July 06, 2007
Moving moving...
It's been a funny couple of weeks. There's lots going on at the moment. I'm finding it hard to keep a handle on all the threads but I think my technique is improving. In the past I'd just be staying up longer and getting more frazzled with each day (and cranky). This time I've backed off a bit from the machinations of MOD Films biz and have stayed (reasonably) focused on what can be done while waiting for various folks to get back to us.
Here's a quick round of the houses.
NEW BUSINESS
No word back yet from Film London but working on the e-learning proposal was certainly time well spent. Isn't education and understanding one of our key difficulties in this space after all?
I've been approached by a TV production company to assist their development team understand "360 degree commissioning". A bit of a milestone for me after ten years. Perhaps finally the film/TV world is coming around to the unpleasant reality that they will have to engage with us weird Internet folk for future work.
Nothing to report on further funding either. Preparing to draw a line under the current leads and start afresh with some new ones. It's as much about the chemistry as anything. There is a real buzz in the air at the moment re. all things webby so I'm confident that things will come together. The target investors are getting more up-to-speed on this area everyday. Just picked up a copy of Wired magazine and the Tired/Wired section is looking at video search techniques.
VIRTUAL STUDIO
Plans for reworking the user experience around all the MOD Films sites have taken a back seat at the moment. Just don't have enough hands on deck to do this properly atm. BUT the FIlm London tender exercise did throw up the need for a new homepage.
Considering using Moodle which is an elearning portal system. Torn between that and Plone. Also keen to make more of the combined newsfeed (featured here) so that people can subscribe to one source of MOD Films news if they're in the core team. Ultimately lots of ideas and plans that just have to wait until there's funding to explore them.
http://trac.modfilms.com:7861/moodle/
I've been making some good progress on a live re-mixable film RIG for performing. Next up, hacking the Final Cut pro timeline so that an equivalent MIDI sequence can be created (and messed with live).
Nothing much to report on the software development side. Some updates to modfilms.net and the vfxtracker are overdue but in the absence of any other users I'm pressing on with other stuff.
Looking at producing a Facebook app for the modfilms.net database so that peopl e can access and rate MODs without leaving that site.
And lastly, it looks like Blu-Ray isn't going anywhere fast. The decision to let the BD-J spec mature a little longer seems to have been the right one. This may be propaganda by the HD-DVD crowd but still... glad it's not my time being wasted.
Blu-Ray nightmare for early adoptors.
SANCTUARY
Jigesh reckons he'll have the matchmoving complete in the next fortnight, all but one tracking shot seems to be in hand via the amazing boujou software. Can't wait to be able to swap in all the 3D elements and have the camera moves line up.
Steve has just finished another round of audio tracking laying on Sanctuary which we will hopefully join up next week. Aiming to have another DVD cut by Aug 4 in state to send out to a few people. But in the meantime, updates and work-in-progress is going in the Team Sanctuary podcast
MOD CULTURE - TROLL WHISPERING
From a cute blog post on Isotoma's web site (one of my favourite suppliers and currently hosting the modfilms.net prototype), I learnt about the term "troll whisperer" - someone who can spot a troll (troublesome online community person) in advance of flamewars and other unpleasantness. Which confirms my suspicions that other organisations are battling with the same issues of "two-way communication with their audience". In particular I'm starting to wonder if Swarm of Angels will ever get anywhere. I haven't seen much use made of my £25 let alone anyone else's in actual film-making terms...