I have a new video on YouTube, and I have an Android phone (a Nexus One. Love it!) and so I wanted to check out how my video looked on my phone. So I pulled up the YouTube app and loaded my channel. I saw this:
Which confused me, because only one of those thumbnails is the right one. In fact, the app shows the third thumbnail generated by YouTube (3.jpg), regardless of the one I’ve chosen to display (default.jpg). Here are the thumbnails available for those videos with the one I’ve selected for display highlighted in yellow. It turns out even the one that looked right was right was the wrong one:
Using this method, you might get the right thumbnail 1/3 of the time, although it turns out I almost never use the 3rd thumbnail. And since I’m a YouTube Partner I often use a custom thumbnail, which makes the odds of getting the right thumbnail through the app even lower.
I checked with my fiancée, who recently bought a Droid Pro, and she saw all the correct thumbnails. It took me a while, but I figured out that she is running the stock Froyo YouTube app, and I had updated mine to 2.1.6 in the Market. I uninstalled updates, and got the right thumbnails.
When I re-installed the update, the bad thumbnails came back. Is anyone else seeing this bug?
Also, while I’m talking about YouTube thumbnails, they seriously need to increase the quality of thumbnails embedded in large windows. Compared to the bandwith and processing requirements of streaming HD video, it should be a piece of cake to generate and serve up higher resolution thumbnails to go along with the greatly increased video quality.
I haven’t really made a live action movie since the summer of 2004, when I directed my not-very-short film Two Night Stand. In the meantime I’ve done some animation, and Truth @ 15 Frames Per Second which wasn’t exactly “shot” so much as it was “recorded.” My main focus during that time has been editing other people’s movies. Which I like very much. I’ve never been a huge fan of Two Night Stand. It was something I felt I needed to do at the time, and I got a lot out of it, but the movie is lacking a certain crazy energy that was in my earlier films. And if you read the comments on YouTube you’ll see quite a few people who agree with me. Many of them feel I’ve robbed 18 minutes of their life. You’ll also see that the video is approaching 1 million views. It’s always been my most popular video, and thanks to some mysterious change in the way YouTube links to and promotes videos, in August views jumped from 500 views/day for the past two years to around 2000/day.
Around that time, a producer I work with watched the movie and asked if there was a sequel. In the process of explaining why I never wanted to make a sequel, I came up with an idea I liked. So I’m getting the band back together. Jennie Tarr & Chris D’Angelo will return, along with the original DP, Alan McIntyre Smith.
The movie will be a lot shorter, and generally a bit nastier than the first one. And it will be in HD! It’s very exciting.
I’ve worn a lot of hats in my filmmaking career. I’ve been a script supervisor, data wrangler, post-production supervisor, assistant editor, editor, title designer, and every once in a while I’ve had to slate.
I rather enjoy slating, because later on when I sync up the movie, I know I’ll have quality slates.
I don’t always get quality slates. If you’re slating a movie, here are a few tips to make the editors happier:
Start with the slate in the frame, clapper raised, before the camera rolls.
The first frame of the shot should look a lot like the one above. While the shot is setting up, pay attention to what is actually in frame so you know where to put the slate. On a wide shot like the one above, it’s pretty easy to nail, but in a close-up on a long lens you might need the camera operator to help you find the spot. A slate without the slate in frame is not a slate. And you might need a rack focus. An out of focus slate is not nearly as helpful as one in focus, especially if it’s a smart slate. And you shouldn’t put a slate in an actor’s nose, so it’s a lot easier to find a focus mark for the slate and then rack to the first position for the scene.
Clearly say the shot and take number, then “marker.”
Make sure there is a microphone near you. Just like the camera might need to change focus, the boom operator might need to swing over to you. And don’t say letters. Say words. 24A take 3 is “Twenty-Four Apple Take Three… Marker.” Don’t feel embarrassed if you don’t know the standard codes for letters. You can be creative.
Hold the slate steady as you push the clapper down.
I’ve seen many slates where the slate is moving as it claps, which blurs the whole thing so much that you just have to guess where the mark is. Be careful. Plant your feet. Use two hands. And don’t just let it drop. Push it down. On the other hand, you don’t want to smash it a few inches from an actor’s ears, so you can push it down softly. In that case, say “soft sticks” so the editors know not to listen for a huge click.
If you mess up the first slate, say “Second Sticks.”
There are a lot of things to deal with when syncing a movie, and it can be hard to find the right slate if there’s more than one. If you did the first one out of frame and then re-adjusted to get it right, or if the sound wasn’t recording yet, it’s a quick and easy way to let the editors know.
Sync up a movie yourself.
Nothing teaches you how to slate better than wading through hundreds of bad slates trying to fit all the pieces together.
My soccer coach always said Expect The Unexpected. I swear to God he also once said there is no “me” in team.
In general, hard drives don’t fail during the first few years of their lives. As long as they stay under normal operating conditions they’re pretty reliable. But they’re also delicate and fragile machines spinning around at intense speeds. Stuff goes wrong. So if your masters are data based and not tape or film, you better be prepared.
Last night I came home with the first dailies from a new movie on a portable hard drive from Glyph. I’ve had great experiences with their drives. I like the little leather cases on the Portagigs and I love the standard power cables on the fullsize ones. But last night when I tried to copy the dailies to my editing drive, on ten of the files, I consistently got a -36 error, unable to read or write to the disk. I got a little worried, but I wasn’t extremely concerned because I had a backup.
Whenever I work on a movie shot on cards (which is pretty much all of them now) I always insist on transferring to at least two drives. Sometimes I do three. Drives are cheap. Re-shooting a whole day is not. This morning I went back to set and copied the files from the backup drive to the one I had brought home. It worked fine. Notice I didn’t have the backup with me. Another important step is to physically separate your backups. If you drop your bag in front of a subway train, all that backing up won’t matter.
I haven’t seen a good Nigerian 419 scam letter in a while, I think because Gmail filters them out. But this one was smart enough to target me as a filmmaker and it got through the filters. It’s a pitch for a film called “Bear Beer Dear.”
Dear Sir,
Unique thrilling movie script is the basis, movie Producer and Company need to make a breathtaking production.
Roger is a hard working husband and father but is addicted to alcoholism. What becomes of Douglas, Rogers’s second son who took to his brevity but a singular learnt habit of alcoholism has done him worst in life. Rogers’s companion billy his dog is more than a pet to him, not even his family can come in between him and billy. How many animals must die by barrel? billy saved the life of Rogers’ at the hunting expedition by maneuvering whisky, Rogers’s horse. billy was brilliant to have manipulated Ashley to drive Rogers home and thwarted Trevor’s pilfering plan on Rogers who is drunk to stupor. Georgiana’s manhandle by Rogers. Rogers’ scolded by Douglas at the birthday party of Mabel. Morris manipulated Douglas his friend to play hanky panky love game with Mabel. Trevor make comic of Douglas’s dad as Douglas reply lead to bloody fight at the night club. Ahmed chase of Douglas and Patton over an escaped accident. Roman, Douglas, Mabel and Patton mimic Roger’s their dad who is drunk as Georgiana got provoked. Roman shot. Douglas and Morris hunt the perpetrator to a death. Beer please let Rogers alone!
I like the ingenuity here, and the willingness to do the work to track down people actually involved in film, but nobody would want to even watch that movie, let alone invest in it. It’s hard enough to raise money for movies that aren’t completely incoherent. My advice: pitch classic films that might not be caught by the weak-minded people you’re trying to scam.
Dear Sir,
A unique movie script forms groundwork for your opportunity for riches. Seeking a Producer & production company to storm the gates of Hollywood.
Roger Coleman, his apprentice Douglas Hooker, and they endorsed Joe Huron’s latest swindle them sometime US$11,000, enough for an old Roger thought retiring from grifting. However, they are not aware that the money belongs to extortionist Trevor, whose thugs Roger in revenge killed. Before Roger’s death, he suggested that he contact George, his old friend in Chicago on the art of the great far to learn. Who after he had burned his last big con retired. George decided to assist retirement just to get back at Trevor for Roger’s murder. In the pull of the big con, and Douglas require the assistance of a number George’s old associates, as well as a number of small time grifters. The last group includes Huron, his small part to do in revenge Roger’s death. Beyond Trevor or anyone else to find out about the con, there are many potential obstacles to pull the stinger out as a controlling and overly cautious to things like Trevor his own way to do this, and some people run to George, including a crooked cop, the lower level thugs and a hired hit man. Through the process, George, who saw himself as a dealer Wheeler may have a better deal than that to him by Douglas come.
Special thanks to Google Translate for providing that authentic machine translation feel.
I’ve seen a couple videos making the rounds among the film nerd websites this week that seem to be made by what I can only describe as disgruntled old farts. First was the “Cinematographer vs. Producer” video in which a comically clueless producer has the ABSOLUTELY INSANE plan to shoot a feature film on a Canon 7D.
Frankly, this is a perfectly reasonable thing to do. What’s so special about “Feature Films” anyway? People used to shoot feature films on DV cameras for God’s sake! And depending on the look you’re going for, you might not need a lot of lights. I’m in pre-production on a feature right now that will be shot on a 7D and I have absolutely no qualms about it. This imaginary producer is an idiot, but clearly this is the wrong DP for the job. Maybe they should give Shane Hurlbut a call.
The one that really drove me nuts was a little closer to home. “So, you’re an editor…”
It’s another straw man talking with a professional editor who apparently can’t figure out how to use Final Cut Pro. I’ve certainly never had the problems he describes. This one is upsetting on a couple levels. First, why should anyone expect the average person to understand what an editor does? It’s a specialized and confusing job. I don’t know what middle managers do all day either. And as a lifelong freelancer, I still fundamentally don’t understand how vacation/sick/personal days work. Mocking people who don’t know about editing and don’t need to know about editing is just petty.
Second, of course is the attitude about Final Cut Pro. Like the 7D video, it takes a fear-based approach to things that are outside the comfort zone of the author. Rather than take the time to learn how to use the extremely flexible and powerful Final Cut Pro software, the author calls it a piece of prosumer crap and repeats a bunch of scary myths about how it works. With the 7D the author is on better ground, since all of the things he says about the 7D are true, but they are less of a problem than he makes them out to be.
My point is, I for one welcome our new insect overlords. I’m perfectly happy to round you people up to toil in the 7D’s underground sugar caves.
Android YouTube App 2.1.6 Shows the Wrong Thumbnails
/1 Comment/in News /by KyleI have a new video on YouTube, and I have an Android phone (a Nexus One. Love it!) and so I wanted to check out how my video looked on my phone. So I pulled up the YouTube app and loaded my channel. I saw this:
Which confused me, because only one of those thumbnails is the right one. In fact, the app shows the third thumbnail generated by YouTube (3.jpg), regardless of the one I’ve chosen to display (default.jpg). Here are the thumbnails available for those videos with the one I’ve selected for display highlighted in yellow. It turns out even the one that looked right was right was the wrong one:
Using this method, you might get the right thumbnail 1/3 of the time, although it turns out I almost never use the 3rd thumbnail. And since I’m a YouTube Partner I often use a custom thumbnail, which makes the odds of getting the right thumbnail through the app even lower.
I checked with my fiancée, who recently bought a Droid Pro, and she saw all the correct thumbnails. It took me a while, but I figured out that she is running the stock Froyo YouTube app, and I had updated mine to 2.1.6 in the Market. I uninstalled updates, and got the right thumbnails.
When I re-installed the update, the bad thumbnails came back. Is anyone else seeing this bug?
Also, while I’m talking about YouTube thumbnails, they seriously need to increase the quality of thumbnails embedded in large windows. Compared to the bandwith and processing requirements of streaming HD video, it should be a piece of cake to generate and serve up higher resolution thumbnails to go along with the greatly increased video quality.
Watch Two Night Stand Two
/0 Comments/in News /by KyleJust finished today! It’s been six years, and Jennie and Steve are waking up in bed together again. Why does this keep happening?
And in case you need a refresher, here’s what happened six years ago. Sorry about the fuzzy video. YouTube is a lot better now.
Wow! I didn’t even plan those shots to match so closely. I totally forgot the original bedroom had one set of folding closet doors open!
So You’re an Angry Professional
/2 Comments/in News /by KyleThis afternoon I watched one too many of those xtranormal videos featuring world-weary professionals dealing with strawmen, so I made my own parody of the genre. Enjoy!
Denis Leary Twitter Book Trailer
/0 Comments/in Editing, News, Web Video /by KyleI cut a trailer for Denis Leary’s Twitter Book “Suck on This Year.” It’s funny and it’s burning up the charts on YouTube. Check it out.
Two Night Stand Two
/0 Comments/in News /by KyleI haven’t really made a live action movie since the summer of 2004, when I directed my not-very-short film Two Night Stand. In the meantime I’ve done some animation, and Truth @ 15 Frames Per Second which wasn’t exactly “shot” so much as it was “recorded.” My main focus during that time has been editing other people’s movies. Which I like very much. I’ve never been a huge fan of Two Night Stand. It was something I felt I needed to do at the time, and I got a lot out of it, but the movie is lacking a certain crazy energy that was in my earlier films. And if you read the comments on YouTube you’ll see quite a few people who agree with me. Many of them feel I’ve robbed 18 minutes of their life. You’ll also see that the video is approaching 1 million views. It’s always been my most popular video, and thanks to some mysterious change in the way YouTube links to and promotes videos, in August views jumped from 500 views/day for the past two years to around 2000/day.
Around that time, a producer I work with watched the movie and asked if there was a sequel. In the process of explaining why I never wanted to make a sequel, I came up with an idea I liked. So I’m getting the band back together. Jennie Tarr & Chris D’Angelo will return, along with the original DP, Alan McIntyre Smith.
The movie will be a lot shorter, and generally a bit nastier than the first one. And it will be in HD! It’s very exciting.
How to Slate a Movie
/1 Comment/in Editing /by KyleI’ve worn a lot of hats in my filmmaking career. I’ve been a script supervisor, data wrangler, post-production supervisor, assistant editor, editor, title designer, and every once in a while I’ve had to slate.
I rather enjoy slating, because later on when I sync up the movie, I know I’ll have quality slates.
I don’t always get quality slates. If you’re slating a movie, here are a few tips to make the editors happier:
Start with the slate in the frame, clapper raised, before the camera rolls.
The first frame of the shot should look a lot like the one above. While the shot is setting up, pay attention to what is actually in frame so you know where to put the slate. On a wide shot like the one above, it’s pretty easy to nail, but in a close-up on a long lens you might need the camera operator to help you find the spot. A slate without the slate in frame is not a slate. And you might need a rack focus. An out of focus slate is not nearly as helpful as one in focus, especially if it’s a smart slate. And you shouldn’t put a slate in an actor’s nose, so it’s a lot easier to find a focus mark for the slate and then rack to the first position for the scene.
Clearly say the shot and take number, then “marker.”
Make sure there is a microphone near you. Just like the camera might need to change focus, the boom operator might need to swing over to you. And don’t say letters. Say words. 24A take 3 is “Twenty-Four Apple Take Three… Marker.” Don’t feel embarrassed if you don’t know the standard codes for letters. You can be creative.
Hold the slate steady as you push the clapper down.
I’ve seen many slates where the slate is moving as it claps, which blurs the whole thing so much that you just have to guess where the mark is. Be careful. Plant your feet. Use two hands. And don’t just let it drop. Push it down. On the other hand, you don’t want to smash it a few inches from an actor’s ears, so you can push it down softly. In that case, say “soft sticks” so the editors know not to listen for a huge click.
If you mess up the first slate, say “Second Sticks.”
There are a lot of things to deal with when syncing a movie, and it can be hard to find the right slate if there’s more than one. If you did the first one out of frame and then re-adjusted to get it right, or if the sound wasn’t recording yet, it’s a quick and easy way to let the editors know.
Sync up a movie yourself.
Nothing teaches you how to slate better than wading through hundreds of bad slates trying to fit all the pieces together.
Back it Up!
/0 Comments/in Editing, Tech /by KyleMy soccer coach always said Expect The Unexpected. I swear to God he also once said there is no “me” in team.
In general, hard drives don’t fail during the first few years of their lives. As long as they stay under normal operating conditions they’re pretty reliable. But they’re also delicate and fragile machines spinning around at intense speeds. Stuff goes wrong. So if your masters are data based and not tape or film, you better be prepared.
Last night I came home with the first dailies from a new movie on a portable hard drive from Glyph. I’ve had great experiences with their drives. I like the little leather cases on the Portagigs and I love the standard power cables on the fullsize ones. But last night when I tried to copy the dailies to my editing drive, on ten of the files, I consistently got a -36 error, unable to read or write to the disk. I got a little worried, but I wasn’t extremely concerned because I had a backup.
Whenever I work on a movie shot on cards (which is pretty much all of them now) I always insist on transferring to at least two drives. Sometimes I do three. Drives are cheap. Re-shooting a whole day is not. This morning I went back to set and copied the files from the backup drive to the one I had brought home. It worked fine. Notice I didn’t have the backup with me. Another important step is to physically separate your backups. If you drop your bag in front of a subway train, all that backing up won’t matter.
A New Twist on the Nigerian Scam Letter
/0 Comments/in Commentary /by KyleI haven’t seen a good Nigerian 419 scam letter in a while, I think because Gmail filters them out. But this one was smart enough to target me as a filmmaker and it got through the filters. It’s a pitch for a film called “Bear Beer Dear.”
I like the ingenuity here, and the willingness to do the work to track down people actually involved in film, but nobody would want to even watch that movie, let alone invest in it. It’s hard enough to raise money for movies that aren’t completely incoherent. My advice: pitch classic films that might not be caught by the weak-minded people you’re trying to scam.
Special thanks to Google Translate for providing that authentic machine translation feel.
Why Are These People So Angry?
/1 Comment/in Commentary, Editing, Web Video /by KyleI’ve seen a couple videos making the rounds among the film nerd websites this week that seem to be made by what I can only describe as disgruntled old farts. First was the “Cinematographer vs. Producer” video in which a comically clueless producer has the ABSOLUTELY INSANE plan to shoot a feature film on a Canon 7D.
Frankly, this is a perfectly reasonable thing to do. What’s so special about “Feature Films” anyway? People used to shoot feature films on DV cameras for God’s sake! And depending on the look you’re going for, you might not need a lot of lights. I’m in pre-production on a feature right now that will be shot on a 7D and I have absolutely no qualms about it. This imaginary producer is an idiot, but clearly this is the wrong DP for the job. Maybe they should give Shane Hurlbut a call.
The one that really drove me nuts was a little closer to home. “So, you’re an editor…”
It’s another straw man talking with a professional editor who apparently can’t figure out how to use Final Cut Pro. I’ve certainly never had the problems he describes. This one is upsetting on a couple levels. First, why should anyone expect the average person to understand what an editor does? It’s a specialized and confusing job. I don’t know what middle managers do all day either. And as a lifelong freelancer, I still fundamentally don’t understand how vacation/sick/personal days work. Mocking people who don’t know about editing and don’t need to know about editing is just petty.
Second, of course is the attitude about Final Cut Pro. Like the 7D video, it takes a fear-based approach to things that are outside the comfort zone of the author. Rather than take the time to learn how to use the extremely flexible and powerful Final Cut Pro software, the author calls it a piece of prosumer crap and repeats a bunch of scary myths about how it works. With the 7D the author is on better ground, since all of the things he says about the 7D are true, but they are less of a problem than he makes them out to be.
My point is, I for one welcome our new insect overlords. I’m perfectly happy to round you people up to toil in the 7D’s underground sugar caves.