# 49 Wk34-5 Intro to Avid

I'm running to keep up again. I spent a lot of time recently on a non-class film project for the Huntington Theatre in Boston Mass. We did a promotional film for a play that is running through next week called the 39 Steps, a comedy based on the Alfred Hitchcock spy thriller. It was a lot work in a short time, but I, along with classmate Laura got it in on time and made the client happy, so it was good all round.

This is the end of the Module on the introduction to Avid, but there's another 3 weeks of Avid that follows where we edit our own film. I'm going to spread my comments about Avid over the next few weeks. This week I'll give you a general overview of the program and talk specifically about the user interface and how important it is to organize your files properly in Avid, as opposed to to Final Cut Pro.

We edited the 39 Steps promo in FCP, but it's really difficult to use one program on a job while you're learning a different one in class. There's a lot of lessons we learned, like how difficult it can be for two people to edit one film, dividing up production tasks and working remotely.

I thought you would be interested in the process of setting up for the shoot, so I included that as well as described the equipment we used and why. Towards the end of the podcast I've included a list of things I would do differently, or pay more attention to if we have a chance to do this again, which I believe we will.

Some of the highlights of the post production process was doing color correction, creating and working with a soundtrack and setting the compression values to optimize file quality for posting on Youtube.

#11 Wk5 - Lighting

Practical Lighting

Tuesday night's class began with how to set up 3 Point lighting, the classic TV news lighting. 3 point lighting consists of the main light, Key; secondary light, Fill; Backlight or Kicker, which separates the subject from the background and Background light.

3 points of light, 4 lights, an amazing paradox. I describe our efforts setting up the scene. By the way, I mistakenly used the term "baffle" when referring to a fabric grid we use on the Rifa to direct light forward. I don't know what it is called and I couldn't find it on the Lowel site.

Thursday night we used the same lighting techniques to recreate a night scene and I include pointers on how to do that.

Podcasts for filmmakers

Finally, I introduce a new segment, reviewing podcasts that I feel are valuable learning tools for anyone interested in working in the motion graphics field. Tonight I'm profiling the VFX Show. Mentioned briefly is episode 5 where the hosts talk about their favorite DVD extras that include helpful movies on production techniques.

Take a look at DVD Breakdown for reviews of DVDs and descriptions of the extras. I also mentioned a book by Robert Rodriquez, the guy who gave us El Mariachi and Spy Kids. It's called Rebel without a Crew.

Chapter Titles

• 00:07 This Week
• 00:45 3 Point Lighting
• 01:53 Key
• 02:18 Fill
• 03:29 Backlight
• 04:00 Kicker
• 05:19 Background
• 06:55 Exercise: News Lighting
• 08:54 Night Light
• 12:22 Exercise: Night Lighting
• 14:07 What is Podcasting?
• 18:07 The VFX Show
• 22:49 DVD Extras
• 25:25 Close