Busy, busy, busy

Hey everybody (anybody)
I've been lax in posting at this blog because of the work I've been putting into my professional blog, and the work I've been putting in on the documentary I'm producing about my Dad, Ric Estrada. On that note, please consider making a small pledge of $15-$150 to help us fund the next portion of production.

I have no plans to attend CES, but I will be at NAB again this year, and should actually be a little less busy by that point, so please keep track of me on my other blogs, and I'll talk to you more about tech, content creation, and life over here around April or so. Sound good? Great!

Re: in your blog you keep tlking about running vegas 5 why?

We (the WINE community) are working on having more robust support for these types of applications, but it's just not there yet. The fact that Vegas 5 runs as well as it does is a testament to the many thankless hours that contributors from all over the globe have put into testing, coding, testing, and coding some more. I think the current problem that faces us with running Vegas Pro 8 is that there is not support for .NET 3.0 on WINE yet, as well as some other minor adjustments that would need to be made. Thank you for mentioning your interest in it to me (sometimes I just get bashed on the Vegas forums). It makes me more determined to get SCS's help in adopting open source collaboration. Who knows, maybe I will have a Vegas Pro 8 workaround next month!
-seth

On Fri, Sep 5, 2008 at 12:16 AM, <@&^%#&^%$@aol.com> wrote:

what about vegas 8 under darwine? thanks! Ed!

Double Tap (NAB Cut)

Double Tap (NAB cut) from Seth Estrada on Vimeo.

Interview with Darren T. Holmes

Hey all,
Sorry to have taken so long for an update. I've been at DreamWorks Animation starting my internship, and things have been crazy. Blah blah blah, whatever, that's just me and I'm boring. BUT, I just sat down to talk with animation editor Darren Holmes (The Iron Giant, Lilo & Stitch, Ratatouille, yeah, THAT Darren Holmes) in person for a little over an hour.

There are things I cannot tell you or show you since I have signed a non-disclosure agreement here at the studio. However, Darren shared a few pearls that I think are worth mentioning right now:

Learn your tools like the back of your hand. What are your tools? Sorry, Final Cut Studio junkies, but Motion is not considered a pro app in the real world, nor is Final Cut when you're talking about cutting picture at a major studio; he means Avid, After Effects and Photoshop... And that's it, period. In the major studios all the other apps are built in house and run on Linux, so download a copy of Ubuntu or Fedora and start learning that too, in your spare time. Yes, tools may eventually change, but opportunity doesn't: if you are not prepared, you lose.

Make friends and network like your success depends on it. Why? Because it does. How to Win Friends and Influence People by Dale Carnegie is still THE handbook for this, aside from Preach My Gospel, which may also be helpful if you are Mormon, and read it with this goal in mind.

Keep alert for opportunity, but never at the cost of the quality your work. What does that mean? It means that if you're an assistant editor, and your lead editor is in an idiot, it's still your job to be the assistant editor. You'll get noticed faster by doing your job well, not by ripping on the person whose job you want. Darren says that his wife sums it up this way, "If my job is making coffee, it's going to be the best damn coffee in the world."

Indie films and live action are a huge risk right now. This should be obvious to you as you read headlines about the pending SAG strike, a more savvy film-going public, the sucktastic U.S. economy, and the YouTube phenomenon (hacks calling themselves filmmakers just because they own a Mac, or a camera, or have 'a great idea for a movie')  Studios like WB, Disney, DW, Universal, and Paramount are not going to be as hard hit by the inclement financial weather as, say, your cousin who barely managed to scrape together $90k for a feature length film. Be smart and you get the last laugh.

--
Why be your idiot when I can be my own?
iamtheidiotsavant.blogspot.com