Media Storm: FCP

A comprehensive guide to Final Cut Pro resources online from the folks at Mediastorm.org

Link:
MediaStorm’s Guide to Final Cut Pro Resources on the Web

Digital Diaspora: Brooklyn

Shooting with Thomas Allen Harris, Ann Bennett on the Digital Diaspora Family Reunion (DDFR) Project and the Through A Lens Darkly feature film.

On Flickr:
DDFR @ Brooklyn Public Library
DDFR Outreach Shoot 2/26

Saturday in Long Island City

A sunny Saturday in Queens, enjoying the borough, the dance/fashion stylings of “House of Legacy International”, Five Points, PS1, and hanging out with minor Bollywood celebrities.

Full Gallery

Editing Trickbag

I’m doing some editing in a music video style these days and thought I’d share some of the tools that make it easy for me.

BPM Tools/Calculators

MixMeister BPM Analyzer
Easy to use, passive BPM analyzer/detector. Inserts the BPM into the MP3’s id3 tag.
http://www.mixmeister.com/bpmanalyzer/bpmanalyzer.asp

Beat Direktor
Great dashboard app/calculator for cutting to the beat. If you input frame-rate and BPM, it’ll tell you how many frames equal one beat/one measure/etc. Great tool for accuracy and calculations on the fly when you’re doing the music thing.
http://www.findmysoft.com/mac/Beat-Direktor-download.html

VideoSpace
A dashboard app that helps you calculate how much disk space you’ll need based on the video quality and length you’re importing. Obviously you never want to be cutting it so close that you have to worried you’ll run out of room so it’s a nice piece to have to think about how much hard drive space you’ll need before it becomes a problem.
http://www.digital-heaven.co.uk/videospace

Final Cut Plug-ins

Too Much Too Soon’s Final Cut Plugins
This packs got a bunch of good ones, so many in fact I’ve forgotten all of them. Of note, there’s some nice transitions (Wind Cross Blur), some custom Color Correction tools, and most important to me, a couple tools to get the most out of the Nikon D90 HD video. The “D90 Rescaler” and “D90 Upscaler” help with the digital artifacts and stairstep pixelation that appears when you bring the footage into Final Cut. Good Stuff. 

http://www.mattias.nu/plugins/

Soft Skin Color Correction/Technicolor Process
The soft-skin plugin is nice, but the Technicolor Processes are crucial. Great heavy saturation effects to push the footage and give it a warmer color palette.
http://pistolerapost.com/pluginz/index.html

LIGHTROOM

It was a long time coming, but I finally started playing with Adobe Lightroom and it’s awesome. Not so much for the layout or included tools (those are nice, yes, but not much better than my default, go-to Picasa which is better at the re-sizing),  but for the processing and presets.

Incredible stuff, the presets. Mostly user generated, but simple to use and which can give photographs some fantastic and unique character. My favorites speed up workflow and stylize images to look like older film stocks, simulating grain, light and texture.

Some good ones:
Auto-Fix Presets for Nikon/Canon Color Profiles
Street Life Vintage Look
B&W Infrared
A Bunch of B&W Film Stocks
Matt’s Vintage New York Looks
“Fashion Photography” Looks

There’s thousands out there so it’s tempting to try out all of them, but it’s best find which ones work best and get rid of the rest. My biggest issue  so far is getting to my favorites fast.

Digital Diaspora: Boston

Shooting, scanning and more with Thomas Allen Harris and Ann Bennett at the NAMAC Conference for the Digital Diaspora Family Reunion (DDFR) Project and the Through a Lens Darkly documentary.

On Flickr:
DDFR @ Boston

Color Mag

I got a couple photos in Color Magazine for a story about Boston-based, black business club, the Nexus Alliance. Unfortunately, they received my photos so close to the print deadline, they still had the old photographer’s name in there, but at least it was fixed in the online edition (which has one of those fancy, Flash, simulated-page-turning layouts). Thanks to Bridgit Brown for putting me on.

Article – “The Nexus Alliance: Band of Brothers”
Color Magazine > July 2009 Issue (Flash Reader)

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