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Top 7 in the Reel Dreams Film Festival in Virginia Beach. Directed by Beecher Reuning.
Director of Photography / Audio Mixing / Additional Visual Effects by Andrew Wolfe
I learn something new everyday and the most common lesson for me is that the seemingly complicated is often the most simple to understand. Now that I’m officially a part of Lee University’s Video Production Center, I get to assist in digital production and event presentations every week, which is great since I always enjoy not only producing the content but presenting it to an audience as well.
Three 10'x7' screens creating a "stage."
This fall, the Helen DeVos College of Education at Lee University underwent a re-accreditation by the National Council for Accreditation of Teacher Education or NCATE. Our job was to produce an ~5-6 minute piece explaining the purpose and goals of the college to present to guests from the council at their reception event on a Sunday evening. The reception was held in a large room called the Great Room in the university’s newest building, the Science and Math Complex. This room has three great arches that together span the length of the room. Within each arch we placed a 10′x7′ rear projection screen, creating a “stage” and “backstage” separation from the reception floor. Each screen was powered by a 15K lumen projector… well, two were 15K and one was 12K.
One of the seemingly complicated features of our presentation called for an animated logo to fly in together on each of the three screens in sync. Our plan was to have a static logo on screens 1 and 3 while the main video played on screen 2. Near the end of the video, logos (on 1 and 3) would begin fading out gently and by the very end of the video, all three screens would display the same logo animating in sync.
There are several ways to do this right but with limited resources, you might do something like this:
Jonathan Douglas and Andrew Wolfe prepare the master send.
Three MacBook Pros, one for each screen, each running ProPresenter. Our 17-inch MacBook Pro powered screen 2 and the primary display for our video while two 15-inch MacBook Pros powered screens 1 and 3. Each MacBook Pro disaplyed a video of 6min and 17secs in length, but only video on screen 2 had any real content. The video displayed on screens 1 and 3 was an exact copy of the still PNG displayed before the event even started. When the time came to cue the video, Jonathan Douglas (@jonathandouglas) and I (@KevinAWolfe) fired all three MacBook Pro’s foreground cues at once. For screens 1 and 3, the static PNG logo faded seamlessly to a video with the exact same static logo at the IN point. To the viewer, the content of screens 1 and 3 never changed.
For the duration of the video I called out current time for screen 2 and snapped my fingers as each second ticked away. Jonathan adjusted the current time position for the video on screens 1 and 3 to match the current time of screen 2 (master). When he felt that they were in sync with screen two, we reversed roles, allowing him to call out his time on each screen and allowing me to verify that they were in sync. The result was a static logo on screens 1 and 3 which faded out automatically on cue and animated back in at the appropriate time.
It was a nice touch to a presentation that was already beautiful and a “simple” method to achieve something that would otherwise look complicated.
Images by Shashank Shrestha.
I have long wondered when Lee University would finally be able to tout an iPhone app in it’s name, and that day is apparently not today. LeeU’s IT team is great but to get little niceties like an iPhone app through the door takes way too much time on top of an already busy load of day to day support. The fact that this app, MOX, ties directly (I’m assuming) with internal data management systems from Datatel is probably the only reason we have anything at all. So, how’s the experience?
I say, it’s a decent first step, but please don’t stop here.
Let’s take a look, shall we?
It’s called MOX or Datatel MOX™, powered by DUB. You can get it right here.
On first launch you’ll get a list of available schools like Marietta College, Nipissing University, Lee University, and others. Upon selecting your school, you get a nice little modal pop up asking if you’re sure you’ve selected the right one. What am I, five?
The app from then on will launch to a collection of icons that lead to information about Lee University, assuming you are absolutely sure that’s what you chose. These icons lead to school news, events, contact information for various offices and departments, campus maps, and two confusing areas called My Card and Friends (more on that later).
For Lee, the News pseudo-app is mostly a collection of sports and general campus news, all presumably pulled from the news feeds on the main website. In fact, tapping on a news item displays the associated article on the LeeU website in a UIWebView, not in a nicely formatted, mobile friendly way iPhone users are accustomed to. The table of news articles is also extremely long, pulling news posts sometimes up to 70 days ago. I don’t know if I would consider this “news” anymore. Thankfully, you can collapse any news category to limit the number of table cells shown. For example, if you don’t care about the 300 sports posts, you can collapse them so you’re only left with news of general interest. Though, I would love to see some Lee Clarion integration.
The Events pseudo-app for Lee shows events from the All-Inclusive Calendar on Portico. This view only shows to a limited point in the future, which normally would be a good thing. However, as of today, the farthest away event I can see is on September 5. If you wanted to use this app to see the date of the last day of class after a long first day, forget it. Though not as bad as the News section, Events can suffer from that overload syndrome. Put basically, if you don’t care to see all the sporting events: prepare to scroll. Unfortunately, most of the events do not have any description or location information, just a time and date. You are given the option to share an event with someone via email, if you are so inclined. One minor thing about the share via email feature: it automatically sets the subject line to “MOX event: ” plus the title of the event. Who’s gonna know what an MOX event is? Good grief.
Oh, now, this is actually useful. Really useful. Here you can get a nice listing of all the major (and minor) departments on campus and their contact info. Even the Video Production Center is listed, cool. Here’s where it starts getting a bit sticky though. There is a convenient search field at the top of the table, but to use it you must sacrifice the “convenient” part. Example search term: production. Returned results: NO RESULTS. Wah? What about the Video Production center? Try searching for “video” instead and, boom, there it is. Do you see the issue here? If you don’t search for the first word in the department name you’re looking for, you probably won’t find it. That’s too bad and may even confuse some users. Nevertheless, I’m so glad I don’t have to head to http://directory.leeuniversity.edu/ just to find a number.
Maps are arguably one of the most important and useful features a school’s app can have for new students. If you’re unfamiliar with a campus, it can be quite confusing at first. An app with a great campus map can solve this freshman woe. Maps in MOX for Lee suffers from the same issue, however, as Important #’s. Search for a term like “recreation” and get no results. Search for “devos” and get the result “DeVos Recreation Center.” Again, this is really unacceptable and confusing to users. New students aren’t necessarily going to realize that it is the DeVos Recreation Center, all they care about is the “recreation” part. That being said, the built-in Google Map with custom push-pin locations is really great. Select a building; get a great photo of the building close up. (+1 nice touch points) There’s a small icon at the top right of the maps screen that leads to a blank table view. Odd.
It’s hard to really describe what this is or what it’s supposed to do, since I can’t get it to accept my sign up form. (-1 nice touch points) The service is called DUB (*sigh*) and according to the learn more link it’s:
DUB provides you the ability to: Exchange Contact Info from your Mobile Phone Contact info is saved directly to your mobile address book. Receive Automatic Address Book Updates If any of your friends update their contact info, DUB automatically updates your mobile address book. Back up your Contacts Securely Install this Powered by DUB app on a new phone and your mobile address book with all your friends returns. View all your friends, add new ones and update your info online at www.dubmenow.comOkay. This isn’t something I’m really interested in. Of course, that doesn’t mean other people could find a use for it. Frankly, having this app fool around with my cleanly maintained contact information is the last thing I want. I imagine that this feature will go unused by most students. It’s a silly feature that probably provides little for the headache I know it will become.
In Info you can find some basic app and school entity info. There are a few buttons to email, call, or visit Help Desk, Lee’s IT Support Team.
Head to iPhone’s Settings app to reset some parameters if this app ever jumps stupid on you. If it does, send Help Desk an email so they know what issue you’re having.
A couple of disclaimers, I’m not sure if Lee University IT was completely ready for normal users to start playing around with the app, but it is public and live now so that’s good enough for me. I’m fully aware that many of the issues I’ve mentioned here aren’t necessarily Lee University Information Technology’s fault since the application itself is developed by DubMeNow, Inc. That doesn’t excuse something like event descriptions being completely missing, though. It’s disappointing that Lee students currently are not able to view course and general directory information like shown in the app’s “Datatel University” screen shots. The screen shots on the App Store also show a small notification bar at the bottom (a la Facebook’s iPhone app). I’m not sure what type of notifications these can be, but it would be nice if the LeeU Alert system for emergencies could send Push Notifications to devices with the app installed.
I hinted early in this post about the single biggest problem I see in this app: visibility. This is not a Lee University app for Lee University or by Lee University. It’s not discoverable. You can’t say to yourself, “Hey, I wonder if my new school has an app” and go get it. Search for Lee University on the App Store; you won’t find what you’re looking for. You have to really be in the know and be willing to jump through hoops for a small convenience. No one will do it and that’s sad because it will slow progress.
I’m used to being on the cutting edge so I expect more but I’m also trying to be realistic. In the end I know that there are technical limitations to what can be done, but let’s be honest: they aren’t completely there yet. I think the whole project has potential and can become something really useful. Now if they can just figure out how to get it into the hands of students.
Click here to download the app for iPhone, iPod touch, or iPad.
Click here to visit the Lee University website.
This is the kind of production I love being a part of. Media by churches and for God. This youth member, Caitlin, performed a dance at an event called WOWBSAR at Shirley Hills Baptist Church in Warner Robins, GA. Since I’ve been in Warner Robins this whole summer, I’ve had the opportunity to help in some of their events. The WOWBSAR event needed a video testimony to be shown right before her performance on one night of the event. Since I still don’t have a video camera of my own, I was able to use the church’s single Canon XH-A1 1080i camcorder. I’ve never been a big fan of Canon camcorders, preferring a Sony or Panasonic in this price range, but the Canon XH-A1 I really enjoyed using. Audio controls are a bit different but that’s not a big deal. The quality impressed me for it’s size, and though it has a bit of heft to it, I found it very easy to manage.
The closing title was designed from scratch in Motion 4, part of Apple’s Final Cut Studio. I’m still a newcomer to Motion but I really like the ease of use so far.
I’m really pleased with how this video came out and so is Shirley Hills Baptist Church. I can’t wait to help them and other churches more in the future!
FaceTime with @timt97
In a 180º turn from my last post about the new, Apple device iPhone 4, I’d like to highlight one of the most groundbreaking features that I’ve had the extreme pleasure of using twice already.
Video calling has long been available for free to the public. It’s taken many different forms and been a part of countless different services globally. Skype (which I believe is owned by Ebay) is by far the biggest and most popular way to video chat or “call” someone. Now Apple has created a system that could become *the* way video calling over phones interact. FaceTime is being released as an open standard that other companies can (and hopefully will) adopt in their own devices. The mere ease of use should be a big attraction for companies.
It goes like this: make a call, hit a button, chat face to face.
Of course there are two big stops with the service currently:
1. It’s only iPhone 4 to iPhone 4.
2. It’s only over WiFi.
Both of these should change in the near future and I really hope they do. If companies and networks can suck up their pride for a bit and at least try to adopt, we may have a future way of communication that is far more common than it is today.
Last night our family had some friends over where we could try the FaceTime feature for the first time. Today I was able to call Tim Townsend (@timt97), a sales guy at Comcast Spotlight who I used to work with making local ads in Mississippi when I was working part-time with Video Services & Photography (@vdophoto). The quality was impressive and the whole event was a bit surreal. It was far easier and more enjoyable than any Skype chat I’d ever had. The only thing that went awry was that Tim’s FaceTime feature wasn’t enabled by default in the Setting app. Once that was corrected, everything went swimmingly!
To me, this is an exciting time in the communication industry. I cannot wait for more people to adopt this amazing tech.
