Around NAB CoreMelt announced new plugin packages for FCP and After Effects Mac; ImageFlow Fx 1.12 and CoreMelt transitions. ImageFlow Fx is a set of plugins that deal specifically with still images. You can quickly created complex-looking animations and image manipulations without tedious keyframing. It comes with two free non-expiring plugins called “Continuous Random Pan” and “Filmstrip.” PolyChrome transitions is a 40-plugin package of 10-bit transitions with fine-grained control over parameters. The free trial also includes 4 freebies.

Since CoreMelt plugins are 10-bit, naturally they have written a few white papers on how to leverage these plugins and effects to complete 10-bit finishing workflows in Final Cut Pro. Here’s a writeup on how to finish Red Digital Cinema footage within FCP, retaining maximum color information. For more details on 10-bit codec and effects pitfalls, read this article.

Here’s a beautiful tutorial on how to effectively fake full mocap using simple trackers and the Puppet Tool. Brilliant!

Mastering Multimedia has shared a basic list of things to check before locking your final cut and sending it out to the interwebs. A lot the suggestions deal with audio…ensuring that levels are correct, cross fades and L-cuts are used where appropriate, etc. As Norman Hollyn notes, the audio split edit one of the simplest methods of smoothing a cut point. So if you are looking for some guidance on how to wrap up your latest production, vacation video, or the next viral hit, here’s a good start. As the infamous Sen. Ted Stevens so wisely noted, the internet is “…not something that you just dump something on.” The tubes deserve our very best.

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?

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)

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?’

I recently listened to this audio podcast with the Coen Brothers (and Barry Sonnenfeld) on the editing process for “No Country for Old Men.” They apparently used Final Cut Pro on G5 systems, and have a unique way of divvying up the editing tasks. They also discuss the creative filmmaking process in general, it’s an excellent listen. Here’s a few quotes:

Ethan: We cut now much the way we cut on film, which was actually a little odd. I would have the Moviola, and Joel would have a flatbed, and I would mark incoming shots to Joel who would basically do an assembly on the flatbed. And we do a weird digital equivalent now on Final Cut…it doesn’t feel like the actual process of cutting is that much different.

Joel: When we first started cutting electronically, Apple set up the system so that we could work together in the cutting room the same way we were working on the other machines. Ethan marks up the takes electronically in one computer and sends them to me, and I assemble them in the timeline. The only non-electronic part of the whole process is that he has a hotel bellman’s bell button on his desk and as soon as he marks up a take he hits it so I know when he’s sending the marked-up takes over. So that’s the secret of the way we edit…I have access to the takes as well, so if I need an alternate I can bring them up on my computer…it’s hugely faster…and you don’t lose the little two-frame trims in the bottom of the bin.

You can get the podcast here (iTunes link).

Editing Organazized has two great posts up with tips and tricks for getting the best-quality slowmo footage out of Final Cut Studio using Compressor. The first outlines the basic workflow, post #2 delves deeper into Compressor’s behavior at various retiming percentages and provides examples of the sort of results you can expect. In the footage for this example, best results degraded past 1/4 speed. At 25%, Compressor’s Optical Flow appears to preserve much more detail than what you can expect directly out of Final Cut Pro. Very informative articles.

Here is a short tutorial that covers the basic steps necessary to prepare a Final Cut Pro sequence for color finishing in Apple Color.

This is a very short but very interesting demo of an experimental technology that Adobe’s Photoshop division is playing with that allows you to selectively control depth-of-field and focus points in post-production. Maybe someday we’ll see this trickle down into VFX.

Alex at Editing Organazized has a great post up that talks about studying Cosmo-style “art of flirting” articles for a better understanding of human behavior. A firm grasp of the nuances of a natural and comfortable conversation can be a valuable aid in the editing suite. Here is an excerpt from the linked article.

“The essence of a good conversation, and a successful flirtation, is recipro-city: give-and-take, sharing, exchange, with both parties contributing equally as talkers and as listeners. Achieving this reciprocity requires an understanding of the etiquette of turn-taking, knowing when to take your turn, as well as when and how to ‘yield the floor’ to your partner. So, how do you know when it is your turn to speak? Pauses are not necessarily an infallible guide – one study found that the length of the average pause during speech was 0.807 seconds, while the average pause between speakers was shorter, only 0.764 seconds. In other words, people clearly used signals other than pauses to indicate that they had finished speaking.”

Note that some of the images in the presentation linked by Alex are mildly NSFW.

Via Motionographer comes this unique approach to incorporating a shot list and project details in a work reel. Sweet.

Studio Daily contributor Scott Simmons has written a well-deserved rant on the history of errors in Apple Compressor. Having seen this issue crop up in my own system recently, I can appreciate his frustration. If you are having issues with Compressor spitting back an “unable to connect” error, you might want to read this article as Scott outlines a few troubleshooting options. He also makes a good point about third-party encoding solutions…if Apple isn’t interested in fixing this issue for good, it may be time to look elsewhere. I personally don’t wish to make a switch to another encoding solution; when Compressor works, it works very very well. And it hasn’t really given me any grief up to this point. But a known issue that has apparently existed across versions since 2005 is beginning to push users. If you know an Apple engineer, please pass the link along.

Ahh, the Final Cut Pro vs. Avid debate. Much like the Mac vs. PC flamewars, this debate is destined to rage for as long as the two software packages exist. I believe this is because the choice of editing software is largely subjective and based on what you specifically demand out of a system and what your post workflow requires. So while I have built a Mac/FCP editing system and workflow for my work, I would be loathe to crown it as generally better than Avid, or any other NLE for that matter…too many variables exist, and everyone’s needs are different. I’m finding it better for ME at this point. That’s why it’s refreshing to read personal accounts like this one, an ACE feature film editor who is used to working with Avid but was forced to use FCP for a specific project. He lays out some of the differences between the two NLE’s as well as his specific likes and dislikes. A good read.

(Via Scott Simmons)