Image Capture not showing Photos or Videos on connected Phone

I've run into this a few times. The solution turns out, while simple, is completely non-intuitive.

The problem:

You've connected a client's phone to pull off all the "tons of absolutely great" videos and photos they've taken to "help" with the project. And you, being the editor kinda-sorta have to use them because heck, the client themselves took them just for you for their project.

You connect their phone (or iPad or whatever) to your Mac via the cable and launch Image Capture and nothing shows up. Both the Mac and the phone just sit there. Wonderful.

The solution:

Launch iTunes.

Yep. It'll ask if you want to access the connected device. Hit "Trust" on the phone and they'll show up after a few seconds in Image Capture and you can just highlight them all and drag them off and "forget" to use them later on because they're useless and blurry and shaky.

ProTip:

If you want to "untrust" the phone on your computer or they insist they do (Security! they say, "It's the business phone and our IT guys need it to be secure.") what I think you do, is this mess:

Reset the Lockdown Folder.

Yes. Hard as it is to believe that's how it's done.

If you just want to Untrust the phone you just trusted just now, open the Lockdown Folder and then sort by date created and delete the most recent one.

PDF Colors are Black

I ran into this the other day and learned a few things about printing that convince me that understanding the Voynich Manuscript may be simpler than understanding printing "standards".

Ok, you get a PDF from a client and use Quicklook to look at it, or Preview or toss it into FCP 6/7 and some of the pretty colors the so-called "Creatives" over there made are now showing up as black.

This is also a problem on some versions of iOS it turns out but this post is about OS X.

Simple solution? Use Adobe's free PDF viewer.

The under-the-hood solution is that some versions of Mac OS and FCP and Preview don't understand things called Spot Colors. In a way Spot Colors are kind of like RGB and CMYK only they're different.

Bottom line is that in order to display the colors correctly update Mac OS to the latest, say Mountain Lion or open the PDF in Illustrator or Photoshop, you may have to add in a white or whatever background then save it out as a TIFF or Jpeg or something. Then dump it into FCP.

From the other side, a better but more complicated solution is to convert the PMS values to CMYK right in Photoshop or Illustrator.

Basically open the PDF in Illustrator and Save Adobe PDF and for Destination select something like "Document CMYK - US Web Coated (SWOP) v2" or something similar. Don't include profiles, may help. I'm not sure.

Another option is to select Edit > Edit Colors > Convert to CMYK then save the PDF.

What works consistently for me is this however:

Bleh.

Name Sequences Appropriately Now To Save Time Later

I was watching the "head" of a group of editors a few days ago and while I waited for some photos to come in ("Can you do that moving pictures things like in documentaries?") I watched this person export a sequence, rename it, then compress it to the various formats the client needed then rename it again.

Then I watched him do it again.

And again.

And I realized what bugged me about it. I tend to name my sequences the final output file name right from the get go.

For example in my Bin, I'd have a sequence named along these lines:

An example would be

tyrellcorp-nexus07promo-newVO_V03

So when it's exported from the timeline it becomes:

tyrellcorp-nexus07promo-newVO_V03.mov

That way when I transcode it to something like H.264 or whatever (NO...NO WMVs! Not anymore!) it ends up in a handy name, with notations with version number and no spaces or weird characters that occasionally screw up FTP servers and email links and other various and sundry tend-to-go-wrong-unexpectedly-thingys.

I'll even mention what file type it is on the flashdrive/DVD/HD I hand them right in the file name sometimes:

tyrellcorp-nexus07promo-newVO-V03.h264.mov
tyrellcorp-nexus07promo-newVO-V03.animation.mov

Like that.

What the guy I was watching was doing was changing:

Tyrell Corp Nexus 07promotion with New VO

into something like

tyrellcorp-nexus07promo-newVO-V03.mov

by renaming it in the Finder each time.

My advice: name your sequences something that you won't have to edit later to send to the client or their FTP/cloud/server whatever.

Uploading Videos to File Sharing Sites

Here's a quick tip: When a client wants you to upload some selects or some rough edits to some video sharing site, many support multiple simultaneous uploads.

Try highlighting (using Shift or Command) more than one video in the upload window and then hit send or upload or whatever the button is and see if you can upload more than one at a time.

It saves time but I was a bit surprised that more people don't try it.

Clients & Codecs

When your assistant sends off "master" exports to your client make sure that the client can actually play them so you don't get a call at 5:30pm that the video "won't play". And by that I mean explain to your assistant that FCP will export (Export QuickTime Movie) at the codec (yeah yeah I know) it was originally ingested as.

So, for example, if you've shot or ingested something that's DVCPROHD it's likely the client won't have that if they don't have FCP installed. And no, it's not really the best idea to send them a copy of the codec for legal reasons and because many client's I've worked with won't have that kind of access to their machine since IT people love to lock non-IT people out of everything that's actually useful on their computers so you'll end up wasting time trying to sort that out then discover they don't have Admin access.

So a tip: Export your masters in a codec that the client has that they can use and view. Animation, ProRes, Apple Lossless, etc...stuff that they're likely to have by default.

Also, keep in mind what they'll need if they need to do more than just watch. If it's just an approval copy go with H.264, it's small and looks great. If they're on a Windows Box I'd still go with H.264 (seriously, .wmv? No. .avi is dead, although I do like a good .mkv).

If they need to transcode it (ie...it's been approved) to DVD or something send them an Animation or ProRes so they can do with it as they see fit.

Clients don't understand Container Formats

Once again a client asked me for "an avi" of a video. Avi was introduced in 1992 or so by Microsoft and has really been a positive and exciting boon to the pirated movie industry ever since. Aside from that it continues to cause headaches for "video people" and fellow "creatives" like myself.

.mov, .mkv, .avi and others are containers which mean they're like sandwiches, I tell clients. (Did you see that? I began a sentence with a period, hah! Mrs. Roberts was wrong!) Not all sandwiches are good, and asking me for "a quicktime" or "an mov" or "an avi" is like asking me for "a sandwich on white bread". You've specified that you want a sandwich (video file), with white bread (container format) but you have yet to tell me what kind of sandwich you want (codec).

This seems to be the only way to get through to some clients. "You're ordering a sandwich with white bread but I don't know what kind of sandwich you want. PB&J? Mustard and Lettuce? Cheese and Anchovies?" "What do you recommend?" is usually their response. I dunno. What kind of sandwich does the thingy that you're going to play it on ask for? In the manual. Yes, that one, the one you didn't read.

Today I literally said to a particularly ornery client, "I need to know what you want between the bread, otherwise we're going to have to try a bunch and see which works and looks good." See, I'm making a video in an outdated format, using outdated software for a client's outdated hardware. This is the kinda fun that only a college education can provide, kids.

Things like H.264 solve this problem. They're PB&J sandwiches all the time. And something known as a "standard".

The second most oft repeated phrase from me on the phone is "No, I wouldn't recommend a .wmv."

Netflix Key Commands & Hidden or Secret options

A client was showing me a "look" they were going for by showing me a bit of a film on Netflix. While we were watching it I missed the chair I was trying to sit down in, planted my hand on the keyboard and the video paused and I saw Netflix change to it's fast forward and rewind preview thumbnail screens.

Experimenting around I found that like Spacebar, Return will Play/Resume playback but what's more, is that if you hit Shift + Return (Control + Spacebar works also) you'll see Netflix switch to it's thumbnail fast forward rewind interface and even more the Left and Right Arrow Keys will advance and rewind the video (thumbnails) by 10 seconds at a time. Hitting Return will start playback at the new location.

Yeah yeah, not a Final Cut Studio tip but I did stumble upon it (literally) and it was pretty handy to find certain frames that the client wanted to show me.

UPDATE:

Some other interesting things you can do in Netflix.

1. Right Click on a streaming video and select "Silverlight Preferences": lots of stuff to monkey with here. This only seems to work when NOT in full screen mode.

This actually launches a small app located at: /Library/Internet Plug-Ins/Silverlight.plugin/Contents/Resources/Silverlight Preferences

2. I couldn't get it to work on a Mac but apparently you can hold down SHIFT and Right-Click on a Windows machine to bring up a secret debug menu.

3. Diagnostics Menu: Shift + Control + Option + M brings up the hidden diagnostics menu. Again, this works when not in full screen mode.

A: Shift + Control + Option + S = Stream Menu
B: Shift + Control + Option + D = A/V Stats
C: Shift + Control + Option + L = Logging Window
D: Shift + Control + Option + P = Player Info Window
E: Shift + Control + Option + C = Frame Rate + Mysterious Numbers.  Green Controls. (Hit this in not full screen mode [windowed mode I guess?] then drop into full screen mode.)

Disk Drill

Disk Drill (FREE while it's in beta) is a data recovery app for recovering all...heck I'll let them explain it:

"Disk Drill, Mac Data Recovery Software, recovers data from HFS/HFS+, FAT, NTFS & other file systems right from your Mac. It helps you undelete Mac OS files using its 2 powerful Mac recovery methods: quick or deep scanning. Disk Drill data recovery locates and recovers deleted files from any mountable media like your main drive, external hard disk, memory cards, etc. Disk Drill can recover photos, music, documents, applications and many other known formats."


It's free for now and pretty shiny spiffy and all.


It's really nice when a client deletes files that don't really look important mainly because they have utterly no idea what they are (.xmp wha?) and what you don't know can't hurt you right?. However, it does tack on billable hours for editors so really, if you think about it Disk Drill has the potential to pay for itself with only a few clueless clients.

It's like a stomach pump for lost files.

Clients and Peak Meters

Sometimes Clients insist on audio being louder, especially when you have background music with some VO (Voice Over). However, they have no idea with the audio meters mean and have no concept of what db means or why it's shown as a negative. Let alone trying to tell then why peaking is a bad bad thing.

They just like it all LOUD ENOUGH TO HEAR.

Here's what I do. When I know the audio is correct, the voice is around -6 or so, the music is (depending on the project) -12 or -20ish and they want to hear it LOUDER! I CAN'T HEAR IT! I quietly hold down SHIFT and nudge the Mac's audio up with the Increase Volume Key.

Shift will mute, while held down, the plonk noise of increasing or decreasing the audio.

They think the audio is now louder (I always try to keep my edit bays Mac's audio at at least two below maximum) and you won't have audio that needlessly peaks.

Another fun Audio volume trick is to hold down SHIFT + OPTION while you adjust the volume which lets you adjust the volume in 1/4 increments per visual block. I'm not sure if you can mute it while doing this though.

Clients Knowledge Base

I've been working on a monster of a project and today I receive an email from one of the clients who is using some of the footage for another project that they'd like the b-roll in "beta or jpeg".

I'll get right on that.

Reminds me of the time a client's "graphical engineer" (their term) sent me video exported from Photoshop as a gajillion layered .psd file.

When the Client can't Play the QuickTime File

If you haven't gotten this 3am phone call yet...you will in time. It's inevitable.

A client will one day call you late into a quiet evening saying they can't play the QuickTime files you've sent them. Since they need them in HD and regular DVD's can't (technically unless you mix HD-DVD with some prestidigitation) do HD content you need to send them something they can use...NOW! THE PRESENTATION IS IN 10 HOURS ZOMG!!!1!!1!

You have two options overall:

Send 'em a disc:

1. Send them a Blu-Ray. But, wherever they're playing the thing it won't have Blu-Ray so don't even bother. Seriously. Check this link in a year or seven for updates.

2. Send them a data DVD, wait I should hyphenate that, a data-DVD and tell them to play it on their MacBook Pro hooked up to a projector or whatever using QuickTime or VLC. However, it's likely they won't have a Mac/it won't mount/the file won't play/the projector won't see the laptop... It's possible that not even "marketing" will have a Mac nor will the "creatives" over in advertising. They can edit in After Effects anyway, right?

So you need to send HD content to someone with a PC who is likely still using XP who can't download much at work because the IT guys are scared of those darned h@x0rz who are gonna steal all their creative sekr3tz.

Send 'em a file:

Flash drives are cheap. Macs understand FAT-32 (but not NTFS fully, sorry). I mail flash drives to clients regularly.

I don't allow clients to have .wmv's or .flv's. I don't. I'm like that because I'm not a huge fan of either format, neither is any good and few clients (or the presenters at least) have the cpu to play them smoothly since they're using 48 year old laptops issued by the company that sometimes don't even have CD-ROM drives (but that's for another post/rant).

It's for the client's own good really and I tell them as much. See, your job as editor/shooter/writer/person-who-knows-stuff is to not just deliver what the client wants, but let them know what they want because 99.9854% of the time they have no idea. Dale Carnegie said people are just waiting to be told what to do, and with corporate clients it's thricely true. They need guidance because without it they'll suggest their son or nephew or daughter or someone can do it. They play with neckties and Lotus Notes all day in between bouts of blackberry gazing, lunch an "officeing", they don't know. And honestly, they don't care, they just want it to work. NOW!!!!!...

That's for corporate things; for broadcast or features hand them exactly what they ask for. That way, when it goes ka-bleewy, they can only blame themselves.

So, a real option is to export the HD project as one of the following files:

Animation. Huge files.
Motion JPEG. I've had PC people complain that the video "stutters."
Apple Video. Should work, people seem reluctant.
ProRes. They'll have to download the free codec from Apple.

I'd go with Animation or ProRes for the project. These are easily transcoded to something else. Others work, sure but these are the most reliable I've found. If they're going to play it from a laptop these are good options except for maybe Animation which likes lots of CPU. If they want a standard DVD, tell them that it won't be HD. If they demand HD and their computer/laptop situation is lacking then...

Here's a secret:

The client needs to show an HD video at some convention/presentation/meeting/agency/sub-clientle lunch/what-ever-it-is... tell them to buy one of these:

WD TV Live Media Player. Get them to buy a big 32Gig or larger flash drive (the WD TV Live Media Player understands HFS+ [not journaled]). Encode the HD content to a nice H.264 file then hand them a flash drive with the file, or upload it to them and tell them to transfer it to the flash drive and you'll be done. (Test the set-up though, always test set-ups)

It's small, has a remote, plays tons of formats, shows pictures, plays music, hooks up to the net to stream stuff and has two USB ports. They'll look like a hero because you'll be a hero. And when the next project rolls around you just need to send it to them as an H.264 or even a .mkv and you're done.

There are some codecs you can install or have them install here and try your luck with if they insist on a laptop. Up to you.

QuickTime 7.6 supports these formats.

Just keep repeating this bit from Apple over and over to yourself:

We strive to ensure backward compatibility with content created with older versions of QuickTime. In fact, movies created with QuickTime 1 still play today in QuickTime 7.

Then FedEx them at least two copies or upload it to someplace like Filedropper.com or filemail.com (because they won't have an FTP server or it'll be down or they won't know the password) or send a FAT-32 formatted flashdrive and unplug your phone. Do not send them the codecs that come with Final Cut Studio. Seriously. Charge them for transcoding instead, silly.

Google's "Buzz" Privacy Concerns

Lots...LOTS of my clients use Gmail so this is kinda related to working with FCS since clients and I tend to email one another often during the course of a project. And sometimes clients are exactly friendly towards one another, especially when they're from competing agencies.

Google's Buzz has a huge potential privacy hole.

Scroll to the bottom of your Gmail page and click "turn off Buzz" unless you want people "following" you.

More in more detail here: Google Buzz Privacy Concerns

I've sent the url to several clients (especially the less tech savvy ones) so they can make the choice themselves.

UPDATE: There's far more involved in turning Buzz off. Read this.

The three steps to turn it off are here.

And check it out, Yahoo had "Buzz" a year before Google. It's even called "Buzz."

Burning Client DVDs

Here's a small tip that has saved me from some post-project frustration: When the client asks for a DVD of a project...hand them two. Or three. The more the better because the more you hand them the better your odds of not getting a call a 7am asking for "one more copy" because they've already lost the one you handed them 18 hours earlier and their presentation is going to start in 30mins. Oh, and if you can, hand them to at least two different people. If you spread the irresponsibility around there are more of them to blame than you.

Wanna further increase the odds in your favor? Hand them a data-DVD with the project in some format they can handle or transcode. Heck, put differently encoded versions on there.

If you have the means toss the video online for them and email them a link to download it. Or barring that, toss it up on Vimeo and allow downloads.

A bonus tip, find media you like and is reliable for you. I like Maxell and Memorex but run your own tests and remember: "a least one client won't be able to play anything."

The Loud Pause

For future reference, when your client mentions a "loud pause" that they heard in a rough cut, they're referring to an audio gap, usually of silence.

On Further Evil

Another little evil tip for when a client just knows what they don't want but doesn't know what they do is to desaturate the entire project a bit, then after a round of changes you know are or are near the final changes, ramp up the color to over saturate it a bit.

The client will think it "just looks so much better".

Be Evil, & Save Audio Sweetening Till The End

Here's a little evil tip: Save your audio sweetening for the end. Why? Well, have you ever had a client who keeps monkeying with the project making irrelevant changes and basically just toying with the edits for no real rhyme or reason?

What I do is save the audio sweetening and music levels until the very end. After seeing so many versions with poor audio, then suddenly seeing a version with music levels up, audio panned correctly (usually just centered if someone decides it's a good idea to have offset audio channel levels when audio was recorded to "save" the peaks...grrr) the client will think some miracle just happened and often they'll love the version. Evil yes, but so is making dozens of meaningless tweaks over a week.

Quickshareit.com

Someone told me today about a new way to share files with clients, quickshareit.com. It's a free service (they'll ask you to sign up but then tell you that no account is needed "You do not need an account to use QuickShareIt, by default, all uploads are anonymous. Just drag 'n drop files onto the QuickShareIt icon on the dock.") from twenty08 that you can use without an account. They'll track your IP address "Log your IP Address to measure usage of the services" and "Disclose any of your information we have to protect our legal rights. Disclosure will occur if required by law, or if we receive legal processes" so be aware.

One troubling thing is that once you've created an account I can't find a way to delete that account. Their account page as of this post simply reads "Coming Soon! Stay Tuned" possibly because I have yet to xfer anything via their service.So as of right now I'm not sure what a free account buys you. They didn't even send an email to the account I used.

The way it works is you download an application, then drag a file onto it that you want to share and it's uploaded to their servers, then you send someone the URL to that file. Sounds simple enough, a bit like the old days of Whalemail actually. On their FAQ page I can't find anything about filetype or size limitations which seems odd.

In a very early (the first?) post about Quickshareit I found this:

• Easily Upload Any Type of File
• Free Unlimited File Serving
• Drag & Drop 1 File or 100 Files (Multiple files or folders automatically get zipped before they’re uploaded)
• Get the URL to your file FAST! QuickShareIt automatically copies the URL to your clipboard.
• And best of all, It’s Free!

The origins of Quickshareit seem strange to me which you can read here. Why use imageshack and then IM the url to another person in the same building when they're using Macs? iChat and other IM clients allow direct file xfers, and it's even easier with Bonjour. After all the post specifies that they were just xferring screenshots which aren't terribly large.

So for some reason file transfers over IM from client to client were out, and uploading the file to imageshack, then IM the URL to someone was too much of a hassle, but...downloading an application, installing it, launching it, dragging a file to it, and then having it optionally wipe out what's on your clipboard, then still having to IM or email someone the file's URL is easier?

I still prefer using gmail for file transfers if the file is less than 20mbs. Especially when you can just drag the file to gmail's "Choose" file button. Plus gmail will archive the file for essentially forever.

Still, it's not a bad alternative. Try it out and see what you think. Here's what happened the very first time I tried to upload something with it:



Oh and be cautious if you have Comcast because uploading with QSI could trigger Sandvine, yay.

Edit In-Decision Lists and Commas

Is it just me and my clients? Whenever they send me change lists it seems like there are never any commas in their cryptic lists of changes. Not only are there no commas, but numbers denoting each item (as in a numbered list) are absent so it's difficult to tell where one run-on paragraph of a change ends and another one begins.

What's fun is calling them after receiving the email and asking "Yeah, number 6 on the change list, I was wondering what 'edit point(,) back behind first scream(,) on last scene(,) needs improvement' means....No my list isn't numbered either. I'll wait."

Also reading "imporvment" and "needs be better" is always enlightening. Not to mention getting these changelists emailed to you usually around 5pm. Oh, and for the record it's "Inpoint", "InPoint" or "In-Point" not "in point". And "a sec" could mean to an editor literally one full second (an eternity in a 30 second spot) or just a 'lil bit; be specific.

I'm thinking that I can just take all the commas they forget and tack them onto my invoice and see if they notice.