Looking to keep up with following your followers on Twitter without clicking through Twitter’s interface? I whipped up a script that will do that (with help from all over the web, including the bulletin boards at Macscripter.net).

Download the script

This is Mac only. The script will open in Script Editor, and hit CMD-R to run the script. It’ll prompt you for your username and password. It will then retrieve all your followers (not just the first 100), then retrieve all your friends (not just the first 100), and send a follow twitter message to all your followers who aren’t your friends.

Feel free to mess around with the script (but be careful- if you change the wrong thing, you can end up like me with a whole lot of messages accidently showing up on my timeline).

If you find this useful, especially if you use Twitter for business purposes, feel free to send me a few bucks through PayPal.

I’ve been working on another site, over at http://www.fcptutorials.com. It’s an aggregate site, where I’ll be posting links to Final Cut tutorials from around the web.

When I learned Photoshop, I did it through tutorials that I found through one site. I couldn’t find a similar site for Final Cut, so I decided to make it.

If you have any interest in Final Cut, it’s a great site for picking up little tidbits and project savers.

Check it out at http://www.fcptutorials.com.

Inspired by the Obama posters that are everywhere these days, I made a tutorial on animating a similar effect in Motion 3. Of Representative Jim Gerlach. Not Obama.

Poster Turn Example

Check out the tutorial here.

I recently posted a tutorial on how to make a wall of photos in Motion. The effect is nice, yes, but wouldn’t it be nice to have videos instead of pictures? Well, its your lucky day.

Motion: Video Wall with the Replicator

The new iPhone was released yesterday, along with the much awaited App Store. Now, without going through the tedium of jailbreaking your iPhone or (in my case) your iPod Touch, you can install third party applications.

Over at The Editblog, Scott Simmons had some ideas for filmmaking applications for the iPhone. One of his ideas was a Final Cut Pro remote, similar to the iRemote for iTunes. It would allow you to control playback remotely.

You’ll need to install VNSea or TouchPad, both of which have not been added to the App Store yet (sorry). VNSea seems to work a lot better for me. Both use the VNC protocol, so you’ll need to set up Screen Sharing in your System Prefs. I also had to set up my router to handle it. Here’s a video tutorial on how to set it up.

Once you’re all set up and are connected, launch Final Cut Pro, and set the Video Playback to Digital Cinema Preview Main. Hit CMD- F12 to turn on All Frames. The video should be full screen. Now, bring up the keyboard on your iPhone in the VNC program, and go to town. J,K,L keys are good for playback. Set markers with M. Also useful will be I and O for setting the in and out points. Key combinations with shift also seem to work.

So once a VNC viewer comes out in the App Store, definitely try it out. Or don’t upgrade, and jailbreak it, and try it there.

Good idea, Scott!

UPDATE: Although I have not tried this program, Mocha VNC has appeared in the iTunes App Store. It is $5.99, but there is also a free Lite version. I assume both will be adequate for controlling FCP.

Sorting through the massive amounts of sites online can be intimidating, especially when trying to find good info on editing and video stuff. So I’ve come up with a listing of the sites that I subscribe to, or at least frequent. They’re mostly Final Cut related, but there is a good variety. Check it out, and if you’re a FCP user, definitely subscribe to Larry Jordan’s FCS Tip of the Day.

Sites I find helpful

This is part 2 in a series of articles on how to create Multilingual Videos. The first part covered shooting. This part will cover what happens up to the point when picture is locked.

First of all, organize, organize, organize!

The first thing I do on a project is to capture all of the interviews. I then have the interviews transcribed in their native language. Every word should be transcribed.

If the writer for the video is capable of writing a script in the native language, then they can start writing. If not, let the translation begin!

For the translation and transcription processes, I’ve found it helpful to use a program such as InqScribe. It’s a great tool for transcribing, with variable playback speed, timecode stamps, and even options to export to Final Cut XML and for DVD. For collaborative projects, I’ve also used Google Docs, as it allowed multiple people access to the same file, a central location for file sharing, and file security.

After the writer has finished, they pass the script off to the editor. If the editor can speak the languages of the interviews, great! If not, there are a couple things to make the job easier. Make sure the editor is given accurate and tight timecode info. They should also have a side-by-side transcription/translation, so they can easily find certain clips. Some editors will find it helpful to lay subtitles over all the interviews so they know what is being said at a given point.

Also very important - especially with an editor who isn’t fluent - get someone who is fluent to come in and listen. They’ll hear the parts of words the editor accidently cut off, the extra filler words that can be cut if necessary, the quotes that don’t make sense.

Important points to remember:
⁃ organize, organize, organize!
⁃ The writer must have a complete transcript or translation in a language they can write in before they can start.
⁃ Give the editor good info on the interviews

Check back in soon for part 3 in this series for how to deliver the final multilingual video to the audience.