December 2011
2 posts
4 tags
Best of the Worst
Here are the top 10 of the worst stuff I had to claw my way through and cover this year. This ranged from print, to radio prep notes. I left out the product names since some of the notes just went to editors and never got out publicly. My notes were trying to be as nice as possible, not use any profanity and not be overtly insulting to the creators. I managed to slip in one movie quote though...
November 2011
2 posts
3 tags
Avid's PostScript Age
Waiting for Godot?
This Post is a follow-up to our conversation on That Post Show, listening to that first may help as I’m not repeating everything I said on the show here.
My first reaction to Avid’s Media Composer 6 release was akin to “Ahh… I see the screw-up fairy has visited us again”. But after Bob Russo explained that the main problem is with their Player Engine I’m inclined to...
7 tags
Games in Numbers
If you’re conceptualizing a game these days, chances are you are planning for a personal device rather than a console, for a variety of reasons. Easy deployment, managed payouts, clear add-on revenue paths, easy subscription options, being able to keep up to 70% of the sales being just some of them.
With that in mind it makes sense to look at actual numbers that commercial blogs oddly enough...
MacPro to Go?
It’s that time of the year with rumors flying about Apple thinking about discontinuing the Mac Pro.
I for one think that’s a good idea.
Let’s face it, what do we really need big towers for? They’re loud, clunky, generate load of heat, cost a fortune in power bills, delivery takes up huge amounts of extra gas.
What do I want? A Mac mini Pro. Reduced to the max. Take away all the crap a...
October 2011
5 posts
3 tags
Family: The Gathering
A thing that occured to me today is how Apple actually changed my family. For the better.
Having iPhones, iPod touches and iPads culminated to a pool of communication, entertainment and a sense of togetherness that really brought us closer.
Take the iPod touch — an iPhone without shitarsed phone contracts — I now can message anyone in the family in an instant. The iPod touch means you can carry...
1 tag
August 2011
1 post
3 tags
Tools of the Trade [ WRITING ]
I’m kinda big on my tools playing well together, sometimes that requires doing some work of my own because no-one has done a tool for what I want to do, but so far it wasn’t a big deal yet. and I learned something on the way. So yeah, useful.
I’m using Scrivener and now Byword for story preparation and Final Draft for – wait for it – the final output. Lots of revisions of course, but I’m talking...
June 2011
1 post
4 tags
Meta Data Gets You Home Earlier
Philip Hodgetts’ book on Meta Data in Final Cut Pro X has a great quote: “Meta Data Gets You Home Earlier”. From someone who works in a meta data heavy environment that rung true on so many levels.
What’s good metadata? Something we discuss almost daily internally. For us good meta data means: Position, Name, Location and Wardrobe of Character X in frame Y, from editing...
March 2011
1 post
6 tags
Selling The Tools - Round One
The time has come to part with a few dear things. A time to admit that having things lay around unused doesn’t make them happier. Watching Toy Story didn’t help either.
So Joey, Mountie and Mr Pop are the first to find a new home. :)
The items are in near mint condition. Only the mount has a few small wiping scratches on the hilt when I first tried to find a way to put the BLUE pop...
January 2011
1 post
3 tags
Deus Ex Googlia
You’ve probably read it in another tab before, Google ditched h.264 support in their open source Chromium browser. Chromium is what Google Chrome is before it becomes Chrome. Like when you download WebKit “Pure” before it becomes Safari. While both use the same WebKit engine something fundamentally different divides them as of yesterday.
Google has no real understanding of the...
November 2010
1 post
“I see in the near future a crisis approaching that unnerves me and cause me to...”
– ABRAHAM LINCOLN, letter to Col. William F. Elkins, Nov. 21, 1864
September 2010
1 post
Where to Go at Photokina?
Luxology: Hall 4.1 A030 / C039
Leica: Hall 2.1. booth A013 / B012
Nikon: Hall 2.2
Phase One: Hall 2
Zeiss: Hall 2.1
Pentax: Hall 2.2
Cali Sunbounce: ???
Manfrotto: Hall 9.1 booth D010 / E019
Panasonic: Hall 3.2 booth A015
X-Rite: Hall 4.1 booth I021 / I029
ComLine: Hall 4.1 booth D040 E049
August 2010
1 post
5 tags
Of Mice and Men
It is an interesting conundrum with geek reporters or podcasters for that matter. By sheer definition one would think their purpose is a beacon of things to come. But lately they are more reminiscent of the clerics accusing Galileo of heresy for daring to change the status quo.
Change and those who make it happen are always mocked by those opposing it. That is completely normal. I’ve seen that...
July 2010
1 post
“An Architect is not man enough to be an Engineer and not gay enough to be an...”
– by my college teacher back in 1997 (via kleinjinx)
May 2010
3 posts
Hulu and HTML5
In a recent company blog Hulu’s Eugene Wei addressed why they’d not like to evolve their user experience with HTML5 based players.
Whoever advises Hulu on these decisions is a threat to the company. They clearly have little to no understanding of anything beyond Flash.
Let’s see. Wei stated that HTML5 does not have DRM and may eventually get DRM features in the future. Nope, not gonna happen....
2 tags
Open Letter to Adobe
The new technologies in After Effects, Photoshop and Illustrator bring remarkable workflow improvements to any project but when taking those to market they are encumbered by predominantly Flash export options.
Adobe once was a great company. That was before you made already outdated technology the basis for everything you stand for.
One thing right away. You customers don’t like being lied to....
1 tag
Quoth The Server, "404"
“Flashet!” said I, “thing of evil! — Flashet still, if tool or devil! —
Whether hindrance sent, or whether reckless tossed thee here ashore,
Desolate plug-ins all daunted, on this desert server landed —
On this home folder by horror haunted — tell me truly, I implore —
Is there — is sense in this adobe? — tell me — tell me, I implore!”
Quoth the Server,...
April 2010
3 posts
Some historical facts worth considering
1998: Apple abandons the 3.5'' Floppy Drive
Now: 3.5'' has perished
2006: Apple introduced the SuperDrive (Read and write CD Roms, now DVDs)
Now: Every computer comes with read/write drives for optical media
2010: Apple abandons the Adobe Flash, 3rd party application runtime by not including it on their mobile platforms.
Now: …
3 tags
March 2010
4 posts
VFX Townhall Meeting #1 - Thoughts
The first VFX Townhall meeting to address issues of declining work and payment conditions in the VFX industry happened on March 30th. From the comments on twitter it missed the target.
I’ve equated it to launching a rocket without payload and off target. It was more than one hour of stating the obvious. Then it derailed and you could tell how cast in iron these people’s minds were. Instead of...
Premature Betafication
What is it with developers holding their apps and web services in beta for ages?
Grow some prairie oysters and bloody release the thing after you had it out in the open for a year!
Yes, I do get the user voluntary testing idea because you don’t have a huge QA staff. But guess what, Microsoft has a huge QA staff and what hell load of good has it done to them? More bugs than the population of some...
9 tags
End of Lies.
After all my talks, all my articles over the last 8 years, nothing has changed in the music industry. People still woo artists with seemingly big rolodexes full of names that meant something in the past. They still try to mask their creative ability of a doorstop with quick turnarounds. They still try to solve creative problems by throwing more people at it instead of using their brains.
And all...
“Well I’m a bit of a designer too. I have a Myspace.”
– (via clientsfromhell)
Welcome to the music industry!
February 2010
1 post
Syncing Documents Across Multiple Devices
One of the issues I had in the past was keeping track of my notes and finding them. But not just locally. Often I needed some info when on the road or without laptop even.
Since about a week now I got something that’s hardly elegant but really does work well.
It’s a chain of a few apps that each are their best at what they do. Meanwhile I expanded this to many more use cases from syncing...
January 2010
5 posts
11 tags
Audience Measurement in the Absence of Flash
Let’s recap, a bit over 90% of mobile content purchases are coming from the iPhone platform right now. With the iPad coming to homes in late Q1 of 2010 we’ll see that number increase and reach intro the premium content sector as well.
The audience measurement and management companies, the Topspins, Nielsens and last.fm’s of the world will have to change at their core in order to stay/become...
8 tags
No Flash on the iPad, a Problem? Yes, but for...
Flash is the new Real Media. I was a Flash designer a few years ago (up till late 2003) before I started learning about the web in a way that’s actually useful. Not making people wait minutes before they could start interacting with a web site was a huge benefit.
Now I can do 90% of what I used to do with Flash by simply using HTML, CSS and JavaScript. It’s very lightweight and...
“A woman has a close male friend. This means that he is probably interested in...”
– DragonflyBlade21 (via isntfunny)
Farewell Jim Rimmer, artist, technician, teacher,...
On early January 8th 2010 Jim Rimmer parted ways with the world. His legacy will remain as long as people value the words they read.
I met Jim in fall of 2003 and we’ve been in sporadic email contact ever since. I never met a more generous man. His wisdom and the patience of a saint when I didn’t understand some technique or questioned another.
He was one of the great ones behind the page.
...
4 tags
Away with scene directions
Here’s a tip for fellow screenwriters. Something that I noticed recently. I call it Director’s Notebook. It can be anything you want, a Moleskine, wire-bound note pad, Scrivener document (as in my case). It doesn’t matter as long as you’re comfortable with it and know in the back of your mind that you’ll find the references in there again. That’s the most...
December 2009
8 posts
6 tags
My Story of the Decade
Having worked in the entertainment industry for the better (or worse) part of my life, this decade changed just about everything at the core.
If you had told any executive in 2001 that one artist, without label-backing and ad agency behind them would be able to gather a following of over 1 Million people, a padded room and a straight-jacket might have been the response.
But exactly this is what...
4 tags
My Apps of 2009
Here are the lesser known apps that saved my ass on occasion this year. In no particular order (unranked). Well the first batch actually are a list of my writing process. I’m not being paid for this, which doesn’t mean I’d object (hint hint, nudge nudge!) ;)
Writing
TaskPaper — no styling, no tweaking, take notes for real.
WriteRoom — the single best full-screen writing...
4 tags
Skills in Bed, iPhone App? →
Well what can I say, my skills in bed have improved over the years. They now mainly consist of rolling over, stretching, belly up and belly down sleeping. Sideways sleeping is improving as well.
6 tags
6 tags
“And I ain’t in it for the power,
And I ain’t in it for my health
I...”
– Jim Steinman
7 tags
Code, Macs and Music
Here’s the deal. If you’re a coder, music lover and Mac user THIS is for you!
Today, Noush Skaugen is giving away her album Lost and Found for FREE! And for 24hrs ONLY! Here’s the link to get it! It’ll be in the signup message you get back.
But if that itself weren’t cool enough already, we’ve got together once again for a great giveaway. Not only is the...
Watch those spots.
man: I have this spot on my forehead, just keeps growing
doc looks on, examines, magnifies, is puzzled
doc: come back in a week for checkups
one week later
man: see I told you it keeps growing
doc: Mhh Hmm yes interesting
man: What is it?
doc: well you appear to be growing a penis right on your forehead
man: WHAT??!!!
…
man: How am I supposed to live with a penis dangling in front of my eyes all the time?
doc: don't worry, you won't see it
man: *sigh*
doc: the balls will cover your eyes.
June 2009
1 post
The real deal on Microsoft's IE8 BS
First look at this piece of satire published by Microsoft. While about 6% of it is actually true, it is both entertaining and concerning as there are people who actually believe this crap. So let’s address that, shall we?
Top 10 Reasons to install Internet Explorer 8
10 - It makes it faster to download Firefox, Chrome or Safari
09 - You have a color deficiency anyway, why bother?
08 -...
November 2008
1 post
5 tags
Obama, McCain and what their typography means, in...
McCain | Palin
The McCain / Palin campaign is using Optima Demi Bold a typeface which is very undecided by nature. In general the Optima family is a sans serif with serif ambitions. Now are the ambitions progressive or is the stem progressive and the ambitions olden?
And the weight. Of course with any marketing campaign with lots of people creating the visuals the font weight varies due to lack...
August 2008
1 post
Extracting print quality stills from HV20 footage...
Here’s the full story.
July 2008
10 posts
is there a way to add a real harddrive to the Macbook Air or is it just made for writers?
Snuggly the Security Bear - so dumb it could be real. (warning contains Adobe Flash content) (http://ping.fm/a18NL)
great resource for newsdesigners (http://ping.fm/v6nfq)
raising the stakes: if this makes it in the mag, I’ll do a 10 track solo album! (http://ping.fm/SfhPh)
Most awesome bookends!!! (http://ping.fm/b326Q)
Would be fun to have this included in the mag :) (http://ping.fm/DFLpf)