I was reviewing all our video training (we have almost 70 webinars now!) and realized that there is so much variety that it is often hard to figure out what’s really valuable. So, each week, I’m hoping to feature a different webinar from our collection.

This week, I want to present #41: Use Composite Modes to Create Better Effects

The cool thing about composite modes is that whether you are using FCP 7, FCP X, any version of Motion, Adobe Premiere, Photoshop… just about every video or image editing application includes composite, or blend, modes.

These allow you to combine textures from multiple clips stacked on top of each other which allows you to blend effects to create images and text treatments that are impossible any other way.

We do this with composite modes.

This video training shows you step-by-step how this works and illustrates a variety of effects you can quickly create today in your projects.

Click here to see a short video intro to the training. Best of all, from now till Sunday, April 8, this title is only $19.99. Save 33%!

Thanks,

Larry

The 2012 NAB Show is going to be exciting this year – especially for those of us involved in editing. Lots of new announcements coming. I’m looking forward to sharing the details with you as soon as I’m allowed.

The reason this thought comes to mind is that our podcast – DigitalProductionBuzz.com – is gearing up to cover the Show in-depth for the fifth year in a row! Currently, we have over 80 interviews with key industry leaders lined up, including major announcements and news at the show.

Unlike past years, in addition to creating daily one-hour special reports and posting them to iTunes and our website, we are posting individual interviews as soon as we get them edited, plus aggressively tweeting news, photos, and videos. This means that even if you can’t attend the event, you can hear the news directly from the people making it.

For all the details, visit www.NABShowBuzz.com — we update this several times a week now and daily during the show.

You can also follow the action on twitter – @dpbuzz – and on our Facebook page – tiny.cc/dpbuzz.

Also, we are taking a crew of 17 people and setting up a full broadcast facility on the show floor – Booth SL11505 in the South Lower Hall – I’ll post more details on the workflow and gear we are using that allows us to produce, record, edit and post a record number of interviews in such a short period of time.

If you are planning on going to the show, get a FREE Exhibits Only Pass on us – visit here – and use promo code SM08 – this saves you $150 on admission! Hurry, though, this offer expires March 30th.

It’s going to be amazing at this year’s NAB Show in Las Vegas, and The BuZZ will be right in the middle of it, helping you keep up with everything going on.

Larry

This last week I was in London, at the Broadcast Video Expo in Earl’s Court 2 in Kensington.

I was invited to give a series of presentations on Final Cut Pro X, Compressor, Motion, and understanding video storage. (I’m delighted to report we had standing room only: hundreds of people crammed into each session. It was a lot of fun!!)

When I wasn’t giving presentations, I was wandering the show floor with an audio recorder talking with companies that I haven’t seen for a while. And, while the news is still fresh, I wanted to give you a chance to hear these reports. I spoke with the folks at:

• Edit Share on their shared storage and editing workflow software
• Lightworks on getting ready to get out of beta
• Avid on ProTools 10
• AJA on the IOXT

As always, let me know what you think.

Larry

Broadcast Video Expo 2101 – London — TRT: 10:04

To get us started, here’s the summary we aired on this week’s Digital Production Buzz.

James Richings — TRT: 8:57
Managing Director/Co-owner
Edit Share

James Richings talks about how EditShare encourages a consistent editing workflow, some of the applications they have that support it, and why they are so committed to improving workflow.

James Richings — TRT: 5:03
Managing Director/Co-owner
Lightworks

Lightworks was acquired by EditShare a couple of years ago. Edit Share has continued to develop it, even thought it is a free application available on open source. We talk about what Lightworks is, what major films have used it, and what Edit Share plans with it for the future.

Dave Tyler — TRT: 5:56
Pro Audio Applications Specialist
ProTools / Avid

ProTools recently released version 10 of their legendary audio software. In this interview, Dave explains what some of the key new features are and what ProTools wants to work on for the future.

Andy Bellamy — TRT: 6:37
Field Sales Engineer
AJA

AJA just shipped the new IOXT, a new interface which allows computers to ingest and export video using Thunderbolt connections. Andy explains how it works and where it fits into post-production.

[Updated 12/13 with clarification on Promise and more info on the incremental cost.]

I needed to buy more storage for my editing system – as if needing more storage for video editing is a surprise or something…

Anyway, I decided that since one of my editing systems supports Thunderbolt, I would buy a Thunderbolt RAID. Except the only ones currently available seemed to be from Promise Technology. Promise has been making and selling RAIDS to the video editing market for more than a decade. As Andrew pointed out in the comments: “Promise succeeded Apple’s Xserve RAID with their vTrak RAID.” As you can see from the comments below, lots of people like them a lot.

However, I decided to see what else was on the market.

And, hmmm, there’s not a whole lot else on the market. So, I decided to do some research and had a number of off-the-record conversations with different hard drive vendors to figure out why – when we are almost a year after the launch – there are so few Thunderbolt units available. Here’s what I learned.

TOO EARLY

Basically, Thunderbolt was released to the market too early. Thunderbolt requires not just one chip from Intel, but a master chip and a variety of supporting chips to be able to handle all the signal processing.

The first problem was that there was a shortage of both the master chip and the supporting chips.

Next, all these chips needed to be integrated onto a new IC board. Anytime hardware engineering is involved – as opposed to making software changes – a minimum of six months of engineering and manufacturing time is involved.

HARDWARE TAKES SPACE

In fact, this hardware board with all these chips takes so much space that it won’t fit inside a standard enclosure – in general, it requires about another 1/2 in height inside the RAID unit.

This is space that, in smaller units, just doesn’t exist. This means that many manufacturers need to retool their enclosures to support the new protocol hardware.

APPLE AND INTEL NEED TO HELP

Once the hardware has been figured out, the SDK (software development kit) necessary to support Thunderbolt was several months late coming to market – most drive vendors didn’t get them until early summer. In fact, the specs were published several times – and kept changing with each iteration. This is good, in that it allowed the protocol to improve, but every change caused delays in creating software needed to support the protocol.

In addition, Thunderbolt requires significant support from Apple and Intel engineering to explain how the new system works so that RAID manufacturers can get their systems to interconnect properly with this new protocol.

And, because Apple and Intel do not have unlimited engineering support staff, not all RAID vendors were able to access the engineering help they needed in a timely fashion. So, some vendors are farther along in their development than others are.

There’s also, apparently, a political issue. I was told that some vendors were given market exclusivity for a year after the announcement – an exclusive period that expires just before NAB next year in April.

WHAT’S IN THE FUTURE?

There are many elements of potential good news here. First, every drive manufacturer that I spoke with is extremely interested in developing for Thunderbolt – so, while the devices may still take a while longer to get here, when they do arrive, they will arrive in quantity.

Second, Intel has already announced – at least to the drive vendors – a second generation bridge chip that includes both the Thunderbolt master chip and all the supporting chips on a single chip. This will vastly reduce both the amount of engineering that is necessary to support the new protocol and the amount of space it requires. From what I have been told, this new chip will support both FireWire and Thunderbolt on the same chip.

However, we probably won’t see these second-generation chips in quantity until late in the first quarter next year.

Intel is also working on a third-generation chip which supports data transfer over fiber-optic cable, but that chip probably won’t show up until 2013.

THERE’S ALSO THE ISSUE OF COST

As one of my contacts told me, all new technologies are more expensive than current technologies. This was true with USB, FireWire, even Blu-ray players; and is true with Thunderbolt. Costs don’t fall until enough people adopt the technology to allow increasing volume to drive down costs.

“The cost of Thunderbolt will remain higher than alternatives until native implementations are made into motherboards and the external devices and if and when this happens we could see the price drop very quickly.”

In this conversation, his feeling was not that the technology was announced too soon, but that the implementation of this new technology takes a while to figure out.

SUMMARY

So, what’s the take-away? Thunderbolt is coming – but the majority of units probably won’t arrive in quantity until the second quarter next year. By a year from now, we should have a wide variety of Thunderbolt devices to choose from.

Initially, most Thunderbolt devices will probably support RAID level 0 or 1 – which provide speed or redundancy, but not both. RAID level 5 units – which are both faster and more secure – will take longer to get to the market in quantity.

For now, though, we need to wait.

Let me know what you think.

Larry

I posted a brief video on YouTube, “Polishing edit skills and books for editors & directors” in which I recommend some books about editing and directors. Perhaps because I was thinking about the recent release of my own book, “Final Cut Pro X: Making the Transition” – and the creation of my Amazon Author Page – http://www.amazon.com/author/LarryJordan/ – which I hope you’ll visit – I wanted to share these links with you here.

Behind the Seen: How Walter Murch Edited Cold Mountain Using Apple’s Final Cut Pro and What This Means for Cinema by Charles Koppelman.

Mastering MultiCamera Techniques: From Preproduction to Editing and Deliverables by Mitch Jacobson.

Apple Pro Training Series: Motion 5 by Mark Spencer.

The Green Screen Handbook: Real-World Production Techniques by Jeff Foster.

All the books on color grading and correction by Alexis Van Hurkman.

Real World Video Compression by Andy Beach.

All books on video compression by Brian Gary.

Video Compression for Flash, Apple Devices, and HTML5 by Jan Ozer.

In the Blink of an Eye Revised 2nd Edition by Walter Murch.

The Conversations: Walter Murch and the Art of Editing Film.
by Michael Ondaatie

One the the secrets that I’ve learned to improving both my production and editing skills is to watch a video with the sound turned off. This allows me to concentrate on the visual without getting hooked into the story. It is always enlightening to see how much you can learn this way. I use this technique for my own work, as well as analyzing the work of others. Best of all, it doesn’t require any money or special gear, just an ability to focus on the screen and learn from what you see.

(Caution: I’ve found that this technique drives the rest of my family nuts! So, I’ve been told this is an activity best done when no one else is around.)

Also, please stop by my Amazon Author Page and leave a comment. And I would be remiss if I failed to suggest that you purchase my newest book: Final Cut Pro X: Making the Transition at Amazon.com. Lots of great tricks and tips techniques packed into one slim volume to help you Power Up your editing!

Let me know what you think.

Larry

The latest Government Video Expo opened today in Washington, DC, and, as in years past, our podcast, the Digital Production Buzz, has a team of reporters covering the event.

I thought you might be interested in how we are covering it.

We have equipped each of our reporters – Ed Clark and Tchad Moore – with a Zoom H4n digital recorder and two Shure SM58 hand mikes.

Our producers – Cirina Catania and Debbie Price – have scheduled interviews with conference speakers and key industry leaders which Ed and Tchad then interview. (We are always interested in interviewing new people — let me know if you want to be added to our list.)

The interviews are transferred from the Zoom recorders via USB and compressed, in their raw state, into a single ZIP file which is transferred to our home offices here in LA via Dropbox.

The files are then downloaded and edited by Hilary White and myself. As soon as they are edited, the files are posted to our GV Expo Buzz website, while two or three of our favorite interviews will be featured on this week’s show, with a few more featured next week.

If you haven’t checked out our latest interviews, make a point to visit here.

And, if you are in the DC area, swing by the Walter Washington Conference Center and check out the exhibits. They always have a great collection of new gear that’s worth seeing.

Thanks – and let me know what you think.

Larry

Some interesting news this morning.

FIRST

Apple has quietly notified developers that it is preparing to offer volume purchases for business customers via the App Store.

MacNN has more about this.

The significance of this is that volume purchases of Final Cut Pro will no longer be tied to individual iTunes accounts. This might also presage the arrival of volume pricing and distribution for educational customers.

SECOND

I’ve had emails or phone calls from three different resellers telling me that Apple has notified resellers that it is offering them a one-time, two-day opportunity to buy as many copies of Final Cut Studio (3) as they want.

While this is not the same as putting FCS (3) on the open market, it does mean that the product will be available from selected retailers for a while longer. If you need licenses, contact your favorite, non-Apple store reseller.

THIRD

A large number of Final Cut Pro editors are thinking about switching platforms. Last week, my podcast – the Digital Production Buzz – had a series of discussions on switching to Avid. (Details here.)

This week, we have the product manager for Premiere Pro on the show, along with a recent Final Cut Pro post house that switched to Premiere. (Details here.) If you are thinking about switching, listen to this show first.

Larry

I get a ton of press releases every day. Many I post to the Latest News section of the Digital Production Buzz, so that you can keep up with what’s going on in our world. Others I just trash.

But every so often, one comes in that I want to share with you more directly. Like this one.

This morning, I received the following press release from Eric Philpott, at Philpott Communications. I was interested because this isn’t a part of the industry I cover very much, and because I found the story fascinating.

So, here it is – word for word as they sent it.

Larry

- – -

How Academy Award Nominee Adrien Morot Created the Makeup for Barney’s Version

Montreal, Que: February 3, 2011. Adrien Morot, head of makeup and hair on Barney’s Version, has been nominated for an Academy Award(r) in makeup. The film, directed by Richard J. Lewis and starring Golden Globe winner and Academy Award(r) nominee Paul Giamatti, is based on the popular novel by the late Mordecai Richler. The story spans a 35-year period in the life of Barney Panofsky, a Montreal TV producer reflecting back on the events of his life. As the same actors were used throughout, makeup involved the significant challenge of gradually altering their appearance as they age in a way that is convincing for the audience but that remains subtle enough not to be distracting.

Along with supervising the entire makeup department on the film, a primary task for Morot and his team was aging the main characters over the course of the film using a combination of prosthetics, subtle makeup, hairstyling and artificial facial hair. Much of the effort was focused on Paul Giamatti, whose character starts out in his early 30s and reaches his late 60s by the end of the story. Others included Golden Globe and Academy Award(r) winner Dustin Hoffman, who plays Barney’s father and Rosemund Pike, who plays Miriam, Barney’s third wife.

“I’ve seen aging makeup done on other people I’ve worked with,” said Pike. “I usually feel that the person is submerged in some way under layers of substance, and loses something of their essence, no matter how effective the transformation was. What Adrien managed to do was give Paul and I faces from which we could look with our own eyes and through our own expressions, that supported us, rendered the ageing of the characters believable, but left the whole process unobtrusive.”

One of the challenges on Barney’s Version was keeping the makeup subtle enough to allow the actors to deliver a full range of emotions for this performance-driven piece. Morot stressed that collaborating closely with the actors was the key to achieving this.

“Adrien started by asking me what I thought Barney should look like and how I thought he should age,” said Giamatti. “He had a wonderful distinct makeup at the get-go, but he was amazingly collaborative, and intensely sensitive to what would help me act the part. And he was so fluid with his own design, shaping it, changing it, constantly refining it.”

“Paul is an incredible actor ” said Morot, “He really made our job easier and the makeup more convincing by portraying Barney perfectly at each stage of his life and I am really grateful for that. The same goes for Rosamund, who gave Miriam such class and elegance.”

And although the audiences may not notice it, Giamatti is wearing makeup with various prosthetics throughout much of the film. “The alcohol bloat and weight gain were so convincing, people thought I had gained weight for the part,” said Giamatti.

Barney’s Beards
The standard approach to creating an artificial beard is to use an appliance, which is much like a wig with a special lace backing glued to the skin. However, lace beards cannot stretch with the actor’s facial movements, and can limit the actor’s expressions. “Even at a subconscious level, the actor can’t be free to play his part if he is worried about his beard falling off,” said Morot. “During our first makeup test, Paul asked if there was anything else we could do so that he didn’t feel so restricted by the beard.”

Morot opted to craft the beard by hand using a combination of human and yak hair. Each tuft was painstakingly glued down and the beard was built up layer by layer. Then a curling iron was applied to give it the look of real facial hair. Finally, the beard was trimmed and styled. “When we did the second makeup test with the new beard, no one realized it was fake. Paul was thrilled because without the lace backing, the beard moved with his skin. This was vital because it allowed him to feel natural and focus on giving his best performance without any distractions.”

Morot was able to apply Giamatti’s beard in under 30 minutes, from a total of the 2 hours and 15 minutes allotted for his prosthetic makeup application.

Aging Gracefully
Aging the character of Miriam, the love of Barney’s life, presented other challenges.

“I know I do not have the easiest face to age,” said Pike. “I think women in general, with a different quality of skin, are harder to age than men and Adrien had to be particularly subtle and inventive in his approach. He aged Miriam and then concealed the aging cosmetically, as any woman would. Adrien matched the skin tone of the prosthetics on my eyelids, cheeks and neck to my own, and then made the tone of my whole face uneven, as if it was aged. Then he concealed some of the aging with ‘beauty makeup.’ As a result Miriam had a face that was layered and real.”

Morot said that he was floored by the Oscar(r) nomination. “I don’t know if it’s really sunk in yet,” he said. “It’s a tremendous honour and I’m deeply thankful.”

Produced by Serendipity Point Films in association with Fandango, and distributed by Sony Pictures Classics, Barney’s Version premiered at the Venice Film Festival and the Toronto International Film Festival. The film stars Paul Giamatti, along with Dustin Hoffman, Rosamund Pike, Minnie Driver, Mark Addy, Rachelle Lafevre and Scott Speedman. The producer was Robert Lantos. Barney’s Version opened in theatres in December 2010.

About Adrien Morot
With over 20 years of experience in the makeup effects industry and having worked on over 100 feature film and broadcast projects, Adrien Morot has established his company as one of the leading fabricators of makeup effects in the field. For more information visit http://adrienmorotmakeupfx.com.

I’m reminded of the story of three blind men describing an elephant. None of them can see the truth, so each has to describe this huge beast from their own, very limited, perspective.

What brought this to mind was a recent blog post from Dustyn Gobler commenting on what the cancellation of the XServe means to the ProApps. (Read it here.)

As I told Dustyn in my reply to his post:

I think there is a very large middle-ground that you are over-looking which exists between Avatar (and The Real World) and soccer moms. In this area, Final Cut Studio provides a high-quality and significant solution.

Still, until we see what Apple has planned for the future, all this is just guess-work. It was fun to read your thoughts even though I do not wholly agree with them.

Dustyn kindly responded saying that the lens through which he viewed the Apple announcements was that of someone involved in reality TV and info-tainment.

Then, he shared with me an email he received from Steve Jobs, which, if true, adds yet more fuel to the fires of all this discussion.

Take a look at this second post from Dustyn and let me know what you think.

As Dan Cook, or Earl Weaver, or Bill Carpenter, once said: It ain’t over till the fat lady sings.

Cool – I can wait.

Larry

This morning, Apple quietly announced that it was discontinuing the XServe – which is the high-end server for XSAN and other networks – on January 31, 2011.

For folks that need servers, Apple recommends that you use either a new version of the MacPro or the MacMini. (Personally, I am a huge fan of the MacMini for servers, I have three of them running here in the office and they work great for us.)

There are lots of ways to interpret this move, but the most obvious one seems to me to be the best. Apple has never been a “Big Iron” company. Years ago, Apple needed hardware that met the needs of the large enterprise because no one else was offering products that supported Macs. Which is why we first saw the XRAID and then the XServe.

Today, that need is no longer there. There are a large number of companies that provide state-of-the-art hardware that support Macs, PCs, and Linux systems. With the continual shift toward supporting “open standards,” as opposed to proprietary software, Macs are included in more systems than ever before, by companies that specialize in creating server-based hardware. Apple has never been successful in this market, and, today, they don’t need to be.

Creating gear targeted to this market leads to an Apple weakness, not a strength. Which is why, over the last year, we have seen Apple discontinue first the XRAID, and now the XServe.

There is a lot of conversation going on now about whether this means that Apple is no longer interested in the high-end. I received several emails this morning essentially saying that the days of Final Cut Studio – as another high-end application – are numbered.

That may be true, but I don’t believe it.

At its heart, Apple is a software company. They create great hardware so they have someplace for their software to run. For me, the signs still point to significant upgrades to the entire professional suite. Probably not as fast as we all would like, but I suspect the wait will be worth while.

Let me know what you think.

Larry