Suddenly everything seems to have shot into overdrive. I had an interview over in Hatton Gardens late on Friday and start work for a company there next Monday. Very much looking forward to it, if slightly nervous at how much new stuff I will need to get up to speed with very quickly.
My last week of freedom is already filling up quickly.
On Wednesday I'm attending the BETT Show, apparently famous not just for its appallingly slow and almost unusable web site, but as an exhibition show for educators. I'm going there to meet Yevgeny Subotin from mitcorp who'll be on the Sony stand, to discuss green screen (chroma key) options for an upcoming project that will help launch the long-delayed Shiny Discs web site.
For the past few weeks I've been admiring the work of Philip Bloom. His blog (use his name above as the link) is an excellent resource for anyone interested in the new Sony PMW-EX1 camera, cinematography or just short film making in general. He has some quite amazing short films on his web site, all shot with a one-man film crew on digital camcorder - check out My Autumn's Done Come, Piccadilly Furs, and Kew Gardens/Lost Time to see artistic talent creating some wonderful visual poetry. When Phillip posted on the dvinfo forums that he was looking for 'a spare pair of hands' to assist on a personal project he was shooting on Thursday I rushed to volunteer. The project is currently on hold, pending some building approval, but fingers crossed things go ahead as I'd love the opportunity to witness first-hand how Phil gets the results he does.
Pretty much the rest of the week is likely to be spent playing with Sony Vegas Pro 8. Like many, I'm sick of Adobe's over-priced software and ridiculous upgrade pricing and appalling customer service (more like 'customer complete-lack-of-service') so resisted the temptation to just rush into purchasing Adobe Premiere, particularly since so many professional broadcasters seemed to be talking up the new video editing package from Sony (Aaaargh! I hate Sony!). Sony's 'Vegas' software is a fraction of the price of Adobe Premiere CS3, and allegedly a LOT more usable. I have to say that after just an hour or so playing with Vegas Pro I love it and am looking forward to getting more to grips with its more obscure features over the coming months.
I have some film clips and some 'toys' and training videos from the superb Digital Juice site (check out their 'DJ TV' video tutorials which are free) to play with, so suspect there will be little chance to see many new films or shiny discs this week, although I do have a preview screening of Juno, receiving rave reviews everywhere, to look forward to at the British Film Insitute on Wednesday evening.
Like I said, a busy week, with a schedule that's likely to get even busier once I start 'the day job' on Monday, with Microsoft's MIX08 conference in Las Vegas only 8 weeks away (yikes!)
Smile of the Day comes courtesy of a video from the opening keynote speach at CES in Las Vegas yesterday, given by Bill Gates. It's a send-up video of Bill Gates last day at Microsoft, starring not just Mr Gates but also Stephen Spielberg, George Clooney and Bono amongst others. It looks like money can buy you a lot of high profile friends! You probably need to check this one fast before it's taken down as usually the agreement with the celebrities etc on these videos is the stars only take part if it's NOT downloadable or available to the general public at large!
3 comments:
Congrats on the new job hope it's far better than the last one, pity I am not at the Obs anymore as it's just down the road.
I bailed on Premiere three years ago after using it since 1992. Go with Sony Vegas. I just cut a feature with it, and the audio tools are superb.
- Aron C.
Miss Deadline, Don't worry - looks like I'll be moving on soon anyway. Life's too short etc etc I do have an incredible knack of picking the contracts that everyone else has turned down (and only realising why after starting).
Aron, Thanks for the recommendation. I think Vegas Pro was the right choice. I'm liking it a lot although only just starting to realise just how much I have to learn.
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