Blog Archives

Our goal is to tell stories – and the best stories touch our emotions. However, all too often, we overlook a powerful tool that can influence our emotions: fonts. In this short video excerpt, Larry Jordan showcases different fonts and illustrates how to choose the best one for your next project.

Google Brain invents a new technology that can deconstruct mosaics that mask identities. This has dangerous implications for almost all documentary filmmakers, as this illustrated article explains.

A quick tip that can help dial out color problems during video editing, quickly and easily.

The Top Ten most common mistakes that affect video editing.

Dialog conveys information, while reaction shots convey emotion. In this short video excerpt from a webinar on creative video editing, Larry Jordan analyzes a scene from “The Battle of Five Armies,” and shows how it used reaction shots to heighten emotions.

Dialog conveys information, while reaction shots convey emotion. In this short video excerpt from a webinar on creative video editing, Larry Jordan shows how changing the position of the same two shots changes the emotional meaning of a scene.

If you are looking for visually interesting ways to style, degrade, or spice up your images, Rampant Edit Essentials is a great place to start. Here is an illustrated review of the product.

A detailed explanation of what video frame rates are, why and when we need to convert them; and why you shouldn’t.

Why become a member of Larry Jordan’s Video Training Library? Because you can learn exactly what you need to know from our library more quickly and better than you can learn it on your own.

An illustrated explanation of video scopes – Waveform Monitor and Vectorscope – and how to read them to better understand your video images. This article applies to all video editing software and images.

Explaining the craft of editing – how to edit a video montage set to music. Watch Larry Jordan show how and why he edits specific shots into a project to tell a story. (These techniques apply to any editing software on any platform.)

A detailed comparison between Final Cut Pro 7 and Final Cut Pro X.

A detailed comparison between Final Cut Pro 7 and Adobe Premiere Pro CC.

This short video tutorial illustrates which fonts are best for video and which ones should be avoided. These “rules” apply to all video projects in all NLEs, on both Mac and Windows systems.

Examples and guidelines for using fonts and typefaces effectively in film and video projects. Applies to all non-linear editing software.

An overview of media management for audio or video editing, on either Final Cut or Premiere Pro, for either Mac or Windows.

A detailed explanation of how to use the video scopes to make skin tones look normal for a variety of ethnic skin types. These techniques apply to Final Cut Pro X, Final Cut Pro 7, Premiere Pro CC and CS6, as well as other video editing software.

A simple step-by-step technique to correct problems with merged clips in Final Cut Pro 7 due to inaccurate frame rates, aspect ratios, or image size.

Use this “Three Codec” method to shoot and edit video to improve speed and image quality.

A short video tutorial defining the differences in video gray-scale levels.

A step-by-step tutorial on converting time-lapse images into a movie using QuickTime Player 7.

A series of Macintosh trouble-shooting procedures for the video editor> Safe Boot, Create New User, and Trash Preferences.

This is a short, step-by-step cookbook to creating a multicam clip in Final Cut Pro 7.

This article show why images displayed in Final Cut Pro 7’s Viewer look better than those in the Canvas.

In this article, Larry Jordan explains why image quality suffers when you scale video, or stills, larger than 100%.

This technique shows how to export a clip with transparency (an alpha channel) in FCP 7 or FCP X.

General Errors in Final Cut Pro 7 (and earlier) are often caused by either bad clips or bad render files. This article explains how to fix them.

In this article, I want to talk about what happens when you make a color or exposure adjustment to a clip; and illustrate this with screen shots.

Audio slowly drifting out of sync is often caused by mismatched sample rates, or trying to edit MP3 audio. This explains how to convert MP3 to AIF.

Although Adobe Audition and Premiere Pro are designed to work smoothly together, that doesn’t mean you are limited to only using Premiere Pro with Audition. In fact, there is a very nice, very fast way to move projects between Final Cut Pro 7 and Audition, which I want to show you here.

Always check to see if Final Cut supports your camera before you buy it.

Is it possible to permanently link video and audio clips together? Larry teaches you how to create a Merged clip.

Are you getting the “render error: insufficient disk space” message? You just need to create more free space on your hard disk by deleting files you don’t need.

The easiest way to control editing audio or video to the Timeline is with the patch panel. However you can also use the Button List to search for shortcuts.

Stuttering, frozen display is one of the hallmarks of non-native video. FCP can edit it, but can’t play it smoothly.

Is it possible to carry custom Final Cut Pro keyboard shortcuts in a pen drive and install it on another machine? Here’s a technique to help you.

A reader wanted to know how to display video on the monitor using an AJA card. So he contacted AJA, who responded with this.

These two options are designed to solve problems when the clip, or image, you are editing into the Timeline does not match the sequence size.

I’ve become increasingly concerned as I talk with producers, editors, and vendors that we are rapidly moving into a tapeless environment without any realistically priced options for long-term media archiving.

Larry answers some questions regarding the different codecs that Final Cut Express captures vs. Final Cut Pro, as well as fielding a question on audio waveforms.

Action Safe and Title Safe boundaries were invented decades ago to solve two problems with televisions that had picture tubes. This technique explains what they are and how to display them.

Valentine’s Day is coming up, so I thought I would use it as the example for one of my favorite effects – putting video inside a shape. This effect is also called a “traveling matte.”

In FCP 7 and all earlier versions, this technique shows you how to move the playhead, a clip or group of clips, or an edit point using the keyboard.

Here’s a quick way to hide, or reveal, audio track names on the FCP 7 Timeline.

Here’s a quick effect to create a “pull quote” using the Motion tab in Final Cut Pro.

A clip collision generally occurs when you are trimming. Specifically, when you are ripple trimming.

This is a very cool technique that changes the color and display of your text as the background changes.

This is a very fast way to edit multiple camera angles into the Timeline in FCP 7 – without using multi-clips.

In this article, Larry Jordan answers a question about when to convert HD files to SD for editing in Final Cut Pro 7 or earlier.

When trying to sync audio to video using sub-frame slipping in the Viewer, a subscriber writes that Final Cut is setting a new In for his audio in the Sequence without actually slipping the Audio. This technique, which can be used in Final Cut Pro versions 4 through 7, explains how to adjust for this.