Click on the Image Sources in the controls tab.

Once the edit window opens you can rename the pics and move the pics in what order you want it to appear in the slideshow. You can also delete or add photos to the slideshow. Something that the previous version did not do within the plugin.

They have also added “Small Moves” another generator to their cool list of slideshows. Small Moves or better know to editors as The Ken Burns Effect is a generator that I will be using quite frequently.

I’m surprised that this filter isn’t in the default filters in Final Cut Pro. It is easy to use and very effective. It also allows you to animate the rotation and the X & Y axis. Pretty sweet generator that you will be seeing in action with Often Awesome the series.

Check out the other great slideshows that this generator does on Aquafada’s youtube page.

Price
$49…purchase this plugin. Their first version I suggested to hold off until they upgrade and the upgrades and addition of Small Moves makes this buy a no brainer. Especially if you are constantly using images in your videos. This is perfect for any wedding or event editor and especially an editor that is doing a family project.

You can download the latest FxFactory Pro and use it for free for 14 days to try out this plugin.

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The Instructors
Bob Sliga and Steve Hullfish are once again your trainers with Apple’s Color application….but this time it’s Advanced Training (extreme trailer music playing).

This DVD will give you a great understanding of how to use Color as an advanced user. Not only using the tools and rooms in the application but it is very cerebral that makes you think like the professionals. I can’t express enough how cool it is to get access to minds like Bob and Steve.

The expertise of the trainers are outstanding and they openly give you tips and information to make you an advanced colorist right off the bat. I had a difficult time understanding Color when I first opened it up and even began with Class on Demand – Basic Training for Apple Color. After watching a few lessons over and over again and getting used to the rooms in Color, everything began to make sense. After you get an understanding of Color the Advanced training is the next logical step.

Not For Everyone
I have to warn new editors not to jump into Color until you have become very comfortable using Final Cut Pro as an editor. To think like an editor is so very important in using this application especially if you are aware of archiving, saving backups and creating presets or scones. There is only one Undo move in Color so be careful and listen to these instructors and save at every step.

Important
The project media used in this training comes with the DVD, simply drag and drop from the DVD to your desktop. Everything is sorted in easy to find folders. One thing you need to do before you begin your training with this DVD is to download from RED RED FINAL CUT STUDIO 3 INSTALLER and REDCODE QUICKTIME CODEC (BETA). Otherwise you will be lost in the first lesson. After you do that you can open your projects in this training and follow along. When I opened the first lesson I couldn’t re-link the media in the project. I tried over and over, then just moved on in the lesson until they covered that media file and that is when I knew I needed to install RED on my computer. After the installation I could finally re-link the media…only problem was the media on my computer didn’t match what they were training with.

Here is the media I was supplied with…

Outlined in the red square is what the trainers worked with…

This is not a deal breaker by any means. Just followed along with the instructors and made the changes with them…it didn’t matter what footage I was using as long as I had media linked.

The Course
Primary Color Correction

Day for night look
Adding a highlight glow in secondaries
Keyframing color corrections
Using the RED tab

Advanced Grade Management

Archiving Grades for future use
Dragging grades between shots
Applying the same grade to multiple “grouped” clips
Sharing grades between users

Secondaries

HSL Qualification – Improving Skin Tones
Saving a secondary matte or key from an HSL qualification
Using Key Blur to soften skin tones
Combining Multiple HSL Qualifications
Keyframing – moving, copying and pasting them, including auto / manual tracking plus custom shapes
Using Secondaries without qualifying anything

Advanced Color FX Room

Creating a Color FX preset
Understanding the nodes – when to use them
Dealing with Interlaced footage
Keyframing in ColorFX Room

Nattress Plug-ins

Understanding the nodes

Primary Out Room

Using this in combination with other corrections

Geometry Room

Adding keyframes in the Geometry room

Archiving

How to archive and restore archives of Color Projects
Workaround to “Save As” with a Color Project

Interfacing with Final Cut Pro

How to import color corrections from another Color Project or version
How to reconform an FCP sequence after color correction has been done

Tangent Devices WAVE panel

Customizing your panel
Using your WAVE panel as a mouse
Where the customized panel settings are saved for sharing/ moving settings

Spyder calibration

Show setup and configuration
Using the Spyder Cube to white balance in Color – three different methods

Tek scopes

How to capture a reference still and use it in matching footage in Color
Line select mode to isolate an element vertically in the picture
Review of how to use presets
Explanation of gamut displays
Demonstration of proprietary LQV vectorscope display
Explanation of customizing presets

Cine-Tal calibration

Time Saving Short Cuts
Listening to these experts is the best thing about this DVD. They give so many time saving short cuts. Even the smallest of things are important to grasp like; saving grades every time you finish a color project so you can use them later or copying those grades and putting them on another computer. Also grouping Secondaries and listing them by name so if you color for one clip and you have multiple clips in your project you can group them all together and drag and drop the Color Correction on the group.

They go through and show you how to color correct for skin tone with the HSL tool. H (Hue) S (Saturation) L (Luminance). Learn how to matte a color range and enhance it with the HSL parameters.

The one I can say is they are very aware of how easy it might be to ruin all the hard work it takes to do color correction. They show short cut and methods on how to backup your work without accidentally deleting your work. Color only has 1 undo, and you can’t set it either…so if you mess up make sure you are aware of it right away. So it is invaluable to pay attention and retain that information. Part of my blog is reference for the mistakes I’ve made and how I learned from it. It’s great to share these fixed mistakes with FCP users on the internet.

One of my favorite sections is the keyframing, tracking & user shapes. You will fall in love with the motion tracker, very easy to use and easier to clean up. You can choose from automatic or manual. Each is very easy to use. At the end of this lesson Bob gives his tip on how to keep a single color and make everything else black and white. He also shows you how to change the background from black and white to any other color scheme you can think up. Outstanding!

Another great section is when these great instructors introduce you to preset nodes in the Color FX room. If you are a Shake user you will feel very comfortable using these, if not it will take sometime getting used to. Watching Bob explain what each node does is great, you really get a good understanding what each node does. At the end of the lesson Bob throws one of his samples on the screen and the node tree looks like a freaking redwood tree…as a beginner color artist it looks so intimidating but they calm me down and explain that the best learning is deconstructing a complex tree. That is a great way to learn what node does what…brilliant sirs.

Wrap It Up
As you can tell I’m a big fan of this DVD. The price is right at $99. To learn the power that this application has is incredible and worth the money and time. As an editor, learning Color will place you in another level in the editing world as a professional. There are more and more jobs being offered to Color specialists and purchasing this DVD is a step into becoming a Color specialist.

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Normalization means to raise the audio gain of an enitre clip such that the loudest portion of the clip does not exceed a level which you specify. As a note, I never normalize to 0 dB — it’s too loud. I tend to normalize audio between -4.5 and -6 dB.

That explains it and is a great utility to use on your clips. Select all the audio in your project that you want to Normalize, which should be all the talking audio, and normalize. You have to be careful though not to Normalize a final project without selecting the audio tracks from the clips because it will add gain to the entire project including any music tracks that you have.

If you care about becoming a more efficient video editor check out Larry Jordan’s site and learn from the master. This one tip will save me about 30 minutes every two weeks when I clean up the audio for Often Awesome the series.

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Instructor
Tom Wolsky is on the Board of Directors of the Digital Media Academy, for whom he is an instructor in Final Cut Pro at their Stanford University summer program. Tom is an internationally known guru on Final Cut and the author of five Final Cut instructional books. Having developed video journalism curriculum for Apple Computer, Tom also does professional development training and teaches in schools around the country.

As an instructor Tom’s knowledge of Final Cut Pro is so deep that he can train you completely in Final Cut Pro in 5 hours. Now to make it stick you will have to spend another 20 hours reviewing and using the tips and tools that he demonstrates. Right off the bat I learned 5 new shortcuts that will enhance my editing and make me more efficient as a cutter.

Lessons
Here is a list of the lessons that you will learn.

I can honestly say I learned something new in each lesson. Does that mean I didn’t know what I was doing prior to this awesome training DVD? No…maybe…actually not at all. I was stuck in my ways and it feels great to open up and get this training to help me move forward especially with a newer version of Final Cut Pro. Some of my favorite lessons were…

• Trimming
• Audio
• Transitions
• Multicam Editing
• Compositing
• Media Manager

The one lesson that blew me out of the water and is something I had no idea that Final Cut Pro offers is the iChat Theater. iChat Theater will allow you to broadcast your timeline or viewer to a client or anyone on the other end of the chat. It will also allow you to broadcast the timecode while playing your timeline as well as using the text or video chat feature to have complete interaction with your client. OUTSTANDING!!!

Insight
The lessons are on a DVD-ROM and packed with 5 hours of lessons and all the project and media files are supplied on the DVD-ROM. You can open the project files and follow along with Tom or you can sit back and watch and understand what is going on. Glad that they supplied the files but I probably won’t use them since I understand what is going on. If you use a single monitor while you edit, first of all why? Secondly, you will have a difficult time following along with the lessons and will be forced to watch the lessons without participating.

Being that the training is on a DVD-ROM you can’t play it in a DVD player. I understand why it has to be a DVD-ROM and not on a regular DVD. With 5 hours of lessons you would need 3 discs plus an additional disc for the media and project files. Maybe when Blu-Ray is the standard on computers they will move over to that format. The only reason I have a problem with it is if you have a single monitor computer but who edits like that these days?

Final Thoughts
This is by far the best training series that I have seen for Final Cut Pro. I’m a huge advocate for the Apple Pro Training Series but this is a step up from that and with the expertise of Tom Wolsky is hands down first-rate training. If you are serious about editing…meaning if you bought a Mac and Final Cut Pro this is an essential tool to have in your kit to make you a better, more efficient and even professional editor. Get this DVD now and thank me later.

Price
149.95

That is nothing to learn from a pro. Not only learn but to keep coming back to re-learn and use over and over until it is a part of your editing mastery. Great deal if you compare it to training at a certified training center.

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When I did enter between the lines I got a reply back telling me they didn’t hear from me and in 48 hours my reply would be considered solved.

It is not solved nor is it in their knowledge database. Here is my issue.

I use my Drobo as a capture scratch disk for editing in Final Cut Pro. I’ve used it for over a year and had no issues with it. It runs smooth and quiet and editing has been a breeze. Now I’m editing exclusively in 1080i and sometimes the Drobo will stutter during playback. Not sure what the issue is, if it is backing itself up while I’m editing? Is the data to big to run at real time? I have no idea.

I’ve had other people hit me up complaining about their Drobo and I keep telling them over and over that I do not represent Drobo. I can understand their frustration. I bought a Drobo to protect my footage and projects, maybe I’m using it wrong and need to have my capture scratch on another hard drive and use the Drobo to back it up. But this is absurd.

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When I first began reviewing plugins I thought everything was great. The time saved by using these cool plugins were amazing. The more you explored the plugins the better they are. That is the case with PulpFX Abstract 1.0 from Aquaufadas. It is easy and quick to use but if you want more control over the slideshow you have to spend some time with it.

PulpFX Abstract 1.0 for FxFactory is a collection of 5 generators designed to produce show-stopping animated slideshows in Final Cut and Final Cut Express.

From the atmospheric “Black Reflections” to funky “Light Slice”, you’ll the perfect abstract look for your animated slideshows with intuitive parameters for a fast track to extra pizazz.

This generator creates a slideshow based on a folder filled with pics on your computer. You connect to a folder with pics inside it and the plugin will generate a pretty cool slideshow based on the pics. It is simple and easy to use if you don’t care how or where the pics show up in the slideshow. If you do care it takes some time to get used to.

Usability
Like I said if you want the photos in any random order this is the plugin for you. If you want pics in a certain order you better name them correctly. Based on my experience, if you rename the pics by numbers the generator will make the slideshow numerically. For instance…if you name 1.jpg it will be first but if you have 10.jpg that will be second. Anything with a 1 in front of it will be first, so 11 will be 3rd and 12 is 4th. Another problem with the generator is if you title the pics it will create the slideshow alphabetically. Not cool if you want it in a particular order with the titles on. But there is a way around that too. Do the titles yourself in FCP’s title generator and place it over the pics when they come through….or export the slideshow and import it in Motion and use it’s cool text animations. Like I said, once you get the hang of it the better it becomes.

Something that was very useful was the information in the filters tab and click on the Aquafadas button that brought me to a website that explains each parameter in the plugin. That will help with any learning curve and one thing I applaud any plugin that utilizes it.

There are 5 different slideshow templates; Black Reflection, Cover Flow, Light Slice, Pulse and Static Pulse. All have their unique look. My favorite is Pulse. Love the look and the background images that it randomly creates.

Suggested Improvements
One thing I would like to see incorporated in PulpFX 2.0 is a parameter that gives you a choice to decide the duration of the slide, meaning the length of the generator would determine the length of each pic. Right now you can choose a timed duration of the pic used in the slide, what I would like to see is a choice to select the length of the generator in the timeline and the slideshow will calculate how much time each slide is in a :30 or a :45 clip. If you have a folder of 10 pics and you want your clip to be :30 you have to adjust the timing parameter and experiment until you see when the last pic comes into play. I’ve seen a few filters that adjust to the time of the clip and that would be a great feature to add.

Right now I use iPhoto for my slideshows because I can arrange the slides where I want them to appear in the slideshow. But again it took me some time in order to figure out how to get exactly what I wanted.

Price
$49.
If I was editing for a company or for weddings this plugin would be worth the price. To be honest it is a nice price for an easy to use slideshow generator. But as an Independent Filmmaker in which I have to watch my budget I would hold off and see if 2.0 has the upgrades that will make it easier to use and a better product. You can always download the plugin and test it out for 14 days before you purchase.

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Music
The music is of the highest quality that you will find available for royalty free music. The categories of music is essentially for any video you can think of. Here is a list which is full of music tracks for you to customize.

Usability
Just like all software, you need to get an understanding of what each window does before you can go and play. With Sonicfire Pro 5 it was easy enough to get things started. Once I opened the software up I began downloading the CDs that came with the package and it was really easy to upload the tracks and get things started. I successfully scored a video track without even referring to the instructions or tutorials. Which brings me to the tutorials, which Larry Jordan knocks it out of the park and I’m really glad he teamed up with SmartSound.

Final Cut Pro Integration
The sweet function about Sonicfire Pro 5 is that you can import markers from Final Cut Pro into Sonicfire Pro and create perfect synced music with your video. Not sure if that was available in their previous edition but it compares with Soundtrack Pro’s features of importing your footage and scoring it with Soundtrack’s library. Instead of importing the video into Sonicfire Pro it imports the data from the markers. That way you can export a synced score to your video. Sweet!

Timing Control
I messed around with Timing Control and realized how cool this feature is. You can manipulate every track that Sonicfire Pro has to offer and change up intensity or bring it back down with the timing control feature. Open a video file in Sonicfire Pro and manipulate the audio track to fill the b-roll coverage with the exact feel that you are going for and move around the timing controls to a specific point on the track to get perfect placement for an emotional and a controlled score. To watch it in action check out the tutorial.

My Take
If you can afford it, get it. If you can’t, save up and get it. That is how important it is to have this in your editor’s toolkit. Especially for filmmakers like me that can’t compose a soundtrack or create music or have a budget to hire a composer. If I had my way I would work with a composer and get inspiration from their music…but realistically this is the best option. It takes some time to get used to the application but if you go to Smart Sound Music’s youtube channel it will help you with the learning curve immediately.

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He created two apple scripts to help keep your Final Cut Pro project organized and in order. Rather than all over your desktop and 2 HDs. It’s smart, easy and a great time saver. Go get yours now.

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It is so simple to use.

Keyer
First drop the keyer plugin and select the color you want to pull with the eye dropper tool and then increase the Yuv Threshold until you have the color keyed. Then increase the Yuv Smoothing until the color is smoothed out around the subject.

Despill
If you can’t get rid of the slight green halo around your subject grab the despill plugin from the PHYX effects folder and apply to the footage. If the color you pulled was green select green in the drop down menu from the Despill Method and adjust the Despill Amount unti the green halo around the subject is gone. Now you need to be careful of your subjects skin color doesn’t change too much from the Despill filter.

Lightwrap
I’m using a cloud generator behind my subject and I can add a small blur from the clouds around my subject with the Lightwrap filter. Drop the filter on the video file and in the filter under the background image grab an image that you would like to give a nice glow around your subject. With the clouds it makes a really nice glow and adds so much more to the key.

What took me 5 minutes, if that long, used to take me 20-45 minutes in Motion using many different filters and exporting footage. I could never remember the steps because there were so many. This filter is a dream and will help you key in a faster fashion. Don’t worry I won’t tell your clients, keep charging for your time.

Final Key

Other features that I’m looking forward to using…

DiffKeyer
Creates a matte based on difference between two images. For example, film an empty room (clean plate), then film the same room with actors present. DiffKeyer will create a matte of the actors, as if the actors were shot in front of a green or blue screen. This gives you the ability to effectively key without a green or blue screen. Here is a tutorial showing you how easy it is

Screencorrector
So let’s say you shoot on a big green screen and the lighting is not even on the green screen well this filter compares a clean plate, and a solid color (green or blue) and creates a perfect green or blue screen. Excellent for keying with, this processor corrects unevenly lit screens, removes tracking markers, and repairs other ‘garbage’ which makes keying difficult, tedious, and expensive. Tell your clients you can do it. Another tutorial showing you how easy it is.

Go purchase this plugin and enjoy it.

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