by Guardian Studios on January 26th, 2010 | View Comments
Where do all of the ideas for commercials come from? Market research? Demographics? Detailed surveys and focus groups? Sure why not…if your client has the budget! But, could these commercials fail? Yes. And they often do.
So what are we to do? What are our clients to do? Advertising is as important as ever. Budgets are shrinking and in some cases the competition is shrinking too…
by Steve Zeidner on November 25th, 2009 | View Comments
Below are some basic tips that may already be familiar to seasoned web developers/designers, but are what we consider best practices for designing and building a website.
Back in the pre-CSS days, website layout was accomplished with clever table manipulation. While CSS can cause some frustration due to the inability of certain browsers to properly implement the full specification, it can also be a great tool for controlling layouts and keeping the design of the site separated from the content.
Why does this separation really matter? If the website will never change, it doesn’t. But let’s get real – in that case…
by Kevin Smith on October 20th, 2009 | View Comments
We just upgraded a few of our Avid Media Composers to the latest software version 4.0.2. Here are a couple of the gems we’ve discovered in the very short amount of time since installing:
Mixing frame rates on the timeline is definitely a huge plus. Besides being able to mix and playback multiple frame rates without rendering, we’ve discovered the SD output to tape looks much sharper than in previous versions. There is no need to render the reformat or export to a 3rd party program like After Effects. We can edit an entire show or commercial in HD (or mixed HD/SD) at any…
by Rob Dixon on October 2nd, 2009 | View Comments
The Avid DS has incredible capabilities- vector graphics, compositing tools, 3D objects, etc. Yes, everything coming out of a DS looks fantastic. But there is one not-so-fancy feature of the Avid DS that makes it a great editor- a feature that other NLEs need to adopt.
That feature is “timecode boxes” and it is located underneath the timeline. Timecode boxes display timecode data of either selected objects on the timeline or your in and out marks. For a selected clip you can also choose to display source timecodes or timeline timecodes. The important information you need to edit is always right there, quick…
by Kevin Smith on September 16th, 2009 | View Comments
Just when I was starting to wonder if Final Cut Pro was beginning to catch up with Avid, I read this quote on Avid’s Facebook page:
“I don’t know anyone doing $200 million dollar movies who is not cutting on a Media Composer system. At this level, where there’s so much at stake, everyone uses it.” – Roger Barton, Editor, Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen.
I personally don’t know anyone working on $200 million dollar movies, period; let alone ones using FCP on $200 million dollar movies. But I do know a screening room full of editors using Avid products on a daily…
by Guardian Studios on August 28th, 2009 | View Comments
National Spots move the camera, local spots point the camera. There is a difference -allow me to explain. A moving camera shot immediately says to our subconscious mind something along the lines of “Wow, that’s cool.” It’s simply that the camera is showing us something in a way that we can not experience in normal life. The camera is moving up or down, swinging over the heads of people like a bird in flight, gliding through a room smooth as silk – its movement is taking us as an audience somewhere special. As an audience we expect and demand Dynamic visualization, or at least we crave it…
by Guardian Studios on August 26th, 2009 | View Comments
As we sit and enjoy our evening TV shows we inevitably see commercials for a variety of products and services. Within that variety we are exposed to a wide spectrum of quality.
I feel that we as an audience instinctively sense the difference between Local and National commercials; let’s try to articulate the difference. I will share my thoughts about the differences I see and then you tell me your thoughts and your own independent musings.
Below, I have listed a few key differences between Local and National Spots. These are not rules or even theories, in the scientific sense, but some aspects that I watch for when creating a commercial.
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