Dreamworks is sponsoring a contest. The rules, submit a 64 second movie in Windows Media, Nero Digital or QuickTime format no bigger than 320x240 and 4MB. The subject is the concept of Waitlessness. I didn't no it was a word either, but I recently discovered the joy of waitlessness when arriving at the coffee shop and finding no one in line. No line, I'm waitless, what'd'ya know. All the details are available from The 64 Second Film Contest
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Robert Rodriguez recently talked to Digital Producer about his philosophy on shooting movies with a small crew, shooting digital and how he got his start as a one man production house. There's not a ton of ground breaking stuff here, but it's inspirational for the DIY ethic of independent production.
Each week this month, MacJams is offering free loops for GarageBand users. The final collection to round out the freebies is due next week. Collections consist of 20MB of AIFF sounds, for a total of more than 100MB when the giveaway completes. Since the files are simply uncompressed AIFF audio, they should also work in ACID, Audition or any other looping application.
The Beastie Boys are now offering free downloads of a cappella voice tracks. Remix the Beasties Brr Stick 'Em, Ch-Check It Out and a bunch of others. New releases hit every Friday, so be sure to check back. Be sure to share your remixes with the world so you can show off your mad mixing skillz.
Take some No Doze and stay up all night with a 24-hour free pass to all the training you can handle from Lynda.com. The site consistently offers some of the best video training online for stuff like Macromedia and Adobe products. Among the titles available, QuickTime Compression, Adobe Premiere Pro, Adobe After Effects and Final Cut Pro. This expires on August 31, so plan for an educational weekend. Thanks to DVBlog for the tip.
If the idea of piping your video into 20 million households is appealing, Current TV may be your new favorite channel. Current TV accepts submissions for their site with no guarantees of appearing on the network. Site visitors vote on individual segments to determine network-worthiness. Even if your clip is deemed network worthy, there's no guarantee it will air, but chances improve. The network pays for segments appearing on TV starting at $250. Make sure you check out the VC2 Survival Guide for the lowdown on getting your video ready for Current TV.
A dedicated home theater is top on my list of home upgrades, but if I could have two new rooms, the second would be a dedicated chromakey stage. Getting the lighting correct so that your green or blue background falls away easily in software isn't something that lends itself to DIY, at least not without a permanent location. Of course, if you already have a space for recording green screen footage, you might want to take a look at the latest update to Serious Magic's Ultra. Digital Producer offers a compelling look at the new version with a newly lowered price.
From the review: "When we reviewed Serious Magic Ultra back in December, 2003, the stand-alone Windows chromakeying application proved itself to be both impressively powerful and easy to use. Although pricey at $795, it was able to do a great job of keying even poorly-lit chromakey shots. Equally at home with standard AVI and QuickTime files, it even made keying DV footage easier while raising the quality level at the same time. Now Serious Magic has released a new version, Ultra 2 ($495), which offers new features along with improvements of those that were its claim to fame in the first place."
Working with other musicians at remote locations seems like something out of a sci-fi flick. Digital Musician Net came up with a VST plugin that connects to parties in remote locations allowing for collaboration across broadband Internet access. Instead of needing to layer tracks by using two different engineers or flying musicians in at hefty expense, this VST setup passes all of the audio data between two machines across the Web allowing for real time collaborative efforts that sound like they were produced in the same studio. Currently offered only as a public beta, this may be an attractive option for finding the right instrumentalist for a particular part without breaking the bank trying to figure out how you can get the perfect sound.
