Film Gimp

gosand writes "DesktopLinux.com is running this story about Film Gimp. It is a movie editor based on The Gimp that movie studios have been developing for their own use for a while now. The article is an interview with Robin Rowe about Film Gimp's use, and includes some interesting info about the film industry's use of GNU/Linux desktops. One quote worth noting: 'Studios have become the leading desktop users of Linux. Three hundred Linux desktops at Dreamworks. That's amazing! While the MPAA is campaigning for new restrictions on content, the artists at the studios are using and helping create open source. Having Linux and open source as a crucial part of studio operations may help executives rethink their corporate position on open source and Linux issues.'"

Comments

Momma always said...

[Cap'n Canuck]

Editing films is like a box of chocolates....
- Forrest Gimp.

why I already hate filmgimp

[carpe_noctem]

...because it helped to generate that atrocious looking dog in the scooby-doo movie. ;)

Re:why I already hate filmgimp

[tmark]

because it helped to generate that atrocious looking dog in the scooby-doo movie. ;)

How long before RMS starts agitating to have the movie retitled "GNU/Scooby-Doo" ?

Open Source Pioneers? Or $$$ Saving?

[TibbonZero]

the artists at the studios are using and helping create open source
It seems to be implying that the studios are doing it out of love, but methinks that they are finding that it's cheaper, and more flexable (their programmers can get their hands on all the code)...
Not that this is a bad thing, just that it's not because they hate MSFT...

Re:Open Source Pioneers? Or $$$ Saving?

[maxwells_deamon]

If they get hooked on open source and start to require it, then we have a 5th column inside to fight any banning of open source by Palladium. Digital editing machines should be the fastest available. They will always want to run on the fastest hardware.

Also it gives a platform inside the media companies which needs to run non-trusted. This means they will have the same headaches as the rest of us when it comes to moving data in and out of the trusted areas.

Finally, if someone needs to leak a Halloween type of document they have a much better chance of being able to do so.

Re:Open Source Pioneers? Or $$$ Saving?

[airrage]

You are absolutely correct. Their product is movies, and so, they want computer power to be a commodity product, not something they have to pay a high-gross margin on (thus making more in the long-run).

If you look around there shop I bet you would find a) low-cost, low-power workstations clustered together b) distributed computing c) generic hardware d) open-source software where possible e) in-house custom software.

Look at it this way: most people get paid daily (whether they know it or not), but some people choose to drive to work in a Lexus, while others, a Maxima. Does the Maxima driver do it for a love of Maxima's, or because it puts more money in his pocket at the end of the day?

Just because it's Monday and your car won't start doesn't mean that somehow the day of the week is related to your car not starting.

By the way, I thought we hate the movie industry here, and now we laud them for use of open-source?

I'm out.

Re:Open Source Pioneers? Or $$$ Saving?

[cjpez]

By the way, I thought we hate the movie industry here, and now we laud them for use of open-source?

Heaven forbid some of us have more complicated opinions than "x sucks" or "y is awesome." And heaven forbid different people who read Slashdot have differing opinions.

Change their minds?

[mla_anderson]

Having Linux and open source as a crucial part of studio operations may help executives rethink their corporate position on open source and Linux issues

Not likely. They're in the movie business to make money, anything their customers use for free is a threat, anything they use for free is more money.

Re:Change their minds?

[sg_oneill]

Fortunately they aint seeing it that way. Even Pixar gives away some verrrry cool stuff.

Not politically correct..

[grub]

FilmGimp? Can they not change the name to something more politically correct? ie:


- FilmChallenged
- FilmSpecial
- FilmJerrysKids
- FilmTheres"Abilitity"In"Disability"
- FilmDroolingTard

Hmm.. no, on second thought "FilmDroolingTard" is out.

You don't suppose the "viral" GPL plays here

[plover]

Wouldn't that be amusing if someone misconstrued the GPL to mean "free movie tickets if FilmGimp were used?"

Of course, Scooby Doo would have been overpriced at "free", but that's completely beside the point.

Not a film person, but...

[Lemmy Caution]

Is it strictly correct to call this a movie editor, or should it be called a frame editor or something, since it's not for true editing or compositing (like Avid), but for frame-by-frame clean-up?

Not just better playback

[UberLame]

Film gimp adds lots of support for superior playback. However, the biggest and most importanted different is that it uses 16 bits per channel instead of only 8 like the regular gimp. That means that instead of roughly 16 million colors, you get 16 million squared colors. This adds much less chance of rounding errors on compositing, and gives you more room to play with when adjusting brightness and color balance over 8 bit images.

The downside is that film gimp is based on an old version of the gimp, and it doesn't really look like that is going to change soon. But at least they are talking about syncing up a bit before 2.0 whereas before they seemed to be planning on waiting for the Gimp 2.0.

The trouble is...

[pmbuko]

There's a difference between movie production studios and other companies/corporations. Studios are extremely "tool-driven" in that the timeliness and quality of their production is extremely dependent upon the quality and flexibility of their tools.

The average corporation, on the other hand, is not as dependent on an extremely flexible desktop computer. All you need is a compter that runs an office suite, and they've already got that in Microsoft.

So the thought that studios might be setting an example for other corporations is a longshot indeed.

Free Film Project

[iamdrscience]

Does anybody know if this uses anything from GNU's Free Film Project?

I haven't really heard much about the project myself and so I haven't looked, but from what I read on GNU's info page about it it seems pretty interesting. Also the GNU Octal stuff seems interesting, what about that, every decent film editor has at least rudimentary sound manipulation utilities.

If they're not, can anybody give reasons why? Projects like those and GYVE (GNU Yellow Vector Editor) are things that confirm my faith in GNU and RMS in my times of doubt.

Open source gives studios a headache

[Crayola]

Yes, the larger animation studios are using open source/Linux, mainly because SGI is having problems and the cost/benefit on an SGI IRIX box is really slipping. You'd think that they'd love the idea of "free" software, but it really drives them up the wall. When you're working on a multi-million dollar project, the last thing you want is legal liablity because some Joe stuck some patented or copywritten code into the module you use on the movie. With proprietary code, the guy selling the software takes the legal heat for mistakes like that. With open source, you're on your own.

Not to say that it's all bad for the studios or open source. The place I work for shelled out money for an open source developer to finish some of his development work on a program they wanted to use. Cheaper than buying a commercial package, and everyone benefitted.

But the biggest reasons the studios go for Linux is the cheaper/faster hardware (despite all sorts of compatibility headaches -- getting reliable 24 frame per second playback for 1k images is a little touchy) plus reduced porting costs for their legacy IRIX software and avoiding the whole Microsoft headache. The sysadmins really don't want to go there, and the studio doesn't really want to start springing for license packs for a few hundred users and a few hundred renderfarm machines.

Re:Open source gives studios a headache

[Chops]

When you're working on a multi-million dollar project, the last thing you want is legal liablity because some Joe stuck some patented or copywritten code into the module you use on the movie. With proprietary code, the guy selling the software takes the legal heat for mistakes like that. With open source, you're on your own.

Curious. By what logic would the end-user of a Free product be liable for such a situation?

And what's special about that?

[Ektanoor]

Some good years ago I read an interview from some M$ developer in one serious journal (PC Magazine? Byte? I don't remember) where is showed pride that Windows95 had some piece of code that was taken from some free source. It seems it was something related to those irritating "lemedoitfoyou" wizards that populated Windows since then. Moreover, Windows has some features that were directly taken from X interface.

That's one example taken out of the *NIX world. On *NIX world we have tons of examples on how certain "purities" dissolve in the mass of needs and wishes of its users.

The fact that Warner Bros uses GPL is nothing extraordinary. And, frankly, it has nothing to do with their stances for protecting ownership. The problem of content, information sharing going beyond software is something to be dealt with extreme care. A film, book or other media content is not a product of software exclusively. And the means to share it should be completely different. In our software world, we still may play a barter between programs and things related to them. In the other spheres of activity, like films and books, the author is usually offering something that cannot be retributed in the same way. I am not a writer and I cannot offer a book for every book someone offers me.

Anyway, the restrictive politics that MPAA and its cousins play, surely hurt everyone. They are creating a feud out of certain media and they are seriously hindering the chances for people to have a right for information (entertainment is also a form of information) in these environments. Considering this highly restrictive stance and their use of free software tools is surely a paradox. But it does not mean they should free something. Anyway, their money helps a little our world, right? But they should be more democratic and flexible in what relates to the media they work with. Because if they will keep this stance, the consequences will backfire at them. For example, they may produce new fresh laws that will hinder developers from making cheap software they highly depend on...

Am I missing something?

[Kieckerjan]

While the MPAA is campaigning for new restrictions on content, the artists at the studios are using and helping create open source.

This is highly suggestive. AFAIK Open Source does not equate to being against anti-piracy measures. I am not trying to defend the MPAA here. I am only saying that these are two different things, and mixing them up is bad polics.

Re:Dumb Question.

[Anonvmous Coward]

"If a conventional monitor can't display the colors at that depth then how does the film editor know exactly what will end up on film after printing?"

I think you're looking at it the wrong way. It's not about what's displayed on the screen, it's about having enough color information to prevent color banding when doing things like brightness and contrast adjustments. The color banding is a result of rounding errors that stair-step the color values when adjusted too heavily. 16-bit images have a greater degree of accuracy, so rounding errors are reduced, as is the resulting color banding.

The end result is dithered down to 24-bits, but anything can look good at 24-bits. It's not a problem until you need to tighten in on information. It's kind of like resizing an image from 320 by 240 to 640 by 480. The image looks great at 320, but there are artifcacts to blowing it up to 640. If there was subpixel information in the original image, then the expansion to 640 would go a lot smoother. Try to imagine that in the color space.

*hoping I expressed that in a way that makes sense*