#51 Wk36 Avid Edit Lab

This week we begin the Avid Edit Lab module, continuing to learn how to use Avid as we cut a movie from footage we shot a month ago. I'm finding it very difficult to get this. I'm looking forward to actually digging into a project where I have to cut it from capture to export. Be forewarned, if you've already got experience with FCP, it's going to complicate your brain learning Avid.

The film we shot for the Huntington Theatre demonstrated to me how awkward the color correction tools in FCP 5 are. I know, they're way better in the next upgrade of the Suite. Apple's Color app is a great deal, amazing deal, but I don't have it yet. I asked Howard, our instructor to show Laura and I how to use the color tools in Avid. Cool, powerful and intuitive, at least to someone who's been color correcting digital photographs for years. You use curves, not levels, not unlike Photoshop, only different. Of course I'm used to thinking in CMYK, from years of prepress work, so I'm sure it will be bumpy ride to the top.

Scouring the web for new podcasts I discovered one on wood fired pottery. Oten Maxwell's podcast, The Firing Log about using a woodfired Anagama kiln, was very entertaining for the long drives home from school and it got me to thinking about the divided lives professional crafts people create for themselves due to their livelihood. They produce one of a kind objects in a mass production world, they use 15th century tools in the 21st century and they work outside the mainstream workplace. How do you live when your focus is high touch in a high tech world. I got to wondering how it looks from their perspective.

Our final project is a 10 minute film, give or take, narrative or documentary, subject of our choosing. It's still early, but I'm going to investigate this a little further, so don't be surprised if you read some comments about frits, fluxes and fettling knives.

#50 Filmmaking Manifesto #5

I've come to the end of the series of podcasts about the Digital Manifesto that Mike Jones posted on his blog, Digital Basin. That was earlier this summer and I try my best to explain why it's taken me long to post 5 podcasts.

Throughout the series I've been using his ideas in the Manifesto as a guage to determine how current the curriculum at my school, the CDIA is. It did very well - 9 out of 13. Here are the issues, numbered according to the Manifesto followed by the episode they were reviewed in.

Passed

• 03 Compositing #35
  
• 04 Distribution w/o hierarchy #37
• 05 Owning the entire filmmaking process #37
• 06 Software agnosticisim #37
• 08 Screen Studies integrated into Production #39
• 09 Succeeding despite obstacles #39
• 10 Promoting the story ahead of production values #39
• 12 Collaborative Learning #44
• 13 Teacher as Facilitator #44

Not Passed

• 01 Composing Space #35
• 02 Virtual Camera #35
• 07 Immersive Sound #39
• 11 Personal Stories #44

These episodes were different from what I usually post, they involved big ideas and how they fit into the world of filmmaking. Keeping the idea threads connected from one episode to another, particularly when a lot of time passed between was difficult. Time to think and understand seems to be a constant problem for me.

For all the effort, I enjoyed exploring ideas and that took me to unfamiliar territory
Bear in mind, these aren't my ideas, I'm just having fun poking at them.

I thought of a couple of things to add to the manifesto:

1. Get Teachers and students to better interact between related/linked fields, such as audio, 3D and fx, even web design. I don't think the fringes of our filmmaking experience should be familiar territory.
2. Get more exposure to the supportive technology used for digital distribution.

Collaborative learning tools, such as blogs and wikis have a lot of potential that I hope to explore for sharing ideas and information and for promoting my work.

Towards the end of the episode I talk a little about how all this technology is pushing against the boundaries of a stifling culture of intellectual protectionism. If I sound a little harsh, it's only because I've only recently come to recognize how limiting it is to withhold access to resources that, if they were more available, would result in a great deal more creativity to the benefit of everyone. I'm sure once I get used to it I'll return to lamblike complacency.

# 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.

#48 Wk33 - Intro to Avid

I've finally gotten a handle on some of my recording tools, such as the Mbox2 mixer and my condenser mic. I hope you've noticed an improvement in the audio quality. I'm still working on production quality, but I got a helping hand from Erica at CDIA, who helps maintain the audio and classroom maintenance for the Recording arts program at school. She demonstrated that my problems were due to my incompetence and not the equipment manufacturers. She also gave me a quick but thorough tour of Pro Tools. Sometime soon I'll take a few trips into Pro Tools country to record a few episodes.

Another problem I had was the absence of a mic stand and so I made one out of coat hanger and I used the leftover wire to create a pop filter which keeps the mic clean and softens annoying plosives.

This weeks classes continues the module on learning Avid. Since we have already covered Final Cut Pro earlier in the program everyone was wondering how you work the two together in a single workflow. Avid and Apple don't make it easy, but thanks to software plug-ins from Automatic Duck, and a bunch of money, you can make them friends.

I continue the saga of a filmmaking project I'm involved in with classmate Laura creating a promotional video for the Huntington Theater in Boston. We're shooting audience reactions following a performance of the play 39 Steps.

Finally the class gets to attend a screening of the documentary This is Nollywood, produced by some of CDIA's own, Franco Sacchi, Aimee Corrigan as well as renowned National Geographic photographer Robert Caputo. You may not see it in a theater near you, but you'll find it as a DVD online. If you're curious about the exciting filmmaking scene that is developing in West Africa you should check it out.

#47 We'll Talk

I'm sorry you weren't there when I called. I'll talk to you next week.

#46 Wk32 - Intro to Avid

This is the first week of a new module where we learn how to use Avid Xpress Pro, in preparation for editing the footage we shoot a few weeks ago. Avid doesn't have the mind share among would be filmmakers as Final Cut Pro does, so I spend a little time talking about it's place in the filmmaking world.

It is the premier NLE and there's always talk about how it measures up against FCP, so I've included 1, 2, 3 different articles comparing the two. A very significant difference is that the companies that produce these programs have very different missions. Apple is all about bringing the professional media experience to the consumer, Avid is focused on the production needs of professional media makers thru it's own post production systems and the many companies it has acquired, like M-box, Digidesign and Softimage.

I've got some details about a project I'm involved in along with Laura, who I've worked with in the past on the genetic fingerprint documentary. We're going to shoot audience reaction to the play, The 39 Steps, that will be running at the Huntington Theater during September and October. It's a lot of work in a short time, so it should make for some interesting experiences.

#45 Wk31 - Film Project II

This is the last week of the Film Project II module, which is to say the last week where we can shoot footage that we will edit in 3 weeks.

We don't have anything more we plan to shoot right now, but we may. This week we reviewed our footage and talked about it in light of what we already learned in previous classes and this project. We had problems lighting, but the final footage looked quite good.

There's also information about how to log video, before you capture and I explain how the camera sees compared to how our eyes see.

Next week is another new module where we learn how to use Avid.