I’ve mentioned in passing that I’ve been learning to sing over the last two years (almost to the day). Well, it seems like a reasonable outlet to sing about the things I love and do. Here’s a short musical tribute to Lumberjack’s three modes: real-time keywording; story building; transcripts and magic keywords. Adapted lyrics by Philip Hodgetts
Just over 7 years ago I started identifying the types of metadata that would be useful in post production. One that particularly excited me was derived metadata: using a computer algorithm to derive useful information for use in post production. At the time the only example I could suggest was deriving location and type of location from GPS data.
We can now add another: Magic Keywords in Lumberjack System. Magic Keywords are derived from transcripts and are an addition to Transcript mode, added to Lumberjack at NAB 2015.
A recent articles, and project, demonstrate an increasing trend to automate certain types of production: generally that which is highly predictable. One example uses new technology to build news videos from text articles; the other builds multiple videos based on the same XML template.
These types of technologies are but another in a series of developments on templatorization or automatic editing. Naturally, at the heart of all automated processes is metadata.
Mike Matzdorff is a writer, director, editor, assistant editor and has composed the score for one indie film and a stage play. He has spent over 20 years in editing rooms of feature films and Emmy winning television shows, including Fight Club, Analyze This, Last Comic Standing and Monk.
He was the first assistant editor on FOCUS – the first major film edited on Apple’s Final Cut X software – and wrote a book on the experience loaded with real world tips, tricks, and proven workflow techniques (check fcpxfeatures.co).
Recently, Mike has been: a keynote speaker at the FCPX Creative Summit, a guest lecturer at the University of Illinois & San Diego Fina Cut User Group, and led a panel at a special event featuring Final Cut Pro X hosted by the American Cinema Editors.
He’s currently editing animation for Duncan Studio in Pasadena and helms his production company miguma.
Adobe revealed record quarterly earnings on March 17th, with $1.38 billion in quarterly revenue ($5.5B annualized) and 4.252 million Creative Cloud subscribers (us included).
Of course, Adobe is strongest in document handling and photography but every subscriber has access to the entire Creative Cloud suite. I believe the integration between the video and audio apps is one of Adobe’s strengths in the creative TV, film and video space.
If I had to place an educated guess, I’d say there are more active Premiere Pro CC users than Media Composer active users, but not as many as Final Cut Pro X.
Doug blush has been an  award-winning filmmaker for more than 20 years, currently focusing on top level documentary features and independent film productions through his Los Angeles-based company, MadPix, Inc.
His credits include directing, editing, writing, producing and/or camera on more than seventy feature and television documentaries, including Oscar, Emmy, Grammy and Peabody Award winning projects, eight Sundance Film Festival features including one Grand Jury and one Audience Award winner, and two of the top 60 box office documentaries of all time.  Contact him at madpixfilm@sbcglobal.net
Our latest Lunch guest is Heather Williams. Heather has been working with manufacturers for nearly 10 years helping to bring the best video production tools to market – meeting the important and evolving needs of today’s creative professionals. She began her career as part of the original team at G-Technology and helped grow the company into the world’s leading supplier of external drives to the creative community. She now continues her dream of working with creative professionals as the VP of Sales at Atomos and sharing how their line of award-winning products are revolutionizing today’s production workflow.
According to an article on MacRumors today, Apple is negotiating with Studios and Producers to create original programming for Apple TV. Two thoughts.
Apple have long created their own content by running music festivals and recording the performances.
It’s been a long time coming, but I thing it was inevitable. Back in late 2009 I postulated on What if Apple or Google simply bypassed Networks and Studios? My conclusion then:
Clearly, either Google or Apple could destroy the existing content production industries without borrowing or risking their business. Just what leverage do the current middlemen really have?
It’s a strategy that’s working well for Netflix and Amazon.
Hayden Black is a writer, actor, voice over artist and a damned funny comedian. He was creator/producer of Goodnight Burbank when I first interviewed him for the Digital Production BuZZ/ Since then he’s gone on to produce Abigail’s Teen Diary & Teensy Tweets. You can catch him on BBC America’s The Brit List and daily on Yahoo!’s “Who Knew?” He can be contacted on Twitter as @HaydenBlack, or follow @Gen_Zed.
Yet again the threat of movie piracy – that is, unauthorized distribution – has had no observable affect on an industry with higher attendance and higher revenues. Please destroy my businesses like this!