I’m asked for my equipment and workflow recommendations all the time. This is especially true on web forums. But the biggest problem is that my opinion on some things can change as quickly as the mountain weather. Half of this is from technological advancement while the other half is just from someone showing me a different way to do something. Production people can get very set in their ways. But with the speed of tech, we can’t become complacent. A few years ago I made a very long and detailed post at Creative Cow about an SDLT tape-based archive system I was using. I gushed about how awesome it was in both ROI and ease of use. But that was years ago, SDLT is dead, and that production company has moved onto another archive system. But I still get questions related to that post because readers assume that I still use that system everyday. Not true at all. I’ve also noticed on Creative Cow and other forums that some posters are adding the phrase “at this time” to the end of their posts. Looking back over my posts, that makes a lot of sense and I’m gonna have to start doing the same.
So I’m creating a feature on this blog called Current Recommendations. It will be a list of products, plug-ins, applications, workflows, etc, that I currently use and/or recommend. Every time I put a new post on this blog, I will go over the list again to make sure I still agree. There are a few things that you as the reader must understand first though. 1, I don’t have the time to test my particular recommendation against every conceivable option available. I will try to list the nearest competitor to my recommended product and give a reason why I like one over the other. 2, these are my opinions and you might not agree with me. For example, I’ll pick a lower res camera if it produces what I think is a better image. If you have a differing opinion, please let me know in the comments. 3, I am not paid by any companies and I receive no free product. I have to pay for this stuff just like you. Quite often I get access to new equipment and software through friends and colleagues though. So I’ll recommend things that I don’t actually own and use everyday. ie, I don’t own Cineflex but I recommend it to anyone that can afford one. So that brings me to 4, I will list my experience with the recommended product, whether I own it, have used it, or just had it recommended to me by a trusted producer.
I will be adding products and details, so check back often – the Current Recommendations page