When
asked about Walter Biscardi, Kathlyn Lindeboom, director of Creative
Cow remarks: "Our favorite part about what we do online has always been
the people. Walter is one of the great people we've interacted with for
years and he's a true pro's pro and he's also a very funny guy. In
fact, when Ron emailed him to ask if he'd be interested in joining the
Cow Team, he told Walter that: 'The hours are light, the pay even
lighter but you get the prestige of wearing a Cow t-shirt 24 hours a
day, seven days a week -- actually, we send out a biker tatoo artist
who gives you a full body Cow tatoo (this, because t-shirts wear out so
quickly).' He then sent the email. Not too long afterwards, Walter wrote back and began his email: 'Hmmmmmm,
the full body tattoo is so tempting ... gotta think this through ... be
rational ... should I go for the T-shirt ... the tattoo ... the T-shirt
... the tattoo...' Both Ron and I about came out of the chairs
laughing as we read it. It was then that we knew he'd fit right into
the Team just perfectly! In fact his whole bio was so funny that we're
adding it with little editing -- though the serious stuff is all there
as well."
Of himself, Walter writes:
Accomplishments:Pitched a Perfect Game and had a .704 batting average at age 17.Once
viewed "Little Mermaid" over 125 times while working as a projectionist.
Favorite Movie: Toss-up between 'Toy Story 2' and 'It's a Wonderful Life.'
Favorite Actor: Jimmy Stewart (and of the current actors: Will Smith)
If I could be in a movie: I would be Buzz Lightyear
If I wasn't doing TV: I would either own a restaurant or a movie theater.
Former Dream Job: Anything at Disney Studios in Orlando
Current Dream Job: Editing a Ken Burns Documentary
My mantra: "We don't stop playing because we grow old, we grow old because we stop playing." -- Anonymous.
Favorite Toy of all times: A HUGE TinkerToy set mom gave me when I was 5. I still have it and play with it often.
But let's get back to his more recent stuff...
Walter's
friends call him Wally. He founded d' Arte in 2001 with one simple
idea: "Bringing Art to Digital Media." About this new venture, Wally
says: "Nothing is impossible, whatever you can envision, can be
created. Do not compromise your ideas and visions because a production
company 'doesn't have the latest widget to do that effect.' Use all the
tools at hand, including the biggest tool of all -- your mind -- to
bring the vision to life."
More
than anything else, Wally is a storyteller. He believes that "...every
person, every company, every song, every event has a story to tell. You
have to be willing to open your eyes and let the story tell itself --
that is a vital part of this craft." With 12 years now under his belt
in all facets of Media Production and Post-Production, Wally has
broadened his skills to include Producing, Directing and Writing for
television.
He
started his career at CNN in 1990 where he quickly became one of the
senior editors for the weekly series "Network Earth." While there, he
and the show were honored with numerous awards including a National
Emmy award, CableACE awards and New York Festival awards. Wally was
nominated for "Editing in a Television Series" at the 1994 New York
Fesitvals.
In
1995 Wally was hired by the largest casino in the world, Foxwoods
Resort Casino in Connecticut, to design and manage a new production
facility. Given a budget of $3 million, he designed a full production
facility that encompassed on-line linear post-production, non-linear
post production, audio recording, 3D animation, field production and
full tape library system. The linear suite was built around the Accom
Axial edit controller with the Philips Diamond Digital Switcher and had
a unique console that allowed the editor and producer to sit face to
face. The 3D suite featured Alias Animation packages running on SGI
Challenge machines. The facility turned out over 300 completed projects
the first year of operation. In addition, the team was honored with
several Telly Awards.
In
1997, Wally was hired back to Atlanta by Primerica Financial Services
to be their Senior Editor for the DirecTV business network, EPN-TV. He
set about re-creating the entire on-air graphics package and overall
network image using a combination of Media 100, Adobe Photoshop and
Adobe After Effects.
In
1998, he left Primerica with his former boss and the two started ACME
Digital Design just north of Atlanta. Featuring Post Production for
both Corporate and Broadcast, ACME was part of 12 Emmy awards in just
three years. Wally was honored with a National ITVA Achievement in
Editing award in 1998.
Then along came 2001 and the start of d' Arte.
Built
around the foundation of Final Cut Pro and the Pinnacle CineWave
SD/HDTV card, d' Arte features full Post-Production services at a rate
that won't break your budget. Throw in complimentary Limousine service,
lodging, a wooded lot to call home and a 25 mile lake around the corner
and you have the perfect place to create. Specializing in long form
broadcast and corporate communications, d' Arte is establishing itself
as a quality shop with a low-key atmosphere. Look for an expanded d'
Arte media creations sometime before the end of 2002.
In
September 2001, Wally became one of four founding members of Thunder
Road Entertainment which is developing original programming for
broadcast. Wally wrote and produced the first Pilot for the company
that is currently being shopped to various networks. In all, TRE has
about 6 programs in various stages of development.
When
at home, Wally enjoys cooking, cooking and more cooking. An
Italian-American by birth, the house often has the fragrant aroma of
garlic, basil and tomatoes. He features his special 'pizza on the
grill' for friends and just recently completed his first 'Christmas Eve
Feast' which included some 27 items on the menu. Other hobbies are
toys, woodworking, toys, photography, toys, Christmas (he has a HUGE
display featuring Charlie Brown and the Grinch) and spending time at
the lake with his dogs.
Apple Color looks completely different than just about any other Mac application, but there's a method to Color's madness. Here's nearly 2 hours to help you begin to enjoy this powerful tool.
Thinking big doesn't always mean having the whole vision at once. For Walter Biscardi, it combines client service, calculated risks, and big investments - especially during down markets.
In this article Walter Biscardi, Jr. shows how he was able to add expandable, shared media storage in his facility for less than you would expect. And he was able to keep all of his current storage options in place, working right alongside the shared array.
Recently, Creative COW leader and business owner Walter Biscardi needed a very flexible and fast compression tool that also provided extremely high quality end products for his clients. Oh, and it needed to be easy to use. Enter Telestream's Episode and Episode Pro. In this review, he's using Episode Pro 5.1.1 and he'll explain the differences between the two at the end of this article.
Okay, so youve taken the big plunge and started your own business. Youve got the office set up, youve got the cards printed...now what? In part 3 of his series, Creative COW leader and business owner Walter Biscardi tells you what you need to know to get the word out, how to manage money...and manage clients! If youre even thinking about starting your own business, start here.
Yes, Apple Color is connected to Final Cut Pro...but not exactly integrated. Creative Cow leader Walter Biscardi, one of the worlds most respected experts on the connection between the two, will help guide your sequences safely from FCP to Color -- and show you why its worth the effort.
Because Final Cut Pro can do so much, it can be easy to get lost inside its interface as you start to do more and more at once. Let Creative Cow leader and Final Cut Pro expert Walter Biscardi show you how to take back control of your workspace and work more quickly and efficiently with FCPs tabs.
Its late, youre running late, and you cant figure out why your sequence isnt playing in real time. Fortunately, Creative Cow leader and Final Cut Pro expert Walter Biscardi is here to help. You know that somethings wrong, Walter knows what, and he tells you how to fix it here.
Your TV show isn't ready to air until the STATION says it's ready to air. The good news is that they're clear about what they want from you. Longtime TV vet and Creative COW leader Walter Biscardi tells you some of the things to look for...and some of the things to look OUT for.
Allow us to introduce one of the most eagerly anticipated DVDs in Creative Cow Master Series history, Walter Biscardi's overview of Apple Color. Building on nearly 20 years of professional editing experience, as well as years of experience with Apple Color (and FInal Touch HD before it), he's got the perfect perspective to make working in Color easier than you imagined. It's the disk he wished he had when he started using Color.
In Part 1 of this series, Creative COW leader and contributing editor Walter Biscardi laid out the issues you need to address before you can answer the question, Are you ready to start your own business? If you have thought long and hard and your answer is Yes, then join Walter to explore setting up your company and getting ready to open those doors!
Apple Color offers a variety of tools for custom effects, each with different features. Answering a commonly asked question, broadcast editor and Creative Cow leader Walter Biscardi shows you how to take advantage Colors node-based compositing to create a vignette in the ColorFX room.
Creative Cow leader Walter Biscardi is a 17 year veteran of broadcast and corporate video production who owns Biscardi Creative Media in the Atlanta, Georgia area.. Along the way, he's learned a few things to do, and not do, in order to be successful. But before you can succeed building your business in the creative industry, you have to know: are you ready?
Should you use Final Cut Pro or Color? In this short video tutorial, Walter Biscardi demonstrates some of the differences and why you might use one program over the other. This is a basic level tutorial.
In this Apple Color video tutorial, Walter Biscardi demonstrates everything you need to know the first time you launch Apple Color. This is a basic level tutorial.
In this article from The Creative COW Magazine, Walter Biscardi discusses how to write great press releases to increase the publicity of your business.
Synchronizing Client/Editor/Team Remote Video File Viewing. Created by an editor for editors, syncVUE is a workflow support tool to assist reviewing video files via the internet, synchronizing Quicktime movie playback and viewing across multiple locations. In this Creative COW Magazine article, Walter Biscardi reviews syncVUE and how it might help your workflow in a real world video production environment.
An exclusive report from the Creative COW Magazine, a talk with Andy Dale of Avid & Martin Bock of Medéa, regarding Avid's recent purchase of Medéa Corporation. What does Avid see ahead for the company that changed the video hard drive market forever?
Thanks to formats like DVCPro HD and HDV, High Definition can now be edited pretty much anywhere on just about any computer. Yeah, this is cool and you can really make your friends jealous just cutting away with your super slick laptop. But you know what's really slick? Editing Uncompressed High Definition anywhere. How about an Uncompressed editing workstation in a 25'' square box? No way? Way! Read on to find out about Wally's Traveling Box of Mystery and Intrigue...
We've all done this at least once in our careers. You're shooting with a standard camera but you know you're going to letterbox later so you tape two pieces of paper to 'crop' the field monitor. Or you're trying to make sure an element in the shot is in safe title, so you use a grease pencil and approximate where safe title will be. You do what you have to do when you're out in the field, but of course you're never quite sure if it's accurate until you get back into the edit suite. In this article, Creativecow leader Walter Biscardi takes a first look at a handy 'widget' developed by Cinematographer and fellow COW leader, Clay Walker called AspectCorrect and determines that ''...This is just one of those cool little things that should make camera operators lives easier.''
For years Medea Corporation has been the hallmark of reliability when it comes to storage for the media industry. If you wanted big, fast storage with mission critical reliability, Medea was the drive array for you. Now comes its little brother, G-Technology Corporation. In this article, Creativecow leader reviews the G-Tech G-Raid and concludes...''This is the most versatile unit I've ever used with its ability to work seamlessly with anything up to 10bit uncompressed and just remain solid no matter the situation or machine it's connected to. '''
Creative COW leader Walter Biscardi reviews the LaCie Biggest F800 and concludes that ''.... LaCie has targeted the F800 squarely at the DV marketplace by bringing these users a large capacity unit with a very small footprint. If your workflow is primarily DV, HDV or DVCPro HD and you're looking for a lot of storage with considerable real-time functionality, this is definitely a unit to consider.''
In this Final Cut Pro video tutorial, Walter Biscardi demonstrates the basics of travel mattes in FCP. This is lesson 3 in a 3-part series. Walter will show a real world application for using travel mattes - one of his favorite uses to enhance an interview.
In this Apple Final Cut Pro video tutorial Walter Biscardi demonstrates the basics of travel mattes in Final Cut Pro. In this second lesson in the 3-part series well learn some simple animation and drop shadows.
Walter Biscardi demonstrates the basics of travel mattes in this Apple Final Cut Pro Video Tutorial. Learn what travel mattes are and the difference between alpha mattes and luma mattes. This is part one of a 3 part series on travel mattes in FCP.
Aurora's PipePro is a single-slot PCI card with SDI/Firewire input with embedded audio, analog component, S-Video and composite output, 4 channel AES audio in, 6 channel AES audio out, RS-422 control, Genlock and many other features -- all for $799 (US). Here is Walter's report for Cow members.
Apple has really changed the face of Post Production with the power and affordability of Final Cut Pro. In Creativecow leader, Walter Biscardi's view, the real power of the product is its flexibility. From offline to uncompressed HDTV, from laptop to desktop, FCP gives us unparalleled flexibility as creators. Recently Walter took FCP on the road for a three day corporate shoot and found it to be a major tool in the project.
Apple has really changed the face of Post Production with the power and affordability of Final Cut Pro. In Creativecow leader, Walter Biscardi's view, the real power of the product is its flexibility. From offline to uncompressed HDTV, from laptop to desktop, FCP gives us unparalleled flexibility as creators. Recently Walter took FCP on the road for a three day corporate shoot and found it to be a major tool in the project.
Walter Biscardi is a leader in both our Final Cut Pro and Pinnacle CineWave forum communities where Cow members have long appreciated his friendly and insightful input. In this article, Walter explores the new powers found in Pinnacle's CineWave 4. Walter is a longtime user of CineWave, having used it in many projects in his studio where he serves a long list of corporate and broadcast clients. How does the new CineWave meet his demands and expectations, along with those of his clients? Walter takes CineWave 4 out for a demanding ride and gives Cow members his verdict as a user whose own investment is behind his opinions. This is no editorial done by a trade journalist with a unit for review, these are the words of a guy whose own investment and decisions either makes or breaks his company's future. See what he thinks of CineWave after owning one for quite some time and growing with the system as it has developed...
Stop Staring and Start Grading with Apple Color by Walter Biscardi 
