6:00 pm - What's the BuZZ?

6:06 pm - Michael Rubin - Author "droidMaker: George Lucas and the Digital Revolution"

Michael Rubin is an educator, writer and entrepreneur. In 1985 he joined Lucasfilm’s Droid Works to introduce new technology to filmmakers. Since then he has edited feature films and television shows in Hollywood and published a number of textbooks about filmmaking and digital video for professionals as well as consumers. He has lectured internationally, from Montreux to Beijing, and consulted for Sony and Apple on “video literacy.” Rubin is also co-founder and CEO of Petroglyph Ceramic Lounge. He lives in Santa Cruz, California with his wife and two children.

He is the author of DROIDMAKER: George Lucas and the Digital Revolution - The Inside Story of How George Lucas and the Geeks of Skywalker Ranch Changed Everything. (View the trailer) We should care because if Star Wars didn’t change our world, George Lucas, in his quest to make Star Wars, did. Michael Rubin was there among the dozens of experts in computer technology, music, film and animation whose mission was to discover, invent, create or otherwise deliver to Lucas the means by which to bring his vision for Episodes I, II and III to life and ultimately, change all filmmaking.

They lived and worked in a Northern California community shrouded in secrecy as well as fog. They answered to Lucas -- a portrait of a geeky artist as a young man, quickly trying to learn to keep control of his explosively growing empire. Lucas was both aloof and demanding, but at the same time nurturing, encouraging and willing and able to give this hand-picked braintrust whatever tools, money and time it needed to get the job done. Until the money ran out...

Michael Rubin will be touring through to January talking about his book and doing book signings.

6:21 pm - Dallas/Forth Worth, TX Regional BuZZ

Ned Soltz - 2-pop moderator, contributing Editor Videography.

6:26 pm - Pick our Brains

Your chance to get your technical and creative questions answered. This week we talked about: Choosing a Mac for Final Cut Pro, BuZZ Archives, No audio when encoding to iPod video and sense errors with DVD burning.

6:32 pm - Roger Grant - Producer at Conbrio Films who are making a New Zealand TV series produced on HDV

Roger has worked in television for 25 years or more, as a technical director then senior editor with Television New Zealand specialising in drama editing. In a corporate reshuffle the drama department closed and Roger along with his wife, Producer and Script Consultant, Christina Milligan, set up their offline editing facility in 1991 to serviced many international co-productions for television specialising still in drama productions.

The company started with a CMX300 system using hiband u-matic but soon introduced the first AVID non linear system to New Zealand. Roger acted as Post Production Consultant for all projects, editing a number of TV series through that period. The company developed and maintained a high profile in television drama and documentary editing services and lead the way in New Zealand with non linear editing of short films and features.

In 1998 the family shifted to Sydney, Australia where Roger became increasingly interested in Final Cut Pro, eventually building and managing a 4 suite editing facility for Yoram Gross EM.TV, a leading 2D children's animation company. All the work was SD on Digibeta but with the emergence of HDV the world of budget hi definition loomed.

In 2005 the family is back in New Zealand and Roger has just completed post production on a 2 camera t.v. drama series that used the only just released Sony HDV cameras and brand new FCP 5 and the new Aaton Cantar recording system for sound. It was a big learning exercise as the pitfalls were unknown and the editors were dragged screaming and kicking from their AVID habits to the brave new Final Cut world.

After some rough patches the post production became increasingly smooth and picture lock was achieved 3 weeks after the start of shooting for each commercial hour episode. Finishing was done to HDSR and Roger and the D.O.P. were very impressed with the stability and overall quality of the images, while appreciating the limitations of the cameras and format.

6:50 pm - BuZZ in Depth

We'll take the important BuZZ from the week and look at it in depth so you know what's really important now, and what will become important in the future.