CMG Keyframes

Every month, we write a Tips N Tricks article for our friends at Artbeats.com. This month we’ve written a brain dump on where those funky frame rates came from, and issues to watch out for as you get assets from 3D artists, stock footage libraries, film composers, and even well-meaning camera or tape operators that have frame rates that might be just slightly off from what you expect - and how to correct them.

Click here to download a 212 KB PDF of “Frame Rate Follies” from Artbeats.com.

Fellow PVC writer Mark Christiansen also recently wrote a piece for Artbeats’ NAB 2008 Show Guide on creating ramping speed effects in After Effects; click here to download the 1.1 MB PDF. In a similar vein, we also wrote an article for Artbeats on using the same underlying technique to bend the time of a clip to match a soundtrack; click here to download the 2.3 MB PDF of it.

By the way, Artbeats has a monthly email newsletter which contains links to each of our articles for them as they are released, plus a link for registered users to download a free full-size clip every month. Click here to register.

During the Post|Production World conference that ran alongside NAB 2008, I gave an extended session on audio connections, microphones, and other related issues. At the end, the attendees hit me with their individual problems. I thought the questions and their answers might be useful to others, so I decided to add them to the archives up here, amended with additional thoughts and research I’ve gathered since returning from NAB.

Note that essential companion reading to these comments include my previous article on audio wiring and connections, plus my blog on dealing with ground loop hum.

The LoveLetter Typewriter font had a few characters that were difficult to read (top line) until they were modified (lower line).

When planning a new project, the font you choose can lift a design to a new level, or add an all-important attitude. So when you’ve spent hours picking a font that the client agrees is “just perfect,” panic can set in when they object to a couple of characters as being too weird or difficult to read. The more high profile the job, the fussier the client will be; after all, if they’ve paid millions to open their movie with the name “Zellweger,” the Z better look good! Rather than picking a different font and possibly disrupting the schedule, an hour spent editing the troublesome characters can save the day.