YouTube has been up to this point considered the best place for content creators to build a following, show their work and most importantly, get paid. But in the last 24 hours I’ve seen several stories rise that all point to a problem I have had with the social media giant: copyright infringement claims. It’s one thing if the claims felt legitimate or fair, but it seems that it is increasingly challenging to fight claims and even if you do win, so much time has elapsed since the fight started that anything you would have gained from the video is already lost.
MusicBed is a music licensing company, but it’s one of the only ones I can think of that actually seems to care about music and not just about the business of selling it. Today they not only released a new website, but MusicBed also has released a first for the whole licensing industry: discovery. The new Discover page is “where you can find music based off of your favorite artists and previous purchases, making it faster and easier to find and license music that’s most relevant to your interests.”
Though not a heck of a lot of information is available yet, Emotimo has announced that they are releasing a brand new motion control device called the Spectrum. The only bit of information they provide is: “The spectrum is the most ambitious motion control camera robot we have ever made. Shooting timelapse, stop-motion, real-time video and even high-speed sequences, the spectrum is tremendously capable and in a class of its own.” That, and it will cost less than $5000.
I have never attempted stop motion, but I do appreciate a great stop motion film. One of the reasons I have never attempted it is because I’m deathly afraid of how long it would take and how much patience it would require. Well, after watching this video, which splices a final commercial with behind the scenes footage, I’m more convinced that the medium just isn’t for me.
If you have owned a drone, or plan to own a drone between now and December 21, 2015, the FAA has announced you’re going to have to register it by February 19, 2015. If you get one after the 21st, you’ll have to register it before the first flight. “Make no mistake: unmanned aircraft enthusiast are aviators, and with that title comes a great deal of responsibility,” said U.S. Transportation Secretary Anthony Foxx.
There is an article featured on The Verge that has caught some steam, and it relates to a job posting for an Assistant Editor position in the Dr. Dre contingent of the rather enormous Apple. Basically, the position requires quite a bit of technical knowledge, specifically in the Adobe suite of apps, but The Verge noticed something was missing: knowledge of Apple’s own program Final Cut.
Both Avid and Adobe are mentioned, but Apple’s Final Cut is… well, absent. Though sad, and a sign of how things in this industry have evolved and left behind Final Cut after Final Cut X’s disastrous entry into the software world, it’s probably not as damning as The Verge would have you think.
This morning Blackmagic announced an update to their Video Assist monitor, Video Assist 1.1, which is now available and includes focus peaking and a zebra exposure control tool as well as two other updates.
This one sort of flew under the radar (ha, look! A drone pun!), but I stumbled on this video yesterday that shows what DJI is working on for a future product. Though it’s pretty clear much of this video has heavy use of computer graphics to create the drone that flies itself, DJI’s Phantom X concept goes right for the throat of drones like the Lily Flying Camera, and that’s exactly what we should expect from the industry’s largest aerial imagine company. Oh, and they stuffed as many big names into the video as possible.
There are some truly amazing examples of how to make a great film, and Joe Penna and his writing partner Ryan Morrison (of MysteryGuitarMan) are absolutely killing it with his latest short film “Turning Point,” which is a gut wrenching short that follows a woman infected with a deadly disease who must survive a night alone. The inspiration of the shoot came from the cinematography in “Birdman” which uses the “one shot” look (even though neither this nor Birdman was actually shot in one take). Joe and Ryan just released their behind the scenes video and gave us some great stills from their set while he explained a few things about how and why they chose to shoot this like they did.
Last week, Red Giant announced the release of the Trapcode Suite 13, which is an upgrade to their popular After Effects plugins that create motion graphics and visual effects. In addition to major updates to Trapcode Particular, Shine and Mir, this particular release introduces Trapcode Tao, a brand new plugin for generating 3D geometries along a path, and also includes new features in Trapcode Form, Sound Keys and Starglow.