Shane Ross/Little Frog in Hi Def

EDITGROOVE…FOR FCP

ANOTHER cool tool for FCP released today, EditGroove. This bit of software manages preferences and user settings for multiple users…on one machine or across a network. If you are working on one machine one day, then move to another, you can load your keyboard layouts….

Technorati Tags: add-ons, Final Cut Pro, Tools

Richard Siklos / Fortune

Tense times in Hollywood’s dream factory

LOS ANGELES (Fortune) — Even in the land of make-believe, where the meltdown on Wall Street feels a million miles away, these are tense days. While no one can say for sure how the financial crisis will affect Hollywood, a prevailing view is that the film business is relatively protected for at least a year or two, but that the TV industry which was already impacted by last winter’s writers’ strike could be in for a rocky ride….

Technorati Tags: financial meltdown, movies, studios, tv

By Lawrence Jordan

8:45 Introductions from the Organizers: Ken Goldberg, Tiffany Shlain, Lance Weiler, Scott Kirsner

9:00 AM John Batter, Co-President of Production, DreamWorks Animation SKG; former Group Studio General Manager, Electronic Arts - The Future of Animation, 3-D Cinema, and Games

John presented Dreamworks perspective on the future of 3-D. He described “Digital 3-D” as the next big jump in 3-D production and exhibition. Showed a clip from Kung Fu Panda that was recreated from the ground up using this new workflow. Pretty amazing looking stuff. Stated that all future DW animation productions will be in 3-D. Also demoed the same clip on a 46″ plasma television. Batter next showed a clip from upcoming film “Monster’s vs. Aliens” DW’s first major 3-D release coming March 27th. This clip was also impressive, particularly the fact that Steven Colbert voices the character of the president of the United States.

10:00 AM - 10:45 AM
The Future of Visual Effects and Pre-Visualization

John Gaeta, Visual Effects Designer, Speed Racer and the Matrix trilogy
John Knoll, Visual Effects Supervisor, Industrial Light & Magic
Euisung Lee, Halon Entertainment
Phil Tippett, Founder, Tippett Studio
Barbara Robertson, Journalist, CGSociety, Computer Graphics World, Digital Production (Moderator)

Taped John Knoll and some of Phil Tippett’s discussion of new tools and techniques being developed for VFX. If I can get clearance I’ll post them asap.

11:00 AM - 11:30 AM

New Forms of Storytelling

Michael Ferris Gibson, Director, 24 Hours on Craigslist & Producer, Truth in Numbers: The Wikipedia Story
Gregg Spiridellis, CEO Guy, JibJab Media
Evan Spiridellis, Head Art Guy, JibJab Media

The brothers Spiridellis, creators of JibJab, talked about building their content company and it’s explained a bit about its exponential growth. They also mentioned using taking thier content and spreading it across different products. Michael Gibson Talked about his film “Truth in Numbers: The Wikipedia Story” an example of collaborative filmmaking (he aggregated a crew and raised 60K online) after running out of money he created a trailer with what he had and was able to raise financing to finish. I taped both these speakers and will hopefully get clearance.

12:00 Just too much good stuff and and I’m finding it tough to write AND shoot. Will recap later this evening.

Technorati Tags: 3-D, Animation, digital cinema, theconvo

Digital technology is radically changing filmmaking and by extension all media. The future of movies, music, games, social communication is being created as we speak. This Friday and Saturday October 17th and 18th, you are invited to participate in helping to shape what this future might look like.

The team behind the event includes: Ken Goldberg, artist and director of the Berkeley Center for New Media, Boston Globe and Variety columnist Scott Kirsner whose new book”Inventing the Movies” is a must read for anyone interesting in the history and future of the medium, Tiffany Shlain, Filmmaker and Director of “The Tribe”, multi-festival award winner and the #1 downloaded short film at iTunes and Filmmaker and “Cultural Hacker” Lance Weiler, who Wired magazine named “One of twenty-five people helping to re-invent entertainment and change the face of Hollywood.”

The Conversation promises to be an eye opening and fascinating event. Get an idea of what the future has in store for you by registering to attend The Conversation today.

Technorati Tags: digital cinema, games, indie film, media innovation, social media

Rarely do I snark at other publications for their missteps, but this one really caught my attention. In its latest issue, Information Week has an article entitled “Which Video Software Package Should You(Tube) use?”. While it does contain a few tidbits of useful information, the recommendation of Adobe Premiere Pro CS4 as “The Pro’s Choice” displays a lack of knowledge of what the majority of professional editors use to ply their craft.

Don’t get me wrong I have nothing against Premiere Pro, but for starters the CS4 version, which the article refers to, hasn’t even been released yet. This obviously precludes it from having been evaluated by professional editors. What I find more remiss is the failure to mention the real tools of choice for the majority of professional editors such as offerings from Avid Technology and their Media Composer, Sony, with its hugely popular PC editing package Vegas or Apple’s Final Cut Pro.

Anyone with even a peripheral knowledge of the professional editing tools market knows Premiere is not “the pro’s choice”. And while it does offer professional level features, it is certainly not as widely used in professional circles as products from the vendors mentioned above. This is reflected in the reader comments, which turn out to be the most educational and frankly, most entertaining part of the article.

Information Week should stick to subjects it knows best, otherwise it might become known as “Bad Information Week”.

Technorati Tags: Adobe Premiere Pro, Avid, digital video, editing software, Final Cut Pro, Reviews, Sony Vegas

Technorati Tags: 4K, digital cinema, Sony, Workflow

A cultural legend, a master of his craft. A great philanthropist and humanitarian, a personal hero. He will live on in his body of work, but he will be sorely missed…

His kind don’t come through here often.

Technorati Tags: actors, Filmmakers, legends, Paul Newman

Michael Kunkes Editors Guild Magazine Online

A Production Premium: Adobe Creative Suite 4

Avid has “New Thinking,” Final Cut Pro has “Editing Unleashed.” Now, with the major release September 23 of its Creative Suite 4 Production Premium, Adobe’s watchword is “Product Intelligence.” But is it change we can believe in? The short answer is a resounding (though early) yes…

Harry B. Miller ACE Tech Web Blog

Multiple Source Monitors

I’ve tested this just a little, but it seems to be a pretty interesting and crazy Avid editing capability. 
Option+double click (Mac, or Alt+double PC) a clip in a bin opens that clip in a pop-up monitor. What is interesting is when this window is active, it works as a source monitor…

Burning to DVD on a PC

Outputting a sequence and burning it to DVD on a Mac is easy. Export a Quicktime reference from the Media Composer, drop the created .mov file on to Toast, hit Burn. Toast will encode the entire movie, and burn it as a playable DVD. And it works in the background, as you continue to work on other things on your computer.

Technorati Tags: Adobe CS4, Avid, avid on pc, dvd burning, monitors, Reviews

Scott Kirsner/BusinessWeek Online

Innovation Lessons from Hollywood

Mark Cuban tried to change the way movies are released, putting them into theaters, broadcasting them on cable, and releasing them on DVD in the same short time-frame. Steve Jobs tried to turn iTunes into the world’s largest video store. George Lucas tried to spark a revolution in digital cinematography and digital projection. All of them ran into a barrier they weren’t expecting: Hollywood’s intense resistance to innovation…

Scott Kirsner/BusinessWeek Online

18 People Who Changed Hollywood

Hollywood is hardly ever thought of as a hotbed of innovation. The industry is more likely to try to battle a new technology with lawsuits (see the Betamax recorder, YouTube) than embrace it with open arms. But the movies wouldn’t have survived for more than a century were it not for the tenacious innovators who introduced new tools, new ideas, and new technologies…

Chris and Trish Meyer/Provideocoalition

Adobe After Effects CS4

Adobe has announced their Creative Suite 4, in which they have aligned the schedules of virtually all of their products to be updated at the same time. One of these programs is, of course, After Effects, which we have based our business around since its release in 1992. As a result, we obviously go over each new release with a fine-tooth comb…

By Lawrence Jordan

After many years of working on the Avid Media Composer, and several years of working professionally in Final Cut Pro, I’ve come to the conclusion that the Media Composer is the digital equivalent of the Moviola, the primary tool of professional editors for generations. Final Cut Pro can’t make this claim and here I’ll explain one of the reasons why.

Invented in 1924, the Moviola was an editing device used to cut celluloid film. It was originally designed to be a home movie projector, but when sales didn’t take off, it was redesigned specifically to edit motion pictures. You threaded the film on the big, black (and later green) machine and you could run shots and sequences back and forth, pretty much until the sprockets wore out (and they did). The Moviola was a clackety, loud apparatus and if you weren’t careful, you could catch your finger in the threading mechanism. Having done this personally on several occasions I can assure you it wasn’t pleasant. My point being that editing on a Moviola was a much more physical experience than editing on a computer. This, of course, is true of so many of the work tasks digital technologies have replaced.

The physicality of cutting on a Moviola was also demonstrated by the fact that many editors stood at their Moviola. While reviewing the film, shot or sequence, the editor would mark the film with a grease pencil (a thick, greased-based marker, which you could wipe off the film) take it out of the threading mechanism and physically make your cut. This technique worked well and the modest machine was the de facto standard of the editing craft for many, many years.

However, the real magic of working on the Moviola was finding your cut point. Equipped with an actual hand-brake, it enabled you to find your cut point, and stop the machine on the exact frame you desired. This was (and still is) critically important. As an editor you become physically as well as mentally immersed in the material. Filmmakers talk about “feeling” the cut and I’ve known many editors who would sway with the rhythms of the action or dialog while cutting. It is almost like a dance, the film being your partner and when you were really in sync with your partners rhythms, you were really in the zone.

I know many readers are saying, so what does this have to do with Avid vs. Final Cut Pro?

Cut Point: The Moviola's Trusty Handbrake

Final Cut Pro has always suffered from something called “latency”. Latency in digital editing simply means that when you attempt to mark or stop on a specific frame (i.e. Moviola’s hand-brake) the software takes a moment to respond. It can also be observed when you play something in the timeline and it runs out of sync. This is especially true with some of the newer compressed HD formats hitting the market and is a complete deal breaker for almost all professional editors. The worst part about latency is that it tends to break the flow or, once again, the rhythm of the work.

This is one of several reasons that 99% of all major motion pictures continue to be cut on the Avid. You can stop and mark on a dime with no latency. This is true when working in a cut sequence or simply trimming a clip. Avid editors have the added ability to mark in or out continuously, in rapid-fire succession if they choose without the software exhibiting as much as a flinch. This has held true since the first day I worked on the Avid in 1992. Many FCP stalwarts argue that latency isn’t a problem. I don’t want to burst their bubble, but I’ve been working in the trenches with the software for the last several years and it just ain’t so. These folks have either never cut anything rhythmically or don’t understand what it is.

Final Cut Pro is a terrific product, I particularly admire the fact that it has enabled so many to gain a deeper understanding of the editing craft. However, if it ever is going to grab a larger share of the studio filmmaking pie, it will have to address the latency issue as well as several other non-intuitive functions that hinder its adoption by the majority of professional editors.

In the next installment of this series, I’ll discuss another of Final Cut Pro’s Achilles heels…Trimming

Technorati Tags: avid media composer, digital filmmaking, Editing, Final Cut Pro, moviola

Adam Wilt/Pro Video Coalition

Adam Wilt Reviews the Panasonic AG-HPX170P 1/3”, 3CCD P2 Camcorder

The first review on the net of the successor to Panasonic’s hugely popular HVX-200. Adam gives his usual in-depth analysis of what is expected to be one of this year’s “next big things” in digital cinematography. This article will be of particular interest to indie-filmmakers, production houses and cinematographers…(more)

Richard Recco/QC Central

Cineon/DPX Pro for Final Cut Studio 2 3.0.3

This is a professional set of QuickTime components to read and write Cineon or DPX images. Features include:- Full Integration with Final Cut Pro 6 and Compressor 3
- Solid playback with FCP 6. (If system meets recommended requirements.)
- Sequence Presets for Cineon or DPX based projects
- 32-bit float pixel support during import and export. (more)

IFSS/International Film School, Sydney

Dual-System Sound Sync Options

One particular production workflow that can be a sticking point for many projects is working in post with dual-system sound requiring synchronization.

Dual-System (aka Double-System) sound is simply that where the audio has been recorded separately from the picture, to a physically separate recording device and medium. The main unit used in the school for dual-system is the Marantz solid-state field recorder. This records 2 channel audio to compact flash memory cards in standard 48k 16bit…. (more)

Merinews - India

Video editing: The visual cut

VIDEO EDITING has become an inseparable part of today’s media and entertainment industry and hence the increased demand for video editors. The secret behind making art aesthetically appealing lies in the techniques of editing… (more)

Technorati Tags: adam wilt., cinematography, digital filmmaking, HPX170, HPX170P, hvx-200, indie film

The Complex and often arcane world of digital cinema mastering just became a bit more accessible as QuVis Corp. of Topeka, Kansas has announced the availability of a $699 digital cinema mastering plug-in for Final Cut Studio. The QuVis “Wraptor” enables FCS users to create professional-quality DCP’s or Digital Cinema Packages, the digital equivalent of a traditional film based “release print”, directly from a Final Cut Pro project. The plug-in uses the same QPJ™ encoding technology available in the company’s high-end, real-time mastering servers. QuVis developed the product in conjunction with Apple, who strongly supports the product.

Wraptor is actually a plug-in for Final Cut Studio’s Compressor. Considering Compressor’s distributed rendering capabilities, producers looking to take advantage of the plug-in’s low cost, will be able to do so without having to deal with endless render times.

The significance of this product should not be underestimated. To this point digital cinema mastering was one of the few areas of the digital filmmaking process that was not only difficult to decipher, but it was also very expensive. The cost of mastering a feature length film to a DCP typically runs in the 20K range, a stretch for the majority of aspiring and independent filmmakers. The Wraptor plug-in from QuVis seems like it has the ability to change all that and be another paradigm shifting tool that will help usher in a new era of digital cinema.

Technorati Tags: cluster, compressor, digital cinema, Final Cut Pro, Final Cut Studio, HD, plug-ins, QuVis, render farm, Wraptor