September 15, 2006
Avid and Creative Movie Editing
Suspense, violence, and obsession are often key themes associated with director Brian De Palmas films (Scarface, Blow Out, Dressed to Kill), and his latest feature, The Black Dahlia, is no exception. Based on the James Ellroy novel, the film constructs a fictionalized, mysterious labyrinth surrounding one of the most sensationalized, unsolved murders in California history - that of Elizabeth Short, a young, glamorous, and would-be Hollywood starlet who came to be known simply as The Black Dahlia.
For added flexibility and efficiency, Pankow used a Macintosh G4 Powerbook laptop equipped with Avid Xpress Pro software, which allowed him to travel with the cut in progress to review and approve edits with creative team members, regardless of their location. Avid Xpress Pro was great for when Bill had to fly back to L.A. from Toronto to look at the digital intermediate, or to show what he had already cut to the director and try out new ideas with him, or to set it up on the mix stage in order to have a copy of the movie. The Avid Xpress Pro on the laptop saved a lot of time and made things very convenient, says Johnston.
The Avid Xpress Pro on the laptop saved a lot of time and made things very convenient.
- Lara Johnston, Assistant Editor, The Black Dahlia
Check out the offical The Black Dahlia site for the full details.
Posted by MovingPicture at 05:01 PM
September 08, 2006
Moving Picture Electronic Services Exceeds Customer Expectations
Moving Picture Electronic Services is pleased to announce the completion of another year of exceeding customer expectations. Serving the film industry since 1987, Moving Picture has provided rental equipment ranging from Avid Meridian and Avid Adrenaline editing systems to state-of-the-art High Definition cameras and monitors, to sound an video assist packages, to walkie-talkies and communications gear.
But let's let some of our customers speak on our behalf:
"Those guys quickly pull it all together. They really saved the day, coming through in the clutch. Because of their support and involvement we met the 2003 deadline for submission of our film into the Sundance film festival and went on to become nominated for the Grand Jury Prize"
Mark Moormann, Director
Tom Dowd and the Language of Music
Nominated: Grammy Best Long Form Music Video 2005
"For four years in a row we have counted on them to provide five Media Composers and Unity for our biggest corporate meeting of the year. Choosing them year after year for this time critical live production speaks to their abilities."
Max Wyler
President
Accord Film and Video Services
"Renting from them 8 times in three years, there has never been a surprise -- they always deliver great support. Even after being shipped across the country the equipment always arrives working perfectly."
Doc Kohler
Senior Engineer
Hammond Communications Group
"Project after project, the technical support from their staff has always exceeded my expectations!!
Thanks guys!!"
Nick Link
Senior editor, Dolphin Entertainment (Miami Sands)
Nick has edited over 200 episodic one hour television shows on Avid Media Composers from us since 2001!
"Editing on location is always tricky, and when your schedule is tight there's no room for error. When we had to accelerate our post schedule for "The Three Burials Of Melquiades Estrada," because we were accepted into the Cannes Film Festival, they were able to accommodate every request I had and tech support all of our problems in a quick professional manner. I don't know if we would have gotten a print to the festival on time without them."
Larry Madaras, Assistant Editor,
"The Three Burials of Melquiades Estrada"
Directed by Tommy Lee Jones
Thanks to Mark, Max, Doc, Nick, and Larry for their kind words. It's a pleasure to help them, and more, every year!
Posted by MovingPicture at 06:25 PM
March 14, 2006
Making life easier for Producers - Moving Picture News
The following article is reprinted from Moving Picture's Winter edition of the Producer's Cheat Sheet™ newsletter. If you're not receiving it, send an email to David Wells
Apple's iWeb makes life easier for Producers
written by David Wells
In the past, many of you have struggled to find a way to send photos and video QuickTime files to clients on the web. Often it is not practical to email large picture and movie files to clients. Either your client has compatibility problems receiving the files and or their email account will not accept large files, and so on. What a pain!
If you were very tech savvy, and your client was also -- fat chance -- you could FTP (file transfer protocol) your photos and QuickTime movies to a server, but this is cumbersome and complicated, to say the least!
Read on to find out how to be more effective in communicating with your clients.
On
January 10th at Macworld Expo in San Francisco, Steve Jobs unveiled
iWeb, the newest addition to their iLife '06 suite of media management
and sharing tools. This new program is 
really
terrific and can be make your life as a producer much easier in a
short period of time. Most of you are Mac users, so the new iWeb
will come naturally to you. I created a half decent website
for my dog in a couple of hours (online at www.glenndog.com -
by the way Glenn is AVAILABLE for commercials, music
videos and features!).
3 easy steps to an easier 'iLife' as a Producer:
Step 1: Establish a .Mac account, for just $99.95 per year for 1 gig of server space. You'll also receive 4 .Mac email addresses that you can use to protect yourself against unwanted email (except from Moving Picture of course!).
Step 2: Start using iWeb (part of the $79 iLife '06 package), and create a simple home page, maybe just your name set in nice type, a photo, whatever!
Step 3: Drag and drop location photos or QuickTime files, Publish call sheets, contact lists (cut and paste out of Word). Email your web pages URL to your client or crew and Voila! Instant gratification!
Advanced Features Useful for Producers:
- People viewing your site can drag photos off of your pages and save them to their desktop. Double click on a small photo on your site and it expands to full size.
- Password protect pages that need privacy.
- Register a cool domain name (like terrificproducer.com) at godaddy.com and have your domain name point to your .Mac site. (For help on implementing this advanced feature give us a call at Moving Picture.)
- After uploading new photos, QuickTime files, or anything else to your .Mac site, .Mac prompts you with the option to automatically inform a list of people in your address book that your site or specific web page has changed.
- Backup important files from your computer to your iDisk at .Mac.
Visit Apple's web site to learn more: www.apple.com
Good luck, and we hope this makes your life as a Producer a little easier!
Posted by MovingPicture at 05:51 PM
December 16, 2005
Walkie talkies ad efficiency and big dollar savings to events
Working with walkie talkies, 2 way repeaters and accessories can result in “big dollar” savings. Event planners have discovered that when you start to add up extra steps during an event that does not have good 2 way radio communication, it can be very costly. “In the event business, walkie talkies are not as common as copying machines and cell phones,” says Patricia Buenis of Event Planners International.
Buenis commented that she would be lost without her 2 way radio and would certainly incur a lot more overtime charges with her event crews. Working without a comprehensive 2 way talk around set up with at least 8 channels is unthinkable.
Buenis ads, “I have no idea how we got our jobs accomplished before cell phones and walkie talkies.”
Posted by MovingPicture at 06:10 PM
Walkies speed promo production
On the set with Tierras de Pascianoes
Juan Zuniga and production company Collaboration know the value of high quality 2 way radios on time critical productions. Assistant Director Juan Zuniga recently helmed the television promos for the new show Tierras de Pascianoes on the Telemundo Network. Shooting over three days, working with 35MM film Zuniga kept the production on schedule using walkie talkies as tools for getting many things done in a short period of time. Zuniga says, "When I am shooting on a large location, not having Motorola walkie talkies can result in extra hours of overtime at the end of the day. With 35 people on the crew poor communication turns into additional costs quickly."
Zuniga's walkie talkie rental company of choice is Moving Picture Electronic Services because of their quality of 2 way radio equipment and their great customer service.
Posted by MovingPicture at 06:06 PM
August 29, 2005
Return Business - 5 Years Running!
Our customers rent from us year after year. Our record is 5 years renting on the same event! Not some simple single-system rental either - 4 Avid Media Composer 9000's on Unity. When the GE Corporation calls you back year after year for a rental as complicated as that, you know you are doing something right!
Posted by DigitalBill at 06:46 PM
Live Television separates the Men from the Boys
Live television is what separates THE MEN FROM THE BOYS. In 2004, Showtime hired Moving Picture to provide 4 Avid Media Composers on Unity for Brittany Spears live concert. It was no cake walk. Moving Picture set up four Avid Unity Media Composers, provided editors and 24 hour technical support for a successful live broadcast.
We had a very rare Jbod failure on the Unity's hard drive that caused an 8-hour delay in the editing of the supporting media for the live broadcast. Moving Picture reacted by replacing the Jbod drive and supplied 2 additional editors for multiple 16 hour shifts at no charge to get "caught up" so that Showtime would be ready by show time for Brittany's live broadcast.
Posted by DigitalBill at 06:17 PM