Yoshi Meets the Cannon T2i – **Warning** Cute Overload

July 20, 2010  | 

This is The Biz Media’s head of production, Justin Brennon Smith, trying out the office’s new T2i with a manual focus on the most feisty of subjects, Yoshi.

The lense being used in this video is not designed for moving subjects, so focusing takes a lot of… focus.

The Battle at The Biz!

July 19, 2010  | 

We are currently hotly debating our next camera purchase.  To Seven or to Five Dee? that is the question.  Until recently the 7D from Cannon was the gold standard for commercial quality 1080p video, recently cannon updated the firmware on their 5D line to allow for similar performance, complicating matters.

Now, the 5D is the higher-end of the two cameras, shooting with a full frame sensor – enabling better low-light and enhanced depth of field.  The 7D on the other hand has dedicated video buttons and a more established quality, which experts consider very close to 35mm film.

We are pretty much set on the 5D for it’s low light capabilities and enhanced audio capabilities, but we are still torn. or maybe we should just get a pair of T2is

What is your advice? please comment below.

TEDx Toronto Teaser Trailer

July 7, 2010  | 

With the production of the the TEDx Toronto teaser, which was launched today we wanted to present

“The  universal nature of the TED conference with a Toronto aesthetic”

As is clear with the final product, we took  this motif quite literally.   The infinity of space intercepted by our favorite TED talks, ideas about the human condition spiral in to form our pale blue… err… red dot.  Unsatisfied with stock Toronto time-lapses, The Biz Media crew camped out for 5 hours at Poison St. on the east side of the Toronto Harbor to capture the sunset.


View Time Lapse TEDx Toronto in a larger map

We used the Cannon 7D to capture a series of 460 photos from a Cannon 7D, snapping one photo every 30 seconds from 7pm to 11pm, we were able to try our new Intervolomintor.  When we first started shooting, our shutter speed was set at 1/2000 of a second, by the end we were shooting at 13 seconds a frame.  We actually can’t wait to try this again, this time from the Toronto island with a complete 24 hour cycle.

The Biz Media will continue to produce all future video content including a multi camera live stream of TEDxToronto, bringing the world to the ideas of our fair city.

Footage of Toronto Earthquake

June 25, 2010  | 

While the shakes weren’t felt at The Biz Media office — we work in a concrete box — The Biz Media writer Josh Saltzman was rattled while at home.  He captured great footage of the whole ordeal.

What About Pro Users? An Open Letter to Steve Jobs

June 21, 2010  | 

Dear Mr. Jobs,

As professional video editors and animators, our work-flow depends greatly on our ability to render and encode in a timely manner.  The lack of any Mac related announcements at WWDC is disconcerting for my production studio as we would like to upgrade our Mac Pros and Apple Cinema Displays.

The current revision of Mac Pros were released almost a year and half ago and the accompanying 30″ cinema screenhit the market almost 4 years ago.  We have been considering purchasing PCs because of the availability i7 Hexacore processors, which would really help with our rendering times.  Of course we are currently committed to Final Cut Pro, which will pose a problem.

Since we use Adobe’s After Effects and the rest of the Creative Suite, we are considering a move to Adobe Premier.  This will be painful to say the least, but in the end it could save a lot of time and thus money.

It’s clear that recent the slew of Apple hardware released is generating much excitement and high regards and for good reason. Your iOS based hardware units, including the iPad and iPhone are solid and revolutionary.  Business is good at Apple, new and existing  customers are buying your products in droves. You must remember one thing though, your professional users have always been your most loyal customers, ignoring their NEEDs for faster  high-performance hardware is frustrating.

It appears that Apple is slowly moving away from fostering platforms prime for digital media production and towards media consumption and hobbyists.  The “just works” ethos is fine but digital media professionals, especially in the video and animation space also need a assurance that things work effectively.  It’s not obscene to believe that the i7 Hexacore processors will reduce rendering time by significant percentiles, this is why we can only wait so long.

To tell you the truth Mr. Jobs, the longer I have to watch a progress bar, the less thrilled I am to have (be) a Mac.

Regards

~The Biz Media