Bill Cammack

Let’s Get It In!

It’s currently 5:45 am and I’m writing a blog post. “Why is that? o_O” you might ask. It’s because I just woke up and my mind is CRISP!!! >:D .. Firing on all cylinders. Ready For Action.. Kickin’ Ass and Takin’ Names.

I had this conversation with my friend Jeff the other day. He was saying that it takes him a long time to get started once he wakes up, but as time goes on, he gets more and more productive, until it gets to the point where he doesn’t want to go to sleep because his brain is working so well and he’s getting so much done.

Of course.. That’s probably why it’s tough for him to put it together when he wakes up.. Because his mental activity and productivity overrides some sort of natural sleep initiative, and he ends up sleeping at the wrong times (for his own personal body cycles). Read the rest of this entry »

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Reader “Justin” asked me what I thought about Net Neutrality the other day, and my response was basically “Not Much”.

His question and the ensuing conversation reminded me of a broader topic, which is “What about the proletariat?”:

The proletariat (from Latin proletarius, a citizen of the lowest class) is a term used to identify a lower social class; a member of such a class is proletarian. Originally it was identified as those people who had no wealth other than their children.

Read the rest of this entry »

People think that freelancers have all this “FREE TIME” to frivolously throw away on things that enhance the handout-asker’s career and does nothing at all of value for the freelancer.

It’s like they think the word freelance equates to “Never works much” like as if we’re hanging out on the beach every day with an umbrella-drink in our hands watching girls surf all day. It makes perfect sense that we’d rather work for you for free, right? :D Read the rest of this entry »

The year is now 2010 AD. Doing business in person is OVER. It’s completely unnecessary, as well as a waste of time and billable hours. Let me explain to you how things work now.

Virtual Collaboration

When you go to work, what do you do? You sit in your cubicle and you type on your computer. How do you interact with your coworkers? O_o Do you get up and walk over to where they’re sitting and start running your mouth? No. You don’t. You click on your instant messaging program, such as AIM, iChat, gTalk, whatever, and you type directly to them. Read the rest of this entry »

I already went over this in Shilling Away Your Social Capital, but it’s actually worse than I originally thought.

I discussed wasting time in Time, Part 05: “Focus & Motion”. I mentioned how small interruptions in your day can stack up and completely blow your efficiency.

For instance.. If someone sends you an email and you have your mail app running in the background, you have to:

1. Recognize that that sound you heard was a new email
2. Decide that you’re going to check it out
3. Click over from the program you were using to your mail app
4. Look at the title
5. Look at the name of the sender
6. Click on the email and wait for it to open
7. Read the text until you have the gist of the communication
8. Think about whether you’re going to do anything about it
9. [Maybe] Take the time to respond, including possibly researching links
10. Click back to the program you were initially using
11. Get your head back in the game and get efficient with your project

Now.. That process can take you anywhere from 10 seconds to 3 minutes or even MORE, depending on how much time you’re willing to donate to that person’s query. Read the rest of this entry »

One of the things that makes me who I am as a video editor is that I can visualize aspects of the project that haven’t occurred yet. When I see a scene or a picture, I know how it will work (if at all) with other footage I’ve seen. When I hear something, I know what I can use it for. Basically, I create the video while I’m reviewing the footage and then I basically trace what I already saw instead of building a video from scratch and wondering whether it’s going to work or not.

There are a lot of elements that go into making a video that don’t become important until the final output, yet if you don’t pay attention to those elements ahead of time (known as pre-production), you may end up needing to re-do all the work you just did. Elements include frame dimensions (16×9 vs 4×3), frame size (in pixels), data rate, codec, font, font size, lower 3rds, drop shadows, transitions… For just one example, if your video is going to be seen @ 320×180 (width and height, in pixels), you’re going to want to deal with your font sizes differently than if you were going to present in 1280×720 HD (high definition). If you act as if you’re going to output in HD, you might have to change all your titles when the client sees them in 320×180, because they can’t be read.

The reason I bring this up is that this ability increases my efficiency. I know the questions to ask ahead of time so I don’t waste time. Also, I can see my way clear through to the end of the project. I can basically “see” the finished video as if I fast-forwarded time to when I was finished. This is because everything goes onto a “checklist”. If I know what the video dimensions are, I can visualize the size that the final output will be. If I know the font, I can imagine what the text will look like…

OTOH… If I *DON’T* know what the background color is… That becomes apparent to me in my visualization and I ask the client if they want to use a background image or they have a specific color in mind. Same thing for font color or music selection. I have a good basic idea of what’s missing and what I need to figure out ASAP in order to efficiently get the job done. Read the rest of this entry »