Mac Filmmaking

Wirecast

Thu, 31 Jul 2008 11:56:00 -1000

There is always great interest in new ways of producing your videos. Wirecast, from the folks at Vara Software allows anyone with a decent computer and a few firewire cameras to produce a live show, that can be either broadcast out to the internet or recorded to disk. Wirecast’s abilities seem endless when you first open up the app. Live chroma keying, HDV support, 3D titles, and lower thirds are just a handful of features Wirecast has to offer. The app allows switching live between firewire sources, and multiple desktop sources (via a local network). This revolutionary application for the mac is simply put, a live production studio in a box. Don’t take my word for it, check out the demo for yourself at www.varasoftware.com

-Ryan Gordon

RED ONE Camera: Compatibility with FCP?

Mon, 14 Jul 2008 22:45:00 -1000

There has been lots of talk about the RED one camera. You may have heard about - or even seen footage captured by the RED one cinema camera. One thing that they talk about is the ‘integration’ between final cut pro and the RED compression - 4K (or 2K) full resolution REDCODE™ RAW (.R3D) files.

I wonder if it is really as easy as they say it is, and I wonder if my Dual core G5 Apple Tower with 8GB Ram will be up to the challenge of handling such large files.

Well we will soon find out! In August this year I will be using the RED one camera on my year 12 student film - My Spectacular Student Film.

I will use Mac Filmmaking to document my progress while using the camera. From Production to post. So keep checking out Macfilmmaking.com!

- Josh Janssen

Capturing a Time Lapse

Sat, 31 May 2008 13:06:00 -1000

Creating a time lapse is always an interesting project for a filmmaker to take part of. Taking a few hours worth of time and making it only a few minutes creates quite a cool and interesting effect.

Time lapses are usually created by using a special camera or software that records a series of frames ever so often. For example you could set your camera to record for only 5 seconds every 30 seconds. This ratio can be adjusted to make a time lapse longer or shorter. By only recording for a set length you can essentially take an hour and turn it into a 5 minute video.

To create a cool looking time lapse you will need a video camera (iSight can work too), tripod, Mac, firewire cable, and a subject that will change slowly over time. Great subjects include the sky, plants, etc.

If you don’t have a camera that has a built in time lapse mode you will need to use your Mac as a capture device. To do this connect a Firewire cord from your camera to your Mac. The first piece of software I recommend using for capturing, is iMovie. Once you have iMovie launched go into capture mode and click on the switch to camera mode icon. Now select Time Lapse… from the drop down menu. Up will pop a window where you can set the frame capture speed. From here you can record your time lapse straight into iMoive.

Another app thats great for time lapses is Gawker. Gawker works similar to iMovie, but has a few more features for capturing. The downside to Gawker is that you can only capture time lapses at 320x240 or 640x480, while iMove can capture SD and HD time lapses.

- Elliott Cost

Shoebox Adapters

Wed, 21 May 2008 17:21:00 -1000

Photo of The Shoebox World on Vimeo.

I recently came across a really interesting and cool way to create a short DOF adapter. It’s really not even a lens at all, but a simple shoebox with a hole cut out on one end to fit around a magnifying glass. This inexpensive effect creates some awesome footage and it’s not hard to build at all. All you need is a small camera (HV20 works great), a shoebox, some sort of tool to cut the box, a round magnifying glass (works best), some paper clips, and a piece of tracing paper. Remyyy (Vimeo user) has done a great job of explaining the process of creating a shoebox adapter. Have fun!

- Elliott Cost

Final Cut Pro: Archive Work

Tue, 20 May 2008 19:06:00 -1000

Working on many projects for numerous clients its important that you not only back up work while working on your project but you should also archive your work once finished. Why?

1. Your showreel
If you have been working on projects which demonstrate your skills, keep it, it could get you your next job.

2. For the client
All of a sudden your client from 6 months ago requires a copy of the film you created with changes.

3. Stock footage
You might need that beach shot for another project?

I have always found it hard to archive, how do I do it? Mini DV tape? DVD? Yes, but now I also archive the project, all the media that goes with it too.

If you have files everywhere and haven’t followed good organizational practices, its ok.

FCP has Media Manager. > File > Media Manager…

This allows you to copy the project and media to one folder, which can be stored on an external hard drive.

- Josh Janssen

Final Cut Pro: H.264 Export

Mon, 19 May 2008 11:58:00 -1000

For awhile now I been frustrated with the H.264 export function not working in Final Cut Pro 5. I upload a lot of video to Vimeo and found that exporting from FCP at current settings and then exporting again from QuickTime to H.264 takes up a lot of extra time. For those out there that have had this same problem there’s an easy fix. I searched the Apple Support site and found this helpful article. To sum the article up, you can either use Compressor or the easy-to-use QuickTime Conversion to export H.264 right out of FCP.

- Elliott Cost

Hey everyone! Welcome to the new Mac Filmmaking Blog. On the MF...

Sat, 17 May 2008 18:54:00 -1000

Hey everyone! Welcome to the new Mac Filmmaking Blog. On the MF blog, we will be posting tidbits of information on cameras, applications, filmmaking experiences, and much more. Stay tune for more updates.

- Elliott Cost

Capturing via HDMI

Mon, 18 Feb 2008 02:00:00 -1000

HDMI stands for High-Definition Multimedia Interface. Usually HDMI is used as a fully digital link between an HDTV and home theatre components. In our case, we are going to use the HDMI output found on almost all consumer (and some prosumer) camcorders to capture an uncompressed video stream directly to a computer. Most of you are probably asking yourself, “Why would I ever need to capture uncompressed footage to my computer?” The answer is, when you normally record footage onto a HDV tape, or even through firewire, you are recording at 3.5 megabytes per second. The camera uses compression to fit all of the data onto the HDV Tapes, therefore degrading the quality the camera is capable of.

A company called Blackmagic Design is one of the only companies I know of who manufactures PCI and PCI-E cards which allow you to capture uncompressed 1920 x 1080 footage directly to your Mac (or pc). Blackmagic’s Intensity cards provide an HDMI input for your camcorder to be plugged into. The Intensity Pro ($349), also gives the ability to capture analogue or component video. For our purposes we will be using the standard Intensity ($249).

With the use of these cards, almost any consumer camera can output 80 megabytes per second of realtime HD video. Some articles around the web claim that any internal hard drive works just fine, others say that the use of a raid array is needed. I highly recommend the G-Technology G-Raid or G-Raid Mini.

- Ryan Gordon

Interview with Noise Industries

Sun, 02 Sep 2007 02:00:00 -1000

Mac Filmmaking: In addition to a review of FxFactory, the Mac Filmmaking Crew also got to do an in depth interview with Niclas Bahn from Noise Industries. Enjoy.
Elliott: How is FxFactory different from other FX plug-in apps?
Niclas: First off I think it is important to understand that FxPlug has only been around for FCP since October 2006 with the release of FCP 5.1.2. Noise Industries was the first company to release a product for FCP based on FxPlug. Most of the other plug-in products for FCP are still based on the old AE interface (not supported by Intel Macs) or FxScript. Only slowly are we seeing more and more products that use Apples modern FxPlug architecture.
Elliott: Where did the idea of making a simple way of storing, editing, and using plug-ins come from?
Niclas: At first the FxFactory Pro plug-in creation abilities were built to allow us to make plug-ins easier and faster.

When we sat down to decide which plug-ins we would need to create in order to have a product that was better than the rest… and pushing the envelope we realized we had to do something special. The way it usually works is that the plug-in developer has a bunch of plug-ins written by programmers. Every year they come up with a few more, bump up the version number and charge again. We felt that in order to revolutionize this market we would have to give the power of creating plug-ins to all of our users. This allowed us to expand our set of plug-ins rapidly, as some of our users turned out to be partners and started using FxFactory Pro to create their own unique plug-ins which we help distribute.

Elliott: What is the demand for FxFactory in Avid compared to FCP/Motion?
Niclas: It is important to note that all our products are Mac only. Therefore our product for Avid AVX only works on Mac based Avid systems. Many people run Avid’s on Windows PCs, but everyone that runs FCP runs it on a Mac.

Elliott: What is the history of Noise Industries. How did you guys start and what products did you first release?
Niclas: The company was founded in December 2004 by Gabriele de Simone. I joined the company a couple months later, and we released our first product, Factory Tools for Avid AVX in September 2005. Avid immediately started bundling the product with all Avid AVX system sales (Xpress, and Media Composer systems).

Elliott: Where do you see visual effects for digital video going in the future?
Niclas: I think we are only at the beginning of the “Digital Revolution,” things are not yet slowing down, but speeding up. Digital Video/Film is the future, quality will increase, prices will decrease, before you know it everyone will “RED” Camera quality in their iPhone. In visual effects the line between what is real and what is not is ever more blurry, and it is rendered in real time.

Elliott: What kinds of feedback have you gotten from the FxFactory plug-in online store?
Niclas: People love it, and we get a lot of feedback with great ideas for new FxPacks. Online distribution of software is great, it is cheap, reliable and fast. Someone needs a product at 10pm Sunday evening? He/she can download/purchase/install in 10 minutes, without having to leave the editing workstation.

Elliott: Do you believe FxFactory has finally bridged the gap between third party plug-ins and FCP/Motion?
Niclas: I think what FxFactory has done is that it has made the bridge to FCP/Motion via FxPlug available to a much broader audience. Just like Apple is has succeeded in bringing professional video editing tools to the masses with low-cost/high quality tools such as Final Cut Studio and Apple hardware, we have attempted to broaden the audience for creating visual effects plug-ins.

Elliott: Has Apple had any interest in acquiring or partnering with Noise Industries?
Niclas: As an Apple development partner we work together closely with Apple so that we can deliver the best quality, and the highest level of compatibility with Final Cut Studio.

Elliott: What other applications does Noise Industries make?
Niclas: At the moment, only Factory Tools for Avid AVX, and FxFactory for Final Cut Studio are shipping.

Elliott: Is there any applications in the making that you can talk about?
Niclas: We are currently working on some exciting new products, as well as enhancements to our existing product lines to take advantage of Leopard, Apples upcoming OS X release. Unfortunately that is all we can tell you right now.

Elliott: Do you see more and more plug-in creators turning to Noise Industries to distribute their filters.
Niclas: Absolutely, we have quite few new partners in the pipeline. As expected, some of our new partners have created plug-ins that we would have never dreamed of, it is very exciting to see FxFactory grow by having new partners join in and sharing their ideas and creations.
Mac Filmmaking: We would just like to thank Niclas for taking the time to answer our questions and allow us to review FxFactory Pro.

Review of iMovie '08

Thu, 09 Aug 2007 02:00:00 -1000

iMovie has always been a very popular application when it comes to digital filmmaking. iMovie has had a long standing tradition for being the most simple and straight forward digital video editing application. When iMovie ‘08 was released just a few days ago, I had many doubts about the stability of the app and how it would pair up to other versions. Most of these doubts have been cleared up, just by editing a simple movie with iMovie ‘08.

The New Look
Each version of iMovie has always looked a little different, (and usually better) than the last version, but iMovie ‘08 has taken on a whole new layout and design scheme. iMovie now sports a shiny new black finish. Personally the black is nice on the eyes and helps in simplifying the entire app. System panels are also different in iMovie ‘08, they are now styled similar to what Motion system panels look like. Fonts and icons are larger than usual, which is surprising and there are some awesome window effects similar to what Aperture has.

Importing
When importing, iMovie finds the camera connected to you’re Mac, and allows you to automatically or manually capture your footage. The import panel also dims the rest of the application making importing less of a confusion. Timecode is displayed in big bold lettering and you can select to down convert your footage into either 960x540 or 1920x1080, (for HD). Ok, importing was easy, now lets edit…

Video Editing
Editing in iMovie has never been easier. Clips show up as events and it’s smooth as butter to scan through footage. Once you find the footage you want, you can easily select that part of the clip and drag it to the timeline. Star the clips you want later and even crop your clips to a specific size if need be. iMovie also comes with a color correction panel just like the one in iPhoto, which is incredibly simple to use.

Audio Editing
Now that we have some clips in the timeline lets put some music to it. A browser on the right side of the app lends its self to media. By clicking on the music tab, you can access your iTunes music library, as well as your GarageBand songs. You are not aloud to use DRM encrypted music :( and it’s a little confusing to not be able to see a stacked timeline like other versions have had.

Transitions and Text
The same panel for music access, is also for transitions, text, and your iPhoto library. Again it’s easy to use these effects and filters as most of the app is drag and drop compatible.

The BIG downside
I work a lot in FCP so I’m familiar with a stackable timeline. Unlike FCP, iMoive ‘08 shoves everything together and can easily get very confusing. With video, music, and voice over tracks I have found that the timeline would be much more efficient as a stackable timeline like the older versions of iMovie.

Exporting
Now iMovie can export in many different ways/formats. You can share your film to iTunes, YouTube, a .Mac Web Gallery, or just plan old export it as a QuickTime file. It’s almost to much, with all the different ways you can share your video with people, that I wonder if most users will even use half of the options available. Even so, exporting is still simple and straight forward.

Interview with the Creator of iStopMotion

Thu, 02 Aug 2007 02:00:00 -1000

Mac Filmmaking: This week I was lucky enough to interview the CEO of Boinx Software, Oliver Breidenbach. If you’re not familiar with iStopMotion, it’s a simply way of capturing stop motion videos directly to your Mac. I asked Oliver questions ranging from, how Boinx Software was started, to the impact iStopMotion has had educationally.

Elliott: How was the idea of a simple stop motion application for the Mac created?

Oliver: In 2002, my brother Achim and I were looking for product ideas. A friend of ours, who is a video pro, suggested a stop motion tool as there were none available natively for Mac OS X in 2002. The reasoning was that it could revolutionize the way stop motion is shot because of the live onion skinning which provides immediate control of the shots. This idea appealed to us because we were doing stop motion movies in the backyard with our father’s Super 8 camera when we were kids, so this tool met a couple of important criteria: We would love to use it ourselves (and indeed, Achim has made some very cool stop motion movies (Bio War, Little Lamp, Little Lamp Gets a Friend), it had the potential of changing a genre and we had a competitive angle which was making a best of class application.

Elliott: Why do you think iStopMotion has been so popular throughout schools and educational programs?

Oliver: Stop motion animation is simply the best way to shoot a movie for kids. No need for a script, no need for actors, no need for a crew, just bring your toys and your fantasy and go. It is easy to do and a lot of fun. Research has long proven that you learn best when you have fun, so teachers are recognizing the enormous potential. You can use it in any curriculum. Challenge your physics students to use it to visualize Newtons laws. Use it in languages to make a movie in a foreign language. Use it in biology to show how cells behave. In history you might tell the story of Napoleon. Of course it is a natural fit for the arts. All the while you learn more than just the topic of the curriculum. Using stop motion animation teaches storytelling skills, planning and, if you form groups to work on a project, teamwork as well. So it really is a tool that challenges the pupils on a lot of levels while keeping them entertained.

Elliott: Can you give our readers a glimpse on what’s to come from Boinx Software and iStopMotion?

Oliver: iStopMotion 2 is just coming out. A prerelease version is available for download and licenses can be bought on the website. It adds a whole lot of new tools to make animation even more fun and animators more productive. iStopMotion now supports greenscreening, so you can take an existing movie or image and animate in front of it. For example you can have your characters walk on Mars or dive down deep in the ocean. But you can also have it the other way round: film a person before a greenscreen and animate her environment. If you want to reproduce a movie with Lego figures, you can now load in your master movie and have a frame by frame comparison. Very helpful for correctly animating dialogue.

With iStopMotion 2 we are also making an important step towards HD. We finally have a working workflow: Connect an HD camera with HDMI to a Mac Pro with an Intensity card. iStopMotion 2 will now be able to grab full HD frames from this setup. Which means that you get pristine quality while at the same time maintaining the live preview feature that makes animating with iStopMotion so cool.

Now we are looking forward to feedback from animators so that we can begin designing the next versions.

Elliott: When creating iStopMotion, did you anticipate it would be such a success educationally?

Oliver: Not at all. We did not even have education on our radar until some teachers came to us and told us: This is perfect for my students. We had some really touching stories about students with learning difficulties. Working with iStopMotion engaged them to a point where for the first time they could focus on a certain task for more than a couple of minutes.

Elliott: What was the idea behind offering iStopMotion in many different versions (home, express, and pro)?
Oliver: We noticed that we had three distinct groups of customers: One is The Parent who wanted to do something creative with their kids (see David Pogues review). For them, the product needed to be simple and inexpensive, with a price in league with other entertainment articles. Next, there is the serious animation hobbyist. There are a surprising number of those. People who spend weeks in their basement to make cool animations. For them, the product needs to have almost all features of the pro version and it needs to be priced in a way that is compatible with what people spend on their hobby. Third, there are the professionals who tell us that iStopMotion speeds up their production workflow ten times compared to what they had before. Those guys make music videos, commercials, jingles for MTV, kids shows and more, even big screen movies. For them, the application needs to be rock solid. They have heavy equipment and the investment for iStopMotion is not their primary concern. They want HD support and highest quality.

Elliott: What equipment do people need to make a stop motion video (other than iStopMotion)?

Oliver: Just hook up a supported camera to your Mac and go. Now, what is a supported camera? Unfortunately, our reliance on Apple’s QuickTime and Image capture technologies for getting the images into the computer has led to an increasing complexity in answering this question. Basically, we don’t know of any FireWire webcam or DV cam that does not work. Some USB webcams come with a driver, others may be supported using the free open source Macam driver. Cameras that provide their video stream in MPEG 2 such as HDV cameras are not supported. Cameras with HDMI work if you have an HDMI card installed. As for digital still cameras, Apple uses the PTP standard to talk to the cameras. This standard is supported to a different degree in different cameras, even from the same vendor. This is why iStopMotion comes with a built in assistant, which helps you to find out if your digital still camera is supported and reports the results back to our database which then can be viewed on the web.

Elliott: How long did it take to create the first version of iStopMotion?

Oliver: It took about 4 weeks for the very first “early technology preview” which we posted on the web shortly before christmas 2002 because we wanted people to be able to use it with their christmas presents. We were completely taken by surprise by how many people downloaded it. It even got to be “Pick of the Week” at Macosxhints.com despite being a pitiful Java application that crashed a lot. We knew then that we had a hit on our hands. In July of 2003 we finally shipped iStopMotion 1.0 after having it rewritten in Cocoa, twice.

Elliott: Can you tell us a little bit about the other applications Boinx Software offers?

Oliver: We are very lucky to have very talented people at Boinx that enable us to make really great products. We have three other commercial apps of which FotoMagico is the most important. It is an app for photographers to present their photos. It is very easy to use and to produce stunning stories with it. Filmmakers use it in very creative ways: We have one Hollywood director who creates movie pitches with it that he presents to the production companies. Another video producer uses it to create background canvas for titles because for him it is the easiest way to create pans and zooms from still images. The other commercial apps are Mouseposé which draws a highlight around your mouse cursor and dims the rest of the screen when activated. This allows presenters who show things on a projector to focus the audiences attention to some detail. And it is used by many people who do screencasts.

Elliott: How was Boinx Software started and what application did you guys first release?

Oliver: The idea for Boinx Software was born in the 1980s because my brother and I realized early that we wanted to make and sell software. In 1996 the Brand was created and our first projects were a barcode component and a chat component for Apple’s then-hip OpenDoc. When Steve Jobs came back to Apple with his NeXT stuff, OpenDoc was retired and we lost about 2 man years of work. We still wanted to develop software for the Mac, but we did not want to do it for old technology (i.e. Mac OS 9) so we decided to wait for Apple to deliver Mac OS X. In the meantime we went underground and did the New Economy thing. In 2002, Mac OS X became good enough for use by average people so we decided it was time to return. It was then that the idea for iStopMotion came to us, so that really became our first commercial application.

Mac Filmmaking: You can find out more about Bonix Software and iStopmotion at their website, Boinx.com. Also, we would like to thank Oliver Breidenbach for taking the time to talk to us about iStopMotion and Boinx.

Giant Squid Audio Lab Microphones

Wed, 01 Aug 2007 02:00:00 -1000

When shopping for audio equipment, many people get the impression that they need to spend large amounts of money just to get good quality recordings! This is not always true. If you’re in the market for a lapel (or lavalier) microphone there is an inexpensive solution which will give you great sounding audio. The name of the company who makes them is Giant Squid Audio Lab. I personally have two of their Omnidirectional Mono Mics, and love them! The best part is, each of these microphones costs only $25!

Here is a sample, I recorded with these mics in a classroom with the air conditioning blasting. It was recorded into Soundtrack Pro through a Griffin iMic. Normally, in a quiet room the mics sound even better than they do in the sample above. The owner of this one man company, Darren Nemeth, offers an assortment of different microphones, including cardiod, omnidirectional, and stereo.

The mics do require a small amount of power, (about 1.5 volts) which can be supplied by a camcorder, some computers, and recorders. If the device your want to record into doesn’t supply power (a mixer), you can buy the optional power adapter which is a small box black which supplies the power for you.

Giant Squid Audio Labs is a great place for anyone looking for a great quality lapel microphone, at a very reasonable price!

Can You Hear Me Now?

Tue, 10 Jul 2007 02:00:00 -1000

We’ve all asked someone this famous question. The truth is, it’s a very good question when trying to make a great video! Many camcorders today include a microphone input jack for connecting an external microphone. All camcorders, however, have a built-in microphone, which is only effective when the subject is in 5 to 6 feet of the camcorder. Also, most on-camera mics do not perform well in windy conditions. The solution to these problems is using an external microphone. In general, there are three types of external microphones you can buy. A shotgun mic, a lavalier mic (or lapel mic), and a handheld mic. Any of these will greatly improve your video’s audio quality, and your all around production value.

We’ll start with a shotgun microphone
Shotgun microphones range anywhere from about $150 to $5,000 and above. A shotgun mic is highly directional, in that it generally picks up only what is in front of it.

Shotgun microphones are commonly used on TV and film sets, and for field recording. You will sometimes see a person holding a boom-pole. This person’s job is to position the shotgun microphone as close as possible to the subject. The only hard part is that they need to keep the boom-pole, as well as the shotgun mic, out of the frame.

The lavalier microphone
This brings us into the next type of mic, a lavalier mic. A lavalier microphone usually clips to a subject’s shirt or blouse around the lapel area. This is one of the best places to put a mic, because it’s close to the subject’s mouth. The cord may be easily hidden by clothes and either run to an RF transmitter in a pocket or clipped to a belt (for mobile use), or run directly to the mixer (for stationary applications). A good lavalier mic ranges from about $70 to $700 and above. Omni-Directional mics pickup sound all around them. This is usually used in lavalier microphones.

The handheld mic
Finally, we move on to our last microphone, the handheld mic. This microphone is used on almost every news gathering network, as well as anyone doing interviews in the field. Of course, there are many other uses for a handheld mic. They can be used indoors for interviews, as well as any application where you don’t want background noise heard. Most of these microphones will run about $100 to $400. They are mostly cardiod pickup patterns.

Like mentioned earlier, these mics do a great job of keeping out unwanted background noise.

That’s it! Those are the three general mics you would use for most video and film applications. There is one more thing however. Most of these microphones use a XLR connector. The problem is, most consumer and prosumer camcorders do not accept XLR connectors.

An easy solution to this problem is using something like a Beachtek adapter.

This $190 adapter allows your consumer or prosumer camcorder to accept XLR connections. It uses a 1/8” headphone style plug, which goes into your camcorder. Then, there are two XLR inputs for connecting your professional microphones.

All this, cannot only make great sounding audio, but raise the overall production value of your videos

Respect the Line

Sun, 08 Jul 2007 02:00:00 -1000

In almost every endeavor to create a film, there comes a time when it is necessary to shoot a conversation. This should not inspire fear or doubt, for conversations are one of the most core aspects to a story. Without conversations there is no in-depth story-line, no sense of connection with characters, and no chance to write compelling lines. When filming a conversation however, you must be aware of the most fundamental rule: the line. When you have two characters in a scene imagine that the tops of their heads are points and draw a line between them. This is “the line.” This line must be respected and the filmmaker must remain conscientious of this line at all times. Once you set up a shot on one side of the line, you should stay on that side of the line for the remaining shots. The consequences for jumping the line during shots is losing your audience; the characters will look like they are on the same side.

This rule applies the same way to three or more characters in a conversation, but it requires more decision making. With a three person conversation you must decide where to put the line. One factor in making this decision is the distribution of dialogue in a scene. For example, if there is more conversation between the first and second characters than with the third, the line could be placed over these two. For more then three characters you have to get creative and block your characters in a way that works for the composition and the line remains intact.

There is however, an exception for this rule that will allow you to cross the line when shooting a conversation: if you move the camera across the line during a shot you can transfer to this side of the line. This allows the viewer to follow the camera’s action and not get lost with an abrupt jump across the line. If you respect the line and compose your shots correctly, your conversation as well as the entire film will look better. Let’s just hope your writing is up to par.