Archives for the 'tutorial' Category
‘Getting Good’ on the MediaStorm Blog
Monday, January 25th, 2010
I’ve written a short essay for the MediaStorm blog on how to get good.
Here’s the essence:
People tell me they want to produce work like MediaStorm. You can. Yes, we are fortunate to work with many incredibly talented photographers. But the storytelling techniques we use in our work are not revolutionary. They’re the same techniques described [...]
10 Final Cut Keystrokes I Use Every Day
Sunday, December 20th, 2009
Here are some of the bread-and-butter shortcut keys I use most frequently:
Command-Shift-A Deselect all.
Contorl-B Enables/Disables a clip. This is a great one to use when trying to compare clips. Stack one on top of the other and use Control-B to turn your alternative on and off.
Control – and Control = Raises or lowers the [...]
Replacing Footage With Pixel Accuracy in After Effects or FCP
Sunday, December 13th, 2009
Say you need to replace low-res footage with a new, high-res version while maintaining pixel accuracy.
First, create a new layer. Stack the new footage of top of the old.
In Final Cut, right-click on the top layer and choose Composite Mode>Difference. In After Effects, use the layer’s drop-down Mode menu.
Your footage will take on an inverted [...]
Navigating the After Effects Timeline
Saturday, December 5th, 2009
One of the more fundamental challenges I’ve faced learning After Effects is how to navigate the timeline. While I can fly in Final Cut, I tend to putter about in AE. One of the obvious reasons for this is that the key strokes are so wildly different.
To help me through this new terrain, I compiled [...]
Ten Tips for Working With Music in Multimedia on MediaStorm blog
Thursday, November 26th, 2009
As part of an ongoing series of tutorials on the MediaStorm blog I’ve compiled a list of techniques that he MediaStorm team uses when working with music.
From the article:
Music should not be used as simply background sound. It’s an integral part of multimedia, as important at times as your images, narration, or video. Effective music [...]
Learning After Effects
Friday, November 6th, 2009
I’ve been putting in the hours with my ancient copy of Adobe After Effects. My mistress in this affair has been lynda.com.
But Lynda’s $25 monthly fee shouldn’t be a barrier to learning this amazing application. A wellspring of free AE tutorials are available across the web.
My favorite of these is VideoCopilot.net which offers a series [...]
Dominate the Keyboard When Logging Video in Final Cut
Monday, October 26th, 2009
Using the mouse to log video is deadly slow. I know, I’ve been there.
Fortunately, I learned a time-saving technique while slogging my way through 150-plus hours of reality TV footage, many years ago.
First, put all video from a single source tape on to one sequence. Label the sequence with the same name as the original [...]
Multiclip Workflow on MediaStorm Blog
Sunday, August 9th, 2009
Multiclips are an efficient way to sync two or more video clips when using Final Cut Pro. They provide an easy to switch between camera angles using a simple point-and-click or pop-up menu.
Setting up a multiclip though can sometimes be painful, particularly if you want to use audio from one camera throughout while switching back-and-forth [...]
Final Cut Pro Keystrokes on Twitter
Wednesday, July 1st, 2009
In a previous post I detailed an easy way to export a master list of all FCP shortcut keys.
The list is a tad overwhelming.
So in my quixotic effort to learn every Final Cut shortcut key, I’ve begun FCPKeystrokes on Twitter: one shortcut per tweet, one tweet a day. The feed will continue until [...]
Advice to Multimedia Producers
Saturday, May 16th, 2009
There are dozens of books available on the workings of Final Cut Pro as well as innumerable websites filled with tips and tricks, like editing guru Larry Jordan’s FCP Tip of the Day.
So after my last MediaStorm blog post, Ten Ways To Improve Your Multimedia Production Right Now, I thought it might be instructive to [...]