We looked over the hill and we saw fire.

Tonight we landed on Mars, again! If you ever want to know WHY we stretch ourselves so far and spend so much money… often times you can’t turn to a scientist for the answer. You turn to an artist to really understand the reason why we go so far. Listen to these words by Aaron Sorkin.

Tutorial - After Effects Basics

This is a walk thru of how to set up a basic After Effects project and how to make a basic lower third. It should take you thru some useful beginning tools in the application. Its basically designed for the editor who says, “well, I can open an AE file and change some text, but thats about it.”

Other After Effects Tutorials

Parenting

Processing a Time Lapse Sequence

Understanding the Render Queue and Presets

Smooth Slow Motion

Simple Logo Animation

Tutorial - Alpha Channel Basics

Some basics about how to save a keyable image with an Alpha Channel that will overlay on your video in whatever video editor you are using.

Drive Testing... USB2, USB3, Thunderbolt

The other day I bought a USB 3 drive for my new Retina MPB. I had read about the speed of USB3 and wanted to compare it to Thunderbolt.

So what I did was three tests. My test was a folder with 5GB of random stuff, some large files and some smaller files. First I used the included USB3 cable with the GoFlex FreeAgent drive, then I moved the drive to the GoFlex Thunderbolt Caddy.

7:41 - Thunderbolt to USB 2

2:29 - USB 3 to Retina Flash Drive

1:11 - Retina Flash Drive to Seagate GoFlex Thunderbolt Caddy

The important thing to remember about either the USB3 or Thunderbolt Caddy solution is that these are bus powered, and as I’ve said many times in the past, when you are doing field acquistion, you REALLY don’t want to be dependant on AC power for anything. There are too many people on a set that can be wrapping power and not think that the “data tech nerd” could possibly still be working.

Oh, and yea, I don’t pretend to be a photographer… this was snapped on my iPhone.

How to stop a massacre

I’m a firm believer that THIS is the answer… the criminals need to have a fear that they aren’t the only ones armed. You can never keep a gun from a bad guy. Give more guns to the “good guys”.