Pull Better Keys with Key Correct Pro

I've been meaning post a review of Red Giants Key Correct Pro for some time now, but as I've just gotten married and had a crazy couple of months, I haven't had a chance. But I saw yesterday on the Red Giant site (http://www.redgiantsoftware.com) that they are running a sale on Key Correct Pro for $99.

If you do any green screen work at all, this plugin is (in my opinion) a must have. If you shoot DV and/or HDV for compositing work, it becomes even more useful. I've been planning a whole big entry about how it works and showing some examples of work I've used it on. But this clip from the Red Giant site does a much better job. It's by Michele Yamazaki, who wrote a book called Greenscreen Made Easy. You can view the tutorial here:

http://www.redgiantsoftware.com/videos/redgianttv/item/19/

Again, it's a great plugin, and for $99, it's a steal.

If you go to my website - www.100acrefilms.com - you can view one project I did for Staylor Made Communications where we did a LOT of greenscreen work.

FCS3...Apple's CS3 release?

I couldn’t help but notice that Apple released Final Cut Studio 3 last week. Being an Adobe Production Premium guy, it doesn’t really affect me too much in my day to day world of production. But, it a larger sense, it affects all of us in the production world because if Apple’s stats are right (50% of the editing market, 1.4 million users) then that’s a big number of people using FCP. I have no idea how they arrive at the 50% number – did they poll post-production houses? I must have missed that one…

But back to my point…as Apple now claims to own half the market it would seem that makes them the leaders - I’m guessing Avid and Adobe control the next 2 largest shares. And as the leaders, when they release something, it’s usually a big deal. I remember when FCS 2 came out – I was at NAB that year. Good Lord…judging by their booth, you’d think that they had redefined the NLE. And truth be told – it was a great release. ProRes, Color, new version of Motion. The point of all this is to say that a lot of the industry looks to Apple to see what they are doing – where they are headed. For better or for worse, those of us non-FCP editors have to acknowledge that it’s becoming (if it isn’t already) a FCP world. What Apple does makes the other NLE makers stand up and take notice.

And with such market dominance, it was a big surprise when I saw the press release for FCP 7 and FCS3. My reaction was, “Really – that’s it? After 2 years, that’s all you came up with?” I think some of the changes are pretty good – the new ProRes formats look intriguing. But as a whole, this feels more like it should be FCS 2.5 rather then 3. I heard so many rumors – rumors of a UI overhaul, more native drag and drop support (no log and transfer), 64 bit, etc. I guess I was expecting more (after 2 years) from the mighty Apple.

So, as a Premiere Pro editor how does this affect me? Well, I really feel now that CS4 is a better, more feature rich NLE then FCP…but I realize that’s my opinion – go ahead all you FCP editors, tell me why I’m wrong…I can take it! I think that if Apple doesn’t release another version of FCS shortly after it releases Snow Leopard (as has been rumored), then I think Adobe and Avid could gain some ground back on that 50%. I expected, as I think many others did, that Apple would take the lead big time with this release and I don’t believe they did. I wouldn’t go so far as to say they are treading water with it, but they aren’t swimming that fast.

Can Avid and Adobe catch that 50% number? Not overnight, but the video/film market is changing…and changing fast. Players have to keep up with the move to tapeless formats and new workflows. If Avid and Adobe can provide solid solutions to those new formats and workflows before Apple can, it could shift the industry. Apple has a lot on its plate – iPhones, iPods, iTunes…as well as looking towards a future without Steve Jobs. Could their competition be sneaking up on them – maybe. Time will tell…

This all reminds of me of a few years ago. When Adobe released Production Premium CS3, many of us Premiere Pro editors were a little disappointed. While the bundle did add OnLocation (formally DV Rack) and Ultra to the group, and added Premiere Pro back on the Mac, the changes to Premiere Pro were pretty minimal. Ironically, one of those changes was better clip speed and time re-mapping features. I heard from many Premiere Pro editors who said they were going to skip the upgrade because Premiere Pro 2 was almost rock solid and there wasn’t enough incentive to upgrade. I think many did later when native P2 and XDCAM support was added through free updates. But it just wasn’t enough reason to spend the money at first.

So I ask you FCP users…is this your CS3 release? Do you feel Apple dropped the ball, or are you really excited about this release? If so, what are you excited about? Where do you think Apple should go with FCP and FCS as a whole?

Great Color Correction Video

I love...wait, let me try that again. I LOVE Red Giant. Never heard of Red Giant? Well, you should. Get to know them and their products. They make some of the best tools out there. I would never make it without Looks, Colorista, and Key Correct Pro (I'll be posting about that soon - promise!). That's just a short list of their great product line up.

Stu Maschwitz has done a great tutorial about matching the looks of Hollywood films using Looks and Colorista...wait, you haven't heard of Stu? Again, someone you may want to check out - www.prolost.com. Stu is the guy every indie filmmaker should check out. He started out at ILM (he was there when I was an intern there), and he now does his best to show how you can get Hollywood looks on a low budget. He just got hired on as a Creative Director at Red Giant so that can only mean great things in the future.

If you really want to improve your color correcting skills, I would encourage you to check out this tutorial. It's around 35 minutes or so, but it's really worth it.

The Future of Editing?

I came across this video and had to post it. While I don't think it's going to storm the market and replace Final Cut Pro or Avid, it's nice to see someone thinking a bit out of the norm and creating something completely new.




I may have to download this and give it a try...

The Premiere Pro CS4 4.1 update...

I’ve been using the new 4.1 update for Premiere Pro CS4. It’s a great update with some nice new features, and some great new support. “Big deal, Addison,” you may be thinking. “I cut with Final Cut Pro or Avid. Why would I care about Premiere Pro?” Well, that may be true. However, I know that many of you out there have (smartly, in my opinion) purchased the entire Adobe CS4 production suite but only use After Effects and Photoshop…Premiere Pro sits there idle, lonely, and waiting to be called into service. Maybe you’ll find yourself in a situation where you’ll think, “Hey, I need to do [insert problem here]. I seem to recall that Eric Addison guy saying Premiere Pro can do that. Let’s boot it up and try.”

One new addition came in handy this week for a project I’m working on. I was called on to add some clips to a DVD project I originally did last year. I didn’t have the master tapes handy to pull the clips needed, but I did have DVDs that contained the clips and I could pull those clips right into Premiere Pro. Normally, I would never do this. To maintain the highest quality, I always try and pull footage from the camera original tapes, or use the edited master. But, as I mentioned, I didn’t have access to those, and securing them would take some time so this way was the quickest.

To begin, I created a new project in Premiere Pro, then put the DVD in the DVD player, and in the media browser within Premiere Pro I was able to see the VOB files on the disc. Finding the one I needed, I loaded the video clip in the preview monitor, marked the in and out points that I needed, and then dragged the segment to the timeline. From there I was able to export out an AVI file with the DV codec. No opening up DVD ripping software, no playing the DVD while recording to tape…none of that. Just import the video as I would any other media, and drop it on the timeline.

I did this for the other clips I needed, and finished off the new DVD in Encore. And you know, the footage looks fine – you’d never know where it came from. Again, this isn’t something I would normal want to do – I always try and get the best quality. But sometimes, you have to work with what you got to make a deadline. One other note about this, if I needed to do more editing to the clip, I could have. I can actually edit together different clips from the same DVD...I'm actually editing video from a DVD source.

Something else improved in the 4.1 update is the support for RED cameras. Premiere Pro works with native RED files – the actual .R3D files, not the Quicktime proxies. If you want to work with 4K footage, at 4K resolution, Premiere Pro is your editor. I know that most computers will have issues with 4K footage, but the scaling functions included in the new RED support allows you to create a 4K timeline, use 4K footage, but drop down the resolution playback quality so that you can get good performance playback. You also can go in and adjust all the source clip settings (the ASA, the exposure, white balance level, color space, etc.) with the footage on the timeline. And as always, you can import your finished edit into After Effects for any finishing work you may need to do. Or just finish it all in Premiere Pro.

I could go on about the RED workflow, but to be honest I’m still learning it myself. I’ve got a lot of RED footage, and I’m going through the new features and teaching myself (with the help of tutorials) the ins and outs of working with RED. It’s really rather remarkable – I can even edit 4K footage on my laptop…my laptop! But I do feel confident in taking on any RED projects out there.

So, maybe this encourages you FCP and Avid owners who have the Adobe production suite installed to click on that Pr icon and open up Premiere Pro…maybe it doesn’t. But if it doesn’t, then I say come on – live a little! It’s not like the Apple or Avid police will storm in and indict you with treason. Have some fun and see what some of us other kids are playing with. You may just find yourself wanting to, oh…I don’t know, edit a project with it? You never know…

There's also other new feaures in the update...maybe I'll cover those in a future post.

Next time, I’m going to share about a very handy and powerful tool used when doing keying. I got it not too long ago, and I’ve been learning it so as to be ready for the next compositing job I get. I can already see it making my job so much easier, as well as giving me better keys.

Lastly, I’ve no idea how many of you out there read this, but to those that are, I hope you enjoy it and find it useful. If there’s anything you’d like me to cover, or if you have any questions, speak up and I’ll do my best to respond.

Be sure and check out, if you haven’t already, my new website…http://www.100acrefilms.com/.

Do You Hate Capturing?

Have you ever found yourself in a situation where you need to start editing right away, or cut while on location to see how things will look later? Or, for those still shooting on tape, are you just over the whole capture process? Have you ever got back into the edit bay and found that in the best take of a shot, there was a glitch in the tape and it’s now completely unusable?

If any of this hits home with you, let me tell you about one of my favorite, and most relied upon tools…Adobe’s OnLocation CS4.

OnLocation is a tool that allows you to capture video while you’re shooting, all through the firewire ports on your camera and laptop. It can capture DV standard definition in both AVI and Quicktime formats, as well as, HDV and DVCPRO HD. It includes a monitor for viewing your image, scopes (waveform and vectorscope) for fine tuning your image, as well as a set of audio meters. The monitor includes markers for title safe, zebra, and colors bars for proper calibration.




Using this tool, I’ve been able review footage while in the field, all while not touching the tape in the camera. I’ve cut together takes (after importing the footage into Premiere Pro) and checked to make sure edits will match. And for interviews, I’ve created (ahead of time) a shot list in OnLocation using all the names of the people I’m taping, along with any other metadata needed. This has made finding clips much quicker in editing.

Let me walk you through the basic workflow. After hooking up the camera and booting up the laptop, I start by creating a new project in OnLocation. Depending on the nature of the shoot, I can then just start shooting. OnLocation will start once I hit record on the camera, and create the clip until I hit stop on the camera. It will even get the 5-10 seconds before I hit record – no more missing the start of a shot because I hit record too late...which sometime happens when covering a live event or presentation where I have no control over when things start.

The other option is to create a shot list. I had a shoot where I was doing a group of interviews. I got everyone’s name ahead of time, and in OnLocation created place makers for shots. I used the interviewee’s names to title each clip. When I got to the shoot, I just opened up the project, found the clip place marker in the shot list for the first person, highlighted it, and then hit record.

All the metadata that I include with the clip in OnLocation carries over into Premiere Pro when I edit. I’m able to search through the clips using the metadata - I can search for the date, the location, whatever I include. And I can now, using the speech to text feature in Premiere Pro, create a text file of what’s being said in the clip and search by the words spoken. While this technology is still a bit rough (the transcription isn’t always accurate), most of the time it’s good enough to still be a help with long interview clips.

Something I’m looking forward to in the future is Adobe Story. Shown at NAB this year, it allows you to import in (or create) your script, then export out an XML file that OnLocation can import. Using all the shot information from your script, a shot list will be created in OnLocation including all the information from the script – characters names, location of the scene, dialogue, etc. This metadata then lives with the video clip while you edit, helping you find the shot or take you need all that much quicker.

From this quick overview, I hope you can see why I love this tool. It’s been an incredible timesaver. As I said, I never go on a shoot without it. It’s become just as valuable to me as my camera or NLE. If you ever find yourself in a position where you think you could use something like this for a project, let me know. And while I don't rent out my laptop for others to use, I will come out and capture footage for you - just let me know and I'll give you more details. I’d be happy to show you why I love it, and after you try it, you may never shoot without it.

First Entry....

Hi! Welcome to the first entry on the 100 Acre Films Tech Corner blog. I plan on using this space to share any interesting things I come across the in the every changing world of film and video production. If you work in this industry, you know that the tools of the trade change all the time. I'll also use it to discuss what I'm using to create the videos I work on such as any cool plugins or software I come across.

To start things off, one of the things I get asked most about is why I edit with Premiere Pro. In a world dominated by Avid and the ever growing Final Cut Pro, why on earth would I use anything else? Don't I see the brilliance of each of these products?

Well, yes...and no.

The first experience I ever had with an NLE was Premiere 4.2. For those that used it back in those days, you probably remember something that looked like this...


Now, it was a bit rough in those days...and I wouldn't blame people for going to Avid or FCP when it was released. Premiere needed an overhaul. And in 2003, it got one. Once Adobe rebuilt Premiere and released Premiere Pro, I was sold. With every version, they improve upon it and I find that the workflow is the best around. Now, it looks like this...

One reason I love it is because I use After Effects - a lot! And the way that Premiere Pro works with After Effects is simply the best. I can create AE projects within PPro, do all the work in AE, then flip back over to PPro and see things updated. I don't need to render out any files from AE any more - just import the AE project into PPro, and it drops right on the timeline. I know that Apple has something like this with Motion and FCP, but in my opinion, Motion is no AE. The same sort of workflow exists within all the Adobe Production products - Photoshop, Encore, and Soundbooth. It all just works together so well.

Also, as we move into a tapeless workspace I find Adobe's native format support to be the best. I don't ever have to log and transfer footage like FCP does. If I have some P2 footage, I just import the MXF files right from the P2 card and I'm editing - same with XDCAM footage, AVCHD, and RED footage. Also, being able to capture on my laptop in the field through OnLocation, and then start editing in PPro right away without ever touching tape is something that I think is just amazing and a huge time saver.

I could go on and on about all the features that I think make PPro superior to FCP and Avid, but I won't - if you want to really know email me and we can talk (or argue depending on how dogmatic you are about your NLE). I think the bottom line is I feel more comfortable creating with this tool set. I know that FCP has some advantages, as does Avid. No NLE is perfect, and they all have strong points with room for improvement in areas. Avid is by far one of the most stable and robust edit tools around. And FCP is without question one of the most used and supported NLEs on the market. But there isn't anything that I can do in those systems that I can't in PPro. Oh, and did I mention that PPro can import in (and soon export) FCP projects, and (very soon) Avid projects as well?

To me, it's more about the person using the tool. It's about how creative is that person is, and if they using something that best exploits their talents. I do much better work with the Adobe tool set. It fits the way I work. I'm lucky in that I work for myself and don't often find myself (anymore at least) going into other people's shops and editing on their systems. If that's the way I was living, I'd probably have a Mac with FCP - it's just used by far more people. As much as I think Adobe has a got a better product, it wouldn't matter - I've got to eat so I'll learn what everyone is using.

So, for those that wonder just why I use Premiere Pro instead of something else, I hope this somewhat clears it up. If you haven't checked out what Premiere Pro can do, I encourage you to check it out. It's not that same editor you remember - it's in a whole different league. I'd be happy to give you a demo.