Post Magazine Reviews Avid Agility

Posted December 29, 2010 by Steve
Categories: Avid Agility

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


Comments: 2 Comments

João Silva

Posted December 27, 2010 by Steve
Categories: Media and Society, Photography

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.

Comments: Be the first to comment

Crowdfunding

Posted December 20, 2010 by Steve
Categories: Media and Society

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.

Comments: Be the first to comment

Slipping and Sliding in MC5

Posted December 6, 2010 by Steve
Categories: Avid, Avid Technical Tips

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.

Comments: 11 Comments

Lightworks’ Public Beta Arrives

Posted November 30, 2010 by Steve
Categories: Lightworks

The Lightworks public beta is now available. You can register and download the software here. (Their server was down earlier this morning, but it seems to be working now.) On paper, the feature list is impressive and focused squarely on high-end editing. A few highlights:

  • Background saves (hallelujah!). Every keystroke is backed up automatically.
  • Asymmetric JKL trimming, slip, slide, etc.
  • Native support for MXF, Quicktime, AVI, R3D, DPX, DNxHD, ProRes, and others, up to 2K.
  • Node-based visual effects.
  • secondary color correction.
  • Stereo video without the need for muxed files.
  • subframe audio keyframing
  • realtime audio effects
  • audio bus routing
  • project sharing

You’ll need a PC to run it on, and of course, the proof is in the pudding, but I’d give a lot just for background saves.

Comments: 5 Comments

Recess, Anyone?

Posted November 29, 2010 by Steve
Categories: Quality of Life

Now that y’all are back from stuffing yourselves with stuffing, here’s a weird news item: researchers have been experimenting with having sedentary workers take two 10-minute exercise breaks every day. It turns out that in carefully controlled experiments, the energy and focus you gain from a couple of short breaks more than outweighs the time you lose taking the break. People come back refreshed, are able to focus better and are measurably more productive. Work-related injuries, including repetitive stress problems, go down, too. What makes the whole thing strange is that people take the break together: a work group will all stop at the same time and do something similar to yoga or stretching. Several companies have adopted the technique, and trials are going on at 70 places in LA.

As we in post production spend more and more time staring at screens, physical problems only increase. I can’t really see us ever doing such a thing, but maybe for that very reason I get a kick out of imagining everybody in an editing building stopping twice a day to work out.

Details are in this NY Times article, which is derived from a book describing the idea — “Instant Recess.”

Comments: 2 Comments

« Older Entries
Newer Entries »