This year, the flu was hardcore.  I was out for a full 7 days, and still a little wobbly.  I happen to get the flu on the tail end of my yearly bronchitis, so my struggling immune system was wiped out.

Lying in bed, there was nothing I wanted to do more than sleep.  And stop coughing.  I still had to make meetings, still had deadlines.  I took all kinds of over the counter remedies - TheraFlu, Nyquil, Tylenol, etc.  I was in total discomfort, achey and miserable.

All that medication did squat but knock me out for a few hours at a time.  The symptoms were mildly alleviated, but left me with a heavy, drugged up feeling.  I was restless, anxious, drowsy and sore.

The natural remedies - oil of oregano, using a neti pot, eating lots of veggies and drinking lots of water - those things made more of a difference than all the chemicals I had been pumping into my system for days.  Baths with epsom salt and eucalyptus oil were soothing and comforting.

Each year, I am more aware that the natural remedies do so much more for me than the chemicals in modern medicine.  Oil of oregano is a natural antibiotic, with lots of topical and internal uses.  The neti pot cleans out my sinuses more effectively than sinus sprays.

I’m keeping it as natural as I can these days.

Peace,
Melissa

Gratitude 12 2 2007 - M. Ulto

Grateful…

I am grateful
Grated, crushed, reborn
Full of light, love, purpose
Struggle has polished me
Not diamond hard but
Soft like old jeans
Sweet smelling and lovely
Deep as down
Lightly substantial
Loosely connected
To all things, I’m understood

I am peaceful
Though storms tore me
Lies rend me still
Hate has been bile
Expelled by the Universe’s hand
Thumping my back
Each whack a lesson
Each cough a crime undone
Each tear forgiving forever
Wings brushed my wet brow
And blessed me whole

I am abundant
With dreams and visions
Comrades and friends
Who remind me when silence falls
That I am never alone
Money has no hold
Give me a mansion
And I will fill it with orphans
Give me a diamond
And I will sell it back
To fund truth and beauty

I am free!
I can sing, I can speak, I can dance
I can say things many want unsaid
I can feast on fruit
And wheat bread
And be sated by the blessing
Of my love, my art, my soul
Of course I’m crazy to many
Who cling to old things
And strive for old ways
And choke on words not their own

I am
I am the I am
I be, I see, I live, I love
Nothing holds me
For it all belongs
Sometimes for moment
All time for eternity
And in between
There is the music of voices rising
Eyes opening wide
And this world alive in me anew

Peace,
Melissa

I love my Macs - seriously - no other tool besides my camera gear has allowed me to express my art so fully. And now, proof again that Macs are truly badass.

Have you ever had an officemate that borders on, oh, I dunno, psycho? Lucky for me I was saddled with one this past summer, and she, in a selfish and ridiculous move, ended up crashing not one but 10 of my hard drives. Over a terrabyte of data inaccessible. To say I was inconsolable for the few hours after fully realizing the situation goes without saying. I did consider homicide but I’m too peaceful a person, (I really just wanted to sock her a good one in the eye, for the idiot factor alone). I had backed up data on redundant drives, but she took the whole drive farm down, in one fell swoop.

So cut to trying to save the drives - nothing worked. No application made it better, and quotes for data retrieval were well outside of my budget. I sorta shut down creatively, or at least became cautious. I moved my office home, and I worked on what I could. I tried to make peace with the content that was gone, and notified clients of their lost data (oooh that one really hurt and cost me a bundle). I considered suing, but the silly person who did this isn’t worth much, and what’s the point, really, but to stay angry? That’s not me. I’m all speed ahead, even if I’m wounded. And this loss truly wounded me, as a sole proprietor and an artist.

Cut to a week ago, some more research and I happen upon two programs - an updated version of Disk Warrior and Data Rescue II. I snag them from Digital Society, and held on them for a few days, not really wanting to be disappointed all over again. I had a sense at the back of my brain not to give up completely, but take a break from the trauma of data loss, and then try again when the dust settled.

This morning, I’m sitting at my desk, procrastinating again, and eye the two applications to the side of my monitors. I see the box of drives across the room, with a portable 80 gig drive I named Brigid sticking out of the top, under LaCies labeled Minerva, Sappho and Artemis (all my drives are named after goddesses). I snatch it up and drop in the Disk Warrior CD. I run the rebuild on Brigid and there it is, fixed, mounted and ready to rock.

I dropped to my knees and thanked the goddesses of data!!!! And the manufacturers of Disk Warrior.

I load another drive in - Disk Warrior takes care of it. Another - boom - done. Another - ah yes - I definitely want to celebrate tonight. Another - technology is so hot when it works. Another - ooops - not loading. Not fixable. Data Rescue II sees some of the data and I can snag it. Oh yah…I’m feeling REALLY GOOD about my projects and my data.

So the moral of the story is sometimes data takes a nap, but if you find the right tool, you can wake it up again. Also, patience…not something I’m particularly good at…but damn, if it doesn’t always work out for the best!

Peace and Smiles!
Melissa

I burn DVDs regularly from projects built in FCP, and have been doing this since the first version of FCP. DVD Studio Pro has its issues, but they are workable - the DVDs I build for clients - art installations, documentary rough cut reviews, screeners and video wallpaper - require the best out of the MPEG 2 codec. A recent project for an installation of 4 concurrently running DVDs had me testing codecs and encoders to get the best image from text and stills. Granted, the designers are print designers, and forgot the basics about images and text on video - keep it a fat font, keep on whole numbers for the x/y plane, keep it above 24 points, make sure its not WHITE white, use a keyline if you can, or deal with the faded edges versus jagged, pixelated ones. So I had work with InDesign Interchange documents, export as high res print PDF, import back into CS3’s Photoshop, exported several ways - high res JPEG, high res PNG, and finally, (what worked the best) Quicktime MOV files, using the animation codec setting.

(deep breath…slug back a coffee…sigh deeply, and…)

I then imported the files into FCP6, set the sequence codec to match (animation), and viola - tiny text that is readable when projected on a huge screen. At least according to my NTSC monitor. (more…)

By Fotofrog on Flickr

I’ve started dating again. My last relationship fizzled in and out, off and on, for a few years. Whether it was convenience or fear, I kept going back to the Well. He was a mighty fine Well, but our hearts are pointing in different directions. So recently, we decided to stop seeing each other, but we still remain great friends and do work together from time to time.

So…so…so…I tested the waters. Still full of bizarre sucker fish and bull sharks. Against my better judgment, and a past history that clearly showed online dating is a losing proposition, I went on a couple of dates with different men. My mother told me never date actors, lawyers, musicians or politicians. I went out with both a musician and a lawyer, in one week. Hahaha…tragic, both dates. At least I can laugh. (more…)

Check out the notes from last week’s H20 panel on Filmmaking Methods. (Thanks to Alex Golliner for posting these!)

Peace,
Melissa

The biggest pitfall of any filmmaker I’ve ever worked with is hubris - the arrogance to believe your production is untouchable, not that important to be bothered with or invisible in regards to licensing content.

A friend of mine has a cat, Pepe. When he’s feeling particularly playful or frisky, he climbs into an open top box my friend has placed in the living room. Pepe climbs in and peers over the edge of the box, his green eyes glinting wickedly. He swipes at the ankles of passers-by, takes furtive catnaps and rigorously cleans himself in this box. He believes he is hidden in the urban home shrubbery of boxes and newspapers. He always gets quite a shock when he’s lifted, unceremoniously, out of the box. That’s the “Pepe In The Box” complex, and a lot of filmmakers suffer from it.

I’m going to make this 1000% clear, so anyone reading this entry will have a clear understanding of licensed content. IT IS NOT LEGAL TO STEAL OR BORROW OR USE CONTENT WITHOUT EXPRESS WRITTEN PERMISSION AND OFTEN A LICENSING FEE. Period. It’s not about if you’ll get caught or not (you will), if you can afford it or not (I’ll show you ways you can below), or if you think your usage is outside of the law (its not, trust me). Content is king and content comes with laws. Lots of them.

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B-roll is secondary footage, used to help illustrate the story in a visual manner. B-roll consists of scenic footage, extreme close-ups of objects or faces, action pans and still images animated in post. We all, in production, love b-roll.

However, there is an issue with excessive b-roll, especially shot on location. If you have a production that needs to be turned around rather quickly, shooting a lot of b-roll can take up tape space, battery life, capture time and hard drive space. A filmmaker must balance the need for images with real time production scheduling. (more…)

I love what I do - writing, directing, editing, producing, design, shooting video and photography. All of it is related to how I approach filmmaking, and the methods and practices of my craft that I’ve picked up along the way. I’ve been doing this for years now, so I’ve learned, by observation or experience, what works and what doesn’t.

I’m really good at what I do, but I’m only as good as the people I’m working with. So I’m going to share my methods here, as a guideline to how I work. Perhaps I’ll help someone in their struggle to create, perhaps I’ll find out a better method to one of my Macguyver work-arounds.

Today, I’m going to specifically write about what a good editor expects of their director before starting the editing process. Lots of people out there know how to use the software, (Final Cut Pro, Avid, Pinnacle, Premiere, iMovie, etc), but they don’t know how to structure the process, the workflow or the storymaking aspects of editing. Before software, editing was a pain-staking process, that required a lot of forethought and consideration. Planning was crucial and on-going.

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Multo.com now has a photography and image portfolio on Dreamstime.com.  Stock photography and computer generated images available for as low as $1 per image.

Check out the portfolio here.

Peace,
Melissa

The most beautiful experience we can have is the mysterious - the fundamental emotion which stands at the cradle of true art and true science.
Albert Einstein

I have been working with an exceptional woman for many months now. Her name - CC Treadway, Healer & Artist.

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This is my most favorite book ever. Winter’s Tale by Mark Helprin.

Its a love story to the city. I’ve always been in love with New York but this book pushed me into full on true adoration. New York in all its disarray and glorious chaos, its history, its ascent as the center of the cultural universe, its cogs and gears and juicy under belly. Gangs and newspapers, love and hate, and above all, the glory that rises out of the city and pushes each of us city lovers to scrabble up on the white horse of possibility.

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I am a creature of the night - work late and travel all over the city in search of the basics…

Here’s my 24/7 resource list:

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