This is it

Sunday night we watched Michael Jackson on Blu-ray - now on my 2 TB server. What a surprise! All the publicity said it was just rehearsal and backstage stuff. The info on IMDB just lists two camerapersons: cinematography by Sandrine Orabona & Tim Patterson.

Click photo - Tim on the left - Sandrine on the right - but who shot this HD movie?

I know what a two camera shoot looks like, we do them all the time. In fact the basic Tim & Sandrine setup is the same as we use - one (Sandrine) on a wide shot - the other closer (in this case Tim was sitting down so his camera was low).

Then the surprise, there are lots of shots of the singers, drummer, keyboard. Come on - they were done later I'll bet.

So only one male person shooting. Oh yeah ...

That's not Tim - who is fair with no mustache (see first photo - large)

Next surprise is that to feed the projected video there was a third camera - shooting standard def. not HD. Finally, a lot of sequences have a wide shot HD camera. That's four cameras - for MJ's private collection. Four? Huh? When you think that it was just a rehearsal and they had no clue that the star was going to die, it's all pretty amazing. Someone's not telling all.

Anyhow the final result, which I think has a lot of "post death" re-enactments by singers, musicians - maybe the dancers too, looks terrific. It's a great piece of work - and Michael looks in good health and ready to perform in London. He's amazing for a 50 year old.

Here's my theory: the organizers were really worried that MJ wouldn't be up to the demands of the live events in London - after all he'd been away for almost 10 years. They never thought he'd die - just have a breakdown. So they covered the rehearsals with many more than the two lone cameras (as advertised) - I mean the cost of extra cameras is nothing. Even then, they did this low key - small EX-3 handheld cameras on stage. Other cameras out of sight or used discreetly.

When the worst happened, the video was called "a record for MJ's personal use." It's hard to believe that Michael needed "hundreds of hours" of rehearsals - even if he did - a three/four/five camera shoot is pretty useless unless it's edited. Was it all planned to be edited just for Michael?

Let's face it - the standard def. camera shooting for the rear screen projection would have been enough.

Maker Faire

Yesterday a neighbor, Carolyn Robbins, suddenly appeared at the front door. "I'm taking you to Maker Faire." "Huh?" She had to say it at least three times. "Maker Faire?" "It's in San Mateo, lots of cool things." Neither of us wanted to go. However the alternative was just staying at home and Carolyn was driving. Oh well...

But it was really fun. Thousands of DIYers who were there basically to show off what they had made themselves. Most stands had nothing for sale. That's odd these days. Did they pay for the stand? Come all the way from (say) San Diego just to show some strangers their pride and joy? I kept thinking what's in it for them? I mean the man dressed in cardboard. What's in it for him? I guess I'm too commercial.



The highlight was the ArcAttack in the main darken hall.

Jamie's Third Vintage

I've had May 14 in my diary for months. It's the closing date for entries to the Mill Valley Film Festival. They have a special section for movies that are 31 to 49 minutes (under 50 mins.)
My friend Rod had made a cut down version of our Pinot epic - from 95 minutes to 52. Then I lopped off another two minutes. Now it's 49 minutes 59 seconds (a second under 50 mins.). I even added a few shots that I really liked that Rod had deleted.

We both watched the HD version from start to finish. It's good - very different - much tighter, more focussed on Jamie. Rod had re-named it "Pinot Adventure." I thought "Jamie's Third Vintage" was better. More focussed on Jamie - says he's an inexperienced winemaker too.

The font is ORIGINS by Laura Worthington. She based it on hand-lettering with a Crow Quill pen on parchment paper. New this month - from myfonts.com.



Today I made 10 more DVDs and posted three to distributors. I expect to hear nothing. But that's the crazy thing about this business. You never know. Simply giving up goes nowhere. I'll send more out next week. It costs a jiffy bag, a 50c DVD blank and $1.73 postage (oh and my time, which is priceless). Even if I hear nothing, I can feel self righteous having made the effort.

Finally I made a web site. Next week (or maybe tomorrow) I will make a better trailer.

House photos

I have a list of dreary things to do - including editing a 2-59 piece - Freda.

Tricia is excited as an important blog wants before and after photos of our living room.

Before:



After

Mother's Day

I spent Friday & Saturday editing Ashraf's video. It was a drag as Ashraf had employed two cameramen with Sony EX-1s. My camera is a three or four year old Sony V1. When the EX-1 came out there was a feeding frenzy to get rid of Z1s and V1s and go tapeless. Why? I could never figure it out. The picture quality is still HDV. The Sony SXS cards are way over priced. My camera uses tapes (not memory cards) which I label and keep in well named filing trays. Not only that my shot's are called "Ashraf's speech1" "Ashraf's speech2" while the EX-1 files are called something like "926.38794" "926.38795". Huh?

Transferring the Sony files to Final Cut Pro was another drag as each cameraman had shot about three hours. Yawn. Their shots were good - a little dark but the sound as awful. I hate editing other people's work!

Anyhow - it's done and sent to Ashraf. He is bound to want changes. No reply as yet.

Sunday was Mother's Day. We all met up and went to see the premiere of Peter Pan at the Ferry Terminal park. Hard to believe that Bill Dudley did all the costumes, the complicated set design and the 3-D graphics. The flying with the moving 3-D graphic of London is just amazing.

If It's Wednesday, It Must Be William's Naturalization

Now both of my son's are US citizens. Terrific. I am so pleased - my daughter next - I guess T & I should do it too.

Felix's ceremony was in San Fran. at the Masonic Hall. I think this one was better - mainly as the Paramount Theatre in Oakland is so bizarre. Art Deco gone made. It took a long time to start and everyone was taking photos of the ceiling and the empty stage.


The MC was the same guy who hosted Felix's two year's ago. I suspect he's an actor and not really a govt. official. He is so good.

Afterwards we had a celebratory lunch in Hayes Valley.


Back at 1:30. I did a little editing on the Pinot #3 version. Must do Ashraf tomorrow,

If It's Tuesday, It Must Be John Catchings

The day started with breakfast at Kerner Optical. Only around the corner from us. I was keen to go. It used to be George Lucas' model shop and practical effects place.

I expected 20 or 30 others but there must have been 150-200. So sorry I didn't take a camera.

The pancakes were good. The coffee was awful. Gee if I had all those toys, I would have put on a better show for my guests (and better coffee too).

Their Web site is very disappointing with little photos in a naf Flash container. Here's one I managed to steal. To be honest, there didn't look as though much was happening. Nothing at all being built in their three or four large workshops. Nothing. I got bad vibes; having run a facility company in London, I know empty when I see it.

The sites I made for T's cushions and duvet covers look better than Kerner's.

Drove back here to meet John at 10:00, but he was 30 minutes late. Sigh. An edit for the National Kidney Foundation.

He'd found a cameraman in Las Vegas to do the shoot. I don't know why as there are some good people out there - but we got back a typical poorly lit, badly framed job.

Here's before (left) and after (right) I had repositioned the subject, added sharpness, fixed the shadow/highlight ratio and finally color corrected it. Click to enlarge.

More sighs. Next time, I will insist on shooting the interview myself. It's not hard to light a face. And a good makeup artist would have helped.