Videocracy Blog

WZEN.org is a great example of using the power of the internet and the power of podcasting out there for people who want to listen to it…

As you might guess, the website, and subsequent podcasts are related to Zen Buddhist teachings. These are lectures and teachings by John Daido Loori, Rooshi who is the Abbott of the Zen Mountain Monastary in New York, he records a weekly podcast or semi weekly…on different Dharmic talks…

These talks are broadcast through podcasts, and it’s a great way, and a great example of getting the message out there using the tools and technology made available today…and you can find it on iTunes.

This is a great podcast for anyone interested in Buddhism…

I heard from a friend of mine, that the new film Speed Racer was shot with a new, revolutionary camera, that focused the foreground, and the background at the same time…giving a flattened “Cartoonish” look…

And apparently the camera is so new…it came with guards to protect it’s secrecy…

Here’s an article that further explains this…

http://www.collider.com/entertainment/news/article.asp/aid/5290/tcid/1

So, I recently heard about a protest that went bad in Edinboro, Pennsylvania which is where I attended college…The protest broke out into a fight between Anti-War Protester, and Pro-Military Protesters…

And apparently this made national news…

Now my point about YouTube is this…

At this fight there were three people video taping, from three different angles…If you go to YouTube and look this up, the first thing you might see is a video with Bill o’Reilly talking to someone who was at the fight (on the pro-military side)…and of course the Bill O’Reilly Fox News video is only 10 seconds long…but in the related videos you can watch all three camera angles and decide for yourself what actually happened, and who started the protest.

Maybe YouTube will become a better way to learn the truth about situations and matters…

I won’t provide any links to the videos…it was just an example, and there are many more similar to that one out there…

I havent’ had the chance to recognize or say something about this before…but I wanted to remember Ollie Johnston, who died last tuesday at 95 years old. Ollie Johnston was the last of the “9 Old Men” who were a core team of animators who worked for Disney as far back as Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs…As an animator myself, who has learned a lot from Ollie Johnston and his friend and fellow animator Frank Thomas…I have to take the time to thank Ollie for what he has giving me as far as knowledge and skills are concerned, and how to bring inanimate objects, and drawings to life…

So thank you Ollie Johnston for all you have done…

I just read that they…being Apple…released a new update to Final Cut Pro, this would be Final Cut Pro 6.0.3, and some of the updates include:

Better Leopard Support,

Exporting Still with the correct Aspect Ratio,

There is also an update to Compressor….Compressor 3.0.3 with a whole bunch of new updates…

Anyone using FCP 6 might wanna look into updating…

New Podcast worth checking out for all those interested in video…

Larry Jordan, Final Cut Pro Guru, is doing a really well one video podcast called Digital Production Buzz HD Video Podcast…and he just gives a lot of cool tips and tricks for anyone working in video…

Another good an informative tool from Larry Jordan…

Check it out on iTunes…

Interesting tid bit that I just learned from one of these podcasts…

Never, run audio lines near power cables…beacuse when they run parallel the electromagnetic force created by the AC current leaks into your audio, which then causes hum…and if they do need to cross…cross them at right angles…

I actually didn’t know that…but now I do…Thanks Larry Jordan.

I just read a blog, which was featured on IMDB.com…

Interesting blog, a guy is making a film using numbers…each number is submitted by different people, artists and non artists a like…and he says that it can be of any medium, and anything you want, it can be as simple as a number written on a piece of paper with a crayon…and he’s going to be collecting these numbers for 1 year…and see how many people contribute…

He gives a email address for how you can contribute, so I sent him an email and hopefully I’ll get a number that will then be included in the film…who knows…

Check out this blog for more info…

Help him out if you can…it’s a great way to get involved in a really neat project.

http://counthigh.com/?page_id=9

Local television in Wisconsin has began displaying a countdown until the analog to digital conversion changeover that’s happening in February 2009. The countdown appears in the top of the screen, as of today April 8th 2008 we have 391 days…

Convenient yes…but do we really wanna see a countdown for another year? Probably not, the countdown was accompanied by text that explained what the countdown is, and where to get more info. Which would be www.DTV2009.com…

And I also wrote at one time about the coupons being issued for the Converter boxes, I received those in the mail last week, but I haven’t had a chance to open them, or get caught up with my mail…so expect a blog post when I learn more about those…

This is a really interesting topic that I personally have been following since I heard about it two years ago. It’s becoming a reality now…

I just heard about this HD Camera, known as the Phantom HD…it can shoot 1000 frames per second, which is ultra slow motion…

Check out some of these YouTube videos giving an example of it’s capabilities:

A ball bearing through a wine glass

A wet dog shaking off

Pretty neat stuff, there’s a lot of videos on youtube showing what the Phantom HD can do, but there’s also a lot of cool videos just shot in super slow motion…

More info on the Phantom HD can be found here - http://www.visionresearch.com/index.cfm?sector=htm/files&page=camera_HD_new

I was working with Final Cut Pro no less then 4 days ago, and today I made an attempt to capture footage from tape, and it caused FCP to crash…I ran through different scenarios and problem solving techniques, and I came up with the same solution, nothing…

I got a little help from the Final Cut Pro forums, but for the most part I still came up empty handed…

I finally called Apple Tech Support and a guy named Shaun listened to my problem, and told me that his best guess is that I Delete my User Preferences.