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7 Ideas for a greener PostOp

Philip — Thu, 11 Sep 2008 02:26:49 +0000

Now that we’ve gone green here at 622, I was thinking, what can we do here at PostOp beyond what’s expected? To be honest, I’ve been waiting to write this missive for quite sometime, but now with ME’s move to green, I feel compelled to finally get this down on paper, aahhh…I mean blog.

So beyond recycling of bottles, cans and white paper, what can we do? Here are my ideas:

1. If you don’t use it, turn it off, If you do use it, turn it off when you’re done. I shut down my system every night along with the rack that holds the decks. On Fridays, I shut down the client iMac and the decks in the rack in the hallway, along with the NTSC monitor. If you’re the last to leave for the night or the weekend, take a look around and turn off any lights or equipment that doesn’t need to be on overnight.

2. Before you burn that CD/DVD, make sure the client won’t accept a digital file. Often times quicktimes or mpeg files can be copied to the drop box for viewing or sending. If they don’t know how to get on the drop box, show them. If they still want the disc, have them check your work before burning. How many times do we burn a disc only to have to burn again because the client made a change or god forbid we made a mistake. If I’m authoring a DVD with a menu, I’ll send a still image of the menu to the client to get approval before burning. This helps to avoid unnecessary burns. If you do have a disc that’s no good for whatever reason, don’t throw it out. Save it and give it to me. I’ve been collecting all my “coasters” to send off to be recycled.

3. Think before you print. Do you really need to print out that email or script or can you forward it or just keep it open in a window and refer to it when needed during the job?

4. Save your extra plasticware, napkins, chopsticks from all the lunch and dinner deliveries. Don’t just throw away unused stuff into the trash. Best choice would be to bring your own silverware or plasticware and reuse each time. Did your food come in plastic containers? Consider taking home to reuse with you or cleaning and putting in recycling bin.

5. Reuse any white paper for notes or scrap paper. There’s usually a whole other side out there! Once both sides are used, then throw it into the recycle bin.

6. Keep the sliding glass doors in the hallways closed along with the dub room door. Think you’ve heard this one before but not from this perspective.

7. Print labels? Well we know we can’t print to just one label or print to previously printed label sheets, so if you only need 1 DVD label, make sure you’re not printing to the other 2 labels on the page. This way you won’t waste the other 2 labels. You can always use the remaining blank labels for handwritten labels.

I’m sure there are other ways we can save the world here at PostOp. What are your thoughts and ideas?

FCP Rescue: Here to save the day

Philip — Mon, 08 Sep 2008 14:58:28 +0000

FCP Rescue is an indispensable tool I’ve been using for years and I recommend for anyone using Final Cut Pro. It makes the task of trashing and restoring your preferences easy and painless. There are versions for FCP 4, 5 & 6 and yes it’s FREE! Of course like any freeware, if you use it, consider a donation to developer Anders Holck.

Converting PAL to NTSC and NTSC to PAL in Final Cut Studio

Philip — Wed, 27 Aug 2008 02:05:05 +0000

Here’s a great tutorial from Macworld on PAL and NTSC conversions in Final Cut Studio using Compressor and Cinema Tools. I’m going to try these methods tomorrow. I saw pretty good results just letting Final Cut Pro do the conversion but it wasn’t perfect. Will post my results once I’ve had the chance to try it.

Macworld | Send video abroad

Turn your letterboxed 4:3 files into 16:9

Philip — Tue, 05 Aug 2008 19:39:58 +0000

We all know how cool MPEG Streamclip is and how we couldn’t live without it. But did you ever wonder what those settings for Zoom and X/Y were down at the bottom of the settings box? Turns out if you know what you’re doing you can use those settings to crop the letterbox on a 4:3 file and output a 16:9 file. Nice little trick if you ever need it.

Finishing projects 16×9 vs. 4×3

Philip — Thu, 31 Jul 2008 15:38:39 +0000

More and more of the work we do, especially pitches, rips etc. will be shown on LCD or Plasma screens. Since these screens are in a 16×9 format, it makes sense for us to consider this when starting a project. So before starting an edit I would recommend trying to get the answer to the question, “What kind of screen will this be shown on?”. This was recently the case for an Army project I worked on.

If you have a Hi-Def TV at home you’ll wince at the times you see all those 4×3 letterboxed commercials running on HD channels. They look like a postage stamp lost in a mass of black screen.

That’s alot of black space. So if your source material consists of lots of letterboxed 4×3 sources the result would be what you see above. In a 16×9 sequence you could scale this video to fill the entire screen and not lose any picture.

As far as regular fullscreen 4×3 content you may have only one choice and that is to keep it 4×3 and have pillar bars on the left and right.

If you were to scale this video to fill the screen you’d lose picture on the top and bottom.

Two other approaches to dealing with the black space with 4×3 footage is to put it the shot(s) on top of a upscaled and blured version of the same shot. This is a common technique you see use with sports and news.

Or lastly, you can use any image or graphic to fill the black space. You could even have something designed specifically for the project. Here I just used a still of camouflage.

So don’t forget to ask the question where the finished video will play before you start the project. It will save you headaches and also give you a better looking video in the end.

Los Angeles Final Cut Pro User Group

Philip — Wed, 30 Jul 2008 16:58:25 +0000

Here’s a site I go to often for forums, reviews, tutorials. When I lived in LA I used to attend their meetings. Check it out if you want to learn something or visit the forums if you’re having a specific issue you want an answer to.

Los Angeles Final Cut Pro User Group

Ten Tips For A Better Final Cut Pro Experience

Philip — Wed, 30 Jul 2008 16:11:03 +0000

Ten Tips For A Better Final Cut Pro Experience

Here are some great tips. I like the first one because it’s definitely something I didn’t know and will use from now on. I’ve already re-mapped by keyboard.