THE “31 YEARS” VIDEO

When Apple released it’s latest editing software, Final Cut Pro X, a few months ago I knew that it couldn’t handle several of the editing tasks that I frequently use such as multi-clip editing and multiple audio tracks. Apple is a great company and is already adding important features to FCPX, but some upcoming jobs will require more than it can deliver today. What do we do now? Adobe will never abandon their pro customers.

Switching to Adobe is easier for a photographer than it is for a video professional. Many of the tools that I use in Photoshop are in Production Premium’s editing programs. The key to switching to Adobe was their motion graphics program, After Effects. I’ve used Apples Motion in the past but it only took a month working with a trial version of After Effects to get hooked on this software. I did tutorials on Adobe’s web site, videocopilot.com, Creativecow.com and Lynda.com. Then I dove into my first AE project.

After a week of tutorials, my first After Effects project took 5 weeks to complete, learning as I crept along. Armed with more than 30 pages of notes, and frequent return visits to the above mentioned web sites, I created a 4 minute video showcasing my 31 years in photography (and video). I learned as I stumbled along, and I do mean stumble. I used many of the basic animation techniques, a few advanced techniques, and set most of the keyframes manually. There are a few gotchas in AE, and rendering is like watching paint dry. This is the worst part of working in AE. The solution is to set your work area to each 12 second part of the composition and render at 1/2 resolution. The quality is good enough to judge the motion and timing of the composition. The light comes on when you finally get your head into 3D space and see your layers, text and backgrounds like you are right there inside the monitor. Then you move layers in Z space, add a couple lights, cast shadows, and move your camera in X, Y, and Z space. If you are lucky and the phone doesn’t ring while your head is in 3D space you can finish the 5 second section of video in about an hour (for a rookie). This video has 167 layers! I exported a Quick Time movie at full res (1920 x 1080) in the Apple Pro Res 422 codec so that I could mix the 10 audio tracks in Final Cut 7 because I was already familiar with this program and AE is not a good audio editor.  (no time to learn Premiere Pro yet). Sound effects were picked from Soundtrack Pro and the music, Unlucky,  was purchased from Footagefirm.com.

It took 3 days to locate, scan, copy and re size old tear sheets to make digital files and maybe another day to locate digital files of photos and video on a few archived hard drives. And, since I’ve kept at least one of each model camera that I’ve ever owned (except for the 4×5 view camera), I included most of them in the video. I will be exploring many more special effects in After Effects for future videos.

Watch the video.

Are you looking for a solution to archiving and retrieving your video files?

I found a docking station that solves many of my media backup problems. The Voyager Q from Newer Technology is a flexible, easy to use docking solution that will save you time and money. You can get it from Other World Computing (OWC) for $84. It’s as easy to use as a CF or SD card reader and it will hold 2.5″ or 3.5″ SATA drives. The Voyager Q connects to your computer via USB2, FW400, FW800 or eSATA.

Simply plug in your new SATA drive and it will prompt you to erase/format the drive which I did to Mac OS Extended (Journaled), named it and started copying files to it. Now I can replace the filled drives in my Mac Pro (Bay 3 and 4) with new ones. When I need to access the videos stored on the original SATA drives I will simply plug the drive into the Voyager Q and I can edit directly through the Voyager as it is connected through a FW 800 cable. No need to install the drive into an enclosure.

Pic up a few anti static bags where you buy your hard drives and store your original and backup drives in different locations.

Newer Tech also makes a docking station for USB3.0.

Nikon, Thanks for a wonderful 30 year career! You have been the most dependable things that I’ve ever owned. However, as I begin my 4th year in video production the right choice was to invest in Canon cameras and lenses. This one system will produce top quality photographs as well as 1080 P HD video. The Canon 5D Mark II has a 21 megapixel CMOS censor. This is sharper than film! And, the incredible video quality has rocked the industry. It has been used in feature films and for HD television broadcasts like the Fox network’s House. This is a creative rebirth for me in both photography and video.

If you are looking for rustic locations for photoshoots be careful when you are close to the border. I recently drove 35 miles south of Phoenix and stopped at an old gas station along route 8 about 29 miles west of Casa Grand (I-10). We were about 65 miles north of the Mexican border. The rustic weathered gas tanks were the perfect background for these portraits of my 2 kids. Little did I know I was putting them in danger. 2 vigilantes from the Arizona Civil Sentinels approached us and told us that 3 people had been shot in this area lately. Their web site says this about the route 8 corridor: “This is an area where there have been at least 14 confirmed shootings involving illegal smugglers, and American citizens.” They warned us to leave the area before sunset.

CBS News reported on October 14th, “The department of homeland security has learned that the drug cartels are sending hit men to Vekol Valley to shoot bandits who are stealing drugs from the drug smugglers entering Arizona from Mexico. The Vekol Valley is a major drug smuggling corridor.

The above photos were taken 5 miles from Vekol Valley. Next time We’ll head north for rustic locations.

Photoshop CS5 Extended is a powerful tool for photography and video. Some of the new features are huge time savers for retouchers. Other features greatly expand the creative capabilities for the working pro. I am thrilled to have another way to create photographic images properly formatted for a video or a DVD menu, and to create 3D graphics with animation to be exported to Final Cut Pro.

The Content -Aware feature allows us to delete an object from a photo and recreate the background in one move. This used to take much longer to re-draw the background manually.

Puppet Warp is a powerful tool and lots of fun to use as you can see in the basketball photo of my son, Justin (below). I can now bend an object with or without distortion, (i.e. I can reposition arms and legs).

Adobe Raw has improved controls to eliminate color and luminance noise in photos shot at high ISOs like indoor basketball and dusk architectural shots.

3D and Animation: I am most excited about creating 3D effects from text or objects. I can then animate the different layers in a PSD and even add camera moves. The files can be exported to Final Cut Pro. The cloud photo (above) is a still image pulled from the animation.

HDR Pro I have not used yet in CS 5 but I will try it soon. My 3 architectural shoots were done with Photomatix Pro for merging the bracketed exposures and tonemapping. I would then bring the flat image into Photoshop for curves adjustments and overall enhancing.

Large video and photo files have created the need for safe, no-hassle backup of data. I am going with the Drobo, a 4 bay external unit from Data Robotics. Each bay can hold any manufacturer’s 3.5″ SATA drive of any capacity. That’s right, they don’t have to match. It uses their own “BeyondRAID” disk management system. I will start with two 1TB Western digital drives. If one drive fails my data is backed up. When I add a third drive I will be covered in the event of two drives failing. If my storage needs grow suddenly I can install four 2 TB drives for a total storage of 8 TB.
The Drobo connects with FW 800. Setup and management of data is simple. For larger storage needs look at the DroboPro. It has 8 bays.

You are putting together a multimedia presentation. You need photos, some video, the perfect song and you need to record a voice over. Oh, and you like that Ken Burns effect. Would you think to call your photographer? You should.
Call one vendor. Explain your goals one time and let us assemble your presentation.

It’s a new world out there. We’re making it easier for you.

Combined experience for Frank Salle and John Trotto:
Photography – 55 years, Yikes, that’s a lot of pixels!
Video – 13 years

The Ken Burns effect is the panning or zooming in or out on a still image to create motion when there is none. Ken Burns is the award winning filmmaker whose recent work, The National Parks, runs on PBS.
Searching for music can be very tedious and expensive. We have many sources to find you the right music for the right price. If you stay away from current, popular music ($15,000/song) we can find your song for $40 – $60 dollars.
Resizing the pixel aspect ratio of your stills takes some knowledge of both Photoshop and Final Cut Pro so they won’t distort.

Assembling all of this in Final Cut Pro provides much more creative freedom than other editing software.

Designers, photographers and videographers, anyone up for getting smarter? You can learn from schools, seminars, webinars or books. I’ve done them all, most recently I’ve used the books from the Apple Pro Training Series and Adobe Press (pictured below) along with a few other books on cinematography and video production.   I prefer the self-paced learning from books.  This method fits around my work and family schedule. I’ve ordered most of them from Peachpit Press.

Being a visual person, I remember more of what I see than what I read. So, I recently tried the video tutorials from Lynda.com. The instructors explained everything in a clear, concise way, and, unlike college, when your mind wanders you can just scrub the video back and play it again or pause the video if you are an avid note taker like I am. I’ve used Lynda.com for Apple’s Motion 3 and Color. Now I feel more comfortable diving into the complexities of 3D motion graphics.

It can cost as little as $25 per month or pay for a year, $250, and you can download the files used in the lessons. Check it out. You will be amazed at how many tutorials there are.

So, here’s to more brain power: www.lynda.com

Although I don’t promote myself as a product photographer, My knowledge of lighting and Photoshop enable me to produce high end product ads like this one for Alford & Hoff, cologne for men. The bottle was back lit on a white background, then stripped out and added to the brown background which is simply a photo of the product packaging that was enlarged and diffused. This way a customer can recognize the box in a store without showing the box in the ad. In Photoshop I created the reflection on the tabletop. The color, full-page ad is running in in the USA Today in New York, Chicago and LA. See more product photography.