Video Wall Tutorial for Motion

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

Controlling FCP with your iPhone

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.

Sites I find helpful

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

New Motion Tutorial- Photo wall

I have a new Motion Tutorial for you to try out- The end result is a very customizable photo wall that can be used as a virtual set, or for any number of effects. Here’s an example:

Check out this Motion Photo Wall tutorial here.

New Video- Convention 2009 Preview

For the last few months, I’ve been working on a preview of the next Mennonite Church USA Convention. Here’s the end result:

The producers wanted a shorter, easier to access, and more fun preview than they had gotten in previous years, and that’s what they got!

Compressor2Attachment Applescript

I’ve always been intrigued by the option in Compressor to run an AppleScript when the Compression is done. It seems so full of possibilities.

Yet it doesn’t seem like it’s used very often. In searching the web, it was hard to find any good uses for this function. So, I decided to try and see what I could make.

So I’m happy to announce the release of Compressor2Attachment version 1.0. It will take your freshly compressed file and email it as an attachment to whoever you wish, automatically, and without any help from you.

Well, it will take some set up. One of my goals for this is to get more people working on this, and seeing how easy it actually is to make something that will make your work a lot simpler. So to set it up, you’ll need to get into Script Editor and make some changes. But don’t worry, they’ll be very simple ones, and hopefully explained in the Script notes.

So download by clicking here: Compressor2Attachment.dmg.

I would love your feedback on how to make it more helpful, or ideas for other helpful scripts to run from Compressor.

Notes: This has not been extensively tested. I know that it works with single files on Leopard. You will need to have your Mail set up, as it sends it through your default account. Please test it for yourself before using it for anything important. If you do not edit the script and change the recipient’s email address, you will receive an email response reminding you to do so.

Sculpture Installation

In a move perhaps like putting a child’s awful kindergarten self portrait on the fridge, my parents have put a sculpture I made in Sculpture class in their backyard. Actually, there are two, but I will only post a picture of one- the one I’m semi proud of. The other one… ha.

So here it is, my first sculpture installation. I think I called it “Great Blue Heron” or something profound like that.