1001 After Effects tutorials

I thought that the link I posted the other day to 90+ Avid tutorials was good stuff that could keep one busy for a few days but this one beats it by a mile:

Filmmakeriq.com has a page that has some 1001 links to Adobe After Effects tutorials. This page has gathered links from all over the web and looks to mainly link to video tutorials. With this kind of great resource then the only excuse that one could come up with these days for not learning After Effects is either no time or a desire not to learn it. I have been trying to improve my AE skills but it does take time. That’s my excuse! This link came from Filmbot via Twitter. Yet another reason to be a part of the #editingandpost Twitter group!

The Great Twitter About Editing Experiment - One Year Later

It was just over a year ago when I posted a post that began the “Twitter about editing” experiment. I had signed up for Twitter around a year before that but really never used the service since I didn’t have a good group to follow nor did I really know what to talk about. That gave me the idea for the “Twitter about editing” experiment. Little did we know that Twitter would evolve into such a mainstream phenomenon that CNN, Britney Spears and Ellen would cover it and start talking about it. And looking back over those comments to that post, a lot of those people commenting are still there ... Twittering away. So with that, I deem the great Twitter about editing experiment a success. I think it’s a success because it it really feels like it puts a group of people together using Twitter for a very useful purpose: communicating about a single topic.

Kicking the tires on Avid Media Access Part 2

As the second part to my “kicking the tires” test of the new Avid Media Access architecture I wanted to try and understand how AMA works as part of Avid media management. In case this is your first time hearing about AMA, it’s a new way for Avid Media Composer (as well as Symphony and NewsCutter) to access tapeless media. Currently supporting XDCAM and P2 media, the software natively supports editing these formats with no rewrapping or transcoding. It also allows direct editing of XDCAM and P2 media from their solid state acquisition devices as well as that media off of other hard drives. Avid doesn’t have to copy that media over to the usual Avid Media Files folder on local media drives. It is a near instant process when you use the Link to AMA volume command. The first part of this story is available here.

3 Blu-ray links

I saw three different Blu-ray related links from ianshepherd on Twitter this morning. I love my Blu-ray discs and my Playstation 3 which sees a lot more duty as a Blu-ray player than a gaming machine. Yes there’s the argument that disc-based entertainment is yesterday’s technology and Internet delivery is the future. That may be true at some point in the future but at this point in time Blu-ray still looks better than HD movies from iTunes and Comcast HD. Plus, I like to throw that DVD on the shelf. And many of the Blu-ray supplements are top notch. The Dark Knight is gorgeous and the behind the scenes stuff is well worth the investment.

And the links: Where we stand on Blu-ray Disc -  DVD guru Bruce Nazarian rounds up exactly where Blu-ray stands thus far.

Petition to stimulate adoption of Blu-ray Disc publishing -  One of the biggest obstacles to Blu-ray adoption are the steep licensing fees to get a disc professionally replicated. I think that a lowering of those fees would a much better adoption of Blu-ray in the corporate world and secondary markets where Internet delivery isn’t as desirable.

And even more people are joining the IDMA’s campaign on reducing the licensing fees.  The more the better.

Leftover Quick Tip: Save View menu changes

The View Menu is located at the bottom of the Avid timeline to save different track height configurations:

If you make a change to the tracks in the timeline then Avid lets you know by italicizing the current setting title and adding a suffix:

You can then save that view with that new name or change it to your own.

The same is true for the bin view menu at the bottom of a bin:

Kicking the tires on Avid Media Access Part 1

When Avid announced Media Composer 3.5 and the new Avid Media Access architecture the first thing I wondered was how would this new way of importing and using media would work when it comes to one of Avid’s strongest features: Media Management. When you designate an Avid media drive the app creates a folder on that drive (either an OMFI Folder or Avid Media Files folder) and all media captured or imported into the software resides in that directory, on that drive. That’s one reason Avid media management has always been so rock solid. That and it’s just got some damn good database management built in there somewhere. But it’s also a reason that many people new to Avid don’t like it very much. The fact that you can’t drag any old media file right into the application without it having to copy or convert that file first doesn’t make a lot of sense to some, at least not until you’ve had bad media management in your editing application cause a rather large headache and take a lot of time. Avid took a bit of a step away from that with the Import P2 Media function a version or two ago but they have now taken a big leap with AMA, or Avid Media Access.

Fun clips for the end of a long agency edit day

As we sat for a long while at the end of the edit day recently waiting for either an approval or changes to come down from on-high we killed some time listening to / watching the usual smattering of You Tube videos and Internet clips that are parodies of many of the things editors face everyday. A lot of these clips make perfect sense after an edit runs the gauntlet of an advertising agency approval process or a cut is sent to a client who has no idea what the process is that a television commercial has to go through to get to air. The above clip is the classic Rough Cut Lady Song. In the same vein below is the Impossible Promo Approval Guy:

Both of those have made their way around the Intranet for years.

90+ Avid Tutorials

With the release of Avid Media Composer 3.5 just over a week ago Avid also released a fully functional 14 day demo. If you’ve never had the opportunity to use Avid (Avid FreeDV doesn’t really count) then this is a great way to try. If you are coming from Final Cut Pro then you need to know you can’t just jump right in and understand the differences without some frustration. While very, very similar there are some very distinct differences. One place that Final Cut Pro editors can go to begin to learn the differences in the two applications are some of my Avid & (vs?) FCP articles and links to other Avid/FCP articles around the internet. I know, I need to update the image there that says Avid Xpress Pro but most all of the articles refer to Media Composer as well. Another great place to learn some of the basics of Avid is this list of 90+ tips, tricks and tutorials. It’s at 92 right now and looks like it will keep growing so keep your eye on that forum thread. Give Avid a chance and learn the differences (and more importantly, why some of the features are different) between Avid and FCP and you might learn to love Avid too.

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