The Editblog

We haven’t had a software from the future post in a while but Alex over at alex4d has a great one called Final Cut feature idea: Moving markers. And oh what a good idea it is. In fact it’s almost unfathomable that any editing application would be written without the ability to easily move markers. Premiere Pro CS4 can move markers in an edit timeline but just a click and drag. Final Cut Pro markers actually can be moved too but it require opening the Edit Marker window and typing in a new sequence timecode. Not near as elegant as a click and drag. I can’t imagine that it would be that hard to add that ability to easily move markers but I don’t program software so maybe it is. Check out Alex’s full post on the idea and let’s hope that it comes along in the next version of Final Cut Pro, whenever that may be.

So Francis Ford Coppola is working on a new film called Tetro. According to the film’s website:

TETRO is Francis Ford Coppola’s first original screenplay since THE CONVERSATION. It is his most personal film yet, arising from memories and emotions from his early life, though totally fictional. It is the bittersweet story of two brothers, of family lost and found and the conflicts and secrets within a highly creative Argentine-Italian family.

Coppola has made some of the greatest films in modern film history. He’s also made some real stinkers. But I’m of the opinion that a Coppola failure is usually much more watchable than a lot of the dregs out there today. Someone on Twitter (I can’t remember who) pointed to Coppola’s video that he made introducing this new film. I look forward to its release.

GenArts Sapphire Entire Package v2.0
all 4 boxes 200+ Plug-ins.

This is a nice deal for one of the best effects plug-in packages out there:

• Over 30 new effects and many enhancements in version 2.
• Includes support for Adobe CS3 and Smart FX.
• Support for Mac OS 10.5 Leopard and Mac Intel hardware.
• Support for Windows Vista
• More than 200 total plug-ins for image processing and synthesis.
• All plug-ins have multiple options and parameters that can be adjusted and animated for creating an unlimited range of effects.
• Resolution independent, antialiased, high quality images.
• Online hyper-linked documentation for all plug-ins.
• Dual, Quad, and 8-core support for faster rendering.
• On-screen user interface for visual control of parameters in After Effects and Premiere Pro.
• Only one license is needed to use the plug-ins with all AE compatible applications on the same computer.
• Free network rendering on After Effects, Combustion, and Digital Fusion.

There’s the choice of After Effects hosts and FxPlug hosts. FxPlug includes Final Cut Pro and Motion. Today only!

There’s a new That Post Show up and online and it’s a familiar subject that we all love to discuss but with an unfamiliar twist. On this episode I sat in on a discussion about Avid and Final Cut Pro but it wasn’t the usual which is better, which is best battle but instead we discussed the software apps based around this idea: marketshare. Guests on the show included myself,  Jason Diamond, Jim Geduldick, Shane Ross and host John Flowers. I think this was an important discussion to have since we tried to stay away from the question of which application is better. As I’ve always said, they are both equal tools and capable of doing equally great work. The question of marketshare for any product is often hard to pin down, especially when you don’t have sales figures. I think our panel was able to bring interesting opinions since we all work in a variety of different markets.

Questions asked include:

1. Is Avid “losing market share?”
2. Is Avid behind Final Cut in features?
3. Has Avid’s market share actually increased?
4. Is Avid or Final Cut the “Industry Standard” today?
5. Can Avid or Final Cut “gain market share” in the industry?
6. Hollywood vs. Indie Film – who owns each market?
7. Can you make more money with one NLE or the other?
8. What about the lagging editor systems, like Adobe Premiere?

You can get the audio file directly here or subscribe to the podcast via iTunes here.

Something is wrong here on the Editblog. When you try to click a link to a post, either here or through Google, you get a 404 Page Not Found error. We are working on this problem. Sorry ….

Okay, things seem to be back to normal now. My friend over at Digital Hooligans had the idea of checking to make sure this theme is compatible with WordPress 2.7. Check, not the problem. The next idea was to change the Permalinks setting. Check. I changed them to the default and the links were back but the Google search links all pointed to the ‘date and name’ type of links so they were still not found. I then changed the Permalinks back to ‘date and name’ (or whatever that setting is) and all the links in from a search engine seem to be restored. Whew. And all this help (thanks J and everyone else) came through Twitter. Follow blatherskyte if you are interested in tech, movies, motorcycles and/or interesting and fun links in general! I can honestly say you learn more about things when things break. It’s not ideal but is sure is a way to gather info!

A blog post this morning pointed me to Twittermosaic. It’ll take all those cute little icons from your friends or followers and make a fun little mosaic for all the world to see. You can even buy a bunch of stuff with the images plastered on it. These are my Twitter friends, though all aren’t following me so “friends” might not be the right term no is it? (it might take this thing a second or three to load btw):

Get your twitter mosaic here.

Brian Wilson has started a blog about his Adventures in (AVC)HD and his new Panasonic HMC150. I’ll be reading this one with much interest.

This Motion tutorial is an easy method to do speed changes on particle effects. It helped me out of a jam one day.

Miny is yet another low cost 35mm lens adapter.

Shane Ross has produced a great tutorial on how to use film effects to enhance your footage, over at Art Beats.

For a great laugh, Steve is breaking up with Avid and has expressed his feelings in a letter.

Jon Chappell talks back-up options for filmmakers. And we all need them.

Alex4D has a number of free Final Cut Pro plug-ins.

FinalCutKing is posting even more FCP tutorial videos on You Tube.

Silverado Systems asks What do you want to see in the new Final Cut Studio 3?

You really can make a follow-focus out of Legos.

Over at Focus on Final Cut at Pro Video Coalition there’s quite a few recent articles. Composite Modes, ProRes Clips from Log and Transfer and my article 3 ways to get RED footage into FCP are all online.

Links from Twitter:

blatherskyke found Layers, an app which takes screen shots into multi-layer PSD files.

pauldv has Christian Bale getting pissed off at the editor.

Gautch found filmaps where you can share and discover film locations.

big_b_rad found a quick online HD video site comparison.

Speaking of Twitter, 140it “Makes Your Tweet Less Than 140 Characters.”

Off-topic:

As a father-to-be I find http://www.yourbabyisanasshole.com/ f*****g funny as hell. And that’s an appropriate post to be followed by this link to How to Shoot an Indoor Maternity Session.

And of course there’s Sony’s “curse”-ed new product. This one is funny but NSFW.

Adobe Premiere Express is not to be confused with Adobe Premiere Elements. AP Express is web application for video editing and it’s being used on the new Hyundai Genesis Coupe campaign. Head over the the Editblog on PVC for the scoop and a link to where you can use it to edit your own Hyundai Genesis Coupe spot!

With the shortened month of February and to commemorate the Editblog now airing at the Pro Video Coalition I thought it might be fun to try and post a Quicktip a day for the entire month. Mostly all Final Cut Pro and Avid Media Composer related these are simple little things that many will already know, many will not. I hope they will be useful. They started yesterday on February 1 with this tip on using the CAPS LOCK in FCP and continued today with this one on multicam editing keyboard key placement. I hope you will follow along at the Editblog on PVC. (here’s the RSS feed direct link)