News, Tips and Tricks

Gimp is an open source image editor for macs that is supposed to be a free alternative to photoshop from Adobe. A little aside so you can get an idea of where this review is coming from, I am using photoshop CS2 and CS5 at home, depending on whether working on my pc or mac and we have CS4 here WVP.

When I first heard about Gimp I was a little sceptical that an open source piece of software would be able to rival photoshop, plus all the extra bits and bobs you need to install, or ensure are already installed on your mac, was a bit daunting. But I gave it a go and then had problems with X-Quartz and X11 running on the mac I was using at the time. Here in the office though, IT support were able to confirm it was simple to install and not to worry. So after downloading Gimp and X-Quartz and installing I finally got to use Gimp many months after first hearing about it even though its been about for years (about a decade I think).

So I open it up, first off, it being run with X11 support et al, there was no usual menu bar at the top of the screen, but once you get past this you’re flying. There do seem to be layers available inside Gimp, contrary to what I had read online but I never go round to using them. Instead my first foray into the world of image editors outside of photoshop (which I have been using for years upon years now for basic design and editing of images and photos) looked mainly at using the fuzzy selection tool to remove the background from images leaving the subject on a white background, resizing and cropping and adjusting poorly taken photographs.

The auto-adjust tool inside the image options for the levels is great, better than photoshop in my opinion as it produced more realistic life like adjustments and then with a bit of fine tuning you can get great looking images and correct any mistakes you made with over or under exposure, white balance, etc, however with its clunky UI this took a little longer than it may have done in photoshop, but with better results I my opinion. As well as this the magnetic lasso tool is also different to photoshops. I am unsure if it is better, its different though and allows you to get a good clean line around your subject no matter how jagged the image i was trying to cut out was.

A mention must be made about the menu system and UI which is a little clunky as I mentioned above. Right click or command clicking brings up the menu, then you have to select etc, etc, as per normal in an image editor, but none of the windows are linked into the same interface. Each seems independent of the others requiring you to double click a lot of the time to make sure you have selected the right tool or what have you. Like I said, its very clunky in places and not the best user experience.

That little nit picking aside though Gimp, once you get into it is a great piece of software, I’m not sure of its full limitations or capabilities yet but I feel, as its free, easy to use; if a little clunky, and has some great tools photoshop is missing. Check it out if you’re not as daunted by open source software as I was.

http://magazine.creativecow.net/article/blackmagic-design-president-dan-may-on-cintel-acquisition

Have a look at the above post from creativecow.net. It is an interview with Blackmagic president Dan May about their acquisition of Cintel, a telecine and film transfer company based here in the UK since 1927 when John Logie Baird originally set up the Baird Television Company.

A section from the article is included below…

” Part of our internal deliberation has been to talk about all the ways that film is still important. It not only represents a long tradition, but it has a creative aspect that is still not duplicated with digital technology. That’s why you have major motion pictures such as Dark Knight Rising that are still shot on film, to retain the art and creative process…

…There are a lot more pieces to the film production puzzle than a telecine, but as we look at this piece of the puzzle, we have our own curiosity. Would people use more film if it were more accessible and easier to work with? There are a lot of interesting questions about the future of film.”

In my opinion film isn’t dead, there is a lot still to be explored with film (I for one want to see some real IR footage used in a film instead of the CG version), there are a lot of creative options at the get go instead of having to leave it all to post production professionals.

Anyway, I found it a great read and very informative, especially from Blackmagic after the release of their new camera earlier in the month here in the UK. It seems the future of film isn’t done yet and is yet to make its hand prints on Hollywood Boulevard. It seems film is like that old actor you thought had retired who springs up to give the best performance of his life and astonish you all one last time.

So, Reflection is an app for macs that came out earlier this year that allows you to use Airplay on your iPhone 4s or newer iPads to share your phone screen with other macs or and AppleTV base station. Its quite good for $14.99, comes with a built in screen recorder and is very useful for some of the videos we do where an app won’t work with the simulators we use to create app-demo videos.

However I am finding it has a few issues. One: if the iPhone goes into sleep mode (i’m personally not an iPhone user outside of work so not sure if it is actually sleep mode) Reflection can sometimes not then find the phone, meaning the phone turns airplay off, and there is the problem, when this happens I’m finding that airplay on the phone then disappears until you do a reset of the iPhone. If this is just a problem I’m causing for myself or other users of the app have encountered it I don’t know, these are just my findings at the end of the day. It would be nice to find a fix for this or maybe the developers may

Also, as useful as the built in screen recorder is, it took 45 minutes yesterday to render an 8 minute video and seems to use a fair chunk of memory as it slowed down my usage of FCP. Not a good combo to run anyway at the best of times but still, needs must.

Reflection presents the screen in a virtual iPhone which is great, but give you a black background at the corners, a little thing but still adds a bit of time to the final project.

All in all though this is a great app for us to use here and much better than air server which you have to use a separate screen recording software for and if your working on a budget means you only have to pay what works out at roughly £12 for a full screen recording suite for capturing app demos from an iPhone. Hopefully they will bring out an android version that can work via tethering which would be a great point for Reflection. But like I said its a great app as it is and you can even transfer it between macs along as you use the same key and uninstall it from the previous one, so no need to buy a new key later on if you do change or upgrade computers.

Anyway I’m now going to go back to doing some screen recordings, try a couple of different techniques and see which works best. Ill post a quick update at a later date to let you know which is the best way to use this app for recording app demos directly from the phone.

In the meantime, if this is an app that you may find useful you can click here to find it or just google it.

So the new Blackmagic Cinema cam has come out at last! I myself am quite pleased by this, and I may well invest in mine own later in the year but why? I personally use a 550d and a 5dmkII or EX3 here at the studio so why would I be excited about the Blackmagic camera and why am I eager to get my hands on one to see how it really compares?

(image courtesy of http://www.fastcodesign.com)

For a start the colour profile and everything else about the quality of finished video. With a 13 stop dynamic range it allows you to really control the look and feel from the get go. Now I’m not a fan of lots grading in post, I feel, especially as a lighting designer, that if you can’t get it nearly right on the first go in the studio or on location and use grading to add to the shot instead of correcting it, then why are you bothering, but i do understand the bonuses of doing so, especially on a rushed shoot or when filming on a budget.  So you can film deep and well saturated like I like to a lot of the time or if you are going for something more special you can film it really flat in profile and then jazz it up afterwards during the grading. The camera comes with DaVinci resolve from what I’ve seen on some sites so no need to go buying expensive grading software. The camera also features a built-in SSD recorder that allows 2.5K uncompressed CinemaDNG RAW 12-bit capture as well as Apple ProRes and Avid DNxHD compressed video formats. These formats are widely accepted by most editing systems so hopefully another instance that should save you having to go out and buy new software aswell.

Secondly, the size, it’s nice and compact and rugged in a beautifully designed machined aluminium case that looks surprisingly portable. For me this is a bonus, saves space in the studio and in transport and comes with a touch screen viewer on the back. Now I’m not a fan of touch screens, and this one is designed to allow you to attach metadata to your clips that can then be read by a multitude of NLE’s (non linear editing systems). Here is the first point where I actually have a problem, its a nice touch but when filming in adverse weather conditions will it mess up like my phone screen does when it gets a single drop of rain on it? Also the peripherals and card slots etc, come with nicely designed covers. Fine if your someone who may be using it to film some ducks on a pond on your own but when used in a busy studio when you need to change cables, or reload memory cards etc I can see them getting in the way, even breaking after a while.

Third but not least though is the ability to use lenses that I already own as it accepts Canon EF and Zeiss ZF mounts. Now this could mean that this camera finds the niche it’s looking for in the market, half way between the professional and consumer market, for filmmakers on a budget, but not that tight a budget if the UK price is anything to be believed, in the States I’ve seen it advertised at just under $3000 including tax, here in the UK its going to be about £2300 – £2500 from what i can see, which is where i can see it falling flat. If buying a new camera go for the 5dmkII or similar, how ever if you already have lenses etc then i think  this would be worth the investment once the price has come down a little bit or it starts coming in a bundle with lens and other accessories as each accessory I’ve seen for it requires you to make another full priced purchase.

So in conclusion, yes I’m excited that its come out, I’m a little disappointed at some features but in the end I think this camera might well find its foothold in film making. Well at least the design idea. Im still going to hope for a Canon Cinema EOS C300, but at still over £10k I reckon I’ll be waiting a while…

Hi

Its been a while (just over a year!) since we have blogged anything here at Web Video Production.One of the main reasons has been a change in staff over the last 6 months, the team has changed a little, so please welcome our two new members, George and myself, James. George is primarily an animator and editor and has interests in other aspects of film such as camera work and production. I come from a self shooting director/producer background with various other production and technical skills and before starting here was working freelance in the Bristol area.

We have quite a bit of work on at the moment, one of the more interesting projects being a series of informative videos for a nationwide supplier and fitter of solid wood and laminate flooring. We also have projects in the works for a leader in the world of long-term investments as well as promotional videos for several mobile ‘Apps’ – and preparing for upcoming work for a UK County Council among other clients.

So as you can see its all hands on deck at the moment with our new scaled down team and also a new age in more frequent blog posts from us. Check back regularly for any changes and have a look at our website, which will be getting updated over the coming weeks