Cool Video Prodution Widgets for Your iPhone or Laptop *UPDATED*

Monday, June 02, 2008
I often find I have too much information to remember (and for some reason people expect me to be able to spout pixel aspect ratio numbers like a multiplication table). Fortunately the fine folks over at Digital Rebellion has solved this (and for free). They offer several video widgets that do important math, these run on a web browser or iPhone (and a couple can run offline as well).

Video Footage Calculator – Calculates how much storage you’ll need for your footage type and duration.
Web – iPhone version – Offline version

Film Rate Calculator – Determines how much film you need for a particular scenario.
Web – iPhone version – Offline version

Aspect Ratio Calculator – Determines the aspect ratio for different footage formats.
Web – iPhone version

Depth of Field Calculator – Calculates depth of field for many camera sensors.
Web – iPhone version

Pixel Aspect Ratio Calculator – Determines relationship of Pixels for many digital formats.
Web – iPhone version

Lens Angle Calculator – Helps calculate the lens angle for a given sensor size and focal length.
Web – iPhone version

Power Load Calculator – Calculates the load on a circuit to see if it is excessive. You can also calculate the minimum circuit breaker size for the given load.
Web – iPhone version

These tools are cool, free, and useful.... three points that make them a must have for my iPhone. 

What’s in a Name?

As any editor knows, good media management begins by establishing proper naming conventions.  In a perfect world, proper clip names would be entered during the logging stage.  However, due to tight deadlines or perhaps shear laziness on the part of the editor, media file names are sometimes injested or captured with non-descript file names such as “untitled” or, as is the case with the Panasonic AG-HVX200, transferred with their 6 digit camera-assigned file names. This article will show you how to rename your files directly in the Browser using Final Cut Pro 6.  Below is an screen shot of an edit in progress using clips transferred from an AG-HVX200. 

Before you can rename the file, you first must locate the Master clip.  Park your playhead over the clip to be renamed, then press Shift-F to reveal the clip in the Browser.  The clip will become selected.

In the Browser, give your clip a meaningful name.

From the Modify Menu choose Rename>File to Match Clip.

You will be warned that what you are about to do will modify the original file. Go ahead, live life on the edge…

Because of Final Cut Pro’s Master/Affiliate clip architecture, all Affiliate clips that reference the Master clip will be renamed.

In the Finder, you’ll see that the file name was actually changed to the new name you entered in the Browser.

Tapeless Workflows, a Jump to the Past?

We in the post world are on the verge of an explosion in media management, and it isn’t a pretty sight. The worst part is that even though it is billed as the future, it really is a bast from the past. That is going to be very trying on many of the new production and post crowd who haven’t been raised with the disciplines of the old workflows.

Angelina and Lindsay battle over their favorite RED scopes!

Let’s face it: if I didn’t start with a title like that, there’s no way you’d read a story about waveform monitors. They’re boring! They’re not creative! They’re all the same! They’re not sexy. They’re not RED.

Scopes are important if you’re doing real work that gets duplicated, broadcast or color corrected. They can be used “creatively.” They can help you do better work. Without them, all that other cool gear is worthless.

So WHY are scopes the “Rodney Dangerfield” of the production and post production world? Some of it is probably fear of not understanding them. Some is probably that they don’t really seem to DO anything other than cost a lot of money. Some is probably because they have a lot of unrealized potential.

On Artbeats.com: Article on Frame Rates

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.

Two Compleat Idiots Discuss RED Post

Art and Adam discuss the aftermath of the Wii spec spot and Art’s venture into RED post…

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