Rebel Update

Good news abounds!

Amazon now says The Guide "Usually ships within 3 to 6 weeks," which is code for "Hey, it finally occured to us to order some copies of this book that we've been accepting preorders on for over half a year." My insiders say that they should actually be shipping all preorders in about two weeks.

Amazon customers, please post a comment when and if you get a message from Amazon indicating that the March ship dates were a big, hateful lie, designed to cause strife and keep you from making a movie.

Some enterprising Amazon Marketplace sellers have some copies for sale, some of which are available now. Check out "More Buying Choices" on the Amazon product page.

Barnes & Noble show that they ship The Guide within 24 hours. Rock on, BN.

And of course Peachpit is still happy to sell it to you online or at Macworld next week.

SciTech Awards Announced

Scientific and Technical Achievements to Be Honored with Academy Awards

Of note:

To Florian Kainz for the design and engineering of OpenEXR, a software package implementing 16-bit, floating-point, high dynamic range image files.

To Peter Litwinowicz and Pierre Jasmin for the design and development of the RE: Vision Effects family of software tools for optical flow-based image manipulation.

Congrats Florian, Pete, Pierre, and the rest of the winners!

A few little-known facts about the Nerd Oscars:

  • You don't get nominated. You apply! But you can win without applying, because if your application is investigated, so will be any similar technologies.
  • The Academy announces which technologies it is investigating, so that if you have a similar one you can submit it for consideration.
  • As you can see, the awards are announced well in advance of Oscar night.
  • The awards are handed out in a seperate ceremony that is briefly referenced in the Oscar broadcast, usually when you are in the kitchen getting snacks.

 

Premiere Pro Back to Mac

Adobe Production Studio To Be Available for Both Mac and Windows

Yay!

I've been a Final Cut user since its first release, and it's great. But when I got my MacBook Pro I decided to quit cold turkey and learn Premiere Pro, for the simple reason that its integration with After Effects stands to create some kind of Voltron-like super robot of editing and effects capability. I haven't been sorry—and now I'll be able to enjoy the Production Studio goodness Macside.

I'm filing this under The Guide because a seamless path between NLE and AE is a big part of the workflow. FCP users will either require Automatic Duck or some serious time on their hands (I've done both myself).

Way to go Adobe. Welcome back where you belong Premiere!

Rebel Status

  • First an apology, to everyone who pre-ordered and to readers of this blog. This is my first book, and what I know about the publishing world could fit under my DVX100's lens cap.
  • Specifically, what I failed to understand is the difference between the date the book ships from the printer to Peachpit's warehouse, and the date that a place like Amazon starts shipping a book.
  • I'm not alone in this misunderstanding, as Amazon themselves had been posting an availability date that was a handful of days after the book shipped from the printer.
  • Peachpit has been in touch with Amazon, and although there's more info yet to come, the one thing I can say is that the March ship dates are most assuredly bogus. Amazon has ordered the book (just now, aparently), and it is on its way to them. Give them a few days to futz them around in their warehouses and then they'll be on their way to you.
  • As I myself need to be reminded from time to time, Amazon is not the entire world of books. You can order The Guide now from Peachpit (where it is, unfortunately, more expensive) and it will ship within 24 hours. There are also some folks selling The Guide on eBay.
  • You might consider ordering the book from your local bookstore. This will give you mad karma points and will help spread the word about the book. The DV Rebel after you who walks in and buys a copy off the shelf will have you to thank.
  • I feel bad about all this confusion, and I'm going to figure out a way to try to make it up to you guys!