YES, we are meeting tomorrow, Dec. 17, in Garage 1/2

YES, we are meeting tomorrow, Dec. 17, in Garage 1/2. This month we are combining forces with the Digital Cinema Society to bring you what will likely be the biggest meeting we've had in years. Here is the lineup for the evening:

6.30 Doors open
7.00 Meeting starts (late arrivals will find a phone number on the lobby doors)
7.15 Sony present EX3 - Q & A follows
8.00 Pizza break
8.15 Draw raffle
8.20 Sony present HD Displays
8.30 F35 segment, Art and Adam demo the F35, show their F35 spot and talk about
production. Discussion of S-log, Hyper gammas - Q&A follows.
9.40 Wrap.

The Garage 1&2 rooms are located directly upstairs from Town Hall in Apple's Building 4 at 1 Infinite Loop. To find it, just pretend you are headed to the Town Hall facility, enter the main lobby doors, but instead go up the stairs to your far left to find The Garages rooms.

To locate the meeting room on a map, go to maps.google.com and search for "1 Infinite Loop, Cupertino CA". Building 4 will be on the backside of the loop towards the top right corner (northeast) of the map.

Good News, Bad News...

First, the Bad News:

Mid-November came up so fast from our previous meeting there just wasn't enough time to put together a credible/complete agenda for a November meeting. Sorry, so no meeting this month...but I think the good news will more than make up for it.

Now, the Good News:

Our next meeting will be in December, specifically, December 17th. And it is going to be KILLER! I am thrilled to announce that we will be co-hosting the December meeting with the Bay Area's new Digital Cinema Society, a worldwide filmmaking organization now with a local chapter under the leadership of Simon Sommerfeld. Our special guests for the evening will be SONY showing off their HD FILMMAKING SOLUTIONS. Not only that but it's also a PARTY!

More details will be posted as December approaches, but DO mark your calendar for 12/17/08 as MacFilmmakers and the Digital Cinema Society will be partying like it's...well, 2008.

Tonight's Meeting BONUS: COOKIES!

As the subject line says, as an added bonus for tonight's meeting, our Fabulous Pizza Break will once again feature those amazingly good cookies from San Francisco's Hot Cookie. Yay!

Of course, this means there will have to be a 50% increase in the entry fee at the door. Let me do the math here. Let's see, zero admission charge, times a factor of 1.5, equals...umm...oh yeah, that's still FREE!

See y'all tonight.

Next Meeting is Wed., Oct. 29th, BEATLES meeting room

The next meeting of MacFilmmakers is this coming Wednesday evening, October 29, at 7:00 pm in Apple's Beatles meeting room in the De Anza 3 building. Note that the Beatles meeting room is a new space. Full details below.

Wednesday, October 29

Apple's campus, Cupertino, CA

Beatles meeting room, located in the De Anza 3 building (Use the building entrance that faces onto Mariani Ave. Yes, this is a different entrance on the opposite side from what we are used to using previously.)

Doors Open 6:30 pm

Admission is Free!
Parking is Free!
The Pizza Break is Free!

_______________________________

7:00 – 8:00 PM
NATE GENTNER
Product Manager for Adobe's Encore

“Adobe's Blu-ray Authoring Workflow"
While Blu-ray may be a "bag of hurt", what really hurts is that Apple does not (yet?) offer video professinals a Blu-ray authoring solution. Aargh! No problem, Adobe has a workflow solution.

With Adobe's Encore, you can author fully professional Blu-ray discs and, using third party hardware, burn your own Blu-ray movies. While Encore is, of course, part of Adobe's Premiere Pro editing suite of software, it also works well in an Apple Final Cut workflow.

Come, release your authoring pain! Blu-ray no longer needs to be a "bag of hurt".

http://www.adobe.com/products/premiere/encore/
http://www.adobe.com/products/premiere/
http://www.adobe.com/products/creativesuite/production/

_______________________________

8:00 PM
Pizza Break
Once again, filling that gnawing void in filmmakers' lives (i.e., hungry tummies) since 2002, we present our always fabulous Pizza Break. Pizza and soft drinks are provided for everybody and at no cost (although kindly donations are never turned down), just show up and enjoy.

_______________________________

8:30 – 8:45 PM
LISHKA DEVOSS
Kranky Kids

“Size Matters, Especially if Your Video Is Being Shown as Part of a Presentation"
Lishka DeVoss of Kranky Kids walks us through what happens when you:

1. Set-up a basic Keynote presentation and then -
2. Grab some sound effects from Soundtrack Pro and do a simple edit of them in GarageBand (because you think Soundtrack Pro is too difficult to learn and all you wanted were those sound effects) and then -
3. Add your FCP edited videos to Keynote and see what the same QuickTime compression of your videos from three different cameras looks like when they are blown-up and projected to a size they were not intended to be viewed at because you just wanted to put them on the web, right? (Except someone asked for you to show them as a preso . . . for work, or at school, or you really think people will invest money in your BIG film idea and you thought it might be nice if everyone didn't all have to gather around a computer monitor . . .)

The camera output into a Keynote Presentation will be from:

• a Sony TRV9 (Yes! The Original!)
• a Canon XL1-S (Another dinosaur!)
• and The Flip ULtra (The hottest little consumer Flash-based camera on the market for people who just want to shoot video for YouTube or the family computer using no tape and which only needs to have regular AA batteries on hand to make the little monster work!)

http://www.krankykids.com/

_______________________________

8:45 – 9:30 PM
ADAM WILT
filmmaker, writer

"Making 'One Man, One Vote'"
Adam Wilt talks about the production and postproduction of a seven-minute short film.

- Mistakes made in production, and how they had to be fixed and fudged in post.
- How to use three cameras, including a cellphone cam, for a single image.
- Simple compositing and VFX using FCP, Motion, and Photoshop.
- Color correction and creating a look (even if it wasn't the look we planned on).
- Reworking an interlaced program for progressive displays.

http://provideocoalition.com
http://www.adamwilt.com/

Next Meeting is Wed., Oct. 29th

Our next meeting is Wednesday, October 29. One of our confirmed guest speakers will be Adobe presenting solutions for creating/burning Blu-ray DVDs on the Mac. More details to be posted later.

Noren Acoustilock 24 unit cabinet "Virtual Giveaway!"

***NOTICE: LISTSERV IS DOWN FOR MAINTENANCE, should be back up within 24 hours***

Hey, My Fellow MacFilmmakers--

Kevin Johnson here. The following is a ONCE IN A LIFETIME DEAL on a Noren Acoustilock 24 unit cabinet. These are those giant sound-reducing racks for post-production and A/V studios that will house all your noisy computer equipment. This particular one was previously the top of the line model, a 24 unit cabinet. (It is not the current 24TD; it is, I believe, the previous configuration, whatever those were designated.) It could hold, for example:
(2) Mac Pros
(1-2) XServes
(2-3) XServe RAIDs
(Many) smaller FW drives
possibly even a UPS unit
a picture of your Mom smiling at you, proud of your good fortune

So, here's the aforementioned once in a lifetime deal. These things go for, literally, way over $3,000 plus shipping. I just bought a used one in great condition off eBay for...drumroll, please...

FIFTY TWO BUCKS!

And...

Since I already own my own Acoustilock, I'm selling this one to the first friend/person who confirms with 100% absolute certainty that they want it for...

FIFTY TWO BUCKS!

To check out the concluded eBay auction, go to this link:
eBay link

Know that it is a local pickup only in Menlo Park and it is up a flight of stairs (no elevator, apparently) so you'll need a truck, a refrigerator dolly and some strong-armed friends (and while I may be your friend, I probably can't be there to help you move it) to get it. Here's the deal:

Give me FIFTY TWO BUCKS and a firm, absolute commitment that YOU will PICK IT UP and USE IT YOURSELF (NO, do NOT use this as an opportunity to resell it and make money off someone else, that would only ROYALLY piss me off, and you do NOT want to do that!), it goes to the first person to contact me and say they will personally use it.

How do you contact me? If you already have my email address use that, I check it frequently (and will see timestamps for the first-come, first-serve thingy). Or, if you already have my cell phone, call me (and be sure to leave a message). If you have neither of those, then try leaving a comment here and I'll check in here from time to time until it is confirmed as sold.

--Kevin

MFM meets next week, Wed., Sept. 24

The next meeting of MacFilmmakers is next week, Wednesday evening, September 24, at 7:00 pm in Apple's Garage II meeting room. Full details below.

Wednesday, September 24
Apple's campus, Cupertino, CA
Garage II (inside Bldg 4, upstairs from Town Hall)
Doors Open 6:30 pm
Admission is Free!
Parking is Free!

The Pizza Break is Free!
Tonight's Raffle (a full copy of CS4 Production Suite!) is Free!
Unsolicited Opinions Regarding Your Haircut are Free!

7:00 – 8:00 PM
MARK SPENCER
“Apple Motion workflow tips and tricks”
Mark Spencer is a bay area-based producer, editor, teacher and writer. He owns Day Street Productions, Inc. (www.daystreet.com), a production and post studio focused on corporate video. Mark is also an Apple-certified instructor and the author of Motion Graphics and Effects in Final Cut Studio from Peachpit Press and the author of our Motion 3 Fast Forward and Deep Dive tutorials.
See Mark’s video tutorials and more at:
www.applemotion.net/

8:00 PM
Pizza Break
Once again, filling that gnawing void in filmmakers' lives (i.e., hungry tummies) since 2002, we present our always fabulous Pizza Break. Pizza and soft drinks are provided for everybody and at no cost (although kindly donations are never turned down), just show up and enjoy.

8:30 – 9:30 PM
KEVAN O'BRIEN
“Adobe CS4 Production Suite, workflow with Final Cut Studio”
Kevan O’Brien was post production consultant for Peter and the Wolf,
2008 Academy Award Winner for best Short Film (Animated). Adobe officially launches CS4 on Tuesday 9/23. There will be a special web broadcast on September 23 (the day before our meeting). To register to view the broadcast go to:
www.adobe.com/go/somethingbrilliant

9:30 PM
Raffle
At the conclusion of tonight’s meeting we will raffle off a full version of the Adobe CS4 Production Suite! As stated above, this raffle will cost you...well, nothing at all, it is absolutely free! Naturally, you must be present to win. And, you know, own a computer to put it on.

Oh, and by the way, while we are truly sorry that our previous month's (August) meeting was cancelled, we'd have to kind of say that tonight's line up, well, pretty much MORE than makes up for that! Indeed, you might want to arrive a wee bit early just to make sure you get a seat for what will likely be a standing room only event.

And, finally, very special recognition goes out to our own Chip Curry for acting as the Grand Poobah to coordinate tonight's lineup. THANK YOU, CHIP!