video editing • dvd authoring • motion graphics • post production coordination

Daily Log - Daily Thoughs Final Cut Pro and avariety of other subjects.

June 2008
Vancouver City Limits
Vancouver City Limits is a weekly showcase for singers and songwriters. We will be broadcasting
on our youtube channel. Check it out at. http://ca.youtube.com/vancouvercitylimits

April 14 2008
Check out http: www.fredandsharonsmovies.com for some of the most inspirational
video work that is currently being created today.

Dec 26 2007
The Seylynn Story
Now there is a link to the first Segment of the Seylynn Story on Youtube.
CLick to play and enjoy. Please Visit Seylynn.com. Thanks


December 22 2007
Solutions • DVD Studio Pro • Graphical View to the rescue
Wrapping on a DVD authoring project can be tricky, especially if there are numerous chapters, stories
and special end jump features. A recent project that I was wrapping on had about 40 different end jumps
for the DVD (instructional Video). Setting up all the stories and end jumps can be tedious, but with graphical
View in DVD Studio Pro 4 you are able to instantly check if one of the links is broken. As in the below sample
one of the stories was not connected as a target or an end jump. Easy to spot with Graphical View.

click to view unlinked story



December 16th 2007

Wrapping up on the "Celluloid Horror" DVD authoring and additional editing of bonus features and
slide show features. "Celluloid Horror" has been over 6 years in the making and is a must see for
any dedicated horror fan. Check out Breed Productions for more info.



December 8th 2007

Solutions • DVD Studio Pro/Adobe • File Management • Versioning
Working hard to wrap up all my projects for the new year as I will be away from my computer for 1 month
starting January 1st. I am rushing to complete a DVD authoring project that will contain 3 hours of video
and about 3-400 images for the bonus slide show. Each image had to be edited in Photoshop in order
to incorporate the right style font and text look. The menu's had to be a combination of Photoshop,
After Effects and DVD Studio Pro. By the time we are on the 5th or 6th version of the Home menu (hopefully
the client won't change there mind again), I find myself using the reveal in finder and open in editor command
on an almost minutely basis to get to the right piece of media. My point was that versioning can be a great
way to keep track of the most current media that needs to be within a certain place within a project. An
even better option is if you are in the right circumstances to open with editor and automatically adjust the
image right away.


December 3rd 2007

Solutions • FInal Cut Pro • Keyboard Shortcuts • Removing Attributes
Have you ever had a clip with a bunch of opacity keyframes and filters and you want to get rid of all the
atributes real quick. The easiest way to do this is simple select the clip then press Option Command V
which will promt a window for you to remove the attributes.




December 2nd 2007

Solutions • FInal Cut Pro • Keyboard Shortcuts
Try customizing your keyboard so that the letter R is set as the overwrite command and the letter Y
is set as the insert command. I find this much more efficient as my hands are naturally in the typing
position as I edit. To reach over to the R key from typing position is much faster when you want to make
a quick overwrite.

Solutions • FInal Cut Pro • Soft Slow Motion
Editing for close to 6 years now has afforded me the opportunity to overcome many technical challenges
and issues that occur during the process of editing. So many over the years that occasionally an old issue
will come back and it will take a second to realize "oh yes this is how simple the solution to this issue was".
We added slow motion to a DVCPRO HD clip and somehow it was a little soft, even when rendered. The
solution to this problem was to open up the speed dialogue [command J] and un-check frame blending.



December 1st 2007

Thougths on the Panasonic AGHVX200
In between shoots last month we took the Panasonic AGHVX200 to huntington to film some surfing clips.
The quality when uploaded at full res was pretty decent. The only adjustments I had to make in post was
to lower the blacks with the three way color corrector. This footage was filmed 720 p DVCPRO HD.

click to play

Thoughts on the Firestore
A couple of weeks back I was asked to do a shoot using the Panasonic AGHVX200 we needed to shoot
dvcpro HD and were required to get about 1.5 hours for the shoot. One option that could have worked
was shooting to p2 card and dumping the footage to computer when full. Because we didn't have the
extra person needed for this workflow we ended up going with the Firestore FS-100 which would
shoot the required length. Initially trying to figure this hard drive out was quit confusing and frustrating
as I literally had one night to figure it out and get it working before the shoot. I ended up only figuring
out how to shoot straight to Quicktime. The thing that frustrated me about this product was, not
being able to see active timecode on the panasonic flip out monitor, the noise and the overall sense of
"is this really working" while recording. By the end of the day however, I was somewhat more confident on
working the drive and will definitely use it again and hopefully learn more of the details regarding proper
use of this device.