If anyone is familiar with Digital Film Tree, you'll know they accomplished quite a few tasks under their Sunset Boulevard compounds. They're recently working on Anthony Minghella's major motion picture release, "Cold Mountain", edited by Walter Murch. Also to DFT's credit is the brainpower collaboration in the development of the program called, "Film Logic" or as we so well know, "Cinema Tools".
Oh but wait, there's more! DFT is also popular for their in-house training courses in Final Cut Pro and Cinema Tools. Combine this with their other assortment of training videos and you have a powerhouse of instructional know-how. With these kinds of credits to their name, you can rest assured that any training material they produce will be worth its weight in gold!
Welcome "Color Correction for Final Cut Pro" hosted by Steve Martin. There's been a large buzz going around about this DVD and with good reason. So I had to see it for myself! Before I go into the details of the DVD itself, let me just say the packaging of the DVD is great. You wont have to worry about the DVD sliding around lose through the mail. The DVD jewel case utilizes a center-lock mechanism to keep the disk safe and secure even by the harshest of postal field punts. The overall packaging is very nice and professional.
Content is King
One of the first things you'll notice that set this DVD apart from some of the other instructional videos on the market, is the extra bit of time and care they took into making this DVD visually stimulating. With all the verbal content these types of video have, every bit of extra visual eye candy can really make things more interesting. But don't be fooled – just because the gloss is there doesn't mean the content isn't! You win both ways with great visuals and great content.
The DVD opens with a main menu user interface. From there, you can either watch the video from beginning to end, or watch specific chapters for key topics. There are even a couple of extra DVD items to check out.
The video opens with instruction on calibrating your system. I'm extremely happy to see DFT add this to the DVD. What good is color correcting if you're viewing it on a monitor with bogus calibration? To top it off, they give you media on the DVD that you can use in your system to help get your system up to speed. Very nice.
Mirrored personalities
The chapters following the initial calibration chapter get right into color correcting in Final Cut Pro (instruction applies to both FCP 3 and 4). But the buck doesn't stop there. Each chapter in the DVD has associated tutorial material on the DVD to use on your computer system. We're talking media that was shot on film on real projects! Not to mention the FCP projects you get too. So not only do you get video instruction on how to use your tools, you get high quality tutorial examples to help follow the instruction by Steve Martin. Everything is laid out, step-by-step; screen shots of the FCP interface, guided arrows, highlighted areas of the screen, you name it. As the intro of the DVD suggests though, I'd first watch the DVD in its entirety and then go back and run through each chapter step by step with the accompanying tutorial materials.
Steve covers all ground concerning color correction, from reading the multitude of varying scopes (vectorscope, waveform, histogram, parade), reading color bars, maintaining broadcast safety, presenting all the 3-way Color Corrector functions in detail, scene-by-scene methodology, primary versus secondary CC implementation and so much more. In total, there are 41 chapters covering all things CC!
Bottom line
With every review I do, I try to find at least one fault of the product I'm reviewing (unless the faults are obvious). This so people don't think I'm just regurgitating marketing blubber from the product developer. But with this DVD production, I find no faults. In every way, this DVD shines through. The content is top notch, the quality is there, Steve Martin has nice presence, there's extra usable media content and the price is right. Never before have I given a prefect rating for a product because I find it almost impossible to do so. This DVD is a rare exception and I know you'll find great value in its teachings... I did.
I give this DVD 5 out of 5 Cows.
Price:
$69.95 USD - Color Correction for Final Cut Pro DVD
Marco Solorio is a multi-award winning digital media producer in the San Francisco bay area. He owns and operates OneRiver Media, which focuses on producing animated content for broadcast, as well as serving post-production needs for content developers. And of course, Speed Racer is one of his all-time most favorite cartoons.
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FCP Quick Tip - Copy & Pasting Attributes Play Video When editing, speed and accuracy are two things that make a great editor. In this FCP Quick Tip, copying effects from one shot to another might be "common knowledge", but what about having the ability to copy not only effects, but clip attributes as well, and being able to do it in a second. That's a trick that will amaze your clients every time.
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In this review, Los Angeles based director, editor, colorist, and Creative Cow Contributing Editor, David Roth Weiss, takes a look at a product aptly named "Get," from AV3 Software. It's a speech recognition search app for Final Cut Pro editors that will undoubtedly help get your projects completed faster and on the screen sooner.
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Multiclip Editing in Final Cut Pro Play Video Rob Mize demonstrates the use of Final Cut Pro's Multiclip feature to cut or switch the cameras of a multicam shoot in real time. Rob also demonstrates techniques to synchronize the cameras prior to the edit, as well as how to revise and adjust the Multiclip camera selection decisions on the timeline.
In this FCP tutorial, Matt Lyon will provide a step by step guide for fixing a major issue with the way Final Cut Pro imports audio and still image files using a FCP XML file and TextEdit. Incorrectly imported assets can lead to serious problems down the road, especially with Media Manager. Matt also provides a guideline for re-importing audio and still image media correctly, as an alternative to the XML fix.
One of the first things you'll notice that set this DVD apart from some of the other instructional videos on the market, is the extra bit of time and care they took into making this DVD visually stimulating. With all the verbal content these types of video have, every bit of extra visual eye candy can really make things more interesting. But don't be fooled – just because the gloss is there doesn't mean the content isn't! You win both ways with great visuals and great content.
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