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IBC Report from Film and Digital Times

hdfilmtools — Mon, 19 Oct 2009 02:12:48 +0000

Cinematographer and Film and Digital Times publisher Jon Fauer recently sent me an email regarding the latest issue of his excellent newsletter which has a report from this years IBC.

IBC Wrap-Up Report

The 66 page report on new products, ideas and trends from IBC is ready both as a low-rez PDF directly from our home page or as a high-rez PDF in the MEMBERS section (subscription required).

Cinematographer Style Volume 2

The long-awaited completion of the Cinematographer Style trilogy is now ready. Along with the full transcript of Vittorio Storaro, ASC, AIC are the remaining 54 interviews conducted from 2003 and 2005 for the feature-length documentary Cinematographer Style. As with Volume One, the pages are packed with advice, anecdotes, lessons and history from some of the world’s top cinematographers. Available from the ASC Bookstore.

iTC Calc – Timecode Calculator Utility for Apple’s iPhone and iPod Touch

hdfilmtools — Mon, 30 Mar 2009 22:49:01 +0000

What CAN’T you do with your iPhone these days? The phenomenal popularity of Apple’s mobile device and last year’s release of the iPhone developer kit have unleashed a plethora of handy, and some not so handy, applications. Now Israeli company KPL Production Services has released iTC Calc a small, useful application that will help anyone who deals with timecodes in a production or post-production environment.

iTC Calc’s design is clean and simple and looks like your typical Mac calculator, with a few exceptions. Apart from the usual number and mathematical operator keys, in the upper right hand corner of iTC Calc is a dialog box which, when tapped, let’s you choose from 6 standard frame rates of 24, 25, 29.97, 30, 50 and 60 frames per second. So it doesn’t matter if you are working in film or tape, NTSC or PAL, or a combination of both, iTC Calc has you covered.

After choosing your frame rate, you flip back to the calculator screen and are ready to work. To the left of the frame rate dialog you can choose to view your calculations in timecode or frames, very helpful for making quick film to tape or tape to film conversions. A yellow button at the center of the top row of entry keys gives you the ability to make your calculations with an offset.

Tapped the wrong number while entering your code? No problem, iTC Calc has iPhone’s signature “swipe backspace” feature which allows you to erase the last digit entered. More than one wrong number? Just continue swiping until you’ve deleted all the numbers you want removed. It doesn’t end there. Tilt your iPhone into landscape mode (horizontally) and iTC Calc reveals its History and Durations windows.

Entering timecodes can be a mind numbing process so like a paper tape the History window let’s you check and double-check your entries and quickly and clearly view the results. To the right of the History button you’ll find the Durations button. Here, tapping on the TC In, TC Out or Dur buttons transfers the value from the calculator into the respective field. Tap and hold (long tap) one of these buttons and iTC calculates that value. The bottom section of this window calculates TRT, better know as total running time from values in the Dur window. Finally, if you get stuck, there’s a help button to walk you through each of the utility’s functions.

KPL bills iTC Calc as “The perfect companion for any producer, post-production producer, editor, Flame or After Effects artist and anyone else who has to deal with timecodes and frames”. To this I’d add those on set including camera or sound crew, script supervisors or video assist operators. In post, editors and their assistants working in Final Cut Pro, Premiere Pro or any number of other editing packages will find iTC Calc an incredibly helpful addition to their toolkit. You can find iTC Calc and its lighter sibling iTC Light sans History and Durations features in the applications section of the iTunes Store.

Hot Links: 10-24-08

hdfilmtools — Fri, 24 Oct 2008 18:22:45 +0000

Shane Ross/Little Frog in Hi Def

EDITGROOVE…FOR FCP

ANOTHER cool tool for FCP released today, EditGroove. This bit of software manages preferences and user settings for multiple users…on one machine or across a network. If you are working on one machine one day, then move to another, you can load your keyboard layouts….

Welcome

hdfilmtools — Sat, 24 May 2008 15:38:19 +0000

I started HDFilmTools for a couple of reasons. First, I wanted to create a site for both professional and aspiring filmmakers that provided up-to-date, in-depth information about the game changing tools and technologies that are becoming available for our work. The power of these new tools can be awe-inspiring, and when operating as advertised, (wink, wink) they enable us to be more productive, creative and if we choose, independent. Conversely, these products can be highly technical and complex. Many of us were trained in the days when film and video were the primary acquisition media. Digital technologies provide a whole new set of issues that need to be dissected, discussed, solved and documented.

Second, I wanted to create a place for filmmakers of every kind to discuss how these tools are effecting our work on a more global level. In the professional filmmaking world, the production paradigm has remained relatively unchanged for almost 100 years. Shoot and photochemically process film, edit, print and distribute. Now, with the introduction of 2 and 4K “digital film” cameras, the conversion to digital is nearly complete. With the exception of the creative instinct itself, every step in the process has dramatically changed and this change has necessitated the need for new production and post production workflows. Unfortunately, it seems that it IS hard to teach old dogs new tricks and with a few trailblazing exceptions, filmmaking at the studio level has been among the slowest to adapt both these new tools and working methods.

So, whether you are a director, cinematographer, editor, designer, producer or all of the above, this site is for you. I encourage your feedback, and look forward to showcasing your work as together we invent the exciting new world of digital filmmaking.