Mrs. Halquist’s 3D Animation and my Advanced AV courses were invited to the 2011 Lake Arrowhead Film Festival. As we entered the building, Mr. Larry Parker met us at the door and had a “campfire” discussion about the festival and Film Schools. He invited us to visit his studio in Hollywood. We were blown away. So, Mrs. Halquist and Mrs. Phillips expedited a way for our classes to go on a field trip.

We were welcomed at Mole-Richardson Studios with warmth and energy. We learned about lighting, production, history of film, and so much more. Below are short videos in Vimeo we produced from an on-the-fly hands-on exercise: The “Making Of” and “One Halloween Night.” We still have 5 hours of footage left for editing lighting lessons. Be sure to click on the best quality when viewing them. The original web page from our school is here.

One Halloween Night

One Halloween Night HD from Joe Urbz on Vimeo.

The Making Of:

Making Of "One Halloween Night" from Joe Urbz on Vimeo.

Tags: Editing, FCPX, Mole-Richardson Studios, Rim of the World High School, ROP

Our classroom has used FCPX for finishing the past five episodes of Rim Today, plus four other major projects. We used a Core i5, 8 RAM, 2TB iMac to test a lot of these projects. FCPX has done quite well. I will say that the most often cause of “unexpected quits” happens during the editing of titles -- if you save your attributes and use copy & paste from TextEdit, it works much better. We have found some bugs that are consistent, but the workarounds are minimal. Over the past two weeks, we have installed X, Motion 5, and Compressor on additional iMacs for other students to work with. Giving them small exercises and concise training seems to be the best practice in learning this new system. Stating that, many students from my regular TV-Video classes use iMovie already, so the transition of Events and Projects is easier than teaching those who love their Final Cut Pro 7 workflow. We have NOT abandoned Final Cut Studio 3 and supporting software. I want to be clear about that. However, there is a good, solid underlying excitement in trying something new. We have been pretty pleased so far.

I have posted some new help articles in our Forum. Check them out. In addition, I have been watching all the discussion from Walter Murch’s views on FCPX from the Boston Supermeet and subsequent follow-up interviews. Some other excellent resources for more FCPX and Motion 5 effects (many of them free) are here. I know Red Giant posted some news about Magic Bullet Looks, and GenArts Sapphire Edge is out.

Any thoughts on the new Canon dSLR C-300 camera for $20K? or the new RED Scarlet?

Last comment: I have setup a Google+ page for this website. Give us a visit!

Go Chicago Bears tonight on Monday Night Football!

Tags: Editing, Rim of the World High School, Rim Today, FCPX

This past Halloween, I asked my brother Jeff to attempt some long exposure photos of our parents’ crazy Halloween Home exhibition. I had an idea what I was hoping for, which was to create a picture that would “immortalize” what our folks do year in and year out. Jeff originally responded with his point & shoot philosophy. I encouraged him with some ISO changes and other technical aspects, like using a tripod and remote. Suffice it to say, he came through and I processed the photos in Aperture 3 (with NIK and Topaz plugins). Well, here are some of those that worked out: SmugMug. I love when collaboration works out.

Since then, I knew what to give Jeff for Xmas: a SmugMug account to post his work for everyone to see! So go visit and enjoy his photos. He has also started a Google+ account. Give him some +1’s.

Tags: Google+, SmugMug, Photography