#i did this with davinci resolve my best friend davinci resolve

[zincbot]

i kinda wanna. actually get an animation program

[ssseriema]

haiii i don't know if anyone's asked this already but i was wondering what your process is for making animatics?

im so sorry anon im not the best person to ask this question! ive only done one whole animatic, and it was as much of a learning process as any beginner, lol

i'll leave here my process:

i started out with very basic thumbnails of what my ideas looked like with the lyrics and all:

then i uhmm. i opened a canvas on csp and generated a folder for each scene and then an animation timeline (to play my progress as i go) and i started sketching

after sketching, i didnt really wanna edit, so i played my progress with the song in the bg to visualize a more developed Thing (this is the unlisted video i shared to a couple friends)

(cut to +30 hours of me doing the lineart for each of the frames)

well. i did the lineart for each of the frames, exported them all into a folder, and then opened davinci resolve. i then slapped all the frames on there and started trying to fit them into the rhythm of the song

i remember having trouble with the lyrics, because if i wanted them to flow separate from the images on the screen, id have to do them again but in a separate layer, and export all those layers again, which i didnt wanna bother doing, and my laptop didnt like it when i tried (it is a piece of junk)

so i edited the thing. and then i posted it and then i won

i realize this may not be the most in-depth explanation ever, and im sure theres ways to do this more effectively (and a LOT more cool things you can do w/ editing, i basically just slapped a bunch of images next to each other), but in my defense i dont have a lot of experience making animatics lmfao

still!! thank you for the ask anon!!!!

[prinnamon]

Hello! I saw your post about subtitling and fanworks other than fanart and fanfics and you mentioned being a subtitler yourself. If you’re okay with answering this could I ask how you started being a subtitler? (if that’s even how it works lol) I’m guessing it depends on what you’re subtitling but I’ve always super appreciated subtitles and the ppl that make them and think it would be fun to do

hope you have a nice day/night!

this ask sat in my inbox for a while because sadly my PC's power supply unit failed and made it less convenient for me to write lengthy posts. however! i'm back in the swing of things and im too excited to let it sit here any longer.

long post under the cut!

to start off, i wanna make it clear that what i do currently is write english-language subtitles for english-language content on YouTube! there is no translation involved. i'm not confident enough with any other languages to sub any other kind of content. so all the advice i can offer is gonna be related to my specific experience! (i'm learning that maybe i should have used the word "captions" instead of subtitles to eliminate confusion. you can tell i am an amateur and not a professional since i thought the words were largely interchangeable)

i started doing captions for fun several years ago as a fan of The Shrieking Wizard Co! that company/channel had an associated discord server, and there was a section for fans to submit captions for their videos using a service called Crowdscriber. i was not super good at it or familiar with any of the best practices at the time, but i could make out even overlapping voices pretty well and i had a lot of free time!

the SWC is no longer around as a company, but even before that i'd fallen off of doing captions for them since school started to eat up all my free hours again. recently, though, i picked the habit back up and started doing captions for a niche machinima series that a friend got me to watch! the first episode and a half already had captions, so i was dismayed when i realized the rest of the series lacked them. in a sort-of special feature video from a couple years back, the creator mentioned plans to enable community captions so fans could pitch in if they wanted! however, since then, YouTube has removed the community captions feature.* but the creator is still active and the series is still ongoing, and i figured i probably had the tools available to me to caption the episodes on my own. i reached out to ask if he'd like the help, and he said yes! so wahoo!

a lot of creators would probably be happy to accept volunteers to help them with captions. some larger creators may even be open to offering someone a paid job at it. the worst they can do is say no or not respond, so there's really no reason to be afraid of reaching out about subtitling one or more videos that mean a lot to you! sadly, this is not going to be as reliable for older stuff on abandoned channels. you may have the resources you need to subtitle something but no way to reach out to the creator so that your subtitle files can be uploaded and seen.

the first step of my process was to download all the episodes of the series that i wanted to caption! it's also fine to go one at a time if you lack the storage space, of course. i used VLC to download YouTube videos (check out this tutorial! it wasn't what i used at the time, but i think the one i did use is out of date and your odds with this one might be better!), but i know there are other reliable options out there.

YouTube's built-in caption/subtitle editor is pretty ass and not fun to work with! i find it frustratingly limiting. luckily, there are free programs which do it better. i've got decent experience editing videos, so the free version of the program DaVinci Resolve is my subtitle editor of choice since it feels very much the same as editing videos like i'm used to. i'd open it up and take some screenshots to show off the process, but my PC is currently not functioning. i will say that i found it pretty easy to muddle through after a couple basic "how to add subtitles in DaVinci Resolve" tutorials.

i still don't know if i'm the best person to give lessons on best practices for captioning, but here are some very basic guidelines i try to adhere to:

don't let captions take up more than two lines on screen at their standard size! three or more lines of captions cover a lot of what's happening on screen. there are times when it might be absolutely necessary because characters' lines are overlapping while other sounds are also occurring which are crucial to the viewer's understanding of the scene, and that's okay, but 3+ lines of captions should really be a rarity.

generally try to have one sentence on screen at a time! there are plenty of exceptions to this. for example, a character may utter several short sentences in a short amount of time (eg. "Yes. Okay. I understand.") which don't make sense to break up any further because the captions would be flashing on screen for such a short time, impeding readability. moreover, a character might say a sentence that needs to be broken up at a logical midpoint so it doesn't take up three or more lines on the screen.

preserve comedic and dramatic timing. sometimes the above rule must be sacrificed so that the punchline of a joke or the narrative twist of the knife is not revealed before it's supposed to be revealed.

sounds that characters acknowledge and react to, or which impact your understanding of the scene, should be represented with a caption. the audience probably needs to know about [distant gunfire] and [pained scream]. however, in a lot of cases, a sound is implied by what the audience can see or is unnecessary to their understanding of the scene. the audience probably does not need to be told that the door which they can see opening is making the sound that a door makes when it is opened. the audience can probably infer that the character who they can see walking is making audible footsteps. but then there are times when these sounds might be important because the characters comment on or react to them. it's situational. i say use your best judgment.

generally, above all, be courteous and remember that subtitles are a tool, and they're not something silly with. it's really not the place for jokes. it's more clear and useful when a gasp is captioned as [gasp] as opposed to [O_O] or [le terrified gasp]. it's more clear and useful to describe the sound of an airhorn as [airhorn] than to write [HOOONK!!!]. and please don't use captions for extensive easter eggs and inside jokes. like alt text, it's not a place to hide treats for people who click a secret button. it's an accessibility tool. (i'm pretty serious and passionate about this point, and i don't wanna see jokes about it in the reblogs or replies.)

if you can understand and transcribe what's being said, you Must do so accurately. this includes swear words. this includes slurs and disrespectful language and words and subject matters you're uncomfortable with. if you can't bear to type these things out, you're not the person who should be writing captions for this particular piece of media. if a hearing viewer can hear it, it must be captioned. deaf and hard-of-hearing viewers deserve to know exactly what is being said.

this page might be able to help you get started with some more specific professional guidelines! i disagree with some of these; for example, subtitling a foreign language as [speaking French] is really not ideal, because a hearing viewer who speaks French would be able to understand what was said, so you're giving the folks using the captions an incomplete experience. like i said above, if you can understand what's being said, transcribe it accurately.

YouTube accepts at least a few different file formats, including .sbv and .srt (if you're saving as an .srt from DaVinci Resolve, make sure to check ".srt Without Formatting"). proofread your work before sending it out/uploading it to catch surface errors! in fact, i recommend checking the captions in YouTube's subtitle editor by uploading them on a private video to see whether it throws up any errors at you or has any unintended formatting junk that you need to go back and eliminate.

i hope this was somewhat helpful and can maybe inspire you to go for it yourself! this mostly felt like me rambling about my personal experiences and opinions, haha. at the very least, if this didn't make any sense, maybe you can look at it and go "well if she's this incoherent and can still write captions/subtitles then certainly there's hope for me" lol. thanks for inviting me to talk about the thing i'm passionate about. it's a joy whenever someone asks me about this. i hope to get to do it as a job someday (though i'm not looking forward to when i inevitably have to caption somebody as [speaks Spanish] due to professional practices).

*i have heard from one or two folks that YouTube's now inviting viewers to contribute captions in a different way, by "providing corrections" to a video's auto-generated captions! even if this is true, i have to say it doesn't really excite me. in my opinion, trying to work around the automatic first pass is usually a worse experience than starting from scratch. the auto-generated timings tend to be really bad, usually not cutting naturally at the beginnings and ends of sentences, and that's ignoring the fact that auto-generated captions also censor swears and transcribe many things incorrectly. YouTube really should never have removed community captions. i hope they get brought back or replaced in a meaningful way

[cookieclover]

This is one of my biggest projects this year - my very first animatic, about the story of Tharn and Lye, to the song "Open Arms" from EPIC: The Musical by Jorge Rivera-Herrans! More about it under the break. Happy new year! <3

Let me start with WHY did I even make this animatic. A few months ago I was trying to get into art college. I had to do a huge portfolio, including some huge paintings, drawings, animations etc. I had this idea for an animatic in my head, so I figured it would be a perfect opportunity to make it! It was really fun and super rewarding, watching it still makes me very happy ^^ But… I didn’t get in - I was missing one stupid point. Rip :( But, it’s still something I’m very proud of, and that’s why I’m sharing it on the last day of this year!

Programs and tools used: Fire alpaca (drawing), DaVinci Resolve (editing), Canva (text)

Short version of the plot: Tharn (tall) was a maritime explorer and a first captain of Emperor Sibril’s Royal Fleet. Lye (short) was his best friend, he was part of Tharn’s crew and also a scientist. Together, they discovered an island with strange creatures they called Shadows. Tharn was sceptical towards them, but Lye wanted to befriend them. Later, it was that kindness and trust that got him killed by one of the Shadows, named Spirit.

[ghostlymallow]

A little animation I did for school

PROCESS NOTES

I did everything on paper, fountain pen for the foreground, and I used my shitty uneven ink brayer to coat the backgrounds with linoprint ink for that ~texture~

then I scanned it and composited everything digitally. for the beginning I copied and cut out all the foreground elements and used a plastic sheet to layer over the bg in the scanner (which is why it's Like That). I used OpenToonz to sequence everything and reframe some timing issues as well as to do some basic comping. (the part where he pulls out the diamond is on 3 animation layers, not including the bg) then in After Effects (i don't like Adobe, but that's what's available at school), I resized everything and added the zoom out at the end. I realized that I made the opening square too big, so I had to resize everything again, but that meant that the margins of my animation (with all the notes and frame numbers and messiness) would show, so I layered up some texture files to create the vignette effect.

Afterward, I used DaVinci Resolve to add sound

Notes for next time:

x-sheets and timing charts are a godsend! -- while animating, I had no way of viewing playback, so I just had to trust that the "math" would check out, and it pretty much did! I still had to adjust some timing, but less than I feared. considering that this is the first thing I've done on paper in like 3 or 4 years, i'm glad

double check the math on sizing -- yeah, I made a few errors that bit me in the butt

scanning takes way longer than you think it will -- it took like 5 hours to scan less than 120 frames of animation. also, apply that to inking, especially if you're relegated to only working after you get home.

having individual assets will save your ass -- I am SO glad that I had the warewithal to do this

resize everything at the same time if you want them to match up -- I resized all the animation in opentoonz and then the bgs in AE, don't do what I did, kids. even if you have registers, it's still a pain, it won't be exact

reserve some time to learn your software with small things first -- i think the only reason I was able to pull this off without staying up into the wee hours of the morning was because I was at least partially familiar with all the software already, also old forums are still my best friend. I think I want to learn Fusion next

FINAL THOUGHTS

in all, I'm proud of what I've done, this is the longest animation i've ever done, the first thing I've done traditionally in YEARS, and I did quite a bit of troubleshooting

i am so so tired, so I think it might be a bit of time before the next one, but as much as i might bitch and whine, I LOVE this process, it's so much fun, and the frustration was just part of the challenge.

just, I think next time I'll try not to leave myself with a 1 week turnaround lmao

[veeranger]

i love jay so much one of my best friends in the whole world dont know what id do without them but i do curse the day they introduced me to davinci resolve. yes i did ask them for it no thats not important

[crimniko]

Outcast #1

The beautiful sparkling blue leaves of the forest fell as the wing breezed them. Ginny calmly walked past , glancing ever so slightly at the playful hatchlings in the distance. How long has she been here? Around a year now she thought. She sighed as she made her way to her favourite spot.

But she was not alone.

A lonely familiar dark manticore wearing glasses with white mane glanced at her, as she approached.

"Hearth Mother" she bowed to the dragoness.

Ginny was surprised. "Ophelia, what sre you doing here?"

The manticore glanced around to see if anyone was watching. "I came on behalf of my friend... Your friend."

Ginny huffed. "If you mean Davinci, he was no friend."

Ophelia's sad eyes looked at her. "He never meant to go this way. He asks for your forgiveness. He wishes to come back and say sorry"

The dragoness slightly snarled. "He should have been smart then what he did, and not devour those who are yet to be born!"

The manticore's ears lowered. "...I understand. But he wishes to see Keica"

Ginny kept her eyes focused. What does Davinci actually want.

Ophelia looked at he pleadingly. "Please atleast give him this resolve. Even if you do not welcome him, let him see his family."

"To risk all those eggs? Our children?!" Her mane suddenly caught fire.

"Outside the territory then! He was part of the clan was he not?"

"He is nothing but a kin eater!"

"He was blinded by grief!"

"That does not allow him to be an eggeater!"

Ophelia growled. "I just want to see my best friend and master happy for once. You don't allow him to be happy?!"

Ginny looked down at the manticore her mane on fire forming a halo.

"Why should he? He would destroy what I want to protect. What everyone wants to protect."

Ophelia looked at the dragoness and snorted in irritation. "You are just a paranoid old lady. You know he wouldn't hurt a fly."

Ginny stomped. "And you have a big mouth for a beast... Tell him if he ever places even a claw in my home, I won't spare him."

Ophelia's gaze turned sad by those words. "As you wish Ginny." And she took off.

Ginny let out a sigh, burning the grass in front of her. She almost lost control again... She should be more careful.

She curled up under her tree, pondering on Ophelia's words, until her eyes closed slowly.

[this is a small story section mainly focused around my eggeater submitted to @hypergryph ,Davinci and some fun dragon clan drama, so yeah(sorry i just thought tagging so u know, you inspire me a lot) there will be more parts (wrote this at night so excuse my grammar)]

[researchandpracticerv001]

Activity 13

Activity 13:

 1) You should take some time to consider your response to each question and make some notes as you do so:

Which     parts of the programme have you enjoyed most so far? Can you say why?

I would say I enjoyed being able to post on Tumblr the most. I did not have any online creative community friends yet, but I am sure I would. Meeting new creative people and having creative conversations stimulates me in a joyful manner. Also, the spoken presentation in act 12 was a challenge because I did not like my voice and I am not very experienced in video editing. This really put me out of my comfort zone and I realised how much fun and freeing it is to present work in this format.

Which     parts of the programme did you find easiest to work through? Can you say     why? Did you find the easier parts of the programme the most enjoyable or     not? Again, can you say why?

The easiest part of the programme was creating the Tumblr blog. I think this is also the reason I enjoyed this activity so much. I really enjoyed spending time reading and looking at other’s creative work in a blog format. This is because there is no rush or expectancy for comments as in the IDI forum or studio. In Tumblr, I am a stranger talking freely to other creative strangers. Something about sharing ideas this way is very liberating and put out a lot of judgment for feedback besides being visually attractive and fun to use.

Which     parts of the programme did you find the most difficult and challenging?     Can you identify the cause or causes of these difficulties? If you did     find parts of the course difficult and challenging, how did you cope with     these challenges? Did you use any particular strategies?

Besides enjoying the spoken video presentation, I feel that with this activity was the one I learned most from. This is because I have never completed a presentation in this format. It was a huge challenge to pronounce the English correctly in my video slides. I am also not familiar with video editing so I spent many hours figuring out the video editing software, DaVinci Resolve. I really liked this activity and I decided to choose the spoken video presentation and not a poster because I wanted to learn how to present in a video media format. However, it took me a while to put the activity together.

What     were the overall strengths of your working process? Can you state why you     think these were particularly effective?

I would say that the research into different research methodologies took me a while as I trying to understand act 08 and 09. This is because it is not clear or easy to present these methodologies, approaches or concepts. Online, my tutor helped me clarify my understanding and corrected me because I was lost, but now that I have understood the utility and differences between practice-based research and practice-led research. I can also see how important and how relevant these are for creative research and my own investigation in my MA project. I think understanding these methodologies will help me gather the best information towards the final MA project outcome.

  What     were the overall weaknesses of your working process? Why were these     problematic? How did you overcome any difficulties you experienced in this     area?

I would say that due that to the topics learned in this module being totally new for me, I had to find information myself. This was a difficult because in the research and activity process, I was not sure if what I was doing was the correct thing to do. The module activity were really free and independent to do, therefore all my classmates were working on the same topic but related to their own project and interests. Due to this, their feedback and approaches were totally different to mine. I would say that this module took me more time to independent investigation process and more time reading and understanding new concepts and methodologies than others.

What     do you think you have learned to date while studying at MA level? Please     try to be specific in your response. Are there specific areas or skills     that you would like to explore further?

I have learned how to properly investigate and gather information in a coherent cohesive manner that is relevant to my MA project ideas. I have also learned how to discard or measure the level of importance and hierarchy that each area of information should have. This is so that my research does not look like a compilation of random pieces of information and I think this knowledge helped me to organise and prioritise my research. I have also learned about new methodologies and ways of presenting my research and ideas. I am definitely not an expert in video editing, but I have learned how to put together a spoken-video presentation and this is something that took me lot of effort. Overall, I think my mind has a more straightforward and organised thought process to develop and based an argument for my MA project on. So far, my MA project has evolved and become something that makes sense and can be explained and supported with real life facts. This contrasts with the beginning that was only a dreamy idea of something in my mind. It made me feel that my ideas can be something useful and relevant to society and the research process and research methodology has been a huge tool for me when collecting and presenting the MA project this way.

The areas I would like and I plan to focus on further are actually the level of realistic possibilities on how my project can actually happen. I know it may not be the case, but I want for my project to be refined enough to look attractive and be considered for a real-life project.

  Which     aspect of the programme inspired you the most? Why did you find this     particular aspect of inspiring?

Activity 12 really pushed me to do something new and work towards the presentation of my MA project. I definitely spent more than a week figuring out the video editing software, DaVinci Resolve because I wanted to create a professional spoken presentation. This type of work towards the benefit of my project inspired me and put me in the mindset of aspiration goals and I am very pleased that I completed the video spoken presentation.

What     do you feel you need to do to improve your learning process in the next     modules?

I have started to contact local NHS workers and alternative wellbeing coaches to include as much detail of real-life practices towards the function of my design. This is something that I want to keep doing and gather as much information as possible. This is because I want my project to be truly useful and beneficial in function and form, not just be a good idea with good arguments. I want to be something beyond a good idea with arguments to a solution for an existing problem.

What     range of new skills and techniques did you learn and how do you think this     new knowledge will impact on your future development as a creative     practitioner?        

Video-media     presentation format

Blog     sharing creative feedback

Practice     lead and practice based research methodologies

Organization     and refinement of research information

  In     what direction do you see your practice heading now?

At the beginning of this module I found my first job as an interior designer in a kitchen, bathroom and interior design company. After few months, I saw the reality of the interior design company rules and margins towards the clients and I quit as soon as I could because of the lack of freedom and creative work. I refused to participate in poor design practices. This made me realise that I really wanted to pursue the research body and contribute to the importance and consequences of design in human life. My goal is not to find a job or earn knowledge to suit a job role anymore. My goal is to be able to keep researching on my field and keep collecting information to pass on. I am seriously considering the PhD options after the MA program because I can always get a job and even any search for another creative job, so the job goal is not my goal anymore. Any job will keep me alive, but I also do not want to not be researching and form part of new concepts and new ideas within design because I truly believe that architecture and interior design can help humanity advance and evolve.

[foodforhealh-blog]

10 Best Non-fictional books you can buy on Amazon

10 Greatest Selling Non-Fiction Book Topics Which non invasive book topics would be the most popular? And, if you are composing a non-fiction book if you opt for a best-selling genre which has an established market or danger lower earnings by publishing a book in a popular category?

One of my mentors once said that the five most common self-help publication topics are cash, achievement, happiness, relationships, and dieting.

While this makes sense (most people aspire to what these novels promise), I wondered whether there wasn't any empirical evidence to back up her proposed listing. I decided to do some investigating to learn what the best-selling non-fiction books are now on Amazon.

I looked at ten important non-fiction classes and noticed that the Amazon Bestsellers Rank for every one of the top five novels in every one.

By way of instance, at the Biographies & Memoirs class, the best five novels needed Amazon Best Seller positions of #1, #6, #7, #16 and #20 (the lower the number, the more elaborate the book's standing ). The Greatest ranking non-fiction publication, Obama: An Intimate Portrait has an Amazon Best Seller standing of #3 as of now.

I then calculated that the average ranking for each class to determine which Amazon class has become the most popular. I did so for both print Publications and Kindle eBooks.

The Best 10 Non-Fiction Groups on Amazon in Printing Books Here is the top ten list to get printing publication categories (paperbacks and hardcovers) on Amazon.com on November 17, 2017. The number in brackets is that the normal Amazon ranking of the best five books in each class. So below are the 10 best Non-fictional books you can buy on Amazon.

 Cook Publications, Food & Wine

It's simple to find that we're mesmerized by biographies and memoirs of famous men and women. With this week's best seller list are novels on Barack Obama, Bobby Kennedy, Leonardo DaVinci and General Ulysses Grant. Does that mean that you should print your memoir? If you are a famous American politician or historic figure, then !

A quick scan of Amazon's best seller graph for non-fiction books for this week affirms my findings. At the top 20 are just five biographies, four self explanatory novels (like the classic, How to Win Friends and Influence People) two out of the Spirituality class, two from Health, Fitness & Dieting, four books on politics, two business publications, a cookbook, and Astrophysics for People in a Hurry.

I chuckled when I discovered two of the best 20 non-fiction best sellers this week have the term"f*ck" from the name: The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck and Thug Kitchen: Eat Like You Give a F*ck. Perhaps my next book is going to be known as"Compose Like You Give a F*ck". We are going to see.

I had been curious to see whether the top sellers list was exactly the exact same for printing publications and eBooks. It was not.

The Best 10 Non-Fiction Groups on Amazon Kindle (eBooks) The following top ten list is for eBook classes on Amazon.com's Kindle shop on November 17, 2017. The number in brackets is the normal Amazon ranking of the best five books in each class.

Publish Books. eBook Revenue The largest differences are in Religion & Spirituality (#1 in Kindle vs. #3 in print) and Business & Money (#3 in Kindle vs. #1 in print) while typical Self-Help rankings dropped from #2 in print to #4 in Kindle.

Another notable distinction is that the average ranking across the board of the best five books in each class for Kindle in comparison with the best five print novels. Printing novels rank considerably higher overall than their eBook counterparts. By way of instance, the best 5 Self-Help titles possess an typical Amazon Best Seller standing of 15 in print novels versus #146 in Kindle eBooks. What's this?

I scratched my head for an instant and then inspiration struck. I took a fast look at the general Amazon Kindle Best Seller list and it struck mejust six from the best 100 eBooks on Amazon are non-fiction. Another 94 novels are fiction names. This contrasts with 36 non-fiction books from 100 best vendors in print novels.

It appears that the majority of us favor their non-fiction books in print within the eBook format. A closer look in the eBook list shows no less than 25 percent of the eBook titles are Romance, Women's Fiction and Teen books -- the type with ripped, bare-chested hunky men on the pay.

Can we conclude from this that the vast majority of all Kindle eBook sales are to girls and teenagers studying"trashy" romance books? Not that these are not great novels...they clearly serve a demand for a high number of subscribers. BTW I do acknowledge to having read 50 Shades of Grey.

Maybe these readers appear to enjoy the minimal cost and discreet advantage of studying steamy tales and thrillers in their cellular devices. Whereas readers of biographies and more"serious" novels like to have the actual book in their own hands.

If you are composing a non-fiction eBook, do not be discouraged by these numbers -- that the current market is enormous for non-fiction eBooks which are well-written and resolve certain issues for their own readers. In the conclusion of the day, you need to write about what's important for you personally, not what is popular.

[5llowance]

Moved my family to Wuhan China in November. Lost my job, my apartment, my savings, my faith in humanity. Using my skills as Video\photographer and designer to scrape by via /r/China

Moved my family to Wuhan China in November. Lost my job, my apartment, my savings, my faith in humanity. Using my skills as Video\photographer and designer to scrape by

I took a job in November and moved my family across China. Luckily we went back to wife's home town for CNY. Coronavirus struck, we got stuck. Then Job didnt pay full moth's salary (that I already worked for) next month paid 1700RMB. the next month nothing.

Landlord in newly rented apartment in Wuhan said we could pay half until the City opened up again. then went back on his word and threatened to sue. so we let go of our 10k deposit and got out of the contract so he could rent it to another person. Paid a "friend" to ship our stuff back, gave her 3k just to pack everything and pay the cost for shipping. she said she did and we paid... then it turns out she told the guy to pay on delivery. lost another 1k.... broke... like Ive never been before

super depressed spend first two weeks of quarantine sulking in bed. but then I dusted myself off and realized i needed to do something...

Youtube

I consumed videos on film-making, photography, color grading, editing, cinematography, design, adobe illustrator, photoshop, in-design, davinci resolve... you name it

i've been grinding it out every day to "change my stars"... I dont want to be a white monkey anymore, i dont want to dance for parents and greedy rich bosses. I want to become a skilled person who can make a living for my family based off my results not just exploiting markets.

if you have a business that need product photography, a commercial, business card design, packaging design, or English training videos

please feel free to add my wechat: spicyricenoodles

I will send you examples of what i can and have done for other clients. best of luck to you all, and hope everyone gets out of this crisis in one piece

Submitted May 27, 2020 at 06:41AM by SpicyRicePhotography via reddit https://ift.tt/2AboS3B

[decrescendo]

Hi! I really loved your Nirvana in Fire vid, it was PERFECT and EMOTIONAL and *chef's kiss* aaaAAAAAA. Do you have any advice, recs, or tutorials for anyone who's looking to get started on vidding?

Thank you very much, I'm very happy to hear that! <3 I can't really give vidding advice since I'm still new to it and know too little, but here are some things that worked for me: 1) If you're working with lyrics and you don't have to translate anything, lay down the subtitle track first. I used to add subtitles last, but I found that if I added them first, I could see them on the timeline which made it easier to drag/align video clips to the right place. 2) If you're using someone else's translation, it's good form to credit them (and, if possible, link them to your vid after—I’m sure they will appreciate seeing their work on yours). 3) You can also vid on your phone these days, I’m just sadly not up to date with apps. I use InShot (free, with ads) to sub/compile short clips. (It also allows you to upload your own fonts, though I haven’t tried that.)

Recs/Tutorials

Youtube has a lot of free tutorials, just search "[program] + [effect]". XD Sorry if this isn’t helpful, but this is genuinely what I do. If it’s a complex program, I recommend watching a tutorial/walk-through for the kind of video you want to do without trying to follow it, just to get an overview of the interface/controls you want to use. Idk what program you're using or are planning to use, but if you're looking for recs for a program that is both free AND powerful, I AM recommending DaVinci Resolve, which is what I'm using now! The downside is that it doesn't quite look like Adobe or work quite like Adobe, and there may be fewer step-by-step tutorials to achieve specific effects, but if you're just looking to edit video/audio clips together and add a text or subtitle track, it will do the job perfectly! Coloring can also be done with Curves, as you do with Photoshop, you just have to... find the controls...... (that's what Youtube is for XD) (The Coloring tab in DVR is actually very powerful, but a lot of it is technical/professional-level; I stick to the Curves because it’s familiar and good enough for the adjustments I want to make.)

DaVinci Resolve also gives you a surprising amount of control with type/text, but:

a) I am still trying to figure it out (if it allows me to use OpenType features or enable/disable ligatures, I haven’t found those options yet. ALSO, for SOME REASON, the fonts that are available to me to use when I use Text tool vs Text+ tool are different, which is a mystery for another day).

b) It’s not intuitive or beginner-friendly. I definitely did not find the gradient/glow options on DVR until my fourth vid (the latest Nirvana in Fire one) lol. But it’s possible. (As a disclaimer, I’ve been self-learning graphics programs since my early teens so I’m pretty used to finding and figuring out the features I want to use in a program.)

tl;dr

DaVinci Resolve (what I use) PROS & CONS:

https://href.li/?https://www.blackmagicdesign.com/products/davinciresolve

(+) PROS:

Free!

Can do all the basic things AND MORE!

Easy to add audio/video tracks, subtitle tracks, basic text/title tracks

Has an entire Coloring tab (you can use Curves and ignore the more technical controls). It’s not as easy to find at first but it’s also less overwhelming (for me) to see it as a separate process that I can tab in and out of.

You can prettify your text (with difficulty).

You can make text move, fairly easily.

(-) CONS:

Layout/interface is confusing, esp. if it’s your 1st video-editing program.

Fewer resources/tutorials compared to Adobe.

Adding visual effects like gradient/shadow/glow to text is definitely harder AND you still have less control over text, compared to Adobe.

OpenType support is dicey.

Might require more processing power (every now and then the program crashes for me).

I may just be bad at this program, but unless you pre-cut the video clips you want to use—and I don’t, because I’m lazy—and then fiddle a bit with the settings and render your clip library, the playback/preview for your vid gets really laggy with every transition and effect that you add. Not sure if this is true for all video editing programs!

 OTHER programs I’ve heard were good for vidding but have not personally tried:

1) Adobe Premiere (Pro???) - USER-FRIENDLY, powerful, tons of tutorials for both basic features and for special effects that they make easy for you. It probably lets you do a lot of fancy type things too. If you have experience with Photoshop or any image-editing program, Adobe products have a lot of the same controls, so they’re easier to pick up.

2) Hitfilm - I have no idea what this is, but a friend of mine mentioned it to me once (she hasn’t used it either) XD

The best thing to do is to jump right in, really! I’ve been enjoying vidding because working with audio and timing keeps me stimulated (whereas gif-ing is purely visual and harder for me to focus on). Good luck, have fun!  FINAL DISCLAIMER: I’ve only done 4 or so fanvids, and I only started this year and used that one program (and AfterEffects, once), so please take everything I say with a grain of salt lol.

[daf21media]

L.A.D.S.

Whats up tumblr its your boy! i say that like i have tons of followers, i do not, this is to the 150 of you who have been following. i use to post directly from IG but my link isnt working. so from now own im gonna be posting articles on the work i do, with the exception of the stuff i cant contractually talk about.. ill be going over the project, from shoot to edit and post some BTS when available, as well as the camera, and lenses i used. hope you guys enjoy and without further ado i bring you the first post.......

Project: Music Video

Song: L.AD.S.

Artist: The Honey Farm

Location Edinburgh, United Kingdoms

Director/Cinematographer: Douglas Ferguson

Editor: Douglas Ferguson

CONCEPT:

So a bit of back story i met THE HONEY FARM while i was in Scotland working on my documentary entitled “beats and bagpipes.”  I met them through a mutual friend of theirs who i connected with on Tinder of all places. It really was fortuitous, as i was shooting this doc i kept running into alot of male artist,  and couldn't find not a single female rapper and then boom i found three. Went to interview them and knew they had something, they reminded me of a female version of the beasty boys.

and its not intentional on their part its just their swag.. seriously 

that was not on purpose, it wasnt till after i edited the music video that i saw the similarities between that shot and the one from the beasty boys video.

So fast forward a few months later i was coming back to Scotland, to give a lecture on being a working filmmaker and to hang out with my friends. the girls contacted me about shooting the video for this song and the concept they had and i thought it was brilliant. The song deals with Toxic masculinity LAD/BRO culture in a satirical and sometimes sadly truthful manner, as a man its hard for us to see the dumb and often hurtful things we do and say to women, and so to that effect the ladies thought it would be a good idea to do some gender reversal where they dressed as the titular LADS and they had some guys dress as ladies, the results were hilarious take a look at the full video:

While i would love to take credit and say it was the way the video was shot and edited that makes it worth watching, it was really all them, i gave very little direction and just worried more about blocking and camera position, my job was easy. the only footage that wasnt originated by me was the club footage which was shot after i came back to the states. 

CAMERA/Lens:

I shot with what has become my favorite combo.

Camera Black Magic Cinema Camera 2.5k with metabones speedbooster

Lens: Sigma Art 18-35mm 1.8

Format 2.5k RAW

this is hands down my favorite and go to combo for most projects, i rarely shoot with any focal length over 35mm, with my sweet spot being between 21-28mm on cropped sensors on a full frame id be between 35-85. with my sweet spot being 35-50mm. but for the bmcc you cant get any better. Sigma has stepped its game up with its Art lens series giving you clean crisp slightly cool images from end to end.  i shot in RAW because when it comes to this camera you wanna use all 13 stops of dynamic range, one of my biggest concerns while shooting were the weather conditions in Scotland which can go from sunshine to cloudy with the drop of a hat having that full dynamic range available meant that i didnt have to worry about my highlights, the trick to shooting with the black magic is really getting as much light to the sensor as possible or exposing to the right side of your histogram or ETTR:

This process allows you the best image quality and the most color range, its not something i always follow, but its good rule of dumb when shooting with this camera. 

EDITING/Colorgrading

the editing of this music video unlike others i shot was fairly simple mainly because i didnt really need to any kind of special effects like you would for most hip hop music videos, i just let the images and costumes dictate my cuts, for this video thought i wanted fast cuts and for the performers to be often mid sentence.

by adding edits mid sentence it makes the audience feel like they are going on a journey and apart of the narratives being told, my first edit actually had a cut every 4 seconds but i thought it was excessive and instead went for a 4-8 second ratio.. the song is unusually long for todays hip hop standards, with most songs falling in the 2-3 minute range lads clocks in at just over 4 minutes, so my plan was really to treat the video like an action scene in a movie, it really did help with the overall flow it. The coloring process was easier. i used one of my own LUTS(Look,Up,Tables) based on KODAK KODACHROME 64

You can purchase the package from me if you like it: https://sellfy.com/p/BhI7/

and i combined it with Red Giant Universes Retrograde

but before i that i had to color correct the footage and i wanted to do it based off the final look...so in Davinci Resolve i went:

using resolves LUT feature in a node i was able to adjust the RAW footage bringing down the highlights and the shadows boosting the midtones, to create the best footage to match the final look, this was the tedious part of the whole process as it required me to toggle on and off the LUT  to make sure the footage would look great and the skintones were fine.

CONCLUSION:

This was probably the funnest video i ever had a chance to shoot and look forward to shooting another with the honeys, hopefully stateside. hopefully you found this post informative ill try and keep them breath but no promises. hopefully someone reads these things. goodbye and good luck shooting. 

[dissertationprepartion]

Client job - Odara

I was presented this job by a friend of a friend who knows a company that needs a promo video for their company. I contacted them and we met each other in their filming venue, and it was great to get a sense of the place so I could plan different types of shots for the promo. 

Then we met on the shooting day. She had some models coming so I didn't need to worry about that. When all the models were there I was able to direct them effectively. There were 3-4 different rooms that we did the shoot in and we took a long time to shoot in the gym and sauna room, and I didn’t end up using the footage from them too much. I mainly used the footage from the massage room and the spa room because they were simply great. Also towards the end when the narration talks about the private bookings I used some footage from when the girls were talking and having a great time. it was perfect for that part of the narration

From this experience, I have learned that for future I will record the audio first and then work my visuals around that. However, it was nice not to be restricted by the audio and just going with the flow of which visuals I could capture while I was there. 

Later when I reviewed the footage I realised that some footage was quite dark. Even when I tried to fix them using DaVinci Resolve by adjusting the brightness and contrast, it was too grainy to have it on the video. I tried the best I could to make it right again, however, there were some visual problems that I should have amended while I was there. Such as the wire was visible in the background in one of the shots. I still used it in the video because I didn't have any other shot to replace it. Also because it was only gonna be in the video for a very small amount of time. 

DaVinci was great to colour grade the film with as it is so easy to use, and also because I have used it many times in the past in my other projects.

[lorrainecparker]

Review: MixPre-3 audio recorder/mixer from Sound Devices

As soon as Sound Devices announced the new MixPre-3 audio recorder/mixer, I requested it for review. Ahead I’ll tell you everything that I discovered to be so great about it, and a few thinks I’d like added via future firmware updates. This review article will also include 4 audio clips to demonstrate its quality with a dynamic microphone, compared to the much lower-priced Zoom H5. Using a dynamic mic is the best way to stress a preamp to see how it sounds under the worst scenario. I’ll cover its features, and include some videos from colleagues who have also reviewed it.

In this article, you’ll find:

Listen to the MixPre-3’s superior preamps with a dynamic microphone

Why are the preamps called Kashmir?

True hardware limiter vs software limiter

Basic and Advanced modes

How the MixPre-3 records multitrack

Connect a USB keyboard to enter metadata

USB: digital audio interface and file transfer

Modern exFAT formatting system

Wingman: remote wireless control from Android or iOS

Timecode… and Does anybody really know what time it is?

Multiple power options

Four improvements I’d like to see via firmware

Conclusions and related articles

Listen to the MixPre-3’s superior preamps with a dynamic microphone

I made the following tests using the Shure palindromic 545 dynamic cardioid microphone, together with the enormous A81WS windscreen which I reviewed back in Why Shure’s own 545 palindromic mic beats the SM57 nowadays (illustrated above). The A81WS windscreen sonically transforms the 545 and SM57 microphones, as explained in detail by Matt Rygelski in his video which is embedded in the above article. The members of the now defunct palindromic group ABBA were not available to join me for this MixPre-3 review, so the following recordings were done with my own voice.

Raw WAV recording from the MixPre-3:

https://tecnotur.us/capicuafm/wp-content/uploads/2017/07/MixPre-3_raw.wav

Raw WAV recording from the Zoom H5:

https://tecnotur.us/capicuafm/wp-content/uploads/2017/07/ZOOM-H5_raw.wav

Processed WAV recording from the MixPre-3

https://tecnotur.us/capicuafm/wp-content/uploads/2017/07/MixPre-3_processed.wav

Processed WAV recording from the Zoom H5

https://tecnotur.us/capicuafm/wp-content/uploads/2017/07/ZOOM-H5_processed.wav

The processed versions were filtered and normalized to -16 LUFS by Auphonic.com. I used a semi-treated room courtesy of Francisco Javier Arbolí.

Why are the preamps called Kashmir?

The name that has given to the new preamps by Sound Devices in the MixPre-3 and MixPre-6 is Kashmir. I asked the question, and the official answer was that Sound Devices prefers not to explain the origin of the Kashmir name, and to keep it as an internal secret. The source may be related to one of the several clues listed on Wikipedia’s Kashmir disambiguation page, which include maritime references, music, films and regions throughout planet Earth. With an alternate spelling, it refers to a type of wool, and a type of goat. On the Castilian Kashmir page, there are even references to jewelry.

As time passes, the mysterious origin of Sound Devices’ Kashmir preamp name may become even more popular than the “Paul is dead” urban legend and conspiracy theory, which alleges that Paul McCartney of the English rock band The Beatles died in 1966 and was secretly replaced by a look-alike. Perhaps there will be even more documentaries and mockumentaries about Sound Devices’ Kasmir than there have been about “Paul is dead”.

True hardware limiter vs software limiter

Back in the analog recording days, we would cheat and let our recordings overmodulate a bit, since the slight distortion was favorable to the tape hiss. As we moved into the digital recording era, we learned that going past 0 dB is fatal. Most have learned to use -12 dB as our target ceiling when setting peak levels in a raw recording, in order to have some headroom in case of something unexpected. Even so, it is great to have a safety net or parachute beyond our knowledge and experience of setting peaks to -12 dB, just in case.

Although recorders like the Zoom H5 have much better preamps then the H4 (and its revamps with various suffixes), they still don’t have preamps that are nearly as good as the MixPre-3’s (as you heard earlier in this article), nor do they have a digital limiter. In the video below, Nuanced Films of the United Kingdom demonstrates the advantage of a hardware limiter vs the software one in the H5:

Thanks to Nuanced Films for doing that demonstration, so I wouldn’t have to 🙂

Basic and Advanced modes

The MixPre-3 offers both Basic and Advanced modes via the touchscreen display. The Basic mode is designed to get up and running as soon as possible; while the Advanced mode gives further options.

Despite the advantages of the Advanced mode for those who can take the time to use them, there is currently one disadvantage: Presently, when adjusting the level of a particular input using the Advanced mode, there is no way to see a level meter while adjusting. As a result, it is necessary to adjust, leave the adjustment window to see the result, and then potentially repeat the process. This is a known issue reported by several reviewers, and is listed in the section of this article called Four improvements I’d like to see via firmware.

One particular feature that requires using the Advanced mode is timecode, which will be covered in a dedicated section later in this article.

How the MixPre-3 records multitrack

As I covered in the recent My multitrack crossgating audio workflow to eliminate crosstalk article, the MixPre-3 and some other recorders from Sound Devices record a polyphonic WAV file, which contains multiple mono WAV files.

The polyphonic file can later be separated using Sound Devices’ own Wave Agent software (illustrated above), which is available free for both macOS and Windows. That software does many other things, but this particular function is called Poly Split. Here is a ±3 minute video from Sound Devices which demonstrates the use of the Wave Agent software.

At 1:41 (coincidentally palindromic) the Poly Split function is covered.

In addition the the polyphonic file, the MixPre-3 also records a stereo mix file.

Connect a USB keyboard to enter metadata

Fortunately, the MixPre-3 allows users to connect a USB (wired) keyboard to facilitate entering metadata. Unfortunately, the current firmware is limited to the US (United States) keymap. This issue is listed among the four improvements I’d like added via a firmware update.

USB: digital audio interface and file transfer

The MixPre-3 also works as a USB audio interface, offering the ability to record audio to an SD card while simultaneously streaming multiple channels of audio to a computer. This can be used both for recording or live Internet broadcast.

File transfer can also take place via USB. These two features are not unique to the MixPre-3, and exist in other brands. However, to my knowledge, Sound Devices is the first manufacturer to use the superior USB-C.

Modern exFAT formatting system

To my knowledge, Sound Devices is the first audio recorder manufacturer to allow for the more modern exFAT file system when the card is 32GB or greater.

Wingman: remote wireless control from Android or iOS

The free Wingman remote control application from Sound Devices is now available for Android and iOS users. The Wingman app works with both the Sound Devices 6-Series line of professional field mixer/recorders and the all-new MixPre Series of audio recorders, including the MixPre-3. With Wingman, users can start and stop audio recordings, monitor meter levels, enter and edit metadata, as well as arm, disarm, and rename tracks.

The above image shows the Wingman being used with the larger MixPre-6, not the MixPre-3 which is the focus of this article.

Unlike the USB keyboard covered in the prior section (which is currently limited to the US keymap), I personally verified that the Spanish keyboard —together with accented vowels and the ñ character— were respected properly within the Wingman app on Android ßeta O (8.0) on my Google Pixel XL (Amazon link).

I did not use the Wingman app during the recording you heard earlier in this article. I just used it to verify whether it was compatible with the Google GBoard Spanish keyboard and those accented letters, and to be sure it would run under the ßeta Android O (8.0). Fortunately, it worked perfectly, to the extent that as I used it.

Timecode… and Does anybody really know what time it is?

My metaphysical friends —who insist that time doesn’t actually exist— praise timecode, and describe it as: “a very accurate way of measuring something that doesn’t exist”. Perhaps that’s why the US rock band Chicago produced and released what became hit song called Does anybody really know what time it is? Does anybody really care (about time)?. Those same metaphysical friends say that timecode is extremely useful in audiovisual production, and I know that they are right about that.

The timecode feature is only available in the Advanced mode of the MixPre-3. It facilitates synchronizing high quality audio recorded in the MixPre-3 with video shot on a camcorder.

The MixPre-3 has three timecode modes:

HDMI TC In

To use the HDMI TC IN on the MixPre-3, you must have a camcorder that outputs timecode over its HDMI output connection. You connect the HDMI cable to the HDMI TC In port on the MixPre-3’s right hand panel and set Menu>Timecode>TC Mode to HDMI TC In. Set your camcorder to output HDMI timecode. When the MixPre-3 receives HDMI timecode, it is displayed on the Home screen beneath the current filename. Each time you press Record, the incoming timecode value is stored inside the MixPre-3’s recorded file. Professional video editing applications including Apple Final Cut Pro X, Adobe Premiere CC, Avid Media Composer and Blackmagic’s DaVinci Resolve (both the free and paid versions) officially support reading this timecode value and sync the audio with the camera video, and all do it well when it is done clip-by-clip. However, according to Sofi Marshall’s excellent article from May 2017 Why DaVinci Resolve is the ultimate (free) tool to sync clips in Frame.io, the only editing software that does it correctly in batch mode is DaVinci Resolve. She states that the other three (FCP X, Premiere CC and Media Composer) all screw it up in batch mode. On the other hand, she says that batch mode works great with DaVinci Resolve, and that “…you can sync an entire day’s worth of footage with a single click”.

Aux In 1, Aux In 2

If your camcorder can output LTC (SMPTE Linear Timecode), you can connect it to the MixPre-3’s Aux/Mic In 3.5mm connector.

To enable Aux In Timecode:

Set the Aux In Mode to Timecode (Menu>Inputs>Aux In Mode)

Set Menu> Timecode>TC Mode> to Aux In 1 or Aux In 2. When the MixPre-3 receives Aux In timecode, it is displayed on the home screen beneath the current filename.

Time of Day (TOD)

Use TOD mode, when you want the recorded WAV files to be timecode stamped with the time of day. The time of day is derived from the MixPre-3’s built-in date/time clock. This mode is not used for frame accurate synchronization with external devices. Rather, it is used as simple way of logging what time a recording took place.

Timecode Frame Rate Auto-Detection

With both the HDMI TC In and Aux In Timecode modes, the MixPre-3 autodetects the incoming timecode framerate and stamps the recorded files accordingly.

Timecode Stamp

Regardless of which timecode mode you use, each time you press record, the timecode value at that moment is embedded within the MixPre-3’s WAV file.

Multiple power options

The US$649 MixPre-3 (B&H link) can be powered from four (4) AA batteries, Li-Ion batteries, a laptop’s USB-C or USB-A connectors, or AC wall outlet.

Sound Devices offers the optional MX-8AA battery sled for US$70 (B&H link).

Sound Devices also offers the MX-LMount battery sled for US$65 (B&H link), which holds 2 hot-swappable L-Series type batteries.

In my brief experience with four (4) fresh AA batteries in the MixPre-3, I would highly recommend using any of these extended options. If in the future, I am able to own a MixPre-3, I will certainly use one of them, since in the little time I have been testing the MixPre-3, it was too short without them. Alternatively, I’d consider the Anker PowerCore+ 20100 USB-C listed below.

Here are some other options offered by Sound Devices:

USB-C port via optional MX-CHARGE AC power wall adapter

USB-C port via MX-USBY cable and a computer with 2 USB-A ports

USB-C port via a compatible USB-C to USB-C cable and a computer with a USB-C port

D-Tap to L-mount adapter for use with the optional MX-LMount battery sled. See here.

Hirose to L-mount adapter for use with the optional MX-LMount battery sled. See here.

Anker PowerCore+ 20100 USB-C, Ultra-High Capacity Premium Portable Charger, 20100mAh USB-C battery with USB-C to USB-C cable. (Amazon link)

To fully power the MixPre-3 (or MixPre-6) from a USB power source not listed above, you will need BOTH of the following:

USB-C power source that is compliant with the USB powering specification and is able to output 7.5W

USB-C cable that incorporates the correct pull-up resistors to identify itself as able to provide 7.5W

If either of these conditions are not met, the MixPre recorder will operate in low power mode: maximum 2x 48v phantom channels, no HDMI, no USB-A. You can still use all of the MixPre’s channels, but only a maximum of 2 can be phantom powered.

NOTE: A USB-A power source used in conjunction with a USB-A to USB-C cable cannot deliver the required 7.5W for full power operation.

Due to the complex nature of the USB-C specifications for powering requirements, Sound Devices cannot make recommendations for USB-C power supplies, batteries or cabling other than its purpose-designed accessories. Sound Devices has no control over other manufacturer’s products and their (non-)compliance with the published USB-C specifications.

Four improvements I’d like to see via firmware

Currently, when in Advanced Mode, it is impossible to see any level meter when adjusting the level for any particular input. This request has been made by me and other reviewers. No promise has yet been made by Sound Devices. However, Sound Devices support has noted the request.

Regarding the USB keyboard option, I would like to see a keymap selection. With the current firmware, the MixPre-3 presently only supports the US keymap. My first requests are to add both Latin American and Spanish (European), aka Spanish ISO. The latter one has been used by Apple for at least 15 years, both in Spain and in the Americas, in addition to Acer and Logitech. HP also began offering the European Spanish (ISO) keyboard in the ZBook Studio G4 in the United States, as indicated in this article. Other keymap requests that you may have should be sent directly to Sound Devices support.

Considering that the MixPre-3 already has Bluetooth to communicate with the WingMan apps for Android and iOS, I would like Bluetooth keyboards to be supported via a free firmware update.

Either free, or for a reasonable upgrade fee, I would like Sound Advice to add automix capabilities to the MixPre-3. As I have covered in several past articles, automix reduces or eliminates crosstalk (spill) between microphones, either live or live-to-drive. Automix is already available from other products from Sound Devices, as well as from Audio Technica, Behringer and Shure.

Conclusions and related articles

Comparing the US$649 MixPre-3 (B&H link) with the US$269 Zoom H5 (Amazon link • B&H link) is unfair yet necessary, since the MixPre-3 is the smallest recorder that Sound Devices currently offers. If someone is looking for the input capacity of the H5 (2 balanced XLR inputs + 1 “stereo” unbalanced via 3.5 mm TRS), but seeks higher quality preamps, a hardware limiter and timecode, the unfair comparison becomes a necessary comparison. The MixPre-3 is evidently superior to the H5, and its quality and features justify its higher price. It will be regretful but necessary to send it back to Sound Devices after publishing this review.

I do not know Avry or Dave Girtsman, but I couldn’t resist including this:

Please see my related articles:

All audio production & distribution should go 48 kHz. Learn why.

Understanding 24-bit vs 16-bit audio production & distribution

Upcoming articles, reviews, radio shows, books and seminars/webinars

Stand by for upcoming articles, reviews, and books. Sign up to my free mailing list by clicking here. Most of my current books are at books.AllanTepper.com, and my personal website is AllanTepper.com.

Si deseas suscribirte a mi lista en castellano, visita aquí. Si prefieres, puedes suscribirte a ambas listas (castellano e inglés).

Listen to his CapicúaFM show at CapicúaFM.com in iTunes or Stitcher.

Learn to speak Castilian, the most widely used Spanish language

SpeakCastilian.com

FTC disclosure

No manufacturer is specifically paying Allan Tépper or TecnoTur LLC to write this article or the mentioned books. Some of the other manufacturers listed above have contracted Tépper and/or TecnoTur LLC to carry out consulting and/or translations/localizations/transcreations. Many of the manufacturers listed above have sent Allan Tépper review units, including Sound Devices. So far, none of the manufacturers listed above is/are sponsors of the TecnoTur programs, although they are welcome to do so, and some are, may be (or may have been) sponsors of ProVideo Coalition magazine. Some links to third parties listed in this article and/or on this web page may indirectly benefit TecnoTur LLC via affiliate programs. Allan Tépper’s opinions are his own.

Copyright and use of this article

The articles contained in the TecnoTur channel in ProVideo Coalition magazine are copyright Allan Tépper/TecnoTur LLC, except where otherwise attributed. Unauthorized use is prohibited without prior approval, except for short quotes which link back to this page, which are encouraged!

The post Review: MixPre-3 audio recorder/mixer from Sound Devices appeared first on ProVideo Coalition.

First Found At: Review: MixPre-3 audio recorder/mixer from Sound Devices

[iamconnorcleary-blog]

SWOT Analysis

Strengths

What are your advantages?

I like to keep up to date with the latest technology, especially on the camera front, and this has continued ever since I began my career in film. I think as a Self shooter you need to be aware of how this new technology can help improve your work and give you as a person insight into the future of your craft, as a director it is also important to know what technology is out there to be able to talk to other people with a degree of professionalism and understanding.

My time at university has helped me gain a variety of skills and given me opportunities to try a range of production roles, such as Directing my short film “Boxes’, editing and doing both corporate and fiction based camera work. The university has also provided me with paid work being a self shooting director as I work with both the University and Portsmouth city council on a new awareness project for the south coast.

What do you do well?

At University I have managed to improve on nearly all of my technical skills as well as the planning and storytelling, from this I have managed to gain more contacts in the working world as well as be more confident with my abilities. My communication skills have also vastly improved also as I have had to dictate and explain my ideas and work on complex problems as to come to a solution.

Whilst I am mostly positioned (in group work) as the director, something I am confident with to a certain degree, I am also useful in many different roles as I am used to solving problems under pressure and have experience working in different departments, so have the understanding to tackle most problems faced on set.

One of my biggest strengths is my overall knowledge of technological side of filming, I feel that if there is a problem on set I am able to provide advice and or help with a degree of success, as well as my knowledge of post production software which ranges from the Adobe suite, Avid media composer and Blackmagic's Davinci Resolve to Apple's logic and Final Cut Pro Non linear editors. All skills that have helped me through my degree and i'm sure will be a help throughout my career after University.

Why did you decide to enter the field you will enter upon graduation?

I have always loved the concept of the complete film experience, from pre to post production and everything in between, because of this being a self shooter will provide me opportunity to do this, and have a hand and impact on every part of the filming process.

What were the motivating factors and influences?

The biggest influence on me becoming a filmmaker would be Edgar Wright, more specifically Hot Fuzz and Shaun of the Dead, both films excite me as a filmmaker as they are bold and experimental, using the camera as a tool to create comedy and even writing the films to begin with, he is a master of his craft and the biggest inspiration towards me wanting to get into that field. The second biggest influence is my initial experience in photography, as I was never any good at academics and my heart always lied with the arts, photography was my favourite pastime, after some assignments and experience I loved the idea of moving photographs so I began making films with my friends and so I fell in love with making films.

What have been your most notable achievements?

One of my more notable achievements came from within college where I achieved an award for outstanding technical skill, a achievement that was celebrated throughout the college.

Weaknesses

What could be improved?

Throughout my time at university I have never been great at managing my time, mostly relying on others to keep me on time, this is due to doing multiple projects both exterior to the University and the University deadlines. I believe this is still something I need to address as mostly my producer does all my timekeeping, but I have begun using productivity applications on my phone in a attempt to make my timekeeping and project management more streamlined.

I also believe I could be a better cameraman as there is always something new to learn and new techniques to adhere to.

I have never had an opportunity to produce a project something that i am relatively clueless about, but would like to give it a go if the chance arose. Producing is all about time management and as such I believe i would be killing two birds with one stone, improving my time keeping and learning how to run a successful production, as i work with a producer nearly all the time i can learn most of the key habits of a successful producer from her.  

What did you do badly?

I have a tendency to speak my mind on occasion and be slightly outspoken, this is something I need to improve on when working in future productions.

What are your professional weaknesses?

I believe I am too much of a perfectionist that, in some cases; can slow down my workflow and make other people in my groups/ clients impatent, it is also impractical from a budget standing to take as long as i do when editing/filming even though I want the best results for the project.

Opportunities

What promising prospects do you have after University?

My intention after leaving university is to study a masters degree at Portsmouth University as to both give myself a more indepth (theory based) understanding of filming, but also to study 360 degree cameras in detail and see if they have any standing for future drama based filming. Another reason would be to give myself more time to build on my already steady contact list, and give myself the best chance of making it in the industry.

How quickly are you likely to advance in your chosen career?

After my masters degree I plan on pursuing a career in motion pictures, but first as a researcher for drama based television.

Threats

What obstacles do you face?

The biggest obstacle is the amount of competition there is in this field, as such having a masters degree won't help me; but the technical abilities gained whilst doing the masters might help me be more beneficial in the field and thus gain a few contacts.

Does changing technology threaten your prospective position?

No, the way technology is changing, is at a rate that is easy to adopt and in fact can be beneficial as a selling point to your chosen project, for example stating to a client that ‘this film is shot in 4k’ sounds impressive and can be a selling point, this is also true to the emerging social media market that is a great opportunity to promote your work and find new contacts and clients.