September Meeting

  Kray Mitchell's documentary Pirates of the Underground

A good turn-out of members certainly got more than they expected at this meeting. First of all, once again Unlimited Video Staging provided one of their excellent digital projectors and a 8x6 screen to give us all the "big screen" experience. Secondly, the topic of Kray's documentary, the legitimacy of Piracy, really got people's blood boiling. Whereas normally after a screening discussion will be around shooting and editing technique, this doc simply had everyone hotly debating the topic. For more than an hour! Guess we have to call this one a big success for Kray, and his editor Dan! Thanks for sharing it with us!

August Meeting   In-Camera Special Effects We had a great (and slightly overwhelming) turnout for this meeting. I had anticipated a smaller, summer-time gathering. Obviously this was a topic that caught a great many people's interest! Working with a Canon Optura (yes, the original) hooked directly into a Power Mac G5 with the new Aluminum 23" display, courtesy of WestWorld computers, we actually captured all footage live to the computer. Needless to say this would be pretty risky in a real world environment, it was a great solution for our needs. We looked at the concept of shooting "Plate Shots" in order to have an established and clean background, and then introduced ghosts, Star Trek beam-downs, and possesion. Great fun was had by all. Still need to get that video posted, however. Monday July 19th   Happy Birthday Calgary FCPUG!   First I would like to officially announce our membership has well surpassed 100, with 103 full members (Final Cut Pro and Express Users here in Calgary) and 20 affiliate members (out-of-town users, resellers,  FCPUG members from Vancouver, Toronto and Montreal, and people who are just interested). The Calgary FCPUG just continues to grow and get better. I would like to thank everyone who came out to our birthday bash and celebrated our first year (though three months late, it was worth the wait). Especially I would like to thank Mike on the grill making sure everyone had a burger to eat; Jay for chopping condiments for all; Vern for being brave enough to provide his music collection for tunes (and cheerfully accepting the requisite criticism of his music collection); and WestWorld Computers for supplying a 17" Powerbook and 20" screen for demoing and, well, as a fabulous Jukebox. Thanks to those who sent internet greetings including Abba , who was in Japan Training the Trainers at the time! Fun was certainly had by all!. It is not too late to submit your demo reel material in DV NTSC format on a CD for the Calgary FCPUG demo reel. I have decided to lift the 1 minute restriction and allow any demo that can be fit on a CD in DV NTSC format to be submitted. I know you have all been busy out there, take the time to show off your talents. You can send the CD's to Calgary FCPUG c/o Duane Martin 635C 37th Ave NE Calgary AB T2E 2M1 Monday April 26th   The NAB Presentation!   Great curiousity brought out a great crowd for the NAB discussion at this meeting. Thanks to WestWorld Computers not only did we have a totally stacked G5 to work with and a 23" cinema display, but thanks to Alex and UVS, probably the largest LCD projector I have ever seen outside of a planetarium. It doubles as a tanning device with its 16,000 lumens! Everyone wished we could see Apple's new motion graphic software, Motion, in, well, motion, but that will have to wait for another meeting (perhaps July)? But after a series of bad photos from the floor of NAB (I know I have some good ones, I just need to sort them out) we got down to the meat of the presentation, the new Final Cut Pro HD. And, despite the fact there were a couple members unhappy (nervous?) about having to move to Panther, it was generally greeted with cheers all round. Let's see... Faster... More stable... Free Upgrade to FCP 4, and with all kinds of Real Time effects added even for legacy machines and DV. Well, that worked for just about everyone. As well, everyone walked out with at least a couple great (or not so great) pieces of swag. Thanks to member Rick Youck and his happy suitcase full of swag there is some left even for the next meeting. Not that I would force anyone to take it home with them or anything... Thursday May 27th, 2010   POST NAB   Members who attended the NAB Show 2010 are encouraged to attend and talk about what caught their interest at this years show. Was it the many Blackmagic Design products, including DaVinci Resolve on the Mac? Or the new Alexa from ARRI which will shoot to Pro Res HQ and 4x4, possibly challenging the RED. Or the plethora of solutions for SLR HD shooting cameras. Possibly your eyes were crossed by looking at Stereoscopic solutions found everywhere on the floor. It was certainly a show that had a little something for everyone, and speaking of little, you should see the GoPro Hero camera I came back with, or the SmallHDmonitor I wish I could have come back with.   And seriously, for those who were on the show floor, how many iPads did you see being used as control surfaces, monitors, teleprompters, etc, etc. It's no wonder they are selling out!   As usual, there is a lot of swag from the show floor (T-shirts etc) to be given away at the end of the meeting.   THREE A's OF EDITING ON THE MAC Though once again Apple was not present on the show their presence was felt. As a real surprise, and relief for those working in mixed editing environments, both Adobe and AVID announced support for Apple's ProRes codecs. As one attendee was heard to say: One Codec to rule them all, One Codec to find them, One Codec to bring them all and in the darkness of the edit suite bind them. What does that mean to us working on a regular basis? Let's explore that idea with looking at the new ProRes support feature of Adobe CS5 and AVID's Media Composer 5. ARTBEATS $500 DOOR PRIZE Artbeats has kindly offered to support the Calgary FCPUG by offering an amazing prize of $500 worth of stock video footage from their site; the winner gets to choose! That's a pretty huge door prize, not to diminish the Automatic Duck bottle opener I brought back from NAB.   See you at the meet! Thursday January 28th, 2010 What's New in Final Cut Pro 7?   Final Cut Pro 7 has been available now for six months, but some members are wondering if the upgrade is right for them, while others are likely wondering if they are taking full advantage of the new release. Come out and talk to members who have made the switch, find out what they like, possibly don't like, and what you will need to make the upgrade. As a special treat, Diana Weynand, author of the Apple Pro Training Series "Introduction to Final Cut Pro", will be dropping by via iChat to talk about Final Cut Pro 7 and the new features, as well as talking about the great ways to learn Final Cut Pro she offers at Weynand.com.   So, if you are hesitating on the upgrade, come out to find out more. If you have upgraded, come out to ensure that you are getting the most out of FCP 7. Just come on out!!!   How to Get Your Mac Smokin'   No, this is not about some great new video card or faster processor, though you may well want these hardware upgrades once you have seen Smoke on a Mac! AutoDesk has recently announced that their high-end finishing solution, Smoke, is now available for your Macintosh computer. For more details check out the Autodesk Smoke on a Mac web page.   This is HUGE in a number of ways in that previously you had to purchase Smoke as a turn-key pre-built system, and that system was not on the Macintosh platform. Now, it could be on your Mac in your suite! With excellent integration through XML with Final Cut Pro, this may well be the perfect one-two punch you have been looking for to create the highest possible finish of your work. As Autodesk writes "Don't just Edit. Finish."   Come out to learn from a representative of Oceana Digital, authorized resellers of Autodesk products, about how you can put this high-end finishing software on a Mac, and exactly what kind of Mac you are going to need to run this amazing software package.   It's Smoke on a Mac; be prepared to be amazed!   What's Next for the Calgary Final Cut Users' Group   At the end of this meeting I would like to encourage all interested members to take part in a discussion of future plans for the Calgary Final Cut Pro Users' Group and how it might better serve all members. Have ideas, bring them along and share.  March 22, 2004 Todd Thomas' demonstration of FootTrack was very enlightening and exciting. The program is very good right now, and its potential for professionals is great with further development! I have visions on my next project of handing a Director a CD with footage archived and searchable with FootTrack, rather than the unwieldy standard VHS. This is one program you don't want to wait to buy until it does everything you want, because: -It's cheap as borscht at $50.95 CDN; -In its current form it is already and excellant tool; -Why wait to start archiving? The work you do today will be with you forever, even with the new versions. Can you imagine playing catch-up in 6 months? Buy now, archive now, reap the benefits for the future updates! -Todd lives and works here in Calgary, so it is a chance to buy local in a big way! Vince and Dan are two members who don't have to rush out to buy FootTrack right away, because they won a copy each at the meeting! Pays to attend the meetings, folks! Next, we looked at the various storage options for use in Final Cut Pro, discussing how to read drive specs, and what the various formats and input devices require. With NAB just a month away, there was some speculation on new devices and improved drive support might be announced. January 26, 2004 Neil Fleming, a local award winning playwright, screenwriter and the Development person for Earth to Sky Pictures will be in to talk about the essential elements of story telling, and looking at how editing is all about "story telling", whether for drama, corporate video, or wedding videos. Not only is Neil a successful writer, but he is the guy who first reads the scripts that are submitted to this local film production house and decides what merits further attention and what needs more work. Not only will we look at the essential elements of story telling, we will examine the tools Final Cut has available for structuring your edit in a story board mode, and also how editing can affect the story told using clips from a locally shot movie. JANUARY RAFFLE: One hour of story editing advice from Neil Fleming, one-on-one, regarding your screenplay or edited video. Who knows, if he likes it, maybe it will find some development money! November 24th, 2003 I would like to thank everyone who attended our last meeting in November. I apologize the report has been so long in arriving, but tis the season for madness. In particular I would like to thank Thomas Terashima for his technical expertise in getting things set up once again. Don Windsor came all the way from Winnipeg for the meeting (though he claims our meeting was not the only reason for making the trip). Thanks to Vern and Kray for the presentation on iChat AV and the iSight. As a special note on this topic I continue to assist the editor of Chicks With Sticks, Jim Munro, despite the fact that he is in Los Angeles and I am in Calgary, thanks to the versatility of iChat AV and the iSight. Mind you, he tends to be working in a T-shirt with a view of the ocean, and I, well, we all know what the winter has been like so far here in Calgary and how far the ocean is. And special thanks Vern Gall and WestWorld computers for once again supplying the hardware, in particular a G5 and Apple 20" display with the amazing sound system, Thomas Terashima for the Panasonic AGDVx-100, and emotion entertainment, courtesy of Kray Mitchell, for the GL-2. It was a rare opportunity to see these two cameras side by side. We should set up field testing days with cameras once we have a reseller sponsor for such an event (hint, hint). For those who expressed an interest at this meeting of venturing into the hallowed halls of High Definition, courtesy of member Margot MacMaster and HDTV, please stand by. We have yet to confirm a date but certainly will early in the new year. October 20th, 2003 Thanks once again to everyone at Monday nights Calgary FCPUG meeting. Wasn't that fantastic! It was great to see so many new faces, and to hear how important members felt the group was. In all the excitement I forgot to do a count, but I expect there were more than 25 members present. Not bad for a second meeting with a four month gap! The feedback I have received so far has been very helpful, including more than a few topics for future meetings. Expect the next meeting to be on or about November 24th. So far we have lined up Vern Gall to demonstrate the iSight/iChat AV combination and how to use them with FCP. As well, Thomas Terashima may be bringing in a Panasonic AG-DVX 100 24p camera to demo, and this time we might see Erin Faith's "Our Way", shot with the Panasonic camera and mixing 24p, 30p and 60i. Please feel free to post requests for topics on the forum, or to volunteer to speak. Thanks once again to Kray Mitchell for providing the amazing resource of the forum to the group. If anyone out there is particulary good at internet databases, could they contact me as I would like to have an on-line questionaire to better serve the group. Any other resourses you would like to see, please let us know. But beware, we are seeking volunteers!