Knowing your keyboard shortcuts will take you to the next level in your mastery of Final Cut Pro. For some help with memorization, try printing out this shortcut document and keep it on your desk while you edit. Thankfully, it's nicely organized so you can learn a block of shortcuts at a time. Thanks to Flippant for the tip.Final Cut Pro keyboard shortcuts
Knowing your keyboard shortcuts will take you to the next level in your mastery of Final Cut Pro. For some help with memorization, try printing out this shortcut document and keep it on your desk while you edit. Thankfully, it's nicely organized so you can learn a block of shortcuts at a time. Thanks to Flippant for the tip.A complete audio recording starter kit
Guy Cochran from DVCreators.net reviews the Rode to recording package. If you are looking for a kit that has everything you need to capture great sounding audio, then listen up. This comes with:- (1) RODE NT1-A Microphone
- (2) EVENT ALP 5 Biamp Powered Monitors (studio speakers for the laymen)
- (1) PRESONUS INSPIRE Firewire Audio Interface
- (1) STEINBERG CUBASE LE
- (1) SONY ACID XMC
- (1) PRO PAK Software Suite
- (2) 10' premium RCA cables
- (1) 25' premium Mic Cable
- (1) RODE TRIPOD tabletop mic stand
- (1) Comprehensive Setup Manual
Watch the video after the break or download the higher quality M4V.
FresHDV video review of VFGadgets Pro Gripper Quad Camera Mount
Matt and Kendal have an excellent video review of a car camera mounting system from VFGadgets. Installing the device didn't seem to induce much confidence from them because of the give and the cheap plastic bolts. But when they did use it in a shoot, the mount worked. I have to admit the results were better than what I would have hoped for from what is a prosumer piece of equipment. Also check out the resulting video from the test, it is better a lot of specs I have seen.JVC announces full HD camcorder with Fujinon lens
JVC is wasting no time announcing new camcorders but we saved the best for last. Today JVC announced a full 1080i, 3-CCD, hard-drive camcorder aimed at consumers. What sets the JVC unit apart from the crowd is the inclusion of a Fujinon lens commonly used in many high end professional camera systems. More specs include:- (3) 1/5-inch CCDs
- Total pixels: 2032 x 1116 (equivalent to 2.27 million pixels)
- Number of effective pixels: 1952 x 1096 (equivalent to 2.14 million pixels)
- 16:9 aspect ratio
See how easy it is to upgrade your Mac
Guy Cochran from DVcreators.net shows around a Mac Pro tower. Everything is laid out in a clean and organized fashion which makes it easy to add more power to your machine in a snap. See how to add a new hard drive, add some RAM, and swap out a PCI card; all of which any novice computer user should be comfortable with. Crack open that case and have a look around. Don't worry, your Mac won't byte.Mac Pro Hardware Upgrade Made Easy (5:27) 48MB
Sony HDR FX1 against FX7
This German website (translated) compares two similar Sony's HDV offerings. The FX7 is the newer version of FX1. There are quite a few differences between the two cameras. The biggest difference is the FX7 1/4 Cmos chip vs FX1 1/3 ccd chip. The site has plenty of stills and some video from both cameras.I have used FX1 and was generally impressed but this is when HDV was first hitting the market. But now HDV is quite common and the difference between the cameras is growing. According to the stills in the article, I prefer the FX7, even if it leans a little on the consumer saturated side (Sony classifies this as a consumer camera). But I cannot get over the lack of XLR inputs, the Canon XH A1 is a couple of hundred dollars more and it has those features.
(via HD For Indies & FresHDV)
Color bars and calibration
We all have different equipment and different methods of getting our productions to "look right". The best thing to use for viewing output is a production monitor, but it's worthless unless you calibrate it properly. The tips and techniques section the Videomaker vidcast, episodes 31 and 32, contains some good discussion on color bars plus shows some of the how-tos of calibration. If you are new to post-production or just need a little refresher, I recommend you check out these 2 episodes.Doug Bressler of DoogToons shows you how he creates animation
I discovered a new internet TV show called Viral the other day which focuses on what TV shows are available on the internet and often takes a behind the scenes look at how the show is made and the video producers and actors behind it.
About 7 minutes into the first episode of Viral (see below) you get a quick lesson from Doug Bressler of the animated show DoogToons. Doug shows you how he records in voice and brings it to life in animated characters. He first records spoken audio using GarageBand on a Mac and then exports the audio as an aiff file. He then does a rough drawing of a cartoon bear and loads it up in flash to animate it taking you briefly through the tedious part of syncing up the characters mouth movements with the audio.
Here is the video, you'll need to get to about 7 minutes in to see Doug at work.
Quick audio performace tip using Soundtrack Pro
I never paid much attention to Soundtrack Pro for whatever reason, but I digress. This helpful tutorial will get you started on sending audio from within Final Cut Pro to the application, removing some noise, and bringing the sound files back into FCP. Of course, this is not the end-all be-all tutorial for correcting for noise in your audio, but it will help to give you a better sense of how you can use Soundtrack Pro in conjunction with FCP to have better control over the quality of your audio. Useful stuff.Create an underwater scene from scratch
While everyone wishes they were Jacques Cousteau you can get one step closer by faking an underwater scene. In this video tutorial you will see what it takes to make a believable underwater scene from scratch using Photoshop. There is no narration and the tutorial is sped up but I think you will be able to get the gist of things. A great exercise you can try out with the new Photoshop CS3 beta.SilverStack Beta Release | Image Sequence Viewer, Editer and Manager
Pomfort has released a beta version of its new SilverStack software for viewing managing and exporting image sequences. Pomfort say that the software has been built in collaboration with the movie industry and it makes use of the powerful graphics capabilities of the Max OS X. The SilverStack beta release is on a first come, first serve basis so if you want to give it a try you need to get in there quick. Normally the software would cost $200 or $525 depending on the configuration; I have no idea whether you get the software for free or at a discounted price when it is released if you take part in the beta testing. A full release is expected in January.
[Via MacMinute]
AVCHD Converter From Canopus
AVCHD has been touted by Sony and Panasonic as the next step in prosumer codecs. So DV, then HDV and now, supposedly, AVCHD. Part of the initial lack of excitement was that none of the NLE's was able to support it. It was only a matter of time, that problem was to be resolved. According to this Press release in Japanese, and then translated at Digital Camcorder News, Canopus "will be releasing a new AVCHD converter product that will convert your footage into an editable format. However, because of the fact that it converts it into the 'Canopus HQ Codec,' it is unlikely that the files will be usable outside of Canopus' Edius NLE systems." Sadly, I am not aware of any Mac Canopus products and I am guessing that is not going to change but this is the first step of many that will bring AVCHD to the fold.
The most exciting thing about AVCHD is that it fixes my biggest complaint with HDV, the mpeg-2 sound compression. So here is hoping this starts a trend by NLE's to support AVCHD.
Color sampling demystified
Barry Green, one of the original guru's from over at DVXuser.com has put together an informative article that tackles the frequently seen by rarely understood subject of color sampling. Simply put, color sampling is used as a way to compress the image through the blending of individual pixels. Can't pull a decent key from your MiniDV footage, well color sampling is the culprit. The article makes use of some clever illustrations to break down each different form of the compression. If you haven't been put off by all the tech jargon and would like a simple explanation of a fairly complex subject head over to DVXuser for the full story.Run After Effects effectively on Intel Macs
Currently, Adobe has not released an Mactel compatible version of After Effects 7. Nothing new here as Adobe, like other giant software companies, is usually late with the these things (I'll try not to get into a rant). AE 7 is supposed to be able to run in Mactels by using Apple processor virtualization software called Rosetta. But for whatever reason, AE 7 users (unlike 6.5) has had memory buffering issues. So Graham Jones came up with a very simple solution:- Closed all other Rosetta apps and processes, lowered the memory settings WAY down (max memory to 30%, Max RAM Cache to 15%)
- and this thing renders like smoke! On the latest render, it rendered more than TWICE as fast as the G5 or Mac Pro in AE 6.5! After rendering the same file in AE 7 on the Dual G5, I found it to be still 40-50% faster.
(via HD for Indies)
Another Red interview: Graeme Nattress & Stuart English
In his continuing interviews with the Red camera staff, Mike Curtis interviews two important people on the software side of things: Graeme Nattress and Stuart English. Very interesting read even if you have been following everything like I have. My favorite question and answer is this:Mike: It has been said that with Redcine, you can convert to offline, edit, then come back and convert for online - but other than manually coming up with a list to re-convert (which could be ridiculously daunting on a feature), how will conform be more realistically doable? As in automated? I see this as a HUGE potential stumbling block to the proposed workflow."
GN: We're looking to automate this with RED Pull List, which will take a NLE EDL or XML file, and create a new project in REDCINE with just the clips you need to tweak or re-render out to a higher resolution. RPL is still in early stages of development, but I think you can see how this will help enormously.
Another indication of how good the Red team is about giving what filmmakers need.
