Editing

Ice Cold Gold editor tweets a ton of Avid tips

It's only 140 characters but you can make some good tips in a small space if you try

By Scott Simmons | May 23, 2013

Twitter is always a good place to chat about film and video post-production. It’s also a great place to pick up tips and tricks. Recently editor David Michael Maurer spent his Twitter day tweeting a slew of Avid Media Composer tips and tricks. It’s often tricky to distil a complex editing tip into 140 characters but Mr. Maurer did a good job. Since not everyone who would like to see some good Avid tips is on Twitter I’ve reposted those here, with permission.

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Whip (swish) pans in After Effects & Premiere

Some tools and tutorials

By Rich Young | May 22, 2013

A whip or swish pan describes the motion of a fast camera move, as in following a passing train or spaceship. Because of motion blur, it's most often used to smooth transitions between abrupt cuts of shots or scenes. While this is often done in post, Adobe doesn't include dedicated tools for this effect, so here are some 3rd-party filters and tutorials you can use to construct whip pan transitions in After Effects and Premiere Pro.

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I miss digitizing footage from video tape

In today's way-too-much-footage file-based world that realtime capture feels like an old school luxury

By Scott Simmons | May 21, 2013

Ok, I’m going to just come right out an admit it … I miss digitizing. For those young ‘uns unfamiliar with the term that would be the process of actually having to take a video tape and capture that into the computer for editing. Some folks call it ingest, others do use the term capture but I’ve always referred to it as digitizing. I used to hate it but now I miss it. Sometimes I miss it a lot. Is that crazy?

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FCP X, Photoshop, and RAW

On this week's MacBreak Studio

By Mark Spencer | May 21, 2013

This week on MacBreak Studio, Steve Martin from Ripple Training gives us some tips on working with RAW images in Final Cut Pro X.

We've talked about RED RAW workflow in an earlier episode of MacBreak Studio - how you can work with these RAW video files natively in FCP X,... Read More

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Premiere Pro News Notes #02

Creative Cloud, the Timeline, aspect ratios, Encore DVD, color, and more

By Rich Young | May 20, 2013

A series of as-they-come notes on news of assorted Premiere Pro tutorials, tips, and related tools continues.

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Archiving Final Cut Pro X Projects and Media

This Week on MacBreak Studio

By Mark Spencer | May 14, 2013

This week on MacBreak Studio, Steve Martin from Ripple Training talks about archiving your projects in Final Cut Pro X.

Once you've delivered your edit to your client, they've approved it and you've been paid, how do you go about saving that project and storing it... Read More

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Premiere Pro (and all the Adobe apps) are going cloud only

No more software boxes or 4 figure purchase either for that matter

By Scott Simmons | May 09, 2013

It’s been an eventful few days in and around the general world of film and video post-production. If you haven’t heard (but of course you have) Adobe made the decision to move all of their software licensing to the cloud, their Creative Cloud, and charge $50 a month to access to everything they make. No more paying some $1,500 up front for the Production Premium and having a box shipped to your door. While it would be nice to have a less expensive monthly access to only those video-centric apps (I’m never going to use Dreamweaver, InDesign or Muse among others) you really do get a lot for that $50 (check out the pricing page for other price options that could lower your monthly bill to Adobe). 

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Adobe Moves Creative Suite To The Cloud - What You Need To Know

No more updates to Creative Suite as Adobe switches focus to new subscription service

By Dan Carr | May 09, 2013

Adobe announced this week at the MAX conference that Creative Suite will no longer be upgraded with new features, the future of all their creative software now lies firmly with the subscription service Creative Cloud.  Alongside this announcement they unveiled new versions of all their... Read More

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Text Animation in Motion

This Week on MacBreak Studio

By Mark Spencer | May 07, 2013

This week on MacBreak Studio, I show Steve Martin from Ripple Training a few tricks for animating text in Motion.

Text, like shapes, particles, replicators, cameras, and other objects in Motion, has a dedicated set of behaviors available for animating it in various ways. In... Read More

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Useful Tools for Editors: After NAB Edition

Another round-up of useful tools you may or may not know about

By Scott Simmons | May 05, 2013

Another NAB has come and gone so things can begin to get back to normal. With that end to NAB let’s have a new entry into the Useful Tools for Editors category with our After NAB Edition. We talk PCs, relinking, keyboard emulators, slideshows and (of course) FxFactory.

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Visualizing hard drive speeds with the Blackmagic Disk Speed Test

A few images for those new to editing to see the extreme differences in drive speed

By Scott Simmons | May 03, 2013

I was having a discussion with some students recently about hard drive speeds and why it’s important to have a fast drive for editing. All the discussion of data rates and different types of connections can only go so far as students new to editing need to see that speed in action. The Blackmagic Disk Speed Test (Mac App Store link) is a good way to visualize drive speed but we didn’t have that handy so here’s those big speedometers scaling from USB up to a very fast Thunderbolt connection.

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Creating a DVD - Without the DVD

This week on MacBreak Studio

By Mark Spencer | April 30, 2013

This week on MacBreak Studio, Steve Martin from Ripple Training shows us a neat trick for creating a "diskless" DVD straight from Final Cut Pro X.

Although DVDs are becoming less prevalent due to the rapid rise in web-delivered HD video, some clients still require them. Plus,... Read More

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Using Behaviors in Motion

On this week's MacBreak Studio

By Mark Spencer | April 23, 2013

This week on MacBreak Studio, I talk with Steve Martin from Ripple Training about using behaviors instead of keyframes for creating animation in Motion.

Almost everything in Motion can be animated either with traditional keyframing methods or by using procedural objects... Read More

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Rubén Abruña tests his Blackmagic Cinema Camera with waterwheel short

See Rubén’s grading workflow from uncompressed CinemaDNG RAW 12-bit to DaVinci Resolve & FCP X.

By Allan Tépper | April 22, 2013

Rubén Abruña (who now lives in Zurich, Switzerland) recently received his new Blackmagic Cinema Camera which he had ordered in July of 2012. Rubén decided to take a one-day break from the grading of his La Casa Ausente documentary to test his new camera and its... Read More

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NAB 2013: X-Keys

They're just a bunch of buttons but boy do they look handy.

By Scott Simmons | April 18, 2013

I know I probably shouldn’t get excited by something as simple as a bunch of buttons but I have to say that one of my favorite things that I saw at the 2013 NAB show were the X-keys Sticks from P.I. Engineering. These things are just a strip of 4, 8, or 16 buttons that I envisioned as an extra set of function keys. I know it seems silly but boy did I immediately see a big use for something like that. I’ve tried so many different input devices over the years but nothing seems quite a nice as buttons.

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NAB 2013: The TitaniumZ-5 from Small Tree

Need portable network storage for up to 6 editors?

By Scott Simmons | April 17, 2013

Not everyone in post-production has the need for shared storage and probably even less of those need portable shared storage but if you’re one of those that do look no further than the TitaniumZ–5 from Small Tree. It’s got some impressive specs and an eye-catching, yet useful form factor. It looks like it would be the perfect fit for certain editing situations.

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Mark, Replace, Slip

On this week's MacBreak Studio

By Mark Spencer | April 16, 2013

This week on MacBreak Studio, Steve Martin from Ripple Training shows us a cool trick for performing a particular kind of replace edit in Final Cut Pro X.

Replace edits are quite powerful tools for swapping out one clip in a project for another or adjusting (slipping) an... Read More

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NAB 2013: The ProMAX ONE and ProMAX ONE+ powerhouse PCs

They're not MacPros though the look like one and are probably much faster

By Scott Simmons | April 16, 2013

One thing I noticed when walking the South Hall of the 2013 NAB show was there are quite a new more PCs in the various booths running various software demos. There were also quite a new vendors offering fast, customizable PC workstations. One of those vendors is ProMAX and their very MacPro looking machines are called the ProMAX ONE and One+. I loved the description of the machine from the ProMAX rep I talked to: It’s like a “higher end MacPro … it doesn’t run OSX.”

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NAB 2013: Version 11 of Pro Tools finally cures its Achilles’ heel

Finally Pro Tools will be able to “bounce” and export quickly, instead of in real time.

By Allan Tépper | April 11, 2013

Forget about its brand-new engine, 64-bit architecture, and expanded metering. The most important improvement I see in the palindromic version 11 of Pro Tools is that with this update, the renowned audio editing tool from Avid will finally cure its Achilles’ heel. I am talking... Read More

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NAB 2013: Avid Media Composer 7 and Lightworks for Mac

I took a few minutes and actually played with Lightworks Mac!

By Scott Simmons | April 11, 2013

We’ve already talked about Adobe and their next version of Premiere Pro but the other NLEs on the show floor creating buzz were Avid Media Composer 7 (here’s my take from their press conference) and … wait for it … Lightworks for Mac. That’s just an early alpha of the Lightworks Mac but it was running and I played with it. It’ll be fun to watch how the biz takes to it when the Mac version finally ships which should be later this year.

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