Adobe Max 2015
Adobe Max is absolutely one of the best conferences I get a chance to go to. The people, the show floor, the event itself - amazing.
Here are the session notes:
- Thousands of Frames
- Avoid the Mistakes
- On the Cheap (plus 2 Premiere effect settings)
- Power Tips in Post
- Practical Video Compression in a Post Youtube World (plus several Media Encoder settings)
Yes, you can email me - yes, you can hire me too :D.
Oh, and if you have a picture of mine - either tag me on Facebook or email me directly - I'd love to have the picture!
UPDATE: Here is an upload link if you have a photo. It's good for about 1 week
QuickSand. Bonus Document backup sanity.
Yeah, I found one of those gems that everyone who owns a mac should use.
It's called Quicksand.
Super simple explanation: Copy the last 50 files that I've been working on to a cloud service (Dropbox, Google Drive, etc.)
Think about that. Working on an important document? Synced.
It's donationware and the developer (I'd hate to call him a kid, but he is all of 15.) I just sent him money to 'encourage' him to keep doing it.
Let's get back to your files.
They're backed up to "a cloud." For me, right now, it's dropbox because I pay the extra amount for 100 gigs.
Items that would make *perfect* sense to sync.
- Recent word processing documents
- Presentations
- That photoshop file you just touched up.
- Your current directory of editorial projects* (I'd tell it to ignore .mov files so it doesn't do the QuickTime files.
Those things you're working on today? The important ones? Yeah, they're the ones you haven't backed up yet.
And Quicksand is a clever way to backup those files to the cloud.
Before you say, hey Jeff, what about backups, understand I don't trust backups.
I happen to: Use Time Machine, *and* backup to two different drives.
Time Machine problem 1: It only works on your boot drive; I have an SSD and my iPhoto library is over 100 gigs because of Sophie. That means, it had to come off my system drive. That resides on a RAID 5 (and yes, it has an extra backup too!)
TM Problem 2: I've had Time Machine Fail.
So, I also use SuperDuper (I paid for it and it's a wee bit faster than Carbon Copy Cloner) for a live working backup of my machine.
And for you full blown paranoia fans, when I travel, I have an extra drive that is another backup of my live machine. (Yes, I should really store a backup offsite, but uploading 200+ gigs doesn't sound like any level of easy.)
But Quicksand? It's part of my 'most important' utilities now.
You might NOT want the list view (Apple)
When I first started using FCPX, I made a major mistake. I switched it from Frame view to a Text view. After all, my entire editorial career has been working from the list view.
I was totally wrong.
I used list views to change the name of clips and organize them that way (and especially to pay attention to their metadata.)
Except, of course nowadays, everything is overshot - meaning that It may not be worth it to fill out all that information.
FCPX handles frame view better, because it skimming through a finding a moment is a clip, as it helps you find a clip visually. The other big secret (the first being stay in frame view) is to change your zoom (Cmd + or - ) so that you can see 5 seconds. It's a perfect zoom level for skimming and selecting interview clips!
FCPX tips like this will be in sessions at NAB/Post Production World
Drive Sanity for Media Creators
Gtech.
Notes available for download here.
Practical Video Compression in a Post YouTube World
It's one of my favorite sessions to present. It's a dark area with loads of misinformation. Every time I teach this, something is better in the presentation.
Advanced Compression with Avid and Squeeze
Sorenson Squeeze comes with your Avid. It's crucial that you understand how to get your materials from your Avid (beyond just the send to template). We also discussed the basics of compression, how to get better looking YouTube videos, the CUDA acceleration in Squeeze and 360 Sorenson where you can host some content for free.
Script Sync and Phrase Find
These two technologies from Avid have ruined me as an editor. Once you use them, you'll never want to try editorial any other way.
Scriptsync
Scriptsync syncs takes to a script (fantastic for narrative/script based editorial) or to a transcript (fantastic for documentary based.)
Phrasefind indexes spoken words.
Digital Cinema Camera Workflows in Avid Media Composer
Michael Kammes. Damn is he a smart guy.
First Session at the LA Post Conference.
Had a great time with Michael Kammes of Keycode Media. Seriously, go check out his Web site for all sorts of fantastic technical knowledge.
Here is the PDF of the keynote presentation we showed.
Two quick videos:
One from Bob Russo (a fantastic guy from Avid) on XDCAM workflows
The second from Alex Walker on DSLR Workflows
Please plan your workflow. Please?
I've just come across a friend who is dealing with a workflow problem. The problem is that he switched from one NLE to another...and things don't work the same.
I'm not calling out the person; I'm not calling out the editorial tools....I understand that he has an investment in hardware and software (including cameras.)
But why, why not first, contact the NLE manufacturer or resller and say "How to best do this?"
Get the download demo, walk thorugh head to tales what your workflow plans to be.
Realistically, that's what whiteppapers are for, right? But the day of one format (like one NLE) is pretty much a myth. It's always a mixture of formats (and frame rates, and compression types.)