Orson Welles Over Europe

Here's a treat from the BBC. The documentary, Orson Welles Over Europe, is hosted by Welles biographer, Simon Callow.





On a disappointing note, Warner Brothers recently announced the "Ultimate Collector's" blu-ray release of Citizen Kane to commemorate the film's 70th anniversary. More appropriately it should be called the "Ultimate Sucker's Edition".

Apparently the studio execs haven't yet discovered that DVD releases of classic films demand equally interesting and compelling extras. (For instance check out The Searchers - ironically also a Warner Brothers release.) The decision to include two silly films, RKO 281 and American Experience: The Battle Over Citizen Kane is profoundly stupid.

Who do they think their market is anyway? There are a variety of other much more enlightening works that could have been included. For instance, the BBC documentary The Complete Citizen Kane is far more interesting and actually factual - wow.

Maybe Warner Brothers can contract with Criterion for the 75th anniversary release. (Although to cut Warner's some slack, The Magnificent Ambersons is also included and nice to know that this film is finally available on DVD - albeit the surviving RKO butchered version. Of course, that film deserves its own release.)

New Video Shows What's New In Premiere Pro 5.5

Pointing to work from Adobe Technical Support Lead, Todd Koptiva on the latest developments in Premiere Pro is becoming a habit.

Here's the link to a 55 minute video - What’s New and Changed in Adobe Premiere Pro CS5.5




This free video is hosted by software tutorial site, Video2Brain.com.

Doc Editing Book - Now FREE!

That's right.

Karen Everett of New Doc Editing published an eBook a while back on documentary editing, Documentary Editing. Here's my review.



Now that book is free to download. Check it out.

While you're at it, please look at the services offered by New Doc Editing. Karen offers an array of services to documentary filmmakers. She's a supportive teacher and a gifted story consultant.

proDAD Vitascene Pro Tutorial

Here's a quick tutorial from Jan Ozer at EventDV.

I've used proDAD Vitascene LE for a couple of months now and am satisfied for the most part. It's a handy software plug-n to apply quick, contemporary-looking video transitions or effects.

One word of warning though. Registering the software was a nightmare. It took ten days AFTER I paid for the product to get the company to send the correct info to get the plugin properly registered.

I'm understand the need to thwart software theft, but paying customers shouldn't suffer delays and inconvenience as a result. Anyway I hope my experience with proDAD wasn't the norm.