Blog van Wouter http://wokun.anillusion.nl/ Anillusion Digital Productions, 2006-2009 Last week I was called by my bank to invite me to come to my local office to talk with someone about my financial status. I agreed to go so I got invited for last monday. Of course I knew this had marketing written all over it, but I had the time and I was interested as well. So I went and had a good talk with someone. I got some extra insurance, I was happy and I guess he was happy. At the end he asked me for me email address to receive a questionnaire about our talk. Today I finally received the questionnaire and filled it in. And of course it had marketing written all over it, but who cares. Except for the last question. Would you recommend us to your friends, family, relatives etc. based upon your meeting? Now that is a just a plain stupid question. The answer was no, because nobody in their right mind would recommend a bank to others, based on just one conversation. That question made the whole conversation feel forced and extremely aggressive and gave me a really negative feeling towards the brand. This is really bad, because if you look at the rest of this marketing thing, the brand scored really good actually. I discussed this with my father and he told me that big corporations are in love with NPS (<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Net_Promoter" target="_blank">Net Promoter Scores</a>). According to wikipedia: Net Promoter is a management tool that can be used to gauge the loyalty of a firm’s customer relationships. It serves as an alternative to traditional customer satisfaction research. My father said that it works in the US and that’s the only reason why they’re trying it in Europe as well. My problem with NPS is that it doesn’t work that way. With NPS you’re giving a short term score to something that is long term. Short term scoring with a long term mechanism is also, in my opinion, exactly why the economy is so bad at the moment. If you have a brand and you want me to keep loyal to you, you have to build some kind of relation with me. How deep this relation goes differs from person to person. The reason why brands want to score with people is of course your money. But people don’t want to feel forced in their opinion of a brand. A brand needs to earn their trust and reputation and that’s hard work. Brand loyalty takes time and every step does count. It’s the average of the scores over a period of time. Time is an important factor: recent scores count more. If a company scores good over time but screws up in the end, people are usually still willing to trust the brand enough to stay loyal and give you a second chance (don’t screw that up). If a company scores bad over time but scores good in the end, people aren’t loyal but willing to give you a chance to prove yourself over time. That’s brand building. If you look at social networking from a marketing point of view, everybody is a brand and everybody is a consumer. If you want to be popular in social networking you have to show yourself, tell what you’re doing, blog, post media. And it’s not about quantity it’s also about quality. It has to be good and often enough for people to be loyal followers. This is the normal organic way people interact with each other. This is why social networking sites are so popular right now, because it works. People feel comfortable with it because it feels natural. Marketing has changed completely because the world has changed in the last few years. Time used to be a constant, but it isn’t right now. If you don’t change your perception of time, it may seem that people are moving so fast that we only care about the now. Which explains the NPS rating. Although it’s true that we live in the now more than ever, we still care about the past and the future. People differ in their opinions about how fast information should flow and that’s a hard question to tackle in marketing. If you take time perception into account when you calculate your target audience it gets a bit easier. http://wokun.anillusion.nl/index.php?id=48 Fri, 24 Jul 2009 18:30:00 +0200 http://wokun.anillusion.nl/index.php?id=48 Have you seen the new Star Trek movie yet? No? Go see it, it’s awesome. Even if you’re not a fan of the series you’ll probably enjoy it. I’ve been a Star Trek fan for years now. I started watching The Next Generation when it was first broadcasted in Europe, but I’m not sure how I started watching. At first I could only see it on BBC2. I just started learning English in school, which was not really enough to understand everything the characters said, but enough to understand the basic story. Watching Star Trek without any subtitles helped me to get better at English. And well, for me it remained interesting until the end. In a way I even liked the last series Enterprise. It wasn’t good, but it wasn’t that bad. When we finally got a computer with a sound-card and CD-ROM player (a 486 machine), I decided to buy the game Star Trek The Next Generation: A final Unity. I think it was around 1994. I even bought the book with tips tricks and walkthrough. This game was at that time the best kind of game you could play. I still have the game complete in its original box. <img src="http://wokun.anillusion.nl/images/articles/STTNG-AFinalUnity.jpg" alt="" border="0" /> These were the recommended system specs for the game: - 66 MHz 486 DX or Pentium processor - 8 MB of RAM - a Hard Drive with a minimum of 20 MB - 2x Speed CD-ROM Player with 300 Kb/s sustained transfer rate - DOS 5.0 or later - SVGA graphics (640x480 pixels at 256 colors) - 512 KB Video RAM - a Mouse - a Sound Blaster or 100% compatible. So my system could barely play this game as you can imagine from these gigantic system specs. <img src="http://wokun.anillusion.nl/images/articles/STTNG-AFinalUnity-screenshot.jpg" alt="" border="0" /> I recently stumbled upon it online as a DOS-box download. So now I can play it in OSX on my Mac Pro. I think (hope) this isn’t illegal, because I still have the original disc. It’s just fun to play through it again after all these years. http://wokun.anillusion.nl/index.php?id=47 Fri, 22 May 2009 17:30:00 +0200 http://wokun.anillusion.nl/index.php?id=47 It’s almost time for NAB 2009. And although Apple won’t go to trade shows anymore, most people believe that Final Cut Studio 3 is around the corner. There are already lots of speculations about what the update could be. This is my wish list of what I would like to see in the new version. I have no sources at Apple, I base this all on what I’d want for myself. A new uniform User Interface. Final Cut Studio 2 doesn’t look bad, but when you see what the Apple developers did with the interface of Aperture and Logic, I think there is lots that could change. But not just that. I’d want a package that would look like I’m working with one application. Most of the applications now have things in common: A timeline, a browser, a canvas and an inspector. And although I can send a project to another application with the ‘send to’ command, it’s only mimicking that controls are the same. But they don’t look the same, nor do they really talk to each other in the background. If I change the color in motion, I want to do it with Colors’ controls. Why would this be handy? When your offline is done with the same files as the online, it may not be so obvious. But what if I’m working with some future RED resolution. I can’t edit that in realtime, at least not at full resolution. But if I’d do any correction or animation with low res (offline) media, I’d have to jump through hoops or start over, to get the same end result. Especially if it’s something I did in more than one (current) application. Project management is something that’s really bad right now. What I would like to see is a project manager that makes sure that everything the project needs is included. I want one file that is the project. Something like how the iPhoto Library is setup. (You can still see its’ contents if you’d want to) I want version control built in, so that when I open the project I get the latest version, but I can always go back to an old version. Apple Color does this pretty well, actually. Also I want render files, capture files, imported media, everything included auto-magically. I want to be able to open a project on more than one computer. The project should know who has what timeline or part open. That way an editor and assistant can actually work on the same project. When I’m done with a project, I want to actually lock it. And use that data to consolidate archive it properly. And again, not just the edit, the whole project. Simple request: include spotlight and everything from iMovie. Include, not replace the traditional way of doing things. Also the node based compositing from shake and color, build it in. I want a simple API to make import/export/roundtrip plugins for (online) distribution and outsourcing. From a simple upload to youTube to full Digital Cinema export. Make it simple to send something to animators, sound people, who all probably use different applications. Integrate it into Automator, so that everyone can use it. Let me decide how I want to build my workflow. Sub timelines: Like how Logic deals with multiple recordings of a region. Just twirl open a shot to just reveal the source clip or the buildup of an effect. with version control. Focus on a region to make animating easier. Qmaster Background Nodes: I want to be able to do every bit of rendering through Qmaster Nodes. Why should only compressor be able to use the power of a render network. When I’m rendering from Color and Motion, I want the same render power to be available. Now, Snow Leopard will definitely be a step forward, since it will probably be better equipped with using multiple cores, with one threated applications. But why stop there? If I have multiple machines, I want to be on them. Another idea is Facility Builder. Facility builder is Qadministrator on steroids. You can tell Qmaster Facility Builder what the different nodes in the system are. For instance two Mac Pro’s are the main systems that both can submit jobs, the mac mini’s and xserves are full render nodes and the iMacs are only partially available. Let’s say the two Mac Pro’s are each in an edit suite. When one suite is empty, all of the nodes are available to the one Mac Pro. Then the second editor begins his work, now the nodes are split in two. If necessary of course, because if he just needs one node for a simple edit job, all the other nodes are available to the first suite. Also, the system should be able to show the user what the bottlenecks of the facility are and what would be a wise course of action to upgrade. Maybe you just need a faster network, because you have enough cores. Maybe it’s the other way around because your 4K clips take forever to render. I want future projection based on project history or speed-test the nodes for new technologies like the 28K RED Epic. Maybe it’s a bad of hurt for iLife users, but Blu-Ray is not a freakin’ bag of hurt for us professionals. It’s the logical next step after DVD, while there’s no real alternative. Also, there are no bonus features on iTunes, while my clients ask for it. I want Blu-Ray authoring for the mac done right. So I’d want to be able to create BD Live functionality if I want to. Include custom Java if I’d want to. Or keep it simple if I don’t. And I don’t want a second Xcode, but I want to be able to use my Xcode JAVA apps in my project if I want to. For iTunes or Podcasting we want better tools for subtitles, multiple audio-streams and clickable content. Just ask Alex Lindsay from the Pixelcorps about that last one. Final Cut Server is something I don’t use, because it is something I regard as a group management program. I don’t know if Apple regards it as such, but they should. I think Final Cut Studio should be something that a small facility could use. Final Cut Server is something for networks and big operations. I can see it as a project managers’ tool. The Project Manager could setup the import/export/roundtrip plugins for a whole pipeline and divide work between people. For instance animation. In a large project, the Visual Effects supervisor is the one that usually decides who gets to work on which shot, not the editor. So the Editor sends it to VFX and the Supervisor can log into Final Cut Server and redirect it to the different animators. If the animator is done, he submits it back to his supervisor. If the supervisor agrees, it can be submitted to the director. If everyone responds quick, it could be instant feedback for the animator. Enough ideas? Again, this is just speculating and probably most of it won’t come true. But an editor can hope, can’t he? http://wokun.anillusion.nl/index.php?id=46 Thu, 02 Apr 2009 18:00:00 +0200 http://wokun.anillusion.nl/index.php?id=46 This is probably the longest blogpost I have ever done. It just came out this way. See it as compensation for all the time I've kept you waiting for new posts. So as you might know, I'm living the new digital lifestyle. I have my 1080p LCD and my PS3 connected to the internet. And I'm happy with that. But I would love a new trend in my media experience. Let's call it Television 2.0, which is of course a pointer to the Web 2.0 we already know. To explain my idea for Television 2.0, I'll first explain the important parts about what makes the Web 2.0 idea so wonderful and new. It's not the Web 2.0 pretty shiny interfaces that I'm after. It's not about the design, it's about the idea. If Web 2.0 had a slogan, it would be “playing well with others”. It's social, it's interactive, it's experiencing media the way I want. From a technical point of view we have RSS, AJAX and API. This combination makes it possible to use content of other sources and use it on your own site or application. Take Twitter. I tweet from my iPhone using Twitterific, after posting it on twitter, I can see my tweet on twitter.com but I also have webapps in place to put the tweet on my facebook, my hyves and also this blog. What I would want is to have the Web 2.0 philosophy to come to the TV world. When I turn on my TV I would like to see my interface of choice. Let's say, the PS3 interface, AppleTV or something I created myself. I know it well, I like the way I have to navigate through it. If I want to play a game, I navigate to the game section and start playing my game. If I want to see what's on Revision3, I want to go and navigate to Video and select Revision3, see it live, see the latest episode of Diggnation in 720p. Of course, my system already knows I like this show, so it already downloaded the episode for me. Let's go a bit further. My cable company has a digital TV box with a DVR built in. Why would I need to flip my channel to see what's on or navigate their interface to program the DVR? Why would I need to switch interfaces at all, just to get to another source of content. If I can setup the interface once on a TV set and the rest of the equipment would just follow orders, I would never ever have to explain it to my grandmother again. She would be able to turn the thing on and off and switch between streams of live TV and always see the news at 20:00. The system would keep track of the programs she watches and figures out by itself what it could suggest to show. It suggests by showing. If she changes channel every time she sees it, that will count as a no. It will all appear as if she's watching normal TV. Because for her, the best interface will be one that's invisible. For me it can't be visible or interactive enough, so I would install something like the HUD of Iron Man with voice activation. So how about the interaction. Let's say I want to watch a TV series, like Heroes. I want a choice of paying for it or see an ad block in exchange of paying. I want that ad to be aimed to me. So I decide to share my interests with the ad-server. I stay in control of what info I share. Is it just my content or location or is it aimed directly towards me. In print we already see that last option, if they can do it, so can tv. Also I want the option to explore an ad. Let's say Apple shows a commercial of their new Mac and I want to buy that product. I want to be able to click on the ad and explore the advertised product and buy it on the spot. The chances of me buying a product that's advertised towards me is a lot bigger then just bombarding me with useless stuff I don't need. I don't need to see an iPhone 3G ad, I already own one. I might want to see what iPhone apps are available. Back to the interaction. I'm still watching Heroes. The content provider knows that I watch it on a system capable of 1080p and 5.1 audio and watch content in its original language and sometimes turn on English or Dutch subtitles. Although my content provider might not know the Dutch subtitle option is only turned on when I'm watching it with friends, they still know I make use of it. On their end they can decide if or when they're going to deliver that subtitle option. More on that option later. Another kind of interaction can be to rate media, share media or recommend media. I like Heroes, so I rate it 5 out of 5. My friends can see that rating on their system and check it out too. But one of my friends still hasn't seen it, so I can recommend it to him. He get's a message and checks out the series, loves it and not only buys every episode of Heroes but also buys tickets to the new Star Trek movie, because Sylar plays Spock. The next time Heroes comes out, we share an episode by watching it at the same time and discuss it afterwards through video chatting. Now how about the content creation itself. TV should not only be the playground of the big media creators of this planet. Everyone should be able to participate and even get money out of it when done right. The possibility that the current media creators still rule the media world is big as long as they provide us with good content. And since most of them have created good content for a hundred years, they shouldn't be scared to take the jump. Consumers want a plug and play solution for new options. Consumers like to buy new options, but don't always like to figure out new stuff. Buy a new 7.1 amp and my system automagically downloads 7.1 media when it's available and updates my existing media to 7.1 in the background if it exists. Consumers also want freedom of choice. They want to be in control of their own content. That's why DRM failed and also why packaged media still sells good. They want to be in control of their media player. I want to be able to say: this is my iPhone, home theatre, tv in the bedroom, my computer, my browser or even that this is my seat in the cinema or on the plane. A TV screen is a display of content and it has options. It's also a great way for handicapped people to experience media. Let's say there's a deaf woman. She could tell a content provider, by clicking on a button, that she's interested in certain content. The content provider then knows that there is a demand request for a subtitle option or a picture in picture of a sign-language translation. If the content provider doesn't want to deal with that, maybe it's an opportunity for (fan)subbers to make some money. Nothing in this world is free. So independent content creators should be able to make money as easy as the big boys. Every content creator should be able to tell the system how much a piece of content should cost. If it's free, there's always a donate option. Donate by paying or watching ads. You can even think about selling a concept this way, people donating a content provider to make the content or update technology to make it. Let donators share in revenue when the new content is available. The Podcast Hak5 for instance sold stickers to their viewers, to finance their jump to HD. This idea of Television 2.0 could also mean the end of a big part of piracy. I believe most people pirate out of convenience or because they just can't pay for it. On the content creation side, there's the usage of existing media to create new work. If that's the case, royalties should be paid. But royalties could easily be a percentage of the price of the content. It just can't be free content anymore. Metadata in the audio or video stream, can tell the system what external media was used and calculate the price, the new media should need to cost, automatically. The Metadata can also be used to check if the viewer already payed for the media, thus lowering the price, or show the viewer what was used so he can buy the rest of it. For instance, there are a lot of songs that became famous and sold well, just because someone decided to use it in an ad campaign. But it must go both ways. If a recommendation from a media creator, lets say a blogger, makes me decide to purchase, that media creator should get payed for his effort. Now this idea may be ideal for new content, but how about existing media? I think that a lot of technology already exists for broadcasters. Any serious broadcaster has a play-out system. The only reason why it's linear instead of non-linear, is the fact that we can't control the playlist. But it's all file based, so conversion to non-linear on demand broadcast shouldn't be that hard. How about the CD's and DVD's I own? Yes, that's a hard one, because there is no real check if I own something or just scan barcodes from friends. I'll leave that to the content creators themselves, because its not the consumers fault they bought something that couldn't be tracked back. The only thing that could hold back all this is greed. If I buy something after renting it first, I should get a discount. Same goes for going to the Cinema. For all content providers, a new medium is not an upgrade but somehow a new piece of content. Which is strange, because it's the license that they're selling. Not the content. Upgrade the media, the license remains the same. But most content providers won't do this, even though consumers will probably buy more in the long run and piracy probably will come down, they still get the feeling that they could get more revenue for upgrades. I googled ‘Television 2.0' and it seems I'm not the only one that has ideas for a new TV experience. But I didn't see anything that ties in as much as the idea stated above. Most of it is just a new interface with a connection to the internet. Also most of them only focus on the current content providers and simply ignore the youtube/podcast generation. Maybe I just invented Television 3.0 before 2.0 ever existed. But all of this is easily possible with the technology that exists today, we just need to make standards and ways to implement them. http://wokun.anillusion.nl/index.php?id=45 Thu, 26 Feb 2009 09:00:00 +0100 http://wokun.anillusion.nl/index.php?id=45 Wow, finally thought about something to blog about. Last week my parents bought a new television. Because they used to have a CRT, they decided to do some main room redecoration, changing furniture, new furniture. Anyways, after all that work was done, we had to test it, audiowise. My parents still haven’t converted to surround yet. But if you hear their stereo you won’t blame them. They have really (old) high end speakers and a Class A Amplifier. They also have a Denon cd player with an unprecedented Digital to Analog converter. It doesn’t matter which other player you connect, this 25 year old Denon kicks all of their asses. Believe me, I tried. Now about the test. You know Faithless? In 1996, when they still were pretty unknown, my dad had to travel a lot, and one time he bought their first album. The main album is called Reverence, but it also had a bonus cd called Irreverence. To my knowledge the bonus cd isn’t being sold anymore. Also the second pressing doesn’t have the exact same full sound the first pressing had. So what’s so special about using this album for testing? Let’s just walk through, what we have begun to describe here as THE test. First you put in Reverence, track 1, also called "Reverence". Listen to it. You should hear a kind of reverse string and a piano tone, a male voice rapping. This is a pretty neutral sound which is a good start test. It’s also balanced equally, so you can use it to find your center spot. Then the rap continues into “I have no knowledge of fear, cause I’m here to do Work” At that point you hear the most awesome bass ever. That bass should sound really full. And most of the time you can actually feel the bass with your body. Listen to it and hear if you can spot any faults in the ultrasound or hear tremble from anywhere besides the speakers themselves. Also this is the time to adjust your systems bass settings. The sound should be full, round but also natural. If the setting is too high, the tremble usually kicks in, too low and the roundness disappears. Setup? Great, let’s continue. The sound then becomes fuller and fuller as the sequence builds. It starts as pretty much divided high, mid tones and lows and blends towards a nice mix. Great crossover test. After 2 minutes the test part is done. You should now know what your system is capable of. Second and last test. After setting up with Reverence, you put in Irreverence, track 7, a song Called "Drifting Away (Paradiso Mix)". This is probably the weirdest dance song you ever heard, but again the start is great for testing. We hear a female opera voice. Listen again, carefully. You should hear the voice scatter around the room, hear the acoustics. If you have difficulty hearing it, try closing your eyes. There’s something about this mix that the one on Reverence doesn’t have and it’s more than just the piano. It has something to do with the used reverb and the mix with the synths. Of course, all of this testing is nitpicking. But if you’re sensitive to good quality audio it’s worth it. My parents’ new setup passed Reverence of course (the equipment remained the same), but it failed Drifting Away miserably (acoustics changed). You could hear that the acoustics of the right speaker wasn’t as wide as left, which made sense, because right is between two bookcases and left stands free. Of course there are a lot of other ways to test your system, but this is the way we have been testing since 1996. It even made a teacher a Faithless fan when I tested the sound for a school party. So if you ever want to know my opinion about your sound system, ask me to bring Reverence with me. http://wokun.anillusion.nl/index.php?id=44 Tue, 13 Jan 2009 09:00:00 +0100 http://wokun.anillusion.nl/index.php?id=44 Remember two blogs ago? <a href="http://wokun.anillusion.nl/index.php?id=41" target="_blank">The End of Traditional Cinema...for me</a> Well, I’m still thinking the same way about film projection. But not that long after I wrote that blog, a friend mentioned a Cinema in Belgium: <a href="http://www.utopolis.be/" target="_blank">Utopolis</a> in Turnhout. Which is about 50km from my home town. But it is worth the drive. It is one of the best cinema’s I have been to. So why is this Cinema so great? Well in one word: <a href="http://thx.com/" target="_blank">THX-Certificate</a>. For people who don’t know about this, THX is a certificate for Cinema’s and Equipment and was part of George Lucas’ companies. It was sold to Dolby, but the main goal remained. A quality certification system, which for cinema’s means that the theatre itself must be build with a lot of specifications, like isolation (so you won’t hear the big explosions in the theatre next door), Viewing angles from every seat must be within acceptable parameters. Yes quality nuts like me will still look at the speakers to figure out where the best seats are. But if the best seats are taken, it is good to know that the worst seats still have a really good view. Another thing is callibration. The equipment is callibrated on a regular basis, which really shows. So in the mean time, I have seen <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0910970/" target="_blank">Wall-E</a> and <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0468569/" target="_blank">The Dark Knight</a>. The Dark Knight is hands down the best movie of the year, and although it was projected on film, Utopolis had the best quality of film-projection I have seen in years. Wall-E on the other hand was projected digitally. Utopolis has 2K Barco Projectors that give a really good picture. Ok, I have seen 4K projection, so I know it can get even better. But 2K is acceptable. It looks good, it looks sharp, film is dead. Quality wise, 2K is so close to Blu-Ray that I probably won’t see or hear the difference. but I don’t mind that. Cinema is more that just the movie. It is the movie-going experience, a night out. Driving to Belgium makes it feel more special. Like when you go to an amusement park. You park your car (free parking beneath the complex !! ) and you go into the complex to buy the tickets, the food and drinks and go to the theatre. You take your seat, have a talk with your friends and then the movie starts. The world around you doesn’t matter for a couple of hours, they tell you someone else's story. Afterwards, you talk to your friends again, talk about how they experienced the story and slowly you make your way back to the real world. As a person that works with video and film, you may wonder if I can watch a movie without analyzing it in the mean time. Well, yes I can. But quality nuts, like me, get distracted by technical stuff. When we get distracted, we tend to concentrate on other things that are wrong with the movie. And afterwards, that tends to be our experience and thus the thing we talk about. So maybe the best compliment I can give to Utopolis is that I finally didn’t get distracted. I could enjoy the movie. And to be honest, that was a long time ago since that happened. http://wokun.anillusion.nl/index.php?id=43 Mon, 06 Oct 2008 00:00:00 +0200 http://wokun.anillusion.nl/index.php?id=43 In the past I watched a lot of tv and listened to the radio. But nowadays it's rare for me to do so. Mainly because the programs suck, are broadcasted when I don’t have the time for it, or the image quality is too bad to consider watching. So I’m a huge fan of podcasting as one of many alternatives. And because of that I listen and watch a number of them. Because of my interests in animation, I started watching the DV garage ‘attention to detail’ weekly series, presented by Alex Lindsay. I learned so much from that. Simple concepts, but so easily overlooked. I have no idea how I got to his site, but I did. I know it was way before it appeared in <a href="http://www.3dworldmag.com/" target="_blank">3D World Magazine</a> and it was before we knew these kinds of shows are called podcasts - or netcasts as some may like to call them. In the USA they had a tv station called tech-tv. A management decision made it into G4, which meant that all the great programs were canceled and their presenters were basically without a job. A lot of them started podcasting, which was the birth of <a href="http://revision3.com/" target="_blank">Revision3</a> and <a href="http://www.pixelcorps.tv/" target="_blank">Pixelcops TV</a>. And I follow a lot of shows of these two internet media networks. I started with Systm, then came Tekzilla, I started watching Diggnation last year (watched every episode from the start after that), Rev3 Gazette, Pop Siren and of course the Totally Rad Show. At Pixelcorps I started with MacBreak (in 1080p), MacBreak Tech, This week in Media, The Grip Guide and The VFX Show. That last one is sometimes hosted by Mike Seymour, who runs <a href="http://www.fxphd.com/" target="_blank">FX Phd</a> and <a href="http://www.fxguide.com/" target="_blank">FX Guide</a>. I follow every podcast they make. And at June 5th 2008, they had a podcast of FX Guide about a book. It was called <a href="http://www.droidmaker.com/" target="_blank">Droidmaker</a> and talks about (basically) the birth of digital filmmaking. They had the author of the book on the phone and when he talked about the process of the creation of his book, I really wanted to read it for myself. So last week I ordered it on <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Droidmaker-George-Lucas-Digital-Revolution/dp/0937404675" target="_blank">Amazon</a> and got it last friday. So that is the book I’m reading now and it is great thus far. I would never ever have heard about the book, let alone ordering and now reading it, if it wasn’t for that podcast. If you have the same interests I have and don’t follow podcasts, please start doing it. Two more recommendations: the first is the <a href="http://phobos.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewPodcast?id=73331075" target="_blank">Animation Podcast</a>, with great interviews with animators. And the only Dutch one I watch is <a href="http://www.hetgesprek.nl/programmas/606" target="_blank">Final Cut</a>, a show with Dutch filmmakers about film. Podcasting: great when there’s nothing on tv...aka always. http://wokun.anillusion.nl/index.php?id=42 Sun, 27 Jul 2008 17:00:00 +0200 http://wokun.anillusion.nl/index.php?id=42 Last friday, I finally decided to see Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull. When I saw the trailer it looked like fun. It looked like what I would expect from an Indiana Jones movie. So I went and yes the movie was fun to see, just as I expected. Of course it wasn’t the best movie I ever saw, but I enjoyed it. But the thing that I didn’t enjoy was the way it was projected. It was film. I know a lot of people have nostalgic feelings toward film, but no...in my opinion film as a medium is dead. It wasn’t that the projection was that bad, it was what people would expect. I had good seats, although I had to look up just a little. The picture wasn’t pristine. It was sharp but barely. You could see the degradation in the image. Probably because of the copying and subtitles. Afterwards, when I got home, I went to my room and turned on my tv. This is a really good full HD tv, and I watched the trailer on it in 1080p. And there was the picture that I was waiting for, it looked sharp, it looked beautiful it even sounded bigger even though it was in stereo. Ok, so maybe it was a bad copy and old lens. Still for me that did it. Indiana Jones is probably the last time I watch a film on film. Unfortunately in my region there is still just one theatre that projects digitally, so it might mean that I won’t go to the movies any longer. For me it is worth the wait and the extra money to buy it on Blu-Ray and see it in 1080p. It isn’t that Home Theatre killed Traditional Cinema. It killed itself, by investing once and not looking at the evolving market. http://wokun.anillusion.nl/index.php?id=41 Tue, 10 Jun 2008 17:00:00 +0200 http://wokun.anillusion.nl/index.php?id=41 As you might have noticed, I’m not blogging or <a href="http://twitter.com/Anillusion" target="_blank">twittering</a> that much at the moment. This is because of the May-June period. Like at school, people want their projects done before summer. The same is true with the projects that I’m doing right now. Therefore it is crunch time, every day, which is really exhausting. There are some days that I just want to take a break, and sometimes I do take that break. In 2006 I went to the <a href="http://www.animecon.nl/" target="_blank">animecon</a> for one day and that was so much fun that I wanted to go the whole weekend the next time. But last year I was so busy that I decided beforehand that I couldn’t go. This year I almost made the same decision at the last minute, but thank god I did go, because it was so much fun. I even bought some cosplay accessories. Next year I’ll probably buy or make a whole costume. People who never cosplayed before might find this hobby strange, but it isn’t that much different then buying all that orange junk you see in all the stores at the moment to support the Dutch soccer team. Another thing I really enjoyed was going to <a href="http://www.walibi.nl/" target="_blank">Walibi</a> a couple of weeks ago. To put it in perspective of how rarely I do stuff: I actually got sunburned in my face that day, and it wasn’t even that sunny at that time. Short day, but lots of fun. Oh and one tiny thing: I <a href="http://wokun.hyves.nl" target="_blank">returned</a> to Hyves. They improved it enough that I can live with it. Besides, the big thing about social networks is that you can connect to your friends, and lets face it, in the Netherlands Hyves is the most popular social network, so all my friends are on it. Reason enough to let go of my feelings against Hyves and just enjoy the goodness it can offer. So people, if you can’t seem to reach me these days, I’m busy, really busy and just leave me a message and I will return it when I have the time, but please excuse me if that takes some time. http://wokun.anillusion.nl/index.php?id=40 Thu, 05 Jun 2008 19:30:00 +0200 http://wokun.anillusion.nl/index.php?id=40 Previous post I decided to write in English for obvious reasons. But I kinda liked it, so I’m thinking about translating the whole page into English. Well let’s start with new posts and see from there what will happen. Last week was the week of NAB Show. Together with the IBC (the show that I religiously go to every year) they are the two most influential shows for video professionals. And usually it goes like this. Something gets announced at NAB and that will be shown or released at IBC. So if you follow the news stories of the NAB, you know exactly where to go at IBC. So where am I going this year? At first I would think that I would go to Sony’s booth and look at the new PMW-EX3. But no, I will probably get in line to see what RED has got to show. For people who don’t know, RED is a company that is started by <a href="http://oakley.com/" target="_blank">Oakley</a> founder Jim Jannard. He thought the Digital Cinema was all great but its transition too slow, because its way too expensive. We are talking about digital movie camera’s that cost around $250.000 or more. Red’s first camera was the RedOne, which has a price of $17.500 for the body. And it can shoot 4K (That’s about 4000 pixels horizontal) Still pretty expensive for a lot of people, but a lot cheaper. But it changed the industry, and is beginning to ease out the Digital Cinema transition, where I wrote about in my <a href="http://wokun.anillusion.nl/documents/Paper_Versie5.pdf" target="_blank">paper</a>. Now this year, Red announced something that is mind boggling to a lot of people. They announced Scarlet. A 3K camera for 3K. That’s insane. Even if the dollar would be translated in Euro’s at 1:1, it’s insane. It shoots on standard Compact Flash cards, the same people buy for their digital photo camera’s. Ok, so I probably have to buy the biggest most expensive ones, to get some recording time with it, I probably have to buy a lot of accessories for it too. It is still going to beat the PMW-EX1 hands down in price and quality. If Red said the scarlet would be 10.000 dollars, people would still be all over it. But 3000 dollars, that’s in my own price-range for a camera. For the rest, well I probably will see other interesting stuff, but if I can see the Scarlet and speak to one of red’s people, I’m happy. http://wokun.anillusion.nl/index.php?id=39 Sat, 19 Apr 2008 18:00:00 +0200 http://wokun.anillusion.nl/index.php?id=39