Whether or not this ends up being any kind of major player in the editing world is still in question, but I was blown away at the potential capabilities of the system, yet completely shocked in general that they are even deciding to make this. I’ve loved Nintendo for years, dating all the way back to NES, and I think it’s crazy that they would try and make this jump into post-production. I guess they wanted to make the case that video editing should be fun and universal, and shouldn’t be left alone to the technical folk.

Shigeru Miyamoto, the brains behind Nintendo, made the announcement at the Kyoko Electronic Convention in Japan last night.

“Konichiwa! This all began when I had shot a video of my daughter’s birthday party, then I realized that I had too much footage, and it needed to be cut down to a reasonable length. I don’t own any personal editing software. Then I noticed most of my daughter’s friends playing with the Wii, and there were several girls sitting on the futon watching, with nothing to do. Well, what if these 8-year-old girls could not only edit this video for me, but have the same level of fun editing as the the other children playing the Wii?”

That sounds pretty insane to me that editing could be as much fun to an 8-year-old girl as playing the Wii, but he goes on to elaborate how this could potentially work.

“The only way to make editing fun for children and the elderly is to make it universally appealing. Normally you would have to go through school, or at least read the manual to an editing program to learn how to use it, but not with the Nintedit System! Through a series of new innovative gadgets and extremely fun mini games, literally anyone can edit.”

I was extremely curious as to what kind of gadgets and mini-games could possibly be involved with editing. And also how this whole thing works to begin with:

“To import the footage you shot on virtually any camera, you must go through a series of fun, beach-related mini-games to see how much of the footage you get to use. For instance, the better you do at playing Nintedit Import Volleyball, the more of the footage that you shot you get to use! It’s a very intuitive game though, so most people will get most, if not all, of their footage. It is a plastic, full sized volleyball that is tethered to your arm with a cable, it has 112 groundbreaking motion sensors built inside of it, so you can play it anywhere you have room to play it, but within 10 feet of your Nintedit system, of course. But chances are the first few times you play, you will fail, and only get to use a small fragment of your footage. That unused footage will be immediately deleted from the hard drive, and will encourage you to get better at the game for future edits. Nintediting is not only fun, it is a learning experience!”

A press release after the convention also stated that these other “importing games” will be available on launch day, with more to follow in the months after release (all sold separately):

Nintedit Import Surfing
Nintedit Import Dune Buggy
Nintedit Import Hacky Sack
Nintedit Import Flag Football
Super Import Brothers
Donkey Kong’s DVCAM Adventure
Metroid P2
The Legend of Zelda: The VHS of Time

But what of the gadgets, and how does editing actually work?

“Basically it works like this, depending on how many clips you have earned in any of the fun Import Series games, that is how many rounds you will go through in order to edit your video. For instance, if you have won 78 of your video clips, you will have to play a challenging, yet addictive, mini-game for each and every one of your 78 clips, in order to see how, and if, your clip makes it in the final sequence. On average, in testing, we found that Nintediters were getting a little over 100 clips in each of their Nintediting experiences, so in order to make sure it doesn’t get tedious, we have created for the Ninteditor a slew of 7 mini-games to challenge them. This will ensure that no person has to play the same one game over and over again. Instead they have seven to choose from!”

He went on to break down the seven mini-games:

Nintedit Bowling:

“We did a study, and found that literally every single person on the planet enjoys Wii Bowling, excluding a few rogue individuals who we declared insane and had committed to Nintendo work camps. Do to the fact that we are using graphics technology for our system that is only as good as the Nintendo 64, you cannot use Wiimotes, as a complete lack of backwards compatibility is in play. So we have invented a new device, which works much like the nicotine patches my mother-in-law uses. It is a disposable electronic patch, that you can place on any real bowling ball. It is full of tiny motion sensors, and you must also attach them to a set of real bowling pins. Then you can set up your own personal bowling alley in your living room! The amount of pins you knock over determines how many seconds the video clip will play in the Nintedit timeline. We have taken virtual bowling to a level more real then you can imagine! $7.99 for a pack of 3 bowling patches. Bowling ball and pins are not included with the Nintedit System.”

Scissor Harvest:

“In order to reduce the size of a video clip, you must use the wireless, external Nintendo Virtua Scissors, which are basically real scissors, with a motion sensor built in. On the screen, harvest vines will fly at you, and you are wearing 3D glasses by the way I forgot to mention, sold separately, and you will literally run around the room frantically cutting at the virtual harvest vines with the Virtua Scissors. Each vine you cut reduces your clip by one frame. In order to achieve the most realism, the scissor blades are actually real, but of course we have added removable plastic covers to ensure small children and the elderly don’t stab themselves accidentally (laughs).”

Text Shoot ‘Em Up

“Using the brand new Nintendo Sniper Rifle, in combination with the Nintedit Alphabet Display Device, the ADD we call it, you shoot motion sensor bullet rounds at the motion sensor ADD, trying to hit the letters you desire. But you only have a limited time to shoot what you need! The letters you hit appear in that order in your video. Can you say on-screen text anyone? (audience claps) The faster and more accurate you do it, the cooler the transition of the word will be onto the screen. If you are an advanced Nintedit marksman, you can set the ADD across the street, or on a moving swing set at the local playground for some extreme challenges, or if you are a beginner, you can just have your brother or sister hold it for you a few feet away. With motion sensors, anything is possible!”

Nintedit Hero

“You basically play Guitar Hero, and if you beat the song, you get to use it for the video clip you are playing for. Getting note streaks in a row enables the song to be played over multiple clips at once. We are still in the licensing process for the music, but we have a certified 6 songs to be guaranteed available at launch day:

“The Stroke” by Billy Squier
“Happy Birthday” by Patty and Mildred Hill
“Poker Face (DJ Dirty Dave Slow Jazz Remix #3)” by Lady Gaga
“A Very Slash Christmas” by Slash
“Bitches Ain’t Shit” by Dr. Dre
“The Laverne and Shirley Theme Song” by Cyndi Grecco

We are very excited to have such wonderful artists contributing to our Nintedit experience.”

Body Motion Challenge:

“We here at Nintendo have come to the realization that Americans are horribly, horribly fat people. If you want to speed up or slow down your clip, you must strap on the Nintedit Power Belt, which is loaded with motion sensors and electric shocks, and you must run for 1 mile in order to slow your clip down by 10%, 2 miles for 20% reduced speed, and so forth. Do you want slow-motion action scenes in your video? Then you better get outside and start losing 40 lbs!”

Cruisin’ Volume Racer USA:

“In order to change the volume levels of your dialog and music for each of your video clips, you take the Nintedit Super Kart Meter Measuring Device and wire it to the engine of your car. If you are a woman, you may need the help of a mechanic (women in audience start booing). I KID, I KID! (winks, men in audience laugh) We use one of our most powerful motion sensors we have for this mini-game. You type in the Kart Meter how long your clip is going to be, and it gives you a countdown to begin driving. Our groundbreaking motion sensors will detect when you are accelerating and when you are hitting the breaks. The faster you go, THE LOUDER THE VIDEO WILL BE! And vice versa. Experiment by hitting the brakes and speeding up at random on the highway to see the cool effects it will have on your audio! Race against your friends, see who can get the loudest clip! I can’t stress enough, though, if you are a small child, please do not play Cruisin’ Volume Racer USA without the help of a parent, or slightly older child.”

Nintedit Dating:

“We here in Japan have a plethora of video game dating simulators. They are good and all, some are pretty erotic, but we here at Nintendo wanted to give you, the Ninteditor, the most realistic dating experience ever known to a home console system. Basically, you put in a motion sensor chip into your brain, which can be implanted by a Nintendo-trained doctor through either ear canal, and then you go on an actual date with a woman or a man. At the time we are only offering heterosexual encounters, as our computers are having difficulty measuring motion sensors amongst same sex relationships… If you can’t get a date, Nintendo will provide you with a Nintendate for a small fee. No promises they will be attractive, though (laughs). The motion sensors measure how good you are doing on your date by your brain activity, and how much you are nervously shaking. It also has speech recognition to determine if you are saying the right thing. The better you do, the better the special effects graphics will be in your video! Let’s just say if you do REALLY good (winks, starts making subtle humping motions while quietly chuckling) your video will look like Avatar! And if you strike out, your video will look as pathetic as your Friday night. So when you see your friend with a terrible looking video, you’ll know his date with Megumi last weekend didn’t go so hot! (laughs) (audience laughs)”

Well I don’t know, I’m actually kind of sold on this. This seems like it might actually be a really cool and innovative way of editing. I’m excited, I’m definitely going to wait overnight at Target again to get this on launch day!

Oh, here is Miyamoto with his final thoughts:

“Video editing is no longer for the technical. It never was supposed to be. Do you know where the best, most creative ideas come from? They come from your 5-year-old sister. They come from your 95-year-old grandmother. THESE are the people that should be editing. Nintendo wants to take editing out of the hands of the people who have loyally devoted themselves to it for decades, and put it in the hands OF EVERYONE ELSE (audience cheers). Edit with your family. Edit with your friends. Edit with your dog. Edit passionately with your lover. Editing is a universal experience. Just look at this video that my 8-year-old daughter Nintedited about her summer at Nintendo Work Camp B, in a mere 17 hours of playing time.

And this power can now be in the hands of everybody, and anybody, and they can do it with ease. For only $699. Sayonara…” (audience starts rioting uncontrollably, 39 dead, 102 injured).

Today I join the extremely rare air of millions of internet folk. Today I do something that everyone from Roger Ebert to CindyCinema.com to your Aunt Rebecca does. Today I will list my favorite movies from 2009, to the excessively high amount of 25. Why 25? Because I go to the theater almost every weekend, I’ve seen about 60 movies from this year, so listing only 10 would inhibit my urge to talk about what movies I’ve seen. Plus everybody loves a list!

So let’s get right into it. I’ll be SPOILER-FREE. Here are picks for my favorite movies from the Year 1 A.D…K. (After Dark Knight)…

*** It should be noted that at the time of writing this post I have NOT yet seen Avatar, Crazy Heart, The Lovely Bones, A Simple Man, Sherlock Holmes, or The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus. All of those may or may not have had potential to make this list…

25. Paranormal Activity

After first seeing the trailer several months before its release, this was on my radar as one of my most anticipated movies for the year. After seeing the movie itself, I was slightly underwhelmed. Don’t get me wrong, I thought it was good, but I was hoping that maybe, especially with the ending, that it would be 10x crazier. But in between countless (sometimes funny, sometimes pointless) dialog scenes, there are some actual genuinely creepy moments. My advice is that if you’ve never heard of this movie, rent it when it comes out on DVD this month, and watch it without knowing anything about it, and you’ll have an incredibly fun time. Whatever you do, DO NOT watch the trailer for this movie, they mind-blowingly ruin the final scene of the movie in it! I’m not joking!

24. Watchmen

I consider Watchmen to be one of my favorite books of all time, so I was definitely excited for the movie, as opposed to being skeptical from the beginning that there’s no way they could pull it off. In the end, this satisfied me. And for the most part (I think) it satisfied fans of the graphic novel. From what I read from reviews, the main problem was that people who didn’t know the source material wouldn’t know what the hell is going on. I can’t certify this claim, but I can understand that happening. Plus it’s very long. That being said, I finally plan on checking out the 3 and 1/2 hour Ultimate Cut over the holidays.

23. The Road

This might beat out Precious as the “feel-bad” movie of the year. While Precious had glimmers of hope scattered throughout, this movie is just one long depressing journey down a road to nowhere. And at no point did Precious ever have the threat of being cannibalized by rednecks. This film about a father and son trudging along a road in a post-apocalyptic wasteland did get draggy at times, but it stuck with me for a while after I left the theater. Let me just say that despite its flaws, the good parts are great, and the tense parts are intense.

22. Drag Me to Hell

Ah, this movie brings us all back to when Sam Raimi made awesome, hilarious, and fun horror movies. Not to take anything away from the Spiderman movies, but I’ll take a chainsaw on an arm over web slinging any day of the week. And his return to horror with Drag Me to Hell proved to be almost as fun as his old stuff (almost). The only things that may have potentially hurt this movie are the lack of Bruce Campbell, and the PG-13 rating. Regardless, it’s a horror movie that doesn’t try and be scary so much (except for a dozen or so “jump scares”) as it does to be funny, gross, and entertaining.

21. Bruno

You either like what Sasha Baron Cohen does, or you don’t. That is probably what determines who will like this movie as well. I happen to find him hilarious. Bruno isn’t as funny as Borat, and neither of them are as funny as Da Ali G Show. While I hate to be in awkward situations and confrontations myself, I love watching it happen to other people. Because that’s basically what this movie is, just an 80-minute awkward confrontation. And as how it was with Borat, the deleted/extended scenes on the Blu-ray are often as good or better than what actually made the movie.

20. Extract

Mike Judge is 3-for-3 with his live-action films in my opinion. Office Space is a classic, and Idiocracy is a vastly underseen comedic masterpiece. Now with Extract, he returns closer to Office Space, while at the same time staying original. It’s about a guy who owns an extract company that employs about a dozen very stupid people. Mike Judge might very well be the best writer of “stupid people dialog” out there nowadays. Plus I enjoyed seeing Jason Bateman and Kristen Wiig get high profile roles, even if it’s in a movie that (like Idiocracy) was not seen by enough people.

19. The House of the Devil

If you knew nothing about this movie, and I showed it to you and told you it was released in 1982, you would have no choice but to believe me. That’s how great of an homage to late 70s/ early 80s horror movies this is. And that’s exactly who this will appeal to, fans of that era of horror films. It’s pretty cool. Hell, they even shot it on 16mm!

18. District 9

This movie was a nice little surprise this year, no one really knew what to expect of it. It played out as both a great sci-fi movie and an intriguing social commentary. For what it cost to make, the special effects were phenomenal and the aliens blended in seamlessly into the South African slums. I’m sure Invictus will get all the awards buzz and this will receive none, but to be honest I’ve seen Invictus, and the best movie about South Africa this year was District 9. And it won people over without a likable main character!

17. I Love You, Man

Despite coining the regrettable term “bromance”, this movie was consistently funny, and continued the trend of R-rated comedies being significantly better than PG-13 ones. If you’ve ever looked at Paul Rudd’s imdb page, you’ll notice that he is in a large amount of crappy romantic comedies and other garbage that no one really sees, and then he’s also in a small handful of good movies. This happens to be one of the good ones.

16. Moon

With shades of Kubrickian (if that’s a word) isolation and style, Sam Rockwell lives alone in a mining farm on the moon, just doing his job until his contract runs out. He’s been up there by himself for several years, his only friend is a robot voiced by Kevin Spacey. What I thought was going to be a movie about the descent into madness turned into one of the surprisingly cooler plots of the year. Like 2007′s Sunshine though, this movie may lose a little of it’s magic your TV as opposed to the big theater screen.

15. Trick ‘r Treat

I’m telling you, this movie is this generation’s Creepshow, if that means anything to you. I (like many other people who saw it) will be blown away at the fact this never got theatrical release (while garbage like Saw VI gets wide release). This mishmash of well made short stories blended into a moderately intertwined whole is probably the greatest straight-to-DVD movie I’ve ever seen. (also, some might consider this a 2008 release, but it didn’t get put out to the public until well into 2009, so it makes the list!)

14. 500 Days of Summer

I’m not a big fan of romantic-type movies all that much, but occasionally every few years one comes along that is actually a meaningful, well-intentioned, well-made film. This movie about heartache and the recovery process relates to me on many levels. And it’s easily the most cleverly constructed and edited movie about relationships since Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind.

13. The Hurt Locker

I liked this film a lot, I wanted to like it more, but it seemed like it should have been even better for some reason. It’s almost like Generation Kill: The Movie. I could have assumed a movie about a bomb squad in the Iraq war would be an extremely tense movie, but damn! This movie got me cold-sweating a little bit in the movie theater. This is the definition of an “edge of your seat thriller”.

12. Where the Wild Things Are

I normally go to the movies on Saturday afternoons, because I don’t like crowded movie theaters, but I knew if I did that for this movie there would be a bunch of annoying kids in the theater, as I see them wandering about in droves when I go in the afternoon (but I see non-children’s movies so I don’t care). So I went at night to see this hoping that maybe the amount of children would be greatly reduced, and it was, but ironically the theater was crowded and I ended up sitting three seats away from some annoying kid. And this kid, I swear to god, fell asleep during the last 20 minutes of the movie and started snoring…! The parent didn’t wake the kid up! How rude! That kid must have been dumb anyway, because he was missing a fantastic movie. But seriously, theater etiquette people!

11. The Hangover

It’s surprising that the most universally accepted comedy of the year was also really good, it normally doesn’t work out that way. And it’s nice to see Mike Tyson getting work again.

10. Observe and Report

I can’t stress how much I love this movie. It was probably 2009′s most “love it or hate it” film, but I was blown away by how much I ended up loving it. I read a review that called it a comedic version of Taxi Driver, and I couldn’t agree more. I’ve made pretty much all of my friends watch it since it’s come out on Blu-ray. It’s easily the darkest comedy of the year, probably Seth Rogan’s best role ever, and it saddens me that the most widely recognized movie about mall cops is still Paul Blart.

9. Adventureland

I can’t tell if this is actually a good movie, or I just love it for some odd reason. I personally don’t know anyone else who has seen it, so I can’t ask them. But I just clicked with this movie to an insane degree. Maybe I just related to it because it was similar to my life right after college. Regardless, it’s the best place to enjoy Kristen Stewart without having to endure Twilight.

8. UP

For some reason I never expect much out of these computer animated movies, then I watch them, and they blow me away 100% of the time (I just saw Kung Fu Panda the other day and the same thing happened as well…). In comparison to Where the Wild Things Are, this movie had adult themes but was more adaptable to children, while Wild Things apparently makes children fall asleep. My only regret here was that I didn’t see it in 3D when I had the chance.

7. Funny People

Judd Apatow will probably forever have a free pass from me to do whatever he wants for making Freaks and Geeks, but this is my favorite of his three movies. I don’t know why people are claiming it wasn’t actually funny, it was very funny, and it was also very serious as well, I think that’s the genius of it. All of the actors fit in perfectly with the roles they were given, and it’s disappointing that people didn’t like this movie more. I’d say give it another chance. I would also like to note that the special features on the Blu-ray collector’s edition are as amazing as they are plentiful. Hours of good extra stuff, especially the Raaaaaaaandy documentary.

6. Zombieland

Is it surprising that a zombie movie is likely the most fun movie of the year? It shouldn’t be, zombie movies rule! Woody Harrelson is in top comedic form, and I’ll need to see it again before I make a statement as bold as it’s better than Shaun of the Dead, but it’s pretty close. And I won’t ruin it, but there is a big surprise cameo that does not disappoint. I’m hoping for some sequels.

5. Fantastic Mr. Fox

Wes Anderson hasn’t let me down yet. I was pretty excited when I heard he was going to be making this movie, because I knew he would do great things with it. It’s probably his most accessible film to date, I could see just about anyone enjoying it, but at the same time it’s still vintage Anderson and fits right in with his auteur style. It’s still in theaters right now, so get the cuss out there and cussing see it!

4. Star Trek

This might be the perfect blend of nerdiness and coolness. This is a Star Trek movie! Should it be this cool??? This JJ Abrams character might actually know what he’s doing. I’m not a fan of the Star Trek series, and I was able to jump right in and understand what’s going on. This looked great in theaters, and the Blu-ray looks pretty spectacular as well.

3. Up in the Air

I didn’t really know what to expect when I went to the theater to see this other than it was super ultra mega critically acclaimed. What I ended up seeing was an incredibly simple movie, that was equal parts powerful. This is perhaps the most moving film of the year, and it does it without ever being hokey. In fact, the whole thing seems very realistic. This goes to show that you don’t always need a big spectacle of a story to make an amazing movie. I’m sure this will end up winning every award known to man come awards time.

2. Inglourious Basterds

This has everything you’d expect from a Tarantino movie; witty dialog, extreme violence, stolen ideas turned original somehow. I’m sorry, I’m something of a Tarantino fanboy, I can’t help it, I eat this stuff up! I even love his segment in Four Rooms! As he himself has recently stated, this may be his masterpiece. I may agree. Wait, Pulp Fiction is probably still better, but Basterds is quite amazing. I just watched it again this week on Blu-ray, it just reinforced my love of it. I really wanted to make this my #1, but I had to go with my gut…

1. Black Dynamite

No movie this year made me laugh as much as this did. I was laughing out loud in the theater from the first scene all the way to the absolutely insane ending. I saw the trailer for it earlier this year, and was excited to see it, hoping it would be kinda funny. It ended up being ridiculously funny. I drove 45 minutes away to see it during it’s one week theatrical run, and I almost feel special for being one of the undoubtedly few people who have seen it. All eight of us in the theater sort of bonded that day, we all walked out the theater looking at each other and chuckling with stupid smiles on our faces, eight strangers. Did we then go out for drinks afterwards and regale in hilarious banter? No, of course not, I don’t talk to strangers. But in all honesty, this is the definition of a cult classic (if you can call it that this soon, I’m doing it anyway), and when it comes out on Blu-ray in February I suggest you check it out, though, it may not be for all tastes. If you find the trailer funny, then you will probably agree that this is one of the greatest things you’ll ever see. Maybe I’m just crazy, who knows?

For your possible enjoyment, here’s two other quick mini-lists:

JUST MISSED THE CUT:

35. Orphan
34. Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans
33. Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen
32. Coraline
31. 2012
30. The Informant!
29. A Serious Man
28. Invictus
27. Precious
26. The Blind Side

The WORST films of 2009 (that I saw, I mean Old Dogs and Twilight New Moon are probably worse, but I didn’t bother subjecting myself to that torture):

10. The Final Destination
9. Whatever Works
8. My Bloody Valentine 3D
7. X-Men Origins Wolverine
6. Surrogates
5. The Men Who Stare at Goats
4. Friday the 13th
3. Year One
2. Ninja Assassin
1. Jennifer’s Body (not worth it even for Megan Fox or the lesbian kiss)

2009 was a good year overall for movies, and here’s hoping for a great 2010!

Happy holidays!

As a way to perhaps show how biased I may potentially be, I will say I am a full-on collector of DVDs. And not in a “yeah, I have 80 DVDs, my collection is pretty sweet…” kind of way. At the moment I’m typing this, I have 1,167 DVDs. I’m not joking.

But for the record, I’m not opposed to digital downloads. I think they are good in a certain way, but I also don’t think they are as amazing as they are said to be. I’ve even dabbled slightly in the downloading world, but in the end, I’m still a stubborn fan of the DVD. Let me state my case, and feel free to offer a rebuttal to any of my claims.

Price -

I’m not made of money. I’m in fact made of blood and organs. But I am by no means rich in any way, yet I’ve obtained somehow an enormous collection of DVDs. How? The first reason is that I haven’t had many real responsibilities to take care of over the years (family expenses/car payments/student loans), which I’ve been lucky enough to avoid (not that having a family is a bad thing…). But even so, buying everything full price still wouldn’t be possible with what I’m worth. That is perhaps the biggest factor in how I can obtain such an arrogant collection. Mainly, there is a wonderful, wonderful thing called Amazon Marketplace.

If you buy things on Amazon, you may notice under the full price there are more prices, such as “25 used from $4.76″. That is Amazon Marketplace. It’s pretty much eBay, except its all “Buy It Now” prices and they are almost always extremely cheap. For instance, why would you want to pay full price for The Dark Knight, when you can get it RIGHT NOW on Amazon Marketplace for $2.29…?

A lot of people try and claim that used DVDs are garbage, and they are all damaged blah, blah, blah. They, sir, are in fact rarely damaged. And if they are, the Amazon Marketplace seller always indicates they are scratched. They don’t want want you to be tricked, because then they have to deal with an annoying refund situation. Most of them are bulk sellers or ex-rental copies anyway, so they aren’t some creepy guy in his basement usually. And they ship faster than you think. In the (literally) hundreds of used DVDs I’ve purchased, I’ve only had ONE (yes, literally just ONE) DVD that was not as advertised and was scratched to hell. It was a 50¢ copy of American Splendor. And since I only paid 50¢ for it, I didn’t really care.

There's always one bad apple...

Which brings me to my point about downloads. The concept of “used downloads” does not exist. It never will. In a world of nothing but downloads, you will be subjected to only paying what retailers want you to pay. There won’t be any used downloads stores in strip malls where you can buy other peoples unwanted downloads for less. I went into a used DVD store recently and bought a perfectly fine used copy of In the Line of Fire for $3. It wasn’t covered in anthrax or grape jelly, it wasn’t dragged across concrete. It was just as good as a new one.

A retailer may lower the price of downloads after time for older movies and such, but they’ve been doing that with DVDs for years, so you couldn’t claim that to be a concept originated in the digital download realm. Amazon has almost daily deals for new, factory sealed DVDs for under $5 (though they are usually terrible movies, and I don’t see this being any different for the reduced download movie prices). Regardless, I don’t want BestBuy.com’s reduced Godfather download for $6.99, I want Joey Joe Bob’s perfectly fine used DVD copy for $1. People are too caught up in the concept of only wanting new things. Though, I do admittedly purchase new release Blu-ray DVDs at full price if I want to watch them the day they come out. Impatience is a key element in consumerism.

I NEEEEED to watch The Ugly Truth on release day!

Space -

Hypothetically, in the lowest possible scenario, lets say that every DVD I own is 750 MB as a digital download. At 1167 DVDs X 750 MB, I would need to obtain 875 GB of free space to store all my DVDs. That seems like a lot. And that is a vast understatement on space. That’s not accounting for increased high-definition Blu-ray sizes, full TV seasons, box sets, or countless special feature bonus discs. It’s probably actually more like 2 terabytes, who knows for sure?

Still, I know I’m on the high end of that spectrum, but I always like to think of things in terms of my parents. Having to buy computers for storage space, and the prospect of having to potentially upgrade it for space at some point, it’s a scary prospect to old people. They like having a disc tray that they can just put things in. They never have to upgrade that, regardless of how many movies they buy. I know in the industry we are in, we tend to think about these kind of computer/space issues as not that big a deal, but to my Mom, this all of the sudden becomes a big hassle. And there are more people like my parents out there, than there are tech savvy people. Think about having to explain this new concept to YOUR parents. Or even worse, try explaining it to some hillbilly! They watch movies too!

I know what your saying, “But Scott, with all your DVDs, you must have a huge space problem yourself, having to physically put them somewhere, you dolt!” Yes and no. They do take up a lot of space, but they don’t really get in the way.

Blu-Rays and Comedies on the left wall.

Horror/Documentary/Assorted on the East wall.

Several drawers like this filled with assorted.

TV shows go in the left closet.

Even more assorted in the right bottom closet drawer.

Drama and Action in the self-built DVD case. See and all of it barely takes up any floor space!

I even have a list online that I have so I can keep track of my collection. I also have it so my friends don’t have to ask me if I have “this movie” or “that movie” for them to borrow. I just send them the weekly updated list. They often refer to my place as Scottbuster Entertainment.

But I’m sure normal people don’t really have that big of a problem dealing with their DVD collection taking up a bunch of space. I mean, c’mon, everyone has a shelf somewhere.

Or if you live in a sardine can apartment, you can always buy a sleeve case to hold your DVDs. That can slide under your bed!

Theft -

It’s much easier to gank a hard drive and an Apple TV than a DVD collection. Some jerk can walk away with your whole movie collection without you realizing it, at your OWN wine mixer. You shouldn’t have invited that guy with the shifty eyes wearing the trenchcoat…

Nobody is gonna get away with stealing my DVD collection, at least not all of it, or even a 1/4 of it. That would take multiple trips in broad daylight. Plus if they robbed my house, they’d probably just grab my TV and my computer! The bastards! Besides, what are they going to do with DVDs? Whats next, are they going to steal my mid-90s AM/FM clock radio? Burglars only like shiny futuristic electronic looking things, like iPods and cameras. I think they are more interested in filling their arms with my Playstation 3 than they are with my Planet of the Apes box set.

"This kid's gonna regret leaving his copy of Legally Blonde out in the open...!"

Download Time -

Speaking of losing everything, two months ago my Playstation 3 completely broke. For no reason at all, after the warranty expired… It angered me. The relevance? Well, for one, it proves that electronics break all the time right after warranties expire. But also, I had about 60 GB of downloaded games and Rock Band songs that existed nowhere except on my broken PS3. As I assume how it is with all digital downloads, I can re-download anything I want for free in a case where my PS3 gets destroyed. I have an average internet connection (not sure of specifics, I think it’s Comcast, but it’s shared with the other people I live with), and it took me 5 straight days of almost non-stop downloading to get everything back on my new PS3. It was annoying beyond belief to get everything back, and I actually had the time to waste to download as hastily as I did, most people probably don’t.

Computers break all the time, and average people almost never back anything up. This is going to turn people off to the concept of downloading to a hard drive, because the first time Joe Schmoe has to re-download something, he may lose complete patience with the whole concept. Whereas if a DVD player breaks, he can go to the store down the street, pick up a new one, and watch whatever DVD he wants immediately upon getting home.

Another example: about 8 months ago I actually downloaded a movie off of the Playstation Network, which works exactly the same way as any digital download site will/does work. I downloaded a $4.50 rental of The Substitute in HD format.

It was over 6 GBs and took about 5-6 hours to download. I didnt even feel like watching it anymore by the time it finished downloading. I ended up watching it two days later. Average consumers dont have super fast internet speeds. Which leads me into my next topic…

Rentals –

Perhaps though, more than anything else, I may have to side with downloading for rentals. Even streaming would be fine (if you can get it on your TV somehow). Most of my argument is for long term owners. I’m more of a buyer than a renter, but even so, let’s say a family decides they want to have a movie night together on a Tuesday evening. They want to try to download a rental to watch. Then they make popcorn and snuggle up next to the fireplace, while little Johnny and little Sally are already singing the stupid Hannah Montana theme song or whatever annoying crap kids watch nowadays. And Dad then hits the “purchase download” button only to see they won’t be able to watch Miley Cyrus for another 4 and 1/2 hours… But it’s a school night! Now we have to start planning our impromptu DVD watching plans HOURS in advance…? Suddenly a 10 minute trip to Blockbuster doesn’t seem like such an outrageous idea now, does it?

3D -

In a time when a lot of talk is about the future of 3D movies, how do you obtain the 3D glasses necessary to watch a 3D download? Is everyone expected to just own several pairs of 3D glasses? Different movies use different types of 3D, so we need to obtain all these different kinds of 3D glasses? Last time I checked we don’t live in the same era as The Jetsons, so we cant download physical objects to our Cogswell-Brand Materializer. Do they come in the mail? That would seem to defeat the convenience of downloading wouldn’t it? Just wondering…

Sharing -

One thing I do very often is loan DVDs to my friends. Yes, they like to abuse their friendship with me in exchange for goods. But how am I supposed to do that with digital downloads? Can we not share movies anymore? What if I want to hang out at my friends place, and we want to watch my copy of Re-Animator over a few beers? Do I need to bring my entire hard drive, and hook it up to his TV? What about the other people in my house, do they get the shaft on all movie watching because I need to take the entire hard drive to watch one movie at my friend’s place? Can I just put the movie on a thumb drive and dump it on my friend’s computer? Is there going to be copy protection preventing me from doing that, like in the old days of iTunes? No? Then what’s to stop me from transferring my friend’s downloaded copy of Slumdog Millionaire on a thumb drive for free, to keep forever on my computer? What are the chances the government will hunt me down for this evil crime? Oh, they probably won’t look into it? Cool beans!

Wait, isn’t this what’s killing the music industry?

If you share anything illegally, Lars Ulrich will annoy the crap out of you.

The Suite Take -

In a perfect world, if I could instantly have my enormous DVD collection on a single hard drive connected to my TV with an easy, organized database, I would do it. Sure, I would do it. In a perfect world I’d also be dating Scarlett Johansson while I quarterbacked for the Miami Dolphins. But it wouldn’t be such a perfect world when that hard drive crashed. Having to re-download everything (even for no cost) would make me want to smash my head through my TV.

I’m sure you can call me a hypocrite for all of this, as I’m preaching for the average person, yet defending my abnormal collection. And I’m pretty sure most of my arguments can be voided by saying “Well, Scott, in a few years everyone will be able to download at 1 GB a second, and terabyte drives will cost $10…! There goes your argument!” Yeah, that would destroy my argument, jerk. But you can’t predict the future, and neither can I. Hey, the world is supposed to end in 2012 anyway, right?

Perhaps DVD collectors like myself will become like the new vinyl enthusiasts, constantly and annoyingly inserting ourselves into other people’s conversations at parties, insisting that DVDs are the REAL way to watch movies (besides a movie theater of course). Having a large DVD collection is not only an extremely personal thing in my life, as I watch these films/TV shows over and over again because it makes me happy, but it’s also almost an aesthetically pleasing part of my decor, in an insane and menacing kind of way. Plus, with downloaded videos, how are you going to get hold of nerdy-yet-awesome limited edition packaging???

There are a plethora of resources everywhere to teach you how to be an editor. There’s training websites like Lynda.com and Creative Cow. You can buy assorted training books at some coffeehouse-bookstore hybrid, where some homely fellow is likely playing new age music on a grand piano for Ramen noodle money. You could even go as far as to attend a terrible, terrible place called film school… But I laugh at you for doing these things. Laugh right in your pathetic face! You know why? Because I’m an elitist. I am better than you.

I eat dinner with 12 different solid gold forks. I have have different solid gold forks for different areas of the $800 steaks I eat. I only drink the first sip of a glass of $6000 wine, because I’m only satisfied with the first sip of a full glass of expensive wine. Then I throw the rest of the glass away and request a new drink just so I can take the first sip again. It typically costs me $150,000 to get drunk. What?! You’d like the rest of the glass?! How dare you! I would never allow someone who learned editing at film school to have my unused wine. I would rather destroy an entire wine field than give it to you, which is something I normally do once a month anyway, just for the sport of it.

I’d apologize to you for such a berating of your character, but my servant is currently cleaning the wheels of my Lexus with a toothbrush, and I normally have him apologize to commoners. But the reason I yell at you is because I love you, we are fellow editors, we are required to love each other by United States law. And I don’t want another tedious lawsuit on my hands. I just wanted to let you know that everything you know about editing is wrong.

I’m about to retire, so I’ll let you in on my biggest industry secret, since I have nothing to lose. There is an unimaginable resource located in the nether regions of the internet FULL of brilliant ideas by brilliant people. I take these ideas, and compile them into the greatest workable resource known to post production. So sit back and enjoy infinite knowledge! All you have to do is type in www.youtube.com.

Continuity –

How do you recreate a classic train scene from A Hard Day’s Night with just two teenage girls? No, no, no, the correct answer isn’t “why bother attempting it?”, the correct answer is to slightly juggle locations in their seats and use plenty of name-tags for clarity. I’d like you to show me one person on this entire planet who doesn’t understand what’s going on in this scene. You won’t find anyone, I guarantee it.

Filters –

Brightening techniques and color correction are essential for fine tuning your final videos. Often times people will let their videos become too dark to see what’s actually happening clearly. But with plug-ins and filters, these ghost hunters truly show us how captivating an image can be portrayed on video in it’s highest possible clarity. I didn’t know there was an FCP plug-in for finding ghouls! I’ve got the chills!

And in this next thrilling video, we take a look at how proper color correction can accurately show how your backyard is actually on the bottom of the ocean. Living under the sea is fantastic. I have several underwater mansions, but this one is pretty good. He captured the feel very well.

Sound Effects –
Being a twelve time winner of the Academy Award for Achievement in Sound Effects Editing has its benefits. Let’s just say that not one, but TWO local restaurants have named ham sandwiches after me. Well, it was two, but one of them got shut down for unsanitary conditions. And the other one burnt down mysteriously two winters ago. But still, people often ask me two things about my brilliant sound effects work;

1. “I didn’t know they gave out awards for that, how long have they been doing that?”
After I hear this I usually ask the peon what they do for a living, then purchase the company they work for and fire that person.

2. “Where did you learn how to do that, oh mighty overlord?”
Well, that answer is simple. Cat videos. Obviously.

Mind Blowing Graphics -

Did you see that??? This show must cost $50 million to produce, they just blow through intense visual effects like they are nothing, simply because they know they can! They have what appears to be a virtual ladybug crawl across the screen! I’m not 100% sure if it was fake, I’ll have to do frame-by-frame, but that was borderline brain melting! I’d like to see the render bar on that intense composition…! Weta Digital better watch their back, because these girls are only 10 years old, imagine the future potential…! I’ll have to e-mail them on which program they used because I am SO getting that. Though, it was a little hard to listen to the content because my eyes were being dazzled beyond belief, but I’m sure Jenna and Kristi had a show full of rich social commentary and thoughts on how to improve the American economy.

Here’s an even better example of blowing your mind, using the Michael Bay theory. As we all know, Michael Bay is the greatest and richest filmmaker in the world. His winning formula = Explosions. Lots and lots of explosions. Though, no one is better at explosions than the one and only DR. EXPLOSION!! He has a PhD in explosions!! From Dynamite University!!

While we’re on the subject of Dr. Explosion, he also teaches us two other great post production tips that we should always abide by no matter what;

1. Always make the credits to your video nearly three times as long as the actual story. You can never give yourself enough credit.

2. If the credits song is too lengthy for the 5 lines of text you had planned, just play the song out over black so people can keep listening to it until its over. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve used the first 30 seconds of “Stairway to Heaven” for a credits sequence, then just played the remaining seven and a half minutes out over black. It just works.

Pacing –
Pacing is very important when it comes to editing. Perhaps the most important. Observe how well this patriotic spy thriller flows from scene to scene, keeping us guessing what our duster-clad hero (or villain…?) will do next. I felt this got snubbed at the Golden Globes. Behold the intensity of Subversion Interface! It hack.exe’d right into my soul.

Stunning Action Scenes –
I saw the new Star Trek film, and to be honest, I was very underwhelmed. I’m not sure, it just seemed like the overall look of the film was, what’s the right word…? Ah yes, amateurish. I laughed out loud in my private theater at some of the action scenes in that film, but that was only because I saw this much more intense video the night before:

Greenscreen Technology -
Everyone knows that green screen technology was invented sometime around 1875 (prove me wrong; historical records of that era are shotty at best), but not until recently has the technology surpassed what the human mind is actually capable of comprehending. I often find myself wondering not only how these people are able to blend in so well to their environments, but also are they even using green screens at all?? That’s how good they look!

I don’t know how they do it, they captured the mood perfectly, I mean they are dancing so intensely that they are literally disintegrating! What a stunning visual effect! They should do a tutorial on how to do this human vaporizing.

This young, female soon-to-be George Lucas did a spectacular job keying around the green blob on the right side of the screen. I would think it would be hard to key around a green blob against a green screen, but she must have spent all night on it. I bet she has an advanced copy of the next version of Keylight. I probably would have ended up just keying the green blob out, but she apparently has the skills to key around it. I know when I am bested. Kudos.

Word of advice, if you’re going to use super powers on camera like this, you should probably hide your identity with a costume, I mean you don’t want any super-villains to know who… wait, what?! This is FAKE??

Why We Post -

People often forget about the most important part about a video. The message. There is no point in doing any editing tricks at all if the overall message of the video isn’t worthwhile. The main point of putting a video out there to the public is to show the world that your video is the best. Every video that goes out there should never have the intention of wasting anyone’s time. I mean we all shoot video of our daily lives, little “ha ha” moments that occur to us, but we save those videos in our personal homes in order to watch them amongst friends and family, remembering the good times, sharing fun memories.

SURELY, no one would ever post a video on YouTube, one of the most popular websites in history, if the message of the video wasn’t important. Surely, every video doesn’t need to be uploaded for the world to watch, only the important ones. The one’s with real stories to tell. Messages to convey.

You see, now everybody knows how awesome Trevor and Sedore are. Thanks Coady! I’m sure their antics will land them an ABC Family sitcom in no time, thanks for getting their big video out there for the world to see. This won’t waste anybody’s time, as it did nothing but enrich my life.

Ah yes, Devon, have you consulted the Guinness World Record people on your amazing jump yet? I felt riveted the entire time I was watching, the element of danger was enthralling. Thank you for uploading this, it didn’t waste my time at all, it actually gave me a shot of adrenaline to the heart!

Thank you so much for uploading this for everyone to see. Now I know what true love really is. I hope the story you were trying to convey in this video poem of love, that you wanted complete strangers to see on the internet, gets you all the credit in the world for being the opposite of a waste of time.

Oh.  Oh, sorry.  That one was actually a waste of time…

The Ultimate in YouTube Video!
I’m not sure why I didn’t just show you this from the beginning. Just follow the formulas of this next video and you too can become the next Winston Randall Montgomery IV. Though I probably would have thrown a fish eye effect in there, maybe some inverted sepia color effects too, but I guess that’s what separates a super rich successful editor like myself from the 15 year old girls.

The SuiteTake -

***Author’s Note: In an effort to not sound too mean-spirited regarding this entire post, I used to make movies 5x worse than any of these back in junior high/high school. Everybody starts somewhere, and usually it sucks. I actually commend YouTube on it’s spirit. And its “When Animals Attack” videos. Those are just hilarious. So to be fair, I’ll upload a video of mine on YouTube from 7 years ago, that is as “awesome” as anything in this post (and I made it in iMovie…!).

No longer do I have my routinely standard nightmares about homeless people dressed as clowns doing dental work on me at the bottom of the ocean while being chased by radioactive super sharks. No folks, they have been replaced by nightmares of what I’m doing in Cinema 4D! Wait, maybe nightmare isn’t the right word. Maybe I mean dream, yeah, dream is the happy one, right? Sorry to potentially mislead you with the whole nightmare thing. I’m actually having decently pleasant dreams about my future in the 3rd dimension. For those of you who possibly read my first post on getting started with Cinema 4D without any previous morsels of knowledge of any 3D program, this is simply a followup of some of the progress I’ve made, and whether or not I’m on my way to be working on Pixar’s next one-word-titled movie, or if I failed horribly resulting in an enormous amount of embarrassment causing irreversible damage to my relationships of my family and friends.

So as the title obviously states, here is an update of my top 5 recaps of advancements I made in Cinema 4D during 2009. This is part 2 of 17 posts I will periodically make throughout my life time. Part 17 will come on my deathbed, and will focus on trying to do a pre-visualization of my upcoming funeral. I expect my last words before I die to be something in the area of “god damn these splines!”

5. Turning a Real Life Object Into a Cinema 4D Object
So after all my initial messing around in the program, I realized that a standard practice that I would probably need to do for jobs would be to turn an object in real life into a 3D computerized object. I’m cool with creating random stuff from scratch, no one has any expectation on what an imaginary object should truly look like. But creating a replica of something requires, well obviously, that it look just like it…

So I thought I’d start simple and just try and recreate a product box. Going into it I figured the first thing I’d have to do is create the shape of the box. So out of what appeared to be logical thinking, I got a ruler and measured the Tiffen UV Protector box I decided to make, resulting in some dimensions of each side in inches. But there aren’t any places to input inches into Cinema 4D… So I just plugged the inches into new photoshop documents for each side of the box, converted the inches to points, and hooray!, I can input points into the dimensions of the box in C4D.

Then I just scanned the sides of the box at high quality, and put them into the photoshop sides I created and imported them as materials. Cool beans! I have a 3D version of a box I’m holding in my hand! Slap on a camera zoom with motion blur, and I now have a product box animation. I know it’s just a box (big deal, right?), but it was still cool at my amateur level of expertise. If I keep trying to recreate things, I’ll be well on my way to making a surrogate to clean my house in the near future.

[See post to watch QuickTime movie]

4. Being Able to Actually Render Stuff

One of the biggest problems I was having when I initially started learning C4D was that I was able to do some neat stuff, but I didn’t know what to do with it after I created it! I was very happy to finally learn how to render and output things, so that I can actually use them. They don’t make it very obvious to someone unfamiliar with the program how to do something as simple as export a quicktime movie. I was definitely doing it wrong initially, while trying to figure it out. I was just doing a “Make Preview” quicktime.

Then output it as a decent quality preview, and when it finishes I just do a “Save As…” in quicktime and I have a new, incorrectly outputted movie. I guess it worked for saving a quicktime of the project, but it wasn’t of the highest possible quality, and would probably be scoffed at if I attempted to use it for anything real. So then I finally figured out that you have to set all of your settings before you even consider rendering in the Render Settings, such as dimensions (I did an entire animation in the wrong dimensions, and tried to change it after the fact, yeah, I had to re-do almost the entire thing, OOPS, lesson learned), and which format of quicktime you’d like, where to save it, as well as how many frames and whether you’d like motion blur, etc. You could spend a good several minutes just going through the settings before you render each project.

After all of that it’s actually extremely simple to make a quicktime movie, because once all of your settings are set, you just click on “Render in Picture Viewer”. That title doesn’t make sense to me for making quicktime videos, but well, that’s exactly what it will do. In full resolution.

And in reference to my first post on this subject, I wasn’t able to make a quicktime of the crappy slap animation I created on my first day of messing around in Cinema 4D, but now I’m able to! Here it is in all its crappy glory!

[See post to watch QuickTime movie]

3. Creating Abstract Still Photo Art
In addition to making neat animations, I was happy to learn a little about how to make cool still images as well. Photoshop is one of my favorite programs to mess around in, and it was fun to learn how to insert 3D objects correctly into still images using camera mapping, which seems similar to doing Vanishing Point in ‘shop. This just gives me another option to do cool things with still images that I might have trouble doing in Photoshop. Like making a client’s logo hang out in the desert for some reason, or giving a family on a picnic a pair of pet cubes.

2. Being Able to Bring in an Illustrator File and Animate it
One thing I was excited about was being able to bring in Illustrator vector images and play around with them in 3D. It’s more complicated (or annoying) than it would initially appear, but it makes sense how it works. For instance you can’t just flat out import a complex Illustrator logo and expect it to work perfectly. You have to separate the layers first, then re-assemble them in Cinema 4D, followed by creating and adding materials to give it some colors. There is a great tutorial I watched early on (located here) on Creative Cow on how to go about separating Illustrator files correctly and doing basic camera moves. I took the logo of our friends over at CBH Video, and jazzed it all up 3D-style. I surprised them with it and their reaction was “This is pretty cool, but I’m on a conference call, so please stop yelling in my ear…”

[See post to watch QuickTime movie]

1. Moving Cameras on a Spline and Creating a Scene With Stage Objects
Splines are frustrating to me. I’ve tried to draw them freehand and then straighten them out by making them B-Splines, but that only works to a certain degree. It’s hard to get them perfect. But I do realize that it’s even harder to just smoothly freehand animate a camera movement. It’s nice to have a visual line representing where the camera is heading.

Then having another camera starting at the end of the first movement and continuing in a new direction by using a stage object adds another dimension of animation. I’ve never really been that good at After Effects (I get lost somewhere when expressions come into play, then it’s like freshman year math class all over again) but I was amazed at the ease of using cameras in Cinema 4D.

In my opinion it just seems more fluid and intuitive than using cameras in AE. But I was just happy that I pretty much grasped the concepts of a basic animated scene, which points in good directions for the future of scene making. It’s harder than it looks to pull it off smoothly. Or I guess it’s easy if you’re good at C4D and you want to be a jerk about it…

[See post to watch QuickTime movie]

The Suite Take

I’m still learning, I’m not all around that great at Cinema 4D yet, but I’m looking forward at getting better! I know one sure sign that I’m not that great is when I go to the C4D Forums over at Creative Cow, and the way they talk about stuff makes it seem like they aren’t even using the same program that I’m using. Then I realized I was in the MAYA forums. But then I went back to the C4D forums and it was still relatively confusing. But I tend to understand more of it in each passing week.

I’ll let you know what I do next in part 3 of 17, which will be written entirely while skydiving! (Note: part 3 may only be two sentences long and full of typos).

So you’re at the local drive-in, sitting in your hot rod with a swell filly named Loralane, and you’re necking her like there’s no tomorrow. Then the roller skating waitress glides up to your car and asks if you’d like the Moon Over My Hammy special, and Loralane says she won’t go to the box social with you this Saturday night unless you get her some grub.  But you reach in your pockets, pull them completely inside-out until a moth comically flies out, and it indicates to both Loralane and the roller skating waitress that you are not only broke, but you’re too poor to even afford a wallet to not hold the money you don’t have in the first place. Then she goes off with Butch from the Green Cobras on his dirt bike, and you go crying home while “Earth Angel” by Marvin Berry ominously plays from a mysterious location in the distance.

You know what your biggest problem was? That’s right, associating with those dastardly Green Cobras in the first place! Second biggest problem? You need a bunch of money! Well, if you’re in charge of your own post-production company then you are bound to have a ton of out of date equipment, because this industry is a constantly upgrading, uphill climb. And the higher you climb, the harder it will become to keep carrying all of your old stuff that you barely use anymore. So sell it!

I know, eBay is not a new concept to anybody, and I’m not one of those power sellers that make their living entirely off of selling things on eBay, so perhaps, if you wanted to be a jerk about it, you could nullify my entire philosophy on selling used goods, and go read a different article from Johnny P. Sells-A-Bunch with his fancy green star. But hey, I have a 100% positive feedback rating, that’s good, right?

One of my jobs as an assistant here is to sell old equipment and other various items in between my other tasks, when I have time. I try and squeeze in about one item a week, sometimes more, sometimes less. I’ve sold a bunch of items that have gone out of use around the office and made a bunch of scratch doing so. It’s not Donald Trump money, but it’s a decent amount of change for not doing a whole lot of work, AND it also eliminates the clutter of things you don’t need any more. Frankly, it prevents people from tripping over all the extra crap in the storage room. Hello money, goodbye lawsuits!

I would strongly suggest bailing on quasi-sentimental things, and just getting rid of them on eBay. Now, sure, you should probably keep that family heirloom pocket watch that your father gave you 10 minutes before he was tragically eaten by a great white shark, but do you really care about that wolf statue you got from your vacation in Arizona six years ago? Yeah it was a great vacation, but the only item you have is this stupid statue of a wolf, and you don’t even like wolves! You were in the airport gift shop and realized you didn’t buy any souvenirs, so you pitched out $60 for this handmade wolf statue.

Seriously, I would suggest taking a picture of it, that way you can always be reminded of the wolf through the photograph (if you actually desired to) and then try and scrape $20 for it on eBay. Do you realize that $20 can get you five Spicy Chicken Sandwiches at Wendy’s??? Or roughly NINETEEN Junior Bacon Cheeseburgers!!! What is the wolf statue getting you, sitting on your shelf…? It’s probably just getting you a nice collection of dust, and is in no way contributing to putting four Baconators in your stomach.

This might just be me personally, but I don’t really need a bunch of memorabilia to remind me of where I’ve been. Pictures are enough, just look at pictures, they don’t take up space, and they actually remind you of something more than the gift shop where you bought a wolf statue. That’s what I think of when I look at souvenirs, I think of the details of the store in which I purchased it at, not the vacation around it, that’s what the photographs are for. Maybe the wolf statue is a bad example, you probably don’t even have a wolf statue. And if you do, you probably bought it from me on eBay.

So thank you for funding two weeks worth of vanilla Frostees for me at lunch with your $20. I hope the wolf statue looks great on your mantle…

Sorry for the rant, I was just happy to get rid of that wolf statue. But the main purpose for this article is to show you a nice program that makes dealing with eBay a breeze. It’s called iSale, and it’s been around for a couple years, but it’s current version (5) is really good. I’ve used it to sell a ton of things around here on eBay, the profits of these items that we no longer use go right back into the company. Perhaps if you wanted to make a little extra money and didn’t think about selling things, this will nudge you into doing so.

Selling things not only helps you, but clearly helps whoever is purchasing them as well, since they clearly want what you are offering. iSale is pretty much a simple interface that creates good looking eBay templates, and let’s you plug in the details in a very clean and compact menu. When I buy things on eBay I do tend to get creeped out by the lame looking, one paragraph/sentence default descriptions that you see on some peoples auctions.

Clients and other various other people who have walked past me while I’m using iSale look over my shoulder and say “Wow! That looks easy! I would love to sell a bunch of junk I have, but I’m no good at using eBay…” Then I say “Yeah, can’t you see I’m trying to work here…?” And then they leave the room whispering something under their breath. I assume it’s about how awesome iSale is. All you have to do is set up your eBay account in the iSale preferences menu, and then iSale will do all the work in terms of dealing with eBay, I literally no longer even need to sign onto the eBay website. It essentially does everything the eBay auction setup does, but better, and faster. You don’t want to be stuck using eBay’s “awesome” design templates, do you?

Are you serious? That looks like something I would find on a crappy Geocities site. Well, I take that back, saying crappy Geocities site would imply that there are also non-crappy Geocities sites. The eBay templates look like standard Geocities sites.

But after the account setup, you pretty much just select a template, in which there is probably something that relates somewhat to the item you are selling:

Plug in all of the useful information in the very neat menu interface:

I think that looks a lot better and more coherent than the jibber jabber of the eBay item setup…

Then you take some pictures of your item. I always take my own pictures, it’s much better than just finding a product image online and doing a copy/paste job on it, it looks more reliable to take pictures of the actual item yourself. I like to take photos with poor lighting (yeah… that’s right… the poor lighting is on purpose… yeah…) and try to include my hand in the picture whenever possible.

Then you can drag them onto your template in the “drop picture here” areas, and you don’t get charged 15¢ for every picture after the first, assuming they can all be uploaded through your MobileMe, or FTP, or Macbay.

But just fill in the template where it tells you to fill in, and you’ve got yourself a very good looking eBay auction (probably as good as it could look, especially for how easy it was to do).

Then hit “Submit” and your auction is good-to-go!

The Suite Take

With iSale you should no longer have the excuse (in whiny voice) “But I don’t know HOW to use eBay…!” I’m pretty sure I could train my Mom to use this program if I wanted to (which I don’t). Yeah, it is $40. But if you think about it, if you upload 10 pictures of your item each auction, 9 of those pictures would cost 15¢ each on eBay, coming to a total of $1.35 per auction of 10 pictures. So the price of iSale will pay itself off in about 30 auctions! I guess if you only want to sell one or two things and then stop, maybe consider getting your nephew to help you out or something. But I highly recommend iSale if you are planning on selling a bunch of stuff on a consistent rate.

And apparently iSale 5 has a new integration with the iPhone, so you can take pictures and create the whole auction on the fly with your iPhone! I haven’t tried this so I can’t vouch for it, but it sounds pretty cool. Just throwing that out there!

So get on with it and sell that awesome wolf statue!

Now I know that there are drastic and bold arguments out there for each, probably in the programming world, I mean EVERYONE knows that Neo never would have entered the Matrix on an iMac, and I guarantee that Jeff Goldblum could never have launched a virus into the mothership of those alien bastards in Independence Day without his suped up Powerbook. The infinitely advanced aliens were expecting Windows 95, but instead they got the wrath of Mac OS 7! Bwahahaha!

A lot of the argument lies in the functionality and aesthetic differences between the two. But I don’t think they are all that different. I mean they are both computers, they both do the same things with the right software. These childish comparisons are the equivalent of making fun of your fifth grade classmate for having braces. They aren’t even all that different at the most shallow level. Prepare to shield your eyes, Mac users, AS BEHOLD, I GIVE YOU THE NIGHTMARE THAT IS WINDOWS VISTA!

See, that’s not so bad, looks like a desktop. Now let’s get into… oh crap, one second…

Back to the… Uhhg, one second…

OK, well if you look down at… Ah jeez…

You just gotta get through a few things, I’m used to it, it’s no big deal. Now on to… OH C’MON…

I haven’t updated my anti-virus software on my PC yet. That whole virus argument doesn’t mean much to me. I know this annoying security risk stuff is for preventing the INEVITABLE viruses that ALL PCs get, but I don’t really understand that fear of computer viruses on your personal computer. My McAfee virus protection software stopped being on my computer when its 3 month out-of-the-box free trial ended. Hmmm, I still don’t have a virus on my PC…!

My PC tends not to have viruses, without needing working anti-virus software, typically because I do not download Russian-made Photoshop imitation software from shady torrent sites. I also don’t open e-mails from people like “Da3uinis Mcshul0r” who are giving me the subject line “Clixk hre for ultim0te party; girrlz aR the teen0age” CHANCES ARE that is POSSIBLY a SPAM message. I mean, I have a friend from college named Da4uinis Mcshul0r, but NOT Da3uinis Mcshul0r… NICE TRY INTERNET, YOU ALMOST GOT ME!

But these two operating systems essentially have the same functions. They both have a central menu to access the main functions, Windows on the bottom, Mac on the top:

They both have control panels to tweak what you need to:

Macs have a dock at the bottom of the screen that gives you quick access to programs. Well, Windows has an area at the bottom of the screen designed for quick access to programs:

They can both use the keyboard to switch between programs:

Hey, they BOTH even have annoying security questions:

And I don’t like the argument that Macs are easier for beginners to use than Windows, or vice versa. If you sit my Grandpa in front of a computer, he won’t know what the hell is going on, regardless of the operating system. I built a PC in high school (for an electronics class semester credit nonetheless, why hello ladies!?) and when I went to college and had to do all my video work on Macs, it’s not as if I set myself on fire in protest. If you know things about computers, then you should be able to find your way around on the opposing operating system, and if you don’t know anything about computers, then you should equally hate ALL computers.

I don’t want to turn this into a Mac vs. PC bullet pointed comparison, there’s plenty of other places to see that. I want to take the journeyman’s approach, and go right to the source, find out what I can about the actual companies that make them. So I called Microsoft first and asked them if I could have a tour of their factory. The man on the phone was kind of grizzled sounding, which was odd, but he sent me a one way plane ticket to Harbor Canyon, Mississippi, so I could see where Windows was born.

To be honest, this isn’t what I expected. (A homely looking fellow wanders out from behind a rock)

Billy Joe Bob – “Hey, I’m Billy Joe Bob, you dat guy who call asking ’bout my Windas machines?”

Me – “Yes… Yes I am Mr. Bob.”

Billy Joe Bob – “Actually, it’s Mr. McMuddberry. Billy Joe Bob is mah first name. Billy Joe Bob McMuddberry.”

Me – (looks around for possible exit strategies) “I see…”

Billy Joe Bob – “Come ohn intah mah factoray” (points at silver coated log cabin)

Me – “That’s really shiny BJB, what’s your house covered with by the way?”

Billy Joe Bob – “Dat’s alluminum foil. Dat’s so da government can’t access da chip dey put in mah brain back in Nam. And dat ain’t mah houze, yankee, dat’s mah factoray where I build custum Windas computahs. Dat’s why I intercepted yer phone call, I heard you was writin’ an innernet article discussin’ why Windas is the superiah computah. I brought ya hea, so ya could help start up da revolution wit us! We need mo’ proud Windas born Americans in ah organizatun.”

Me – “Wow, I don’t know how to react to this, I’d be honored, but you seem absolutely insane. I’m actually writing about how PCs and Macs are sort of similar.”

Billy Joe Bob – “WHOA, WHOA, WHOA, NAH! What did ya just say to my listin’ holes? You talkin’ ’bout MACS??? In frunt of meee??? You ain’t no… MAC LOVER are ya?!?”

Me – “Well, I actually use both and I – “

(Billy Joe Bob pulls out enormous hunting knife)

Billy Joe Bob – “I can’t believe I let some NO GOOD, MAC LOVIN’, LEOPARD HUGGIN’, DOWN-AND-DIRTY APPLE EATIN’ SON OF A GUN IN MAH FACTORAY!!!! NAH YA GONNA DIE!!”

(I start running)

Me – “NOT COOL! NOT COOL!”

Billy Joe Bob – “Git ‘em boys!”

I’m now running through the woods of Mississippi, a gang of Windows enthusiasts with pitchforks and torches chasing me. I dodge between the trees, only thinking in my head “What the hell is going on with these people?” I enter a clearing, oh no, it’s on the edge of a cliff! I’m doomed!

Billy Joe Bob – “We got ya nah, ya Quicktime supportin’ scoundrel…!”

So this is how I meet my end, at the hands of rednecks…! Then a flash happens to my left, almost blinding me momentarily.

Teleporting Woman – “Take my hand, Scott!”

I look over at the hillbillies and realize that crazy teleporting future woman is the better option, so I grab her hand, she types in something into her watch we jump into some sort of Kubrick-esk black hole!

Me – “Whoa, seriously, what is going on, who are you, and why did you save me?”

Tarmacia – “I am Tarmacia, and we’ve been watching you from afar. I traveled to Earth in order to prevent your death at the hands of Windows.”

Me – “Uhhhhhhhhhhhhhh… Did you say traveled TO Earth, implying that you aren’t actually FROM Earth…?

Tarmacia – “That is correct, Scott. In fact YOU are no longer on Earth. You are now aboard the Apple-9 Millennia, a floating space station in which all Apple products are developed.”

Me – “I gotta say, I’d be a little freaked out right now, but this is actually pretty awesome! But how did you know that I was going to be assaulted by those Windows people?”

Tarmacia – “We heard about your internet article on the Macintosh system, and were watching you closely.”

Me – “Why does everyone care so much about my internet article?”

Tarmacia – “Apple follows all news about Apple, regardless of importance. The fact of the matter is we value your stance, and would like to introduce you to Emperor Jobs.”

Me – “Well, I’d kinda rather just go back to Earth, I’m not really in a state of mind to-”

Tarmacia – “And I find you very attractive.”

Me – “OK, I’ll follow you.”

(as she leads me down a hallway, a man forcefully pulls me into an adjacent room)

Hermac – “Shhhhhhh. Don’t scream, I’m here to help you! I’m Hermac, I work in the iTravel development sector.”

Me – “What’s iTravel, I’ve never heard of that?”

Hermac – “It’s an Apple brand time-travel machine, it won’t be released to the public until 2052. Apple develops all of their products decades in advance, but deprives the awesome technology to the public until Emperor Jobs feels they deserve it. The iPod was actually created in 1963, but an early model got leaked by accident to one John F. Kennedy during a routine Earth mission, by a developer working here on the Apple-9 named Lee Harvey Oswald. But Emperor Jobs declared the public wasn’t ready for it yet, so we, well, we did what we had to do…”

Me – “I feel like you had to tell me something about my current situation, and you’re wasting a lot of time with this boring story.”

Hermac – “Right! You’re in grave danger, we have to get out of here!”

Me – “What?! No way! I’m about to meet Steve Jobs, and I’m pretty sure that that Tarmacia chick has the hots for me.”

Hermac – “The Great iCouncil of Elders know that you’ve been to the Windows development facility, they’ve been trying to penetrate it for years, but the Windows developers can smell a pure blood Mac user from a mile away!”

Me – “Whoa, really? That was the ACTUAL Windows development facility? That tin foil covered log cabin with Billy Joe Bob?”

Hermac – “Indeed it was, and now the Elders will use an iScrambler to reduce your brain to pure information to be dumped on an iBrain for visualization. They want your knowledge of the Windows factory. They don’t really care about your internet article.”

Me – “But I was planning on writing a clear, focused blog post this time! I wasn’t going to go off into any bizarre tangents full of nonsense, they should be interested in it for once! Wait, why should I trust you anyway? Aren’t you one of these people?”

Hermac – “Tomorrow is my 27th birthday, after that I will no longer be cool enough to develop products for Apple. They take everyone older than 27 to the iShrine, for which they supposedly go to iParadise for an eternity of iRelaxation, but I learned the true secret, do you want to hear it?”

Me – “Not really, maybe we should go…”

Hermac – “They convert us into iPhone Apps. They melt us down with an iMelt, and turn us into iPhone Apps! THE APP STORE IS MADE OF PEOPLE!”

Me – “Yeah, whatever, I believe you, blah-blah-blah, let’s just get out of here, alright?” (I start to run away with Hermac)

Tarmacia – “STOP THEM!!! Set iLasers to KILL!!!”

Hermac – “QUICK SCOTT, GET IN HERE! IT’S AN iTRANSPORTER, IT WILL TAKE US BACK TO EARTH!”

Me – “OK cool I guess, let’s do it!”

Me – “HERMMMAAAAAAC, NOOOOOOOOOOO!” (I fall backwards into iTransporter)

Me – “W-Where am I?”

Kimoto – “You are safe now, friend. The Windows society and the Mac civilization can harm you no more.”

Me – “Yeah, what was with those people? They were really freaking out back there…”

Kimoto – “Yes, your journeys have shown you the real truth. It is not one or the other that is better, both Windows and Macs are equally crazy in their genius. They both create great products, but their insanity towards one another will only lead to a path of utter destruction.”

Me – “Yeah, great message Bono… But what are you all about? Why do you know so much?”

Kimoto – “BECAUSE I WORSHIP THE MIGHTY GOD LINUX!!!”

Me – (gulp)

In junior high I started to restrain myself, and developed a general lack of enthusiasm for school. I became known as the “quiet kid” to anyone who wasn’t my friend. Once high school rolled around, I just stopped caring. Communication was at an all time low. I didn’t believe in anything, and my parents were freaking out. My teachers would ask me why I didn’t care about doing my math homework, I would respond with a shrug, followed by an eye roll, followed by detention, followed by another shrug. I had developed a complete lack of respect for authority, and no longer had any ability to talk reasonably with anyone over the age of 25.

Then college came around. All of the sudden girls were cornering me again, and doing more than kissing (though not in a Discovery Zone ball pit), and I had regained many of my communication skills in such a positive environment. The problem was though, that the awesomeness of freshman year would eventually end, and I crawled away from sunlight to live in crappy one-room apartments for the next 3 years. Watching free VHS rentals of rare French noir films from the library during the day, and only lurking out of my dwelling at night to party with the rest of the animals, didn’t help me develop into a model citizen. By the time I got out of college I was a pale, sickly hermit of a man who could only speak in Lord of the Rings references. To exemplify my point, here is a depiction of what I was like at the time:

So that gets us to the start of my first editing job, which is also my current editing job. I had come into this job with sort of a very, very unpolished professional attitude. I don’t mean that in a way that I spit on the ground and sleep on the job, I mean more that the only experience I had talking with people up to the point that I first started working here was immature conversations with people my age. Discussing why Back to the Future 3 is better than Back to the Future 2, stupid stuff like that. Now I was subjected to not only having to talk to people who didn’t grow up on the glory days of Nickelodeon, but the people I’d be talking to were clients, and saying the wrong thing could potentially put me out on the street!

I only had two jobs before I became an editor. When I was 16 years old my friend got me a job at Chicago Hot Dog at the local mall. The main perk of that job was that I really didn’t care if I got fired. So my relationship with the customers was absolutely horrid. I wouldn’t have put up with the crap I was giving to the customers. Maybe that’s why it closed down a few months after I quit (without two weeks notice), they kept hiring high school kids like me! Man, I was a terrible employee, but hey, I was 16 and making $6 an hour.

That was the same situation with my second job, which was a janitor after I graduated college. I was told I was going to be painting fences by the swimming pool when I filled out the application, but on my first day I was driving to multiple smelly park bathrooms, restocking toilet paper! The only communication skills I had to use were explaining to women why I was in the ladies room (“I’M CLEANING IT! I WORK FOR THE PARK DISTRICT! HERE’S MY ID BADGE! STOP FREAKING OUT!”). So as you can see my professionalism never really got off to a good start, which was a drastic change in my life when I entered the world of post-production.

Not to go into yet another back story of my life, but in film school, I was a one-man filming operation and I did all aspects of the production. Of all those aspects of production, I found the most enjoyment in the editing process. But editing my own projects in film school is a lot different than client based professional editing. In college, I would get home from class, eat dinner, sleep from 7 PM to midnight, then go to the edit lab in the basement of the communications building and edit in the dark, in absolute solitude, until maybe 5 or 6 in the morning. That was my perception of editing at the age of 21. I didn’t have anyone telling me what to do, or how to do it, so it was a completely different sport when I came here.

The first adjustment I made upon starting here, which probably happened out of fear more than anything and I still have trouble shaking it to this day, is that I have the overwhelming anxiety of saying the wrong thing. Or moreso, the offensive thing. I like to think that it is literally impossible to offend me, as I try and find humor in anything, but lord knows how many people I’ve met in my life who got offended by me somehow, without me trying very hard. So for the first long period of my working here, I just kind of shut down.

Even at risk of sounding egotistical, I think I’m somewhat witty, but that is a game of impulses, and in the work environment I’ve definitely tried to resist impulses. I think in the long run, I’m doing the right thing by not saying everything I think of that I think is funny. Because I find weird things funny, and I know there have been situations where if I pointed that out to a client, or even my co-workers, they would have looked at me like I was completely abnormal, and in the clients case, probably offensive. So restraint is a huge part of my day, but it has almost become an obsessive compulsive act, as now I find it hard to shake.

Another area of communication I had to deal with was responding to compliments. That was a very surprising one that I wouldn’t have initially thought would be a problem. I’m going to say that most compliments throughout my life have been back-handed, but I take pride in my work here in the creative realm, and every now and then I’ll get a real compliment. Right to my face. The last thing in the world that I want to do is start patting myself on the back in front of people, so I just get flustered trying to think of what to do next. I probably look like an mumbling idiot while doing so.

So I’ve tried complimenting the complimenter to mixed results, it kinda just puts them in the same position I was just in, and I don’t want to make people uncomfortable for trying to be nice to me. I think I’d rather take the humble approach and just coyly say “no problem” and smile, than show even the slightest bit of arrogance for doing my job correctly. There is an amazing and hilarious documentary called Overnight, about the guy who made the film The Boondock Saints, and I recommend it to anybody who wants to see just how costly arrogance can really be.

There is a lot of jibber jabber going on inside my head at most times, so when someone asks me a question out of the blue, especially a technical question, I sort of have to push aside the nonsense and consolidate a valid answer. The problem is, that while this is occurring, the visual of it is either me stammering around trying to get out the correct answer, or I will just stare blankly for a few moments while my mind gets to it. It probably confuses who ever asked me the question. I can only assume that most people (not just at work) find me moderately-to-significantly confusing. (Ask one of my ex-girlfriends about that…) So very often I’ve found the technique that works best is to repeat myself a lot. This also works because when people are explaining things to me, I find it easiest to listen and comprehend what their saying by not looking at them.

I’m terrible at eye contact, so when someone is talking to me, it probably appears as if I’m not paying attention, as I’m staring at the candy jar two feet to the left of them. This kind of sucks, because it makes me look like a jerk, but I’m in fact actually doing my best to comprehend what their saying! So I will often try to repeat back every step of what they just said (not verbatim of course) just to let them know that I heard what they said. It’s annoying, but it’s what I have to do, otherwise I look like I don’t care.

Despite any techniques I have, there are always screwballs. Even screwballs of the morbid kind. Not too long ago I came in for a weekend “side-job”, that was a memorial video for a nice fellow that had just died. I thought that the job would entail someone dropping off the materials and giving me 10 minutes of instruction, and I would spend all of Sunday editing by myself, college style. But it turned out that two of the family members would be sitting with me all day (which turned out to be a 14 hour edit [including scanning over a hundred photos]).

But I don’t know how to deal with grieving people, I don’t have much experience in that, and that’s compiled on the fact that I also have to communicate with them from a client-editor standpoint. Funeral directors go to school for learning how to communicate with grieving people! It wasn’t funny at all, like an episode of Dead Like Me… It was actually an incredibly stressful edit, as I was trying to get input from the guy who was literally writing the eulogy for the memorial service the following day, right there in the edit suite! I just took the approach of being as nice as possible to them, while focusing even more on giving them the best video I possibly could. That’s an approach I often take, make my work good enough to compensate for any lack of communication skills I have.

The SuiteTake:

I’ve been in a professional editing environment for 2 and 1/2 years now (not long by most standards I’m sure), but I get the feeling like while I still have a ways to go from a technical editing standpoint, I have an even further way to go in the client relations department. At the very least I try and be as nice as possible to clients so they don’t dislike me, but I realize greatly that I will probably never be as good an editor as I could be until I break the many bad habits I’ve developed in my life in terms of communication.

Most of my life I’ve just never been that much of a people person, but I’d LIKE to be, and I’m trying my best to change that. And I promise to never punch another client in the face for looking at me cockeyed. I realize now that it’s bad for business.

Ah, the words of Dave Coulier have never resonated stronger in my life than in recent days. Sure there were times on the playground in 4th grade when Full House lingo may have been more frequent, but not until I started editing did I consider Uncle Joey’s catch phrase to become a way of life. In a situation where a nice After Effects sequence or a Motion graphic project could jazz up a portion of a video that needs a little jazzing, I look to my go-to secondary editing program: Photoshop.

You could say that I’m not skilled enough in After Effects and Motion to utilize them enough so I resort to Photoshop. Well, that would be mean to say, and you know what, I think your shirt is ugly and you have poor taste in restaurants. I like to think that I use Photoshop in a good enough way that it could be the program I look to for sprucing things up, just by cutting up and rebuilding photos. So despite what my Dad insists, Photoshop can be used for more than eliminating red eye in pictures of his dog.

What I mean by cutting up and rebuilding photos is exactly what it sounds like. Bust out the lasso tool, and cut out multiple objects in the foreground of the shot, make them their own individual images, then build them back together like a puzzle. In certain situations where you need just a little extra spark in a video that is supposed to be a little more lively than the untouched footage has the capabilities of, cutting things out of images can be a cheap and easy way to do so. I know this is nothing new to anyone, it’s not like I invented the equivalent of Goober PB&J sandwich spread, but I think it works for brief moments where, again, you need something more than a dissolve to a panning photo. Some people think it looks cool, you may not think the same, and in that case, I think your shoes are stupid, so there. At the very least it is more interesting than dissolves and zooms.

Here’s an example; I needed a moderately flashy opening for this video about this dude, and I had a bunch of shots of him playing instruments, so I thought I would take a still image from the video of him playing the drums, and isolate them, and make him fly onto the drum set over a background.

So I took the first frame of the shot I was planning on playing out after the photo work, and I cut out the drums with a combination of a bunch of the select/cutting out tools, mainly the polygonal lasso tool. It takes a little time to get it to look pretty good, as a rushed job would look pretty noticeable I suppose, so just zoom in real close and trace around the drum set. I love doing this kinda stuff, when I was a kid I loved to draw, and I would draw all the time, but the only thing was that I was a horrible artist. So for my birthday one year, probably in an act of sympathy for my lack of artistic talent, my mom bought me a big notebook of tracing paper. I loved it, as it made me appear as if I knew how to draw. All it really did was raise my childhood self esteem by doing a quasi-talent (kind of like being good at Guitar Hero, but terrible at actual guitar). Anyway, the same fun principal applies here, just trace around the drums until you’ve got a good outline, and shift-drag it onto a transparent document of the same size.

Well now there is a cut out of the drums on the guy’s body, because obviously this isn’t an x-ray camera that can magically see through the drums and fill in the body. But cut out the guy’s body from the background anyway, shift-drag him to a different transparent document of the same size, and start filling in the gaps with the clone stamp and paint tools. It will look crappy most likely unless you are the Picasso of computer painting, but in this case it doesn’t matter because I’m going to have him fly across the screen in roughly one second of duration, so no one will really be watching for it.

So then in Final Cut, put both of the isolated transparent images in the timeline with the back end of it right before the actual start of the moving video (which should be starting with the same frame as the stills).

Then put a center keyframe at the back end of the guy’s image, and go to where you want him to come in, and pull him off screen. Now he will fly from off screen and settle in on the drum set. Put a little move on the front of the drum set and you’ve got yourself a neat little movement going on. It’s actually pretty easy. [you can look at the video after next example]

Later in the video I was told I needed to make a file cabinet do something cool. A file cabinet?! Alright. Same concept as the drums, take the first frame of where you want the moving video to start, make it an image, and start cutting away! Trace around the files in the file cabinet and make them all their own individual transparent images of the same size.

Now once again the image that had stuff covering it in the foreground (the cabinet sides) has some transparent gaps in it, so use clone stamp and paint and blur and whatever else you need to to get it to look like it is it’s own object that didn’t have anything on it to begin with. I put in a large black abyss on the right because I thought it worked.

Then again in the FCP, put all the layers down on top of each other (with the cabinet structure on the bottom) and build on the files themselves as you see fit, and when it’s lined up correctly with the start of the video, it will seem like your still image has COME ALIVE…! It’s an easy effect, and it makes a file cabinet look more interesting than just transitioning the shot onto the screen

In this excerpt from this other video, you can also build on pictures while they’re moving by cutting out the foreground objects that you want to build on, then put them all in on top of each other where you want them in the timeline. Then disable the foreground layers, and put whatever move you’d like on the bottom layer (which is the full uncut picture), then enable the other layers and copy the keyframes from the one you put the moves on to the foreground layers. Then cut them at the front of the clips where you want them to build on. (Also, I didn’t pick this song, I don’t even know who the artist is, and it got changed to a Michael Jackson song in the end, but I like the timing better on this song for certain areas [like the ones I'm showing you here]. But yeah, just saying, I listen to Lou Reed and The Clash, just trying to save my musical credibility…)

Then in this last example, I just cut out a bunch of photos for this highlight video into three layers each, and just mashed them together into a sequence. I tried to get the photos to play off of each other when I could, and have them flow to a degree. My initial idea (which may or may not have come true) was to achieve “a subtle Ken Burns effect on cocaine”. It’s very simple in execution, by just building on the layers one at a time until the full picture is revealed, then putting a move on the full picture.

I thought it looked cool in the end. I was going for “wacky” so I sort of went insane with the transitions, but you could tone it down if you wanted to do so, I don’t see why you couldn’t, it’s a free country for the most part. So, I just timed it all to an awesome song by The Cars, and in my opinion it is better than just Ken Burnsing the photos into a sequence. It might be too unsubtle for some people’s tastes, but it could work however you want it to work. And again, it really isn’t that hard to do any of this, you just need to have the time to cut the pictures out. And for this particular project, as the Stones would say “Time is on my side… yes it is!”

The SuiteTake

This is not a new concept to anyone, but perhaps you can do a variation of this to solve a problem of how to make a still image a little different in a video where you need something a little different. Maybe my examples aren’t your cup o’ tea, but I remember two things from my vacation to Disney World in the 2nd grade. I got to meet April O’Neal from the Ninja Turtles (whom I had a crush on at the time), and I also remembered the words of Dr. Dreamfinder and his pet dragon Figment, “Imagination is our key to unlock the hidden wonders of our world.” So maybe you can come up with something better yourself! (by the way, have you noticed how Disney hasn’t exactly been pushing the imagination theory on kids nowadays, like they did with my generation in the late 80s/early 90s? Every kid I see lately is a mindless dullard…)

And if you don’t like the effect at all, then well, I think you’re singing talent is mediocre and you have a less than satisfactory body odor.

This is an ongoing study into the mind of an assistant editor, and the various small tasks he is assigned to.

An editing facility is a lot like an underground fight club. Except it’s cleaner. And more work gets done. And there aren’t any fights. It’s actually nothing like an underground fight club. But that would be awesome if it was.

Aside from misleading people with opening sentences, an assistant editor has many responsibilities that go beyond actual editing work. It’s these little things that are required of the job that not only make this place run infinitely times smoother, but they are also the reason that clients keep coming back. Having this delusion that these minor things are the most important aspect of the office is important in not only ensuring that you keep doing them, but it also boosts your ego and enables you to brag about your job to attractive women at parties.

These little tasks can vary from cleaning spots off the walls to making coffee for people who may not even drink coffee. The fact that you brought someone coffee out of surprise will make that person feel great, even if it makes them feel nauseous from the smell of coffee that they despise. Sure I have to dump the coffee out in the sink, which some would consider wasted coffee, but I actually consider it a job well done.

You have to take note of subtle cues from people around the office. If a client says in passing that they used to eat chocolate ice cream when they were a kid, surprise them at lunch with a one pound tub of chocolate ice cream. They will look confused and suspicious, but if you read them deep enough, you’ll know it’s what they actually want. At the end of the day, when you are cleaning up and you notice the ice cream has two spoon marks in it, you’ll realize what a great person you are.

Food is actually the life of the edit suite, and essential to ensuring that everything runs smoothly. We have 2 full snack bars and 2 fully stocks refrigerators loaded with goodies to keep people happy. Guess who stocks those? You guess it (I’m assuming you said me). Clients often look at the snacks and say “I can’t eat any of this, I’m on a diet” that’s when I swoop in and say “it’s no big deal, this stuff is all low calorie!”, then I proceed to gorge down a few bags of Cheetos and several candy bars. They will look at you in an odd way, and probably not eat anything at that time, but you’ll know it worked when you see those 4 Lifesaver mint wrappers on the client table at the end of the day. It’s also why I’ve gained 35 pounds since I started working here, but once I finally decide to start working out and it’s all converted to muscle, THEN we’ll see who’s laughing.

But you can’t just throw the food in a big pile and expect people to eat any of it. I have it all well organized with every label visible in a clean orderly fashion. If there is one thing I learned from Apu Nahasapeemapetilon, it’s that cans of corn will never move if you keep them in the cabinet. Try and “sell” the food to your clients and coworkers. Walk around yelling “DORITOS HERE, DORITOS, DELICIOUS DORITOS, GOT YOUR DORITOS RIGHT HERE” You’ll be surprised at how many people will take a bag of Doritos under the condition that you “shut up”. Way I see it, they took the bag of Doritos.

Cleaning the office is obviously essential, but also make sure the outside of the office is clean as well. This may be a regional thing, but we have a problem here in the Chicago-land area with geese (these are the same jerks that took down that plane over the Hudson). And these are geese that like to take craps everywhere, that I have to clean up.

There used to be one goose, who fouled our sidewalk all the time, so I went out there and tried to bargain with it, and gave it a french fry on the condition it would never come back. I didn’t take into account that the goose didn’t understand English, because it think it took it the wrong way and must have alerted his kin of the free delicious food, as all of the sudden there were 26 geese. It was like a Hitchcock movie mixed with an Aflac commercial.

Simple solution, I unleashed a wave of Chinese needle snakes to kill the geese. When they became a problem, I imported some gorillas to eat the snakes. The beauty of that is that when winter came, the gorillas simply froze to death!

Let me just say that 99% percent of the things an assistant editor does go completely unnoticed. But that is how it should be. We are the ninjas of the post house, our work is done in the shadows.

For instance, I spilled hot chocolate mix all over the counter and floor yesterday, and in a flurry of time I wiped down the counter with water, and vacuumed the floor to a perfect degree. Two minutes later when Tom walked in the room, he didn’t say anything about it, but the way I see it, he wasn’t SUPPOSED to say anything about it, because my silent duties were done correctly. Had I left all the hot chocolate mix all over the place and moved on to something else, Tom would have looked at me like I was a complete jerk. But when he came in the room and sat down and didn’t even seem to acknowledge that I was in the room, even after I said “hello”, I smiled a little bit, because I knew I was the hero this office needed.

They will never throw a parade for us, or give us the key to the city, but the look of oblivious normalcy on my coworkers faces are enough for me to keep doing what I’m doing. You could say that the assistant editor is the SINGLE most important person in the edit suite. You’d probably be wrong, but you COULD certainly say that. Much like you COULD say Legally Blonde is a better movie than Citizen Kane.

God speed, fellow assistants.

A decision was made by the high council of elders, at their shrine resting on the peak of the volcano, that I would be the chosen one to learn how to use a true 3D program. But I have no experience whatsoever in this area. This is my first job in this industry out of college, and to be honest, I didn’t even use something as basic as Photoshop a single time while I was in college! Let’s just say the most experience I had working on 3D was when I watched WALL-E a couple months ago. So I was nervous at the thought of learning this program, but at the same time excited at the possibility of what I could potentially do. I suppose the purpose of this post is to show you what it’s like to first delve into a 3D program if you have no idea what you’re doing, and possibly how it’s not as scary as one may think.

To help guide me along this journey, I enlisted the help of a tutorial on lynda.com by Larry Mitchell, titled “CINEMA 4D R10 Essential Training”. It’s actually not as complex an interface as you’d think by just looking at it. I’ll go into the details of that in a minute, but first I’d just like to note an occurrence that happened on my first day ever working in this program. Mr. Mitchell, in what seemed like he was possibly saying it in passing while talking about the content browser, mentioned something about accessing human models for use in in the program.

I shifted my eyes back and forth, as perhaps the computer was trying to tell me something, or someone was playing a joke on me, by giving me this glorious information now. Then Larry said “So, if you hit this Inverse Kinematics button, you can start to animate this human, but we are getting way ahead of ourselves here, back to the content browser.”

HOLD UP LARRY MITCHELL. You’re telling me that by just clicking this one button I can mess around with this human figure, make it do whatever I want? I’m sorry, but I am going to have to take a break from this tutorial, as I now feel obliged to mess around with this. So it wasn’t long before I figured out how to use the dimensional arrows and scaling tools to simulate the fake woman kicking the fake child.

And with a third human figure at my fingertips, how could I not add in the grown man doing a leg sweep…?

Through just futzing around in the content browser without any supervision, I figured out how to add texture to objects and even a sun!

Then as I seemingly finished amusing myself with this, I started playing the tutorial again, and not a minute later, Larry is saying “Oh, just press THIS button RIGHT HERE for quick easy animation keyframes.” …Really, Larry? Do you even want me to watch this tutorial? Next thing I know, I’m going through the content browser like a madman, building a house from basic shapes, adding grass, making brick textures, and animating a 90 frame woman to man slap for the ages (I’d have exported a real movie of it, but I don’t know how yet!)

I guess I wanted to show these displays of polygonal violence, because I came from no experience whatsoever in 3D, and I was able to do all of that while just messing around with stuff just 2 and 1/2 hours after I opened Cinema 4D for the first time! Not that any of this could be used for a real job around here or anything, but I learned a lot about how to move objects, and how to use the interface just from playing around. I got much more comfortable. (And if you’re wondering why I instantly resorted to violence, let’s just say I played a lot of Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas my junior year of college, so I have a natural urge to harm people made of polygons)

After all that fun, I decided to resist the temptation of messing with the human figures anymore, and decided to continue with Larry Mitchell’s tutorials. Up next on the list was to create a spoon out of a cube. …OK? I like the idea, but even that seems strangely overwhelming to me, as morphing a cube into something of value is something that you would have to know what you’re doing in order to complete. But I guess it all starts with selecting a cube (and again, you can credit Larry Mitchell for this, I didn’t come up with it on my own).

OK, so now that we have a cube just sitting there, what’s next? That will be a spoon at some point…? Well, if you move those arrows on the cube with the scale tool, you can make it better, stronger, faster bigger, longer, flatter.

The four screen display was frightening at first glance, because I figured it would involve some insane complexity to use them. But they are actually pretty useful, as they obviously give you a top view or side view look at the 3D object, sort of simplifying it into 2D. And maneuvering between them is easy as pie, you just click the button in the top right corner of whichever screen you’d like to work in, and click it again to go back to the four screen display. Or you can just work in the four screen display if you’d like.

There is still a vast list of tools that I have no idea what they do yet, but I do know one thing, it takes a knife to make a spoon.

The knife seems like the most basic and useful tool, as its purpose is to segment polygonal shapes into, well, segments. And it works just like a real knife, just cut it across the shape while dragging the mouse.

And don’t make the same rookie mistake I did when working in a 2D viewing screen, and make sure you are cutting all the way through:

Cutting creates points in which you can select, and making new shapes becomes a very simple matter of selecting those points with the live select tool, and scaling them using the big colorful directional arrows with the scale tool.

So it was pretty simple to turn the cube into a lamp or a jousting stick or something, but a sweet little feature called HyperNURBS makes it unbelievably easy to turn a lamp into a Q-Tip. By clicking on the cube in your layer menu (which is comfortably similar to that of Illustrator or Photoshop) and then option clicking on the HyperNURBS icon on the top menu bar (which looks like a cube trapped in a cube prison) and all of the sudden you have instant curves, that work in a great way.

Then it’s just a matter of scaling and adding depth to the, i don’t know what it’s called, the “food” part of the spoon. And then I end up with a pretty good metal shovel.

Of course after some more fine tuning, cutting with the knife, scaling, and trying out some wood swatches (just for the fun of it all), I have a pretty good giant wooden 3D spoon.

If only I had a giant 3D metal pot so I could use my giant 3D wooden spoon to stir some 3D spaghetti meat sauce with polygonal sausage and peppers, I’d have a fantastic fake meal in the works! (don’t forget to HyperNURB the diced mushrooms!)

The SuiteTake Take?

I know making a spoon and animated violence with pre-made human models may be no big deal to someone who uses 3D programs a lot, but to someone with no idea what their doing in Cinema 4D, I just wanted to show how easy it is to start working in 3D, and it’s not as threatening as it may possibly appear to a novice. Just look at me, I made a wooden spoon out of a blocky cube 4 hours after my first opening of a 3D program!

In the future I’ll do a follow up post to let you know how my training has progressed. 

Well, for this post I thought I’d show you how simple it is to create DVDs in DVD Studio Pro that utilize multiple audio tracks. We use it around here for making DVDs with multiple languages, so you could watch the same video in French, German, Portuguese, etc. This same theory can be applied to putting in director’s commentaries, or maybe you’re doing something awesome with audio tracks that I’ve never even heard of! I’m sure some of may think it’s really easy to do this, while others may have never attempted it so they don’t know where to begin, but the truth of the matter is that it is extremely easy.

There’s that saying that “it’s so easy that my grandmother can do it!”, well, I’m gonna prove that theory correct, as I have actually brought my Grandma Shirley here to the office on my lunch break to prove that even she can create multi-language DVDs!

Scott: How are you doing today Grandma?

Grandma Shirley: Ehhhh, I’ve been worse. I thought you said we were going to Max and Erma’s?

Scott: We are, but I want to do this quick tutorial first, and I thought it would be nice if we did it together.

Grandma Shirley: Is this some computer thing, I don’t like computers.

Scott: Well, that will just prove how easy it is, I will teach this to a person who doesn’t even use computers!

Grandma Shirley: Is this some e-mail thing? Madeline down the hall has e-mail, gets all her mail on the computer, it’s crazy, I think she’s crazy.

Scott: Well, OK… Let’s get started with this. I’ve taken a video of my 10th birthday, and had some of my college friends translate it into 11 different languages. This should make a nice christmas present next year, huh Grandma?

Grandma Shirley: Yeah, if you want to be cheap about it.

Scott: There’s nothing cheap about sentiment. I’ve already created the audio tracks in Final Cut Pro, exported the AIFFs, and compressed them to AC3 files, and now I’m taking them into DVD Studio Pro.

Grandma Shirley: What?

Scott: Now the first thing I need to do is drag my video track from the assets up into the graphical view.

Grandma Shirley: OK?

Scott: So if you check in your track window, there will be only your video track, see it?

Grandma Shirley: I guess so.

Scott: I’ll start off by adding the English audio first.

Grandma Shirley: Makes sense.

Scott: One method of doing this, which certainly works for the first language, but not so much for the next languages, is to just drag the English audio file on top of the video in the graphical view.

Scott: Now as you can see the English audio track is in the track window.

Grandma Shirley: Yeah, it’s the two bar things, yeah I see it.

Scott: If you were to just drag the next language onto the graphical view, it would just put that language on the same audio track as the English one, so the method for adding the rest of the language tracks is by dragging them onto the next audio track in the track window.

Scott: Uh-oh! It appears as if there are only 8 audio tracks! But there are 11 languages! How are we suppose to get out of this dilemma, Grandma?

Grandma Shirley: I don’t know Scott, I’m hungry, and frankly I don’t care.

Scott: Well you should be excited, we’re now problem solving now, like on that show you watch, MacGyver.

Grandma Shirley: That show tends to have real problems. Why is this a problem?! What are we even doing?

Scott: What are we doing?? We are going to add another video track, that’s what we’re doing! Drag the same video clip into the graphical view to create two of them.

Scott: While you’re at it, make sure to change the names of them to something so you can tell them apart easily. Then bring up the 2nd video in the track window, and drag the remaining 3 language tracks in the first three audio tracks of this video.

Scott: Here I have a simple menu created with buttons for each of the languages, this is what you will see first when you put in the DVD, Grandma.

Grandma Shirley: I don’t like those disc things, you bought me them for christmas last year, I tried to watch It’s a Wonderful Life, so I put the CD in my clock/radio which also has a disc hatch, and nothing happened on the TV…

Scott: Wow, uhhh, that’s a whole slew of problems right there. I’ll show you the perhaps dozens of things you don’t understand after lunch. But for now, switch over to the outline view, and drag the 1st video track onto each of the 8 languages you connected to it earlier, and set the asset.

Scott: Once you’ve done that, do the same with the second video track for the remaining 3 languages.

Grandma Shirley: Is this what you do for a living? Play computer games all day?

Scott: Haha, it’s not a computer game, this is a professional DVD authoring program.

Grandma Shirley: Are your mother and father aware that they saved money for you your whole life so you could get a good education and go to college, and for what??? You go to college to make little plastic discs???

Scott: Well, I went to film school, I learned all about every aspect of filmmaking. It’s almost like majoring in English, but I watched films instead of reading books.

Grandma Shirley: You majored in movies. I saw Gone With the Wind on the Turner network yesterday, look at me! I’m a college graduate! Where’s my degree!? Your grandfather worked for 47 years as a lawyer in Cook county, he did REAL work. Your brother Christopher works for the forestry department for the state of Illinois. But this? You should be ashamed of the time and money you’ve wasted.

Scott: Well, I’m happy you’re so proud of me, Grandma, I love you too. …If you click on the English button in the menu, then go to the button menu in the bottom right of the screen, you should note that under “Audio Stream” it should read “Audio Stream 1″ as the default. This is correct in this case, because the 1st video has English in the first audio track.

Scott: If you refer back to the menu, and click on the Italian button you can…

Grandma Shirley: You know who I met in Italy after the War? Your Grandfather, a REAL MAN. Look at yourself, with your unkempt beard, and Beatles t-shirt, I’ve seen the women you bring home, you don’t think I have, but I have. A bunch of floozies. You probably found them on the street with the rest of the garbage.

Scott: (FAKE COUGH) SOOOO, if you click on Italian button, then go to the button menu, you will need to change the Audio Stream to Audio Stream 6, as you have placed the Italian language track on the 6th audio track of the 1st video.

Scott: Now to do the other 3 audio tracks, click on one of the other language buttons in the menu and in the button menu, the “Target” video track should be set to the 2nd video track.

Scott: Now it is just a matter of changing the Audio Streams for each of the buttons to correspond with the correct audio tracks for the 2nd video. The key to not screwing this up is to just make sure you are working with the correct “Target” video in the button menu.

Grandma Shirley: You?! Giving advise on how not to screw up?! HA!

Scott: And there you have it. I would suggest that you go through the Simulate Disc mode and make sure that you set everything correctly, and you should now have multiple audio tracks for your video. If you wanted to just have one button with say 4 audio commentaries or 4 different languages, you could just put 4 different audio files in the track window, set the button to Audio Stream 1, then when you play the DVD, pressing the audio button on your remote control will switch the different audio, just like on a Hollywood DVD. See Grandma, this was easy as pie, I bet if I let you try this again without my help, you could do it no problem.

Grandma Shirley: Yeah, whatever you say, I can make CDs, yeah, yeah, yeah. I’m going to faint, that’s how hungry I am… Where is the lunch you promised me? Some grandson you are, starving an old woman like this!

Scott: Now I’m off to another charming lunch with my lovable Grandma. See you next time.

Grandma Shirley: Always with the sarcasm! That’s why you’re not married. Who can put up with your nonsense?

Oh!  Hello!  I was not expecting thee so soon!  I assume thou art one of my many peasants, and I have a strict rule forbidding peasants to look me in the eye under penalty of death  but I will make an exception for thee today.  So thou have probably never actually met me before, I am King Reginald of Shropshire, and I am your King.  Some of my hobbies include slaying dragons, drinking mead, and grilling up some hot dogs on the beach.  But recently, I had the local wizard MerMac create your mighty King a device which he has called a “computer.”  It has the light of a thousand candles!  My favorite thing to do on this “computer” is spend all day browsing FaceParchment.com, hooking up with some old warriors from knight school that I have not talked to in like FOREVER! (btw, Sir Gallahad has gotten faaaaaaat…!)  But MerMac only conjured up two programs for me, Minesweep and Ye Ole Photoshop.  Having gotten instantly frustrated with Minesweep, I then focused my attention on Ye Ole Photoshop, WHICH I FELL IN LOVE WITH.  Let me show thee what I’m up to today.

I’m going to start this crusade of creativity by taking a painting of my bitter rival, King Westbury of Killingham, into Ye Ole Photoshop:

Pretty stupid looking isn’t he?  Well, last month he sent me a roasted boar, cuz I finally thought he was being cool FOR ONCE…  But when I bit into it, it was filled with hot tar…  It took a fortnight to pry thy royal jaw back open.  So now I’m going to get even with that scoundrel.  I’ll start by using a Lasso to isolate his jerkstore face.  This is the same Lasso that I’m sure you use to round up my many royal livestock to prepare them for my mighty feasts, so you should be good at using it, you lowlife knave!

If thou art a skilled artist in thou’s spare time, thou might be able to use thee regular Lasso, but my hands are often shaky after a night of drinking grog, so I must resort to thy polygonal Lasso.

Since we only have to do a rough job right now, because I will show thou unworthy self how to clean it up later, you could also use thy very interesting magnetic Lasso.  I have been trying to get my alchemist to work with magnetics for months now, but he keeps saying, “I’ll do it tomorrooooooowwwww…”  I think I’ll finally have him beheaded.  But thy magnetic lasso is righteous because thy Lasso will intelligently conform to thy edge of what thou are trying to draw around, at least getting thee very easily and very quickly in thy joust park.

So now that we have his ugly face selected (you can tell by the magic ants that will be circling his face), it is now the hour to do the evil deed for which we set out to do.  I carefully selected this painting from one of my 3rd wife’s gossip scrolls:

Now select thy bow and Arrow tool and drag King Westbury’s face onto the painting of the traveling actors. It won’t be the correct size, so type in the magic spell “CTRL T” which will cast a Transform enchantment on his face.  Then adjust it so it roughly fits over the face of the fair maiden.

If you noticed, the large bulbous face of that jerk has covered up the front portion of the maiden’s golden hair.  So now it’s time to go back to the original painting of the stage folk and Lasso once again, this time the front portion of the hair.  You must be somewhat precise this time in your Lasso, at least on the front strands, the back can be rough if you’d like, since it will end up covering similar areas.

Once you have finished your trace, go back to the bow and Arrow tool and drag the hair of the maiden from the original painting onto the new painting with King Westbury’s face, BUT, before you get too hasty, make sure to cast a doppleganger spell by holding down SHIFT whilst dragging.  Since both paintings are the same dimensions, thou can make it so the hair lands in the exact same place in both paintings.

Now his forehead is protruding like a mongoloid, so cast an Eraser spell on that area of his face.

Thou could also do some work to the lower portion of his fat face as well, thou could.

Then you could cast a zoom spell on the painting to get a closer look, and try to match the skin color of Westbury’s face on the visible neck of the maiden, using the Paintbrush.  Thou art a regular Michelangelo!

Now it’s time to take care of the second ear splurging out of his neck there, that actually belongs to the lass.  Use the sorcery known as the Clone Stamp, and type in an OPTION spell on the hair above the ear, then magically grow hair over the spare ear.

Bwahaha, much better!

Now to make things smoother, cast a 15% Blur spell over the front part of the hair, where it connects with Westbury’s terrible skin.  And between you and me, I wish I could cast a blur spell on my 5th wife’s face, IF YOU KNOW WHAT I MEAN!  AM I RIGHT FELLAS, AM I RIGHT??

Now that the hair looks alright, it’s time to focus on his jaundiced skin, I mean maybe go to Ye Ole Dermatologist sometime buddy, AM I RIGHT?  We will fix it for him by conjuring up the Image menu, then casting an Adjustment spell, followed by the wizardry known as Hue/Saturation.

Cast a -10 Hue spell to create more of the correct color, then cast a -42 Saturation spell to make him look more human.  Sometimes I wish I could cast a +100 Saturation spell on my 9th wife’s meat loaf, could it be any MORE dry?  AM I RIGHT FELLAS??

Then to make him seem more in the painting, change the sun itself by casting a shadow spell.  Click on the Layer Style box in the bottom right corner of the computer image, and cast Drop Shadow.  Change the angle of the sun, and the size of the shadow, to make it seem like Westbury is actually there!

Alas, we are complete!  Bwahaha!  Now it not only looks as if King Westbury is dressed in women’s garments, but it also appears as if he is having personal relations with the famous Irish jester Colin Farrell…!  Just wait until the other guys at the Round Table see this!  They will be up in arms!  (grabs belly with both hands) HOHOHOHO HAHAHAHA!

(door flies open)

Prince Jacob of Killingham – “Yo yo yo, what’s happening this side of da castle, King Reggie?”

King Reginald of Shropshire – (quickly covers computer screen with arm) “Oh, oh, nothing, nothing at all…”

Prince Jacob of Killingham – “Wow, MerMac made you a magic wizard box as well?  Oh man, I’ve got to show you this ThouTube video of Lancelot trying to do a 1080 on his carriage, but thusly ends up injuring his genitals!  It’s royally hilarious!”  (starts to walk over there)

King Reginald of Shropshire – “No, don’t come any closer!”

Prince Jacob of Killingham – “HEY!  That’s my father’s face!  But the body of a maiden!  And this clearly indicates personal relations with Colin Farrell…  I mean he’s a big fan of Mr. Farrell, but not in that kind of way!  How dare you disgrace my bloodline like that!  You shall not get away with this!  HIIIIIIYYYYYAAAAAAAA!”

King Reginald of Shropshire – “Pffffffft.  Really?  You call that an attack?  One color of blood?  No spray?  The knife is coming in at a horizontal angle?  Look at the hard edge of the incision…  There isn’t even any internal bleeding or change in my expression…  Where did you learn to stab…?  …Microsoft Paint?

Let me show you how it’s done.  HUUUUUUYYYYYYAAAAAAA!”

King Reginald of Shropshire – “Bwahaha, now THAT is how you stab, the Ye Ole Photoshop way!  I really showed you!  Now I need to make some copies of this painting on my weave to show off to my bros.  Then I need to — ”

(door flies open)

Wife #7 – “Oh my lord, look at this mess!  This will take me all night to clean up!”

King Reginald of Shropshire – “What are you doing here?”

Wife #7 – “Oh, sorry, I was just going to tell you dinner was almost ready…”

King Reginald of Shropshire – “Wife #7, let me explain something to you.  Whenever thou come in here to thy royal home office and interrupt me, you’re breaking my royal concentration. Thou art distracting me. And it will then take me many hourglasses to get back to where I was. Thou understand? 

Wife #7 – “yes…”

King Reginald of Shropshire – “Now, we’re going to make a new royal decree. When thou come in here and thou hear me casting typing spells,

(makes sarcastic face while doing over-exaggerated typing motions)

or whether you DON’T hear me casting typing spells, or whatever the ORC you hear me doing; when I’m in here, it means that I am working, THAT means don’t come into thy royal home office. Now, do thou think thou can handle that?” 

Wife #7 – “yes…  sorry my liege…”

King Reginald of Shropshire - Good. Now why don’t thou start right now and get the orc out of here? Hm?

(Wife #7 leaves the room)

Wenches…  Can’t live with ‘em, can’t live without ‘em…  AM I RIGHT FELLAS, AM I RIGHT??

Shropshire Out.

Let me ask you a serious question; when you are editing a project and sitting in deep thought, contemplating what to do next, how many times do you think about purchasing a new line of make-up, and more so, how many times do you wish that someone would personally come to you while you are working to sell you that make-up? If your answer was higher than zero, then maybe this post isn’t for you.

Essential to any good edit.

Several months ago, I was sitting alone at a computer working on a project that needed to be done by the end of the day. All of the sudden two attractive young women in their early twenties, come strolling in the room. I am surprised and confused at this, yet not upset. Sure, they completely broke my chain of thought towards the project I was working on, but they were incredibly cute. After an awkward few seconds of me squinting at them to see if they were perhaps a gas leak induced hallucination, I finally said hello.

Me – “Hi there… What can I do for ya?”

Susie – “Hi, how’s it going?”

Me – “Well I’m doing alright, how about you?”

Nancy – “We’re doing great!”

Me – “Neat!”

Susie – “Yeah!”

Me – “Sooooo. What’s new?”

Nancy – “Ya know, same old same old.”

Me – “Yeah same here…”

Susie – “This is a great place you have here.”

Me – “I built it with my bare hands.”

Susie – “Really?? That’s awesome!”

Me – “Sure is!”

Nancy – “I like your shoes too!”

Me – “These are $15 dollar shoes, quite a bargain, huh?”

Nancy – “Wow! That IS a really good bargain!”

Me – “Haha, yeah. Listen, to be honest, I have no idea who you are, or why you’re here…”

That’s when seemingly out of nowhere, they pulled out a box of make-up and asked me if I wanted to purchase any. They probably could have guessed by the amount of rouge, eyeliner, and lipstick I had on at the time that I was very interested in purchasing make-up, because I was really caking it on that day. But I had to decline their offer, because as expected, a 24 year old man has no interest in purchasing make-up on a whim. When they asked me if I wanted to buy it for my girlfriend, I said I had no girlfriend at the moment. Then they told me I should get a girlfriend. That made me realize how lonely I am, so I started sobbing uncontrollably until they slowly backed out of the room.

It's smart to take 10-15 make-up breaks a day whilst editing. It's good for concentration.

What they did in effect was 3 things:

1. Completely ruined my self confidence.

2. Distracted me from the goal at hand (my editing project), which made me forget what I was going to do next.

3. Essentially wasted a large chunk of my work time, when they had no business there in the first place.

Typical door-to-door salesman.

Door-to-door salesmen are pretty much some of the most anger inducing, useless people I’ve ever encountered. I know that sounds mean, but never once have I ever wanted someone to interrupt what I was doing to sell me the most random garbage you could possibly think of. Make-up, briefcases, waste management services, paneling; this is all stuff that not only do I have absolutely no desire to obtain, but it is stuff that if I did need, I would have already gotten, or put some thought into getting. Joe Schmo salesman never comes into our office and sparks my memory on something I actually want to buy, and if I did want to buy it, I’d probably just get it on the internet for cheaper like a normal person. If you are selling a random service, you don’t walk into a building that does something in which you have no idea what they do and try to sell them something they clearly don’t need. It’s almost like going into McDonalds, and trying to sell the cashier a timeshare. People are waiting in line behind you, she won’t buy anything from you, so you’re wasting everyone’s time and being a jerk.

"Would you like fries with that?" "No, but would YOU like a timeshare?!?!"

I know I know, they are just trying to make a living in this bad economy, I should cut them some slack. But then again, when a stranger walks into our office unannounced looking for “the owner” who’s name he does not know, and tries to sell him train tickets, it borders on ridiculous. I mean I know that I personally buy train tickets at random while I’m working, because I love the convenience of traveling to mysterious places by train out of nowhere, and I will often get on a train to anywhere when I get off of work, just to see what adventures I will end up on. But that’s just me. Though I love it when people interrupt me while I’m with a client so that I can plan my exotic train vacation to Montana, I’m fairly confident that most other people wouldn’t want that. To be honest, I don’t know why…

YOU tell ME a better way to travel than this. Good luck...

As an assistant editor, it is one of my duties to ward off solicitors, to make sure that they don’t bother the editors while their working. Here are a few tips to make the whole situation smoother.

1. Establish a friendship with them early:

When they come in the door, start off the conversation with a nice phrase like “Hey, scumbag, what the hell do you want?”

"Whoaaa, hoho, I can tell you're a guy in need of some denim jackets in bulk! Take my card!"

2. Set the correct tone to ensure a pleasant stay:

Spitting on their face may be a little harsh. So consider spitting on their shoes or shirt. If by chance you happen to have a whipped cream pie handy, it would be appropriate to toss that into their face. (Just make sure they don’t duck out of the way, making your pie hit an old rich fellow).

Nyuk Nyuk Nyuk

3. Make sure they feel comfortable during their time here:

For months I’ve lobbied to get a pit bull at the office, because nothing says “come on in” like a huge dog foaming at the mouth running towards you at high speed.

Release the hounds.

4. Find creative ways to let them know how much you love them:

Install a trap door, it doesn’t have to lead anywhere in particular, maybe just a dirty pit, or even a fiery pit. Or go medieval, and have a cauldron of boiling tar above the door. One pull of a string, and all of your problems will go away!

Ya know, trap doors are a lot easier to build than you think.

5. Show them they are welcome before they walk in the door:

We had a traditional “No Solicitors” sign outside our office.

But that didn’t really seem to do the trick. That’s why I recently revised it to make sure they get the point.

Telemarketers are a beast of a different nature. At least you have to commend door-to-door salesmen on having the gusto to annoy you to your face, while telemarketers simply sit in their cubicles and call numbers on a list.

Don't trust the pretty face and the cute headset. There is only darkness behind those eyes.

It is impossible to dump boiling tar or unleash your rabid dogs at them, so it is horribly frustrating when a telemarketer calls you. Often they will call you and say something along the lines of “Hi, buddy! How’s my favorite Burr Ridge editor doing today?!” Indicating that perhaps they are long time friends with you, and waste your time for 2 minutes small talking with you until they try and get you to invest in a website. Then it becomes a matter of whether to cuss them out, say “No Thanks”, or just hang up the phone abruptly. But I’ve perfected a new method of dealing with telemarketers. Once I realize they are trying to sell me something, I simply turn the tables and try and sell them something! You’d be surprised at how much it throws them off kilter. It’s also why no less than 13 telemarketers are now proud owners of Scott Roberts brand homemade wicker baskets.

It's just big enough to put their soul into. If they had one...

I like to think that maybe there is an overall head solicitor, like a head vampire, and you just have to drive a telephone through his cold, shriveled heart, and all of his salesmen minions will be free from their annoyance spell. I think the world needs salesmen, I think they are necessary in order to buy goods your company needs, however, I’m referring to specialized salesmen who have something you actually want, NOT door-to-door salesmen or telemarketers, who I think are giant human mosquitos. Because honestly, you can be polite as possible with them; take their cards, shake their hands, give a fake smile; but why would they assume that an editor hard at work would like to be interrupted in front of their clients, so that they can learn a little bit about long distance phone services?

How to Deal with Telemarketers

There was this heavyset kid in my high school who constantly had stains all over his shirt.  It was disgusting; it was as if he never washed his shirt.  Food stains, drink stains, dirt stains, indescribable stains, whatever they were they were all horrifying.  One day someone started calling him The Venus CrapTrap.  Then everyone started calling him The Venus CrapTrap.  Then rumors and jokes started to form around him being able to statically attract filth to himself, as if he were able to walk into a room and all of the garbage in the room would fly across the room and stick to him.  I’m sure it didn’t make his life very easy, as everyone had this unfair perception of him based on his filthy shirts.  I happened to eat lunch with him a few times, and he was an all right guy.  He was just unimaginably lazy.  But he was really smart, interesting, and an all around likeable chap.  But he had the label of being a horrifying beast based on his external appearance.  Now you see where I’m going with this?  DVD labels are the same way, the content on the disc may be awesome, but if the label is trash, it will put people off from the whole thing.

By the way, Mike (The Venus CrapTrap) now works in a warehouse.  I know you’d like me to say he’s now better than all the people who used to put him down, but he is seriously one of the laziest people I’ve ever met.

I make a lot of simple DVD labels for clients around here, in a program called Discus.  There are a few do’s and don’ts, and I’d like to share a few tips to make sure no one is giving your label a bad label.  

Tip #1:  Keep It Simple

I would strongly insist that you try not to clutter up your label with mishmash and too much information, make it look simple and elegant.

DO:

DON’T:

Tip #2:  Keep It Appropriate

Despite the subject matter of the video, if you are going to include a picture on your label, make sure that the end result is a disc that you would hand to your grandmother.

DO:

DON’T:

Tip#3:  Keep It About the Client

I know you think that because you’re making the label it all the sudden becomes about you, but remember that it is about the client, not the assistant editor in the long run.

DO:

DON’T:

Tip#4:  Keep It Relevant

Some subjects may not be interesting enough to make an awesome DVD label.  That doesn’t mean that you should try and jazz it up with something that has nothing to do with anything.

DO:

DON’T: 

Tip#5:  Keep It Professional

I would highly suggest if you’re handing your million dollar client the disc for the video that he spent a month working on, you should make it on an actual label making software, like Discus.

DO:

DON’T:

Tip#6:  Keep It Real

You should only put information that a client has actually specified on your labels.  You don’t need to spice it up with your own hype.  That’s what the client’s marketing team is for.

DO:

DON’T:

Tip#7:  Keep It Consistent

I know there are a lot of crazy fonts that you’ve always wanted to use, but your client’s DVD label isn’t the place to experiment.

DO:

DON’T:

Tip#8:  Keep It Legible

You should probably use colors that work together.

DO:

DON’T:

Tip#9:  Keep It Unbiased

It doesn’t matter if you object to the video that the DVD is based on, you shouldn’t voice your opinion on the label.  Just do your job!

DO:

DON’T:

Tip#10:  Keep It In the Realm of the Business

I know your a creative, artistic person.  And I know you love painting avant-garde artwork in your spare time.  But your artsy fartsy style doesn’t belong anywhere on a corporate DVD.

DO:

DON’T:

Well I hope that helps you do the right thing when you make those crucial choices in your DVD labels!

This is the second of a two part series on the Quantum A-Series LTO drive. You can find part 1 here.

Once Quantum released the unbelievably fantastic Version 3 upgrade three months ago, any minor inconvenience we were having with the tape drive seemed to disappear. They really did a great job listening to client comments and fixed virtually every problem that needed to be addressed. The interface is more fluid (you used to not be able to adjust the size of the windows), and there is no longer a self-destruct button next to the eject button. There is now an automatic preventative measure in place to no longer lose the table of contents (a problem we had early in its use, it appeared worse than it actually was). We can fill the tapes up as full as we want (we used to need to add a cushion of space to prevent filling the tapes “too full”). I can now let my pals < and ? into the drive without concern. Oh, they can invite the rest of their friends as well, the blacklist is lifted! There is still only a 97 character limit for filenames, but only once in a blue moon do I export FCP movies titled…

“Saturday_Conference_With_Rebecca_and_Steve_Morricone_ Featuring_the_Brilliant_Antics _of_Reggie Montgomery_Which_Occurred_at_9AM_Eastern_Time _or_8AM_Central_Time_Which_Would _Make_More_ Sense Because_We_Live_in_Illinois.mov”

The actual process of putting (small named) files on the tape is an easy, 5 step process. It’s so simple that I was able to teach it to my cousin Eric in just a couple of minutes (FYI he sniffs a lot of glue, it’s hard to teach him things).

1. Organize everything you want to put on the tape into a folder, name it appropriately. We use a date coded folder based on the day of the backup.

2. Insert a tape with enough free space to hold your folder.

3. Open the drive’s server interface, and connect to the tape on the right side.

4. Locate your folder on the left hand side (which is the local side).

5. Drag it to the right side.

That’s it. It really is that easy. And that’s one of the best parts about this drive, it’s so incredibly easy. You can then watch the progress in the bottom part of the interface.

And it will let you know when it is done.

Taking things off of a tape is just as easy. Just drag the files from the right side to the left side!

Now I know what you’re thinking. “Hey Scott, I just backed up multiple terabytes on these LTOs, now I need to pull stuff off of them, but how do I know where anything is on these tapes???” Well, my amigo, that answer comes in the form of a sort of mashed together single word, CDFinder. This is a spectacular cataloguing tool that we used back for the IDE drives that still carries over to our tape use. We now have (at the time of this article posting) 46 archive tapes/drives. CDFinder helps us sift through all 46 places that a file could potentially be. The way to put a new tape into the catalog is unbelievably easy.

Just load the tape onto the desktop by going to Go > Connect to Server.

Then open CDFinder, and drag the tape to the left part of the CDFinder interface.

Hit “Create New”. And it will start to catalogue your tape.

This is sort of a buggy process, as the tape drive will claim to disconnect every few minutes or so, but it’s just an illusion, as it will eventually catalogue if you just let it do it’s thing. Then just rename the catalogued tape whatever it is you’d like to call it, as I’m sure you won’t want the sever number as the name of your tape (though, I do plan on naming my child “10.1.10.70 Roberts”. It works for a boy OR a girl!).

Then the process of finding things just requires that you hit “Find”.

Type in what you want to find.

And it will search ALL of your tapes, and find what you seek. This whole process it relatively intuitive, and as stated many times, abnormally simple.

I think I saw this once on a math test in 7th grade...

Now I know no one likes to hear it, but the A-Series isn’t exactly cheap at $8000. But hear us out here! Before we had the tape drive, back in the IDE external drive days, we archived everyone’s projects as a common courtesy. Just for our own well being knowing that projects come back from the dead after a while, that’s just how it goes. But with the longevity of the LTO tapes, backing up our clients projects has now become (in addition to a way to easily access old projects for use in current projects) a way for our clients to have long term storage of their valuable work. So we now charge our clients for each project that they have archived. Pulling things off of the tapes is free to them, but the initial archiving now costs them a small fee. This is a win-win for us and the clients, as they will have their projects safe for several decades, and we will pay off the expense of the drive in the near future, and even start making money on it! It’s an investment!

Sadly, the cashier at Target wouldn't let me buy an Xbox using LTO tapes instead of money.

I guess the underlying point of this was to let you know, if you happened to have doubts about LTO tape based archiving, you were right to perhaps have doubts in the past, but it all seems to be good now. The Quantum A-Series is a fantastic machine for archiving large amounts of media. I recommend the Quantum A-Series tape drive NOW, because it works good NOW. It is definitely faster to actually pull things off of it or put things on it compared to the IDE drives. It also importantly comes with the assurance that bad data blocks won’t get copied over, giving us very comfortable levels of security. I think what we expected it to do when we first got it, is finally happening ten fold in recent times. Bail on the hard drives, this is a good time to be tape based archiving. And you should make it an A-Series.

Our ever growing collection of filled LTO tapes.

In a future article we will look at how we use the LTO drives in combination with tapeless production cameras. Having a good workflow is the key to everything.

For more detailed specs on LTO technology in general, check out Wikipedia.

Archival of editing projects and tapeless camera originals is a hot topic these days, with opinions flying everywhere. Today’s post covers our experiences with both hard drives and the new A-Series LTO drive from Quantum.

In early 2008, we decided to switch to LTO tapes for all of our long term archiving.  We previously used external IDE drives (well, internal drives put in cases to make them external) for our backups.  They work decently for at least a while.  The problem was, it got to the point that we had to use Chronosync, a file synchronizing software, to bring back any element from a project because digital hits would appear in the video files due to bad data blocks copying over from the drives back onto our system.

Chronosync Error. The bane of my existence.

There is a “Verify Copied Data” function in Chronosync that detects any of these digital hits, and causes it to restart the copying until it got it right.  Sometimes it would take fifteen tries just to get it so that it wouldn’t have a hit in it.  It is easily one of the most frustrating things I’ve ever seen.  And you know it never happened 10% into the copy, it always cruelly waited 15 minutes for your 30 GB video to get to 92% before it decided it was going to restart.  And while the Chronosync’s verification worked in ensuring a good file, doing the verify literally slowed the copy speed down a drastic amount.

IDE Hard Drive, in a special case to make it external and loadable in a hard drive reader.

Another eventual downfall of  hard drive based archiving is the longevity of hardware itself.  Hard drives tend to only last a couple years or so.   So if you were hoping 20 years from now that the Johnson project is still on that cob web covered hard drive, you probably won’t be happy to see that your hard drive most likely won’t even turn on.   It takes a little TLC to make sure that hard drives last as long as they possibly can last.   Every month or so, you should connect each hard drive you use and “spin them” in order to keep them fresh.   If you let a hard drive sit dormant for too long, it will just give up on itself.   This can be annoying and time consuming when you have 30 hard drives.  Hard drives crave a lot of attention, just like that one hyper kid in my 8th grade math class who would run up and down the aisles waiving his arms.  But tape based archiving is great because you can just put the tapes on a shelf and ignore them for long periods of time, only using them when you want to.  They are said to last approximately 30 years.  And if you are wondering what you are going to do with the files on your tapes 30 years from now, man, you are thinking way too hard about the distant future.   We will probably have thought-controlled nano-archives implanted in our brains by then.

So, the LTO drive was a perfect upgrade.  It had the power of John Rambo, the speed of Barry Sanders, and the elegance of Jackie Onassis.

Before we go any further, perhaps we should take a moment to go over a brief history of the LTO tape, and discover its mysterious origins.  Unlike most of us humans, the LTO tape was born in a laboratory, in the late 1990s.  It was given the name Linear Tape Open, named after its grandfather Linear Tape Ostrofsky, who fought bravely in The War.  It is a magnetic tape, which was first publicly released in 2000, and was only big enough to hold a measly 100 GB, but it was adorable nonetheless.  LTO grew up fast though, and in 2007, it became capable of holding up to 800 GBs!  And the roadmap for he future looks bright as well. On average, the capacity of the LTO tapes has doubled every 2-3 years.

The tape capacity, coupled with its relatively cheap price tag ($30-$40 for the tapes), makes it a valuable asset to backing up large files, for instance, video files.  It is now one of the best selling tapes on the market.  Its most prominent use?  You guessed it, backup.

The Quantum A-Series tape drive.

But the tapes won’t do any good without a drive to put them in.  Believe me, I’ve tried everything; yelling at the tapes, bribing the tapes, waterboarding the tapes, nothing works!  Then I heard a rumor that they will do whatever you say if you put them in a tape drive.  Seems logical to me.  Now, there are several LTO drives on the market, and they do alright for their purpose I suppose.   But Quantum has created a special LTO drive, the A-Series drive.  This drive was created with the post production market in mind, particularly regarding large media backup.  One great selling point of the drive is that it has a built in server. With the build in server software there is no need for any additional software to do backups, and nothing to install.

In addition to that, the A-Series is network based, so it is highly convenient that the drive can be accessed by multiple computers, as opposed to the standard method of having to nomadically hook the drive up to each separate computer that you’d like to use it on, moving it around constantly.   This is one of (if not the only) LTO drive on the market that has this networking ability.

The Series-A server interface.

The actual process of putting files on, and taking files off of the tapes is done through the drive’s web interface.  It is highly convenient that you can archive a project and order new underwear on Amazon with the same program.  There are some problems with the interface, some of which got fixed in recent updates, others that still remain to this day.  For example, one thing that has gotten fixed since was in the right click drop down menu, the “Eject Tape” and “Erase Tape” commands were literally next to each other.  This is almost cartoon-like in its insanity, much like building a robot and putting the “Self Destruct” button half an inch away from its “Off” button.  But things like that got fixed upon request, hey, pobody’s nerfect.

A-Series Drive with tape loaded in. It's good to go!

One of the earliest problems with the drive was a simple confusion with the reality of deleting folders on a tape.  That reality is that you can’t. It’s all or nothing when it comes to tape based archiving.  It is a linear device and can’t be defragmented, much like video tape.  Though, it is possible to delete the contents of an entire tape.  So what that means is if you have a tape with 200 GB on it, and you add a 100GB video to the tape (see: WatchOut), and then you realize, “Oh wait, I already added that 100 GB video to a different tape last week!”  Unless you want to erase the previous 200 GB that were already on the tape, there is no way to delete the 100 GB of previously archived video that you just put on the new tape.  So that is lost space, and granted it is “cheap” tape (costing between $30-$40), but it still feels wasteful to lose ¼ of your tape due to this.  That has nothing to do with the hardware or the software, that simply has to do with tape in general.

Now, when you deal with the Series-A drive, you have to deal with a ton of characters.  A lot of them you will want nothing to do with.  Take Quotation Mark for example, never invite that guy to your house, he won’t shut up the whole time he’s there.  And don’t even get me started on Asterisk, you don’t want to know what he did at my cousin Tony’s wine mixer.  There is actually a blacklist of jerks that weren’t allowed into the LTO drive:

The Usual Suspects: I bet one of them is Keyser Soze.

If you attempted to sneak in any of these characters into your archive party, any file associated would get bounced out of the club with them (something I sadly know too well in real life…).  They just wouldn’t be included into the archive. This has to do with the fact that the software that was built into the drive is set to be very strict, and follow Windows format.   So all Mac people must conform to the tyranny of Bill Gates for at least one element of this process.

In previous versions of the software, there was little to no indication that anything was skipped at all, because the transfer summary that shows in the interface used to not exactly work (which was related to a Java problem I believe).  In addition to that, when you would put files on a tape (if I filled a tape with 345 of 400 GB), it was hard to certify that the files actually made it on to the tape, because if you mounted the tape in the Finder and did “Get Info”, the Finder would say that there was actually 100 GB less on the tape than what was in the original archived project!  That of course makes you incredibly nervous that your files aren’t going to be backed up properly.  There is apparently a discrepancy between the Finder and reality itself.   The only real way to see how much space is left on a tape is to put in in the drive, and see for yourself how much is left when it shows it in the interface.  (I keep track of all of these “space remaining” numbers in an Excel document. It’s old school, but it works for an easy reference to how much space is left on each tape)

The interface let's you know plain and simply how much space is really on your tape.

Another small element worth noting in the battle between tapes and hard drives is the speed it takes to access your files.  While the actual process of transferring files on and off your archive is faster on tape, the time it takes to locate the files are significantly different.  Think about it this way, if you’ve taken your date from the saturday night sock-hop to the top of Make-Out Canyon in your DeLorean, and you pop in your Run-DMC mix tape cassette, and you want to listen to track 9 (because sometimes words can’t express love the way that the song “My Adidas” can), then you have to sit there and wait for your cassette to fast forward throughout the entire tape until it gets to track 9.   Where in contrast, if you were to pop in your Run-DMC mix CD, you could instantly go to track 9 without having to fast forward over the other tracks.   The wait isn’t too bad (maybe 2 minutes on a bad day) for tape fast forwarding, so it’s only a problem if you’re horribly impatient.  So, while a drive is instant access (like any folder in the Finder), the other benefits of the tapes should outweigh its inability to instantly access files.

Run-DMC helped popularize tape based archiving in the early '90s with their chart topping smash hit, "I'm Gonna Back Up Dat Booty (Right Onto My Tape Drive)".

Next week I’ll post Part 2. It’s an in depth look at how the Quantum A-Series drive actually works, and how to make money with it!  

We will also explore how to cook LTO tapes into a delicious winter stew, how to turn your A-Series drive into a muffler for a Dodge Ram, and we will discuss my brief stint as a vocalist for Crosby, Stills, Nash, Young & Roberts.

**DISCLAIMER**  THE STATEMENTS MADE IN THE PREVIOUS SENTENCE MAY OR MAY NOT BE FALSE.