John August

Geek Alert

Notes on the DV Expo

Geek Alert, Indie, Video

Matt and I visited the [DV Expo in Pasadena](http://dvexpo.com/) this afternoon. We didn’t sit in on any sessions, but spoke to a number of vendors on the main floor, mostly scouting out rigs and rental houses that might make sense for a microbudget feature Matt’s planning to make.

Overall, this was a smaller shindig than when I visited a few years ago, when it was held at the LA Convention Center. Back then, a lot of hubbub surrounded Panasonic’s HVX-200 and the transition to a tapeless workflow. The 2010 equivalents are the HD-DSLRs such as the 5D and 7D, still-format cameras which provide an amazing video image but a lot of trade-offs given their shape.

At least a third of the booths were demoing either these cameras or rigs designed to make them more usable, such as shoulder mounts, audio recorders and follow-focus units. I already have (and love) Zacuto’s Z-Finder for the 7D, but I’ll definitely want some sort of shoulder support. Without it, you can’t handhold one very long.

Other observations:

* No Apple. Earlier expos had a large Apple presence centered around Final Cut Pro and Motion. This time, nothing. They probably didn’t want to have to answer a thousand questions about when the next version of FCP will come.

* No Adobe or Avid, either. Both have better native support for the formats a lot these cameras use, like AVCHD and MPEG-4. I’m really sick of converting to ProRes.

* Good-looking 3D. Several manufacturers were showing off 3D monitors. This was the first time I’d ever considered getting one.

* Lots of panel lights. Everywhere I used to see Kino-Flos, I saw LEDs.

* My favorite gizmo was probably a Wi-Fi video tap by Teradek that lets you broadcast to nearby laptops, iPads and iPhones. That would be a godsend for a virtual video village. (On Go, we used a somewhat-illegal TV transmitter for the same purpose.)

The Expo continues tomorrow if you’re in town and eager to check out some gear.

Math advice for paranoid aliens

Geek Alert, Hive Mind

Story problems in math rarely overlap with story problems in screenwriting, but today I have one that I could use some help figuring out.

Far away on a distant planet, an intelligent but very paranoid species is constructing a series of terrestrial watchtowers to scan the heavens, making sure no space-traveling enemies sneak up on them.

You can think of these watchtowers as observatories, each one watching a 180-degree (half-sphere) swath of the sky. For this simplest version, you can ignore complications like atmospheric distortion or possible moons.

**Question #1: For complete coverage, what is the minimum number of watchtowers they need to build?**

**Question #2: What would be a *prudent* number to build? If you want to introduce features like atmosphere or redundancy, go for it.**

This planet’s new Grand Ga’loo was elected on a promise of putting the watchtowers into orbit. After his inauguration, he’s assembled a team of leading scientists to figure out a plan for doing so. The current thinking is to have the satellites be geo-stationary (staying fixed over one spot on the planet), but the Ga’loo can be persuaded otherwise.

**Question #3: What is the minimum number of satellites needed?**

**Question #4: How does the number change if the orbit radius is increased? If the field of view is increased?**

Your answers could help some paranoid aliens sleep better at night.

Is machinima worthwhile?

Geek Alert, Genres, QandA

questionmarkI’ve been frustrated with not being able to get a project together to direct this year, and have a couple unproduced short scripts sitting around that I kind of like.

I’m considering getting into machinima to animate my films, using software like Moviestorm or iClone. Have you ever considered using machinima as a method of telling stories? I wonder what would happen if an awesome writer got involved in a burgeoning storytelling medium like machinima.

— John
San Diego

Machinima — using videogame engines to create animation — sits smack in the middle of a very geeky Venn diagram. It’s easy to do, but tricky to do well. It’s extremely limited and wildly liberating. And it hasn’t broken out of its niche yet.

So do it. Full speed ahead. But don’t do it because it’s simple. Do it because you want to make something cool.

In considering which projects to do, I’d urge you to think along two axes:

1. **Suitability for machinima.** On one extreme, you have [Red vs. Blue](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5NtBX0XEHT0), which uses Halo to make a comedy about characters in Halo. On the other extreme, projects that seem particularly ill-suited for machinima — say, Hamlet — might be especially awesome simply for their outside-the-boxness.

2. **Production values.** Do you want it to look amazing, rivaling something Pixar could make? Or should it be endearingly crappy? Consider a machinima version of Clerks. Just as that movie wouldn’t have worked if it were shot in IMAX, your little project might benefit from some rough pixels.

Readers, feel free to link your favorite machinima examples.

All of the other reindeer

Geek Alert, Psych 101, Story and Plot

A few months ago, I discussed how [Every Villain is a Hero](http://johnaugust.com/archives/2009/every-villain-is-a-hero) — very few bad guys perceive themselves as bad guys, so you need to think of their motivation in heroic terms.

I just finished playing the Descent into Darkness scenario for Battle for Wesnoth, ((Wesnoth is an old open-source game now available for iPad.)) which provides a surprisingly good example of this lesson.

The story follows Malin Keshar, a young mage trying to save his village from orcs. Desperate, he uses a little necromancy in a pinch, which gets him banished from his homeland. As the twelve chapters unfold, bad decisions snowball until the story reaches a satisfyingly bleak conclusion.

Reading up on the scenario afterwards, I came upon this description of Malin’s dilemma, a trope called [All of the Other Reindeer](http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/AllOfTheOtherReindeer):

> A character is surrounded by people who constantly put him or her down, usually because of some trait that is integral to them being a hero or villain. It seems the only responses one can make to this are the extremes: “put up with it silently” or “let them die/kill them all.”

> If a hero, the character will constantly show their virtue by putting up with it and saving their tormentors’ lives again and again. Said tormentors will be grateful for about five seconds (that is, until the end of the episode), and then start it up again.

> If a villain, they’ll inevitably explode and slaughter their tormentors, to the barely disguised envy of the audience. Oh, the hero will stop them eventually, but not before most of those who wronged the villain are taken out.

That’s a great roadmap for one kind of villain backstory.

And if you haven’t spent an afternoon [clicking through TV Tropes](http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/Tropes), it’s well worth the time suck.