The Oddities of Copyrights

I understand the need for copyrights, patents, and trademarks, but as is often the case, the reality of the law becomes such a complex system that a few take advantage of the key words and rules, while others find their options limited.

One great example is how often the rights to art, particularly music, is held by an individual other than those that created the art. I remember hearing how the Beatles did not/do not own the rights to their music, Michael Jackson bought the rights.

A few bands decided to sell their music solely through web based downloads, and not involve a large company, and because they did that the band members made more money than their cut of sales when dealing with said large companies.

There have been a few film and TV companies in the past who have stated "We would rather people download our content then never see it at all. We hope that if you watch our content and decide you like it, you will support us by purchasing a copy, and thus enabling us to continue to produce more."

There are some who try to make a profit selling copyrighted materials, but there are also many people who would not have sufficient funds to purchase all the media they download. Under those circumstances the companies are not losing money at all.

The situation reminds me of prohibition. People have been told it is illegal, but too many want "it" anyway, so they do "it", and only the most active 10% or so are actually prosecuted.

Help can be a limitation

While I was creating the How to Article on the site, I found myself frustrated by their "help". Like iMovie, and various others, the program or site tries to help you by filtering the formatting process through questions and "scaffolding" intended for those that need them. However, some programs offer an "advanced" version, where the user can tell the program exactly what they want, or tell the program "I will format the content myself and give it to you ready to go".
In most cases we need the scaffolding at first, but later on it becomes a hindrance. We learn the terms and tools involved in the particular format, and it is faster and more accurate for us to deal with a more advanced and direct interface.
Unfortunately, having that "advanced" option is not universal.

Final Cut Animation

This week has been great. I am really enjoying EDT 521, and 532, but 521 is very refreshing at the moment. Don't get me wrong, there have been many times where I learned a great deal because I was told to "do a task" using only one program, i.e. Keynote, Photoshop, or Dreamweaver, but it has been very invigorating to be given a task, i.e. create an animation, and one aspect of the creativity is that we all choose whichever tools we think will work best.

I made the layers and content in Photoshop, but then animated them in Final Cut. This was important because Final Cut specifically assigns values for position, opacity, etc. When you try to animate position, Final Cut recognizes what you are trying to do. Photoshop has no way of understanding what has changed from frame 1 to frame 2, so it just cuts or fades from frame to frame.

It all goes back to tools. A person animating by hand would have to hand create frame after frame. A person using Photoshop could copy the original frame and then modify it to create their next frame, but in Final Cut all you do is tell FC where you want to start, and where you want to finish, and it does the rest.
That seems to be the name of the game when it comes to digital media. If you know the right program, you can tell the computer what you want, and it does the rest.
The only limitation is that most computers incrementally change the value so that each frame is an equal portion of the total animated change, which may not be what you want.

Then again, I know of a few programs that include a feature sometimes called "random seed", where the animation values are randomized within a specific range of the original value. But, no matter how much work the machines do for us, they still need a creative mind to guide them and decide what to do.

Happy Easter

This week was pretty good. Nice weather, productive meetings with my partner for EDT 521. I also met with a potential client, someone who wants to hire me to help her make some exercise demonstration videos for physical therapy.
I must admit, I have my doubts about the merits of Comic Life.
I'm sure it has its uses, and its target audience, but I don't think anyone is going to pay me to use my skills in Comic Life, and I personally would teach students how to use a program like Photoshop before turning to something like Comic Life.
Photoshop is so much more free and open, with much broader applications.

First Post

Welcome to my blog.
Not much to report really. I watched a writer's panel from a film festival on lynda.com, continued to plug away at the website lynda.com courses, etc.
I'm looking forward to completing the website courses, then I can get back to DVD Menu design.