Map of LA Post

For all of you considering a move to Los Angeles (or those already there) I've created a map of post facilities in LA county and surrounding areas using Google Maps and LA411.com. What you'll find as you look at the map is that there are 3 clusters of post: Santa Monica stretching down into Venice Beach, Hollywood and Burbank. I've plotted out over 225 facilities and all of the markers include a contact numbers and website link. I have vetted these as much as I can, trying not to include "bedroom boutiques" or any other company that is not big enough to hire for post. These are primarily editorial facilities that may or may not do VFX, animation, audio post or other services. Separate maps for other areas of post would be cool and of course maps of editorial facilities in other markets. Feel free to expand, correct or otherwise collaborate on this document.

July Links

Looks like someone was listening to my plea for subscription based plug-ins back in April. GenArts just made their Sapphire plug-ins available for rent.

And speaking of plug-ins, thanks to Core Melt we now have advanced color correction and grading right inside Final Cut Pro!

I recently found a chart that shows the current, commonly available HD acquisition formats. Also, check out the Videoguys Guide to Understanding HD Formats.

If you have the time and budget to storyboard, knock yourself out with FrameForge 3d Studio 2.

There's been a lot of buzz about nVeil by Storek Studio. Um...I think I like it.

Nucleo 2 by GridIron is continuing to make life easier for After Effects users.

A great article in Millimeter way back in May that explores all the ways that the iPhone is being used on the set. It's similar to my section on how I use the iPhone in post.

And finally, the fascinating story behind the Sita Sings the Blues animated film.

Lost in Translation

Normally, I start writing with an idea and then find an image to enhance it. Today is different. I came across an image that most of us should recognize. You know, the tabbed notices stapled to telephones imploring us to find a lost dog, a just cause or a new talent. Well, I found this image on stock.xchng (a blogger's lifeline) and something about it told me this was a good analogy for something. Ok, besides lost memory. But close. It could symbolize a lot of things to a lot of people across a wide variety of industries but to me the video editor it made me think of one thing: orphaned media. One of the best things about Avid is its' rock-solid media management. When you import or capture anything into Avid Media Composer it is re-wrapped and indexed in an efficient database. If you use Avid's SAN solutions like Unity or Isis then you'll need Interplay as an even more robust way to interface and manage many terabytes of data. Final Cut Pro doesn't natively do this which may be why they decided to develop and release Final Cut Server. A book that has been an absolute Avid Bible for me is my dog-eared copy of The Avid Handbook by Greg Staten and Steve Bayes. It's definitely for Avid users that have been around the block and is full of "advanced techniques, strategies and survival information" as promised. Think of it as a more human technical manual. It's written in the first person and has such revolutionary things like diagrams, "air quotes" and a exclamation points for emphasis! I recently bought Final Cut Pro Workflows by Jason Osder and Robbie Carman and hope that it will become dog-eared as well. What do you think of these books if you've read them? The Avid Handbook is in its' fifth printing so somebody must use it. FCP Workflows has 5 out of 5 glowing reviews on Amazon for whatever that's worth but so far I really like it. The book report will come after I'm done. But in the meantime whatever you do, save the orphans.

More info from Media Pro Camp

I had a chance to briefly chat with Philip Hodgetts of Intelligent Assistance last weekend when I attended the Media Pro Camp in Santa Ana. I sat in on a great talk he lead on pre-compression techniques. There was also info about his new utilities for Final Cut Pro and new book that will only released digitally as a pdf. Be sure to check out his blog.

Sound Garden

Ok, I'm going to start doing micro-posts so I can update more often instead of taking weeks at a time. This brief post is to add a little bit more info to the list of music libraries link that I posted a few weeks ago.
Music is often a pain for a lot of producers that don't have access to a production library or want to augment their existing library. I'm excited that the custom scoring Sonic Fire Pro 5 software now operates as a plug-in in Final Cut Pro. A lot of Reality TV is scored using this application. Their site is very informative and there are a series of extensive tutorials there explaining how to use it. Oliver Peters from the Digitalfilms blog has a great review on it.

Albatat Muse on the other hand, takes it to the next level by using "artificial intelligence to measure select elements of a moving picture and then composes music to match those elements". Um...thank God they also have tutorials.

But for producers and editors that want the traditional manual controls and need a quick a la carte solution Audio Jungle might work. It may turn into the MySpace of music loops if enough audio producers sign up. This is great for augmenting the existing loop libraries in Garageband, and Soundtrack Pro or for fleshing out sound design in Logic or Pro Tools.

Splice Vine - June Links

Ok, it's harder than I thought it was going to be coming up with thoughtful and engaging posts every week. So I'll take the easy way out. Links. Once a month I'll put out links to the latest info I've found on the web relating to film, video and new media. This will buy me a little more time to come up with long brilliant posts. Yeah, right.


It looks like YouTube is bringing YouTube to the TV.

This Twitter Job Search Engine has come out just in the nick of time.

Michael Critz has a great post on his site about a new app called Expansion Slot Utility that gives the user options on how to assign lane bandwidth to the PCI bus.

A post about Adobe's announcement of new Flash platform tools.

Panasonic is now offering cheaper P2 cards ($420 for 16GB and $625 for 32GB).

A great review of music libraries.

Web designers rejoice, a new Adobe service puts browsers side by side.

This isn't new - just new to me. The Huey by Pantone is an inexpensive video monitor calibration tool. You may also want to compare it to the popular Spyder 2 among others.

You may never have to key footage again if it's up to the guys over at All Bets Are Off. They sell pre-keyed alpha stock footage.

If you live in NY, try to make it out to Manhattan Edit Workshop's Edit Fest NY, June 12 -14. They'll be A-list panels, classes and partying. I'm jealous.

Not to be outdone on the west coast, LAFCPUG will be putting on the 1st Annual London SuperMeet - with special guest (the one and only) Walter Murch, on June 25.

And lastly, the anticipation for WWDC here in San Francisco is reaching a fever pitch. I just couldn't resist the WWDC 2009 predictions on the Mac Soda blog. Final Cut Studio 3 anyone?...

You Are Here: An Action List for New Editors

Last night I was lucky enough to be able to attend an open house at Rough House Editorial in San Francisco. They are a leading post production facility in the Bay Area and have been around for 20 years. Ironically, that is how long I've been in the industry but after talking to some of the best in the business last night I felt like I was just starting out.
Their online editor Marc Cebrian was giving a clinic on the finer points of color grading in FCP. Yeah, that's right - just using the FCP 3-way color corrector, garbage mattes and chokers he was achieving looks that most people would assume were done with Color, Colorista or Magic Bullet Looks.
I was also finally able to see a Flame demo up close an personal. Their Flame artist Gavin Mills (Curse of the Golden Flower, Andromeda) told me how as an Avid editor he was able to get access to a Flame and teach himself how to use it. Now 11 years later, besides being a highly sought after Flame artist he is a certified instructor and VFX plug-in developer. I guess it's time for me to start piling on more lynda.com tutorials.
But it made me think about new editors just getting started in the field or people wanting to make a career change into media production that often ask me for advice on breaking through. Below I have listed an actionable game plan for people trying to start a career in editorial. This is not necessarily a typical scenario at all, but just a general trajectory of the journey from novice to expert video editor. There are countless variations and mutations.

1) Create a demo reel if you haven't already. If you don't have any real world projects then use school projects.

2) Put this reel online. It's best to have the reel on your website. But if you don't have a website then put the video on You Tube or Vimeo. On your resume put the url link to your demo reel at the top under your name and address.

3) Get cards printed up that have your cell number and email address.

4) Network at as many industry events as you can. Join your local Final Cut Pro user group and any other user group that pertains to content creation. Talk to establish editors and find out the situation on the ground for the type of content you want to edit. What is the pay range for corporate / news / commercial / film editors in my market? What are the skill sets required and in demand? What is a typical post-production time frame that videos are expected to be delivered? Create a list of 10 questions that you memorize and ask working editors in your market an online.

5) Get some kind of edit system at home (preferably Final Cut Pro).

6) Start doing spec projects. Look for jobs at: mandy, media-match, indeed and craigslist. And don't just look for projects that originate in your geographic area, a lot of editing jobs can be done remotely nowadays thanks to You Send It and Skype.

7) Do a great job on these projects and you can start charging. Clients talk and after word gets out that you have decent chops, potential clients will start calling you.

8) After 6 mos or so of doing this, re-cut your reel using a lot of the real world projects that you have been doing. It really helps when people recognize the content / brands / celebrities in your reel. Once you do this it increases the likelihood that you will be taken more seriously by post houses / tv stations / corporations who will be willing to give you a shot.

9) Your first few jobs will probably be pretty non-creative (asst. editing, dubbing, duplicating, coffee making) and insanely hectic but it will give you access to a place that has cool tools. If you are allowed to use these tools during off hours (read: weekends and overnight) then you can take your skills to the next level, especially if you are allowed to shadow a senior editor. Eventually you will be given a shot on a major account because the lead editor is to busy / sick / left for another job, etc...

10) Kick butt when you get this big break.

I hope this has been helpful to those out there that want to run with scissors. And for working editors that have been around the block, what is other sage career advice you can give those starting out?