the fxphd deans blog

It is hard sometimes to shoot bad stuff, but in response to requests in the RED course, we have been shooting bad blue screen. Given the Bayer pattern on the sensor, the response to light and a few other things - we know that the best keying option would be green screen, and we have done green screen tests. But in the real world we all know that bad things happen - so with the help of some friends we shot a not very blue, poorly lit, mixture of daylight and tungsten, blue screen shot with the RED. We will again be distributing the footage to fxphd members.

It is not that we are trying to screw the RED or promote bad blue screens - but having shot great blue screen and keyed it with the RED - we figured we should see how it handles the bad stuff!

This week’s upcoming fxphd, we are looking at 35mm lens adaptors.

Which is also a great way to drink cocktails while working.
We did not do a shoot out but we did try and show a range of options and some low cost cool solutions.

I used to be very nervous about these solutions but after using them - I would totally recommend them for an Indie production or film clip. You do need more light but still the results look so much more flimic - you just have to remember to never switch them off between takes! (As we found out first hand this week).

It is hard to not just post stills from our photography course here each week - clearly they lend themselves to this production blog. We just finished shooting another class and while I posted a few of these for the Post-Grads in those classes - I figured I would also post here.

What makes fxphd work is the quality of the lecturers - such as Tim Wheeler who runs photography course. Tim is a professional photographer and each week he covers a new subject - this week it is flash photography. I for one nearly always avoid the flash as the prop of a bad photographer - but in Tim’s hand the images just sing. These location fashion images were all just done hand held with a flash - no expensive gear just some great styling by our own Chris Chisato Arai - our brilliant stylist… and Georgina our model and Tim. To be honest these classes are just better than I imagined when we were debating adding Photography to fxphd… now I can not imagine having the courses !

As with all posts here - click on the image itself for a larger verison.

As we have just posted our 100th podcast on fxguide.com, and this is our production blog, I figured I would give you guys some facts and figures Jimmy and I worked out before recording this week’s podcast.

This week alone we had 1 major and 6 minor shoots, - covering 35mm lens Adaptors, DOPs, dogs in parks, RED, Cocktail hour etc. We also took some time to count up just how many classes and podcasts we have done between the two sites.

Leaving aside the hundreds of stories and tips we have posted over the years we have posted (as of yesterday)

• 100 fxpodcasts

• 80 fxphDODs

• 544 unique classes* in fxphd (plus 10 bonus classes) NB: * all video, most HD.

• The first fxguide podcast was 7.1M (published Jun 27, 2005 ) with Scott Dougherty and David Lingenfelser about the company’s work on Mr. & Mrs. Smith.

• Our latest fxguideTv episode is 4.5 Gig compressed to 100+ Megabyte for download.

• Since podcast 5 : The fxpodcast theme music is “Perfect Yet”, an original composition by Darrin Hanley. Hanley is an both a musician and an experienced designer, flame and AE artist. You can hear more of Daz’s music at www.manyarehere.com

• Every podcast except on (1st April 2006) had an intro by one of the founders.

• Paul Franklin has been on the most episodes (3)

• To produce these we have:
- 24 procs in the Sydney office alone
- with 18 terrabytes of storage,
- 4 video camera, 5 stills cameras and a RED One camera,
- 4 mixers,
- 7 tripods,
and some 30 microphones (8 wireless).

Thanks for all your support - we love doing this but we could not do it without you guys so to you our supporters-
Thank you!

Mike

I’d like to add to Mike’s post a bit because what we love about our workflow is our P2 camera — and not really P2 per se. To be fair, we don’t use P2 files that much in our workflow due to some of the insufficiencies that Barry has documented quite well. What we do love is the combination of the HVX-200 and Focus Enhancement’s FireStore FS-100. We record DVCPROHD QuickTime movies to a the small portable hard drive via the firewire out of our HVX-200. We simply then transfer the files from our FireStore onto the XRAID or our MacBook Pro and we’re good to go. It is absolutely brilliant.
(more…)

Production continues with fxguidetv - Ep 18 is out and we record Ep 19 on Monday. The next ep will cover Beowulf. We had a great chat the other day with Barry from DVXUser. We both use the P2 in vastly different ways - but I think it is safe to say we are both big fans of the format.Actually the main difference in how we use them is in post. We use the Firestore drive to allow a really clean and easy FCP workflow. It is also safe to say this works brilliantly for us. Barry pointed out that for more general P2 card use, he thinks users should demand more from Apple, but we’ll let Barry articulate his point. We really respect Barry, and so while we might have a great Apple workflow the point he makes about demanding more from key manufacturers is a good one. (more…)

The production courses are going brilliantly at fxphd - they are some of the most popular courses this term. We have continued to filming to produce material for the courses. A recent shoot for fxphd took over the backlot at Fox Studios - thanks to our friends at Animal Logic and the ACS. The RED is working out well, we have now done demos and test shoots in Sydney, LA, Melbourne, Adelaide and Brisbane, and we are now letting it loose for others to use.

This term our in house production is a fake ipod lexus ad which shows the benefits of having an ipod connector in your car. The spot was just filmed on RED using a range of techniques. We will see this appearing in a range of courses from pftrack to nuke and smoke, exactly which classes is still being finalized. And importantly shots from this will be in this terms challenges - so you can have a RED effects shot on your reel within weeks !

As always we own all the right to all the music, images etc - so there are no problems in you using the material. And this is only one of several such projects in the pipeline - we also have a cop drama, a more gritty piece planned. This term will have more challenges than in any term before. As with last term, we will do full video reviews of your submissions for feedback.

We have been filming like crazy for all the classes, including the new advanced PFtrack course.

Some people just throw software at shots, if it won’t track in one program then they try another. But as we saw last term in PFtrack 200, if you know what you’re doing there is a lot you can do to solve a difficult shot. In this new term we will push PFtrack much further and in ways you may not expect - as we are here for face reconstruction and motion capture. The very popular professor Victor Wolansky returns for a 300 level course in what will be one of the most advanced 3D tracking courses anywhere on the web.

While Mike has been having a blast working hard on our new production courses, I’ve also been busy behind the scenes trying to get a couple more courses added to the new term. So I’m really excited to announce that we just added a new Z-Brush course for the October 07 Term.

This course, taught by Siju Thomas (view his online gallery here) is going to focus on learning to sculpt with an artistic perspective. The course will be grounded in anatomically accurate sculpture of a humanoid creature form…a hunter turned were-lion or a gorilla-man. We will be building a character from inside out finishing the body and then finishing the cloth all as separate parts. I love the idea of learning the app through a project — it’s really the best way. We will be offering discounted educational copies of the software (for non-commercial use) to fxphd members.

For more information about this and other October07 Term courses at fxphd, visit fxphd.com. We’ve got one more cool course to announce, but that’ll have to wait until next week…..