[Ben Scott]

I have found this book to be interesting

the technique of film editing (focal press)
by karel reisz

taking a while to read though

each chapter is relevant to different formats of moviemaking, getting better at each of these types seems to need more practice than reading a book.

– – – – – – – – –
Check my podcast at https://cowcast.creativecow.net/final_cut_pro/index.html
or my site at
https://www.benscottarts.co.uk/ – – – – – – – – –

[Ben Scott]

it is cool bit like that color software for digital anarchy or something a while ago for after effects https://www.digitalanarchy.com/theory/theory_main.html

lots of web sites have had same tools just using javascript like
https://wellstyled.com/tools/colorscheme2/index-en.html
this is very cool site and interface

also it explains what colors work on an artists color wheel and it shows you how color blind people see things (very important when you are making an interface of any sort)

also remember neither of those tools actually gives you broadcast safe colours, if they did they would be even cooler

plus that old software from digital anarchy was very very good at saving off your color combinations and going out to a firewire output.

– – – – – – – – –
Check my podcast at https://cowcast.creativecow.net/final_cut_pro/index.html
or my site at
https://www.benscottarts.co.uk/ – – – – – – – – –

[Ben Scott]

just try changing the sequence settings to uncompressed by control clicking on the sequence in the browser. apple uncompressed 8 bit codec or download the black magic codec from blackmagicdesigns website

maybe try it with a small difficult section of the footage as a test first by duplicating sequence first

then rerender

then output using the new sequence settings and dont transcode to dv at any point and when you output it may look a bit different.

you could also chuck the deinterlace filter on a nested sequence and something like a broadcast safe filter maybe to get it to be legal quickly.

– – – – – – – – –
Check my podcast at https://cowcast.creativecow.net/final_cut_pro/index.html
or my site at
https://www.benscottarts.co.uk/ – – – – – – – – –

[Ben Scott]

when bringing in stills to work in video you are going to need to understand how video titling works, they are not going to a computer monitor they are going on a tv screen

try resizing all pictures to the size of your video e.g. 720 by 576 if non square pixels PAL or 768 by 576 if computer square pixels, widescreen is different again

if cropping pay attention to your title safe area, unless it is destined only for laptops and projectors.

also you should consider blurring all the images with a motion blur in photoshop set to 90deg and 1 px, this is similar to deinterlace footage in final cut pro

also DV is a rubbish codec for flat colour and this sort of animation, go for something like apple uncompressed in easy set up and then export from that format to mpeg2 it makes a massive difference. you could also try making a custom easy setup and set the sequence to be progressive instead of interlaced and make sure it is setup in compressor similarly.

also you may have chroma and luma out of limits and therefore this contrast and unlegal video can cause real problems for interlacing. it may be that you can set up a curve in photoshop to deal with this however it may take a while to prep all the images. if you have scopes using something like echofire this could help when using photoshop, alternatively do it in final cut and it will take a while. if you have similar sequences you can use a nested sequence to apply colour correction to all the stills sequence.

basically if you can get photoshop actions to help resizing it will really help

I have put a bit on titling and getting stills out from video exports on my cow podcast, take a look may be helpful for sizes/values

if your video is very fast cuts every 12 to 15 frames you will get problems but only if the stills are significantly different between each frame. you may wish to look into setting a different GOP in compressor (and therefore much higher bit rate overall and problems with compatibility of disk if over 8mbps) if it is that complex. compression markers wouldn’t work with footage that is slowly changing, the VBR encoder works it out for you

– – – – – – – – –
Check my podcast at https://cowcast.creativecow.net/final_cut_pro/index.html
or my site at
https://www.benscottarts.co.uk/ – – – – – – – – –

[Ben Scott]

“there’s no matte choker”

I am not sure as I havent tried conduit; but surely you can create a matte choker by simply using a curves command on the alpha channel that gets created. often you might use a curves command to make the keyer have more contrast and then a second curves command to create a matte choker. or at least this has worked well for me in photoshop before. correct me if I am wrong.

You can also soften/feather just by blurring the alpha channel.

for spill suppression if it isnt there as standard you just use color correction filter that moves to the opposite colour in the wheel from the colour being keyed e.g. magenta for a green screen.

if you need other tools for compositing like light wrapping this is another node and layer on top, there is a good tutorial on this using the motion tools at https://www.motionsmarts.com/tutorials/lightwrap/lightwrap1.html

– – – – – – – – –
Check my podcast at https://cowcast.creativecow.net/final_cut_pro/index.html
or my site at
https://www.benscottarts.co.uk/ – – – – – – – – –

[Ben Scott]

shame there hasnt been a dramatic improvement to the final cut pro keyer

this software looks pretty good and uses FXplux and is nodal based 32 bit keyer
https://www.dvgarage.com/prod/prod.php?prod=conduit15

anyone used

sounds very interesting.

– – – – – – – – –
Check my podcast at https://cowcast.creativecow.net/final_cut_pro/index.html
or my site at
https://www.benscottarts.co.uk/ – – – – – – – – –

[Ben Scott]

you should be able to timeshift in soundtrack pro and not pitch shift

just make sure not to speed up too much have a look in soundtrack pro manual for how much

– – – – – – – – –
Check my podcast at https://cowcast.creativecow.net/final_cut_pro/index.html
or my site at
https://www.benscottarts.co.uk/ – – – – – – – – –

[Ben Scott]

found this one the other day

it is nice for asset management and seems quite forward looking in that it uses XML and mpeg7

https://www.frameline.tv/

not totally for logging i know but it is important to know how content is going to be catalogued and repurposed at a later stage. it is also important to realise that long term there is a move away from tape and over to hard disk based files with meta data. meta data can say a lot more than timecode.

– – – – – – – – –
Check my podcast at https://cowcast.creativecow.net/final_cut_pro/index.html
or my site at
https://www.benscottarts.co.uk/ – – – – – – – – –

[Ben Scott]

the graphics card can make a lot of difference to the render times as can the speed of raid sata hard drives (if you are going HD consider this very important).

If you are working HD get the fastest machine you can for final renders and ouputting to HD dvd. if you are working in complex 3d this also matters

if you are looking to create complex titles and 2d effects the graphics card really matters.

heres some good links for hardware tests
https://www.kenstone.net/fcp_homepage/video_cards_mac_pro.html
https://www.kenstone.net/fcp_homepage/raid_it_young.html
https://www.barefeats.com/

the sort of kit you should be thinking long term should be something like a good RAID and a good HD uncompressed card for outputting to tape.

– – – – – – – – –
Check my podcast at https://cowcast.creativecow.net/final_cut_pro/index.html
or my site at
https://www.benscottarts.co.uk/ – – – – – – – – –

[Ben Scott]

P2 log pro is also made by the same company as hd log and is pretty comprehensive. these programs are currently the only way to get full information off the p2 cards meta information. I think this is about to be addressed in next few weeks check out NAB news.

if you are looking for more media management then you may like the fact that apple has aquired artbox and may introduce in new versions of final cut pro
https://www.proximitygroup.com/

https://www.proximitygroup.com/page.php?pg=products_artbox_workgroup

this may be of interest, using excel to log footage
https://www.bosfcpug.org/beta/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=41&Itemid=58

– – – – – – – – –
Check my podcast at https://cowcast.creativecow.net/final_cut_pro/index.html
or my site at
https://www.benscottarts.co.uk/ – – – – – – – – –