Wednesday, November 28, 2007

Final Cut Pro “SuperMeet” Announced

Tickets are now on sale for the seventh annual FCPUG “SuperMeet” to be held January, 16, 2008 from 5:000PM - 10:00PM at the Mission Bay Conference Center, as part of the Macworld Expo in San Francisco, CA. This event promises to be the single largest gathering of Final Cut Pro users and Gurus in the world.

“The Mission Bay Conference Center is the largest venue we have ever had for one of these Macworld SuperMeets,” said Michael Horton, founder of the Los Angeles Final CutPro User Group. (lafcpug) and co-organizer of the SuperMeet. It is a brand new state of the art facility and the interior space is magnificent and spacious. This will be a sort of a Mini Macworld devoted entirely to Digital Video filmmakers and editors.”

The agenda is “Super Secret” according to Mr. Horton, but will be revealed shortly before the event date. “We can promise you this though,” he added; “There will be demos of new products, Final Cut Studio Tips and Tricks, show and tells, plenty of networking opportunities, and of course, our world famous Raffle with prizes totaling over $35,000.”

Tickets are only $10.00 per person and includes 2 raffle tickets. Tickets are on sale online only and it is expected this event will sell out. Food and cash bar will be available throughout the evening. Doors open at 5:00PM and this event is open to anyone who wishes to learn more about Apple’s Final Cut Studio or meet people who know more than you do.

For more information as well as a link to where to buy tickets, visit the Los Angeles Final Cut Pro User Group website.

Source

Saturday, November 17, 2007

USC film School gets $2 million Grant

Hugh Hefner, founder of Playboy Enterprises, has donated $2 million US to the University of Southern California to fund an archive to preserve student films and historic documents.

The money will also create an exhibition space in the new headquarters of the university's School of Cinematic Arts in Los Angeles. The archive, which already bears Hefner's name, holds more than eight decades of student films, including works by famous alumni such as George Lucas.

Hefner, 81, has already been generous toward USC's film school, donating $1.5 million in 1995 to create the Hugh M. Hefner Chair for the Study of American Film. He also gave $100,000 in 1992 to create a course on film censorship and has contributed millions to film preservation.

USC was also the recipient of a $175 million donation from alumni George Lucas last year. The amount included $75 million for the construction of new educational buildings and renovations of existing structures at the USC School of Cinematic Arts, and a $100-million endowment for the school.

Sources: USC news and CBC

Saturday, November 10, 2007

Readership of the Digital Filmmaking Blog

Hi dear readers,

this is a very personal post to all of you :)

You must be wondering, why is this kid updating his blog so randomly? Has he got bored...or is it writer's bloc?

Well, neither. I sure cant get bored of anything related to filmmaking - an emotion I'm sure is shared by all passionate filmmakers, film students and film buffs! As for writer's bloc, to be honest - that's an impossibility as well because all my posts aren't original (duh!)

Sometimes my stuff is 100% non-duplicate, like today! At most times, its a mash of borrowed knowledge from books and internet that I mould into presentable form and publish it here...making the language as coherent as possible. Sometimes, due to lack of time, I just copy and paste! However, whenever I do that, I make sure I attribute it to the people concerned, or link to the blog or website. Do point out if I missed someone.

This blog started off in November 2006, which obviously means...


its the first anniversary of Digital Filmmaking Blog!

So congratulations..to all of you! Yes you, the readers, who commented here, who read this blog, who e-mailed me with words of encouragement, who pointed out mistakes, filmmakers and film students, editors, cinematographers, screenwriters...I've had a varied audience. Every one doesn't comment, every one doesn't contact, and yet I'm aware that you came and read this blog. Here are some visitor stats to this blog in the last 30 days:


Well above you see a pie chart of the various different browsers (mostly FireFox and IE) used by people visiting us. Also, importantly, how actually people are getting to this blog. Well google has been kind, so we get got 71.4% people coming via search engines in the last month! Let's see something else below:

Above, the no. of people who visited us in the last 30 days from various parts of the world (only the top 10 cities during that time period).

I really feel exhilarated and triumphant when I find people from across the world, from various timezones, coming to this blog.

By now. you understand the graphic too well. I'm glad to see a good number of Mac and Linux users hitting up here! In fact, there's more Linux and Mac than Windows Vista!

I started out with this site with a sole dedication to digital filmmaking, but somehow, I could no hold on to it. We delved into various other branches of films and film technology. I hope you're not offended, coz I'm not! And now to the apology...

I do apologise for updating so randomly and making eager readers wait so long between posts. I've got a regular job at a prestigious sports channel now (since Septmeber, 2007 actually) and therefore my free time has become lesser and far between. Forgive me, and be prepared for delayed but definite updates!

And now, to the proposal...I want to make a short documentary film and have an idea in mind. Would it be feasible, if I asked for contributions (in the form of donations or share in profits, i.e. if at all its profitable) to the readers? Of course, the contributors will definitely see their names in the credits of the movie. Its just a proposal..maybe more of an experiment, if it works out, then what the heck! We'll make it more organized, with a good method of statistics and profit distribution...What say?