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)

This article is part of a series of tests FreshDV conducted with the Sony XDCAM PMW-EX1. Thanks to Miami rental house and Sony dealer Midtown Video for providing a XDCAM EX camera. And thanks to DSC Labs for providing test chart patterns. You can read more about ours and others experiences with this camera here.

For our testing Midtown Video provided FreshDV with a EX1 camcorder with the 8GB SxS media card. Before the camera arrived, I downloaded the latest XDCAM Transfer software and SxS drivers. I also had to ensure that I was at the latest FCP version, 6.0.2, and I also brought my Tiger OS and Quicktime versions up date using Software Update (I’ve been a bit behind, these things make me nervous). I should note that I am using Final Cut Studio on a PPC G5 2.7 Dual. I did not have a computer with ExpressCard slot available for these tests, so the USB connection on the camcorder was used. It simply uses a standard USB cable with mini connector on the camcorder end. Footage shot was a mixed bag…most of the time the card ended up with a mix of SP, HQ, and overcranked 60p footage on it. But regardless of the format, the import procedure into FCP is the same. I wanted to note my experiences with that process. For starters we should note a few things about the camcorder.

Below the rotating handgrip is a small flip-up plastic cover that conceals a line of output connections…A/V, Component mini, and USB mini. The EX has both Camera and Media (VTR) modes, but you can connect to your computer in either mode. When you connect the USB mini cable to the camera and computer, the EX will ask on the display if you would like to connect to the computer…Execute or Cancel. You can use the jogstick at the top of the handgrip to select and click Execute. As a side note, this camera makes you feel really powerful…every confirmation action prompts you to choose “Execute!” The only way that process could be geekier is if the camera gave you a “Make It So!” option. But I digress… Continue reading ‘XDCAM EX1 Hands-On - Final Cut Pro Workflow’

Post Production Standards has two great posts up with recommendations on naming clips for Visual Effects and turnover. They advocate using version numbers rather than dates for sequences, and outline a simple method for naming VFX shots that is extensible and easy to understand. Simple, yet effective info.

Mike Curtis has written a nice long piece on where he sees the high-end post-production industry heading. I agree with many of his points, and also think the same lens can be expanded to apply to much of filmmaking and certainly high-end production work. The tools to smoothly create high-quality work continue to become more and more accessible, and access to training and education is ever on the rise. It is interesting to note that these same advancements that benefit independent filmmakers will at the same time probably cause some pain in the high-end post-houses who resist change and have high-end equipment investments.