Robots Will Invade

I could listen to William Martell all day long.
Kangas on his computer system, which has the cheapest Mercury - compatible playback engine (albiet with a hack.)
Kate Britton in the Philadephia Desert. This is a test rendering by Ian Hubert for an opening shot of the movie Carbon Copy (nee: Android Masquerade) by Steven J. Niles. The background city itself is temp and will be replaced.

Soon, robots will invade.

Naomi McDougall's new movie "Imagine I'm Beautiful" available on Google play.

Focusrite Scarlett 18i20

So, because every-single-thing has to be harder than previously imagined, we had to get a new audio interface for the new audio computer. We got this Focusrite unit. It is, I must say, really nice.

"Ice Nymph" is the name of the hard drive which sits atop. 

I don't know why so many people are into the RME units. They're quite pricey. May as well get Apogees*. But here's the thing: I've A/B'ed Focusrite vs. Apogee and they sound so close that when you invert the polarity the signal will oftentimes actually null-out.
Maybe I just like the red color that surrounds the unit (which you can see in the reflection of the wood support just above the converter in the picture above if you so care.)
But even the preamps are usable.

I haven't actually hooked up a 5.1 system to it. I'll tell you if there's any problems. But so far it's been very stable, which is critical (and maddening when things aren't stable).

*Traditionally considered the best converters for everyone but some classical music guys.

After the Embargo

Now that the AFM has happened, we're after the embargo!

That's Maduka Steady with robots by Ian Hubert on all sides.

Note that if you look around this isn't the actual final art on this title. They changed the head. This is because by coincidence another filmmaker with the same sales rep used the same armor.

See Why I Like This?

The book Dialog Editing for Motion Pictures by John Purcell.

Dialog editing

Actually begins a chapter this way:

"Picture plays a huge role in cinematic storytelling--almost rivaling sound in importance."

I am tremendously amused by that sentiment.

Lanie Zipoy's New Film Festival

Lanie Zipoy has started a new film festival called the DAMN Film Series.

Short films. No submission fee.
Do it.

Adventures with the new Mac Pro

So the latest version of the OSX (Yosemite) does not allow you to install Windows 7 on it via Boot Camp. Why? Oh who knows? Just because. (B/C FU that's why.)
So maybe I can get Parallels to work.
Of course, SugarSync hates the "Documents" folder in Parallels because it thinks the folder is on a network.
The other issue, and yes I feel dumb for not realizing it, is that there are no FireWire ports on the new Mac Pros. Why? B/C FU that's why.
So I guess we're at the end of Firewire for audio interfaces. Which I feel like is a lot of money down the drain. But we get one more chance with Thunderbolt to Firewire interfaces. Which are, of course, stupid expensive for a little adapter.
Parallels is $80. The upgrade to Windows 8.1 is somewhere around there. I really don't want to "upgrade" to Windows 8.1. I would really just like my computers to work.

Blenchmark is a Blender benchmarking thingy. I like it because it tests the thing that I actually do.

It turns out that Parallels has a terrible time dealing with GPU rendering. It turns out that Blender Cycles only works in GPU with NVidea cards. And the Pro of course only has AMD cards. That was a stupid mistake on my part to make. I should have realized that.
I am not a Windows 8 fan. I seriously don't know how you're supposed to surf web sites with it. I never did find Internet Explorer. I put in "www.chrome.com" in the address bar of Window Explorer just because I knew that by legacy that would work. It launched Internet Explorer. I downloaded Chrome so I don't have to deal with IE (wherever it might be) anymore.
And of course the highest-end Mac isn't compatible with the Adobe Mercury playback engine. Ugh. It's all rather upsetting.
On the plus side of things the computer is very quiet. And it understands 4K monitors via HDMI without complaining. It boots in OSX very quickly.
I have no idea what complaints it will issue about audio hardware.

Pro

In my effort to prove the Mac Mini is the device with which I can replace a power machine I have discovered a flaw.
GPU performance.
If you read the Internet, and I don't know why you would, you'd find that most articles poo pooh the very high end of computers because "What are you doing? 3D rendering? Ha! Nobody does that."

These helmets are all but impossible to make.

Oh. But we do. We do.
When all is said and done the Mac Pro makes a good deal of sense. Especially a refurbished one. Quiet. Low energy use. Very interesting. Still have all the issues with certain, ahem, hardware.

The Mac Pro is essentially unphotographable.

I think I basically have to move over to USB for audio hardware. Right now the best solution seems to be the Focusrite Scarlett 18i20. It has an adequate number of outputs.

Or I could just cheat. Somehow. Cheating is good.