Education & Inspiration

Editing on The Go with Final Cut Pro X

On This Week's MacBreak Studio

By Mark Spencer | January 08, 2013

This week on MacBreak Studio, Steve Martin from Ripple Training shows us how to make sure we've got everything together when moving events in Final Cut Pro X to another drive.

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3D HFR and the Immersive Experience

Is Less More, or is More, in fact, More?

By Mark Christiansen | January 04, 2013

There seems little doubt that display technology and the way we experience media today won't necessarily look the same throughout the 21st century, any more than Downton Abbey looks like Enter the Void, or a zoetrope resembles Call of Duty. There are, for example,... Read More

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Moving and Sharing Final Cut Pro X Effects

On This Week's MacBreak Studio

By Mark Spencer | January 01, 2013

Happy New Year, everyone! We are starting off 2013 by getting a little "terminal": I talk with Steve Martin from Ripple Training about how to share FCP X effects in FCP X that you modify, create, download or purchase. 

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A Tale of Two iPads

Bigger is not always better, but smaller isn't quite ready for primetime... yet.

By Art Adams | December 31, 2012

In 2011 I bought an iPad 2, and in 2012 I traded it up for an iPad 3. For 2013 I've opted to experiment with the first generation iPad Mini, and while this generation won't replace my iPad 3 I suspect--and hope--that the next one will.

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Exporting Ranges, Chapter Markers, and Keywords

On This Week's MacBreak Studio

By Mark Spencer | December 27, 2012

For this holiday week, Steve Martin from Ripple Training shows me the great new exporting options available in Final Cut Pro X.

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MacBreak Studio Live

The Holiday Show

By Mark Spencer | December 20, 2012

If you missed our live show last week, you can now catch it below. Steve Martin from Ripple Training and I chat about Final Cut Pro X. Normally we spend the bulk of the show answering questions, but we had a technical glitch (that we discovered after the show) whereby folks were unable to sign... Read More

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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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A Light Meter Party Trick

There's one case where an incident light meter can tell you just as much about a lit surface as a reflected meter can...

By Art Adams | November 26, 2012

Incident meters can only tell you how much light is striking them, and nothing about how bright things are in the real world... except in this one situation. This handy trick for measuring the brightness of diffuse backlit surfaces may be the one way you can surprise your gaffer. Read More

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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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LIGHT METERS: What are Incident Meters Good For, Anyway?

Incident meters don't tell you how bright things in your shot are, but it's surprising how handy they can be if you know a few simple facts about light and reflectivity.

By Art Adams | November 13, 2012

Way back when I shot film I was a serious devotee of The Zone System. I lived and died by my spot meter. I have a much harder time doing this in HD, however, so I'm rediscovering the joys of using an incident light meter. I've picked up a few new tips and tricks, and now I'm going to share them with you. Read More

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Small tablets (Kindle Fire HD, iPad mini, Nexus 7) for content producers and consumers

Learn all the ins and outs about the new smaller tablets, both for digital content consumers and producers.

By Allan Tépper | November 05, 2012

Back in June 2012, I published Google's new Nexus 7: a general first look for content creators and consumers. At that time, I thought I’d write a sequel with more details for audio/video and ebook distribution. However, I decided to hold off until I could properly compare it with what seemed to be coming soon thereafter: the Kindle Fire HD from Amazon and the iPad mini from Apple. Both took longer than expected (but finally arrived), so here is the roundup comparing all three for audio/video and ebook distribution, for content producers & content consumers. All of that, plus a comparison chart!

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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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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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CAMERAS: More Thoughts on Canon’s Color Science, This Time with Pictures

It's hard to see the differences between color matrices until you look at them side by side. That's when the real education begins...

By Art Adams | October 28, 2012

Accurate color and pretty color are not always the same. Let's compare two Canon C300 color matrices and see for ourselves... Read More

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CAMERAS: Focusing and Setting Parallax on a 90-year-old Camera

Working with 90-year-old technology is eye opening: you start to wonder how anyone managed to get quality images on film at all, let alone create dozens of silent film classics. Dealing with dozens of internal camera menus starts to look really simple.

By Art Adams | October 27, 2012

When working with 90-year-old motion picture technology it's not unusual to wonder how anything got made at all. Here's what it took to make sure the shot was in focus and to ensure the operator could actually see what was in the frame. Read More

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CAMERAS: Thoughts on the Canon C300’s Color Science

There's pretty color and there's accurate color, and they are not the same thing. Read why...

By Art Adams | October 25, 2012

In theory I like the Canon C300. It's small, it's well designed, and it can make pretty pictures. The Canon "look," though, is very different from what I'm used to, and it's taken me a while to figure out how to bend the camera's look into something that I really like. After spending an hour tweaking profiles the other day I think I found something I like. I don't have pictures to show you (I did my tweaking on set for a project that is a little bit secret, at least until next week when it'll be released) but I can describe what I saw reasonably well and you can reproduce my results yourself on any C300. Read More

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Final Cut Pro 10.0.6 Quick Look

A Big Update

By Mark Spencer | October 23, 2012

Today Apple released an updated to Final Cut Pro X. This 10.0.6 version (a free download to current FCP X owners through the App Store) includes several features already mentioned by Apple, as well as some nice surprises. Overall, I think it's an outstanding update that seems to be based directly on user feedback. I'll have more to say later, but for now here are a few screenshots and descriptions of some of the key new features. Read More

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GoPro brings 24p to your Hero2 with the Protune update

And there's also the free GoPro Cineform Studio to quickly work with your GoPro footage

By Scott Simmons | October 14, 2012

Everyone's favorite little action camera finally got the long awaited 24p update last week. GoPro shipped Protune which means your GoPro Hero2 is only a firmware update away from a higher bit rate and 24 frames per second. The Protune news is buried down in the press release about news of the GoPro app. I'm not sure why the Protune update didn't get its own press release as it's an important update for many GoPro owners and will probably get more use overall as the iOS and Android app is really most useful as a companion to the Wi-Fi BacPac. The Protune update is easy to install and requires the GoPro Cineform Studio. I hadn't installed that before but it's actually a handy little application.

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