was film editor and first human being to edit a 24P feature film, Michael Alberts.
A few of the questions asked and answered:
Q) I am doing lots of split screen effects and the edges of my splits are kind of wavy and contrasty looking.
A) (After much discussion on whether the outside edges were in NTSC safe and cropped as needed in this case, it was determined that corruption might be playing a role here and to look further into the cause. Also put a VERY soft blur on the edges.)
Q) I have two sequences one of which has multiple tracks of video and audio. One of my sequences is 20 minutes long. The one with the all the video tracks is about 3 minutes long. When I edit the 3 minute sequence in the 20 minute sequence I constantly get that "Preparing for Video Display" Box. When I edit the 3 minute sequence on it's own, I don't get that box. What's up?
A) Well FCP is software only and relies on the CPU and this happens a lot to everyone so the cure here is to allocate more ram and/or lower your over head such as turn off mirror on desktop, turn off name plus thumbnail to just NAME, turn off waveforms in the timeline, clip overlays, lower amount of undos'. Consider NESTING those sequences.
Q) Can you create TC Window burns in FCP?
A) Yes, but it is very limited. You can use the TC Generator built into FCP but it always starts at 00:00:00:00. Now you can do an off set burn but FCP requires you to off set at a crazy number not HOUR numbers and allows you to only to off set no more than 2 hours. This is not good if your sequences begin with hour 3 or 4. Also you must nest your sequence(s) before you apply burn if burning sequence TC. Check your options here. The render, however will take forever.
Q) I am playing a clip and all of a sudden I see multi colored dots flying through the clip. I stop and the computer crashes.
A) Sure sounds like a corrupted media or a corrupted Project file file. Pull the media of the hard drive and drag it back. Run a disk utility such as Nortons. Clear your Firewire Buffers by turning off FW and DV enablers in your extension manager, shut down your Mac. Start up. Shut down again. Start up. Turn your FW and DV enablers back on and restart. Launch FCP.
Q) I'm using 1.2.5 on a beige G3 with a 60 gig external WD FW drive with a Oxford 911 and a tango Card and am having dropped frames.
A) It's possible that your FW drive might be a problem but more likely it's your Tango Card. Pull it out completely and run a minimum extension set such as OS ALL.
Q) I am running 2.0 on a G3 laptop and I can capture using NOW but can't Batch but everything works fine on my G4.
A) It seems to me that it is a FW communication problem if it works on one system and not on another. Also try rewinding your tape to just before your first IN point and see what happens. Also upgrade to 9.2.1 as the FW drivers in that system are much better and faster.

Tip/Trick of the Month was up next and normally DV Creators Steve Martin comes up and wows us with something but as Steve was somewhere in the US teaching a class, we went out and got the great Philip Hodgetts, author of the DV Companion for this month.
Ever notice those logos at the bottom right of your TV screen that the Television stations insert to tell you which station your watching? Want to be able to do that yourself? Well with a little prep using PhotoShop and a bit of tweaking in FCP, you to can do what the big boys do. So click HERE to find out how.

Gregory Lemkin from Tribe Digital Ent. was up next with our first show and tell of the evening. Titled "Tokyo: Konjaku No Kan" (Tokyo: Spirit of Times) it follows a beautiful young Japanese woman from morning until night through the streets of Tokyo.
Shot on DV this short is reminiscent of "Koyaanisqatsi" as it relies heavily on stop motion and speed change effects. With an electronic music score keeping time to this "out of time" movie "Tokyo: Konjaku No Kan" is remarkable not so much for it's visual effects, (which are captivating) but more for it's sensual tour of Tokyo. A tour you can only see in the movies and from a creative mind slightly bent to the left of center. It is heavily composited in After Effects, PhotoShop and Commotion giving the movie a subtle "sexy" feel.
Well, maybe it's just me
I will not attempt to to try to explain how Gregory created all the effects, so Instead Gregory explained it all as he spent time taking us step by step through the process showing us the problems and solutions as well as the errors that on first viewing you would never see.
This is a fascinating movie of a young womens journey through her city and one fascinating demo on how one young man did it.
You can view this movie by going to Hypnotic Films and typing Tokyo: Konjaku No Kan" in the search Box.

Quite possibly the most frequently asked question on the FCP forums is "What kind of Hard Drive should I get" It's a bit of a tricky question so we brought in Jeffrey Bernstein of Digital DeskTop Consulting for a bit of a discussion on how to choose the drive that is right for you
Jeffrey began by discussing the choices we all have in our daunting decision. SCSI is a good/only choice if you are dealing with RT or uncompressed media. ATA (EIDE) is fine if you are dealing with DV only. FireWire is just fine if you are dealing with DV but make sure your FW drive is at least running second generation technology such as the Oxford 911 bridge. Then there is Fibre Channel and Disk Arrays. Oh my. Confused yet? Sure you are, and thats OK cause you want to read all you can on this issue before you purchase.
A poll of the audience was taken to see who was using what and ATA seemed to be the winner with FW users a close second. FW users seemed to be experiencing more problems than ATA users probably because, according to Jeff, ATA is just plug and play, were FW relies on drivers. This does not mean FW drives are not ready for Primetime but that there is just a bit more potential for trouble.
Jeff then talked about the internal workings of a SCSI dire vs that of ATA and the difference in seek times as opposed to just pure throughput.
There is just to much to write here about Hard drives but the bottom line is, if you are using DV media exclusively than ATA drives or FW using the Oxford 911 bridge set and internal power supply are just fine. But Not ALL ATA or FW drives are created equal. Seems IBM and La Cie have the least problems where other mayor brands are not so stable. That doesn't mean YOUR drive is bad, it just means that some have more stability issues than others.
Fibre Channel is a must if you are working in a work group and have the money on the front end to purchase this. Fibre Channel allows you all to share the same files thus saving you gobs of time. Disk Arrays are a method of putting a bunch of drives together in order to achieve faster throughput and seek time.
Ultra SCSI 160 Disk Arrays are a must for uncompressed SD/RT and HD video systems.
There is much more to discuss on this subject as technology keeps changing daily but this is a good start and thanks Jeffrey for giving us this quick primer.
Cawan Starks of Promax helped Jefferey out on the Q and A

Many of the Movie and TV trailer houses in Los Angeles are converting to FCP with great success so we thought it would be a good idea to bring in someone to show and talk about any particular issues with cutting trailers and FCP. Seems there really isn't any judging from the results of Joe Kornbrodt of Papas Hat Productions trailers of "Dr Doolittle 2" Fox Network's "Love Cruise," and the Discovery Channel's "What Killed the Mega Beasts?"
Joe often contracts for various productionhouses in town, Aspect Ratio being among them. Seems Aspect is slowly converting many of their LightWaves to FCP. That trend appears to be across the board for LA Trailer houses.
Joe talked a little about the process of cutting trailers. He is given a script and off he goes. This of course is never as simple as it sounds as generally one must go through dozens of different versions before it hits the air. Dr Doolittle 2 took a year to do because the animals were composited. Bits and pieces of the finished film would come in and of course major revisions of the script ensued as a result. Then there are the inevitable client changes.
Trailers are about convincing you to watch the movie or TV show, and as is so often the case, the trailer is often better than the movie. These were three trailers that made me want to go watch the movie. Well, two of them anyway. Im still not watching Fox Networks "Love Cruise."

I have been using the CGM DVE Vol 1 Filters and Transitions for Final Cut Pro for about 7 months now and I can honestly say that I haven't touched a FCP filter or transition in about 6 1/2 months of that time. There is just no need, as this package suits my needs and is just flat out cleaner, faster, and gives you so much more parameters to play with.
So it was with a great deal of excitement I was able to bring up Klaus Eiperle, the author of these remarkable plug ins all the way from his home in Germany to show the folks what these things can do.
Klaus is one of the few people on the planet that know how to use the FX Builder, the built in scripting language used to build plug ins for FCP ad all of these plug ins are built using this language. In Volume One he has taken many of the same plug ins that come with FCP and improved on them.Then he added his own, and it is his own that sells the package.
Klaus took us through Volume 1 showing us the differences between FCP's plug ins and the ones he built. The differences are striking, not only for it's ability to handle many more parameters, but for the clean results. Page peel for example has built in anti aliased edges, shadow and light on BOTH sides and picks up any transparency. Push Slide is so smooth you never have to touch that goofy "Ease in Ease Out. They all work in YUV color space and in Volume 2 to be release this January, all filters and transitions will PREVIEW in YUV meaning what you see on the Canvas is what you get. No need to hook up a monitor. White Balance is remarkable as it lets you very effectively correct your clip's image using an eye dropper to sample the white area you feel is the white point. The white balance filter will automatically correct for this white you chose. Color Balance is worth the price of the package alone. It allows you to split the screen to see your changes and offers up many more parameters than FCPs.
Klaus then gave us a sneak peak at Vol 2 which will be well worth considering. As I said all filters will PREVIEW in YUV. A new Zoom filter will be included and again, no touching the ease in ease out. It's that smooth. Color Balance will be dubbed SELECTIVE Color Correction and will include a built in 8 point Area Mask so no jumping from one filter to the other. Select the sky and change it's color without affecting the rest of the clip. Wind Blur will work in BOTH directions. Film Dissolve is is TRUE Film Dissolve and is smooth as a babies bottom. Dip to Color will detect transparencies. Light and Glow is will animate your text from left to right with light and glow, or just light or just glow or use your imagination for a hundred possibilities. Amazing stuff. And all support altivec for fast rendering.
Klaus is working on a Film Look filter that he promises will rival Cinelook and render MUCH faster. Look for that next year.
It is a very good idea to download the demo and play with these plug ins before you decide to buy. So click HERE to do just that.
Thanks Klaus for coming to the lafcpug to share your work and we look forward to many more plug ins from you. If you have a plug-in request, write Klaus and tell him. He would be happy to build it.
The CGM Vol 1 package is a set of 56 (estimate) filters and transitions and 67 soft wipe patters for Final Cut. A review of volume one an be found here.
Special thanks must go to web designer and translator Hans Dakliha for helping Klaus out whenever he got a bit tangled in the English language

Editor and Film Maker Tony Mark was up next with a few "Behind the Scenes" clips of the Olson Twins new TV Show "So Little Time" for the Fox Family. Shot on a bunch of PD 150s and edited in FCP, it is a fast paced, expertly cut, and fun look at the twins pre show, during show, and after show life as, well, the Olson Twins. Appropriately Tony uses the CGM plug ins. It shows too.
Tony has cut 18 of these behind the scenes movies and is slated to do 36 more. All will be cut on FCP and finished on FCP. He is currently cutting two feature films also on FCP. Tony has a lot of hard drives. He is selling his Avid.
If anyone has any concerns about the broadcast quality of DV and on lining on FCP, they need look no further than the Fox Family's Olson show. See for yourself. You'll like what you see.

AT this point it was time for a break, as I believe we set some sort of record for longest time sitting before getting up.

Roger Mabon from Medea Disk Arrays was up next and gave us a short presentation on the Medea family of Storage Solutions. If you are doing Real Time, Uncompressed SD or HD then you might want to consider Medea as a possible solution. Seems judging from Rogers presentation, they got EVERY possible solution in their arsenal.
Roger began by giving us a PowerPoint presentation of what all Medea has and it has a full line of Raid 0 and now redundant DCC storage solutions. Their Video Raid SCSI and RT line are configured in Raid 0 striping. Advantage is high sustained data rates and the disk advantage is that if one drive goes bad you loose all your data.
Raid 3 (Striping with Parity) gives you High sustained Read/Write but if you loose one drive, then thats all you loose. One drive is dedicated to parity. Drives are hot swapable.
Raid 0 SCSI products has capacity up to 450 GBs with 2, 4, 6 drives. Supports DV, MJPEG, and uncompressed NLE. Installs just like a single SCSI drive. They also make a video rack system with sustained rates up to 135 MB/sec.
The new Raid 3 VideoRaid RTR is a five drive (up to 300GB) redundant array capable or 100 MB/second. It has a proprietary Muli-Stream Technology capable of playing back 3 streams of uncompressed video. It's also hot swapable.
Raid 3 VideoRaid RTRX is a 10 drive (up to 600 GBs) sustained rate of 200 Mb/second Dual Channel Ultra 160 SCSI Interface with that cool "if one drive fails, you are protected" parity drive.
Roger also talked a bit about Fibre channel solutions
The Raid 0 line supports the Aurora Ignitor, DV and the Matrox RT Mac. The VideoRaid RT/LP supports Ignitor, Digital Voodoo, and CinéWave SD. The VideoRaid RTR and RTRX supports Ignitor RT, Digital Voodoo RT, Cinewave RT and Cinewave HD.
OK, I'm brain dead about now too. If you want more information on these storage solutions simply go to Medea's web site and hang around.
Choosing a storage solution for exactly what you need is easier than you think. It only requires you to read a bit more and ask a few questions. You CAN keep the price down, but you better know what you need before you buy.

Filmmaker Guido Orio was up next with a very lovely video of a very lovely song titled "My Grandmas Piano"
Sung by Folk Singer Sandy Opatow accompanied by Petronella this is a beautifully filmed story of a young womens tribute to her Grandmas Piano and influence it had on her life.
Shot in NYC with a BetaCam equipped with a ProMist 1 1/2 filter it featured subtle use of the ever popular sweeping camera moves, and I stress subtle because in this case it worked.
Edited on FCP with liberal use of the sepia filter and heavy layering, this beautiful song must be heard simply for its beautiful words and the Irish lilt of it's music. A very skillful video guaranteed to make you smile.

Final Show and tell of the Evening was from 4th Grade school teacher Nicholas Kelly with help from Fred King. As well as teaching his fourth graders what they are supposed to know to get past the Stanford 9 tests, Nicholas teaches them iMovie on an iMac and has been doing this for awhile now. Nicholas can see the students getting more sophisticated so he felt he better learn FCP to keep up with them. So over his summer vacation he made a movie.
Titled the "Meaning Counselor" is is a funny mockumentary about a psychologist who works at the Riverside Wellness Clinic and specializes in giving meaning to those people who have jobs they feel have NO meaning.
Her patients include a fellow who dresses as a Chicken, a Clown for Kids parties, a snail farmer, a Porn Star and a Cab diver. All are stricken with with the dreaded, What's my life all about" disease.
It was an ambitious first project marred somewhat by audio problems but the fact they even attempted it purely to learn Final Cut to keep up with their kids growing video sophistication says a lot about their dedication to the those they teach. Bravo.

World Famous Raffle was up next and it was a dandy.

Prizes given out were as follows:

2 Final Cut Pro A-Z DVDs Intelligent Media
2 CD and DVD Labels - Meritline
A Copy of the Book "Final Cut Pro 2 Editing Workshop" by Tom Wolsky - Tom Wolsky
A Monitor Rear View Mirror - Intelligent Media
2 copies of Final Draft and Final Draft AV - Final Draft
Ken Stone. net T-Shirt - Kenstone.net
DV Companion - Intelligent Assistance
Cleaner Companion -Intelligent Assistance
Secrets of Final Cut Pro 2 - Dvcreators.net
3 Final Cut Pro T-shirts - Apple Computer
RT MAX LITE Real Time Card - Promax

Special thanks must go to Chris Horgan and Doug Lindeman for taking tickets. Kenstone for taking pics. Mark Havener for doing the lights. Ross Jones, for helping do the raffle, Dan Brockett for taping the show, and of course Promax for footing the bill.
See you all Nov 28 when we will try one more time to get it right.

Michael Horton,
"HeadCutter"