13 July 2011 Stabilising YouTube video I see that YouTube have added a stabilisation effect, whereby you can auto-stabilise your uploaded footage. The process isn't intuitive - you have to upload your shaky footage first, then open up the YouTube Video Editor, select your video by pressing the plus sign, then select the magic wand tool inside the video box underneath and choose 'Stabilize video' (you can also adjust brightness and contrast if you want, or make a B&W version, but surely you'd have done this before upload). The editor allows you to run a side-by-side comparison with the original footage, which is a nice touch. Anyway I haven't road-tested it myself, but John Nack has - and his results suggest the stabiliser does a decent job. He does point out, though, that using the Video Editor creates a new version of your project so that you have to re-enter your tags and so on. Might be better to run it through the new Warp Stabiliser in After Effects CS5.5, if you have it, so that you can make sure it's perfect before committing yourself to a YouTube upload; but if you don't have time or if you don't have the necessary version of AE (or if it's just not important enough to be worth the bother) then this is probably a useful tip to know about.
12 July 2011 Film blogs I've added a list of other film-making blogs (I find the term 'blogroll' unpleasant, but that's basically what it is) on the right. I've tried to concentrate on UK-based blogs where the primary purpose of the blog is not to promote or discuss the blogger's current production, but where the content and comment is insightful to a wider industry audience. I've also tried to skip blogs which are just film review sites, although I could always make a separate list of those. Do head over and read them, but remember to come back here when you've finished!
6 July 2011 As You Don't Know, Bob Every script needs a backstory. But how do you communicate it to the audience? Especially when it's a story that all the characters already know? Cinema has wrestled with this problem for years. In the old days, you used to get the excruciating AYKB (As You Know, Bob) conversation in which one character would explain things that the other character knew, with the clear intention of bringing the audience up to speed. Effective, but unrealistic (and particularly egregious when the other character would respond to the speech with "oh, yes, I'd forgotten.") Screenwriters since then have become a bit more sophisticated, and now we've got different techniques such as the lecture, the newsreel, the Watson, and the voice-over (and, rarely, the scene-setting piece to camera, eg Annie Hall). But none of these examples quite fits the bill, because they're either clumsy and old hat (the voice-over, the newsreel) or because they rely on another character not knowing about the backstory and having to have it explained. So how do you bring the audience up to speed, without resorting to having a character called Basil Exposition?
28 June 2011 Apple - stop trying to be so clever Let's start with full disclosure: I am an Apple fanboy. I love Apple products - I have a Mac Pro, an iMac, an old MacBook, an iPod and an iPhone (the only reason I don't have an iPad is because I'm addicted to the phone). I've been using Apple computer products for twenty years ever since I went to Cambridge and discovered the only desktops in the college computer room were Mac LCIIs. I loved the easy UI and I loved the design (a bit chunkier in those days, but somehow more attractive than their PC equivalents, which at that point were still using floppy disks which really were floppy and looked like the sort of thing Bill Gates ate his breakfast off). When I started on the film-making path, Final Cut Pro was the obvious choice, being relatively cheap, running off an operating system with which I was familiar, and earning high praise not only from amateurs but also from industry professionals like Walter Murch. So why am I now considering whether to ditch the editing system on which I have cut all my work, in favour of the more expensive Avid Media Composer or the somehow less intuitive Adobe Premiere Pro? Because Apple has released a new version of Final Cut Pro.
23 June 2011 Welcome I thought it would enhance the value and interest of this site if I added a blog. That's the idea, anyway. Be sure to let me know, once I get comments enabled (not as easy as it should be, when you've had to put your own template together... OK, seem to have done it, let me know if it doesn't work.) I've been working in the independent film industry in the UK for about six years, and this blog will contain my thoughts on my experiences, as well as ruminations about the industry in general. My background's in editing, as the rest of this site shows, but these days it's no longer enough to have one string to your bow. Youv'e got to have two or three strings and, really, you're only at the top of your game when you've got enough strings to play the Concierto de Aranjuez. At this end of the sector you're only worth anything if you can make the entire film by yourself (you might be allowed actors too, just to save you having to press 'REC' and then run round to the other side of the camera to deliver your lines). So I find myself moving into areas of work I swore to myself I'd never touch - specifically production, the single most thankless task in film-making. More on this as things develop (they develop slowly, so don't hold your breath). Coming up in future posts: what is the film-making 'industry' really worth, when any mug with a DSLR can sit in his bedroom, rant for five minutes into the lens and become an overnight sensation? Why are most films left unfinished, unreleased, even unshot? And why can't anyone make a decent film these days? (Except one or two people...) |
About this blog 'The Stench of Popcorn' is a blog written by Stephen Coltrane, London-based film editor. It contains articles about the art and science of film-making, focusing on storytelling, technology and business. It is not a film review site, although it occasionally discusses the detail of films. It is also not meant to be a production diary, although there might be the odd post about productions I'm working on. If you enjoy this blog, please use the buttons below to share it with others.
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A blog about films and film-making