Dear Santa: What the DV Rebellion can beg, borrow, and steal.

So, what exactly does the DV Rebel ask for this holiday season? Well...


Cheap Stuff:

Clothes Pins. Great for lights and holding gels.

Door stops. Why? These hold doors open, shim-up tables and chairs, level stuff, etc. Five or six in your bag will help.

"Bubbles". You know, those things little gals hold their ponytails with. These hold cables very well. The sillier they look (Hello Kitty brand rocks!) the less likely you are to get them stolen.

Gloves. The cheap three-pack work gloves you can get at Lowes or Home Depot work just fine.

Ponchos. Target has these. The little $1.50 ones are great for covering cameras when it rains. The more expensive ones are great for covering yourself or large amounts of stuff.

Bungee cords. Lowes and Home Depot have these in variety tubes for $5.99 to $27.00. These can hold LOTS of stuff in place...and strap things to cars.

First Aid Kit. Get a good one and go big!

Dry Erase Boards. Get 'em cheap and small enough to put in your bag. These are great as cheap slates, script boards, long-range communication tools, etc.

Sharpie Markers. Get 'em in bulk.

Dry Erase Markers. Again...lots of 'em!

Tape. NO DUCT!!! Get the real stuff. One roll of real gaffer's tape is good. Also, get spike tape. Spike is smaller and comes in pretty, bright colors. Spike is good for marking actor positions, where stuff was located, etc.


Medium Cost:

Bags. The Army/Navy Surplus over on Prince Street (next to the Peruvian restaurant...which is yummy, BTW) has great, inexpensive bags with lots of pockets that hold tapes, depth-of-field charts, insert slates, tape logs, etc.

Tool boxes. These range from cheap to kinda pricey (but those have wheels and locks on 'em!) Check Lowes and Sears.

Fish Tank. Am I kidding? No. Find one and submerge it in a pool or bathtub, then check for leaks. If it doesn't leak, you can place a camera inside the tank, and voila...cheap underwater camera. No, you can't go below the waterline, but it ain't bad.

Bulk DV Tapes. Sites like tapeandmedia.com offer DV Tapes in bulk. You can also buy cleaning tapes, DV cases, and tape rewinders there.

Battery Tester. Go to Radio Shack and buy a tester for AA, AAA, 9V, etc. batteries. You can also get one that tests camera batteries on the B & H Photo Site (ALL HAIL B&H!!!!)

Leatherman Tool. Yes, get one! Why would you not want something with screwdrivers, pliers, cutting tools, etc? These can be inexpensive or up to $120. Your choice.

Flashlight. Get one that is durable and easy to carry. DON'T GET A SHAKELIGHT!!! These can screw-up tapes! Keep one of those in your car.

USB Keys. You can actually get these in BULK!!! The smaller capacity models (128mb) are amazingly cheap these days. 1GB models at the bookstore are $19.99. Some 4GB models are around $29.99. Check the internet and Office Max & Staples for sales.

Large Drives. For USB Models, check Office Max, Staples, or Best Buy. For Firewire, Mac Mall on the web, or the Lacie site.

DVD. Which one? The "GOOD EATS" DVD on how to make a good cup of coffee...trust us.

Cheap Walkie-Talkies. Ebay and amazon have PLENTY of these!



Steal (No, we are not endorsing actual stealing! But if you see one of these lying around, take one):

Large Rubber Bands. As in big...like the big, blue ones around broccolli. Keep it around your wrist. These come in handy to flick a would-be theif in the eye, or to use for creating a smoother pan....it's true. Stay tuned for more information on that.


So...what to ask Mom & Dad and relatives for Xmas? Well...

- A Gift Card to Lowes or Home Depot

- A Gift Card to Target

- A Gift Certificate to B&H Photo

- A Gift Certificate to MacMall, or TapeandMedia.com, or the Lacie site

- A Gas Card...the DV Rebel drives...a lot.


Next time, how to set-up a killer clap-slate that will help you with Color Correction.

What they didn't tell you about Red Clay Chef 2007

Last spring, Tele 4250 pulled-off the caper of a lifetime: A live, multicamera presentation of the Red Clay Chef Competition during the Taste of Athens 2007. Thanks to the efforts of the class, the event possessed the "Iron Chef" feel the event coordinators requested.

Professor Jenn "The Dolly Mama" Smith

Host Chef Lamar Thomas with the RCC 2007 winner Chef Homer Whitmire.

The Red Clay Chef Crew 2007.

Starting in January of 2007, the class produced bio-pieces on the competing chefs and the host, a graphic-intense introduction, a glamour piece on the "secret ingredient", a multicamera live event, and a dvd of the full event. The Taste of Athens committee hopes to sell the DVD at this year's event, which will again be produced by the 4250 Class (known as 4250 Productions).

Last year, the production plan used two job arms, two roving cameras, a "refrigerator cam", and a DIY crane and dolly (known as Icky and Sally...short for Ichabod Crane and Salvador Dolly) on one large stage. This year, the event coordinators hope to provide a larger main stage, and a smaller "Judge's Table" stage. Like last year, Courtney "J-Coat" Jeffcoat from Grady College's ADR/PR program will coordinate the production with the Taste Of Athens.

Sarah "Squeek" Rabin, Nicholas "The Claw" Holtzclaw, and Professor Jenn "The Dolly Mama" Smith operating Icky and Sally; Amanda "Mander" Simon and Erin "Egad" Egan on Jib 02; Brian "The Man With The Plan" Perry and Mike "REO Bigwagon" Perkins on Jib 01.

Show directors Patrick "Pit-Pat" Stapleton and Ali "Ali-Baba" Mena.

Thomas "Maverick" Houston.

Because of the success of last year's event, The Taste of Athens committee has asked this year's 4250 Productions to do :30/:60 commercials for the event, and Executive Producer Biddle has asked to do some "Podcast" shorts of the participating restaurants for a website to be designed with help from J-Coat.

Audio God Sean "Squelch" Connor.

Last year's group set the standard not only for production, they set a standard for the event itself. This level of quality goes beyond "grades" and exemplifies the DV Rebel Spirit of story over ego!!!

Tips from a Colorist Assistant

Those who met with Dan "G-Rock" Goslee got some great advice on shooting, coloring, and moving to Los Angeles. Here's some of the points Dan made:

- Shoot Clean. Especially with DV! The signal is so compressed, it is best to shoot so the whites aren't "blowing-out" and the blacks are not "crushed".

- Correcting: Make your whites "White" and your blacks "Black" using the scopes. Yes, keep it that simple.

- Literal isn't storytelling: If you what a dark scene, shoot it clean (so you can see it and the picture doesn't pixilated due to poor lighting), then correct the white/black range, THEN manipulate the look. Shooting too dark or too bright means you have no room to be creative...you'll bascially be correcting your poorly shot footage instead of being creative with your properly shot footage. Also, if you eventually want to create a night scene, avoid warmth. Shoot clean, or just a bit cool.

- Color Theory: If you don't know it, don't mess with it! Get a book, look on wikipedia, or even talk with Professor Biddle and/or Professor Smith.

- Fly a couch, or just stay home: LA is already flooded with people who want to be editors, directors, producers, VFX artists, etc. You can't sit at home and expect LA (or NYC, or Atlanta, or Toronto, etc.) to come to you. People are already there sleeping on friend's couches, knocking on doors, and doing what they have to in order to learn and make it in the business. If you want to take big, you better go big! That means taking risks. Dan Goslee moved to LA with enough money to survive, slept on friends' couches, worked "crappy" jobs until he moved up to be a Colorist Assistant. He's been in LA three years. It takes time. He's willing to put in the sweat, time, and sacrifice. If you aren't, then places like LA might not be for you.

TeleArts Transdub Madness

With the addition of three new M-Audio keyboards in Lab 136, composing music in Garage Band is easier...it's also much more fun than using "canned" music (which Professor Biddle and Professor Smith don't really like or allow in student work).

Check out a keyboard and use it in Lab 136! C'mon...look how much fun Shooter is having! Expect lots of Transdub Dancing during the editing rush. WooT!

Professionals, alumni, you there...Avid anyone?

Biddle is now offering Avid Certified Instruction. Contact him for more details.

Who is this man, and is he dangerous?

Dan Goslee (also known as “G-Rock”) started out in the shipping department of a telecine house, Company 3, which was quickly becoming one of the leading digital intermediate companies in LA. With many areas of film work shifting toward digital intermediates, Dan focused on learning as much about
that as he could, and eventually become part of the foundation of that department. Company 3 has grown from doing four major films a year to about twenty, and in the past two years Dan has worked on over thirty different projects. Dan’s area handles everything from typical D.I. filmouts and D-Cinema processing to DVD mastering.

Recent and current projects include: Into the Wild, Fred Claus, National Treasure 2, and Sweeney Todd. Dan has also worked on X-3, Pirates of The Caribbean II & III, and Transformers. He is also the deadliest Four-Square player on this planet.

Lately, Dan has focused on the color correction side
of the process, but has also dealt with online conform and some of the vfx and compositing work. At this point is his short career, Dan has gained experience with almost all post-production outside of offline editing.

G-Rock will be in town from Wednesday, November 14 to Friday, November 16th. He'll give a short lecture/demo on Wednesday in Room 214 of the SLC from 4:30pm - 6pm.

The DV Rebellion Will Not Be Televised!!!!

Thirteen TeleArts students (“The DV Rebels” as they are known, inspired by Stu Maschwitz’s book used by Professor Biddle) and TeleArts Professor James Biddle joined industry professionals and trainers at The New York Post Production Conference in Manhattan. For three days, the group attended sessions on Avid, Final Cut Pro, Photoshop, After Effects, Field Production, and much more thanks to event organizer Future Media Concepts a leading producer of educational conferences for the film, TV, video and web industries. The company produces numerous major events around the country, most notable, the educational conferences at the annual NAB convention in Las Vegas.
Aside from training by well-known professionals such as Yossey Tessone, Richard Harrington and Douglas Spotted Eagle, students attended lectures by editors Jay Rabinowtiz (Broken Flowers), James Thomas (Borat), and Christopher Tellefsen (Capote). “It was a great review to hear the techniques we learned in class,” says senior Brian ‘The Man With The Plan’ Perry, “and it was reassuring to see how well and how useful our production skills are used in the real world”.

“It wasn’t easy to organize at such short notice,” says Biddle, “but I am glad these students wanted to go. As a post-production person, I respect these people and what they pioneer, and I wanted these students to experience it. And thanks to Future Media Concepts President and Co-Founder Ben Kozuch, the students were able to experience the Content Creators dinner at the B. B. King Blues Club. Not only did were they able to speak one-on-one with industry professionals, they won over $3000 in prizes including a copy of Avid Express Pro. I almost fainted!”

“I realized how well Professor Biddle and Professor Smith have prepared my fellow students and I,” comments senior Nick ‘The Claw’ Holtzclaw, “The lectures at the conference stressed a lot of the same principles, such as extreme organization in editing and getting things right in the field so as not to have to fix it in post…sloppy work will not be tolerated and it costs time and money, if not your job.”

According to senior Amanda “Mander” Simon, “If I had the chance to do the trip all over again, I’d do it in a heartbeat. I really think this trip should be a yearly opportunity for the Telecommunication Arts Students.”

TeleArts Professors James Biddle and Jennifer Smith hope to make trips to NYC and Los Angeles regular semester events so students can experience professional seminars and productions. According to Biddle, “Thanks to Kristen Strausbaugh-Hutchinson in AD/PR, we were able to organize the trip quickly and efficiently with all she’s done for the AD/PR trips. With Jenn Smith’s knowledge of Los Angeles, we should be able to organize a very exciting trip in the near future!”

“We also owe a lot to Brooke Rooks. Thanks to Brooke, the students learned about the Student Support fund for the trip. With the knowledge and resources we can share here at Grady College, Professor Smith and I know we can organize trips that will help our students to experience the industry and prepare for it in ways they might not have thought possible.”

Student attendee Megan “The Shark” Clark and Professor Biddle are working with Ben Kozuch on the possibility of these students attending the NAB Las Vegas Conference in April 2008. “FMC offers students the opportunity to work the conference and attend sessions for free, and the students from Grady really impressed Ben and the trainers.”

“Before the trip, I worried incessantly over whether or not I had the skills necessary for a successful career in film production,” says Jared ‘Shooter’ Bargiel, “but since then I have discovered newfound confidence in my abilities…It is nice to be reminded every now and then that one’s studies are in fact going to prove advantageous within the job market. The trip to New York City worked much to that end.”

Professor Biddle will hold a meeting in January 2008 to organize the trip for Fall 2008. Details will be made available in January.


LINK TO CONFERENCE
ttp://www.nypostconference.com/


LINK TO STUDENT SUPPORT FUND
http://www.grady.uga.edu/undergraduate.php?al1=Undergraduate&al2=Financial+Aid&al3=Student+Support&page=grady_pages.inc.php|GP_ID=55

ATTENDEES:

Charlotte “Web” Aston
Jared “Shooter” Bargiel
Ashley “Paltrow” Chase
Megan “Shark” Clark
Sean “Squelch” Connor
Jessica “Diggs” Diggelmann
Nicholas “The Claw” Holtzclaw
Jonathan “Blade” Hunt
Jae "The Edit Gangsta" Park
Brian "The Man With The Plan" Perry
Amanda “Mander” Simon
Paul "The Bounty Hunter" Smith
Adam "Cutter" Speas