Final Effects Complete version 5: Why?

Final Effects was pretty much the original third-party plug-in set available for After Effects. It was created by a gang in Sweden now known as Cycore, who passed it on to MetaCreations, who passed it on to ICE, who passed it on to Media 100, who passed it on to Boris, who is now selling it for $895. Meanwhile, the Cycore gang exploited a loophole in their contract, rewrote and re-released it as Cycore FX, licensed it to Adobe to give away free as CC Effects with each copy of After Effects, and sell an upgrade to it for $299 - more on that below. (By the way, we’ve reposted an old column on CC Effects in the archives; read it here for more background.)

So when the press release first came around from Boris FX that they had updated Final Effects Complete, excuse us, but we laughed. However, once we thought about it, there are some reasons why you might consider it. Namely:

AFI Digital Content Lab Looking for Mentors

The American Film Institute’s Digital Content Lab (AFI DCL, for short) is looking for mentors for some high-profile interactive media projects, including Grey’s Anatomy and PBS’s News Hour. Details - as well as a calendar of upcoming events around North America - are copied below from their recent press release (follow the “more” jump if you’re reading this from a main page). This is a chance to become involved with designing what some hope will be the future face of television.

Whether or not it does turn out to be the future face of television is still out for verdict: I lived through the hopeful times of CD-I and other interactive media when a lot of us thought we were going to help raise the overall level of humanity by making coffee-table books available on an expensive, not entirely easy to use medium. This episode of misspent personal enthusiasm has left me a bit more cautious, thinking the computer is for interacting and the television set is for consuming. But the number of people who vote in response to an American Idol episode (or called in to a toll number during the Shall We Boil Larry the Lobster bit on Saturday Night Live, oh so many years ago) does indicate that at least some like to interact with their mass-consumed entertainment. So here’s your chance to try to design some interactivity that works:

What’s the Buzz? Curing Audio Problems

Two things drive me truly crazy: 4:3 video stretched out to fill a 16:9 screen, and hearing hum or buzz in the audio portion of a program. I remember being on a tour of the multi-million-dollar Kodak Cinesite facility when it first opened, sitting down in their private screening room…and hearing hum in the audio. Which could have been fixed for as little as $20. I’d like to share a few ways you can fix it yourself.

Dynamic Range and the RED One

Stu Maschwitz (he of The Orphanage, Magic Bullet, and The DV Rebel’s Guide fame), is one of my go-to resources when I want greater insight on digital film production workflow and its corresponding correct practices.

He recently wrote an excellent article on his ProLost blog about Digital Cinema Dynamic Range, in the context of learning how to use a RED One camera in way that would give him the same latitude of exposure control that we would expect when working with film (or other digital cameras).

Click here for the short version
Click here for the long version (and you really should read the long version – it’s very instructive)

The Public Domain, Fair Use, and Other Bedtime Stories

We’ve all been there before: We really need a particular source image to realize an idea. And we don’t have a copy of one ourselves. But look - there’s one on a web site! Or a client gives us one that they picked up “somewhere.” Or there’s a book lying around the office that we could scan. And if anyone involved feels a twinge of guilt, someone else tries to excuse it as “public domain” or “fair use.”

Web Video Viewership Revelations

I’ve been mulling over the “VideoCensus” released last month by Nielsen Online (you can view the PDF here). Among its goals was to compare the way video was watched over the web from network-backed sites to “consumer generated media” (CGM) sites such as YouTube. Here are some of the results, along with some speculation about what’s behind them, and how it may impact the work we do:

After Effects 8.0.2 Interpretation Rules Issue

Normally, when you install a minor update to After Effects, it does a pretty good job at remembering your previously-installed plug-ins and the such. That said, there is an exception in the case of the 8.0.2 updater. This version writes a brand-new interpretation rules file that alters how it handles some YUV color space files. However, it does not merge in any changes you may have made to the previous interpretation rules file. Fortunately, it doesn’t delete your file; it just sets it aside.

Click here for an Adobe Tech Note on what’s going on, and how to work around it.

Favorite Technical References

The video industry has saddled us users with some truly ugly numbers to deal with (such as 720x480, 29.97, and so forth) when working with digital video. Making matters worse, these numbers are often misquoted or misunderstood.

Thankfully, there are a few web sites out there with some truly valuable, correct information on digital video standards. Here are the sites we refer to most often when we need to know the inside scoop:

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