nyc.locationscout.us

I recently purchased a BlackBerry Pearl 8130 (”Pearl” would seem to denote the small pearl-like trackball located on the face of the device used for navigation) (photos).

Regarding the purchase of the BlackBerry itself, it’s not like I needed to throw more moolah at yet another gadget for my kit, but the offer was too good to refuse:

What initially inspired me to consider going with a BlackBerry or other smartphone was an experience I had last winter location scouting with the producer I was working with at the time, we were driving around Brooklyn and Queens, visiting some location candidates we had both already researched in our offices but still needing other options; this particular producer was the proud owner of an Apple IPhone, so, as we drove, carefully concentrating on vehicular traffic as is reccommended in conditions likely to be encountered somewhere like New York City, she was able to use a combination of features included in her IPhone i.e. GPS, high-speed internet access / Google Search / Google Maps and of course, the phone itself to make appointment requests or other calls as needed.

As I drove, she would search on Google and Google Maps for the business category listings (we happenned to be looking for auto parts stores and flower shops at the time…) and local business listings which would typically include the business name / address / phone number; then, using that info and Google Maps we could drive directly there. If we got lost or turned around - GPS to the rescue!

I estimate location scouting this way saved us at least a day in research *not* driving around “aimlessly” as might have been required using “old-school” location research and location scouting methods. Yellow Pages? what are Yellow Pages?

Oh, yeah - the IPhone also contained an IPod which we were able to play thru my truck’s stereo, which was nice - I have my own IPod but it was on the blink at the time - subsequently it was replaced by Apple (for free as it turned out it was defective…

In any case, it was at that point I decided to start looking at acquiring a smartphone - the IPhone was really nice, with its large display screen, Apple ingenuity and features - but it also cost about $500 at the time plus + / - $100 for the service each month, so I would have been looking at the (arguably steep) *cost of the IPhone at that time and the additional cost of the additional service to my existing Verizon cellphone service of about the same amount (the IPhone service is only available thru AT&T Wireless or cancelling Verizon contract (which would include a stiff penalty of several hundred dollars…), so… I started looking at the BlackBerry - which has a splendid reputation of its own and in fact was “the” pioneer in smartphone technology.

*In case you have been living in a cave lately, Apple recently announced the IPhone G3 at a much reduced cost for the equipment. Reportedly, the service is more expensive, so over time you end up paying more? …but then again maybe that’s easier for people to whom it matters - spreading out the expense of maybe a little more each month but over a long period and without having had to plop down a lot to get onboard …and inconsequential for still others?

I am very pleased with my BlackBerry! There are LOTS of mobile applications available due to BlackBerry’s popularity, including many…

**My Location is NOT GPS - its positioning technology relies on cell towers to determine your position - generally, for the purpose of getting “un-lost” I find it quite adequate - and it is FREE - GPS service thru Verizon is a separate, paid service ($9.99 / month I think…), but I have my own separate GPS unit I can use if I need to provide exact coordinates of a location.

Verizon’s unlimited personal Blackberry email / web data service that I subscribe to is $29.99 in addition to my regular voice plan, (its corporate plan, which is required if you work for a company that uses BlackBerry’s Enterprise Server is $44.99 / month. The extra $30 / month is a little stiff to a penny-pincher like me, but it is unlimited internet / email and several factors make it a wash. What follows are considerations you may want to make for yourself:

A while back I ditched my landline phone and ported the number to my Verizon Wireless service. The additional line costs me $9.99 per month as opposed to the $40-$50 / month I was paying for the landline - hey, the new line even included a free cel phone
Note: the possible down-sides to relying solely on cellular telephony are:

Umm, oh, yeah, the BlackBerry is also a camera phone, but I personally have never been crazy about the image quality of camera phone photos - I much prefer my trusty, rusty Leica D-Lux3

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• Mobilicio.us
  Mobilicio.us
  (tags: mobile del.icio.us bookmarks)
• Gmail: What’s been keeping the Gmail team busy
  Gmail: What’s been keeping the Gmail team busy
  (tags: gmail google email)
• rrhobbs on SnapFoo.com - Mobile Photo Blog
  rrhobbs on SnapFoo.com - Mobile Photo Blog
  (tags: photos mobile snapfoo)
• Eye-Fi »
  Eye-Fi
  (tags: photography wifi wireless photo memory storage)
• NASA - Phoenix Images
  NASA - Phoenix Images
  (tags: nasa mars phoenix astronomy science)
• NASA - Home
  NASA - Home
  (tags: nasa Space science astronomy Technology News)
• Derrie-Air - Pack Less. Weigh Less. Pay Less.
  Derrie-Air - Pack Less. Weigh Less. Pay Less.
  (tags: airlines humor)
• Mobog photo sharing community
  Mobog photo sharing community
  (tags: mobile photography blogs photos)

In case you didnt know, the Long Island International Film Expo is coming up this weekend… I received an email from director Marty Stano, whose short film Moon Cake I reviewed in an earlier post alerting me that his film had been chosen for inclusion in the Expo. Atta boy, Marty, go get ‘em!

The Long Island International Film Expo | July 11 - 19, 2007

Links

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WheresSpot

“WheresSpot.com is The Internet Community for Prisoners of Advertising. Using email and the Web, it connects an enormous gang of talented people to one another.”

…read more…

In addition to its website presence, WhereSpot used to be a free Yahoo Group discussion list*, with somewhere in the neighborhood of 8,000 members at one time. Sometime around May 2007, Wheresspot moved its discussions off Yahoo Groups on-site to its self-hosted website, having added many other features to the self-hosted site such as a member map, resource directories, classifieds and blog and became a paid-subscription portal. (visit WhereSpot if you are interested in joining as a paid member)

WheresSpot Website Menu (you must be a paid subscriber and logged in to access all features)

*(IF you were a member of the old Yahoo Group, at this writing, archives prior to Thu May 3, 2007 2:14 pm can be accessed at the old Yahoo url but new posting is not allowed)

In a number of posts on the old list, as well as continuing on the new list, the moderators explained (in as many words) that in order to move the discussion list and add the other features to a self-hosted site as well as create self-motivation to continue putting the effort into maintaining an active community as diverse as WhereSpot, they needed to change to a paid-subscription model. At one point I remember reading that they felt the community had actually grown a little too big and the content of discussions had become all too redundant at times - I can personally remember receiving somewhere in the neighborhood of 100 posts (or more) over the period of a day and feeling annoyed at a lot of what was asked and discussed as the content often involved subject matter that had been visited multiple times before or seeming like people were simply too lazy to use a search engine (i.e Google or Yahoo) to find the answers to their questions; the moderators further defended the changes (in as many words) saying the community was smaller, yet comprised *only* of serious professionals, which I take to mean the people willing to pony up the subscription fee were really serious about wanting to be there.

WheresSpot is relevant for location professionals (i.e. location scouts, location managers) as the diverse scope WheresSpot’s community and discussions covers pre-production and locations with a focus on tv commercials and productions as might be used in other areas of advertising such as print ads, trade videos, marketing events and other types of media production.

Yahoo! Search: Wheresspot

• WheresSpot | The largest qualified community for advertising professionals. |
  Welcome to WheresSpot - Community and Commerce … WheresSpot is a resource for expert information & referrals, a source for job … WheresSpot R&D: I. […]
• About | WheresSpot |
  The heart and soul of WheresSpot is our email / web communications system. The use of the system allows WheresSpot premium members to stay fully conne. […]
• Visit WheresSpot |
  

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update 3/25/08 | general cleanup | original timestamp: February 10, 2006 @ 11:30

The New York City Mayor’s Office of Film, Theater and Broadcast (MOFTB) publishes a monthly newsletter which features news about the film office as well as other news of interest to the film and tv production communities.

I particularly like the regular Location of the Month section of each month’s newsletter, in which a city-owned property (such as perhaps a building) or park or New York City neighborhood which may be available as a filming location is highlighted.

The City of New York makes many properties available for filming at no or nominal cost in the interest of promoting filmmaking and economic development for the city.

Use of the various properties is often directly administrated through specific city government agencies depending on the property(s) in question, however, the film office can be quite helpful in directing filmmakers to the appropriate agency.

The current newsletter may be read online by following the link above; free subscriptions via email are offered as well.

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This interesting newspaper editorial article came my way via my email inbox via The Hartford Courant and Google Alerts wherein the Courant calls on the Connecticut Commission on Culture and Tourism to clarify its placing Film Commissioner Heidi Hamilton effective August 21st.

The problem seems to involve questions of internal policy matters at CT state government levels and I would presume (or would at least hope) that the matter is under review by an authority in the CT state government in a position to decide who followed or mis-followed policy.

In the meantime, tho I have not personally dealt with the CT Film Office lately, Ms. Hamilton is likely sorely missed by the film production industry specifically with regard to productions with potential to film in CT.

Ms. Hamilton has been very innovative in attracting new film production business to the state by way of considerable tax breaks and other film office services available to filmmakers.

-RH

Are you running your email or is your email running you?

Below is a podcast of a very enlightening talk given by life hacking guru and 43Folders creator Merlin Mann.

43 Folders

• Mud Rooms, Red Letters, and Real Priorities | Tuesday, 28 April 2009, 7:28 am
  Thanks to my funny, literary pal, Jason B. Jones, today, I’m visiting lovely, warm Connecticut to do some talks and whatnot at CCSU. I mention it b. […]
• Free as in “Me” | Friday, 10 April 2009, 9:29 am
  This unbelievably long article is related to (but not necessarily about) a discussion that I and several other people have been participating in onli. […]
• 43f Podcast: John Gruber & Merlin Mann’s Blogging Panel at SxSW | Wednesday, 25 March 2009, 7:33 pm
  SxSW ’09 - Gruber & Mann - HOWTO: 149 Surprising Ways to Turbocharge Your Blog With Credibility! (audio mp3, free on iTunes) My pal, John Gruber (f. […]

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It used to be when you wanted to film in New York City Parks (i.e. Central Park, Prospect Park (Brooklyn), etc, you had to do a little detective work to find the number for the manager of the park in question (short of having an (as far as I know) unpublished list of the different districts and the managers of the parks in those districts) and call that manager for verbal permission to film in the park which he/she managed.

Assuming you could track him/her down and get an answer to your request (this could traditionally sometimes take several days from my experience- woe if they were on vacation or otherwise out of the office) and get permission, you would then go to the NYC Mayors Office of Film, Theater and Broadcast (MOFTB) and add the location to your film permit.

Today, I called one of the park managers about filming in one the NYC Parks and got the ol’ voicemail, which instructed me to go to this webpage:

http://nyc.gov/html/dpr/html/film_shoot_form.html

So, I filled the form and submitted it over the internet. The form sent me an auto-email confirming my request and even assigned it a request number. The form goes to either a central party in charge of routing the requests, or possibly a database that automates this chore.

I’m keeping an eye on my email at this point waiting to get a response. *Follow-up Note*: The park manager that I needed an answer from called me for more details and approved my request within 24 hours.

Presumably, this form covers all the parks in the system. It seems a much more organized way to go about the Parks permitting procedure; it gives the park manager(s) a little breathing room to get their head in a space to deal with their request(s) instead of being bugged on the phone at inopportune times and/or having to scroll thru and listen to who knows how many voicemail messages to field filming requests in addition to what must be a myriad of other responsibilities that a New York City Parks Manager must have.

I’ll still have to take my permission (assuming they give me a green light for my request) to the permit office and add it to my Schedule “A”. It would be nice to be able to cut out this second step, but the two departments (the parks department and the permit office) need a way to talk to each other, so for now this a chore we’ll all have to live with.

NYC Parks Special Events

• MillionTreesNYC Tree Stewardship Workshop | Saturday, 4 July 2009, 12:00 am
  Date: Thu, 09 Jul 2009Since the MillionTreesNYC campaign started, over 238,000 trees have been planted throughout the city, more than 30,000 just in s. […]
• CityParks Kids: Diabatela & Wounlaba | Saturday, 4 July 2009, 12:00 am
  Date: Wed, 08 Jul 2009Come watch Diabatela & Wounlaba perform traditional West African music.Start time: 10:30 amEnd time: 11:15 amContact phone: Loca. […]
• River to River Festival: Conor Oberst and The Mystic Valley Band with Jenny Lewis | Saturday, 4 July 2009, 12:00 am
  Date: Sat, 04 Jul 2009Conor Oberst’s unique brand of roots Americana folk rock has gained him significant acclaim and set him on a trajectory to wides. […]

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The Creative Planet websites are the online version of all those niche trade magazines you always can never resist subscribing to (free for qualified subscribers!) and often wonder what you were thinking as six months of “Widgets Monthly” piles up unread; the upside of the online versions (if you can stay your trembling hand from subscribing by email) is you can stay up to speed on your own time on the latest technologies (yup, lot-o industrial/gear/tech press releases) online -and no trees died for your sins:

Feeds are available, but as far as I can tell only on the The Creative Planet websites, I wasnt able to find any links to subscribe to the feeds. It would be really nice if these feeds were rss-enabled on the public side; If they were, if you had the tech where-with-all to have (and have figured out how to use) a newsreader, subscribing to feeds to my mind is inherently a lot less painful than an email subscription when you just feel information-overloaded or grow loathe of whatever content you may have happenned to have subscribed to. A lot less potential privacy issues as well, altho admittedly a company such as CMP Media (parent of The Creative Planet websites) is by nature in the business of selling advertising based on aggregation of market research and demographics data, which is probably their reason for not offering up anonymous feed subscriptions. Just seems oh-so-old-school…oh well.

On the proverbial flip side of the burger, if you are a business in a related field, companies like CMP can provide an important outlet for announcements of newsworthy events or innovations that involve your business. As depressing as all those back issues of WidgetWorld can look piling up on your commode tank, the fact is that journalists rely on these types of periodicals and the data contained therein for background and research. You want to be sure there is plenty of positive hype about your ground-breaking widget in FindArticles as well as (obviously) on Google and Yahoo.

I personally also like PRWeb, and also NewsisFree for driving people crazy with announcements of my latest bits of news of widget of the month

About Creative Planet Communities

“Founded in 1997, the Creative Planet Communities, a division of NewBay Media LLC, offers online resources for the film and television production professional. Updated daily, the CPC sites offer news, articles and discussions forums for the creative community. The company’s network of sites includes 2-pop.com, VFXPro.com, Cinematographer.com, Videography.com, DCinematography.com and DesigninMotion.com.”

…read more…

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RICH’S QUICK GUIDE TO POSTING PICTURES TO A WEBSITE

also here: http://rrhobbs.com/postingyourpics.html

It’s good to know how to post pictures to a website- whether you are an artist or you have some other tangible object or property you need to illustrate. A lot of people go about this task using email, but there are a few reasons this IS NOT a always a good idea. Consider this: You have a dozen pictures (of anything) that you need to have someone see. Depending on the resolution of the pictures, you could spend HOURS emailing these pictures.

AND

1.) If you get ONE letter or number or other character in the recipient(s) email address wrong YOU GOTTA START OVER
2.) If your ISP limits the message size (my isp limits each email msg size to 2mb) and you go over YOU GOTTA START OVER
3.) If you need for someone (else) to see the pics later on then YOU HAVE TO SEND THEM AGAIN
4.)If you forgot to cc: someone YOU HAVE TO SEND THEM AGAIN
5.) If you left out a picture you have to figure out which one it was and email everybody again.
Doesn’t it make a lot of sense to only have to go thru these hassles once?

FIRST THINGS FIRST- WEB BASICS

A basic understanding of how the www works is needed. For instance, what happens when you look at a web page is that your computer (browser/client) sends a command over an electronic network (the web) to another computer(server) asking it to let you look at some files. (The computers have to understand each other but that’s a story for another day) The spot on the network AND on the other computer where the files are stored is known as a URL (Uniform Resource Locator). The spot that you are “calling” from is known as your IP address (Internet Protocol address). Provided everything goes well, you are sent the content that you requested and you will see a web page(text and/or pictures, etc.) That’s all the web is: FILES ON COMPUTERS! Proper software and hardware on your end makes VIEWING these files possible.

So the next question is: “How do I become the computer (server) on the “other end“?

Answer: Unless you are a REAL techie (in which case you would not need to be reading this) you have no business running a web server. BUT there ARE plenty of techies in this world, and there are many servers, AND there are many servers you can USE to display your info to the world. In most cases servers are Unix operating system computers with a direct, very fast connection to the web. Some are free to use, some you pay for.

Next question: “So how do I get my files to a server?”

Answer: Several ways, to start.
Since you are probably new to this you may want to try one of the many “free web space” services available. Several popular ones are: Geocities ( Geocities ), Tripod ( www.tripod.com ), I’m not going to go into detail about using these services, if you go their site(s) plenty of info is available. One way or another the files you wish to display are UPLOADED to the server (More about this later)
NOTE: The reason these services are free is because you almost always have to display some advertising on your web pages for them. Often you can pay a fee and forego this duty.
ANOTHER NOTE: You probably use an ISP (Internet Service Provider) to “get on the web”, like AOL, Earthlink, Concentric, RCN using a DIAL UP CONNECTION or maybe you have a DSL or ISDN or CABLE MODEM connection, or maybe you are affiliated with a learning institute or have a a job with a company that is “wired” and they provide you with access to the web. Anyway the point is, if you have an ISP that you pay for you often get web space to use as part of the service.
You can also get your own DOMAIN. This has a certain amount of appeal because you it’s YOUR domain, and its often easier for people to identify you, which can be a huge boon, especially if you are in business. (i.e. www.rrhobbs.com is MUCH easier to remember than www.tripod.com/rrhobbs or www.geocities.com/broadway/6247/ (these are real url’s however they have not been updated for some time) Getting your own domain involves checking availabilty of whatever domain name “dotcom, net, org” you have in mind, (i.e. rrhobbs.com), and registering the domain with the INTERNIC. The INTERNIC is: “US Department of Commerce regulated organization provides public information regarding Internet domain-name registration services.” See the INTERNIC site for all the details ( www.internic.net )

Once you have your own DOMAIN alas, you still need a HOST (a server to use). Often your present ISP offers WEB HOSTING SERVICES, and there are many companies who do nothing but web hosting. www.ispcheck.com is a good starting point for finding a web hosting service. Your web host can assist you in registering your domain, too.

GETTING YOUR FILES ONLINE- REALLY

If you get your own domain and web host, most likely the way you will be getting your files on the server is to FTP (FILE TRANSFER PROTOCOL) them to the server. Your webhost will most likely have plenty of details about this (the parameters,settings and password needed by your FTP PROGRAM (your webhost will probably have some suggestions, a couple I know of are WSFTP ( www.ipswitch.com ) and Cute FTP ( www.cuteftp.com ). There are Mac OS ftp programs (clients) at www.macosarchives.com .
A user friendly way to present your pictures is to use THUMBNAILS. A program I use is Thumbnailer . It will not only create thumbnails, it will automatically generate web pages, saving a LOT of time and headaches.

NOTE:Unfortunately, (at this writing) Thumbnailer is available for Windows only. I’ve heard that Extensis Portfolio is a good thumbnailer for Mac OS. I don’t know whether it will generate web pages on the fly or not tho. You can also make thumbnails in Photoshop.

This is not, nor is it intended to be, a be-all / end-all for web publishing. In that vein, please don’t email me with questions about any of this unless I specifically requested you do so. Use your ingenuity and search for more info about stuff you dont understand or would like to know more about on the web. There’s A BUNCH of stuff! Good luck!

Legal Mumbo-Jumbo: The reader uses information obtained via this document at his/her own risk. The author is in no way responsible for damges incurred in any way from use of any information contained in this document.

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# updated 6/7/2008 - some clean up / added map

Please note: The most currently updated info is available here: http://rrhobbs.us/locproc.owners.html

Excerpt:

PLEASE READ THE INFORMATION BELOW CAREFULLY. AT THE BOTTOM OF THE PAGE IS A LINK TO A FORM YOU MAY USE TO LIST YOUR LOCATION WITH US.

(INFORMATION FOR ALL HOME/ PROPERTY OWNERS)

LOCATION PORTFOLIOS:
a. We create a digital photo portfolio of your location. Initially we might request that you send us some photographs of your location (dont have to be professional) to give us an idea of what it looks like. We may also request to come out to scout ourselves.
b. We promote your location by emailing an internet link of pictures of your property we have on file to clients when an enquiry is made for locations of the type for which your property may be suited.
c. Once a client shows interest in your location we will call you to:
1. give you what details we have and find out if your property might be available.
2. discuss fees, restrictions, rooms to use, etc.
3. set up a time for the client to come and do an initial “go see.”

…Read the rest…

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Planet PrePro

“Library with over 31,000 digital location scouting images, Digital Location Scouting, On-Line Image Posting Tools, Digital Pre-Production Research Tools, Talent, Props, Sets, Digital Scouting Software, Broadcast Emails to Film Commissions, and more”

…read more…

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