Imovie 11 or Final Cut

Hey Everyone,

As we are short on time, I've had to continue editing my video at home on iMovie 11 instead of Final Cut. So far I don't see much of any difference. Everything I wanted to do on Final Cut iMovie 11 has! The only catch is that it is a bit tricky to figure out. Alas, this is what youtube is for. I learned from watching several videos that: Yes! you can layer video and photos, Yes! you can edit sound with effects, and Yes! you can apply features like rotations and crops! Check out these links on layering and cutaways 1 & 2 and this article on quick tips for imovie 11.

Quickly, let me tell you about some really important tips so you are not searching forever on how to access things.
Tip#1: CHANGE YOUR SETTINGS TO ADVANCED! This will save hours of puzzling problems.



Tip # 2 : The Precision Editor is your friend! Don't be afraid to use that. It is really good to extend transitions and adjust where it changes between the clips. Apple + / brings up the precision editor.

Hope this helps!
~K

Converting MP3 to AIFF for FinalCut

Hey Everyone,

We are creating music videos in FinalCut and that means we need to import sound files into our projects. This is easy, but FinalCut is weird in the way that it likes to accept sound files. It does not like MP3 format and requires AIFF or AAC files. In the end, this is better for the video as the sound will sound better, but how do you do this? Check out this site. It clearly instructs you, step by step, on how to convert the sound file. It is actually very easy. In just two short minutes you can have sound file converted and imported into FinalCut. Take a look below at the screen shots I took if you don't understand.

Step 1: Click Preferences under iTunes.

Step 2:

Step 3:


Step 4:

Step 5:

Step 6: Make the settings look like this.

Hope this helps :)

~K

Tips for Final Cut Express

Hey Everyone,

For our music video projects we will be using Final Cut instead of iMovie. I'm excited to use this program, but I have no clue how to! It is much different than the iMovie we use in class. I've noticed they made iMovie '11 to look more like Final Cut, but it is still a lot different for me. To learn the basics of Final Cut I found this video. I like this tutorial because it is clear, simple and concise. Take a look below.

The good thing about this video is the creator clearly outlines what each part of your screen is for and how it is used. In Final Cut, there is a canvas to make edits on which seems like a new feature iMovie did not seem to have. You can rotate clips on the canvas and create many interesting effects. The distort tool is one interesting effect that can be done. With it you can distort your clips any way you want. Apple also has some nice tricks and basic tutorials for Final Cut on their website.

Hope this helps!

~K

Tips For Film

Hey Everyone,

We are currently making music videos for song we like in class. For my project, I wanted to do something a bit different so it was more interesting. To do this I chose to use unique cinematography to create interesting visual effects. Part of this is choosing what type of camera angles to use and how you will compose a shot. I found this site as a refresher for myself and thought it might be helpful to any inspiring filmmakers. It outlines how you can create interesting shots and gives some examples. Some shots and angles listed on the site are: extreme long shot, close-up, bird's eye view, eye level view and many more. Check it out!

Below is a video also on camera angles and techniques. Primary it talks about action shots.

One very interesting thing in this video is 'zolly'. This is the effect of using a dolly and zooming in to create an intense moment. I found this video clear and very helpful. I hope this helps as well. Let me know if you learned anything new!

~K

iMovie'11 Tips

Hey Everyone,

Recently, I updated my personal Mac to iLife'11. This means I now have iMovie'11 to work with! Sadly, this is a bit of a problem even though the software is waaaayyy better. It is so different from the old iMovie I had ('08). After googling and searching, I've found some things to help me navigate and learn the new features. This site was very helpful in pointing out that I can change the layout of the program to be more like the old one and some of the drag movements I can use on the trackpad.



I also found this site, which gives some tips about editing the audio in your movie. This was very useful to me as the sound editing is also much different in this iMovie compared to the last. One of the most interesting things I learned was that iMovie '11 has new audio effects. Some example effects you can choose from are: robot, telephone or cathedral. There are many more, but these three jumped out at me. Hopefully one of these sites can help you in one of your future projects. I know they will help me!

K.

Effective Web Design

Hi everyone!

Recently we began to learn about what makes websites effective and make people want to come back to it. We will be creating our own web pages soon and we asked to research some effective and ineffective web designs.

The first website I looked at was "MuggleNet".


MuggleNet is a website for Harry Potter fans. I think that it is very easy to catch on to this but I do not think the design of the site is very effective. There are tons of things going on through out the page. This site is not simple enough visually. There is so much text, all squished into one section. There is not a lot of 'white space' between each part causing no breathing room. Users may feel over whelmed trying to find specific information. The navigation key is very easy to find on the left side of the screen but there are so many options it becomes over whelming to find what you are searching for. Users don't want to have to be confused over where they are going through out the site. If they have to spend a long time searching for what they want or sifting through articles they may loose interest and leave.
Look how many navigation options there are. There are so many and within each one there are more search options. This is good for information but this many options could be annoying to search through.



The two good elements of this website that I think draw some users back are the amounts of information that Harry Potter fans may want and the fact that this site has functions that are able to be customized and intractable. Users like to be in control and by being able to do so makes them feel like they are able to control what they do and where they go on the site. On this site polls make the site more personable and interactive and custom backgrounds help personal the site to suit the needs of the user.

The second website I looked at was "Apple".



This site is designed so well. It so simple that it doesn't require much thought to use. You instantly see the navigation at the top, you can tell this Apple as their logo is the first box in the top navigation and you see their most recent product right in the middle of the page. This is a very effective use of making it usable without much thought and efficient use of words and symbols to grasp a user. In fact the few words and symbols on this page are even informative. The apple logo tells you this is Apple and the phrase "Ipad is here" tells users that their latest technology, the ipad, is available and can be purchased here. All this simple elements make users want to come back. There time was not wasted as they probably found it very easy to find what they wanted. Simple layout and use of white space lets the user breathe and not feel overwhelmed. Simplicity is key.

Katelynn

Tips and Tricks: Creating Chinese Bamboo

Hey Everyone,
On the post below I linked THIS website for you all to take a look at. Well as I was finishing that post, I began to look at the other tutorials and found THIS. It is a tutorial on how to make Chinese Bamboo chutes in Adobe Illustrator! This caught my eye because we created bamboo chutes using Chinese water colour ink in art class. The guide lays out simple yet detailed steps on how to create such an image graphically but I do find the guide a bit long. They show steps ordered 1 through 15 to teach you how to duplicate their interpretation.
They start off by creating outlines of the bamboo shape with the pen took using a green coloured fill. Then use the mesh tool to create a 3D effect on the image. The steps continue to walk you through creating a bamboo image but what I found most interesting was how they used the symbol tools. To save time, the artist created a sort of spray paint version of a bamboo leaf to create more leaves on the image without drawing them all out or copy and pasting. It is so simple it is genius! I really liked this tutorial and found it very easy to understand.

Katelynn

Tips and Tricks For Tracing A Photo In Illustrator

Hey everyone,
I wanted to share a great new project I have started working on for a class assignment. We are each choosing an art style (such as Art Deco, Impressionism, Surrealism, graffiti...) , taking a self-portrait, importing into Adobe Illustrator, making it into a graphic image true to the chosen style and then finally printing the image so we can paint it on MASSIVE canvases. Right now I am turning my photo image into a graphic image. I chose the art style surrealism and am trying to make my self look very realistic. I am creating this by using the pen tool. As many could imagine, it is challenging to do this on a computer. I am very excited with how things are going but I wondered if there were some other ways I could make my creation more realistic.

As usual, a great way to find out something you don't know is by Googling. I hit GOLD! I found THIS. It is a website that describes a few simple steps to creating a realistic tracing of an image. I found it very helpful. The quick guide showed me how to make shadows very easily. It was in a way I had never thought of. Intersecting shape areas... using the pathfinder. I do not believe I've ever even tried to use that tool but now is a great time to start. Check it out!! It also shows gradients as a fill to express shadow and detail in a human figure. I find this extremely helpful to my realistic self portrait! Thank you kind people of
ndesign-studio.com!



Katelynn