Editing

Destinations and Bundles

New Sharing Features in Final Cut Pro X

By Mark Spencer | December 18, 2012

On this week's edition of MacBreak Studio, Steve Martin from Ripple Training shows me the new sharing features of Final Cut Pro X.

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Editing video on a previous generation Apple iMac

... when you're used to a MacPro and you're worried there may not ever be another one.

By Scott Simmons | December 16, 2012

As Apple’s big, expandable, workhorse towers - the Mac Pro - has been seemingly left withering on the vine the last couple of years and a lot of professional editors with it. Many of those editors have moved to a laptop or an iMac as their primary edit machines rather than purchase a new tower. I’ve been somewhat critical of an iMac as a primary edit machine but the inclusion of Thunderbolt is really one of those “game-changers” for the dedicated editor. A conversation with Apple around the time of NAB led to a loaner iMac (this was before the new super-thin iMac was introduced) as well as a Promise Pegasus RAID showing up on my doorstep for evaluation and testing. Apple is confident an iMac can make a great primary edit system. I’ll be the first to admit I was pleasantly surprised at the editing experience though it might not be perfect for everyone.

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After Effects Apprentice Free Video: Spotting Dialog

...including creating layer markers with duration indicators.

By Chris and Trish Meyer | December 14, 2012

As we mentioned recently, we've been updating our After Effects Apprentice video courses to reflect changes in the third edition of the book. One shortcoming of previous editions of the book that we corrected with this version is to give audio better coverage, including a new exercise on mixing music and dialog together. In this movie, we demonstrate spotting individual phrases in dialog that we might want to highlight or base our animation around, and mark them including noting their duration (in contrast to spotting music, where we tend to mark just percussive instances in time). 

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Is After Effects for Editors?

Editors on many Hollywood productions are more valuable with After Effects skills. What's stopping them?

By Mark Christiansen | December 13, 2012

An article published last month on the Adobe Press site has sparked much discussion and a little controversy, so I think it's worth following up, starting with a clarification.

The topic clearly strikes a nerve; the article became the site's most popular for the... Read More

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Flexible Connections in Final Cut Pro X

On This Week's MacBreak Studio

By Mark Spencer | December 11, 2012

This week Steve Martin from Ripple Training and I continue our discussion of the features introduced in the Final Cut Pro X 10.0.6 update (note that the 10.0.7 update released last week contained no additional new features, just fixes). This week, we talk about a great way to modify how... Read More

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Color Correction Tips From Steve Hullfish

How External Scopes Can Make Your Life Easier

By Terence Curren | December 10, 2012

Has a director ever asked you if you can fix a few bad shots?

Have you struggled to make a final sequence look better?

Pro Video Coalition's own Steve Hullfish brought the art of color correction from the dark arts to the light of day in 2002 with his book Color Correction... Read More

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Christmas Gift Ideas for the Editor - 2012 Edition

Here's a few ideas for that hard to buy for editor. Or for yourself

By Scott Simmons | December 10, 2012

Christmas is just a couple of weeks away (maybe less depending on when you read this). If you’ve got an editor in your life that you need to buy gifts for here’s a few things that he or she might appreciate. If you can’t find anything good here then check out some previous versions of this topic as there’s still some good stuff on the 2011 and 2010 list.

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Early Media Composer and Final Cut Pro promo videos

And one from Media 100. See how far you NLE software has come.

By Scott Simmons | December 08, 2012

I got taken down into one of those You Tube time sucks the other day. It came courtesy of a couple of tweets by Rob G Wilson that pointed to some very old Avid Media Composer and Final Cut Pro promo videos. If you want to realize just how far your NLE software has advanced then give yourself 20 minutes to check these things out. They are full of bad music, cheesy video effects and plenty of bad hair. Those two videos as well as a an early promo for Media 100 are embedded after the jump. 

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Timecode calculators in the Mac App store, free but not great

It's hard to complain when apps are free though.

By Scott Simmons | December 06, 2012

I've recently moved back into good old Final Cut Pro 7 for an lengthy edit and I've found myself missing a handy dandy timecode calculator. The timecode calculator has long been a part of Avid Media Composer and it's useful to have around. Where's the first place you think to look for a Mac app these days? Why the Mac App store of course. A search for the word timecode reveals a couple of free options. NLA Timecode Calculator (both of these are Mac App Store links) and another called FrameCalculator. It's hard to criticize a free tool but a couple of simple tweaks could make both of these things quite a bit more usable.

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CTRL+Console still looking for funding as the Kickstarter winds down

Funding is getting close as the iPad control surface gets gestures that might make it quite usable

By Scott Simmons | November 21, 2012

It's just about a week to go in the CTRL+Console Kickstarter campaign for this cool non-linear editing control interface for iPhone and iPad. I posted about it a while back and one issue I had was that the lack of tactile control on an iPad meant the demo had the editor looking away from the screen way too often to look at the iPad. But a recent update lists out a number of gestures that will accomplish tasks without looking down at the screen. Now we're talking.

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Adobe has lots of blogs but Kevin’s is the best one

If you're a Premiere Pro CS6 (After Effects too) user then bookmark this useful blog

By Scott Simmons | November 18, 2012

While recently clicking around and updating my RSS feeds in the good ‘ole Google Reader I happened upon this long, long list of Adobe blogs. Adobe is a big company so it's no surprise they have a lot of people blogging about their various corners of the company but the size of that list is ridickerous. That said there are some that have either closed, haven't updated in years or have never updated at all. For Adobe Premiere Pro CS6 the blog to follow is Kevin Monahan's After Effects and Premiere Pro blog.

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Remember DV Guru?

This old film, video , post-production site is a fun blast from the past

By Scott Simmons | November 14, 2012

If you've been around this Internet / blog thing for a while you might remember the old article aggregator DV Guru. If I remember correctly this site was part of the old Weblogs Inc. network back when it was a collection of blogs on just about every topic under the sun. I happened upon DV Guru the other day as it's still online. It's a great snapshot into what the film / video / post-production world was like back in 2007 and a couple of years before. Their last post was on January 31, 2007 and the first looks to have been mid–2005. It's a fun way to kill some time just clicking back through. And what kinds of articles can you expect to find?

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Update Alert: FX Factory moves to 4.0 and now supports Premiere Pro CS6

Long having support for Adobe After Effects this is the first time for FX Factory in Premiere Pro

By Scott Simmons | November 09, 2012

Some exciting news has just come online from Noise Industries. Their always useful FX Factory product has reached 4.0 and with that update brings first ever support for Adobe Premiere Pro CS6. All the usual suspects are there as far as the FX Factory partners. This Premiere Pro CS6 support joins After Effects, Final Cut Pro 7 and Motion as one part of FX Factory with Final Cut Pro X also being supported (although not all FX Factory products work in both FCPX and the others). The PPro support is important, not just because FX Factory has long supported After Effects but because more and more people are using PPro in place of Final Cut Pro 7.

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DSLR Audio: Do YOU know where YOUR sync is?

Another reason why you might prefer a real video camera...

By Adam Wilt | November 06, 2012

Recently one of my L. A. buddies, photographer and director Ralf Strathmann (Flash-based website), shot a feature using Canon 5D Mk IIs. He found to his surprise that the audio and video recorded by the cameras weren't in sync, with sound two frames ahead of picture. A discussion two weeks ago on the Cinematography Mailing List also debated DSLR A/V sync, or the lack thereof. I decided to have a look into it. Read More

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Will CTRL+Console be an editing console that editors actually use?

Being that it's an iPad app my gut says no but I want to try it out anyway so I backed the Kickstarter project

By Scott Simmons | November 05, 2012

This is a very cool looking Kickstarter campaign that popped up a few days ago. CTRL+Console is an iOS-based non-linear editing controller that looks to be built from the ground up specifically for the task of video editing. The interface looks quite futuristic and well designed but unfortunately its downfall might be the iPad itself.

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Multi-Camera Import in Final Cut Pro X

On this week's MacBreak Studio

By Mark Spencer | October 30, 2012

The Final Cut Pro X 10.0.6 update includes many workflow improvements across the entire editing process. In this episode of MacBreak Studio, Steve Martin from Ripple Training talks with me about the new import features including the unified import window, the ability to import from a variety of cameras sources, and the ability to quickly import selection ranges. Read More

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UltraStudio Mini Monitor: competition to AJA’s T-TAP?

Let's compare the T-TAP and the UltraStudio Mini Monitor. Both offer inexpensive monitoring with proper rasters and framerates from your Thunderbolt Mac.

By Allan Tépper | October 30, 2012

Wait a minute! AJA just recently started shipping its US$295 T-TAP (I published my review yesterday) and already Blackmagic is about to deliver its new UltraStudio Mini Monitor for only US$145? C’mon! That’s less than half of the price of the T-TAP! You probably know that they are both out-only Thunderbolt audio/video interfaces. Ahead, you’ll see what’s the same and what’s different between AJA’s T-TAP and Blackmagic’s UltraStudio Mini Monitor.

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Kicking the tires on Final Cut Pro X 10.0.6

An update is made, many new features are added, the Internet rejoices

By Scott Simmons | October 28, 2012

Apple has dropped a new release of Final Cut Pro X. 10.0.6 came down from the cloud on Tuesday, October 23 and delivered on the new features that Apple discussed back in April at NAB 2012. Dual viewers, RED camera support, better audio tools and MXF support are all now a reality in some form or another. This update also saw a lot of feature improvements as well including the often requested return of paste attributes. There's been a lot of what's new and first looks all over the web since release. I wanted to take a more honest look at some of the features as opposed to just listing out bullet points.

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T-TAP Thunderbolt out-only interface: the details in general + with a DreamColor monitor

We've been patiently waiting since April 2012 to find out exactly how compatible the T-TAP is. Now you can know...

By Allan Tépper | October 28, 2012

Back in April 2012 at NAB in Las Vegas , the USA-based AJA first announced and showed their US$295 T-TAP out-only audio/video Thunderbolt interface, which makes a lot of sense in the age of file-based video production. Since April, I have covered the product in a few articles, and kept pressing AJA for more details, specifically with regards to very detailed specs to meet the beloved (yet demanding) HP DreamColor monitor. Finally, AJA lent me a T-TAP so I could test it myself. Ahead you’ll find AJA’s own warnings, my findings, and then my observations about where and when the T-TAP will logically fit in a system.

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Quick Test: FCPX 10.0.6

Solid gains in the new FCPX release, with no obvious drawbacks.

By Adam Wilt | October 24, 2012

Someone has to be the first to stick a toe in the water when a new update comes out, so I jumped in with both feet. I'm running FCPX 10.0.6 on two different Macs, and so far, everything is OK. I plan to upgrade Mac #3 later today. Read More

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