New Studio Review

In my search for new studio space I started looking at recording studios that has space. And there are some really fantastic rooms out there in New York City.
Nightlife has a rental of it's second control room. There are some very interesting shares like this place with the groovy oriental carpets. Three days a week for $750/month. I know the link will be dead in a few weeks but I'm blogging with it anyway.

Pearl Studios is a rehearsal studio in Jersey City, NJ.

I Figured It Out

Blade Runner the Musical but with Snake Plissken is modeled on Apocalypse Now. It all makes sense. Now.
Escape from the Blade Apocalypse.

We have to finish post on Android Insurrection. We have to shoot Dragon Girl. Then we have to finish that movie. Plus we have to write another disaster picture. But I need to finish writing the book to this musical this weekend.
We're going to need a bigger boat.

Aliens on Ice

Stacy Shirley. I... I love you.

Put the Bunny out the Door

This is somehow the most deeply weird, and deeply entrancing, commercial I've ever seen.

Amano Music is a music "atalier" in New York that supervised the score.
Have you applied for your HERE resident artist program?
So, when I think of the Blade Runner musical, but you know, with Snake Plissken as the lead character, I realized that the one style of music that I can do is this sort of morphine - pop style.

Can you stand an entire evening chasing replicants and listening to this? What if Plissken's morphology has his incept date accelerated so that he only has 22 hours to find, and kill, the replicants? Is Plissken a bass or a tenor? If Rachel is a soprano, then Batty is clearly the bass -- right?
We're gonna need an owl.

Theatresource Town Hall Notes

For those of you who, you know, actually do theater and couldn't make it to the "Town Hall" called by the Board of Directors of Theatresource, here's the official notes from the meeting.
The logic of closing Theatresource seems to be a petulant "Well, nobody would give money to our last call for donations so we decided not to call for donations again."

JEN: In regards to fundraising, in August, when we almost got evicted, we put out an urgent plea and from that we only raised $2000.

Again and again the lack of communication came up. The Board of Theatresource has always been secretive. I have no idea why. But this Board is more secretive than any of the others I can remember. In the case of the previous "urgent plea" the Board was obtuse about the reasoning for the "urgent plea". It was because the State was coming after the organization for not having paid State Unemployment Insurance. Now, I will not say for sure this is the case in New York State, but I believe that in New Jersey the Department of Labor can send the Sheriff to the banks of the Board of Directors, the Officers, and anyone with check-signing powers and drain their accounts without even going to the trouble of an administrative law hearing. So the Board was personally liable for that debt.

Sourcie: I’ve talked to Jen about grants and corporate sponsorships. There were other options not explored. There are other members in the tribe who could do this work.

This Board, unable to raise money, arrogantly didn't assume that they were just bad at it, but rather that it simply couldn't be done.

Perhaps it's best to realize that at this point the Board was talking about not being able to bring in any money and they have had only $100 in Corporate income and $500 in Foundation income. Year to date, that is.
So yeah, there was no serious effort put in over the last few years to bring in money. Heck, after we announced we were closing the Mayor's Office called to talk about funding and pointed out that we hadn't even bother to apply for City funding since 2008.

Nobody could have done a worse job of running Theatresource than this spectacularly incompetent Board. And nobody did. It took this Board to close down the operation.

So it's ironic to me that there was so much stress on "saving" the 501(c)3. As far as I know, this Corporation has an incredibly deadly liability tail on it. At least as far as I know, and in my understanding, makes it less than worthless because the liability for the other unpaid employment taxes actually penetrates the corporate shield and can touch (and strip) the bank accounts of the present members of the Board, the former members of the Board*, and anyone who has signatory rights on the bank accounts.

*I presume this to mean only the former members of the Board who were active when the tax was being unpaid. Also, it may be that the Board's insurance inures them from direct financial liability. Also, I don't know about people who used to have signatory rights on bank accounts.

Output and Intermediary Formats

Did you know that AfterEffects will cycle mask colors? Why isn't this the default? Sheesh.

More conversation between me and Nathan Vegdahl regarding delivery formats.

Me: I worry about legacy issues. In 10 or 15 years, will a movie I make today still be in a readable format? I dunno!

Nathan: The more open the standard, the more likely it is to be readable in the future. h.264 and AAC in an mp4 container is good, because it has open-source implementations. Worst-case scenario: someone has to pull up old source code and use it to convert your movie to a new format.
OpenEXR is also open source, so same deal.
The formats you have to worry about are proprietary formats, because if the companies behind them stop supporting them, you're out of luck.

Me: The main trick for our lab is: will they be able to take the file we give them and make a DigiBeta tape out of it? Because we still need to deliver DigiBetas.

Nathan: [editor's note: TL;DR: use Handbrake and/or skip to*] Hmm... I don't know if ffmpeg can encode for digital beta. I'll look into it. I use currently use ffmpeg 0.8.5 on Linux for all of my final encoding. I do everything from the command-line, because it gives me more precise control over the encoding process, and I get to play with all kinds of weird settings. But for the most part I keep it simple.
If I want to encode to a nearly (but not quite) lossless H.264 file that is widely compatible with other software, I use this command-line:
ffmpeg -i input_file -vcodec libx264 -vprofile baseline -crf 1 output_file.mp4
Where "input_file" is the name of your input video file, and "output_file.mp4" is the name of the file you want to create. Ffmpeg auto-detects what container format you want from the output file extension. In this case, it knows that .mp4 means the mpeg4 container.

The "-vcodec libx264" tells it to encode the video as H.264. The "-vprofile baseline" tells it to only use the most widely supported H.264 features, for maximum compatibility. The "-crf 1" tells it to encode nearly lossless (0 would be lossless, but isn't supported in the baseline profile; higher numbers are more lossy).

Sometimes you also need to tell it what pixel format to use, especially if you're encoding from an image sequence (I'll get to image sequences in a moment). You can do that with the pix_fmt option:
ffmpeg -i input_file -vcodec libx264 -vprofile baseline -crf 1
-pix_fmt yuv420p output_file.mp4

For fully lossless encoding, we drop the profile specification and use crf 0 and 444 chroma:

ffmpeg -i input_file -vcodec libx264 -crf 0 -pix_fmt yuv444p output_file.mp4

The resulting file, however, will not be widely supported, including by Apple's h.264 support.

You will also probably want to use AAC for your audio. Ffmpeg uses aac by default with the mp4 container, but we can specify it manually to be certain:

ffmpeg -i input_file -vcodec libx264 -vprofile baseline -crf 1 -acodec
libfaac output_file.mp4

And if we want to specify the bitrate of the audio (for example, 320kb/s):

ffmpeg -i input_file -vcodec libx264 -vprofile baseline -crf 1 -acodec
libfaac -b:a 320k output_file.mp4

If you have separate video and audio source files, you can specify them both, and ffmpeg well merge them:

ffmpeg -i input_video_file -i input_audio_file -vcodec libx264
-vprofile baseline -crf 1 output_file.mp4

When I render anything from a 3d application (for example, Blender) I always render to an image sequence. When I'm ready for final encoding of the animation, I render to png's, which are lossless, and then use
ffmpeg afterwards to manually encode them into a video file. To do this you need to tell ffmpeg where in the file names the frame number is. You do this with "%d" and some variants thereof.

If your files are named like this:
image_1.png
image_2.png
image_3.png
...
image_125.png

Then you specify the image sequence as "image_%d.png". The "%d" goes wherever the frame number is. Ffmpeg will then find all the files matching that pattern.

If your files are named like this:
image_0001.png
image_0002.png
image_0003.png
...
image_0125.png

Then you specify the image sequence as "image_%04d.png". The "04" (that's zero four) between the % and the d tells ffmpeg how many digits long the number is.

So, using this in an actual ffmpeg command-line:

ffmpeg -i image_%04d.png -vcodec libx264 -vprofile baseline -crf 1
output_file.mp4

The problem with images sequences, though, is that they contain no information about frame-rate. So we need to tell ffmpeg what frame-rate they are supposed to be in. You must specify this _before_ the image sequence on the command-line. This, for example, would give the image sequence a frame-rate of 24fps:

ffmpeg -r 24 -i image_%04d.png -vcodec libx264 -vprofile baseline -crf
1 output_file.mp4

You can also specify the frame rate with decimals and fractions:

ffmpeg -r 29.97 ...
ffmpeg -r 30/1.001

If you plan to use the file for video editing, make sure to set the GoP to 1, which means that every frame will be encoded on its own without reference to other frames in the video (such frames are called "intra frames" or "I-frames"). This makes the file size much larger, but it means that a video editor can pull frames out at random very easily, which is good for scrubbing etc. You do this by adding "-g 1" to the command-line:

ffmpeg -i input_file -vcodec libx264 -vprofile baseline -crf 1 -g 1 output_file.mp4

So there you go, that's a quick-and-dirty tutorial on how I do my video encoding. Although, internally I usually use Matroska (http://matroska.org) as my container format instead of mp4. But... then again, I use an open-source pipeline, where mastroska is well supported. I always use mp4 containers when sending material to other people.

If you don't want to use command-line ffmpeg, you can use Handbrake (http://handbrake.fr), which is a cross-platform GUI-ified version of ffmpeg. It exposes most of these options, though sometimes they can
be hard to find.

*Come to think of it, ffmpeg has an open-source ProResdecoder as well. So, for example, you could use ffmpeg to convert from pro-res to h.264 if you wanted to. I don't recall if it supports ProRes422 yet, though. But presumably it will in the future if it doesn't already.

Is this testing whether I'm a replicant or a lesbian, Mr. Deckard?

Apache Wave is an open-source Google Wave application. Briefly I thought Wave would be a good project management/project co-ordination application for us. But then they closed down Wave.
We're using DotProject right now. Of course, now that the Queen Herself hath spake to us regarding project management, I'm not entirely sure what to do with it.
Moo mini-cards are kind of sexy little business cards.
It's the day before Thanksgiving and we have to expedite a PAL copy of Battle: New York Day 2. That's OK, I'm hiding from traffic before making my way to my parents'.

Today's News

The landlord to 177 MacDougal Street says he's not prepared to rent the space but that when he decides to, he'll contact me.
This sort of thing is like a roller-coaster. Every few days you get the opposite information from what you've gotten before and you go from "everything's fine, it's all working" to "it's a complete no-go and dead in the water" and then back again to "it's all good, even better than before."
So that's today's news.

So, Apparently

It's Blade Runner, the Musical. But with Snake Plissken instead of Deckard. And instead of the threat about "little people" Snake has to take out all the Nexus 6 or be imprisoned in New York City. If he succeeds he'll be pardoned for all crimes committed inside the United States.
Also, Priss and Rachel are exactly the same model of android.
And it's going to be a big dream electronica score. I've always wanted to write a musical in the style of Bel Canto. No, I mean "Bel Canto."

Maduka Vs the Friendly Skies

The all-too-sexy-for-you Mr. Maduka Steady plays a very dangerous man with a gun* in this clip from Pan Am.

*Which is just like the time we met in the jungles outside of Bogota -- remind me to tell you that story sometime.

Rehearsal Rooms vs Offices

• Or: "Why was that lady yelling at me all through the town hall meeting on Saturday night?"

Actually, I'm not going to answer that above question.

• Will someone make the bad lady stop yelling at me?

Yeah, once we start a new organization we'll get a new website and you won't be reading all this stuff on this blog anymore.

• So wait, you're holding on me? There's a plan of some kind?

Of some kind. I only actually spoke to the landlord on Friday. I haven't heard back anything of substance yet.

• Will you tell us when you've found out anything?

No. I'm going to keep it under wraps. Just the same as I do with everything I think.

• I'd rather have the lady yell at me.

Would you? That can be arranged.

• Dear Heavens no. I'd rather listen to you go on and on about square footage and... and oh no...

Do you like running numbers? Yes. Yes you do. Get out the spreadsheeps and open your mind to wild speculation.

• Baaaah.

The question on today's menu is: do you make more income per square foot with rehearsal space or office space?

• No, the question on today's menu is why was that lady so aggressive and yelling at everyone at the town hall meeting?

But I'm not answering that question.

• In fact YOU didn't say anything at all at the town hall meeting.

Stipulation: at the 177 MacDougal Street space (hereafter known as "177") offices and rehearsal are not mutually exclusive.
Stipulation: we need rehearsal space in and of itself. We make plays. Plays need to be rehearsed.

• Why didn't you say anything at the town hall? Why let them go on and on with their BS unchallenged?

Plenty of people were challenging it.

• Yeah, but not you. 

I was there to support others.

• Do you think that supporting them was better by being quiet and supportive or telling the yelly lady to shut up?

Rather than trying to use a conservative vs a liberal estimate in order to test the numbers I'm using, I'm kinda going for whatever makes the most sense. Ripley Grier has a space just a foot smaller in either direction than the office now called "DigitalSource". They call the room "1R2". Their book rate on that room is $14/hour.
So I'm going to say we can charge $15/hour for the DigitalSource space. (Note that we absolutely must find a way to air-condition that space once April rolls around so some capital expenditure will be involved in making that a usable space. It was 83 degrees in there last night. And it's the middle of November.)
If we open at 2pm and can run the rehearsal room until 8pm and can seriously keep it booked six hours a day for five days a week (booking that rehearsal room during a show will be very annoying to those in the show at 8pm because they'll hear the rehearsal in their own dressing room), that's 30 hours at $15/hour or $450/week. Can we really book that room 30 hours a week? Heck, we haven't been able to book the theater for rehearsals for 30 hours a week. But 30 hours a week is a reasonable goal.
At 50 weeks a year, that's $22,500 a year in rehearsal room bookings. Remember that right now we only make about $1500 a year in audition room bookings.

• Any why wasn't anyone given an agenda for the town hall meeting before the town hall? Was that just a way to help them sandbag everyone else at the meeting so they couldn't come prepared with real questions and solutions?

The expenses involved in operating a rehearsal room include having a babysitter for the rehearsal (volunteer or otherwise). We need to calculate the cost of the volunteer vs the benefit (financial and otherwise) of having a rehearsal room. And yes, volunteers do "cost" something. Indeed, I have this whole notion that we shouldn't waste volunteers' time on things which bring in less than "x" dollars an hour but that's a whole nuther post.

Only baby owls will be allowed to run meetings from now on.

Now, if we were to put A/C into that "DigitalSource" room, add some Aeron chairs you'd have a windowless office in a back-office space (but conveniently located in Greenwich Village.) It's still "back office". There's no receptionist or free coffee all day long. But we could likely put four "cubicles" in there for $300 each per month. And probably keep them rented for 10 months a year (on average).
Four cubicles times $300 each is $1200 a month. That's $12,000 a year.
So offices are worth about half of what a rehearsal room is worth. Maybe a bit more. Advantage office: no need to have a babysitter on staff. Disadvantage office: you sure as heck better trust your office-mates as they'll have keys to come and go as they please. Advantage office: booking is a lot easier. You just need to do it once every so many months (or in some cases, so many years.)

• Will any of this keep the bad lady from yelling at me?

Wow. That's so interesting I so thought offices would win out. Even with average of 10-month rental at $450/cube you're only at $18,000 a year, which is substantially below the potential revenue from rehearsal room revenue.

• So this means I don't have to go to any more town hall meetings where some lady yells at everybody that everything is going great and everybody's doing a great job?

It means you put offices where offices can go and put rehearsal space where rehearsal space can go. Those two kinds of spaces are not mutually exclusive at the 177 space. And you fight dog-and-claw to get those rehearsal spaces booked. Or you just say "full-time booking two rehearsal spaces and the theater is just one too many things for us to do" and you find other revenue.

• Put some pants on, will ya?

Baby owls don't wear pants.

• All this time you were channeling a baby owl?

That's why the post is so coherent.

Nathan Vegdahl's Demo Reel

Groove to it. Nathan is helping us out on Dragon Girl. His animation and rigging is beautiful.
You want a full-res version? He's got that too.

Xanax, Whiskey, and AfterEffects

Yup. That's about it. This month's Tweet cloud. Why are you following me on Twitter. Are you insane? Do you need medication? Following me on Twitter is no substitute for the Xanax and top-shelf whiskey.
These are the tech specs for Adobe CS5.
You can get this camera stabilizer for $225 or you can get this one for $50. It's up to you, really. (Via Chance.)
Stu Maschwitz shows how he sets up AfterEffects.

QOTD

Today I did an NDA project. I haven't done an NDA project in a long long time.

Yes. I put an ad on this blog through Project Wonderful. I'll tell ya how that works. You have to click through to see the blog to see the ad. I may end up setting it up for the RSS feed. I don't know. It's only to amuse me.

Silence! The Musical goes to a LOT of trouble to tell you it's a parody. 

+++++

I want to make "Blade Runner the Musical". 

Leon Kowalski

Leon. Leon.

Leon Kowalski.

Oh Leon Kowalski

Six days

Leon

Leon Kowalski...

The big numbers are going to be "Let Me Tell You About My Mother", "Morphology, Longevity, Incept Dates", "Wake up! Time to die." and the finale " "It's too bad she won't live. (But then again, who does?)"
+++++

The Quote of the Day:
"Good Lord, you have some good ideas, Bellware. Although I notice "wearing pants" is never one of them."