They Media. The pre-eminent media company of North Western Ontario.

Currently Theymedia is encoding and testing portfolio work for roll out onto a new site. This lay out and site is a test layer remaining for technology roll out and short term testing of applications including embedded flash players, menu systems and photo galleries. This is typical of a long term site roll out and in the end this site will probably look nothing like it looks now.  Please keep this in mind as you look around and find mistakes.  We are gearing up to go "more" public at the moment and this will include any type of media you may need for your organization or creative endeavour. Call 807 251 1228 for working questions and solicitation, or email This e-mail address is being protected from spambots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it

A test music video for for Shibastik the premier North Western Ontario Hip Hop performer is available at http://theymedia.com/video/videolo/, professional gallery work and snippets of Dakota House, Moccasin Joe and other media personalities we have worked with are coming online as well. In terms of release, more information will come soon to round out what we do. To sum up very quickly what They is; They provides services no one else can do or at least as well, this includes After Effects compositing, DVD Studio Pro and DVD Lab work, Premiere Pro 2 and CS3 work with Final Cut Pro, Studio Max 3d work, graphic design and professional photography, all manner of composite and effects programming work with encoding into any format including standardized industrial applications such as Betamax Digital and SP for final distribution to media.  Customized looks can also be done, i.e. 35mm, etc.  Sound applications used include Adobe Audition, Steinberg Cubase, and stereo work with the ability to do surround if needed but at this point honestly we would only do it for larger contracts.

In terms of music and sound They has a multi-faceted knowledge of noise gating, compression, equalization, normalization and specialized sound creation and DVD standardization. (In terms of AC3 encoding, etc.) We could also do limited original compositions as long as we had a detailed plan and idea of what you wanted although we can take control of that and just get it done. Period.

Essentially what They is differentiated by is the sheer amount of knowledge involved in media creation and all its varied forms of distribution. This definitely lets us stand out and in terms of that if you are another company in competition or looking to see how much we know I can personally explain in detail any technology you need or would like to know about. This includes AC3, DVD standardization and ISO rollout, mp4 and mp2 issues, flash distribution formats, specialized encoding by application in variable and constant bit rates, h.264 and hi definition format, interframe vs intraframe editing issues and work arounds, as well as about probably a million other things that are so specific like quantization matrices in terms of DVD encoded formats and other things of this nature that it would make the average person blush.

Theymedia also writes, crazily enough we have to ability to write scripts whether corporate or creative based and do editing processes. We do not just write though, not like everyone else, we do professional level writing and editing with grammatical control in either plain language descriptive or detailed technical knowledge. How did we slip that in? Usually other companies may compete in terms of one thing they offer to us but any writing they bring to the game is just like an engineer wrote it and really what would you expect? We do not fit that paradigm. Too bad for everyone else.

They can create your project and roll out a finished distribution format in mostly any format from start to finish. Everything. It never has to leave our possession for outside contracting. Tell me anyone else who can do that. Oh we do professional photography as well. How did I forget that? Take a look around here it will be changing soon.

Tony McGuire
Theymedia

Theymedia is in the middle of testing with 35mm conversion gear over their digital complement.

There are hellish focus issues, there are horrible depth of field measurement issues, (focal lengths that run in the realm of one foot depending on focal length,) and there are the issues of pans, zooms and everything you are used to as a digital artist being tossed out the window but this is really for other people to worry about.

We have some preliminary results available for the professional wondering about 35mm digital.

One of the massive issues faced with smaller cameras like we are using is a specific macro issue, the actual focal length needed to focus onto the 35mm device is not available.  What we find then is that the perfect focus is circular and so we have a circular focus fringe similar to a fisheye without the barrel distortion, (it is just plain unfocus distortion.)  I have ordered some macro step up rings to take care of this issue but regardless of this I have noticed some particular issues that may be of some use to other persons in the field, hobbyists and beginners and they will need to think about these issues when they try to go down this route.

    Definition loss on edges due to light loss.

Essentially any adapted camera will find itself with a full 24x36mm frame that is mathematically the exact same as a 35mm frame, if you were in theory shooting in 24p digital mode it would be an exact replica of a film based camera regardless of what any film purist will argue.  While this may be true, the film person can confidently state that his whole 24x36 frame is lit exactly the same from edge to edge, this is not true in the adapted digital world and while I would love a Big Red camera (30 to 40 thousand dollars,) that would guarantee perfect film emulsion emulation, I am much too poor to afford it and probably 15 thousand dollar lenses.

workaround;  I created a Photoshop workaround where I exported each frame as a tif, jpg, or bmp, (whatever you choose as long as it is mostly lossless, hence 100 percent quality jpgs if you use them,) and then ran a custom batch in Photoshop CS3 using a filter - distort - lens correction - vignette workflow on each frame and reimporting them with correct brightness on the fringes.  This works with no loss except under microscope conditions and easily fixes the major issue in my mind with 35mm on pure digital using mid-level professional gear.

   35mm focal length

As alluded to, ". . . everything you are used to as a digital artist being tossed out the window . . ." we have found that the major issues with the new focal lengths of 35mm lens is that the camera operator being so used to easy focusing and steadyshot has to relearn his craft.  I have used a f1.8 to test and found that the focus spot, (your sweet spot where you object is in focus,) is extremely small; if your characters walk too fast for your camera operator who is doing a rail shot in front, they will pop out of focus very, very easily.  The working fstop length in my opinion is f5.6, with a f11.0 for a more determined look like say in a mall where the distance will be very blurry but you get the nuance of other characters in the mall talking in the background.  A f1.8 is extremely effective for a specialized closeup to be used for emotion, but a f2.8 seems to be a little better if only because it is much easier to not have someone's face fall out of focus very quickly but with set shots this is for the director of photography to decide.  I will post some material with different stops to show sweet spots soon.

Rail focus:  the ever elusive rail focus while nearly impossible with "pure" digital is done very easily at f5.6 and is very effective to bounce between characters in dialogue.  I will post more issues with fixes as well as test footage very soon.

Example 1.a  Here is an example of the focus issues along the edges with the uncorrected vignetting.  This has been compressed heavily but shows the main issues.