How Apple's new computers impact filmmaking

The new Macbook Pro and iMac announced by Apple on October 24 heralds a major shift in the way PCs will be designed and have a cumulative impact on digital filmmaking.

Below are some of the major upgrades that affect the digital filmmaking process:

1.    No Optical Drive: Both the new Macbook Pro with retina display and the new iMac have done away with the DVD drive, with Apple calling it  obsolete in the age of blazing broadband speeds when movies and television can be easily streamed online or downloaded. The new iMac does have 2 Thunderbolt ports and 4 USB 3.0 ports to allow connection of external hard drives and other devices. Seeing that Apple is usually the trendsetter in computer design, we can expect competitors like HP and Dell to follow suit. This could spell the death knell for the DVD industry, and moviemakers will now be looking to go completely digital. Of course, home theatre systems and bluray players will ensure that the home video market doesn’t completely evaporate in the near future, but the transition to a more 'online' movie watching experience is surely on its way.  

2.    Much better screen resolutions: The new iMac has a full HD display (1,920 × 1,080 pixels) for the 21.5” version and 2,560 × 1,440 pixel for the 27” version. It certainly translates into a better film/video watching experience and the computer being used for watching movies and gaming more than ever. The Macbook Pro with Retina display boats of a tantalizing 2,560 x 1,600 at 227 pixels per inch. This one has four times the screen resolution of the previous 13-inch version of the MacBook Pro.

3.    Super powerful processors: The new 21.5” iMac starts with a config of Intel Core i5 Quad Core 2.7 Ghz Processor with 8GB RAM , 1GB dedicated NVIDIA graphics and 1TB hard disk. Even the Macbook Pro with Retina display is all about performance, speed and graphics. It boasts of an Intel dual-core i5 Ivy Bridge processor clock at 2.5 Ghz (minimum) For graphics it has the Intel HD 4,000 graphics support. The RAM is 8 GB and its all-flash storage has three configurations available: 256 GB, 512 GB, or 768 GB. Such top-end configurations in the base models bode well for popular film editing applications like Final Cut Pro.  Apple will be looking to release an even more powerful version of its flagship video editing app to utilize the full potential of its new line of computer devices.

The rise of smartphones and tablets coupled with faster broadband speeds have already given a fillip to the various kinds of digital filmmaking, both in terms of production and post production.  Apple’s new line of smart computers will be prove to be another turning point, particularly because the optical drive has been dropped across its iMac and Macbook Pro ranges.

What do you think of Apple’s new devices, and their potential impact on filmmaking?

Final Cut Pro X released

Apple has released Final Cut Pro X, the latest version of its professional video-editing software and one of the most popular programs for digital filmmaking.
Its actually been two days since FCP X was launched, and of course there’s been a strong buzz about it in the market. Video professionals were not only impressed with the new features, but with the new price too. Final Cut Pro X is available in the Mac App Store for $299.99. Compare that to 2009, when the fully loaded Final Cut Studio retailed for $999.99.

Final Cut Pro X is a big update for the powerful editing suite, in no small part because it is now (finally) built with 64-bit support. That means that the app will be able to take advantage of the additional memory space in Mac OS X Snow Leopard and the upcoming Mac OS X Lion.

Installing Final Cut Pro X
Since the only way to get Final Cut Pro X is through the Mac App Store, installation is easy: You just click "Buy" in the store, and the app's icon appears in your Finder, ready to run. You'll be able to install it on five Macs, and you receive updates automatically. The program requires at least a Core 2 Duo-based Mac running Snow Leopard, a decent video processor, 2.4GB of disk space, and 2GB RAM (4GB recommended).

The big new feature is called the Magnetic Timeline, which takes a trackless approach to editing. Like Adobe, Apple has also put a lot of effort into what it calls Content Auto-Analysis, which is another way of saying that the software uses meta-tags to better organize and import content, based on shot type, media format and other information.

Check out this video Apple released to show off the new features in Final Cut Pro X:

Synchronizing Camera Angles by Timecode in FCP

In Final Cut Pro, an alternate way to sync clips of a multi-camera production is to use timecode as a reference. When clips share the same timecode, you don't have to set an In point to sync them together. A timecode number in one clip should identify the same action in an event as that same timecode number in a different clip. The method of switching and cutting angles in the multiclip is the same, no matter how the clips are synchronized.

1. In the Browser, Ctrl-click the Sequences bin and choose New Sequence from the shortcut menu. Name this sequence Timecode, and open it in the Timeline.
Each new sequence you create contains the same PAL settings you chose from the Easy Setup window earlier in this lesson.

2. Hide the contents of the Audio Pops bin, and display the contents of the Timecode bin.

3. Double-click the Gilly_cu clip, and play from the beginning of the clip. When Gilly steps up to the mic to start singing, stop the clip and look at the timecode number in the Current Timecode field in the Viewer.




4. Open a few other clips from the Timecode bin and compare the timecode numbers at the location where Gilly starts to sing.

The same timecode number in all of these clips identifies the same event or clip location. For this group of clips, you can synchronize by timecode, even though they don't all start or stop on the same frame.

5. To make a multiclip of all the clips in the Timecode bin, Ctrl-click the bin and choose Make Multiclip from the shortcut menu.

6. In the Make Multiclip window, click the Synchronize Using pop-up and choose Timecode as the sync option.


The blue bars of each angle reposition to align the clips by timecode. Notice how the blue bars seem to cover the same relative area. They were taken from the same portion of the song but are not exactly the same length.

7. Click OK. In the Timecode bin, rename the new multiclip Timecode, and double-click to open it in the Viewer.

8. In the Viewer button bar, click the Show Multiclip Overlays button to toggle off the overlays in this multiclip.


9. In the Viewer, click the View pop-up and choose Multiclip 9-Up from the pop-up menu to see all the multiclip angles. Play this portion of the music video.


10. To edit this multiclip, use the same process you used with the Audio Pops multiclip. Start by changing the sync to Video+Audio and selecting the CD Track - Timecode clip. Then change the sync to Video and select the first video angle. Set an In point and an Out point where the angles are all in view, and edit the multiclip to the Timeline.

11. To see the clips play in the Viewer as you play the sequence, click the Playhead Sync pop-up, and choose Open from the menu, or press Shift-Ctrl-O. This will allow you to see the angles as you play and cut in real-time.

At this point, you can edit these clips as you did in previous exercises: either by moving the playhead to an exact edit location and cutting to a new angle, or by cutting live.

NOTE
If you are using a laptop or slower computer, this nine-clip multiclip may play slowly.
Digital Filmmaking is the way to go...

Online Video Using iWeb and Final Cut Pro

If you have a .Mac account you can put a video from Final Cut Pro online with iWeb in a few steps. This is a great way to allow a client to preview a video without much effort. Making the site secure for only the client to be able to view the page is as simple as setting a login and password in iWeb before publishing.

To prepare a video for iWeb with Final Cut Pro, use the Quicktime Conversion Export option in Final Cut Pro. Selecting the iPhone Format option will compress the video to a 480x360 mpeg4 movie. The other preset mpeg4 format option in the Quicktime conversion is the iPod seting, which will output a 640x480 mpeg4 movie. Both of these options will produce an iWeb compatible video.

Starting a New Site with a blank page and dragging the MPEG4 video on the page is essentially all you need to do. It is very typical that you will get a warning saying that the file is too large, but I have yet to not be able to upload a video. There are a few minor options like adding the password protection that you can do, but for the most part all you have to do is publish the site to your .Mac account. If you intend on leaving the page up for a while you can set a domain to point to the .Mac link.

Source: GeniusDV