Blog Archives

You know the drill. The client didn’t have the money for makeup when they were shooting the video, then is horrified to discover in post that their star/kid/sweetie has a humongous zit that spoils all the close-ups of the video they dumped in your lap to edit.

NewBlue is new to the Mac, but not to creating effects. They’ve been producing video effect for Windows users for years. This product review takes a look at several of their new plug-ins for Final Cut Pro/Express/Motion. Featuring a very easy to use interface, there is a lot to like.

Ganging two movies together in Final Cut Pro means that you can easily compare, frame-by-frame, two different movies. One in the Viewer and the other in the Timeline. This has been a feature of Final Cut for many years, but its hard to find. This article explains how to do it.

Trashing your Final Cut preference files also deletes all the entries in your Effects > Favorites folder. Which can be a bummer. This technique provides a fast and easy way to backup your Favorites prior to trashing preferences so you don’t lose a thing. Cool.

Understanding how to read the Waveform Monitor and Vectorscope are essential to getting the best possible pictures out of Final Cut Pro. This article gives you an overview of how to read them and what they mean.

In this article Larry handles a question regarding whether a series of continuous time code cuts will translate into the OMF or be ignored.

Still images, especially when you move on them, create weird shimmer, or moiré, patterns. This article describes what they are and how to fix them.

Here’s a simple technique to apply a filter to a portion of clip — then use the Slip tool to move it where you need it.

The quality of slo-mo footage processing can vary by the level of equipment you possess. However, does this mean that you should upgrade? There are three possible answers here: Yes, No, and Maybe.

This article grew out of a reader question about how to create special effects in Final Cut.

Creating smooth moves on stills is at the heart of many documentaries. Final Cut makes creating moves easy. But smoothness is sometimes much harder to achieve. Take a look at what these editors have to say about the best way to get your images to move.

Smoothcam, Final Cut Pro’s motion stabilization filter, can really smooth out some very shaky shots. But it can take a long time to do so. This article shows you what you can do to speed this process up.

Creating stills that you can do moves on in Final Cut is tricky. My email In-box will attest to that. This article describes what you need to know to make sure your images are the right size and how to import them.

Here are a series of tips to create great looking text in Final Cut Pro.

Here’s another technique that grew out of a recent webinar — creating cast shadows using Boris Title 3D. Title 3D is bundled with your version of Final Cut, so you already have this installed on your system.

If you’ve tried matching text sizes between Final Cut and Motion, you’ve discovered they aren’t the same. This article explains why.

Here’s a simple technique that creates a very interesting effect using one of the ugliest generated texts in Final Cut.

Simply editing a text clip to the timeline isn’t enough. If you are planning on keying your text, use superimpose instead. This article shows you the three-step process and tells you why its important.

Working with still images in Final Cut Pro is very, very confusing. Not least because video ignore the DPI settings of your image. In this short article, I explain what you need to know to size your images appropriately.

With the release of Final Cut Pro v5.1.2, Apple added 53 new filters. Here’s an article that shows you how to create interesting “trail” effects.

Travel mattes are a fascinating multi-layer effect with countless uses. Here, we use a travel matte to blur portions of an image to prevent identification, or to draw attention to the portions that are in-focus.

This is a great technique when you have a large image, but only want to display portions of it moving around the frame.

Larry finally gets the chance to answer the question he’s been waiting for : What is the “Color Thingy”?

If you’ve ever had to convert a 16:9 sequence into a 4:3 letterbox video, this explains how to do it.

Unlike video, which has a fixed duration, still images are assigned a duration when they are imported into Final Cut.

The lighting is perfect, the acting superb, the audio flawless — except the boom mike has crept into the top of the frame. Here are several quick techniques you can use to get rid of it — without reshooting.

One of the effects I wanted to create for my training was a reflection of a moving clip of video. This is what we are going to create in this technique.

Probably the most reqested technique in my classes — how to add the same transition to multiple clips at once. Here’s how.

Probably the most reqested technique in my classes — how to add the same transition to multiple clips at once. Here’s how.

Nesting is the process of placing one sequence inside another sequence. There are many reasons why this technique is useful. This article highlights several of them, including ways to fix problems when your nested audio does not appear.

Normalizing is one way to raise the gain of an entire clip without creating any over-modulation. Prior to FCP 6, only Soundtrack Pro could normalize. Now, FCP can, too. Here’s how.

Paste Attributes is an extremely flexible tool that simplifies copying settings from one clip to another. This tutorial shows you how.

This is a quick tip illustrating how to make your dialog sound like it is coming over the telephone.

Since its first release, Final Cut Pro has integrated effects with video editing. In this tutorial, I show you how to create a picture-in-picture effect, then make it move using keyframes in the Motion tab.

This detailed analysis looks at how to create graphics on your computer that look “right” on FCP. It’s a detailed look at the difference between square and non-square pixels.

Creating keys on the computer is easy – and they look great. Where problems occur is when those specials effects are shot with interlaced video and displayed on an interlaced TV set or monitor. This article describes how to avoid suddenly discovering that all your effects look out of focus.

What’s the best way to position text in Final Cut Pro, and why does the position shift as you change justification? This short article explains the why and how.

There’s a right way and a wrong way to position text in Final Cut Pro to get the highest quality. This article explains what you need to know.

Judging by my email, handling still images is by far the most confusing part of editing video — especially because the computer creates images using square pixels and video uses rectangular pixels, in a variety of shapes. This article explains everything you need to know to create great looking still images for your next video project.

Here’s a technique you can use to slightly modify a voice so that it is no longer recognizable, yet still understandable. This is useful for disguising speakers, or commercial effects.

You have probably used Final Cut’s audio mixer to mix your audio tracks in real-time. Did you know you can do the same thing with audio filters? This technique shows you how.

Confused about what size to create your images? This article explains what image size to use so they import correctly into Final Cut Pro HD.

Apple changed the algorythms FCP uses for scaling and rotation for FCP 5. This explains what the changes are, how to use them and how to convert to the new settings.

The issue of converting to ProRes is addressed along with a walk-through of the pros and cons of the different version.

This technique describes an interesting effect combining a traveling matte and a pond ripple filter which allows you to color an effect as it moves across the screen.

Here’s a secret technique that allows you to add the default transition to any number of selected clips in the timeline — all at the same time!

Gamma settings control the gray-scale midpoint. The reason this is significant is that Macs, video, and Windows all use slightly different settings. This means that video that looks good on one system, may look washed out or too dark on others. Snow Leopard, however, has changed the rules. In this article, I explain what gamma is, how to use it, and where to set it.

Garbage mattes are a fast way to exclude portions of a frame that you don’t want the viewer to see. This article shows an example of using garbage mattes to hide light stands in a music video.

This tutorial shows you how to create a glowing lantern effect in Final Cut Pro using the Light-rays Glow filter and some video generators. It isn’t fine art, but this will show you how to create some amazing effects, easily, on your own system.Easy, I thought… use Light Rays.

Looking for different ways to add some excitement to your transitions? This article explains a little understood transition in Final Cut that provides some truly exciting, and unusual, transitions.