somniloquence

http://www.apple.com/seminars

I have gone to a few of those. They are loads of fun and when they are over, you can ask the nice people running the demo how to do stuff.

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morgandawn.livejournal.com

you are right! Look what I found here:

http://www.apple.com/retail/universityvillage/week/20041212.html

FCE at the store this Thursday (there are several stores in WA with different time slots).

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It figures! That's my late night at work. Seems like they enjoy Thursday night for some reason. Oh well, i won't have any time for it for a while anyway, so I think I'm on my own unless something happens during the sale that makes my schedule free. (Like, they don't offer me a contract during the transition!) Then I'll have tons of time!

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It's OK. You're not alone. Final Cut is a rough transition and has the Learning Curve of Doom and no rate edit tool and seems really, really hard.

I'm trying to switch from Premiere - and it hasn't exactly been smooth. When I get really frustrated, I try to remember the good things.

1. It doesn't crash (at least, it hasn't crashed on me yet. Premiere would crash all the time.)
2. The time remapping tool. There is nothing like the time remapping tool for getting your internal movement to match the beat - and I was able to figure that part out without too much frustration. (OK - lots of frustration and trying to figure out how to ask the question, then being given the obvious answer. Urgh!)
3. Most of the changes I would typically make to clips (like speed) don't require a render.

I've noticed that when I start getting really frustrated with it, my brain shuts down and I can't figure out anything or even how to articulate what it is I'm trying to do so that I can ask for help in a meaningful way. There have been several points in my current project that I had to walk away from it for a week or two and decompress. But now, I'm all done except for the credit sequence and I just have to figure out complex compositing to do that. (eek)

I'm thinking that with my next vid, I might do the rough cut in Premiere, then export it to Final Cut to do the precision monkeying around and compositing and ween myself away a little more gradually.

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You figured out the time remapping tool? OMG! ::clings desperately::

Please, please explain it to me!

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Ok so lets imagine we have a clip of Amanda running and for once she is not running in perfect rhythm in exact time to the music. Oh bother.

You put your clip on the timeline.

Make sure that you have your keyframe viewer deal enabled. (that would be the button on the lower left hand corner of the timeline with the blue and green lines in it.

Select the time remapping tool. (4th box down on the tool bar. It's the one that looks like a stop watch.)

Move the cursor to the first frame that shows Amanda's boob bounce.

Click the clip at the cursor. You will notice a keyframe appear on the keyframe bar.

Make a keyframe at all other points where Amanda's boobs bounce.

Drag the keyframes to the various beats upon which you would like Amanda's boobs to bounce.

You don't even have to re-render. It's just that cool.

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Thank you! Can't wait to try this. Whee!

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morgandawn.livejournal.com

remapping! please, me too!

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See! I don't even know what the heck you people are talking about!

(BTW morgan, the book won't be here for a while yet, and the manual doesn't have much of a glossary, so I'm waiting for the book)

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morgandawn.livejournal.com

DO NOT - I REPEAT - DO NOT LOOK AT THE MANUAL. YOUR EYES WILL GO BLIND AND YOUR BRAIN WILL COLLAPSE INTO A GIBBERING HEAP.

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See reply to Laura above, complete with Highlander reference.

(deleted comment)

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Probably for smart people!

See, the thing is... I have only had this system for a year and a half. Most people these days, they started on computers and so transitioning to a new program wouldn't be that much harder, but I'm still not that far away from working on VCRs. My mind hasn't even grasped computer editing fully yet, and in some ways that's because I use a really simple program, and because I've avoided adding more stuff to my brain than it can take in -- I'm not even fully up to snuff on this iMovie stuff, let alone something this complex. A year and a half is a short time to change from bear skins and knives to technological wonders. I'm just not advanced enough yet to make a transition smoothly, especially because my mind still hasn't quite caught up to my tools yet.

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Heh - the first time I installed Premiere, I opened it, took one look and promptly uninstalled the program. I thought there was no way it was supposed to look like that.

Final Cut scares me...but there is a color wheel. A WHEEL.

::longs a bit::

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I'm still pining over more poor, lost rate-edit tool.

Sniff.

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See - I am still trying to find it in Premiere. I hear ya talking but it just isn't translating. Of course, I just found out about rendering 3 videos ago.

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I see the words, but I know not what language you both speak...

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It's the one that lets you slap a 2 second clip onto your timeline and then stretch it over the 2 and a half seconds you need it to cover. In FCP, you kind of have to do the math. In some cases you can use the "fit to fill" function, and for internal stuff there's my new best friend, the time remapping tool, but the rest of the time you have to figure out how many frames you need it to cover and do the math.

I really miss the feel of stretching the clips like silly putty.

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See - you are very organized with this. I just kind of mess with the speed until it either fits or I end up crying. Or using something else.

Elizabeth Zimmerman once wrote a book called "Knitting Without Tears" and it changed my life. I need the same thing for vidding but instead of saying utilize the "Blah-Diddy-Blah Extraction of the Blah" tool the book should say "Look to your left. No, your left. Yes. Now see that little carrot hanging thingy? No, not the banana-looking thing - the carrot. Yes. Double-click that."

That is what I need.

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OK so on your timeline there are 8 little buttons on the top left hand corner. The third button in from the top should a line with some arrows coming out of it.

If you hold your cursor down on that button, you will see a bunch of other lines with different sorts of arrows.

Choose the one with the wavy lines. That is the rate edit or rate stretch tool.

Put a clip on the timeline, then grab an end and pull. This way you can keep all of the frames you want, only the frames you want, have them cover the space you want, and avoid all of the troublesome math.

It turns your clips into silly putty.

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STRETCHY CLIPS!!!!

I wondered what that thing did. Huh.

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I miss having that kind of control over space and time. It was a real power rush.

In FCP, I can still control time - and control time better, just not space.

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You're like Miguelito Loveless, only with vidding software.

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barkley.livejournal.com

You want to know a fun way to get used to it? (I mean, besides watching the How To Use FCE dvd that came with it.)

Remake one of your vids with this. (you know, not all the way, just fool around with it to get used to it since the clips and the music are already there for you to play with.)

Open up a project in FCE and save it to the new name.
File->import->folder.
- then navigate around till you find one of your imovie vids and import the whole media file. (The beauty part of FCE is that it's non-desctructive editing which means you can edit to your hearts content in the timeline but the original clip will always be the same...so you can use the clips that iMovie uses, and iMovie doesn't care and FCE doesn't care.)

The clips should appear in the browser window.
Then drag the music to the music timeline.
Drag a clip to the clip timeline.

And yay!

and you know where to e-mail me. *g*

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Believe me, you are going to be tortured with questions!

I think the worst part is that the only file I have working is the clips I've dumped in for the LFN vid, and I can't make that for Escapade (where's the slaaaaash) so I have to do smething else. that's why I have to go back to iMovie. It's just not feasible for me to try to understand this under deadline. I don't work well under deadline pressure, I like to have things done weeks in advance. I wish some of my movies were still open, but I junk them once I turn them into HQ files and put them on the DVD. It was helpful to recut my old Buffy vid when I first got iMovie (plus, prettier!) because I knew every scene and clip and where each shot went.

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You know, I tried this with the LFN clips and the whole 13 seconds I'd laid in, and... I got a file folder full of greyed out boxes with little speaker icons on them, and big crossed lines in the middle and just clip numbers, rather than names, so I have no idea which clips they are. And I couldn't figure out how to even play them to see what they were (with 130 clips, that's sort of a lot of work I don't really want to do twice!). And I can't figure out how to get to the beginning of the file and play it again. And I don't get the fifty steps you have to go through to capture, so I'd hoped to use imovie to capture since it's so simple (click on, click off). this doesn't bode well. Sigh. I think we're going to be unmixy, me and FC.

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barkley.livejournal.com

Capturing, I have no idea as I haven't had to capture in FCE. I have heard tell on a bunch of Mac lists that people still use iMovie to capture and then import their clips into FCE, so you're in fine company if you do go that route.

The speaker icons indicate sound files. Hmmm. I'll have to think about this one for a bit.

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kadymae.livejournal.com

Gwyn, I will full on admit that it looks scary as hell, but I've also resolved that I will vidcap some crap footage and then start playing with the turorials ...

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My big problem is that my mind is still on VCRs. I haven't really totally evolved into a computer vidder, and now to change again... arg. But hey, thank you again for the memory info -- they sure worked a treat and everything went smooth (except moving the iMac, which was a hell of a lot heavier than I remembered!).

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Dissolves are there in the Filters panel. All kinds of dissolves, and they're even called dissolves, which is helpful. (:

I'm happy to give you a hand if you have specific questions. Let me know.

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The thing I wanted most to do was superimpositions (god only knows what they call it in this thing... since you know film terms, at least I know you know what I'm talking about!) because I have this lengthy clip in LFN that I wanted to mimic throughout the vid with other footage. But I didn't see anything that sounded like superimposing... or how you do it. But anyway, it's too advanced for me right now. I need to make something for the con, and it won't happen and learn a new program at the same time!

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I understand about the time crunch; I put off updating my system (including upgrading FCP) until after my DVDs are done, for precisely the same reason.

Regarding superimpositions, though, here's quick info if you still want it: it's a matter of putting the clips on separate layers in the timeline. You put Clip A on layer V1. You put Clip B above it on layer V2. Then you adjust the opacity of Clip B so that you can see Clip A through it.

To change opacity, double-click a clip in the timeline to bring it up in the viewer. In the viewer, click the Motion tab, then select Opacity and use the slider (or key in a percentage).

If you decide to try this, shoot me a private email and I can explain the process in greater detail. In any event, it can certainly wait until after Escapade.

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barkley.livejournal.com

Superimpositions!
Make sure you have more than one video track.
On the first track, drag your one clip.
On the second track, put the clip you want to superimpose right above the first clip.

There should be a black line across the clips. Grab it, and pull it down. You might notice a number scrolling on the side when you do this. That's the %opacity (or how much of the bottom clip you want showing through.)

Put the line at, say, 50% (for example.)

There should be a red line above both clips now on the top of the timeline window.

Go up to Render, and hit Render.

The red line should disappear and all should be superimposed.

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