Well, I've been posting about it. My first comedy production, How to Live and Eat like a Southern Jewish Princess...We have a teaser clip. Check it out and we'd love your funny vote!
There, I said it. I hate Adobe's Activation procedure. Yes, I understand you have to protect your software from all the complete morons and low-lifes who can't pony up the money to purchase software legitimately, but geez, do you have to make this procedure so asinine that it affects legitimate purchases?
Three weeks ago I installed Apple OS 10.5 on a fresh hard drive on my editing workstation. A day later I installed my copy of the Production Premium Package CS3 to do some After Effects work. The Activation screen obviously pops up, I tell it to go ahead, but it fails. Fine, I'll Activate it later.
Two weeks ago I use After Effects and the Activation warning pops up again, again it fails to automatically activate on the internet. So I go ahead and do the Phone Activation. No problem, it gives me the activation code and I get the "Thank you for Activating the software" and I move on.
So I have set my sites on jobs when I graduate. It's pretty clear I'm not going to be inducted to the orphanage as their newest lead compositor straight out of college, not that it hurts to dream mind you, but it certainly hurts to expect such things. So I've been focusing on a much more realistic vacancy: Roto Artist.
Just discovered today that 720p DVCPro HD files rendered in After Effects cannot be brought into Color as they are completely blown out. I was speaking with another Cow user and he's got the same issue. in fact, he brought it to my attention.
I also tried exporting Self Contained Quicktime Movies from the FCP timeline, but this made no difference. That really surprised me.
Here's a frame of the original animation as it appears in Final Cut Pro.
Here's the same animation after it has round-tripped from Color. This is also how it appears in the Color timeline.
This is my first Blog ever! And creative cow rocks. Many thanks to creativecow and the great team behind it. After effects and Cinema 4D - I have learnt from the many podcasts, posts and tutorials on this site. So, I start with a recent model that I did.
I guess its better late than never to start a blog. I hope to use this platform to share my work and tricks that I have learnt over the last few years, All thanks to creativecow!
I am sure, 2008 is going to be a rocking year and we will have a great time - so this watch!
A few weeks ago we drove up to Burbank and shot Outdoor Channel show host Michael Waddell on a green screen for Outdoor Channel Broadband (outdoorchannel.tv) and OutdoorChannel.com site tutorials.
So we've had a lot of discussions on the Final Cut Pro and Apple Color forums about what can we use to replace the current Broadcast CRT monitors that are EOL? I've not been overly impressed with the current crop of LCD monitors out there. My favorite to date, the Panasonic 1700W and 2600W are both good, but cannot completey replace my Sony CRT Broadcast monitor.
This is Part 2 of a 4 Part series on Starting and Running your own business in the creative industry. In Part 1 of this series, I posed the question, “Are You Ready?” A link to Part 1 is at the end of this article in case you missed it. If you’ve thought long and hard on this and your answer is “Yes,” then let’s proceed with Part 2 of this 4-part trilogy. Here we’ll explore a lot of questions on setting up your company and getting ready to open those doors!
Hi everyone - I've been pretty silent for the last few months because I've been hard at work on a new Creative Cow Master Series DVD - "Internet Killed the Video Star: A guide to Creating Video for the Web." The 4.5 hour DVD will be available very shortly. Feel free to spread the word.
This portion of my three-part catch-up blogs focuses on the audio portion of my music video project.
I have read many tutorials and seen just about every podcast on how to lip-sync animation to audio in After Effects. Alas, after much trial and error, none of those methods worked. It wasn't until I got a response on Adobe's Audition forums, that I was given a somewhat workable solution.
What I wanted to do is have the main beat to the song be the rhythm to the video. And to be over-literal, have a clock ticking to the beat.
As most After Effects users know, After Effects isn't the best audio tool.
So, I got a new computer and needed to buy a Keyboard. The cheapest one they had at the store with a full sized backspace key (yeah - I make enough typing mistakes that it warrants a BIG key) was the Microsoft Digital Media Pro Keyboard.
In response to a post on the Creative Cow Final Cut Pro Forum, my choice for a control surface to run all Pro Apps on a Mac is a Wacom tablet. I run a 9x12 Intuos 3 in my suite and I just can't see working without one.
One question we see a lot on the forums, in fact there was another one today, is "How much storage will I need for X amount of video?" Our friends at Digital Heaven have created a wonderful free widget for those of you on Mac OS 10 computer systems for this very thing.
As Chi-Ho Lee noted on the Final Cut Pro forum today, Quicktime 7.1.6 has been released in anticipation of Final Cut Studio 2 and you can now read timecode in the Quicktime Player. Wow! Finally! Not sure why it took so long, but here's the proof.
If you click on the running time you now get a drop down box which gives you three choices of the Standard Running Time, Timecode and Frame Number.
I returned back home from Las Vegas and NAB on Tuesday night after spending 2 1/2 days in the City of Sin, my last few hours being spent at the wonderful Hofbräuhaus next to the Hard Rock Hotel & Casino where I, along with coworkers and friends, downed their great tasting German lager out of ridiculously massive 1 liter glass steins while enjoying what I have to imagine is "classic" Bavarian folk music.
Well here are some images for those of you who aren't able to be here. I'll give my full verbal breakdown a little bit later... I'm too tired to get into it right now...
Among all of the craziness happening in film and digital video, organization is still king. Being organized (and knowing how to) is a must for any one working in post-production. Yet so many times I see friends with terribly allocated scratch disks, disastrous file names, and scattered media. I used to be bad too, but I have seen the light and I come here today to share it with you. The Folders
I've never played with Motion (I bought FCP & DVDSP, and never felt the need to upgrade to the studio), although I've sometimes wondered if Motion wasn't a better tool for some simple jobs.
So, there I was. Just over a year left to graduate with a Bachelor's in Fine Arts from the University of Wisconsin, Madison. Most of my friends knew that I was really into the film classes and artist video classes I was/had taken. A friend and his bandmates asked me if I'd be willing make a music video for them. Quick background info: at the time, I just turned 29; the youngest guy in the band was in his mid-30s; and, none of them had ever seen my video projects.
