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Sam Mallery

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Everything posted by Sam Mallery

  1. This is exactly what happened. We shot 33 videos in three days at NAB 2014. Our on-site video editor was working his tail off, as we all were, and a single poorly written letter turned our good friend Dave into an aquatic animal. I didn't get to see the video until it was already uploaded to YouTube, and I immediately alerted the video team of the error, but I also begged them to leave the typo in there, just because it cracks me up.
  2. ...you'd be surprised we're even able to pay people... This doesn't instill one with confidence. This is $50 a day if you're lucky. More than likely, you'll be an unknowing volunteer.
  3. I get the feeling that Windows 8 is going to be a different story. Microsoft is chasing Apple, trying to make consumers feel like the difference between the two are blurring, but I'll believe it when I see it. Windows 8/Metro/Windows Phone seem like they're going to confuse people even more. Tablets the run on ARM processors are going to be able to do some of the stuff that the full Windows 8 is going to do, but not everything. Right there the user has to always juggle in their head what is and isn't possible with the flavor of Windows they're currently using. Current Windows phones like the much touted Lumia 900 are not going to be allowed to upgrade to the Apollo OS, which is going to integrate better with the Windows 8 & Metro tablet OS. It's a big mess if you ask me. Went Mac in 2004. Staying Mac until something better comes along...
  4. Put together blimp for exterior shot, hoist it overhead for the first take, look up, and cannot tell which direction the shotgun is pointing, scene begins, and yes, mic is pointed at the sky, dialog is lost.
  5. I think the Nomad looks nice. At the other end of the spectrum, Sony came out with white version of the PCM M10, which is also pretty cute. But I hear ya, the Blackmagic Cinema Camera makes a statement.
  6. Thanks guys. It sounds trite to say, but it honestly means a lot.
  7. I just wrote this, and I think some of you may get a kick out of it: http://www.sam-mallery.com/2012/03/in-disagreement-with-werner-herzog/
  8. I hadn't seen "Up All Night" before, but last night I watched the episode entitled "Parents," and it had a darkly funny subplot about a boom operator's death. Some here may be offended, but I thought it was pretty funny. When you have some downtime and you want to veg out, I recommend giving it a view (currently, you can stream it on NBC's website).
  9. Not entirely fair. Apple did a lot to promote and support the (RED) charity to fight Aids. And like everything Apple does, after they partnered with RED every other company under the sun copied them, and RED was (and has remained) everywhere. But yeah, there is much room for improvement in the philanthropy department. I'd rather see Apple move mountains that way than to make a behemoth purchase.
  10. Because I owned them, used them, and wasn't satisfied with how they sounded.
  11. I used to own a pair of these as well, and sold them. They were the first wireless systems I bought, but even with Sanken COS11's their sound quality was unaccepatble. I ended up buying a better Lectro system, and life as been good since then. I was hoping I could use my Series 100 in the place of Comtex, but I tried to set it up a few times and it was too much of a struggle. I ended up never using them on a set for wireless headphones. The main problem I encountered was that the transmitter interfered with my SRa receiver in my bag (which I use to receive the signal from my two SM transmitters, which I use for dialog). I tried moving the LMa to the far reaches of my bag/harness, but it still would interfere with my mics, so I just gave up on it. Perhaps someone else on JW has better tech advice, but I ended up selling mine on eBay and buying Comtex.
  12. I just read about this today, and thought some of you might find it interesting: http://vimeo.com/musicstore It's a new service from Vimeo that makes it easier for video makers to find music for their productions. They're offering two kinds of license options: 1) Music from the "Free Music Archive," which has tracks that all have a Creative Commons license. 2) Music from "Audiosocket," which features up-and-coming artists and composers who offer tracks for either $2 each (for personal, non-commercial work), and $98 for commercial stuff. Kind of interesting, eh?
  13. The audio quality is pretty good, considering that it's a 2.5mm. There is an audio level adjustment option in the menus, you can chose between audio level 1, 2 or 3. One downside is that by turning it down to 1 the AGC is still active. But, the silver lining is that it's the least offensive sounding AGC I've ever heard. In fact, I usually can't hear it at all. The really nice thing is that it's got on-screen audio meters that you can select to have visible on the LCD at all times (and oddly even when it's in a still photo mode). I wish you could make the meters larger on the screen, but having small meters is far, far better than not having them at all. You can hear the 2.5mm input at work if you click on the MKH 8060 review in my sig. It sounds pretty good with a nice mic and a 302 sending it a mic-level signal.
  14. I mentioned the Panasonic Lumix GH2 in the Alexa thread, and a number of other sound people chimed in about being happy GH2 owners as well, so I thought it deserved its own thread. It says a lot to me that so many sound people are buying a camera with a sub-mini 2.5mm audio input. It was a big metal leap for me to convince myself to buy a camera with such a tiny audio input, but I'm glad I did. This camera is a lot smaller than most HDSLR's, and the video image is just as good, and in many respects, far better than even the steepest competition. The only thing that I've grown not to like is the 2x crop factor. Someday I'd love to bump up to a full-sized sensor. But for the time being, the Lumix GH2 is a fantastic little camera. The still images it takes look amazing on it as well. I'd also like to point out to the good folks at Remote Audio that their sweet Location Pro Adapt-a-Pak products currently do not include any 2.5mm adapters. In the near future, as cameras shrink down in size, I think we're going to see this input more and more.
  15. On the original topic - I watched the first two episodes of Zacuto's Great Camera Shootout 2011a few weeks back, and it wasn't much of a gunfight. To my eyes, the Alexa slayed the competition in pretty much every test. I was checking out an Alexa Plus at the CineGear Expo yesterday, and I was a bit taken aback by its sole 5-pin XLR audio input. I currently don't have a 5-pin male to dual XLR female y-cable in my kit. Now I probably won't get a full night's rest until I have one.
  16. The new Sony NEX cameras are amazing. I love the NEX-7's compactness, interchangeable lens capability, big sensor and electronic view finder. The thing that keeps me from salivating is the flip-up display. One thing that I use a lot when I shoot is flipping the display out to the side of the camera and swiviling it forward, so you can stand in front of the camera and see the LCD to the side. This way you can have a light mounted on top of the cam, and still see the frame of your shot off to the side. I have a Panasonic GH2, and I'm just really happy with it. I loaded the GH2vk hack on it recently, and I'm shooting 66mb high-def video. I've got a little collection of Canon FD lenses that I bought really inexpensively on eBay, and they capture amazing images on the GH2. I still can't believe I have a camera the shoots such nice footage! These are amazing times. However, an NEX-7 and a little pancake lens would be a super sweet little pocket cam...
  17. Yesterday I found out about this free audio seminar that's going on today, and it just occurred to me that some of the folks who post here might be into checking it out. The audio post team from the current hit movie "Drive" is having a panel discussion at CineGear Expo NY. Here are the deets: It's at the: Metropolitan Pavilion 125 West 18th Street Sound Editors panel 1:15 - 2:45pm In the "Seminar Area" on Sunday. I'm going to check it out. Maybe I'll see you there. Best, Sam
  18. You got it, Crew! Here's the show: http://soundcloud.com/hidden-driveways/sam-mallery-live-at-petes
  19. Thanks Tom & Crew! Man, I listened to the song on the embedded player in this thread through the speaker in my MacBook Pro right after I posted this, and it's just plain terrible sounding. This mix has major phase issues. As the song plays, if you open your computer's System Preferences and move the pan away from center, it will start to sound a lot better. Nasty. Anyhow, I'm pulling this off of the web after the show. It was only meant to be a promo. There are lots of mistakes in this take, I just needed something to show people. I really appreciate your feedback. I love playing!
  20. I ended up getting booked to play a solo acoustic at Pete's Candy Store for a show tomorrow, and with only two days to promote the show I decided to make a little video to show to friends who hadn't heard me play yet. I've used my bag gear to record musicians on set before, but this was the first time I had used it to record my own stuff... but that's mostly because I just went through a long phase where I wasn't strumming as much as normal. Here's a link to what I came up with: http://vimeo.com/29131590 The dynamic range gets choked a little toward the end of the song, and in hindsight I probably should have toned down the reverb a bit, but considering that I did the entire thing myself in one evening I'm satisfied. The 900mb file sure sounded better than the 90mb file! Gear used: Audio post: Ableton Live 8 & Vintage Warmer2 Vocal mic: Audix OM2 Mic on the guitar: Audix CX212 Preamps: Sound Devices 302 Recorder: Edirol R09HR, 24bit 48kHz WAV Camera: GH2vk (using cbrandin's 66M settings, 24p) Lens: Canon FD 50mm 1.4 SSC Video post: Final Cut Pro 7.0.3 Any tips for better results are appreciated! Switch to HTML5 player
  21. Hopefully this will enable Working Assets/CREDO to eventually start carrying the iPhone 5 (it's a credit card and mobile company that donates money to charities - and they operate on the Sprint network). I used to be a happy & proud customer of theirs, but when the iPhone 3G came out, I didn't renew my contract and jumped ship to AT&T. I've got a healthy chunk of time left on my current AT&T contract, but maybe by the end CREDO will be in on the party.
  22. The Teradek is pretty neat. If I read properly, you could have a Teradek Cube on the camera, and it will stream the video & audio through WiFi, so you can view on an iPod touch or an iPhone in your bag (I have an unactivated iPhone 3G that I could use which is guaranteed not to ring or receive texts and an iPad at the cart.
  23. Makes me think of their Garageband for iPad app. When it was announced the demo of it felt like a seductive infomercial. I'm sure gobs of people gobbled it up on the App Store for $4.99 (it was available immediately following the announcement, of course). I know some people who bought it, and they never use it. I tried it out on a friend's iPad and it was sort of fun, in a goofy kind of way, but it didn't strike me as something I would actually use, so I never bought it for my iPad. I wonder how many iPad DAW developers watched that announcement and saw untold numbers of coding hours evaporate into Apple's $4.99 wonder tool? Anyhow, I don't want to derail the topic. I'm kind of warming up to the idea of maybe buying FCPX someday, but then I remember that I have a working copy of FCP7 and I chuck the idea right out the window.
  24. I watched an interesting presentation about FCPX from Tekserve today, you can check it out here: And Apple released an update to Logic Pro yesterday, which makes me feel like they're not turning their backs on the pro users. I feel like we're in a transition period right now, and that there's a good chance that FCPX will remain relevant amonst pro editors.
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