Split Screen Tutorial

Here's a split screen tutorial. It uses FCP 5, but the process is the same.

Video Help

For those of you who are having problems getting your files into FCP ...

--If you have a Flip camera, check out this blog post:
http://visthinkings10.blogspot.com/2010/02/final-cut-pro-and-flip-ultra-hd.html
Try converting your files first with MPEG Streamclip,
http://www.squared5.com/svideo/mpeg-streamclip-mac.html.

--If you have another type of camera and files which are not working, you can also try using MPEG Streamclip to convert your files (http://www.squared5.com/svideo/mpeg-streamclip-mac.html). If this does not work, try googling it -- how do I convert a .XXX file to a quicktime or .MOV file. FCP loves quicktime (.MOV) files, that's your best bet.

--If you have tried and nothing works, please email both me and Tom (pninitom [at] gmail) and we will see what we can figure out. At a minimum we need the file extension (.avi, .m4v, .mov, etc.) and the make and model of your camera. If possible, send the actual file (or a short clip) via http://yousendit.com. The sooner you let us know what's wrong the better.

There are always always technical glitches, so don't lose heart -- good projects will be made.

For homework, get your project started (import footage, start making cuts). We will be editing in class next week, but I need to see some progress -- please don't wait until the night before and email me that nothing's working.

Have a good weekend, and good luck getting going.

-Norene

Final Cut Pro and Flip Ultra HD Workflow

To download MPEG Streamclip, click here.

Using Final Cut Pro

Software and Hardware Overview
• Nondestructive and nonlinear editing
• DV requires 3.6MB of storage per second, 216MB per minute, 1GB per 5 minutes
• Controlling video devices (connect and set camera to vtr before opening FCP)
• Firewire cameras, drives
• Headphones

Optimizing Computer Performance
• Settings:
Easy Setup
For NTSC Standard 4:3:
DV-NTSC, 48kHz/16 bit, 29.97 fps, 720 x 480 pixels
For NTSC Widescreen 16:9 (Canon ZR800):
Go to A/V Settings
Sequence preset: DV NTSC, 48kHz/16 bit
Capture preset: DV NTSC 48kHz Anamorphic
Device Control: FireWire NTSC
Video Playback: Apple FireWire NTSC 720 x 480
Then go to Easy Setup and choose NTSC, 29.97
• Set scratch disks to save all files to one place

Final Cut Pro Features
• Menus, Shortcuts, and Controls

Basic Shortcuts:
Ctrl-V = split clip at playhead
Cmd-+/- = zoom in and out of window
Shift-Z = fit to window
Ctrl-Click = shortcut menus
Cmd-A = select all
Cmd-X = cut
Cmd-Z = copy
Cmd-V = paste
Shift-Click = select multiple items
Home key = go to beginning of sequence
Cmd-C then Option-V = paste attributes
Ctrl-U = return viewers + keyboard to normal

• Editing and Effects Windows
The Browser: window where you organize and access all of your media source material
The Viewer: your source monitor, allows you to view video and audio clips, mark edit points, and add/control effects
The Canvas: monitor where you view playback of edited sequences (linked to the Timeline)
The Timeline: displays edited sequences as clips arrayed on multiple video and audio tracks along a time axis
The Tool Palette: contains editing tools for cutting and moving clips (similar to Photoshop)
A = Selection tool
B = Razor Blade tool
BB = Razor Blade All tool
R = Roll tool, keeps duration, only moves edit point
RR = Ripple tool (direction of tail = direction of edit), changes duration, deletes frames from clip
S = Slip tool, changes in & out w/out changing duration
SS = Slide tool, moves clip intact, changing duration of 2 clips on either side
P = Pen tool (for keyframes) – hold down Optn key, will change tool to Pen
C = Crop tool (use in Canvas)
D = Distort tool (use in Canvas)


Capturing Media
• Log and Capture
• Batch Capturing Clips
• File Naming — .bin, .seq, each folder/drive/partition should not contain the entire name of another f/d/p
• Selecting a Logging Bin
• Logging and Capturing

The Viewer
• Working with Clips
• Navigating with Timecode
• Setting In and Out Points

Editing in FCP
• Creating a sequence
• Basic Editing
Insert edit: inserts clip at the In point, and moves media to the right to make room for the new source clip
Overwrite edit: the source clip overwrites sequence clips past the sequence In point with no time shift in the existing sequence
Replace edit: replaces the contents of a sequence clip with source clip (uses position of viewer playhead)
Fit to Fill edit: the speed of the source clip adjusts to fill the duration specified by the sequence In and Out points
Superimpose edit: source clip is placed on a new track above the target track, starting at the sequence In point
Transition edits: the source clip is inserted into the sequence with the default transition at the source clip's head
• Deleting clips from a sequence
Lift: removes selected material leaving a gap (shortcut: Command-X)
Ripple Delete: removes the selected material and closes the gap (shortcut: Shift-Delete)
• Performing Edits in the Timeline + Canvas
J-K-L keys = rewind-stop-play
Q = toggle between Viewer and Canvas
Optn-X = delete in & out points
==> = insert edit
⇓ = overwrite edit
⇓⇑ = arrow keys, jump from edit to edit
⇔ = arrow keys, go frame to frame
+15 = 15 frames forward
-15 = 15 frames back
1. = 1 second (period = 2 zeros)
Shft-Z = fit to timeline
Snapping = (green button upper rt. side of Timeline) playhead snaps to nearest edit point
Shft-I/O = go to In/Out
Optn-I/O = delete In/Out
Optn-X = delete In/Out
Generally – Shift = Forward, Option = Back
Shft-G = search for gaps (lock audio/non-changing tracks first)
When green L appears in Canvas, first/last frame
Shft-Delete = ripple delete (deletes clip, and moves clips forward to remove gap)
Fit to Fill = stretches clip out to fit duration
Replace edit = replaces w/same duration
Sprocket holes = working on clip from timeline, NOT browser
F key = match frame
Shft-F = find in Browser
Shft-N = make freeze frame (go back 1 frame before inserting)

Transitions
• Adding Transitions
Must have handles for transitions (recommend 2 sec.)
Buttons – change center of dissolve
Can change default transition in Browser
• Can copy & paste

Sending Project to Tape or DVD
• Exporting
• Printing to Video

Working with Audio
• Importing Audio Files
-FCP likes 48k, 16 bit, stereo AIFF files – convert in iTunes
• Editing Audio Files
- If title is underlined, linked
Optn-L = to link/unlink
-You never want your audio over or close to 0, should be -12, dialogue -6, ceiling -3
-Use keyframes to adjust sections of audio
-Optn-K/Shift-K to go back and forth between keyframes
-You must be exactly on the keyframe to adjust it, otherwise FCP makes a new one
-Select track>Edit>Remove Attributes will delete all keyframes
-Reset also wipes out all keyframes

Working with Images
• Importing Still Images
-User Preferences> Still/Freeze Duration (default is 10 sec.)
• Importing Photoshop files
-Master size on Photoshop: 720 x 534 72dpi
-After adjustments, change Image Size to 720 x 480 and import into FCP

Creating Titles
• Use Generator Menu for text and colors
• For Scrolling text, * = center point
• Option-P = preview in RT

Technical Resources
• The Final Cut Pro Help Menu in Final Cut Pro — this is the entire FCP manual in PDF format, easy to search and relatively well written for a software manual
• http://www.apple.com/support/finalcutpro — for apple technical support and discussion boards
• http://www.nycfcpug.com — The New York City Final Cut Pro Users Group, free to join and a good resource for technical questions

Homework + supplies due 02.19.10

1. Finish shooting footage for Multiple Personalities project.

2. Bring with you to class:
-camera and cables to start editing
-Lisa Brenneis' book, Final Cut Pro 7: Visual QuickPro Guide
-fire wire 800 drive

Shirin Neshat's Turbulent

Shirin Neshat's work refers to the social, cultural and religious codes of Muslim societies and the complexity of certain oppositions, such as man and woman. Neshat often emphasizes this theme with the technique of showing two or more coordinated films concurrently, creating stark visual contrasts through such motifs as light and dark, black and white, male and female.

In Turbulent, Neshat's 1998 two-screen video installation, two singers (Shoja Azari playing the role of the male and Iranian Vocalist and composer Sussan Deyhim as the female) create a powerful musical metaphor for the complexity of gender roles and cultural power within the framework of ancient Persian music and poetry.

Origins of Cinema

Please keep your presentation to 20 minutes MAX. It should include:
-Brief bio and filmography of the director
-Brief summary of the film’s plot and necessary story elements
-Screening and analysis of two important scenes: discuss the “mise-en-scène” --
framing, composition, POV, sets, lighting, acting, costumes, etc.
-Historical and critical analysis: why is this film important within the history of film, and what makes it unique?

Presentation Films + Dates
2/19
Maria: Melies' A trip to the Moon (1902)
Kelly: F. W. Murnau's Nosferatu (1922)
2/26
Lola: Fritz Lang's Metropolis (1927)
Suzette: Dziga Vertov's Man With A Movie Camera (1929)
3/5
Daniel: Dali + Bunuel's Un Chien Andalou (1928)
Joanne: Charlie Chaplin's Modern Times (1936)
4/2
Hannah: Welle's Citizen Kane (1941)
Bunny: Bergman's The Seventh Seal (1957)
4/9
Zach: Fellini's Satyricon (1969)
Robin: Tarkovsky's The Mirror (1975)
4/16
Julia: Godard's Breathless (1950)
Tyson: Truffaut's The 400 Blows (1959)
4/23
Amanda: Kurosawa's Dreams (1990)
Lisandra: Miike's ... ?

Homework + supplies due 02.12.10

1. Go see Mirage by Joan Jonas at MoMA. Write three paragraphs about the project in your sketchbook. Be prepared to discuss in class next week.

2. Read Nam June Paik's Input-Time and Output-Time. Be prepared to discuss in class.

3. If you haven't already, get your camera and hard drive and start shooting Multiple Personalities footage.

Technical Tips for Shooting Video

Before you start
Check out your equipment online 48 hours in advance. Once you get it from the 9th floor, check it meticulously before signing it out (plug in the lights, turn on the camera and check the zoom, etc.). Otherwise if any thing is wrong, you will have to pay for it.
NEVER EVER leave your equipment unattended. Get someone to watch it for you or lock it up.

Framing & Shooting
When you are framing your shots, remember that standard video has a 4:3 or 1.33 :1 aspect ratio – it’s almost square, unlike the long rectangle of film.

Video gets cropped – even the best new flat screen TV will crop your image around the edges. Be sure that anything important happens within the “action safe” area and not at the very edge of your frame.

Just because you see life at eye level, don’t confine the camera there – the placement of the camera is one of the most important aspects of shooting video. It is the statement of what the scene represents and how the audience is supposed to view this particular situation.

Sometimes a shot will look flat when it is projected, even though it looked good to you in the viewfinder. While our eyes view the set and actors in stereo, we are dealing with a monocular system of recording and display. A good solution is to look at a scene through only one eye when you shoot it.

If you are unsure of your exposure setting, it is best to err on the side of slightly too dark instead of too light. Too dark is much easier to fix in Final Cut Pro. If the image is blown out, that information cannot be recovered.

Video does not handle high-contrast ratios well – it’s best to avoid really bright whites or dark darks unless you are going for a particular effect.

Always remember to manually white balance your shots.

Avoid clothes with large white areas. Also avoid thin stripes, checks or herringbone patterns if possible.

Only zoom if you have a really good reason.

The tripod is your friend – only shoot handheld for a really good reason.

Try to avoid using the “Auto focus” setting. Manually focus your shots, so you don’t get jumps in focusing.

If in doubt, work with a partner and use multiple cameras – the more coverage the better.

Lighting
Handle the lights in the light kit with gloves and never touch the bulbs inside without gloves even if they are cool – they get so hot that the oil from your hands and fingerprints will burn off, and could cause the bulb to explode.

As the sun moves across the sky it changes color and temperature. This may not be picked up by your eyes, but it will be picked up by the camera.

Different light sources have different colors and temperatures (fluorescent light is green, daylight is blue). Don’t mix them together, it will wreak havoc with your white balance.

Fill panels (boards used to bounce or reflect light) can be made from almost anything (foam core, drawing pads, cardboard boxes). Improvise!

Remember, “Good editing can’t fix bad video.”

If you want to learn more about shooting professional video, and transferring video to film, I highly recommend Digital Moviemaking by Scott Billups. His website, http://www.pixelmonger.com is also a great resource.

You can download and print this handout here.

Introduction to Video Art

Video arrived in the mid 20th century and film was suddenly not the only means of creating moving images.

In 1965 Sony Corporation introduced the Portapak, a handheld video camera and portable video recorder — 1/2in. tape as opposed to 2in. tape used for broadcast TV — brought ease, mobility, and affordability to video production — by 1968 exhibitions of video art internationally.

Video is a new medium (only 45 years as opposed to thousands of years of drawing, painting, sculpture) — Difficult to categorize since there are no official schools of video, like the Impressionists or the Abstract Expressionists, just themes.

Video is an 'Art of time' used to extend, repeat, fast forward, and slow down time — new way of telling a story, non-linear video loops.

Early video pioneers in the 60s and 70s used video as another material (like paint and canvas, or marble) to execute an idea — artists used whatever material they were interested in.

General Categories of Video Art:
-Recording "mixed media" performances: Video emerged at a time when sculpture, painting, and dance were merging — Robert Rauchenberg/Merce Cunningham/John Cage — used to record public performances Carolee Schneeman Meat Joy (1964) Interior Scroll (1975)

-Extension of the body: used to record private performances Vito Acconci Digging Piece (1970) futile attempt to bury himself / Joan Jonas Good Night Good Morning (1976) set on side, mirror display

-Technological advances: Nam June Paik / Steina and Woody Vasulka deconstruction of video signal

-Interactivity: Gary Hill Tall Ships (1992) immersion / Doug Aitken electric earth (1999) labyrinth of screens

-Surveillance: Bruce Nauman Performance Corridor (1968-70), claustrophobic enclosure of 2 floor-to-ceiling parallel walls that form a tunnel, at end 2 stacked video monitors, confronted with your own image taped from a surveillance camera / Julia Sher Security by Julia installations (80's-present) turns surveillance industry on its head by exaggerating it, manipulating it, and aestheticizing it, greeted at gallery/museum door by guard wearing pink "Security by Julia" uniform seated in front of bank of monitors, can print out image of yourself or others, watch yourself and others, voyeurism and paranoia

-Critique of commercial television or film: Nam June Paik Global Groove (1973) barrages of images, hallucinatory, media saturation / Ant Farm (with T.R. Uthco) The Eternal Frame (1975) Mock documentary that reenacts Zapruder film of 1963 Kennedy assassination in Dallas, questioning the veracity of the memory of the tragic event and media spectacle it became / Vito Acconci Theme Song (1973), lying on floor smoking and listening to music imploring viewer "Come closer to me…come on… I'm all alone…" his blatant manipulations expose the covert enticements of advertising / Dara Birnbaum Technology/Transformation: Wonder Woman (1978-79) and Kiss the Girls: Make Them Cry (1978-79) trying to counter the banal and sensational images of women in popular TV shows, used actual footage from TV to subvert intended meanings of programs / Daniel Pflumm Question and Answers, CNN (1999)

-Time-based ("moving") painting or drawing: William Kentridge's hand-drawn animations about apartheid; Eve Sussman's 89 seconds at Alcazar, an elaborate video reenactment of the Velasquez painting, Las Meninas; Stan Brakhage's Garden of Earthly Delights (film but an important precursor)

Screening:
Surveying the First Decade: Video Art and Alternative Media in the US

Program 1, Explorations of Presence, Performance and Audience
The artists included here moved into video from performance, sculpture, photography, writing and dance. They used the video camera as a mirror, a tool to investigate perception, presenting performative strategies within the paradoxically intimate and distanced theater of the video monitor. In most pieces the performer constructs an active relationship with the audience, and the viewer's awareness is specifically acknowledged.

“Two Dogs and a Ball,” William Wegman, 1972

“Used Car Salesman,” William Wegman, 1972

"Baldessari Sings Lewitt," John Baldessari, 1972
One of Baldessari's most ambitious and risky efforts. Seated and holding a sheaf of papers, he proceeds to sing each of Sol LeWitt's 35 conceptual statements to a different pop tune, after the model of Ella Fitzgerald Sings Cole Porter. What initially presents itself as humorous gradually becomes a struggle to convey Lewitt's statements through this arbitrary means.

“Undertone,” Vito Acconci, 1973
One of Acconci's most compelling and controversial works, Undertone is a confrontational and coercive attempt to engage the viewer in an intimate, ultimately perverse relation with the artist as he expounds a masturbatory fantasy with the viewer as voyeur.

“Vertical Roll,” Joan Jonas, 1972
Using the technique of a continuous vertical roll, Jonas constructs a theater of female identity by deconstructing representations of the female body. Using her own body as performance object and video as a theatrical construct, Jonas unveils a disjunctive self-portrait. As she performs in front of the camera-- masked, wearing a feathered headdress, or costumed as a belly-dancer--her feet, torso, arms and legs, subjected to the violence of the vertical roll, appear as disembodied fragments.