After many iterations of this blog, I’ve come to realize I’m not a very avid blogger. I will, however, use the WordPress platform to host my website with links to work, etc. I thought I would get that done at the end of last year, but now it’s 4 months later and I still haven’t finished designing it. It’s hard to work on my website and reel when paid work is coming in anyway…
After much anticipation, infatuation and hours of intensive use…I’ve had it with Virb. It’s just not happening over there. This just goes to show that there is much more than snazzy looks that will make a product work. I’ve championed it’s cause, marketed it to friends and gave those ungrateful engineers hours of free QA logging bugs. I originally intended on having this hate constructive post list why Virb will eventually die a slow death, but an exhaustive list is literally impossible. There is just too much broken with their service. Here are a few off the top of my head: blogging feature is horrid, code is frequently broken, search results direct you to broken links, information is not displayed intuitively (i.e., blogs are broken up into 2 parts, an excerpt on the main page and the rest within the blog link), Virb banner on top, as well as huge Virb real estate on bottom, video compression is crap (and there is nobody to ask for upload specs), slow development, zero support, no user forums, no sense of community…!
Believe it or not, there is much more wrong with Virb than this short list. I should have never doubted the WordPress gods. Looking back, I guess I was taking a short gamble and lost out. It’s true they have a great, clean interface that’s design-savvy, but that’s about it. The real left-hook in all this was Facebook. Who could foresee this fledgling service taking off so dramatically?? Even I have become a total Facebook addict in a big way (I message more through FB than regular email now). But as a traditional blogging platform and simple website, WP is the law.
I recant all belief I had with Virb and return whole-heartedly to WordPress (sounds very cult-like).
Now, where’s the Kool-aid?
d
So it turns out that fxguide/fxphd guru, Jeff Heusser, is also a vfx compositer at Hydraulx. Jeff Heusser is one of the foremost authorities on the subject and I’ve been a huge fan of Hydraulx since discovering they did the vfx for Torque (Joseph Kahn actually told me this 2 weekends ago, and I immediately ordered the DVD via Amazon). I don’t know why Heusser would openly list his email address on the forums, but I decided to drop him a line anyway:
“I’m a huge fan of Hydraulx and was wondering which compositing package is used primarily there, Shake or Nuke? Thought I would ask the master before registering at fxphd…”
His response 5 minutes later:
“100% Flame/Flint and Inferno at Hydraulx. We have like 20 seats (and wired slots for rentals too!) plus 36 burn nodes.”
Jeff
So Hydraulx is 100% f/f/i. Who knew? That kind of dashes my hopes of working there since I’m not familiar with any of those packages and just jumping onto Shake. Autodesk is weird about their apps too. They continue devloping both Maya and Studio Max side-by-side, and have recently released Toxik, seemingly competing with their existing finishing platforms. I’ve never been a fan of Autodesk because they seem to operate more corporate than artistic. They believe in the “keep the user pool down and prices up” mantra.
Anyways, Hydraulx is still one of my favorite vfx companies and Jeff Heusser was friendly enough to write me back. Hats off to both of you.
d
http://www.hydraulx.com
This is a late post, but I wanted to mention briefly how invaluable Robert McKee’s Story Seminar was 2 weekends ago: http://mckeestory.com. By glancing at his site you can see the wealth of knowledge and experience this man possesses. The seminar was a grueling 9am-8pm Fri-Sun, with a one hour lunch and sporadic 15 minute breaks. But even with that, time was limited and the content seemed to spill over every moment. Robert McKee is a straight shooter, no bullshit. The course was so packed full of material, my newly purchased spiral bound notebook couldn’t house the flood of information that came out of his mouth. He used the f-word twice in every sentence, added a plethora of his own liberal commentary and spoke not just about screenwriting, but about real life. Some people didn’t like the tough guy mantra, but his endorsements come second to none: http://mckeestory.com/endorsements.html.
The course was so inspiring, I’ve already planned on going to his second seminar called the Genre Weekend, which takes place January in Las Vegas. And of course, I’ve dusted off (opened an old folder on my desktop rather) and revisited many old story treatments left compiling in my mind (and hard drive). So I’m back at trying to rework and reimagine some of my treatments, hoping to finish my first script by next summer. If all goes well, you heard it here first…
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I guess I’ve jumped on the Virb beta-bandwagon a bit too early. I’ve almost forgotten that beta actually meant something, even if Gmail will forever have the beta subtitle attached to it’s logo (most kids think that “Gmail Beta” is the actual name of the service). But here is a frightfully true beta version of Virb — there are so many bugs I feel like I’m doing QA again, but for free. I really do hope the folks at Virb appreciate all the bugs we beta-testers are painfully logging, as we are reminded that this service is far from perfect.
I’m the type of person that researches something, makes an informed decision about a service, and then is a complete die hard fan wishing the competition away. So I’m sticking with my decision to go with Virb for my main platform of choice, but the service is far from “launch worthy”. For example, I spent nearly 4 hours uploading a video only to have Virb redirect me to my log-in screen after completion. And guess what…no sign of my vid. My external blog posts via WordPress are also not feeding as smoothly as I would like. Blogging within Virb is just horrid, everything should just look and run like WP. Finally, there is no official Virb forum. Users are left to their own demise as they scour the web and bother other users for answers. Of course there are pockets of Virb-savvy users with helpful information out there, but it makes sense to have an official Virb forum where, perhaps, staff can even chime in on questions (the Virb.com faq is a joke and the official blog is too thin).
Here’s to making Virb beta better…! (say that 10 times fast)
d
I should have known that by returning to the blogosphere, I would have to endure the sudden addictive tendencies associated with “social networking” (if that’s what they even call it anymore). I like to call it a “digital identity”, or even an “alter ego” of sorts. Even my closest friends don’t know that for years, I had been one of the faithful addicts, scouring the web to add my pithy commentary to weblogs, forums, surveys, and the like. I used several aliases, mostly for privacy, but maybe more because of cowardice. It wasn’t a false identity, it was just that part of me that existed only online, between the hours of 11pm and 4am. Suffice it to say, it was mostly useless, wasted time.
As far as false identities go, most of these young folks online are projecting a false self. These fanciful superstars, living vicariously through the worst popularity contest technology can muster; 1,036 “friends” with an endless string of pictures, posters, ads and alcohol — it reeks of identity crisis. This was one of the reasons for my sudden departure, not that my return means anything.
So why now the sudden resurgence of what seems to be shameless self-promotion through an entropic web empire?? And no more aliases? The last few days, in-between packing, I’ve relapsed into the dark dungeon of the web 2.0 space. I now have accounts with Virb, Facebook, WordPress, YouTube, Del.icio.us and Flickr! “My name is Dennis Shin…and I’m a webaholic.”
I’ve been following this mashable junk for quite some time, but never had a compelling enough reason to jump back in. Now that I am going through a huge transition in my life, moving from San Francisco to Los Angeles, ending my 8 year tenure as a Youth Pastor, going full steam ahead into the volatile world of film and broadcast!…well, let’s just say I’ve had a digital relapse and am pretending that all this will somehow be helpful to me in the end.
Truth be told, this is a good time for me to take an honest look at who and where I am. Plus, what better way for me to keep connected after I move. Thus, the return of my growing digital footprint on the web.
So what is numa.lab? I’m still trying to figure that out myself. For now, I just wanted to see if I could use my WordPress account to publish content to my Virb blog. Wow, what a post. From the looks of it, this will be a very interesting experiment…
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