Final Cut Pro X: First Impressions

I’ve abstained from any commentary on the new Final Cut Pro for about a month. I figured that there were enough people on the internet talking about it that you didn’t need one more article (and I’ve been too busy being dad and working to write).

However, I figure it’s time I share my experience. I bought Final Cut Pro X the week it came out—I think a couple days after the release. I had a corporate interview project to do, so I decided to take FCPX for a spin.

First off, the ability to import footage from my Canon T2i/550D and start working without transcoding or rendering was phenomenal! Also, I was able to apply a little color correction and played it back smoothly without rendering. The rendering and transcode time alone saved me almost the cost of the software. Seriously. I know… You could already do that with Premiere Pro. But that’s not in my price range.

The second time-saving feature that I loved was the synchronization feature. It basically analyzes the waveforms and syncs the files (here’s a tutorial to sync audio in FCPX). Super nice when you are using a dual audio system (in camera and external recorder) and have a ton of takes to sync. Before, I’ve used Singular Software’s DualEyes to sync files, but I never wanted to pay $150 for that feature. Now, that’s half the price of Final Cut.

Lessons Learned From Family Photos

Last weekend, I had the opportunity to take some photos of one a friend’s family. They are expecting their second child in August and wanted to get some photos of the prego belly and the family together. And they asked me to do it for them. I was flattered and scared.

My wife and I scouted the location before the family arrived and we were able to get some pretty decent pictures. By the end of the relatively short shoot, I was extremely exhausted and learned a few lessons.

LESSONS LEARNED

FOCUS, FOCUS, FOCUS. I need to take extra care to hit the focus right on. That may mean stopping down a bit to help. Especially when shooting a 2.5 year old.
Don’t forget to pay attention to exposure AND composition. At a certain point in the shoot, I forgot to double check my exposure settings when I was worried about getting my composition right. Both are equally important.
Posing people is hard. And I need to learn how to pose subjects and clearly communicate to subjects what to do.
Eat before a shoot. I should have had dinner before, but got too busy. Having a better blood sugar level would have helped calm me down and have a clearer head about me.

All in all, it was a fun to experience my first family photo session. Here is a little peak at a few of the photos.

Using What You’ve Got

I recently had a revelation about filming and gear. It’s easy for us to get caught up with gear lust—always wanting and needing the another piece of equipment. Sure, there are things could always add or help with your production. But don’t let the equipment you don’t have keep you from trying to produce good work. You’ve got to start working with what you’ve got.

This is what I did this week and how I worked with what I had available (Note: Click on the thumbnail image for a look at my setup).

I had a couple interviews this week and I was a one man, one camera outfit. To make it easier, I wanted to have an external monitor set up so I could sit in a spot to better engage with the interviewee while still keeping my eye on what I was recording. I could have complained about not having an HDMI monitor (~$400). Instead, I used a small HDMI cable out of the camera connected to an old DVI computer with an adapter (costs less than $3.00 from Monoprice.com). It accomplished the purpose and I used what I had around.

Try Softer, Not Harder

I’ve never been one to find much comfort in Yoda’s great axiom, “Do. Or do not. There is no try.” Sometimes you give things your every little bit of energy, focus, and determination, but you can’t get it done. You know what I mean, right? I “do” but I fail. No amount of determination or trying harder ever seems to change the situation (or in my case, the ability to accomplish). Since it seems that I can’t succeed, do I give up and resign myself to the “do not“?

Or maybe I’ve been missing Yoda’s point. Maybe it’s not about the effort or intensity that we put towards a task. Maybe “doing” isn’t just a matter of attaining the desired outcome. Maybe it’s a matter of trying softer.

“Colorista Free” Video Color Correction Plugin

Life has been CRAZY the last month so it’s been hard to make time for the blog. But I discovered something that is awesome and worth posting.

Red Giant Software recently released Colorista Free, a free multi platform tool for color correction (I heard about it from Stu Maschwitz—I great guy to follow on twitter, @5tu). It’s basically a repackaging of their original Magic Bullet Colorista 3-way color corrector minus a few features. It’s incredibly easy to use and it’s something that can be used on a Mac or PC with Adobe Premiere Pro, Adobe After Effects, and Final Cut Pro (Mac only).

I used decided to give it a whirl with a little quick personal video I did a week ago with my T2i/550D. I had a shot that I completely messed up my settings (notably, white balance) but wanted to throw into the piece. SO… I fired up Final Cut and compared it’s default 3-way Color Correction plugin with Colorista Free.

Developing Skills: Don’t Listen to Yourself, Kinda

Filmmaking and working with video is one area that I really want to grow in. That’s part of the reason I started this blog: to document my journey and the things I learn along the way. But I want to talk about one of the things that keeps me back.

I suffer from what I call negative self-talk. It manifests itself in different ways, but most often it’s me telling myself “You’re not good enough. You aren’t going to be able to get to the level you want.” And Mr. Negative came out this weekend.

Magic Lantern for T2i Will Save You $60

When I got my Canon T2i/550D, I was really happy with it. Being my first DSLR, I really didn’t know there was anything I was missing. After several projects and a lot of time on the internet, I realized there were a few things that I wasn’t getting with the T2i. First, I wasn’t able to manually dial in the white balance (kinda a big deal). Second, I wasn’t able to select the camera sensor’s native ISO (which has it’s pros & cons).

About a year ago, I read about the Magic Lantern firmware for Canon’s DSLRs. Originally, it was to add functionality to the 5D that Canon left out, like controlling audio levels. Recently, they’ve ported Magic Lantern to the T2i/550D.

I decided to install it and now I can’t imagine not having Magic Lantern. It let’s me dial in my white balance & select whatever ISO I want; it gives me a histogram, false color, peaking, and gain controls in video mode. I LOVE IT! You need to download it and give it a try.

Another feature that I didn’t expect to see was an intervalometer (they let you setup the camera to take photos every X seconds). It’s perfect for doing creating timelapse videos. Anyway, I thought I would have to pay $60 for a remote control for the Canon T2i/550D to do this.

I tested the intervalometer yesterday and this is the product that I came up with.