Our sponsors and friends over at PowerProduction Software, let us in on something they are working on for FCP users!!

Link to QuickShot Creator for FCP

Martini - The Quickshot Creator for FCP

PowerProduction Software has a new plug-in that should enhance your FCP workflow! Check it out…

Martini’s easy to navigate interface wll have you building sequences in minutes.

Martini – The QuickShot Creator for Final Cut Pro

See into the future and visualize your upcoming shots with Martini! Now, bridging the gap between your unshot scenes and your final edit is faster and easier than ever with the shot-creating power of Martini!

Don’t get blacked out! No more black slugs with text explaining what “shot goes here” – show that shot wth the dynamic power of Martini. From single shots to multi-shot sequences, Martini helps directors and editors piece together a better final film.

Loaded with hundreds of classic and unique shot styles Martini’s easy-to-use interface guides you through the quick creation of frames. Select a shot style, from single person up to 5 people in a shot…everything you need from basic over-the-shoulder shots, two and three shots, close-ups as well as fight scenes, chase scenes and other pre-composed multi-shot sequences.

Select a location: choose from hundreds of pre-loaded backdrops. Interiors, exteriors and even your own digital location photos. You’ve already scouted your location? No problem, use the My Locations option and bring that into your shot.

Shots

Use your scroll wheel to visually navigate your shot choices!

One in a hundred shot!

More like hundreds! Martini comes with literally hundreds of pre-designed, pre-laid out shots for you to choose from. All of them can be used as-is or can be edited/altered in the Composite Frame so you can get just the right look for your scene.

Location shots

Martini is packed with location shots.

Location, Location, Location!

Martini is packed with locations and backdrops so wherever your production takes you, Martini can develop a shot for you. Interiors, exteriors all included and you can even use your very own location photos as well! Got digital photos of your actual location? Using the My Locations feature, you can integrate those locations with Martini’s actors to be super shot specific!

What did they say??

Creating subtitles and shot descriptions right on the frame is a snap! Select your font, color and size and overlay text or scene description right in the composite frame.

Auditions

This cast is ready for their close up.

Hold an audition.

Martini’s great-looking, pre-drawn actors populate each shot style and you can select who and how many of them to use. Add and subtract actors from your scene, change their poses and zoom them in and out of the Composite Frame. It’s easy to create shots with the wide variety of looks available in our character palettes.

Composite Frame for shots/sequences

Make all your adjustments here in the Composite Frame

Keep your composure.

Keep it all together with the Composite Window. Arrange frame objects, crop out what you don’t need, zoom in and out of everything you want. The Composite Window keeps it all simple for you as you create great-looking shots and sequences.

and…CUT!

Martini doesn’t only help you plan visually, it actually exports your visual ideas right into Final Cut Pro. Whether it’s a shot, a sequence or even a pre-composed multi-shot, you can quickly and easily bring those shots into your copy of Final Cut Pro and right into your project. Now you can visually bridge the gap between real footage and what has yet to be shot.

And that’s not all! With Martini, you export directly to Final Cut Pro and StoryBoard Quick. Preview your sequences in the Martini Preview Panel, rearrange frame, set frame duration, delete frames from your sequence, crop unwanted items out of your shot, add color to your overlay text, and more!

Rodney Mitchell
President and Apple Ambassador
Washington DC Metro Final Cut Pro Users Group

http://www.dcfcpug.org

Final Cut Pro – Zooming the Timeline

Zoom

Everyone knows that Command+= zooms into and Command+- zooms out of the Timeline horizontally.

But what they really do is zoom the active window. (The active window is the window that’s currently selected.) This often means that when you press these keys and expect to zoom into the Timeline, instead the image in the Viewer explodes into fat pixels! What if you want to zoom into the Timeline and it isn’t active?

What we need is another option. This is exactly what I have for you…

Press Option+= (Option and the equal key) to zoom into the Timeline. Press Option+- (Option and the minus key) to zoom out. These work whether or not the Timeline is selected.

So before I say anything else let me start by saying; I created this video to simply show that you should not be limited by your camera. Obviously there was a lot that went into this shoot including a professional model, hair and makeup, a studio, lighting, and a retoucher. We may create another video in the future where we shoot with only natural light but this video is simply about the camera. There are so many photographers who are obsessed with noise, sharpness, color, dynamic range, megapixels, chromatic aberration, moire, distortion, etc. So many photographers get wrapped up in the technical side that they forget how to take compelling images. This video is for them.

So a few months ago I called Olivia Price; “Hey Olivia, would you be willing to let me do a full photoshoot with you but I’m only going to use my iPhone camera.” I had worked with Olivia before, and I must have gained her trust because even though she was very busy she agreed to model for me. Luckily, we set up the shoot right before she was scheduled to move to LA to continue her acting career.

Next I called the local high end hair salon in town, Stella Nova. Madison LeCroy and Tiffany Starnes agreed to donate their time and talent to be a part of this shoot.

I then contacted Pratik Naik of Soltice Retouch. Pratiks portfolio is mind blowing and I was thrilled when he agreed to do the skin retouching for the video.

Travis Harris, a photographer from Miami was in town for the week and he agreed to help Patrick Hall film the whole day.

I now had a full team of extremely talented people and I had yet to even test the phone’s camera capability in the studio. At this point I was scared that I may be in over my head. What if the iPhone wasn’t capable of creating good quality images? A few days before the shoot I called Patrick Hall over to my house to help me test out the camera. I set up a standard square beauty lighting scheme and got Patrick to stand in. I took this shot:

We were both shocked by the quality of the image. Once we uploaded the picture to the web, you couldn’t even tell it wasn’t shot on a DSLR. I now had the confidence I needed for the upcoming shoot.

The day of the shoot went very well. I tried to be as informative as possible in the video so I won’t go into great detail here about how the images were shot. After the shoot I sent the files over to Pratik for initial retouching. Once I got the files back I gave each of the images a “look” using different photoshop techniques and filters. In the video you can see the original image, Pratik’s retouching, and then my final editing.

People may claim that the original images don’t look that great but I was shooting with the intent of using Photoshop afterwards. If the backdrop paper didn’t fill the frame I knew I could easily fix it afterwards. With today’s market being what it is I see Photoshop as a necessary tool for every image I make. I am in the business of making money and my clients do not care if I got it perfect in the camera or made it perfect in post, they simply want a perfect image. It’s the same process with music. A band could record and entire album in 1 take, but what successful artist does that? Today, everyone records track by track one at a time and use software to combine them all together into a perfect mix.

A quality camera and lens is a fantastic tool to begin with but even the most expensive camera in the world is capable of taking bad pictures. When your clients view your work they aren’t thinking, “Wow I don’t see any chromatic aberration in this image!” They are simply thinking, “Wow, I can’t put my finger on it, but this looks great!” Olivia has one of these images as her profile picture, and it already has a ton of comments like: “G-L-A-M-O-R-OUS”, “LOVE THIS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!”, you are so beautiful!!”… These are your clients; these are the people that will pay you to take an image and they are not pixel peepers. And many of you, who are photographers, even still said these are some of the best pictures I have ever taken. I can’t say that I agree with that but I will say they are pretty damn good for a cell phone.

You can view all of the edited images below both as high res raw and edited images here.

UPDATE: A lot of people have asked us what sort of budget equipment we could have used to create these photos. Here is a list of a few items that would make this possible on a budget:

Interfit Photographic 36? Octobox: Large enough for soft light; good on the wallet.

Pro Studio Solutions EZ Pro Strip Box softbox 12?x56? soft box with SpeedringGreat little strip box; this one is for Alien Bees but can be used with constant lights

Cowboystudio 24? x 36? softbox soft box for Alienbees Alien beesLarger softbox for beauty style lighting. Again, Alien Bee version

Cooper/Regent TQS1000 Twin Work Light 1000-Watt and StandThese would work so much better than our studio strobes. Just be careful with 1000 watts in a 1000 watt softbox, don’t let it run too long.

For more photography by Patrick Hall and Lee Morris, check out www.patrickhallphotography.com and www.rlmorris.com