Here’s a link to 5 Final Cut Pro tips from Kevin McAuliffe at Digital Video Editing:
5. Four Channel Split Audio Output
4. Finding Used/Unused Clips
3. Multiclip Redigitizing
2. Adjusting Your Audio Levels - Relative vs. Absolute
1. Copy /Pasting Attributes
Here’s a link to Ken Stone’s fantastic Final Cut Pro tutorial site with an extensive list of video and text tutorials, white papers, and audio tutorials.
If you live in the Austin, Texas, area, and you are a student looking for a way to break into film, learn film, editing, etc. then contact Mike Curtis (see below):
Thursday, August 23, 2007 Fall 2007 HD for Indies Interns Needed Hey all - The summer intern program went so well, I [...]
Last reminder, the National Press Photographers Association Women in Photojournalism conference and workshops in Austin, Texas, is today through Sunday (August 17-19) at the Hyatt Regency Austin. Tonight (August 17) is the ice-breaker, the conference starts in earnest tomorrow morning (August 18). You can still register at the door. This conference is not just [...]
While it may never be used by news sites, a very interesting slide show tool from Animoto that was just released after finishing beta testing:
From the website: Animoto is a web application that automatically generates professionally produced videos, each a customized orchestration of user-selected images and music. Using patent-pending Cinematic Artificial Intelligence technology and high-end [...]
Some bad news thrown in with some good news from the recent release of the Cox Center 2006 Annual Survey Findings of Journalism and Mass Communication Graduates. I do like the fact that more journalists are working on the web. I don’t like the fact that they are not being compensated properly for it [...]
“Five Steps To Multimedia Reporting” is a great site for multimedia training from the UC Berkeley Graduate School of Journalism and the USC Annenberg School for Communication. The site is geared to reporters who need to learn how to create multimedia stories. The tutorials cover video (cameras, accessories, shooting tips, stand-ups and voice-overs, iMovie, Final [...]
An interesting technique to reduce noise from high gain night shots on high definition video from Zen Films, an independent production and publishing company. They use Neat Image, a plug-in for Photoshop designed to reduce visible noise and grain in photographic images produced by digital cameras and scanners.
Noise Reduction on HiDef images
I made a great [...]
From FreeGeekery.com, a great list of 15 freeware programs for filmmakers that translates very well to multimedia. Programs for film editing, screenwriting, sound editing and storyboarding will help bring your productions to a new level - for a very nice price!
TeacherClick, a website for teachers (duh), offers free online computer tutorials to the educational community. If you’re looking for something to supplement a book there are some free tutorials that will work well for what we do, especially the Flash and Dreamweaver sections. The site has tutorials for: Flash 8, Excel 2003, Dreamweaver 8, Flash [...]
Dependent Films, an Illinois based independent film company, has put together a nice collection of tools and utilities for filmmakers that are definitely transferable to what we do with video and multimedia in journalism. Tools such as: script templates for Microsoft Word, an editing log, field tape log, camera shot list, personal release form, storyboard [...]
I haven’t used online video editors before but JayCut’s flash uploader was easy to use and supported video, photo, and audio in multiple formats. To add clips, music, transitions, or effects to the time line I just placed them into the editor. Once the files were uploaded they were converted to flash for the editor [...]
I’ve been keeping tabs on Pachyderm for a while now and it looks like September 2007 the NMC (New Media Consortium) will offer hosted accounts for a small subscription fee to individuals. Pachyderm is the equivalent of Joe Weiss’ SoundSlides, but on super steroids, with the ability to allow anyone to upload images, audio, and [...]
In an article by Dane Hamilton from Reuters (Apple co-founder backs Internet video venture) a new Internet startup called “Hotswap.com” has created a new compression technology for Internet video that can make common digital camera movie clips mimic high-definition television on Web sites. This technology is going to be used initially for e-commerce sites, specifically [...]
Hillman Curtis on Creating Short Films for the Web
Text and images by Hillman Curtis.
New Riders Publishing, Berkeley, 2005
An excellent book, Curtis offers a look into his filmmaking process. He takes you through the ideas that drive the story, through setup, shoot, and the assembly of a rough cut, to the final edit. Hillman also offers [...]
I just stumbled on this. Newsmap is a news aggregator, but the way it visually presents the data is pretty cool.
Newsmap is an application that visually reflects the constantly changing landscape of the Google News news aggregator. A treemap visualization algorithm helps display the enormous amount of information gathered by the aggregator. Treemaps are traditionally [...]
Alex Iskold at Read/Write Web is quickly becoming my favorite writer. In this recent article he looks at the growth of widgets and the importance of this growing phenomena to media companies. “Media companies see widgets as an important new method of reaching audiences both inside and outside their domains. It seems that widgets cover [...]
In this article by Jennifer Woodard Maderazo at PBS’s Mediashift, most smartphones are classified as not very smart. One of the culprits according to her are media companies that aren’t stepping up to the plate to create content that is compatible with the over 70 million smartphones sold last year. Her hope is that the [...]
More “sound” information (pun intended) from Eli Kao and Jeff Towne at Transom.org. This article highlights Digidesign’s Pro Tools digital audio software.
A Beginner’s Guide to Pro Tools
by Eli Kao and Jeff Towne
Digidesign’s Pro Tools is an industry-standard digital audio program used for a variety of applications, from mixing film sound in Hollywood to producing [...]
Agence France-Presse has joined with Mochila, the prime destination for web-based and offline publishers to acquire content à la carte and on-demand. AFP will use this service for its Spanish language content.
From AFP: Global wire service Agence France-Presse joins global content Marketplace Mochila
Global news agency Agence France-Presse (AFP) has joined Mochila, the first global online [...]
Two HD-quality webcam were released by Logitech this month. Each camera has a 2MP sensor supported by a Carl Zeiss lens and a silent auto focus system. With these webcams you can produce 720p HD video format at 960×720 resolution. Both cameras are only $100 and should increase podcasting quality exponentially.
Omgili, a startup search company, has a novel way of tracking which topics people are discussing on the Web. Called, “Omgili Buzz Graphs“, you can post the graphic onto your site and people can see through the graphic how topics compare to one-another. While it’s a bit gimmicky, I thought this might be an interesting [...]
Blip.tv is an independent company that has sprung up and wants to play a bigger role in where and how video is produced for the web by bloggers and the general public. I guess they are an anti-establishment network that wants to go where YouTube and others have gone. Sounds like an alternate for some [...]
From Beet.TV:
Thumbnails Are Huge in Video Search and Pixsy Hopes to Finger the Industry
Thumbnails are becoming pervasive on search results pages of Google, Ask, Yahoo! and on many customized search pages. Thumbnails had been mostly the domain of image search — look up a celebrity under the image category and there’s the photo. Well, it [...]
From Adobe:
Adobe® Visual Communicator® 3 offers hundreds of customizable graphics, music and special effects to create video presentations that look like a television newscast. When presenting in front of a backdrop, users can digitally replace the background with an image or video. The teleprompter allows users to speak confidently without missing key points or memorizing [...]
A new user generated video upload tool from MediaSpan and Broadcast Interactive Media called YouNews TV video will allow citizen journalists to upload content onto local media sites. YouNews TV allows the audience of a local newspaper or radio station to upload breaking video stories in such categories as local sports, weather, entertainment, and news [...]
This is an interesting piece by Daniel Schultz at Poynter that discusses Rich Gordon’s new Knight News Challenge Grant to incorporate computer specialists in journalism schools. This is a great idea and can only help to foster better storytelling and news content packaging for the future. As Gordon stated in the interview, “Traditional newsrooms have [...]
When Real Networks releases its new player on Tuesday, the ability to download flash video becomes much easier for everyone. While this may be a good thing for those who believe everything on the web is for the taking, the problem for media companies is that the advertising content is stripped from the downloaded video. [...]
A great post by visual journalist Chuck Fadely at the Miami Herald on his NewspaperVideo blog called “The Great Video Gold Rush — a reality check.” Here’s a taste. Check out his entire post.
Video storytelling is technically difficult; extremely time-consuming, and takes talented people and expensive gear. A good video story can appeal to a [...]
Joe Weiss’ long awaited improved version of Soundslides, Soundslides Plus, is now available!! The cost is a measly $69.95 or only $30.00 if you own a previous version of Soundslides.
New in Soundslides Plus
Image Movement (Pan and zoom)
Image-only, click-through slide shows
Individual transitions
Built-in lowerthird subtitles
Built-in thumbnail menus
NPPA The Digital Journalist
