FCP X

Charting a course to balanced cameras (with a DSC color chart)

Posted by Michael

August has been a very busy and exciting month for me. I’ve had the opportunity to cut numerous promos for Discovery Networks. Unfortunately, amid all the hubbub, I was unable to attend the latest FCP X Round Table. Taking their rightful places at the table were FCPWORKS‘ Noah Kadner, editors Mike Matzdorff and Chris Fenwick, as well as trainers Mark Spencer, Steve Martin, and Alex Lindsay.

Last month, Noah Kadner asked if I’d be interested in writing up a guest blog for their site. I was happy to oblige and wrote up the following article about color matching my GH2, GH3, and GH4. It quickly became apparent that I’d also need to include a video tutorial to support the article. And so I did just that!

The article can be found here:

Michael Garber on the GH4 and FCP X

The video is here:

The Constantly Evolving List of FCP X Tips & Tutorials

Posted by Michael

There are a ton of great tip videos, tutorials and blog posts for FCP X out there. It’s a pretty exciting time for sharing all of the great time-savers and tricks we’ve learned over the past few years. We have Creative Cow, FCP.co, MacBreak Studio, the multitude of Facebook FCP X groups, #FCPX on Twitter, Youtube, Vimeo, and, of course, all those editor blogs (including yours truly). To put it plainly, FCP X videos and articles are everywhere and I don’t see this trend slowing down any time soon.

In the interest of culling together an updated list of the best resources, I’m posting some of my favorites. I’ll update this list whenever something pops up that catches my eye.

Check back regularly to this post for updates.

Apologies if I forgot anyone. Like I said, this is an evolving list. Please let me know if there are any not-to-be missed posts out there.

NAB 2014 Post-Wrapup-Diary or “How to Attempt to Become a Greek Demogod”

Posted by Michael

What a crazy, insane, amazing week I had at NAB. I flew in last Saturday morning. Thanks to Alexis Van Hurkman’s recommendation, I stayed at Treasure Island. While there was no pirate theme in the room (bummer!), the rooms were comfortable and the rate was really affordable. It was perfectly located for my daily walk to the FCPWORKS private demo suite, where I spent the week showing off my work in FCP X.

Once settled, I walked over to the Wynn hotel’s buffet and stuffed my gullet along with Sam Mestman and his dad Steve (hi, Steve!). A few hours later, we were off and running, setting up this slick suite on the 26th floor of the Wynn.

FCPWORKS Suite view at the Wynn

Forty-eight hours, one Quantum SAN and nine Mac Pro/iMac edit stations later, Sam, Darren Roark and I were ready to start demoing.

On Sunday, Scott Simmons from Pro Video Coalition showed up to interview us. Can you tell I was a bit awe struck?

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Sometimes, the editor gets to speak…

Posted by Michael

Huell in Poppies

Here’s an interview I did with a local radio station last weekend at the premiere of a documentary about Huell Howser. Huell is a bit of a California icon for those not from The Golden State. I edited about 500 shows with him during the 8 years we worked together. Part of what got me the job was showing off real time color correction in FCP 4.5.

Well, 10 years later, I’ll be demoing real time color correction and lots more cool stuff in FCP X for FCPWORKS next week at NAB. Hope to see some of you there! Sign up for appointments here. 

Come visit FCPWORKS and me at NAB!

Posted by Michael

Wynn_FCPWORKS_Las_Vegas

NAB is going to be very exciting this year with all the 4K products surely to be announced. I’ll be demoing a smörgåsbord of FCP X workflows with FCPWORKS at the Wynn next week. The sign-up info can be found HERE. http://www.fcpworks.com/nab-final-cut-pro-x-demo-suite/

Along with fellow FCP X gurus Philip Hodgetts, Sam Mestman, and Darren Roarke, we’ll be demoing broadcast, doc, news, & feature film workflows in the suite. Look forward to seeing you there!

Color Correcting in FCP X Webinar

Posted by Michael

It’s been a busy couple of weeks over here at the Garbershop. I finished my video about Mt. Zion Cemetery, which I shot last year. I’ve been working again at Discovery Agency using FCP X. And I have also been cutting two jobs over at my office, a promotional video that I shot for a friend who is a patent attorney and VAM for Showtime.

On top of that, I’ve been scripting and rehearsing my next webinar for Moviola, which will focus on color correction in FCP X. It will be done in four parts. I will explain the color correction capabilities from an editor’s perspective, starting with the basics and working up to some more complicated shots. It’s all very practical, real world stuff. I use footage from actual jobs that I’ve cut over the past few months. No demo trickery here!

I highly recommend checking it out if you have the time. You’ll need to sign up in advance to watch it live on March 3rd. Or you can catch it after the fact, but they charge a small amount for it (which I do get a small percentage of, so please purchase or rent it if you can!).

You can register here:

http://moviola.com/webinars/color-correcting-in-final-cut-pro-x/Hero-Master-1

Snapshots in my mind.

Posted by Michael

On my current project, I’m exploring the new snapshots feature in FCP 10.1.1. It’s one of those features that, at first, seems like a small addition. But in practical usage, I’m finding that it’s a huge shift in how I think about versioning.

In FCP 7 and prior, I would duplicate timelines to create versions. When too many timelines were in my project, I would duplicate the project if it had grown too large. Then I’d trash old versions to decrease the file size and move forward.

In previous versions of FCP X, I would duplicate the timeline and append a v2, v3, v4, and so on at the end of each day or notes pass. On the next day I’d continue on with the duped and updated version. Dupes represented both archives AND new versions.

But with 10.1, things are a flipped around. Here’s a graphical explanation of the switch.

Versioning Method (past versions of FCP):

Versioning method

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