TWEAK Digital

As a digital tech since 2006 for clients local, national, and international, Jeremy Wilker of TWEAK Digital provides a focused and reliable workflow both during and after the shoot. With over 20 years of print and prepress experience and extensive Photoshop ability, whatever you or your client dream can be accomplished. Jeremy has spent the past 5+ years working on enterprise-level DAM (digital asset management) systems from conceptualizing to implementation, training and support. He can help you get a grasp on the multitude of assets flowing through your business. From documentary projects to narrative to corporate and industrial videos, award-winning video by Jeremy of TWEAK Digital can help you communicate your message or vision in full high-definition glory and deliver disk, DVD or web formats as required.

TWEAK Digital: digital tech, DAM consulting & HD video.

Since I've been blogging for, gosh, over ten years now in various forms and at various URLs, I'm hip to the various ways to post and get information: blogs, rss, tweets, status updates, etc, and I long ago fell in love with a Mac application called NetNewsWire, one of the first best RSS readers. I've got thousands of website feeds in my subscription list and can skim them all in a manner of minutes if necessary. For me, however, NNW didn't make the transition to iPhone app very well (I've had slow and buggy experiences with it). NNW was bought out by NewsGator several years ago and now syncs your lists between devices with Google Reader (this is a good thing). NNW for Mac is still a fabulous application and well worth an investment. But for staying connected with all the latest information while on the go, my new favorite RSS reader for iPhone is Reeder.

The Reeder app is fast (even with thousands of feeds), has a pleasing minimal interface, and really killer functionality! It can take any interesting link and make a note, share it, post it to delicious, save it to instapaper (more on that in a minute), tweet it, open it in safari, and copy/mail links/articles as well. And more. The experience is, as I said, fast and sleek and simple yet with enough power to do whatever you wish. It, too, syncs up with your Google Reader account keeping everything up to date between devices.

If you like a more glossy experience with your news and updates, you'll want to consider using the new Pulse app, especially if you are mainly now using an iPad (it works the same on the iPhone, but the smaller screen makes it feel cramped). Pulse is a visually pleasing presentation of your feeds (but is limited to 20 of your favorites) so you'll want to use it for the stuff you like to spend a little more time reading.

For creating and catching up on your various tweet streams, I can highly recommend Twitterific for iPhone/iPad. There are plenty of other apps for tweeting (even one just for writing tweets, Birdhouse), but I've never felt lacking with the design or feature set of Twitterific. It just works, with multiple accounts, and it looks darn nice. The official Twitter iPhone app is nice, too, and free.

On the desktop side of things, I'm a big fan of Seesmic. Others might recommend TweetDeck, but for me Seesmic fits my style and has all the expected features of multiple accounts, searches, hashtags, retweeting, URL shortening and the like. Works pretty well and the price is right (free).

But lately, what with the multiple social media accounts that I manage or am involved with, I've desired something a little more powerful and found it in HootSuite. Because I've got my personal/business account (@tweak), my other business account (@viewville) and my feature film project (@triumph67film) as well as the various Facebook pages that go along with those, I needed a tool that could handle them all as well as do scheduled postings for future dates/times. HootSuite does all this and more (including managing your other team members and assigning tweets to them)! And while their companion iPhone app does cost a few bucks, having all those features in my pocket means I can more quickly and efficiently manage my various social media accounts when I've got a spare minute here and there.

Oh, and instapaper. Well, this is one service you've just got to try. It'll take your interesting links you come across and save them for later so you can flag a long story and have it all ready to go when you actually have the time to dig into a longer article. Simple, easy to use.

PS - this entire post (and most of them, in fact) was created using MarsEdit.

Now that everything has been wrapped up in regards to the first Moving Into Motion DSLR Video Workshop, it is time for a brief recap.

There was building tension in the community about still shooters being asked to "just shoot some video" on set and how to best handle such requests. Some felt that this growing change was going to be even more disruptive than the transition from film to digital (I would agree). At the prodding of Bruce from MN Digitechs and several client requests, along with support from George and Karin at Studio 1414, it was decided that a crash course in HD video production for photographers should be conducted as soon as possible. Just a few weeks later, the first Moving Into Motion workshop was held.

The evening event, which covered all (pro and con) aspects of shooting video with DSLRs through post-production, was very successful, with 55 attendees of various backgrounds (although most were professional photographers). Most were Canon owners, many had started dabbling with video already, and they were all eager to learn everything possible.

The collected feedback was great, with most comments asking for an even longer session and even more information, which was much to my surprise as I thought three hours was going to be long enough (to be honest, I did create a very dense curriculum).

This in-depth session will be repeated again in the near future and due to the high demand, an all-day real-world hands-on workshop is in the works as well.

Things I learned in the process: a short-throw projector lens is desirable for a larger image, a last-minute order for even more chairs and tables is expensive, double-check on all food orders the day before the event, have better event signage on the street for parking, and having a good network of friends with various talents truly is priceless.

Much thanks for support goes to Bruce, Nate and David of MN Digitechs, George and Karin @ Studio 1414, Chris @ Shelter, Raoul @ Flashlight, West Photo, ThinkTank Photo, Adobe Lightroom 3, ASMP, MN WIFT, 4i Production, Handy Filmtools, Camera Motion Research, Karl, Donn, Jack, Emily, Craig, and Stefan.

    

If some very unscientific testing in the studio the other day, it would appear that the latest beta 2 of Adobe Lightroom 3 with tethered shooting support is just as fast and often times even faster than any other method, including Capture One Pro 5 and the official Canon software. Looks to be a very promising release when it comes out and I know several people that will likely switch to only use Lightroom as soon as it is feasible. Especially since it also appears to more stable and less buggy then certain other apps (ahem, C1P). Tests done on a current PC laptop and a Mac Pro with 12 gigs of RAM and two Canon 5d Mark II cameras. Have you tried it and would you concur? What other things would make you switch? Overlays? Color rendering tweaks?

Shooting video has been a passion of mine for many years now. But recently, many photographers, social media experts, non-profits, and marketers have been asking me about what it takes to "do video" for their websites or clients. Photographers, especially, have been thrust into a spotlight as their clients are asking them to shoot a video of their product during a photoshoot. It has rapidly become THE topic of conversation and everybody is curious how to get it all done.

Well, wonder no longer! With support from MNDigiTechs and Studio 1414, Jeremy Wilker of TWEAK Digital will guide you through the technical pros and cons, tips and tricks, and get you comfortable shooting HD video with your DSLR camera (or at least comfortable enough to partner with a videographer/cinematographer and crew). Get all the details and reserve your spot at the "Moving Into Motion" DSLR workshop today!

Thanks to this great (and easy) solution from Nathan Beaman, you can add T2i Support to the New Canon EOS Final Cut Plugin. Supposedly this plugin is up to 3x faster than using Compressor to import your files for editing. NOTE: You MUST retain the folder structure of the memory card, similar to not destroying your BPAV folders on the Sony EX1/EX3, to use the plugin under Log & Transfer or it will not work (much to my disappointment on some older archives I copied to my drives long before this plugin came out). It turns out MPEG Streamclip is quite a bit faster than the EOS plugin and initial tests show it about the same as Compressor. Still, nice to be able to use L&T in FCP.

Canon has finally released the long-awaited firmware update for the much-loved 5d Mark II HDSLR camera, giving it the required video frame rates of 24 and 25 frames per second and better audio control. 5d shooters the world over are breathing a sigh of relief as their post-production workflow just got MUCH simpler as they no longer need to transcode from 30p video to 24p video.

Over in the Sony world, they also released their long-awaited firmware update for the EX1/EX3 Cinealta cameras to support the new, cheaper, SXS-1 cards and SD/MemoryStick adapter cards. Cheaper, longer recording times are now yours, EX owners. [Note: I performed the upgrade the other night and it went very smoothly]

The past few months have been focused on finishing editing the feature film project on which I shot and co-produced late last summer. TRIUMPH67 is shaping up to be a very good film, accomplished with a small budget and a huge amount of passion on all fronts. I've been so eager to get it done and release it to the world, to show you all what we created, but it has to be finished and polished to a certain level before outside eyes see it. Still, I can give you sneak peek at how some of it looks with this 1-minute raw scene of Mohannad arriving at his brother Sami's house. I'll probably post more here soon as we get ever closer to a finished film, but to really get all the latest news and updates, go to the main TRIUMPH67 film site and join the T67 email list and facebook fan page!