Final Cut Pro and Quicktime 7.3 issues

A lot of people have been experiencing issues with the latest QuickTime version. The most common issue seems to be captures stopping after 10 minutes or so, leaving behind a ridiculously large file. Other people are finding incompatibilities in third party applications that use QuickTime.

The issue seems to stem from the fact that Software Update recommends the update because it is compatible with your operating system BUT it is not compatible with less-than-current versions of Final Cut Pro. So if you have version 4 or 5, you're out of luck, and it appears to be these users that are experiencing the issues.

What a lot of people don't realize is that Final Cut Pro depends heavily on QuickTime and so any QT updates will directly affect FCP. QuickTime is not just a "feature" of the operating system. It is also worth noting that the latest version of Final Cut, 6.0.2, requires QuickTime 7.3 and will not run well without it.

This is why you should never update a machine in the middle of a production. If you are not in the middle of a production, you should wait to see if other users have issues before installing the update. It is also best to have a cloned version of your hard disk so that you can get up and running again as quickly as possible. For the latter, I would recommend Carbon Copy Cloner.

I made a post the other day about downgrading from FCP 6.0.2 to 6.0.1.

Sahara budget revealed

The LA Times has managed to obtain details of the budget for the movie Sahara. If you don't remember, Sahara was an action-adventure movie that came out in 2005, starring Matthew McConaughey and Penelope Cruz. It lost $105 million at the box office and is regarded as one of the biggest flops in Hollywood's history.

The production costs came to $160 million but the producers managed to save a lot of money by shooting abroad. Some of their Moroccan crew were paid the same amount for a week's work as their US counterparts would be paid for a day. They were also given tax breaks and financial incentives by foreign governments.

But some of the other costs were shocking. They spent $105,556 on bottled water in Morocco alone. How many bottles does it take to spend that amount of money? I did a Google product search and found a site offering 24 bottles for $7.13, equaling about $0.30 per bottle. So, at that price you would need at least 355,307 bottles of water! The actual amount would probably be much higher because they would most likely buy wholesale in bulk, which would cost even less per bottle. Remember that this is only in Morocco and doesn't include any water costs in any of the other locations. Crazy.

Even this was a small cost compared to some of the other things in the budget. The strangest thing is that the "usual suspects" - special effects, post production, actors' wages - were the smallest items on the balance sheet. The main problem was that they would shoot complex sequences costing millions of dollars that ended up being cut from the final movie. The film also suffered because the high production costs meant that creative control became a secondary consideration in scenes with product placement.

A very interesting read. I'd recommend checking it out sooner rather than later, as Paramount are very angry that the budget was leaked and it may end up being taken down.

Harry Potter HD DVD contains "Community Screening" feature

High-Def Digest has an article about a new feature on the Order of the Phoenix HD DVD (not the Blu-ray version).

Live Community Screening allows you to play the movie at the same time as other people with the disc and talk to them about it via the text-based chat room.

One user starts the session and invites the other viewers to it. This user can control playback (play, pause, etc); no-one else can. It is unclear at this stage how you invite other people - presumably they must register with a central database.

I think this is an experiment more than anything else, which is why Warner released it without much fanfare. Voice-based interaction might make it more viable but it's simply more enjoyable to watch a movie with other people in the room.

However, with that said, it might be useful for people who are separated by long distances.

ProLost: The Film Industry is Broken

Stu Maschwitz has a great post over at ProLost about the need for a universal color grading format for sharing data between applications. Kind of like an EDL for color.

He makes a great point and it would be a great asset to the industry but sometimes standardization isn't good. What if the worst package on the market is the one creating the standard, locking out the advantages of its competitors? And with a rigid standard in place, how much room will there be for future innovation?

I don't think any one company should set a standard. It should be the result of a consortium of all the companies (or at least the largest ones) or else an independent third party.

Maybe a standard format isn't the way to go, but Stu is right in saying that something is needed.