De-VFlicker plugin from seed.

MOntreal_laspe_fliker test from Vincent-louis Apruzzese on Vimeo.

First 8 seconds are untreated, then the video after the effect was applied. It's quite a difference.

This new plugin from Seed came to my attention from FCP.co today and after asking if it worked with time-lapse video and getting a positive response.. I bought it immediately. De-flicker plugins cost 100s of dollars as a rule, for too much for me to buy just in case I need it. This is only 29$ USA for Final Cut X so it's well worth it.

Million Year Picnic Documentary Progress

After a fun weekend with an old friend (Mike Luce) and 14 year employee of the MYP, we were able to film a long interview with him and he interviewed me since the first one was not working so well. This means I am finally able to start editing it into a real film.

Using Final Cut X  has a learning curve, despite what some people say about it being so much easier than other non linear editors. Getting all the video in is very fast and painless but getting it organized for editing is not any easier or faster than doing it in Final Cut 7, just different and more flexible. 

Even though I have done a short 3 minute documentary last year, working in full HD is still new to me and the ability to enhance and fix things has greatly advanced since I did my film about the 1270 disco tech a few years back. Mike and I were looking at the video together and sound is a huge problem on this project. Earlier interviews had to be done in the store which was a recording nightmare. I found a plugin that would take out the echo and really enhance the sound, but it was 400$.. so out of the budget which is now zero dollars since I’l already in debt for the film. we did try out Soundtrack pro for some of the real obvious issues, which a software that came with the old Final Cut pro and while not as easy to use as the in app features in FCPX, it does a lot more, a lot more competently and even the worst sound was rendered somewhat usable. 

the video can really be pushed, despite bad lighting conditions

Mike also helped me with some drawing advice for another project and was really kind and just gave me a couple of his original drawings , one of which was up on the wall minutes after the left for home. 

Oh and now the doc is called « the picnic » apparently. 

Final Cut Pro 10,2

After a long wait, Apple has released an updated version of not only Final Cut, but Compressor and Motion. Final Cut being the centre point the others are attached to, it makes sense to mostly talk about how it's changed.

Not much really.

To be fair, they did handle some issues and it is much faster. The interface is easier to navigate and the long standing requests to have multiple scope displays for colour correcting have been answered. It also has some interesting new features like drawing masks, automatic smart collections created when you start a project and the big one... 3D titles.

The new 3d titles is an interesting, well thought out feature no one asked for and frankly isn't going to interest professionals in film production. I can see it being more helpful to what is now FCPs apparent new core base, makers of industry films, seminar videos and the like. Apple is making a huge deal of this feature which is even better implemented in Motion where it belongs more than in a non linear editing program.

Unfortunately, this leaves the functions editors have been begging for still left undone. There is no separate audio track so you can time a project to music, like for a music video as an example ( there are work arounds, but in my opinion a workaround solution just says Apple has fail to provide a real solution to an everyday need for many editors). The timeline doesn't slide with the playhead as it does even in iMovie yet and there is not send to Motion command to add affects to a clip you are working on which should have been in the software day one. Despite many proponents taking every little incremental step forward as a sure sign Apple has not abandoned professional film makers, this new update does nothing to support those claims.

Motion has also been updated and the new 3D titles fit in better with it's set of tools but more importantly, Apple seems to have.. at least on my system, been finally.. finally.. able to get much better real time playback and the software opens right away now. Those two little things have kept me form using Motion over After Effects since I first bought Motion as a stand alone product years ago.

Compressor I don't use, or I haven't used since the Final Cut 7 version so I can't really say much about it except the last few versions have not been all that well received. The ability to export directly to iTunes to sell your video does seems like a great feature once you've jumped through all the hurdles of getting approved and the rights to sell your stuff in the iTunes store.

Final Cut X revisited (v10,1)

Several years ago I had the chance to work with the beta version of Final Cut X, the replacement for Final Cut Pro Studio, Apple’s very efficient (but now dated) professional video editing software. Sadly, it was a giant mess and not even close to being a professional product despite having some innovative new features. Where do I stand on it now? 

Having received the new version s a gift to help me work on my new documentary, I decided to spring for the video tutorial class with Ripple Training, something I would highly recommend as a time saver. My first impression is that it hasn’t changed all that much (in look and feel anyway) and a few of the things that bothered me were still front and centre. Other, more important things maybe, had changed in very substantial ways. The most noteworthy improvement is the way you handle media now. A film is a collaborative effort between not just other people, but other softwares so the « iPhoto » method in previous versions made it unusable for most projects. The new library and improved keyword functions go a long way to fixing those issues. You can now save your project to external disks and open it on other computers easily, letting you work on a laptop, another studio, at home… where ever. Handling of media, especially new digital camera formats seems second to none at the moment. You will need a plugin for some formats like RED, but most conventional footage is handled natively and efficiently. The lack of useful plugins and features has been largely addressed, but not completely. The sound features, while not stellar, lets you sync clips to external video (I did have problems with a few and returned to Pluraleyes for more complicated files) and the reduce noise noise and reduce hum features are fast and useful but not totally professional grade. The magnetic time line can be a time saver but it does have its drawbacks as well. They have addressed some of the lack of sequences problems with « compound clips » which in many ways a useless renaming of the term sequences to appear they haven’t caved in to the need for this feature and are giving you something new. Colour correction is still basic but not bad and easy to handle.

On the negative side, the scrubbing tool can be a nightmare, I have it off more than on and it’s still not possible to organize a project’s clips in a way you like, but just in the way Apple has decided for you. For me, this means lots of wasted time getting things set up. I do like the key wording a great deal in this version but to be honest the whole FCPX release fiasco could and should have been avoided by rolling the best features into the old Final Cut Pro and keeping to editing conventions… this « new paradigm » offers nothing the old one didn’t have covered and changing the names of things is more about appearing innovative than actually being innovative. It is clear with this version, however, that Apple has listened to the complaints from professionals and has started to back away from its « my way or the highway » approach to what is a very personal field of work that needs to be a lot more flexible to personal workflows. The program does crash, but not very often and there are bugs, like spotty playback from time to time that requires rebooting the computer to get it right again. Round tripping to Motion is still not possible. (Motion itself is almost unchanged since it’s earliest version and while useful, it is still extremely slow with some more complicate tasks like 3D and emitters so it’s in no way a replacement for After Effects but it is a good extra tool to have in your arsenal.)

In conclusion:

I will be using FCPX, reluctantly, for my future projects despite its current deficiencies since it’s strong points are finally starting to outweigh to the weak ones. At the pace it’s developing it will be still be another couple years before it’s really something I will be happy to work on, but its getting there. 

Now that Apple is no longer "pro"

After years of producing some really great and now essential software for video pros, Apple has abandoned them in favor of robust, but far from professional versions aimed more at consumers who need more professional features but lack the experience and training using those features entail.

The Final Cut Pro suite is of course what I’m talking about. Now basically dead, Final Cut X the much needed and anticipated FCP update wasn’t what anyone was looking for and won’t be... ever. Some cool ideas does not a professional software make. Soundtrack Pro is gone leaving Garage band and Motion was never all it was cracked to be, but a solid software (and still is) but solidly in the less than professional arena for many tasks.

This is water under the bridge and Apple has the right to do whatever it wants in term of what direction it develops it's software. The question for those of us who depended on using it is now... where to go?

Frankly.. Avid has always been a complicated and buggy pain in the ass for me. On the MAC end of things anyway. The only other affordable alternative seems to be Adobe’s suite of video products.. which in anticipation of Apple’s change of heart, seems have been upping it’s game in recent years and is ready to take on the challenge. I’ve used Premiere Pro more and more and there’s no replacement for After Effects. Integration with Photoshop and Illustrator seals the deal really. Encore is miles above Apple’s always lame DVD pro and produces really nice DVDs, in my opinion. The music software is good for fixing problems but not for producing music.. Sound track Pro still is better at that..but not really that much better as time goes on.

So off to Adobe for my next feature documentary I’m thinking. Sort of scary and not a little bit annoying... but it’s not like there’s a lot of choices in this area!

Final Cut X

Having had a chance to play with this software and read up on it’s features and what other professionals say about it I have to report FCX is not aimed at the professional film maker or editor but rather the one man show at the office who must put together the corporate videos and the small film makers working on you tube and on the internet. While being a bold step forward in many ways, it’s also a huge step backwards, away from the professional work of collaborative and high end video production.

the good:
There is plenty of interesting and worthwhile ideas in this software. The magnetic timeline, the 64 bit and Motion 5 integration, the addition of larger formats, the on screen image is much improved on my monitors, the implementation of the the sound editing and color correction as well as the ability to burn DVD (including Blu-ray) directly from Final Cut are all inspired changes. The metadata ideas are very welcome and will greatly cut down the endless searching for clips. I have no doubt that many of these features are in the future of digital editing and many other non linear editors will be embracing them as well.

the bad:
Apple’s rush to “the future” is really just a rush to get rid of features it didn’t like supporting in place of creating something much too stripped down for professional use. No multi-clip? The iphoto/imovie approach to file management is great for some one person operations and a nightmare for most anyone else. In the film/broadcast world, there might be several if not 100’s of people working on a film and this current system is not good for that. Not being able to import older projects is annoying but not a fatal flaw in my view. Apple seems to think the world has moved on from DVD but as many FCP users are editing for weddings and events or independent filmmakers who need to send their work to investors and festivals by delivering these projects on DVD, the included solution is not a solution at all. I have been already using Adobe’s Encore to make DVDs as Apple had done nothing to improve DVD Pro (now defunct) since almost a day after version 1 came out. The killing of Soundtrack Pro is also a huge loss for those of us who are not and can’t afford musicians for every small project but I supposed Garageband is more or less up to that task at this point. Sort of.

Conclusion:
If you are a video professional who found FCP too daunting to use and wanted a more full featured version of imovie, FCX is really a huge step up for you and together with Motion 5 it will up your game to new heights. If you work alone and don’t mind having all your media organized for you instead of by you (which does have it’s advantages) this will also be step forward. If, however, you are working on anything more collaborative, or complex you will find FCX lacking in basic features too important to make it’s pluses outweigh the minuses. Apple’s back peddling recently and re-writing history with statements that FCP was “never intended for real professional work flow” not to mention the recent statements the this next version would have lots of things for the professional community is just a way to avoid admitting they have decided not to support a well and hard earned user base. Though updates may come fast and furious and this may become an incredible way to make broadcast in a year or two, that may be too late to attract the professional market who can more easily move back to Avid or the ever improving Adobe suite of video products.

I personally won't be using FCX anytime soon as imovie currently fills the niche I would use this sort of software for well enough and Final Cut 7, though still slightly buggy is much more appropriate for larger projects.

Motion 5

Apple released some major software this past week for video professionals and for the first time only from the Apple store. I’d love to try the new Final Cut Pro X, but 300$ for something I’m not sure I really need was a little high to pay and Compressor I rarely, if ever use as it is. Motion 5 was the logical choice for a test spin. It has some of the same new interface ideas behind it as the new Final Cut and was only 50$.

Buying:
Buying from the app store is easy, these are big downloads and then you must download even more to get some of the templates etc. So watch your bandwidth. Installation is all automatic but be prepared for some bugginess and weirdness first time you open the software.

Using it:
Not much difference from earlier versions to tell the truth. The interface is the most noticeable thing and it is a great improvement in my opinion. Getting used to it might take a little time but it’s much more intuitive overall. it’s full screen, 64 bit and much faster overall. I found it did most things I use Motion for very well but it crashes pretty often. This could be because Apple recommends you use it with a version of the OS they haven’t actually released yet. So while it was stable enough for most things, it’s not going to be a good idea for critical or professional use until this gets works out. Some feature look promising, like the tracking features. I have to say look promising because while the tracker did a pretty good job, applying the movement to another layer crashed the software every time I tried it so I have no idea if the tracking is really useful or not right now. I didn’t notice any new emitters, which is a shame since it’s one of the thing I like about Motion over After Effects. The rigging feature seems a nice way to make changes in templates easily and quickly.

Final Cut X integration etc:
This version has some serious integration with the new Final Cut X which is a welcome addition to the functionality. Not having the new FCP, I didn’t test it out. This might be a double edged sword for some people. The New FCP seem much more template and quite honestly, corporate headquarters oriented than a serious film maker’s tool. It radically changes how editing is done in a way that will benefit more those who must put together a corporate presentation or a podcast than a feature film and the Motion integration is part of that change. Both Motion and FCP can output to social media directly like You Tube, Facebook and will even burn to dvd... including Blu-ray if you have a burner. How this will work out is anyone’s guess at the moment. Apple has stopped making DVD Pro and Soundtrack Pro as well as Color. In theory many, but not all of those functions are now part of FCP. I do know that motion is hardly useful as a colour grading tool as AE is.

Conclusion:
Thought only 50$ this does mean a higher price for old time Final Cut users who upgrade. The 300$ for FCP X was the cost of the whole suite upgrade last time around. Still Buying FCP and Motion will likely handle most people’s immediate needs and it’s a damn good price. Time will tell if this is a step forward for editing or Apple’s first step away from truly professional software to more of a dumbing down of the artistic process of film making. Motion is a solid software but not much different than the last version function-wise. The 64 bit, speed bump and new interface is certainly worth 50$ or will be once the bugs are worked out.

update
the new OSX update is out and Motion has stopped crashing all the time. I also have access to try the new final cut X and will be reporting on that soon.

FInal Cut Pro Studio 3 review

Final Cut Pro Studio 3 has been out quite a while, but because of budget and fear of a disastrous upgrade attempt (almost every update i’ve bought has been problematic to say the least) I hadn’t bought the new version.

Positive start:
The upgrade price is very reasonable, I can’t complain that Apple is trying to bankrupt it’s client base, which might be said for other companies like Adobe. For the first time in a very long time, the installation was beyond smooth. I have a million serial number issues since as an early adopter to Final Cut, I bought the various programs in the suite separately and my first version was installed on OS 7 (I think) which made the command «insert the disk from your first version» an impossible task, as it wasn’t long before OSX could not read «classic» disks. This time it didn’t even ask me to re-type in my earlier version serial number. As a dyslexic, these numbers which seem longer than any alphabet is a particularly daunting task.



Final Cut:
Not too many obvious changes here, but nice ones. The export options are greatly simplified and you can drag a clip into a new sequence and the sequence will conform to the clip and all the following clips inserted with too. I find it much snappier overall in speed as well.
Motion:
This program always had it’s plusses for me but the painfully slow speed of it kept me away for using it for more than the most simple tasks. A good part of the problem might have been related to my upgrade issues as it never seemed to quite change it’s features despite a new version number. This time was a revelation. It now renders in real-time quite a few layers of emitters and video with no slowdown at all. I’ll have to re-learn it and take in all the new 3D features. While I doubt it will replace After Affects in my workflow, it will find a very important place in it.
Soundtrack:
Again, not many changes but some nice interface and workflow enhancements. This software completely ceased to function for me about a year ago with no explantation and I really missed it. Garage Band is not exactly a replacement for Soundtrack Pro, but it had to be until I got this update installed.
Colour:
A lot of promise in this colour grading software. I’ve been playing with it and find it does a great job in first and secondary colour correction and the presets are ok as well. The interface is like something from the Amiga in the late 1980’s and nothing like a modern one. Some of the values are put in by hand, no sliders and you literally have to type them in and hit return, then do ti all over again if you guessed wrong. Live updates in the image are the way to go with this sort of thing so I don’t know how it ended up like this. The node concept of constructing colour grading is likely alien to many users unless they were using Shake or maybe the Expresso system in Cinema 4D for example. (slight correction: you can adjust some numbers by using the middle mouse button, or scroll wheel,not the best solution but better than entering manually)
Compressor:
I have to confess, I rarely use this program and I’m well aware of how helpful it can be if you take the time to learn it properly. For some reason, it seems too complicated, but I suspect it’s not really at all.

DVD pro rant:
This program hasn’t received even a backwards look from Apple since Roman Empire fell. It was a great idea but never even seemed to get the same quality output as iDVD. You could set up more complex menus but not much else. It is so far behind the times it’s a hinderance to workflow and not a help. I recommend Adobe’s «Encore» over it any day. I know Apple thinks that we’ll all be streaming movies and info tomorrow, but in reality we wont be anytime soon and not supporting Blu-ray and current DVD authoring features is shameful from a company that revolutionized the video editing market.

Conclusion:
I have to say I'm impressed. The price and features combined with the speed increases and compatibility with my current OS and hardware set-up makes me wonder how I held out so long to get this.

Premiere Pro (CS3) testing

Recently I’ve been able to start using Adobe Premiere Pro (version CS3) on my MAC. I’ve long been curious about it in comparison to Final Cut Pro, especially recently since Premiere has been adding useful features by leaps and bounds while Final Cut seems to be stuck in a cave. It’s too soon for a real review, but I do have some first impressions.

It’s slow in many ways. Some of this might be I am not accustomed to how it works, but just simple cuts, rendering ect are certainly slower than Final Cut. Using the razor tool is a little annoying becuase of this.

Importing from tape was no problem at all. Even the sync was good which is a big problem still with FInal Cut Pro with my Sony deck and Sony cameras.

Overall... it’s pretty easy to transition from one software to the other. I am looking forward to trying the tight intergration between After Effects and Premiere. Intergration is truly essential these days and round trip editing between software is not just nice, but truly a timesaver on complicated projects.

I can see that Premiere is not on the multi-editor/ collaborative level as Final Cut... but I work alone in the editing room so that’s not really an issue for me.

As a quick impression. I can see myself using this software more and more for my personal work anyway. I still need to try exporting setting out ect... as I said it’s too early for a real review, but I can see why many independent productions are not shying away from using Premiere these days.

Update or not?

The new Final Cut Pro... should I update or not?

The real question is if can I even get the update now if I wanted to? Apple is not very helpful with Final Cut Pro issues, even simple ones like my serial number never works and hasn’t for several versions now. I’ve tried to get email, phone and snail mail help the last 2 years, but no one even responds to my requests except for the «you need to get the extended service plan for 800$» line... really? To fix a serial number issue? I am sorry, it’s the companies responsibility to support it’s product especially on such a simple, basic level. I did get some help more recently (because I had just spent 5 grand on a new system) but nothing they told me worked, they should have just offered me a new set of disks to avoid the issue from coming up again.

Another issue is the update itself. Apple has really dropped the ball on all it’s pro products and this update does very little to make me feel otherwise. Sure it’s a lot cheaper now, but it’s still way behind Adobe premiere in features! DVD Pro is so out of date it’s becoming useless as an authoring tool and this update ignores the product completely. Only Motion seems to get any attention worth mentioning these days. If updating to Premiere wasn’t so expensive, I’d drop Final Cut to tell the truth. There isn’t enough professional editing work that requires Final Cut coming my way, in fact most projects these days (they are few and far between in this economy) are easily handled by my older version of Final Cut or even Imovie.

I’d love some of the newer features, the colour correction software and whatever bug fixes came along with the updates, but I think it will be a long time before I can afford to update and there really seems to be no pressing need.