Monday, July 07, 2008

Laugh at Bill & Steve – The Silicon Apartment

What would happen if you locked Bill Gates and Steve Jobs in the same apartment (like Big Brother)?

Well you get the risque comic strip – The Silicon Apartment (PG-13). The strip is really quite good and skewers both sides.

(0) Comments • • Permalink

Sunday, July 06, 2008

After Effects CS3 Shape Tools

Create Motion Graphic Elements with Ease

Learn how to use the Shape Tools to create dynamic motion graphics elements. This tutorial was recorded as part of a session at the 2007 NY Post Production Conference (www.nypostconference.com).

(0) Comments • • Permalink

Sunday, July 06, 2008

Motion Graphics Meets John Lennon

I was over at YouTube posting a new tutorial.... came across a great clip that mixes multiple animation styles… this is VERY cool.  It’s nice to hear the man so off-the-cuff… yet wise.

“In 1969, a 14-year-old Beatle fanatic named Jerry Levitan, armed with a reel-to-reel tape deck, snuck into John Lennon’s hotel room in Toronto and convinced John to do an interview about peace. 38 years later, Jerry has produced a film about it. Using the original interview recording as the soundtrack, director Josh Raskin has woven a visual narrative which tenderly romances Lennon’s every word in a cascading flood of multipronged animation. Raskin marries the terrifyingly genius pen work of James Braithwaite with masterful digital illustration by Alex Kurina, resulting in a spell-binding vessel for Lennon’s boundless wit, and timeless message.”

Learn more about it here (and yes… I missed this one somehow).

(0) Comments • • Permalink

Sunday, June 29, 2008

WALL-E Rocks – Two Great Mac Jokes

Inside Jokes for the Mac Crowd

Just saw WALL-E with my son, and in typical Pixar fashion, it is awesome!

Two quick things I found hilarious for the Mac-Geeks out there.

First, there is a character in the film called Auto, who is an auto-pilot robot for the ship. The character’s voice is done by Macintalk, the speech synthesizer included with the Mac back in 1984. It sounded familiar, and I confirmed it as the “actor credit” actually appears at the end of the film.

Second, there is a scene where WALL-E reboots… and yes, it is the Macintosh startup chime that you hear. I found myself laughing out loud (and I think I was the only one within 20 rows of me who got the joke (geek!). 

(0) Comments • • Permalink

Saturday, June 28, 2008

Scrolling the FCP Timeline

Too many tracks in your Timeline, and you want to scroll up and down quickly? No need to grab the scroll bar on the right edge if you have a three-button mouse. Put the cursor over the Timeline, and use the third button to scroll up and down. It gets better; hold down the Shift key and you can scroll left and right (if you’re using an Apple Mighty Mouse, just scroll). Don’t stop now—place the cursor over the Viewer or Canvas, and you can scrub backward and forward. If you aren’t impressed yet by Apple’s thoughtful engineers, go try these shortcuts in a bin, on effect sliders, and even in the audio mixer.

Like this tip? It comes from the book
Final Cut Studio On the Spot from Focal Press.

(0) Comments • • Permalink

Thursday, June 19, 2008

Special Episode of Layers TV on Production Premium CS3

I recently got a chance to co-host Layers TV with Corey Barker.  The show is a great podcast that comes out each week on all things Adobe.  They do a really great job with it and they had me on as a guest host to cover Adobe Production Premium.

“Corey is joined by guest co-host Richard Harrington to discuss working with video in Photoshop Extended, Premiere, and After Effects.
• When working in Premiere, don’t forget about the search menu that you can use to locate the effects you want
• Change Color is a useful effect that you can use to target and adjust one color region of your video clip
• There are also Shadow/Highlight adjustment options in Premiere
• You can bring your video clips into Photoshop Extended and apply Photoshop effects to them
• Make video clips into smart objects so that Photoshop will treat them as a single layer
• After you have finished editing the video clip in Photoshop, go under the Export command and render the finished video
• Get more information from Richard at Photoshop For Video.com
• Use After Effects to make speed changes to your video clips. Remember, time is just another keyframe
• If you want further video training from Richard, you can watch his classes at Kelby Training.com, or see him live at Photoshop World this September in Las Vegas”

DOWNLOAD THE EPISODE
WATCH ONLINE

(0) Comments • • Permalink

Thursday, June 19, 2008

PSV#81 Age a Photo - Photoshop for Video

Instructor Richard Harrington shares some techniques on how to age a photograph in Photoshop.

(0) Comments • • Permalink

Wednesday, June 18, 2008

Stan Winston, Rest In Peace

I’m surprised that more people haven’t talked about this… I am on vacation on a mountain-top (hence a little removed from civilization).  I was flipping through the paper and saw this:
Visual Effects Master Stan Winston, 62.

Turns out one of the greatest visual FX and animators in the world passed away on June 15.
I suspect most of you know his name and work.  Some of the accomplishments include:

Terminator 2 & 3
Interview with the Vampire
Edward Scissorhands
Iron Man
Jurassic Park
Predator
Aliens
Batman Returns

Be sure to see the history timeline on his site.

You can find a nice overview of him here.

Truly an amazing life and Many of us owe a lot to what her accomplished.

His son, Matt Winston, said his father was in many ways “a big kid” with cool toys who enjoyed what he did and would say, “Just have fun, and success will come.”

Good advice for us all.

(0) Comments • • Permalink

Page 2 of 6 pages  <  1 2 3 4 >  Last »