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Zeitgeist 2011: Year In Review (Awesome Video)

Google recently released the Zeitgeist 2011: Year In Review on Youtube.  It's an awesome piece of short filmmaking using collected data and media from the past year.  The editing is phenomenal, props to Whirled Creative and Director Scott Chan.  The narrative is really refined, watch it a few times to notice the juxtopositioning of ideas in even the most subtle sections.

What strikes me is how, no matter what part of the world we live in, our humanity is something we experience together, collectively, and in an era of new media technology, social media, and pooled information, we get a true birds eye view of our world.  It can be a big as a revolution in Egypt, to an intimate moment when a deaf woman hears herself for the first time from a medical marvel, today it's possible to experience things never thought possible, and we share it together.

See the Google Zeitgeist website to enjoy specifics if you want to mine the data.  It's fascinating how similar we all are.

 

Big announcements scheduled for tomorrow from Canon, Red, and Avid. Stay tuned!

TC_Planner , the $12 App every television editor, producer, post super must have...

Tracking your latest act timings and rundowns has always been a challenge in the world of television.  A lot of post supervisors, producers, and editors use Excel spreadsheets that provide some layout but the complicated timecode calculations have always been an issue within the software.  You can do the calculations in the editing program but having a simple app that does it for you is so convienient on a laptop.  This is exactly where TC_Planner comes in.  I've mentioned TC_Planner on this blog before but with the latest release, it's worth mentioning again.

TC_Planner was developed by Netmedia after an email conversation between myself and the software developers at Netmedia.  Full disclosure, I do NOT receive any compensation for the products sold by Netmedia, I had a real world need and they developed a great tool from which we can all benefit in the television world.

  

The product is awesome, fully-custom and allows users to enter/modify a TRT for your Program as well as track your act timings.  It's simple, intuitive, and handles calculations on the fly.  With a click of a button, you can save or print your latest timings.  You can quickly tell if you're over or under and even project difference in the individual acts.  Take a look at the main interface...

After Data has been entered, you can print a handy Report to share with others within a company...

 

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There are additional benefits, like multiple timecode formats for film reel calculations, new drag and drop functionality, and multiple documents can be open at the same time to compare and contrast the recent timing adjustments.

The current version as of this post is...

Version: 1.5

System Requirements: Mac OS X 10.5 and up

Platform: Universal (Intel, PPC)

License: Shareware ($12.00)

 

Download a trial version here and experience it for 30 days.  If you like it, it's only $12.

Robert McKee's Latest Words of Writing Wisdom...

Quite a few years back, I took Robert McKee's STORY seminar in Los Angeles.  Besides having the opportunity to sit in class with the likes of the creative Drew Barrymore, Rob Morrow, and Tony Kaye, I learned a lot.  I'd say that the principals we discussed those days end up helping me in my day to day work as a storyteller.  Even if you disagree with McKee, or just want to bash the book after seeing the movie Adaptation, the STORY theory applies to almost every genre and gets creatives to think about STORY, and for that he deserves great credit.

Personally, I loved it, he's an awesome speaker.  It was by far one of the best weekends and best money spent in my career.  I highly recommend it for any storyteller looking for a clear lens to consider their own work.  Doesn't matter if you're a director, producer, writer, actor, or editor, it all applies.

From time to time, I receive emails from McKee advertising the latest weekend seminar.  Normally he speaks in LA, NY, or London.

Today I received one that had "Robert McKee's Story Groundwork:"  I thought I'd share because it's true about the writing/storytelling process...

STORY is about principals, not rules.

STORY is about eternal, universal forms, not formulas.

STORY is about archetypes, not stereotypes.

STORY is about thoroughness, not shortcuts.

STORY is about the realities, not the mysteries - of writing.

STORY is about mastering the art, not second guessing the marketplace.

STORY is about respect, not disdain for the audience.

STORY is about originiality, not duplication.

Great food for thought.  For more info on Mr. McKee.  Check out his site at mckeestory.com

 

HAPPY STORYTELLING.