Timewarp: Student to Professional

Thanks!

Well, this will be the final post for my Avid Community Site blog, I will be relocating to a new blog website, my own. Soon enough.

For everyone that doesn't know, I have launched my own community website for connecting creative minded individuals @ http://buzzstage.com, so I will be hosting my own blog on that site that will be filled with film/tv postings and other related things for the creative community.

So.. http://buzzstage.com/blog/ will be the link, but currently there is nothing up yet.  But there will be soon enough, so just bookmark it now.

I'd like to thank Avid for this great opportunity that I have had for the last couple years, I have really enjoyed sharing my journey of going from student to a professional, enough though I am not quite at the professional level yet.  But it has been great!

Thanks!
-Josh Luddeni

P.S. Also, if anyone is hiring, ;), post-production mainly, I am looking! Please leave me a comment on here or send me an e-mail josh@nospam@ buzzstage.com and I can send you my resume and portfolio! I am an ACU and have experience on all things Avid, and many, many other programs/skills.

NIN Somewhat-Royalty Free Music

"Nine Inch Nails released a new collection of instrumental music, Ghosts I-IV.  They have licensed all 36 tracks for all non-commercial use under Creative Commons. Which means you can post it on your website, play it on your podcast, use it for video projects, etc." Anything for non-commercial use.

Currently you can head over to their website and download the first 9 tracks for free or pay $5 for all 36 tracks. I bought the tracks and have enjoyed them pretty thoroughly and even if you don't use them for a project, it is fantastic music to have in the background while you work. Click on over for free music.

Color Correction! PHITG Part 1

This past quarter at SCAD, I worked on a few student movies, the main one was "Put Him in the Ground" (Web Site).  I was the Post Production Supervisor and Online Editor for the film.  These roles allowed me to follow/schedule/plan the whole post production process, I worked with the Sound Designer to schedule sessions, arranged with the director and DP when we would all meet for Editing Critiques and Color Critiques. 

And write up workflows for the project.  These workflows covered everything from injesting the P2 footage, to finishing onto HDcam and digibeta tapes.

So what I will show you first from this project is my Color Correction work that I did, There are a couple pdf's that I am uploading, the before images are on the left, and the after images are on the right.

Download putgroundpage1.pdf

The DP decided to shoot everything underexposed for the purpose of 'crushing the blacks' later on in Post, from what I gather, this technique is used to somewhat kill color data in the pixles so that you create globs of color or blacks when you adjust the gamma and setups in post.

For this project our original media was HVX-200 P2: 720P 23.976, this was edited on a Media Composer Software Edition, and then was finished on a Symphony Nitris on Unity.  One reason why I choose Symphony over just the built in Color Correction tools in Media Composer was that Symphony allows me to go one step further with the tools, I get Secondary Color correction which is extremely powerful. If you look at the shots below, I used the secondary tool to grab the characters red sleves and tone them down.  In the original footage they were too bright and overpowering and ended up 'bleeding' into the footage.

 

Quick Note: This project is still ongoing and color correction is still being tweaked.

Celebrity Apprentice!

It has been quite a while since I have posted on my blog, and I have numerous things to update you on, and well as some new videos to post that I have been working on in school.

A nice ice-breaker into the new year would have to be some 'specs' (spectator shots of seeing avid in use), I was watching the new Celebrity Apprentice on NBC this past week and the task at hand was to create a commercial for Pedigree to use.  This commercial would demonstrate how Pedigree donates a % of their sales to finding homeless animals a home.

Anyway, Both groups used avid!, here were some screen shots of them editing.

Softimage/Siggraph - Video 1

If you all are interested in SIGGRAPH, check out the softimage videos. http://softimage.com/events/sig07/videos.aspx

Video 1 -- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=duPyO5Nr860

Remember to check the site later on for more Siggraph Goodness.

There are some pictures below.

-Josh

Heading to Siggraph

Short Update:
Well, I am off to Siggraph in a couple hours, heading on a jet plane and all of that fun.  I will hopefully be posting regular pictures on my blog here and videos at Softimage's website <a href=http://softimage.com/events/sig07/videos.aspx>http://softimage.com/events/sig07/videos.aspx</a>

Updates Soon!

Thanksgiving Day: ScriptSync

I have just about finished the assistant editing work with a film that I am editing, entitled 'Thanksgiving day', I decided to take this opportunity to try out a new feature that was released in Avid Media Composer 2.7, titled ScriptSync.  I didn't pay much attention to this tool until I saw it demonstrated by an Avid guy during May's Boston Avid Users Group Meeting.  I was totally blown away, how great it syncs, the different languages that are available is amazing.

I took a screen shot from the Avid Script Sync application to show how nice everything stays organized, I Think later I will post a quick video showing how it works, I just need to track down a screen shot program for mac.

Thanksgiving Day The Movie: Snapshots

I am posting a quick couple shots of short movie that I am editing this summer.  This was shot on an HVX200 and is being editing on Avid Media Composer.  Total of 230gb of raw footage.

 

 

 

Tutorial: Quicktime Compression

One never ending problem that I have come across in the halls of my school is a problem related to QuickTime exporting, the constant "my file is too big", "why is it blurry".  Well I decided to create a tutorial on  QuickTime Compression for everyone.  It goes over the basics of creating a mpeg-4 file for the web or a higher quality for distribution.

Check it Out!

If there are any tutorials that you would like next, let me know in the comments.

The Apprentice U.K.

Yeah, so I like The Apprentice, probably a bit too much, anyway I started watching the UK version, the tasks seem harder and the boss seems meaner. But aside from that, its diffrent tasks set in the UK, anyway, during one of the tasks they had to create an AD for TV and Print, and guess what, they showed the software that they are using.

Team 1: - Avid DS | Nitris

Team 2: - Avid Media Composer? (not positive since they mostly look the same)

So who won?  Team 2, Avid Xpress or Media Composer or Symphony for the win!