Consider the violin: it rests on the shoulder, steadied by the chin. One hand works the bow, while the other supports the far end of the instrument and fingers the strings. It’s light and fits the human body – the perfect combination of form and function.

And here’s Rune Ericson in 1980 with the Aaton 16mm film camera: rests on his shoulder, so well balanced, the center of gravity keeps it sitting there. One hand supports the far end, while the other hand is free to zoom, follow focus and change f stop.

No add-on recorder, no extra viewfinder, no wires – sleek and elegant – the perfect combination of form and function.

photo courtesy Ned Soltz

Moving from film to video, from 1980 to 2011, here’s DV magazine writing colleague and friend, Ned Soltz’s F3 camera kit. Takes great HD pictures, bang up-to-date – but what’s happened to sleek and elegant? 

SUDDENLY IT’S RAINING ADD-ON BOXES
It makes good sense to enhance an existing product with an add-on. Sailing boats have outboard motors.

Wartime cars, when gas was rationed, used charcoal burners. Ugly but better than no gas and sitting in the garage.

Most video cameras record digitally compressed signals. Even the mighty RED records compressed signals. Once you compress an image, it makes it difficult to do effects in post like chromakey and layering. Help is at hand as almost all cameras have an uncompressed output straight from the camera’s sensors. Add-on boxes take advantage of this port and then either use a lower compression, like ProRes 4:2:2, or with the aid of modern Solid State Drives (SSD) record the pure uncompressed signal; hence the rash of new recorders.

Cinemartin SFVe @ approx. $4,000

Fast Forward Video has SideKick HD | Atomos with The Ninja| Cinedeck with, er, the Cinedeck | Sound Devices’ new babies PIX 220 & 240

Sound Devices PIX 240 @ $2,695 – photo credit: Adam Wilt

AJA , of course, has Ki-Pro Mini | Cinemartin, SFVe | Convergence Design their popular nanoFlash and the new charmer, the Gemini 4:4:4.

Convergence’s Gemini 4:4:4 @ $5,995

Oh yes, and BlackMagic has Hyperdeck Shuttle. At $345 retail and around $327 on the street, it blows the rests away, bang per buck. Ever seen a product manager cry?

Blackmagic’s Hyperdeck Shuttle @ $345

So it hasn’t got a monitor, it’s not ProRes and gobbles up disk space, but it’s $327 vs., say, the Gemini 4:4:4 at $5,995.

on my left, the Shuttle’s 512GB for weighing in at $840 | on my right, the Gemini’s SSD 512 GB at $1,349

UNCOMPRESSED IS UNCOMPRESSED, RIGHT?
Reading the Gemini specs. I am confused. Extra money for S-Log uncompressed… ArriRAW is coming; so too the popular Weiss format…  Huh? I thought un-compressed is un-compressed. S-Log is un-compressed, isn’t it, why pay more?

I turn to my good friend, Adam Wilt, who provides technical services at the newly opened Meets The Eye Studios in San Carlos, CA:

Adam lines up a Panasonic AG-DVX100

SS: Hi Adam, I’m writing a piece for DV mag. about my $327 BlackMagic HyperDeck – which works well (eventually)

AW: Eventually? Not ready for primetime just yet?

SS: and saying that for me it’s the best bang per buck solution. I say that if money were no object and I could justify return on investment, I’d get the Gemini 4:4:4, “The First Affordable Uncompressed Recorder”, they say ( they would, wouldn’t they), I mean $6K vs. $327.

AW: Well, little things, like the Gemini is smaller (by half an inch), has dual-slot SSDs, a screen, a touch overlay, real BNCs, a robust casing, a proper user interface, etc. BMD went for a minimum-cost approach and the Shuttle is a very bare-bones recorder as a result. Gemini is designed for no-compromise fieldwork, complete with more mod cons. and that has consequences for cost.

SS: It’s uncompressed so why all this S-Log stuff and ArriRAW (paid upgrades) and an upgrade to “the popular Weisscam format.”

AW: All “uncompressed” means is that what comes in via single-link or dual-link SDI gets recorded to SSD in a bit-for-bit transcription, with no further compression.

In the case of S-Log, most commonly it’s a 10-bit dual-link signal (which Gemini will record quite faithfully), but instead of having a standard Rec.709 gamma for perceptually uniform coding (sorry, I’m tech editing Charles Poynton this week, so that sort of terminology comes trippingly off the tongue right now!), or put another way, a “visually linear” tonal-scale rendering, an S-Log signal uses a true logarithmic coding: in effect, a gamma curve with raised, milky mid-tones, and an extended highlight capture range without the need for a knee.

It’s much like the “Cineon” curve for film scanning. It’s not intended for direct viewing, it’s designed to capture the entire tonal range that the camera is capable of, for later grading.

ArriRAW is a true raw (non-demosaiced) image, carried using the dual-link HD-SDI transport. It isn’t video, properly speaking, but frame-based scans of the sensor’s raw values, that needs later “development” (demiosaicing, deBayering) to be viewed as an RGB image.

Weisscam is another raw format that can be carried on dual-link SDI.

The Gemini will record them all.

SS: Huh? Weisscam is popular?

AW: It’s becoming more popular, as Stefan Weiss keeps making new cameras! See http://www.fdtimes.com/news/cameras/weisscam-t-1/

Stefan Weiss with his new camera

SS: RAW is uncompressed, yes?

AW: Not necessarily. My Nikon still cams can record raw uncompressed, or raw compressed. RED records compressed raw, where you can set the compression ratio. There is NO uncompressed raw capture on RED.

RED have never enabled the data port on their cameras. You can only record RED RAW on RED supplied media: CF and SSD via bolt-on modules, or hard drives via eSATA connections on a proprietary cable. All the BNC outputs carry deBayered HD video, down sampled to a rather coarse 720p on RED ONE, or a rather nicer 1080p on EPIC.

SS: Uncompressed is uncompressed – right?

AW: Yes, true. But that doesn’t mean that the uncompressed signal from camera A need look anything like the uncompressed signal from camera B; all it means is that the recording is a bit-for-bit replica of whatever gumpf came in on the input connector!

Your little Sony V1U sends YCrCb component video at 1920×1080, 8 bit 4:2:2, 29.97 fps over HDMI, and an uncompressed recorder should record it with perfect fidelity. The Arri sends raw sensor data at 2880×1620, 12 bits, 23.976 fps over a dual-link SDI connection, and an uncompressed recorder (capable of recording ARRIRAW T-Link format over dual-link SDI) will record it with perfect fidelity–but it’s a completely different data format than the V1′s uncompressed signal, and the two formats are not interoperable.

Just looking at the Alexa, I can have it output any of the following uncompressed signals:

– 1920×1080 Rec.709 video, just like any other camera (more or less).

– 1920×1080 LogC video (Arri’s counterpart to Sony’s S-Log; it’s derived from the Cineon curve, and it’s intended for later grading).

– 2880×1620 ArriRAW, an unprocessed raw data dump from the sensor.

All are recorded uncompressed, yet all look very different. And that’s just from ONE camera!

SS: S-Log, LogC, Cineon curve, oh my. Let’s take a short break from Adam’s master class…

HERE’S MY BLACKMAGIC HYPERDRIVE SHUTTLE
IMHO there are only two places that a camera add-on can go: either on the rear, or underneath – on top or even worse, on one side, throws the camera’s balance off and we don’t want that, do we?

I opt for a low-slung Hyperdrive cage. I visit my local precision engineer, Ron, with a sketch of what I want, “Has to be light, handhold-able and easy to remove.”

Ron likes this kind of challenge. I call it Slingdeck.

The day I collect my Slingdeck, BlackMagic announces its own mounting plate. How it attaches the Shuttle to a camera is a mystery to me. Modestly, mine is 10 times better.

Sony V1U ($1,750 S/H) with $327 Hyperdrive Shuttle captures uncompressed video

Is the Shuttle perfect? Nope. When it arrived, it simply didn’t work, just green images with black lines. Then they brought out 1.1 firmware. Yep, it now works – but wait, no it doesn’t. Yes, it does. Unreliable.

After a string of emails (“You’re the only one who has this problem.”), I drive to BlackMagic tech. headquarters, just south of Oakland airport. After an hour of head scratching, here’s the verdict: turn on the Shuttle FIRST – count to five – then turn on the camera. Do it in that order and it records perfectly every time. I can live with that – just.

BlackMagic are working on a fix. Roll on, firmware 1.2. Roll on, an output for the DISP button which does FA at the moment.

• “You’re the only one who has this problem.” OMG that’s what Éclair said when my ACL jammed film in humid Majorca. That’s what Ampex said when they delivered my 1” VPR1s. That’s what CMX said when I complained about their editing system not understanding the PAL 8 field color sequence. That’s what Markus said when I sued them as their studio doors didn’t meet specs. “You’re the only one who has this problem.” Is it me?

BACK TO ADAM’S EMAIL:
AW: The Shuttle’s low price comes with a price, as it were, and it’s important to show that.

“Faster, better, cheaper” is the eternal triangle of antagonists; with the Shuttle, “faster” takes the hit: the ritualized startup sequence, the lack of proper monitoring, the need for ancillary equipment.  That’s the price you pay for getting the “cheaper” of $327 and the “better” of uncompressed.

Some will say that’s too much of a sacrifice and go for the more polished and production-friendly Gemini. But it costs $5,700 more!  That’s the price to be paid: no more “cheaper”; even if by the standards of a couple of years ago it’s still an incredible bargain.

For the cash-strapped indie with a crew of two and VFX stars in his eyes, the Hyperdeck Shuttle enables what would otherwise be financially impossible. For the time-starved commercial production company with expensive union bodies on the clock and a cranky client in video village, $6,000 is a pittance to be paid for the smoother workflow the Gemini provides.

Horses for courses, that’s all.

SS: Wow Adam you’re good! Thanks.

AW: Any more questions?

SS: Just one. Why can’t a video camera be more like a violin?

• Okay, so I have been counting the days that I have been booked the last month doing, camera or audio, I worked 8 days this month. Is that slow? Or, is that average busy time for a freelancer. So far, this calendar year, I have made about 20K. I am trying to make 40K by the end of the year.
• The places that I look for work are Craigslist, Production HUB, Reality Staff.com and Mandy.com. I also get requests for quotes from Production HUB and Mandy. I just got a couple of quotes from the latter in the last week, but none of them replied after sending my quote. Typically, I charge $1,400 a day for a 2-man crew, $850 for a one-man band (including light kit, camera, audio kit) which is standard in the Dallas market.
• There have been quite a few job postings, seems like more productions are going on and things are picking up, but I have no shoots booked yet for next week nor next month, so I am starting to get a little worried. I have a $7,400 HPX370 (my main camera) and a Sony Z1U, sound kit, light kit sitting in the closet, not making me money.
• How do most of you find work and how many days a month do you shoot?

Starman, I feel for you. We’ve all been there, including me. Suddenly there’s no work. Everything stops, especially in summer. You get worried – I get worried. Join the club.

But as much as I can emphasize, Starman, you’ve got the wrong attitude – so out of touch. These days it’s no good being a cameraman/editor – you’ve got to be so much, much more. And it’s no good, being good. Good is no longer enough.  You’ve got to be excellent, so much better than the rest.

MEDIA WRANGLER
There’s a great body of people out there with $8,000 cameras collecting dust and there are better things to do than sitting around waiting for work to drop in.

It won’t.

Now – repeat after me: I am no longer a cameraman-editor – I am a media wrangler. Again: I am no longer a cameraman-editor – I am a media wrangler… a do-it-all dogs body.

Want a PowerPoint show? Yes, you can do it.

Your friend’s sister wants a video on YouTube. A pushover.

The local printer needs help with Photoshop; go help him.

The neighbor wants a Web site – do it. And do it for free.

WORDPRESS
In this new economy, WordPress is king. I’ve written it before – if you can do FCP (or Avid or Premier) you can do WordPress. Forget wordpress.com – get the real thing, wordpress.org. It is F-R-E-E. Buy WordPress for Dummies. $14.82 and worth every cent.

An essential filmmaking tool. Go buy it…

Download WordPress files, upload them to the root of your site. You also need to use an FTP program like FileZilla. Hey, it’s free too. Now attempt the:
famous 5-minute installation, setting up WordPress for the first time is simple. We’ve created a handy guide to see you through the installation process.

Friends, it ain’t that easy. Five minutes is correct, if you’ve done it 20 times before. It took me two days to figure out how to create a MySQL database. “Famous 5-minute installation” – rubbish.

Next thing is to stop your Web site from looking like a blog. I suggest kicking off with a free theme like Woo Themes Swatch.

Then move on to more complex themes. Mine is called Garnish (but please, please, don’t copy mine!)

My own WordPress site

Working with WordPress will increase your Photoshop skills. (You can do Photoshop, can’t you?) You’ll also need some cheap tools like: SnapzPro, MPEG Streamclip, Art Director’s ToolKit – but you won’t need Dreamweaver, RapidWeaver or even iWeb.

Can’t afford PhotoShop? Use picnik. It’s a free on-line Photoshop look-a-like, owned by Google.

Unlike filmmaking, you can get into making Web site creation for next to nothing. I promise you, if you can do WordPress, you will generate film/video work. Site first – then the videos will follow. My Promise.

SO HOW DO YOU GET WORK?
Contacts. Contacts. Contacts. Contacts. Contacts. Contacts. Contacts. Contacts. Contacts. Contacts. Contacts. Contacts. Contacts. Contacts. Contacts. Contacts. Contacts. Contacts.

Contacts. Contacts. Contacts. Contacts. Contacts. Contacts. Contacts. Contacts. Contacts. Contacts. Contacts. Contacts. Contacts. Contacts. Contacts. Contacts. Contacts. Contacts.

Have I made my point?

I arrive in the USA on April 1, 1999. I KNOW NO-ONE.

My son goes to school. He wants to learn fencing and drama. They’re out of school fee-paying activities. We meet Peter Meyers who runs the Vector Theater Conservatory (remember this is my first or second week in a foreign country). He tells me the cost per semester. “I can’t afford that Peter – but I can make you a promotion video.” He falls for it.

Peter in 1999 – teaching kids how to perform

It takes a week to shoot and edit. He sees it and cries, “It’s so beautiful – you’ve captured the essence of the Vector.” I’m taken aback – no British client has ever cried or used a word like “essence”. I must be in San Francisco. My son has free tuition for five years.

That was 1999 – and now it’s 2011. I’m booked tomorrow to shoot Peter Meyers and his High Performance Communication team. A client for over 11 years and it started with a no-money-exchanged job.

Peter in 2011 – he’s written a book and is teaching executives how to communicate.

That free/contra-deal video got Peter hooked into making videos. I’ve traveled with him to Moscow, to Belgrade, to Montreux (three times), to Brussels (twice) and to loads of US locations.

Now consider this: just say in 1999, I met Peter at a party or maybe he’s a neighbor. Just say, instead of saying, “I’ll make you a video, if you teach my son drama” – I said, “Peter, I’ve just arrived in the States, I really need US work on my showreel. I’d like to make you a free video. Absolutely no obligation – it’s free, no charge – I just want to start making videos here in the US.”

The result would have been the same. Having seen how quickly and painlessly I work, he would have booked me for a real paying job. Then when he had that conference in Moscow, he would have taken me. Or that shoot in Hungary. And the week at Cisco …

Free Web site and videos powerful tools to bring in paying ones. But only one – per potential client:

Eileen’s boyfriend wants a Web site. I make one for free. It takes an afternoon. Eileen’s daughter needs a Web site for her restaurant. Hmmm – got to charge for that. Eileen’s daughter’s friend, Danny, needs videos and a site for his LA bike touring company. No question, I charge – but take note, it all started with a freebie.

Danny’s WordPress site has three videos

When you’re starting – don’t charge low rates – charge nothing. Then charge the full going rate. There are so many non-profit organizations who want videos. I haven’t got a single neighbor who doesn’t need a Web site or a video.

The guy next door sells boats, the lady downstairs does insurance claims, the lady on the opposite side has a hat shop, Mary is an art teacher, Carolyn an interior designer – and so it goes on and on. Carolyn worked for Burton, he needs videos – I travel with Burton to Germany three times. Burton knows Malcolm. I make seven YouTube videos for Malcolm.

Contacts. Contacts. Contacts. Contacts. Contacts. Contacts…

Many moons ago, three Italian producers made Mondo Cane (A Dog’s Life). If you haven’t seen it, you should. It’s instant view on Netflix.

No time for Netflix? It starts with a would-be Rudolf Valentino having his clothes ripped off by a bunch of crazy NY female shoppers, then cuts to bare breasted native girls chasing islanders wearing Dolce & Gabbana underwear (but not for long), cut to Aussie girl lifesavers giving the “kiss of life.”The Kiss of Life – worth drowning for…

But Mondo Cane isn’t all about sex – we see births, deaths (a group of Chinese volunteers with only minutes to live but just time to sign the release form) and a Buddhist monk has petrol poured over him and then self-destructs. Did I mention the killing of a man by a bull (cut by the censor), the scenes of flagellation, body piercing, vivisection, lynchings… everything that makes life worth living.

And so it is with this year’s NAB.

BODY PIERCING
Take this year’s RED booth – after an absence of two years, here they are demonstrating their cameras with a willing young girl stripped to the hip, being tattooed. Not just any kind of tattoo but the Red logo design.Mondo Cane 1962Mondo NAB 2011

Inside the booth’s theater, the tattoo theme is continued with a dramatic short, called (you guessed it) Tattoo. I kid you not… “String him up.” Here comes the flagellation scene. Whack! Whack! “Undress him.” Could be Mondo Cane all over again. OMG, he has THE tattoo! Fade to black.

RITUAL SACRIFICE
Suddenly it’s raining add-on recorder boxes – Fast Forward Video has SideKick HD | Atomos with The Ninja| Cinedeckwith, er, Cinedeck | Sound Devices’ new baby PIX | AJA , of course, has Ki-Pro Mini | Convergence Design.

Now along comes BlackMagic with HyperDeck Shuttle. Just $345 and at a stroke corners the market. So it hasn’t got a monitor, it’s not ProRes and gobbles up disk space – I’m buying one and there’s a long queue of other cheapskates behind me. I’ll need a $250 solid state drive; no matter, BlackMagic will throw in a free copy of DaVinci Resolve.

I get change from $600 vs. $2,500+ for a competitive box– ever seen a product manager cry?

John Abt, CEO of AJA, doubts that they’ll find SSDs that will reliably support uncompressed data rates. Well he would say that, wouldn’t he?

PUBLIC SUICIDE
I can never figure out why somebody didn’t stop that monk from burning himself alive. If he were on a window ledge about to jump, there would have been a team of negotiators saying, “Don’t do it!”

Grisly self-immolation from Mondo Cane

Well he’s gone and so has the Flip camera – incinerated alive by Cisco. Alive? Yes, it’s the #1 best selling camcorder on Amazon – and they killed it.

Cisco bought Flip for $590 million and on day two of NAB – lit its funeral pyre. Their only serious competitor, GoPro, has a huge exhibition stand with a new 3D case and editing software.R.I.P Flip – gone but not forgotten

David Pogue in his NY Times obit says that the Flip guys were just about to release FlipLive:

That is, when you’re in a Wi-Fi hot spot, the entire world can see what you’re filming. You can post a link to Twitter or Facebook, or send an e-mail link to friends. Anyone who clicks the link can see what you’re seeing, in real time—thousands of people at once. Think how amazing that would be.
Why time the announcement to coincide with NAB? Why didn’t somebody stop them? Save the monk, save the Flip! I want FlipLive!

KISS OF LIFE
NAB is full of very worthwhile products that seem to need a sun tanned Aussie blonde to go down on them.

When I met Martine Bianco last year she had a pre-prod. Aaton Penelope Delta – wonderful ergonomics, with picture quality claimed to be better than the Arri.

This year I expected to see a production model. But no… “Later this year…”  Sad.

Martine Bianco, Exec. VP of Aäton with her pre-production Penelope Delta.

And what’s become of RED’s  Scarlet?

She was announced in early 2008. A no show in 2009, nothing in 2010 and here we are in 2011 and still zilch. Assuming design work in 2007, that’s about five years been and gone. The latest blow is the Japanese tsunami delaying RED’s supply chain.

The man in the black hat tattoos the T-shirt design while a pre-prod. Scarlet looks on.

Both Scarlet and Penelope urgently need mouth to mouth resuscitation. Maybe the lads in Thunder from Down Under can help.

HUMAN VIVISECTION
Michael Horton and Dan Bérubé are two of the nicest guys you could ever hope to meet. In case you’ve been under a rock, they run SuperMeet, nowadays a collection of Final Cut Pro User Groups from Boston, Beijing and Beyond.

Seen here talking on YouTube – later suffered Apple mutism.

“Hello Everybody, I’m Michael Horton – and I’m Dan Bérubé – It’s our own 10^th birthday – and if you can’t make it, we are going to live stream it – SORRY GUYS, THAT’S OFF – we’re thrilled to have back with us Mark Hamaker (Autodesk Smoke) is going to be talking about  taking your workflow into the third dimension – OH NO HE ISN’T – we’ve got filmmaker Kevin Smith on behalf of Avid NOPE HE’S GONE TOO

There’s How shooting with the Canon 5DmkII made me fall in love with filming again – Philip Bloom” NAH THAT’S CHOPPED – and How Blackmagic Design’s DaVinci Resolve can Change Your Color Correction Practice with Alexis Van Hurkman THAT’S OFF – The second half will be all about the world of Final Cut Studio” NO WAY – NEED I GO ON?

Getting the chop, Mondo Cane style1962

GONE, BABY, GONE… all axed by Apple.

Nice guys Horton & Bérubé are sworn to silence. Come the night, they are not even on the opening stage.

The forums are outraged – words like “bully” and “arrogant” and “hijacked” are thrown around. Video facility owner, Greg Huson demands (and gets) a refund. His forum comment: “I think it’s a dick move on the part of Apple.”

Forum wag, Bob Zelin predicts: “Apple is buying Avid and Adobe and will discontinue Media Composer and Premier and FCP and we’ll all be forced to use iMoviePro.”

From Len Feldman’s thoughtful blog: You may ask why Apple didn’t just schedule its own event, which it could have completely controlled. The problem is that Apple isn’t an exhibitor at NAB, and many conferences (most likely including NAB) have contracts with the hotels that house attendees that prohibit them from making space available for events run by non-exhibitors. Since just about every hotel of any size is offering space through NAB’s housing office, that would make them unable to host an Apple event. On the other hand, the SuperMeet organizers are also exhibitors, so they can do whatever they want with their event.

But there’s another reason that Apple did this – it’s very simple: because they can.

WAITING FOR NABOT

Mondo Cane 1962 – Cargo Cult natives waiting, waiting…

Mondo Cane ends with the forlorn “Cargo Cult” New Guinea natives waiting for their gods to land a plane.  Could be the audience at the NAB SuperMeet 2011 waiting for that special guest from Apple.

Mondo NAB 2011 – SuperMeet natives, waiting, waiting…

From Wikipedia: the term “cargo cult” is invoked as an English language idiom to mean any group of people who imitate the superficial exterior of a process or system without having any understanding of the underlying substance.

Isn’t that just like NAB?

If you think the NAB Show action is in the exhibitors’ booths, think again. Since all of the players in the following stories are either retired old fogies, or, better still, stone-cold-dead, I’ll spill the beans.

It’s years ago: I’m the founder and CEO of Molinare, the largest post facility company in the U.K. – I visit NAB each year to buy the latest kit.

THE SECRET NEW PRODUCT
“Stefan, Willie told me you were interested in our new special effects generator,” says the Ampex rep.

“Very interested. Our Vital SqueeZoom paid for itself in six months.”
“It’s called Ampex Digital Optics — does 3D effects that you can’t do on Quantel or your SqueeZoom.”
“I want it…”
“This hasn’t been announced. We don’t want the press to know. We have already have a pre-order from an L.A. company. We really want you to be first in Europe. Can you come to my hotel room tonight?”
“Sure.’
“I’m in Caesar’s Palace. Here’s the room number. After the show closes, say 7:00.”
“Deal. I’m excited.”

I take Bob, my chief engineer, to the meet. Knock on the door. The Ampex rep is waiting for me. He pours us a drink.

“Ampex ADO is going to revolutionize the industry. You ain’t seen nothin’ yet.”
He brings out a joystick. “You have complete 3D control of the picture – zoom with perspective and rotate.”
“Where is the machine – here in your bedroom?”
“Redwood City – we couldn’t bring it here. It’s still a prototype.”
“The joystick goes nowhere?”
“Just to give you the feel of it.”
“What kind of money are we talking about?”
“Maybe $250,00, maybe less. We’ll finalize it when you come to Redwood City.’
“Don, I’m not sure why I’m in your bedroom. You can’t show me the product, you have no brochure and no price – it’s a kid’s joystick. What are we doing here?”
“It’s difficult for me. My hands are tied. But we can have a great time on the town. Let’s go wild! Las Vegas is our oyster. Have you ever been to the Palomino?”

Silly, I know but I’d much rather have seen a preview of the ADO than go out on a date with an Ampex salesman.

We make our excuses and have a quiet meal at the Red Lobster. Moral: never meet a salesman in a bedroom.

CASH-AND-CARRY BAG
NAB floor. Different year. I wander into an exhibition stand, I’ve bought the product, know the people.

“Hey, Stefan, I’ve got a real surprise for you. Interested?”
“You bet.”
“You might not have realized that when you placed the order for your third ******, the manufacturer gave us a 20% retroactive discount on all three. I spoke to my directors and they think it’s only fair and honest that we split it with you.”
“That is a surprise.”
“I’ve got it in cash, it’s over $10,000. But I can’t give it to you here.”
“I know what you’re saying, but it’s my company. Tricia, Robert and I are the major shareholders, but I’d much rather you posted a check.”
“Stefan, this is tax-free money — do with it as you like. Please take it, but not here.”

We leave the NAB main floor and enter the labyrinth of corridors.
“It’s in my briefcase. In hundred dollar bills. I can’t be seen giving it to you.”
“Then don’t. I’m really uncomfortable with this…”
“In here…”

He takes me by the arm into the men’s restroom. One man is just leaving. The distributor’s rep enters a free stall.

“Quick, give me your carrier bag. Don’t stand outside. Come in, it will only take a second.” He closes and locks the door.

The two of us are squeezed inside and he’s stuffing $100 bills into my NAB carry bag. I can hear people coming into the restroom.

“Wait ‘till they leave.”
“No, this is ridiculous — take the carry bag.”
“I can’t it’s full of your brochures.”
“OK, put on a brave face, here we go.”

I open the door. The two of us emerge from the stall. Saved – there’s no one here who knows me. Sheepish grins all round; a hasty retreat to the anonymous corridor.

Two true stories. I can’t make this shit up.

That said Damita is amazing and Kenneth Carter, the director of the Benny Hill Show, is vastly more experienced than any local.

The show is studio based. It’s called “Damita Jo Down Under.” I’m booked to shoot Damita seeing the down under sites. Ken has a limo and driver. We’re off to La Perouse, where Damita meets an aboriginal and throws a boomerang herself. “Got it. Stefan?” “No worries, Ken.”

Next Bondi Beach where some guys with surf boards and bikini clad models walk by. Just there by accident? Oh, yeah. I try to make it look un-staged. Now shots of Damita in front of the Sydney Opera House and Harbor bridge. Damita boards a Manly ferry and gets off before it leaves. I’ve done this so many times.

Now for lunch… “Stefan , you’re a local, where do you suggest?” “Harry’s, it has to be Harry’s Café de Wheels in Woolloomooloo. It’s traditional Australian cuisine.

Tucked under a long wharf, Harry’s Café de Wheels has fed countless film crews and celebrities like Frank Sinatra, Robert Mitchum, Marlene Dietrich and Elton John.

“Let’s have a Tiger, my favorite.” I lie, but I need the shot of Damita eating a meat pie with mushy peas. Damita puts on a brave face. I’m shooting so I can’t eat. Funny about that. In the interest of full disclosure, I’ve have to admit my grandfather’s business, Sargent’s Famous Meat Pies is Harry’s original supplier. I have meat pies in my blood.

Harry’s is so famous that even you-know-who eats there. Legend says he ate three meat pies, one after the other.

MHS – MEANS “MUST HAVE SCAMPI”
London – anytime in the ‘70s. It could be one of a hundred shoots. Tricia and I are driving up the MI to shoot on location. Is it Birmingham, Coventry, Leeds – it doesn’t matter.

We try to arrive at 9:00, meet up with the manager, shoot and wrap before lunch..
He trek us around with us while we shoot the showroom/ the factory/ warehouse/ whatever…

“I think we’ve got it. Love to take you to lunch. Can you recommend a restaurant?”

Tricia and I follow him in our car. “Nice guy – MHS, I sure.” “Don’t laugh when he says it.” “I promise, not a snigger.”

“So nice to get out. I’m usually eating a sandwich in the office. Let’s see… Yes, scampi. Must have scampi.”

The old MHS… our eyes meet but we keep a straight face. We love our north of London clients but what is it with scampi? The menu has steak, chicken, fish even pizza but nine times out of ten, it is “MHS”.

“Scampi, mmmm, good choice. We’ll join you. Three scampis please and a bottle of house white.”

FRANKFURT, GERMANY
We’re here for the day. It’s all been lined up. The local manager of ICI Autocolor is going to take us to a re-finish shop. He’s going to talk, in German, about ICI Autocolor, only something’s gone wrong. His Gruppen Früher is away and he ain’t going to say nothing, no way.

“Well, can I take shots of the spray painting and maybe some shots of you and the re-finish paint buyer?” “Okay but no sound.” “No sound – promise.”

I take silent B-roll. When we’re packing up I say. “Can I do a short interview – sound but no pictures?” “No photography?” “That’s right, just a sound recording, no pictures.” “No problem, just don’t say it’s me talking.”

I’ve nailed him. Everything I need except sync. sound, who cares? Lunchtime cometh…

“We’re done. Let’s eat. Do you know a good local restaurant, something typically German?” “Yes, just down the road. I’ll take you there.”

Yikes!

A German version of Harry’s Café de Wheels – not meat pies – but sausages! Our host insists on buying us a big one each. This is not like an American hot dog; there’s no bread roll – picture a huge sausage wrapped in paper. Gross. There’s nowhere to sit down (just like Harry’s) – we are standing, eating our sausage in the street. It’s cold and raining lightly. Give me Harry’s CDW anytime. Now I miss Harry’s, this stand doesn’t even have wheels.

Tomorrow we fly to Bordeaux. Same production. We’ll be met at the airport by the local ICI Autocolor rep. We’ll shoot and have lunch. Got to be better than this.

BORDEAUX, FRANCE
André, a happy Frenchman, is at the airport to meet us. Unlike Germany, the weather is warm and smells of pine. He takes us to the hotel. It’s huge. Five stars and a few more. Long, white terraces, gardens and an Olympic sized swimming pool. “Don’t worry,” he says, “We’re paying for it and I’ve booked you in for dinner tonight.”

Sod filming, I’m staying here all day. I wish…

We dump our luggage and André drives us to the first body shop. It’s a modest shop, much smaller than the one in Germany. A family business; his wife runs the office and he has three spray painters.

At about 10:00, I’m up a ladder taking top shots on my 9.5 mm Angenieux lens. It’s hot and the air has spray paint fumes. “Would you like a drink?” I call down, “Sure anything, tea, coffee, wine…”

Back on floor level, Tricia takes me into the office. A bottle of Bordeaux red is open and glasses are waiting. Not only that, there’s a selection of local cakes and pastries. The French take food seriously, very seriously. We’re not in Germany anymore.

I shoot André and the body shop owner together chatting in French. “ICI Autocolor.” “Ah, c’est magnifique!” That’s it. We pack up. “I’d like to take some shots of the river, vineyards, anything that’s says Bordeaux.”

I film some grapes on the vine, get back into the car and we drive off. Funny, the drive is taking too long. “Where are we going André?” “A surprise.” Oh no I’ve done that one before when Rudy took me to the Mercedes warehouse on Sunday night  . Maybe there’s an ICI Autocolor office somewhere with a staff canteen.

Finally a clearing in the vineyards and a stone building – it’s an old winery. We enter and go downstairs into the cellars. And guess what? It’s a restaurant. Not just a restaurant but a restaurant gastronomique!

Let the wild eating begin! One course after the other. Each one separated by a small plate of culinary diversions. “Is this the main course, André?” He just smiles and refills my glass. Some plates need red wine, others white. The food doesn’t stop. People join us. Lots of laugher and jokes in French. I don’t understand, but I laugh.

After a few hours, I say, “Aren’t we shooting this afternoon?” André smiles and pours more wine.

FOUR HOURS
That’s how long we are there. I can’t remember the last hour except that it was a series of desserts.

We arrive back in Bordeaux. Go to another garage. It’s bigger, more modern. I guess I filmed it. I’m working on auto-pilot. “André take us home, SVP.”

The hotel manager is pleased to see us. “Bon soir, the restaurant is waiting. You have a table booked.” “I’m sorry, we couldn’t possibly eat another meal.” “But you have a reservation.” “Please forgive us. Charge a cancellation fee.” The hotel staff hate us.

The sun has set. It’s dark. We sit around the swimming pool. We have bottles of wine from the body shop and a brown paper bag full of little cakes. Some bats are circling. The pool and gardens look incredible.

Let’s swim. No costumes required.

It’s a tough job – but someone has to do it.

By Stefan Sargent

Excitement. Roger and Vicki are coming to stay overnight. Roger worked in my London video facilities company, 30 years ago. That’s where they met. He dumped Miss-Almost-Right for Victoria.  She was producing documentaries and went on to be an Exec. Producer at the BBC (The What Not To Wear Show). Miss-Almost-Right never got over Roger and married a chartered accountant at Arthur Anderson.

We pop a bottle of Moet. Roger, just back from the Yosemite wilderness, needs a quick Internet fix. He proudly displays his new iPad. I give him our WiFi password, burritojoe – chosen by my teenage son. He’s in. Gets his iPad email. Plans our wine country drive.

Roger loves his iPad. Can’t stop showing me its features.

“Where’s your Website?” “It’s www.stefansargent.com”

My Web site on Roger’s iPad – DaBBH!

Ouch, nasty. It’s all Flash; iPad speak for Da BIG BLACK HOLE.

“It’s very clean. Minimalist. A strong statement.” “Cut it out Roger, it’s a POS .”

I am humiliated. We finish the Moet. Time for two buck Chuck. $30 vs. $1.99. Who cares? It’s DaBBH, I care about.

Move on; talk about old times and plan tomorrow’s trip to Sonoma and Napa.

Vicki in Sonoma. Better in video as the “flowers” are turning.

In Napa, we say goodbye; Vicki flies back to London, Roger to a conference in Manila.

That was last weekend. This weekend is my daughter’s birthday. George has given her -you guessed it – an iPad. She wants to show me everything…

“Dad, Mum’s Website doesn’t work.” Ooops. I had put a Flash slideshow on the home page. Yep, DaBBH again. Groan.

DaBBH – I CAN’T TAKE IT ANYMORE
On Thursday, SlideShowPro comes out with Director 1.5. They say if a mobile device can’t play Flash – of course, they mean iPad /iPod /iPod Touch – it will run the slideshow in HTML5. Sounds like magic. I really don’t understand; anyhow, I pony up my $39 and download it.I remake the slideshow on Tricia’s site in Director 1.5. Looking good on my MacPro but what’s it like on an iPad? I don’t want to bother my daughter, Roger’s in the Philippines; I drive to our local Apple Shop and check it out.

Whaaaa! DaBBH! Sid, the Apple salesman is very sympathetic. He used to work on DEC PDP-11 computers. I knew the PDP-11 well as they were the backbone of the Redifon flight simulators I shot in Salt Lake City many moons ago. “Come back anytime you think you’ve got it working,” says Sid. A good man is my man Sid.

I think the iPad is going to be huge. Look at the iPod. Honestly, do you know anyone who bought a Microsoft Zune? The new Blackberry PlayBook looks good – but my money’s on the iPad.

BlackBerry’s new PlayBook. Competition for iPad? I don’t think so.

If I’m right, I need a Website that works on an iPad. A good Website is a zillion times better than a thousand Twitters and Facebook posts. No Web site – you’re nobody.

Of course I could put my stuff on YouTube or Vimeo and I do if clients ask me. But for me, I want my collection on my site with a page of my chatter about the-making-of. You can’t do that on YouTube.

iPAD’s DaBBH CHALLENGE
Today, I will not let Director 1.5 beat me. By end of play today, Tricia’s site will work on an iPad. If I screwed up, I’ll find out why.

Yes – the trouble is I didn’t RTFM.

Well today I did RTFM – and it ain’t half confusing. These computer people think that we can think like them. Oh no…

And there are steps five and six.

I print it out and begin. Step-by-step. Finally I get there. They really should farm out these instructions to people like me. On their community forum there is a sad collection of folk who just don’t get it:

It would be great if the documentation on what to replace in the embed code was a little more specific… it wasn’t clear to me

I’ve been trying to update the slideshows on my site for iPhone/iPad compatibility following the instructions. 
I’m quite determined and stubborn but It’s just not happening! 

I need clearer information on how to go about it and a more detailed step-by-step approach.

If only they had made a step-by-step video. I’m available for this kind of work. Good rates too.

Anyhow I wade through the Gobblygook and it looks as if it might work. I leap into our Jeep and race to the Apple Shop. Where’s Sid?

I type in the URL on an iPad and lo! PAS DA GRAND TROU NOIR.

Tricia’s site on an iPad, le grand trou noir est disparu.

Not exactly what I’d imagined but there it was – a basic slideshow on the iPad. No DaBBH. Just slides. No Ken Burns effects or dissolves but better than nothing.

Where’s Sid? I want to show him my success. No Sid, he has a day off. I find another Apple person. He’s less than impressed. “Ho hum,” he seems to be saying and wanders off. Wait ’til I tell Steve J. “Promote Sid, fire this guy.”

Back home, I discover how to turn my plain old MacPro into an iPad emulator. What fun! On Safari – go to Preferences – Advanced – tick the DEVELOP menu.

Then go to the Safari DEVELOP menu and select User Agent – Mobile Safari – iPad. Woo-hoo!

Now when I go to www.roughlinen.com on the MacPro, the Flash slideshow has gone, instead I see it the same as I saw it in the Apple Shop – minus the couldn’t-care-less sales person. How this happens is a mystery. Saves me buying a first generation iPad /driving to the Apple Shop /flying to Manila /visiting my daughter.

It still needs more work but it’s there. I said I’d do it today – and I did!

iSTEFAN – THAT’S ME
Now to tackle my own Flash based Website and make it iPad –friendly.

Fate intervenes. An email from Burton’s web designer:

Hi Stefan, Burton would like the video converted to QuickTime. If you can do that please send it to me directly. I’ve set up scripts on the sites so that it will display QT to people who have QT installed, and otherwise will use the flash version.

That’s clever. How do you do that?Steve sends me two pages of code of which the above is just a tiny snippet.

It’s all too complicated. I’m not a web designer. I’ll do it when I get back from a shoot in NY, FL & TX.

Whoosh! I’m back. I make a H.264 QuickTime movie that’s the same size as my existing Flash .flv movie. I could have used Adobe Media Encoder CS5 but I use MPEG Streamclip. Why? I dunno. Three minutes later I have a page that looks like my Flash homepage but contains a QuickTime movie. I call it istefan.html.

Time to tackle the two pages of code that Steve sent me last week. Oh dear; too much code, my head hurts. Have lunch, have a drink…

Back to work. Google is my friend. I find this simple code.

<script> if ( (navigator.userAgent.indexOf(‘iPad’) != -1)) {document.location = “http://www.stefansargent.com/istefan.html”;}</script>

Looks too easy. Can’t work – I mean two lines vs. two pages. I drop it into the body of my home page code. I have no idea what I’m doing. When I use my iPad emulator, the home page instantly switches from index.html to istefan.html, the new iPad-friendly page.

Final test. I visit my daughter. Will it work on a real iPad? Yes it does! Success! Now all I have to do is make iPad-friendly pages with H.264 movies instead of Flash. I’ll keep the Flash version of my site as-is because IMHO Flash plays better at lower data rates than QuickTime. Let’s see: 50 flvs to turn into 50 mp4s… won’t be hard, nice to have a hobby.

ma Website on an iPad - out damned DaBBH

No longer a PoS – more like a PoC!

So good I could eat it.

Whenever I discover that what I like and admire is rejected — or, even worse, when what I dislike is liked and praised by others — I stand back and wonder: Can I be right all the time? In my world, the answer is yes.

SLICK AS HELL
Take TechCrunch. Today, head cruncher, MG Siegler, is raving about a new Facebook Places video on YouTube. Read his write up here. He must be on strange substances as he thinks it is (a) as slick as hell and very nicely done and (b) it looks like an Apple video.

It’s slick as hell — very nicely done. In fact, we weren’t the only ones who initially thought that it looked like an Apple video. The correct way to do these things either seems to be to go for humorous/hipster (like Square) or sentimental/simple (like Apple).

With their Places video, Facebook actually sort of combined the two — it’s the ultimate sentimental/hipster video. As I said, it’s very good. My favorite parts are the bits where the iPhone is searching for service — welcome to life in the Bay Area with AT&T.

YOU’LL WONDER WHERE THE BACKGROUND WENT
Come on MG. You can’t be serious. It’s a fad driven infomercial. Looks like a Canon EOS 5D Mark II shoot, high on bokeh, low on content. Put me off Facebook Places forever.

See the video here on YouTube HD.

I have to agree with the honest commenter who wrote: Facebook Places is the social network equivalent of dogs peeing on fire hydrants.

This one too: Come on. With the schmaltzy music, and earnest geeks, you think this is good? If every one of my friends on Facebook starts posting where they are all the time, I’m definitely going to turn that feature off. Next, they’ll be having their dogs check in at the dog run.

Here’s a frame grab from YouTube. The commercial is about Facebook’s Places. Yes, PLACES. Any idea where this dude is? Are they flags on the LHS? Is this in a shop, a mall, or is he lost somewhere in a Facebook continuum? No one knows where he is. But wait; his Facebook page reads: “Today, I was in a slick as hell video.” Woo hoo; he checked-in, now we know where he was!

The concept and execution of this infomercial is all floss and ephemeral trivia — from the oh-so shallow depth-of-field, to the burnt-out the overhead lights. There’s nothing authentic or real about it.

Where did real go? What happened to the Whole Earth Catalog?

PURPOSE
We are as gods and might as well get good at it. So far, remotely done power and glory — as via government, big business, formal education, church — has succeeded to the point where gross defects obscure actual gains. In response to this dilemma and to these gains a realm of intimate, personal power is developing — power of the individual to conduct his own education, find his own inspiration, shape his own environment, and share his adventure with whoever is interested. Tools that aid this process are sought and promoted by the Whole Earth Catalog.

Well it’s gone. In its place we have: My Space, Facebook, Foursquare, Gowalla, Twitter, YouTube and TechCrunch. This is progress.

I LIKE REAL
Here’s Bob. He’s been working for the same company for 40 years. I shot him in his lab with my incredibly out-of-date Sony V1 camera. He’s real, straightforward and honest.

I can’t imagine him checking-in to Facebook. No matter, we know where he is. He is in a laboratory. Duh.

It’s all too easy to give the shot an over bright, out-of-focus background. Took me just five minutes using the rotobrush tool in After Effects CS5. Separate the background and throw in a ton of Gaussian blur and Exposure effects. I don’t like the look and neither would my industrial client. It’s fake.

GO FOR BOKEH
So why did the cameraman and the director of the “very nicely done, slick as hell” Facebook Places video go for bokeh?

First, because today’s DSLRs can do it no problem, slickety-slick, and second, because it’s modern, fashionable and trendy. It’s Cool. Today’s video equivalent of hula-hoops, lava lamps or pogo sticks.

While traveling in Burma, George Hansburg, the pogo stick inventor, came across a poor farmer and his daughter, Pogo. The farmer couldn’t afford to buy shoes for his daughter, and therefore the daughter couldn’t walk to the temple to pray every day. So the poor farmer made a jumping stick for her.

How about: One day, a poor filmmaker couldn’t afford to shoot 35mm color film, He wanted his daughter to think he shot film, so he bought a Letus 35mm adaptor for his Sony EX1 video camera. Does it look like film? Yes, daddy, it looks like Conrad Hall shot it. That’s my girl.

Combine over-the-top bokeh with Magic Bullet Looks and the only limit is your creativity. Just kidding. Adding a pre-made filter is not creative.

YOU KNOW IT ISN’T A DREAM, IT’S LOVIN’ BLOOM
The high priest of the bokehsphere is Philip Bloom. I admire Philip’s get up and go. I don’t have to like his videos with in-your-face bokeh, Magic Bullet color tinting plus time lapse and/or slo-mo motion effects. Can I be wrong?

Sadly, yes. Once again, I’m out voted. The guys at Lucas’s Skywalker Ranch love him. They flew him to San Francisco on a teaching mission. Armed with his now aging Sony EX3, a well used Letus adapter and his Canon 5D MkII, he rents a car and drives straight past my house on his way to the Ranch. Read about it here.

Still from a bokehsphere video by Bloom

Making the background go soft and fuzzy is a piece of cake. If it were hard to do, nobody would do it. This true of all fads. Fads are only fads if they’re easy to copy. Someone does something novel. It looks or sounds great – everyone joins in – it’s a fad – then, poof, it’s over. Looks silly and outdated. Quick, hide the lava lamp.

Fads come and go. Let’s start with Hitchcock’s 1959 Vertigo — the famous track-in-zoom-out shot. These days it’s called a Contra Zoom by the trendarazzi. Spielberg stole it for Jaws in 1975. Scorsese too in Goodfellas in 1990 – the scene in the coffee house. Oh, Spike Lee in Do the Right Thing in 1989, a quick one in Paul Anderson’s Event Horizon in 1997. And those are just the big name directors. The effect was copied by hundreds of lesser known filmmakers and wannabes. Boom — that’s it. Bye, bye Contra Zoom.

What self-respecting 2010 movie director would use Contra Zoom? The old guys did it way back in the previous century because it was all the rage and easy to do. And it wasn’t stealing; oh no, it was … homage.

CANTED CAMERA
In 1986, I working for Philips, in Holland. There’s not much to do in Eindhoven, so back in my hotel, I watched endless MTV pop videos. One after the other they were in B&W but with one color (red was favorite) lifted out of the monochrome. Video after video, all with the same B&W with a dash of color style. Weird.

Ten years later, I was booked for a company convention. My client had hired ITN, the major new organization in the U.K., to satellite broadcast the conference worldwide. Their top-flight, experienced cameraman set up a great looking shot while his young assistant took handheld, B&W, Dutch angle shots with a cheap camera. The live broadcast director cut from one to the other throughout the interviews. Ugh! Thank God that nutty interview technique was short-lived.

But the Dutch angle has survived. Film critic Roger Ebert, wrote “…director Roger Christian has learned from better films that directors sometimes tilt their cameras, but he has not learned why.”

New looks that are hard to copy never become fads. Take the deep focus look of Welles’ Citizen Kane. The very opposite of bokeh, but, unlike bokeh, it is almost impossible to copy. Look at the sliding walls and furniture in Jamiroquai’s “Virtual Insanity” directed by Jonathan Glazer. Try and do that. It’s a fad-free style. New, fresh, original and a swine to replicate.

WHEN WE WERE KINGS
Okay, I admit it. Years ago, I too was young and trendy. I had just left the BBC and went back to Australia with all the “slick as hell” tricks I’d learned.

I reveled in backlight with a smear of Vaseline gel on the lens. Couldn’t shoot without it. My 1966 equivalent of bokeh and Magic Bullet. Look at the burnt-out top right hand corner. Then flip back up to the 2010 Magic Bullet photo. Hmmm, I was so hip!

Here’s a frame grab from my ballet video. See it move here.

One day in the late Mad Men 1960s, I was at an ad agency and the creative director said that he was tired of my backlit blurry commercials and wanted me to try a new style. I was shocked. My hip was now tired and un-cool. The commercial was for Reward Soap, Your Reward for Being a Woman. Honest. I couldn’t make this stuff up.

All I had to do was re-create an existing U.K. commercial. They even gave me the U.K. lighting set up, camera lens and frame rate details. That was the start of my soft, bounced light period. Everything looked beautiful, lit by soft wrap around light. Clients were queuing up for “my look.” Those were the days. I was cool again. Sigh. But it was an illusion, both my commercial filmmaking and the phony stories. Your Reward for Being A Woman. A cake of soap as a reward? Oh well, I won awards and got paid.

I’ve changed. I was cool but now I’m not. Today my style is real. I like to think it isn’t a style. It’s just simple, straight forward, no tricks and honest. Fresh squeezed orange juice, a lettuce with oil and vinegar, ocean waves on rocks, Bob in his laboratory…

IN PRAISE OF REAL
My wife Tricia has a business making natural linen bedding, Rough Linen. First find the right linen. Linen like her great grandmother’s homespun linen pillow. Tricia’s goal was to make bed linens as simple and elemental as her heirloom from the 19th century.

While I was revamping the Web site, I asked Tricia to write her beliefs for a page called CREDO. She wrote it in minutes. Is it any good? It’s perfect.

I like real.
I want to do everything myself, hands on. I love skill. I love to pare things back to the bone, to the essence.
I want to know provenance, history, my heritage.
I admire an elegant sufficiency. I like things around me to be comfortable, hardwearing, trustworthy, understated, utterly fit for the purpose.
I miss old towns and villages, the sense of a community deeply rooted in place, building, tending, understanding, appreciating, generation after generation and for the future. Connection, identification, pride, responsibility.
I resent advertising, branding, labels, the victim side of fashion – but appreciate hard work, creativity, talent and play.

It made me think about my own trade, my own credo. Do I want to make films that are “slick as hell” or “as real as hell”?

Real can be funny, thoughtful or serious. Sadly, this video is serious. No cheap tricks, fads or gimmicks, not even 24P. Pared right back to the bone to tell the story of brave Jill Costello.

Jill with her sorority friends at Berkeley — this is a bokeh-free area.

I filmed Jill on September 28, 2009 and later on May 16, 2010, her graduation day. Five weeks later, on June 24, Jill died, aged just 22.

The original video was made for The Bonnie J. Addario Lung Cancer Foundation. John Catchings did the production and interview. After Jill’s death, I edited this minimalist, Jill-only version with additional stills from James Hall’s video on Vimeo.

View it here.

If Jill’s short life moves you, donate here.

NORAZZA CD & DVD DESTROYER
The video jobs I don’t write about are internal meetings, new products – stuff that’s confidential. My clients don’t want it in DV magazine nor on a dud DVD.

Often it’s not my fault – the guy we filmed last week just got fired – “Take him out.” Damn, I already made 25 DVDs.

Death and destruction: Yes, please. The Norazza DD3000 does the job. Zzzzzzzz-zing! Boy, that feels good! I bought mine for $42.50 from Adorama.

How about hard drives? Enter Norazza’s model DD9000. Insert the drive, press the green button. In 10 seconds, there are four holes drilled right through the drive. What fun. See the truly awful YouTube video.

FOLDING STEP STOOL
I’m 5’ 10” – the head of the Trust for Public Land is 6’ 4”. I want the camera to be on eye height. Up go the tripod legs but I can’t see through the viewfinder. Just as well we always pack folding steps.

You can buy these babies on line at Markertek.com but go to Bed Bath & Beyond where they are a little cheaper.

ALL HAIL THE DOUBLE A!
A year ago I would have told you that lithium batteries are the way to go. I WAS WRONG!

Sure, lithiums last a zillion times longer than your average AA or PP3; so long, that you believe they’ll last forever. Then right in the middle of a shoot, the radio mike dies. Gone! No warning. Nothing. Just eerie silence. The mike transmitter is on the speaker. He’s way over there, up on the stage. You’ve had it with a capital “F” and a lower case “d.”

After a mega disaster, I give up on lithium. Buy the cheapest batteries I can find – Ikea, Rite-Aid, CVS – use ‘em once then give away to friends, relatives, passing strangers… “Like a used AA?” Maybe I should go rechargeable…

Here’s Apple’s $29 “low vampire draw” AA charger. Vampire draw – whoever thought of that? Take a prize. Means that once the NiMH batteries are charged, the input power drops down to almost nothing. According to Apple’s hype, the old fashioned chargers keep sucking away – even in daylight. Suck, suck, suck…

But my radio mikes use 9 volt PP3s. An Apple PP3 charger? Not a chance, as no Apple keyboard, mouse or touch pad runs on PP3s. Nope, I’ll pass on Apple.

The Lenmar PRO541 5-in-1 is a better choice. It does AA, AAA, C, D, and 9 volt PP3. And it’s nine bucks cheaper than Apple’s offering. Staples has them @ $19.99. Talk about low vampire. I just unplug. Zot! Not even a little suck.

BLACKOUT FOIL AND GAFFER TAPE
There’s a lot written about lighting but very little about removing light or “negative fill.” Pulling the curtains often isn’t enough. And what if there are no curtains?

I won’t go out without black foil and a roll of gaffer tape to hang it up.

Black Foil 2’ x 25’ is from FilmTools, while Markertek has a great deal on gaffer tape.

X-KEYS PROFESSIONAL
Colored “editing” keyboards are for wimps. You can buy them configured for FCP, Premiere Pro and After Effects. But please don’t.

Here’s the problem. Take the letter “V.” In FinalCut Pro: ⇧ (shift) V is PASTE INSERT, ⌃ (control) V is ADD EDIT, ⌥ (option) V is a PASTE ATTRIBUTES, ⌥ ⌘ (option, command) V REMOVES ATTRIBUTES, ⌘ V is normal PASTE. And V by itself SELECTS the edit point closest to the playhead. It’s impossible to put all that info onto one keycap and still have the symbol V showing.

A great resource for shortcuts is here – not only FCP 7, but for Avid Media Composer 5, Motion 4, Color 1.5 etc.. Thanks to Zak Ray who put it together.

I’ve memorized most of the usual commands and mapped the exotic ones, like EXPORT USING QUICKTIME CONVERSION to function keys – on my keyboard, it’s F13. I could map four more events to F13 using ⇧⌃⌥ ⌘ modifiers but that would fry my brain. No worries. I’ve found X-Keys.

I started with the 24 key version – soon realized 24 wasn’t nearly enough. They took it back and upgraded me to the 58 key USB “Professional.”

Grab a short cut, say ⇧ K, program it into X-Keys software. Bingo, one key does GO TO NEXT KEYFRAME. Click! Another key takes me back to the previous keyframe.

Need Color Correction 3-way? Used to be a series of mouse moves: up to EFFECTS, down to VIDEO FILTERS, across sideways, down to COLOR CORRECTION, across sideways, down to COLOR CORRECTION 3-WAY – or if I could remember the shortcut ⌃⇧ 2 (who on earth can remember that? Maybe Zak ⌃⇧ 2 Ray).

Now with X-Keys, I just press one button. Done. What a boon for the busy editor.

If you’re right handed, put X-Keys to the left of your regular keyboard; that way your right hand stays on the mouse. P. I. Engineering also makes foot controls. Now you can edit with two hands and both feet!

Buy from P. I. Engineering. Their software is for both Windows and Mac. Yes, Jerry, it works on Windows Premiere Pro.

MY KC&CO BOX
Here are four XLR barrels that I keep in my “Keep Calm and Carry On” box.

XLR MALE & FEMALE GENDER CHANGERS
I am at a huge hall in San Francisco and the PA guy offers me a feed. He’s been on staff forever and is a real old pro. Unwinds this long audio cable with a female XLR connector on my end. A female XLR? He must know my camera, anyone’s camera, needs a male.

Out with my KC&CO box. I quietly add a male to male gender changer.

Later, he says, “Everything OK?” “Fine, the level’s perfect.” I’ve also added my Sescom hum killer and my Terry pad (see both below). He was playing games. He knows that I know, that he knows that I know that he knows; a very funny game if you been doing PA in a city hall for donkey’s years.

I had an engineer in London who would purposely re-patch monitor YUV feeds into YVU. Instead of calling him in, I’d fix it myself. “Everything OK?” “Fine, Les, no problems.” Used to drive him nuts, especially when I put it back to UVY.

I always carry male to male and female to female XLR gender benders. Buy them via Google. Cheap as dirt.

XLR SESCOM IL-19 AUDIO HUM ELIMINATOR
It’s so easy to pick up hum on a location shot. Often you can’t hear it on your headphones. You can remove hum in post with filters but it’s far better not to record it.

The Sescom IL-19 to the rescue. A gift @ $44.99 from my Markertek friends.

XLR CENTRANCE MICPORT PRO

I’m lazy. Here’s a snip of the maker’s copy: The CEntrance MicPort Pro is the easiest way to capture a professional-quality vocal take, communicate with clarity over Skype or record studio-grade instrument samples. Much more than a simple XLR to USB adapter, the MicPort Pro is the only portable mic preamp with a built-in, 24bit/96kHz, broadcast-quality A/D converter.

I use it for recording voiceover straight to my MacBook. There are cheaper units but this one is the best. Read the review in DV here.

XLR SHURE A15AS

I am recording Terry McGovern, a professional voice over talent. He really wants to work close to the mike and let it all come out! Sounds distorted in the headphones. I’ve never had any actor overload the system. I didn’t believe my ears but overload it, he did! Go Terry!

That’s when I bought this mike pad. You can dial in 15, 20 or 25 dBs of attenuation.

I call it my Terry pad.

HYPERMAC BATTERY
I don’t know about you, but my ambition is to work on location with as few power cables as possible. None would be good.

I love my radio mikes. No wires. I usually run my cameras from batteries even if there’s nearby power. No wires.

If I had $10K I’d buy four 1 x 1 Litepanels and run them off clip-on batteries. No wires.

My HyperMac battery runs my laptop for 15 hours. No HyperMac and my MacBook dies in a couple of hours. Going, going, gone.

I make a short lead from the HyperMac battery to a four-pin XLR. Then another from the XLR to an in-line connector. Now the battery runs both the MacBook and the AJA IoExpress box. I can even power my Ikan VX9 monitor from the HyperMac battery and charge my iPod at the same time.

All together, everyone, say, “Cool.”

Dear Mr. Sargent, we read your excellent article where you mentioned our 1×1 Bi-Color variable color temperature Litepanels. We’re thrilled and would like to send you, no charge, four Litepanels with complementary batteries. Keep up the good work!

Dream on, Stefan.

The solution is IIWDFI. Who needs that upgrade? Not me…

Microsoft Office 2004 suits me fine. I make my Web sites with obsolete Adobe GoLive CS2 and still use Visual Hub even though it’s a dead as a Dodo.

I’m really happy with my outdated Sony V1 cameras.

I’m hot, my Sony V1 is not.

I’ve got two V1s. I need two as I’m always doing multicam shoots. Should I upgrade? No — well, not just yet. You see, I have this very simple “Four Times” rule: An upgrade can’t be just twice as good; it’s got to be four times better.

I’m not the only one who uses it: The new iPhone 4 has four times the pixels of the earlier iPhones. (Hey, Steve, that’s my rule, I thought of it first, 30 years ago.)

It’s 2001, I’m demonstrating the Sony PD150. It’s a PAL camera. Pre 9/11, I commuted to the U.K. for work.

My previous camcorders were a Sony PD150 (PAL and NTSC) and a Sony PDX10. Both standard-def. The PDX10 was my favorite. It did 16:9 native widescreen, while the more expensive PD150 needed an anamorphic attachment.

For a couple of years I had the use of Burton’s two Sony HVR-Z1s. They’re HDV cameras and I really enjoyed using them until I was fired by Burton. He hired a different cameraman, fired him and then re-booked me. I’ve been fired three times. This year, I’m in favor again. I made the Susanne Somers video on his Web site.

MOVIN’ ON UP
In late 2006, with the apparent loss of Burton, I needed to upgrade from SD to HD. Buying the two HVR-V1s was a no brainer. And yes, they were four times better than the PD150/PDX10 combo.

What happens? After a year, Sony brings out the PMW-EX1. I’m very pissed. At least with Apple, you know that next year there’s going to be a new iPhone, but that it’s not an $8,000 upgrade.

I look at the EX-1 specs. The data rate is up to 35Mb/s compared to my V1s 25Mb/s. That’s not four times! The chip is bigger, but not four times bigger. Nowhere is anything four times better. I contact my camera guru, Adam Wilt. He says, “In most real-world situations they’re very hard to tell apart.”

I give in. Back to IIWDFI. I sit on my hands.

UPGRADING: THIS AIN’T NO FUN, SON

A Convergent Design nanoFlash unit mounted on a Sony PMW-EX3.

Maybe a Convergent Design nanoFlash? Hmmm — I could add that. The Sony V1 has an HDMI port that gives out the purest video, you know, full of good old-fashioned 4:2:2, exactly the thing you need for excellent chromakey. NanoFlash records to a CF card at over 100Mb/s. Four times the HDV’s data rate of 25Mb/s. Fits into my Four Times rule.

The downside? First off, the nanoFlash is just under $3,000 and then there’s the cost of cards. Last week, I shot 16 interviews in two days. To have enough storage for a single day, I’d need a minimum of four SanDisk Extreme Pro 64GB cards @ $700 each. Ouch! That’s $2,800 plus the nanoFlash @ $2,900. For a little more, I can buy the Canon XF305; it’s 50Mb/s and has 4:2:2.

GOT THE ITCH, I’M TWITCHY
We’ve got two big jobs coming up that are all greenscreen. I have a MacBook Pro, there must be a way to feed my camera’s HDMI output to my Mac.

Matrox MX02.

A couple of years ago, Matrox brought out their MX02. Like the nanoFlash, it takes the HDMI camera output, but instead of recording to CF cards, it records straight onto a MacBook Pro via the Express 34 port. DV magazine’s, Ned Soltz reviewed the MX02 here. He gave it an Award of Excellence. I’m sure it’s a great product.

But… I have a totally unreasonable grudge against Matrox.

In 2004, I bought a graphic card, the Matrox RTMac. Along comes Mac OSX 10.4 (Tiger) and Matrox walks away. No support. Sorry. Bye. We don’t care. The card dies. I’m left with a year-old $700 card that doesn’t work. $700 straight down the drain! I am not alone. Full credit to Matrox for leaving these disparaging remarks on their own site (or maybe they just don’t know). Despite Ned’s glowing review, it will be a while before the pain has gone. I forgive slowly. Give it another 10 years.

THE CAVALRY IS COMING
But wait! AJA Video Systems has a competitive box, the IoExpress — and it’s only about half the price of the original Matrox.

I like AJA. They live in Grass Valley, CA. I love Grass Valley, CA. It’s beautiful country. Call me irrational and emotional, the choice between Matrox and AJA is easy. I’m only human.

The road into Grass Valley, CA. Mmmm… smell that pine.

I get a good deal from Dan at Markertek. If the AJA Io box doesn’t work, I know Dan will take it back. A day after my order: Knock, knock. The FedEx man always knocks twice. Camera out. Wire from camera to AJA. Wire from AGA to MacBook. Switch on.

AJA IoExpress control panel – all working as planned.

The IoExpress panel says there’s an HDMI camera signal there. But will it work in FinalCut Pro? I read somewhere that MacBook Pros with their duo-core processors cannot capture HD ProRes. We’ll see…

FinalCut Pro powers up. I set the FCP capture to Apple ProRes 422 (LT). There’s my camera image in the capture window! Wow, I’m excited. Hit RECORD! Yes, it works! I’m recording HD at 110Mb/s onto the laptop’s internal hard drive. The picture looks fantastic!

My shoot in Salt Lake is only two days away. I keep testing. I try a 30-minute recording. Perfect! Try a little edit. The day before the flight, I have it all out again — test, test, test.

THE LIFE OF BRINE

The Salt Lake shoot — Io Express (bottom left) is connected to the 15″ MacBook Pro.

We’re on the shores of the Great Salt Lake in Utah, working for the company that “harvests” the salt and turns it into fertilizer. They’ve located the company’s founders and flown them in. My colleague, John, likes long interviews. My MacBook has 250GB of free space on its drive. I’m running tape as a backup. By the end of the day, I’ve shot five 63-minute miniDVs and recorded just over 200GB on the laptop.

The company’s founding engineers go back to the spot where it all happened 40 years ago.

The next day I’m shooting on the lake. I shoot to HDV tape. It’s impractical to record to an open MacBook. I wish I could – but I can’t. Maybe one day…

That night at the Ogden Holiday Inn Express, I transfer the MacBook shoot to a FireWire WeibeTECH enclosure with a 500GB drive. John likes to review his interviews and create his own sub clips. In the old days (like last week) I’d have to transfer five hours of tape to disc. Now, I just give him the drive. To sum up: four times better picture quality and five hours of transferring saved.

Movin’ on up is fun — if you DIY.

BACK HOME
How do you use a MacBook with the lid closed? Google. It’s called “clamshell mode.” Of course. You need both an external keyboard and external monitor — that’s it. Close the lid, tap the keyboard and wake it up again. Oh, it will only work with an external power supply. Bummer. That’s a real challenge.

I fool around. Get nowhere. Give in. Buy a battery from HyperMac. Now it works with the lid closed. Did anyone say “clamshell”? Good. One down.

I move my efforts to the external monitor problem. The MacBook is closed but I’ve got to see the FCP capture window and be able to start and stop the recording.

I’ve got a HD Ikan VX7 monitor. Maybe I could switch between MacBook VGA output and the camera’s HDMI. Naw, it just ain’t elegant.

Then I find the Mimo USB touch screen monitor. TOUCH SCREEN and only $126. I can float a virtual keyboard over the FCP computer display. Getting a working keyboard on the MacBook screen is easy. Go: system preferences – keyboard – show keyboard in menu – (from top bar menu bar) show keyboard viewer. Voilà! A touch screen keyboard. Who’s a clever boy?

I map open capture window (command 8) to F11 and record (shift C) to F12. In theory it should work. The monitor is coming UPS Ground. Scheduled to arrive Thursday.

BLACK THURSDAY
My junk e-mail exceeds my good email by 10 to 1. Even my good e-mail has a request from an unknown person to be my friend on Windows Live.

The iMo touch screen monitor arrives. I set up my camera, MacBook, AJA Io, HyperMac battery to try it out. The new monitor is in a sealed box that refuses to open. I need a box cutter. Once open, I discover another box inside. The instructions go like this (their spelling not mine): Besides, the controller identification and deviceactivation shall be done first.

The next three hours are spent with the iMo manual, “when user use a mouse in the controller list window.” Huh? I need some fresh air and a stiff drink.

I visited Moscow some years ago. The lady who invited me takes her boy friend and me to a Russian steam bath. Within minutes I’m in a hot, steam-filled room, face down, stark naked, being whipped with birch branches by her naked BF. When he’d finished flogging my back and buttocks, he says, “Roll over,” and proceeds to whack my sensitive areas. Ouch! Finally, we jump into a barrel of ice-cold water. That’s exactly how it feels when installing the iMo touch monitor, only worse.

By 11:30 that night it’s barely working. The virtual keyboard doesn’t like the iMo and has lost all the letters on the keys. Doesn’t like my finger either, prefers a stylus… The FCP capture window keeps wandering from the iMo back inside the closed MacBook. Aaaahhh!

TGI FRIDAY
In case you’ve lost the plot: I’m trying to build a location recorder using my camera HDMI output to my MacBook Pro. The battery part is easy, getting all working in a streamlined, sling it over your shoulder — pressing the red button to record is tough, maybe impossible. Clamshell mode, touch screen monitors, virtual keyboards – all useless. I may be crazy but not crazy enough to know when I’m beaten. This is not it! Time to walk the dog.

Oh dear, why didn’t I buy an AJA Ki Pro recorder? I know why: It’s $3,995. I spent just over a quarter of that and the end result is almost the same. It’s the reverse of the four times rule.

So I have to use my MacBook with the lid open. Big deal. A minor setback to a huge breakthrough. Now I can record stunning ProRes 422 (LT) direct to FinalCut Pro on my laptop. My chromakey composites are amazing.

It’s a temporary solution anyhow. One day there will be a camera that records ProRes 422 at 100+ Mb/s without a $4K Ki Pro or a $1K Sargent lash up.

Wait on, there is:

The ARRI Alexa. A mere $56,000.

Maybe iPhone 5 will record ProRes 422 at 100Mb/s. I do love surprises.

What you see is just the tip of the iceberg. The Grass Valley 300 vision switcher with Mark II DVE at the far end is really just a remote control panel. The rack of electronics is elsewhere in air conditioned luxury. Ditto the CMX340 editing electronics — plus VTRs of all shapes and sizes, in another room on another floor.

Here’s a shot in the same room taken from behind the vision switcher. Same edit suite but with dressed with people. I’m there at the back sitting crossed legged on the expensive Roche Bobois sofa wondering if it will ever pay for itself.

Center frame is editor, Phil Stone, programming the GVG switcher, which is fired off by the CMX 340 editor – its panel is the small keyboard on far left, near the pretend client. Out of sight are 20 VTRs of all shapes and sizes, all route-able to this or any other edit suite.

Making the whole thing work are racks and racks of electronics on the next floor up plus a collection of VTRs, tape ops. and engineers. All on the scrap heap now, the hardware – not the people.

But let’s go back to the color photo. Look at the top left hand corner. See the lights in the ceiling? Here’s a blow up – I’m sorry the print is old and scratched. The suite’s lighting was designed and built by my own precision engineer, Bill Curtis,

Two 5000°K daylight fluorescent Curtis fittings are fixed to the lighting track.

Bill made at least 20 of these light fittings for our editing suites, telecine rooms and outside broadcast trucks. The shaft of light is the correct daylight color temperature, doesn’t hit the monitors or shine in people’s eyes. Besides the chairs, the coffee flask and mugs, this light the only item in the color photo that’s still any use today.

My 1980 Molinare video on YouTube has several Curtis lights in it.

RIG OF THE DAY
Every morning, I go to my favorite Web pages. Now, this may seem like a diversion, but, trust me, it’s not.

I always wind up at Final Cutters and go to “Rig of The Day.” A rig is what we used to call an edit suite. Good, “rig” is much better. Edit “suite” always sounded pretentious.

Rig of the Day is an inspired idea from Martin Baker, the “brains” behind the site and their head company, Digital Heaven. According to Martin, the term “rig” is all Mark Raudonis’s fault. Wordsmith Mark has a day job at Bunim-Murray Productions, which makes reality shows.

EDITING LIBERATED
I love Rig of The Day. Thank you Martin. It’s living proof you don’t need to spend big bucks to edit video. Here’s my 2008 submission, as published here.

I’m in Sydney, Australia, editing in HD ProRes for my wine film. To the right of the photo is an OWC box with 2 x 1 TB drives connected to a MacBook Pro via a Sonnet SATA card thingy.

Compare my 2008 HiDef rig with my million dollar 1982 Standard Def rig. It’s a joke isn’t it? On the 2008 MacBook I can do digital effects and color grading. I could never do that way back then.

So I lurk on Rig of the Day to see what other filmmakers are doing. Everyone has a different way of working, there’s some crazy stuff going on.

Editing with a table lamp shining in your eyes? Come on. Can anyone work like that?

A Home Depot clamp light shining right onto the screens with, once again, the wrong color temperature. The monitors are blue. Why? Read on…

It looks cozy but just ain’t right. Look at those lights. See how the three screens are blue. That’s telling you that the room is lit with household tungsten light. Those all important monitors are daylight color temperature not artificial. Your overhead rig light should be daylight to match. The camera does not lie. You want colorless grey screens, not blue.

NEED LIGHT, NEED BILL
Now it’s time to build my own edit suite in a spare room. I need a Bill Curtis type light. Tough. He’s retired and lives the UK. I am here in the States.

I fool around and make one myself. Here’s how. It won’t look the same as Bill’s, he’d never dream of using Velcro; we had some left over from my pole camera jib project.

Fluorescent tube (center photo): Philips F15T8/NATURAL SUNLIGHT 18″ (46 cm) 15-watt 5000°K T8. I bought mine at Home Depot @ $7.97

Light Fixture (in photo – far right): GE Fluorescent Light Fixture 18″ Basic standard plastic T8 (comes with an unwanted warm white tube) Home Depot @ $9.77

Egg crate plastic diffuser: white louver Home Depot 2′ x 4′ @ $11.87

Side panels (sprayed black – left in photo): two aluminum sheets 6″x 24″, .025″ thickness mill finish by Steelworks Boltmaster – mine cost $9.47 each from Jackson’s, a local hardware shop — but easy to find on-line.

Velcro Sticky-Back tape Industrial Strength. Buy from Joann Fabric either in store or on-line @ $3.29

Black Spray Paint @ $5.96

CONSTRUCTION INSTRUCTIONS
Starting with the GE light fitting: open it up and pull out the rocker switch. You will need to cut the switch wires. I drilled two holes at the top and fed in new power wires on either side. Join it all up and check out.

Spray the aluminum sheets black, both sides. Too easy. So here’s the hard bit.

Cut a 2′ by 3 squares deep strip from the sheet of white plastic egg crate. Tricia used her garden secateurs… snip, snip, snip. She took the rough nibs off with her Dremel.

Cut strips from your Velcro rolls.

Put the strips on to both sides of the GE light fitting. Stick one side down. Attach the matching strip, sticky side up. Tear off the backing ready for the aluminum plate.

Velcro strips on the grid. Ease the final plate down. Yeah! All done. Hang it up.

UP AND WORKING

I hate flash photography but with natural ambient room lighting you can’t see the fitting. My ceiling is draped with Auralex acoustic foam from Markertek. It really cuts down reverb. and lets me record studio quality voice overs. We hung the foam with strong twine. To add the rig light, we slid in a black wood batten with two cup hooks under the twine.

No camera flash, just my homemade rig light plus a little daylight from a window on the right. See how my edit bench is lit but the light misses the monitors. Want it brighter? Just drop the rig light lower.

My FinalCut Pro monitors are grey, not blue. My room lighting is perfect. Gloat.

Besides the overhead task light and natural daylight from the window on the right, I have OttLight High Definition Clip-On lamps (model 8298291). List price is $79.99, but Joann regularly has 40% off, making them $47.99 each. Ottlights are the same color temperature as your new rig light. Lash out and get two. I did.

This is a Tungsten-Free Zone. It’s all 100% full-spectrum daylight.

Looks so good, I’d better get back to work.