A trainer that I respect a great deal has released a free tutorial. Mark Spencer offers a free tutorial on Motion Control effects with photos:

“Animating photos is a staple effect pioneered by celebrated documentarian Ken Burns. In this tutorial Mark Spencer shows you why you should be doing these types of effects in Motion rather than Final Cut Pro.”

Click here to watch Mark's tutorial

Caught a great presentation from Steve Martin at NAB. It's all about using Production Premium with other NLEs like Final Cut Pro. Steve is a popular trainer (in fact one of Apple's main instructors). This one is helpful...



If you want more free classes... visit the Adobe TV site.

Want 30 minutes of free training on Adobe Photoshop CS3? Adobe had me in their theater at NAB giving lessons. Here's a recording from one of the days so you can see what was taught.



If you want more free classes... visit the Adobe TV site.

Thanks to the School of Podcasting for having us on the show. I had a chance to catch up and talk with the host about what folks need to think about when moving into the world of video podcasting. The interview also features my co-author (and business partner) Mark Weiser.

You can get the interview for free right here (http://www.schoolofpodcasting.libsyn.com/index.php?post_id=330803) and you should also check out their other shows which offer great perspective.

Author and video podcaster Richard Harrington shows you the china ball, an affordable soft lighting source.

Apple iTunes just promoted my company to network status. You can find all of our "in-house" technical training podcasts on a single page now.

I encourage you to take a look at our several shows.

• Understanding Adobe Photoshop – iPod and HD – A general interest show about Photoshop for beginners and intermediates
• Photoshop for Video – iPod and HD – A show about creating graphics for video pros and motion graphic designers
• Producing Video Podcasts – iPod and HD – A show that offers both production and post tips for making video for the web
• Final Cut Help – iPod – Weekly tips about using Final Cut Studio

Remember, the podcasts are totally free, all we ask is you post a review to the iTunes store and tell a friend.

Thanks to all the great people who attended my classes at NAB this year. It was a ton of work to prep (and I must admit I needed some rest when I got back home). As promised, the class notes and resources have been posted to the Handouts section (be sure to browse for other resources as well).

Here's the list of what's available.

01 Fast Start with Adobe Photoshop for Video Pros – Slides | Book Sample
02 Video Podcasting Essentials – Slides
03 Selling Podcasting to Your Clients – Slides
04 A Sense of Perspective with Vanishing Point – Slides | Practice Files
05 Creating Movement within Photos with After Effects CS3 – Slides | Practice Files 1 | Practice Files 2
06 Directing Video Podcasts – Slides
07 Project Management for Video Pros – Slides
08 In-Depth: Video Production for the Web – Slides
09 Creating a Graphic Identity for Your Web Video – Slides [Enhanced PDF]
10 Render Faster: Wait Less and Play More in Adobe After Effects – Slides
11 Storyboard Techniques with Adobe Photoshop – Slides
12 Creative and Animated DVD menus using Photoshop – Handouts
13 Automating Broadcast Design with Photoshop – Slides
14 Seeing a New Light: FCP Color Correction – Slides | DVD

Apple Motion is a great tool, but often leads new users a bit stumped. Here are two useful sites for getting more done.

AppleMotion.net
Mark Simpson is the author of the official Apple book's on Motion. He's got a great site with lots of news and downloads.

Moojoose
“Here is a colleciton of small motion projects and movie examples.”

I need to use textures all the time when creating graphics. I recently found a great website with a bunch of free, high-resolution textures. Be sure to check out TextureArchive.com. “TextureArchive.com is devoted to providing a site which is useful for all types artists.”

Free is good... "good" free is even better.

A lot of folks use Apple's Compressor to create podcast video files. That is when its running. I use Compressor all the time and think its a great application that harnesses the power of Apple hardware and software... but it can be a bit buggy.

Apple has posted a useful article on what to do when Compressor isn't starting up properly or performing normally.They offer basic troubleshooting steps to remedy the situation. This is the right place to start if you are attempting to to submit a batch and you see the following message:
Unable to submit to queue. Please restart your computer or verify your Compressor installation is correct.

Check out the whole article here.

Richard Harrington was recently a guest on the Plugged-In Podcast (presented by Toolfarm). The show was taped at Macworld and features several guests talking about the latest in Digital Media.

• Coby Rich – Sorenson Media
• Larry O'Connor – Other World Computing
• Richard Harrington – RHED Pixel
• Jon Schilling – CalDigit
• Marlon Braccia – Shiva Entertainment

You can listen to the show here

I saw this very cool product at Macworld Expo called Flow. It is a revolutionary workflow management technology designed to work with Adobe and Apple software. The product took Best of Show (and for good reason). You can see it in action in a video demo on their site. 

"Flow is a revolutionary approach to digital content management that dramatically simplifies the design process for creative professionals working on graphic design, web and video projects. Flow automatically tracks your work from idea to end result and manages your assets and applications for your most complex projects- all without changing the way you work."

Flow isn't shipping for a while, but GridIron is accepting sign-ups for beta testing.

This is just awesome, Calibrated Software has a bunch of new plug-ins on tap that make it possible to work with MXF and DVCPRO HD codecs. This will streamline P2 workflow for both Mac and Windows users, as well as make it easier to move DVCPRO HD material to a PC. I promise a detailed review soon. The codecs cost $49 each. Here's the info.

QuickTime P2 MXF/DVCProHD Decode Components for Apple
For playing P2 MXF Files and QuickTime DVCProHD Files on Mac OSX (Intel) and importing native P2 MXF Files into Final Cut Pro Studio 2 Applications (see Read Me)
Please note: The P2 MXF plugin has NOT been tested in long form projects in FCP Studio 2 Applications and the DVCProHD Codec should NOT be installed if the Apple DVCProHD Codec is already installed.
Download BETA 1.0.0 (Build 18) for OSX 10.4 (Tiger) - Intel Only
Download BETA 1.0.0 (Build 18) for OSX 10.5 (Leopard) - Intel Only
Download Read Me
Download License Agreement

QuickTime P2 MXF/DVCProHD Decode Components for Windows
For playing P2 MXF Files and QuickTime DVCProHD Files on Windows (see Read Me)
Download BETA 1.0.0 (Build 18) for Windows
Download Read Me
Download License Agreement

Lot of bugs lately with QuickTime (especially in pro video applications). We've personally seen issues in both Final Cut Pro and After Effects.

Apple has released a new update to QuickTime... lets hope it's elusive “improves compatibility with third-party applications” actually means something.
Visit http://www.apple.com/support/quicktime/ for more information.

Author and video podcaster Richard Harrington explains how you can compress your video for podcast with Stomp from Shiny White Box.



Like the podcast? Subscribe for FREE.

Video podcaster and author Richard Harrington shows you how to edit a multi-camera shoot for your video podcasts.



Like the podcast? Subscribe for FREE.

Video podcaster and author Richard Harrington explains how to compress your podcasts fast using the Turbo.264.



Like the podcast? Subscribe for FREE.

Looking to share some advice on Final Cut Pro? Then take a look at our Weekly Tip Widget.

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Adobe's Russell Brown has produced a great new collection of FREE workflow scripts for Photoshop CS3 & CS3 Extended. Be sure to check out Dr. Brown's Services 1.9.2 which offer some great features for video.
"Background Remover," "Interpret Video," "Fit Video to Audio," and "Slide Show" scripts take advantage of Photoshop CS3 Extended's new video capabilities.

If you want to save time, download Dr. Brown's Services 1.9.2

If you need to put together a storyboard, you have lots of options. But the process of laying out the pages and dealing with changes to shot order or selection can get tedious. Fortunately there is a free solution called Directors Boards which alleviates most of the challenges (no, it won't draw for you).

This great program is based on Filemaker, but doesn't need you to have the full program installed in order to run. You essentially load in information regarding the shots including the audio and video columns, shot number, and a thumbnail image. Directors Boards then allows you to organize the shots as well as create a sldieshow presentation or print out professional looking storyboards. The product is cross-platform and free... what more do you need? Well there is a more robust version called Directors Notebook, which we are putting through its paces and will have a detailed review soon.

Looking to expand your typographical toolbox? Then be sure to visit Dinc Type at the unique URL www.GirlsWhoWearGlasses.com. The site is sassy and filled with great fonts. The unique thing is that while fonts are free, the selection frequently changes and fonts appear then disappear. Its like an incredible import shop where everything’s free, but the inventory keeps changing. Bookmark and keep checking back as their fonts are absolutely fantastic.

A few folks commented about my desktop pattern at a recent conference. It seems the old 'Indian head' pattern evokes some memories in many audience members.

Well the version I had comes from a Russian designer named Art. Lebedev. You'll find it and several other pieces of artwork on his posters page. For the test pattern, scroll down to the bottom and you'll find it in the right column. All are free to download.

We've been experimenting with the Panasonic HVX-200 on some of our recent shoots. This camera offers the ability to use P2 cards from Panasonic to store the video clips without ever going to tape. Sounds great, except you'll need to transfer those cards multiple times during an average shoot. This usually leads do a data assistant which is similar in function to a film-loader.

Leave it to Anders Holck to come up with a great solution. We already profiled the useful utility called FCP Rescue on this blog. Now he's released P2 Genie which automates several of the media management aspects when working with the cards.

• You run it on a Mac Laptop with a CardBus slot (This means PowerBooks only)
• P2 genie can be used as an automatic P2 store, or you set manual options
• It can also be used offload a P2 store or HVX-200.
• You can also choose to datestamp all your ofloaded P2 cards for easier sorting

We'll be putting it to test on a week-long shoot next week. P2 Genie costs $33 (US) or €25.