My NAB 2012 Post|Production World classes

I’m very excited to once again be teaching several classes at the 2012 NAB Post|Production world conference. It’s going to be much busier this year than years past as I’m teaching five total classes from Monday through Wednesday. If you aren’t going to NAB or attending the conference then please forgive this self-indulgent post about those classes that I’m leading. Hey, I’m just happy to be here at all.

Baselight for Final Cut Pro is one of the most powerful legacy FCP grading plugins ever

At NAB 2011 FilmLight surprised most everyone with a preview of their Baselight for Final Cut Pro plugin. It was surprising because I think many people expected them to release a lower cost, Mac-based version of their flagship Baselight color grading tool. Instead they showed a different strategy that looks to revolve around very powerful color grading plugins and interoperability with the full Baselight systems. The FCP plugin had been in beta for a while and was just released. For $995 Baselight for Final Cut Pro can be yours.

ARRI’s DNxHD Alexa update, Sorenson Squeeze Pro and OP this, OP that

ARRI has begun to ship its DNxHD update for their Alexa camera. This announcement that the Alexa would get DNxHD as an onboard recording option (besides ProRes) was welcome news to post-production people like myself who use Avid Media Composer. While ProRes is supported in Avid both by AMA linking and direct MXF creation (in the Media Composer version 6 on Mac that is) DNxHD is Avid’s own in-house codec and is a perfect option for compressed hi-def media. But ARRI’s onboard DNxHD recording uses an MXF format that’s a bit different than Avid’s. Read on for a discussion of why that is (and lots of OP).

The C300 short Hustle and some before and after images

A number of filmmakers involved in the Boston Creative Pro User Group got together in January to give the new Canon C300 a test. Their result is this short piece called Hustle. New camera tests on Vimeo are a dime a dozen these days but after speaking with the BOSCPUG folks involved in post I got a few before and after color grading stills. As an amateur colorist myself, I always enjoy seeing these types of before and after images. Not so much to analyze the technical quality of the image and a camera’s latitude but more to look at the creative decision in the grade. I hope you enjoy seeing them too.

Testing the 7toX Final Cut Pro 7 to Final Cut Pro X conversion

When Apple released the latest Final Cut Pro X update there was a very important 3rd party utility released right alongside the 10.0.3 update that finally allowed the importing of legacy FCP7 projects into FCPX. It wasn’t entirely surprising that it was Intelligent Assistance releasing 7toX for Final Cut Pro. I say that because they had already created Xto7 (to move projects from FCPX to FCP7) and are arguably the best company for creating high-quality XML workflow tools for the FCP universe. There’s been tons of blog posts about 7toX for Final Cut Pro since its introduction but most of them are nothing more than a here it is here’s the link kind of thing, including one of my own. Many have taken a simple sequence to try this conversion but my thought was to throw everything at 7toX for Final Cut Pro and see how well it did ... or didn’t work.

Q and A with Bunim/Murray’s Mark Raudonis about their recent Avid switch

Back in January news broke that reality television producers Bunim/Murray were switching their post-production facilities from Final Cut Pro to Avid Media Composer. This probably didn’t come as a great shock to anyone who follows post-production as the release of Final Cut Pro X had left many people (especially those in the broadcast world) a bit stunned at its lack of broadcast features. There was a lot written about this subject but I had a few more questions so I spoke with Bunim/Murray’s senior vice president of Post Production Mark Raudonis as he has been the public face of this switch. Our Q and A follows.

Kicking the tires on the Final Cut Pro X 10.0.3 Multicam update

As we all know by now Apple released their promised update to Final Cut Pro X that added multicam. It’s only been a week and there’s already a lot of articles and tutorials about how this new feature works. I sat down with it some over the weekend to kick the tires and see how it performed. What follows are some thoughts, notes and observations as I was working with it. I was especially curious as to how it might work for music videos.

Update Alert: Final Cut Pro X goes to 10.0.3

Is it early 2012? It is and Apple has kept its promise with an update that takes Final Cut Pro X to 10.0.3. The promised features are there as well including what looks like an interesting and well thought-out multicam implementation. Broadcast monitoring is there too but it’s labeled as a beta implementation though if the drivers are there it should work. And they said it couldn’t be done but it has been: there’s now a way to easily move a Final Cut Pro 7 project to Final Cut Pro X that’s made possible by an updated XML and a 3rd party software product.

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