November 2008 Meeting Update

Man! I don’t know about you guys but I had a great time at our last meeting. A special thanks to everyone who made it out! We had a little bit of everything at the last meeting. Product demos, tutorials, job opportunity (even though it’s in Texas). Thanks to everyone who gave presentations.

A special congrats to Rick Lippert who was the winner of our door prize from our most excellent sponsor Ribbit Films!

www.ribbitfilms.com





Congratulations Rick. You are a winner!! (No matter what anyone else might say!:)
We still have 2 more prizes from Ribbit Films so don’t count yourself out just yet!


ODOT brought out a ton of fun stuff. Nick demonstrated their Steady Cam.

I was a little surprised at how quickly it went together. This thing, with there Panasonic camera mounted weighs in at about 60lbs. It doesn’t take long to wear an operator out. There is some versatility to it that I wasn’t aware of. Like mounting the camera upside on the bottom and getting those low, through the grass type shots...pretty cool. It can also be mounted to trucks, dollies, etc. with the right mount attached. Pretty awesome piece of equipment. This one comes in around the $30,000 mark.

ODOT also brought out the Sticky Pod (Sorry forgot to get a pic). This mount uses up to 3 arms with big suction cups that you can mount to just about any flat surface. Great for tight fits, you can mount it to windows, vehicles, tables, and get some unique looks that are impossible without putting yourself into serious danger, I don’t know.....like hanging out of a car window while your “buddy” holds onto your shirt!

These guys also brought out there Anycast. Pretty cool little 6 input all-in-one switcher that is very portable. One of the coolest things about it is that it can webcast to up to 20 locations without needing to use a service to provide your stream! That’s pretty cool for those who do conferencing and those sorts of things. As well as there EX-1. Thanks ODOT for an awesome presentation!

Darrin Hill showed a clever and quick way to use Compressor and Cinematools to create much better and more realistic slow-mo footage. I was seriously impressed with the results! This is one of those things that might seem cumbersome at first but once you get your workflow down, this is really a simple way to make some really good looking slow motion footage. If you want a clean looking slow down, this is the way to go!

Darrin also showed a quick way to use Motion to do a simple fly-in effect while adding Z-field depth to your images and keeping your images in the same aspect as your camera. Quick and neat way to light up an end slate or opener. Add some depth of field and dissolves and you have a clean look in no time at all.
Tutorials will be posted on OKCFCPUG.com as soon as possible!

Rick Lippert gave some insight to the simplicity of using Motion to create Drop Zone Templates that can be used in FCP. You do all of the “dirty work” animating and such in Motion. Get the look you want and all of your animation set. Then turn your video/image elements you want to be able to replace into Drop Zones. Save as a template and then you will be able to access your template straight from FCP. Throw it on your timeline and open the controls. All of your drop zones will be there and you can just drag and drop the updated shots/images in.




Next Time Around:
We have a Color and DVDSP Tutorial lined up for January. I am hoping to get Paul Thomas to go over some different kinds of mics and their applications as well. If anyone is interested in doing a presentation or if you wanted to demo a product or a project you have done, please let me know.

Thanks again to everyone who made it out. If you missed, you missed it. But make it in January!!

So, our next meeting is tentatively scheduled for January 13th. As we come closer to CHRISTmas, we will finalize everything. Which reminds me, I thought of something fun we could do. When you are celebrating the Holidays, see if you can’t get some footage of you with your family. If you have time, throw a little 2 minute montage together and show us some “behind the scenes” footage of yourself! It will be fun! E-mail me back if you are in....also if you think that is stupid and have a better idea.

Meeting Pics:


Gregory D. Kuhn
Without Counsel, plans are frustrated, But with many counselors they succeed.
Proverbs 15:22

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