Predictions: XBOX ONE vs PS4



Music For Video

When sourcing music for your video, be aware that copyright laws prohibit the use of someone elses work without their permission.  Often this is very expensive.  So unless you plan on creating the music yourself, the best option is to use royalty free music.  Here are several sites that have plenty to offer...

Royalty Free Music for video:

Incompetech

ccMixter

PacDV

Public Domain 4U

SoundCloud

Moby Gratis

Final Cut Pro Basics

Cutting:  

Press B on the keyboard to bring up 'Blade Tool'. Using the playhead (the slider) as a ruler, hover the mouse over the slider and the blade will snap to its position. Then simply cut through the footage. Press A to revert to normal mouse mode and click and delete unwanted footage

Adding Effects:

Select the Effects Tab (top left of the FCP layout). Here you can select a variety of different effects, both Video and Audio to add to your footage, fade outs , dissolves etc. Simply click the effect you want and drag it onto the footage. For instance if you want to dissolve between 2 shots, drag the effect BETWEEN 2 shots and the effect will lay itself across both. It can be stretched out to make the effect last longer, or shorter.

Adding Text:

To Add Text, find the small A symbol located at the bottom of the VIEWER panel. Follow the items through to plain Text. (other options are available such as scrolling text for credits, or typewriter text) A screen saying 'SAMPLE TEXT' will appear. In the CONTROL tab you can change the presets, change the text, size, font, colour etc. Once you have your title, click back to VIDEO tab (just to its left) and literally click and drag the title onto the timeline. Make sure its above your footage, then you can move it around, resize etc.

Exporting:

Once your movie is finished. Click on FILE > EXPORT > QUICKTIME MOVIE.  

It will ask you to save your completed film, follow the network through to YOUR individual folder and save your finished film with a logical name, i.e the members of your group + the task name (e.g Sophie, Ollie - AS Camera Practical)

Shooting Tip- Make a Sandwich

When shooting, it's important to record a bit of extra footage either side of your desired action to give yourself lots of room for editing.  These are called "handles". 

 

The handles get trimmed out in the editing suite, but then you've made sure you have the entire scene within the clip as well as having space to add transitions (as seen here).

 

 



Super 8 Effect

A few students have asked about creating an old film look, below is a test video we made to give you an idea of what you can achieve.

The video started out as regular HD footage. To create the effects in the video, we have simply applied a series of filters and effects such as:

-Bad Film Effect  (for the grain,dust, scratches)

-Bad TV Effect  (for the rolling motion)

-Earthquake Effect (to give vertical shake)

-Strobe Effect (gives the footage a juddery quality)
-Colour Correction (Gives the film a sepia looking tone)

-Film Burn (The purple/orange bursts of light)

If you're interested in creating a look like this for your film, or other effects come and see myself Ollie or Sophie in the edit suite to talk through your ideas.

3-Point Lighting



check out ReelSEO's YouTube channel for more really helpful videos

How to screen capture on the Mac

 

 

Step 1.

 

 

Once you found whatever it is you want to capture an image of, hold down CMD > SHIFT > 4 on the key board

 

 

 

 

This will bring up a set of Cross hairs. Using the crosshairs, click and drag a box over what you want captured.

 

 

 

 



When you are ready to capture, simply release your finger off the mouse and this will take a 'photo'. The photo will be sent to the desktop as PNG file ready for you to import into BLOGGER.

 

REMEMBER

 

TO MAKE A SELECTION:  CMD > SHIFT > 4

 

TO CAPTURE THE WHOLE SCREEN:  CMD > SHIFT >3

 

 

 



 How to print screen and save as JPEGS for use on Blogger (PC)

 

 

Step 1.

 

Once you have found the website/image/text you want to print screen, tap the PRT SCRN button on the keyboard. (If it's just an image you want off a website however, you can simply RIGHT CLICK and SAVE AS)
 

Step 2.

Open up Photoshop and create a new document

 

 

Select International Paper and create an A4 document

 

Step 3.

 

Hold down CTRL-C  to copy what you have just Print Screened into Photoshop

 

Step 4.

 

Crop the image

 

 

Once you have set the Crop perimeters, hit ENTER

 

 

Step 5.

 

 

Now you're ready to save your image. Go to FILE > SAVE AS

 

 

Set the destination folder to somewhere in your J: Drive. Name your file and make sure the format is set to JPEG.

 

 

 

Finally adjust the quality, Medium is fine around 5 or 6 and click OK. Now you can Import your image into Blogger.







Lighting Equipment

*All equpment is available for overnight loan, with a maximum of 3 days.

A £10 deposit is required which you will get back once the items are returned.*

 Standard lighting kits come with 2x lighting units, 2x photographic bulbs, 2x stands, 1x reflective umbrella, 1x duffuser umbrella.  These are great for fill, key and backlighting.  Require mains power access.  

LED lights come as singles, though you can borrow more than one at a time.  Kits come with 2x batteries, and a pack of filters.  Stands are loaned out separately.  Very versatile light with dimmer switch.  Great key light, or for creating specific pools of light in a scene.

The workhorse of lighting for film and theatre, redheads are powerful and effective.  Kit comes with 2x lights with barndoors, 2x stands, interchangable gel frames, sandbags, and gloves.  Great fill, key and backlight.  Using the barndoors the light can be directed very effectively.  Requires mains power access.  

There are two high power torches available for loan.  Batteries must be charged overnight before use (minimum 12hours).  These are extremely bright and great care must be taken not to look directly into the lamp when turned on.  Great for intense, direct, or hard light.  Be aware that battery time is very short due to intensity of light (5-10mins).

There are various bounce cards and diffusers available for loan.  Very handy for eliminating shadows (bounce cards) and glare (diffusers).  Stock is limited so check availability in advance.

We have a good collection of colour gels in different sizes.  Use pegs to hold them in place in front of the light source, but be very careful when dealing with hot lights (redheads). 

Help Guides

You can view, print, or download the following help sheets:



creating a Google account and setting up a blog

transferring footage from the camera to the computer

basic editing in Final Cut Pro

exporting for upload to blogger

exporting a full-quality quicktime






 

White Balance, Explained

Meet The Technician

Sophie Passmore

Sophie has been working in video production for the past 10 years, within both an educational and commercial context.  Past projects have included promotional material for the University for the Creative Arts, Speak-it Films, and a music video for the legendary Chris DeBurgh.

Sophie is currently working on animating drawings made by her kids.