Oh, if only.
 
Most of us just use our cocktail napkins as sketchpads for fevered start-up dreams or as liquid relief platforms for Cupertino-induced headaches.
 
Not Jason Rose.
 
He uses them to wipe the screen of his massive touch-enabled, video editing system.
 
Ok, I’m not sure if he uses cocktail napkins but his Tactile Interface Movie Editing (T.I.M.E.) system definitely deserves a toast. The video of him tapping and swiping his way through FCP X has been viewed by over 5000 people and counting on Vimeo.
 
You may have seen previous videos of T.I.M.E. used with Final Cut Pro 7 and even Avid Media Composer. But Jason says that T.I.M.E. works better with FCP X because “the UI is more user friendly when it comes to touchscreen editing” (larger buttons).
 
I spoke with Jason at length last week with a flurry of questions.
 

How and when can people get this?

Well… it turns out the T.I.M.E.system is cost-prohibitive. It’s merely a proof-of-concept. A forward-thinking response to the age old impulse of answering why with – well, ‘why not’!?
 

Is the T.I.M.E. system multi-touch enabled?

Yes and No. For PCs it is but for Macs, the drivers don’t exist yet.
 

What about precision editing?

Unless you have spindly fingers like the pumpkin king of Halloween Town, you probably can’t imagine doing frame-accurate editing on a touchscreen.
 

 
At 1:47 in the video Jason demonstrates how he does trimming with T.I.M.E. in FCP X, executing both a ripple and roll edit with only his index finger. He freely admits that it’s still not there yet but it’s a good start.
 

How do you right-click?

One of the top questions is answered at around 3:00 in.
 

 
It turns out, to right-click, all one has to do is press and hold on the screen to open up a contextual menu.
 
The highlight of the video though, has to be the finale when Jason performs a multicam edit with footage of himself juggling. It’s the perfect metaphor for the life of a modern video editor. And seeing this newly added, widely praised feature being executed with such ease and zeal is sure to make many give FCP X a second look.
 

 

Form Meets Function Meets Fun

There are additional benefits to the T.I.M.E. system as well. Jason said that what took longer than calibrating the touchscreen overlay, was figuring out the perfect angle for operating the screen. He eventually realized the T.I.M.E. system would have more ergonomic benefits if the operator was standing up.
 
So he settled on positioning the screen at a 45-degree, treating the workspace like an architect’s drafting table. Many other editors work this way including Walter Murch.
 
Now granted, Jason says he still sometimes uses a stool but he stands a lot and now his back feels much better.
 

 
And from what we are finally realizing about the dangers of prolonged sitting this may well be the most practical realization to come from this whole endeavor.
 
But for Jason it’s primarily about having fun and getting back to the tactile sensation of being physically connected to the media. You know, the potter and the clay. It can be kind of hard to get the deux ex machina when your box is out of sight in a sealed off machine room.

 
He even wonders what it would be like if our input devices had feedback mechanisms like video game controllers. The alert sound we hear when incorrectly performing an operation could be replaced with a vibrating button or Wacom pen. Talk about muscle memory.
 
And while he can’t quite see doing an entire project with a touch interface, he thinks it could work using a hybrid system. An editor would use a traditional keyboard and mouse for certain tasks and use the touchscreen for others.
 

The Interface Fluid Future

But I say why stop there as we dream up new ways of interacting with our creative space. A lot of the technology is already here and widely available or right around the corner. The motion sensing input device Microsoft Kinect is already being used by music producers and performers. Recently unveiled Samsung TV technology not only includes gesture input but also voice input ast well.
 
With the ever increasing focus on metadata you can see how voice input alone could take editing to the next level. “Computer, create a bin. Put all of my exterior wideshots into it.” Stuff like that.
 
Now imagine combining these different input categories into macros that are tailored to the way you work. You could do things like hide your current application and reveal any of the other open apps with the mid-air flick of the wrist. Then you could ask the computer to begin background rendering in the newly selected app.
 
And judging by the reactions to Jason’s T.I.M.E. system, I’m not alone in imagining a future input revolution.
 
In the comment thread on the T.I.M.E. Vimeo page, Grant Johnson says: “Think back just 25 years. DOS Prompt BATCH FILES. Replaced by Apples “drag and drop” in a GUI interface with a mouse. It has all been replaced. All reinvented. And completely embraced by everybody. Things change and will continue to change, and this is one of them. WITNESS the iPAD and iPhone and how the touch screen is so popular”.
 
Kent Beeson agrees and says that the voice element will open things way up. “We will be able to use not only touch screens but in conjunction with voice activation have finally a real interactive creative and more natural experience…hands and arms won’t get tired as you’ll decide what part of editing (or any computer work) you want to use touch screen, other part you speak to the software, it works with you and fast. So in editing a video, I should be able to write a word with my finger on a moving car, for instance, then say out loud the font I want it to change to, say the words “track car movement”, and it happens – while I’m setting up my next shot/edit”.
 

Butterfly Dreams, Caterpillar Reality

But as much fun as it is to speculate on the future of the craft, I’m a realist.
 
These seismic changes are years not months away and not so much because of the technology but because of the slow rate of adoption in our industry. We editors can’t quickly change the fundamental ways we’ve been working, nor should we. Real world deadlines dictate using workflows that have been painstakingly created with current, industry standard technology. Missing slot is not an option.
 
Ultimately though, it’s about craft. Will these new directions in interface interaction in the very least maintain our current level of storytelling? And could they possibly change the way we tell stories as fundamentally as nonlinear editing freed us from a strictly linear construction?
 
What do you think?
 

You may have heard of the phrase ‘horses for courses’. It’s a racing term that means certain horses run better on certain courses. This is a great analogy for how we should choose a non-linear editor.
 
Gone are the days of using one NLE to cut every type of project that comes in the door. Nowadays, it makes more sense to use an NLE with features that address the specific needs of your project.
 
Creating a graphics-heavy commercial that needs tight integration with After Effects? Use Premiere Pro. Creating a reality tv show that requires rock-solid networked storage? Use Avid Media Composer. Working on a self-contained, non-collaborative viral video? Use Final Cut Pro X.
 
Horses for courses.
 
Taking this approach tramples over the idea of one NLE being ‘better’ than the other. An idea, that if adopted widely, would create ‘hearses for versus’.
 
The sooner we can get beyond the versus debate, the sooner we can shift the conversation back to the craft of editing.
 

Craft and Craftiness

 
And part of that dialogue should be on the thing that impacts craft even more than incomplete NLEs – incomplete media.
 
You know the drill. You’re brought in to edit a project that has an insufficient amount of video/music/graphics and no (or low) budget to purchase them.
 
You have to scour the web to find free or cheap assets that fill in the missing puzzle pieces of your project.
 
Craft is about finding the story in your media but if you don’t have adequate media, the story you find will be lacking. So it’s about craftiness as much as it is about craft.
 
For example, I recently created a corporate video for Cisco that needed stock video and music.
 
The only footage shot for the project was interviews. There was no additional b-roll. There was however, a limited budget for stock media.
 
So that meant goodbye Getty Images and hellooo Pond5. And since I was very familiar with Pond5, I also knew that they would have a good selection of good and cheap royalty-free music.
 
We ended up getting our music tracks there but not before comparing them with tracks on the Vimeo Music Store and Premium Beat. The money we saved at Pond5 allowed us to spend more on our stock video at iStockphoto.
 
So the more web resources you have the better your story can potentially be. Some of my favorites free or low cost resources are:
 
 

Stock Exchange

Over 350,000 FREE stock photos
 
 

daFont

An archive of freely downloadable fonts.
 
 

Wikimedia Commons

A database of 12,206,210 freely usable media files to which anyone can contribute.
 
 

CG Textures

65.000+ high resolution textures, FREE for personal and commercial use!
 
 

morgueFile

High-resolution stock photography images FREE for either corporate or private use.
 
 

flickr: The Commons

A huge collection of photos with ‘no known copyright restrictions’
 
 

Font Squirrel

100% FREE fonts for commercial use
 
 

pond5

Royalty-free video, photos, illustrations, music, sfx and After Effects projects
 
 

Vimeo Music Store

45,000 royalty-free tracks
 
 

Creative Commons Search

Find content you can share, use and remix
 
 

Image*After

FREE high resolution images and textures for commercial and personal use.
 
 

Jewel Beat

99-cent royalty-free music
 
 

Lost Type

A Pay-What-You-Want Type foundry, the first of its kind.
 
 

The Noun Project

Collects highly recognized design symbols and icons and makes them available for FREE download.
 
 
Any other sites I should add?
 
 

 
This week’s guest blog post is from Apple / Adobe certified trainer Clay Asbury. Clay’s been working in the industry since 1990 and teaching classes since 1994.
 
He kicks off the first installment of our Trend F.A.Q. for Post, where we’ll try to answer some of the most common questions about where our industry is heading.
 
 

What is Open IO?

“I keep hearing that term on the internet and in industry publications.”
 
 
Open I/O allows third-party manufacturers to develop their own plug-in for their hardware to function with various editing apps.
 
The new trend is cross platform I/O devices that work with multiple applications.
 
AVID made headlines when they announced support of multiple I/O cards with Media Composer 6 (AJA, BlackMagic, Matrox, BlueFish, MOTU).
 
This is big news for editors who already own hardware, or work in various apps depending on the project. For example I have a AJA Lhi card, so if I need to use Premiere Pro for one client and Media Composer for another, no problem.
 
Expect more devices like BlackMagic UltraStudio 3D & AJA IO XT that are portable and support 3d Workflows (the current rage). They both support Thunderbolt which leads us to #2.
 
 

What’s all the hype over Thunderbolt

“I have Firewire 800/esata and they work fine.”
 
 
Thunderbolt is an interface for connecting peripheral devices to a computer via an expansion bus.
 
It comes on new Macs, and is starting to appear on PCs.
 
It is more than twelve times faster than FireWire 800 & twenty times faster than USB 2.
 
Thunderbolt HD started to appear last year with Promise Pegasus & G-Tech both offering RAIDS. Western Digital recently showed their My Book Thunderbolt Duo at Macworld Expo. Peripherals are also appearing such as the Apple Thunderbolt Display and the Belkin Thunderbolt Express Dock.
 
If you don’t need the additional speed this minute, I would wait as they are: 1) currently expensive, 2) not many options for bus powered drives, and 3) uses copper cables (10Gbps) (but faster optical fibers versions are on the horizon).
 
Expect this to be a Hot Topic at NAB this year.
 
VideoGuys Thunderbolt Guide
 
List of Current Thunderbolt Devices
 
 

What editing software should I learn now?

“With FCP X replacing FCP 7, I’m not sure what to do. Should I learn Premiere Pro or Media Composer?”
 
 
The rebirth of Final Cut Pro 7 last year as Final Cut Pro X was big news.
 
Some Editors felt betrayed as their previous projects wouldn’t open in FCP X, and that pro features (multicam, broadcast monitoring) were missing.
 
Overall, the industry seemed to love it or hate it. FCP’s competitors (Premiere Pro, Media Composer, Edius) took advantage of the situation, offering discounted cross-grades for FCP users.
 
As of this week FCP 10.0.3 is out, and the missing pieces have been put back. This puts FCP X, Premiere Pro & Media Composer on a fairly even playing field.
 
Here is my personal take on this.
 
For $300, FCP X is a powerful, accessible, and affordable tool that will get a lot of folks new to editing and those who don’t need all the features/pricetag/complexity of Media Composer or Premiere Pro.
 
There is a website dedicated to it and new plugins are appearing weekly.
 
Premiere Pro integrates amazingly well with Photoshop, Illustrator, & After Effects through built-in Dynamic Link if you have the Production Premium Bundle.
 
This is a very tempting way to go for graphic heavy projects.
 
Media Composer was the standard for years, and it is a robust and extremely customizable app that can be overwhelming at first because of all the flexibility it allows.
 
It probably the highest learning curve of the 3, but if you are editing narrative projects it’s trimming is unmatched.
 
Now Automatic Duck Pro Import AE 5.0 is free (they were assimilated by Adobe), and you can move your timeline into AE without rendering out a movie.
 
Choose whatever software is best for your project, meaning that knowing all 3 can’t hurt and will increase your marketability as an editor.
 
 

Are smartphones/tablets useful for filmmakers?

 
 
These devices have developed into tools for the filmmaker, with developers building affordable apps that extend these devices, much like plugins for editing apps.
 
Need to figure out how much disk space an hour of Apple Pro Res HQ or AVID DNxHD 36 takes up?
 
No problem, both Technicolor & AJA have a free app for that.
 
Want to make notes during a screening and have these available when you edit? No problem, there is Movie Slate.
 
There is a site called Hand Held Hollywood that is dedicated to iPhone/iOS and even Android apps. The site even has a directory of apps.
 
(**** BREAKING **** – Check out the HHH post on the just released Avid Studio for iPad).
 
 

What is Cloud Editing?

 
“I hear the term Cloud Editing thrown around, what is that?”
 
 
Cloud Editing is basically accessing video files,assets, and services on an internet based server.
 
Avid was the first to integrate this into a video editing app via the Avid Marketplace.
 
Currently it allows you to access a large library of stock footage from inside the app.
 
This is possible through their partnership with Thought Equity Motion with the assumption that more features will be added in the future.
 
Adobe’s current offering is CS Review & integration with Adobe Story which “create scripts or outlines that serve as blueprints for your video projects”.
 
They showed Adobe Prelude last week at the San Francisco SuperMeet so possibly more Cloud features will appear in Creative Suite 6.
 
FCP X – Not as of 10.0.3 but there could be possible iCloud integration in the future.
 
On the High-end there is Quantel QTube – Hard to find much info on it, but looks powerful and expensive and a work in progress.
 
On the the more consumer end there is WeVideo, and the in-progress Novacut has potential.
 
I expect Cloud Editing to be a big topic at NAB.
 
 
So, what other questions should we add to the Trend F.A.Q.?
 

The February issue of my monthly newsletter “Fresh Off the Vine” is out!
What’s new this month?
 
The January issue looked at how video editing has become more and more about improvising (a.k.a. “hacking”) ways to become creative, technical and organized.
 
And often this means adapting and increasing our proficiency at things that have a huge impact on our ability to be get our job done.
 
This month’s issue is part 2, where I continue looking at ways we can hack our way into efficiency.
 
 

This month’s CREATIVE article has more hacks for creative blocks. It’s more tried and tested ways to get past creative blocks when editing a video – and the last one is a dozy!
 
 

This month’s TECHNICAL article continues my look at writing scripts. I list some simple and practical After Effects scripts and AppleScripts you can run that will help you code your way to efficiency.
 
 

This month’s ORGANIZED article continues looking at ways of creating an unconventional editorial workflow. This time I make the case for having a hybrid organizational system that is both analog and digital
 
 
And as usual I have:
 
 

THE TWEET TOP 12

– the funniest post-production related tweets from January.
 
Congrats to @not_eggaBo, @telemg, @theangietaylor, @Nate_Clarke, @RedArrowRyan, @malderor, @jnack, @mediapathic, @CaptainChants, @PaigeDeMarco, and @aka_skid.
 
 

QUOTE BLOAT

– insightful / funny content creation quotes on the month’s theme. One of the quotes from this month:
 
“Anyone who finds _Programming Python_ ‘too cute’ needs to have holes drilled in his head to let the evil spirits out”.
 
- Charles Evans (from, Python Humor)
 
 

PROGRESS BAR

– a futurist take on trends & technologies changing the way we think, work & edit.
 
This month: “When will Transmedia Storytelling and media management get hitched?″ I ask the question: how do you archive the stagering data of today’s interactive / transmedia campaigns and make it indexible and searchable? Why would you want to?
 
 
If you haven’t already, sign up for the FREE monthly Splice Vine newsletter. Just enter your email in the box in the top right corner and you’ll get “Fresh Off the Vine” delivered to your inbox on the first of every month.
 

 
@Zbutcher and I have been yucking it up lately on Twitter with the #editorsofacertainage meme.
 
You know, stuff like “remember when it took 3 machines to do a friggin’ dissolve?” or, “I love the smell of film cement in the morning…”
 
Nostalgia aside, it got me wondering: what analog creative techniques have made the transition to the digital age? Well, when there’s time permitting for any kind of pre-visualization, paper cuts are still the answer.
 
A good definition of a paper cut can be found in the book No Budget Digital Filmmaking by Chuck B. Gloman. According to Gloman a paper cut is “basic editing using information written on paper. The in and out points of each are written, and the information on the paper is cut and pasted together to perform a rough edit”.
 
Years ago, back when budgets still allowed for luxuries like pre-production – I would get a storyboard sheet that would be like a linear paper cut:
 

 
There would be a rough sketch of what the producer thought the viewer should see with the corresponding dialogue or narration listed underneath.
 
Drawings in the box, letters on the line.
 
Here’s a good article on how and (why) to make a paper cut. This further explanation from the Knight Digital Media Center goes into even more detail.
 
 
The linear paper cut was a great start for us, but if we wanted to change the order of shots we would have to start over with a blank set of boards. So once we had a good idea of the shots we wanted to use we would cut up the sheet and play with the order on a big corkboard.

 
This is fine for pre-production, when the images aren’t yet set in stone. But after your footage is shot, how do you stand back and look at the big picture in one glance?
 

The Decisive Moment

The venerable Walter Murch has an elegant solution. In his near mystical book on the craft, In the Blink of an Eye, he describes how he gets a bird eye view when editing films:
 
“…I would…select at least one representative frame from every setup (camera position) and take a still photograph of it off the workprint. We then had these photos developed and printed at the local “one hour” place, like family snapshots, and they were put onto panels arranged according to scene. Whenever a setup had a complex staging or a moving camera, it was necessary to take more than one photo…usually it was three, and most of the time it was just one”.
 

 

 

 
These snapshots from the towering documentary on video editing The Cutting Edge, show Murch using this technique as he edits Cold Mountain.
 
It shows what can be accomplished when you have a single person with a single format with a single focus.
 
Ok, so what happens when you have none of these?
 
The editors of the new documentary “Pearl Jam Twenty” used a similar method to coral and parse 3000 hours and 20 years of footage shot on every format known to man! As they went through the footage and found performances they liked, they would stick them on the ‘big board’ and shift them around until they found the order they liked. They said this method help them create their road map.
 
So how has the paper cut adapted to today’s remote, collaborative and mobile digital post environments? There are many apps that expand the process of pre-visualization. What works for you all depends on your situation.
 

prEdit

 
prEdit is a pre-editing tool for developing paper cuts from transcripts. prEdit features include the ability to:
 
• Allow producers or editors cut transcripts into selects in seconds

• Add and update log notes with auto-complete logging fields

• Preview the video for any clip, subclip, paper cut or section of paper cut

• Export to Excel spreadsheets and Final Cut Pro, or Premiere Pro Sequences
 
 

Final Cut Pro X – Placeholders

 
In Final Cut Pro X you can use Placeholders to rough together a sequence to be filled in later. You can even use them to build a complete storyboard inside the app. Here’s a tutorial on using Placeholders in FCP X.
 
 

Martini – The QuickShot Creator

 
Not ready to brave the wilds of Final Cut Pro X yet? No problem. The Martini QuickShot Creator for Post-Visualization plugin goes beyond the Placeholder feature in FCP X by giving you hundreds of pre-loaded backdrops. And if you’ve already scouted your location you can bring those photos into your shot.
 
Martini works with Adobe Premiere Pro, Final Cut 6, 7 and yes, now Final Cut Pro X.
 
 

Storyboard Quick

 
Now if you want to step outside of the editing software, StoryBoard Quick is a stand-alone app that takes pre-visualization to the next level. Some of the features include:
 
• a cast of customizable characters that come in various positions, rotations and elevations

• an array of backgrounds and props

• a wide variety of file types are supported including Photoshop files and layers

• the ability to import your script into the app and even keep your formatting

• the ability to print to HTML or Flash for viewing on the web
 
 

Cinemek Storyboard Composer

 
And while there is no official video editing workflow for the mobile storyboard composer Cinemek, that doesn’t mean we can’t find an excuse to buy this app. There is an iPhone and iPad version but they will cost you $15 and $30 respectively.
 
But if rumors of a HD, quad processor iPad 3 (with hopefully a better camera) are to be believed, I could see the benefit of passing this app around the edit suite.
 
What kind of paper cut workflow do you use?
 
 
 
Also, don’t forget, today is the last day to take the 2012 Splice Vine Community Survey. And a lucky surveyee will have a shot at winning a bottle of “Splice Vine Wine” courtesy of Windsor Vineyards of Napa Valley. So when you get a minute, take a render break and tell me a little about yourself and what you want to see more of on the Vine this year.

 
—–> THE SPLICE VINE 2012 COMMUNITY SURVEY

Thanks to everyone who has checked out the Vine since the re-launch last April.  In the last year I’ve written about everything from FCP X going rougue to why we shouldn’t just “occupy” the edit suite. I’ve gotten a lot of great feedback, encouragement and guidance.

But I thought this year, instead of rambling on about how much I hate kernel panics and firmware updates, let me actually find out what interests other video editors.  This place shouldn’t be a one-way street, nay – it should be a two-way street of course (or at least not a roundabout).

Who are you?  What kind of projects do you work on?  What are you passionate about?

So I thought it would be a good time to finally do the first (trumpets blaring) Splice Vine Survey.

Um, yeah.  Did I mention that there are only 15 questions that should take about 6 minutes total to answer and you’ll automatically be entered to win a bottle of Splice Vine Wine?

No, I haven’t been taking sommelier night classes, I’ve created a branded wine courtesy of Windsor Vineyards of Napa valley.  Starting this month I will be giving away a  bottle of 2009 Windsor Fusion Red to a random new subscriber of  my newsletter Fresh Off the Vine. And now a lucky surveyee will have a shot at winning a bottle as well.

So when you get a minute, take a render break and tell me a little about yourself and what you want to see more of on the Vine this year.

Cheers,
Eric

—–> THE SPLICE VINE 2012 COMMUNITY SURVEY

I’ll admit it – I’m a Mac Guy. And for those that regularly read my blog posts, newsletter articles or have checked out some of my workflow hacks this isn’t news.
 
Lately though, I’ve become a lot more open minded.
 
Like many of my peers, I’m still a little intimidated by FCP X. But I am still planing on becoming proficient with the app because of the novel ways it improved FCP 7. I also think FCP will eventually re-gain some of its mindshare so I want to be able to talk knowledgeably about it as it slowly rebuilds its core set of users over the years.
 
That said, I’ve been giving the Windows platform another look.
 
A few days ago I stumbled upon Richard Harrington’s article on Creative Cow, Opening My Mind Has Opened Doors.
 
He talks about how the powerful HP z800 workstation blew away a similarly configured Mac Pro during a side-by-side speed test.
 
Yes, it’s true that it is an HP sponsored post but that misses the point. Richard Harrington is a Mac guy through and through, being one of the first FCP certified instructors with more than 10 Mac focused books under his belt.
 
After he saw how much faster the PC performed a file conversion workflow, he put his money where he mouth is and switched one of his edit suites over to the z800.
 
And I have to admit – they are fast and powerful machines. I freelance at several shops that use them and I’ve always been impressed by their performance.
 
But don’t take my word for it, check out the illuminating article by Joe Herman about how well this box works with Premiere Pro.
 
Interesting highlights:
 
 
- The insane storage capacity of the z800 (up to 192 GB of RAM and 10TB of online storage) and support of top of the NVIDIA 6000, arguably the fastest graphics card on the market.
 
- Premiere Pro’s advantages as an NLE such as its handling of native tapeless file-based camera formats and the dynamic link it has with After Effects
 
- The benefits of the HP Performance Advisor which let’s you see a visual representation of the components installed in your Z800 without having to open up the case.
 
 
I’m not saying that I’m going to be buying a Windows machine anytime soon, but I’m intrigued by what I see happening with the platform: Black Magic Design recently announced the beta for Resolve for Windows, Thunderbolt coming to Windows and Kinect support coming to the platform as early as Feb. 1st.
 
These reasons and more will keep the PC platform in post-production, compelling and relevant.
 
Let’s face it, everything feels like it is up for grabs since the FCP X aftermath. Many editors are re-thinking and even disavowing not just Apple software but even hardware after last summer’s wild ride.
 
Which begs the question: If Mac users are going to consider switching platforms for using Premiere Pro and Avid, why stop there? At the rate Sony Vegas and Lightworks are adding features we are probably only at the beginning of market fragmentation.
 
 

The big Consumer Electronics Show is rolling into Vegas next week and what’s unveiled there could have huge implications on the post-production industry.
 
It used to be this annual convention was only of interest to gadget hounds and geeked out technologists but now that (gulp) describes a lot of editors I know (myself included).
 
Let’s face it, the consumerization of content-creation has been in the making since we started using off the shelf computers and camcorders decades ago.
 
Now with the Web, mobile phones and consumer cameras being used even in high-budget workflows we definitely need to stay up on the latest developments.
 
So what will be hot topics for editors to monitor at CES 2012?:
 
 

Thunderbolt on PCs

Back in Sept. of last year, Intel announced that it was bringing Thunderbolt to Windows PCs. Until now, Thunderbolt has been exclusive to Apple computers.
 
Now Avid and Premiere editors using PCs will be able to turbocharge their workflow. Even though Thunderbolt PC motherboards aren’t forecast to ship until Q2, there could be a demo at CES to whet our appetite.
 
A re-designed Sony Vaio Z looks like a likely candidate. In the very least, let’s hope this puts to rest the Thunderbolt vs. USB 3.0 debate.
 
 

4K TV

Nope. That’s not a typo.
 
Next week LG will unveil a 84-inch 4K TV capable of displaying eight million pixels at 3840 by 2160 resolution.
 
Now whether these are “marketing pixels” is another story. In the very least, now may be a good time to re-read the excellent post on Creative Cow: The Truth About 2K, 4K and The Future of Pixels.
 
Maybe at some point in the future we’ll be able to hook it up to our Google TV and watch YouTube’s 4K channel.
 
 

3D TV

And that’s not all LG has been up to.
 
They will also be introducing a 55-inch OLED TV that will be 4 millimeters thick and weigh 16.5 pounds.
 
Yep, that’s thinner than most smartphones.
 
LG claims it’s “the most convincing 3D viewing experience currently available outside of a movie theater”
 
And if that’s not enough to chew on, Stream TV will be launching glasses free Ultra-D 3DTV tech at CES. They claim their “Ultra-D” technology will “surpass all 3D experiences to date”.
 
 

Smart TV

Not to be outdone, Samsung will be showing off their Smart TV eco-system that will support YouTube’s growing library of 3D content.
 
Lenovo offers a similar smart television product with LeTV but ups the ante with a new cloud storage service.
 
 

Android Tablets

Not interested in being yet another hipster video editor with an iPad/editing workflow? Then 2012 may be your chance to start the trend of hipster video editor with an Android tablet/editing workflow.
 
The ASUS Eee Pad Transformer Prime has been getting rave reviews since it was released a month ago and we’ve all been inundated with info on the Android-based Kindle Fire.
 
With a strong consensus that we won’t see the iPad 3 at CES, that potentially leaves a lot of press time for a new slew of hungry Android tablets to take a bite out of Apple.
 
 
So what did I miss?
 
 

A couple of weeks ago I showed you some bread and butter ways that After Effects saves editor’s lives daily. Now let’s look at the advanced ways that AE helps you take it to the next level.
 
You probably won’t use these features on every editorial project but when you need them it’s good to know you can.
 
 
1. CONVERT AUDIO WAVEFORM TO KEYFRAMES – The Convert Audio To Keyframes keyframe assistant analyzes audio amplitude within the work area and creates keyframes for audio amplitude. Essentially, this feature gives you the ability to have your audio drive a visual element.
 
This works well with rhythmic music or even voices. In this tutorial you’ll see how they got animated clouds to pulsate to music.
 
 
2. ROTOSCOPING – A common kind of rotoscoping is the tracing of a path around an object in a movie and using that path as a mask to separate the object from its background.
 
It would be easier to push a camel through the eye of a needle than to try this in a typical non-linear editor.
 
Scott Squires created this pt. 1 and pt. 2 intro to rotoscoping 5 years ago but it is still very relevant today. Also, the introduction of the Roto Brush and Refine Matte in CS5 make this even easier.
 
 
3. BETTER BLEND MODES – Blending modes (a.k.a. composite modes or transfer modes) are settings for layers that control how each layer blends with or interacts with layers beneath it. Blending modes for layers in After Effects are identical to blending modes in Adobe Photoshop.
 
In FCP 7 and FCP X you can do the basic blending modes while Avid Media Composer supports these modes with the Composite effect in the BCC bundle and the built Paint effect. You can also use the free DMN transfer plugin for Avid Media Composer.
 
 
4. 2 AND A HALF-D – No it’s not a new Charlie Sheen spinoff, it’s admitting that AE doesn’t have 3-D in the strictest sense. For true 3D you will have to look to apps like Cinema 4D, 3D Studio Max and Maya.
 
But even AE’s “fake” 3D can take your edits to the next level. There is a great group of AE tutorials on Lynda.com on the Dimensional Stills Technique (If you’re not a Lynda member you can watch a Videocopilot tutorial of it here).
 
This is a popular effect where you freeze on a single frame and the individual objects inside the frame separate in Z space. You can see an example of it in the trailer for “The Kid Stays in the Picture”. Try doing this inside any NLE that is not a Smoke.
 
 
5. PARENTING – Again with the sitcom titles. But all jokes aside, it’s a huge drag trying to automate any kind of interaction or dependencies between layers in an NLE.
 
For instance, it would be cool if instead of copying the crop parameter from clip A and pasting it to clip B, I could just have clip A control the crop parameter on clip B.
 
That’s what parenting does in AE – it allows one layer or set of layers to control other layers. This layer synchronicity can really make complex animations a lot more manageable. Here is a minute long tutorial on Parenting.
 
 
6. EXPRESSIONS- And if you really want to take your relationships to the next level, then you should consider using expressions. When you want to create and link complex animations, but would like to avoid creating tens or hundreds of keyframes by hand, try using expressions.
 
Expressions usually frighten non-coders but if you start off slowly wrapping your head around the basic idea of how they work it can be a lot less intimidating. Two excellent sites for this (in order) are Introduction to Expressions and Dan Ebbert’s Mastering Expressions.
 
Even knowing just a few bread and butter expressions can speed up your workflow tremendously.
 
 
7. BETTER MATTE OPTIONS – Even though you can create track mattes and travelling mattes in Final Cut Pro, there are better options for manipulating them in After Effects. You can even convert a layer into a track matte using the TrkMat menu.
 
This menu in combination with the Blending Modes menu give you far more options for how layers interact with one another. Just using these 2 menus in tandem can sometimes negate the need for using effect filters at all.
 
Check out the illustrated introduction to mattes “All about Track Mattes” created by the AE dynamic duo Chris and Trish Meyer.
 
 
8. INTEGRATION WITH ILLUSTRATOR – I use to think an .ai file had something to do with the Spielberg movie. Now I know it just stands for a file that I can’t open with any other friggin’ app except Illustrator (even though there are few ways around this).
 
But what’s great about AE is that it will not only support any .ai file, it will also support it’s vector properties. The means that among other things, the image is infinitely scalable. This makes Illustrator objects great candidates for zoom transitions and other creative uses of the scale parameter.
 
Here is an Adobe TV tutorial on understanding the After Effects and Illustrator Workflow.
 
 
9. INTEGRATION WITH PHOTOSHOP – As of press time, Final Cut Pro X does not support layered Photoshop files. It flattens the .psd file on import.
 
But I’m sure this feature is coming because, well – it has to. Until then, you know where you gotta go if you want to animate your.psd layers.
 
But even beyond the basic functionality of being able to import layered .psd files, AE give you the option of preserving individual layer styles, transparent areas and layer masks, and adjustment layers (preserving the individual elements for animation).
 
Check out the documentation on preparing images for use in After Effects.
 
 
10. INTEGRATION WITH PREMIER PRO – So we’ve finally made it to the best feature of all.
 
In the same way that Apple Motion works hand in glove with Final Cut Pro, so works After Effects with Premier Pro. This is a power couple if ever there were.
 
There is a tutorial on Lynda.com that shows you the synergy you can create between the two. Again, if you are not a member of Lynda you can view a tutorial here on the Dynamic Link feature in Premiere that lets you use AE comps inside of Premiere.
 
 
So there you have it. 10 advanced ways AE saves countless editors lives.
 
What did I miss?