I found a great post on Recording audio with your video DSLR over on the Digital Photo Experience blog.  It's about time somebody put this out.  Even before I bought my Canon T2i I heard about how bad the audio was (so I guess that's why I never bothered trying to record any).   Maybe the 60D that's rumored to be released this fall will improve upon the situation. 

Other resources:

 - At dslrfilm.com they list the 5 best external audio recorders for DSLR filmmaking. 

 - The JL-DT454 preamp from JuicedLink.  It seems like it could work. 

- Of course the guys at Zacuto have figured out solutions to this problem and have created a video that shows you how to get Advanced Sound for DSLR's. 

- And once you get that audio into your NLE and you want to sync it up you;ll definitely want to use Dual Eyes by Singular Software.  It made its' debut at NAB this year and has been a hit ever since. 

Close Encounters of the Third-Party Kind

MediaMover FCP is here!  I didn't even know they were working on a version for Final Cut Pro.  The original version for Avid has been around for years and has been a God-send.  This tool will bring much needed order to the Lord of The Flies Final Cut Studio ecosystem.  I'm curious to see what workflows will emerge using this, Xsan and Final Cut Server.  Time will tell.

And bringing order to After Effects is Zorro the Layer Tagger.  Great name and even better function.  According to the creator Lord Alvarez:  Zorro makes selection and isolation sets easy and possible in after effects by adding  tags to layers. Similar to the way you would tag photos in Flickr, you can tag layers in your comps and then select or isolate those layers in groups by using the tags.  I can't believe I'm just now using this script - it's been around for a while.  Be sure to check out the other scripts on the site while you're there.

But why stop at tagging layers when you can even create your own effects to use on them.  At least in FCP.  Using FXScript you have the power built right into Final Cut Pro.  Ok, so this method is getting long in the tooth and most developers are using Quartz Composer nowadays - either way, real-time visual programming is here to rescue us from bad glows and page turns.

 But sometimes you just gotta spend the money for 

the sexy plug-ins and that's when you get Trapcode.  

You hopefully already own these peerless plug-ins but 

you may not know how to get all the magic out of them 

that is possible.  Not anymore.  Red Giant has recently 

released the  Official Trapcode Training Suite by Peder Norrby 

- the developer of Trapcode.  You can stream them or download

but either way it will now be easier to shake the pixie dust out of

your fingers and on to the screen.

And Finally, Eran Stern of Creative Cow demonstrates how to create a jumpy and squishy animation using the power of expressions.  Like a wise clown the tutorial is both funny and enlightening.  It will put a swing in your step and your animations and possibly make you look 20 years younger.  And who knows, you might even get the courage to become an After Effects scripting/expressions guru by trying out all of the code over on Dan Ebbert's legendary site Motion Script. 

Splice Vine Links #15

Software

Everybody has been buzzing about the new phoenetic search tool introduced at NAB last month called Get.  It uses the art and science of phonetics to index your FCP project.  Even though it's still in beta and won't be out until July, it appears to be at least as accurate if not more so than the similar speech to text option in Adobe Premiere CS4. 

iPad

The CG channel has seen the future of magazine ads and it is interactive.  Will this translate to more jobs for content creators?  Time will tell but the wheels are in motion.  And increasingly it looks like more than just a distribution tool, the iPad can be used in production as well.  Editor Chris Fenwick explores how the iPad can be used as a camera monitor.  I've been waiting for this workflow since the iPad was first announced.

Next Generation

The new Light Peak technology that I wrote about back in December 2009 is making news again.  Recently, Intel gave a demo of the fiber optic technology at at an industry trade show in Brussels.  Light Peak promises at least 10Gbit/s in and out of computers and Intel's chief CTO "expects that number to increase dramatically over the next year with almost no limit to bandwidth potential".  It will supposedly be available to manufacturers by the end of 2010.  There's even speculation that it will overtake the soon to be new standard of USB 3.0 that is already shipping. 

Education

Remember the days when you actually had to go to a classroom to learn the latest post software?  Well, there are still good reasons to get hands on training but there is an awful lot of augmenting you can do on your own nowadays.  Everybody knows (or should know) about Lynda, Macprovideo and even YouTube.  But there are also other great niche places to learn and stay current with new technology and it's often free.  PSD.tuts has just posted 50 Totally Free Lessons in Graphic Design.  This should be really helpful for video editors trying to transition into incorporating more motion graphics and visual effects.

Free Stuff

One of the things that I've started doing is compiling as many free design elements as I can find off of the web and placing them into my Drop Box folder.  That way no mater where facility I am at and what computer I am using (if it is connected to the internet) I will have a access to my creative files.  These are usually vector files, stock photos, fonts, icons - you name it,  I'll stockpile it.  What have I found lately?

- 25+ Free Vector World Maps

- A huge library of free Photoshop brushes and patterns

- Qvecors - free quality vector graphcs

- 18 wireframing, Mockup and Prototyping tools to plan Website Designs

No Country for Old Tech

Gas Station Guy: I didn't put nothin' up.
Anton Chigurh: Yes, you did. You've been putting it up your whole life you just didn't know it. You know what app is on this iPad?
Gas Station Guy: No.
Anton Chigurh: The Multi-Touch Color Correction app - Gradiest. It's been traveling 22 months to get here. And now it's here. And it's either good or bad. And you have to say. Call it.
Gas Station Guy: Look, I need to know what I stand to win.
Anton Chigurh: Everything.
Gas Station Guy: How's that?
Anton Chigurh: You stand to win everything. Call it. 


 The big announcements at NAB last week was just another reminder of how the only constant in tech is change. The new MacBook Pro that was just released is in some instances 3x faster than the MacBook Pro I just bought in the Fall of 09.  CS5 will not run on my old G5 Quad - heck, even the last version of After Effects won't run on it.  But even the first generation Mac Pros can not (or at least it is recommended that they not) run Smoke on Mac.  iPhone 3G and earlier will not be able to take advantage of the new multi-tasking feature in the iPhone 4.0 software release.  And only iPhones that record video (the 3GS model) can take advantage of the new relatively robust video editor that is coming out called VeriCorder.  As for all those people that do not as of yet have an iPad (myself included) - our day of reckoning is coming.  There's an app somewhere in development right now that has our name on it.  I might be able to resist the color-correction app Gradiest or the iPad teleprompter rig but how much longer am I going to be able to hold out? 


Wendell: It's a mess, ain't it, sheriff?
Ed Tom Bell: If it ain't, it'll do till the mess gets here. 

NAB Wrap-up

There were a lot of big announcements made at NAB this year.  A detailed recap of them would take many hours.  So instead, here's the list:


 - There are a million posts that look at the new features of the Adobe CS5 suite but here is a post that looks specifically at how After Effects CS5 will be much faster.  And here Scott Simmons looks at how Premiere Pro will be much faster thanks to the new Mercury Playback Engine.

- Philip Hodgetts discusses Avid Media Composer 5.0 which has a lot of game changing updates including the ability to edit ProRes and Red files natively.  And Pro Video Coalition just released a post on Avid's cloud-based editing technology.  This feature is not in their new release but hopefully it will be in the next major update.  I hope this takes off because it will be a major leap forward for remote post-production.

- Mocha v2 is out and it's 64-bit among other things.

- the news that took NAB by storm:  Davinci's Resolve is now on a Mac for $995.  Boom.  Watch out Apple Color.

- Sapphire plug-ins go 64-bit. 

 - Autodesk announces 2011 versions of Flame, Flare, Smoke and Lustre.

- Digieffects launchs three new $99, 64-bit plug-ins

- "Get" - the phonetic search plug-in for FCP.

- The Arri Alexa.  Great news for us - bad news for RED.


Also, if you want to hear a great discussion about the NAB announcements check out the podcast wrap up by the guys over at fxguidetv.

Splice Vine Links #14

iPhone App

Panavision, a 50+ year old manufacturer of motion picture/TV cameras, just rolled out its first iPhone app, Panascout, which simulates the cinematographer’s viewpoint from a professional cinema camera.  The filmmaker can capture the cinematic qualities of any location and record the true metadata, including GPS, compass heading, date/time, voice notes and a sunrise/sunset readout for the present location. Photos can be framed in 2.40 (anamorphic), 1.85 (Super 35mm), 1.78 (16×9 HD) and 1.33 (4×3) aspect ratios with Panaframe. The captured images and metadata can be uploaded directly to Final Cut Pro with Final Cut Server, MobileMe, SmugMug or emailed to colleagues.  I assume the iPad version will be out any week now.  The question is how much will it costs?  The iPhone version already costs a whopping $10.




Innovation



As we get closer to the looming  CS5 announcement, it becomes increasingly clear that Adobe Premiere is gunning for Final Cut Pro.  Thank you.  Please keep the pressure on Apple to keep developing FCP and the rest of the Apple pro apps.  And even though Premiere may not have the best GUI in the editing world they are definitely starting to look gorgeous on the inside.  Back in December I talked about how Adobe's Mercury Playback Engine was poised to be a game changer.  What is it?  Creative Cow describes it by saying: Essentially, Adobe has redesigned their entire video rendering and playback engine to harness the NVIDIA CUDA parallel processing architecture of Quadro graphics processing units (GPUs). The result is a fluid, real-time editing experience for adding additional effects, multiple layers, or ultra high resolution content. No more wasting time waiting for things like Encoding and Exporting progress bars to slowly fill the box.  Adobe has posted a sneak peak video that shows the technology in action.  In this video an editor is cutting very fast with notoriously difficult Native AVCHD footage.  Very impressive stuff.  I also found a post on the Pro Video Coalition blog Debunking Mercury Myths.  There are still many obstacles though for deep market penetration.  Users will only be able to use the new engine on late-model Intel Macs, running Snow Leopard and with a $1500 NVIDIA graphics card inside.  Most people aren't lucky enough to have this configuration yet and with the economy still down, it may be a while before people are able to upgrade.

Advocacy

Of all the things that Avatar launched - from renewed interest in 3D to virtual actors - one issue that has received the least amount of press has been it's role in advocacy for VFX artists.  On Feb. 5 VFX artist Lee Stranahan wrote an open letter to James Cameron in the hope that he would use his Oscar platform to speak out about the injustices in the VFX industry. Unfortunately, Avatar lost the major awards it was up for and Cameron did not have a chance to speak.  But that has not stopped Stranahan from moving forward by calling attention to the many problems facing the VFX industry.  He organized a VFX Townhall with a panel that included representatives from artistic, facility and studio camps.  It was very informative and Motionographer has posted a recap and links.   FX Guide's Jeff Heusser analyzes how the townhall went and possible solutions have already surfaced.   A Blog to discuss the formation of a VFX digital artists guild has even been started.  But what has been the most illuminating information so far is a post by industry VFX veteran Scott Squires on his blog Effects Corner.  In it, he gives detailed insider information that reveals the complex issues and huge challenges that face the industry.  What lies ahead will undoubtedly be a lot of hand-ringing over changing extremely entrenched practices and heading off new threats to the stability of the VFX industry - namely outsourcing.  Improvements in network infrastructure and aggressive tax incentives have decentralized the production of VFX and has become a hot button topic everywhere.  The comments posted to Creative Cow's article on World Sourcing by Golden Compass post-supervisor Mike Fink show how intense this debate has become.  I'll keep you posted on ongoing developments.  In the meantime, if you are a freelancer you may want to check out the Thinking Animation Blog that posted a good article on Protecting Yourself as Freelancer.  According to fxdag.org it’s a good basic primer for how Employers of Record work.


Bits

Use this script to create a quickFX palette for After Effects

10 Clever Screen Recording Tools for the Mac.  I use (and love) Snapz Pro X.

Last Pass is a password manager that lets you create one password to rule them all.

Splice Vine Links #13

Software

Already?  I thought this was coming out in the fall.  Oh well, no better time than the present. Look for the details in their online launch on April 12. Adobe says that CS5 will be 64-bit and only run on Intel-Macs (and of course PCs).  Users will have to be running Snow Leopard if they want to take advantage of CS5s new 64-bit capabilities.  In the meantime, check out their demo video for a new feature in Photoshop CS5 that is causing intense discussion and debate across the industry and around the world.  It shows off the new "content-aware fill" feature for Photoshop.  According to Mac Rumors : The feature utilizes complex mathematical algorithms to analyze digital images and assist users in filling in areas of complex scenes where undesired content has been removed.  Translation:  It magically removes objects from your image as if they were never there.  The Adobe Advanced Technology Lab has been working with Princeton University and the University of Washington on this technology for a while.  It is a further advancement on the Patch Match concept that Adobe introduced a couple of years ago. If you don't want to pay for the upgrade just yet then try Retoucher by Akvis and Smart Fill by Alien Software.  These plug-ins already do a version of this type of seamless scene replacement. Also if you use GIMP the plug-in Resynthesizer recreates the effect very well.

Gear

Run, don't walk over to part 1 of Zacuto's Great Camera Shootout 2010.  Zacuto may have cemented their claim as the new standard in camera accessories.  The tension is palpable in this expertly crafted half-hour video that has the much heralded HDSLR's facing off against the gold standard of 35mm.  They are put through the paces by some of the top photographers, cinematographers and colorists working today.  I couldn't believe how well the footage coming from digital still cameras holds up against almighty film.  Great stuff.  Webisode 2 will go live on Apr 7th.

iPhone App

 

Their words:  Monle is a four track, non-linear audio editor for the iPhone and iPod touch. You can record new audio, import prerecorded audio, cut it up, rearrange it, add fades, set volumes, zoom in and out, mix everything down, share audio with other applications, and send the audio wherever you want.  My words:  Monle looks like a cool app to tied me over as a dream/wish/pray for a Soundtrack Pro iPhone app.

   Plug-In

The Canon DSLR plug-in for FCP is finally here.  Scott Simmons on the PVC blog takes the reader on a tour of the features and capabilities.  This plug-in will be a big time saver since you will no longer have to convert your DSLR footage in Compressor for use in FCP.  For now the newly released 550D is not being supported but I'm sure it will be in the future.  Hopefully a version of this plug-in for Premier will be announced soon after the new Adobe CS5 launch on April 12.

Workflow

In what could be a further step towards pro level remote collaboration for the masses, Tweak Software and Shotgun Software have joined forces and created RV.  It's an image and sequence viewer for VFX and animation artists combined with a flexible and scalable web-based project management system designed for digital production studios. They promise to make it fast and easy for content creators to track, organize, play, and review their work.  Legendary studios like WETA and Aardman have been using expensive versions of this for years but now a lot more people are going to be able to get in on the action. With license configurations ranging between $200 - $400 this is poised to take the middle market by storm.

Splice Vine Links #12

iPhone

NAB has released it's own iPhone app for the upcoming mega-trade show. This is starting to become the norm for trade shows with Mac World (fittingly) doing one of the first ones last year. And echoing Alex Lindsay's comments, hopefully in the future these apps will display your real time position based on your current coordinates inside of the venue. No more getting lost in the crowd.

Audio

As video editors we know how hard it is to find music for our projects. Non-broadcast clients (and there number grows daily) don't think about let alone budget for the royalty free music they must have for their video. This leaves us with a few options. 1) Use royalty free music we already happen to own. 2) Use music with permission from a local band or music producer, or 3) cobble together a song in a loop based music program like Garageband or Sonic Fire Pro. If I have the time I like the third option although instead of Garageband I like using Ableton Live. That's why it was very cool to find the sites freesound and ccMixter which both are filled with songs and samples that are filed under the Creative Commons license. Freesound has only samples and no songs whereas ccMixter has remixes that are created by artist from around the world. I can't wait to really integrate these sites into my workflow the same way I use sites like stock.exchange for images, turbosquid for 3D objects and cgtextures for - well, cg textures.

Typography

Everyone's been there. Your client wants to use a font from a pre-existing brochure / website / you name it but doesn't know what font it is. You can't figure out what the font is either and the graphic designer that used it is unable to be reached. What do you do? Use a font that is a close approximation and hope that no one will notice? Nah. Use Myfonts - the font analyzer. Upload an image that contains the font in question and using its vast font database it will analyze the image and produce several fonts that it thinks could be a match. It's been a lifesaver.

Gear
Creative Cow has a great post on the nitty gritty of using an HDSLR in post. "Marco Solorio takes you inside the real world of production with paying clients using these cameras, including workarounds for their current limitations, and some of the things that video shooters will need to know as they get started using these cameras." Be sure to read the extensive comments at the bottom of the post they are in many ways as fascinating as the article itself.

New Media

Everyone's buzzing about video coming to Wikipedia. What does this mean for video editors? Will it be the same kind of user generated content that's on YouTube or will it create a new form like music videos did decades ago? The nascent book trailer movement also has the potential to create a new aesthetic. Vidlit has been doing something similar to this for a while but Bookscreening have trailers with very high end production values thanks to the increasingly popular Canon HDSLRs. I'm sure the proliferation of tablet devices like the iPad and the HP tablets will only increase the drumbeat for these new categories.

Splice Vine Links #11

iPhone

Before you buy the amazing storyboarding app Cinemek (formerly Hitchcock) you may want to check out Dream App. Besides creating a storyboard for your project you can also design a poster and write an outline. Check out this cool time-lapse demo of all these being created.

Plug-Ins
Luca, a video-maker and editor in London has a free bundle of plug-ins for FCP.

Reading

In case you missed Chris Fenwick's talk on media management at SFCutters last week you can go to his blog where he posted details from his presentation. He has a post on FCP Bin Structure and Finder Folder Structure. On the latter post he even has a zip file of his finder folder structure which includes a sample FCP project and bin structure. He is on a mission to iron out best practices and ultimately standards for Post Production in the Bay Area. If this catches on it will save producers money, editors sanity and everybody time. He will be doing a follow up at SFCutters in May on archiving.

And speaking of best practices, over on Pro Video Coalition Scott Simmons has a very informative interview with Jon Chappell, the brains behind FCS Maintenance Pack from Digital Rebellion. FCS Maintenance Pack is an indispensable suite of 15 utilities designed to diagnose and fix problems in Final Cut Studio. Jon offers great insight into the things that cause crashes and corrupt files in FCP and why.

Splice Vine Links - 3/7/10 -3/14/10

Plug-In

The folks over at Digieffects are working on a new plug-in for After Effects called Shapeshifter and they are looking for beta testers. The plug-in promises to go "way beyond basic text extrusion". Judging by the quality of the rest of their product line it should be something worth keeping an eye on. One of their plug-ins I want to try in particular is Damage. It's similar to Twitch by Videocopilot in that it makes your footage look like it has been to hell and back. So it's great for genres like horror and action or any shots that you want to look digitally degraded.


Tutorials

Curious Turtle has just put out a 6-hour training DVD for the incredible planar tracker Mocha by Imagineer Systems. It's for the Final Cut Studio version.



ReadingI'm right there with Michael Coleman and his high hopes regarding Google's ambitious pilot program to provide 1 Gb per second connection to a few select cities. Our computers keep getting faster and faster but it does us no good if our next works are slow. For editors to be able to work remotely we need higher bandwidth so we can move large video files around without it taking forever. Hopefully, this move by Google will put pressure on local telcos to free up more lanes on the information superhighway.


Website

FinalCutters now has the first ever comprehensive directory of Final Cut Pro related products.
This site, created by the innovative company Digital Heaven, has only been around for about a year but they have grown by leaps and bounds. Besides being a huge resource for FCP editors they allow us to peak out of our own caves and view other FCP edit suites from around the world. So many configurations, so little time.



Legal Watch

Will the future of the H.264 codec be pay to play? That's the question that has recently been raised after someone actually read the the Final Cut Pro user license agreement and found a grey area. It implies that users of the popular editing software (as well as users of Adobe Premiere) should be paying a licensing fee if they create videos using the H.264 codec. Apple and Adobe have both declined comment on what could potentially be a thorn in the side of content creators. We'll keep you posted on the developments.

Splice Vine Links (2/28/10 - 3/7/10)

iPhone Apps

I talked with the people at Lynda about the need for this app over a year ago. I guess they got an earful from thousands of other members as well. So they've finally put out the Lynda.com iPhone app! Great, now I'll obsess even more about doing tutorials (as if that is possible). They must have been feeling the heat from their rivals at MacProVideo and their NEDi iPhone app.

Also, I've been checking out the very cool (quasi) Post Magazine iPhone app. I say quasi because the text is not reformatted for the iPhone, like say the NY Times iPhone app. But it's still great having the venerable magazine at my fingertips.

And, I haven't check this out yet but it could be cool. Air Video can stream videos in almost any format to your iPhone and iPod touch.






Websites

A whole heap of links from FCPDaily of sites where you can find FREE stoock photography for your video projects. (Do not click on freephotosbank.com - it has an annoying talking flash banner ad on the home screen).


Plug-ins

At the SFCutters user group meeting this week they were recommending the FieldsKit by RE:Vision Effects. It's supposed to give you very good results for deinterlacing, reinterlacing and doing pulldown on your source footage.


Software

I'm a sucker for any miracle product promising faster processing and encoding and Elemental's Accelerator 2.2 for Mac promises to do both - and more. It would be nice if there was a review with speed tests somewhere online to see if the $300 price tag is worth it.



Hardware

Scott Simmons has some First Impressions of the Euphonix MC Color on the Edit Blog over at the ProVideo Coalition. This is one of two control surfaces that are supposed to usher in a whole new era of precision color grading for the masses. The other one is Tanget Wave and it was reviewed by Simmons in November. They're both similarly priced at around $1,499.

Splice Vine Links - 2/20/10 -2/28/10

Plug-in:
Intelligent Assistance just released exceLogger for FCP. Use the power of Microsoft Excel to log already captured clips. I wonder does this work with Zoho docs and Google docs? Price: $66.

App

Wish you could see more info about a file when you click CMD+i? Well, with MediaInfo Mac you can. It's a mulimedia file analyzer and reporting tool for the Mac.



Reading

The Myth of DPI is an excellent and long overdue article from that should be required reading for both creatives and clients.

Also, I usually only do one link per category but the article Cottage Industry by Oliver Peters was so good I had to include it.



Gear

If you have been trying to find a way to justify the purchase of that Canon DSLR that you want so bad, you may now have an excuse to get it. Check out Borrowlenses.com where you can rent cameras and lenses by the week on the cheap.

App

Since I couldn't find an iPhone app for this week I'm going to list another great desktop app I discovered recently. If you don't want to spend $70 on the excellent Snapz ProX then you may want to check out the free open source app Capture Me.

Check back every Monday for new Splice Vine links.