If you are looking for a plug-in to give you a unique and different look for striking visual effects, then Storek Studio’s nVeil filter fits the bill. nVeil is an FxPlug filter for Final Cut Pro, Final Cut Express and Motion and provides yet another tool that leverages the power of OpenGL and the FxPlug [...] Read More... (read more)

If you are an Avid Media Composer user, and you’re like me, you’ve been hestitant to upgrade to Windows Vista. After all, Windows XP Professional has been a steady workhorse for Avid Media Composer users. With the Microsoft's Windows 7 coming out soon, it may be worth completely skipping out on upgrading to Windows Vista. That being said, if you are a Media Composer user running Windows XP 32bit, you may need to take the extra step of modifying the boot.ini file for Windows XP . This is because the... (read more)

Photoshop is an invaluable tool for video editor, and I've always been a big fan of teaching the Photoshop basics as it applies to video editing. One basic Photoshop skill is the ability to cut out a company logo so it can be placed as a 'bug' or integrated within a video project to help brand a business. You can read up on a Photoshop tutorial for creating a glass bug on how to actually do this. For myself, I like to keep things simple. I've always touted using the file format .png to when saving... (read more)

Responding to popular demand (thanks, Harry), I’ve put up a page with a complete list of the tech tips I’ve posted, organized by subject. You can always click on the category menu in the right-hand column and select “Avid Technical Tips,” but the tips list should make things easier to find. It’s here: Avid Tech Tips The [...] Read More... (read more)

Bronx, NY – Students in the BCC Media Technology and Film Society Clubs along with The Media Technology Program of the Communications Arts and Science Department were working late hours to complete their films for the Sixteenth Annual BCC Film and... (read more)

In this episode, Matt sits down with Sex and the City editor and three time Emmy-winner Michael Berenbaum (A.C.E.) and assistant editor Carrie Puchkoff to take questions from the audience at Broadcaster Education Association during during NAB 2009. Michael... (read more)

It’s been awhile since I’ve written a tutorial for Avid Media Composer. I thought I’d mix it up a bit and share an extremely valuable tool for creating moving mattes. The ability to create moving mattes is a critical skill when building effects. This tutorial demonstrates how you can use Avid Marquee to create a giant title with a ‘glassy’ appearance that travels through a scene. This exercise is not for the light hearted and requires some basic knowledge of the Media Composer interface. I’ve done... (read more)

Music choices are very subjective and can often be the most difficult part of finishing a production. There is no replacement for a true custom score that’s right on the money, but rarely do clients have a budget to support that, especially in the world of corporate video. I’ve frequently built videos with music changes [...] Read More... (read more)

I recently had to re-edit some source material that lived only on a DVD. And I had to do it at home on a software-only Media Composer system. Many friends told me not to attempt this–too many settings, too many ways to screw yourself up. Better to use a good DVD player, using component or [...] Read More... (read more)

Most Avid editors are unaware that you can use the Fit to Fill button to make motion effects. If you have a space in your time line that you need to fill or you can set and in to out and simply use the fit to fill button to create your motion effect. There are a few things you need to be aware of when using the fit to fill button. By default it creates the effect using the Duplicated Field rendering which does not produce the cleanest looking motion. You need to change this to Interpolated Fields... (read more)

One more story from my friend Wim Hoogewerf for today. He says: Last sunday I assisted at the first performance of Hector Parra’s Hypermusic Prologue by the Ensemble InterContemporain at the Centre Georges Pompidou in Paris. A 500-page score, a real engraver’s nightmare (have a look at the picture above!) taken care of by Canadian copyist Katherine [...] Read More... (read more)

I’m currently sitting in a hotel room in Odense , Denmark whilst visiting the TV news station, TV2 Fyn. Yesterday I was in Holstebro , Denmark to visit TV2 Midt Vest and the day before in Munich for Creation Club, Germany . 9 days, 3 customers,... (read more)

As some of you know, I’ve commenced work on an update to my venerable “Avid Media Composer Techniques and Tips” book. The original version began life way back in the mid-90s, when I was working closely with the Avid engineers, helping them design an interface and feature set that would work for people like me. [...] Read More... (read more)

I know it sounds faintly ridiculous, but cleaning your mouse can make a real ergonomic difference for your wrist and forearm. I’m often amazed at what people will put up with in a mouse. It seems like this is the most basic connection you make to the computer. Many of us are dragging and clicking [...] Read More... (read more)

In the world of plug-in effects filters, CoreMelt might seem like the new kid but that would be incorrect. CoreMelt is the brainchild of Roger Bolton, an accomplished Flame artist and visual effects veteran with numerous film credits, including Kingdom of Heaven and The Lords of the Rings trilogy. Bolton started out as one of [...] Read More... (read more)