producer. I’m having a blast anyway. Maybe I’ll stop directing and only produce. And maybe it will rain beer.







I’m still waiting for this PAL 50i conversion to 23.976 Progressive frames to finish conforming the .M2T files to .AVI. I’m telling you, if that sounds like Chinese to you, then you need to get busy studying CODECS. Your first assignment? Tell me what CODEC stands for!





Peace and B WILD,

Peter John Ross

Sycophantic Distance

So the shoot yesterday went very well. I couldn’t be more pleased. Working with a mostly female crew was great. We had a few dudes on the crew, as Gil Whitney was the D.P. and Mike McNeese was the gaffer. Rachel Hannah was awesome (as always), so the crew and the actors did a great job. Major shout out to Max Groah for helping us with getting the main location. Actually, everyone was great on the crew and cast.



Biggest lesson learned? I really really appreciate a solid art director. Leyna has a great eye and killer sensibilities, even though she’s a smoker. We built a set from scratch in the studio for this and for practically no money, Leyna pulled together something that worked well and beyond the cash value.



This was just a 3 page script and something very complex, yet simple in many ways. The idea of doing a drama and make sense with some level of depth, relating mostly to female sensibilities appealed to me. Helping put this together and doing this will give me some satisfaction.



We went 2 hours over my overestimation of the shoot day. It was worth it to get the best looking footage possible. I said 10:30AM till 7:00PM, but we went till a little after 9:00PM. Normally, a Sonnyboo Production wraps early, but I pushed for a better look and a more polished end product.

Today I’m converting all the footage shot on the P2 cards with the Panasonic HVX200A from their native *.MXF format to a Cineform *.AVI format for editing and color correction. I get the benefit of a free upres to 1920x1080P and a more robust color palette for post production, so the conversion is worth the 5-7 hours render time now, as opposed to later.



Now, I have about 3.5 hours of footage for what will be a 4 minute or less short. That means I have a lot of options. I will endeavor to work with the director, newcomer Joanne Fromes to cobble together a nice piece. She’s John’s sister and has some interesting ideas. We’ll see if they mesh together coherently. My Sexy Fiancé Veronica ™ gets a little jealous of the time I’ve been spending with Joanne, but she’ll get over it.

Speaking of which, for Valentine’s Day, I made this video about the topic of SPOONS but alas it was to no avail. I am saddened. Many thanks to Andrew Kramer and Videocopilot.net for the cool graphics in my everlasting quest for the Spoons.



I have ANOTHER shoot on this week, so the busy time has begun for Sonnyboo Productions. We’ll see how well this whole thing keeps trucking along. There is a new standard and I feel like keeping the bar raised for myself. My standards were too low in the past, so it’s time to rise up and meet the challenge I have for my own productions.

COMING SOON TO AMAZON.COM and other TV and DVD outlets…


What up, my droogies?
- Ross

Sonnyboo's Blog: THE DARK KNIGHT EDITION!

Well, I’m pumped. I’m going to the midnight screening of THE DARK KNIGHT. As I’ve said before, I’m not really that big of a Batman fan. I’ve never purchased a single Batman comic in my life, and I’ve had many a comics. I’m a moderate when it comes to Batman movies. I liked the 2 Tim Burtons, hated the 2 Joel Schumacher ones, and thought BATMAN BEGINS was okay. Well, ever since I saw that IMAX ™ clip, now officially dubbed “The Dark Knight Prologue”, I’ve been eager to see this movie.

I bought a BLU-RAY DVD of Batman Begins (my first batman movie purchase), and it contained in full HD 1080P glory the IMAX™ Dark Knight Prologue scene and I’ve played it at least a dozen times on my 42” HD screen with the 5.1 surround blaring until my ears bleed and the kitties hide in terror. I recently read that director/writer Christopher Nolan used the movie HEAT (1995, Michael Mann) as an influence. It shows. I called it last December (see previous blogs). Even my Sexy Fiancé Veronica ™ will attend the midnight show tonight, and she doth hateth the Comic Book movie genre.





I watch my webstats pretty closely, even when I don’t have new material out there. I like to watch the trends in viewers and what people like and don’t like, especially in regards to things I write and direct. What surprises me most is that HORRORS OF WAR ’s WEB DOC on the making of SCENE 6 has been the biggest hitter lately, at least on YOUTUBE ™. It averages a steady 150 views a day, some days more, some days a little less, but so far, it’s the front runner. The HORRORS OF WAR trailer still ranks highest in views, with the MOVIEMAKER TECHNIQUES not far behind, but I can’t figure out the attraction to the SCENE 6 WEBDOC . Granted, it’s my personal favorite, and it was the first one I did, but where are the hits coming from? Who is watching this and telling others to see it? I cannot trace the links to it, nor explain the months long fixation by several thousand online viewers.



A site called PERFORMING ARTISTS site] has linked to and used one of my articles trying to help struggling actors and directors avoid some pitfalls. When I stop getting giddy about seeing something I write or make mean something to other people – that is the day I should quit. Until then, I get excited.

I’m pumped. I feel like I just work up from a year long bad dream. With the upcoming COWTOWN FILM SERIES , where I’m showing 9-10 feature films made in Ohio, along with a new TV series shot in HD, I feel pretty darn supercilious towards many. It’s not unlike getting revived with a jolt of energy in the gullet. My voice has returned, and with it, my inspirado.



I’ve lined up a local celebrity host for both the TV series and the COWTOWN FILM SERIES . Depending on if I go to Japan (looking more and more unlikely as each day passes without an airline ticket), I will have more time to dedicate to promotion and marketing for the film series. I benefit by having some of my shorts play before hand, but also, the general good will of working as a collective to support each other. If we can make a success out of these screenings, more wallets might open. Not only to shell out some $$$ to see locally produced movies, but also from potential investors who might see the future in what we are doing.

I started creating title sequences for the various “segments” of the show that are heavily inspired by the teachings of Andrew Kramer and Video Copilot.net . The kid’s a freakin’ genius. From some of the HORRORS OF WAR screenings, people seemed to really like my “pre-show entertainment” segments of material that played before the show. This time, I’m taking it up 20 notches. I’m 2 months out and already putting my Shiite together. I won’t take any chances, and taking my lessons learned.

Time to take everything up a notch. It’s been far too long, my faithful droogies.

=- PJR

Downtown Venus and the Statue of Vulcan

What a strange week it has been since your narrator last wrote to you. I’ve been to Birmingham Alabama for a shoot where I directed a pilot for a reality show. I don’t know which is more obtuse; the fact that I got sick 10 minutes after entering Alabama or that the Discovery Channel referred me for the job. Regardless, it was very difficult to work when my head was pounding and my sinuses acted like they were at the circus.



[[this week’s pics by Darell (D-)Day]]

We shot a lot with my HV20 underwater to get HD footage underwater since the housings and camera controls would be far simpler than the manual cameras. The footage is acceptable, but I think I have to get certified as a diver to be able to operate camera underwater for any future work like this.



I hired The Derek and D-Day to work on my crew and it’s always good to spread the wealth. I’m a big believer in trying to get the best people and when I’m making money, I want other people to make money too. People have done this for me, so I love continuing the good will. It’s like karma in that I feel that if I put money in other people’s pocket, others will continue to do the same for me, or maybe my payback will come in another form. Hording money and selfishness in that regard can only skew the way it’s all going to play out.



So I bought a new car, a nice new Ford Mustang. Let’s just say all the work I’ve been doing has paid off in spades. Success remains subjective, but in most people’s minds it relates to monetary compensation. I guess in other people’s view, I’m getting more and more successful, but why is it no where near enough for me? I don’t care too much about money for myself. I have modest needs and wants, but the "success" as defined by me lies in another realm, one that is purely creative and standards set forth by my own muse. I am not successful, nor do I ever feel I will attain the level I desire, but then again, that is why filmmaking will be a life long endeavor.

I love the fact that my sole income for the last 8 years has been from filmmaking and it took time, but it’s paying off. I am proud of what I have accomplished, even though it’s not enough to satiate my desire to get better and improve, but the comfort of a few luxuries and the security of regular income to make life a bit easier day to day. The trick is to not give up the artistic end for the profitable endeavors. I was able to find a balance during the busiest time of the year and slip in these new shorts.

UNCLE PETE’S PLAY TIME has started to be unveiled. For the most part people like it. As with all comedic films, some people don’t think it’s funny or take what you’re saying too seriously. I’m okay with that. That’s what happens with every joke or comedy – someone doesn’t think it’s funny. Get used to it. Negative comments or posts don’t really affect me. I’ve been reading that kind of stuff since January 2000 and you tune out the nonsense. I guess I get confused by the intent. Am I supposed to read "You suck!", then suddenly go "Oh my god, I thought this rocked, but now someone told me it doesn’t, and I should really quit! I know there was no intelligent discourse or reasonable criticism, but I suddenly changed my mind and my confidence is shaken so I should just delete this and never pick up a camera again. Thank you anonymous poster on the Internet, you just saved me a lot of hassle having to deal with criticism and putting effort into finding my audience. I’m done now…." I just don’t see that happening.

I have self confidence and I like something in every piece I’ve made. That’s not to say every single thing I’ve made is not flawed. I think I could probably write massive amounts of criticism of each movie I’ve ever been a part of, especially ones I wrote or directed. Being self critical allows you to handle when other people want to tear it apart. As my opinion stands, this is the line in the sand or the edge of the abyss. Time to look in and decide what kind of man or woman you are. Will you still love your art even though you recognize the flaws? Will you be swayed into disliking your art because many people, even the majority don’t like it? Are you going to stand tall in the face of adversity or cower under the weight of your own inadequacies?

I don’t fear these things. I believe in myself and what I’ve made. If people want to attack or tear down what I’ve done, I say do as you will. I’m just on my own path and climbing my own mountain. Nothing has deterred me yet, nor has anything even distracted me long enough to keep me from doing exactly what I’ve wanted to so far.



While in Alabama, we stayed at a Lake House the production secured for us and that was nice. The last day of the shoot, we had a mini-wrap party and chilled out with the Beer, darts, and Stewart/Colbert on the tube. I can say in all confidence there really is a thing called "Southern Hospitality" and that this is instilled into most citizens in the South. People were super cool and nothing like expected. I haven’t been to Alabama since the 1980’s, but it’s a cool place.

Before I left, I did some serious 12-14 hour days working on 3 projects. Now that I’m back home, I’ve got another 2 big projects staring me down, nonetheless post production on the Birmingham gig. I am looking to hire a few part time assistants. Not a permanent position, but kind of the A/V temp job as it were. Anyone interested in making some mediocre hourly to work on film/video production rather than delivering pizza?


Be at peace acolytes of Boo.
Peter John Ross

HD, HDV, HDMI, HV20 and 42 Inches of Acronyms

The past few nights I worked late on a moonlighting edit gig. I made some extra money, but they were some seriously long days. I took Friday off and I had one or two things in mind to do. Mostly I wanted to watch movies, but that didn’t really ever happen, which has been the norm for the past few months when I get free time. I had no Sexy Fiancé tonight, which is usually when I get to watch movies. She’s an actress who doesn’t like to watch TV or movies or plays. Weird.

I wanted to experiment with some HD footage and HD clips I have done in the past year and see what they look like coming out of the HDMI port of my camera, the Canon HV20. So I loaded up some footage on a timeline that was shot 1280x720 on the JVC HD110 camera. I needed to up-rez it to 1920x1080 because the Canon HV20 doesn’t take any form of the 1280x720 (aka 720P) variety of HD. I chose the Red Giant software called INSTANT HD and set it to the highest possible quality settings. It took 2 hours to convert all of 7 minute worth of footage.

The first clips were a title sequence to a new instructional video I did for a cable access show playing in Dayton, Cleveland, and soon to be Cincinnati. I used background shots from a recent trip to Manhattan by a friend who took my HV20. I have only ever played clips on a computer in HD, and usually highly compressed Windows Media Video (WMV) HD files. I wanted to see what the HDMI port from the camera did and how it looks.

Problem one came from the EXPORT TO TAPE when I tried to get my newly created 1920x1080 (aka 1080P) footage back out to tape. I use the CINEFORM ASPECT HD codec and plug in for Adobe Premiere Pro and it has worked flawlessly for me in the past, but today it just didn’t want to go out to tape. I had to convert them all to M2T files, the MPEG2 for HD file format. Then I used the HDLINK program to lay it out to tape.

So I finally got footage in HD (thought technically HDV) onto tape and it was now time to plug it in HDMI to the big screen and take a look….



WHOA. Staggering quality of images. It looked like the HD broadcasts I’m getting off the air it was so sharp, clear, and the text (my favorite part of high end HD footage) was crisp and perfect. This is why HD is the future. I love film and the grain of real celluloid, but this IS the future. It has arrived.

I made the right choice with this simple little camera, and I love my HV20. It will serve me well for the next few years as a BEHIND THE SCENES camera et al. The JVC HD110 camera footage up-rez’d to 1080 looked just as good. This is proof that a good piece of glass and manual controls in the right hands will create superior images.

If I had any doubts about what I am about to do with my shorts, going HD and the various formats, cameras, etc. – I do not have those doubts now.



A few other tidbits…

I judged another Dublin High School film festival last week. That was fun and the quality gets better every year. There was one standout short, one called “Delineation”. The two kids who made it knew who I was and had seen some of my stuff online. The best compliment I ever got as a judge came from them. They had had seminars and speakers all day and they told me they wished I had been one of them. They said I was the only “filmmaker” they had heard of in Columbus and that they weren’t interested in people from broadcast. That was high praise. I then proceeded to tell them that I make my real money from broadcast commercial work.



Sony Picture’s CRACKLE.COM™ came through with an interview they did with me for their site. That was cool. I love their site. They’re playing with some new things and I hope to ride their wave a bit. They did however do a server change and I lost 21 million views in the reset. It only reads 240,000 views. I never thought I would ever write “only 240,000 views” and sound disappointed. Surprisingly, YouTube™ has been the breadwinner in terms of stats. Although as I write this, Yahoo Video™ has brought me a spike of 37,000 views in one day yesterday, so maybe I shouldn’t pick a winner just yet…

I can’t think of anything else relevant to talk about. That’s all.

-= PJR

Another Total Computer Geek Report

April 23rd, 2007

Another blog so soon? Why yes, Acolytes of Boo, another. Since my previous entry a great tech discovery occurred that I wished to share with the masses and anyone looking for this type of help since it was miraculous for me. This is aimed primarily for the video editors and graphics/animators out there, but the principals can be applied elsewhere. I also have an epic for lovers and haters of Microsoft ™ alike.



As I already described, I have had a lot of work lately, a large portion of it being post production work. My tasks have ranged from the most rudimentary editing to 3D animated titles to emulating fire to creating whole animations. During all of this, I also had multiple computer crashes and other miscellaneous hardware/software problems.

First off, one day at the Tavares Teleproduction studio, I allowed the Microsoft “Windows Automatic Update” run. When it finished it asked me if I wanted to restart. I clicked on the Yes, and off it went. And then it never came back… This lead to a lengthy reformat/reinstall of not only Windows XP, but all the programs and hardware installations, all of which was during one of my busiest weeks in years.



The next day at my home studio, I let the basement computer install the automatic updates and when it asked me to restart, I cautiously clicked yes. On yet another computer within 24 hours, it failed to start back up into Windows XP. This lead to a 3.5 hour phone conversation with Microsoft…. In India where a gentleman with decent English (asking me where I was located at in the United States so he could use the appropriate American accent I am told). We get a fascinating error message telling me that the new “Windows Genuine Advantage Tool” says my copy of Windows XP is a bootleg copy… even though I’m using the real disc with the real packaging to recite the serial #. Even more interesting is that they are claiming it’s a stolen copy from me at my current home address and phone number. Funny… except that the most recent update that caused this ruckus was in fact the Windows Genuine Advantage Tool. Nice one Microsoft. Anyone else think this is a coincidence that I’m getting told to potentially “up sell” to the new Windows Vista?

After multiple attempts to boot in Safe Mode, Safe Mode with Command Prompt, and ever other basic option I had tried before calling, we finally went booted with the original disc (which I own a legal, legit copy) and used the REPAIR CONSOLE to try to copy over the initial boot files. Once that failed, we used the REPAIR installation and then I was able to boot into Windows XP. Elated, seeing my desktop as I left it, I thanked my new Hindu friend and said good night. I should have checked more.




None of the desktop items were linked to anything. My registry was wiped clean. In the CONTROL PANEL, it showed all of 2 items. So I could salvage files from the C: drive, but I’m still looking at a reformat, reinstall. Another one. This prospect made me as sick as I would soon become. My setup on the basement, “B” editing machine, is simply a 2.5 Gighertz Intel Pentium iV with 768 meg of RAM and a 60 gig C: drive, a 250 gig video storage drive, and a 160 gig video/audio storage drive, that currently are all IDE and quite full with a feature and many other projects being edited in Rossdonia.

Given the way Adobe Premiere Pro currently handles TEMP files and conformed audio files, it places them wherever you want, but I have them going to the C:. 60 gigs used to be a lot, but when you are dealing with a feature film with 13 DAT’s worth of audio without even taking into consideration the music and sound design, then it quickly dissipates. Now on my main editing machine upstairs, I have a motherboard that has SATA drives, which are faster than IDE, but I have a single 160 gig IDE drive up there along with the 160 gig SATA C: drive and a 300 gig SATA video storage drive. My idea was to buy a cheap new SATA drive and pull out the IDE 160 and make it the new C: drive in the basement, thus retiring the 60 gig.



I go to Microcenter intent on spending $79 on a SATA 250 gig drive, but they have a 200 gig for $59. I weighed out the $20 for 50 gig and though to myself, this wasn’t about a big upgrade and that I need that $20 for taking My Sexy Fiancé Veronica ™ on a fancy dinner at some point. I get home and am too tired to consider the hardware switcharoo I have in mind. The box sits next to the machine upstairs for days.




An interesting sidebar was that one night I was sitting in the living room with a client working on a title sequence when the dastardly mister “V”, my oh so spoiled kitty, got mad he was not the center of attention and demonstrated the extent of his brain power. He got behind the desk of my main editing computer, used his teeth and pulled out the power strip from the wall. Lesson learned? Buy a UPS power supply as soon as possible to save your work. And also, lock up “V” whenever you have a client over.



Once Micah and Jeff, my intern from OSU, come over to work on Goodnight Cleveland, the 16mm feature being edited downstairs, I quickly re-install Adobe Premiere Pro so they can work because I have not yet reformatted and reinstalled, nonetheless put in a new C: drive. They can work, but the computer limps along with so little space on the C: and also with what seems to be a scant 768 meg of RAM. COMPUSA is going out of business, so I attempt to buy a single 512 RAM chip so I can get this machine up to 1 gig of RAM for a modest $50. I know I need PC2100 chips and the salesman (a cute term for a 19 year old with an attitude in an Izod) that the PC3200 chip will work on this board with my current RAM.



Of course, all sales are final as they shut down all of their Ohio stores. Upon putting this RAM in, the motherboard will only recognize 1 of the 512 chips in every configuration I try. With frustration, I try to put the 256 back in with my original 512 chip and then the board STILL only recognizes 1 of the 2 chips. The next day, I have to go and buy ANOTHER 512 Meg of RAM in the PC3200 so that I can have a full gig and the 2 chips match. Frustrating it is.

I get the new RAM, I put it in and I get it to work with a certain amount of giggle. I know have 768 Meg of PC2100 RAM with no place to put it. I also spent more $$$ than I ever intended. I thought I knew what frustration was. Then I tried to reconnect my DVI to VGA adapter to hook up the monitor on this (basement) machine. Most of the pins are bent, some are even broken off. I need to get a new AGP graphics card. Great, MORE money spent that I can’t afford.

I walk across the street to STAPLES to get the only AGP model card they still carry as they are phased out in favor of the current PCI Express cards which none of my motherboards have. I get all the way home on foot when I realize I need to check the card since the box says nothing. It’s VGA only with 2 ports, but no DVI output, which means, I have a video card that still does me no good since my big monitor only takes DVI and my adapter is busted. I have about 3 minutes of freak out until I make a realization.



In my main editing computer upstairs I have 2 monitors running from 1 nVidia graphics card that has 1 DVI port and 1 VGA port, but both of these monitors are VGA only, and one of them has a DVI to VGA adapter. I can put this brand new AGP card into that computer and take the one in it with DVI to the basement machine. All the monitors will be running native with no adapters, and they both will have 256 Meg of RAM on each card.

I decide that since I’m cracking open my main editing machine, I might as well get the new drive in at the same time. God doesn’t hate me that much does she? My luck has to change, doesn’t it? I pop in the new video card, connect the new drive (leaving the IDE drive in to copy everything off of it before making it a C: drive downstairs). It all works, and works well. Sometimes you get lucky. I take the DVI card downstairs and plug it in, and that not only works, but that big ass monitor looks better than it has in months. DVI has a substantially better, brighter look to it than VGA, which is essentially an analog signal whereas DVI is purely digital.



Instead of putting in the 160 gig drive to replace the 60 gig and start the whole format/install process, I put it off. I tempted fate too much and I’ve got until Wednesday when work resumes on the feature downstairs. So far, this is as much as my little brain can take.

One interesting side note to all of this and the new AGP card I bought, thus sending my expenditure far far beyond my intent and budget would allow, came about just last night. I was working on a unique project where I was creating an animation for a company that bought product placement in an animated feature film. They wanted their logo animated for a billboard in the animated film, but I had to create it in full 2K resolution (that’s 2048x1524 pixels for the uneducated).



Recently I have been working more and more in HD (High Definition) at resolutions of 1280x720 and 1920x1080 so I’ve been seeing the limitation of my current edit systems on these projects. It’s not impossible, but it takes time to get these done.

It reminds me of when I worked on my short NEW WORLD, an atrocity to filmmaking with its crude 3D animations (except the ones done by Don THE DRAGON Drennan). Doing the animations in Caligari TrueSpace and the compositing on machines in 2000-2002 took many many hours to render. To render is the process of letting the computer actually calculate between the key frames. You can set certain points so you don’t have to animate every single frame yourself and the computer does the hard work of working out the difference in perspective, shape, lighting, etc. in between each key frame.




Working in standard definition (aka SD or 720x480 for NTSC peeps) on my current machines goes pretty fast. I don’t even have any dual core processors in the house and I can still rip through most SD projects pretty quickly. Now with HD and especially with this 2K animation, I was experiencing 11-16 hour render times for a 22 second piece with only 4 layers. Previewing a single frame of my key frame animation could take up to 29 minutes to render by itself because of the complex lighting and effects.



Once we had the animation set in SD and approved by the client, the producer who hired me said we were a go to create the 2K version. This entailed just making the Photoshop source files at 11,000x7,000 so we could get the sun ray effects to appear to shine outside the area. Well, making files that size seemed to make the producer’s graphics computers beg for mercy at every attempt to render. Finally, I asked that we try to render here since my main editor was a faster machine with more RAM (1.5 gig to be exact). Upon the first try, 6 frames in on a 568 frame animation, it crapped out. I tried resizing the canvas of each Photoshop file down to something more manageable and found that 3,000x1,500 was too small and the light rays didn’t extend off the edges, and that 6,000x3,000 was still too much for the CPU and RAM to handle. The compromise of 5,500x2,800 worked like a champ, but the render time was still going to be 11 hours.

I noticed a button on the current release of Adobe After Effects that said, “use OpenGL render”. I knew little about OpenGL, but knew enough to know that it was an aspect to video cards that enhanced 3D gaming. Now my rudimentary knowledge of product boxes of graphics cards recalled something about how you tap into the memory and processing of your card rather than the computers CPU, or somehow share these resources when you use OpenGL. I checked the box and let a new render fly. My 11 hour render of the nights before got cut down to 44 minutes on the exact same computer, at full resolution and full color. That’s a pretty significant time difference and I don’t technically know exactly why beyond my aforementioned theory, but who really cares? I can get my work done significantly faster now, even at HD and 2K film resolution.



I wish I had known or even experimented with that button 2 weeks ago because it could have saved me many hours work and render times. Like all things that speed up the process in this type of work, it doesn’t really buy you “time” back, but allows you more time to be CREATIVE, which is the most fun part of this.

There. I got my geek on. I hope the techies and computer nerds enjoyed this little stroll down loser alley. Thank god My Sexy Fiancé Veronica ™ already said yes. After a blog like this, my only hope would have been MySpace Porn Profiles for any kind of inter-gender correlation.

Peace out, and may the farce be with you, Spock.
- PJR