I’m going to punt today’s Tech Tip Friday post over to my friend (and co-director on Nocturne) Stu Maschwitz’s blog – Prolost.com.

I’m becoming more and more involved in the screenwriting process as a director myself (mostly revisions – I let the pros write the scripts!) and I own Final Draft. It’s such an industry standard piece of software that it’s fair to say that it’s pretty much a “must own” for anyone involved in the development process of a script.

I also found Stu’s suggestion of Scrivener and it’s use of note cards to be pretty fantastic.  Basically it digitally mimics the way most screenwriters / directors / producers I know work.  When you walk into their offices it’s not uncommon to find walls full of dozens if not hundreds notecards, photographs, reference material setup in some sort of hierarchy – so that they can visualize and analyze the building blocks of their screenplays and the progression of the characters, etc.   I guess this is the digital version of that and I’m going to purchase Scrivener in a few seconds after I hit post… for now – why don’t you all go over to to the Prolost blog to here the skinny from the man himself.

Two days ago RED’s Founder Jim Jannard made the following statement:

“I fully expect the DSLR mfgs to get it right at some point. Make a non-line-skipping 4K camera. At that point, the difference will be RAW 5K and 6K vs. whatever they make. Until then, a line-skipping 1080P camera is just not in the running for a pro camera. Can you make OK images with a line-skipping 1080P camera? Sure. Should you be embarrassed? Yes. We are not in that business.

I saw the Canon commercial about shooting “motion stills”. They should be ashamed. Just try to take a still from their motion 1080P capture…

Jim –REDuser.net“

Certain sites summed up his statement as “RED founder blasts DSLR video” or “DSLRs vs. RED – Fight! Fight!”

Well I have a different take on it… and not one that you might expect.  I didn’t want to touch one this – but I’ve gotten several e-mails and comments about it – and think I’ll take the risk of weighing in.

First of all some key statements that I need to get out of the way:

1. I am a Canon Explorer of Light and sponsored by them, I am also one of the people that has obviously had a lot to do with the HDDSLR movement since it’s inception – in fact I shot one of the – if not the – first video with the Canon 5D MKII.  Obviously – I’m a big fan of HDDSLRs.

2. I have no official relationship with RED whatsoever – I do have what I would consider to be several very healthy professional and personal relationships with people at RED.

3. I shoot with both systems (and others) regularly now.

So here it goes: Read the rest of this entry »

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Yesterday I  posted a trailer for the new “Twisted Metal“ Playstation game that we shot in downtown Los Angeles.    That shoot also happened to be the first time that I was able to put my iPad 3G to use on set.  I have always found iPads to be a helpful tool for creative professionals –  especially in film and photography – for sharing images, videos, and other multimedia material with potential clients and collaborators.  This shoot marked the first time that I found it served an important role on set for me (albeit a high tech one.)

As is often the case with commercial shoots – storyboards, shot lists, and schedules are constantly changing until the last minute (if not during the shoot itself 😉   In this case critical information changed and was e-mailed to everyone just ten minutes before I arrived on set – the clients and creatives made some important changes to the storyboard.

Here’s where that can get tricky:  I always like to arrive early to any job – at least 1-2 hours before my “call time.”    Doing so helps me to relax and to feel ahead of the curve, it also allows me to chat with people and also to avoid any potential traffic nightmares in LA.    The problem with doing this is that I am often out of touch during that time – i.e. away from my computer and printer for a few hours.

If schedules change, I can always deal with that on my iPhone, and the same goes for shot lists.   But when storyboards change – that’s another issue entirely.   Downloading storyboards in a trailer and printing them can take 10-15 minutes – way too long on set.   And that’s where the iPad 3G comes in – I can download the files and view them on screen immediately – plus they are ALWAYS on hand from that point on (no more rolling them up and putting them in my back pants pocket…)

Obviously, as either a Director and/or DP,  having access to the latest information is incredibly important – if I don’t have access to the latest, I could potentially make incorrect decision that could waste very valuable time – not to mention thousands of dollars…   Read the rest of this entry »