A Wider Net

Episode 4 – Random Thoughts…

Remember back in high school or college or grad school or whenever you had a paper due and you had not a single written word down on paper?  Well, welcome to Episode 4 of “Suite Talk”, the last minute paper written by yours truly. I have been brainstorming a way to get “Suite Talk” into a video format, and I came up with a great idea on how to do that, but unfortunately with the holiday schedule we won’t be able to do that until a later date.  Trust me, it should be great, but for now, you are going to get the last minute thoughts I have rambling around in my head…

And since we are theoretically on a social networking medium right now (Cramer’s ‘A Wider Net’) I figured I would do what a lot of social networking sites do, give you a list of 10 random things you may or may not know about my everyday life as an editor.

10.  I come up with most of my creative ideas in the car.  They say that a lot of a person’s creative ideas come when they least expect it.  Well, for me, I expect them in the car.  Whether it is a song on the radio, a billboard or that guy that just cut me off, my brain starts churning the second I fire up the 4 cylinder power plant of my 2002 Honda Civic.

9.  I am a keyboard editor.  Some of you may know that most high end edit systems have specific keyboards for shortcuts.  Most of these keyboards are customizable, but you can recognize them by the colorful keys they have that correspond to said shortcuts.  Other editors prefer to use the mouse to navigate their way around the interface, which gives them the same result, but I go right to the keyboard.

8.  There have been countless times I have engaged in the Final Cut Pro vs. Avid debate.  And while at the end of the day I am in the opinion that whichever tool you feel you can tell your story best is the right edit system, I will always take an Avid over a Final Cut Pro system.

7.  I steal all the time.  That sounds bad.   Let me rephrase…I “garner” inspiration from other editors.  Basically I have had to privilege to work with some of the best editors in the business and have been able to learn a lot from their experience.  They have worked on such programs as the Red Sox 100 Year Anniversary and Boston Globe Sports documentaries, as well as PBS’s Frontline and ESPN’s E:60.

6.  Organization is key.  This applies to most everyone out there.  When you are organized, you can spend more time creating and less time fumbling around looking for elements.

5.  In order of priority in quality control, audio is king over visual.  If you have bad audio, a program becomes unwatchable.  If something is not up to par visually, as a viewer you will unconsciously work your way through it.  Luckily at Cramer, we have 2 of the best audio engineers in the business.

4.  If I had my way, 4×3 would be a thing of the past.  Whenever I see 4×3 content, it immediately looks old to me.  I would rather see a 4×3 letterbox of a 16×9 program than a full screen 4×3.

3.  If I had my way a second time, I would have everything shot with either a dolly or steady-cam.   Even a little bit of physical movement with a camera can add so much to a shot.  More so than a pan or zoom.

2.  Sometimes the best edit is no edit at all.  Drawing out a look on screen can really impact the feeling portrayed to an audience.  I am also very impressed anytime someone can do a take in one shot.

1.  I will always stop and talk shop.  So here is my call to action to you…what questions do YOU have about post-production?  I would be happy to answer them…or at least give my opinion.

After USPS launched its Priority Mail Simulator, it was only a matter of time before fashion retailers picked up the idea and applied it to online clothes shopping. Tobi.com has recently launched Fashionista, an Augmented Reality tool that facilitates the online purchasing process by allowing shoppers to try on clothes from the comfort (and privacy) of their own home.

Once you get yourself aligned with your virtual clothing on your webcam, you can thumbs up an item to send it to your shopping cart, or give it a thumbs down to try on something else. The ability to snap pictures of virtual outfits and share with friends over Facebook means critical fashion-related-peer-feedback is still maintained in the purchasing process. The only questions left to ask are how well the images of clothes actually fit people shopping for them and if your saved preferences/sizes are close enough to warrant an online purchase without an actual fitting.

Who is next to apply Augmented Reality in a useful fashion? (Pun intended.)

Freshman year at RISD, also known as boot camp (or more formally Foundation), was probably the most constructive year leading to my career as a designer. Even after a decade of real life experience I still think back to the amazing amount I learned in such a short time. There are lessons from art school that could be applied to just about any creative endeavor. So if you haven’t been to art school, or even if you have… pay attention. Here in no particular order are 9 of the most important lessons from boot camp.

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Check out Esquire’s December issue which includes augmented reality content:

Robert Downey Jr. is featured on the cover of the issue, sitting on top of an AR tracker. When you access Esquire’s AR webpage and hold your magazine up to your webcam, you are graced with bonus material throughout the pages of the magazine. Magazines are a great place to debut augmented reality content because it links your print-centric audience to your online channel. When looking at subscription-based magazines, the sweeter the extras, the stronger the consumer connection.

What magazines do you think will follow suit? What kind of bonus material would your audience benefit from?

This subject has some traction on the internet. Even web usability pioneer Jakob Nielsen is chiming in on the subject. Check out his latest post on integrating UX with Agile. It is encouraging to see that progress is being made on this front and that Jakob bids the old waterfall method good riddance.

Some highlights include:

• Two separate Sprints for design and development
• The need for UX teams to keep an eye on the big picture versus approaching a design feature-by-feature
• The diminishing role of a centralized UX team versus distributing UX members into cross-functional project teams

If you haven’t been following this thread, check out previous posts how Agile and UX can get along as well as a post on the daunting myth of releases every two weeks.

I recently attended a local UPA (Usability Professional Association) event in Boston. The topic was best practices in dashboard design presented by the folks at Enernoc who use the Agile Development Process to design and build their software. The speaker gave a brief overview about the Agile process, outlining the tenet of releasing every two weeks and the merits of iterative design solely as a prelude to the best practices talk. He did not go deep into it as it was just background for the dashboard discussion. The topic of Agile would be broad enough for its own presentation.

This was proven shortly.
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I’m one of those people who loves to look through old photos. I enjoy mocking the styles and sounds of the past. I also enjoy reminiscing about the good times and pining over the things we thought were great back in the day. I like to remember the things we took for granted then and consider how cool we think they are now. I’m also a guy who likes innovation, new things, fresh ideas and styles. How can I be two people? I don’t know…I just am, and you are too.

If you’re like me, you like things old and new. Maybe even best when vintage styles are refreshed with modern approaches. Like a wood steering wheel on a new sports car. Retro combined with newness often connects us with our past while providing the late-model performance we demand.

So, why is it that we are so repulsed by the idea of revisiting a creative approach we previously did years ago? Why do we snicker at the word “re-purposed” and mutter to ourselves “translation: you don’t have a new idea”?
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Episode 3 – Your Visit to the Edit Suite

You spent the last 3 days on location shooting your master piece.  Cramer’s team of directors, producers and production staff has captured your message in its raw form.  The lighting was great, there were some laughs at the outtakes and you were amazed at what goes into shooting on location.  Now it’s time to bring it all together.  Now it’s time for the edit.

Welcome to the post production department at Cramer, the home of the premiere Avid editing system in all of New England.  There are 6 Avid edit suites, 2 Pro Tools audio rooms and a team of video animators ready to bring the magic from the studio onto the screen.  You took a right turn leaving your house instead of a left and are ready to come in and finish telling your story, and we are glad you are here.  Come in, take a load off in a big leather chair, grab a cup of Green Mountain coffee from the café and find out what is for lunch, and if it is not to your liking, let us know we can get a hot or cold sandwich special ordered for you.

Here is some information you should know in order to make your visit to the edit suite enjoyable and fun, while at the same time efficient in getting your video done correctly and on time.

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If you try to keep up with the evolution of the internet (and I do), you’ve probably heard some talk that the “Real-Time Web” is the Next Big Thing.  It’s come up most often in reference to Twitter,* but there’s a lot more to the discussion than just Twitter.

What follows is a basic primer on the topic.

What We Mean When We Say “Real-Time” and Why It’s Important

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In keeping with Colin’s post about some of his favorite books I thought I would add my comments about a recent book I finished.  Every now and then I like to read something that is completely misaligned with my opinions.  No, I’m not a sadist, but I like to challenge to my opinions every now and then.  (Seriously?) Yes, seriously.

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