Archive for the ‘Quality of Life’ category

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4K for Avid, Apple and Adobe

July 28, 2008

Following up on the last post, if we’re really looking at a future where resolution goes away as an issue for picture editing, as it has for sound, what does that mean for the designers of the software we use?

This is why so many people are now talking about “workflow.” What do we do with all this digital stuff? How does it move through the post production process?

But, frankly, I’m getting pretty tired of that word. Because it all too often means more work for the editing room. We end up shouldering more of the dailies burden and more responsibility for finishing, we work harder and longer and somehow, somebody else pockets the difference.

And I dislike the word for another reason. Because it’s become an excuse for editing equipment manufacturers to ignore the needs of editors. They start thinking that they’ll win the game if only they can cut Red material directly, or P2 or XDCam. And yes, of course, that’s important. But focusing on it tends to help you forget that there’s a creative person doing the work and that his or her imagination has to be nurtured.

So my wish for the manufacturers is that they forget about workflow and think about work. Start focusing on how human beings do all this and let that notion balance your interest in materials and process.

There is one workflow issue that does matter to me, however, and that’s how the equipment can better support collaboration among the small teams that end up making a film. We have a tower of Babel right now — incompatible file formats, resolutions, sample rates; applications that live in their own little worlds, unable to share much of anything with each other; and especially, no good way for a work-in-progress to evolve while all participants keep working on it. How much extra work do we all go through to keep sound, visual effects, music and color correction up to date with picture?

Yes, Apple has a lead over Avid in putting a complete post production studio in a box. They’ve empowered individuals to work as one-man-bands. But nobody has really figured out how to do workgroup collaboration yet. The winner of the NLE wars has to do both. And has to inspire editors to do their best work at the same time.

It’s a tall order. But it seems to me that because digital file formats have changed everything, the playing field is now much more level than many of us acknowledge.

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Categories: Avid vs. Final Cut, Avid Wish List & Bugs, Quality of Life, Workflow

Comments: 7 Comments

Digital Overload?

June 14, 2008

A piece in today’s NY Times reports that Microsoft, Google, Intel, IBM and others have formed a nonprofit to study information overload and how to combat it (The Information Overload Research Group). The problem is there for anybody to see, but the solution — turning off the email and the instant message client — is just something that a knowledge worker can’t seem to do. This reminds me of the studies of parents trying to wean their families from TV. Everybody tends to go nuts for a while. What will we do with ourselves?!

When I’m cutting I never have email available. It’s just too tempting, and a single interruption tends to take me out of a scene completely. But I guess I’m unusual. Post supervisors rely on email for everything now and being off the grid all day can be a problem.

I know, I know, this is “old fashioned.” Maybe it’s also old fashioned to actually concentrate. I’m a pretty good multi-tasker and that’s the problem. It’s too easy to get distracted.

The Times article also refers to a study showing that 28% of an information worker’s day is wasted with things that aren’t important — and with the time taken getting back to the task at hand after an interruption. If I wasted that much time I’d never be caught up.

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Categories: Quality of Life

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A Little Rant About Language

May 28, 2008

As someone who edited a magazine for four years, allow me to digress with a brief rant about language. I have two pet peeves.

First, “digital” is an adjective. As in “digital video” or “digital audio” or “digital acquisition” or even “digital divide.” It is not a noun — it modifies a noun. So, for example, it would be incorrect to say something like, “we’re going to shoot it on digital,” (how many times have you heard that?) or, “that was before I started editing on digital.” On digital WHAT? There’s a word missing — the noun.

Second, and more important for us, “editor” is a human being, not a machine. I am getting very tired of the recent trend of calling an editing system, a piece of software, an editor. We don’t call Microsoft Word a “writer,” even though it would be quicker and easier to use that word, and we don’t call Quark Xpress a “desktop publisher.” We never called our Moviolas and KEMS editors, either.

There is simply no logic for this usage — no good reason to confuse two totally different things by giving them the same name. It’s totally disrespectful and frankly, it’s just plain wrong. The machine does not edit — it allows a human being to edit. The hammer doesn’t build the house — and we don’t call it a carpenter, either.

We need to find another word for the device that allows people to edit. And for want of something better, maybe we should stick with the term that worked just fine for the first decade and a half of the digital revolution — “editing application.”

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Categories: Quality of Life, Workflow

Comments: 8 Comments

Putting Residuals in Perspective

November 12, 2007

In an article in today’s NY Times, Michael Cieply covers a recent study that looks at the overall profitability of the major studios. The report estimates that the majors distributed about three billion dollars last year in gross participation deals to stars and big above-the-line talent — deals that typically pay out regardless of whether a picture makes or loses money.

Meanwhile, the WGA estimates that total residual payments last year were just $121 million. So, as usual, the little guys fight over a tiny slice of the pie, while the big guys take home a huge hall.

The report also says that, over all, the majors lost about $2 billion last year, so $3 billion looks very significant to the town’s bottom line.

The networks aren’t going to present this strike objectively — they’re hardly disinterested observers. But many liberal voices have come down firmly on the side of the writers. The New York Times ran an interesting and supportive op-ed piece yesterday, by Damon Lindelof, co-creator and head writer of “Lost,” covering many of the key issues in the context of a newly Tivo-ed and digitized TV environment.

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Categories: Editors Guild, Quality of Life

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AMPAS and Intellectual Property

November 9, 2007

Warren Olney’s “Which Way, LA?” offered some interesting coverage of the WGA strike Wednesday (listen here). In particular, it included some enlightening remarks from show runner Shawn Ryan (“The Shield” and “The Unit”). Shawn is leading the push by show runners to support the strike, and he’s on the WGA negotiating committee.

The big bugaboo, of course, is residuals for shows that are distributed via the internet. The WGA made a lousy deal for VHS and DVD distribution in the ’80s and never was able to change it. They don’t want to make that same mistake again with the net, where more and more of us are going to be watching TV in the future. (Variety went over some of the deal points in yesterday’s edition, here.)

The whole thing strikes me as mighty strange. Remember that these are the same studios that are obsessed with protecting their intellectual property and preventing piracy — also on the internet. It seems awfully inconsistent that they’re now falling on a sword to keep writers from benefiting in the same way.

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Categories: Editors Guild, Media and Society, Quality of Life

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Nutrition in the digital age

July 5, 2007

A recent study at the University of New Hampshire offers some surprising information about the health and nutrition status of college kids. The study looked at data from more than 800 undergraduates enrolled in a general nutrition course (New York Times / University of New Hampshire).

The findings:

  • Eight percent had “metabolic syndrome,” (predictive of future heart disease and diabetes). More than half had at least one risk factor for it.
  • Almost none got enough fiber.
  • Most women didn’t get enough iron, calcium and folate.
  • Most got less than 30 minutes of activity per day.
  • One third were overweight or obese.
  • Two thirds of the men had high blood pressure.

Yea, you read that right — two thirds of young college men in this study had high blood pressure.

If 18-24 year olds in a nutrition class are this overweight, have this much high blood pressure, and get so little physical activity, what does that say about us digital professionals? Are we really eating better than they are? Are we getting more exercise?

Categories: Quality of Life

Comments: 10 Comments

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