Got to be in the paper 0608
This is shamless. But lets face it I am a one man
show and don´t have a lean and mean promotion
department under me :-)
Thanks to Hildy Johnson for the interview.
Paul Murray and Jakob Wehrmann Celebrating The BUG`s June 5th 2008 Attendance at the Apple Pro-Cut World Tour, Berlin.
Berlin (Weltexpress). The recent June 5th 2008 Berlin stop of the Apple Pro-Cut World Tour brought together hundreds of users eager to pick up on the latest developments with Apple Pro Cut Server. The event, housed at the Kosmos on the Karl Marx Allee also featured stands from related industry representatives, too, including JVC, Softon, Stornext, Blackmagic Design. Amongst the bustle was the steady presence of Paul Murray, representative of the Berlin Users-Group. Paul was happy to share with us insights into the BUG, its history, hopes and ambitions, and beyond that, the rapidly changing environment of contemporary filmmaking...
Q. What actually is `BUG`?.
"Final BUG is an informal network of film makers and post production specialists based here in Berlin . We all share one thing in common, Apple Final Cut Studio Pro. There are plenty of online user forums out there which are like a wikipedia of known problems which occur with the programs that we media professionals work with.
Although we also have an online element in the form of a Blog which tells of our meetings and other events of interest. We don´t have a forum as such. Rather our strength lies in the fact that we meet on a regular basis. Discussion, tutorials, networking and Beer. Real people, many of whom are running one man shows hook up. And exchange joys and yes, disaster stories. Thanks to Uwe Ziegenhagen we now have a regular slot in the Club Room at Akademie Der Kunst. We usually meet on the first Tuesday or each month."
Q. What`s the background?...who, how long...?.
"User groups are very popular in America. And have been somewhat slower to catch on in Europe. Final Bug or BFCPUG as it was know in 2003 was the brain child of Jakob Werhman. Jakob had a production company and wanted in on the Apple scene. He found out how to found a user group, and found some partners. Thus the original user group was co-founded by two further people. Pascal von Hasse and Alister Owen.
Meetings took place in Wedding where Jakob had a large loft for living and working purposes. At the begin there was much excitement but after a number of years thing were stagnating. At which point I showed up. Jakob was tired of answering all those mails, not to mention the inevitable my SQL dumps. So I told Jakob that I would try and manage the whole thing for a year. There was even a time when the User group meet at my flat.
These days we have found a wonderful home at the Akademie der Kunst. The same people have been turning up for years and there is a healthy fluctuation of new people. In many ways the stuff that goes on, on the sideline is the most interesting. The user group is after all a network and people will inevitably exchange mail addresses and phone numbers".
Q:And how does Paul get to be in Berlin in the first place?.
"I came from a nice part of town next door to the national television station. Had amazing luck and gained entry to the only film school in Ireland in those days and where, in my final year, I specialized in editing. Back then this meant working on a film editing table with a splicer, chalk and white gloves.
Coming out of Film school, I was unprepared for an industry that had just made the switch to no linear editing. As it sometimes is in small countries I happened to have an uncle who was in the management at the national television station. I could have got a job here but I wanted something a little more exciting. So I worked at any thing I could get until I meet a German woman in a park. Having nothing to lose, I feel madly in love, sold my c.d. collection and moved to Berlin. I reckoned that the population of Berlin was about that of the whole of Ireland so I´d be able to find work. I really thought that I could learn German in 6 months! Back then I didn´t know about Mark Twain´s "The Terrible German Language""
Q: New Developments?.
"Business as usual at final BUG. Our members are all doing their thing and we will meet again at the beginning of next month. Maybe even with some new friends from final-cut-pro.de. The site has changed at least 5 times in the last five years. There is once again a new site in the making. Planned is a site which gives users the option to make a profile with built in video and calendar functions. In other words - a pool of post specialists with their reels online and dates when they can be booked! This can get really geeky with producers looking for freelances on their iPhone in the back of a taxi thanks to the final BUG site! And all this for free. Thanks to open source soft ware such as Plone.
The group can and does get stuck in a quagmire of technical problems. Thus anything that gets people past their problems and actually producing content is supported. Successful collaborations include a Cinemasports event where our members actually teamed up and made films together in the space of 10 hours ( July 7th, 2007). Our films are now available on this website, along with hundreds of others from San Franciso to Sofia. A future Cinemasports and final BUG collaboration is being penciled in for Autumn 2008. We need to be sure about the location before making further announcements. So it`s Work in Progress at the moment. At the Berlin user group, we do get to talk more about film making these days - it`s mostly technical problems. Because the group is about getting past the final BUG. Getting out there and empowering people to tell the story they need to tell.".
Q: And the industry? What`s the way ahead?.
"The best analogy I know for the industry is it´s like a theme park. It used to be really expensive to get in. So there was a select few who worked making films. These days it´s significantly cheaper to get into the theme park. Any kid can make a film for under 1000€ for a camera and laptop. And with a couple of thousand hits over at a video portal such as YouTube he or she becomes a filmmaker.
Most of the complaints I hear about Apple are that they are selling out, in order to push iPhones. No doubt the Apple Pro software has suffered in the shadow of such success but could it just be that Apple have a winner with new software such as, Final Cut Server. Helping colleagues to link up! And `Color`, although it has very clunky integration is apparently great too use!.
`Color` is colour grading software which a couple of years back cost 20,000$. Apple bought the company that made it and gives it away "free" with the new FCP Studio! Once again the theme park entry price drops.
If Apple pushes this one significantly it will be like taking a pot shot at high end color correction tools such as DaVinci. Of course people can sneer at such remarks. But who would have though 9 years ago that Final Cut Pro would be a serious threat to Avid.
So these days it is much cheeper to get in to the fun fair. Which in turn means that there is significantly more competition. But the last hurdle is weirdly enough, convincing people that you´re good even if you´re using cheep tools!.
Which brings me to the question where is this all going to end? Because in the world of animation there are new increasingly popular tools such as Blender. For those who haven´t heard of it, Blender is an open source tool which runs on pretty much any platform and is literally being given away! As of now there are no real alternatives to Final Cut provided by the open source community. But for how long? And lets not forget when there is one it will be more than likely for free".
So, one moral of the story might be, it goes to show what can happen from a walk in the park!
CODA.
Key Websites.
* http://paurray.de.
* http://www.berlinfcp.de/BLOG/
* http://www.adk.de.
* http://www.apple.com/finalcutstudio/tour/.
* http://www.cinemasports.com.
* Autor: Hildy Johnson
Thanks to Hildy Johnson for the interview.
Paul Murray and Jakob Wehrmann Celebrating The BUG`s June 5th 2008 Attendance at the Apple Pro-Cut World Tour, Berlin.
Berlin (Weltexpress). The recent June 5th 2008 Berlin stop of the Apple Pro-Cut World Tour brought together hundreds of users eager to pick up on the latest developments with Apple Pro Cut Server. The event, housed at the Kosmos on the Karl Marx Allee also featured stands from related industry representatives, too, including JVC, Softon, Stornext, Blackmagic Design. Amongst the bustle was the steady presence of Paul Murray, representative of the Berlin Users-Group. Paul was happy to share with us insights into the BUG, its history, hopes and ambitions, and beyond that, the rapidly changing environment of contemporary filmmaking...
Q. What actually is `BUG`?.
"Final BUG is an informal network of film makers and post production specialists based here in Berlin . We all share one thing in common, Apple Final Cut Studio Pro. There are plenty of online user forums out there which are like a wikipedia of known problems which occur with the programs that we media professionals work with.
Although we also have an online element in the form of a Blog which tells of our meetings and other events of interest. We don´t have a forum as such. Rather our strength lies in the fact that we meet on a regular basis. Discussion, tutorials, networking and Beer. Real people, many of whom are running one man shows hook up. And exchange joys and yes, disaster stories. Thanks to Uwe Ziegenhagen we now have a regular slot in the Club Room at Akademie Der Kunst. We usually meet on the first Tuesday or each month."
Q. What`s the background?...who, how long...?.
"User groups are very popular in America. And have been somewhat slower to catch on in Europe. Final Bug or BFCPUG as it was know in 2003 was the brain child of Jakob Werhman. Jakob had a production company and wanted in on the Apple scene. He found out how to found a user group, and found some partners. Thus the original user group was co-founded by two further people. Pascal von Hasse and Alister Owen.
Meetings took place in Wedding where Jakob had a large loft for living and working purposes. At the begin there was much excitement but after a number of years thing were stagnating. At which point I showed up. Jakob was tired of answering all those mails, not to mention the inevitable my SQL dumps. So I told Jakob that I would try and manage the whole thing for a year. There was even a time when the User group meet at my flat.
These days we have found a wonderful home at the Akademie der Kunst. The same people have been turning up for years and there is a healthy fluctuation of new people. In many ways the stuff that goes on, on the sideline is the most interesting. The user group is after all a network and people will inevitably exchange mail addresses and phone numbers".
Q:And how does Paul get to be in Berlin in the first place?.
"I came from a nice part of town next door to the national television station. Had amazing luck and gained entry to the only film school in Ireland in those days and where, in my final year, I specialized in editing. Back then this meant working on a film editing table with a splicer, chalk and white gloves.
Coming out of Film school, I was unprepared for an industry that had just made the switch to no linear editing. As it sometimes is in small countries I happened to have an uncle who was in the management at the national television station. I could have got a job here but I wanted something a little more exciting. So I worked at any thing I could get until I meet a German woman in a park. Having nothing to lose, I feel madly in love, sold my c.d. collection and moved to Berlin. I reckoned that the population of Berlin was about that of the whole of Ireland so I´d be able to find work. I really thought that I could learn German in 6 months! Back then I didn´t know about Mark Twain´s "The Terrible German Language""
Q: New Developments?.
"Business as usual at final BUG. Our members are all doing their thing and we will meet again at the beginning of next month. Maybe even with some new friends from final-cut-pro.de. The site has changed at least 5 times in the last five years. There is once again a new site in the making. Planned is a site which gives users the option to make a profile with built in video and calendar functions. In other words - a pool of post specialists with their reels online and dates when they can be booked! This can get really geeky with producers looking for freelances on their iPhone in the back of a taxi thanks to the final BUG site! And all this for free. Thanks to open source soft ware such as Plone.
The group can and does get stuck in a quagmire of technical problems. Thus anything that gets people past their problems and actually producing content is supported. Successful collaborations include a Cinemasports event where our members actually teamed up and made films together in the space of 10 hours ( July 7th, 2007). Our films are now available on this website, along with hundreds of others from San Franciso to Sofia. A future Cinemasports and final BUG collaboration is being penciled in for Autumn 2008. We need to be sure about the location before making further announcements. So it`s Work in Progress at the moment. At the Berlin user group, we do get to talk more about film making these days - it`s mostly technical problems. Because the group is about getting past the final BUG. Getting out there and empowering people to tell the story they need to tell.".
Q: And the industry? What`s the way ahead?.
"The best analogy I know for the industry is it´s like a theme park. It used to be really expensive to get in. So there was a select few who worked making films. These days it´s significantly cheaper to get into the theme park. Any kid can make a film for under 1000€ for a camera and laptop. And with a couple of thousand hits over at a video portal such as YouTube he or she becomes a filmmaker.
Most of the complaints I hear about Apple are that they are selling out, in order to push iPhones. No doubt the Apple Pro software has suffered in the shadow of such success but could it just be that Apple have a winner with new software such as, Final Cut Server. Helping colleagues to link up! And `Color`, although it has very clunky integration is apparently great too use!.
`Color` is colour grading software which a couple of years back cost 20,000$. Apple bought the company that made it and gives it away "free" with the new FCP Studio! Once again the theme park entry price drops.
If Apple pushes this one significantly it will be like taking a pot shot at high end color correction tools such as DaVinci. Of course people can sneer at such remarks. But who would have though 9 years ago that Final Cut Pro would be a serious threat to Avid.
So these days it is much cheeper to get in to the fun fair. Which in turn means that there is significantly more competition. But the last hurdle is weirdly enough, convincing people that you´re good even if you´re using cheep tools!.
Which brings me to the question where is this all going to end? Because in the world of animation there are new increasingly popular tools such as Blender. For those who haven´t heard of it, Blender is an open source tool which runs on pretty much any platform and is literally being given away! As of now there are no real alternatives to Final Cut provided by the open source community. But for how long? And lets not forget when there is one it will be more than likely for free".
So, one moral of the story might be, it goes to show what can happen from a walk in the park!
CODA.
Key Websites.
* http://paurray.de.
* http://www.berlinfcp.de/BLOG/
* http://www.adk.de.
* http://www.apple.com/finalcutstudio/tour/.
* http://www.cinemasports.com.
* Autor: Hildy Johnson