On November 14-16th I will be speaking at the Masters in Motion conference and leading workshops at the Alamo Draft House in Austin, TX.  

The three day event is a series of nine in depth presentations, spanning the spectrum of filmmaking – from the technical to the imaginative. Speaking alongside me will be Philip Bloom, Tom Guilmette, Khalid Mohtaseb, Jonathan Bregel, Tyler Ginter, Joe Simon, and Adam Forgione.  These guys are at the top of their game and are incredibly fun to work with.  I know I’m very excited to be going there in a little over to weeks!  

There are sill a few spots left for the event.   If you are interested please check out the complete schedule of presentations by clicking HERE.

 As silly as it is – trying to calculate how much hard drive or card space one will need for a particular shot or project can become extremely complex.   Now, let me clarify that …  Once you factor in the different compression settings, resolutions, frame rates etc -it can be downright maddening!

Here is an incredibly graceful app that allows you to take the mystery out of all of these calculations (and avoid the inevitable headaches that come with.)  KataData – for iPhone (and will work on most if not all iDevices I’m sure) is a great app to pull out when you’re out on location and need to shoot a one hour shot of the sun setting – and need to know if you can fit in on the cards within the camera (and perhaps what compression setting to choose to make it fit.)   It’s also great to pull out when a producer asks you what size drives they should purchase for your shoots – if you know the anticipated amount of footage you’ll shoot and specs – you can give an intelligent answer – for almost every single cinema camera out there today.   This is particularly useful if you’re deciding on what settings, let alone what cameras – you’ll go with for a particular shoot given the realities of time and budget (not to mention when you shoot with multiple, different cameras.)  It will also give you the runtime of your footage given the amount of data you’ve shot – great for when you’re shooting off-speed.  This app works with RED, Phantom, Alexa, HDSLRs – you name it.

You can find more information here, and purchase it from iTunes here.  You can also watch the video below for more information.

 The video kind of says it all… pretty amazing promo video for what looks to be a very very nice improvement over the last GoPro series.   Enjoy the video below – and imagine what we’ll be shooting with in 10 years…   Here is more info on the GoPro HD HERO2….  WIFI etc available…  gotta admit I love the music with this piece almost as much as the video – not to take anything away from the video of course!  Just saying that sound is definitely 50% of the experience…

I’d also be remiss by not mentioning my bud’s Curt Morgan’s incredible film that was recently release – The Art of Flight.   Already on top of the iTunes charts!