Where'd they go to?

This blog is the archived history of the wefcpug, that's the West of England Final Cut Pro user group, to give us our full title.  It went into suspended animation in July 2014.   This was mostly due to the fragmentation of edit systems that began in 2013, initially with the launch of FCP X, but also with the relaunches of Lightworks and Adobe's Creative Mess (the program previously known asPremiere Pro).   It was also because we ran out of things to say to each other about FCP :-)

Currently we've no plans for regular face-to-face meetings, although there are infrequent get-togethers of previous group members.

Phil has now migrated to FCP X for 'real' work, which recently included a 90 min HD theatrical project, shot on 4 cameras at 1080p/50 and went without a hitch.  He's just finished work on the 2015 BBC production of 'General Election' - this is a BBC long-form ob doc that shoots every 5 years for 3 days.

Richard can still be found training away on FCP X - follow the links in the blog posts!

Phil,May 2015

Small steps and big screens - DPP report

UK readers please note - this DPP is the Digital Production Partnership, not the Director of Public Prosecutions.   This group is the white hatted ones from BBC, ITV, C4 as well as indies and post-houses, getting together to swap stories about digital innovation and generally to push in the direction of open (or at least shared) standards of delivery - primarily to broadcasters.

Last week's meeting in London heard reports from the CES in Las Vegas, as they might impinge on broadcasting and production.   In line with other rumours, it's 4K not 3D: maybe a bit soon for some of us but (personal prejudice view here) camera technology is now leading the way over display technology (let alone transmission/delivery).   Good for high quality of course, and very good for manufacturers of cameras, memory and storage devices, and edit hardware.   The relief is that you can't afford it (the screen, not the camera) yet unless you've got a gold-plated commission.   But it's not going away, and at the moment seems less of a consumer tech blind alley than 3D.

Back in the present-day world of 'standard' HD, the DPP is piloting an app to enable programme delivery by file transfer.   It's more than just sending a .mov on a hard drive:  to be compliant with broadcasters' specs programmes must be delivered with the correct metadata.  In this context, metadata consists of meaningful identifiers of programme technical standards and other production info that will be vital to the broadcasters:  the data equivalent of the tape and programme number on the outside of the box (plus a whole lot more).

The concept is (fairly) simple but how do you go about including the metadata in your delivery:  step forward the DPP's working party, who are offering a free app (Windows or OS X) to do this for you - well at least the packaging up.  It's at Version 1.1 so there may be a way to go, but if you're going to be supplying broadcasters, you need to know this stuff*.   Find the app (or at least the application route for it) here.

If you're in Bristol, the DPP are presenting one of the sessions in the Digital Bristol week (see previous blog post).  Say Phil sent you!

*This may be part one of a series, I realise, with an eye to my 'to do' lists.

So we are not alone

In a fit of exasperation, after so much of my life was lost in removing 'so' from interview responses, I posted a moan some months ago (here actually).   How gratifying to find I'm not alone (I wasn't then, actually).  Thanks to 'holdthefrontpage.com' (the home of regional journalism, I read) I've found a super collection of others' pet peeves and annoyances - in this case, what PR companies do to annoy journalists.

The full version, compiled by PR consultancy Twelve Thirty Eight, is here as a pdf.
The initial link and a short summary is here.

My favourite quote (alas, anonymous'):

A special honourable mention went to PRs that preface all verbal
responses with “So”.  “I don’t know where this comes from,” fumed one
technology correspondent. “I suspect San Francisco via Shoreditch, but it’s
worse than nails on a blackboard.

My own theory, after extensive study, is that the Germans may be to blame - the word 'also' in German doesn't mean 'too' but 'therefore' - and seems to perform the same function as 'Er' in English.  Just a theory.