Videocracy Blog

I just read an article that talks about a video editing application for the iPhone.

It’s purpose is to add simple wipes and titles to video taken with the iPhone, and then send it directly to YouTube.

There’s a corresponding video demonstrating how the App works…

Now you can actually say “My movie was written, shot and edited all using my iPhone…”

Pretty neat stuff.  Here’s a link to the article, and corresponding video.

http://www.wired.com/gadgetlab/2009/10/reeldirector-desktop-movie-editing-on-the-iphone/

So over the summer one of the biggest changes to the world of Final Cut Pro is the new and improved Final Cut Pro 7, and the update to the entire Final Cut Suite… Final Cut Suite 3.

After having a chance to explore Apple’s website, with a ton of great videos showing off the new and improved changes to not only Final Cut Pro, but also Motion, Soundtrack Pro, and color… the only software that has gone to the wayside is LiveType, this software has been totally discontinued, as Apple is hoping to use Motion more for it’s titling software.

A couple of things that interested me the most, are also some of the little things… one being a floating time code window which can be moved anywhere in your work environment.  Similar to the Dashboard widget in Motion, this window is translucent, and sits anywhere in your work environment without getting in the way of what’s beneath it.  Now you don’t have to squint to see your time code.

Another interesting point is moving markers… this is something I often wish I had in past versions of FCP, ordinarily, when you delete a portion of video on the timeline, and close the gap… the markers stay put.  So to remedy this I often put markers on the clip themselves, when I’d rather put them on the timeline.  With the newest version of Final Cut Pro, when you delete a portion of the video, the markers move down when you close the gap.  That’s a feature that I like.

There are a lot of technical ProRes type updates too… stuff I’m not totally familiar with, but the advanced FCP user will most likely find them quite interesting, and useful.

It’s nice to see a change to the software, changes that will benefit the users in the future months.

Well, it’s finally happening…

The day I’ve heard was coming for 3 years.

Tomorrow TV will no longer be broadcast using an analog signal, but instead will be broadcast entirely in digital.

Hopefully everyone is read for this, they’ve advertised enough.

I’ll be curious to see if any pandimonium occurs because of it.

Either way, it’s an important day for the history of Television, its like a milestone really…

No more rabbit ears.

I’m familiar with CafePress.com, and for anyone who doesn’t know… it’s a marketplace where you can sell things like Mugs, and T-Shirts with your logo on it…  All you do is upload your image, and as people buy the DVD, the website (or the people working for that website) prints the logo on the T-Shirt or Mug, and packages it, and then ships it to the person who buys it…

I always wondered if there was a place to do the same for DVDs… I never really did the research, I only wondered…

Well Videomaker Magazine’s Podcast turned me on to a site that does exactly what I was just mentioning…

They actually turned me on to 2 sites, but the one I checked out is called Lulu.com… for self publishing DVDs, Books and other items… in a totally customizeable marketplace…

I watched the Demo, it is pretty interesting, and worth checking out in the future…

http://www.lulu.com/en/about/demo.php?cid=en_tab_demo

I’m a big fan of Slow Motion shots… seeing the way things work, that are normally too fast to see with the human eye.

I recently discovered a show called Time Warp, on the Discovery Channel.  For those unfamiliar with it, they use a special camera that shoots everything in slow motion, and then they scientifically analyze the clip.  In the episode I watched, I saw them analyze the way the members of Metallica play their respective instruments… It was pretty neat to see.

Now, I came across this article, talking about this camera that shoots in super slow motion, and the clip assoicated with the article showed some downright amazing shots of waves, and surfers riding through the waves, it’s almost like looking at a painting…

Worth checking out…

http://www.wired.com/gadgetlab/2009/05/supercam/

So, I saw this about a week ago… and since then a lot of my friends have been sending it to me, asking how they do it…

Its an ad for a Samsung phone with a built in HD camera, (That alone is impressive)… and at the end of the video, the guy using the camera makes the phone disappear… and they “claim” that there is no special editing… that it’s one continuous shot.

And the video was put on YouTube, and then the challenge is “How was this done”

I honestly can’t figure it out… it’s obvious that the guy filming is not the same guy you see in the mirror… my friend thinks it’s like the old Charlie Chaplain routine, where he was walking in front of a mirror, and a person dressed like him was mimicking his actions… so in essence he was playing with his shadow.

I don’t know, you be the judge…

http://blog.wired.com/gadgets/2009/04/samsung-i8910-o.html

I’ll be interested to hear the results…

I thought this was pretty impressive…

http://blog.wired.com/underwire/2009/03/kutimans-pionee.html

This guy takes youtube videos, and mashes them together, creating rhythmic funk and soul songs, using 4 or 5 clips that he found on YouTube to create these beautiful and original sounding songs…

Sountrack Pro comes with a vast array of music loops… and I’ve worked with these loops many times before, arranging them, rearranging them, and just playing them… You can do some really great stuff with those loops.

Something that I find interesting though, is that I will watch TV, or watch Podcasts, and I’m amazed at how many times I hear loops used, that I’ve used in my own projects for both work, and for home…

And what interests me about that, is two things… first, I’m always interested in how out of all the loops that Soundtrack Pro has, people still manage to come back to using the same ones.  And also, I’m assuming that these loops were purchased by Apple, and are most likely packaged with Soundtrack Pro, and with Garage Band… so when I hear those loops, I automatically assume that the person who edited that video, must have done it on a Final Cut Pro system…

I read a number of Video related blogs in my off time…

One in particular that I like, is done by Larry Jordan… it’s probably one of the few blogs that’s updated somewhat regularly…

But another one I wanted to point out, that when I put it in my RSS feed, wasn’t being updated at all… and I sort of forgot about it.  Recently there have been several posts, and it turns out the writer just got a little busy… as all good bloggers do from time to time…

Anyway, it’s been a very interesting blog that I thought I would share…

Real World Video Compression

http://realworldvideocompression.com/

which is done by Andy Beach, and he has written a book by the same name…

I’m enjoying this blog, and learning a lot… and it’s worth checking out.

I just heard something interesting, which immediately looked up and found to be true…

Basically for years, people were uploading Monty Python clips to YouTube, and finally the powers that be in the Monty Python camp, created an official Monty Python YouTube Channel, with all of their best stuff and more… all for free…

And apparently, since this channel went live… their DVD sales went up by 23,000 % – I know this sounds like a silly arbitrary number… but I found in this article… That it seems to be true…

Sometimes I guess it pays to give away your content for free…