Adobe has announced new versions of there Creative Suits…  You can see video presentations of all there new software at tv.adobe.com. What I’ll be talking about in this post is stuff relating to what I’m sorta evaluating.. which is the Web Premium Bundle.. and After Effects CS4. On that note, lets start with some of the videos…

Adobe Web Premium CS4: 

As you might expect from adobe.. the video lies.. (I say this due to my past bad experience with Adobe… ) The video lies in that it suggests that Indesign is a part of the Web Premium Bundle.. and it is not!

My bad Adobe Experience

I thought I had posted on this.. but haven’t been able to find the post so.. here’s the deal:

I went to buy the web bundle.. but um.. the adobe site wasn’t real clear.. bad usability, and all that.. which is sorta ironic for a company building design tools! So I bought the wrong bundle by accident…  I was on the phone with Adobe on 4 ceperate occasions trying to streighten it all out.. each conversation had me moving between various people to talk to.. each seemed to take upwards of an hour.. an it seemed that nearly everyone was giving me a different story…  the long and the short of it was.. I don’t know if I’ve been refunded yet for the wrong bundle! And if you ask me it’s all about what’s bad with Adobe…. and this video being misleading is just more of the same!

On the Subject of the Bundle 

I wrote this post around the time I bought the bundle.. and provides some reasonably good background on the subject.

Web Standards

The problem with the bundle.. well it feels a little bit like Adobe “doesn’t get it.” One of the biggest revolutions in the world of web design has been Web Standards.. we design sites in such a way to separate out content, presentation, and behavior..  and introduce graceful degradation..  If this is done right.. then whatever you’re using to view the site.. be it IE, FireFox.. your PDA, iPhone.. if you have accessibility issues so there’s a voice synth speaking out the page.. whatever..  it will work on your platform in the most ideal-ish sorta way.

The trouble with the Adobe software has been that it does not enable this sorta industry standard development practices…. The learning curve nessisary to doing this kind of development is great.. and you’d like tools to help with that.. Not only that but.. “designers” tend to think visually.. and so you’d like tools that allow you to think visually.. as a pose to think code.. in terms of working out a design.. from a process perspective.. and blah blah blah.

Adobe has been… about 6 years late to the standards party? And you know.. on the internet things move really really fast.. so I don’t think there’s any reasonable excuse for this.. In any event.. Fireworks.. which is a web graphics orientated program.. will now spit out standards compliant code.. which is a groovy thing.. and Dreamweaver looks like.. they’ve done a number of thing to help with a standards based work flow.. so I am digging that.

Dreamweaver.. as of CS3, introduce the AJAX Spry framework.. This allows you to, via WYWYG, put together AJAX stuff. AJAX is.. how web applications are made, basically.. It’s kind of a way of using XHTML, JavaScript, CSS, XML, and server stuff.. to do certain kinds of stuff.. lets say. AJAX is a groovy technology and all.. but it is not without problems.. though it should be said that, as with most technologies, the problem is not so much the technology as how the technology is used…  and um… the problem with the Spry framework.. is it is much less then best practices… in how it does its things.. 

My feeling is.. I’d like to see the software get better at standards out of the box.. but at least its headed in that direction.. if at an unforgivably slow pace…. and I really need to get my hands on the software before I can really judge these things too well. 

Flash CS4

Flash CS4 is the most compelling part, at least for me personally, to the Web Premium bundle upgrade:

Flash has ALWAYS been the best tool for web based animation.. trouble is.. not a hell of a lot has happened to Flash, as far as animation is concerned.. since like.. Flash 5… we are talking the last tech bubble here! Most of the excitement in the Flash platform, since version 5.. and including version 5… has been all about the developer side of Flash.. and since FLEX is were a serious Flash developer would turn.. you’d hope you’d see better design and animation tools in Flash.. and indeed, we are now seeing them.

The new feature of being able to modify different parameters individually.. be it transparency, scale, its location on the screen.. being able to modify motion curves…  in a rather After Effects-esk way. This will revolutionize how I work with Flash.. and it’ll do this, really, on a process level.. which is a very deep thing. 

But Adobe didn’t stop there! They finally gave us IK (Inverse Kinematics.) Basically we are talking about Bones here.. which is a core feature of character animation in 3D graphics. This is also a very big thing for animation.

If all this isn’t enough.. we get some kind of a new 3D tool..  It didn’t look all that impressive from the presentation.. though I didn’t think the any of the Flash stuff looked all that impressive in the presentations.. unless you kinda knew what was going on…  I mean they were using a very boring project for there examples.. but this could be a very cool thing to.

PhotoShop CS4

There’s a lot of new stuff in Photoshop that looks interesting.. New ways of dealing with camera RAW.. the ability to bring 3D objects into PhotoShop and paint directly on them..  There’s bad news that Photoshop will not be 64-bit on the Mac.. which is a big downer.. but Adobe claims there new way of using your graphics card will more then make up for that.. This, as we say in the biz, is spin…  

Sound Booth CS4

Sound Booth is new to the Web Premium bundle. I do a lot of music production.. and for a lot of what Sound booth does.. I have better apps.. However.. it does have some spectral editing abilities.. which I would really love to play with.. and Sound Booth is more geared to working inside of this kind of media production environment.. as a pose to music production more generally.

I think it’s nice they put Sound Booth in.. for anyone who’s doing Flash.. I think sound in Flash isn’t really good enough.. I mean Flash projects don’t have enough attention paid to sound.. and this ought to help that a little bit.

After Effects CS4

Here’s the After Effects video:

So what do you think of that? Let me take you through it…

Mobile Us 

First we have a tool for creating content for multiple mobile platforms. My first impression was “Why are you putting this into after effects?” I mean.. After Effects isn’t a video editing tool.. it’s a special effects, motion graphics, animation, compositing type tool….  If I’m creating stuff in After Effects… that stuff’s next stop is a video editing program… before it’s final output.

Now ok.. this is a little complicated but..  what are you creating content for? What percentage of content is purely for mobile platforms? What I mean is.. that same content, don’t you probably want to stick it on youtube, or some other online distribution platform? If that’s the case.. you want to render stuff out of After Effects at the resolution of.. well the highest resolution you’re making your stuff for. As a result.. when you render stuff out of After Effects.. you’re not going to be saving on render times.. by aiming at smaller resolution platforms..  

The only thing I will say on behalf of this new feature is.. having guides that tell you when and where stuff in your frame is going to be cut out of on a target platform.. is very important.

Search

This is a very interesting part of the Adobe Suites… Basically.. there’s meta data that follows media through out the system.. and this is a fairly central part of the search. This is quite revolutionary stuff.. but.. if After Effects is you’re only Adobe Video / Production sorta program..  of what use is it to you anyway?

In my studio Final Cut Studio is where I work with video. When it comes to music production, that might have something to do with a scoring video… that’s taking place in Digital Performer, Ableton Live, Reason.. etc. None of this stuff will carry that meta data…  So for folks in this position.. you’re basically waiting a few years to see if Adobe’s stuff.. gets adopted by a wider echo system of developers.

I’m basically working on.. . lets call it the pro side of the DIY spectrum… what this means is I don’t often have an actual production team… and the process of inputting the meta data into this system..  will likely be neglected in most cases.. particularly if the pay off is lost as soon as I start working in one of those non Adobe products! Though apparently some of the Adobe stuff will turn audio speaking into text for the meta data… 

Matt’s Choice

Price 

The Web Premium bundle will now set you back $1700… and the upgrade (which is what I’d be buying) goes for $600. After Effects $1000 for the full, and $300 for the upgrade. That, at least in my world, is not chicken feed.

Economic Considerations 

You know.. there’s a couple things here..

1. The economy is slowing down. What does this mean to the budding entrepreneur / whomever? It means its time to stop spending money on stuff!!! I mean if the great depression 2.0 is just around the corner? Things will hopefully not be that dyer.. but whatever you think about this sorta thing.. one wants to be careful about the choices one makes.
2. On a Personal Level… I have a limited amount of cash to live off of.. until I sell the house.. and I’d like to not sell the house till the housing market / economy is in a better position then what we find today.. So again, I gotta be careful about spending money.

CS4 Bundles thangs

A lot of people you talk to are saying “There’s a new CS4 already?” These are complex tools and its hard to keep up with it all. My situation is even worse.. cause in addition to that bundle.. I’m doing video, music production, and 3D graphics..  photography.. etc..   At $600, am I going to get my money’s worth out of the new versions?  That’s my big question mark.. I mean.. If Firework’s standards support is actually pretty good.. the Dreaweaver stuff turns out to make a difference.. Of course we expect Flash to be all that.. Having sound booth has its advantages…  The photoshop stuff could really mean something..   You know I’m just on the fence about it.

After Effects 

After Effects is another matter. I own After Effects 4.0.. which is like.. pre Mac OSX… and will not run on an Intel Mac.. So I need to drop the money on After Effects just to have an After Effects! If I was getting on After Effects CS3, I think I might be passing on this upgrade.. but as of now, there’s no question that I’m upgrading. 

Other Expenses? 

So here’s some other things I’m thinking of spend money on.. in the relatively short term

1. RAM, probably a couple hundred dollars worth
2. HD Camera, probably around $700
3. Cantor Vocal Synth $400
4. Breverb reverb: $280
5. Binarual microphone set up thing.. I think we are talking about $200
6. Laptop..  more then a grand
7. If I go with such a laptop.. add $500 for time capsule 

 Out side of this.. There’s the possibility of other software upgrades…  and can I afford those?

Day’s latter:

 Hmm.. I think I should just post this as is.

So, a we bit ago.. I was.. well doing my blog entry.. Part 1 of programming Native Instruments Massive Synthesizer.. And it was after publishing that that a fair reader made a suggestion to me… that I do a screen cast… that this kind of information would be better communicated via a screen cast.. and so I set about doing such a thing.

Thanks to Mac Heist.. I now own Snapz Pro.. which is a pretty groovy screen capture program, or so I’m told.. But then Mr. Greg Bond, of Consumer2Business.com, suggested I try a program called Screenflow. And while screen flow looked super awesome.. particularly for what I is up to.. As I explained to Mr. Bond, I indeed am a very cheap person and.. well long story short I haven’t gotten a chance to check out Screenflow.. in terms of actually using it.. but clearly it’s feature set is..  kinda, probably, better for what I is trying to do.. not that I’ve used Snapz enough to have a clue.

I want to say it was Steve Albanese of Tutorial Depot whom turned me on to Snapz.. Tutorial Depot, at least at the moment, focuses in on creating video cast tutorials for various music technology stuff.. I was going to do stuff with Steve on Reason.. till I fell horribly off the… dependability wagon.. which wasn’t helped by my mom’s passing.. 

 A few latter (after doing some grocery shopping):

In any event.. I’ve wanted to do screen casting / make tutorials for.. well probably for more then a decade…  And so this project represents my first experimental swing in that direction.

Unreliable Narration 

If I were to start a company to do this.. it would probably be called something, something, something, unreliable narrations. There’s a few reasons for this:

I value the art more then the technical… consequently the.. lets call it the creative / aesthetic / philosophical / whatever.. part of my work is uber advanced.. where as the technical is.. Well its not even that my work isn’t technically sophisticated.. err, this is probably complex to try and explain but.. well the evolution of my technical sophistication is subordinated to the creative / aesthetic / philosophical.. meaning it drives it.. the “shape” of the technical evolution, in terms of the lines that articulate where we find sophistication versus where we don’t.. is driven by this.. which is different then approaching a tool and seeking a technical mastery as your primary objective?

This gets into a very complex idea in my philosophical system… which I used to call “the order of revelation,” which is an expressive of.. your particular moral order.. in the Nietzschian sense.. Which is to say a kind of hierarchy of wills.. expresses an influence over where our attention is directed.. this has to do with.. the limits of the human mind.. in essence we could say the “order of revelation” is defined by the underlying questions that are driving us.. to put it a certain way.. that is our awareness is driven by these questions.. consciously or not.

The order of revelation is what constructs our awareness of reality.. our framework for understanding reality.. for interacting with reality.. It has lots of psycho-social dynamic implications.. has a huge influence over social hierarchies..

That’s a kind of quick overview of the subject.. what this means in terms of how I approach art making.. and a host of other things is.. the lines that articulate what I view as “the area of stuff I must master” is very individualistic to me… and radically so. So radical that.. from conventional view points.. you could say I’m “ass backwards.” So, if I do a tutorial on sound synthesis with Massive..

Latter that day:

On the Subject of Experimentation

Experimentation is a good way to explore stuff.. It’s often a matter of.. we are more interested in developing our ability to do something, then in making that something great. It’s not quite a total madness of experimentation, it’s experimentation subordinated to goals:

I have a primary goal of.. what sorta screen casts I might like to make.. Here are some basic things:

• Good production values: Screen casts, even by great folks, are sorta notorious for not having groovy production values.. Now just what constitutes “groovy production values” in an interesting subject.. and around this subject I want to experiment.
• Personality: So often screen cast tutorials are.. without personality..  ”You aren’t excited to be here, are you?” you want to say the the person doing it.. Even if there personality is.. if not great, at least not boring you to death… there’s the question of “would I want to be like the person giving the tutorial? I think this is a key nexus point between personal branding and.. well the tutorial.. I mean.. wouldn’t you like to learn from someone who’s coming from some place interesting? Wouldn’t you like to learn X, Y, or Z from someone who’s brilliant on the subject? 

Unreliable Narration revisited

Ok.. allow me to kinda break this up here… Didn’t Matt just say, only a few paragraphs back.. well he was talking about this notion of the “unreliable narrator,” right? A premise of the tutorial I’m doing is “I don’t actually know what I’m doing, and yet I’m making a tutorial on it.” Why in hell would you want to learn from someone who doesn’t know what your teaching? This is not someone who is brilliant at X, Y, and Z!!! Or is he?

Hopefully.. you’d dig me as a sound artist.. you listen to my music..  and you’re like “holy shit, this is amazing.” Even if you don’t actually think my music is amazing.. if you at least respect it enough to go “yeah, that dude is the real thing” then.. I’m not in the category of “those who can’t: teach.” This onto its self puts me on another level. 

What you’re getting in the tutorial is.. “how that crazy guy makes that music.” A part of what you learn from the tutorial is “It’s ok to not know what the hell you’re doing,” and “not knowing what you’re doing does not necessarily have to keep you from making great work.” All of which brings us to a complicated series of philosophical points that.. we wont talk about here today.

Beyond this.. as much as I say “I don’t know what I’m doing” there is, I hope, a sense that you’re still dealing with a heavy weight. The guy doing the tutorial.. he’s like.. an interesting cat..  and though he doesn’t know what he’s doing in the sense that.. the particular technical issues of whatever it is that he’s doing is a mystery to him.. he does know what he’s doing on a number of other levels.. and even if he’s a total… and even if he’s tell you “how to do it the wrong way” we find that this somehow is an adventure worth doing.

Ok, so on with our Goals of experimentation:

• There is the basic question of “how do we make a great screen cast.” I mean what constitutes one? What are the craft issues I need to develop? I have a certain idea about these sorts of things.. but those ideas versus.. what’s it take for me to achieve it.. is another matter.. 
• I want to create something where.. we get both the creative and the technical together.. because this just doesn’t happen enough…   

Next Morning Sometime

Ok, lets end on this:

Business Cases and Potential Implications

As I sit here typing this out I’m hyped on this project. I’m very smart on this social media stuff, and yet at least up until this current moment, haven’t really felt like I’ve quite done anything that would show this…  The screen cast project is text book social media strategy stuff..  I wont go far into this but.. A typical value of creating a blog or a podcast, for the creator, is that it helps establish the creator as an expert. One route to the monetization of social media has to do with leveraging the value of expert status. So if I go out and create a lot of screen casts tutorials.. I could develop a reputation along these lines.

An odd thing about my screen casts is that.. they are all about Matt doing things “his way.” In a certain essential kind of way.. These screen casts a part of showing you how I work.. how I make the stuff I make. In this sense they have a public relations kinda value.. They are all about my work, after all.. and by going through them you’d gain a special appreciation for my work. These screen casts are a kind of advertisement for my work: People will very often go to some place like Youtube to learn how to do X. If I make content that’s valuable to a person wanting to know how to do X.. They then, kinda sorta, meet me and my personal brand. This person is a person who’s perhaps more likely to appreciate my work since they are.. at least in some sense.. a kind of peer in the field.. they are kinda close to a target demographic.. This person, as a part of learning whatever.. learns how I do it.. and about what I do.. and my work.. 

Why I’m feeling excited 

I’ve really only started what’s likely to be a long process of producing my first screen cast.. but already there are a few things becoming obvious to me.

1. I’m very good at teaching.. I’m very good at breaking down complex ideas into simple ideas.. helping you digest stuff.
2. I’m really passionate about what I do.
3. I really want to empower my audience to greatness.. 
4. There is some sense that.. as crazy as I may or may not be.. and as much as I might not even know what I’m doing.. there really is a kind of weight to these presentations.. something you feel.. something kinda brilliant
5. The casts are very much off the cuff.. kinda stream of consciousness stuff.. so there’s a real realness to them.. an energy.. a humanity.. 
6. A lot of the stuff you find for music production.. the screen casts are like “look how cool I am.” They seem, at least to me, to be arrogant dicks.. and you’re like “dude, you’re really not that great, you just understand a particular basic thing.” The casts I make are humble and without pretensions.. they are all about wanting to empower you.. and share passion with you.. They want to show you amazing things.. 
7. In the end, assuming I actually follow through on this project, the casts will cover a lot of territory.. everything from music production to video to animation to interactive to social media to whatever.. Err, I’ll have to dig deeper into this one..

I’ll end on this:

I never know how to describe what I do.. because I do so many different things.. and that’s probably what’s most impressive about me. What I seek to do is to empower you to do something remarkable… which has to do with how I’m re-conceptualizing the future of the arts and media.. business wise. This is the organizing principle, or a significant one.. behind my skill sets.. and what I could likely teach.. if I do so.. it could be revolutionary as a program.. I may blog more on this latter… 

Latter that night 

Im tired… must sleep, will post this as is… not sure how I feel about it, but what the hell

Well.. I figure I ought to try and post something before bed.. though I’m a little out of it.. I should be in bed now.

There’s events going on that bare speaking of..  On just how things are kind of progressing.

As I finally get around to sorta filling out this computer.. that is getting real software on it.. This here Mac Pro.. I can tell you this thing is bad ass as hell..  Mind you I’m still coming from a G4 perspective here.. but omg… I was goofing around with Photoshop open.. while at the same time I had Final Cut doing a batch capture… something I’m still not 100% on.. but basically you put a tape into your video camera.. you connect your camera up to your computer, and Final Cut controls your camera.. you go through the tape and select sections of the tape that you’d like to capture.. selecting in and out points.. and when you’re done, you tell it to do a batch capture.. and it brings that video onto your drives.

I’ve probably explained this, but just incase I haven’t.. My Mac Pro has 4 drives in it..  Two are set up as RAIDs.. basically you hook up two drives to work as one, and get about twice the performance out of those drives as you would from a single drive.. It has the unfortunate problem that if ether drive dies.. you loose all the data on that drive.. thus we call it a “scary raid.” I’m hoping that Blue Ray HD comes to the Mac soon.. primarily I think it’s an issue of the OS, so we’ll be waiting for the next OS to stop buy… and at that point… why Blue Rays will more then likely come to the Mac. You can currently buy Internal Blue Ray drives.. but I don’t know what the whole story is on this.. the problem would be that you wouldn’t be able to watch Blue Ray movies until this issue is worked out.. 

All of which is a bit of a side story.. I should go so far as to say that I’m waiting for Blue Ray HD burners.. because they would allow you to burn a huge amount of data to a Blue Ray disk.. which would give you a means of backing stuff up.. once my RAID fills up.. its close to one TB worth of storage on that drive.. I have another 500 GB drive where I intend to put stuff once it’s finished..

So we are digitizing via Final Cut, fooling around in Photoshop.. and then to make things even more fun.. playing a computer game.. all at the same time.. more or less.. and still I’m only using a small portion of the processor power.. which is a little on the mind blowing side for me. I mean you feel a little as if you’re using multiple computers at once..

I suppose this sorta opens the topic.. of just what is up now. As I think I’ve said else where.. I want to give myself about 6 months to play around with all this new technology.. before I start having high hopes of actually producing anything..  

I’m adding a huge amount of complexity to my world.. a huge amount to try and learn.. and hoping to learn it all in a ridiculously short period of time.. I mean.. what I’m talking about here is.. between Final Cut Studio, Adobe CS3 Web Premium… and then add to that Digital Performer.. Ableton Live.. Komplete 5 and Kore 2.. while I know my way around all this software, to some degree, as is.. the amount ahead of me to learn.. why that’s probably more then 6 months of learning… and then add to that After Effects, and some kind of serious 3D graphics tools.. 

Oh, well I’m too damn tired to try and get through this. So we’ll leave this as is.

I’m a slight bit over tired as I write this.. I’m feeling somewhat overwhelmed by the prospect of the computer’s arrival. There is so much to try and get in order. Getting ready means doing lots and lots of research on gear.. lots and lots of gear.

Let me give you an example: Say one day you decided  you wanted to go do “video production.” Ok.. groovy, so you need a video camera, right? Ok, what do you get? We could vaguely say that there are 3 strata’s of video cameras: Consumer, Prosumer, and Pro. What are the pros and cons of the various stratas, particularly in relationship to “what your needs might be.” More complicated is the matter of.. well, how do you figure out exactly what your needs are? If this were not enough, there is the matter of.. well for video production you might also need microphones, video editing / production software, depending on the camera, you might also be looking into lenses.. you may also be looking into light rigs. 

Well I suppose I don’t quite have to figure all this out overnight. But I must be starting work as soon as the computer arrives..  

I actually have half a mind to buy two cameras, though I don’t know that I can actually afford this. I’m looking seriously at the Panasonic AG-HSC1. This camera has the advantage of not looking like a pro camera, is really small, and is capable of very pro results. (perfect for “social media” aplications) The AG-HSC1 came out about a year ago, cost a little over $2k, and now I’m finding it for under $1000! You don’t normally find pro in video cameras for under $1K! Still, its not exactly without it’s compromises.. not that you can get an uncompromising camera on a limited wallet.. But there are other cameras, for a few grand more, that might fit the basic bill.. 

So you see.. do you go on to research all this stuff before you make a move? I mean if you spend $1K on a camera, but the one you really need is $3K, then now you’re in for $4K..  Thus the feeling of there being so much to take in.. But if you go “hmm, I can see how this camera over here has it’s place, and that one over there has its,” well maybe its all ok. So what I’m thinking is..  the cost of cameras are falling dramatically these days.. so that what $1K buys today is probably very different from what it buys a year or two from now. So maybe the best tact is to take a long view?

As I write I’m watching “Lust for Life” on Ovation, one of the new channels we get as a result of Fios. Lust for life is one of the definitive films of the life of Vincent Van Gogh. This portrayal of Vincent reminds me, in eerie ways, of my own life.  

Much latter:

I’m exhausted.. time for bed.. but I want to publish this even as my thoughts are incomplete.. I’ve been thinking of doing more short ones.. blog entries that is…

What I did want to say is that the feeling over being overwhelmed is not really from the issues of video cameras, so much as by everything..  Hard drives, RAM, Daws, electronic drum machines, electric base, Liquid Mix, and on and on and on… so many different areas to focus on.. eventually your  focus grows dim, as its so dispersed over so much territory.

Ok, enough of my complaining… good night…  

So I’ve been looking into 3D software. 3D software tends to be a little on the expensive side.. well for serious 3D.  The price range seems to be anywhere from $1K to $6K…. a lot of money. The result is people don’t usually buy this kind of software unless they are really serious about 3D. And not only is it expensive in terms of money, but its expensive in terms of the amount of time it takes to learn this stuff. Indeed, in some cases people don’t actually learn all the software.. they specialize in specific parts.

From my point of view, the question is “what’s right for me.” What do I want from a 3D package? This then gets weighed against price.. and my perception of my own price sensitivity.

Modo 

My quest started with a program that goes by Modo. You can read Franklin McMahon review of Modo here. I’ve been hearing lots of good things about Modo for a while now. From what I’ve been able to gather, Modo might be the best 3D modeler on the market today.

The trouble with Modo, though it got some more robust animation abilities as of it’s last update, it has no character animation abilities. It also has no abilities for particle systems or….

Shit, I really need to explain some of this techno mumbo jumbo, ha? Ok, 3D animation is made up of various constituent parts.. we could call them disciplines.. let me try and give you a broad brush stroke picture of this:

Modeling 

When you do modeling, you are create 3 dimensional objects. That’s about it, though depending on how you want to slice it, 3D modeling could include rigging…  by “rigging” I mean the process of turning a 3D model into a kind of virtual puppet. This involves a process by which you define how a model can be animated. 

Texture Mapping

Texture mapping would be the art of coloring your model.. make in shiny, transparent, this that or the other thing.

Animation

Animation would be the process by which we move stuff around / animate it. You know “breathing life into the model,” or perhaps.. you basically create the performance.

Digital Cinematography

Digital cinematography involves stuff like…  animating the camera.. figuring out them camera angles, the framing, etc. It also involves how you light your scene.

Special Effects

By special effects I’m talking about “particle systems,” and “physics engines.” We could roughly call these “algorithmic animation systems.” This is animation driven by number crunching.. where you basically manipulate parameters…  You use these to create smoke, water, fire, fog… all sorts of fun things.

Wether or not the industry use these terms as I’m using them… well that’s another question.. I really just want to give you a framework for conceptualizing what I’m talking about.. so… back to software: 

Back to Modo

So modo is super duper uber groovy on the modeling front..  but you can’t actually rig up your models for animation.. though that’s not to say you can’t do animation in Modo.. but if you want to do the sorts of animation that involves a lot of character rigging.. you’re going to have to export your models into a another program.. that has such abilities.

So.. I think I could be relatively happy with Modo.. but there’s a point where I might like the special effects tools and the character animation abilities..  so…  time to look for what else might be out there. Oh yes, and we should mention that Modo runs at $895.

Cinema 4D 

Here’s the best review of Cinema 4D I found. As product lines go, Cinema 4D is perhaps one of the more interesting: You have a basic core program, plus a number of add on modules. You can ether buy the core app, plus whatever module might look good to you.. or you can buy a higher end version of the core program.. which is basically the core program with a particular bundle of modules…. and you basically end up with 3 tears.  

Ok, lets run through the modules:

• Advanced Render: Judging from the stills on this page, Advanced Render is the bomb. Cinema 4D’s rendering engine, without Advanced Render, doesn’t impress me so much.. but with Advanced Render.. yeah, I’m impressed.
• MoGraph: MoGraph is your motion graphics tool.. it’s digable..  and I suppose, though I’m not sooo drawn to it, it’s something I’d want to get into.
• Mocca: What’s up with these names? Mocca is your hard core character animation stuff.
• Hair: I probably shouldn’t have to explain this but.. Hair is a set of tools for dealing…  mmhmm, you guessed it, hair!
• Thinking Particles: Yeah.. particle systems.. 
• Dynamics: My impression is we are talking about.. a sort of employment of physics engines on animation.. 

There’s other modules to the Cinema 4D system.. but these are really the ones that interest me… so now lets look at the bundles:

• Cinema 4D:  $895. This is just the core app.. so you got modeling, animation, texture mapping goodness.. but none of the above mentioned modules.. 
• Cinema 4D XL: $2195. We got the Advanced Render, Mocca, and the thinking particles (to say nothing of net render.. why do you have to pay extra for that?)
• Cinema 4D Studio: $3495. Studio has all the modules of XL, plus Dynamics and Hair.. to say nothing of a less limited net render (your seriously making me pay even more for this) sketch and toon.

Ok, so lets review this a little bit… Basically I have to go to XL if I want to do what I want to do.. and I can go up to Studio if I’m really serious.. But I mean.. if I’m going to drop $2K, why not go all the way to Maya? I mean its as if there are all these categories we are interested in.. and in order to actually have our bases covered… we gotta really invest..  *sigh*

Maya 

I have an irrational desire of Maya. Maya grew up on SGI machines. SGI machines were computers that would cost you $100,000 or more..  and then, even after that, you’d have to spend a whole lot of money for Maya.  But then one day they ported Maya to the personal computer.. and the Mac.. and dropped the price of the basic unit to $2,000. Something about all this.. has always given me a perception of value.. that somehow Maya is worth a whole lot more then that.  However.. the cost of upgrading Maya to a new version, a yearly tradition, tends to be about $1000.. which makes it.. well every time a new version of a tool in my library gets to the point where it needs an upgrade.. I have to choose which tool is going to get the upgrade. If you have one tool that’s costing you $1000… at a certain point, that tool is just not going to be getting upgraded.  So I mean.. that’s really the big problem with Maya.

So here’s a review of Maya.

Maya comes in two flavors: Complete and Unlimited.

Complete: As near as I can tell, complete offers all the basics you want really.. for modeling, animation, character animation…. soft and hard body dynamics, particle systems..  Unlimited: Adds Fluid Effects, cloth, hair, fur, “live” and the Nucleus Simulation Framework (as described in the above review). The above review used a test computer that is fairly equivalent to the Mac Pro I’ll be using… Nucleus is basically about having multiple physics / dynamic systems interacting with one another… or at least thats how I understand it.

You can see the full feature list here, along with how they break down between Complete and Unlimited. You can watch video demonstrations of features here.

Ok, so actual prices..  Complete: $2000 Unlimited: $7000

To evaluate what might be the right choice, we might like to look at what we plan to do with the software, what are budgets look like, and what our future plans might be, and general expectations.

Expectations 

Serious 3D graphics.. getting to a point of.. not mastery so much as proficiency.. you’re looking at about a 6 month learning curve. (this is some complex stuff) Now I’ve done a fair amount of 3D in past.. just not at this level, so I expect that my learning curve might not be quite so steep.. Indeed I imagine that I’ll be able to produce results in fairly short order.. though those results will in no way be representative of the full potential of this kind of software.

My plan is to start by “creating stuff.” Stuff, in this case, being: characters, worlds, objects, and.. well, just stuff. The idea being to create a library of stuff, which I can then draw from.. for creating work.

What type of work do I want to create? I suppose this would fall into a number of categories:

• Shorts, of a quality worthy of animation shows. 
• Elements.. from special effects, to characters, to worlds to composite stuff into… for video projects
• Elements to be a part of multi media projects.. wether we are talking Flash / web presence stuff, or if we are talking about print material.
• At some point, getting commercial work / a career in 3D might be nice.

Of budgets and realistic thinking

At the same time as I say all this.. we should be realistic and remember that 3D is likely to be but one part of a broader media mix. So if the learning curve takes 6 months.. and only half our time is dedicated to this software, it’s probably going to be a year before I get through it all.. and the chances are high that it won’t even get have my time and energy.  So on some level.. when you think about how this fits into a larger budget.. You have to ask: what are all the tools I need, across the full media mix, and how important is 3D in all of this, and then budget accordingly. 

With 3D, I think we are at least in part thinking long term. Another words.. it probably makes sense to start out in a small sandbox.. and then work out over time. This, of course.. brings us to the subject of upgrade paths. I suppose the trouble is.. I want to at least start with character animation as a part of the mix.. So we are really talking about spending at least $2000 to start with. Aww, but wait, there is still a software option we haven’t yet looked at! 

Lightwave  

My understanding is that Lightwave fits into the same league as this other software, and yet is the cheapest we’ve seen yet. As I say this.. the impression I get is that Lightwave might be a little in the dark ages at this point.. which is to say..  It may have many of the same features.. particularly as pertaining to what we want to do.. but perhaps these features aren’t as mature of well implemented.. If nothing else, Lightwave appears to be a bit of an underdog in the 3D arms race.  When you take a look at the Lightwave web site.. comparing it to the sites for Maya and Cinema 4D, it just looks junkie-er.

On the other hand.. take a look at this video, produced by Lightwave “enthusiasts.”  There’s some very impressive stuff in there.. that looks as serious as you’d likely want to get.

What’s more, there appears to be a special upgrade.. for those using particular programs.. of which After Effects is included.. which indeed is in my tool set. This upgrade costs under $500! The full version is just under $900.

So for much less then the cost of Maya or Cinema 4D XL, I could get both Lightwave and Modo!

Here’s a review of the latest version of Lightwave. 

A few latter:

What bothers me about the Lightwave site is.. mainly user interface design. Not that any of the sites are exactly ideal from this perspective but..  If you go to system requirements for a Mac you get “G4 or G5.” Umm..  Apple has been on Intel machines for something like a year and half or more. The power advantage the Intel’s have over G5s, never mind G4s, is crazy huge. When we are talking 3D graphics we are talking about some of the most demanding applications, in terms of power hunger. As a result, you expect 3D apps to take advantage of computer advances faster then any other sorta application.. So to have, what is supposidly a major 3D app, talk about these old system specs.. with no mention of Intels.. is… scary. Not that you wouldn’t like software that does well on old machines.. but without mention, you’re kinda going “can this even run on an intel?” What’s worse is I’m buying a computer with 8 processor cores.. which is something that most apps don’t take great advantage of.. but you expect 3D apps to take advantage of… so all this left a question mark.. let alone the question of if Lightwave would even run on the new Mac OS!

So there were lots of details that were important to my decision making process.. that the site didn’t address.. to address them I had to head over to the lightwave forums.. where I discovered that things were better then I feared. Still, this leaves questions in  your mind as far as how well they have there act together… over at New Tek.. Still.. after looking over much, I’m left with the impression that Lightwave is a very complete package. It clearly has many of the features you’d be spending $2K for elsewhere.. or in my case, 4 times what I’m likely to spend. Plus, of course, there is a plug in architecture that allows you to add to Lightwave… so there’s room for future growth.

Back to Evaluations: Pipelines

On of the items on my to do list was “get professional work.” So one of the questions you must ask is.. how does learning one program or another effect your marketability? As I understand it, this brings us to the question of “pipelines.”

Major studios, believe it or not, are notorious for not using “the latest greatest” tools. Why? Because they have bought into certain pipelines: You have lots and lots of people coordinated on a project.. For special effects.. there can be zillions of elements that need to be put together.. and to manage the coordination.. well that’s in large measure the job of the pipeline. New tools, it turns out, often break the pipes. Indeed even new tools that are simply upgrades of the old tools!

All of this adds to the advantages a guerrilla artist can have over big media… but what about when the guerrilla wants to in someway join big media? Well as clearly as I’ve been able to understand these things…. we basically have 3 industries in question: Video Games, Film, and Broadcast TV. Film and Video Games.. it would seem.. have Maya as the dominant app in there pipelines.. where as in Broadcast TV we see Cinema 4D.

Lightwave.. I seems to not be at the center of many of these pipelines..  Still, it should be said, many film makers take the view that it’s best to have artists working with the tools they know.. and try to make the pipeline accommodate this. 

What will Matt do?

I don’t know that I’m quite finished reading reviews or trying to get through my evaluation process.. But I have to tell you.. at least for the moment, it’s looking like Lightwave.

[Editors note, this entry was started last Sunday]

As we speak, I’m just groggily awakening from my post Media Makers nap. You see Boston Media makers is a group that meets the first Sunday, of every month, from 10AM (roughly) to 12 (roughly) in Jamaica Plain Mass (think Boston). Making it for me often involves mass sleep deprivation.. which then takes some time to recover from.  But, it’s generally worth it.

I wouldn’t know the best way to describe the group. On a basic level, do to modern computing and the internet, all digital media comes down to ones and zeros.. so photography, sound, video, whatever.. its kinda all the same at some point. So the group is filled with folks whom, one way or another, make media and put it on the net. Some of what’s so exciting about our times is the new kind of democracy technology is bringing us, where literally anyone can become a content producer, where you can do something not that dissimilar from becoming your own TV station on the net… only for a lot less money and without having to worry about distribution. So it’s a pretty groovy revolution.

When you find your self in the position of being an independent content producer, of the net making sort, it helps to find other folks whom are dealing with the same sorts of challenges as you are, enter the Boston Media Makers.

Should you be interested in this sorta thing, and in the general area, you might want to stop by.. here’s a link to the group’s blog were more information can be found. 

Our tradition is to go around the room and have people talking about what they are doing.. here’s some of that:

Steve Garfield 

Steve Garfield, a pretty famous video blogger, introduce a couple of things to the group:

• Qik: Software, that when paired with an apparently expensive phone with a video camera attached to it, allows you to stream live over the internet from anywhere.
• A Live In America, from the folks who brought us A Live In Baghdad, is coming soon, and is looking for contributers. I’m thinking about participating.
• There’s a tweet up at Boston Beer Works at 7PM this Tuesday (tomorrow as of my writing this) Which looks interesting. Steve will be live casting it via Qik…  I forget the other details.. which make it sound even more interesting.

I’m fascinated by technologies like Qik: You wonder “what could be some interesting applications for this?” Or you wonder how you might use this kind of technology as a part of whatever it is you’re doing. As I put my budgets together, I don’t see where a seven or eight hundred dollar cell phone could fit into my shtick, particularly as Qik is still in an early phase of development, which roughly translates into “integration is less then perfect.”

That said, I was on Twitter the other day when Steve put a link to a live cast he was doing, interviewing some folks from the Obama campaign whom where, I guess, doing door to door.. which proved fascinating. From the Qik site, you could type in questions, that Steve could then ask the people he was talking to. You can find Steve’s Qik page here, along with archives of past casts.

Another interesting application for Qik, and I’m not sure if this worked out or whatever, but Steve was talking about a group who would do a live show, not through Qik mind you, where different people at there computer web cams.. would be talking, and it would be like “and now to George in Austin Texas.” So sorta like a live news show.. where you could cover whatever.. and of course what Steve wanted to do was to have it passed to him.. not in front of a computer, but off in the field somewhere.. fascinating stuff! 

Rebecca Herman 

Rebecca, is involved in a documentary project, having some connection to Duke university. This project involves documenting undocumented migrants in the hispanic community. This would be a video project. The project is inspired by, or of a similar vain as, 6millionothers.org. (what a great Flash project.)

I messaged her a while back in response for a call for help… as far as getting her blog / web design / social media strategy stuff together. We were going to get together to talk a bit, at one of these Boston Media makers, but that didn’t come to pass.

Well now she’s looking to do a kind of instillation project, using video. Made me think of some classes I took with this guy:

 And check out this clip from one of his instillations:

Pretty groovy, ha? 

And then, why just a week or to ago, I went to a bfpug meeting on “Interactive Design and Physical Computing with Flash.” Basically, you plug a circuit board into your laptop.. the circuit board has “ins and outs.” You can set up various types of “switches” as inputs into the circuit board.. and you can plug these small “engines” / whatever into the board’s out puts, which the computer can then control. The “engines” can work like robotics.. or you could use the board to turn on and of lights, and what not.  

Here’s an example..  Here, if someone stands between the TV on the bed, and the other TV, a switch makes the TV on the bed play the clip where the bed person says “move it, common, move.”

Think “Tony Oursler does Warhol 2.0?”

It’s kind of amazing, isn’t it? So this isn’t about technology, this is about.. well other things..  that the technology makes sort of magical. From an artist’s process perspective.. well, in this case it’s a little conceptual.. they way it interacts with the audience.. you see those themes from the earlier clip of Tony talking about personal and impersonal.. etc, etc.. how this plays with personal space / gallery space, in a certain way… or..  well you get the idea.

How this would translate to an instillation about immigrants is another question. Further, Flash is primarily a web app, so how might you take advantage of what Flash has to offer on that front? Would there be a way you could integrate that with a technology like Qik?

Rebecca has a blog at RegardingRebecca.Com.

Jason Stevens

Jason Stevens does Beyond Event Marketing and Advertising. He’s looking for people with media design type skills for work.. so I messaged him.

Jessica Burko 

Jessica Burko of JessickaBurko.com…. She’s an artist.. she does marketing and promotional type stuff for artists, and is just starting to explore some of this social media stuff. She’s associated with Boston Hand Made, a group of Boston area artists, who meet up on the first Thursday of every month. Ok, now here’s a group I need to explore!

Rick Burnes

I keep running into Rick..  He does 9neighbors.com. 9 Neighbors aggregates local news blog content, local to Boston, to one place. It uses a Digg like system, where in, community voting / ranking, impacts a stories prominence on the site.

Usually, when we think internet we think Global.. but.. perhaps particularly when your thinking mobile web, the importance of local is on the rise.

Tom Beach

This is where my notes gets a little shaky.. There’s supposed to be a blog, but I get an error message on the page. Anyway.. seems web design orientated.  Find out more at TRBDesign.com.

John Herman

Check out JohnHerman.org, he does great stuff. He’s an artist / writer / media maker / performer. He’s doing a web video series you can checkout at gravityland.com. This will involve user interaction, where users will effect elements of the series…  So you know, go participate. It’s still early, not officially.. well official yet.. so there may not be too much going on there at the moment.. indeed there’s not.. but stay tuned, or bookmarked / rss-ed if you will.

Jack Hodgson

Jack is clearly a very smart guy. I haven’t had to many opportunities to interact with him, but I’ve been seeing him around these circles since I started entering these circles. He’s doing a podcast called Uncontrolled Airspace. Uncontrolled Airspace is a podcast on general aviation.. in the “hanger flying tradition,” which is to say when pilots get together in the hanger, and talk flying.. in a colorful sort of way I understand, and I hear it’s a very good podcast.

Brain Christiansen

Brian works at User Interface Engineering. Jared Spool (his boss at UIE) was on episode 77 of Mitch Joel’s 6 Pixels of Separation a few months back. (a great episode on web strategy) I met Jared at PodCamp Boston 2, and he came, virtually, to a New England Podcaster meet up some time ago… Brian has a site at briandigital.com. He does the UIE podcast, and various other things.

Linda Shah

Linda’s involved with Beanywood.com, soon to be New Film Nation. Beanywood is a social networking site for people working in Film, and related stuff. This is some amazingly cool stuff.

BJ Hill 

BJ is doing a project called Walk Across America. During the Massachusetts gobernatorial race that elected Deval Patrick, BJ walked across Mass filling a note book with things people might want to say to whomever might win the election. This project had a social media component.  He won a lot of press attention for the project, which lead to an opportunity to meet Deval Patrick, and hand him the note book. Walk Across America is essentially the same idea, but on a national level.

Cool stuff.

Amanda Van Scoyoc

Amanda is an artist: photographer, documentarian, writer, and painter… Indeed she even has a BA in psychology. (you know me, how can I not bring a thing like that up?) She’s got some nice looking work, and a blog, that you can check out at Amandavs.com.

Steve Albanese

Steve runs Tutorial Depot, which provides video tutorials on how to use… well various sorts of technology. Currently he’s focused on music production tools like Pro Tools, Logic, Digital Performer, etc.. He’s looking for people to author tutorials. 

At Podcamp Boston, Steve asked me if I’d like to be a Reason Tutorial author. Can I get a Hell yea? I had planned to get right to work on it.. but life got a little crazy.

My mom was sick, and got really sick. I had to learn the new version of Reason, and as a part of this I worked on my Zar Matt A Thustra Deep Space Adventures project.  I’ve blogged about this here, you can find links to the actual music at mattsearles.com/music/. 

This was a part of NaSoAlMo, which was a challenge to make a solo album in the month of November. My participation was, at least in part, a tactic to hold myself together while my mom was as sick as she was.  Shortly after, in December, my mom died. 

More Links

After this, my notes break down a bit, but here are some more links:

• Project Think Different
• Left Ahead
• FloPrompter
• Boston Biker
• Bicycle Film Festival 

So you see, its sorta an amazing group. I mean it’s amazing what people are doing… what’s going on in this space.. and the potential of this space. It can be hard to go to one of these meetings without feeling inspired. 

I’m not sure how this would be interesting for anyone to read, this is just more on my plan off attack. Maybe it could be of some aid to thinking about you’re own attack plans, or something like that, but I don’t know.

I have a CD to flip. This is both survival money from my Dad and I, and it’s tool investment money.  I know virtually nothing about this financing sorts of stuff, but here’s what I’m thinking:

1. I should pay off all credit card debt.
2. I should make some sort of an allotment for my tool investments.
3. I should take out enough money to live on (and I don’t really know what this number ought to be)
4. Might be nice to have some emergency funds in the checking. (or maybe leave that to credit cards?)

What I’m actually thinking is.. I’m not going to be able to get a clear financial picture until I invest in some home finance software, which isn’t likely to happen till late February / early March, because of the evil Apple situation. One way or another, what I really need to do is hold off doing anything with a significant portion of the money, till I can get a picture. Right now, my principle job should be to work out my tool budgets. What exactly am I going to be investing in?

Currently, the list looks something like this: 

1. Computer / stuff that goes with computer (display, hard drives, etc) 
2. Sound Tools (DAW, instrument upgrades, and possibly new tools)
3. Video Software (Should I go with Final Cut Studio? After Effects upgrade? A couple other odds and ends)
4. Camera (DSLR): What do I need in a camera? Specs and Lenses mostly
5. Video Camera: What do I need for what I want to do?
6. Video Accessories: Lights, chroma key rig stuff, maybe microphones
7. Microphones in General: For podcasts, sound production, etc.
8. Modo (3D application)
9. Art Supplies: Canvas, paint, that sorta thing.
10. Education Resources: Books, and online stuff.
11. Are there other things I want to think about? Electronic drum kits? Electric Bass Guitar of the cheap-o variety?

I can go through a lot of money fast, so it’s important to think carefully about this stuff. As clearly as I can tell, from how poor my current understanding of my financial situation is, If I can keep my tool investment expenses to a minimum, I should be ok for a while.  

It’s hard to explain my plan, at this point, as there’s a mystery at the heart of it. I have to have faith enough to walk into the mystery, and believe magic can happen. That said, the tool sets should indicate something.

Fundamentally, I want to do something amazing. When I say amazing I’m thinking revolutionary, I’m thinking….Well I’m thinking there is a “disruption” going on. The disruption is changing the music industry, changing the film industry, changing everything. But most people don’t really have a big picture sense of what it all means, or where it’s all going.

Let me trying and layout what I’d like to do:

What if I created a video, lets say a music video just to have something to fit in our box. What if what I created was several orders of magnitude greater then anything you had seen before? 

Let me try and explain:

If I sit down with some serious production tools.. in such a way that..  once you get beyond the expense of the tools.. good design comes from time, I mean basically. The question is, “how much time can you give to refine this thing.” So imagine you created a situation inside of which.. time was cheap. At this point, it stands to reason that you could create higher production values then what Major Label bankrolls can afford.

I’m not a big Steven Speilberg fan, but what if you where Steven Speilberg, back in the days when his films seemed to look so much better then most of the other films out there?

Next day:

I present this idea to you as a principle, not so much as a “this is exactly what I’m going to do.” Here’s another example:

A friend of mine, it’s not unlikely that I’ll be helping him with some Flash work for a client. He was telling me about some of the estimates various design shops were giving him. What he’s looking to do, as far as I understand it at this point, is amazingly simple stuff. He literally had estimates in the 6 figure range. This is a project I though I ought to be able to do for 2K, maybe less, maybe more.. hard to tell without more details.. 

What this brings us to is the question “how much does Flash work cost?” As far as I understand the Flash market, there’s not really a lot of people out there who do it really well, it generally involves a somewhat complex skill set, and it’s probably not a bad career move to master the Flash Platform.

If you buy into the notion that good design comes through time, and if I’m doing my own Flash work, and the market prices can be ridiculous.. or even redoculous.. and again, if I’m leading a vow of poverty like existence so that time is cheap..  Dude, I could blow your mind.

A couple days latter: 

The truth is a little more complicated then I’m representing it.  For one thing, to get great results takes a little more then time: It takes talent, skill, dedication, hard work, and what have you. Much of what I’ll be attempting will involve wrestling with steep learning curves, and trying to progress at a huge rate of speed..

I also think there’s some sense in not trying to do it all your self..  but alas, I am a little insane! It’s best to work with people who are better at what you are less good at, then to necessarily try and do it all your self.  Hmm.. I suppose what I’m attempting is simply DIY on steroids.

With that.. its been too long since I’ve posted, so here’s this little bit. 

I suppose this blog entry is just me trying to work out where I should go from here: Career and Business.  Don’t know if you’ll get much from it, but it surely is a part of my unfolding story.

I think, basically, where I want to go career wise is as follows:  In marketing you have this range where marketers often fall: on the one side you have graphic designers and on the other you have analytic marketing folks, though this might be overstating the matter, this is at least an understanding I have.

Given the disruptive force of social media, and the nature of the space, I see an evolution coming:  My skill sets are such that I can do design as well as media arts.. everything form interactive, music, video, animation, and whatever.  This plus being obsessed with social media, I would imagine, might position me well for our little disruption’s out come.  So everything I ought to do ought to be focused around this kind of direction.

As I see it, there are probably multiple paths through this wilderness:  One path is to work on my social media presence and actually make it good.  Adjacent to this effort is an effort to use this social media presence as a means of getting the word out / promoting my art and music.  I have that plan, its just a matter of executing.  

Another path through the wilderness is to help other people in the social media space with similar activities.  Can I help bloggers and podcaster’s think about there strategy?  Perhaps I could help them with a little design work, or little of this that or the other thing:  The advantage of this path is that it involves networking and developing good relationships with other people in this space.  Networking with people who have a social media presence, and helping them to be successful, is probably a bitch’n way to help me get where I need to go…  

Another things is, if you have a promotional campaign you’re working on.. having these kinds of relationships are going to help..  If an employer is looking for someone to fill the sort of job I’m targeting, a part of that job will be influencer outreach, which involves developing relationships with influencers in this space.. and having gone on the project of helping people in the space, I will both already have some of those relationships, and I’ll be better prepared for the influencer out reach.  The final advantage of such a course is it’s just good karma.

The next big question is, given my financial situation, how much time do I have before I NEED to have a job?  This isn’t entirely clear to me at this point.. but depending on how much or little I invest in my studio, I ought to have a good deal of time before disaster strikes…  And with any luck I ought to be able to get some work prior to such disaster..  so as to extend the runway a little bit.

So… what might I look to put in my studio moving forward? Where might I like to go?

My preference is to, in all things, develop strategies that work on the cheap.  It’s all about getting the most bang for your buck..  Plus I’m very interested in a guerrilla approach to all this.  And after all, this would be an approach most applicable to other people trying to use social media for there strategy.. which is to say independent artists / content creators of all stripes, and general social media folks.

All that said, I do want to be a step apart..  I’m all for embracing a Do It Your Self aesthetic, but I also want to be a pro in all these areas.  So it’s a question of specializing in how to get pro results on the cheap.

I’m still a little skittish about spending a lot of money, but lets look at a possible budget.  This will be a rough drafted version, a kind of brain storming effort where the results are a lot more then you’d like to spend, so I imagine I should pull back from this a bit but.

I’m thinking lighting rig for video, along with microphones, something for chroma key.. including some software.. and a camera thats good for that.  Maybe a DSLR to.

Latter that night:

I think the best thing to do is just play with these ideas and let them roll over in my head.  The budget stuff that is.  Other then the computer, and to get some sound stuff going on it, there’s not really that much that’s real pressing to get on top of at this point.

A Project Already In the Making: 

Several years ago I bought a Mini DV camcorder.  It was one of the first to cost less then $700.   I’m not totally sure when this was exactly, but at the time I had a computer to do a little video work on.  Trouble was that I never really had enough disk space to really work, and never the money for the drives, not to mention that hard drives were a lot more expensive in those days.

The plan was to take the camera around with me and shoot stuff.. shoot my life.  Shoot whatever…  and then eventually turn it into something.  I now have a library of video shot over several years.  The project is.. to turn that into something.

Beyond the new computer, what I need to do is invest in some drives.

Here’s the basic plan for the project:  Go through tapes and digitize stuff.  I even have tapes going all the way back to college.. raw footage shot for who knows what end or purpose.  The plan would be to go through this old tape and start editing stuff into stuff.  Mainly just little sequences.

These sequences get exported and scored.  Or.. brought into the DAW and played with.

What I want is a process that allows me to play with stuff over time.  A process where you’re basically mining the old footage.  Trying to create strong sequences.  But the work it’s self… it could be about sound, it could be about what’s going on in the video, it could be about anything. 

Next day sometime:

As I let my ideas roll around my head I start to think my way through to possible ways to get what I want for less.

One idea I have is called “the punk rock approach.”  By punk rock I mean you’re not really doing things “the right way.”  My gut instinct, on a certain level, is instead of buying an expensive lighting rig, expensive camera, chorma screen system.. is to just go ahead and get an uber cheap camera.  The trouble, of course, is you can’t do good keying on the uber cheap camera.  This having something to do with technical issues surround how camcorders work.  All this said, After Effects, which is probably going into my tool kit anyway, has animated masking tools that might allow me to compensate for not being able to do proper keys.  

How good is this compensation?  This is a question to be explored, but there’s no reason why I can’t take the time to explore prior to making a larger investment.

The trick to getting good results with bad cameras is generally “good lighting.”  Indeed, lighting is a huge part of how you go about getting good production values, and how you develop an aesthetic.  In the biz we call it “painting with light.”

There is arguably a hell of a lot that goes into a “cinematic conception:”  Where you put your camera, how you light the scene, all this sorta thing.  This is an area I should jump into, as far as I can, on as low a budget as is possible.

A feeling I have is.. you create a home studio / portable rig system.. In my case on the cheap..  Something that’s enough to get you starting to explore this stuff.  In the social media context you don’t really need a convention idea of production values in the same way you do for TV and Film.  As a general rule of thumb, one can get away with doing this stuff on the cheap.  Then, if you get a client, and that client has a budget, you can rent the more expensive gear for as long as it takes to do the shooting.  At this point you are in a better position to take advantage of what that sort of route has to offer, plus you’re saving money.

Ok, this is probable enough for now.

It looks like had Apple announced a new Mac Pro, click here to see for your self.  It’s been, what, 2 years?  I mean since Apple really updated the Mac Pro?  Here’s the basic gist of the upgrade, as I understand it now:  8 cores is now a part of the standard configuration, the architecture on everything from processors, to memory, to PCI cards, and even the case has been updated.  Apple is also offering us new graphics card options.

The following article is more or less part 2 of Upgrading the old Sound Studio and Media Studio.  So check that out for further reading.

The Mac Pro is the serious uncompromising work station Mac.  You don’t buy a Mac Pro unless you really need one..  well unless you have money to burn, these suckers are expensive after all!  That said they do have a longer shelf life then a portable, and are cheeper to upgrade then anything else on the Mac line… so it might be arguable that from certain perspectives the Mac Pro isn’t really as expensive as it seems on the surface, and not only that but.. if you do the sort of work that needs a hell of a lot of power, where the time it takes to complete computationally expensive tasks has a direct impact on how much work you can get done in X time period..  then obviously more power is cheaper then less power.

As it turns out I’m in the market for a new computer, so I’ve been researching Apples various offerings for the past month or so. Indeed I tend to know what’s going on with the Apple line even if I’m not in the market for one..  but.  I’ve more or less settled into the idea of buying a top of the like Mac Book Pro, and I’m waiting for Mac World (only days away) to make my final decision, just in case they something I might want gets updated.  Apple announcing prior to Mac World a Mac Pro update has me doing some new calculous, so lets take a little look at that calculous:

In terms of what I want Mac Pro kinda power for..  We are mainly talking about sound and video production, with maybe some motion graphics and possibly some 3D graphics thrown in for good measure.  It’s within the realm of possibility that I could end up going in a more video production orientated direction then I’m currently expecting, and so for these reason processor power and graphics power are kind of important to me.

When you buy a Mac Pro you generally custom configure it.  So the question is, what sorta custom configuration do I want?  Here’s the configuration I’d probably go with: 2.8  GHz, 2GB RAM.. The default configuration comes with a 320 GB hard drive that I’d probably stick with and just add more drives as I go along.  I say this though that 320 GB drive can be upgraded to a 500 GB drive for $100 is something I’d at least look at. On the Graphics card front I’m thinking the NVIDA GeForce 8800 GT with 512 MB of RAM, to say nothing of duel DVI, for an extra $200 is probably the way to go.  I’m not 100% sure about displays but I figure you gotta have a 32″ HD display.  The question is do you go through Apple or Dell?  Prices on 32″ HD displays seem to range from between $1,400 and $2000.. For our purposes lets say we go through Apple for $1,800.  Beyond this Apple has some printers that with rebates that can come to free or $30 or more.  Lets not add that to the bill at this time.. just for simplicity sake.  Finally, on a desktop unit I figure I don’t really need an Apple protection Plan..  

The final price is about $4,600.  This before I start updating software…  The Mac Book Pro on the other hand; with an updated hard drive, monitor resolution, Air Port Express Base station, and extended service agreement comes out to almost $3,600.  Is a Mac Pro worth $1000 more to me then the Mac Book Pro?  The price difference of $1000 can pretty much be attributed to the cost of the monitor.  I suppose it’s entirely reasonable that I could buy a monitor for the Mac Pro that costs $700 or less, making the Mac Pro cost equal or less then the Mac Book Pro.   Now lets look at some of the pros and cons:

Are the advantages of portability worth the power difference?  

What attracts me to portability is the following advantages: 

1.  You have a portable studio meaning I can go and do sound, or any other sorta work, anywhere.  This is pretty huge, and a mega plus for projects involving collaboration.
2. I can do live events.  If the events are DJ-ing, involve playing my guitar, playing a keyboard or using my studio, I can play out.  Also if I want to give presentations that require a computer with which to present off of..  I can do that.
3. Being able to work anywhere means I’m not stuck in this room anymore.. I can go down stairs, I can work in bed, I can work in a coffee house, on a plain, whatever.  (I know this is pretty close to #1 but it does seem different somehow)   

The advantages of the Pro: 

We are talking about a 30″ HD display on the Mac Pro versus the equivalent of a 23″ HD display on the Mac Book Pro.  On the Mac Pro we have both a better graphics card and twice the video RAM..  we have 8 2.8 GHz cores on two processors versus 2 2.4 GHz cores on 1 processor on the Mac Book Pro… And of course we can upgrade the RAM for relatively cheap on the Mac Pro.

It’s not totally clear to me what the performance differences between these 2 machines likely is. My guess is the stats of the Mac Pro make it sound a lot more powerful then it probably is in reality, depending on what your trying to do with it.  Or perhaps I should say it makes it seem like the performance difference between these computers is more then it likely is.  8 cores does not equal 4 times the performance of 2 cores, even if each of those 8 cores is marginally faster then your 2 cores.  The truth of the matter is the more cores you add the less per core performance gains you get, so when you get into the 8 core world you’re not really taking advantage of the extra power so much.  I say this even as both the processor architecture of the Mac Pro system has been revised and the new Leopard operating system takes better advantage of multi cores. The truth is that I don’t really know what the implications of these changes would mean in reality.

In the end I think you come out on the side of “well look, what do you want to do, and what are your values in this matter?”  Personally I’m sort of torn.  I know that many of the advantages of portability are critical to what I want to be doing in the next year or two, but I also like having a lot of power on my desktop, and I like the kind of productivity enhancement that such a system can offer.  When I think of the sorts of things I’m likely to use my computer for over the coming couple of years, I don’t see any reason why I can’t make do with the power of a Mac Book Pro.  

But as I say this a strange idea comes to mind.  What if I got a Mac Pro now, and then maybe a year or so down the line got some sort of Mac Book.. just a low end sorta portable?  In this case your talking about shit productivity, where an awful lot of the sorts of things you’d like to do you couldn’t really.. or you couldn’t do it well enough to make it worth doing on the portable.. but you could certainly use it for live performance stuff, internet stuff, and to a limited extent collaborative stuff.  Granted, $1099 is nothing to sneeze at, but you figure you’d want to upgrade your system in a couple years anyway..  

I guess what I’m trying to get at is there’s a lot of ways to look at this.