Sunday, March 28, 2010

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.

















Sunday, March 21, 2010

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.


Sunday, March 14, 2010

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.


Sunday, March 7, 2010

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.





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