Archive for December 2010

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Loren Miller on Avid Agility

December 31, 2010

Loren Miller, multi-talented editor, teacher, and creator of the KeyGuide series of keyboard shortcut pages, just reviewed Avid Agility for Imagine News and the Boston Final Cut User Group. Here’s an excerpt:

Steve writes for working Avid editors. He celebrates new capabilities like the latest Trim mode features, teases out jewels in the crown, reminding Avid editors of classic power tips and techniques which go back over twenty years, and boldly goes into advanced features. Some of the material takes my breath away—simply because “I didn’t know that!!” Avid Agility is a superb gift for any Avid editor, student or pro.

Thanks for the kind words, Loren. The full review is here. You can pick up the book from Amazon, or learn more about it on the blog, here.

Categories: Avid Agility

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Post Magazine Reviews Avid Agility

December 29, 2010

Post Magazine uploaded a wonderful, glowing review of my book, Avid Agility, to their site yesterday. Calling it “the most ambitious and comprehensive book on Avid Media Composer I’ve read,” writer and editor Jonathan Moser focused on the straight, easy-to-understand style, the detailed illustrations, and, most important, the depth of material I present. I’ve pasted some of his thoughts below; the full review is on the Post website.

I started learning new things almost immediately about the ins and outs of Media Composer that I didn’t know (or ignored) after almost 21 years of cutting on it. The breadth of coverage is huge.

This is much more than a operating manual — it’s like having a seasoned pro sitting next to you, revealing his trade secrets, explaining and enlightening you, all for the cost of a book.

If you’re a Media Composer editor, rookie or old pro, “Avid Agility” will make you a better editor, guaranteed.

Cohen’s personal philosophy of editing is as much an ingredient of the book as these concise explorations of the editing system. … Rather than just tell us,”This is how it’s done,” Cohen shows us why he does things the way he does. Much of his methodology is outside the box — bypassing Avid’s conventional wisdom.

Avid should include this with every Composer system sold.

Thanks to Jonathan and to Randi Altman at Post — for getting it and for helping to spread the word.

Full Review

Details and Samples

Order from Amazon


Categories: Avid Agility

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João Silva

December 27, 2010

I was deeply saddened today to learn that João Silva was severely injured in late October, when he stepped on a land mine in Afghanistan. Silva is one of the world’s great war photographers. I’ve been struck by the beauty and power of his images for a long time now, and I had become accustomed to seeing a particularly arresting picture in the Times, looking at the credit and seeing that, sure enough, it was his.

He was stuck down in the same anonymous and brutal way as another great photographer, Robert Capa. Silva was luckier — he survived — and is still recovering from severe injuries at Walter Reed. But both his legs had to be amputated.

I suspect that whether you know their names or not, you know the work of both men. Capa is best known for his photographs of the Spanish Civil War, World War II, and in particular, the Normandy invasion. He summed up his approach to photography this way: “If your pictures aren’t good enough, you’re not close enough.”

War photographers take great risks for their work, and they don’t get rich doing it. Silva was a contract worker for the Times. But within days of his injury, the paper hired him full time. Whatever life he faces — with a wife and two kids — he will at least have some financial security.

You can make a donation to help with his recovery or buy prints at this site. There’s a good sample of his work on the Times’ Lens blog here and here. You can learn more about the episode in this article, this appreciation by Michael Kamber, or on Nick Kristof’s blog. For more about Capa, see the International Center of Photography.

Categories: Media and Society, Photography

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Crowdfunding

December 20, 2010

Hollywood Reinvented is hosting an upcoming interview with one of the leaders in the nascent ‘crowdfunding’ movement, Danae Ringelmann of IndieGoGo. The idea is that the crowd helps fund your project and pays to see it made. You can do this with any kind of endeavor, including filmmaking. The event will be netcast on Thursday, January 20 at 8 pm (separate streams for East and West Coast — both at 8). Register and post your questions at HollywoodReinvented, Larry Jordan’s great new site, or go directly to the registration page.

Categories: Media and Society

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Slipping and Sliding in MC5

December 6, 2010

In Media Composer 4, if you lassoed a clip from right to left, you selected it for slipping. Adding the Option key (Alt in the PC world) selected it for sliding. Many people have bemoaned the loss of this functionality in Version 5, but, in fact, it’s still there. The modifier keys have changed, and there’s also a hidden gotcha that can make you think the functionality has been lost.

Lassoing from right to left still works as before, selecting a clip for slipping. But the Option key is now used to let you lasso clips anywhere in the timeline. So to select a clip for sliding you have to add another modifier: Option+Shift.

The trick is that this works a lot better if no clips are selected in the timeline.

So here’s the drill:

  1. First, click above the topmost video track or below the bottommost audio track to deselect all clips.
  2. Then, to slip, lasso or Option-lasso a clip or clips from right to left. Rollers will appear at the interior edges, ready for slipping.
  3. To slide, Shift-Option-lasso from right to left. Rollers appear on the outside edges of the clip(s), ready for sliding.

That’s it. Once you know the technique, it’s easy to use. Just don’t forget to deselect all clips before you start. You may be able to get into slip or slide anyway, but things will work more predictably if nothing is selected.

This is the quickest way to slip or slide a group of clips at once. But you can slip or slide clips in several other ways, as well. Get into trim mode any way you like. Then double-click a roller to select the clip it’s on for slipping. Double-click the roller a second time to slide. Or right-click on a roller to open a contextual menu and select slip or slide from there. Or use either of the Trim Smart Tools and select rollers, as needed.

Categories: Avid, Avid Technical Tips

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