TONIGHT'S MEETING POSTPONED!

ACK! Our main speaker for this evening, Mark Calice, has quickly (and, of course, unexpectedly) come down quite ill and will not be able to speak. As Mark was our primary speaker for the evening--and my talk was a secondary and much shorter "intro" piece--I am pained to say that we are going to POSTPONE OUR MEETING UNTIL WEDNESDAY, MARCH 11.

I've just spoken with Mark, he is on board for that new date. I've also spoken with Apple scheduling, we do have a room for the 11th, the very same Garage I space. So, we will move the meeting to 3/11.

PLEASE HELP SPREAD THE WORD. Most people will check this blog and/or get the email I am about to send out to the listserv, but some listserv folks are still in digest mode, meaning there is a chance they won't see that message until after this evening.

AGAIN, TONIGHT'S MEETING IS CANCELLED AND HAS BEEN RESCHEDULED FOR MARCH 11.

---

Regarding what was to have been my topic for the evening, Social Media Networking 101, I will at least post some mission-critical "bullet point" info here on the blog by this weekend.

In the meantime, the Cinequest Film Festival starts today, so, going with the old make-lemonade-from-lemons adage, maybe take this opportunity to go out and, you know, actually see a movie.

Meeting: February 25, 7PM, Garage I/II

Yes, we ARE meeting this Wednesday evening, February 25th, at 7:00 pm, in Apple's Garage I/II meeting room.

Agenda:

• DVD Duplication vs. Replication: What You Don't Know...

• Blu-ray Duplication vs. Replication: The Good, the Bad & the Ugly

• Fabulous Pizza Break

• Demo Reels

• Social Media Networking 101: WTH is That?

---

Back by popular demand! Mark Calice will present a follow-up to his earlier presentation, "DVD Duplication vs. Replication: What You Don't Know...". Mark's original delivery on this topic was so well-received that, due to everybody getting involved in the discussion, we actually had to cut the presentation short! Tonight, we have set aside enough time to fit it all in. 

On top of that, Mark will also include updated and expanded Blu-ray information, including all that is currently known in "Blu-ray Duplication vs. Replication: The Good, the Bad & the Ugly". It's like getting two presentations in one...well...'cuz it is two presentations in one! 

Mark's presentation is structured as an informational Q&A session, so your questions and participation are definitely encouraged.

---

Following Mark's preso will be our Fabulous Pizza Break. Once again filling the tummies of Bay Area filmmakers with really good pizza and a variety of soft drinks, the Pizza Break is, as always, free with your unpaid admission!

---

Next up will be your Demo Reels. Use our stunning 1080p DLP projection system (complete with Blu-ray player) to show us a work-in-progress, sample clips or a complete short, but please keep the total running time to under 5 minutes.

---

Rounding out the evening, Kevin Johnson will present "Social Media Networking 101: WTH is That?". Sure, you've heard of them: Facebook. MySpace. LinkedIn. Twitter. Etc. But, what in the heck are they? Blogging? Micro-blogging? How do these relate to YouTube or Flickr? And, as a creative professional, should you care? Yes, you should! Kevin will give an introduction to these and related social media networking sites, laying out the basics you want to know.

• What are these sites? How do they compare?

• How might you use them to further your career?

• What are the privacy issues? How can you minimize any such dangers?

• What are good resources to get you started?

And, if it just so happens you already are using such sites, please feel free to jump into the conversation with your own experiences or opinions, both pro and con. It's 2009, folks--just having your own website may no longer be enough. (And, no, you do not need to be a 20-something "kid" to benefit...)

Doors open at 6:30. Meetings are free and open to the public. Parking is plentiful and free. 

Reminder: Garage I/II is upstairs in Apple's Building 4 (same location as Town Hall) at 1 Infinite Loop in Cupertino.

Lost our room; next meeting in February

Hi, Gang. Bad news--we lost our room this month at Apple. Apparently a high-level manager claimed all rooms of any size for tomorrow night and all that was leftover were tiny rooms not suitable for our meeting purposes. It happens.

So, what would have been our January meeting will be rescheduled for February 25th. For that rescheduled date, our own Mark Calice will be making a presentation and other presenters will be announced later.

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/