Who would have ever imagined Avid advertising hardware that openly supports FCPX, Adobe Premiere Pro and Resolve?  Or even a FREE Avid and ProTools?   But there it was at NAB Show.

The manufacturers are finally accepting of the fact that as editors, we are going to use A) whatever tool best suits our current job or B) whatever tool the job provides.  So with Avid now openly allowing their hardware to use other NLEs and so many third party storage and hardware solutions now supporting Avid, it’s now possible to have a single rig that supports 2, 3 and even 4 or more NLEs on a single system.  THAT’s the best of all worlds.   Not only can you support whatever the job requires, you can keep yourself up to date on the changes of the various NLEs.   It was neat watching Monica Daniels almost seamlessly switch back and forth between Avid and Premiere Pro during a demonstration at the Rampant Design booth.  That’s the editor of today, able to simply use the tool they are given and get to work.

Blackmagic Design continues to move ahead with Resolve 12 as a full editing and finishing tool with the best Multi-Cam tool I’ve seen from any NLE.  Absolutely remarkable for a product that pretty much left for dead as recently as 4 years ago before Grant Petty stepped in and not only saved the product but has used it as the lynchpin for a new type of NLE.   Again, FREE to download and use.

Adobe announced a “in-house” version of Adobe Anywhere that greatly reduces the costs of project sharing within a shop and A-Frame announced a clever idea where we can essentially “rent” seats of the full Enterprise Adobe Anywhere on an as need basis for long distance collaborative workflows.

Frame io introduced an interesting collaborative workflow concept whereby footage is stored in the cloud, but editors only pull down what they need to edit locally.  This yields a major costs savings since you’re not paying for “super servers” to allow for editing directly from the cloud.

Every editing tool on the market has its strengths, every editing tool on the market has its weaknesses.  NONE of the NLEs on the market has a show stopping weakness that I can see, nor that I heard anyone talking about on the show floor and events.  The only tools that are limited right now are Apple’s Final Cut Pro X due to it’s requirement to run on a Mac and Sony Vegas which requires a Windows machine.  All of the other tools I mentioned are cross platform which gives the end user a lot of flexibility in configuring a portable or desktop workstation.

While the Final Cut Pro 7 XML file format is supported by most of these NLEs to transfer projects, it would be nice if the manufacturers could all come up with a more robust universal file translator to make that hand off even better with more features supported on the handoff.

All of you at the very least should have Avid | First (when it’s released) and Resolve 12 (when it’s released) in your toolboxes.  They’re free and they’re good.  Beyond that, it’s whatever tool you like or need for your current job.  There has never been a better time for Editors and Collaboration.

The post The Post Production Buzz from NAB Show 2015 – Collaboration appeared first on WalterBiscardi.com.

Studio Network Solutions EVO 48TB Online Media Storage (black) along with our original Small Tree 48TB system now operating as our near-line Archive. 96TB in about 6 rack units!

The Studio Network Solutions EVO line includes a ShareBrowser tool which allows us to manage the system quite easily and does away with a lot of OS X and Windows permissions issues we’ve experience in the past.   All User prefs are set via the administration tools and individual users can lock individual files as they’re working if need be.   This adds a whole new level of efficiency and control for us.

Here’s a look at the basic NAS and Project Sharing panel, which is web browser based, where we can set who has access to which volumes and even down to projects.

You can see we have broken the 48TB down into four partitions, EVO 1 – 4.   We do that to make it easier to manage the system and also from time to time we can wipe out a partition to completely erase it giving it a clean, fresh directory.   Over on the right you can see “Users.”   Clicking that brings up the main User Management controls.

Here’s the User Management controls for EVO 1 and how we can do a very simple, top level “Allow / Deny” access.  We can also assign whether the user will connect afp or smb depending on how your network is configured.  In our case all the Macs connect afp while the Windows system connects smb.   The user names you see here correspond to our systems and not individual users, however you can set up individual users if you’d like.   What this really does is takes away permission settings from the Mac and Windows OS where we have run into some stumbling blocks trying to get things to work cross platform.  In fact permissions issues just from Mac to Mac were causing some issues.   Now everything is set and managed within the EVO Browser.

Here’s the EVO ShareBrowser on Mac.  This application gets installed on every client workstation and this is how you mount / unmount all the volumes and also do the tagging and keywords.

And here it is on Windows.

You can see they pretty much look the same and you can also see one of the locking features of the EVO Browser in the Windows image.  The Premiere Pro project file is locked and controlled by Edit 3.  This both allows two editors to use the file at the same time and ensures that they will not overwrite each other’s work.    You can read more about this in another recent blog “Two Editors, One Adobe Premiere Pro Project File.”

You’ll also notice on both the Mac and Windows systems, all the connected drives to the computers systems show up and can be indexed and managed by the EVO ShareBrowser.   The software is not wholly connected to just the EVO storage.  So we can Asset Manage all of our media through the EVO ShareBrowser system if we so choose.

Here’s a very simple example of tagging assets through the ShareBrowser.

I’ve got the folder selected and on the right side of the screen you can see the windows for Tags and Comments.   These are exactly what you think they are.   Simple asset management to tag and keyword all assets from folder level down to file level to make for much easier location and retrieval later.

Now the tags have been added to that folder and now those are searchable elements to retrieve those assets later.   The Tags and Comments can also be exported as an XML and brought into Adobe Premiere Pro and other NLEs.   This is a very high level asset management system.  In no way does this replace full asset management systems like CatDV or Axle which are both very in depth products.   There is also no way to generate a proxy directly through the EVO, this would be done with a third party software.  But for a first level, very simple “Tag the assets as they are loaded” this is an awesome addition with minimal training required.   With the coming of Contemporary Living Network and the sheer amount of data we’ll be dealing with when that launches, this will be a great first step asset management tool for the initial tagging of the assets.

When you quit out of the ShareBrowser, you’re presented with an option to manually change the locking status of your projects.  

If you’re done for the day and you want to open up your files to be used / altered by others you can do so.  But remember, there are administrative controls that still supersede what an individual user can unlock.   

You can login to the system from outside the facility via the web browser too to manage the system.   This is especially great for weekend and evening management allowing the administrator to work from wherever they are and not have to run back into the shop.  Overall the asset management controls are perfect and quite simple for any multi-user shop.  Assigned file types can automatically be locked, such as Projects, to ensure that they don’t get accidentally changed.   If you’re running a shared storage setup, this is super easy, super simple to get going with.  

The one thing SNS needs to work on is consolidating their interfaces.   Right now there are two Admin control interfaces, one web based and one application based.  Each has a certain set of controls that they operate which is a bit cumbersome.  Having both a web interface and an application version is a great idea since, as I just mentioned, you can log in from outside the shop to make admin changes.  And when you’re in the shop, you can run the app which does operate faster.  But both Admin control interfaces should have the exact same controls no matter how you log in so I don’t have to remember “now which Admin controller do I need to log in to for adding a User?”   There’s also some tweaks that need to be made to bring commonly needed controls more to the front of the interfaces rather than being buried a bit.   It’s a common “engineer is trying to protect the end user from making mistakes” syndrome that we see all the time.   We’re professionals, just put the “big obvious button” in front of us and let us make the changes quickly.   Yeah, we’ll make mistakes along the way, but that’s ok.  The ShareBrowser is just a single interface so that’s good.   I’m looking forward to chatting with the SNS team to see what changes are on the way and what we can do to help streamline the Admin controls.   Just having these simple interfaces is really a wonderful thing when all you want to do is get into the storage, make the change and get right back to creating.  Especially smaller shops like ours where I’m the editor, animator, writer, engineer, barista, and producer all in one.

The system runs on both 10GigE and GigE and we have it running through our existing Small Tree 10gig Switch to all our workstations.  For systems that have an internal 10gig card, we’re seeing Read speeds top 700MB/s.   For those with external boxes, like the iMacs with a 10Gig to Thunderbolt adapter, we’re seeing Read speeds top 300MB/s.  This is all in early testing as anyone will tell you, the Write / Read speeds off any test only give you part of the story.   The efficiency and video playback is wholly dependent on how the entire system is configured.   We’re good playing back and editing both HD and UHD on this system.

The system connects currently to four Editorial Workstations (Premiere Pro primarily), ProTools 5.1 mix system and a Davinci Resolve system.  In addition, it connects to four Producer iMac stations, two Library Media Management systems and various other connection points throughout the shop.  All the main workstations are 10GigE while the rest are a mix of 10 and 1Gig.

We’re pretty excited to bring this system online, not only for the boost in our storage capacity, but for the new way to manage the media across our entire network.  It’s going to really enhance the way we work with your projects.   There is a LOT of control for management of the shared storage and if you really want to know the nitty gritty, reach out to the guys at SNS for more details.    Better yet, if you’re going to be at the NAB Show 2015, you can find them at Booth SL12413.  In fact, BCM Founder, Walter Biscardi, Jr will be at the booth most of the day on Tuesday and Wednesday of the show.  So come on by,  say hello and let’s talk Shared Storage and Editing.

Of course if you’d like to see the system here, well give us a shout and come on out to the shop.  Molly the Wonder Dog would love to show you how the new system looks in person.

The post First Look: Studio Network Solutions EVO with ShareBrowser appeared first on WalterBiscardi.com.

“What Should I Use?”

People are constantly writing and pinging me to ask “What should I use?”   Well the answer is truly, “Any of them.”    Your tool of choice is going to be predicated on many factors including your skill level, the type of work you produce, your typical turnaround time for a project, how large / small your projects are and the type of editorial environment you’re working in.  Of course, the choice of tool to use is not always yours, especially if you’re a freelancer or an employee of a company.

First off, let me say that if you’re researching tools by reading articles, blogs, and tests from websites that are dedicated to a particular tool or system and you’re reading that “This tool is the one you MUST use or you’re not a professional” or “If you can’t get on board with this future, you’re hopeless” or “That other tool is so bad, you MUST use this tool or you’re not a professional” then take whatever is on that site with a grain of salt.  Or looking through the website you can’t find anything negative written or shown about that particular tool or system, take everything on there with a grain of salt.  A website that supports Adobe is going to downplay Avid and Apple for example and vice versa.   You’ll get some great resources to use that particular tool on the site but you won’t get an unbiased opinion of the good, the bad and the ugly.

There is not a single tool in our industry that is perfect.  Let me say that again, “NO SINGLE TOOL in our industry is perfect.”  Everything we use has compromises somewhere.  When those compromises and short comings are pointed out via comments or Twitter and folks react personally and attack the messenger, well I just don’t have the patience anymore to deal with that.  “Fanboy syndrome” seems to have gotten stronger in the age of Twitter and name calling has just gotten so much worse it’s not worth the time or effort to try and correct some of these folks.  That’s why we’re thankful for the Block feature on Twitter.   So when reading articles, benchmarks, tests and reviews, just be aware of where the messages are coming from and the agendas being served when you read both the good and bad about products.

Let me also say this.  The use of any tool does NOT “make you a professional.”  Your skill level in performing the task as an Editor is what makes you a professional.   Put a lousy editor on any editing system available today and what do you have?  A lousy editor.  There is no absolute truth that any tool or tools available today will “make you a professional.”

If you say you’re “proficient” with a particular tool, you darn well better mean it.  At a recent Atlanta Cutters meeting, Editor Alan Bell remarked that when he interviews a potential editor who notes “proficiency” in a tool, he asks whether or not they own it.  If you don’t own the tool, particularly as a freelancer, then how can you be proficient at it?   Being “proficient” doesn’t mean just playing around with the tool a couple of times when you had access to it at a job or in school.  You need to own the tool so you can use it in your downtime to keep improving your skills.  I found that to be a very interesting observation and a question I’ve added to my job interview list of things to ask potential employees.

For you freelancers out there, it’s imperative to know both Adobe Premiere Pro and Avid Media Composer today and for the foreseeable future.  The vast majority of “Editor Needed” job postings are still dominated by these two tools, particularly Avid.  Still a lot of Final Cut Pro 7 editor requests out there too.   If you are looking for freelance and / or full time employment, especially in larger markets or larger gigs, you would do well to know Adobe and Avid right now.

If you are working on your own, for a stand-alone corporate department or some situation where you don’t have to interface with the “outside world” you can pretty much cut on whatever you feel comfortable with.  By “outside world” I mean delivery to networks / distributors, feature films, sound designers, post houses, etc…. where you have to share your projects / media with other companies to complete your projects or even to bring elements into your own project.  If you just work within your own space and you control everything from ingest to final output in your own workspace, pick the tool you feel most comfortable cutting with using the OS you prefer.  It’s really that simple.  The tools have gotten so good in the past few years that all of them pretty much do the same thing, they all do it a bit differently and some add features that many users would never use.

Some run only on Mac, some only on Windows, some on both.   There are people cutting weddings and corporate projects on Apple’s iMovie for example and they look great.   So for working completely on your own, with no outside interfacing, just pick what feels comfortable to you and your skill level and includes all the necessary tools to get your job done.   If you get paid to do this work, then you are, indeed, “a professional” no matter what anyone else tells you.

If you DO have to interface with the “outside world” then you will want to get a feel for what the “outside world” in your area is using.  You want to be compatible with the companies and artists you will be working with to ensure the smoothest completion possible to your project.  Yes it’s possible to convert a lot of things to other formats, but the Post process always goes easiest when you can stay within the same sandbox.   Especially when you have a quick turnaround or you’re up against a deadline.  Keep in mind your “outside world” will vary.  Around me in Atlanta we’ve got a lot of Adobe Premiere Pro and Avid companies so that’s one reason we have those two predominant in our shop.

The NLE’s today as I see them.

Avid

If you want to get into major broadcast, episodic, reality programming and feature films, Avid is still the King of the hill.   When you look at companies like Bunim-Murray or Original Productions that have hundreds of editors with many working in collaboration on reality series, the established workflows that these companies have invested with Avid are VERY difficult to change.  And if the product works for their needs, why should they change everything just because some new tool has come along?   So you, as a freelance editor who wants to get in with these types of companies, feature films or show, are going to have to invest time and money to learn Avid.

The good news is the tool is more affordable and flexible than it has ever been and the communication between the company and end users is much more open than it used to be.   I still have not upgraded our systems at Biscardi Creative Media from Avid Symphony 6 but from what I’ve read and heard from editors I respect in the industry, Media Composer 7 is a good step forward from Media Composer 6 and 6.5.   It seems they’ve made the most gains in their native format workflow which is a great thing to see.

Avid is still, today, the strongest tool for a multi-editor workflow where two or more editors are working on the exact same project and even the same project file.  Nothing out there beats that today and that is a reason why so many of the “big shows” and films still use this tool today.   For instance Alan Bell has 4 or 5 Assistant Editors working with him on his current film project.  Avid allows them to all to work on the same project at the same time.

Avid is a cross platform software running on both Windows and Mac.  

Adobe Premiere Pro

Adobe raised more headlines for their move to 100% Creative Cloud Subscription model to have access to the software than they did for the tool itself which is actually a shame.   All I will say about the Creative Cloud is that I have had it over a year now, we run it on 5 workstations and I flat out love it both from an access to software and cost effectiveness standpoint for my company.

Premiere Pro itself made a huge leap in efficiency with release of Premiere Pro CC (i.e. PPro 7.0)   The bulk of the re-design centered on making the interface smoother with less clicks required to do tasks, removing “annoyances,” overhauling the “under the hood” media management and overall operation.  The overall application is noticeably faster than CS6, media management now allows the user to easily locate any media if it goes offline or is moved, and many of he extra steps editors had to do to perform tasks have been eliminated.  Premiere Pro handles more formats natively than any tool I’ve ever tested, in the same timeline or as part of a project.  We have literally had 7 different formats and 3 different frame rates (or more) in the same timeline and PPro does not hiccup.

Adobe has released over 100 updates to the application since it’s release in June 2013 thanks to the subscription model.  The tool works well for both small and very large projects.   Communication between the end users and the company is unlike anything I’ve ever experienced.  The vast majority of changes in both Premiere Pro CC and the subsequent updates have been a direct result of feedback from the users and those changes come pretty quickly.   That has really been the strength of the Cloud / Subscription based model.  The tool is being updated very very quickly now not just with new features, but tweaks to the interface and operation to keep making it even more efficient for the end user.

Put together as a part of the suite from Adobe Creative Cloud, Premiere Pro is a very solid editing tool in a powerful Post Production suite. It’s our “go-to” NLE for Biscardi Creative Media since mid 2012.

Adobe Premiere Pro is a cross platform software running on both Windows and Mac.  

Autodesk Smoke 2013

Without a doubt, this is a very powerful editorial and finishing tool in a single app.  Particularly for editors working with quick turnarounds yet still want to use all the “tricks and tools in the toolbox.”  It’s also the priciest of those I’ve tested despite a major price drop to $3495.

I’m going to be honest and say I have yet to add this tool to our toolbox simply because of the price.  When I first started testing it I had visions of replacing FCP 7 in all workstations with this because it is so fast.  But at $3500 each workstation for 5 workstations in my shop, it wasn’t practical at the time we made the switch from FCP 7.   I may add one copy of it in 2014 but that will all depend on our hardware purchases this year

Autodesk Smoke 2013 is Mac only.  There is also a much more expensive Linux version available.

Apple Final Cut Pro X

Final Cut Pro 10.1 update was released just before Christmas and I honestly have not had a chance to properly test it as my home 27” iMac went belly up during the Holidays.    So I didn’t have a proper system to test it with.

But early indications from independent editors, bloggers and writers are that Apple has come a long way with the product and have greatly altered the project structure so projects are handled more similarly to traditional NLEs.   That’s huge because that was the original deal breaker for me and my company that drove us away from the product line.   There are also apparently gains in the multiple editor on a single project workflow.

Again, I cannot speak first hand to these changes yet, but it sounds like the product is moving forward.   If you check out Scott Simmons (@editblog) and Art Guglielmo (@artgug) they’re both independent editors and have been writing extensively about testing 10.1.  I hope to get some time later this month to seriously test the new changes.

“Editor Needed” job posts for FCP X editors are few and far between at the moment but with the 10.1 updates appearing to be aimed more squarely at the “traditional NLE” workflow, in particular the multi-editor workflow, it will be interesting to see if the adoption rate of X increases in 2014.   We have the tool in our shop, we have yet to use it for a project because no client has requested it.

Final Cut Pro X is Mac Only.

Sony Vegas

I know absolutely nothing about this tool and how it operates but I do know one thing.  People who use Vegas, LOVE it.   If you’re on Windows, and you’re in a self-sustained eco-system, it could be something worth checking out.

Sony Vegas is Windows Only.

So What Do You Recommend?

If you ask me right now, “What tool would you recommend I own?” it would be the Adobe Creative Cloud hands down.   There’s no suite of tools available today that can compete with everything Adobe offers under that one cloud price.

In terms of editorial, as a company at Biscardi Creative, we’ve found that Premiere Pro blends the best of new technology & ideas while maintaining the traditional NLE workflow.  Individual editors can configure the workflow based on their own editing and organizational styles.

I was essentially able to take our proven editorial workflow we’ve been using for 11 years and transfer it to Adobe Premiere Pro but got a huge efficiency jump thanks to the native format editing.  We have not converted any footage from its native format in over a year, we edit everything natively mixing and matching all manner of materials in a single timeline.   The time savings has been in the hundreds of a % over our old workflow in Final Cut Pro 7.  We can turn around projects in hours instead of days, days instead of weeks, weeks instead of months.  Converting 200+ hours of raw material to ProRes in FCP 7 is a thing of the past so we can jump right into the edit.  We’re even mixing PAL and NTSC in the same timeline without issue.

In addition, our archival storage needs dropped dramatically because of the native editing.  30 minute episodes of the PBS series “This American Land” used to average 1.2TB of media per episode to archive.  The latest season averaged only 400-500GB per episode.   So we’re now able to store more episodes on fewer archive devices.  This applies to all projects across the board.

The tight integration between all the apps in the Cloud, particularly Photoshop, After Effects and Premiere Pro really makes changes and revisions so incredibly easy.

The cross platform nature of Adobe is huge for me as a business owner.  I have almost almost infinite freedom to design and purchase computer systems for the software because I can shop both Mac and Windows.    I’m not limited to any particular computer maker, operating system or internal / external components.   As our workflows evolve over the next few years, this will be big as I will probably start to make “strategic purchases” to put “big iron” where it’s absolutely necessary and put smaller and more nimble systems where we don’t need absolute full power.

I feel completely comfortable trusting my company in Adobe’s hands because they have to make and maintain really good software in order for their business to be successful.  Cost, performance & flexibility put Adobe ahead of the pack at this time in NLE evolution for my money.

Final Thoughts

So those are my thoughts, what we’re doing at BCM and what I would recommend today.  Take what I say under consideration but don’t use this as your ONLY determining factor to decide what’s right for you.  Your situation, your needs and your workflow will determine which of the tools that are out there today will work best for your needs.

For my money and workflow, the storage and RAID system mean so much more than just the NLE or computer.   You need to spend time and money wisely on your media storage because oftentimes that has more to do with your system speed, efficiency and stability than anything else you’ll purchase.

Good luck and here’s hoping for a very successful 2014!

Walter

The post NLE Kick Off 2014 appeared first on WalterBiscardi.com.

As you know the intention of this site is to go beyond the button pushing, user manual regurgitation approach of so many websites out there.   In addition, this site will be populated with actual working professionals, not professional trainers.   As the recently completed Southeast Creative Summit showed me, there is a real thirst and need out here for good practical information on the creative and especially the business side of what we all do.  My presentation, “Don’t Get Screwed!” was one of the most attended workshops of the weekend and filled with those “aha” and “oh yeah, why didn’t I think of that?” moments.

Well come January, that presentation along with a whole host of others will be launching from this site.  The goal is to kick off with around 10 hours of training materials with an additional 1 – 2 hours, at least, going up per month.   We’ll be covering the gamut from technical to career and business including some premium, insider knowledge that is simply not available anywhere else.   At least not that I have found and certainly not from the caliber of working professionals who are working with us.

I’m especially excited about a new product we’ll talk more about later in January that will really change the way we all communicate and work together.  I’ll also have a new Podcast and some video casts launching sometime in January.

Production has already started and Members who are signed up for this site will be receiving an introductory pricing special in advance of the public launch of the new materials.    If you’re not a Member, be sure to sign up today.

Thanks so much for your support through the years and I’m really excited for y’all to see what’s coming next!

Walter

The post Big Changes coming to the site in January! appeared first on WalterBiscardi.com.

The second documentary in the Global Health Frontier Series, Dark Forest Black Fly aired Monday, September 9 on Georgia Public Broadcasting at 7:00pm EST.

DARK FOREST, BLACK FLY describes how dedicated scientists and health workers have joined together to achieve remarkable success against river blindness on two continents.

WHAT IS RIVER BLINDNESS? River blindness is caused by microscopic worms that migrate under the skin, leading to intense itching and eventual loss of sight. The disease is transmitted by small black flies that breed in fast-flowing rivers and streams. Millions were effected in Africa, the Middle East and South America for decades.

Nearly 25 years ago researchers discovered a drug, ivermectin, that kills the worms, but the threat of its return still exists and there are areas that have yet to eradicate it.

Learn more about the documentary and view trailer at http://cieloproductions.org/feature-films/dark-forest-black-fly

The Global Health Frontier series is distributed by American Public Television nationally and Internationally. So if you aren’t in the State of Georgia stay tuned for upcoming air dates.

An Interview with one of the Executive Producers: Walter Biscardi, Jr.

Question: What is the documentary Dark Forest Black Fly (DFBF) about?
Walter: The documentary looks at the efforts to control and possibly eradicate River Blindness disease. This project has been 4 years in the making!

Question: Where did the filming take place?
Walter: Dozens of trips were made by the production team to Africa and Latin America. On-site filming was led by Executive Producer Gary Streiker. Around 200 hours of raw footage was collected to create the one-hour documentary.

Question: What role did your company, Biscardi Creative Media play in the creation of DFBF?
Walter: Biscardi Creative Media oversaw the entire post production and digital asset management for this documentary. That work included Editorial, Sound Design, Color Grading, Logging and Archival Storage.

Question: What did you enjoy about this project?
Walter: At Biscardi Creative Media we pride ourselves on being storytellers and we were once again recognized for that in this project. We were given an outline, no script, just raw footage because Gary knew we could and would craft the most compelling story within it. It’s more rare these days for a producer to hand over the materials and simply say “go” to an editor. I believe that speaks volumes of the trust, creativity and professionalism of our team.

Question: For the post production techies, what tools did you use to complete DFBF?
Walter: The documentary was started and finished in Final Cut Pro, ultimately ending up on FCP 7. The project was so large that we decided it was still better not to move it to newer NLE platforms as this would have caused more headaches than help.
Color grading was completed using DaVinci Resolve. This was a bit of a challenge because the documentary was shot over 4 years in a myriad of formats and shading. But we managed it well. Audio and sound mix was done by Patrick Belden. He has a great ear for blending natural sound and music which was essential for this project.

Question: Any parting words?
Walter: I am very happy to have been involved in this project. I have been an editor for over 20 years and now I am an Executive Producer of my 2nd documentary with Cielo Productions. I’m truly thankful for the opportunity.

Additional information:
Produced by Cielo Productions.
Executive Producers: Gary Strieker, Walter Biscardi, Jr.
Airing on GPB, Monday September 9 at 7:00pm (EST).
Airing nationally on PBS stations and via the PBS World channel which encompasses the top 50 stations in America.

Questions or Inquiries? Contact Biscardi Creative Media |  770.271.3427

BISCARDI CREATIVE MEDIA is a full service digital media production company near Atlanta, Georgia with services that include Video Production, Sound Production, Sound Mixing, Graphic Design, Animation, Post Production, Video Editing, Color Grading, Finishing, Digital Asset Transfer, Digitizing and Archiving. Quite simply we’re the people who make video and media production easy for you.   No technobabble.  Just clear, concise and creative content delivered where and how you need it, on time and on budget.  Office and production space is also available for short and long term projects.

The post “Dark Forest Black Fly” Documentary set to air on PBS, Interview with EP Walter Biscardi appeared first on WalterBiscardi.com.

Got a great email this week from a young editor who asked a very honest question.  “Does the editor have to get ALL the raw material from the shooter or should they expect the footage to be trimmed before receiving it?”

In other words, should the shooter trim out all head / tails / extra roll material so the editor can just get the meat and get going quicker.  Now for those of us who have been around it’s obvious we get EVERYTHING.  But in this age where the tools are completely accessible to all, not everyone goes through traditional editorial training, thus very simple questions like this are not encountered.

The simple answer is “Yes you do want ALL of the footage” because you never want that videographer making decisions that could hamper you in the edit suite.  For one thing, while the video may not be useful when the camera is swinging around the photographer’s waist, there could very well be some useful audio that you’d never get if the photographer trimmed the shot based on video.

And in today’s very dynamic style of editing, those swishes, tilts and everything else that happens when the photographer is carrying the camera are often very useful transition elements.  Heck I’ve used shots where the camera was literally dropped because it made a great dramatic change between scenes.

So don’t ever let a photographer trim the raw materials before you get them.

The post Yes, You DO Need ALL the Footage! appeared first on WalterBiscardi.com.

Buford, GA — Biscardi Creative Media (BCM) welcomes world renowned Colorist and founder of TaoOfColor.com, Patrick Inhofer, for his Colorist Flight School, May 30 – June 1.  The three-day workshop is geared towards the craft of color grading.  Inhofer will teach attendees the craft of color grading while bringing them up-to-speed on DaVinci Resolve (and Resolve Lite).  Students in the workshop will also grade a short film along with Patrick. With a limit of 10 students, the workshop will be very interactive.

What is Colorist Flight School?  Colorist Flight School is a systematic approach to teaching color grading technique using a real-life project. Students grade a short film in class—with immediate instructor feedback.

There are three elements to Tao of Color’s Colorist Flight School training (both LIVE! and online):

1. Learn your instrument panel – Currently, the instrument panel being taught in this workshop is DaVinci Resolve and DaVinci Resolve Lite.
2. Practice in a ‘Flight Simulator’ – Training is nearly 100% project-based. The key to becoming confident in color correction is by knowing you can match dozens of shots into a seamless continuous whole. And the only way to gain that confidence is to grade dozens of shots telling a single story. In the workshop students are provided a short film with notes from the Director—the ‘Flight Simulator’—encouraging the development of muscle memory and confidence for students to do it on their own.
3. Feedback – The training (LIVE! or online) always provides attendees with actionable feedback of their work.

During the event students will grade a short film that the entire class color corrects together over 2-3 days!  Workshop facilitators will provide a USB 3 hard drive with the short film and project files—for students to take home and continue practicing.  Students will be licensed to use excerpts of the short film in their color grading demo reel and in private client demos!

“We’ve been working with Patrick for the past six months to develop this workshop,” said BCM Principal Walter Biscardi, Jr.  “I wanted this to be a very small class allowing more one on one interaction with the instructor.   The fact that attendees will not only be able to grade a short film with Patrick but will also be able take home the footage after the class is simply incredible. I’ve not seen anything like that offered before.”

Who should consider participating in Colorist Flight School?  Editors, Colorists, Assistant Editors and beginning Davinci Resolve Users.  Colorist Fight School is practical training designed to further the careers of industry professionals.   The three-day workshop will be hosted at Biscardi Creative Media’s production facility in Buford GA, May 30 – June 1.   This is the second training event to be held at BCM with more events in the planning stages.

“I’m fortunate to have a many talented friends in this industry and we’re developing more of these small, very high end training opportunities for folks who want to go beyond just learning how to push buttons,” said Biscardi.  “Between these live events and our newly launched WalterBiscardi.com website we aim to become that missing link resource that advances professionals’ careers through practical, useful knowledge of all aspects of our industry.”

For more information or to register for Colorist Flight School LIVE visit http://www.biscardicreative.com/events-and-trainings/colorist-flight-school-live/

For more information about WalterBiscardi.com visit http://walterbiscardi.com/

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Media Contact

Walter Biscardi, Jr. 770.271.3427 walter@biscardicreative.com

BISCARDI CREATIVE MEDIA is a full service digital media production company near Atlanta, Georgia with services that include Video Production, Sound Production, Sound Mixing, Graphic Design, Animation, Post Production, Video Editing, Color Grading, Finishing, Digital Asset Transfer, Digitizing and Archiving. Quite simply we’re the people who make video and media production easy for you.   No technobabble.  Just clear, concise and creative content delivered where and how you need it, on time and on budget.  Office and production space is also available for short and long term projects.  www.biscardicreative.com | 770-271-3427

The post Biscardi Creative Media Announces: Colorist Flight School – Live! appeared first on WalterBiscardi.com.

A Production Website Focused on the Creativity and Business Behind the Technique

Atlanta, Ga. — Millions of creatives the world over know editor & Post Production specialist Walter Biscardi, Jr. thanks to the CreativeCow.net website where he has shared knowledge and advice to countless people since 2000. Over 25,000 online posts later, Walter is sticking to his roots of helping to educate his production and entertainment peers. With the launch of WalterBiscardi.com, Biscardi will provide a robust platform of education and development to both budding professionals and veterans of the industry.

“I wanted to create a medium where people could learn from others who earn their living “in the trenches” day in, day out, meeting deadlines and having to push creative limits on a regular basis. So WalterBiscardi.com is brought to you not by professional trainers, but what I call professionally certified artists” said Walter Biscardi, Jr.  “What you absolutely will not find on this site is a professional trainer who does little more than read a manual and then regurgitate back to you and call it training. The idea here is to look beyond just the technical and get into the craft of what we do in all aspects of Production and Business.  Once you know how to push buttons, you need to know what to do next to have a successful career in this industry.  We plan to be that resource.”

WalterBiscardi.com expects to be an effective resource by not only offering webinars and on demand-based education, but live workshops in Atlanta, GA as well.  Such as the recent two day Blackmagic Cinema Camera workshop with Marco Solorio held at Biscardi Creative Media. Regardless of how participants learn best, online or in-person, Biscardi believes in making valuable knowledge accessible to everyone.

The site itself will house extended modules, tutorials and advice from creator Walter Biscardi, Jr. along with other hand-selected artists in the industry with varying focuses from Editorial, Sound Design, Color, Photography, Producer, Public Relations, Research & Development, and Business Development & Growth. One such contributor is colorist Ron Anderson whose impressive list of projects and credits span 30 years and range from the NASA Space Shuttle launches, to feature films, nationally syndicated television shows such as Tyler Perry’s “The House of Payne” and numerous commercial clients.

The caliber of knowledge visitors can expect is nothing short of the best. Said Walter of the site, “No one person can know and teach everything. The contributors that you will find on WalterBiscardi.com are the people I regularly look to learn from.  They understand not only the equipment and software, but how you need to operate in order to meet deadlines, specifications and manage time.  At the end of the day, this is a service based industry and to serve both yourself and your clients better, you need to better understand the craft and business side of our industry.   The team we’re assembling truly believes in quality and we all look forward to building a distinguished catalog over the next few months and years.”

WalterBiscardi.com is an initiative of Walter Biscardi, Jr. and Biscardi Creative Media. For more information visit www.walterbiscardi.com or www.biscardicreative.com

ABOUT WALTER BISCARDI, JR.

Walter’s career began with editing for a national and international audience at CNN. His experience grew as he took on new challenges over the years. In 2001 he started Biscardi Creative Media and in 2013 launched sister company, MTWD Entertainment to seek out and create original programming for all media. Biscardi has produced and edited programming that airs on The Food Network, NBC, The Weather Channel, Georgia Public Television, PBS, among others. A recognized industry leader, Walter has been recruited by companies such as Apple, Adobe, Autodesk, Panasonic, AJA Video Systems, ATTO  Technologies, and Small Tree Communications to test and find ways to improve hardware and software solutions for the film and video industry. He counts a national Emmy, Peabody, Regional Emmys, CableACE awards, Telly & Aurora awards among his many honors and credits.

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Media Contact

Walter Biscardi, Jr. 770.271.3427 walter@biscardicreative.com

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Dell Precision T5500 meet Mac Pro, Mac Pro meet Dell Precision.

For the time being, we’re going to run the Dell as a stand alone workstation.  Why?   Because NAB is right around the corner and the awesome folks at Small Tree Communications are gearing up for some new reveals at the show.   Thus their time is limited right now to properly test and configure the Dell to work on the SAN.   So for short term, we’re going to run it with a local 8TB SAS/SATA RAID.

This requires the installation of an ATTO SAS/SATA Host Bus Adapter to connect the RAID to the computer.   A brand new R680 card is $999, but I have an older model, yet very capable R380 card sitting in the Mac Pro that the Dell is going to replace.   So I called Atto to confirm that the card would work in a PC and they said, “it should, just flash the card with new firmware when you move it.”

Atto R380 SAS Host Bus Adapter located in the top slot of the Mac Pro.

The very same Atto R380 card relocated (in the middle) to the Dell Precision workstation.  The AJA Kona LHi sits just above it.

After installation I downloaded the appropriate Driver, Flash file and Atto Configuration Tool application and sure enough, the card came right up online the way it should.   Connected the RAID to the card and set about re-building the RAID to be used with Windows 7.

The Dell Precision as it sits in Edit 2 right now with the RAID to its immediate right.  That’s the Atto Config Tool on the screen rebuilding the RAID.  After testing the unit will move into the machine room.

So another plus for those of you contemplating a switch from the Mac Pro to PC.   It’s very likely your third party cards will install into the PC.  Just check with your manufacturer before you do anything to ensure it will work and also ask if there are any particular slot or installation orders to follow.

Once we get everything formatted, do a few quick tests, we’ll move the entire rig into the machine room and throw it right into Post on Season 2 of the PBS Series, This American Land.   You haven’t seen me do a lot of reporting on this Dell Precision machine because there’s really not a lot to say quite honestly.   It works, it’s fast, at some point we’ll have to do some benchmark tests comparing renders, etc…. but we need this machine to get into Post pretty quickly so we’ll have some more performance updates, etc… as we start to beat on this thing for a production schedule that goes through October.

It’s gonna be a fun ride, more updates as we can!

The post It’s Not a Mac – Windows Testing Part 3 appeared first on WalterBiscardi.com.

When transitioning from one OS to another, the worst thing you can do with your professional creative workstation is to simply Upgrade your OS.   That is, allow the OS software to simply overwrite the existing OS.   This usually results in a lot of instability because it’s not a clean install, there is a lot of deleting / overwriting / deleting / overwriting and so on.   Professional applications run their best when they are simply installed cleanly into the OS.    There’s also a lot to be said for a perfectly stable operating computer system.

So here’s how we do our upgrades on our Mac Pros.

1 – Install a fresh hard drive inside the computer and format it with the name Macintosh HD LION.

2 – Install Mac OS 10.7 to that fresh hard drive.

3 – Re-install all pertinent software onto the Mac OS 10.7 hard drive.

4 – Leave the original Mac OS 10.6.8 Snow Leopard drive alone.   If we need to run anything off that hard drive, we simply re-boot the computer to that drive.

Here’s how it looks on the desktop, these are three physical drives inside the computer.   The topmost drive is always the one we booted off of, so we even know at a glance which OS we’re running.

The Aux drive is where we keep graphical elements and such.    So now what we’re going to do is essentially “freeze” our Final Cut Pro 7 system on the SnowLeopard HD.   We will NOT be installing FCP 7 on the Lion drive because there’s really no reason to.  It’s not going to run that much faster and we’re not going to be using it much at all moving forward, so why bother installing it on the Lion drive?   Anytime we need to run that software, we simply reboot to the Snow Leopard HD.

Now if you’re running a laptop or an iMac, you could make a Disc Image of your Snow Leopard drive to an external drive for safe keeping.   Then if you need to reboot in Snow Leopard you can simply boot off the external drive.  However you do the OS switch, always do a clean install of the OS and then install all of your software fresh onto that hard drive.

Oh and if you’ve not upgraded to Mac OS 10.7 Lion yet, you should be aware that the installer will self destruct after installation is completed.   And it’s a 4 GB file download.   So if you ever need to install it again, you’ll need to download it again.  All 4 GB.   If you’d like to keep a copy of the installer around, follow these instructions on Cult of Mac.

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