Creative Cow has posted two good articles: David Hague on using Excel for making storyboards, and Dave Laronde on a clever use of track mattes in After Effects. Just ordered some Firewire drives for the edit Macs, more Firewire cables, bulk VHS and DV tape, and long-life batteries for the digital camcorders we check out to students and faculty for training.
Here’s some new text to show Nancy how this works. Here’s a link to Schoolblogs.
——-LAFCPUG has posted the “Final Tally of the 2002 Top Ten FCP Feature Request Ballot.” They’re having their monthly meeting tonight as well, with an emphasis on Audio, and Michael Horton should be posting a report about it next week.
Bruce Johnson – Digital Video : Shooting In Africa. ”...I meet with JoEllen Fair, one of the expedition’s organizers. I explain that although I can certainly sit everyone down in a classroom and show them how to use a camera, it makes more sense for me to accompany them to Benin, where I can help them conquer the problems posed by shooting very dark complexioned people in a harsh-light environment. To my surprise, the organizers agree, and I start getting ready to go to Africa.” An excellent story, not just about this trip, but about proper technical, mental, and even spiritual preparation for shooting good video.
The Little QuickTime Page has its weekly update; note the Codec Shootout link.
At Home Theater and High Fidelity: “The Digital Link: Understanding the Digital Home Video Controversy on Commercial Content (Copy) Protection.” Biran Weatherhead assesses the impact of new standards, copy protection, and FCC policy on consumer video gear. It’s not a complete look at the issue, but teachers and students of the industry need to keep aware. It gives every appearance of a giveaway to industry, with new standards forcing them to broadcast in a particular format incompatible with existing equipment.
——-
Digital Media Links from Jim Kanter of the Atlanta Final Cut Pro Users Group. Nicely researched; go, look already, what are you waiting for, go learn!
Whither the DV-List? The Yahoo Groups site hasn’t had a new post since February 12th; at the original DV Central site Bertel or Alexei posted this: “The DV-L Discussion Forum is down as of 12-Feb-02, due to an unrecoverable (so far) server crash. It will be at least several days before it becomes operational again.” I wish them luck. It’ the best ongoing conversation about DV issues among professionals I’ve found in four years of working with DV. I hope they can come back strongly, and soon.
I haven’t started working yet with Joe’s Filters 3, but Ned Soltz at LAFCPUG likes them very much.
2-pop weighs in here and here on Media100’s Pegasus 844/X system.
——-Andy Field in Final Cut Pro for Broadcast? Absolutely!
: “As a money making tool, FCP paid for itself on the first project – including the computer, monitors and hard drives – as a creative tool, it’s made our projects sparkle. – we’ve gotten used to the oooh’s, ahhhs, and how did you do that comments. PBS Money Moves executive producer Debby Everett told us – ” the images are clean and crisp and jump off the screen. You couldn’t ask for better video and audio quality.” That from a producer who must meet PBS quality control standards – the toughest in the industry.” A seasoned pro weighs in. And where did I find this great link? Ken Stone, again.
Courses – SIGGRAPH 2002: “All your hard work has been invested in production of an animation or doing the research. Now that your work is finished, what are you going to do with it? This course outlines a step-by-step process for getting your movie or research into a video product, which you can present with confidence to colleagues and future employers.” I’m supporting Barbara Helfer and Mary Nicols in presenting this full-day course at their San Antonio conference. They’re old hands with SIGGRAPH, but it’ll be my first and I’m getting pumped about it.
DV Shop: “Welcome to The DV Shop, a new Canadian retailer and website specializing in Digital Video.” Based in Toronto, this shop’s website is filled with good links, tips and tricks, archives of their smart newsletter, and a very friendly attitude. By all means, explore.
Camtasia: “Looking for a way to capture images off of a web site or a desktop application? Advanced screen capture software and AVI video capture & editor software. Free trial downloads!” Windows only; recommended by Rick Jaffe’s Picture & Sound weblog:
Notes towards using web-based multimedia in K-12 education.” We like him already.
Eyecron will apparently post a slide show of your pictures with a voice-over you record by phone via their toll-free number. Their Terms of Service make no undue claims on the pictures you post, and say they strictly prohibit undesirable pictures. I haven’t tried it – if you do, send word on what you think. (The throbbing eyeball logo is kind of creepy, but I like it.)
——-
Joe Maller of Joe’s Filters for Final Cut Pro fame (you didn’t know he was famous? He probably ought to be, for this) sent me his filters to review after seeing my link on Wednesday.
I’ll work with them over the next few weeks and let you know what I find.
How did I miss this? Great tutorials, features, and good forums on video and other multimedia apps run by pros… go to Creative Cow right now and explore. It’ll take up most of my day, let me tell you. Heard about it last night at the Atlanta Final Cut Pro Users Group.
——-
Creative Mac: “The problem is that you’ve used a Layer Style in Photoshop (such as Drop Shadow), and your alpha channel, upon import to your video editor, seems to clip the transparency. Where did the effect go, and what can you do about it? As the host of our Photoshop forum here at DMN, I encounter this question quite frequently. Rather than continue answering it every single time, I’ve decided to provide you with this quick tutorial.” You’ve got to know how to do this.
brentashley : Collaborative development of cool web apps. He’s posted a chat client tied to his weblog. If the button under his calendar says “brent is in,” you can chat in real time with him. If I can install it here, I could do an hour or so of online consulting with educators who want to get some immediate feedback on DV issues. This is yet another powerful weblogging tool… an amazing community of helpful programmers and users creating new ways to communicate and share. It’s so great to be a part of this.
Atlanta Final Cut Pro User Group meeting tonight: “The topics will include ‘Making the switch to OSX’ and a review of three Final Cut Pro books.”
I’m looking at GSU’s new Digital Aquarium (no site yet) for students to work on the latest high-end multi-media workstations. Very nice. It’s a student-only facility for their projects. I like all the systems, but I’m really jealous of the soft, indirect lighting. We have nasty flourescent lights, on all the time, bad bad bad for the eyes. Will we get $$$ for a remodel? Not likely. Oh well….——-
Many Mac news sites, including MacInTouch have posted links to “Version 3.0 of Joe’s Filters for Final Cut Pro”: a dozen new filters for diffusion, blur, noise, time and other effects, plus updates to eight previously included filters. The 24-filter set is $95, and a free trial version is available.” I haven’t used Joe’s filters yet, but he’s a regular on some discussion boards and really seems to know his DV onions. DV.com has posted some new features and reviews. The Little QuickTime Page has its first update since the QuickTime Live conference.
Just back from taping an awards presentation recognizing teachers in Atlanta Public Schools and Apple Corps. volunteers for their work, highlighted by a speech calling for improvement in Atlanta’s schools, with a reminder of their chronically poor performance. Michael Lomax, former Fulton County Commission chairman and president of Dillard University in New Orleans, provided yet another assessment of the problem but no concrete ideas for how to fix it. We must apply Atlanta’s can-do spirit to the problem.
I’m glad the volunteers and teachers were recognized.
——-Hi, gang. Today I teach iMovie/DV workshops for two groups of student teachers, morning and afternoon, so I will provide those lovely crunchy bits of pedagogical video goodness later this afternoon. I expect Judy and Robert to report on the QuickTime Live conference today, and perhaps some developments on the MPEG-4 front (or “in the MPEG-4 arena” – what would we do without cliches?). In the meantime, go shoot and edit some video yourself. Good for the soul.
Also, Giles Bateman of batphone (“You are nowhere – you are now here”)has offered advice on running Frontier on Mac OS X Server. Frontier is the software that in turn runs Manila, which makes easy-to-update weblogs like this one possible.
——-The Ken Stone Index has two good updates:
Out of Final Cut Pro and into the Fire of DVD Studio Pro – Exporting from FCP and reassembling in DVD Studio Pro: “Whether you’re just getting started editing, or you’re an experienced Final Cut editor, this article will show you the steps to convert your Final Cut Pro sequence into the proper formats for importing into DVD Studio Pro.”
iMic – USB Audio for Macs – Griffin Technology Audio Adapter
: “For 35 bucks, I can’t imagine finding a better audio capture device that samples natively at 48K, the sample rate FCP’ers want and need.” This article offers particularly valuable tips on reducing noise and interference from other equipment while using this great tool (I use one too).
2-pop’s DV for Teachers Discussion Group yielded good information on FCP lab licensing ”>here, with a link to Apple’s lab pricing information here.
And in the Los Angeles FCP User’s Group forum, a thread about a Roxio Toast plug-in for VCD export from FCP. Useful, useful.——-
Workingmac.com – QT Live keynote: Free the MPEG 4:
“According to [Phil]Schiller [Apple’s vice-president of worldwide marketing], ‘the technology is practically done,’ but its release is being held for licensing reasons. Apple, he says, is willing to pay codec royalties that add up to 2 million dollars a year. But the new licensing proposals from MPEGLA, the governing standards body over MPEG, ask for an additional royalty structure that is dependent upon content.The fee structure, as Schiller presented it during his keynote, is 2¢ per hour for the content host and 2¢ per hour for the content replicator. Distilled down, that means both providers and users will have to pay a fee for each instance of use over time.
Groans and boos from the audience helped to make Apple’s case clearer, and Schiller asked the audience to help. ‘Now is the time you can affect how this goes.’ He then put a slide with the email address-
licensing@mpegla.com-on the screen, and asked the audience to send their comments directly to the standards body.”
Follow-to yesterday’s posts. MPEG-4 has the potential to radically change the way educators concieve of video – for its creation and its use in the classroom at all levels. In one or two years – when computers are even more powerful and less expensive – the capability to watch and make multimedia will be even further ‘democratized.’ That means that most schools and homes will have computers capable of making and viewing high-quality video and multimedia, regardless of platform. QuickTime is positioned to be the primary inexpensive authoring tool; keep that in mind, and keep an eye on the MPEG-LA discussions. This will absolutely affect our everyday lives in three to five years.
——-