fuzzynormal

The BSFF will be hosting a free screening of "Last Days in the Desert" during our festival. The screening happens the afternoon of 01/16/17.  In addition, an after screening Q&A will take place with the director.
http://www.borregospringsfilmfestival.org/about/
To have a film made in my town featuring the upper echelon of cinematic craft is incredible.
Director Rodrigo García, cinematographer Emmanuel Lubezki, and actor Ewan McGregor; wow, not a bad list.  Obviously, we feel blessed to have hosted this production and, quite frankly, we're still a bit in awe that it happened here.
As y'all probably know, Lubezki has won the Oscar for best cinematographer the last three years in a row.  Birdman, Gravity, The Revenant.  All this talent along with the cast, crew, and location?  Not too shabby.  I'd like to invite any of y'all on the forum that are in this corner of the world (or even if you're not) to drive on over to our festival and attend.  We're trying to become an extremely filmmaker-centric festival, and to have filmmakers there offering their feedback would be very welcome.
 

Oh, I think you can speak for at least about half of Americans with that sentiment.  
Make no mistake, POTUS campaigning is a game of rhetoric.  Clinton is not good at it, which is why she was unable to turn out the vote.  She only needed to convince about 1 outta 200 voters in the swing states to win enough electoral votes.  More absurd rhetoric and concerted outreach to uneducated rust-belt whites would have helped her, to be honest.  A little more verve with some "I'll totally create jobs for you, absolutely!" stuff.
On the other hand, that's not who she is.  She knows coal is doomed, for instance, so why promise jobs to the sector?  Things like that.  Pragmatism in a campaign is not a good strategy. It's noble and honest, but not a winning game.
And really, I'm not going to poo-poo Trump in everything.  He gets a chance from me.  A very very skeptical chance, but a legit one.  He's talking about an infrastructure WPA-type program.  Which seems like that would make the GOP's leader's heads explode, so we'll see.
Totally bummed about the SCOTUS thing though.

Oh, I think you can speak for at least about half of Americans with that sentiment.  
Make no mistake, POTUS campaigning is a game of rhetoric.  Clinton is not good at it, which is why she was unable to turn out the vote.  She only needed to convince about 1 outta 200 voters in the swing states to win enough electoral votes.  More absurd rhetoric and concerted outreach to uneducated rust-belt whites would have helped her, to be honest.  A little more verve with some "I'll totally create jobs for you, absolutely!" stuff.
On the other hand, that's not who she is.  She knows coal is doomed, for instance, so why promise jobs to the sector?  Things like that.  Pragmatism in a campaign is not a good strategy. It's noble and honest, but not a winning game.
And really, I'm not going to poo-poo Trump in everything.  He gets a chance from me.  A very very skeptical chance, but a legit one.  He's talking about an infrastructure WPA-type program.  Which seems like that would make the GOP's leader's heads explode, so we'll see.
Totally bummed about the SCOTUS thing though.

That would be yuge.  Really great.  The best camera.  The best.
I gotta say though Ed, surely you sensed this coming.  You have an unvarnished view of Clinton.  And anyone that's spent time in the rural midwest and then really looked hard at Hillary...well...considering that she had this locked up was never a reassuring thing.  Americans are many things, but attracted to the pragmatic aloof intellectual?  Eh, not so much.
In regards to cameras and production, I am curious to see what the economy does as this odd amalgamation of Trump and the GOP burp out their supply-side ideas onto the nation.  If the economy withers, will the corporate gigs get even thinner and anemic than they are now?
Or, would potential self distribution of my work become somehow more viable?  After all, the one industry that tends to thrive during tough economic times has always been entertainment. 

Yeah, here's the silly trailer.  Funny thing is, our main actor became best buds with Matthew McConaughey after our shoot while doing that HBO series with him.  Oh, timing!  Fair warning, this movie is pretty ridiculous.  Man, to think this was a decade ago.  Too many drugs, not enough script.  (not me doing the drugs, the actors)  Good combo?  Probably not.  
 

Try Best Buy.  Looks like the readers are in stock in Orange county.

FWIW, Disney LAND.  Not Disney WORLD.  Anyway, wouldn't the Anaheim Fry's Electronics have one?

Yeah, but I think they made a MarkII version that only used SD cards.  I'm pretty sure of it.  Google would know.
As for the film, it only screened 2 times 'kuz we never really finished all the scenes.  It was an incomplete edit.  Now-a-days it sits in a hard drive on my bedroom shelf asking, "Won't you complete me!?" The answer is no; probably because we decided to try to do stop motion animation for some of the monster shots --and that shite is HARD to finish...
My co-creator did load one of the scenes I shot in Michigan to youtube: (man, showing this stuff is like admitting that years ago you dated the neighborhood crazy person that bathed in tomato juice and would only eat a lentil/candy diet.)
 

Too bad they couldn't get it to 72.  Three second slow-mo bursts in RAW?  Could be fun for video.  Two seconds?  Still interesting.

2015.3 works on my PC somewhat smoothly.  On my Mac it has the strange "conforming" bug.  
Not the most elegant software, I admit, but it's like a supped-up cheap Japanese sedan running on a race track.  It can do what it does half way decently.  However, it just feels like it might fly apart at any given moment and wasn't engineered to handle the stress put on it.
I never feel like I can totally trust it.  FCP7 had a lot of limitations, but it felt solid within its parameters.
Maybe with Premiere I just need to add a huge spoiler to the back of the hatch?  That outta do it.

2015.3 works on my PC somewhat smoothly.  On my Mac it has the strange "conforming" bug.  
Not the most elegant software, I admit, but it's like a supped-up cheap Japanese sedan running on a race track.  It can do what it does half way decently.  However, it just feels like it might fly apart at any given moment and wasn't engineered to handle the stress put on it.
I never feel like I can totally trust it.  FCP7 had a lot of limitations, but it felt solid within its parameters.
Maybe with Premiere I just need to add a huge spoiler to the back of the hatch?  That outta do it.

FWIW, macintosh apples don't make for good pies.

Yeah, I don't get the Julian pie thing.  I guess I was spoiled by my grandmother, her baking skills, and our own apples growing up.

Yeah, here's the silly trailer.  Funny thing is, our main actor became best buds with Matthew McConaughey after our shoot while doing that HBO series with him.  Oh, timing!  Fair warning, this movie is pretty ridiculous.  Man, to think this was a decade ago.  Too many drugs, not enough script.  (not me doing the drugs, the actors)  Good combo?  Probably not.  
 

Same.  
I'm wrapping up a big project now and getting ready to sell off the PC gear I built up for it.  
My wife and I are going to live 2017 on the road in an RV, so a laptop is in order.  We were considering a brand new PC or Mac laptop, but have realized that our workflow for post is actually leaning on proxy-editing more than we would have first imagined.  Proxy editing is NOT demanding on a computer.  This reality informs us that buying a used laptop, like you did on eBay, would be more than adequate --and save us thousands of dollars.
(...and if anyone wants to buy a loaded PC for 4K editing in February of 2017, just let me know)

There you go.  If you want to run the maths with this stuff, fine.  Obviously the photo world is full up with these sorts of folks, this is a technical and artistic medium, but ...dang y'all... Just LOOK at the images a camera/lens produces.  If it works good 'nuff for you, get to it.  Go make something.
Don't worry a wit if anyone says what they do is better or worse.  Just do your own thing.

There you go.  If you want to run the maths with this stuff, fine.  Obviously the photo world is full up with these sorts of folks, this is a technical and artistic medium, but ...dang y'all... Just LOOK at the images a camera/lens produces.  If it works good 'nuff for you, get to it.  Go make something.
Don't worry a wit if anyone says what they do is better or worse.  Just do your own thing.

blah blah blah blah blah.  If you're truly worrying about this kind of stuff, chances are you're not really MAKING anything worthwhile with any of it.

blah blah blah blah blah.  If you're truly worrying about this kind of stuff, chances are you're not really MAKING anything worthwhile with any of it.

Oh yeah, most definitely.  Self distribution is the new (only) way to go for filmmakers like myself.  
Sundance gets a ridiculous amount of submissions (tens of thousands) from earnest people unable to be self-critical.  I'm working with a producer now that shipped off a proof-of-concept video I did with her to Sundance.  It was ridiculous.  I wouldn't even think of putting it into my own festival --and I made the thing!  I thought it was decent...for a corporate video, but that was the extent of it.
So, yeah, knowing the inherent value of your work and being self-critical seems to be a tricky skill for a lot of people.  Trust me when I say that exploiting such naivete is the financial backbone of many a film fest.  Those submission fees add up.

Oh yeah, most definitely.  Self distribution is the new (only) way to go for filmmakers like myself.  
Sundance gets a ridiculous amount of submissions (tens of thousands) from earnest people unable to be self-critical.  I'm working with a producer now that shipped off a proof-of-concept video I did with her to Sundance.  It was ridiculous.  I wouldn't even think of putting it into my own festival --and I made the thing!  I thought it was decent...for a corporate video, but that was the extent of it.
So, yeah, knowing the inherent value of your work and being self-critical seems to be a tricky skill for a lot of people.  Trust me when I say that exploiting such naivete is the financial backbone of many a film fest.  Those submission fees add up.

I made my last doc for basically free.  Just my wife and I doing everything.  Paid for flights to and from Japan, that was pretty much it.
As for the current film festival circuit:  They're a legacy thing.  Back in the day festivals had clout simply because they were a bigger deal.  Now-a-days they exist to prop up the purveyors on the things and, maybe, actual filmmakers every now-and-again. 
BTW, I'm a film festival producer for our local shin-dig here in SoCal, and I also helped (years ago) to launch one of the current premiere film fests in the mid-south, such as it is.
Ultimately, fests are like everything else these days.  Everybody's doing it since digital made it easy.  It's not a problem to get into some sort of a film festival.  However, it's not easy getting into a good one.  I just got back with my film from a rather lousy fest, that had no serious networking, horrible screenings, poor attendance...yet it was a lot of fun.  My wife and I even gleaned a great nugget of financial info from one of the panels that was wildly invaluable, so you never know... We have our last one in Toronto coming up, and it's gonna be the most "legit" festival we got into.  Still, that might be a lesser experience than our goofy no-budget fest we just attended.
We enjoyed our time at the goofy fest.  We made some new friends.  If you can do that, that's the main thing.  Just be gracious, try to get on the same wavelength as the interesting people you'll meet, and you'll be fine.  At the middle rung and lower rung of festivals, these things are just glorified parties -- if you're lucky!  (Some aren't even that) That's the best you can hope from it.  Having fun and meeting some good folks.
There's really only two or three festivals where industry stuff actually happens and films get "launched."  Because of that, there's only industry films represented.  Unless you're a creative wunderkind that made something uniquely awesome (and entertainingly so) you're probably not going to get into any serious festivals on your own. 
Actually, in spite of making something awesome and new, that actually would probably get you rejected from most film festivals.  The reality is that most selection committees are community regular-joe/jane types.  They're not savvy about film.  If subject matter floats in front of their eyes that they can relate to, they'll ignore all the shortcomings of the flick and give it a big old bear hug, filmmaking craft be damned.  Arguably, this happens with "savvy" festivals as well.
Three actors and three crew.  Make something with that situation.  Learn how to be smart with your time and talent.  It WILL pay off; creatively and professionally.

I made my last doc for basically free.  Just my wife and I doing everything.  Paid for flights to and from Japan, that was pretty much it.
As for the current film festival circuit:  They're a legacy thing.  Back in the day festivals had clout simply because they were a bigger deal.  Now-a-days they exist to prop up the purveyors on the things and, maybe, actual filmmakers every now-and-again. 
BTW, I'm a film festival producer for our local shin-dig here in SoCal, and I also helped (years ago) to launch one of the current premiere film fests in the mid-south, such as it is.
Ultimately, fests are like everything else these days.  Everybody's doing it since digital made it easy.  It's not a problem to get into some sort of a film festival.  However, it's not easy getting into a good one.  I just got back with my film from a rather lousy fest, that had no serious networking, horrible screenings, poor attendance...yet it was a lot of fun.  My wife and I even gleaned a great nugget of financial info from one of the panels that was wildly invaluable, so you never know... We have our last one in Toronto coming up, and it's gonna be the most "legit" festival we got into.  Still, that might be a lesser experience than our goofy no-budget fest we just attended.
We enjoyed our time at the goofy fest.  We made some new friends.  If you can do that, that's the main thing.  Just be gracious, try to get on the same wavelength as the interesting people you'll meet, and you'll be fine.  At the middle rung and lower rung of festivals, these things are just glorified parties -- if you're lucky!  (Some aren't even that) That's the best you can hope from it.  Having fun and meeting some good folks.
There's really only two or three festivals where industry stuff actually happens and films get "launched."  Because of that, there's only industry films represented.  Unless you're a creative wunderkind that made something uniquely awesome (and entertainingly so) you're probably not going to get into any serious festivals on your own. 
Actually, in spite of making something awesome and new, that actually would probably get you rejected from most film festivals.  The reality is that most selection committees are community regular-joe/jane types.  They're not savvy about film.  If subject matter floats in front of their eyes that they can relate to, they'll ignore all the shortcomings of the flick and give it a big old bear hug, filmmaking craft be damned.  Arguably, this happens with "savvy" festivals as well.
Three actors and three crew.  Make something with that situation.  Learn how to be smart with your time and talent.  It WILL pay off; creatively and professionally.

I made my last doc for basically free.  Just my wife and I doing everything.  Paid for flights to and from Japan, that was pretty much it.
As for the current film festival circuit:  They're a legacy thing.  Back in the day festivals had clout simply because they were a bigger deal.  Now-a-days they exist to prop up the purveyors on the things and, maybe, actual filmmakers every now-and-again. 
BTW, I'm a film festival producer for our local shin-dig here in SoCal, and I also helped (years ago) to launch one of the current premiere film fests in the mid-south, such as it is.
Ultimately, fests are like everything else these days.  Everybody's doing it since digital made it easy.  It's not a problem to get into some sort of a film festival.  However, it's not easy getting into a good one.  I just got back with my film from a rather lousy fest, that had no serious networking, horrible screenings, poor attendance...yet it was a lot of fun.  My wife and I even gleaned a great nugget of financial info from one of the panels that was wildly invaluable, so you never know... We have our last one in Toronto coming up, and it's gonna be the most "legit" festival we got into.  Still, that might be a lesser experience than our goofy no-budget fest we just attended.
We enjoyed our time at the goofy fest.  We made some new friends.  If you can do that, that's the main thing.  Just be gracious, try to get on the same wavelength as the interesting people you'll meet, and you'll be fine.  At the middle rung and lower rung of festivals, these things are just glorified parties -- if you're lucky!  (Some aren't even that) That's the best you can hope from it.  Having fun and meeting some good folks.
There's really only two or three festivals where industry stuff actually happens and films get "launched."  Because of that, there's only industry films represented.  Unless you're a creative wunderkind that made something uniquely awesome (and entertainingly so) you're probably not going to get into any serious festivals on your own. 
Actually, in spite of making something awesome and new, that actually would probably get you rejected from most film festivals.  The reality is that most selection committees are community regular-joe/jane types.  They're not savvy about film.  If subject matter floats in front of their eyes that they can relate to, they'll ignore all the shortcomings of the flick and give it a big old bear hug, filmmaking craft be damned.  Arguably, this happens with "savvy" festivals as well.
Three actors and three crew.  Make something with that situation.  Learn how to be smart with your time and talent.  It WILL pay off; creatively and professionally.

Could it be a circle of confusion?