Digital Production Buzz

July 30, 2015

[Transcripts provided by Take 1 Transcription]

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HOST

Larry Jordan

GUESTS

Andy Maisner, President, TV Show Gear

Tim Bajarin, President, Creative Strategies, Inc.

Paul Saccone, Senior Director, Marketing, Blackmagic Design

Pilar Alessandra, Script Consultant & Author, On the Page

===

Larry Jordan: Tonight on The Buzz, we start with Andy Maisner, the President of TV Pro Gear. His company builds TV stations and production facilities. He joins us here in studio to talk about the impact 4K images are having on live production.

Larry Jordan: Next, Tim Bajarin is a highly respected industry analyst and the President of Creative Strategies. We talk with him about how wearables and mobile devices are changing how we work and play.

Larry Jordan: Finally, Pilar Alessandra is a script consultant and the author of The Coffee Break Screenwriter. She joins us in studio to talk about how to create a successful and sellable script.

Larry Jordan: Plus Paul Saccone of Blackmagic Design joins us for Tech Talk and, as always, we have a Buzz flashback. The Buzz starts now.

Announcer #1: Tonight’s Digital Production Buzz is brought to you by Other World Computing at macsales.com; Advantage Video Systems, at advantagevideosystems.com; and by Xen Data, at Xendata.com.

Announcer #2: Since the dawn of digital filmmaking… Authoritative…one show serves a worldwide network of media professionals… Current…uniting industry experts… Production…filmmakers… Post production…and content creators around the planet. Distribution. From the media capital of the world in Los Angeles, California, The Digital Production Buzz goes live now.

Larry Jordan: And welcome to The Digital Production Buzz, the world’s longest running podcast for creative content producers covering media production, post production, marketing and distribution around the world. My name is Larry Jordan. Our co-host, Mike Horton, has the night off.

Larry Jordan: Let’s see. We’ve got a variety of news this evening and the big news in post production this week is the release of the public beta of DaVinci Resolve 12 from Blackmagic Design. As you’ll learn later in this program from Paul Saccone, this software is targeted directly at Final Cut, Premiere and Media Composer. While it’s too early to determine the impact this new version will have on our industry, the fact that it is free means that it will get a lot of people looking at it.

Larry Jordan: Accusys is a storage company that makes a variety of high speed RAIDs and this week their 8 bay Thunderbolt 2 RAID tower was certified by Blackmagic Design to work with Resolve for 4K images. FX Factory announced a new plug-in called 9 Slice. This provides powerful scaling to resize picture frames, banners and other graphics while preserving corners and edges. It’s compatible with Final Cut, Premiere, After Effects and Motion.

Larry Jordan: Also this week, the Supermeet team announced that Walter Murch will headline the Amsterdam Supermeet coming up at the IBC event in Amsterdam on September 13th.

Larry Jordan: By the way, we’ve been making lots of changes to The Buzz website this summer. One of our latest is redesigning our interview pages. We’ve made these archives easier to search, easier to view and now include both the audio and video interviews on the same page. Visit digitialproductionbuzz.com and check out the latest view.

Larry Jordan: I’ll be back with Andy Maisner right after this.

Digital Production Buzz

July 23, 2015

[Transcripts provided by Take 1 Transcription]

(Click here to listen to this show.)

HOSTS

Larry Jordan & Mike Horton

GUESTS

Danny Manus, CEO, Script Consultant, No BullScript Consulting

Jonathan Handel, Entertainment/Technology Attorney & Labor Reporter, TroyGould and The Hollywood Reporter

Sean Wycliffe, CEO/Co-Founder, Dealflicks

===

Larry Jordan Tonight on The Buzz, we start with Danny Manus. He’s a script consultant and the CEO of No Bull Script. He shares his thoughts on what it takes to maximize your writing.

Larry Jordan Recently, a court decision determined that interns need to be paid. However, Hollywood runs on the labor of countless unpaid interns, so Jonathan Handel, the entertainment labor reporter for The Hollywood Reporter, joins us to explain what this ruling means.

Larry Jordan Finally, Sean Wycliffe is the CEO and co-founder of Dealflicks, which was founded three years ago to get more people to the movies at a discount. Tonight, Sean shares how his system works.

Larry Jordan All this plus Tech Talk and Buzz Flashback. The Buzz starts now.

Announcer #1: Tonight’s Digital Production Buzz is brought to you by Other World Computing at macsales.com; and by Advantage Video Systems, at advantagevideosystems.com.

Announcer #2: Since the dawn of digital film making…

Announcer #2: Authoritative.

Announcer #2: …one show serves a worldwide network of media professionals…

Announcer #2: Current.

Announcer #2: …uniting industry experts…

Announcer #2: Production.

Announcer #2: …filmmakers…

Announcer #2: Post production.

Announcer #2: …and content creators around the planet.

Announcer #2: Distribution.

Announcer #2: From the media capital of the world in Los Angeles, California, The Digital Production Buzz goes live now.

Larry Jordan And welcome to The Digital Production Buzz, the world’s longest running podcast for creative content producers covering media production, post production, marketing and distribution around the world. It’s good to have you with us. Mike, we’ve been reading about the death of the PC for a while now, but today…

Mike Horton: The what?

Larry Jordan The death of the PC. Remember those things?

Mike Horton: Those personal computer thingies?

Larry Jordan Personal computer, yes.

Mike Horton: Those big thick ones, really wide? We had a bunch of those at the LAFCPUG meeting last night. They didn’t work.

Larry Jordan Trying to set anything up with him is a challenge.

Mike Horton: Go ahead. Sorry for interrupting.

Larry Jordan Today, the Gartner Group announced that the annual sales of IOS devices equals the annual sales of all Windows PCs.

Mike Horton: Really?

Larry Jordan Android devices surpassed PC sales back in 2012; now this month IOS devices surpassed all PC sales.

Mike Horton: How much work do you actually do on these things? You’re not out in the field a lot, you’re here in the office, so you don’t do a lot of work on these things, right?

Larry Jordan I use it for reading email and consuming media, but I don’t use it for creating media. For creating, I need a laptop or an iMac.

Mike Horton: Well, people are doing a lot of work on these things.

Larry Jordan Are you doing a lot of work on them?

Mike Horton: None. Zero. I don’t do a lot of work, period, whether it be my laptop or my phone. It doesn’t matter. No, but a lot of people are doing everything on their phones.

Larry Jordan My thumbs would get tired trying to type as much as…

Mike Horton: So in other words, when you’re creating media, create it for those people who work on phones.

Larry Jordan So I should hold the camera sideways so we get a vertical.

Mike Horton: Yes, no vertical video.

Larry Jordan Vertical video’s the way to go.

Mike Horton: In fact, there’s a video out there that tells you not to do vertical video. I’ll give it to you at the end of the show. No vertical video, ever. Ever.

Larry Jordan No vertical video ever?

Mike Horton: Ever.

Larry Jordan Not once?

Mike Horton: No. Somebody in the chat right now has got to be saying, “Absolutely, no vertical video.” No, it’s a sin.

Larry Jordan Well…

Mike Horton: What happened?

Larry Jordan Well, now that I’m recovered from the shock of no more vertical video, I want to remind you to join us on Facebook at digitalproductionbuzz.com; and subscribe to our free weekly show newsletter at digitalproductionbuzz.com. Mike and I will be back with Danny Manus right after this.

Larry Jordan When you’re working with media, one thing is essential – your computer needs peak performance. However, when it comes to upgrading your Mac, there are so many different options to choose from that the process can be confusing. That’s why Other World Computing carries the best upgrades that let your computer performance and storage grow as your needs grow.

Larry Jordan Since 1988, OWC has become one of the most trusted names in quality hardware and comprehensive support to the worldwide computer industry. With an extensive online catalog of Mac, iPhone and iPad enhancement products, as well as a dedicated team of knowledgeable experts providing first rate tech support, OWC has everything you need to take your current system to the next level. Whether you need to maximize your system’s memory, add blazing speed or enhance reliability, look no further than the friendly experts at OWC. Learn more by visiting macsales.com today.

Digital Production Buzz

July 16, 2015

[Transcripts provided by Take 1 Transcription]

(Click here to listen to this show.)

HOSTS

Larry Jordan & Mike Horton

GUESTS

Randi Altman, Industry Analyst and Editor

William “Bill” LaChasse, DP, Photographer

Jonathan Handel, Entertainment/Technology Attorney & Labor Reporter, TroyGould and The Hollywood Reporter

Suzanne LaChasse, Producer/Actor, Screen Actors System

===

Larry Jordan: Tonight on The Buzz, we start with William LaChasse. He’s been creating unique photographic images since he was six. Now that he’s an adult, he’s developed unique and memorable advertising campaigns for some of the largest advertisers in the world. Tonight he joins us to share his techniques on lighting for advertising.

Larry Jordan: Next, recently SAG-AFTRA released a new rate card for independent films. Jonathan Handel, the entertainment labor editor for the Hollywood Reporter, joins us tonight to explain what these new rate cards mean.

Larry Jordan: Finally, Suzanne LaChasse is both a producer and an actor. In fact, she’s the lead in a crime comedy series called Sketchy. She joins us tonight to describe how to survive as an actor in LA.

Larry Jordan: All this plus Tech Talk, Buzz Flashback and Randi Altman’s perspective on the news. The Buzz starts now.

Announcer #1: Tonight’s Digital Production Buzz is brought to you by Other World Computing at macsales.com; and by Advantage Video Systems, at advantagevideosystems.com.

Announcer #2: Since the dawn of digital film making …

Announcer #2: Authoritative.

Announcer #2: …one show serves a worldwide network of media professionals …

Announcer #2: Current.

Announcer #2: …uniting industry experts …

Announcer #2: Production.

Announcer #2: …film makers …

Announcer #2: Post production.

Announcer #2: …and content creators around the planet.

Announcer #2: Distribution.

Announcer #2: From the media capital of the world in Los Angeles, California, The Digital Production Buzz goes live now.

Larry Jordan: And welcome to The Digital Production Buzz, the world’s longest running podcast for creative content producers covering media production, post production, marketing and distribution around the world. Michael, it’s the middle of July …

Mike Horton: It is.

Larry Jordan: …and there’s not a lot of new news happening this week.

Mike Horton: You know how I know it’s the middle of July?

Larry Jordan: I’m afraid to even ask.

Mike Horton: We just started selling tickets to the Amsterdam Supermeet and I sent out the list to the past attendees. Nobody’s there. I got bounce backs from everybody – ‘Hi, I’m on vacation’, ‘I’m on holiday’, ‘I’ll be back in August’. That’s how I know it’s the middle of July.

Larry Jordan: You’re already stressing about getting people to show up at an event that doesn’t even occur for another two months.

Mike Horton: I know, it doesn’t even … yes.

Larry Jordan: Have you announced the agenda?

Mike Horton: Yes. No. Are you kidding? We have no idea.

Larry Jordan: Today, I just want you to know because you are such the technical guru.

Mike Horton: Nobody works in Europe. They’re all on vacation.

Larry Jordan: Nobody works here either, but that’s a separate speech.

Mike Horton: It’s true.

Larry Jordan: Today, Panasonic announced a 4K video camera …

Mike Horton: Yes, I didn’t read the specs

Larry Jordan: …at less than $700 US.

Mike Horton: Wait a minute, less than 700? I thought it was $1200 or something.

Larry Jordan: No, it’s some ridiculously small amount, so my question is, is the end of civilization as we know it?

Mike Horton: I don’t know. We have one of those photographers on our agenda today, we could maybe ask him if he’s looked into it. 700? No, it’s not $700.

Larry Jordan: I will have my research team look at it.

Mike Horton: I think it’s 1200.

Larry Jordan: Just a minute.

Mike Horton: Is it? There are two of them?

Larry Jordan: There are two cameras, one of them was 600.

Mike Horton: Really? All right, I’m buying it.

Larry Jordan: That’s it.

Mike Horton: Wait a minute, you can get those phone that do 4K, so come on.

Larry Jordan: Well, what are you going to do with a 4K video camera?

Mike Horton: I don’t know. You tell me, Larry. We’ll put it in the cloud.

Larry Jordan: What we’re going to do is we’re going to shoot video at 4K and edit it down to standard def and then post the standard def because that gives plenty of resolution to work with so we can reframe the shot.

Mike Horton: Nobody’s doing standard def. They’re at least doing high def.

Larry Jordan: Do you know how many people are doing standard def? There are side channels on satellites that are still doing 4×3 standard def. I get emails on it on a regular basis.

Mike Horton: Where, in Bosnia and Croatia?

Larry Jordan: No, the US.

Mike Horton: Really?

Larry Jordan: Yes. There are a lot of specialty channels.

Mike Horton: Probably insulted a lot of Croatians right there.

Larry Jordan: Very weird. By the way …

Mike Horton: Sorry, guys.

Larry Jordan: …this is what we’re up to. Be sure to hang out with us on Facebook at digitalproductionbuzz.com; and subscribe to our free weekly show newsletter at digitalproductionbuzz.com. Here is Randi Altman.

Larry Jordan: This is Randi Altman’s Perspective.

Larry Jordan: Randi Altman has been writing about our industry for more than 20 years. Now runs her own blog at postperspective.com, taking a look at the post production industry. Hello, Randi, welcome back.

Randi Altman: Hi, Larry. How are you?

Larry Jordan: We are doing great. What’s the big news in our industry this week?

Randi Altman: There is no news. Everyone is on vacation.

Larry Jordan: I just realized, if it wasn’t for product sales there’d be nothing happening in our industry in July. But thinking about it, you’re on the East Coast and we’re on the West Coast. What are some of the trends that you’re seeing develop this summer?

Randi Altman: It’s a trend that’s sort of been developing for the last couple of years that is hitting its peak, which is the tax incentives offered by New York State and New York City. It’s brought a ton of production onto Long Island, Westchester, Manhattan and with that came a post production tax incentive, so there’s been a lot of work going on within the city, not just production but post as well, and what we’re seeing is where New York facilities used to go to the West Coast and pick up work, that’s still happening a little bit but there are more companies from LA moving out to New York and opening up studios to try to get a piece of production and post work.

Larry Jordan: Interesting. Are we seeing new companies or existing companies establish New York offices?

Randi Altman: The latter for the most part. There are some new companies but you’ve got a lot of people coming from LA. There’s a company in Philadelphia called Dive which opened up a New York studio specifically, they did some of the effects work on The Leftovers for HBO not too long ago. People just want to be here. It’s amazing and fun to watch, actually, but I feel bad for the actors because a lot of the shooting goes on in the winter and they have it pretty miserable, cold with snow everywhere.

Larry Jordan: Thinking of a different subject, there has been a lot of talk recently about cloud based collaboration and video review. In fact, in May we talked with Jon Schappell about his software, called Collaborate. Are you seeing much movement in the post houses toward cloud based post production?

Randi Altman: Yes, more have been taking advantage of it, specifically Digital Film Tree out in your area, which has embraced it. That’s not only how they’re color grading remotely, but they’ve also come up with a product of their own for … review and approval, but they’re not alone. There’s [KADAVADICK] out here in New York that have also come up with their own. A lot of different post houses have developed their own app to solve some of the problems and they’re able to tweak it to work exactly how they work and now they’re making it available out on the market as well. There is a handful at least.

Larry Jordan: I was taking a look at a couple of past issues that you wrote and you’re starting to see something different happening in color grading. What’s going on there?

Randi Altman: Well, color grading has changed in that the tools allow the artist to do more than just color, so a lot of them are taking on tasks that are slightly VFX oriented, so they’re moving wires, they’re helping blemishes disappear. It’s not as though they’re becoming VFX artists, there’s still that that’s being sent to the studios, but little things here and there they are able to take on themselves with the flexibility of the tools and that helps a lot.

Randi Altman: Recently, I interviewed the colorist for House of Cards and I also just interviewed the colorist for Sharknado III, two very different projects. Those guys are putting 20 to 25 films a year, so their post production workflow is in place and they have very quick turnarounds. They’re just getting in and getting out. They’re doing good work but in this instance their color grading is less about a look and more about maybe changing a sunny sky to a cloudy sky.

Larry Jordan: All good stuff to talk about. Can we see you again next week?

Randi Altman: I’m on vacation for the next two weeks – yay! – but I’ll be back. If you keep asking me, I’ll come back.

Larry Jordan: We always want you back. Randi Altman is the Editor in Chief of postperspective.com. Randi, thanks for joining us this week.

Randi Altman: Thank you. Take care.

Larry Jordan: Bye bye.

Larry Jordan: To read more from Randi Altman, visit postperspective.com.

Larry Jordan: When you’re working with media, one thing is essential – your computer needs peak performance. However, when it comes to upgrading your Mac, there are so many different options to choose from that the process can be confusing. That’s why Other World Computing carries the best upgrades that let your computer performance and storage grow as your needs grow.

Larry Jordan: Since 1988, OWC has become one of the most trusted names in quality hardware and comprehensive support to the worldwide computer industry. With an extensive online catalog of Mac, iPhone and iPad enhancement products, as well as a dedicated team of knowledgeable experts providing first rate tech support, OWC has everything you need to take your current system to the next level. Whether you need to maximize your system’s memory, add blazing speed or enhance reliability, look no further than the friendly experts at OWC. Learn more by visiting macsales.com today. That’s macsales.com.

Larry Jordan: William LaChasse has been creating unique photographic images since he was six years old. His work at ad agencies for clients such as Cadillac, Airwick, Sunbeam, Old Milwaukee Beer, Shakey’s Pizza and many others has broken boundaries and created amazing ad campaigns. He is an expert at digital imagery. Bill, thanks for joining us.

William ‘Bill’ LaChasse: Thank you.

Larry Jordan: You took your first picture when you were six.

William ‘Bill’ LaChasse: Yes.

Larry Jordan: What is it that made you decide not just to mess around with cameras, but turn pro? What was that turning moment?

William ‘Bill’ LaChasse: Between six and whenever?

Larry Jordan: The 20 that you are now.

Mike Horton: Before you answer that, what camera was that when you took the first picture at six?

William ‘Bill’ LaChasse: It was a two and a quarter Argoflex that was a gift to my parents when they got married.

Mike Horton: Argoflex?

William ‘Bill’ LaChasse: It’s an American version of …

Mike Horton: Let me Google that. What the heck was an Argoflex?

William ‘Bill’ LaChasse: Oh yes, it’s twin lens reflex.

Mike Horton: Can we do this in post production like a Rollei?

Larry Jordan: Oh, where the two lenses are above each other?

Mike Horton: Oh, one of those! Oh, I had one of those. Yes, here they are. It’s like a Rolleiflex.

William ‘Bill’ LaChasse: Oh, you remember now.

Mike Horton: Yes, it was like a Rolleiflex. Yes, absolutely. So you looked down it like this?

William ‘Bill’ LaChasse: Yes, looked down like that and they kept it in the linen closet and I climbed up there and I took it out and I ran across the street to Dr Wilkinson’s yard and he had a big front yard with a big lawn and a lot of sprinklers that were always leaking and I always noticed there were bees on those, so I looked through there and then I thought, “Wait a minute,” I didn’t know what parallax correction was, but I thought, “Well, I know I’m looking through this top lens but I know the picture’s being taken by the bottom lens,” so I rearranged it, because at that …

Mike Horton: Yes, you’re seeing the picture backwards, right, when you look?

William ‘Bill’ LaChasse: And backwards, yes, but it’s such a close frame you know that the parallax is not going to correct on a camera like that, so I knew to re-aim the camera and I got the picture. It’s somewhere, I think I still have it.

Mike Horton: Really? And that was it?

William ‘Bill’ LaChasse: Yes, I shot two or three.

Larry Jordan: But then what turned you pro?

Mike Horton: That bee shot.

William ‘Bill’ LaChasse: My brother made me do it.

Mike Horton: That bee shot would turn me pro.

William ‘Bill’ LaChasse: Yes. I got some cool ones the other day, actually.

Mike Horton: Of bees?

William ‘Bill’ LaChasse: Yes, bees.

Mike Horton: Cool.

William ‘Bill’ LaChasse: We have sunflowers in the front yard, so I saw some. They’re on my phone, actually. That’s awful.

Mike Horton: So you got bee shots with your phone?

William ‘Bill’ LaChasse: Yes I did. Suzanne can find them right there.

Mike Horton: From six years old, back to the iPhone with bee shots.

Larry Jordan: I’m just sitting here, don’t mind me. Just keep talking about bees.

Mike Horton: Come on, that’s awesome.

William ‘Bill’ LaChasse: Well, I’ll go to when I really got interested. We went on a trip back east, we went to Washington DC and New York and Vermont to visit my aunt and everything.

Larry Jordan: Just twist your mic closer to you.

William ‘Bill’ LaChasse: Oh.

Larry Jordan: There you go.

William ‘Bill’ LaChasse: Nice mic.

Mike Horton: Yes it is.

William ‘Bill’ LaChasse: Mmm.

Mike Horton: That’s why we want to twist it closer to you.

William ‘Bill’ LaChasse: Ok. Well, anyway, we went on this trip and my oldest brother took all the pictures because he was a control guy or something – he’s now a police chief. Anyway, we got back and nobody liked the pictures, they were all just not right and I’m four years younger and I’m looking at them going, “Yes, those really suck. I know I can do better than that,” and I looked at everything over and over and over again, “What could I do better? What could I do better?” I figured it out and then got into junior high school, took photo class in the summer and went on to high school and did that. I won some competitions for commercial photography. LA City College used to do a contest and I won it two years in a row.

Mike Horton: Oh, you went to LA City College?

William ‘Bill’ LaChasse: No, I didn’t, no, but the City College had the competition for the high schools and so I submitted for two years in a row and won on the commercial thing.

Mike Horton: What year was that? LA City College did a lot of good stuff, especially in video and film.

William ‘Bill’ LaChasse: Yes. This was ’68, ’69.

Mike Horton: Yes, yes, they were way ahead of their time.

William ‘Bill’ LaChasse: Yes.

Larry Jordan: Was it the lighting that appealed to you? Was the composition? Being able to work with models and stage it? Was it the result of the photography? What is it that captured your attention?

William ‘Bill’ LaChasse: It was more like a communication thing came first, like, why do you take a picture? Because somebody else is going to see it and you want it to do something for or to that person, so I was interested in that area of it and with that comes, well, maybe it needs to be positioned a certain way or, wait a minute, if I put a light here or a light there it shows something about that thing, whatever I’m shooting, and so that was the focus.

Larry Jordan: I’ve had a chance to see some of your commercial work, and we’re going to show some examples in a minute, but to do a commercial requires an incredible degree of control over everything in the frame.

William ‘Bill’ LaChasse: Right.

Larry Jordan: Do you go in knowing what you want the shot to look like, or does it evolve over time as you’re photographing and you just discover it in the lens?

William ‘Bill’ LaChasse: 90 percent of the time, I won’t even touch a camera until I figure out what it’s going to look like in the end.

Larry Jordan: Really?

William ‘Bill’ LaChasse: Yes. Even to lighting.

Larry Jordan: Are you drawing sketches of what you want it to do or what are you thinking about?

William ‘Bill’ LaChasse: No, I just run it through my mind all I can and then the day of the shoot or the day before the shoot, when you’re getting equipment together, you’re picking the equipment, what you’re going to use, on how you perceive your shot and the technique and the lighting and all that.

Mike Horton: Is a lot of this based on what you want to do? There’s not a lot of pre-production meetings and storyboarding?

William ‘Bill’ LaChasse: Oh, well, if you’re talking for advertising, that’s a different thing. They have more control and sometimes way too much and they think they know what they’re talking about and they haven’t got a clue, so it’s a balancing act. I already know what I’m going to do and sometimes I have to argue with them to do the right thing and sometimes that’s impossible. One of the most important things in commercial photography is, when you have that first meeting, you’ve got to ask a lot of questions – what are you manufacturing? Let’s say it’s a …

Larry Jordan: A car, we’ll use a car because we’ve got examples of that.

William ‘Bill’ LaChasse: All right. Well, not much of that photography going on nowadays, but ok. So it’s a car, so the demographic is pretty much obvious, who’s buying that car, what area, the cost of it, the image you’re trying to create. You have to know all these things and when I’m in these meetings, I usually ask the owner of the company or the head guy if I can talk to his sales guys.

Mike Horton: Sales guys?

William ‘Bill’ LaChasse: Yes. They’re the guys out selling those things, they know what they need to push them out. That’s the most important thing in selling anything. Talk to the sales guy. He goes, “Well, yes, I know, if we had this or we had that, or if I could show a certain thing, I know I could sell more of these things,” whether it’s a car or a shirt or a saltshaker.

Larry Jordan: Let’s talk about the cars and see if we can switch over to some car images. For instance, here we’ve got a behind the scenes of you shooting. What are we doing here? What’s going on?

William ‘Bill’ LaChasse: Ok, that shot was for Community Chevrolet in Burbank and that’s a Camaro and George Barris was commissioned to customize the car.

Larry Jordan: Ok, hold on that shot, don’t change yet. Go ahead.

William ‘Bill’ LaChasse: They needed these shots for some kind of promotion and I didn’t even talk to the Chevy people about this, it was George Barris, because he designed the car to give it a certain look that the company wanted.

Larry Jordan: Now, are you using special lights? Cars are notorious for speculars and having hotspots on them.

William ‘Bill’ LaChasse: Yes they are. This was kind of a quickie job at a studio in Glendale or Burbank, I don’t remember, they just had me come down there, and I had some strobes I brought with me and I also had some tungsten light and I mixed it, believe it or not, and I was particular where I placed the lights to avoid the speculars that I didn’t want.

Larry Jordan: Let’s show you the final result, let’s go to the next shot. Now, that is amazing. How much of that is in the camera and how much of that is Photoshop?

William ‘Bill’ LaChasse: I’m trying to remember. Obviously, I knocked the car out and put in my own background. I designed that. I like to do that white/black/blur thing, it’s just kind of one of the things I like to do. But there wasn’t much work to do on the car itself because of the way I lit it. Lighting’s extremely important. Basically, it was a knock out job and making sure the tonality was proper throughout the highlights, just so it looked normal.

Larry Jordan: Let’s take a look at the next one.

William ‘Bill’ LaChasse: That’s the exact same car.

Larry Jordan: And you just changed the color?

William ‘Bill’ LaChasse: ‘Just’, yes.

Mike Horton: You know what’s interesting about that, is that I know a couple of guys in advertising who say a lot of the car commercials that we see on television, when you see those cars, they’re not real cars, they’re rendered cars, they’re CGI cars in those television commercials. What is real and what is not?

Larry Jordan: Let’s show you one that is a little bit different. That’s clearly a CGI car.

Mike Horton: That’s probably real.

William ‘Bill’ LaChasse: That’s a Lincoln.

Mike Horton: Looks real to me.

William ‘Bill’ LaChasse: I think it was a 1933 Lincoln and at the time I worked at the ad agency, when I was kid – I was around 20 or 21 when I started there and I worked a number of years there. We had an office on Wiltshire, we had the whole penthouse. That was a big deal in those days – my boss collected classic cars and he had a number of Duesenbergs and you name it, I’ve driven it.

Mike Horton: That’s not a Duesenberg, is it?

William ‘Bill’ LaChasse: No, that’s a Lincoln. I think it was a ’33 Lincoln dual cal Phaeton limo or some kind of name like that. I used to take these cars and just go out with them and shoot them. Today, nobody would let you touch one of those.

Mike Horton: What is that background? Looks like Arcadia or something like that.

William ‘Bill’ LaChasse: No. Yes, the police came on that one too. That was Stadium Way in LA.

Larry Jordan: I want to talk about lighting for a second, because lighting is important to you. When you’re getting lights, do you care what the instrument is or do you care more about what you put in front of the instrument, such as gels or other material?

William ‘Bill’ LaChasse: What I put in front of it. I don’t think it matters much what kind of equipment you use or what brand. There’s some good stuff for certain things but if you know what you need for your end result, you just make that thing work.

Larry Jordan: What do you put in front of a light?

William ‘Bill’ LaChasse: I have a roll of stainless steel screen, like you would use in your house but it’s stainless steel, so it’s good with the heat, and I make my own cutters out of that. Then I use Rosco gels or some diffusion.

Larry Jordan: Well, let’s take a look at a couple of examples. We’ve got Suzanne here. How are we lighting that?

William ‘Bill’ LaChasse: You’re going to love this. See that light next to her? We were using that one as a prop. Those lights were used on Gone With The Wind, according to the old guy that gave them to me. I knew this old cinema photographer, he’s passed away, but his name was Pete [CALLIUM] and he was incredible. He had all this equipment. He had cranes, he offered me cranes – “Here, you can have that crane for 500 bucks,” and I go, “Where am I going to put that?” I had the money.

Mike Horton: In the garage?

Larry Jordan: Are we lighting her with strobes or are you lighting her with just soft lights?

William ‘Bill’ LaChasse: No, I lit her with the other one.

Mike Horton: Wow.

William ‘Bill’ LaChasse: This is a unique shot. I thought I wanted to go for that ‘40s/’50s, little bit of Rembrandt..;.

Mike Horton: Is this a digital shot?

William ‘Bill’ LaChasse: Shot with this camera right here.

Mike Horton: With that camera?

Larry Jordan: Wow.

William ‘Bill’ LaChasse: Right here.

Mike Horton: What lens? With that lens?

William ‘Bill’ LaChasse: No, I used an 85/1.2.

Mike Horton: Ok.

Larry Jordan: All right, let’s take a look at the next Suzanne picture. A different look.

Mike Horton: It’s a little darker.

William ‘Bill’ LaChasse: Oh, we teased it a little. Oh yes, there’s one there I desaturated in Photoshop, just playing around, giving it that older look. Is that the desaturated one?

Larry Jordan: No, the desaturated was the first one.

William ‘Bill’ LaChasse: Yes, that was the first one.

Larry Jordan: Ok, let’s go to the third one. There we go.

William ‘Bill’ LaChasse: Bing, bang, boom.  Just another pose.

Larry Jordan: Again, soft light with gel in front of the light?

William ‘Bill’ LaChasse: I had one stage light, it was about a 750 watt, right behind the camera, way behind the camera with some diffusion, just for a fill. Then my key light obviously was in the upper left hand, the cassette-like Rembrandt type lighting shadow. It’s not quite Rembrandt because she moved her head.

Larry Jordan: How are you lighting the set?

William ‘Bill’ LaChasse: You’re going to laugh. We draped the background with some black, as you can see, but it was so black it was black black black, so rather than pull out another big heavy light, I took a clamp light, like you would buy at a hardware store, and I put a 100 watt bulb in it and it’s just real close to the background.

Mike Horton: Beautiful shot.

Larry Jordan: Bill, for people who want to know the stuff that you’re doing, do you have a website they can go to to see more?

William ‘Bill’ LaChasse: Yes, but don’t go on there today. It’ll probably be back up over the weekend.

Mike Horton: Yes, somebody said they couldn’t get on it.

Larry Jordan: But after the weekend, what website could they go to?

William ‘Bill’ LaChasse: Go to wmlachasse.com.

Larry Jordan: And Bill LaChasse himself is the one you’ve been listening to. Bill, thanks for joining us today, this has been fun.

William ‘Bill’ LaChasse: Thank you.

Larry Jordan: Jeff Stansfield started Advantage Video Systems in 2001, providing solutions for broadcast equipment and system integration, digital asset management, direct attached storage and much more. Advantage Video Systems can integrate all of your equipment wherever you might need, in your studio, office, classroom or dev center and they can extend their services into a global support package.

Larry Jordan: Their designers, editors and technicians will help you achieve your competitive and creative goals. As Jeff always says, they truly want to make your entire day perfect. Visit Advantage Video Systems online at advantagevideosystems.com or call toll free at 800-287-5095. Advantage Video Systems – putting creative technology to work for you.

Larry Jordan: Jonathan Handel is an entertainment and technology attorney of Counsel at TroyGould in Los Angeles. He’s also a contributing editor on entertainment labor issues for The Hollywood Reporter and he’s got his own blog at jhandel.com. As always, Jonathan, welcome back.

Jonathan Handel: Well, Larry, it’s a pleasure to be back and there’s one thing that’s not as always, which is this is actually the first time I’m appearing by video on your show.

Mike Horton: Isn’t that cool?

Larry Jordan: It is, and what you’ve got to do is you’ve got to come out to the studio and let us show you all of our toys. We’ve got more blinking lights here than Michael can count.

Mike Horton: And Jonathan, are those books behind you?

Jonathan Handel: Those are books.

Mike Horton: Have you read every single one of them?

Jonathan Handel: I’ve written several of them.

Mike Horton: You’ve written several of them? Of course you have.

Larry Jordan: Show off.

Mike Horton: Yes.

Larry Jordan: Jonathan, I’ve got a question. We’ve got this new SAG-AFTRA rate sheet that’s out for indie films. What does this affect? Who should care about this?

Jonathan Handel: People making films with budgets roughly speaking under $4 million are potentially affected. There are actually several different SAG-AFTRA low budget agreements. They have different budget thresholds and at the different thresholds different rates apply. All the rates have gone up by 25 percent as of July 1^st this year and some of the budget thresholds have gone up as well, so pictures that might not have qualified under the old agreements might qualify today.

Larry Jordan: If the rates have gone up by 25 percent, who needs to pay attention to this? In other words, I think the key question is when should a director decide to go SAG-AFTRA and when should a director decide to go non-union? Is it purely a budget decision?

Jonathan Handel: Well, it’s not purely a budget decision because the reality, of course, is that SAG-AFTRA controls most of the talented and experienced and even moderately experienced acting labor in the country. When someone says non … union, you really have to ask … talking about because, of course, a studio picture will tend to be SAG-AFTRA … Writers’ Guild for the writers, Directors’ Guild for the director and assistant directors and IATSE for the crew.

Jonathan Handel: When someone says they’re making a non-union picture, they usually are making a picture using SAG-AFTRA actors, but they’re going non-union for those other silos. Those affected are most people making narrative film, fictional films, whether they’re shorts, ultra low budget – which is a budget below $250,000 – modified low budget agreement goes up to $700,000; there are diversity incentives – if you’re passing as diverse, the budget thresholds are a bit higher – and then finally low budget … as opposed to the modified low budget, you’re at a $25 million budget threshold or 3.75 if you have … casting. So if you’re making a movie that’s at one of those levels, you’re affected by this.

Mike Horton: Yes, we were talking, especially with our audience, a lot of them are dealing with budgets that are under $250,000 and this is going to affect them big time, because we’re talking about, what, a 25 percent increase here, right? That’s significant.

Jonathan Handel: We are … rate for actors, for example the ultra low budget – this is below that 250k – of $125 a day for actors rather than the previous $100. Now, SAG-AFTRA would remind us that this is actually the first increase in these rates in ten years and, of course, this comes against a backdrop of … pressure across the country and … across the country to raise the minimum wage.

Jonathan Handel: So if you’re talking $100 a day for, say, an eight or ten hour day, you’re talking $10 an hour, or down to $8 an hour for a 12 hour day, which is below where people are freezing the minimum wage these days. It really in fact keeps up with what’s going on in …

Mike Horton: Does SAG-AFTRA publish the number of ultra low budget films versus the upper tier budget films per year?

Jonathan Handel: I’ve never seen them publish that, no. They tend to be very circumspect about what they see as market data. It’s an interesting question. It’s partially an idea for an article, actually, and thank you for that, but whether they would actually supply the data, I don’t know.

Larry Jordan: What does a producer or director need to know to be able to work with SAG-AFTRA talent? What kind of commitment are they looking at? Let’s say you’ve got a budget of, say, $700,000, so it’s not real small but it’s still small. What do they have to do and what are they committing to?

Jonathan Handel: First of all, 700k is exactly the threshold for the modified low budget agreement. The day rate there is $335, so it’s definitely a pricier tag than if you’re below that 250k. You are talking about needing to make pension and health contributions, I believe. You are talking about being subject to some, though not all, of the Union rules regarding things like penalties and forced call, time between when the actor checks out and then check in the next day, stuff like that, consecutive employment, various … that I can’t cite you chapter and verse … which are included and which aren’t under that agreement, but you are committing to a Union regiment and the potential that if you get things wrong, the Union will slap your wrist on that in terms of fines and that kind of thing.

Jonathan Handel: You are also in any Union picture talking about residuals, so these contracts that we’ve been talking about are contracts that are intended where the goal of the producer is an initial theatrical release of the movie and there’s no residuals to that, of course, but if you then have subsequent releases online, on television or physical home video, whatever it might be, you’re going to be talking about residuals.

Jonathan Handel: That kind of leads us into a related topic, which is what is it that you’re making your movie for? I think it’s important to think about whether you’re realistically going to shoot for theatrical release and go with one of these … or if you’re going to shoot in today’s world for an initial internet release, an initial online release, and use one of the internet agreements which are very different.

Jonathan Handel: The internet agreements have a lot of free bargaining in terms of some of the terms and conditions, some of the rates and so forth, and if someone is going to end up most likely releasing a picture with a streaming service and not getting a theatrical release or getting a token theatrical release, it may be economically more sensible to think about your project as something for internet release. That’s something that a producer has to think about very carefully.

Mike Horton: We have to remind everybody who’s interested in this whole thing that SAG Indie makes it extremely simple, I think, for filmmakers to get all the resources that they need, at sagindie.org. That’s all you need to do. So if you are confused about what we’re talking about here, sagindie.org has got everything that you need to know.

Larry Jordan: Jonathan, we’ve just got a minute left and I want to come back to something. There was a lawsuit regarding unpaid interns with Fox that got reversed by the higher court.

Mike Horton: Oh yes.

Larry Jordan: What’s the summary of this? I want to bring you back next week to talk about it in detail, but tell me in a thumbnail what’s happened.

Jonathan Handel: In a thumbnail, the lower court said that the way unpaid internships were being done in this industry, in entertainment, as well as in others was not permissible and that interns had to be paid, and as a result a lot of large companies changed their programs and are paying interns. But the Appeals Court reversed that and said no, these internship programs were permissible as is. How that’s going to play out is going to be a very interesting question.

Larry Jordan: Well, that’s something that deserves its own segment. What I’d like to do is to bring you back next week and we’ll spend some time talking about that in more detail, because interns are everywhere in this industry and we want to make sure we understand what the court actually allows us to do. So, one, can you come back?

Jonathan Handel: Absolutely.

Larry Jordan: And, two, for people who want to keep track of what you’re doing between now and then, where can they go on the web to learn more?

Jonathan Handel: Jhandel.com.

Larry Jordan: And the J Handel himself, Mr. Jonathan Handel. Jonathan, thanks for talking with us. We look forward to seeing you next week and we’ll talk more about this whole intern issue. Thanks for joining us today.

Jonathan Handel: Thanks very much.

Mike Horton: Bye Jonathan.

Larry Jordan: Take care, bye bye.

Larry Jordan: It’s time for a Buzz Flashback, five years ago today.

Unidentified male (archive) 

Well, gee, if we’re talking about evidence in a court case, in this law suit here, shouldn’t we get all the evidence possible? The answer to that is no, there are competing considerations. Now, does that mean that hearsay is always wrong? No it doesn’t. There would be value to having me testify, but we made a policy decision that there isn’t enough reliability.

Larry Jordan: This was a Buzz Flashback.

Voiceover: This is Tech Talk from The Digital Production Buzz.

Larry Jordan: It’s called working with the camera and moving between sets. Here, for instance, I have a background – you know how to create that. It’s in its own folder here. Then we’ve got text at an angle and we’ve got video. Glass begins in fire. I’m going to select the project, add a camera and to that camera we’ll add a sweep and we’ll press the F7 key and we’ll have it start about 20 degrees to the left, we’ll have it go about 20 degrees to the right and now when we press the F7 key and play it back, we’ve got something which just draws your eye to the movement, which is really cool.

Larry Jordan: But it would be nice if I could have multiple elements here, and I do, I’ve got three sets. Let’s go back to our top view. Here’s the first set – that’s the one we were just looking at. Then I’ve got a second set over here, I created it and I simply grab it and move it where I want that set to go; and then I’ve got a third set, which is here, and I drag it and move it where I want that set to go. I’m spacing these sets out in 3D space. I select the camera, I’m going to add a new behavior.

Larry Jordan: With the camera selected, go to the behavior menu, go to camera and select framing. I want to move, I want to reframe my shot starting about there, taking about that much time – I’m typing ‘I’ to set the in and ‘O’ to set the out – and with the frame selected, and go to the inspector, I want to move from set one to a target of set two, and just drag it in. So as I play this back, watch what happens. It’s going to move from there – there it went. Watch it again, it’s moving from set one to set two, except it’s zoomed too far in. For some reason, Apple set the default to be ‘fit both’ which gives us the wrong frame. You always want to change framing to ‘simple fit’.

Larry Jordan: As we play it back, it goes from set one – zip! – to set two. Then starting about here, I want to add a new frame and have it go from set two to set three. I and O to set the duration of the frame, select the framing here, grab set three, drag it in to the target and change framing to simple fit and now watch what happens. It starts with set number one and it moves to set number two and then it moves to set number three.

Larry Jordan: If we watch this in real time, watch what happens. Control A, spacebar. We see the first set just doing its thing. There’s the second set doing its thing and then the third set, doing its thing. But it’d be nice if the camera was moving in the meantime. I’m going to grab sweep and the effects are different if sweep is below or above framing. I’m going to drag it above framing and now look. Notice how the camera is moving, the text is moving, the picture’s moving and it continues moving as it’s going from set one to set two and again to set three. Is that not cool?

Voiceover: This Tech Talk was shared from Larry Jordan’s website at larryjordan.com.

Larry Jordan: Suzanne LaChasse is a Los Angeles based producer and actor. She and her husband, Ryan Williams, own and operate Screen Actors System, which own the Backstage Magazine’s Reader’s Choice Award for Best On-Camera Acting Class in Los Angeles. Suzanne is also currently a lead actor in a six episode series of an edgy new comedy crime series called Sketchy. Hello, Suzanne, good to have you with us.

Suzanne LaChasse: Thank you. Happy to be here.

Larry Jordan: Now, I just realized, you were the model in those photographs that we looked at before.

Suzanne LaChasse: I was, yes.

Larry Jordan: What was it that made you decide that modeling was not the only place you wanted to spend your time, but you wanted to become an actor?

Suzanne LaChasse: Well, growing up, as we were saying, as a redhead in Los Angeles, in this sea of beautiful blondes and brunettes, you stand out a lot and you’re the butt of many people’s jokes, so I would stay home and I would watch movies and that was my inspiration for acting, to pretend, to be other people, because nobody liked me.

Mike Horton: Really?

Suzanne LaChasse: Yes.

Mike Horton: Seriously?

Suzanne LaChasse: People made fun of me. As you get older, boys like you because you’re a redhead, but when you’re a little kid growing up, it’s tough.

Mike Horton: So the redhead thing really is, it’s tough growing up as a redhead, isn’t it?

Suzanne LaChasse: It’s like the plague, it’s horrible.

Mike Horton: Unless you live in Scotland or something like that, where all the Vikings hang out.

Suzanne LaChasse: Yes, and then you’re not special at all.

Mike Horton: Yes, that’s true. But you know everybody wants to be a redhead now.

Suzanne LaChasse: Do you think?

Larry Jordan: See, I never thought of redheads as special because I only had one sister and she had red hair, so I figured everybody growing up must have red hair and so I can’t really associate with the pain that you went through, because it’s always been a normal part of my life.

Suzanne LaChasse: It’s actually a mutation.

Larry Jordan: But it’s nice to hear the other side.

Suzanne LaChasse: They call it a mutation.

Larry Jordan: Is that what it’s called?

Suzanne LaChasse: Yes.

Larry Jordan: Mmm, she just called it red hair.

Mike Horton: It is a mutation.

Suzanne LaChasse: It is a mutation of the awesome gene.

Mike Horton: The awesome gene.

Suzanne LaChasse: The awesome gene.

Mike Horton: It is a mutation of the awesome gene.

Suzanne LaChasse: In me, yes.

Mike Horton: That’s right, which is why she’s got such a great self image now. It’s the awesome gene.

Suzanne LaChasse: The awesome gene. I’m not narcissistic at all. At all.

Larry Jordan: I’m waiting for the awesomeness wave to pass for just a moment. I was just thinking, acting is not for the faint of heart, especially when you want to become a professional actor as opposed to just dabbling in it. What do you find are the biggest challenges to being an actor?

Suzanne LaChasse: I think the biggest challenges in being a film actor is having really good minimum movement, and you guys are editors so you’ll know that cutting together scenes with people waving their arms through the scene or indicating with a furrowed brow or being too loud or trying to push for the emotion, those are just camera considerations but they’re very important if you want to be on film or television.

Suzanne LaChasse: If you’re a theater actor, you’re taught to be very third circle – the audience is part of the scene with you and you have to indicate and the people in the balcony can’t see you, so you do different things with your face. But on camera, the camera sees everything so you can be much more subtle. I think film actors have a little bit more work to do in terms of being able to have an emotion. If you think of it as building up in a dam behind your eyes and having all of that intensity go through your eyes, I think it’s very important.

Mike Horton: What about film acting versus theater acting? Which gives you the most creative happiness, for lack of a better term?

Suzanne LaChasse: I did theater when I was little and it was so much fun because you get that instant gratification of being on stage. You can hear the people laugh, you can hear the people cry and sob and people greet you outside of the theater. It’s a fun thing and you get that with improv comedy as well. But with film, for me it’s a self loathing process where I just intensely look at myself and ask, “Why did I furrow my brow there?” or “Why did I say it that way?” or “I should have done this better,” and watching dailies, that’s how you get good at being a film actor. You study yourself and be subtle.

Larry Jordan: Are you studying yourself after you’ve done the performance or when you’re rehearsing? Are you rehearsing in front of a mirror to try to get a sense of how you’re looking?

Suzanne LaChasse: Sometimes. I do that alone, I don’t want people to see me do that.

Larry Jordan: Well, I’m not saying in a group, but you were talking about the way that you furrowed your brow or that television is such an up-close medium that a small gesture has a huge meaning.

Suzanne LaChasse: It does.

Larry Jordan: How do you practice that?

Suzanne LaChasse: By being in a really good scene study class, and those are hard to find because most scene study classes in Los Angeles, at least the ones I’ve been to, cater more to the theatrical because they’re in a large form, there are a lot of people around, they have to fill four hour class with entertainment and get people coming back. But if you can find a really good film acting class that really stresses minimum movement, points of focus and heavy text analysis, then you’re in good shape and I think every actor should be training, even if you think you know it all, even if you’re coming at it from that very technical point of view, it’s a muscle and if you take any time off, you lose it.

Mike Horton: It’s very important. You used that word, muscle. I was an actor a long time ago, I gave it up in 2000 to pursue something else and if I were to act today after not doing it for 15 years …

Suzanne LaChasse: You’d be a little rusty.

Mike Horton: …I would suck. I would absolutely suck because I’ve lost that muscle. I didn’t keep that muscle up, and it is a muscle. It is not like riding a bike.

Suzanne LaChasse: No, no. It’s like, I don’t know, playing football? Isn’t it like playing football?

Mike Horton: I honestly don’t know what the analogy would be, but it’s something you must work at all the time and if you’re not working on a movie, then you are working in a class; and if you don’t do that, I’m sorry, you lose it.

Suzanne LaChasse: Even the best actors, Oscar winners, they get together. There’s a scene study class in the hills somewhere and they all get together and they have Larry Moss come out.

Mike Horton: I was working with all those people and we were all just working all the time because otherwise we’d lose it. We were too scared to lose it, we were just too scared.

Suzanne LaChasse: You know, if you don’t lose it, you lose it.

Mike Horton: Yes.

Larry Jordan: So thinking about that, what are your most valuable skills as an actor? You personally, not just in general. Is it your ability to memorize lines? Is it your ability to carry an emotion? I’m leading into the whole idea of whether you should cast yourself in a particular role or a particular genre. How would you define your skills?

Suzanne LaChasse: I think I’m very good at story text analysis, which is really important. When you get a scene, it’s really important to know what page the scene is in the script. The Hero’s Journey by Joseph Campbell outlines what George Lucas uses for Star Wars – where are you? What’s going on? The character isn’t always the same in every part of the script. It’s important to know where they are, what they’re feeling, what they’ve just been through, where they’re coming from, where they’re going.

Suzanne LaChasse: It’s not just memorizing lines on a page, it’s actually knowing where the story’s going. I think a lot of actors are so used to these scene study classes where they’re rehearsing in a parking lot for an hour and then they put it up in a showcase form and they cement their lines and they get used to saying their lines in a certain way. If you use heavy text analysis, then you can, as Julian … would say, paint it with emotion and really go there and know the story and make it interesting. Me personally as an actor, I think I come at it from more of a comedic jackass way. I know I’m really good at doing that, but I do like drama. For me, I think m thing that I’m really good at is text analysis and that’s helped me.

Mike Horton: When you say text analysis, obviously that’s important from an actor’s standpoint, but it’s also important from a director’s. You almost sound like a director more than an actor.

Suzanne LaChasse: For me, when I first started acting, I just was very singular in my thinking of the actor as the most important person and that’s all I’m going to concentrate on.

Mike Horton: And you’re absolutely right.

Suzanne LaChasse: But once I started working with the Screen Actors System and my husband, who’s a director, I realized, “My God, there’s so much that goes into it.” I started editing and I realized, “Wow, I don’t like this, I need to stop doing this, this is easier to edit when I do this and that really helped me,” so getting a behind the scenes vibe going towards my acting really helped me. If you can direct and you can edit and produce and write, then I think that makes you a better actor.

Mike Horton: Can you direct and produce and edit and write?

Suzanne LaChasse: I sure can.

Mike Horton: Ok, there you go. Because back in my day, we couldn’t do that and the reason I actually gave up the acting thing was because all of a sudden I was afforded the opportunity to edit and direct and write. Before that, it cost too much money, then it became democratized with Final Cut Pro and DV cameras and things like that, and then everybody, every actor started doing that, because we didn’t have to rely on our agents or our auditions, we just started doing our own thing.

Suzanne LaChasse: Mhmm. Well, everything’s so cheap nowadays, like you were saying with the new 4K camera, it’s under, what was it, $700? My God. People are shooting full length movies with their iPhone.

Mike Horton: I know, and there are no excuses. We have Tangerine coming, a brilliant movie that’s out this week, shot on an iPhone 5S.

Suzanne LaChasse: Martin Scorsese has a little scene from Wolf of Wall Street from an iPhone. Who knew? You can’t tell.

Mike Horton: Yes, well, we’ve got anamorphic lenses for iPhones and things for you to go out and shoot your own movie. There are no excuses.

Suzanne LaChasse: Go out and film yourself.

Larry Jordan: You’ve described yourself as a comedic actor. Hang with me for a second, that was the term that you used. I’ve heard that a good actor can handle any role and yet I’ve also heard that actors should know their type and play to their type. What’s your opinion?

Suzanne LaChasse: I think you definitely need to know how to market yourself and know what people see when they first look at you. When you’re a big movie star and you’ve got an Oscar, then you can do whatever you want, you can do your projects that you love. But when you’re coming up in the ranks, you have to give in to what people perceive you as. For me, I’m …, I have red hair, so I’m more of the best friend, supporting friend type.

Mike Horton: Really? You don’t see yourself a leading actress, the pretty girl?

Suzanne LaChasse: You know what? If someone sees me as a lead, my contact information is in the description of this video.

Mike Horton: Yes, but do you see you as that?

Suzanne LaChasse: I definitely do.

Mike Horton: I know it’s a tough question to ask.

Suzanne LaChasse: I do, I do, but it’s not up to me, it’s up to casting so that’s why I try to do as many non-Union things as possible and indie movies, because if you’re good then people overlook if you’re maybe not exactly the type or whatever.

Larry Jordan: One of the things that you and your husband have started is the Screen Actors System. Tell me about that.

Suzanne LaChasse: The Screen Actors System won the Backstage Reader’s Choice Award for Best Los Angeles On-Camera Acting Class.

Mike Horton: Oh really? That’s cool.

Suzanne LaChasse: Yes. Ryan is a brilliant director, he’s directed Owen Wilson, Brad Pitt, one of the Christians and …

Mike Horton: Wiig?

Suzanne LaChasse: No, not Kristen Wiig. I love Kristen Wiig. Anyway, Ryan started off acting in Conservatory in college and he’s absolutely brilliant but his love was directing and so he came at it from an actor’s point of view and moved into directing, as I come at it from an actor’s point of view moving into editing and doing all that stuff and having a big range of things that you do, not just one singular, “I’m a director,” or one singular, “I’m an actor.” So what we do at Screen Actors System is teach the technical aspects of film acting and how to get there emotionally but hold your frame and have really specific points of focus.

Mike Horton: And know where your light is.

Suzanne LaChasse: Know where your light is and know where the lens is.

Mike Horton: Don’t get in the other person’s light.

Suzanne LaChasse: Am I in a wide? Am I in a close, you know? Don’t wave your hands through the air, don’t be theatrical. We’re splitting blades of grass here with our technique and it’s very technical but it works.

Larry Jordan: Who are typical students?

Mike Horton: And don’t tap your Lavs.

Suzanne LaChasse: Don’t tap your Lavs. Oh, that’s horrible. When you’re in the editing, you’re going to give the boom man a heart attack.

Mike Horton: I know. I love doing that to our audio guy, it drives him crazy. Hello, Ed? Can you hear?

Suzanne LaChasse: Hello? Hello?

Mike Horton: Do it, just go ahead, it’ll drive him crazy. There, perfect.

Larry Jordan: I’ve got to work with … next week and you don’t.

Mike Horton: Drives him nuts.

Suzanne LaChasse: I’m sorry. I’m sorry.

Larry Jordan: He’s going to yell at me. Oh, it’s going to be terrible.

Suzanne LaChasse: What was the question? Oh, our students. One of our students booked two lead roles in two Spike Lee films and we have a really wonderful actress, she’s on a Nickelodeon show and we have an order of six episodes for Sketchy, which we’re all really excited about, and that’s all of Ryan’s actors.

Mike Horton: That’s great.

Suzanne LaChasse: So it’s more improvisational, the dialog is improv with a general outline.

Mike Horton: I think that’s just so important for an actor, improv.

Suzanne LaChasse: Oh, absolutely.

Mike Horton: Take all those classes, hon.

Suzanne LaChasse: And it’s important not to talk over each other because in the edit that screws it up and it’s very technical.

Mike Horton: Well, if you have a good sound guy who’s actually got a couple of little controls here with two microphones and stuff like that …

Suzanne LaChasse: Oh, why make it hard for them? Give them a gift.

Mike Horton: It’s easy. Robert Altman did it all the time.

Suzanne LaChasse: Give him a gift.

Mike Horton: No, no.

Suzanne LaChasse: Walter Murch. He would say, “Don’t talk over each other. Make it as easy for me as possible or else you’ll be doing Apocalypse Now for,” how long was it? Eight years or something?

Mike Horton: Yes, but they ended up looping the entire movie, so it doesn’t make any difference.

Suzanne LaChasse: Oh, there you go. Brando with his …

Mike Horton: It was 99 percent looped. They got terrible audio out in the field.

Larry Jordan: For people who want to know how to keep track of you and hire you for their next major market feature film, where can they go on the web?

Suzanne LaChasse: Oh yes, please do contact me, suzannelachasse@gmail.com, and to check out our film acting class, it’s screenactorssystem.com.

Larry Jordan: That’s screenactorssystem.com and Suzanne LaChasse is our delightful guest. Suzanne, thanks for joining us today. Appreciate having you with us.

Mike Horton: That was fun.

Suzanne LaChasse: Thank you so much.

Larry Jordan: Take care, bye bye.

Larry Jordan: You know, Mike, one of the things I like is meeting all the different types of folks that we’ve had on the show. We started with Bill and talked about photography and then we talked with lawyer Jonathan about what’s happening with screen actors and then we talked with an actor. It’s just the range of people in this industry is just amazing.

Mike Horton: Isn’t it fun, Larry? And what was even more fun, we didn’t talk hard drives and codecs.

Larry Jordan: But we can still talk cable coiling if you want to. I think it’s appropriate to do cable coiling. It would be appropriate, I think, to discuss technology in more depth.

Mike Horton: We’ll do that next week, when I’m not here.

Larry Jordan: One of the things, I think, that Suzanne said that was really important is to understand what kind of an actor you are and when you’re going out for gigs, go out …

Mike Horton: Yes, that was something when I first started out that I didn’t think of, but looking back on it I probably should have. I was very lucky and I worked a lot, but I think it would have moved things forward. But things were different back then. Everything has changed. Everything’s changed. I wouldn’t even know what to do today.

Larry Jordan: You would probably sit on the sidelines and just wonder how the highway’s passing you.

Mike Horton: Yes. I would just work for the Larry Jordan and Associates Group.

Larry Jordan: And we would be glad to have you any time, and you know that, by the way.

Mike Horton: There we go.

Larry Jordan: The Buzz website is undergoing a makeover. You’ll see changes every week.

Mike Horton: Will it have my picture on it?

Larry Jordan: If you haven’t visited recently, check out digitalproductionbuzz.com. You’ll find hundreds of past shows and thousands of interviews …

Mike Horton: I still don’t see my picture on there.

Larry Jordan: …all searchable, all online and all available.

Mike Horton: It’s all your picture.

Larry Jordan: Mike’s picture is there.

Mike Horton: Oh, nothing but Larry Jordan.

Larry Jordan: It’s an eight inch by six inch picture.

Mike Horton: Digital Production Buzz, Larry Jordan is huge.

Larry Jordan: It’s huge … By the way, visit with us on Twitter @dpbuzz, and Facebook at digitalproductionbuzz.com.

Mike Horton: Yes, there you are. Larry Jordan.

Larry Jordan: Our music is composed by Nathan Doogie Turner, additional music on The Buzz …

Mike Horton: Oh wait a minute, there’s me.

Larry Jordan: …provided by Smartsound. In color. It looks wonderful, by the way.

Mike Horton: Thank you.

Larry Jordan: Yes, we used a picture of you from 20 years ago.

Mike Horton: Thank you.

Larry Jordan: It’s the only one you would give us.

Mike Horton: It’s the one without gray hair.

Larry Jordan: Text transcripts provided by Take 1 Transcription – visit take1.tv to learn how they can help you. Our producer is Cirina Catania; engineering team Meagan Paulos, Ed Goyla, Keegan Guy, Alex Hackwork, Eileen Kim, Lindsay Loubert and Brianna Murphy. On behalf Mike Horton, that’s the handsome guy on the other side of the table …

Mike Horton: Ah, here we go. The guy who’s not on the website.

Larry Jordan: …my name is Larry Jordan and thanks for watching.

Mike Horton: Bye, everybody.

Announcer #1: The Digital Production Buzz was brought to you by Other World Computing, providing quality hardware solutions and extensive technical support to the worldwide computer industry since 1988.

Announcer #1: And by Advantage Video Systems, who provide professional and integrated video and data solutions to post production houses, broadcast facilities, as well as corporate, educational and government institutions.

Digital Production Buzz

July 9, 2015

[Transcripts provided by Take 1 Transcription]

(Click here to listen to this show.)

HOSTS

Larry Jordan & Mike Horton

GUESTS
Scott Hosfeld, Music Supervisor/Editor/Conductor, Malibu Coast Chamber Orchestra

Jonny Videl, Founder & CEO, Callsheet Operator

Steve Leon, Partner, Showstoppers
===

Larry Jordan: Tonight on The Buzz, we start with Scott Hosfeld. He is the Conductor and Music Director of the award winning Malibu Coast Chamber Orchestra. He’s also a composer for major motion pictures and independent films. Tonight, he shares his thoughts on what it takes to write music for film and television.

Larry Jordan: Then Jonny Videl is the Founder and CEO of Callsheet Operator. They’ve invented a new web based call sheet for filmmakers. Tonight, he explains his new technology to us.

Larry Jordan: Then Steve Leon is a Partner at Showstoppers. They produce media only events at major trade shows like CES and NAB. Tonight, he shares his thoughts on what it takes to get press coverage for your project.

Larry Jordan: All this and Randi Altman’s perspective on the news and Tech Talk. The Buzz starts now.

Announcer #1: Tonight’s Digital Production Buzz is brought to you by Other World Computing at macsales.com; and by Advantage Video Systems, at advantagevideosystems.com.

Announcer #2: Since the dawn of digital film making …

Announcer #2: Authoritative.

Announcer #2: …one show serves a worldwide network of media professionals …

Announcer #2: Current.

Announcer #2: …uniting industry experts …

Voiceover: Production.

Larry Jordan: …film makers …

Announcer #2: Post production.

Announcer #2: …and content creators around the planet.

Announcer #2: Distribution.

Announcer #2: From the media capital of the world in Los Angeles, California, The Digital Production Buzz goes live now.

Larry Jordan: And welcome to The Digital Production Buzz, the world’s longest running podcast for creative content producers covering media production, post production and marketing around the world. Mike, the big news this week is tomorrow. Do you know what tomorrow is? Tomorrow’s a very special day.

Mike Horton: This is tomorrow?

Larry Jordan: Yes it is.

Mike Horton: The big news?

Larry Jordan: Very special day. You ready? You sitting down?

Mike Horton: No. What?

Larry Jordan: It’s our producer Cirina’s birthday and if I don’t mention that first, you and I are both unemployed.

Mike Horton: Oh my goodness, really? Let me put that down in my calendar so I can send her an email card. Ok.

Larry Jordan: And happy birthday Cirina.

Mike Horton: Happy birthday Cirina. Yes.

Larry Jordan: And now the other big news is GoPro. You know about their new …

Mike Horton: Yes, I saw that session. You know, when you were a little kid, you would get these little cube-like things, 3D. That’s exactly what I thought it was when I first saw it, one of those 3D viewers and it was in a cube kind of thing. Wasn’t the …

Larry Jordan: A Viewmaster?

Mike Horton: Yes, but there was a cube 3D viewer and that’s exactly what it looked like, only this one’s $399.

Larry Jordan: But it’s not the same thing. Yes, and it does 100 frame a second 720p; 60 frame a second 1080 and it does 30 frame a second 1440, which is like 2½K.

Mike Horton: And it’s waterproof.

Larry Jordan: And it’s $399.

Mike Horton: And it’s $399, and plus you can put on all those accessories. It’s amazing.

Larry Jordan: Very cool stuff.

Mike Horton: I’m sold. But it’s not 4K. That’ll be the next version six months from now.

Larry Jordan: And it’ll be the size of an ice cube.

Mike Horton: And you’ll have 8K and you’ll have 2008 …

Larry Jordan: Was it your fault that the New York Stock Exchange went down?

Mike Horton: I thought of you. Not only did the New York Stock Exchange go down, United Airlines went down and the Wall Street Journal went down all in the same day and, of course, the internet was blowing up with all sorts of terrorist speculation, that it was all related and all this stuff. But I thought of you immediately. The cloud, the fragility of the digital age and you don’t trust anything. But let’s face it, all that happening in one day – this is going to happen all the time.

Larry Jordan: And there was a bad router, there was a bad software update … seem to have collapsed.

Mike Horton: But that’s what they told us. Of course, I’m one of those conspiracy people that thinks, “Well, a software update, don’t they have a way of testing that?” but then that happens all the time with Apple.

Larry Jordan: Have you ever upgraded your computer and have it not work?

Mike Horton: Yes.

Larry Jordan: And that’s just one computer.

Mike Horton: Lots of people do that. But you’d think it’d be a little bit better when you’re dealing with the Dow Jones. Anyway, it wasn’t that big a deal for investors, but it was a big deal for the media.

Larry Jordan: Yes, a lot of news, especially when you want to fly somewhere and they’ve cancelled flights everywhere.

Mike Horton: Yes, but it’s going to happen all the time.

Larry Jordan: And we will keep an eye on it because that’s what we do.

Mike Horton: Just throw your computer away, everybody. Just throw it away.

Larry Jordan: You can join our conversation at Facebook, at digitalproductionbuzz.com, and Mike and I will be back with Scott Hosfeld right after Perspective on the News …

Mike Horton: Assuming you still have a computer.

Larry Jordan: …with Randi Altman.

Larry Jordan: This is Randi Altman’s Perspective.

Larry Jordan: Randi Altman has been writing about our industry for the last 20 years. Now she’s the Editor in Chief of her own website, called postperspective.com, and as always,  Randi, it’s good to have you back.

Randi Altman: Thank you, Larry. Good to be here again.

Larry Jordan: Randi, the big news this week is GoPro. What have you heard?

Randi Altman: Well, they introduced the Session 4, which is teeny tiny. It weighs almost nothing, you could put it anywhere. The way that I see it being used is it’ll make lives easier for editors – they won’t have to try to cut out the camera or they could just paint it out. It’s so small. It’s pretty neat.

Larry Jordan: I’m looking forward to playing with it. It’s the size of an ice cube, it’s just amazing how tiny that thing is.

Randi Altman: Yes, it is pretty amazing. People were saying that it’s almost the size of a lens of the regular Hero 4 … yes.

Larry Jordan: Sort of Scotch tape it on your jacket and you’re good to go.

Randi Altman: Exactly.

Larry Jordan: We’ve moved from production to post. Avid’s been making news. What’s the word from Avid?

Randi Altman: Today, the news that they announced at NAB is now a reality, so Media Composer 8.4 is now out there and they’re touting resolution independence, so essentially what you can do now in Media Composer is just type in whatever frame size you want to work in. You could work from a big feature film all the way down to creating an ad for the local pizza place on the corner. There’s a lot more freedom and flexibility.

Larry Jordan: Now, correct me if I’m wrong, but both Premiere and Final Cut do this. But Avid is trumpeting this as a big new feature?

Randi Altman: Yes. Up until now they hadn’t been able to do it. Even though they’re saying that you could edit in 8K now, they’re also offering more flexibility for people working in all kinds of workflows and jobs, so they’ve gone up and down market.

Larry Jordan: One of the other things that you were talking about last week is your interest in virtual reality. Why do you think VR is not going to be the flash in the pan that stereo 3D was?

Randi Altman: Well, I’m hoping it won’t be, but the reason I think it won’t be is that your cost of entry is very little. You don’t have to spend a lot to get a nice headset where you’re really immersed in the atmosphere. You could also take in virtual reality almost anywhere. You pop your iPhone or your mobile device into one of the headsets and suddenly you can be in the middle of Manhattan.

Randi Altman: My first experience with virtual reality was I was in a bar in Manhattan and life was going on around me but I was at a Paul McCartney concert and I was in the Grand Canyon and it was unbelievable. So to be able to sort of separate yourself from reality in that way is pretty cool and, like I said, the cost of entry is not very high at all. John VR, who has a studio in LA and has now developed their own camera system for it, they aim to be the Netflix of virtual reality content, so I do believe we’re going to be seeing more and more stuff to watch.

Larry Jordan: Randi, what’s the lead story on your newsletter today?

Randi Altman: I’m not set yet but I believe it’s going to be a review of the Lenovo workstation, the ThinkPad, and Brady Betzel, who is a working editor out there in LA, was kind enough to review it for us.

Larry Jordan: Very cool. Randi Altman is the Editor in Chief of postperspective.com. Randi, thanks for joining us today.

Randi Altman: Thanks Larry. Take care.

Larry Jordan: To read more from Randi Altman, visit postperspective.com.

Larry Jordan: When you’re working with media, one thing is essential – your computer needs peak performance. However, when it comes to upgrading your Mac, there are so many different options to choose from that the process can be confusing. That’s why Other World Computing carries the best upgrades that let your computer performance and storage grow as your needs grow.

Larry Jordan: Since 1988, OWC has become one of the most trusted names in quality hardware and comprehensive support to the worldwide computer industry. With an extensive online catalog of Mac, iPhone and iPad enhancement products, as well as a dedicated team of knowledgeable experts providing first rate tech support, OWC has everything you need to take your current system to the next level. Whether you need to maximize your system’s memory, add blazing speed or enhance reliability, look no further than the friendly experts at OWC. Learn more by visiting macsales.com today. That’s macsales.com.

Larry Jordan: Scott Hosfeld is the Conductor and Music Director of the award winning Malibu Coast Chamber Orchestra. He also works with producers, directors and writers creating music for major motion pictures, independent films, television and video gaming. He has decades of experience as a conductor, composer, musician, entrepreneur and an institution builder. Welcome, Scott, good to have you with us.

Scott Hosfeld: Thanks very much. Happy to be here.

Larry Jordan: Scott, how old were you when you knew you wanted to be in music?

Scott Hosfeld: I think I was about three or four years old and my parents had a little thing where I could play their 45rpm singles and I would stand down in the basement and sing my head off and I just loved music from the beginning.

Larry Jordan: So when was your first paying gig?

Scott Hosfeld: Ah, probably truly right when I was in college. I think there was somebody who was recruiting kids to do very off contract session work, went to using student labor, and I think I got paid a few times to mix some recordings, or at least back up.

Larry Jordan: Well, I was just looking at your resume. You’ve been a performer, a composer, a conductor. How do you view yourself? Do you think of yourself as a musician? A composer? Conductor? Performer? How would you describe it?

Scott Hosfeld: I would say I think of myself as a performer mainly first and foremost. That’s what drew me in, the actual hands on production of music with an instrument in my hands. Then from there, with a particular focus actually on intimate music making – I always loved chamber music, I liked playing with a handful of people where everybody mattered – and then it grew from there.

Scott Hosfeld: I spent probably the first 20 years of my career touring with a string quartet all around the country and had various residencies at various universities, and then I ran out of steam with that to direction and built a destination chamber music center and school in the mountains of central Washington, a destination music spot, kind of like a miniature Tanglewood or Banff.

Larry Jordan: So your principal instrument is what?

Scott Hosfeld: Viola is my main instrument, although I would call myself equally a violinist. By happenstance I ended up playing viola for those 20 years in a string quartet, so I kind of got used to it.

Mike Horton: I’m a little ignorant here on chamber music. When we talk chamber, are we talking about just a few instruments, a few people versus a full orchestra?

Scott Hosfeld: Exactly.

Mike Horton: What instruments are we talking about?

Scott Hosfeld: A formal string quartet is two violins, viola and cello and it’s led me so much into the direction I’ve come to now with media, simply because a lot of composers put a lot of their best efforts, channel a tremendous amount of energy and creativity into writing for that particular combination and so you have groups – I was one of them – that toured all over to people who particularly like that form.

Scott Hosfeld: It’s a little bit like seeing a really great rock band because you can everybody in it as a personality and they’re all contributing their energy towards making music, unlike in a symphony orchestra where you’re sort of encouraged to be a blender and a conformer and the real star is the conductor.

Larry Jordan: Which gets me to the Malibu Coast Chamber Orchestra that you’re conductor for. Tell me about this.

Scott Hosfeld: My wife and I – her name is Maria Newman, she comes from the Newman family, the Alfred and Randy and Thomas and David …

Mike Horton: THE Newman family?

Scott Hosfeld: …LA family – began to do a series of concerts in Malibu, in our home, in 2005 and we dreamed of the idea of having really outstanding musicians, of which there are endless amounts in Los Angeles. But this particular group was made up out of people who could play in the orchestra but also anyone of them could be a soloist, any one of them could be a leader and so, again, it’s a little bit the same in that we draw energy from people who have a real reason to be there and it creates a unique orchestra where everybody pulls their own weight, and maybe as conductor I tend to guide as much as anything the wonderful expression that comes out of people that feel important in their role in the orchestra rather than as just cogs.

Larry Jordan: But there’s a big difference between being a performer, even as something as visible as a string quartet, and conducting. What was it that made you step out from the ranks and stand in front of the group and take all the slings and arrows?

Scott Hosfeld: Good question. I always liked conducted, I started doing it when I was in college, in Conservatory in New York. We founded and established the International House Chamber Orchestra, which was made up of Manhattan School of Music and Julliard students, and it was a string orchestra but I stepped in many, many times and conducted and always liked the feeling, like I said, of guiding the efforts rather than controlling. So you take people who have a lot of energy, allow them to develop a relationship with one another in terms of the music, and then hopefully just guide that in a way that makes it the most effective.

Mike Horton: Every time I go to a classical concert and watch the conductors, nobody’s looking at the conductor, they’re all looking at their music sheets and so I always wonder what’s the conductor there for? If nobody’s paying attention to this guy – occasionally they’ll glance up, occasionally he’s pointing over here, occasionally he’s doing this thing with his hand – what does a conductor do? You say guide, but is it out of the peripheral? Again, ignorant question, I know, but that’s one of the things I don’t understand.

Scott Hosfeld: A … orchestra like the LA Phil can probably play their way through something really without a conductor for the most part, but it is the shaping of the music, bringing the vision, especially to a large orchestra.

Mike Horton: But that shaping happens before they actually perform?

Scott Hosfeld: Yes, a lot of it. A lot of it happens in rehearsal. You might have three or four rehearsals prior to that concert or set of concerts where you kind of work things out, but the music’s not memorized and people are accustomed to reading, but trust me there’s a peripheral sense of that energy coming from the conductor and, of course, we all know that there are better and worse conductors, so sometimes it pays to ignore the conductor and then sometimes it doesn’t. But somebody who’s dynamic and brings vision or excitement or energy to the performance is really making a difference.

Larry Jordan: Which gets me to the third thing that’s keeping you busy. In addition to performing and conducting, you also write music, and you write music for film and for television. It seems like anything that needs music, you’ve got it written for. What are some of the projects you’ve written music for?

Scott Hosfeld: What I do is – and I don’t claim to be specifically a composer, although I’ve composed a lot – but I usually work in conjunction with a composer who has perhaps a background similar to mine in classical or in small music forms and what we try to do is bring that expensive sense of great sound or acoustic music to projects, whether they’re large or small.

Scott Hosfeld: Over the course of the years I’ve worked in many, many ways with lots and lots of well known people, of course, like I mentioned, almost the entire Newman family we’ve collaborated with one way or another, Marco Beltrami, Hans Zimmer and John …, just a huge array of people that we work alongside in a collaborative way.

Larry Jordan: We’ve got a couple of clips and I want to play a music clip to give us a sense of what your music sounds like. We’ve got two radically different styles; and then I want to have you describe what the use of these was. Let’s play the first audio clip.

[AUDIO CLIP]

Larry Jordan: Now, that’s but a small piece of a larger project, but tell me about that one.

Scott Hosfeld: Ok, the actual cue was drawn from a piece that was actually written by my wife, Maria Newman, and it was a concert piece but we used it in a film called Heaven’s Rain by director Brooks Douglass, and it was the Oklahoma State House of Representatives and the hero of this particular film is standing up to introduce a very important piece of legislation. He’s a junior Senator and initially it opens the scene and it’s also used later when this particular Bill passes, even though all the senior Senators had opposed it.

Larry Jordan: All right, well, let’s try a second clip, which is a totally different texture piece. Let’s listen to it and then I want to talk about the process of how you went about composing these. Let’s play the second clip.

[AUDIO CLIP]

Larry Jordan: Tell us about that one.

Scott Hosfeld: Interesting, of the ones I provided these are both actually from the same film. This is also an adaptation of similar music by Maria Newman. It was music that went against picture so the mood of the music is kind of serene, but the actual scene is the hero, who has been both mentally and physically injured in a very graphic way, healed but working out the demons and he’s actually punching a punching bag and having flashbacks, so it’s sort of a serene background but kind of eerie in intent that backs up this scene where he’s punching and punching and punching and working out his demons.

Larry Jordan: How do you write a piece of music? You’re handed the script, you’ve probably got the rough cut of the film, pretty close to lock for time. What process do you go through?

Scott Hosfeld: What I try to do, and this is where I feel like my advantage in being a musician comes to play, because I think that when you play a lot and you talk a lot and discuss music, whether you’re a conductor or a performer, you develop language to describe things that are not really supposed to be described in words. So I feel that when I see something, I am very in touch with the color or the mood or the feeling in the scene or, in the case of the last cue, kind of the opposite, like how do you frame something in a way that draws emotion from that?

Scott Hosfeld: If it’s a violent scene, it’s easy to be violent, so I’m looking for a direction. Then what I try to do is then come up with a texture that fits that scene, so if it’s warm and tender I think of strings or something that can embrace, but of course the texture of something that’s more noble would have fit the first cue – about the courtroom and about seriousness and drama. I try to interpret a feeling first and then either create or paint with music that I’ve worked with something that seamlessly works with that scene.

Mike Horton: You’re dealing a lot with budget, obviously, especially on those small films where they can only afford a certain amount of instruments, a certain amount of people, and especially when you’re dealing with something like a choral arrangement, as you did here, you can only get a certain amount of people. What can you choose within the constraints of the budget? That stuff sounds absolutely wonderful, but is it expensive?

Scott Hosfeld: What you were hearing is expensive. The brass players, I would consider that the A list brass players in Los Angeles were playing that, so that is expensive. But part of it is that small amounts of people can make a huge difference. I’ve worked with composers many, many times on writing or developing a chamber score.

Scott Hosfeld: Nowadays you can mic things so brilliantly and bring things to life with just a handful of voices and if each one of those has a commitment or you can use modern technology and use samples and use those things to begin with and then overlay something real over the top of it and all of a sudden it has a deeply dramatic and expensive feel without an expensive budget.

Mike Horton: So me as an independent filmmaker, I can come to you and hire you, maybe?

Scott Hosfeld: Yes, you sure can.

Mike Horton: And you and I would share the same budget perception?

Scott Hosfeld: Yes, yes, and that’s really important because you start off with that. A lot of times what happens with films is a filmmaker gets really excited about their film and kind of forgets that music often is the part that ties it together emotionally. We’ll sit on a scoring stage and you’re watching the film without music and, boy, it’s such an empty experience until that comes in.

Larry Jordan: We need to bring you back and have you walk us through the process of composing. Where can people go on the web to learn about the orchestra? What website?

Scott Hosfeld: That would be malibufriendsofmusic.org.

Larry Jordan: And how about your own website?

Scott Hosfeld: That would be scotthosfeld.com.

Larry Jordan: That’s scotthosfeld.com. Scott Hosfeld is the Conductor and Founder of the Malibu Coast Orchestra. Scott, thanks for joining us today.

Scott Hosfeld: Thank you. My pleasure.

Mike Horton: Thank you Scott.

Scott Hosfeld: Thank you. All right.

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Larry Jordan: Jonny Videl is the Founder and CEO of Callsheet Operator, which is a web based management app designed to replace printed or .pdf call sheets. Hello, Jonny, welcome.

Jonny Videl: Hi, thanks for having me.

Larry Jordan: It’s good to have you with us. How would you describe what a call sheet is?

Jonny Videl: A call sheet is a master document and schedule for the day which lists all the crew members and crew lists and also the schedule of what you’re going to be shooting that day, specific and detailed.

Larry Jordan: Well, call sheets have been printed or typed since the beginning of time. Why bother to create something new?

Jonny Videl: When I entered the film industry, I was actually shocked at how much of it was outdated. Like you said, they’ve been around forever and … so with all this technology in play, with mobile and digital, the internet, all these things that people have at their disposal today, I decided to upgrade the whole technology, make it web based, and there are a couple of different reasons for that. Going green is one of them, but most importantly it makes the workflow easier and easier on the actual production manager and the production teams and they have a lot more important things to worry about.

Larry Jordan: So you invented something called Callsheet Operator. Tell me what that is.

Jonny Videl: Callsheet Operator is a web based tool that we use and there are a couple of different applications for it. The first is creating a call sheet. You upload your contacts to our system and it will auto fill for you, very much like Google suggests, for example, when you type in the L-A of Larry, it’ll auto suggest the rest of your name, Jordan, and auto fill the correct information. From there, it will also match email, text and voice for the entire document and the location app or any other NDAs and documents you have with that, so the entire crew for you at the press of one button.

Jonny Videl: It also tracks that document, so you can see who’s opened it, who’s viewed it. It also includes digital confirmation, so you can confirm with the document … old school calling people up and verbally confirming or requiring that they respond to you through email. And the last valuable asset to Callsheet Operator is actually making the call sheet interactive, so when you open it on your mobile phone you can actually call the numbers by clicking on them or add a contact by clicking on a name. You can see the weather, you can dial out, you can email. There are lots of applications for it.

Larry Jordan: I was doing some homework, getting ready for this interview, and without even having to break a sweat I found Pocket and FilmTouch and DoodlePro also offering call sheets. What makes you special?

Jonny Videl: Yes, those are somewhat in the same vein in terms of dealing with call sheets, but they do think a little bit differently. I believe Pocket’s call sheet just stores call sheets as a database and I think DoodlePro also has a call sheet application, but we work in very different ways. What sets us apart to my knowledge is we’re the only ones who are doing interactive call sheets in terms of being able to actually interact with the exact document, and the only one that actually does the follow-up through … voice messaging with digital opt-in, so people can opt in automatically.

Mike Horton: Back when I was an actor, a long time ago …

Larry Jordan: Did they have paper back then?

Mike Horton: No, we’d actually get sent the call sheets by courier the night before we would go to the set. Now, there are a lot of actors today, especially in their 70s, who do not own a computer and still rely on the call sheet. What is happening nowadays with people like that, who are Luddites or don’t have a computer?

Jonny Videl: It’s actually a very small percentage.

Mike Horton: Yes, I realize that but those people exist. Really, they do.

Jonny Videl: Yes, they definitely do. With our system … most of the crew and there will be a couple of stragglers, maybe one, two or three, but it expedites the process and weeds them out, so instead of going through the whole crew and cast list manually and calling everybody concerning email, you can set … follow up feature for you, so a follow up for each channel – digital, email, text and voice – and at the end of the day, you’ll have a couple of stragglers and you will have to pick up the phone for them. But instead of calling 100 people, you’re going to call three.

Mike Horton: Right. You are the Assistant Director’s dream.

Larry Jordan: Jonny, I just realized that you not only run Callsheet Operator, but you founded the company. What was it that made you decide there was a market here and why start a company?

Jonny Videl: I’ve been working in film myself and been in the business roughly about five or six years, a camera assistant by day, and working inside of it I realized that there were a lot of problems and there are solutions that you mentioned and a couple that you didn’t, and what I found with those solutions was that they weren’t utilizing the technology in the right way, number one; and number two, a lot of them were trying to do too much, they want you to do everything inside the system.

Jonny Videl: We focused on solving very specific problems and points from the inside out because we know them so well. This is the first app of our company – our company’s actually called Cinio – and we’ll be following up with additional products in the future, but this is the first one we’re launching this year, which is the most painful one …

Larry Jordan: How do people access it and how do you put data into it? Just tell me how it works.

Jonny Videl: It’s mostly web based, so you will need an internet connection, which again is pretty common these days. Even if you’re shooting on location, they usually bring a satellite phone or something with them. You can upload the contacts through your address book – you just … and then upload it to the system, if you want, and if you don’t want to that’s absolutely fine also.

Jonny Videl: There is also a paste-in feature where you can copy your existing call sheet already done into Callsheet Operator and skip the first module and go right into the contacts where it will follow up for you through email, text and voice and give you analytics on the tracking to the messages, see who’s opted in, see who hasn’t, see which channel they’ve opted in through and then set out the call sheet for you at the end.

Mike Horton: Is this a Filemaker kind of database based software?

Jonny Videl: It can be, but it doesn’t have to be necessarily. We made it user friendly because we know, especially with production managers, everyone has their own workflow and … learn a new thing or to change their workflow, which is what we found that a lot of people …

Mike Horton: That was going to be my next question. You don’t want anybody to have to learn something. You want it to be absolutely intuitive and easy to learn or easy to use.

Jonny Videl: Exactly, and that was our parameter when we created it. We didn’t want to change anybody’s workflow, we just wanted to help them through the process by using our system. We’re not changing the existing workflow, you’re still creating a call sheet the same way, you’re still using a call sheet the same way, you’re still filling out a call sheet.

Jonny Videl: You just use technology to aid all those things. You’re going to make call sheet faster, you’re going to distribute it a lot faster and more cleanly, no … messages, no CCs, no asking for responses and at the end of it you’ll have an interactive document that’s actually useful instead of a .pdf that you can’t do anything with.

Larry Jordan: Jonny, how much does this cost?

Jonny Videl: We’re currently working on pricing right now, but we will have a Fremium model and we’ll have a studio price that goes all the way up to, I believe, about $120. But we’re doing a Fremium model for indie filmmakers and we’re working on keeping it as low as possible in cost. But what it costs in monetary value it makes up in time, so instead of spending hours creating a call sheet, it can be done literally in minutes. Instead of spending following up with crew members, again, it can literally be done in minutes or set up to run on its own all day, and the same thing with the tracking and analytics.

Jonny Videl: It’s kind of foolproof and it’s double security for the production manager because we all know they’re the ones who get yelled up when … doesn’t show up to set, so you can look at the metrics and say, “Well, I know you opened the document, there’s a time stamp that says you opened it and you read it, but you didn’t confirm it,” so it’s kind of back on that other person.

Larry Jordan: You said that you’re still working on price. It sounds like you’re in a soft launch right now as opposed to up to full speed. Is that true?

Jonny Videl: Correct. We’re currently in beta with our core group of … that we’re running with and we’re getting feedback from them. We actually built it alongside them, so we didn’t just make this app that we thought would be great. We spent about a year … 2013 when it first started and … started interviewing everybody, getting a consensus, get feedback the entire way along and now we’re getting feedback on the actual physical software.

Mike Horton: Are you looking for more testers?

Jonny Videl: Oh yes, all the time. We’re definitely looking for more testers across different genres. We have a commercial team, we have people in the indie world, we even have some people who … musicians … features and films so anybody who can really give us a clear opinion, especially somebody who works a lot and uses it all day. We’re working with 2^nd ADs, 1^st ADs, production managers, coordinators, producers, you name it.

Larry Jordan: So where do you want to take this? Is this the start of a suite of products you’re going to be coming out with? If so, where do you see the direction that you’re headed?

Jonny Videl: It will be something of a suite, but not in terms of something like an Adobe suite where it’s all in one. The products will be standalone but they also will be able to work together, but you don’t have to buy them or use them all at once. We’re focusing specifically on film production management because that is the last to the game, they’re the ones who are lacking the editing software, the scheduling software, the budgeting software. There’s no real software to take of the meaning of the boring data entry task that we can automate.

Jonny Videl: Our second product will be coming out very shortly, actually, on August 1^st and then we plan on doing a couple of other very specific niche software solutions as time progresses. Again, we’ll be able to focus on very specific problems – we don’t want everybody to do everything in our system, we don’t want to change workflows, we don’t want to make things difficult … people using it – so our goal is to make user friendly, very simple, obviously affordable solutions that solve very specific problems.

Larry Jordan: And the website for people who want to learn more is callsheetoperator.com and Jonny Videl is the Founder and CEO of Callsheet Operator. Jonny, thanks for joining us today.

Jonny Videl: Thanks so much, guys.

Mike Horton: Thanks a lot. Take care.

Larry Jordan: Take care, bye bye.

Larry Jordan: What is the challenge, aside from just the volume involved, what’s the challenge in preserving digital records?

Female: Well, the enormity of it, just as you mentioned. Millions and millions of digital objects for some institutions, and not just that but the huge variety of records, the different types, not just email but Office documents and sound recordings and video files and databases and geographic information systems. I could go on for a long time.

Voiceover: This is Tech Talk from The Digital Production Buzz.

Larry Jordan: This is a typical presenter pose, square to the camera. Notice the size of her head relationship to the shoulders. It’s ok, but it’s boring. What I want you to do instead is I want you to turn your body and point your knees toward the ladder and spin. There you go. A little too much, too much. I’m going to get you there, but not yet. Ok, now cut back to camera two. Look at how much more interesting this is when we start to put her shoulders at an angle. What it does is it diminishes the width of her body and emphasizes the size of her head, not to make it swell but your eye looks at this which is largest or brightest or most dominant in a frame, which is her head by definition.

Larry Jordan: Now, watch what happens. We’re going to stay with camera two. Spin your body a little bit more, just a little, right about there, and now, there we go, this is like a fashion photographer where your head is twisted so much over your shoulder that you’re looking over your back. There we go. Now, the head is dominant, you have to look at her face because the shoulders have receded into virtually nothing – it’s a straight line receding from the camera. So it depends upon what you’re emphasizing. If you want to emphasize the face, then you spin the body so that the shoulders are more at an angle. If you want to emphasize the body, then you spin so that she’s sitting square, ok?

Larry Jordan: Now cut back to Dennis. Trade places, Andrew and Cynthia. Now we can take this one step further. Let’s have Drew do the same thing, but I want to have him talk about a newscaster pose which, for some reason, works much better with guys than with girls. Let’s zoom back out here, square to the camera first to start with, and again this could be a mug shot. Oh, look at that frown, oh my goodness. This is happy news. There we go, much better. Now rotate your body in the same direction that we did with Cynthia and, again, notice how this is a much more pleasing shot.

Larry Jordan: There was a newscaster in New York that made this next shot famous. His name is Tom Snider from WNBC New York, and what he did is he took this whole concept to an entirely different level. I want you to spin, cut back to camera two. Look at that shot. Drop your right shoulder a bit more, lean in a bit more. Push, push, push. There you go, right there. How can you not pay attention to that shot? His body has essentially disappeared, his shoulders are at such an extreme angle. He is leaning forward, his head dominates the frame. This is like body in the river, shoes on the bridge, film at 11.

Larry Jordan: This is the most incredible way of dealing with the camera because you are forcing the viewer to pay absolute complete attention because the presenter is totally dominating the frame. Andrew, relax. Nice job.

Voiceover: This Tech Talk was shared from Larry Jordan’s website at larryjordan.com.

Larry Jordan: Steve Leon is a Partner in Showstoppers. Now in its 22^nd year, Showstoppers creates media events for selected press analysts and key executives that are designed to generate news coverage, product reviews, promote brands and open new markets. Showstoppers produces events at CES, CTIA, Mobil World Congress, NAB and many other venues. Hello, Steve, welcome.

Steve Leon: Hello, Larry. Thanks for having me on.

Larry Jordan: We are delighted to have you with us. Tell us about Showstoppers – what is it and why did it start?

Steve Leon: Oh man, we started 22 years ago with a very simple premise. I worked for a small PR agency, I compared notes with a couple of other agencies where we all had three or four clients each at a trade show that no longer exists called COMDEX and we had a … We had clients in three different buildings up and down the Strip and we had appointments with journalists for each of those clients and we hit on the idea of putting all of those companies in one place at one time, bring in some food, bring in some drink and let the companies demonstrate their products and see how many journalists we could collect for two or three hours. That turned into a business and it’s now 22 years later.

Larry Jordan: What’s your role with the company?

Steve Leon: I am one of three business partners. I am the partner who is responsible for inviting the press, registering the press, talking with journalists – which is why I’m doing this interview – and I am also involved very heavily in business development. There are two other partners. Both happen to be my brothers. Bob is responsible for our logistics, the hotel room or … site that we use, the venue, the power, the lighting, things like that. The other partner is Dave and he is responsible for sales and also for business development.

Larry Jordan: I was just reflecting, Mike and I were chatting about this before the show, there’s so much competition for attention from the press and individual users. How do you break through? How do you get the press to pay attention to your event? And then how do you get end users to pay attention once the press is there?

Steve Leon: Let me turn the question round … How many trade shows have you been to and what happens when 30 companies call you up and ask for interview slots and timeslots? What do you do? We think the Showstoppers format is far more cost and time effective for everybody involved and the idea is you can do business, look at new products, put your hands on them for two or three hours and you walk out at the end of the evening with a stack of business cards, leads to coverage, leads to products that you want to review on air or in publication. How valuable is your time? You can see 20, 30 companies in an hour at a Showstoppers event instead of walking up the trade show aisles for three days. We think that’s a formula that works.

Larry Jordan: One of the things that we do, and we make a big point of covering NAB, is that we’ll do live programming from the show floor and we’ll talk to anywhere from 40 to 60 on air interviews during an NAB show and we present them in periods of seven to ten minute interviews a piece, so our format is live broadcast. When you say the Showstoppers format, what’s that?

Steve Leon: At its simplest, it is a large room, typically a ballroom at a hotel – The Wynn, for example, in Vegas, or one of the exhibit halls in Berlin – and we fill the space with companies that have new products to launch, new products to demonstrate, a reason to talk with the press and we set up tables, we run power to the tables, we bring in food, we bring in drink and we open up the doors. We spend a lot of time prior to the event working with each of the companies that is exhibiting and sending out the invitations to the press, building a press list, things like that.

Steve Leon: The event is typically two or three hours – CES is a longer event, that’s a four hour event for us. At our largest event, we have a few hundred journalists in the room, typically 130 companies exhibiting. We’ve done smaller events with as few as ten companies and 100 journalists. The idea is that every journalist can meet with ten companies, 30 companies, 50 companies, 130 companies and put your hands on the product, get a demonstration from somebody who knows that product intimately, can explain that product to you to walk you through the benefits, the advantages, how it differs from something that may already be out on the market, and then you understand the product well enough that you can do that coverage.

Steve Leon: At NAB, for example, which I think is where I saw you guys, I think we had 30 companies in the room. I think there were 500 journalists for that event and that was a three hour event. That was a large ballroom inside the convention center at Mandalay Bay, I think. It gets confusing because we do three events there a year.

Larry Jordan: Steve, hold on a second because I want to come back to something. It sounds to me like the developers are your clients and the press is your audience. If that’s true, what advice do you give to your clients, the people who have products to sell, to help them maximize their contact with the press? And the ultimate reason is to help our listeners understand what they need to know to work better with the press.

Steve Leon: Oh boy. There are a series of long answers. If you’re doing a PR for a tax company, hardware, software, devices, internet services, any of those, the best thing you can do with a new product that you are launching is demonstrate to a journalist one on one, face to face and there is nothing like being in the room with that journalist for those five or ten minutes or whatever it is. That gets rid of a lot of the resistance, it eliminates confusion, it clarifies the communication channel. Much more work gets done that much more quickly, that much more effectively in a shorter amount of time.

Steve Leon: If you’re a journalist, your time is valuable, you’re on deadline, you’ve got to get things figured out, written up and on the air. If you’re a marketer for that product, for that company, you want to figure out how to reach as many journalists as you can as quickly as possible. You can spend a week on the road traveling from office to office, flying around the country, or you can put yourself in a room full of journalists who have already been qualified as people that you want to shake hands with and you’re done in two hours.

Mike Horton: Are these companies at Showstoppers also on the show floor or are they just at Showstoppers?

Steve Leon: At some events, at CES for example, some of those companies are on the show floor, some of them are not. At … where we produce the official press event, that’s the event in Berlin, those companies must exhibit on the show floor. In part, that is the way we work with … which runs the … trade show.

Larry Jordan: You’ve been doing this now for 22 years and it sounds like you’re working with smaller companies to give them a chance to break through and become visible, as opposed to the Sonys and the really large companies of the world.  How have your exhibitors changed over time?

Steve Leon: First let me go back a step. We have large companies in a room like HP and Microsoft and Samsung – can’t get any bigger than those – and we are known for bringing smaller start-ups into the room that journalists have never heard of, never discovered, and this is their foot into … How has this changed over time? Go back to my reference COMDEX, the trade show that doesn’t exist any longer. That is the trade show that turned technology into consumer electronics into the Internet of Things, which is where we seem to be moving at this point.

Steve Leon: But technology evolves over time, the way it is delivered over time changes, and I can’t predict for you where we will be at CES in January 2016, which products are going to be flying around the room like a quadcopter or which cameras are going to be shooting video in what format, but I know that I will have them in the room and I know that I will have large companies doing those demonstrations and I will have small companies that nobody’s ever heard of before doing those demonstrations.

Larry Jordan: How does a small company approach you and convince you that you need to invite them to the event?

Steve Leon: Please, contact me. Honestly.

Larry Jordan: What I’m saying is do you have criteria or do they have to audition or is it just a question of paying the fee?

Steve Leon: It’s a combination of things. Obviously, we’re going to get paid for this, it’s a business. That said, I am much more interested in companies that have a really good story to tell because if you’re a journalist and you walk into a Showstoppers event and you’re bored and you’ve seen all of these companies and products before, you’ll walk out of that room thinking that you wasted your two hours.

Steve Leon: If, on the other hand, I’ve got 30 companies in the room, some of which you’ve never heard of before and they’ve got something that’s relevant to what you cover, you’re going to be fascinated, you’re going to want to spend time at my event. Now, how I find those companies, we do a lot of marketing, we do a lot of outreach, we have a website, we have email newsletters, we have word of mouth, we have friends who introduce us, we take introductions by email, by telephone all the time. We are happy to have the door knocked on. It is a process.

Mike Horton: So diversity is really important to a show like Showstoppers, correct?

Steve Leon: Yes. Look at what you cover. I know you’re back from NAB most recently, right? We’re talking film, video, on air production, devices to do those kinds of things. That’s different from what happens at Mobile World Congress in Barcelona. It’s different from what happens at … or CES, which is much more about consumer electronics, but it will still have devices, it will still have mobile, it will still have video and audio and software tools. But the focus of those changes from event to event.

Mike Horton: Any particular company in, say, the last ten years that you have introduced to the world that has changed the world?

Steve Leon: Oh man, that’s a tough question. I am in the process now of remodeling the house. I’m not physically doing the labor, I have a builder doing the work for me, but I have a personal interest in not home automation, but smarter homes. At CES, for example, I took time to meet with one of the exhibitors in the room, a company called Sengled, who have an LED lightbulb that is not just a lightbulb. It has an intercom microphone built in, it connects to your router and it has a motion sensor and it has a 180 degree camera on it, so I can put one of these things at my front door and I don’t need a doorbell any more.

Mike Horton: All right, you sold me, I’ll take that.

Steve Leon: So I’ve got a personal interest in things like that. That said, if I’ve got at CES 1800 journalists in the room, I can guarantee you that there are 1800 different newsbeats and I could not predict who is going to be interested in any one of the companies in the room different from any one of the other companies in the room.

Larry Jordan: That’s true.

Mike Horton: Well, I’m interested in that LED lightbulb.

Larry Jordan: Steve, where can people go on the web to learn more about you and your company?

Steve Leon: Showstoppers.com.

Larry Jordan: That’s showstoppers.com and Steve Leon is a Partner of Showstoppers. Steve, I’m really curious to see what the next hot product is at your shows and I wish you great success. Thanks for joining us today.

Steve Leon: Thank you. If I could predict that, I wouldn’t be in this business, I’d be really rich.

Larry Jordan: Take care. Bye bye.

Steve Leon: Thanks.

Mike Horton: We should get the Digital Production Buzz at one of those tables, with Showstoppers.

Larry Jordan: We should get there and get the press, to talk to the press. I think we’ve got a story to tell.

Mike Horton: Are you kidding me? You’re huge.

Larry Jordan: They would queue up just to see you.

Mike Horton: The front page of the New York Times the next day. Massive.

Larry Jordan: The people would say, “I met Mike Horton.”

Mike Horton: You would crash the Wall Street Journal.

Larry Jordan: Which has already happened, I don’t think anybody would be interested any more because it’s been done.

Mike Horton: Well, we’ll do something big.

Larry Jordan: But I love his last line – if I could predict what the future was going to hold, I’d be rich.

Mike Horton: Yes.

Larry Jordan: But it’s definitely going to be different than today, that’s for sure.

Mike Horton: Yes.

Larry Jordan: It’s been a pretty interesting show. We started with classical music and writing film scores.

Mike Horton: Yes, I had so many more questions for that guy. You and I are going to have to go to Malibu, do  a picnic. We’ll have to do it outdoors, right? They don’t have anything indoors in Malibu.

Larry Jordan: Just to hear the orchestra. I love chamber music.

Mike Horton: Oh, do you?

Larry Jordan: Oh yes. When I’m sitting writing my newsletter, I listen to chamber music.

Mike Horton: I love choral music.

Larry Jordan: That’s true too.

Mike Horton: I do, and we should mention James Horner. Oh God, wonderful, wonderful, wonderful film composer who just died this last week. He was the composer of my childhood. Well, not my childhood, my middle life. I keep forgetting how old I am.  But he always infused a lot of choral with electronic and it was just, ah!

Larry Jordan: Well, the Titanic was one of his scores, wasn’t it?

Mike Horton: Yes, that was one of his movies, yes.

Larry Jordan: Yes, that was a beautiful score. I want to thank our guests for today. We started with Scott Hosfeld, the Music Director of the Malibu Coast Chamber Orchestra; Jonny Videl, Founder and CEO of Callsheet Operator; and Steve Leon, a Partner at Showstoppers.

Larry Jordan: There’s lot of history in our industry and it’s all posted to our website at digitalproductionbuzz.com.

Mike Horton: And you know what? We’ve covered it all. We’ve covered it all in the last how many years?

Larry Jordan: You know, it’s been eight years and we’ve done …

Mike Horton: We’ve covered the entire history. There isn’t any more history to cover.

Larry Jordan: …1500 interviews, so all we can do is cover the future.

Mike Horton: You want the history? Just go back to the archive. It’s all there.

Larry Jordan: Michael lives six months in the future. That’s where we can find him.

Mike Horton: Exactly.

Larry Jordan: Keep looking, there’s his trial. You’ll find hundreds of past shows and thousands of interviews, and Michael being cheerful.

Mike Horton: It’ll be huge and Showstoppers will be telling that story, folks. It’s going to be awesome. Come on, Larry, let’s use the press.

Larry Jordan: You can visit with us on Twitter. You can hush up now.

Mike Horton: Call this guy.

Larry Jordan: We can do @dpbuzz at Twitter, digitalproductionbuzz.com on Facebook. Our music is composed by Nathan Doogie Turner, additional music by Smartsound.

Mike Horton: We should get this guy …

Larry Jordan: Our producer is Cirina Catania; engineering team led by Megan Paulos …

Mike Horton: Choral music…

Larry Jordan: …Ed Golya, Keegan Guy and Josh Kay. On behalf of the mouth over there, my name’s Larry Jordan, Mike Horton, thanks for listening to The Buzz.

Mike Horton: Ah, goodbye everybody.

Announcer #1: The Digital Production Buzz was brought to you by Other World Computing, providing quality hardware solutions and extensive technical support to the worldwide computer industry since 1988.

Announcer #1: And by Advantage Video Systems, who provide professional and integrated video and data solutions to post production houses, broadcast facilities, as well as corporate, educational and government institutions.

Digital Production Buzz

July 2, 2015

[Transcripts provided by Take 1 Transcription]

(Click here to listen to this show.)

HOSTS

Larry Jordan & Mike Horton

GUESTS

John Putch, Director / Writer / Producer

Tom Inglesby, Editor, Markee 2.0 Magazine

Kristen Nedopak, Creator CEO, The Geekie Awards

===

Larry Jordan: Tonight on The Buzz, we start with John Putch. John is described as an independent film maverick because one of his first feature films landed the 1999 Sundance Film Festival. In his spare time, he directs programs like Scrubs, Cougar Town and My Name is Earl, as well as dozens of television movies and many series. Tonight, John shares his thoughts on the secrets of independent filmmaking.

Larry Jordan: Then Tom Inglesby is the editor of Markee 2.0 magazine and recently attended a creative storage conference in Culver City. Tonight, he shares his thoughts on the future of storage for filmmakers.

Larry Jordan: Finally, Kristen Nedopak is the creator of The Geekie Awards, as well as the host of her own YouTube channel. Tonight she explains why geeks rule the world at Comic-con.

Larry Jordan: All this plus Tech Talk. The Buzz starts now.

Announcer #1: Tonight’s Digital Production Buzz is brought to you by Other World Computing at macsales.com; and by Advantage Video Systems, at advantagevideosystems.com.

Announcer #2: Since the dawn of digital film making…

Announcer #2: Authoritative.

Announcer #2: …one show serves a worldwide network of media professionals…

Announcer #2: Current.

Announcer #2: …uniting industry experts…

Announcer #2: Production.

Announcer #2: …film makers…

Announcer #2: Post production.

Announcer #2: …and content creators around the planet.

Announcer #2: Distribution.

Announcer #2: From the media capital of the world in Los Angeles, California, The Digital Production Buzz goes live now.

Larry Jordan: And welcome to The Digital Production Buzz, the world’s longest running podcast for creative content producers covering media production, post production, marketing and distribution around the world. Randi Altman has the night off, but Mike Horton and I are still here. Welcome, Mike, good to see you back.

Mike Horton: Hi Larry

Larry Jordan: How was San Jose?

Mike Horton: It was good. It was actually really good. I was a little bit worried about it, but it was good. A little bit worried about it. I always come in here every week and I go, “Larry’s my psychologist.” I’m just ranting and raving. But it was actually very, very good and it was good to see a lot of people that I hadn’t seen before and it was all about Final Cut Pro 10 and there were a good couple of hundred, 250 people there.

Larry Jordan: Well, I know that you had Randy Ubillos there talking about some of the filmmaking ideas that he’s had, but who else was on the agenda and what was the highlight for you?

Mike Horton: The Supermeet-up was actually a separate event to the Final Cut Pro 10 conference summit, but we had Blackmagic, we had Adobe, we had Other World Computing and we had [KAIN] & Flowers. But the whole idea was learning more about Final Cut Pro 10 and networking. It was a networking event and I didn’t hear any lousy things about it, so it was a good thing. It’s over, Larry, it’s done.

Larry Jordan: What’s the next one?

Mike Horton: Amsterdam.

Larry Jordan: Oh, that’ll be fun.

Mike Horton: Yes, which you have been a part of.

Larry Jordan: Yes, I remember, I gave a speech there one very short night.

Mike Horton: Yes, you flew in, gave a speech, flew out.

Larry Jordan: You wouldn’t let me go on the show floor.

Mike Horton: No, you could have stayed there for a few days. I would have showed you Amsterdam.

Larry Jordan: You took my badge away.

Mike Horton: But you flew in, flew out, gave a speech and…

Larry Jordan: I couldn’t get on. I wanted to see the show and you said no, I wasn’t old enough.

Mike Horton: Took you to London, flew in, gave a speech, flew out. That’s what Larry does. He flies in, gives a speech, flies out.

Larry Jordan: I just wanted to go to the show and enjoy talking to the exhibit and you wouldn’t let me.

Mike Horton: Really?

Larry Jordan: No. I was so devastated. It just broke my heart.

Mike Horton: Actually, I’ll write that note down.

Larry Jordan: Ok, please take a note because it’s important. I want to see the show.

Mike Horton: It’s done. It’s there.

Larry Jordan: I just realized that our first guest is John Putch and you’ve known him for a while.

Mike Horton: I’ve known John Putch since the 1940s.

Larry Jordan: Really?

Mike Horton: Yes.

Larry Jordan: When you were both child actors.

Mike Horton: Yes, we were both child actors, yes. John is in studio, by the way. Did you know that?

Larry Jordan: Yes. It’s going to be fun. I’ve been looking forward to chatting with him for a while. It’s such a cool show we’ve got planned for you, but just a couple of notes that we’ve got for those of you who are unable to watch the live show. We’ve got Facebook and we’ve got Twitter. You can visit with us at digitalproductionbuzz.com on Facebook; we’re also on Twitter, @dpbuzz.

Larry Jordan: But what I want to emphasize is if you haven’t had a chance to subscribe to our free weekly show newsletter at digitalproductionbuzz.com, this gives you an inside look at both the show and the industry and it’s under the editorship of Eileen Kim and she is doing an amazing job in terms of being able to give information that you just can’t find anywhere else, not only about the show but also about other resources that are available to you on the web and articles that you need to read, even if you haven’t had a chance to read them yet.

Larry Jordan: The newsletter comes out every Friday afternoon, it’s totally free to people who subscribe with the digitalproductionbuzz.com website. By the way, we have got such a great group of guests and it’s going to start with John Putch. Mike and I will be back with John right after this.

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Larry Jordan: John Putch is often referred to as an independent film maverick because one of his first indie efforts, Valerie Flake, landed him at the 1999 Sundance Film Festival. His other notable films include the indie cult favorites Bachelor Man, Mojave Phone Booth, which just totally dropped jaws, and The Route 30 trilogy film. His television directing, which he does in his spare time, includes just a few minor shows like Family Tools, The Goodwin Games, The Middle, Body of Proof, Scrubs, Cougar Town, My Name is Early, Ugly Betty, Grounded For Life, Outsourced and more television movies and miniseries than I can count. Welcome, John. Is there a series you have not directed?

John Putch: Oh yes.

Larry Jordan: Besides Game of Thrones.

John Putch: Oh! Dream. Dream job.

Mike Horton: Really? Seriously?

John Putch: I would love to do that.

Mike Horton: Really?

John Putch: Yes.

Mike Horton: Are you a fan, then?

John Putch: Big fan. Big fan.

Mike Horton: Actually, I’ve never seen an episode. Never seen an episode.

John Putch: One day you’ll watch them and you’ll enjoy.

Mike Horton: I’ve seen all the women who have been on the show on those talk shows and they have some of the most beautiful women I’ve ever seen in my life on those talk shows.

John Putch: You won’t recognize them on the show, though.

Mike Horton: Apparently not.

John Putch: They’re all just in costume but, yes, there are many shows that I haven’t, but thank you for rattling off the last 15 years.

Mike Horton: Makes you feel old, doesn’t it?

Larry Jordan: We’ve worked together without meeting for a long time. I have to start by saying, which is not totally true, but I have to say that you have provided more footage for my training and more USC students have worked with your Trilogy 2 footage than I can count in terms of the scene of the two guys and the winter farm and the two women reconciling in the living room. That has been such an exercise in how to edit film for so many people. I just have the world’s most fun time bragging about you, saying, “This is such a cool scene. Watch how this was shot,” so having you here to chat is a highlight.

Mike Horton: How did that happen?

John Putch: Thank you. But wait, let me remind people that I was your student 100 years ago, the top floor of Creative Computer in Santa Monica. I was a Final Cut Pro student and a DVD studio…

Mike Horton: Wasn’t that where Macmall was or something like that? Or PC Mall?

John Putch: Macmall, that’s what it was.

Mike Horton: Yes, that’s what it was, a Macmall.

John Putch: Yes, Santa Monica, yes.

Larry Jordan: The classes at Macmall were not academic.

Mike Horton: You actually taught at Macmall?

John Putch: He taught at Macmall.

Larry Jordan: A few years ago now.

Mike Horton: Is that right?

John Putch: And not only that, he got laughs.

Mike Horton: Well, of course, he’s a funny guy.

John Putch: He got laughs the whole way through, all day long. It was brilliant.

Mike Horton: I didn’t know you did that.

John Putch: Yes.

Mike Horton: I’ll be darned.

Larry Jordan: It was very cool stuff.

Mike Horton: Well, now I’m really impressed, Larry.

Larry Jordan: See, now I’ve graduated up to small schools like USC and teach there. Actually, half our control room has gone to USC, so we’ve got to treat the school with respect.

John Putch: I went there.

Mike Horton: Did you go to USC?

John Putch: Mhmm.

Mike Horton: Is that right?

John Putch: Mhmm.

Mike Horton: Gee.

John Putch: Yes. Ra-ra, go Trojans, man.

Mike Horton: But seriously, did you do the whole four year program?

John Putch: No, no, no.

Mike Horton: I didn’t think so.

John Putch: One year dropout.

Mike Horton: Yes, I knew it. I knew it.

John Putch: One year dropout, yes.

Mike Horton: I knew it.

Larry Jordan: What got you started in filmmaking?

John Putch: My dad. He gave me a Super 8 camera when I was about, I don’t know, ten and he said, “Here, go out and entertain me with some movies for our dinner parties,” and that’s basically what it was, and I did. I just went out and started shooting and editing and I took a film class in a grade school, a very forward grade school out here. Only in California would you see a filmmaking class for a fifth grader.

Mike Horton: That would be like Crossroads or something like that.

John Putch: Well, it was the school before Crossroads. It was called St Augustine by the Sea, which was where you went before you went to Crossroads.

Mike Horton: Wow.

John Putch: And so that’s where I caught the bug, because he used to make films for us all the time and put us in them and then we’d watch them as entertainment.

Larry Jordan: You have a strong lineage in entertainment and filmmaking which you’ve never kept a secret. But who are you parents?

John Putch: Both have gone now, but my father was a theater director, he was Artistics Director of the Totem Pole Playhouse, which was a summer stock theater in Chambersburg, Pennsylvania; and my mother was the late great Jean Stapleton, who appeared as Edith Bunker on a show called All In The Family.

Larry Jordan: Were you living at home when she was on that series?

John Putch: Yes. We had to move to California from Pennsylvania when she got the show and then we became bi-coastal. In the summer we were summer theater people and we performed and worked at my dad’s theater, and in the wintertime we were in school here and mom was doing the show.

Mike Horton: Do you believe, like I do – and you have to say yes to this – that the best film directors come from the theater?

John Putch: Yes, or actors prior to being…

Mike Horton: Well, certainly actors, but even directors. I think the best film directors come from the theater, and I can name you a list of them from forever, from Orson Welles to Mike…

Larry Jordan: Why would you say that, Mike? Back that up. Why? Why? Not who, why?

Mike Horton: Because I think not only do they have a way of talking to actors that is unlike any film director, but I think their blocking, their staging and their composition with the camera is much better than guys who just go to film school.

Larry Jordan: What do you think, John?

John Putch: I’d say yes sometimes and other times there are plenty of good directors that didn’t make…

Mike Horton: And also that actors become great directors.

John Putch: I agree with that, because when I was an actor, any time I worked for a former actor turned director, I happened to like everything about that show that I did or I actually enjoyed the performance they got from me, whereas other times it was not the same.

Mike Horton: Name me your favorite director and most likely they came from the theatre.

Larry Jordan: Well, thinking of a favorite director brings me to the gentleman sitting on the far side of the table. How was that? That was a smooth blend. You’re directing at a level that most of us only dream about in terms of the shows that you do. How did you get your first network gig?

John Putch: It’s who you know, I’ve got to tell you. It took me ten years to break TV and prior to that I was making low budget B movies for a B movie house over in Sherman Oaks and it took a friend of the family who was in a position to say, “Let’s give John Putch a shot on this show called Grounded For Life,” and that was how it happened. Then you just don’t screw it up. Once you get in there, make sure they want you back and then you’re off to the races, and I still have to do that every new place I go.

Mike Horton: Back in the days when I was an actor, they would always have somebody following the director who was trying to get into the TV business. Were you able to do that or were you just thrust into it?

John Putch: No, I had to do that. There’s this thing that they recommend you do called shadowing and they tell you to go and follow some director and people think that that’s a way to getting the job and it never works that way. It’s really just a way to get on a set if you’ve never been on one and watch what happens, be a sponge.

Mike Horton: Like actors doing extra work.

John Putch: Yes. When I hear people say, “Hey, you should observe,” and they ask me what they should observe, I tell them they will not get a job from that company, they’re just being nice and letting them visit.

Larry Jordan: But can you use it as a learning experience?

John Putch: Oh yes.

Larry Jordan: Can you learn how to behave on set and how to run a set that way?

John Putch: Yes, if you stand in the right places and listen, for sure. All of my experience as a filmmaker and director came from watching my father work with actors in the theatre and his staging, which I take with me all the time now, and being an actor in TV for so many years, I never left the set, I just hung out with the crew and watched everything in between the shooting and you learn everything at that point.

Larry Jordan: There’s always better stuff in future films, but the stuff you’re directing is A level stuff. Why the interest in independent films?

John Putch: Well, it’s the only place I can go where I control everything and I can do what I want. While television and movies occasionally will afford me great attention and money sometimes, I don’t have the control. I’m not really the author of the film. My movies are a direct response to that, in fact a rebellion, and I do them because they make me happy and they make me feel better and they get me through the rest of my job.

Larry Jordan: That gets, I think, to a really important point. You’ve got a philosophy in terms of how often or how long you shoot and how you run a set when you’re doing an independent film. Share some of that, because a lot of people feel that you’ve got to stand on a soap box and scream at people to get anything done. Is that true?

John Putch: No it’s not, and my whole motto with these micro budget movies is the less professional, the more fun. If everyone just drops their attitude and tries to do something together, the experience ends up being more important than the outcome and I prep them all, believe me, ahead of time and you have to be really careful who you invite to this type of thinking because people think it’s crazy, but you can make a really good movie and have a really nice time, just like I did in summer theatre all those years, if you’re generous and you’re a host, not a boss. That’s kind of what it is.

Mike Horton: Yes, that’s a… that I’ve read that you’ve always said, “I’d rather be the host than the boss”, because when you’re in charge of people who are not getting paid well, they’re getting paid, what’s the most important part of that morale part of making the movie?

John Putch: Well, you have to always appreciate everyone who’s there, just like you guys do in what you have going for you. But a lot of people don’t appreciate the time people give you. No-one cares about your movie at all. You’re the only one that cares about it. No-one cares, so you’re the only one that cares, so therefore everyone there is doing you a favor, so you’ve got to acknowledge that and you’ve got to thank them for it and be aware of it, and that just dictates everything. I’d rather not inconvenience somebody who’s come to help me than get that dumb moment or shot that really no-one will notice in the end.

Mike Horton: So there’s a lot of, “Thank you for doing my movie.”

John Putch: Oh yes. Yes, and buying them dinner and lunch and taking care of them.

Mike Horton: And really good craft service.

John Putch: Yes.

Larry Jordan: You said something that troubles me, in that the less professional you are, the more successful. Yet to me, professional means trying to get a good product, trying to tell a good story, trying to have good craft and stitch it together well and it sounds like you’ve got a different definition of professional than I do.

John Putch: No, I said less professional, more fun, meaning don’t walk around posturing. It’s putting the fun back, I guess, in the profession.

Larry Jordan: In other words, enjoy what you do.

John Putch: Enjoy what you’re doing and don’t take it too seriously because in the end it’s just a dumb movie, right? And it will entertain some people, it may touch people, it’s whatever you want it to be, and you have to be secure in the notion that you’re going to make something that’s of quality, sounds good, looks good, good acting, good writing hopefully and good directing, and you will accomplish that. But people who are very over the top about how important the thing they’re doing is lose sight of, I think, the people involved and I think if you’re aware of the people involved in what you’re doing, you somehow get a better movie.

Mike Horton: Yes, but when you’re dealing with these micro budgets, you’ve still got to make your days, your locations are only for a certain amount of time and you’ve got all these elements going against you, whether it be the weather or something else, and you’ve got all that stress and sometimes it just is so hard to be fun.

John Putch: Yes, well, I set it up so it’s fun. I make sure it’s not a grind and I’m super prepared. I’m beyond prepared and organized and there’s nothing to the minute I don’t know.

Mike Horton: And you’re still able to allow collaboration?

John Putch: Oh, absolutely.

Mike Horton: Ok.

Larry Jordan: Well, how do you allow collaboration? You’ve got a clear vision in your mind. How do you have the courage to listen to somebody else’s opinion when they disagree with you and then accept that they’ve got a better idea than you do?

John Putch: Well, they have to wave their hand and suggest it. If they don’t start the dialog, I’ll never know. I’m very open in how I set stuff up, everyone knows the script ahead of time, there’s a lot of talk beforehand if there are questions, and by the time you get to the scene to shoot, I want to make people comfortable in how it’s stage, where they’re coming from, where they’re going and how they’re feeling here.

John Putch: But if you cast the movie right – I’m talking about actors now, obviously, not the crew – you’ve pretty much done your job 90 percent of the time and then I just have to make sure I watch out for them. I watch out that they look good and sound good and are not embarrassing themselves.

Larry Jordan: And they know you’ve got their back.

John Putch: Mhmm. And the crew, in my movies, it’s three other people. It’s Keith Duggan, my DP – we’ve done so many films together, we just have the same idea; and my sound man and our camera assistant Mike.

Mike Horton: That’s it?

John Putch: Yes, pretty much.

Mike Horton: So it’s pretty much available light and…

John Putch: No, we have four lights.

Mike Horton: Ok.

John Putch: Yes, we allow four lights. I allow four lights.

Larry Jordan: Key, fill, back and set. He’s ready to go.

John Putch: Yes.

Larry Jordan: Which gets me to your rules for a micro budget. How do you define a micro budget film?

John Putch: For me, it’s anything that’s, say, the price of an automobile, maybe. It could be a high end automobile or it could be a low end automobile.

Larry Jordan: Or it could be Mike’s automobile, that wouldn’t be enough to buy lunch.

John Putch: That would not be much.

Mike Horton: Could be a Honda Fit or an Explorer.

John Putch: But I tell people, “I want to see rich people complaining who are directors or something that they can’t get a movie.” I just want to go, “Don’t buy a test. Look, go use that money and make a film and you’ll have it.” No-one wants them.

Larry Jordan: So your budgets for the films you do are less than what?

John Putch: Less than 100 and, listen, there are people that make them for a lot less, as you know, and they can. I just happen to be spending that on these because I go to Pennsylvania to do them and that pretty much eats up a lot of the budget. Almost half goes to lodging.

Larry Jordan: Yes, but you get deals on hotels.

John Putch: Yes.

Mike Horton: Well, why don’t you do them in California?

John Putch: Hmm.

Larry Jordan: It’s not as much fun as Pennsylvania.

John Putch: Not as much fun, don’t like it. I’m tired of looking at the same skyline. I don’t know, I like the green and the country.

Larry Jordan: Do you self fund these?

John Putch: Yes. Oh yes, yes, I save my money and put it aside and when I get enough to get something shot, I’ll go, “Time to do something,” and I’ll block it off in whatever month I can do it.

Mike Horton: Do you have time for rehearsals?

John Putch: Oh, no, right on set.

Mike Horton: Right on set?

John Putch: Yes, just like you would a TV show. Just come in, block the scene, rehearse it twice, shoot it.

Larry Jordan: Rehearse it twice and shoot it. How many takes to get it right, or ’til you’re happy?

John Putch: I try to do no more than three.

Larry Jordan: So basically five shots.

John Putch: Yes. Well, we have two cameras and we can get two angles at once and two or three camera positions and you’ve got the scene, depending how many people are in it.  But the next movie I do, I want to do less angles. I want to see if I can make it look a little more film…

Larry Jordan: Just as we’re getting ready to talk about The Father and the Bear, we’re almost out of time, which means that we get to invite you back again to talk about it. When do you plan to shoot The Father and the Bear?

John Putch: Start shooting August 17^th.

Larry Jordan: August 17^th.

Mike Horton: Seriously, that’s a done deal?

John Putch: Yes, I’m leaving on 3^rd with a U-Haul behind my car.

Mike Horton: You’ve cast it, it’s going to happen?

John Putch: Yes, it’s done. It’s prepped, it’s ready to go.

Mike Horton: Ok, all right.

Larry Jordan: A U-Haul? You’ve expanded your grip equipment. You used to have a minivan.

John Putch: No, I don’t like to put it in my own car because it just thrashes it, so I get a tiny U-Haul, a five by eight. It’s about the size of a van and that’s what we put everything in and I drive it across country and everything.

Larry Jordan: For people who want to know more, where can they go on the web to keep track of you?

John Putch: There’s putchfilms.com and then there’s also thefatherandthebear.com and on July 11^th I’m showing my Route 33 in Chambersburg for the last time.

Larry Jordan: All right, cool.

Mike Horton: When are you showing it in LA?

Larry Jordan: Will you hush?

John Putch: It’s over.

Larry Jordan: That’s putchfilms.com. John Putch himself, filmmaker. John, thanks for joining us today.

Mike Horton: Thanks, John.

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Larry Jordan: Tom Inglesby has been a writer and an editor since 1979 and the editor of Markee 2.0 magazine since 2014. His bi-monthly digital publication focuses on film and video production and Tom has the responsibility of choosing article topics, writing or commissioning articles and photography for each issue. Hello, Tom, welcome.

Tom Inglesby: Good afternoon.

Larry Jordan: It is wonderful to have you with us. A little loud here in the studio, but definitely good to have you with us.

Mike Horton: That was the guy in the booth’s problem.

Larry Jordan: Anyway, Tom, tell us about what Markee 2.0 magazine is.

Tom Inglesby: Markee is a 30 year old publication that was part of a regional film and video production magazine for the southeast and has grown to national prominence. Well, we like to think prominence anyway. It has grown to a national audience and now, after being a print magazine all its life, it’s gone to digital. We are trying to catch up with the rest of the film industry by being all digital these days.

Larry Jordan: You went through a change in life around 2013/2014 – new owners took over. Did they redirect the magazine? Or what happened at that point?

Tom Inglesby: No, we went from The Markee to Markee 2.0 because we added the digital aspect of it, our website and… newsletters, all those kinds of good things. We didn’t change the direction of the magazine so much as we just changed the way we presented it. We looked at possibly having more content focused on the digital revolution in filming; and filming, of course, is probably a misnomer these days, but production of movies, whether they’re on television, TV shows or whether they’re feature films.

Mike Horton: Tom, everything has changed from print to digital. How much has that hurt you, for lack of a better word? Do you miss holding the magazine in your hand?

Tom Inglesby: Yes, tactical stimulation. Yes, if you like to have something that you can pick up and say, “This is what you do,” and look at it, now you don’t have to do that. With an iPad, you can point to it and say, “Hey, I did this,” and people say, “Oh yes, sure, everybody does online these days, so we don’t think of that as being a big deal.” But you go to a trade show, for instance to NAB, you want to have something to distribute. You want to have a print magazine that you can leave on somebody’s desk. There’s all kinds of value in having paper. But digital is the way things are going.

Mike Horton: Yes, unfortunately. It brings a tear to my eye.

Larry Jordan: Tom, you’ve been involved with writing and editing for a long time. What got you involved with Markee?

Tom Inglesby: I have a background in film going way back into the ’60s, analogue film – remember those things? Sprocketed film – and I was doing educational industrial films back in the ’60s and ’70s and I was the sound guy for Encyclopedia Britannica Films and did recordings as well as films for them, so I had a whole background. When the editor of the magazine was looking for somebody to be a writer, I said, “Sure, I’ll do it,” and he said, “Ok, you can do it.” After about three months the publisher said, “Look, the editor has got so many other things in the fire, why don’t you take over?” so I did and that’s how it happened. Right place, right time.

Larry Jordan: That is very cool.

Mike Horton: You know how common that story is?

Larry Jordan: Oh yes, very common. Just step in. I’m busy, step in.

Mike Horton: You just step in, take it over. Here you go, you’ve got a new life.

Larry Jordan: I’m tired, move on.

Tom Inglesby: Yes. Going back to my earlier days, in ’79 I got into print magazines because I was a… producer at a… contractor and they said, “Gee, we need to get a magazine out for the military repair people on these jet engines,” and I said, “Oh, I can do that.” The next thing I know, I was an editor. Couldn’t spell editor without an O or a Z.

Larry Jordan: Tom, recently you attended the Creative Storage conference and Mike and I were chatting about that before the show started. Describe what that conference is.

Tom Inglesby: The Creative Storage conference is, well, first of all creative storage is a thing you could drive a truck around and not be sure what you’re doing. It revolves around storage for media as opposed to storage for files and the databases of all those people that don’t want to have their information stolen. We have a great need in the film and video industry for storing all that digital data and so this conference was basically formed to do a review to technology people mostly of how to do a better job in storage.

Larry Jordan: What were some of the highlights that you learned at the conference?

Tom Inglesby: We’ve been covering the storage beat for about four years in the magazine. We look at using things like the cloud, and I use air quotes on that one, for workflow and storage. We’ve looked at local storage, hard drives and so forth, on-camera storage, all of that, so it was a pretty good thing to go to this conference and see what everybody else is looking at.

Tom Inglesby: One of the things we found out was that we were lucky to have on our panel – I was a moderator of a panel – to have three very creative independent filmmakers, great credentials. Not only they were active producers and cameramen, operators, writers, everything they did on this thing and they were very avid about their needs in storage and they had people in the audience from both… community and from the… community, if you will, in the media business listening very quietly. They wanted to hear what the people in the field really needed.

Tom Inglesby: For instance, the digital revolution in filmmaking has created a number of storage problems that the big guys don’t pay much attention to – the IBMs of the world aren’t interested in what the little guy on the field wants to do – so how do you handle the dailies, for instance? What do you do about file transfers and workflow and all the things that are required in the new digital age for filmmaking?

Tom Inglesby: What they talked about and what we found out about was there is a tremendous need for storage and active storage and fast storage and storage that can be accessed easily, indexed so you can find things when you need them, all that comes together with the need for having those dailies on the field, later on post production, passing material back and forth. We just looked at it from the analogue era. We looked at storage as being throw the film in a can and hopefully it’s going to be there when you need it. Nowadays it’s a lot more difficult and a lot more expensive.

Larry Jordan: One of the things that I was struck by, because I attended that conference and actually chaired a panel in the morning, is there’s a big difference between storage that’s needed for production and post, where high speed, high capacity is critical, versus the storage that’s needed for distribution and archiving, where it’s an entirely different environment. Where Mike and I work is in production and post, where we’re always looking for the largest storage capacity and the fastest speed, but that is not really the bulk of the market, as far as I can tell, is it?

Tom Inglesby: Well, the camera operator has the little SSD, the solid state drive, in the camera. They’re worried about whether they have enough memory to load up a scene. Then they worry about what they’re going to do with it afterwards. These are the things that the big guys don’t pay too much attention to. And then it gets into a cross factor too. Besides using speed and storage capacity, you have how much is it going to cost you?

Tom Inglesby: For an independent producer, when you hear $6,000 per terabyte for storage and 4K output, for instance, you’re looking at maybe ten gigabytes per minute in camera use and you’re running a feature film and you’re having all that raw data, you’re looking at a lot of money being spent on storage and you wonder whether there are some protocols we can start using that are going to compress it better and store it better and save it. Also, we have to look  at whether it’s going to be accessible forever and ever.

Larry Jordan: Mhmm. Yes, that’s a big issue.

Tom Inglesby: …in our session and there were three, were pretty much in agreement that the storage companies – and that’s the clouds and the local storage guys, the guys with the hard drives and so forth – need to start working with producers and crews to see what they really need in the real world. If you’re going to be a media storage company, you have to deal with the media developers and producers and one of the real demands that they have is that they need to have indexing. You can create a database, you can create a file format, you can store all the stuff but you have to be able to access it and if you can’t get at it when you need it, if you can’t go in there and depend on it being there when you want it, it’s not going to be a whole lot of good.

Larry Jordan: That’s very true. One of the people on my panel mentioned that in 1998, you could get a ten terabyte hard disc. It stood eight feet tall, weighed 8,000 pounds and it was $32,000 a terabyte. Now, we’ve got terabyte things we can just slip in our pocket for about $1.98.

Mike Horton: Ah yes, now you’ve got to remember to take off your shoes otherwise you step on your movie.

Larry Jordan: Tom, for people who want to learn more about the magazine that you write for, where do they go on the web?

Tom Inglesby: We’re at www.markeemagazine.com.

Larry Jordan: Is the subscription free or what does it cost?

Tom Inglesby: Well, it’s on the web, so it’s free.

Larry Jordan: I had a chance to visit your website. It’s a lovely website and some very nice articles. I want to congratulate you. Tom Inglesby is the editor of Markee 2.0 magazine at markeemagazine.com. Tom, thanks for joining us today.

Tom Inglesby: Glad to be here.

Mike Horton: Thanks Tom.

Larry Jordan: Take care, bye bye.

Tom Inglesby: Bye.

Larry Jordan: This is Tech Talk from the Digital Production Buzz.

Larry Jordan: This is FCP Effects and they’ve got a variety of titles. Their website is fcpeffects.com. These are available at their website, they support Final Cut Pro 10, it’s $39 and what BPM2 is are 55 Final Cut effects which allow you to quickly synch video effects to music and it’s easy. You just simply drag and drop the desired effect onto the clip that you want to modify. We want to animate a great blue heron, so let’s see what that looks like. Here is – let’s just turn these off for a second – here’s the music. One, two, three, four.

Larry Jordan: Ok, so what I have to do, the homework that I have to do to get this to work is to figure out roughly how many beats per minute that is and it works out to about 120 beats per minute. You don’t have to use a drum beat. I did because it makes it really, really easy to hear the beats, but you could use anything you want that’s got some sort of rhythm associated with it. So now here’s our great blue heron and even if you’re being generous, you would say that he’s not doing a whole lot. But this is a music video and I want to have the great blue heron do a whole lot more than he’s doing, so let’s add an effect.

Larry Jordan: We’re going to go to the effects category, go down to ‘My FCP Effects’ – remember the name of the company is FCP Effects – and notice the category called BPM2. I’m going to find from all these different categories, which are essentially Final Cut effects that have been repurposes for BPM, let’s go find something called ‘flip’ or ‘flop’. Let’s do ‘flop’. Wow, does that bring tears to your eyes or what? He’s just pointing in the other direction. Here we go, watch this. We’ve got a breakdancing great blue heron. How can you not love this?

Larry Jordan: Hmm, I have another shot here. Let’s work in a different effect. Let’s go again ‘My FCP Effects’ and this time we’ll go down to ‘kaleidoscope’. Now, here we’ve got control over, say, the size of the angle of the kaleidoscope, we can play with that. We have the frequency controls, we’ve got noisiness controls, we’ve got offset angle controls. We can make this thing bigger or smaller. There we go.

Larry Jordan: All right, so maybe we can get a bit carried away, but think about it – you’re doing a music video for a performer that has no talent whatsoever and you’ve got to keep that fact hidden. This could make your life a lot easier, to create effects that occur in time to the music to make it look like you spent weeks editing it and you can tell the client that you did, but in point of fact you can synch the audio to the video and do interesting visual effects with what’s called BPM from a company called FCP Effects.

Larry Jordan: This Tech Talk was shared from Larry Jordan’s website at larryjordan.com.

Larry Jordan: Kristen Nedopak is the creator of The Geekie Awards that honors gaming, comics and indie film content. She’s also the host of her own YouTube channel and has recently won Best Host at the IWA TV awards. She’s also on the Geekie panel at this year’s San Diego Comic-con. Hello, Kristen, welcome.

Kristen Nedopak: Hi guys, how you doing?

Larry Jordan: We are talking to you, how can we not be doing well?

Kristen Nedopak: Well, that’s good.

Larry Jordan: Kristen, what are The Geekie Awards? I have to figure that out first.

Kristen Nedopak: Oh no, they told me that you were a nerd. I’m just kidding. Is that true? I don’t know. Are you into comic books at all?

Mike Horton: I am.

Kristen Nedopak: Or…

Larry Jordan: Michael is a child at heart.

Mike Horton: I am, but I can’t get a ticket. Nobody can get a ticket. If you don’t get a ticket within four minutes of the tickets being sold, you don’t go to Comic-con.

Kristen Nedopak: Oh my gosh, you know what? I got mine in about 50 seconds, speaking of that. It was tough.

Mike Horton: Yes, if you don’t have your own panel, you don’t get into Comic-con. It’s so tough. Today, they announced, by the way, that Comic-con is staying in San Diego through to 2018.

Larry Jordan: I think it would make a difference if you had a costume, though.

Mike Horton: Yes, well, even if you wear a costume you don’t get in.

Kristen Nedopak: No, you’ve got to be really high up on the celebrity food chain or paying somebody to get into Comic-con.

Mike Horton: Exactly. It’s a tough show to get into.

Kristen Nedopak: It is. I’m actually going there next week. But to answer your question about The Geekie Awards, that’s my show. It’s not as previous Comic-cons. It’s a… show and it’s an award show for geeks, so you mentioned it, it’s an… show celebrating independent creators in all these different industries – gaming, fashion, art, comics, you name it we cover it – and also it’s a family reunion of sorts where all the geeks get to come together and celebrate. This year it’s going to be a two day event, so we’re going in the direction of something crazy like Comic-con, but we’re not a convention.

Larry Jordan: Is it just on the web or is it a live attended event kind of thing?

Kristen Nedopak: It has been in the past a live attended evening, so everyone’s at the event, has a great time partying, they get to see everything in person while we shoot the broadcast and then we live stream it internationally. This year, we’re going to be announcing a new venue in about a week, just after Comic-con, and we’re announcing a venue that holds about 4,000 people instead of a few hundred, so it’s definitely going to be a destination.

Larry Jordan: Wow, 4,000 people. Mike, you were complaining about getting…

Mike Horton: Maybe I can get into that.

Kristen Nedopak: You just let me know…

Mike Horton: Yes, now that I know you I can just send you an email and hopefully I can get in.

Larry Jordan: Have you announced the city this is going to be in?

Kristen Nedopak: It is going to be in Los Angeles. Last year it was in Hollywood and this year it’s going to be in Santa Monica. Then we’re going to announce where it’s going to be in a few weeks. I can’t say anything more, but it’s definitely going to still be in the Los Angeles area.

Larry Jordan: Have you picked a date yet?

Kristen Nedopak: We are going to also be announcing that, but I will tell you that it’s going to be in mid-October.

Mike Horton: Awesome.

Larry Jordan: Mid-October this year, somewhere in Santa Monica at a place that holds 4,000 people. I think we can start to narrow it down pretty closely.

Kristen Nedopak: Uh-oh. You can’t tell anybody.

Mike Horton: Kristen, do you wear costumes?

Kristen Nedopak: I do. I don’t wear them at Comic-con because it’s too crazy, but I have my own… Usually I’m wearing something fantasy like fairies or something along those lines. I have a unicorn costume that I do that’s pretty cool.

Larry Jordan: A unicorn costume. I can’t see you in a…

Mike Horton: I can see me as a unicorn, yes.

Kristen Nedopak: Well, some people do… I’m a big fantasy person, I’m a big… fairy person, so we all have our own thing that we love to do, but I usually make my costumes a lot more original and… character, so that was the one thing that I just love.

Mike Horton: The one thing that I love about Comic-con, and I’ve never actually been there but I’ve talked to people who have gone there and I have also read all the articles, seen all the YouTube videos, that everybody who goes to that show is happy. They are happy. It is as though this strangeness, this geekiness, this part of them that doesn’t fit in with their normal lives, they come together at Comic-con and they are happy and I think it’s a wonderful thing.

Kristen Nedopak: It is, and it’s interesting because I’m the Los Angeles area and everyone I hang out with is a geek and so it is actually part of their daily lives. They’re making shows about geeks… creators, I’m making my show and so I think it is unfortunate if people are living somewhere where that’s not accepted and they have to come to Comic-con, and I know that that is the case for a lot of people. But we’re growing, there’s such a huge audience in the world and I think that we’re opening everybody else up to how cool it is to be into some of this stuff.

Mike Horton: As you say, you rule the world.

Kristen Nedopak: We do.

Larry Jordan: Kristen, why did you decide to create The Geekie Awards in the first place?

Kristen Nedopak: Like I said, I’m actually an independent creator myself and so there was a point where a few years ago I had been submitting my work to festivals and people weren’t really looking at it seriously or taking it seriously because it was geek, or it was about video games, my YouTube channel’s very much about video games.

Kristen Nedopak: Now, however, that’s not the case… and everybody’s video gaming, but at the time I just looked around and I said, “You know what? There is nothing out there for independent creators that are really making web series and doing art and doing fashion outside of these comic conventions and outside of these conventions, even something like Unique LA,” and so I decided to make a show for geeks and for those independent creators because there was nothing like that out there.

Kristen Nedopak: We’ve got the Oscars, we’ve got the Emmys, you really have to be at a certain level to be able to broadcast an award show and so that’s sort of what spawned the idea, just looking around and saying, “Well, there’s no award show for me, so I know there’s not an award show for a huge chunk of people that are doing the same thing I’m doing,” and so that’s how I created the show. And, of course, I needed to make it geeky because that’s my thing.

Larry Jordan: One of the other things you do is you host your own YouTube channel.

Kristen Nedopak: I do. Kristen Nedopak, yes.

Larry Jordan: What does it take to be a successful YouTube host?

Kristen Nedopak: You are not just a host, number one. Most of the people on YouTube have to be producer, director, editor, host, on camera, off camera. They’re doing everything. I think very few people on YouTube are people that have gotten to a certain point and they’ve got billions of followers and they’re able to hire people.

Kristen Nedopak: Usually to be successful you really have to be able to do it yourself, at least at first, and I think for the most part, especially for this generation, which I love, is you have to be very authentic and genuine to who you are and what you love because the next generation are really looking at you, as opposed to hosting back in the day, maybe in the ’90s or ’00s, when people could be off and on camera, stand there and talk about anything.

Kristen Nedopak: Now, the world really wants to know who you are as a person and if they don’t see your personality, they’re not going to watch you. So it’s kind of a combination of those two things on YouTube.

Larry Jordan: But is it a personality or is it building on outrageousness? I haven’t seen your show, I do apologize, but…

Kristen Nedopak: Oh!

Larry Jordan: There are a lot of hosts who just try to be outrageous as opposed to be themselves and I’m just curious if that’s true.

Kristen Nedopak: I think it’s a combination, because I think both of those have an audience and I’ve definitely seen that online, where it’s just somebody that’s screaming at the camera and they got an audience and maybe that is them, who knows? But they’ve come up with a shtick that works and that’s how they’re building their audience. So I think it’s a combination of the two of those or either one of those, where you just have to do what you love and put it out there and do what you think is going to work and put it out there and see what happens.

Mike Horton: Well, obviously it’s happened pretty well for you.

Larry Jordan: Yes indeed.

Kristen Nedopak: Yes, thank you.

Larry Jordan: What do you recommend for building a YouTube audience?

Kristen Nedopak: Consistency. I would say first and foremost you have to be consistent if you’re going to be giving somebody anything. It’s like a TV show. If we… the first episode of Game of Thrones and they didn’t do another episode for a few years, we probably wouldn’t be watching the show even though we love it. It’s the same thing at the networks. They’re consistent, they have every single week at the same time and so most of the people that are really successful are putting videos out all of the time.

Kristen Nedopak: I would have to say the second thing that you could try – and this is what I did – is play up something that already exists. My channel is about video gaming, so it’s not me playing video games, but it’s my personality talking about games and making fun of games, which is kind of what I do, but I’m still talking about an entity that already exists and has a huge fan base, and that’s how I started my fan base, by picking something that was already out there and then make fun of it, and it just kind of blew up.

Mike Horton: So when you talk about consistency, do you have to put up something once a week? Once a month?

Kristen Nedopak: There are definitely people who put stuff up several times a week. Some do it every single day, some do it several times a week and some do it once a month. I think it really depends on the production quality and the production time that it takes for them to be put together, but it really is up to you. I think the going rate is every two weeks is a great thing. If you wait a month, it might be a little few and far between, but two weeks is generally the number.

Larry Jordan: We’ve got a live chat that’s going on and Grant has a question. He’s asking, ‘So the big question is how do you make money at this? Or is it just a love of doing the project?’

Kristen Nedopak: If we’re specifically talking about YouTube – The Geekie Awards is a completely different beast because that’s not a YouTube channel – again, these people are constantly posting videos and then they usually get a partnership with YouTube or a partnership with a small… network or a company that helps them get as much ad revenue as possible… and so, if you think about it, if somebody has been on YouTube for a few years and they post videos several times a week, all of those videos start to accrue more and more views and sooner or later they’re living off of that because they have this entire network on their channel on videos that are constantly get ad money on it.

Kristen Nedopak: But that’s basically how people on YouTube make money, is ad sales, and you can monetize anything on your channel through YouTube Google Ads.

Mike Horton: Are you a fan of any particular person out there who’s doing something similar to what you’re doing?

Kristen Nedopak: Oh gosh, I don’t know. I don’t know if anybody’s doing anything similar.

Mike Horton: Yes, you want to say no you’re not, you’re the best.

Kristen Nedopak: No, no. Actually, I’m a huge fan of Toby Turner. He’s hilarious. He’s probably one of the first… I saw. He is on the outrageous side, but he’s just so funny and I remember thinking, “Oh, he’s really creepy,” but he’s just talking about video games and that’s what I want to do. But there are so many channels out there, I can’t name all of them. The Fine Brothers are amazing, Tio and [PEO] are probably my favorite people online and now obviously they went to TV but, I’d say they’re my ultimate gods of online content.

Mike Horton: Yes, I love them too, that’s for sure.

Kristen Nedopak: Yes, they’re hilarious.

Larry Jordan: When you go to Comic-con, are you heading up a panel or just participate? And if so, what’s the main subject you’re going to be talking about?

Kristen Nedopak: Yes, I actually have a panel, Saturday night at 8pm, a crazy time spot, and it’s called Burnt and I’m actually participating on it as myself and not from The Geekie Awards, and it’s about women who are creating content and women who are creating award winning content out there, mostly online but some of these ladies are actresses and film directors and TV personalities as well. But it’s mostly for people content. The panel is filled with women, but it is also for men. It’s just for anyone to come and talk about the same question that Grant had – how do I do this? How do I do this? We’re really very much about show and tell and letting people in on how we became successful and how they can in turn become successful doing the same thing.

Larry Jordan: Do women have to do something different to be successful in this? Or do they just need to work hard like guys do?

Kristen Nedopak: End of the day, everyone just needs to work hard. There are still some industries out there that are catching up, but I definitely think, especially in… the world, it’s pretty equal online and it really is about being authentic and I’ve definitely never had an issue with that. I had a little bit of an issue working in corporate back in the day, but if we’re talking about doing online content, I really do think it’s about being unique and being authentic to yourself and then people fall in love with you, no matter who you are.

Mike Horton: Yes. Good for you.

Kristen Nedopak: Yes, thank you. Exciting times we’re living in.

Mike Horton: It is. It is exciting times.

Larry Jordan: Where can people go to learn more about your Comic-con session for those that are going to the event?

Kristen Nedopak: We are on Facebook. If you Google Spark, you’ll probably find it, or you can find it in the Comic-con program or online. They have all of their panels listed. I’ve forgotten what room it’s in but it is Saturday at 8pm, so if you guys are there, I would definitely love to see you. Come check it out and say hi to me.

Mike Horton: Sorry, we can’t get a ticket.

Kristen Nedopak: I know! Sad. Well, you can come to The Geekie Awards, how about that?

Mike Horton: Ok.

Larry Jordan: And for people like Mike who can’t get a ticket to Comic-con, where can they go on the web to learn more about you and your programs?

Kristen Nedopak: You can go to my website, it’s kristennedopak.com, but the majority of the time I’m on social media. Twitter is a big thing for me and… and of course you can go to The Geekie Awards website and Facebook and Twitter and it’s on thegeekieawards.com.

Larry Jordan: The website is thegeekieawards.com. Kristen Nedopak is the creator and CEO of The Geekie Awards. Kristen, thanks for joining us today.

Kristen Nedopak: Thanks, guys. Thanks for having me.

Mike Horton: Bye Kristen.

Larry Jordan: Take care, bye bye.

Kristen Nedopak: All right. Bye.

Larry Jordan: You couldn’t get into Comic-con.

Mike Horton: Did you go?

Larry Jordan: Oh, I could go.

Mike Horton: I would. I would go in a heartbeat.

Larry Jordan: I would go. I couldn’t wear a costume.

Mike Horton: No, I wouldn’t wear a costume, but I want to see the whole experience. I’ve seen it on YouTube, I’ve seen it on everything else and, like I said, everybody is happy. They just feel like they belong and it looks like a bunch of people who don’t belong anywhere else.

Larry Jordan: They’re having a great time.

Mike Horton: They belong only in Comic-con.

Larry Jordan: Well, you know, it gets back to something John said in his segment when he was talking about the fact that if you’re doing an independent film, you’ve got to have fun .

Mike Horton: Well, these people are having fun and they belong. It’s a likeminded community and a likeminded community unlike any other. And bless them, bless them for finding each other to be able to do this. There are Comic-cons going all over the world. There’s something going on almost every week similar to what the big one is in San Diego, so it’s a brave new world.

Larry Jordan: And we still can’t get in.

Mike Horton: And we can’t get in. We can’t get a ticket, Larry.

Larry Jordan: No, no. I think it’s because we’re too old.
Mike Horton: We’re too old. I think they cut it off at 40. If you’ve got gray hair, you can’t get in. You’ve got to be gray haired superheroes. We need a few more of those guys.

Larry Jordan: You could wear your Star Trek uniform and you’d get in in a jiffy.

Mike Horton: Yes, I’ve got one of those. I’ve got a Star Trek pen at home. It’s very valuable.

Larry Jordan: It is.

Mike Horton: Yes.

Larry Jordan: Gets you free drinks.

Mike Horton: It’s somewhere in a drawer someplace.

Larry Jordan: I want to thank our guests today, staring with John Putch, the independent filmmaker; Tom Inglesby, the editor in chief of Markee 2.0 magazine; and Kristen Nedopak, the creator of The Geekie Awards.

Larry Jordan: There’s lot of history in our industry and it’s all posted to our website at digitalproductionbuzz.com. Here you’ll find hundreds of past shows and thousands of interviews, all searchable, all online and all available 24/7.

Larry Jordan: You can visit with us on Twitter, @DPBuzz, and Facebook, at digitalproductionbuzz.com. Our theme music is composed by Nathan Doogie Turner, with additional music on The Buzz provided by smartsound.com. Text transcripts by Take 1 Transcription; visit take1.tv to learn how they can help you.

Larry Jordan: Our producer is Cirina Catania; our amazing engineering team is led by Megan Paulos and includes Ed Golya, Keegan Guy, Alex Hackworth, Ailin Kim and Brianna Murphy. On behalf of moose breath over there, Mike Horton, my name is Larry Jordan; and thanks for listening to The Buzz.

Mike Horton: Goodbye everybody.

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