Seth Estrada Is The Idiot Savant

This just in: we may be able to shoot...

2011-10-13T19:53:00.001-07:00

This just in: we may be able to shoot the Cuba trip in 3-D. Hmmm...

T-t-t-testing!

2011-10-13T19:46:00.001-07:00

Hey boys and girls, what time is it?!

Trip To CUBA Much?

2011-10-13T19:20:00.001-07:00

So we've issued a call to our most trusted film making associates to find the right individual for the job.

"What job?" You ask.

The job of going to Havana Cuba for 5 days and 4 nights to shoot video of our beloved Caribbean island from coast to coast.

It's a tough job, we know, but somebody's got to do it, and they've got to do it soon, before Raul Castro gets some crazy ideas about restoring Havana, or some new American president goes lifting the trade embargo, flooding Havana with investment capital.

Stay tuned!

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

2008-09-05T12:50:00.003-07:00

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!

Interview with Darren T. Holmes

2008-06-30T15:16:00.001-07:00

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

Why you need more Moscow State University in your life.

2008-05-30T18:04:00.002-07:00

From the country that brought us collisional and linkage montage, inspired such fan groups as the Red Army Faction, and from whom a copy of any movie, song, or tv program is available for a small fee of 23.69 rubles ( .99 USD), comes the Compression Project, http://www.compression.ru/index_en.htm , headed up by the Graphics and Media Lab at MSU in Moscow (http://graphics.cs.msu.ru/index.html.en). These folks have gone to great lengths to forge new ground in general data compression, but have made several standout break-throughs in the field of video compression and filters. In this post I'd like to highlight their Cartoonizer plugin for VirtualDub (http://compression.ru/video/cartoonizer/index_en.html)

In my opinion the two advantages of this tool over, say, NewBlueFX Cartoonr for Sony Vegas or Adobe Premiere, are the filled segments rendering and the facial detection for edge rendering. Here are some images from their gallery which I have hand-picked for this post to highlight the superiority of MSU's Cartoonizer over NewBlueFX's Cartoonr You will notice that the pattern on the carpet beneath Jennifer Aniston's feet is blended into a solid color, and that the line quality of the sketch line from her clothes matches perfectly with the line quality of the sketches around her face and hands, instead of just looking like some lame, half-baked convolution kernel preset from 2002. In other words, she actually looks like a cartoon! Almost like a graphic novel. The additional before/after pictures further demonstrate the superior line quality of Cartoonizer.

A guide to Sony Vegas on DarWine for Mac OS 10.4.11

2008-04-21T11:27:00.006-07:00

GOOD NEWS

QUICK GUIDE TO INSTALL NECESSARY PACKAGES:

Install XCode/X11 from Mac OS "Extras" on install disks.

Download Darwine (build 0.9.53) package for Tiger (10.4) from here.

Install Darwine by opening disk image, and double clicking package installer.

Download .NET Framework 2.0 redistributable package from Microsoft's website.

Install .NET Framework 2.0 by double clicking installer, and then wait for a moment for the Darwine application helper to pop up, after which a window will pop up which looks like a Windows installer for .NET

Download Vegas 5.0d from Sony Creative Software from here. You must already have a valid serial number to run the software after installing it, this link is just for the sake of convenience in finding the most recent version of Vegas 5.

Install Vegas 5.0d by double clicking the .exe installer.

Run Vegas 5.0d by double clicking the new icon labeled 'Vegas 5.0.lnk'

Enter your serial number.

Rock and Roll!

EXTRAS AND GOODIES:

-Magic Bullet Movie Looks and Movie Looks HD are freely available to registered Vegas users from the Sony Creative Software website. They work flawlessly on Vegas-DarWine. Use them.

BAD NEWS

KNOWN ISSUES WITH VEGAS ON DARWINE:

-Preview window appears to display the average color of every pixel in the frame instead of rendering a proper preview. This does not affect final output or rendering, it just means that you will need to use the thumbnails in either the trimmer window or on the event in the timeline to make accurate cuts/transitions.

-Codec compatibility is still somewhat crippled under Wine/DarWine. You may use .wav files for audio and .avi files for video editing. I have not successfully loaded mpeg2 or .mov files onto the timeline, and I have not tried any ogg vorbis or theora media for audio, but mp3 is a no-go. Raster images (jpeg at least) do not appear to work either; they can be loaded onto the timeline, but will not appear in your final render.

-Scripts do not work yet. Sorry, No Ultimate S for you. At least not on Vegas-DarWine.

SCREENSHOTS
Proof that I have Vegas 5d running on my MacBook Pro. This is what you really want to see anyway. I wish I could somehow assure you that these photos are not doctored. You'll just have to take my word for it until you install Vegas on YOUR MacBook Pro and write YOUR guide to installation. Be patient as I will be inserting and updating these pictures throughout the day.

Here is the automated installer for DarWine. It is as simple as a double-click.

Here is a screenshot of DarWine installing itself.

Here is the download page for .NET 2.0 This is the only .NET framework currently supported under Wine/DarWine.

After installing DarWine, any Windows .exe files will appear as little DarWine Icons, so you'll need to actually start reading instead of just looking for your unique icons.

Here is the Vegas 5 installer opening inside of of the DarWine Desktop. As you can tell, this is where X11 becomes absolutely essential. The DarWine Desktop is totally optional, and can be disabled under the DarWine helper preferences. You'll see an example of this later on in as we attempt to edit in Vegas-DarWine.

Here is our beloved SCS EULA screen. Of course we agree to all that stuff. We never actually read it, but we totally agree. I should note that the EULA says nothing about whether or not you are obligated to run Sony Vegas on Windows (in other words, this tutorial is legal).

Here is Vegas looking for a place to install the software. "C: drive?! What c: drive?!" you exclaim. Well, surprise surprise, DarWine actually creates a windows-esque file structure for just such occasions. This is how the software can run without having to re-assign the location of all these useful libraries and file-structures.

Sweet Success! Forget opening up a can on the man. You've just cracked open a bottle of Wine!

What do you do when your dad is the... Man?

2008-04-10T18:41:00.001-07:00

So my dad is internationally known (but not known to rock the microphone) for his work on war comics. I'm not known on even a regional level. In fact, you might say I'm unknown.

Jello Haiku for College Seniors Who Have, um... Senioritis.

2008-04-01T08:35:00.001-08:00

Brain Goes To The Void
Turning Into Swollen Mush
J-E-L-L-O

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

Origins

2007-12-19T09:07:00.001-08:00

Many people protest when they hear me refer to myself as 'the idiot savant'. The truth is that 'autistic savant' is the more appropriate term for the phenomenon described. I've left it in it's archaic and pejorative form to reflect a sense of both self-effacing humor and humility: My family may have hereditary Asperger's syndrome, and though this has never been diagnosed or documented, there is compelling evidence: My oldest brother needed extra-curricular tutoring due to what appeared to be dyslexia and language development, my next oldest brother left high school to finish his schooling at home due to an overwhelming sense of depression from being crammed into the SoCal public education system like a round peg into a square hole, I needed both. My oldest son is now enrolled in two consecutive years of pre-school in a pre-dominantly autistic classroom due to his delayed language development. I am neither fully autistic, if at all, nor am I fully possessed of savant syndrome, if at all; I may just be another idiot.

If you are unfamiliar with autism or savant syndrome, you may familiarize yourself with both here:
http://www.psy.dmu.ac.uk/drhiles/Savant%20Syndrome.htm

You may familiarize yourself more fully with savant syndrome here:
http://www.wisconsinmedicalsociety.org/savant_syndrome/

You may familiarize yourself with Asperger's syndrome here:
http://www.aspergers.com/

You may familiarize yourself with the benefits of fish oil supplements to frontal lobe development by searching Pub Med.

Now that you understand a little better some of the difficulties/questions that haunt me (and my wife, lol) you can... well, I don't really know what you can do with that, but now you know, and knowing is half the battle.

I miss my kids

2007-12-05T13:12:00.001-08:00

This may seem a little out of place, but I miss my children. I had to stay at the school until late last night, and return again early this morning, missing my oldest boy go to bed, as well as get ready for pre-school this morning. I wish there was some way to meet professional creative goals and also have the time necessary to build a stronger bond with my family. Most of all, I just really miss my kids.

Haiku for a Son of an Idiot

2007-11-18T18:41:00.001-08:00

Bones break beneath me
Blinding pain sears from cheek to cheek
Busted coccyx... Damn...

Son of an Idiot!

2007-11-18T18:23:00.001-08:00

My boys are driving me crazy right now. Who taught them how to drive people crazy?!...

Double Tap Haiku

2007-11-16T13:27:00.001-08:00

Lovely bullets two
Fired in rapid succession
If they hit... You're dead.

Fish heads Haiku

2007-11-14T12:51:00.001-08:00

I once took a fish
Head out to see a movie
Didn't have to pay

Haiku for Spencer Holt

2007-11-04T22:39:00.001-08:00

Sunlight fin'lly fades
Ushering the Sandman's Dreams
You will rest quite well

Avid Haiku

2007-11-02T15:53:00.001-08:00

Avid Xpress Pro
How you make my projects sing
Then you freaking crash!

Apple Haiku

2007-11-02T09:37:00.001-08:00

Shiny, expensive
Now prone to Trojan horses
A-P-P-L-E

Jello Haiku Business

2007-10-31T11:18:00.001-08:00

Without real merit
It's just another expense
J-E-L-L-O

Jello Haiku Ultimate

2007-10-31T11:06:00.001-08:00

64 or 32
Love it or hate it, you buy
J-E-L-L-O

Jello Haiku #3

2007-10-31T10:56:00.001-08:00

Leaves rustle in wind
Taken away by the blast
J-E-L-L-O

Another Jello Haiku

2007-10-31T10:47:00.001-08:00

J-E-L-L-O
I want to eat it all day
punch me on the face

Jello Haiku

2007-10-31T10:46:00.001-08:00

Why do I love it?
It makes my soul feel yummy
J-E-L-L-O