Mark your calendar! Final Cut Pro professionals attending NAB 2008 will be gathering once again for the Yak-tastic FCPUG SuperMeet. Now in it’s 7th year, the SuperMeet will be held at the MGM Grand Hotel Grand Ballroom on Wednesday, April 16. Doors open at 5pm, scheduled events start around 6:30pm and continue through 10:30. Reservations are $15 and include 3 raffle tickets (there are about $65K worth of prizes being given away). As always there is free food and a cash bar, and the first 250 to arrive will get SuperBags. The agenda is packed with Apple-y goodness, so head on over to the FCPUG site to reserve your spot before it’s too late (the SuperMeet generally sells out in advance). The FreshDV crew will be there as well, come on over and introduce yourself if you see us.

Media 100 has announced their video codecs are available now for download at their support website.

With these free codecs, editors and graphics professionals can playback and render modern and legacy Media 100 media files in any QuickTime-based application. The codecs include Universal Binary versions of the Media 100 i and Media 100 HD codecs as well as the PowerPC Instant Media 844/X codec.

You can also get the codecs free as part of the Media 100 Producer time-limited Trial Version. Now if they would only announce a few reasons to actually use Media 100…

We mentioned Avid’s “New Thinking” campaign launch recently, and the direction they are now headed to woo young and experienced editors alike to the Media Composer platform. There’s been a lot of discussion on the announcement, some positive, some negative. Here’s a few interesting comments by blogger Mike Jones. Excerpt from The Death of Avid (started a long time ago):

“The Avid interface, the Avid mentality, is one born out of keeping traditional editors relaxed and comfortable, designed around ensuring traditional broadcasters felt secure in their major financial outlay on hardware. But every year since Avid’s inception there have been less traditional editors to keep relaxed and comfortable. Every year there were new editors to take their place. Editors who were Digital Natives, not Digital Immigrants. Editors for whom the analogue language, the tape-to-tape paradigm, the hardware base, the stoic mechanics, made no sense - seemed simply old, archaic, inflexible and even irrational. The Digital Native editor whose life centres around a laptop so powerful they barely understand the idea of an ‘off-line’ edit, looks at the Mojo and the Adrenaline with the same quizzical smile as computer nerd looks at a ‘mainframe’ computer as big as a room from the 1970’s.”

“…I feel angry that a company with such dominance, such power, such influence over the creative artform of our age was so condescending of its users as to refuse to grow with them, refuse to let them grow, refuse to aknowledge new ideas from new younger minds. I feel somewhat angry such a company would not seek to be more accessible, more efficient and instead trade their business on excess, superfluousness and a culture of snobbery whose only means of distinction was to forge a hard line in the sand and declare Real Professionals on their side and Child-like Wannabes on the other.”

Excerpt from Avid’s ‘New Thinking’ isnt ‘new’ to anyone but themselves:

“That Avid have launched a new online support portal for Avid users that utilizes a peer/user ranking system to rate the usefulness of posts and tutorials is positively laughable for its lack of vision. Where have you been Avid? The rest of the digital production world has been fully engaged developer-sponsored, on-line peer-exchange for years. Welcome to the 21st century, we hope you enjoy your stay.”

Strong words, to be sure. And I imagine that many could take issue with some of the claims (like the opinion that Media Composer offers “nothing” over other NLE options at twice the price). However, much of what is said here rings true in my ears. What do you think?

Via CDM, here’s a CG-free short “Tron” remake. Very cool. Watch the video below.
Continue reading ‘Tron Fan-flick Made with Cardboard and Creativity’

Splice Here has a handy tutorial on how to use the Stabilize effect in Media Composer to take the shake and jitters out of footage. Unlike FCP’s SmoothCam filter, the Media Composer stabilization analysis happens in realtime and is very similar in function to the tracker in After Effects. You have a tracker target that you manually select a track location with, and the search area is configurable if you run into issues with the shot’s movement. Great tutorial!

This short post at PrepShootPost talks about similarities in the flesh tones of people of all races. It’s a valuable lesson for color correction. And here’s a short Ripple Training tutorial excerpt (scroll down) that delves into topic of using the Flesh Tone Line in FCP’s scopes to assist in color-correcting skintones of all races and ethnicities. Their DVD on color correction techniques is an excellent primer and I highly recommend it. For a discussion on how colorists are retaining skintones in harsh lighting and color casts, read this post over at ProLost.

(Thanks for the link Pablo)

ARRI 300/650 Fresnel Combo Kit
Reviewed By: Jessica Creech

As many microfilmmakers know, lighting is often one of the most sacrificed elements in a low-budget production. Whether that is for lack of knowledge, inadequate equipment or an improper understanding of lighting’s impact, it seems that this line item gets cut from budgets all too easily. Knowing that the funds of microfilmmakers are limited (me included), I set out in search of an all-around kit that would provide the most value in terms of cost and versatility. The results of that search let me to ARRI’s combo kits. The model I’ve chosen to review is the 300/650 Fresnel Combo Kit (although others are available). Take a few moments to read our review that explains the full extent of its capabilities and I believe you will find it well worth the investment. Continue reading ‘ARRI Fresnel Lighting Kit Review’

Here at FreshDV we talk a lot about using 35mm lens adapters and the “film style” workflow in your digital productions. Daniel Boswell of DVArtistry is a wedding videographer that has adopted using the Letus adapters in his wedding films for quite some time now. When the Extreme hit the market, he snapped one right up. He’s now shooting with the LEX + Sony EX1 combo and discusses it in the current issue of EventDV. You can read it online here.

There’s just a few days left in Avid’s “The Perfect Pitch” contest, entries must be uploaded no later than April 1, 2008 and community voting also closes on that date. The top 20 entries will be judged by a panel of industry experts and the winner stands to earn a trip to Sundance and the opportunity to pitch the film idea in earnest. So if you want to help separate the wheat from the chaff, time’s a-wasting.

Via Digital Basin comes this link to a handy utility called HFSExplorer that allows PC users to access HFS+ formatted hard disks and external drives. When Fat32 doesn’t give you enough space to transfer large files (2GB limitation), you can use the tool to copy from the Mac disk to NTFS. Likewise, NTFS drives can be read (and written) on Mac systems with MacFuse.

Here’s a neat little utility for jailbroken iPhone and iPod Touch users. Touchpad Pro is an app that allows you to control your Mac or PC directly on your mobile device. Features include a landscape mode, multi-touch zoom, scroll, right-click, to name a few. You can get it here.

Ars Technica has a short article up about a possible patent dispute related to blue LED technology that could hamper manufacturers of products that use it…including Blu-ray disc players. Ars mentions specifically that this doesn’t just look like your average patent troll…there may be merit to the claims.

Given the scope of the claim, the number of companies named in the complaint is unsurprisingly high. Highlights from the list include Hitachi, LG, Lite-On, Matsushita, Motorola, Nokia, Pioneer, Samsung, Sanyo, Sharp, Sony, Sony Ericsson, and Toshiba. Normally, a list of patent-infringing companies that includes world+dog is a good sign that a troll is at work, but the woman behind this particular lawsuit, Gertrude Neumark Rothschild, appears to be more than your average bridge-dweller. In fact, she’s an expert in LEDs and has been for longer than many of us have been alive.

The above named companies clearly have far too much invested in this technology to let a patent dispute stop anything…if judges determine that Rothschild’s claims are valid, there will surely have to be a hefty settlement out of court.

Freelance editor Scott Simmons has written a lengthy (and appropriately ranty) post on the subject of Final Cut Pro editors with little or no real knowledge of the basics of the post-production process. There’s a great discussion going on in the comments as well. Here’s a quick excerpt: Continue reading ‘FCP Raises up a Generation of Button Pushers?’

Looks like some enterprising folks over at OnSuper8 are hacking together a Workprinter XP and Red Digital Cinema Camera to use for Super8 film telecine. Nice…

We’ve changed! In response to feedback from readers and the evolving focus of our editorial team, we have relaunched the site with a new layout that we hope will better serve FreshDV readers. Here’s a quick tour of what’s changed… Continue reading ‘FreshDV New Site Launch’