Just saw WALL-E with my son, and in typical Pixar fashion, it is awesome!

Two quick things I found hilarious for the Mac-Geeks out there.

First, there is a character in the film called Auto, who is an auto-pilot robot for the ship. The character’s voice is done by Macintalk, the speech synthesizer included with the Mac back in 1984. It sounded familiar, and I confirmed it as the “actor credit” actually appears at the end of the film.

Second, there is a scene where WALL-E reboots... and yes, it is the Macintosh startup chime that you hear. I found myself laughing out loud (and I think I was the only one within 20 rows of me who got the joke (geek!).

My last home before Washington, DC was Des Moines, IA. A lot of friends and colleagues have been affected by devastating floods that most have overlooked. The short version, floods worse than Hurrican Katrina have been battering the Midwest... few have noticed.

One of my favorite bands, the Nadas, has an online album to raise awareness and funds.

River Songs - Authentic Records' Flood Relief Benefit Bootleg

Contribute to United Way of Central Iowa's flood relief fund while reliving some of your favorite moments from Authentic Records Authentic Records' Flood Relief Benefit on Sunday, June 22. Please pay what you can for this exclusive download. All proceeds benefit United Way of Central Iowa.
1. Barkers Beauty - Fat Andy
2. Come Lay Down - She Swings, She Sways
3. Promise - Benjamin Wagner
4. The Friday Night Fight - Brother Trucker
5. Angels & Devils - Tony Bohnenkamp
6. Feel Like Home - The Nadas
7. Templeton Rye - The Nadas
8. The River - The Nadas

The download is free, but donations matter. Do what you can.

Here are a few of my favorite resources for Photoshop Actions. These save time and make you look good.

Tools for Television – Want to automate standard video graphics production tasks? Then check out Tools for Television’s Photoshop Toolbox for video-friendlyactions at http://www.toolsfortelevision.com.

Action FX – For complex text and special effects, check out the excellent site http://www.actionfx.com. There are several free actions as well as some to purchase.

Photoshop Video Actions – Upgraded to CS2 or CS3? Then be sure to check out the built in Video Actions that I authored with
Dan Brown for some timesaving automation tools.

PanosFX – A newer site that is really becoming one to watch isPanosFX (http://www.panosfx.com). This site has some incredible free actions as well as some very affordable and powerful tools for sale.

Adobe Exchange – If you’re not in a position to purchase add-ons to your system, there’s oneincredible free resource worth mentioning. With the release of Photoshop 5.5, Adobe launched a Web site originally called Action Xchange where users could share their actions; see http://www.adobe.com/exchange.

A new bill has been introduced into congress that would target accessibility of web video. The "21st Century Communications and Video Accessibility Act of 2008" (H.R. 6320) covers about a dozen areas. The proposed law has Internet video captioning requirements.

Eighteen months after its enactment, the Federal Communications Commission must set up regulations and deadlines for "an appropriate schedule of deadlines for the provision of closed captioning of video programming distributed to the public over the Internet."

Three kinds of video would be affected:

• Material that has already been captioned for TV viewing
• Live programming
• Video that is "generally considered to be comparable to programming provided by multichannel programming distributors."

It is point three that is sticky. A whole lot of podcasts fall into this category. Closed captioning and transcriptions cost.... many podcasters see little if any profit from their shows. Always nice when congress sticks its nose in the Internet.

How about instead of sending money to worthless causes... they actualy fund this requirement.

Too many tracks in your Timeline, and you want to scroll up and down quickly? No need to grab the scroll bar on the right edge if you have a three-button mouse. Put the cursor over the Timeline, and use the third button to scroll up and down. It gets better; hold down the Shift key and you can scroll left and right (if you’re using an Apple Mighty Mouse, just scroll). Don’t stop now—place the cursor over the Viewer or Canvas, and you can scrub backward and forward. If you aren’t impressed yet by Apple’s thoughtful engineers, go try these shortcuts in a bin, on effect sliders, and even in the audio mixer.



Like this tip? It comes from the book
Final Cut Studio On the Spot from Focal Press.

Just a reminder that I'll be speaking at this year's New Media Expo in Las Vegas. The event runs August 14-16 and I hope you can come out. My class is called:

Producing Video Podcasts with Multiple Cameras
Want to cut down editing time and give your show more polish? Learn how to create video podcasts using multiple cameras. Join veteran podcaster Richard Harrington as he shows how to harness multiple angles to improve your show. From concerts and live events to demos and interviews, multiple cameras will help you tell your story. Learn how to setup and match your cameras as well as essential editing techniques. This workshop will make multi-camera productions a snap.

Join Apple Certified Trainer Abba Shapiro as he shows you how to make a menu in DVD Studio Pro.



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Want more training? Check out our DVDs.

Looking for an easy to way add backgrounds, textures and other elements to your project without having to break the bank on expensive stock animation libraries? Fortunately the wonderful folks at Apple understand. Motion ships with tons of free content that you can use in your projects (all of it royalty-free).

1. To access this content from inside Motion choose the Library tab in the Utility pane (Command + 2).
   2 Then choose the Content folder from the list.
   

Welcome to the world of free content!



Like this tip? It comes from the book
Final Cut Studio On the Spot from Focal Press.

Author and video podcaster Richard Harrington explains how and why you might want to use or not use your cameras video tally lights on your next shoot.

Join Apple Certified Trainer Richard Harrington as he explains the best Final Cut Pro sequence settings for use with color correction.



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Want more training? Check out our DVDs.

One of the coolest new features in Motion 3 is the ability to use the Paint Stroke Tool to do a very cool write on effect. While there are lots of ways to customize this effect, lets take a look at the basics.

1. Select the Paint Stroke Tool (P).
   2 Make sure your HUD is active (F7). From here you can choose several options, such as brush color, width, pen pressure and pen speed (yes, this works with graphics tablets).
2. At the bottom of the HUD there is a pull-down for shape style. Here you can choose dozens of different pre-built shape styles for the Paint Stroke Tool. Be sure to check out the very cool light strokes and organic elements.
   4 To really get the effect right, make sure the check box for Write On is checked.
3. Draw your stroke.
4. Play back your Timeline and watch this ultra-cool effect.
   

Like this tip? It comes from the book
Final Cut Studio On the Spot from Focal Press.

There’s been a lot of ho-hum reviews on the Apple TV… too much of this, not enough of that… but these have all been focussed on the consumer space and the living room.  What I’m here to tell you is why video pros should care about the Apple TV (and why we swear by it in my shop).  Here are a few reasons we use Apple TV at my shop, RHED Pixel.

Read More...

Instructor Richard Harrington shows you how to harness the white balance command in Aperture to improve an image.



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Instructor Richard Harrington shows you how to use a patterned image to degrade the edges of your text for a unique text effect in Photoshop.

Author and video podcaster Richard Harrington explains why he recommends shooting your video podcast in 24p (or 24 frames per second, progressive).

Join Apple Certified Trainer Richard Harrington as he explains how to best set up your edit suite to create the ideal environment for color correction.



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Want more training? Check out our DVDs.

It’s not unusual for your skies to be washed out. This is often a problem, because video doesn’t offer the same dynamic range as film (the difference between darks and highlights). Fortunately, Final Cut Pro allows you to isolate the color correction, so you can achieve a fix just to the problem area.

1. Apply the Color Corrector 3-way filter, and access the filter’s visual controls.
2. Using the Select Color eyedropper in the Limit Effect controls, select the desired color you’d like to keep.
3. Click the key icon to view the matte. Use the Select Color eyedropper while holding down the Shift key to add to the matte. You can click in the Viewer or Canvas window.
4. Finesse the matte by adjusting the Width and Softness sliders for the Chroma, Saturation, and Luma values in the Limit Effect controls. When the desired color is clearly selected, there will be no holes in your matte. Also, adjust the Softening slider to improve the matte. You may get a better matte by using fewer limiting ranges.
5. Click the key icon twice to toggle back to View Final.
6. Adjust the color balance wheels and saturation of the shot.

You may need to add a second color corrector to finesse the scene or isolate another problem area.


Like this tip? It comes from the book
Final Cut Studio On the Spot from Focal Press.

Author and video podcaster Richard Harrington explains how you can take your wireless broadband card and share that internet connection with others on location.

I often find I have too much information to remember (and for some reason people expect me to be able to spout pixel aspect ratio numbers like a multiplication table). Fortunately the fine folks over at Digital Rebellion has solved this (and for free). They offer several video widgets that do important math, these run on a web browser or iPhone (and a couple can run offline as well).


Video Footage Calculator – Calculates how much storage you'll need for your footage type and duration.
Web – iPhone version – Offline version

Film Rate Calculator – Determines how much film you need for a particular scenario.
Web – iPhone version – Offline version

Aspect Ratio Calculator – Determines the aspect ratio for different footage formats.
Web – iPhone version

Depth of Field Calculator – Calculates depth of field for many camera sensors.
Web – iPhone version

Pixel Aspect Ratio Calculator – Determines relationship of Pixels for many digital formats.
Web – iPhone version

Lens Angle Calculator – Helps calculate the lens angle for a given sensor size and focal length.
Web – iPhone version

Power Load Calculator – Calculates the load on a circuit to see if it is excessive. You can also calculate the minimum circuit breaker size for the given load.
Web – iPhone version

These tools are cool, free, and useful.... three points that make them a must have for my iPhone.