DV for Teachers

I saw “Spellbound,” the documentary about the National Spelling Bee, and it’s a marvel. It follows eight kids from their homes to the final competition in Washington, D.C. Any student filmmaker should watch this— as an example of craft; an example of finding a story worth telling in the lives of regular people; and a really good film without explosions, car chases, sex, political intrigue, high-contrast lighting, or kung fu. (Our local paper’s film critic, an infamous ninny, wrote this about it: “Spellbound’s” raw material is so innately charming that there wasn’t much for Blitz to do besides show up.” A statement of such ignorance is worth repeating to insure no one pays attention to her opinions. A ninny of impressive scope, yes?)

I also saw Finding Nemo the next day, and it was clever and good looking and glossy and detailed and nice. Spellbound was much better. Go see it.——-

The Los Angeles Final Cut Pro Users Group has posted their notes from their May 28 meeting. Always good information, and inspiring ideas for any nascent filmmaker.——-

“Laptops in schools click, win support”

Encouraging article about the laptops-for-every-kid project in Maine. Now, add edublogs to the mix….

Thanks to Ken Stone and his essential FCP site, directions on partitioning your drive to make room for the coming upgrade. Remember to backup first!!!

From the Final Cut Pro 4 Tech Specs page at Apple:

1GB of disk space required for application installation.

5GB of disk space required for Soundtrack content.

9GB of disk space required for LiveType content.

I have three partitions on my main machine, and use Mike Bombich’s free Carbon Copy Cloner to back up exact bootable copies – permissions, everything – to an external FireWire drive. I do this every one or two weeks, and always before installing any of Apple’s Software Updates. I wait until the braver souls test their machines and report in at Macintouch, among other places.——-

The main Mac sites are reporting that Final Cut Pro 4 will ship on June 14.——-

Damien Barrett – NYC-based Mac consultant – notes a problem one of his clients had after installing QuickTime 6.3: a conflict with another piece of software used by an audio capture device. Not healthy when the multimedia software – QuickTime – that most of the system depends on won’t play well with another important tool you need for your work. This is the first one I’ve heard about, but this is why I never install an upgrade of any of Apple’s Software Updates without thoroughly reading sites like Damien’s, Macintouch, Mac OS X Hints, and TidBits.

An example: I use Final Cut Pro 3 which depends on QT for, oh, everything. The System Requirements page has this gem:

Note to DVD Studio Pro and Final Cut Pro Users:
Final Cut Pro 4 and DVD Studio Pro version 1.5.1 and later are qualified for use with QuickTime 6.3.

They fail to note that Final Cut Pro 4 is not shipping yet. See why I always wait?

In honor of the 50th Anniversary of Norgay and Hillary reaching the peak of Everest, take a look at this QTVR from the summit. Look around more for an excellent use of multimedia on the Nova site.——-

Chalkboard? It must have something to do with education….

It’s actually an interesting set of filters you can apply to your video in FCP, but I feel certain you can apply similar filter sets in other editing apps. Have fun.——-