Next up was lafcpug regular Steve Martin with the months tip/trick and this month Steve decided to dig out the free Commotion DV that comes with your copy of FCP and show us a little of what you can do with it. Which is considerable, BTW.
Steve showed us what he called the "Ghost writer" which is a simple, yet very cool effect you too can do. The final effect is that of a "painted on" letter D as though some invisible hand slowly painted on this letter before your very eyes.Here is how:
Using Photoshop Steve created a large letter "D" and saved it out with an alpha channel. Now open up that file within Commotion DV.
You are presented with that "D" in a large window. Go to the bottom of that window and look for the RGB icons and click on both of them until they turn to "a" for Alpha. Go to the Edit menu and select ALL> Copy. Now create a NEW file by going to the FILE menu and selecting NEW. Title it Animated D. Now look at this window carefully before closing. At the bottom of the window in the every bottom box, put in 10 frames. Just above that box, put in 1 frame. Make sue size is 720x480 pixels. Close Window.
So now you are looking at a blank canvas. At the bottom of this blank canvas you want to select those same RGB icons as you did before until each appears with the letter "a"
Now select PASTE. You are now looking at your pasted copy of the letter "D' with alpha channel on frame 1. (Stay with me here)
Now look for the floating "player" window and move the slider to frame 10. Go up to the FILE menu and select PASTE FLOATER. Your letter D is now pasted onto 10 frames.
Get rid of the shimmering dashes surrounding your copy by choosing DESELECT from the (not sure here, EDIT menu? just look for it). Now your ready to begin.
Find the floating TOOL pallet and pick a large size brush. Using that brush erase a good portion of the letter D. Now go to the next frame using the forward button on the floating "Player window" and erase just a little less than before. Now go to the next frame and erase just a little less than before and so on and so on until you reach the end. Practice and use the preview button on the Player Window to see what kind of effect you are getting or just move the slider back and forth.
When finished go to the FILE menu and select SAVE. A window will open and you want to save it as a Pict Image Sequence with Alpha channel checked. Create a new folder to drop this Saved file into. Call it Animated D. Click OK. Now Quit Commotion.
Open FCP and go to EDIT menu and change the still frame freeze duration to 2 frames. Now quit out of settings and go to FILE menu and IMPORT>FOLDER. Navigate to your Animated D folder and import. Your folder now appears in your browser with 10 still images at 2 frames each in sequential order Lasso all 10 stills and drop them into your time line and render. Viola' You got a painted on "D."
It is advised you do not drink any alcohol before trying to follow my directions.

Next up was filmmaker Ted Bonnit who has successfully marketed his feature documentary, "Mau Mau Sex Sex" by himself without a distributor and around the country.in cities including NY, Chicago, LA, Boston, Atlanta, and points between, garnering rave reviews in almost all of those places. Ted was here to tell us how he did it and showed us a trailer of this very good, and quite funny documentary chronicling the "Sexploitation" Kings of the 'nudie cutie' films of the sixties, David Friedman and Dan Sonney.
Ted shot the movie on DV using an XL1 and used wireless lavs for his two principles. DV was chosen simply because he couldn't afford film and had no real intention of transferring to film anyway. DV suited the look and it was affordable. Once the film was complete and color corrected and audio sweetened and music added, Ted immediately "packaged the film" in the hopes that this might spur sales. He produced a soundtrack CD of the excellent music that plays almost non stop through out the 80 minute feature. He had posters created which are works of art unto them selves. He even packaged a bunch of VHS copies for hand out.
So with this "product" in hand it made him feel as though he, at the very least, had SOMETHING to show for what he had created and something to show those interested in seeing his movie.
Ted DID get offers from distributors but felt the deals they had offered him represented bankruptcy for him so he turned them all down and decided to self distribute. He felt if he could get a few theatrical runs and a some good reviews, it would make his "product" more attractive for the home video market.
With incredible persistence and a bit of moxie thrown in for good measure, Ted simply called up certain theaters in the country that he knew had video projection capability and booked the film. Was it that easy? Well no, but it worked. And Ted had the Posters and the CDs in hand to help market. He paid for a bit of advertising per the theaters standard contract and would make 35% of the gate in most cases negating the initial advertising costs. That's providing someone showed up to buy a ticket. And by golly, they did. Critics showed up after Ted rang them up and begged and pleaded and shuffled with the truth a bit. Positive reviews generated an easier time to go to the next city where he would get more positive reviews.
The movies subject matter didn't hurt as anything with SEX in the title helps sell interest. So Ted put it in twice.
Ted had a difficult time booking into certain theaters simply because that theatre did not have a digital video projector and the owners were not about to go out and buy a $100,000 system.. So with a deal he made with Sharp and the American Cinematique, Ted put in a Sharp P-20 projector (retail $9,000) at the Egyptian Theatre in LA, hooked it up to a DVD player and tested it out on an audience. It worked.
So now, thanks to Ted and his persistence, Los Angeles has the very first World class Cinema fully dedicated to digital movies, and Mau Mau Sex Sex is playing on DVD in several theaters across the country and no one knows the difference.
Ted will be writing a comprehensive article for lafcpug on self distributing your digital movie soon. For now, read more on this terrific film at maumausexsex.com

Following my plea in one of the newsletters for more women to participate in the meetings, Barbara Simon took the challenge and was up next with a demo on "Compositing in FCP for the Absolute Beginner." Barbara is one of the hardest working ladies I have met in a long time and is relentless in her pursuit of knowledge in both FCP and Motion Graphics. So we were lucky to have her get up and give us a how 2 on getting started with the compositing capabilities of FCP 2.0
Using free Art beats graphics Barbara showed us a nifty animated title sequence and then proceeded to show us how she did it. Laying a background clip on Video 1 with the Title Safe area in the Canvas window selected, Barbara then opened the Text Generator and choose Axial Bold and typed in her title. She then selected her duration as 5 seconds instead of the default 10. Upon completion she dropped the text onto V2 using superimpose. Now she animated the title to come from the top of the window down to the middle and then out through the bottom using Key Frames in the Motion tab of the Viewer window. (Read up on Key Frames, Folks) She then COPIED that title onto Track 4 using Edit>Copy.Now drop some video or a graphic onto track 3 which will go inside of the title track on track 2 cause anytime you want video to appear inside your text you must put it ABOVE the title track. Now go to Modify> Composite>Travel Matte>Alpha to get video to appear within text. She then scaled THAT title to begin at it's standard size and slowly come towards you getting larger and larger until it wipes screen. She of course used key frames.
Anyway, give it a try and thanks Barbara for braving the audience and giving us this how 2.

Next up was Darren Purcell of Fox Sports Net who along with a bunch of other folks produces "Speed Truck Challenge" which appears here in Los Angeles and through out the west. Darren brought in the timeline to show us how he edits this 11 camera production which includes several graphics tracks and many audio tracks. Speed Truck is shot on Mini DV Cameras by the way.
Darren edited the race in only 8 hours but it took about 8 days to do the graphics. At one time there were 22 layers of video on the timeline including graphics and audio.Each camera had it's own video track with the main camera on track 11. Darren used markers to sync all the cameras up using flashes from the crowds cameras.
Cameras were also mounted inside the trucks giving the viewer a "you are there" experience.
After syncing up the tracks, Darren merely cut from camera to camera taking out sections as he went along. Very simple and very elegant/
So, yes Virginia you can do a multi camera edit on FCP and do it nicely with 11 cameras using the crowds flash cameras.
Darren has edited 5 of these shows and will shoot the next one to air on Fox Sports Net the week of Thanksgiving.

Next up was Veteran ACE Editor Lillian Benson who, with her more than 20 year experience using just about every NLE system ever made, brings a wealth of stories to anyone wise enough to stop her and ask a few questions.
Lillian showed us three pieces she did all on Final Cut Pro. The first was a tribute to Academy Award Winning Editor Tom Rolfe she did for the prestigious America Cinema Editors of which she is a member. Featuring clips from this amazing mans life work, it s jaw dropping, not for any great technical editing skill on the part of Lillian, but for the body of work Tom Rolfe has accomplished over his career. Lillian spent 2 days editing this piece and about 5 days gathering the clips.
The next piece was a trailer from a HD feature she is currently cutting called "Redemption," which is the story of an African American Man who from what I can tell, is looking for "Redemption." It is also noticeable for the stark contrast of HD intercut with DV. You just have to see HD on a big screen next to DV to really tell the difference. It's quite stunning.
Lillian also showed us a documentary she cut for the WE Network for their Extraordinary Women series. This particular episode gave us a glimpse of Dolores Huerta, the co-founder of the United Farm workers Union. The clip mixed archival footage of Dolores on the front lines and interviews with her today. This remarkable women is still very active today and this clip shows just how active she remains. Best line of the clip: "If you were stuck on a desert island, who would you rather be stuck with, a Farm Worker or an attorney?"
Lillian currently switches back and forth between FCP and Avid. She spent a few moments answering questions on the differences and problems of FCP vs Avid. She has some problems with FCPs media management and would like a mappable keyboard but for the most part she finds you she can do most everything that she needs to do on FCP.
Lillian Benson is an example of someone who embraces new technology to remain competitive in this industry. She learned FCP using DV Creators CDs and tapes and Lisa Brenneis' book "FCP for Macintosh Visual QuickPro Guide."

Next up just before the break, was the much hyped, never before seen on this planet, sure to wow every human being interested in this kind of stuff, FCP tip/trick, seemingly discovered by accident in a laboratory somewhere in the mountains of Romania and brought to us by the one and only Andrew Balis of Moviola Education who discovered it in the rubble of his apartment while eating a frozen entre' It is a dandy and you can read about it by clicking HERE.

Long first half so we all got up and stretched and went into the lobby and looked at each others name tags and ate food provided by our friends at Runway, before coming back for more FCP info and laughs.

Coming off the break we brought up three noted teachers of Final Cut Pro from the ranks of the Public School System to share a little about how they utilize FCP in the Classroom. John Bishop from UCLA, Joseph Karr O'Connor of Pasadena City College, and David Arellano of Fulton Middle School in Van Nuys Ca each showed footage of their respective video labs and talked briefly on curriculum Time did not permit much more than a brief over view of this subject, though lafcpug hopes to develop a symposium dedicated to FCP in the Classroom for presentation sometime in February 2002. We welcome any educators opinions and help on this.
John Bishop showed us the 16 G4/DSR-20 workstations of the UCLA Video Arts school with a patch bay that is an eye opener. Generally Arts students are the ones who work on these machines. UCLA Video Arts school does not teach software so it's up to the students to learn FCP them selves or take a FCP class, so John leaves many materials around to help them. DV Companion is installed on all G4s, instructors have written numerous guides, multiple copies of Lisa Brenneis' Book laying around, copies of the tutorials that Ken Stone has written which you can find at Kenstone.net or here at lafcpug also are available. Instructors will hang around for part of the school day but the lab is open 24 hours.Students share the hard drives. They use the Multiple User control panel which gives you your own preferences but with 2.0 there seems to be a bit of a bug with this method. Seems upon creating a new user, after one creates his profile and you launch FCP 2.0, up pops an error window telling you that FCP needs a software key. Well Mark found away around this by going to the FCP Data preferences and finding two FCP Data folders (in this case) and copying the FCP User ID file from one of the data folders into the other 'EMPTY' FCP Data folder. Works UCLA does not assign partitions to each student
Joe O'Connor from Pasadena City College was up next and brought in a full blown "commercial" for the Digital media Arts Center, produced by the students specifically for this occasion.
PCC bought FCP the moment it came out in 1999 and has integrated it into many of it's multimedia classes. PCC does not specifically teach Final Cut but teaches Motion Graphics and "Digital film Narrative" both of which utilize Final Cut. PCC has 20 G4s with FCP as near as I can tell and many have there own NTSC monitor for preview.
PCC is gearing up for OSX but for now uses a program called "Assimilator"(sp) on their OSX servers. This orphan program,will, upon the student logging out, put the Mac back to what ever original condition the program specifies, thus eliminating the need for constant monitoring of student use. For more info on Assimilator(sp) write Joe. Instructors FTP tutorials from home for use in the class room the next day. It's an impressive set up, PCC.
David Arellano of Fulton Middle School was up next. Fulton Middle School is part of the Los Angeles Unified School District and like other public school systems through out the country has it's own set of problems, lack of money being just one. David teaches 150 students a day ranging from Special Ed to "very bright." Most of his classes use iMovie but one will use FCP specifically. David will teach the tool and then allow the students to express themselves any way they wish. David will teach FCP to his students by having them interview the "elective" teachers and assemble a movie mixed with footage they film of the teacher interacting with the students. Once they learn FCP, David will have the students choose an historical moment, write a script about that moment, and film that moment in front of a blue screen using their own graphics they have drawn to depict the background scenes. The students will also perform the roles. David plans to buy chroma key paint and paint a wall of the gymnasium providing he can get permission from the PE teacher.
Prior to FCP and iMovie, David exclusively used HyperStudio and continues to utilize it today on some of the older Macs. Fulton has 2 FCP and one PhotoShop workstations on iMacs mixed in with several Mac 5500s. All use Multi User.
David finds that the students who are having trouble reading often excel in his class simply because video allows another way to express themselves and sometimes that expression leads to better reading skills.
These three teachers are pioneers along with hundreds of others throughout the world. They are struggling to find the best methods of dealing with the demands of this new technology as well as the demand for this form of expression. Each new version of Final Cut presents it own set of problems and it's own set of work arounds but in the end the result is what matters; stories are being told.

Filmmaker Scott Peterson assembled members of Chicago's famed 2nd City improvisation troupe and allowed them the freedom they so well deserve and came up with a beauty of a film titled "A Buck and Change" Shot documentary style with an XL1 and VX1000 with a shutter speed of 30fps (to give it that "less like video" look) this movie is note worthy for the performances of the cast and the tight and expertly edited dialogue.
It's the story of a group of Pizza delivery people and their "issues" with life, with emphasis on one particular driver named Drake. Performances are uniformly excellent, but what is remarkable, is that you grow to know and really like these people in such a short time. Testimony to the skill of director Scott Peterson and his tightly woven "script."
This is a very funny movie that deserves to be seen and one can only hope that happens. If it doesn't then how about making a sequel. We are all dying to know what they are doing today. Special mention must be paid to Don Bardwell as Drake. What a find this guy is. Heck, what a find the entire cast is.

World famous raffle was up next and the following prizes were given away.

T-shirt - Kenstone.net
T-Shirt- creativecow.net
T-shirt - Promax
Mau Mau Sex Sex Poster - Ted Bonnitt
CDR Labels - Meritline
Blank DVD - Meritline
2 Speed Truck Challenge T-shirts - Darren Purcell
2- Speed Truck Challenge Hats - Darren Purcell
Secrets of Final Cut Pro CD- Dvcreators.net
PowerStart Guide2 CD - Dvcreators.net
DV Companion - Intelligent Assistance
2 copies of Final Draft and Final Draft AV - Final Draft
1 free 3 day FCP 101 class at Moviola - Moviola Education
3 TDK Mini DV Tapes - TDK

Right after the raffle Steve Payne showed a clip from his latest, titled Burn Baby Burn, a documentary on the annual Burning Man Festival held each summer in Nevada. It's not fair to write a full review of it here but suffice it to say, if you have a chance to see this film, do so, as it not only takes you inside this unique and strange gathering, but illuminates what it is REALLY all about. http:/www.paynie.com

Special thanks go to Ken Stone for taking pics, Chris Coe and Doug Lindeman for taking tickets, Dan Brockett for taping the show, and of course Promax for footing the bill.

See you all Oct 24 when we will try one more time to get it right.

Michael Horton,