[Steve Courtney]

No, John, it happens to me three or four times a day, too.

Another thing I’d like to see, (and maybe I just haven’t found it yet) is an option to _NEVER_ resize the windows in the Viewer of the Canvas. I can’t tell you how many times a day I try to expand the Timeline with an option-plus or option-minus, only to have my Viewer start swelling because I had last clicked up there to reposition something.

I think I’ve needed to expand my Viewer once, maybe, in my three years of editing on FCP. Everytime that window starts growing, I wonder why on earth that’s a default option.

Again, maybe it’s just me…maybe it’s something people use more in HD or something…I dunno.

Steve

[Steve Courtney]

I’ve often wondered what it would be like to go back. (Lord knows I still hit Avid keyboard shortcuts _daily_. I guess a decade’s worth of practice doesn’t go away in just a few short years on another system.) Please let us know how it went.

Steve

[Steve Courtney]

I’ve been feeling my way down this path recently myself. I’ve been having my best results with a combination of the BCC keyer (which gives you a better base to work with than the one in FCP) plus Final Cut’s spill-suppression. Then I add a Gaussian-blur to just the blue-channel. (Since I’m doing blue-screen.) The BCC keyer gives you more variables to play with than the built-in FCP key, and seems like a better foundation to build from.

I’m giving DVMatte some thought, but it’s like $200 for one effect. It was a lot easier to convince my paymasters to upgrade my elderly version of BCC, which has hundreds of effects for not-that-much-more money. But the DVMatte demo did seem to work pretty well. (Although it was hard to see with their annoying flickering watermark.)

But, yeah, I’m finding that it’s a combination of things that’s required, and even then I have to re-tweak the key for every shoot. Same blue-room, same lighting conditions, but changes in the model’s clothing seem to call for a re-think every single time. Good luck.

Steve

[Steve Courtney]

Awesome. This is exactly what I was looking for. Thanks a lot.

Steve

[Steve Courtney]

Yes, I know I can’t open 5.1 projects directly in 4.5, or older versions. But I am under the impression I can do this with an XML export. I’ve just never done it, so I don’t know what’s involved. And this would mainly be for projects I just felt like transferring once, and finishing up at home over the weekend or whatever. Not a lot of back-and-forth..

Thanks for your help.

Steve

[Steve Courtney]

[John Calhoun] “But I haven’t stopped learning and my university now is my extensive collection of industry and miscellaneous magazines which I devour every month.”

Can you recommend a few industry magazines? “Post”, and what else? It feels like I get most of my news from the Cow these days, but I’m wondering if I’m missing any of the ‘bibles’ of the trade. When I was working in advertising, I had all the free subscriptions I could handle. Now that I need to finance my reading on my own, I need to be a bit more choosy. Thanks.

Steve

[Steve Courtney]

It might be worth waiting, if the Apple announcement at the last SF user-group meeting is to be believed. The price for the upgrade, allegedly, is going to be a low-low $199. For the whole Studio package; Final Cut 5, Livetype 2, DVD StudioPro 4, Motion 2, and so on. For two-hundred bucks. Sounds like a great deal to get everybody all up to the same speed. I’m pretty psyched to finally get up to version 5, having been with 4.5 for so long.

(Of course, this is what the reps from Apple said. Please don’t hold me to it. Your mileage may vary.)

Steve

[Steve Courtney]

Indeed, the goal of an ‘hour and 10 minute’ feature is almost irrelevant. I often tell my clients, “it’s not how long you want it to end up, it’s how much footage you shoot.” I’ve edited :30-second commercials in ten minutes from three different shots, and been done. I’ve also edited :30 second commercials from fifteen hours of footage from six different continents. Same target length, wildly different finishing schedules.

I’d be very leery of first-time directors. I once spent 3 months on a 12-minute short with a director who was basically using our time together as a crash-course film-school.

One other thought to consider is the type of film you’re editing. If it’s an action film you’re looking at a lot more set-ups and a lot more cutting.

All that said, it sounds like a great opportunity, and I wish you the best.

Steve

[Steve Courtney]

Yeah, I use the ‘vapor across’ transition a lot, too. I’m sure it will start to look dated over time, but for now the clients seem to really like it. And if they’re happy, I’m happy.

Eureka |
https://www.kafwang.com/eureka/eurekamain.html

Filters
InfraRed Sim, Night Vision, Silver Print, Slow-Mo, Trackable Garbage Matte

Transitions
Vapor Across

Steve

[Steve Courtney]

Thanks all. This was more of an ‘isn’t this odd’ post, than an actual problem. Obviously if I were editing anything time-sensitive or crucial, I’d edit without iTunes mucking up the works.

I just thought it was interesting that the result, for me, is the repeated corruption of my user preferences. There’s a simple fix, (“don’t do it”), but I was just curious why it was happening. So thanks for the information.

Steve
Patching his iPod into his Mackie.