First up as usual was our on- going 'game show' "Stump the Gurus" where the audience questions a panel of FCP experts in hopes of getting their problems solved. If they can't get an answer, then they win 15 raffle tickets. No one won this month but we did offer 5 raffle tickets to a young lady who found a "Bug." Ken Stone, Andrew Balis, and special guest guru, Steve Martin answered the questions.
Q.) So I nest a clip and then try to add a audio filter to it (in this case the reverb) and when I do this I loose the stereo track and it goes mono. In other words the audio meter plays only the left channel. Pan is correct and audio is assigned correctly in the upstream nest.
A.) So after much questioning on this Steve Martin decided to see if he could re create the problem. And guess what? He did. We did this twice and again re-produced the problem. So it seems adding a audio filter to a nested clip will produce a left channel only playback on the VU meter even though audio appears correctly in the Viewer with both waveforms. This "bug" is now and forever christened the "Jean Syndrome" after the young lady who founded it. Congrats Jean. We will tell Apple all about you.
Q.) Can I bring in DV via firewire and have that timecode burn with it?
A.) No. Not via firewire. But you CAN use the timecode burn print filter in Final Cut after you bring in your footage. Just park your playhead on a specific frame of your sequence and load it into the Viewer. If the TC is different than what Final Cut says, modify it to match and then apply the TC print filter and render.
Q.) Is there anyway I can output Final Cut to Audio channels 3 and 4 using AES audio in DigiBeta.
A.) No the Mac OS Sound Manger is capable of only 2 audio channel export. OSX maybe.
Q.) I want to compress my movie for the web. What are the differences between FCP Movie and QuickTime and Cleaner and what's the best choice?
A.) First don't compress using Final Cut. Export to Cleaner or Cleaner EZ. Much more control. Export out of FCP as Final Cut movie, not QuickTime. If you use QT then you are compressing. FCP Movie is an exact copy. Use Cleaner or Cleaner EZ which gives you much more control over your compression and file size.
Q.) Can FCP bring in an EDL originally shot on 24P at 24fps and then down converted to DV Cam at 29.97 with no issues.
A.) No such thing as no issues with EDLs but the answer is Yes, using Film Logic.
Q.) I'm getting this luma shifting with certain transitions. What do I do?
A.) Seems many people are noticing the same thing. Lots of people are having this same problem. Make sure you are rendering in YUV. Also seems that the dissolves from CGM seem to alleviate this problem for some unknown reason.

Next up was Steve Martin with this months tip/trick. But this month we decided to skip the tip/trick and talk about re-linking your media when it goes offline because it seems to be an issue with a lot of folks. So Steve brought a FW drive and made it go offline for demo purposes. (you an tell your files are offline as your clips in the timeline go white.) White is a scary color for some folks and it's no wonder FCP chose that. Now what FCP does in this case is pop up a window telling you the files it can't find and that are offline. (the reason clips will go offline is because of a few reasons. YOU moved the media to another partition, you renamed the media, or you deleted the media.) Now you have a choice here. If you click OK at bottom of the window, it will automatically look for the clips and if it finds them, everything is cool. If you click FORGET you are telling FCP that 'yeah, you know about it but forget about it and the window will not open up again reminding you that your clips are offline. If you click RECONNECT, well that is just what it implies.
Now if you want to manually reconnect the media all you have to do is select ALL the files you want reconnect in the timeline and then go to the FILE menu and select Re-link. This brings up a window with a bunch of options. Choose the option that fits your needs, such as reconnect files that "match name of missing files". Well, duh! If all the missing files are in same folder you can check reconnect all files in relative path. If all works properly, then your white offline files will turn back to those pretty colors you so love, signifying all is well.
The reconnect feature of FCP is not only for reconnecting offline media. Lets say you want to replace a online clip with another clip. Well select that clip in the timeline and hit SHIFT-D to bring up this window asking you what to do with the clip. Leave "leave on disk" checked. Clip is now offline, BUT you can re link to it anytime you want, cause you did not trash it. Now with that offline clip selected go to the FILE menu and select 'reconnect media' but this time uncheck "files that match name".' This will allow you to navigate to any other clip you choose and replace the offline clip with the new clip. The replaced clip will still have the same name as the offline clip however. Just try it. It's pretty cool.

Next up was our first SHOW AND TELL and it was just dandy. Cuban born, Award winning film maker Luis Remesar showed a clip from his feature length DV documentary REGRESO, chronicling Luis and his wife's return visit to Havana to reunite with his country, his father,and other members of his family for the first time in over 30 years.
Intercutting interview footage with himself, his wife and members of his family with images of Cuba today and in the past, this film tells the story of not only family reunion, but family survival. The film utilizes xceptionally good use of Cuban music with beautiful melodies of guitars and voices.
You cannot help but want to know much more about the characters so we all will have to just go see the movie which has been sold into distribution and hopefully exposure on PBS. Happiness, hope, cynicism, love, and joy contrast each other with images of opposite emotions. A terrific clip from what HAS to be a must see documentary.
Luis shot with a Panasonic EZ1 so as not to be conspicuous. For audio he used an inexpensive Azden Lav and shot gun mic. The resulting images were what Luis intended. Just fine.
For more info on Luis read the 2-pop article at http://www.2-pop.com/library/articles/2000-01-26.html or visit his web site. http://home.earthlink.net/~coyotep

Next up was lafcpug's very own favorite author and farmer, Lisa Brenneis. Lisa was here tonight to launch version 2.0 of the best selling FCP reference book, FCP for Macintosh, Visual QuickPro Guide, the book that saved us all from attempting to wade through version 1.0 of Apple's FCP manual.
Lisa began by thanking the audience for purchasing VCP, this because if you didn't purchase it she would not of had the chance to do version 2.0 That speaks volumes right there.
The book has added 100 pages, expanding to 610 pages, and covers new media management tools, text generators, and real time solutions. New explanatory sidebars and tips have been added throughout the book.The book also includes some troubleshooting tips Also added is a web site address which allows the reader to download any NEW info when Apple releases a dot version of FCP. No waiting for version 2.5.
The book will be available at the lafcpug store very soon but for now go HERE
Lisa also took a few minutes to give us all tips on posting troubles or feature requests on 2-pop or lafcpug as Apple does indeed scan these boards on a weekly basis. Put Feature Request or Bug (if you indeed think it's a bug) in the SUBJECT line. Be clear in stating your request or problem. You never know, Apple just may respond to you. Dig into the Knowledge Base and find the TIL articles on FCP. There is a wealth of information in there. It's just hard to find now.
Find someone in CORPORATE Apple and write them and ask that FCP give us more resources and support to handle problems. Don't expect the FCP team to do this.They are over worked anyway. The FCP team IS listening, it's just that we would like APPLE to give us just a little more support.

Frank Collins, VP of product development from Final Draft was up next to talk about the excellent script writing software, Final Draft and Final Draft AV.
Well, what's this got to do with FCP?
Everything begins with the script folks, and with Final Draft, it is easier than ever to get off your butt and start writing so you can go out and realize that story you got in your head.
Frank began with Final Draft AV which is the only 2 column script writer for all of you doing commercials, documentaries and industrials. It took 4 programmers nine months to get this thing right and all of you who use Word, or PageMaker to do column script writing know what I am talking about. AV is new and does not have all the cool features of its big brother Final Draft, but it doesn't need too. It just works. It has several formats that can be utilized including a linear layout, but for 2 columns where Video is on the left and audio is on the right, this thing rocks.
Frank then gave us a brief look at the traditional scriptwriter Final draft and although I thought I knew this program well, Frank dug deep into the code and revealed cool features that are not just cool, but helpful. Frank says check the final draft web site often for bug fixes as it is being constantly revised. Authorization is also been made much easier.
Final Draft comes on a hybrid CD in both Windows and Mac and is cross platform compatible for sharing files between you and your partner. FD is also backwards compatible if saved as a RTF.
I am a bit biased because I use this program, but I defy anyone to tell me that Final Draft doesn't make your life easier. Well- at least your writing easier.

QuickTime guru Cliff VanMeter was up next to give us a how2 on adding interactivity to your FCP movies using what you have already on your Mac. QuickTime Pro.
What many people don't realize is that QuickTime is not PLAYER technology, but CONTAINER technology and as such you can add all sorts of cool things to your movie. You can add buttons for play, reverse, and forward, add Flash movies, director commentary, interviews with actors, back story and so on. Hey, that's sounds just like DVD authoring. It IS. And that's what is cool about this. You can do all of this in QuickTime and even more if you learn and use LiveStage Pro and Adobe Go Live
Essentially there are three tools to create wired QuickTime. LiveStagePro allows you to script the 'atoms' of QuickTime and does it in a very user friendly way according to Cliff. QuickTime Pro, of course, and Adobe Go Live which allows you to do wired sprite movies.
After a series of mishaps with the PowerBook and projector were fixed we got to see a few examples of what Cliff was talking about. Go to BMWfilms.com and take a look around there. Go to Ursamajormedia where the entire site is built in QuickTime and look at Cliffs own design which he calls Browser Optional. This stuff is all over the net and you too can create and add interactivity with just a little imagination and QuickTime Pro.
Please read Cliffs excellent article on all this here at lafcpug.org. It is well worth it. For a tutorial on wired sprites and more info on Wired QuickTime go to the QuickTime Developers User Group web site and look around in there. Get on the mailing list too. These people are doing some amazing things Also Apples own QuickTime web site has some very good tutorials.

Michael Friedman, one of our "people who are actually making money with FCP" was up next. Michael has been with FCP since the beginning and was instrumental into talking ShowTime networks into using Final Cut as their "choice du tool." So far it's working out quite nicely, thank you. Michael has cut 35 mm film High Def, and DV all in a production environment and mentioned briefly the few production problems FCP presents which is quite natural for something so new. He then showed us a clip from the short film "Doppleganger" which is a follow up by the same duo who did "This Sky is Falling." and to be honest, this film makes the incredible Sky is falling look like a student project. You would never know that it was shot blue screen and all sets and objects were CGI and the sets, props and lighting are absolutely breath takingly "REAL." Now one might ask why take simple objects and sets and draw them instead of just USING simple sets and objects. Well the film makers wanted a SLIGHT exaggeration of reality as it fit the story, but also wanted to prove that the separation of reality and computer graphic imaging is not as far apart as one might think. Maya and StudioMax and a beta motion tracking program were used. Amazing. You can view this movie at hypnotic.com.
Currently Michael is cutting a new reality series for the TNN network called "Small Shots." And using FCP to do it.

At this time people's butts were hurting so we took a 15 minute break so 300 people could go out into the lobby and get a chance to win Lisa's new book, which she was kind enough to raffle off for a dozen lucky folks. Talk about chaos, but it was fun.

Next up was what most of the folks came to see, and that was a demo of the long delayed and much anticipated RT MAX LITE card from Brad Pillow and Promax. Ross Jones of Cal State Fullerton was joined by Cawan Starks and Charles McConathy of Promax to give us all an eyeful of what we have been hearing about for so many months but had suspicions of ever shipping. Well, from what this writer saw, it was well worth the wait. So lets talk about it.
OK, lets talk about what RT LITE really is. It's NOT Real Time everything, just like the RT MAC from Matrox. It provides immediate feedback for the editor on SPECIFIC key framed effects, motions, composites, and transitions. It is real time EDITING on specific functions and you still need to render when outputting via firewire. It is half the price of the RT MAC. ($499.00) It has no direct analog input and the RT quality is directly tied to the CPU. (the faster the Mac, the more features the RT LITE can do.)
Because the new DV Codec from Apple is so fast and powerful, the Hardware (RT LITE card) and RT LITE software (drivers) are almost in a head to head competition, so to speak. More about this later
Drivers are at QuickTime level for easy upgrade to OSX.
The Card requires the AGP Slot inside a G4 and a Video breakout cable is provided with S-video and composite out
The Vise installer will put in an extension and control panel and FCP plug in. RT MAX LITE will ship end of August. Might slip into early September.
So what can this puppy do? Well if you have a Fast Mac (dual 533 or better) then it will do 3 DV layers at medium resolution and two at full res. If you have a Dual 800 then you can get 4 layers at medium res and three at full. The possibilities here are endless once Macs get into Quad processors and into one GHZ territory.
So what if you have a Single Processor G4? No problem. Just use the lower res settings and sacrifice a little preview quality for layers which is what I would have to do CAUSE I DON'T HAVE A FAST MAC!!
Anyway Ross then booted up the dual 533 and immediately played a clip consisting of 3 DV layers with spinning graphics. Nice clean green line. No render. Someone yelled out 'CHANGE THE KEYFRAME! So Ross did, and no render. Then someone said GO FOR FOUR! Ross did and the ol' red line appeared.
We then saw the preview out analog to the projector and quite frankly the medium res quality is just fine for my tastes and I'm looking at it on a projector. Awesome. Long live medium res for us poor folks.
How's it do with a SP 867? According to Cawan Starks he was able to get it to do 4 layers at medium res in some cases. 3 layers at full.
Does RT LITE support Photo-jpeg codec? No, but it's possible it might one day but for now it supports only the DV Codec.
Resolution is switched back and forth via the control panel which includes a warning if you need a ROM update, proc amp controls. There is NO reboot becessary if you switch between resolutions
Then Ross explained what seems to be happening with all this new technology. It seems software codecs are beginning to blow out Hardware codes and soon you will no longer need a card to help you achieve RT, but only the software. And that is exactly what is beginning to happen here.The card merely drives the second monitor and provides analog out into NTSC color space and dissolves and scaling.(well that's a bit simple) It's the software that does much of the work here due in part to the power of the DV Codec. Soon, as processors become faster, you will have RT on a PowerBook without need of a card. Heck Avid has that going with Express DV and RT on a lap top. I saw it at NAB last spring. And software solutions will be that much cheaper cause you won't need the hardware. Call it RT SOFT if you will.
Impressive stuff that matches RT Mac for half the price. I gotta get a fast Mac.
More info at PROMAX.
Oh yeah! What about the RT MAX "not" LITE card? Well, that's supposed to ship end of September. More info on that HERE.

Commercial director Kevin Dole (another one who is making money with FCP) was up next with a demo of of what he does including the way cool invention of his called the DigiKam which allows you to get into very tight spots shooting very little objects. Kevin is noted for doing "kids" commercials and rough cuts his commercials on the set using FCP and his PowerBook. Kevin showed us two commercials he had done shot using both 35mm and video, with no processing of the video and dang if I could tell the video from the film. But that's me.
Then as a bonus Kevin took us onto the set via the miracle of DV and gave us a look into how he works. Kevin's "cart" in which resides his PowerBook and FCP is hooked up to a Digi-Beta deck via RS 422 using a Sony DVMC DA1 convertor and Keyspan serial adapter. Using this system he can capture frame accurate from the Digi-Beta and then rough cut the scenes in front of a client. Or not. Seems clients love this but it DOES give the director and pretty darn good idea of what the commercial should/can look like prior to giving the footage over to the ad agency for THEIR cut. Really cool stuff. Kevin couldn't help himself and decided if this was not enough he had to show us the way cool ClearPhone which allows you to talk to your friend via video on the internet. Check it out. It IS pretty cool and obviously the possibilities are endless.

About this time many folks were very tired and just wanted to get to the raffle and go home, but thank goodness we had Dean Chamberlain who gave us our first animated short of the year and a damn funny one at that. Called "Boogie Knights" it is the story of a band of disco loving Knights who are confronted by a band of disco hating Knights who want to put an end to the disco loving Knights and use every possible means including a Ninja Knight thwarted by a disco ball.
Using Faux stop action animation which I will explain later, with story by Deans son Skye and directed by Dean it features a cast of those plastic Knights you get when you buy the plastic Castle at Toys R Us. The plastic castle was in this too by the way.
Now the cool thing about this piece was not only was it hysterical funny, but was the WAY he achieved the stop action look. Instead of locking down the camera and shooting one frame per second, Dean shot the little Knights at thirty frames per second and then using the modify speed control in FCP simply selected what ever appropriate speed modification the Knights move needed. Sometimes 1200% or 5% or what have you. He choose this method because he was not quite sure how to do real stop action animation and this seemed to work anyway.
To be honest I am not really sure HOW most of what Dean did was achieved. What I do know was that this was a very funny and quite remarkable use of of accidental creativity and you have to see this if you ever get a chance. Hopefully Dean will put it up on the web unless you see it on Comedy Central first.

World Famous raffle was up next and the following prizes were given away. Thanks very much to those generous folks who gave.

3 Collector magazines - Deborah Shadovitz
Creative Cow T- shirt - CreativeCow.net
three day FCP 101 class with instructor Andrew Balis - Moviola Education
5 Visual QuickPro Guides - Lisa Brenneis
T-shirt - Kenstone.net
2 copies of Final Draft - Final Draft
Deck 3.0 Bias-inc
Peak VST 2.6 - Bias Inc
DV Companion - Intelligent Assistance
Cleaner Companion -Intelligent Assistance
Hat - Final Draft

The following people deserve special thanks so thanks go to Pat Cates, Paula Archuleta, Doug Lindeman for taking tickets. Ken Stone for taking Pics. Dan Brockett for taping the show. Ross Jones for being the AV guru. Paul Balbirny of the LA Film School for putting up with us, and of course, Promax for footing the bill.

Click HERE for Print Friendly version(no pics)

See you Sept 26 when we try one more time to get it right

Michael Horton
"HeadCutter"