Videocracy Blog

I was working with Final Cut Pro no less then 4 days ago, and today I made an attempt to capture footage from tape, and it caused FCP to crash…I ran through different scenarios and problem solving techniques, and I came up with the same solution, nothing…

I got a little help from the Final Cut Pro forums, but for the most part I still came up empty handed…

I finally called Apple Tech Support and a guy named Shaun listened to my problem, and told me that his best guess is that I Delete my User Preferences.  To which I thought sounded kinda odd, but he said give it a try…

At this point I was willing to try anything, so he sent me a document on how to do just that…and I ran through the process step by step, and low and behold…it worked!  I’m now in the process of capturing footage…

I can’t explain it, I don’t understand it…but something about that process actually worked…

So if anyone else has the same problem, give it a try…the only thing you have to lose is your custom layouts, and your capture presets…and how long does that take to get back, a half hour?

Here’s a link to the document that Shaun sent me…Thanks Shaun.

http://www.info.apple.com/kbnum/n302337

So after many hours of research, studying, and well practice…

I passed the Final Cut Pro Certification Exam…

I drove down to Villa Park, Illinois to the Mac Specialists store and they administered the test, I was allowed 1 hour 30 minutes…and I finished in 45 Minutes…

80 % is passing and I passed with Flying colors…

Very exciting stuff…I’m now eligible to join the Apple Certification Alliance, and they will be sending me my “diploma” soon…

Very exciting stuff…and I’m glad I did it…

I’ve always been under the assumption to get a good “film look” while shooting video is to use the 24p setting on your camera, assuming your camera can shoot 24p.  For those who don’t know 24p is 24 frames per second, progressive.  Meaning it shoots one whole picture as opposed to lines up and down throughout the image as it would be with interlaced.

I knew that 24p was the first step if you want to one day print your video to film, I knew this…and I am aware of this.  When I shot my last film, I shot in 30i, (30 fps interlaced) because I knew that I was not intending to print this to film.

My assumption to using 24p to get a film look is an assumption that is shared by many I suppose.  It has been my experience that shooting on 24p will make the video look jumpy, I never noticed it too much, as my past films were always experimental and jumpy didn’t matter to me.  I just read an article that goes in to depth about 24p being a bad thing if you are trying to achieve that film look.  It gives great tips and great alternatives to get that film look without using 24p.  One of them being, shoot on 60i (60 fps interlaced) and another is to add filters and get better lighting…

It’s a pretty interesting article, that I learned a lot from…

http://www.dv.com/columns/columns_item.php?articleId=196603851

Here’s in interesting look at the difference between technology today, and 20 years ago…

It’s pretty neat to see how much better technology has gotten in 20 years, and how significantly the price on technology has gone down.

I remember I had a friend who had two computers in his  house, which was pretty rare back then, and my family couldn’t even afford 1 computer until I was well into High School…Now it’s so affordable to have a computer that pretty much every member of my family has their own computer, and in some cases we have two…

Interesting article worth checking out…

http://tech.msn.com/products/articlepcw.aspx?cp-documentid=6328095