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Pixelcorps and Boris FX to Preso at Wednesday, May 21st BOSFCPUG |
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Written by Staff
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Thursday, 08 May 2008 |
May 21st Meeting of the Boston Final Cut Pro User Group - BOSFCPUG
Join the BOSFCPUG for our Wednesday, May 21st meeting. Special guest Alex Lindsay of Pixelcorps will join us for an evening on Final Cut Studio tips and tricks, podcasting update, and greenscreen workflow. Also joining us will be Peter McAuley of Boris FX for a closer look at the newly released Final Effects Complete 5 FxPlug for Apple Final Cut Studio 2.
MAY BOSFCPUG MEETING When: Wednesday, May 21, 2008 Arsenal Center for the Arts 321 Arsenal Street Watertown, MA 02472 Register NOW for this meeting at: AGENDA:
- "Greenscreen Workflow and tips and techniques on Final Cut Studio"
Alex Lindsay, Pixelcorps
Preso description and bio to be added shortly
- "Final Effects Complete 5 FxPlug for Apple Final Cut Studio 2"
Peter McAuley, Boris FX
 Final Effects Complete 5 FxPlug is a set of 108 visual effects filters re-designed for Apple's FxPlug plug-in architecture, providing seamless integration with Apple Final Cut Pro and Motion. FEC 5 FxPlug adds new support for 16 bit-color processing and takes full advantage of FxPlug for a big performance boost including unlimited RT filters and native Final Cut Pro transitions. The same FEC filters are recognized by Motion and run within Motion's accelerated GPU environment for improved compatibility and flexible workflow. Well known for the unique particle treatments of Mr. Mercury and Bubbles, the creative distortions of Griddler and Flo Motion, the eye-catching, stylized effects of Mr. Smoothie and Glue Gun, and the excellent edge treatments of Sparkle Edges and Wiggle Edges, Final Effects Complete remains the hidden secret behind many award-winning projects.
 About Peter McAuley
Peter McAuley has been involved in the development of state of the art graphics technology for print, video and film since the mid-'90s. Since 1999, he's been a part of the Boris FX team, managing the Boris RED/Graffiti/FX and Continuum product lines.
Prior to working in technology development, he created high-end imagery for print advertising as a production artist in the US and Europe and studied Offset Lithography and Color Theory at Bolton Street College of Technology in Dublin, Ireland. He has worked with filmmaker Hisham Bizri as a colorist, effects artist and consultant on several films and installations, which have been displayed at museums and art-house theaters in the US, Europe and the Middle East. He also enjoys torturing his neighbors with an electric bass, listening to punk, indie, classical and jazz recordings, and watching independent movies.
BIG DIG RAFFLE (to be updated)
- Final Effects Complete 5 FxPlug for Final Cut Studio 2 - BorisFX ($895 value) Plus more to be added shortly WHO SHOULD ATTEND
Video editors, motion graphics professionals, independent filmmakers, wedding video specialists, producers, students, teachers, web masters, nonlinear editing or compositing software users, those who are interested in learning more about digital video on the Macintosh.
Sponsors:
- Apple http://www.apple.com
- Boris FX http://www.borisfx.com
- Boston Final Cut Pro User Group http://www.bosfcpug.org
- JVC http://www.pro.jvc.com
- noisybrain. Productions http://www.noisybrain.com
- Pixelcorps http://www.pixelcorps.com |
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Last Updated ( Saturday, 10 May 2008 )
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Review: Real World Compression by Andy Beach, PeachPit Press |
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Written by Loren Miller
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Friday, 02 May 2008 |
 Real World CompressionBy Andy Beach Peachpit Press, 2008, $44.99 www.peachpit.comA manageable 304 pages, fully illustrated, forms yet another practical guide from Peachpit. Real World Compression guides you through the forest of media architectures and codecs to the nitty gritty of applying them to your own work. New codecs, like Apple’s scalable H.264 and Sorensen Squeeze are explored and Beach doesn’t disappoint. The author is a self-professed geek, starting as a video editor and producer drawn into compression out of need. He keeps this stance firmly in mind as he guides you through productivity tips and best practices in preserving image quality while squeezing as little data as possible through varied delivery pipes. The fact that he isn’t an engineer is a blessing to those of us who need compression solutions with only a small dose of techno-babble. The author also presents compression linked to editing suites like Final Cut Pro, Avid and Premiere Pro as part of the workflow, and no longer the domain of priesthoods. Yet he interviews some of those priests, like Ben Waggoner, who started out at UMass, Amherst, and wrote an encyclopedic book of his own a few years back, and today works for Microsoft evangelizing Windows Media. Beach also interviews himself. Here you’ll get a useful tour of today’s codecs, containers, proprietary and open source players, video standards, compression dynamics—the world you’re working in now. That includes chapters on compressing for DVD’s like Blue-Ray®- apparently the winner in the HD-DVD showdown-- and for the web; for set-top boxes like AppleTV and Xbox; for mobile devices and the like. Hands-on step tutorial recipes give you the flavor of working with many tools available, like Apple’s Compressor, Sorenson Squeeze, done clearly and easily followed. There’s something for every platform and toolset. You’ve spent enough time and money shooting that gorgeous show. Now treat it right. This book affords a broad view of compression and belongs on any producer’s shelf. |
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Last Updated ( Friday, 02 May 2008 )
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Image Doctor 2 by Alien Skin Software |
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Written by Loren Miller
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Tuesday, 29 April 2008 |
 Image Doctor 2Alien Skin Software www.alienskin.com$199.00 Macintosh or Windows Alien Skin, known for its Eye Candy series, makes Photoshop worth owning. For filmmakers who employ stills, Alien Skin offers two important tools: Blowup, which allows you to upscale images to increase resolution without degradation, and Image Doctor 2, to assist in restoring old photos and new JPEG's. Here we examine Image Doctor 2. Image Doctor 2’s Photoshop 5-filter set includes tools for repairing rips, scratches, those annoying dust spots which shimmer and twinkle like stars as you zoom through a rich scan for video import. If you spend hours removing scanned dust spots with conventional Photoshop tools like Brush and Rubber Stamp, ID2 is a godsend. There's a set of tools for digital cosmetology too. Use ID2 to remove unwanted blemishes. Handy for removing that regrettable tattoo from a subject's skin. Image Doctor 2 even has presets to soften the undesirable sheen lighting often adds to skin tone. There are dozens more examples on the Alien Skin website. The toolset is so rich Alien Skin provides its own interactive filter interface. A nice feature is vector-configurable Split View, a before-after display which includes a diagonal divider-- useful for gauging subtle improvements you've made in oddly shaped subjects which don't fall straight vertical or horizontal... sort of like life! You can deploy factory settings for filters or tweak and save them as your own custom settings-- all timesavers and handsomely laid out. The JPEG restoration set will also interest filmmakers who have nothing but JPEG's to animate -- normally this heavily compressed format is poison to video, but the format is everywhere now, with sources coming from digital still cameras and mobile phones. “The Blockies”get deblocked with Image Doctor 2
The most noticeable artifact of JPEG compression is The Blockies. Image Doctor 2 reduces The Blockies. Without ID2 you could spend hours dressing up inferior photos for presentation, flailing about with Gaussian Blur, then Sharpen, then Blur, etc. While a JPEG will never approach the quality of a native Photoshop file or a TIFF of the same size, you get very respectable results. ID 2 improves on the original release's rendering speed and quality, with Mac and Windows multiprocessor capability, a simplified interface, offers new skin enhancement power, and improved JPEG facelifting. Some might consider $199 pricey for a plug-in but if you employ the entire feature set on one job or another, it’s paid for itself. The only downside is backward compatibility. You’ll need a G5 CPU with MacOSX 10.4 or later, and either Adobe’s Photoshop CS2 (9.0.2), Photoshop Elements 4, Corel Paint Shop Pro X2 or Adobe Fireworks CS3 or later to enjoy this cool tool. |
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Last Updated ( Friday, 02 May 2008 )
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Loren S. Miller, a professional film editor, reports on Macintosh tools for designers and filmmakers. Reach him anytime at 
