Today I am talking to a guy that nearly confessed to being a makeup guy, you know lipstick and blusher and all that, but did confess to being a geek. Unfortunately his wife is not a Mac person yet but he is working on her, I tell him to get out the thumbscrews. His son aged five though is a computer user with a laptop of his own.

David does have an iMac 20 inch model and is a recent switcher. He got drawn into the Mac world with iPods and moved into it with a white Macbook, he has moved on to a later model MacBook though. He is a firm believer in AppleCare. I have not had AppleCare on any of my Macs but he has got his moneys’ worth out of it.

We talk about Boxee and Plex, I don’t use those because I can’t get the best out of it because I live in Spain. I just wish I could use the BBC iPlayer, I may have to get something that will hide my IP address.

I talk about getting a satellite box from Elgato which will allow me to save things to watch later. He has a Sanyo Xacti video camcorder and loves using iMovie to make professional looking DVDs for the family.

He has his own podcast and is on episode 14 at the moment. He said the latest was going to be about Christmas presents for the Geek in your life.

David confesses to being an inbox zero type and also to having been outside the Milton Keynes Apple Store at 4am in the morning to get an iPhone. He uses Tweetie two and uses Brizzly which is a web based twitter client. There was a Twitter client in the latest MacHeist, Twitterific

Hooray I finally got my hands on Final Cut Express, Only took 2 weeks to get here from Birmingham to Spain. There is a chance that it was in the post office here for a few days because I didn’t get the note to say it was in the post office to collect. Often the post person is completely useless putting the post in the wrong box. Some of the house owners don’t check their post for months because they don’t live here – they live in Holland or Germany. Then when they do check and find a letter or whatever that is not theirs, they just dump it rather than put in the right box

Grrrr !!

Ah well I have it now just because I called to correos and asked if they had anything for me, or it would have probably sat there for a few more days or weeks. I still am happy to have saved 70 euro by buying off the Apple Store site in the UK rather than getting from the Apple Store Spain.

As soon as I had installed FinalCut Express I had to download a 180 mb  to update it to the latest. I will talk more about how it is going in a blog post and podcast.

Clive has an interesting approach to writing, particularly with his choice of tools to do the job. He told me he use Excel to start with to outline the characters, moving on to using scrivener and then on to Final Draft, which is the industry standard for presenting the movie when makng the film. Final Draft gives the timings for the movie apparently.

The Filmutopia company website, where people can see clips from Clives’ movies and there is also a Filmutopia blog, The blog is published with a new post every Sunday morning – European time, which I then discuss with readers on twitter.

Here’s a little bit of blurb about about Filmutopia :

Clive Davies-Frayne is a screenwriter and producer, whose company Filmutopia Ltd develops and produces feature films for cinema. So far, Clive has written and directed half a dozen short films, including one which won a UK Royal Television Society award.. and also two feature films. The first “Punx,” never completed due to funding issues… the second “No Place” was made in HD with a $750,000 budget was completed in 2005, but has spent the last four years mired in distribution issues…

Filmutopia was founded after “No Place” was completed, when Clive decided to walk away from his previous production company and a nine year business partnership, in order to change dramatically the way his movies were made, in particular the business strategies adopted. Clive admits “Everything I ever learned about how to make movies, I learned by first getting it completely wrong”

Filmutopia’s latest movie project, “Smoke” is a comedy and is currently in the development phase… the projected budget, €6M.

“After making movies the indie way for years and seeing little in return for my efforts, I decided to look at different way to make, finance, market and distribute movies. My passions are movies and the movie business… I don’t see the two as contradictions. All I want to do is entertain people and make a profit in the process.”

Please Leave a comment on this post about the Podcast

The Filmutopia company website, where people can see clips from my movies and Clive has a Filmutopia blog, The blog is  published with a new post every Sunday morning  – European time, which I then discuss with readers on twitter.

Here’s a little bit of blurb about about Filmutopia :

Clive Davies-Frayne is a screenwriter and producer, whose company Filmutopia Ltd develops and produces feature films for cinema. So far, Clive has written and directed half a dozen short films, including one which won a UK Royal Television Society award.. and also two feature films. The first “Punx,” never completed due to funding issues… the second “No Place” was made in HD with a $750,000 budget was completed in 2005, but has spent the last four years mired in distribution issues…

Filmutopia was founded after “No Place” was completed, when Clive decided to walk away from his previous production company and a nine year business partnership, in order to change dramatically the way his movies were made, in particular the business strategies adopted. Clive admits “Everything I ever learned about how to make movies, I learned by first getting it completely wrong”

Filmutopia’s latest movie project, “Smoke” is a comedy and is currently in the development phase… the projected budget, €6M.

“After making movies the indie way for years and seeing little in return for my efforts, I decided to look at different way to make, finance, market and distribute movies. My passions are movies and the movie business… I don’t see the two as contradictions. All I want to do is entertain people and make a profit in the process.”

Please Leave a comment on this post about the Podcast

The Filmutopia company website, where people can see clips from my movies and Clive has a Filmutopia blog, The blog is published with a new post every Sunday morning – European time, which I then discuss with readers on twitter.

Here’s a little bit of blurb about about Filmutopia :

Clive Davies-Frayne is a screenwriter and producer, whose company Filmutopia Ltd develops and produces feature films for cinema. So far, Clive has written and directed half a dozen short films, including one which won a UK Royal Television Society award.. and also two feature films. The first “Punx,” never completed due to funding issues… the second “No Place” was made in HD with a $750,000 budget was completed in 2005, but has spent the last four years mired in distribution issues…

Filmutopia was founded after “No Place” was completed, when Clive decided to walk away from his previous production company and a nine year business partnership, in order to change dramatically the way his movies were made, in particular the business strategies adopted. Clive admits “Everything I ever learned about how to make movies, I learned by first getting it completely wrong”

Filmutopia’s latest movie project, “Smoke” is a comedy and is currently in the development phase… the projected budget, €6M.

“After making movies the indie way for years and seeing little in return for my efforts, I decided to look at different way to make, finance, market and distribute movies. My passions are movies and the movie business… I don’t see the two as contradictions. All I want to do is entertain people and make a profit in the process.”

Krystal and Peter are film makers in the North West of England and they also run Cinematopia a small film festival. Here is what they say about Cinematopia.

They organise CINEMATOPIA which is Preston’s only regular MOVIE NIGHT hosted by the Mad Ferret and Kitsch Monkey Productions Krystal is the Kitsch Monkey.

They Screen a weird and wonderful, themed programme of short film, music video, animation and digital media and topped off with a cult feature film, this is surely the most relaxing way to enjoy a beer or two – and it’s FREE! Be scintillated! Be dazzled! Be amazed!

That’s is what you get for having your movie nights in a pub, the films are the free bit and the beer you probably have to pay for.

Seems that is it a great idea to be making films and showing films too. Keep the interest up for film in general and it has to be good for meeting other people interested in film and movies.

Peter is the tech guy of the team and uses Final Cut Pro to edit their movies. He teaches film and sound design to bring in extra cash, for making their movies. It is getting difficult for all film makers to get financing for making movies. I even saw a report that stated that Hollywood will be making a third less movies

LivingProofFilm

Always good to talk to the next generation of filmmaker, musician, writer, artist and see some good things on the horizon. Very pleased to get talking a a guy with bucket loads of enthusiasm for making statement in film and video. Dale O’Keefee is just out of University and is keen to get using his talents with LivingProofFilms.

He got himself a camera with the student loan and he reckons it has given him more fun than the alternative for the student funds i.e. parties and drinking. Sorry students, I am just kidding, honest. He prefers the Canon cameras and would like to move up to a HD camera when funds permit.

Dale likes to work with a loose script and just get out there and film things. he says it seems to work for him. Due to being a only just released into the wild ex student and therefore skint. Ah the joys of student loans, and the having to pay the money back. Dale uses Celtx the software for screenwriting that is free and very capable too. I have tried it out myself, why pay for Final Draft when Celtx does it all.

Dale talks to me about how he sees his fledgling film production business going and we talk the usual mix hardware, software and creativity with a dash of how he will try to make a name for himself and some money on the back of that.

Click here to view the embedded video.

He uses family members to act in his movies and has to keep the costs of the filming to a bare minimum. We all have to start somewhere and as many film makers have told me the important thing is to have a good story and the content will be found by the public that are there to be entertained and amused by us creative types. You can catch some of Dales work on YouTube and definitely have a look at the ones where he has his dad acting for him.

Click here to view the embedded video.

In the ramble part of the podcast I talk about the Power to the Pixel conference that was taking place in London today and had some very interesting speakers. I watched three of the talks and the talk by BRIAN NEWMAN, Consultant and Former President, Tribeca Film Institute was –

HOW TO BE ‘BETTER THAN FREE’
The Internet is a super-distribution machine that allows copies of digital media to flow in an almost frictionless way. As the wealth and survival of traditional media businesses are built on selling precious copies, the free flow of free copies is undermining the established order. If reproductions of media are free, how can we keep on financing films and how can we find value in the media we create and sell?

He had some good examples of how some people have made money by giving away content for free. The idea of Connecting with your Audience – and then giving them a Reason to Buy, I thought was an excellent way to think about how to move forward in the age of digital content.

My Podcast Alley feed! {pca-fd5959d7f7c6bd9bea6f3deca25e83bd}

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Got talking to Damian who is a developer and uses his MacBook Pro for work. 24 inch monitor connected either when at work or when at home. Seems to be working for much of the time and has not had chance to get to play with the MacBook and have fun with iLife.

He is from South Shields on Tyneside near to Newcastle in the UK. I have been to that area recently and it is a great place to live. My brother has been  living there for quite a few years and shows no signs of leaving either.

Damian told me about EventBox and it looks quite interesting but I am able to get to more social networks through Ping.FM which I don’t have to pay for.

Have a look at the ScreenFlow page because that is the software I use to make screencasts. Excellent software for capturing and editing video. I think it is the best screen capture software I have tried. I have used iShowU and another one can’t remember the name of but ScreenFlow is the best by a long way.

I have been trying to work out how to join some .mov files together using Automator. Manually I select what is in the 2nd file and past at the end of file one. the do the same with subsequent files. Got to be a way to automate the process.

I did get an AppleScript from DavidBCohen which sort of did the job but made too many tracks. With four files I got 8 tracks and that led to more work and inefficiency. In the mean time I found a few resources for learning AppleScript and Automator. Here is a page with some Automator and AppleScript information.

Click on the image to hear the podcast

Really pleased to get Don on the show. So many interviewees are recommending him and his Screencasts online and also I met him in the flesh as it were last September at Podcamp Barcelona. Don did a session at the Podcamp and I certainly found it interesting as he talked about the monetisation of his Podcast and how he was able to give up the day job. Now he has a job in which he works harder, probably but when you are doing something you want to do it is often not like work at all.

Don produces Screencasts showing how to use many of the Mac Applications and does a great job of it too. Steps by step guides to using an application in real world situations.

Don gets out and about as part of his Screencastsonline with MacMania tours, he is going to China later this year. He also gets to Macworld events in places like San Francisco. Obviously he is doing well with the service that he provides so that he can afford his Apple hardware and gadget addiction. As a member you get a brand new tutorial every week and extra member only shows. If you want to try it out then you can have a look at the free shows he makes available to the non members. Its a try before you buy thing, which is always good. The membership details you can find about about here. While you are on the Screencasts online site have a look at the free screencasts too. I was just watching one about how to geo tag your photos for iLife09. Excellent stuff !

Don has nearly 200 screencasts available and the good thing is that when you pay your six month membership you get access to all of the back issues too. That makes the deal to be great value.

Here is a list of the equipment that Don uses

Computer Equipment
ScreenCapture, Editing and Encoding – Apple MacPro (2 x 2.8 Ghz Quad-Core Intel Xeon with 10GB RAM)
Sonnet Tempo SATA E4P Card
Shuttle Pro 2

Storage
Internal – 4 x 500GB (2 x RAID 1 Partitions)
External – 2 x Fusion D500P with Multiplier Support (each with 5 x 750GB in RAID 0 config)
Various Firewire external drives

Audio Equipment
Heil PR-30 Microphone
dbx-266XL – Limiter/Compressor

Mackie Onyx 1220 Mixer
Edirol UA-1ex USB Interface

Software
Capture and Assembly Edit – Vara ScreenFlow
Final Edit – Final Cut Studio
Titling and Effects – Motion 3
Encoding – Compressor

As you can see Don has some good kit there. Maybe I will be able to get a MacPro one of the days with a pile of memory and hard disk thrown inside. You can find out about his work flow for making the screencasts on the blog he runs My Own Reality

Don is on a few other podcasts as a guest, including Mac Break Weekly with Leo Laporte and Andy Inatko. Mac Round table

Don also mentioned Mercury Mover, iBank. Logitech MX Revolution Mouse, Drobo, Jungle Disk, Plex, Boxee, The Automated home Podcast and Delicious Monster Podcast