"Preparing" footage for keying is rarely beneficial. Only if DV-compression blocks or bad noise contaminates the footage blurring the blue channel may help a bit.

It has always been the best way not to manipulate footage PRIOR the keying process. In the old film days you never pushed saturation or anything else in the telecine process that may introduce noise and other video artifacts to footage. Such green screen scans looked very flat, often with a distinct orange tint. Pulling a key off such flat scans was much, much better than off saturated "right" looking footage.

There is a reason why Red supplies RedlogFilm. For pulling keys we use RedColor2 or Camera RGB (the latter one has a slight more magenta tint) and RedlogFilm. No OLPF compensation, no sharpening, no raised saturation, no curves, nothing. We mainly use MasterPrimes or sometimes SuperSpeeds, the old M sensor and daylight light. But I also once achieved very good results with a Cook 18-100 and tungsten lighting. File format after debayering is DPX. We use Autodesk's Modular Keyer but the offerings by The Foundry will do it adequately well.

Discovered an easy and free way to edit VOB files. I use this when I have a DVD with a sequence we want to emulate.

Windows Movie Maker (which is part of Windows Vista) of all things does the job where even expensive apps like Sony Vegas crash!.

Here's how>

Import your ripped .vob files an edit them using the story timeline. Then export by going ot the main menu and selecting "Publish".

For settings select publish to computer. Select more setting button and use "Windows Media DVD Widescreen Quality (3.0 Mbps).

Does the encode on a short clip in seconds and looks great for ref clips rough edits etc.

1. Big VFX companies will often complain that they are weary of seeing a lot of generalist showreels that haven’t got the depth in any particular area to be useful, or that they betray a lack of understanding of how teams work. VFX is a team sport - so it is important to remember from the beginning that you don’t have to excel at every aspect of VFX production.

Many students tend to instinctively shy away from specialism, believing they need to dazzle prospective employers with a wide array of skills, thinking this gives them a greater chance of being employed. Most fall flat.

Displaying strong narrative filmmaking and cinematography skills is great, but if your work lacks the bedrock of decent modelling, animation, texturing, lighting or compositing skills it means you end up pleasing no-one. Don’t let a showreel of a personal ten minute pet project film you created all by yourself highlight your weaknesses and smother your real strengths!

If you are a student interested in VFX try out different roles and specialisms across the whole pipeline whilst at college. Find out what you are good at, what your strengths are and where they are on the VFX spectrum. Get the breadth of experience, but also taste the depth of specialism.

2. VFX IS A TEAM SPORT

To try out different specialisms, teamwork is the way to go. To be able to show evidence that you are a team player who has tried different roles is a powerful statement at any interview. Chances are you’ll have a better visual product for employers to view, (a word of warning - be aware you’ll need to explain clearly your contribution - it’s quite possible the recruiter has seen other members of the same team, so will be keen to get a good idea of who did what - so no exaggerations please!)

VFX are created by a large team of individuals. A team player attitude will win you friends very quickly. As a member of the team, you need to do enough to any creative asset to ensure it is passed on to the next person to a standard that enables them to work efficiently and creatively too. Depending on the size of the facility, there may be a dozen or more people working on a single shot, and each one of them brings something of their own creativity to it. Get to know the rest of the people you’re working with, and understand what they do and how you fit in to the bigger picture. Discuss the work with them, particularly with the people you’re handing off to; what could you do to make their lives easier?

3. It’s important to understand the detail and amount of work needed to successfully fool the eye and get the job done. This often means finding appropriate solutions within the parameters you’ve got, and not using technology for the sake of it. As an example, there’s no point in using a processor-hungry particle system for a shot that features fog in the distance if shooting dry ice with a video camera will do the job. And there’s no point in creating a complex simulation of a simple building falling down, if a crafty animation will do the job more data-efficiently.

It’s important to remember it’s not about reproducing the real world in 3D but mimicking it. Cheat creatively where you can to save processing power and rendering time, using 2D images, painting, baking lighting and occlusion into textures, or rendering separate passes. You don’t need to model the back of objects if the camera isn’t going there!

Work with simplicity in mind - Start with the easiest, simplest approach and move up in complexity only when the simple was won't seel your shots. you need to recognise that people often try to fix problems by adding more complexity. For instance, if your CGI lighting doesn’t work, it’s tempting to add another light, but this may have negative repercussions later down the pipeline. Being able to plan effectively before beginning a project is a skill to develop no matter what software you are using.

Shooting With RED ONE^TM
Before shooting with the RED ONE^TM camera use
the following settings:

Format
Autodesk applications will accept 4K, 3K, and 2K projects.
Time code

Select TOD as the primary timecode track. Timecode
generated by the RED ONE^TM camera is non-drop frame.

Reel numbers
Make sure that the Incremental Reel option is
checked and properly configured so that each reel
has a unique name. Set the reel number to 001 at
the start of every new project.

Other camera settings
Use the default exposure and color temperature settings.

The RED ONE^TM converts RAW image data to
various color spaces in order to support previewing
on set, however, unmodified RAW data is recorded
to storage. Standard settings on the camera are ISO
320 and a 5000K color temperature. These settings
are stored as metadata and serve as a starting point
for later color space and format conversion using
the RED software tools, or for post-production work
using Smoke, Flame, or Lustre.

Backup your digital media
Optionally back up your files to separate physical
media, keeping the same folder hierarchy as the
magazine. It's much easier to keep track of your
media by placing each day's magazines in a separate
folder. Consider keeping several copies of your data
(preferably in separate physical locations).

Working In Final Cut Pro
Import QuickTime proxies into Final Cut Pro
There are several methods of editing your
content in FCP. One reliable method is to use the
QuickTime proxies generated by the camera. These
proxies contain the synced audio from the shoot.
Make sure that you do not modify your proxy
filenames or the R3D^TM filenames. Instead, use the
various comment columns to identify your clips.
Import the proxies directly into FCP, either by
drag-and-dropping them into a bin, or by using the
File > Import Option.

Selecting a proxy resolution before import
depends on the speed of your editing system. The

medium-resolution proxies (ending in _M.mov)

work best under most circumstances.

Edit
When inserting a proxy clip into a new sequence,
FCP will prompt you to change the resolution of
the sequence to match that of the footage.
Click Yes, then, in the RT menu, select a low quality to
avoid as much playback stutter as possible.
While real-time debayering is very processor-intensive,
it is still a simple way to edit footage with synchronized
sound from the original camera recording.
For another editorial approach in Final Cut Pro,
see Appendix C.

A Flame or Smoke workflow involves exporting
only an XML file. For a Lustre workflow, you also
need to export one or more EDLs, so limit your
edit to one video track. If you must edit using
several tracks, you will have to make as many
duplicates of your sequence as you have video
tracks and remove any additional video from the
duplicates. You will end up with several EDL files,
one per video track.

**FOR MORE INFO SEE THE SHARED FILES SECTION FOR PDF

Tons of film maker info free @WIKIBOOKS A-Z on making film.> Movie Making Manual

Encouraged fans to make pages for their city, as I think it gives them more of a sense of ownership and involvement with the film's success there, and because they know their community better than I do, and are already part of the audience, so it becomes peer to peer marketing.  BTW, you can now do on Twitter what we did on Myspace: just follow people you think will be into your film, or who talk about similar films.

Today's New Film Business VIDEO

THEATRICAL DIY:  We put out the word that we were taking the film on tour.  We told fans that we needed 3 things to bring it to their city: 1) a list of the indie/arthouse theatres near them 2) calls/letters/visits to those theaters to request the film 3) commitments to flyer and blog for us.

Our fans happen to rock, so we got the help we needed.  I booked the film into 12 cities, either one-offs or weekends - I billed these screenings as sneak-peaks, wary of over-playing markets that we'd want to hit with longer runs.  (And I avoided NY and LA.)  The screenings were a success.  My partner Aaron Aites and I did our first one in Austin during but not part of SXSW.  A risky move.  Our amazing new friends at the Alamo Drafthouse were kind enough to clear a midnight screening with the festival (fair warning: if you go this route, you risk pissing off the festival unless it's cleared with them).  Since Aaron's band Iran was playing that year, we piggybacked our travel arrangements, got press lists from friends, and promoted it to film and music fans alike.  A perfect fit.  The screening sold out.  Next stop: Seattle International Film Festival.  I mean, we weren't technically in it... but that didn't stop us getting some of the indie film write-ups that were in the air.  We booked a few late nights at the Northwest Film Forum - sold them out.  One kid told us he'd driven 5 hours to see the film, not sure if he'd ever get another chance.  We did Q&As, then headed to Portland for more of the same.
We continued with non-piggyback screenings, with lots of sold-out shows.  We tried to hit the right balance with press - enough to get the word out, not so much as to have shot our load if we made it back later with a longer run (which was always the end-game).  Toward the end of our solo bookings, we decided to just go for it in San Francisco, a market where we knew we had a huge audience - we booked a week with a museum screening series and went after press.  We were about to approach distribution services to take over, so we wanted to show we could perform over longer runs.  And we did.  Variance Films came on about a week later, and the first thing they did was get us moved over to the Roxie, continuing our SF run.

DISTRIBUTION SERVICE, THEATRICAL DIWO:  We then raised a P & A budget of 25K off the strength of those solo screenings and having Variance onboard.  $25,000 dollars: AKA "nothing," to distributors.  And we started our formal US and Canadian theatrical release.

Variance handled bookings, ads and co-promotions, we managed street teams and did nonstop interviews, and also brought on co-promotions through our music contacts.  A very deserved shout-out to Emma Griffiths at EG-PR who took on this indie doc about a foreign music scene and worked it like crazy.  We also eventized many of our screenings: we launched in NY with a party at the Knitting Factory where Dave Pajo of Slint/Papa M, Kyp Malone of TV on the Radio, and some of our other indie rock friends played (btw, our film is about metal - this did not impress the core audience terribly much, but we had a secondary audience that we wanted to reach, and we also had a second NY launch party a few days later which was all metal bands).  We continued to open runs with giveaways, bands, parties.  For our Canadian premiere, the film was projected onto a giant screen made of ice, outside, in the winter (fitting our film's aesthetic and subject matter).  Elsewhere, fans flyered like crazy, set up FB pages for their town, blogged, talked about it on forums.  We only ran print ads when theaters demanded it.  People came out.  Our opening weekend per screen avg in NY was over 7K .  Sadly, we only had one screen here, the indie loving Cinema Village. 

We grossed about 140K overall, in 35 cities.  We paid back the theatrical investors, with a little extra on top.  Toward the end of our run, the film went up on the Sundance Channel's broadcast schedule, and theaters backed off.  By then we'd drastically expanded our fan base and found distribution partners for DVD, VOD, Digital, TV, etc with Factory 25, Gravitas, The Sundance Channel, and Dynamo on our own website (since we kept non-exclusive streaming).  I like retaining some control over this thing, and I like having partners, so this is the best of both worlds, and it was brought about largely by our theatrical success.

KNOWLEDGE TRAVELS (AND SO DID WE): In fact, it worked so well that I repeated this process in Europe.  I set up a three week screening tour (mostly at festivals and arts venues with cinemas) from London to Krakow, met contacts who facilitated us selling the film to a German distributor, and then took everything I'd learned and theatrically distributed the film in the UK in the spring of 2010.  That made a profit, and we then self-released a very profitable DVD there.  We later sold digital/VOD rights to a UK company.
The rewards of all these DIY and DIWO releases were great: the film has a much higher profile, my partner and I have fantastic contacts and relationships with great companies and venues and people all over the US and Europe, we've grown our own audience, (with street team captains who I know by name and keep in touch with because they've become a part of my world), and had utterly amazing experiences.  The downside is that I stopped being a filmmaker for two years, and became a distributor, promoter, sales agent, community organizer, online work-bot; it was 18 hour days, 7 days a week, and it was completely exhausting.  Now at the end of it, I'm glad I did it, but I can't wait to make a film again!

I hope this is helpful info for some of you who are doing this now or are thinking about it.  I'm happy to clarify anything in the comments.

-Audrey Ewell

Okay, after been witness to an AC prepping a set of Primes and two Zooms, for transport, after all lenses were collectively cleaned after an a long day of tests, I fill the need to share my opinion about the right way to do it.

Also because this days I see more then one way of how people carry their Expensive gear, especially lenses in the most wrong of ways.

Is common sense to think that you should ALWAYS carry the lenses in sturdy cases and that you should ALWAYS make sure that the Foam Padding in your case supports the weight of the lens, fully and does not allow for the lens to travel either way, or touch one an other.

Now what some people might not know is the proper way a lens should be stored in this protective customized cases, and for those that don't know I like to share the following:

A) Always have their manufacturers cups on, to protect the lens form dust particles, and other elements.

B) Always Turn the focus ring to infinite, this will protect the internal focus mechanism.

C) Always Open the Aperture to the maximum (wide open), as to protect the Iris Blades.

D) With Zooms, especially the larger ones, but all of them in general, they should be set to minimum or maximum, but never left in the middle, to avoid damage to the zoom mechanism.

So i the case of my RPZ 18-85 I leave it always to its maximum zoom range of 85mm.

Now if in the case of zooms which do not have IF (internal focusing) then in this cases, and only in this cases you need to turn the zoom to its minimum, insuring that no extra stress is added by leaving the internal zooming elements extended.

This are by far the most important steps you can take to protect your investment, and insure that the lenses will work properly in between service calls, making those service call far apart from each other as much as possible, avoiding costly repairs.

An other thing to consider is the way you carry the lenses and zooms, meaning the position in which they seat, in their foam insert cut outs, and on this I have always found argument every time I opened my lens cases were all my lenses had the front element facing up, mind you this were Canon "L" series lens, not Cine lenses which tend to be more delicate then still lenses do to their weight and I prefer them facing down.

pick N' pluck foam will definitely not do, at list not with out been sprayed after fitting with a special solution which bounds the foam together, avoiding its braking up, and limiting the flying around of foam particles, which do get in and around your lenses and other gear, so at the end I stay away from pick N' pluck all together and only get customized Cut Outs from professional manufacturers such Innerspace, and Louis there is a great guy.

KETCH ROSSI