Robin Kurtz: The Maiden

Why didn't I see this show with the awesome Robin Kurtz in it?

Full of IT: The Maiden: The Maiden Conceived by Chance D. Muehleck Directed and Choreographed by Melanie Armer Composed by Admiral Grey Produced by La MaMa in asso...

Importing XML

As far as I can tell, the problem exists entirely within Final Cut Pro. Because even a straight-up import of xml causes it to freeze at 67 or 68%. Which is rude and ignorant of FCP.

The reason I figure it's Final Cut's fault is that I took an XML file and brought it into Text Edit. Then I found the following text in the XML:


3.00 : 1
7


7
And I changed the last value to "1" which should be the 1.66:1 letterbox. I did a search and replace. Very proud of myself, I was.
To no avail though. The import still froze at 68%.
So I quit. And I'm doing the changes manually. It's not as difficult as I thought it would be.

Today's Gonna Be a Long Day

On our latest movie we tried a 3:1 letterbox. The sales rep said "no way".
Now on most of our movies we've delivered a 2.35:1 letterbox and we ain't heard nuthin'. And we usually think of there being a letterbox on set when we're shooting. So if a boom creeps briefly in or what-have-you we don't mind so much.
But our rep would prefer full-frame 16x9.
Ugh. The letterbox is applied to each clip individually on the whole movie. That's a lot of clicking.
So searching around the Internet I found there's a thing called Edit Mule Filter Remover. It's got a 14-day trial and it's only $15 anyway. Perfect.
Except the company doesn't seem to exist anymore. Well, I better get all the work done in those 14 days. Except. It doesn't work.

It freezes on importing back into Final Cut Pro. I got no idea. I got nuthin'.
I will be doing a lot of clicking today. Oh, and I still reserve the right to letterbox to 2.35:1 because of boom lines and shadows. Luckily it seems that we actually rendered out all the effects at full 16x9.

Colors and cities

Color bars and how to use them.
Some Shutterstock city flyovers.
Lee filter 508 "Midnight Maya" is something close to what the opposite of the color of my florescent lights+the color of the walls in the office is.

The actual opposite color of my walls under light.

Those Things

Diet to Go
It's relatively cheap. Food comes well reviewed. I have to lose like 60 lbs. That's gonna take more than a year. Plus I have to get my cholesterol down. Boo.

Stock Video site. I'd love a nice HD overflight of Manhattan coming from the south west.
I could get one of these little tracker things to measure my minimal movement through the day.
Super-duty 1/2" case kits might make for a guitar amp isolation cabinet. Especially if you put ANOTHER cabinet inside one.

Lights Narrow

Check out this groovy interview with Vinnie Marano and DeLisa White.

DeLisa White is nominated for Outstanding Director; Vincent Marano is nominated for Outstanding Original Full-Length Script; and Lights Narrow is nominated for Outstanding Premiere Production of a Play.

That's Ridley Parson and James Becton in the show!

Just clearing out some links

The Iron Heel is a Jack London book. Oddly, it was an inspiration for the racist's Bible -- The Turner Diaries.

The Scarlet Plague is another piece of post-apocalyptic fiction by Jack London.

Live IN the city

If you're gonna pay the high prices of living in New York City you may as well actually enjoy New York City. Even if you're flat broke there are plenty o'concerts and theater to see. I bet if you called around indy theater producers and were like "I'm flat broke. I can't afford the twenty bucks to come to your show. I'm eating mac n' cheese all week and living on my friend's floor" the producer would be all like "My show isn't totally sold out tonight, if you really want to see it I'll comp you."
Because seriously, someone begging to see your show is vastly better than a couple people who are tangentially related to one of the writer's cousins and who felt obligated to go.
Your poor broke dude just wants to the the show. I mean, who do you want in your audience anyway?

New York Public Library Lion on a day off.

It's so easy to get to the point where you never see any theater, you never experience any of the things New York can uniquely offer. You just go to those three restaurants you go to. You just walk to your subway, then you walk to work, then back again, eager to watch HBO over a plate of lo mein. I know, if there were only fewer choices it would be so much easier, wouldn't it? But alas. There aren't.

Two things are all I've got

You know that movie that you tried to make at your friend's parent's place Upstate? You know, where you have that great big house and you can shoot anywhere you want and it'll be that awesome noir-horror-thriller?
The Aggression Scale is that movie.

Ancillary Justice is... well it's just a terrible name for a book. But it's a smashing book.

Jet Drown Relax

I dunno. There's a lot of stories out there about the perfect diet or whatever to avoid jet lag. They all seem fishy to me. But here's another one.

I still don't know what to look for when someone's drowning.
I'm taking two days off from working. Inadvertently I'd even pulled my machines off the Internet so I can't even work on them remotely.

Prometheus Trap Japan

Prometheus Trap Japanese artwork:

 So it's "Starship Invasion".

The beautiful Rebecca Kush commands the mission.

Monitor, color

The time has come to change my picture monitoring situation on the PC. We'll see how that goes.
  Seiki Monitor39" and apparently takes some tweaking to work, but the price sure is right.

I'm not altogether down with the light and the color of the walls in the new studio.
There's a groovy app on Android called ON Color Measure which uses the camera to take color measurements. Which is very cool. And the color that's opposite of the institutional color of the walls is this.

Failure Groupies

Here's a trailer for our own Mandira Chauhan's Failure Groupies.

Recording at home, recording in the studio

I think it basically comes down to the $570 Sequis Motherload Elemental or a DIY guitar cabinet isolation box. I estimate the cost of materials on that DIY box at about $250. Plus labor. Plus a major-league pain in the tuchus.

Plus it would be large. Just a coffin for a speaker cabinet. And although I have two cabinets which each hold a single 12" (Celestion Alnico Blues, of course) they would just be annoyingly big. I might be better off putting a speaker in a closet.

§

I'm not entirely pleased by my wiring options at the new studio. I suspect I will end up with three microphone cables going into the booth. Two of those will feed a Neve and one will feed the M-Audio. I dunno. There may be an analog extension required. And ice cream.