… for Apple Final Cut Pro X

Tip #1733: Two Hidden Ways to Import Clips

Larry Jordan – LarryJordan.com

Both Drag & Drop and Copy/Paste are faster than the Media Import window.

The Apple Final Cut Pro logo.

Topic $TipTopic

(I discovered this tip while researching my recent PowerUP webinar illustrating New Features in Apple Compressor & Final Cut Pro.)

We are all familiar with importing clips using the Media Import window. However, there are two lesser known ways to import clips; one of which was broken until the latest release. Both of these are faster.

DRAG and DROP

We can drag clips from the Finder into either the Timeline or Browser.

NOTE: All clips that you drag into Final Cut will follow current Import preferences.

  • Clips dragged into the Browser will sort according to your current Browser sort settings.
  • Clips dragged into the Timeline will edit into the Primary storyline in the order in which they were selected.

COPY / PASTE

You can copy clips from the Finder and paste them into the Final Cut timeline.

NOTE: All clips that are pasted into Final Cut will follow current Import preferences.

Clips pasted into the Timeline will edit into the Primary storyline in the order in which they were selected.

EXTRA CREDIT

While you can copy/paste clips into the Timeline, you can not copy/paste clips into the Browser.


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… for Apple Final Cut Pro X

Tip #1732: Create Custom Column Sets Faster

Larry Jordan – LarryJordan.com

The new custom Column Sets allow greater Browser flexibility.

Control-click any Browser column header when in List view to access this new menu.

Topic $TipTopic

(I discovered this tip while researching my recent PowerUP webinar illustrating New Features in Apple Compressor & Final Cut Pro.)

One of the new features in the 10.5.3 update to Final Cut Pro is custom Column Sets. These determine the columns of metadata that appear in List view in the Browser.

In the past, we could Control-click any column header when in List view in the Browser and choose from a variety of data fields. Then, we could drag column headers left or right to change the order. Those options were expanded in this update.

Now, we can create an unlimited number of Column Sets, each with different data fields and organization.

NOTE: Here’s a link that explains this feature in more detail.

The tip behind this feature is to avoid starting with the Column Editor (simply because it provides an overwhelming list of choices).

Instead, Control-click any column header (red arrow in screen shot), make sure the Default Column Set is checked, then choose Save Column Set As.

This duplicates the default set, allowing you to configuring columns with many of the fields you will ultimately want to use already included in the set.

EXTRA CREDIT

Once you create the duplicate, you can open the Column Editor and add any missing fields that you need. It is always easier to start with a mostly-complete project than build a new one from scratch.

You can switch between them as often as you want.


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… for Random Weirdness

Tip #1728: Who Will Produce the First Hologram?

Larry Jordan – LarryJordan.com

How soon will we call today’s movies “flat?”

Google’s Light Field Camera Array.

Topic $TipTopic

This article, written by Adrian Pennington, first appeared in Amplify.NABShow.com. This is a summary.

Holographic video techniques are being developed by some of the biggest brands in the business to transform the future of media and communication. …After all, why should digital creations remain trapped on 2D screens when everything we see, do and touch in the real world is three-dimensional.

The race is on to develop the hologram. Google, in particular, sees the creation of light fields, which it describes as a set of advanced capture, stitching, and rendering algorithms, as the solution.

“The key concept of light field rendering is that once you record all the rays of light coming into [a scene], you can use the pixel values and the RGB values of each image to create images from different perspectives and views where you never actually had a camera,” Paul Debevec, Google VR’s senior researcher, explained at IBC in 2019.

There are a few ways to record light fields. One is to use a single camera with a lens array to filter all directions of light from a scene to the sensor. Lytro got the nearest to commercializing this, debuting a giant 755 Megapixel cinema camera in 2016. But the company folded two years later (its assets and some of its people transferred to Google).

You could also create a 3D model of a scene which might be represented as a polygon mesh or a point cloud. Lidar is one route to this.

The current preferred technique is to use a plenoptic array of cameras. Microsoft has outfitted a number of Mixed Reality Capture Studios with cameras arrays to record holographic video, although last November, Intel quietly shuttered its giant 10,000-sq ft volumetric capture stage in LA. This contained 100 8K cameras and a green screen dome to create 3D holograms for AR and VR videos.

Virtual production stages could readily be equipped with plenoptic camera arrays should light field capture advance and there are suggestions the technique could be used for VFX (an application targeted by the Lytro camera). Not for nothing is “The Mandalorian” produced on ILM’s Stagecraft Volume.

EXTRA CREDIT

The entire article is a fascinating look at the state of the art. Read it here.


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… for Random Weirdness

Tip #1727: Planar Launches Virtual Production Studio

Larry Jordan – LarryJordan.com

New Planar Studios offers new solutions for virtual production markets.

Image courtesy of Planar, Inc.

Topic $TipTopic

Planar, a global leader in visualization technology, announced the launch of Planar Studios, an initiative designed to revolutionize the explosive virtual production (VP) and extended reality (XR) markets. Planar Studios combines the advanced technologies, industry partnerships and personnel that today’s customers require to create realistic on-screen content in the ever-expanding VP and XR industries.

Through the Planar Studios initiative, Planar is empowering the world’s leading visual storytellers to deeply engage audiences through advanced technological development, particularly critical LED and motion capture systems. By bringing VP and XR to mainstream entertainment, corporate and education markets, Planar is helping make VP and XR solutions more accessible, streamlined and repeatable.

Planar solutions for VP and XR are being deployed worldwide, including at Orbital Virtual Studios, a Los Angeles-based VP studio dedicated to producing movies, music videos and commercials from pre-production design and development, to production, photography and all the way through post-production.

“LED display technology is taking the production industry by storm, enabling new techniques and processes that are transforming the way video producers create incredibly realistic action and transport audiences to new worlds,” said A.J. Wedding, director and co-founder of Orbital Virtual Studios. “Having seen and experienced Planar’s state-of-the-art LED display technology firsthand, and worked closely with their team on many shoots, I have no doubt that the company delivers the superior visual performance, support and versatility today’s movie directors and producers need to create VP projects like we’ve never seen before.”

Read the entire announcement here.


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… for Random Weirdness

Tip #1726: Change the Way You Tell Stories

Larry Jordan – LarryJordan.com

Innovation in story-telling is a winning audience strategy.

Survey respondents preferred animated stories by a 24% margin. (Source: RTNDA.com)

Topic $TipTopic

The website for the Radio/Television News Directors Association (RTNDA) presented this article, written by Mike Beaudet, Anna Campbell & John Wihbey, in RTNDA.com. This is a summary.

NOTE: This is part three in a four-part series looking at how television news and story-telling is changing in today’s world. The EXTRA CREDIT section at the end has links to all published parts.

In our research series here at RTDNA, we’ve been building the case that new forms of storytelling, particularly next-generation animation, are vital to meet new audience expectations and norms. In this post, we hope to provide an in-depth look at the data we gathered and the topline takeaways for how graphics and animation can enhance local TV news storytelling. We hope you’ll dive in and see there’s a powerful case for breaking the mold.

What are the general takeaways to consider as you consume this information? As we examine the data, we hope you’ll remember two themes in particular:

  • Dealing with complexity: First, the current era demands a pivot from reacting to the news cycle to managing a protracted coverage cycle with an emphasis on context, trends, and outcomes. Graphics and animation assist in the understanding of more complex issues, as they can capture sequences of events, illustrate geography, aid in comparison, and connect the dots. They enable a deeper understanding, and a higher level of retention, of the facts at hand.
  • Active audience choice: Second, local news consumers are taking a more active role in their news consumption, flowing between brands and platforms to get the content they need. The fragmentation of news and the decline in allegiance is as much a response to frustration as it is to motivation. Accordingly, our data suggest younger audiences are responding to strong visuals; we find strong preference for the animated approach, especially for the younger demographics (ages 18 to 24). Importantly, our research reveals that enhancing broadcasts with graphics and animation can both attract new viewers as well as continue to satisfy––and even impress––a station’s loyal core audience base, even in this volatile news environment.

We present these insights based not only on partnerships we facilitated with TV stations, but also on a rigorous experimental survey, conducted with more than 1,000 respondents across the Chicago and Boston markets.

Animation consistently helped viewers absorb information more efficiently, both by their own estimation and as evidenced by quantitative retention tests. Viewers indicated they felt that the animated stories more often included “the right amount of detailed information” as opposed to overloading them with granular detail or leaving them with more questions than answers. As one viewer put it, the animated version of a story about a super spreader event in Chicago “more clearly showed how many people [were] infected” with the coronavirus. A story about a small plane crashing off the freeway was described as “easy to follow” and “familiar” when maps and text-based graphics showing the location and time of the incident were added.

EXTRA CREDIT

  • Here’s the link to Part 1.
  • Here’s the link to Part 2.
  • Here’s the link to Part 3.

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… for Apple Motion

Tip #1719: What Are Parameter Behaviors?

Larry Jordan – LarryJordan.com

You apply parameter behaviors to a setting, not an object.

An animated frost effect, using the Wriggle parameter behavior.

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Parameter behaviors are an advanced technique that, rather than manipulating an object, manipulates a setting (parameter) associated with an object.

These can create some very subtle effects. Here’s how this works.

  • Using the Circle tool, draw an oval in the Viewer.
  • In the HUD, turn off Fill, increase the width to, say, 90. and assign a Shape Style. (In this example, I used Garnish > Frost Heavy.)
  • In Inspector > Shape, click the small arrow to the right of Width (lower red arrow), and choose Add Parameter Behavior > Wriggle.
  • Play the timeline and see how the Frost border wriggles.

Cool.

EXTRA CREDIT

You can assign multiple parameter behaviors to the same setting. This is a great way to animate movement in non-traditional ways.


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… for Apple Motion

Tip #1718: The New Stroke Filter in Motion

Larry Jordan – LarryJordan.com

This creates borders ranging from tacky to lovely. It is highly flexible and fun!

A heart shape with an ice blue outline gradient using the Stroke filter.

Topic $TipTopic

One of the new features in Apple Motion is the Stroke filter. This creates lovely border effects around shapes.

  • To experiment with this, add a shape to a Motion project. (In this example, I used a heart.)
  • Select the layer containing the shape.
  • Choose Filters > Border > Shape. By default, a red border appears. Not to worry, we’ll change it next.
  • Go to Inspector > Filters > Stroke.
  • Change the Stroke Type to Outline Gradient. This causes the gradient to radiate out from the center of the element, rather than circularly around the shape.
  • Now, start tweaking: colors, width, position, fades… the works.

This creates border effects ranging from tacky to lovely. It is by far the most flexible border effect in Motion.


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… for Apple Motion

Tip #1714: Apple Updates Motion

Larry Jordan – LarryJordan.com

This release is all bug fixes, no new features.

The Motion logo, along with the latest version number.

Topic $TipTopic

Last week, as part of updates to all their media applications, Apple updated Motion to version 5.5.2. All of the changes listed by Apple are bug fixes, no new features were announced.

Here’s the complete list of fixes, as released by Apple:

  • Fixes an issue in which a 3D object would render with incorrect brightness on Mac computers with Apple silicon.
  • Fixes an issue in which Motion could quit unexpectedly when closing a project after export.
  • Fixes an issue in which emoji would render incorrectly in an HDR project.
  • Fixes an issue in which Motion could quit unexpectedly when closing the application with the HUD open.
  • Fixes an issue in which Motion could quit unexpectedly when adjusting the opacity of a gradient using the onscreen control.
  • Fixes an issue in which Motion would quit unexpectedly when dragging media or an object into a USDZ media well.

Here’s a link to Apple’s Release Notes for Motion.


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… for Visual Effects

Tip #1731: Do Filmmakers REALLY Need 12K?

Larry Jordan – LarryJordan.com

Shooting 12K is like shooting multiple cameras for the price of one.

Frames indicating (from center) UHD, 6K, 8K and 12K frame sizes. (Image courtesy of Frame.io.)

Topic $TipTopic

This article, written by Bryant Frazer, first appeared in the Frame.io blog. This is a summary.

In the early days of digital cinematography, it seemed like 2K might be enough for digital cinema and HD would be a decades-long standard for broadcast. But soon enough, Hollywood studios started finishing at 4K. And streamers like Netflix and Amazon Prime made 4K a new delivery standard for the era of peak TV.

Then Blackmagic Design forced the question of frame size last year with the introduction of the URSA Mini Pro 12K: How many Ks do we really need? What kind of situations need almost ten times the resolution of UHD?

Think about the 20-foot-high LED walls that are used for Mandalorian-style productions, where multiple shots are stitched together to create an ultra-high-resolution wraparound virtual set. Or massive outdoor screens that require similarly huge amounts of detail to make an impact.

In essence, shooting 12K is like having multiple cameras on location for the price of one (though, of course, lens choice will impact the creative possibilities of the shot tremendously.)

The article then goes into a detailed look at the new color sensor in the Blackmagic Design URSA Mini Pro 12K camera. It doesn’t use a Bayer pattern, instead, it uses a new image sensor that provides more accurate color.

The article next explores the benefit of using Blackmagic RAW as a codec, because much of the image processing is handled on camera, rather than requiring massive data pipelines in post-production.

VFX cinematographers are among the early adopters of this new 12K workflow, since increased resolution translates directly to higher-quality imagery, especially when creating blue-screen or green-screen composites.

Higher resolution yields higher-quality mattes.

EXTRA CREDIT

The article goes into more detail, with illustrations and examples of this new technology. Here’s the link.


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… for Visual Effects

Tip #1729: Sonnet Announces Thunderbolt Expansion

Larry Jordan – LarryJordan.com

Modular Thunderbolt expansion systems for desktop and rackmount.

DuoModo image courtesy of Sonnet Inc.

Topic $TipTopic

Sonnet Technologies announced the DuoModo line of professional, modular Thunderbolt expansion systems for the desktop and for rack installation, the latest entries in its award-winning lineup of Thunderbolt products. The DuoModo line is comprised of three interchangeable expansion modules — a three-slot PCIe card system, an eGPU card system, and a Mac mini mounting system with integrated 40Gbps Thunderbolt storage dock — and three enclosures consisting of two dual-module housings (one desktop and one rackmount) and a single-module desktop housing. Sonnet will also offer four preconfigured systems to simplify the order process for the most popular combinations of modules and enclosures. All modules are Thunderbolt 3 and Thunderbolt 4 compatible.

For the past decade, Sonnet’s Thunderbolt-to-PCIe card expansion products and computer mounting solutions have enabled users to overcome limitations in connectivity and adaptability, with the computers often favored by pro audio and video users. The capabilities to connect PCIe cards to computers lacking card slots and install Mac mini computers in computer racks have been integral to enabling countless workflows. With the launch of the DuoModo line, Sonnet has fulfilled its customers’ biggest requests to make modular products that offer greater flexibility of use in more workflows.

The DuoModo line addresses the particular requirements of audio, video, and broadcast users. Users can now configure a system to fit their specific needs, creating diverse combinations such as a system housing two GPU cards or six PCIe cards to connect to their computers with Thunderbolt 3 or 4 ports, or another with a Mac mini plus one GPU card or three PCIe cards. Additional modules are planned for future release.

Here’s the link to learn more.


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