New Media Center Software Training Sessions this week:

The New Media Center is located on the lower level of the library past the Technology Services desk, next to Media Services. The NMC conducts open workshops on a variety of topics related to multimedia production. These 30 to 60 minute sessions are open to all AU faculty, staff and students with all levels of multimedia production experience. There are usually four or five workshops held each week. There is no fee for these workshops and no RSVP is necessary. Check the NMC calendar for the latest schedule. For more information, contact the NMC staff (202) 885-2560.

Sunday 4/15 at 5pm – Final Cut Pro X: Beginner
Monday 4/16 at 2pm – Video Compression Workshop
Tuesday 4/17 at 12pm –Podcasting 101
Tuesday 4/17 at 4pm – Making Movies in iMovie HD
Wednesday 4/18 at 8pm – Get Started with Photoshop
Thursday 4/19 at 4pm – Color Correction for Video
Friday 4/20 at 12pm – Final Cut Pro 7: Beginner
Saturday 4/21 at 4pm – How to Make a Video

See the complete Spring Training Schedule by date or by topic.

There is a wealth of multimedia training resources available online. AU faculty, staff and students have access to thousands of hours of free training at Lynda.com. Create a personal profile and get started. More information about resources can be found at Multimedia @ AU.

Rear Window TImelapse

Check out this cool timelapse video of Alfred Hitchcock's Rear Window. If you have yet to see this classic, be sure to check it out from the Media Services Home Use Collection.

Rear Window - HU DVD 368

All footage taken from the original Rear Window (1954) directed by Alfred Hitchcock.
The order of events is pretty much as seen in the movie.
more info: jeffdesom.com/hitch/

Hungarian Dance No. 5
composed by Johannes Brahms
arranged for easy listening by Hugo Winterhalter

How to make a movie with your smartphone

Times are changing and it appears that smartphones with video capabilities are continually putting once popular pocket video cameras like the FlipCam, the Kodak ZX1, and the Kodak Zi8 out of business. What better time to hone you smartphone cinematography skills? Check out this cool video about shooting video on your smartphone.
Seen on BBC Future

Are you transitioning from Final Cut Pro 7 to Final Cut Pro X? Check out FCPX.tv

Are you transitioning from Final Cut Pro 7 to Final Cut Pro X? If so, you really ought to check out this website: FCPX.TV

It's a collection of fixes to common problems, as well as how to's and keyboard shortcuts for frequently executed operations in Final Cut Pro 7, so you can now learn how to do those things in Final Cut Pro X. Even if you're not a Final Cut Pro 7 genius transitioning to FCPX, but maybe an iMovie user trying something new, these tips can help you along in your early days with FCPX.

Funny video: Fotoshop by Adobé

Fotoshop by Adobé from Jesse Rosten on Vimeo.

Here's a funny and creative video about the wonders of Photoshop. This is not a real fashion ad, just a funny video with a message created by filmmaker Jesse Rosten.

Check out this Motionographer interview about the creation of the opening titles for The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo

"Girl with the Dragon Tattoo" Title Sequence by Blur from Motionographer on Vimeo.

Check out this great Motionographer article/interview with Blur Studio where they discuss the creation of the opening titles for David Fincher's the Girl with the Dragon Tattoo.

Blur Talks: “The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo” Titles (Posted by Motionographer Staff)

If you haven’t seen Blur’s opening titles for David Fincher’s rendition of Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, now would be a good time to climb out from under your rock and check them out (above).

In addition to listing the top-billed talent in a film, the role of a good opening credit sequence is to mentally prep the audience for the ensuing film. In that regard, Blur’s titles are an exemplary specimen — perhaps the best from 2011. When the final frame flickers past, your heart rate will have doubled and your pupils will have fully dilated. Consider yourself ready.

Blur’s Tim Miller was kind enough to give us some background on the titles and share some making-of videos with us. Make sure to read on past the jump for all the goodies.

I don’t typically think of Blur as a designer of film title sequences, but it seems you guys are making a push to be regarded as much for your design chops as for your animation skills. Is that a fair assumption? What’s the plan?

We’ve always had an inhouse design group, it’s just not a large as the animation/FX side. So we’ve always been in the game. As for movie titles, I would say this was more a project of opportunity than part of some uber-plan. We’ve done other projects with Fincher in the past, and we have several on-going film development projects with him. For what David had in mind for this title, we were just a natural fit.

But with that said we would like to capitalize on the work. We enjoyed the process, and we like to mix it up and do different styles of work. So hopefully there will be other opportunities for us like this. It’s nice to do something that doesn’t have a big explosion, aliens or gunfire for a change. Though, of course, we love all that stuff!

Excerpted from Motionographer

See the rest of the interview, including some additional videos here.

5-min Time-Lapse Video: A Journey Around the World

Time is Nothing // Around The World Time Lapse from Kien Lam on Vimeo.

Photographer Kien Lam created this time-lapse video of his journey around the world. 343 days, 17 countries, 19 airplanes, 58 buses, 18 boats, and 6237 photographs later he had what he needed to create this video, which is less than five minutes long. Every 2 seconds of video consists of approximately 40 – 60 photos.

Discovered at PetaPixel

The Three Keys to Great Audio for Video

Do you want better audio for your video? This might help…

This video shows the three keys to great audio for video. They are:

1. Equipment
2. Placement
3. Monitoring

Excerpted from Izzy Video.

Final Cut Pro X users: Be sure your external drive is formatted for Mac

Any Final Cut Pro X users using their external drive in the lab should be sure it's set for compatibility with Mac, or they risk losing (or being unable to open) their work.

We've had a number of people come into the lab to work in Final Cut X, only to have their projects not work when they return to the lab a second time. As it turns out, FCP X will allow a Windows-formatted drive to create a new event/project, and it may look like it is saving when it's actually not.

It is extremely important to make sure your external hard drives are properly formatted. Any NMC consultant can help you format your drive, but formatting erases anything on the drive at the time of the reformat.

So again; any Final Cut Pro X users using their external drive in the lab should be sure it's set for compatibility with Mac, or they risk losing (or being unable to open) their work.

Noise Reduction in Soundtrack Pro

Are you finding that there is unwanted noise in a portion of your Final Cut Pro video project? This is a problem that's been popping in the New Media Center during this busy time when final project deadlines are approaching. Depending on the depth of your noise problem, here's one method that may work well for you. Check out the video below:

Need that certain shot to improve your video project? Try Stockfootageforfree.com

Stock Footage for Free is a decent site that delivers exactly what it sounds like. Everything is royalty free and monetarily free (you do have to register, however). They have some stuff in HD, as well as a lot in SD. While the selection isn't perfect, hey, it's free. It's great for certain cityscape or wilderness shots, and they even have some time lapses and stuff. It can be great for the starving student who needs that establishing shot, but can't shoot or pay for it.

'Life in a Day': An entire crowdsourced feature film. Watch it for free!

"Life In A Day" project - a part documentary, part home video series created from crowdsourced YouTube clips--is now available to watch for free on YouTube.

The film, directed by Oscar winner Kevin McDonald and produced by multiple Oscar nominee Ridley Scott is stitched together from user-generated content and depicts one day of life on Earth from the perspective of 25 people living on it.

All of the events shown in the movie take place in one 24-hour period on July 24, 2010. According to an article in National Geographic, this particular date was chosen because it was after the World Cup, but before the holidays. More than 80,000 videos of that day containing 4,500 hours of footage were uploaded to YouTube. Every single submission was watched and considered for inclusion. After seven months, McDonald and his crew of editors, researchers, and viewers had managed to turn over 187 days worth of footage into one 90-minute movie. Read more.

As seen on Huffington Post

Life in a Day

Source for original music for projects: Pump Audio

Are you shopping around for some good music for a video project, or are you an independent musician interested in making your music available to others for their projects? You might want to check out Pump Audio.

This site allows you to search through thousands of original music cues and tracks by independent artists. You can choose from lyric or instrumental compositions, in addition to searching by tempo, mood and genre. For a fee, you can license these tracks in perpetuity for your video or audio project.

Founded in 2001, Pump Audio is a new kind of agent for independent musicians, digitally connecting them with buyers in the mainstream media. With Pump Audio, artists can license their music into productions without giving up any ownership, while TV and advertising producers can discover new music ready for use.

With a growing catalog of tens of thousands of songs, all by independent artists from around the world, customers access music through Pump's innovative search software and delivery services, the Soundtrack Service online, and the PumpBox™, which is currently on the desktops of thousands of creative professionals worldwide.

Pump Audio is based in New York's Hudson Valley.

Need to download a video for an editing project? - Try Downloadhelper

Looking for ways to download videos online to your computer for your editing projects? Here's a simple and easy way to do so (via firefox):

- Open your Firefox browser and go to Downloadhelper
-Download the plug-in when prompted.
- Find the video you’d like to download using your Firefox web browser.
- Let it load COMPLETELY.
- A small animation of the plug-in will appear on your toolbar.
- Click and hold down the animation, and a menu will appear.
- Click download, or the format preferred format for your download, and the video will automatically download onto your computer.
- If the file is in a FLV format, you simply need to transcode the file in either MPEG streamclip or VisualHub – both of which can be found in the NMC.