Splice Vine September Links

A lot has happened in the month since my last post. Black Magic Design buys Davinci, Avid Media Composer 4.0 is released, Apple releases Snow Leopard, and Canon announces a late-september early October release of EOS 7D. This is good timing considering all the excitement the RED cameras and the Canon 5D Mark II continue to elicit. Anyway, on to the links...

- For those that want to get ahead of the curve on the next media revolution 'Element Technica introduces groundbreaking steroscopic 3D production tools'. FxFactory also just released some stereoscopic plug-ins. Avid Media Composer started supporting 3D editing this year, but when Apple products start doing this naively people will really begin to take notice.

- Pro Video Coalition has a great blog post about round-tripping with Final Cut Pro and After Effects.

- Philip Hodgets has an interesting post that wonders if large post houses are heading for the editing graveyard. He expands on this in his latest appearance on Larry Jordan's podcast - Creative Planet Digital Production Buzz. I think the high-end niche focused Davinci Systems getting bought buy the broader market Black Magic Design is a good example of this. There continues to be a trend of moving away from expensive proprietary hardware-based ecosystems and towards open software-based ecosystems. You've got to wonder how much Magic Bullet and to a lesser extent Apple Color has been cutting into Davinici's margins. Broadcast Now talks in more depth about this in their latest post What is next for DI?

- Since I'm editing remotely more and more I want to find a good online backup / archiving solution. There's a good post on Drop Box vs Carbonite that explains how they seem similar but are for very different types of users. Carbonite is what I want to go with but it appears that they only back up internal drives. So people with a Drobo or external G-Tech drives (like myself) will be out of luck.

- Just discovered BuZZdex which is a resource database on Larry Jordan's site that displays articles, forums, tutorials and other resources for over 100 video, audio, VFX and animation applications.

- The iPhone storyboarding app Hitchcock has everybody talking. I'm rarely involved in pre-production anymore but this game-changing app makes me want to be.

- Yoostar is taking what Serious Magic (now part of Adobe) was doing to the next level. They sell chroma key kits that give you the tools to videotape yourself over a green screen and edit yourself into famous Hollywood films. They hired Snoop Dog and then shot and keyed him into movies where he is interacting with Marilyn Monroe, Dan Akroyd, Lou Costella and Cheech Marin. Genius.

- Great article on Augmented Reality in contact lenses. This is supposedly closer to being er...real than we think.

- A hack for getting Flash video on an iPhone. I haven't tried it yet but I hope it works.

- Oliver Peters has a really good post on audio post geared towards video editors.

- Digital Rebellion just released FCS Maintenance Pack. Now you no longer have to cobble together a bunch of disparate mult-vendor FCP utility apps. You can get most of what you need from one place in one box.

- And lastly, this is very exciting. I may actually be able to afford to finally create a Splice Vine iPhone app: And Now a Service to Roll Your Own iPhone App.

Splice Vine - August Links

> From the Final Cut User blog, a future iPhone app by Cinemek: the Hitchcock Mobile Storyboard Composer. It looks very robust and I doubt it will be a .99-cent app either.

> While we're still talking about pre-production, check out Celtx which is open source media pre-production software. You can't beat free.

> "All ready ?!" Yep, the world's first iPhone 3GS Film Competition is already here.

> Animata brings us open source real-time animation software.

> Tired of the cookie-cutter sound effects in Soundtrack Pro? Well, make your own with SFX Machine RT. Definitely check out the interactive SFX Machine simulator - it's hilarious. This plug-in works in Soundtrack Pro, Garage Band, Pro Tools and hopefully Final Cut Pro soon. And if you buy the plug-in before the end of August it's half off ($50).

> A slick looking text-animation plug-in called Motype for FCP, Motion and After Effects.

> The Art of the Title Sequence is a great site that shows the most cutting-edge title sequences in films from around the world. Their archive also has a lot of great ones from the past like the classic one from "Se7en".

> On2 has been in the news a lot lately because of the Google acquisition but they have also quietly released an update to their game changing On2VP6 codec. The new codec, On2VP8, promises to have even better compression than H.264. Well, if anyone can do it, they can.

> And check out InqScribe for simple transcription and subtitling. I wish this were available as a plug-in for FCP.

> Last but not least: the funniest demo reel I've ever seen. btw, this is for mature (or not so mature) audiences only.

Final Cut Studio 3: Road Rules

Ok, so Apple is just calling it Final Cut Studio. But so as not to confuse it with earlier versions we'll call it version 3. Either way, the upgrade has been a long time in coming. At this point there have been countless reviews with a very detailed one in particular by Scott Simmons. diLynda.com already has a 3-hour class on what's new in Final Cut Studio 3 - and the best part is that it's FREE! i Also, Diana Weynand the Final Cut Guru and author of all of Apple's books on the subject is offering a free webinar of FCP 7 on August 13. And finally, Final Cut Studio Documentation and Workflows are now online. Adobe and others have had online manuals for a while and now Apple is getting with the program. Make sure you don't overlook the workflows link - it's more comprehensive and clear than you might expect.

My take on the new Final Cut Studio? The growing sentiment is that it does not seem too revolutionary. Larry Jordan may have summed up this sentiment best at his recent seminar in Sacramento when a friend of mine stated that Larry said FCP 7 feels more like FCP 6.5. Phill Hodgets though seems generally impressed by the release. I definitely want to upgrade but will have to wait until I get an Intel Mac since the new version of FC Studio won't run on my G5 quad. The biggest selling points for me are iChat Theatre so I can collaborate remotely with others and being able to round trip to Color. But like others I am surprised that FC Studio is not 64-bit or OpenCL compliant to take advantage of the processing improvements that come with Snow Leopard. That said I am sure the new release will slowly take off once clients and producers find out about the new features. Once I get a chance to test it out I will report back.

Map of LA Post

For all of you considering a move to Los Angeles (or those already there) I've created a map of post facilities in LA county and surrounding areas using Google Maps and LA411.com. What you'll find as you look at the map is that there are 3 clusters of post: Santa Monica stretching down into Venice Beach, Hollywood and Burbank. I've plotted out over 225 facilities and all of the markers include a contact numbers and website link. I have vetted these as much as I can, trying not to include "bedroom boutiques" or any other company that is not big enough to hire for post. These are primarily editorial facilities that may or may not do VFX, animation, audio post or other services. Separate maps for other areas of post would be cool and of course maps of editorial facilities in other markets. Feel free to expand, correct or otherwise collaborate on this document.

July Links

Looks like someone was listening to my plea for subscription based plug-ins back in April. GenArts just made their Sapphire plug-ins available for rent.

And speaking of plug-ins, thanks to Core Melt we now have advanced color correction and grading right inside Final Cut Pro!

I recently found a chart that shows the current, commonly available HD acquisition formats. Also, check out the Videoguys Guide to Understanding HD Formats.

If you have the time and budget to storyboard, knock yourself out with FrameForge 3d Studio 2.

There's been a lot of buzz about nVeil by Storek Studio. Um...I think I like it.

Nucleo 2 by GridIron is continuing to make life easier for After Effects users.

A great article in Millimeter way back in May that explores all the ways that the iPhone is being used on the set. It's similar to my section on how I use the iPhone in post.

And finally, the fascinating story behind the Sita Sings the Blues animated film.

Lost in Translation

Normally, I start writing with an idea and then find an image to enhance it. Today is different. I came across an image that most of us should recognize. You know, the tabbed notices stapled to telephones imploring us to find a lost dog, a just cause or a new talent. Well, I found this image on stock.xchng (a blogger's lifeline) and something about it told me this was a good analogy for something. Ok, besides lost memory. But close. It could symbolize a lot of things to a lot of people across a wide variety of industries but to me the video editor it made me think of one thing: orphaned media. One of the best things about Avid is its' rock-solid media management. When you import or capture anything into Avid Media Composer it is re-wrapped and indexed in an efficient database. If you use Avid's SAN solutions like Unity or Isis then you'll need Interplay as an even more robust way to interface and manage many terabytes of data. Final Cut Pro doesn't natively do this which may be why they decided to develop and release Final Cut Server. A book that has been an absolute Avid Bible for me is my dog-eared copy of The Avid Handbook by Greg Staten and Steve Bayes. It's definitely for Avid users that have been around the block and is full of "advanced techniques, strategies and survival information" as promised. Think of it as a more human technical manual. It's written in the first person and has such revolutionary things like diagrams, "air quotes" and a exclamation points for emphasis! I recently bought Final Cut Pro Workflows by Jason Osder and Robbie Carman and hope that it will become dog-eared as well. What do you think of these books if you've read them? The Avid Handbook is in its' fifth printing so somebody must use it. FCP Workflows has 5 out of 5 glowing reviews on Amazon for whatever that's worth but so far I really like it. The book report will come after I'm done. But in the meantime whatever you do, save the orphans.

More info from Media Pro Camp

I had a chance to briefly chat with Philip Hodgetts of Intelligent Assistance last weekend when I attended the Media Pro Camp in Santa Ana. I sat in on a great talk he lead on pre-compression techniques. There was also info about his new utilities for Final Cut Pro and new book that will only released digitally as a pdf. Be sure to check out his blog.