I have bills.  A lot of bills.  I’ve had to once again, like most of us, look for a new job.  In the last few months I’ve had one vehicle destroyed in an accident, and another succumb to age and alternating applications of duct tape, bailing wire and sheer will to remain functioning.  I’ve come to the conclusion the “Service Engine Soon” light operates in the “Within the next year” time timezone.

My daughter needs dental work.  My back may need more than just a few hours laying down to repair itself, and we won’t get into how many times I’ve had to ask someone in the room to read a label because the last prescription for my glasses was written by Hippocrates, and I need to get a health care plan that’s actually useful.

I owe the IRS more money than I care to consider.  I am coming up on 47 and I have to wonder how many more years I have not until retirement but until I actually start saving for it.  In short… I’m an average American.  I have problems – but I’m struggling through them.  I don’t discuss them because frankly they read like a bad dramedy and I hate dramedies with the same passion I hate most films by Jim Carey.  (The man has a ton of talent.  It’s a shame his ego overshadows that talent… sometimes less is more Jim.  Sometimes less is more.)

I am however, like most Americans, thankful this year.

I am thankful that I’ve survived another year.  By hook, by crook and by the often unimaginable shifting fates of the universe… we made it here at the house of November.  I’m thankful that although my truck is demolished, my daughter was unscathed.  I’m thankful that the worst problem I have with her… is a cavity.  I’m thankful for my amazing son – who – has challenged his educational difficulties and reversed them to do things I’ll be honest… I didn’t think he could.  I’m thankful he and my daughter are my best friends – one could ask for no better. 

I’m thankful that my wife allowed me the patience needed to take on the OLPC project for Microsoft even though we knew it would make things tight for us financially.  (Yeah, I took a pay cut to work that one…. but we both believed in the goals.)  I’m incredibly thankful for the insanely talented friends and workers that I had the joy to share that project with… I’ve said it all too many times – but guys, we really shook the pillars of heaven on that.  You made the world a better place for 3 billion children.  :-)

I’m thankful that we’re having a thanksgiving – and that… I have a job when so many others out there are still looking. 

I’m thankful that like all storms – the debris from this last year will take time to clean up, but I have my family and cleaning is something we’ve always done together and enjoyed.

I give to you – my friends on line – this great wish… that no matter where you are, or what you are doing this thanksgiving you know that our thoughts and support are always with you here.

That I am thankful for all of you as well.

I just did a short bit on color correction in video in the previous blog, I demo’d a couple of different things you can do with the same clip to get different color corrections and other basic work with some filters that you can do quickly to get some cool effects with one very badly shot grainy clip.

Probably what I should have mentioned is … never delete your clips when you’re done.  Catalog them and save them.  Even the bad stuff can be often reused on other projects.

A good example is that grainy bad clip.   Since I had the time this morning while waiting on a phone call – I came up with a couple new effects for that same clip.  I saved them because I thought they might be useful.  Each time I do that I save myself some time.  I may not necessarilly use the clip again, but by adding tags to it in my catalog – the next time some one asks me if I can do a cosmic face effect – I can pull that up. 

Here’s the clip….

I’ve had a few emails about getting video to look right.  Shelly and a few others out there know I don’t have the best of cameras – I do almost everything on a old Sony DCR TRV280, which is just barely considered a digital camera.  So – why do my quickies look different than the stuff that Shelly’s getting with her brand spankin new HD camera?  Which isn’t to say her stuff isn’t good – she’s got a great eye, and chooses her shots wisely.  But it does bug you when your visuals aren’t 10 times better than a 8 year old $500 camcorder. 

I also generally don’t take more than 10 minutes to shoot a quickie clip and I also don’t use a lighting kit.  It’s a worst case scenario – but when Shelly and I compared footage recently – mine looked better.  So how did I do it?  Simple.  I retouch my video.  It’s something I’ve always had do to – and just assumed everyone did it these days.   It’s believe it or not the most common and best money maker for anyone who has a budding small video business like our friend Shelly.

With video blogs, video resumes and even local tv commercials for anyone who does video work it’s probably going to be your most common work even though it’s something that most people never think to charge for when they bid a video project.  Cleaning up bad camera skills will take up most of your time.

Whether it’s removing camera shake, or getting the colors back in a face, or removing an over exposure, or just (believe it or not) removing acne - - if people know you can do that, they’ll want it and you can charge for it.

Lets face it – people prefer to have colors that don’t make them look like they’re in a zombie movie… unless they’re in… a zombie movie.  In some cases, you may have people ask you to do that as well, but they’ll never ask if they don’t know that you can do it.  So you’ll need a good demo of color correction and adjustment techniques that you can do.  The practice of this kind of work on a variety of clips will help you get a good idea how how long it takes to do this work, and what you should be charging for it.  I’m not going to go into details on how to do color correction because it will depend on the software and the hardware you have. 

If you’ve got Ulead or some lower end semi-pro software the techniques will be completely different than say Adobe or Pinnacle or others.  So – do a bit of searching on the web for color correction for your software.  Keep in mind you’ll need to know that the colors you’re producing may be different so – practice, view the footage on different monitors, practice, practice.  The steps may seem similar but there’s nothing worse than a blog that tells you to use a $5,000 piece of software that you don’t have so I won’t do that to you.  But a bit of research and you’ll get what you need.  I’ve seen great tutorials on everything from Movie Maker to AE, and even some very high end stuff like Lyric and others.  All free – all very good.

A good example of this is that I did two versions of the demo for this blog – one in an un-named very expensive program I’m currently demoing to see if I want to buy it (I probably will) and another in the freebie Microsoft Movie Maker.  I know MM inside and out – took me 10 minutes and I had a clip ready to publish that the end result is the one you see in the link below.  The $5,000 program… spent 20 minutes, and the results were… less than satisfying because I really don’t know it well yet.  It decided to do a number of things for me I didn’t ask it to – and the footage quality from it is … well blurry, soft, and worse than the Movie Maker stuff or if I’d just rendered it directly from another program.  So – practice.  Learn, practice.  When you’re ready to use the big boy toys … use’em.  But never show off your stuff unless it’s of a quality you want people to see.

In some cases – it’s nothing more than just loading up the footage and adjusting some color curves to get the values right for the shot.  In others you’ll need to do some masking.  For example the color corrected shot above – the face is color corrected with one set of curves, the background received another.  Similarly in the day-for-night shot shown here I had to pull out the face and go with an almost pitch black.  (I might also want to add some shadows from a 3D layer … it depends on how far you want to take it.) You get the idea.

Each of these requires a different level of color correction and adjustment.  So – make sure who you’re doing this for knows that there is a big difference in price between the kind of work needed for a wedding and the kind of work needed for a network TV commercial shot.  That price is how hard you have to work to make it look good.  Never show someone a “miracle” shot that took you 40 hours of work, and allow them to think this is nothing more than clicking a few buttons… Miracles=expensive, basic band aids = cheap.

And if you’re looking a highly advanced techniques for color correction – you may be looking as spending as much time as you would to animate something in a full video composite. It’s a big part of your cost, and even if it is just your time when you’re running a business it’s something you have to be willing to cost out for – which we tend to forget when we’ve taken a hobby or something we enjoy and turn it into a business.

I recommend that you learn all you can about color correction, often the most subtle color corrections on a clip are the most difficult to pull off. There are a whole slew of things you need to consider – the main character of the shot will require a different lighting than anyone else (masking and overlay), the background may need to be softened or sharpened and color corrected as well (another set of masks and overlays as well as curves), will you be needed to track the masks in the shot using motion tracking – and do they need to have some shots that will be rotoscoped? 

Sure – you can make it look like a million bucks, and for a good customer, client or friend – it may well be worth it.  But most will not expect you to create a miracle shot.  Just a good simple clean image that looks nice, gives a good flesh tone and definition. 

And… It also helps if the person you’re shooting… doesn’t look like they haven’t slept since they got off a flight from Chicago two days ago because they’ve been doing all nighters writing a video camera application on the side for kids… but that’s another project, and will require I shave, eat, and maybe get some sleep.  :-)  Over all – your cheapest solution is of course to consider your lighting, take a white balance and shoot it so it doesn’t require correction if possible.

They History happened big time last night.  Not that a black man was elected president.  Not that one side, or the other of the political spectrum won or lost.  This election was not about a changing of ideals.  This election was about America, and Americans proclaiming that we are tired.  We are weary and we have lost much.  We have, by some accounts of our own people, lost our way.  We have, by some accounts of our own people, lost our integrity, our strength, our direction in the world and our role as the world leader.  This race, was not won by a candidate, or a political party, or a group.  It was won by the American people, and it was won by the world.

To understand this, you have to realize that the American people voted not for an Obama or a McCain, for a conservative or a liberal, but because the number one overwhelming issue to them was their jobs and their livelihoods.  For many people, this month will not be a happy one.  Statistics show that we have had more bankruptcies these last few months than in all of 2007.  More businesses, more people, out of work.  More home foreclosures, more evictions, than in decades.  We as a nation, are falling down, and there is no one to call to help us up.  For many of us, we’ve worked all our lives to make something better and we tried, and tried but it was clear that finishing the race to something better was beyond us.  We fell. We fell down running.  Tired and exhausted.  

It is easy, all too easy, to look at yourself when you’ve fallen down after a long and exhausting run and not get up.  To lay there breathing hard and aching and accept that you cannot go on.  To say, “I did my best, it wasn’t good enough.” and to give up.  To lie down and rest and accept the defeat that is to come.  To accept that your glory days are over and you’re not the kid you once were and someone else, some other nation can take the lead for a change.  Someone else can be the nation that has the jobs and has the future that you once did. 

That’s fine I guess if winning isn’t that important to you.  If your race is well, just a race.  Except when we fell, we weren’t alone.  We fell and this was not a race to a finish line this was a race for survival.  For every home owner, for every person without a job, for every person on this planet who depended on us to be strong to carry the lead to maybe not win the race but to just even make it to the finish line, this was a race for survival. 

In the last few weeks, the world has waited.  It saw us tumble and fall and in shock and awe it watched.  Would America get up?  Would her people give up?  Would they lie down?  Was it time for America to toss in the towel?

The world, has relied on us as a people, as a country, as a nation since before our founding fathers created us as a nation.  For exports and imports and goods and services.  When wars were fought, it was always America that could be counted on.  When there was injustice, or the need for compassion and generosity – America was there.  They may not say it – many may even bear us some anger for being that way.  But they know it.  America has always been the track star, the kid in school everyone wanted to be.  Rich, successful, popular. 

The funny thing about kids like that is almost always they have another story.  A hardship, sometimes it’s money problems at home.  Sometimes it’s a stereotypical drunken father or abusive relative.  Sometimes its their own greedy or self important nature, pushing what they think on someone else because they’re bigger or stronger or they can.   Sometimes they just aren’t that bright.  We all know this.  We all know that is who the popular kid is sometimes.  But when he’s out there running – he’s running with your colors.  He’s running for you and you may not like him, but you still want him to win the race.  Because if he wins on some level you win.  His successes, are sometimes tied to your own.

So the world watched, and the world watched us fall.  And instead of getting up… we laid there.  We laid there exhausted, and old and tired and without a breath left in us to run.  And in the stands – people didn’t know what to say.  People could only think one thing.  “Get up.”.  Get up and run!  Please do not let this be over.  Please do not quit.  Please… get up.

They said, “You can still do this.  It’s not over.”.

But when your house is gone, your job is gone, you have no money to pay the bills and the kids – your kids who never did anything to anyone are the ones suffering… look up at you and you have nothing to tell them… giving up looks good.   And someplace inside us there is a voice when we look into those eyes that says, “There has to be another way.  This can’t be it. It can’t be over.”.  And the world, with baited breath hoarse from yelling on the sidelines yells, “Please Get Up!  We need you.”.  And our children and our grandchildren call out to us and they say, “Get up!”.

We find it someplace inside us to look for another way.  To pull out from somewhere something inside us.  Something primal that goes beyond exhaustion, that goes beyond what we feel but what we know must be done, and we stagger, and we get up. 

Last night was about not winning an election.  Not winning a race.  Not a black man becoming president or a young man with young ideas becoming president – but about the American people once again rising.  Once again standing on our feet and saying, “The race is hard, and I am tired, but it is not over.”.   Last night was about the American people once again rising for each other, for the world, and saying, “We are not done.  This is not over.  We are America, and we never give up.”. 

History will record that this was the year the US economy almost brought down the world.  It will also record that this is the year the American people decided that they needed to get up.  Get together.  Fix our economy.  Fix the worlds economy.  Fix the mess that is this planet.  History will record this is the day not that we won a race, but the day we, as a people got up together as one to win the most important race. 

The race to save ourselves, and the world.