Film-Tech Forum ARCHIVE: Upload your random pictures (part 4)

my profile | my password | search | faq & rules | forum home

»	Film-Tech Forum ARCHIVE » Community » Film-Yak » Upload your random pictures (part 4) (Page 63)

This topic comprises 65 pages: 1 2 3 ... 60 61 62 63 64 65

Author

Topic: Upload your random pictures (part 4)

Tony Bandiera Jr
Film God

Posts: 3067
From: Moreland Idaho
Registered: Apr 2004

posted 02-26-2019 11:13 AM

quote: Brad Miller
This reminds me of my old Honda Passport.

Many years ago a certain unnamed person who doesn't like blue things covered up the "P" in the car's branding.

I didn't put it together until the phrase "QUICK...EVERYONE TO THE ASSPORT!!!" was uttered a few times as we were getting ready to go out to grab dinner.

And when you think about it, the name "Assport" is a pretty suitable name for a vehicle that transports your ass from one place to another.

With the huge success of this site and your company in general, I always envisioned you as more of a Hummer guy. [Big Grin]

| IP: Logged

Mike Blakesley
Film God

Posts: 12767
From: Forsyth, Montana
Registered: Jun 99

posted 02-26-2019 08:35 PM

quote: Frank Cox
This guy is an occasional (maybe twice a year) customer of mine.

Assman, denied licence plate, displays name across truck's tailgate

This guy (I assume it's the same guy) was made semi-famous on the Letterman show for a while. I think they brought him to the studio at least once.

| IP: Logged

Frank Cox
Film God

Posts: 2234
From: Melville Saskatchewan Canada
Registered: Apr 2011

posted 02-26-2019 10:28 PM

No, that was Dick Assman. He lived in Regina, and died a couple of years ago.

Probably a relative of this guy, Dave Assman, though. (How many could there be?)

| IP: Logged

Frank Cox
Film God

Posts: 2234
From: Melville Saskatchewan Canada
Registered: Apr 2011

posted 04-01-2019 02:23 AM

| IP: Logged

Leo Enticknap
Film God

Posts: 7474
From: Loma Linda, CA
Registered: Jul 2000

posted 04-01-2019 08:34 AM

I had a history teacher in high school called Mr. Nartsey.

| IP: Logged

Frank Cox
Film God

Posts: 2234
From: Melville Saskatchewan Canada
Registered: Apr 2011

posted 05-08-2019 07:12 PM

Now this is an unsafe load.

Apparently seen driving down one of the major highways in Ontario. Cabinet in the trunk, lumber in the back seat...

| IP: Logged

Leo Enticknap
Film God

Posts: 7474
From: Loma Linda, CA
Registered: Jul 2000

posted 07-26-2019 04:43 PM

At Pico and La Cienega, in Mid City LA:

That intersection is never deserted; even in the middle of the night. I'm surprised that he was able to get up to the billboard and do all that without attracting the attention of law enforcement. Maybe he did, but they let him get on with it anyways.

| IP: Logged

Bobby Henderson
"Ask me about Trajan."

Posts: 10973
From: Lawton, OK, USA
Registered: Apr 2001

posted 07-26-2019 05:56 PM

Wow. That's even better than the fake Presidential seal in the news the last couple of days.

That particular billboard is not installed up very high. The service walkways can be easily reached from the Cleaners Outlet rooftop underneath it. The shrubbery around the bottom of the billboard would provide some cover for the prankster to stage the patch job.

The culprit is very likely someone who works at a sign company or outdoor advertising company and has access to large format printers and different sign making materials. One or more people who did the work could have driven a work truck to the site acting like they were a sign company crew doing service work on the billboard. Make up a fake sign company name and use removable magnetic signs on the work truck. The patches look like they were printed onto some kind of rigid material, like 3mm aluminum composite sign board.

The prank would require someone to know the the size of the billboard display. You could get that manually by going to the site, climbing the structure and physically measuring the display. A call to the Outfront outdoor company could get the same info. Any sign or outdoor company that has installed faces on that billboard would have that info. Armed with that, you can fire up Photoshop. Take a good high resolution photo of the billboard as straight-on as possible. Bring the photo into Photoshop for alteration and scale the results to the proper size. Select the zones needed for the patches and print them. Color matching and image registration with the patches isn't perfect obviously. But the joke is still damned funny.

| IP: Logged

Leo Enticknap
Film God

Posts: 7474
From: Loma Linda, CA
Registered: Jul 2000

posted 07-27-2019 11:30 AM

Apparently another one has now appeared, but with Woody Allen in place of Epstein.

I'm guessing that those large billboards must be of a standard size, or else printing the posters to stick on them would be a logistical nightmare: you'd need a bespoke size for each individual one. That reinforces your point about the perpetrator likely having access to inside knowledge of the billboard advertising industry.

As for finding it out, a $80 laser measure would do that for you to the accuracy needed to print those stick-on sections to a size that would work, as long as you can get to within around 150ft of the billboard, which in this case would not be a problem.

| IP: Logged

Bobby Henderson
"Ask me about Trajan."

Posts: 10973
From: Lawton, OK, USA
Registered: Apr 2001

posted 07-27-2019 05:42 PM

We use a "Spike" tool to get quick and dirty field measurements. It attaches to smart phones or tablets. You take a photo and the laser-based tool captures data to go with the photo. It's not 100% accurate. But it's decent to use for bidding purposes. If we're doing something like replacing storm damaged faces in an existing sign cabinet we'll have to do a detailed survey of the sign to get exact sizes of the cabinet, size & type of retainers used and any other useful info.

Regarding billboard standards, they're made in a fairly wide variety of sizes, shapes and configurations. "Bulletins" are the biggest, static boards. They usually max out at 48' wide X 14' tall. Some are 36' X 10' 6" or 40' X 10'. 30' X 10' is the minimum size. There are smaller "Poster" and "Junior Poster" sizes. One of the new trends along the highways is huge vertical faces that span across two billboards on a double stack structure. "Wallscapes" (billboard displays mounted to the sides of buildings) are usually big, but come in a variety of aspect ratios.

| IP: Logged

Randy Stankey
Film God

Posts: 6539
From: Erie, Pennsylvania
Registered: Jun 99

posted 07-27-2019 06:08 PM

A person could take a photograph using a camera with a known focal length lens and use geometry to figure out the size and location of objects in the picture.

Once, a guy I knew needed to pinpoint a location of an object in an old photo. I blew up the negative, full frame so that I could measure the sizes and relative positions of several objects in the picture then I did the math.

If I know that the man in the picture is a certain height in real life then I measure his height in the photograph and I know that the photo was taken through a 50 mm lens I can calculate how far away from the camera he was standing.

Do this with a couple of more objects or people in the photo then triangulate and you know where the camera (and photographer) must have been standing when the photo was taken.

Once you know that, the size and location of any other object in the picture can be calculated with pretty good accuracy. I was even able to use Google Earth to pinpoint the exact location on the globe where the photographer and all the other people in the picture were standing when the photo was taken, some twenty years prior.

Given that every smart phone has built-in GPS, the work that I did with a ruler, a compass and a calculator which took an evening's worth of effort can probably be done, nowadays, in a few minutes.

Using the gizmo that Bobby describes, it might be done in seconds. [Smile]

Point is that, if you can get a clear photo, the sizes of those patches can be figured out using little more than high school math.

Bobby knows the sizes of billboards, practically, by heart. He could probably figure it out by scribbling on the back of a pizza box. [Wink]

| IP: Logged

Bobby Henderson
"Ask me about Trajan."

Posts: 10973
From: Lawton, OK, USA
Registered: Apr 2001

posted 07-27-2019 07:32 PM

The nice thing about the Spike tool is it factors in the fall-off effects of perspective farther out to the edges of the photograph. It also helps if the person taking the reference photo does so from an appropriate distance, aiming at the subject straight on rather than some keystone angle, and has the shot reasonably level. That improves the accuracy. It's especially critical if someone is intending to use a reference photo for measurements without the aid of a fancy laser-based measuring tool. I've had decent results using my Canon 5D, 70-200mm lens and Gitzo tripod. I place the shot a good distance from the subject, get it level as possible and the zoom in a reasonable amount to compress the perspective. It usually "flattens" things out pretty well. The approach works pretty well for things like vehicle side views to design vehicle wraps (when you don't have an accurate vector-based template of the vehicle).

quote: Randy Stankey
Bobby knows the sizes of billboards, practically, by heart. He could probably figure it out by scribbling on the back of a pizza box.

That's only been gained via repetition on a lot of billboard face replacement design jobs. Yesterday I designed a static billboard ad for a local bank and the board was 40' long by 12' tall, an odd non-standard size. The digital LED-based boards are steadily gaining in popularity. Those displays have all their own unique quirks.

| IP: Logged

Leo Enticknap
Film God

Posts: 7474
From: Loma Linda, CA
Registered: Jul 2000

posted 07-28-2019 09:51 PM

Those LED billboards are a safety menace when they're by the side of a freeway. There is one in particular on the eastbound side of the 10 next to the Fairplex exit: when it's showing a bright advert (e.g. against a white background), it's so bright that it totally destroys your night vision if you look up at it during a night drive. I've now trained myself to look away from it as I'm passing it after dark, but I'd be willing to bet significant money that it has caused a few rear-endings by now.

| IP: Logged

Randy Stankey
Film God

Posts: 6539
From: Erie, Pennsylvania
Registered: Jun 99

posted 07-29-2019 04:24 AM

LED signs and billboards suck.

I agree with Leo. They are often too bright. There is one place that I used to drive by, on the way to work, where an LED sign shined directly into the windows of a neighboring house. A lawsuit was filed and, in the end, the business had to shut the sign off after 10:00 p.m.

Also, most LED signs or billboards change their message before people have a chance to read them. How many times have you driven by a business with an LED sign and seen a message like

[flash-flash-flash] ...STOP IN... [flash-flash-flash]
[spin] ...AND CHECK OUT... [spin]
[crawl] ...OUR SELECTION OF... [crawl]

There isn't enough time to read the entire message before you drive by. Not to mention the stupid motion graphics and effects that make it virtually impossible to decipher the message in the first place.

Practically the only time you can read the messages on LED signs is when you are stopped at a traffic light where there is one in view of the intersection.

When it comes to billboards, not only is there the problem of them changing before people can read them but, for some reason, the design of the ads makes it impossible to read.

I don't know how many times I've seen a billboard emblazoned with a banner that says something like, "The BEST (something) in town!" but you can't read the name of the business because it's written in small print, tucked way down in the corner of the sign.

LED signage makes it easy for idiots to create indecipherable, unreadable, illegible messages while advertising companies pocket the money.

In the end, it does nothing more than fill the landscape with ugly, distracting clutter that nobody can even read.

| IP: Logged

Paul Finn
Film Handler

Posts: 41
From: Bay City, MI
Registered: Jan 2019

posted 07-29-2019 06:37 AM

I heard a radio broadcast report yesterday reviewing a demonstration screening at a Sony facility in CA using a new Sony super micro led 16x9 foot display surface. It was stated the unit consumed 7kw (7000 watts) of power when in operation. This seems to contradict the usual led mantra of being power consumption economical. Maybe Mr. Henderson can comment on the power used by current large led high resolution display boards such as the Daktronics and Samsung Onyx systems. It seems the large power consumption of these displays should be a part of the application equation.

Thanks, Paul Finn

| IP: Logged

All times are Central (GMT -6:00)

This topic comprises 65 pages: 1 2 3 ... 60 61 62 63 64 65

Printer-friendly view of this topic

The Film-Tech Forums are designed for various members related to the cinema industry to express their opinions, viewpoints and testimonials on various products, services and events based upon speculation, personal knowledge and factual information through use, therefore all views represented here allow no liability upon the publishers of this web site and the owners of said views assume no liability for any ill will resulting from these postings. The posts made here are for educational as well as entertainment purposes and as such anyone viewing this portion of the website must accept these views as statements of the author of that opinion and agrees to release the authors from any and all liability.