Sunday 27 November 2011
Technical Production Assistant
Hi all. I'm pleased to say that I've been granted my first on-screen credit of 'Production Technical Assistant' on Bite of the Living Dead. You'd not believe how happy this makes me.
Tuesday 22 November 2011
Bristol Old Vic - Good Clown Bad Clown
I've never really fancied myself as much of a director. That said, a couple of weeks ago I popped down to the Bristol Old Vic on a Saturday to direct an online trailer for Good Clown Bad Clown, a childrens' performance for the winter season. Shot on a Panasonic HDX-900, and then edited by myself in Final Cut Studio with some basic work in Motion, it's 63 seconds of white-faced, red-nosed, horn-sounding fun.
Sunday 13 November 2011
Ship-Shape and Bristol Fashion
Originally uploaded by charlesdyer
A week ago I upped roots, vacating my flat in Cheltenham and moving to Bristol in order to better support my job at Icon Films.
Monday 7 November 2011
Blown Away
Originally uploaded by charlesdyer
My very good friends Jacky and Lyle are getting married next year. Here's a photo that I took for their 'Save the Date' postcard.
Saturday 15 October 2011
Digital Workflows - The Dream and The Nightmare
A long while ago, I wrote an article on here about the advantages of digital workflows, spouting on about the wondrous new range of Sony XDCAM cameras. Of course, at that time, I hadn't really tried out any other digital products on the market, and it was a bit naive to get swept up into the Sony hype that they would revolutionise the digital video industry.
Digital formats are the future, but they're not as simple to use as I initially assumed, and it all comes down to the multitude of compression formats that different brands and types of cameras use. When you're out and about, you want a camera to record and the highest possible quality, whilst taking up the smallest amount of space on your memory cards. This isn't so important when you're in the comfort of a studio, but it is when you're half way around the world, in the middle of a humid jungle in Indonesia.
In just such a situation, you're likely going to end up recycling your cards on a daily basis, and whilst all your data can be backed up with the use of just a laptop, you have to consider the transfer speeds of your media, because these are likely to be a real bottleneck in your workflow. I recently had a plea for help from one of my friends and colleagues, who was on a remote shoot in a foreign country, having to back up sometimes hours of Canon 5D footage from Compact Flash cards at the end of each day. Capturing one card through a USB 2.0 memory card reader would take hours, then he'd have to get up in the middle of the night in order to switch to the next card... and then the next. In order to get around this, I had a Lexar ExpressCard/34 memory card reader sent out to him, which saved a lot of time (and sleep) at his end.
With tape-based media, you can only capture in real-time. Therefore, if you've got 24 hours of footage, you'll need to spend 24 hours playing it back on a deck for a computer to capture all of your rushes (not allowing for all the fussing with swapping cassettes over and inevitable technical hurdles that you're almost bound to encounter). With file-based formats, manufacturers would have you believe that the footage is ready to be sent directly to the edit, but that just isn't the case. If you haven't already (because you live your life on the edge - rock on), you need to backup all that material that you shot. Lets assume that you shot 35GB of footage every day for fourteen days. On a Canon XF305, that's 87mins of footage at full-quality 50mbps and a grand total of 500GB of footage. Based upon LaCie's claimed transfer speeds of 57MB/sec over FireWire 800, it would take you about two hours and twenty minutes to transfer that data from one of their Rugged hard-disks. But then you've STILL got to transcode all your footage into something that's suitable to edit with.
Sony's XDCAM Transfer footage will quite happily mow through all your data and wrap your raw files into playable XDCAM QuickTimes, which are supported by Final Cut Studio, but not ideal. XDCAM is, as I've learnt, a bit of a vile with support that's been shoe-horned into Final Cut. It's fine on it's own, but if you start mixing formats on a timeline, FCP is likely to die on you repeatedly. You'll therefore need to compress the footage into something that's a lot more palatable to Final Cut, such as Apple ProRes 422. Whilst I don't have any official figures to hand, let me assure you that this takes a loooooong time and a lot of drive space. One way to get past this is to encode everything into ProRes Proxies, but this means that you're going to need to conform all of your footage to ProRes 422 or ProRes 422 HQ before you go into an online edit... so that's an extra step in your workflow that I'd generally allow about half a day of work for. If you want to avoid all the hassle of a conform, consider spending considerably more on more hard-disks.
There are ways to use distributed processing to force the very best out of Apple's Compressor in order to transcode footage faster, but my experience of the XDCAM format is that no-matter what you try, Final Cut really doesn't like the stuff. I've had better success with Canon's XF305, which comes with lightweight software and a Final Cut plugin that allows you to use the Log and Transfer window in Final Cut Pro. (Sony state that you can use the Log and Transfer window in Final Cut, but I've yet to see it actually accept any XDCAM footage. Sony's software and plugins are, quite simply, a bit of a mess in my experience).
If you're shooting with a camera that records into H.264 QuickTimes, for instance with the Canon 5D MkII, you're into a whole world of pain because of the heavy compression of the files. Final Cut Pro will spit at you if you try to drop the files directly onto the timeline, and Compressor will become particularly unresponsive if it even so much as smells a batch of more than about ten clips. It's therefore better to use another program like the horrendously useful MPEG Streamclip to batch convert your files.
Just remember to consider how long this is all taking to convert your files. If you do have a catastrophic hard-disk failure on your working drive, you'd best make sure that you have a backup of all your converted files and not just your raw files, otherwise you're going to have to do aaaaaaaaaaaaaall this again and find a remedy to the nervous-breakdown you'll be having.
Once all your conversions are complete, however, you can finally breath a sigh of relief - you're finally ready to start editing. Wasn't that quicker and easier than sticking a few tapes in? Well... maybe not actually.
Digital formats are the future, but they're not as simple to use as I initially assumed, and it all comes down to the multitude of compression formats that different brands and types of cameras use. When you're out and about, you want a camera to record and the highest possible quality, whilst taking up the smallest amount of space on your memory cards. This isn't so important when you're in the comfort of a studio, but it is when you're half way around the world, in the middle of a humid jungle in Indonesia.
In just such a situation, you're likely going to end up recycling your cards on a daily basis, and whilst all your data can be backed up with the use of just a laptop, you have to consider the transfer speeds of your media, because these are likely to be a real bottleneck in your workflow. I recently had a plea for help from one of my friends and colleagues, who was on a remote shoot in a foreign country, having to back up sometimes hours of Canon 5D footage from Compact Flash cards at the end of each day. Capturing one card through a USB 2.0 memory card reader would take hours, then he'd have to get up in the middle of the night in order to switch to the next card... and then the next. In order to get around this, I had a Lexar ExpressCard/34 memory card reader sent out to him, which saved a lot of time (and sleep) at his end.
With tape-based media, you can only capture in real-time. Therefore, if you've got 24 hours of footage, you'll need to spend 24 hours playing it back on a deck for a computer to capture all of your rushes (not allowing for all the fussing with swapping cassettes over and inevitable technical hurdles that you're almost bound to encounter). With file-based formats, manufacturers would have you believe that the footage is ready to be sent directly to the edit, but that just isn't the case. If you haven't already (because you live your life on the edge - rock on), you need to backup all that material that you shot. Lets assume that you shot 35GB of footage every day for fourteen days. On a Canon XF305, that's 87mins of footage at full-quality 50mbps and a grand total of 500GB of footage. Based upon LaCie's claimed transfer speeds of 57MB/sec over FireWire 800, it would take you about two hours and twenty minutes to transfer that data from one of their Rugged hard-disks. But then you've STILL got to transcode all your footage into something that's suitable to edit with.
Sony's XDCAM Transfer footage will quite happily mow through all your data and wrap your raw files into playable XDCAM QuickTimes, which are supported by Final Cut Studio, but not ideal. XDCAM is, as I've learnt, a bit of a vile with support that's been shoe-horned into Final Cut. It's fine on it's own, but if you start mixing formats on a timeline, FCP is likely to die on you repeatedly. You'll therefore need to compress the footage into something that's a lot more palatable to Final Cut, such as Apple ProRes 422. Whilst I don't have any official figures to hand, let me assure you that this takes a loooooong time and a lot of drive space. One way to get past this is to encode everything into ProRes Proxies, but this means that you're going to need to conform all of your footage to ProRes 422 or ProRes 422 HQ before you go into an online edit... so that's an extra step in your workflow that I'd generally allow about half a day of work for. If you want to avoid all the hassle of a conform, consider spending considerably more on more hard-disks.
There are ways to use distributed processing to force the very best out of Apple's Compressor in order to transcode footage faster, but my experience of the XDCAM format is that no-matter what you try, Final Cut really doesn't like the stuff. I've had better success with Canon's XF305, which comes with lightweight software and a Final Cut plugin that allows you to use the Log and Transfer window in Final Cut Pro. (Sony state that you can use the Log and Transfer window in Final Cut, but I've yet to see it actually accept any XDCAM footage. Sony's software and plugins are, quite simply, a bit of a mess in my experience).
If you're shooting with a camera that records into H.264 QuickTimes, for instance with the Canon 5D MkII, you're into a whole world of pain because of the heavy compression of the files. Final Cut Pro will spit at you if you try to drop the files directly onto the timeline, and Compressor will become particularly unresponsive if it even so much as smells a batch of more than about ten clips. It's therefore better to use another program like the horrendously useful MPEG Streamclip to batch convert your files.
Just remember to consider how long this is all taking to convert your files. If you do have a catastrophic hard-disk failure on your working drive, you'd best make sure that you have a backup of all your converted files and not just your raw files, otherwise you're going to have to do aaaaaaaaaaaaaall this again and find a remedy to the nervous-breakdown you'll be having.
Once all your conversions are complete, however, you can finally breath a sigh of relief - you're finally ready to start editing. Wasn't that quicker and easier than sticking a few tapes in? Well... maybe not actually.
Friday 14 October 2011
Bite of the Living Dead - My First On-Screen Credit
My first on-screen credit as a Production Technical Assistant! I'm so very, very proud.
As one of the technical production assistants, my role consisted of a bit of data-wrangling, a bit of work for the deliverables to Animal Planet, and then creating the TX card below was all part of my other role as Marketing and Development Assistant. I should just add that despite preparing the trailer above, nearly all of it is simply lifted from the start of the programme, which comes down to the excellent work of Mr. Barny Revill - director and ruddy nice chap. I just topped, tailed and uploaded it. Be sure to watch it in its full 1080p gloriousness!
Friday 24 June 2011
To My Beloved Fan(s)...
I have taken up the position of Technical and Production Assistant at the award winning Icon Films in Bristol. It's ace. Thanks for all your help and support so far in my life.
Expect great things!
Expect great things!
Tuesday 17 May 2011
Cracked
A REALLY short and sweet little animation I put together, experimenting with composites, Maxon Cinema 4D, Adobe After Effects and various filters in Final Cut Express. Hopefully I'll work it into my next showreel. Inspiration taken in part from Euro RSCG's fantastic Jaguar advertisements and the title calligraphy from Berlin Calling.
Tuesday 26 April 2011
2011 Showreel
It's finally here!
Featuring clips from...
Shallow Water Blackout, Mark Coote series, Waitrose AGM, Lundy, Development Films, The Mercurys 2010, Team Insight, Churchdown School - Aim Higher, Red 10, Elite Swimming Academy, Hee-Hee and She-She and the Blue Sky Event & Media Showreel.
Featuring clips from...
Shallow Water Blackout, Mark Coote series, Waitrose AGM, Lundy, Development Films, The Mercurys 2010, Team Insight, Churchdown School - Aim Higher, Red 10, Elite Swimming Academy, Hee-Hee and She-She and the Blue Sky Event & Media Showreel.
Friday 8 April 2011
Thoughts on the Zoom H1
As a university graduate, it's pretty much a given that once you leave uni you're going to be skint for a while. What's not generally assumed is that you're going to emerge from higher education into a financial recession. Jobs are hard to find, budgets are tight, and Student Loans are always watching over your shoulder, so it can be hard to convince yourself to splash out for basic filming equipment.
Today I'm going to look at a sound recording setup that won't break the bank (no matter how small), and it comes in the form of the Zoom H1 and an Audio Technica ATR3350 lapel mic.
Originally uploaded by charlesdyer
I'll start off by reiterating what so many other people have said, in that the Zoom H1 is a pretty awesome piece of kit for the money (£79 on Amazon). It's small, it's easy to use, and the sound quality is vibrant and clear. The solid-state memory (the included 2GB Micro SDHC card is more than adequate enough for most purposes) is a huge plus in my books (I've previously used MiniDisc recorders, which would have to be held away from the microphone in order to avoid the noise of the mechanism), and the built in stereo mics are really quite excellent.
The on board microphones do, however, suffer from two major weaknesses - wind noise and unit vibrations. Vibrations running through the unit can be illuminated with a still hand (although that does mean that you can't adjust levels during recording), but to get rid of the wind noise, you're going to need some kind of wind jammer.
Fortunately, Zoom sells a wind jammer as part of their accessory pack. Additionally, you'll get a mini tripod (got several of these things now), a mini-USB cable and a zip-up case. One thing that gets me about the accessory pack, however, is that the case isn't large enough to accommodate the supplied wind-jammer. Sad fact of the matter is that without anywhere to put it, it's likely that you'll lose the wind-jammer before long and need to buy another.
The major gripe that everyone seems to have about the Zoom H1 is the build quality and it must be said that its plastic body does feel quite astonishingly cheap. Buttons are quite spongey and the chassis creaky, but it should be remembered that this doesn't affect the functionality of the unit.
Slide the power switch on the side, and the H1 comes to life, the clear LCD greeting you with a simple 'Hi' and an orange glow. There's little to be classified as a menu system on the H1 - the few settings available are adjusted through dedicated buttons and switches, and this is a control layout that will likely appeal to professionals who are easily frustrated by layers and layers of menus. Switching from MP3 to WAV format comes down to just the flick of a switch, enabling you to be speedy and precise when you need to be. The operating manual makes for a decidedly short read, and yet covers all the bases, which just goes to show how simple this unit is to use.
Thanks to a socket on the device, it's possible to plug in an auxiliary microphone or alternative sound source - for instance a lapel mic. It's rare for me to admit this about my own purchases, but I've got to say that I was more than a little disappointed by the combination of the H1 with the Audio Technica ATR3350. The H1 has no way to choose whether to use line or mic input levels, so you really need to get your talent to speak loudly if they're to be picked up at a reasonable level, without having to face the wrath of some intrusive hum.
The ATR3350 is powered by a watch battery (one fortunately comes in the box), but, as many others have pointed out, it would've been nice if Audio Technica had incorporated a LED into the device. Without any kind of clear indication as to whether the device is actually on (aside from the minute power-switch), it's easy to accidentally leave it on and drain the battery when it's not in use. That said, I've left it on overnight and there was still enough charge in the battery for me to use it the next morning.
The sound quality of the ATR3350 comes across as quite muffled and bass-heavy, which is instantly obvious when you compare it to the H1's on-board microphones. The generous amount of lead is both a blessing and a curse, because if it becomes knotted (and it will, unless you're particularly well-disciplined with your wire ties), it will likely take you quite a while to straighten out. Other users have recommended buying a cable-tidy, which wouldn't be a bad idea at all.
That said, the ATR3350 costs a meagre £25 on Amazon, and if nothing else it is functional. Fiddling with equaliser settings should allow you to squeeze some extra quality out of the unit, but if you were to ask my opinion, I'd put that £25 towards a better mic.
*** Quick Update ***
Having used the ATR3350 with a Sony PCM-50, I'd like to retract my original statement that it delivers a muffled sound - it's actually very usable - just not with the Zoom H1, apparently.
*** End ***
If you can look past the cheap build quality, the Zoom H1 will make a fantastic addition to anyone's setup, and is definitely worth considering if you're shooting with a DSLR or Handycam.
Today I'm going to look at a sound recording setup that won't break the bank (no matter how small), and it comes in the form of the Zoom H1 and an Audio Technica ATR3350 lapel mic.
Originally uploaded by charlesdyer
I'll start off by reiterating what so many other people have said, in that the Zoom H1 is a pretty awesome piece of kit for the money (£79 on Amazon). It's small, it's easy to use, and the sound quality is vibrant and clear. The solid-state memory (the included 2GB Micro SDHC card is more than adequate enough for most purposes) is a huge plus in my books (I've previously used MiniDisc recorders, which would have to be held away from the microphone in order to avoid the noise of the mechanism), and the built in stereo mics are really quite excellent.
The on board microphones do, however, suffer from two major weaknesses - wind noise and unit vibrations. Vibrations running through the unit can be illuminated with a still hand (although that does mean that you can't adjust levels during recording), but to get rid of the wind noise, you're going to need some kind of wind jammer.
Fortunately, Zoom sells a wind jammer as part of their accessory pack. Additionally, you'll get a mini tripod (got several of these things now), a mini-USB cable and a zip-up case. One thing that gets me about the accessory pack, however, is that the case isn't large enough to accommodate the supplied wind-jammer. Sad fact of the matter is that without anywhere to put it, it's likely that you'll lose the wind-jammer before long and need to buy another.
The major gripe that everyone seems to have about the Zoom H1 is the build quality and it must be said that its plastic body does feel quite astonishingly cheap. Buttons are quite spongey and the chassis creaky, but it should be remembered that this doesn't affect the functionality of the unit.
Slide the power switch on the side, and the H1 comes to life, the clear LCD greeting you with a simple 'Hi' and an orange glow. There's little to be classified as a menu system on the H1 - the few settings available are adjusted through dedicated buttons and switches, and this is a control layout that will likely appeal to professionals who are easily frustrated by layers and layers of menus. Switching from MP3 to WAV format comes down to just the flick of a switch, enabling you to be speedy and precise when you need to be. The operating manual makes for a decidedly short read, and yet covers all the bases, which just goes to show how simple this unit is to use.
Thanks to a socket on the device, it's possible to plug in an auxiliary microphone or alternative sound source - for instance a lapel mic. It's rare for me to admit this about my own purchases, but I've got to say that I was more than a little disappointed by the combination of the H1 with the Audio Technica ATR3350. The H1 has no way to choose whether to use line or mic input levels, so you really need to get your talent to speak loudly if they're to be picked up at a reasonable level, without having to face the wrath of some intrusive hum.
The ATR3350 is powered by a watch battery (one fortunately comes in the box), but, as many others have pointed out, it would've been nice if Audio Technica had incorporated a LED into the device. Without any kind of clear indication as to whether the device is actually on (aside from the minute power-switch), it's easy to accidentally leave it on and drain the battery when it's not in use. That said, I've left it on overnight and there was still enough charge in the battery for me to use it the next morning.
The sound quality of the ATR3350 comes across as quite muffled and bass-heavy, which is instantly obvious when you compare it to the H1's on-board microphones. The generous amount of lead is both a blessing and a curse, because if it becomes knotted (and it will, unless you're particularly well-disciplined with your wire ties), it will likely take you quite a while to straighten out. Other users have recommended buying a cable-tidy, which wouldn't be a bad idea at all.
That said, the ATR3350 costs a meagre £25 on Amazon, and if nothing else it is functional. Fiddling with equaliser settings should allow you to squeeze some extra quality out of the unit, but if you were to ask my opinion, I'd put that £25 towards a better mic.
*** Quick Update ***
Having used the ATR3350 with a Sony PCM-50, I'd like to retract my original statement that it delivers a muffled sound - it's actually very usable - just not with the Zoom H1, apparently.
*** End ***
If you can look past the cheap build quality, the Zoom H1 will make a fantastic addition to anyone's setup, and is definitely worth considering if you're shooting with a DSLR or Handycam.
Saturday 5 March 2011
Chris and Laura's Wedding
Thanks to my friends Chris and Laura Tomkins, who invited me to attend their incredible wedding in February this year.
Follow this link to see some of my photos from the event on Flickr.
Follow this link to see some of my photos from the event on Flickr.
As of late...
Hello world!
It's been a while since my last update, so it's probably time to dust off the blogging cobwebs and explain what I've been up to;
A large portion the beginning of my 2011 was taken up with preparations for this year's ITCA 2011 in Nice, where professionals from the on-board service industry demonstrated their latest and greatest product innovations for use in air, rail and sea travel. These ranged from Asiana Airlines' smile-inducing child hospitality programme, to DHL's technologically advanced asset tracking system. One of the key attractions of ITCA is The Mercurys; an awards ceremony that celebrates the work of the best and most pro-active companies in the industry. Fledgling and well-established companies compete against each-other for one of what is regarded as the most prestigious awards in travel catering.
This year marked the election of a new Mercury Chairman, and with that, a re-branding of the awards ceremony. After much reserach, several different concepts and some failed experiments, I settled upon the design that you see above - an animation that uses a combination of Maxon's Cinema 4D and composite effects in Apple's Final Cut Pro.
In addition to this brand identity, each category required its own introduction and video of contestants. None of the entrants were allowed to know who they were competing with until the show itself, although the video slideshow of entrants that rolled continuously over the three days prior to the big event demonstrated the wide range of entrants.
Another project of mine was a glamorous PowerPoint presentation, produced for Renegade Media's seeding proposal to BMW Mini, for their distribution of online content, comprising of a series of graphical explanations of their methods and key offerings. Renegade were so impressed by format of the presentation, that I was then asked to create a series of templates and slide masters so that they could easily replicate the presentation, adjusting the content to suit the circumstances of different clients, whilst still maintaining the animation-rich content.
Whilst I've never sold myself as a PowerPoint programmer, I'm extremely familiar with the software, and have now prepared (and operated) many presentations with Blue Sky Event and Media for such clients as Astra Tech, DEFRA and ITCA.
It's been a while since my last update, so it's probably time to dust off the blogging cobwebs and explain what I've been up to;
A large portion the beginning of my 2011 was taken up with preparations for this year's ITCA 2011 in Nice, where professionals from the on-board service industry demonstrated their latest and greatest product innovations for use in air, rail and sea travel. These ranged from Asiana Airlines' smile-inducing child hospitality programme, to DHL's technologically advanced asset tracking system. One of the key attractions of ITCA is The Mercurys; an awards ceremony that celebrates the work of the best and most pro-active companies in the industry. Fledgling and well-established companies compete against each-other for one of what is regarded as the most prestigious awards in travel catering.
This year marked the election of a new Mercury Chairman, and with that, a re-branding of the awards ceremony. After much reserach, several different concepts and some failed experiments, I settled upon the design that you see above - an animation that uses a combination of Maxon's Cinema 4D and composite effects in Apple's Final Cut Pro.
In addition to this brand identity, each category required its own introduction and video of contestants. None of the entrants were allowed to know who they were competing with until the show itself, although the video slideshow of entrants that rolled continuously over the three days prior to the big event demonstrated the wide range of entrants.
Another project of mine was a glamorous PowerPoint presentation, produced for Renegade Media's seeding proposal to BMW Mini, for their distribution of online content, comprising of a series of graphical explanations of their methods and key offerings. Renegade were so impressed by format of the presentation, that I was then asked to create a series of templates and slide masters so that they could easily replicate the presentation, adjusting the content to suit the circumstances of different clients, whilst still maintaining the animation-rich content.
Whilst I've never sold myself as a PowerPoint programmer, I'm extremely familiar with the software, and have now prepared (and operated) many presentations with Blue Sky Event and Media for such clients as Astra Tech, DEFRA and ITCA.
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