iPhone Filmmaking

Recently I have paid attention on those websites and tutorials about “How to shoot and edit nice videos with your iPhone?” Well, this is one of them I’d say “fantastic”. The guy shot and edited a short film with his iPhone 4S, and it looks pretty good in my opinion. There’s another video on how he shot and what did he use for the post-production. Check’em out people.

Remember, the key to make a good video is not on the tools, it’s indeed on the skills.

Future Of The MacPro?

Reblogged from :

From MAC Rumors by Eric Slivka

http://www.macrumors.com/2011/10/31/apple-questioning-the-future-of-its-mac-pro-line/

Apple ‘Questioning’ the Future of its Mac Pro Line? Monday October 31, 2011 1:20 pm PDT by Eric Slivka Late last week, we noted that with pricing information on Intel’s upcoming Sandy Bridge E Xeon processors surfacing, Apple’s options for a potential “Early 2012″ Mac Pro have begun to clear up. The Mac Pro has not been updated since mid-2010, and delays in Intel’s new chips have pushed their availability out from late this year to early next year.

Read more… 320 more words

Very interesting article for all the Mac users… You must read it.

iPhone 4S / Canon 5d MKII Side by Side Comparison

Take a look on this video, the pictures that were shot with the iPhone 4S were quite impressive. With today’s smartphone devices we can shoot HD videos and the quality is pretty good. Remember? Not many years ago we could only use our cell phones (not smartphones, smartphones were not that popular in the early 2000s) to shoot 320×240 frame size videos. Technology has really changed tremendously, and it keeps evolving everyday. Maybe sometime in the future, we wouldn’t have to spend thousands of dollars to buy a pro video camera, an iPhone or a smartphone would fit our needs.

SF Cutters Presents – Steve Martin, CEO Ripple Training & “Reels and Work” @ Apple San Francisco Store

This Friday night at 6:30, come to the Apple Store in Downtown San Francisco (1 Stockton Street) and take part in the event hosted by SF Cutters, the San Francisco Final Cut Pro User Group. Steven Martin, Editor, Producer and Trainer at “Ripple Training” will talk about the new Final Cut Pro X, he’ll also provide a riveting and fast-paced insiders’ view into the new video editing software. Besides the keynote speech, Chet Patterson, Romy Randev, and Melinda James, the members of SF Cutters will present their reels and short films.

This is a free event, everyone is welcome, all you need is to walk into the Apple Store in Downtown San Francisco at 6:30 p.m., this Friday November 18, then watch and listen. Because this is a free event, so the seats are first come first serve. I mean if you want to sit comfortably and listen, I suggest you to come a little early, otherwise, you’ll have to stand.

Let me recap the time and location of the event one more time -

Time: Friday November 18, 6:30 – 8:00 p.m.

Location: San Francisco Apple Store

Address: 1 Stockton Street (link to the map)

Hope to see you there!

http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&source=s_q&hl=en&geocode=&q=Apple+Store,+Stockton+Street,+San+Francisco,+CA&aq=0&sll=37.785843,-122.406406&sspn=0.036155,0.084543&vpsrc=0&ie=UTF8&hq=Apple+Store,+Stockton+Street,&hnear=San+Francisco,+California&t=m&ll=37.785843,-122.406406&spn=0.02035,0.025749&z=14&iwloc=A&output=embed
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Interesting Article – How To Shoot & Edit Video on iPhone

http://www.journalism.co.uk/skills/how-to-shoot-and-edit-video-on-an-iphone/s7/a545443/

Take a look on this article from journalism.co.uk website, it provides a few great tips on how to shoot and edit videos on an iPhone, and more importantly, how to make them look more professional. Of course it can’t be compared to those professional video cameras and editing suites, but it really provides us such a convenience when covering some breaking news stories or something happened unexpected.

You can see a sample video that was shot and edited entirely on iPhone right here, and you can see the picture quality was quite amazing:

Walter Murch On Final Cut Pro X

Motion Or After Effects?

Few days ago, I picked up a tutorial book for Apple Motion and tried to learn some of the basics. To be honest, even though I own the entire Final Cut Studio Suite, besides FCP, I barely used other applications. When I created motion graphics and visual effects for my projects, 99.9% of them were done with After Effects, only one or two were done with Motion, and I used the templates to get them done because I’m not really familiar with Motion.

Many people, as well as many professional websites and blogs are saying Motion is actually much simpler than After Effects, and it’s the best motion graphics and compositing software for those beginners, After Effects is more advanced software, it can do everything that Motion can do, more than that, there are a lot of  third party plug-ins to help me creating cool 3-D like animation and motion graphics.

If you ask me which software I prefer, I would tell you that I like After Effects better, like I was saying After Effects is more advanced with more plug-ins available, I can even have more controls on the effects and animation that I made, creating some more powerful and awesome visual effects for my video projects. Of course, I didn’t mean Motion is not good, Motion is also a good motion graphics software, especially for those who has just starting learning animation and motion graphics design, it is the best software for them. But in my opinion, if you really want to create much higher level and much cooler motion graphics for your creative projects, then After Effects should be your first choice.

Another thought: You could start with Motion first, after learning the basics you could jump into After Effects, and that would be helpful for you as a motion graphics or visual effects artist.

Motion and After Effects, what would you choose?