haiku

'Wind' in Singapore

noreply@blogger.com (haiku productions) — Mon, 11 Dec 2006 09:16:00 +0000

On of the highlight of this year has to have been traveling to Singapore to edit 'Wind' a short film funded by 'Objectifs' a visual arts collective based in Singapore. The film was shot in both Australia and in Singapore on the Panasonic HVX200. It's a great camera and now that Final Cut 5.1.2 is out it's easy to work with. Previous versions of FCP make it a pain, but that's behind me now and I'm not bitter... really.
I cannot say how much I like working in the DVCPROHD codec, forget HDV this is 'the' format for the HD generation. It's low data rate, 4:2:2 color sampling so you can chroma key with ease. We shot and cut 1080p@25fps and were able to cut at online with no lag on my laptop with a G-RAID drive. We did a HD grade at infinite frameworks then did a film grain and highlight pass to give it a bit more 'filmic' texture. We were able to turn it around very quickly and projected it looked fabulous.
I should also mention Singapore is one of my favourite eating cities. I have to thank Royston for introducing me to my new love for 'congee' a savoury rice pudding with port and pickled egg. Now I'm hungry again... Damn.

Digital Media World Festival

noreply@blogger.com (haiku productions) — Mon, 10 Jul 2006 12:46:00 +0000

You know how you do things that are big, but then you kind of forget to promote them? Well I was moving house, renovating, had the flu and I presented at Digital Media World in Melbourne back in June. I was supposed co-present with 37 South's Colin Bell, but he was shooting on the feature 'Storm Warning' so I was flying solo. I basically covered the HD workflow and camera's I've had the experience of using. I figured if I'm following the very cool Jason Ballantine (editor of Wolf Creek) and being followed by guys from Pixar, I should cover the nuts and bolts. It seemed to go down well. The (quite inaccurate) blurb for my talk is below.

"In today’s digital video production environment, the traditional post-production facility faces a challenge in accommodating many different approaches to shooting and editing. High definition acquisition comes in many forms, whether it’s the new generation of low cost HDV camcorders, DVCPRO HD, HDCAM, Varicam or traditional Super 16mm film. Learn how 37south is dealing with the demands of a divergent clientele working in HD across a range of media from TV and film commercials to sales presentations"

Well Well Well

noreply@blogger.com (haiku productions) — Mon, 10 Jul 2006 12:22:00 +0000

I just found out that my plug-ins have got a write up in 'Edit Well' Magazine. Pretty chuffed!

www.editwell.com

In other good news 'Ten Feet Tall' has been accepted to Montreal Film Festival. Extra chuffed

Colourful Real Stories

noreply@blogger.com (haiku productions) — Mon, 10 Jul 2006 12:19:00 +0000

I was called in to Roving to help grade and online a new comedy show called Real Stories, The show was great fun to work on and full of gags that were still funny 3 weeks into the edit. Most of my work was colour grading as I was quite late to the editing party. This was my first exposure working with the HDV footage. I have to say I was disappointed with what the Sony Z1 produces. Part of the issue was with workflow of shooting HDV the down-converting to DV over firewire. Having subsequently cut the HDV short 'John' I think it's better to stay HDV native until the last minute and then down convert. I found 'Real stories' hard to get enough chroma information to do secondary colour corrections (such as making everything in a shot but a red phone darker). The chroma sampling is so low there was very little latitude to move before things got 'crunchy'. I am currently cutting s short 'Grace' shot on the Panasonic HVX200 - now there's a cheap camera with a lot of chroma...

Make Some 'Noise'

noreply@blogger.com (haiku productions) — Mon, 10 Jul 2006 12:12:00 +0000

Sorry for the lack of updates on the site. I like to think of it as a positive sign, a sign that I've been busy editing. A large chunk of the first half of this year has been spent as assistant editor on Matt Saville's debut feature 'Noise'. I was working with editor Geoff Hitchins picture editing a film about sound. We worked out of the Joinery editing on Lightworks, which I still think are the most organic way to cut drama. Interestingly enough, I was also charged with putting together the video playback material (newscasts and the like) which was done in FCP on my laptop. That kind of work is very painful on 6 year old Lightworks technology. Just goes to show, there's no perfect edit system, just the right one for the job. The playback material gave me a new appreciation of how fast you can create broadcast quality cliche effects with motion. Noise should be hitting Australian cinema's next year sometime.

Making a 'Faux Pas'

noreply@blogger.com (haiku productions) — Fri, 18 Nov 2005 23:32:00 +0000

When Aaron Wilson, says he's making a TVC, I say 'great'. When he says he needs it to rain, I think of practical rain rigs and say 'ok'. The he tells me it has to be indoors AND we can't get the floor wet. I pause for a minute and start to think digital. So 'Faux Pas' is born. With digital effects including digital rain, rain impacts, volumetric lighting, 2.5D compositing, film look, grading, lens flare, keying, roto & grading..... it was a bit of work, but I thing it looks ok.

Faux Pas was also a good example of on set editing. A great way to test effects work before it's too late and to ensure coverage.

UPDATE: Faux Pas has won Gold at the ACS awards for retail commercial. Massive congratulations to DOP Colin Bell.

Going into 'Denial'

noreply@blogger.com (haiku productions) — Fri, 18 Nov 2005 23:19:00 +0000

Launching December 8, keep your eyes in the cinema and open for the launch of The Kamen Brothers' (Matt and Chris) TAC funded short "Denial" which I had the pleasure of editing. The TAC fund two shorts a year to promote responsible teenage driving, 'Denial' is one of them.

It was shot on DVCpro-HD (Variacam) and cut at full 720p on FCP at 37 South. It was nice to do some hard and fast cutting to push an edit a little.

Presenting at LAFCPUG with Walter Murch

noreply@blogger.com (haiku productions) — Tue, 25 Oct 2005 22:00:00 +0000

As part of my trip to the USA I was lucky enough to present my plug-in's at October's LAFCPUG. The LAFCPUG (Pronounced 'laugh-see-pug') is the most wonderful collection of FCP expertise and support wrangled by the great Michael Horton. The real highlight of the night was listening to and meeting Walter Murch, the godfather of film editing. He has a wealth of experience, knowledge and insight into editing and I learned so much from his presentation of his latest film 'Jarhead'.

So once again, here are my free Final Cut Pro plugs.
Just download the zip file from here and copy the contents of the zip into:

Macintosh HD/Library/Application Support/Final Cut Pro System Support/Plugins

The plug-in then appears in the 'color correction' effects tab.

Ten - Seriously 40

noreply@blogger.com (haiku productions) — Mon, 22 Aug 2005 12:11:00 +0000

Just finished editing for 'Roving Productions' on their "Ten - Seriously 40" sunday night special. The show was a mix of clips and interview and great fun to work on. The show also gave me a chance to check out Final Cut Pro 5 and to test my Plug-in's on the new version. The good news is the plug-in's now work under the 10-bit renderer and I also got to use them on the colour grading of the show.

I also got a chance to try Final Cut Pro's multiclip function for live/pre-recorded camera angle switching on the hosting segments with Rove and Bert. The secret to multiclip seems to be a well organised log and capture and matching time codes. It did work a treat though and felt like editing rather than switching. The show rated well (8th most watched in Melbourne for the week) with an audience of around 450,000.

Final Cut Pro Plug-in's

noreply@blogger.com (haiku productions) — Tue, 02 Aug 2005 06:12:00 +0000

Ok folks - you asked for it. There are a couple of things that have bugged me about Final Cut Pro. The main one was a lack of an easy way to vignette a shot. So I present to you my easy vignette plug-in.

Just download the zip file from here and copy the contents of the zip into:

Macintosh HD/Library/Application Support/Final Cut Pro System Support/Plugins

The plug-in then appears in the 'color correction' effects tab. Have a play - I may post a tutorial at a later date, but don't count on it.

It comes with no warranty or money back guarantees.. It has not been tested with Final Cut Pro 5 and doesn't work with the 32-bit render option (blame Apple). But it has been used on TV shows for channel 7 & 10 as well as a fair few commercials - so it can't be that bad.

There is also the 'Facelight' plug-in which is a fast way to make under-exposed faces look prettier. But more on that later.

Download Marcus's Final Cut Pro Plug-in's

The Glenmoore sound job

noreply@blogger.com (haiku productions) — Mon, 01 Aug 2005 12:51:00 +0000

Just finished assisting Geoff Hitchins on the SBSi short feature 'The Glenmoore Job' (Previously called 'The Mentone Club'). Cut on Lightworks (I love Lightworks now) with the audio conformed from the DIVA source using Final Cut Pro and Spherico's excellent program 'BWF2XML'. This little tool turns Diva's BWF files to multi-track audio files for Final Cut with timecode. The conform would have been much more painful without it. Many thanks also to Andreas the programmer of the easy to use, but hard to pronounce 'BWF2XML' who fixed our issues overnight. The film itself is a cracker and looks gorgeous thanks to DOP Lanni.

Ten Feet Tall

noreply@blogger.com (haiku productions) — Fri, 08 Jul 2005 13:28:00 +0000

The website is up for a recently finished film I edited/composited & post path managed called 'Ten Feet Tall'. It features Michael Veitch and Sam Johnson. Shot on super 16 & transfered to Hi-def for a digital intermediate and 35mm finish.

http://www.tenfeettall.com.au/