Rants Archives - Paul Conigliaro

June 20, 2009

The Importance of Planning

If there's one thing I hate, it is producing work I'm not proud of.

In the past couple weeks, I have been conspicuously less active on Facebook, Twitter, and of course, this site. The reason is simple: I was spending all my time (10-14 hours/day for two weeks) on a project that was not properly planned.

This can happen on occasion… actually, it happens more often than I'd like. The problem isn't so much the extra time put into the project (though now that I have a 10 month old daughter, I'd like to spend more time at home). Rather, the problem is that the end product isn't nearly as good as what it could have been. Instead of spending time polishing the edit and making sure everything was just right, I was just getting things done.

Unfortunately, I cannot go into specifics for many reasons. But I will say this:

On any project, make sure you ask all the important questions up front and get solid answers. And as a post production worker, the sooner you can get involved, the better. There is nothing worse than others assuming/expecting you to be able to do something under certain constraints.

That is all.

March 25, 2009

Software Isn’t Expensive

Many people complain that some software is too expensive. I think it comes down to a fundamental difference in how software is viewed. I believe (most) software is a tool. I think others view (all) software as entertainment.

While Marco Arment was referring to the recent MacHeist bundle, this argument holds true to any software:

Most software is an incredibly good deal, especially the applications that you use every day or as part of your business. For example, given that I make all of my living by using TextMate, and it was developed entirely by Allan Odgaard over (probably) thousands of hours, it would be ridiculous for me to haggle its €39 price.

I am very, very tired of hearing "Photoshop costs too much" or "Why should I pay so much for software I don't fully use?" To which I respond, respectively, "No it doesn't," and "You shouldn't. Instead opt for different software that fits your budget/goals/skillset/featureset."

Now, this may sound elitist, but professional software is priced for professionals who make a living using that product. Final Cut Studio & Adobe Production Bundle (as examples) are priced acceptably, as I can make that money back rather quickly on the jobs I take on. If you just want to use Photoshop to touch up some family photos, make LOL Cats, or doodle, there are countless other options for you (Photoshop Elements, GIMP, Acorn, Pixelmator, etc.). Several hundred (or thousand) dollars for software which professionals can easily make back using said software is not unreasonable. Do you want me to price out a full Avid suite for you?

If you view software as nothing more than entertainment, you probably would expect to pay no more than $50 for anything. It is a point-of-view I can fully understand; however, you then should not be looking at professional software, and you definitely should not complain about its price-points.

[hat-tip to @digitalreb for the original link]

March 19, 2009

What is HD?

The topic comes up every now and then and I wanted to pose the question here: What is HD?

I often hear people (and industry professionals) bicker about this camera or that format not being "real HD." The common arguments seem to be:
whatishd

720p is not HD
HDV is not HD
anything less than 4:4:4 is not HD

At the heart of this post is an interview with John Galt, SVP of Digital Imaging at Panavision that appeared in Creative Cow in February. John made the statement that the 4k resolution of cameras like the Red One are "marketing pixels," and that the Panavision Genesis (1080 at 4:4:4) should then be considered 6k.

If we're going down that road, the only true HD is uncompressed 4:4:4 at 1080p. (And conversely, the only "true SD" was probably Digital Betacam, and even that was 4:2:2.) HD is not a strict definition. If anything, I think it means resolution. We have 720P, 1080i and 1080p. Any of those are HD. The rest is specifics.

Yes, some formats are more compressed than others, and some have better color sampling. That doesn't mean it's not HD. In the end, these are all details that factor into the decision of what camera and format to use. But to say the Red One is not 4k, or that HDV is not "real HD" is just nonsense.

March 3, 2009

Ease of Use is a Problem?

I work with complicated software and various engineering and hardware problems every day. Such is the life in post production. The average consumer should not have to deal with the issues I deal with. That is why there are software bundles like iLife to make things easier.

Christopher Dawson, technology director for a Massachusetts public school district disagrees. He thinks software like iLife is too easy and impairs students:

It simply hands so much to the students that they struggle with software (whether Windows, Linux, or even pro-level software on the Mac) that isn’t so brilliantly plug and play. Yes, iLife rocks in many ways, but the level of spoonfeeding it encourages actually makes me think twice about using it widely, especially at the high school level.

So his argument is that some software is difficult to use, therefore easy software should not be allowed.

When working in a professional setting, yes, you need to understand your tools inside and out to better understand how to get your work done. I see the effect lack of knowledge has all the time with edits we get back from freelance editors working in Final Cut Pro at home. We get 16:9 anamorphic footage edited letterboxed in 4:3 sequences, tapes captured as stereo instead of split-mono, extraneous use of layered plugins to achieve a "look," 24 layers of video with 76 layers of audio, most of which are empty… the list goes on.

That said, these are technical problems and not creative ones. When you're in school (especially high school), little should stand in the way between the creative vision that is in your head and the final result, including software. There's no reason for students to know NTSC frame sizes, what 3:2 pulldown is, or the difference between RGB and YUV, that is, unless they want to learn more. In which case, let them grow out of the simple software and use the more advanced packages.

As for the assumption that using easy software causes students to struggle with more compliated software? I've been on both sides. Many, many times, it doesn't matter what you're used to, complicated software is still complicated.

If high school students are having trouble picking up "pro-level software on the Mac," it's not because they're used to plug-and-play. There's a reason it's called "pro" software ((For the record, I started out on Media100 as a freshman in high school, then moved to Premiere & Final Cut Pro my junior year. I would've killed for something like iMovie where I didn't need to make sure I captured my video as Motion JPEG-A through the Aurora card for it to play back out successfully)).

[via Daring Fireball]

December 18, 2008

Online Video Attention Spans

We all know attention spans diminish rapidly once content moves online. With traditional mediums such as theater, television, and radio, you have a relatively captive audience (though I believe lessening as you go down that short list). True someone may get up during a TV show, but they're still mostly just sitting there with the sole purpose of watching the program on the box.

Online entertainment is a different story, especially for video-based content. Personally, I believe it is a combination of the "snack mentality" and multitasking. In the former, people just want a little bit of something. They usually don't go online with the sole intent of watching this video or that, they go online to be entertained or gather news & information. The specifics usually aren't that important ((Notice I say "usually." Sometime people fire up the YouTube for a certain video. Also, research is also a pretty targeted task. One doesn't often say "You know, I think I'm going to research... something.")).

More to the point, TubeMogul recently posted a study in which they tracked how long users would watch a video. The results aren't really surprising: Roughly 90% of people watch more than 10 seconds, while fewer than 10% will watch more than five minutes, which a fairly strait drop-off as you move between the two. Though there is a slightly larger dip once the one minute mark is passed.

Though, as with all statistics, the numbers make little sense without context.

For a two-week period, we measured viewed-seconds for a sample of 188,055 videos, totaling 22,724,606 streams, on six top video sites

So we know it's from a variety of sites and (likely) a variety of different videos. The thing I believe is missing is context, namely the type of videos. For example, I have a fairly low tolerance for for shaky cell-phone footage of some dude wiping out on his bike. However, I will often watch most narrative (and the more traditional documentary) pieces through to the end, provided they are intriguing & interesting.

Many times at work, we are constantly talking about this magical "two-minute threshold," where if a video is longer than two minutes, it's often too long. However, I tend to disagree. I don't think there is a hard threshold. If something is engaging, people will watch, provided the have the time. There's just a difference between watching someone else's antics and being told a story.

For the sake of argument, many on-line videos are just images of something that (generally) regular people are doing. Dropping Mentos in Diet-Coke, someone's kid doing something silly, high-school students left to their own devices with a camera ((If you're a high-school student and reading this, just put the camera down, seriously. Just think about what you are going to be documenting. Chances are, it's really not a good idea... at all.))... I, and I believe many people, just don't have a high tolerance for any lengthy video in that category. I believe this is the reason for the rapid fall-off in the TubeMogul chart. Those videos just aren't worth our attention when our time is finite.

What I would be curious to see is a break down of types of videos. I firmly believe that people will sit down and watch more of an online video if it is narrative or a more traditional documentary. But I could be wrong. It's been known to happen once-in-a-while.

[via korrejohnson]

[update: also posted this on the All About Face blog.]