[Mark Suszko]

[Joe Marler] “try removing all files from the import folder,”

I think you might be onto something, but how exactly do I go about this?

Disk Utility repair showed no issues

[Mark Suszko]

Trashed the prefs, same behavior upon clicking on “import media”.

Any other ideas welcome.

So, if I want to completely re-install FCPX, what would I do?

[Mark Suszko]

Another option for you is to go to the local home improvement store and find the materials for a “V-Flat”. You have a couple of options here; two 4×8 panels of wallboard, you paint the back sides of them with flat white primer, hinge them with tape, and they will stand up nice… or lean them against a wall, or even take them outside and use them with cloudy daylight. Want it wider, ad a panel and hinge and make it a “W” instead of a “V”. Or you can turn the panels sideways sometimes, if you have stands or a ladder to support them.

Option two is to use 4×8 foam insulation panels from the same home improvement store. Hinged with some duct tape or the better, metallic, air conditioning duct sealer tape, this can be self-standing when posed as a “v”. The foam is vulnerable to solvent-based paints, but you can use inexpensive water-based latex paints on it. That seals the foam and then you can throw almost any paint over that if needed. I recommend Kilz brand latex primer on foam.

There are tons of youtube videos out there of photographer tips on making and using a V-Flat. They make great bounce light sources as well as backgrounds in their own right.

Old story, but I once shot a video where I had to do three different locations -in the studio- and I did it with just one, 20-dollar, 4×8 piece of rec room wallboard, the kind with a fake brick surface. While at the store, I also picked up a one-roll sampler of two different kinds of wallpaper. Scene one, “the alley”, I just used the brick side normally, as BG for a close-up of the actor. Scene two: the kitchen, I put the wallpaper sample on the back side of the 4×8 sheet with 3M-77 contact adhesive spray, added some ceramic ducks, a calendar and a framed photo to it with magnets, bam, ready to shoot in ten minutes. Scene three; turned the 4×8 sideways to use as background for a tight 2-shot, used the second roll of wallpaper sample. But roller-ed or rattlecan spray paint, directly on the back of the board would have worked, too.

The wallpaper samples were, I think, $5 each so my total outlay for three “sets” was around 30 bucks.

[Mark Suszko]

Not too many complaints, but something inexplicable that happens to me randomly is, the timeline magnification will suddenly decide to snap back/re-set to fully zoomed-out, unbidden (unless I’m unconsciously commanding it somehow). Typically after executing a simple cut, but also sometimes just happens while scrolling thru the timeline.

[Mark Suszko]

I’m wondering if you can instead make PowerPoint type slides with an attached sound file, in the screen proportions you want, to get around the h264 coding issues.

[Mark Suszko]

Interesting.

My application is, playing with a ukulele club in a bar, and we want to re-mount the giant-scren LED TV to portrait mode and throw up single-page sheets of lyrics and chords from our “fake book” with high magnification and visibility. All the songs are formatted as single- page docs in MS Word and exported as doc, JPEG and PDF. It would be cool to dd a drum track associated with each page, but that’s a frill at this point.

Playout would be from either a tablet with HDMI or laptop or DVD player in slide show stills mode. can’t really afford the more “pro” video server type solutions, and I’d like to avoid pre-formatting in AE if possible.

[Mark Suszko]

This thread interests me because I would like to do almost the exact same thing he’s trying to, on a chromebook-based tablet,

…but also, I’m interested in formatting files for use on a giant consumer LED TV screen that’s been rotated into portrait orientation, but has no specialized playback hardware or software attached to properly orient a vertical video.

[Mark Suszko]

This is all based on the customer being the one that disrupts the schedule.

If you have an internal emergency of some sort, and YOU suddenly can’t do it, I think you’ve gotta eat it.

[Mark Suszko]

I base my version of this around how badly I put out my subs with a cancellation. If they have to turn down other gigs to lock-in their availability, they should expect some level of compensation, or a fair chance to make other plans, and that’s where all my cancellation fees go first.

With enough lead time, the subs may be miffed but can scramble to line up something else.

So I’d look at a no-fee cancellation a week ahead. A non-refundable kill fee deducted out of the deposit at 72-48 hours, the percentage of which is based on just how bad they messed you up. A weather cancellation/act of God/re-scheduling fee, based on a half-day rate.

[Mark Suszko]

Your diagram doesn’t show any fill lights or fill bounces, only keys and hairlights. When I shoot two people near each other, I try to arrange the keys to double as fills for each other. Or consider one larger, central shared softlight key for both.

You generally need more separation from the seamless than you expect. To keep shadows from being a problem, you’re going to need the subject’s heights plus a couple feet, in distance away from the seamless. This of course makes the seamless smaller in the overall frame, maybe too small. So often when I do this, if that’s going to be the case, I replace the seamless with green screen and green paper on the floor, then make a virtual seamless in post, since I can mask-out and crop or garbage mask the edges of the set.
The spot that washes the seamless is then done in post, I get a lot of use out of the “spot” tool in FCPX for this.

One could also take a still into Photoshop and paint a set extension, then soft-edge mask it in, without going to green screen. it’s just more work and less flexibility.

If you’re doing a lot of slider moves, you may end up needing to motion-track the shots, though, if going green screen. One fun thing I found with the green screen alternative is, I can adjust the spacing between the two individuals after the fact, bringing them closer together or farther apart, to suit the needs of the final comp, as long as they had a -little- space between them to start with. They just each get their own layer and then it’s easy.

You’ll have better control and faster setup with manual iris control here, setting your F-stop where you want it, then adjusting the lights to get to where the scopes/meter/ zebra bars/eyeballs want you to be.