Click “Continue Reading” for more details.AUGUST 2009 MEETING

OUR AUGUST MEETING IS WEDNESDAY AUGUST 19

AGENDA:

A. Presentation: WHAT’S NEW IN FINAL CUT STUDIO 3

Steve Szabo will deliver a presentation about and show the major new features in the NEW Final Cut Studio 3, featuring:

- FINAL CUT PRO 7

- MOTION 4

- SOUNDTRACK PRO 3

- COLOR 1.5

- COMPRESSOR 3.5

- DVD STUDIO PRO 4

B. NEW JVC Professional Cameras For FINAL CUT PRO

PRESENTATION AND PREVIEW OF THE CAMERAS

Presented by
Alicia Reed, District Sales Manager, JVC

Wayne Christiansen, President, Isys Video Systems

JVC representatives will demonstrate and present a seminar about the new JVC GY-HM100 and GY-HM700 solid state cameras. These cameras were designed with Apple to record natively in the .MOV format for drag-and-drop editing in Final Cut Pro. These cameras also record in .MP4 format, which is the XDCAM EX format, so can work directly with Avid, Adobe Premiere, and GV Edius as well. You have a choice of ergonomic shoulder-mount or hand-held cameras, and both allow you to record 720p, 1080i, or 1080p. There will be an opportunity to check out the cameras after the presentation.

DATE:

The August meeting of our group will take place on the 3rd Wednesday of the month.

WEDNESDAY, August 19th, 6:30 PM – 9 PM

LOCATION:

University of Hawaii, Manoa
Krauss Hall,
Yukiyoshi Room
PARKING: $5, and because it is in the evening,
PARK IN ANY PARKING AREAS ON CAMPUS
See map at this link:
Krauss Hall, Yokiyoshi Room Map

***** PLEASE RSVP *****

If you plan to attend. SEATING IS LIMITED!

FOLLOW US ON TWITTER:

You can follow The Hawaii Final Cut Pro Users Group on Twitter! Get meeting updates, members-only product discounts, and lots of other information useful to Final Cut Studio users and creative content producers!

http://twitter.com/hawaiifcpug

• “Authoring for Blu-ray video discs on the Mac” Keynote slides: Download PDF (52 Kb)
• Sample Photoshop layout for Adobe Encore Blu-ray menus: Download PSD (396 Kb)

Links:

• MPEG Streamclip: Free “swiss army knife” software for Mac or Windows that lets you mux/demux MPEG-2 files. It’s an awesome tool to have when authoring DVDs or Blu-ray discs. And despite its name, it also lets you play and convert many other formats, such as Flash Video, and will easily allow you to rip DVDs to Quicktime files for FCP import (unencrypted DVDs only).
• Adobe Encore
• Encoding Blu-ray video using Apple Compressor: From Adobe’s DAV TechTable blog
• Blu-ray encoding with Compressor video tutorial: Excellent overview from Macbreak #165, with Brian Gary, author of Compressor 3 Quick Start Guide and Alex Lindsay from Pixelcorps/DV Garage
• Creating Blu-ray discs with FCP, Compressor & Adobe Encore: Great step-by-step tutorial–including how to install a Blu-ray burner in your Mac Pro–from Kenstone.net
• “Taming the Wild Blu Yonder”, Part I & Part II: Awesome 2-part article by Bruce Nazarian, discussing the state of Blu-ray authoring on the Mac. Discusses disc media, burner/playback hardware & software and an in-depth walk-through of using Roxio Toast to create Blu-ray discs. Although we strongly advise against using Toast for professional quality video encoding, it’s still an easy way to burn short Blu-ray videos onto standard DVD-R discs)
• BluStreak Premaster: BluStreak Premaster is the first–and currently, only–software that enables the creation of Cutting Master Format (“CMF”) files on the Macintosh. If you are creating a Blu-ray title that will be mass “replicated” (read this to learn the difference between “duplication” and “replication”), you will need to own this software!BluStreak Premaster is currently available at a limited-time introductory price of $299. This price will increase soon, so now is the time to buy it!

Mocha for Final Cut Pro:

• Product information for Mocha FCP, from Imagineer Systems.
• Paid members of the Hawaii FCPUG recieve a 25% discount off the purchase of Mocha for FCP! Please email steve@digitaledgehawaii.com to request the discount code.

Miscellaneous Links:

• Zaxwerks 3D Invigorator PRO: Plugin for After Effects for building/importing/animating 3D objects within Adobe After Effects.
  

Blu-ray has become the format for delivery of HD on discs. With the dramatic increase in HD production and the rising popularity amongst consumers of movies on Blu-ray, the format has become more important as a means for us to deliver our content. But DVD Studio Pro isn’t capable of Blu-ray authoring. Until recently the only way you could author a Blu-ray was by using very expensive software ($50,000). Different solutions have begun to emerge for Blu-ray authoring but some are very limited and others are complex.

This presentation has been created to demonstrate the workflows now available to author Blu-ray discs on an Apple computer.
Topics Include:
- Simple Blu-ray discs authoring and what is lacks
- Encoding strategies for video and audio for Blu-ray
- Procedures for creating menus for Blu-ray; both static and motion
- Software available for Blu-ray authoring on the Mac
- Authoring professional Blu-ray discs on the Mac
- What is needed for burning Blu-ray discs
- What is needed for Blu-ray replication

B. HAWAII FCPUG RAFFLE
We have a few software packages that have been donated by our sponsors to give away.
RAFFLE RULES:
Every person who attends the August meeting and pays the regular $5 meeting donation will receive 2 free raffle tickets. Additional Raffle Tickets will be for sale at $2 each or 3 for $5. All tickets are eligible for all drawings. Once a ticket is drawn it will not be replaced into the ticket pool. Winning ticket holders must be present to claim their prize. If the holder of a winning ticket is not present at the time of drawing, another ticket will be drawn, until a winner is proclaimed.

C. Q. & A. WITH MEL & STEVE
Member Queries & Troubleshooting
Steve and Mel will take questions from members in attendance about any problems, issues or queries related to film and video. We’ll do our best to help clarify the facts!

DATE:
The May meeting of our group will take place on the 3rd Wednesday of the month.
WEDNESDAY, May 20th, 6:30 PM – 9 PM

LOCATION:
University of Hawaii, Manoa
Krauss Hall,
Yukiyoshi Room
PARKING: $3, and because it is in the evening,
PARK IN ANY PARKING AREAS ON CAMPUS
See map at this link:
Krauss Hall, Yokiyoshi Room Map

***** PLEASE RSVP *****
if you plan to attend.
We need to know how many will attend!

Special Presentation:”The Role of Integrated Marketing in Film & Video Production”

Guest-presenter: Dennis Mahaffay, Vice President of Broadcast, Laird Christianson Advertising / Anthology Marketing Group

Last week, on April 4, 2009, the 2009 Annual Pele Awards ceremony took place at the Hilton Hawaii Village. One award winner for TV commercials was a spot produced for American Savings Bank titled “Kinda Free Checking“, created for the client by Laird Christianson Advertising under the direction of our presenter, Dennis Mahaffay. This commercial was edited and finished with Final Cut Studio. Dennis will present for the group a detailed analysis of the creation of that spot and show us the finished commercial. But more than that, he will talk about how modern agencies must address numerous communication portals in the rapidly changing and diversifying array of media platforms in today’s and tomorrow’s world.

The Integrated Marketing Agency is a prominent force in our community. Understanding the role of the agency and what they do for their clients and for us can improve our opportunities and teach us much about the creative process as people who are passionate about creative story-telling. In this presentation, Dennis will give you a deeper insight into that segment of the creative community, as well as provide you an inside look into the process of creating a high-profile television commercial.

TOPICS TO INCLUDE:

Q & A session to follow

ABOUT DENNIS MAHAFFAY:

From his introduction into television as an intern at PBS Hawaii in Honolulu, Dennis Mahaffay’s career has spanned every facet of television and commercial production. Beginning with TV station commercials and expanding into television programming, Dennis has won numerous local and national commercial and programming awards during his career. Awards include local Peles and regional AICP awards for commercial production as well as honors from the New York Film and Television Awards and Emmy awards. In 1990, Dennis was honored as Hawaii’s “Advertising Man of the Year” by the Hawaii Advertising Federation.

In 2006, Dennis joined Hawaii’s largest advertising agency, Laird Christianson Advertising as Vice President of Production. In 2007, LCA merged with StarrSeigle Communications and became Anthology Marketing Group, Hawaii’s largest integrated media company.

DATE:

The April meeting of our group will take place on the 3rd Wednesday of the month.
WEDNESDAY, April 15, 6:30 PM – 9 PM

LOCATION:

University of Hawaii, Manoa
Krauss Hall,
Yukiyoshi Room
PARKING: $3, and because it is in the evening,
PARK IN ANY PARKING AREAS ON CAMPUS

View a map at this link:
Krauss Hall, Yukiyoshi Room

PLEASE RSVP IF YOU PLAN TO ATTEND!

Because we have limited seating at our meetings, we need to know in advance how many people will be attending. Please e-mail RSVP’s to steve@digitaledgehawaii.com

FOLLOW @HAWAIIFCPUG ON TWITTER:

You can get up-to-the minute updates about our meetings (including other useful general FCP and video production related information) by following us on Twitter!.

MAP

Mel’s Project-folder-o-matic template (unzip this file in Finder, and it will create a hierarchy of empty folders, which you can delete or modify as you prefer. The .fcp projectfiles in the “fcp” folder are in Final Cut Pro 6.0.5 format, and will not open on older versions of Final Cut)

Steve’s Keynote presentation (36K PDF)

Special Presentation: “Final Cut Studio System & Workflow Optimization”

Steve Szabo & Mel Matsuoka will present guidelines they have developed through professional experience around 2 areas:

1. Optimizing your Edit System

Learn how to set up your hardware, your OS, your file structure and your application settings so that they all compliment each other. The idea here is to make your system hum like a finely tuned Ferrari and give you minimal grief as you go about the business of making good film and video.

2. Optimizing your workflow in all video work: including Final Cut Studio applications and other video applications.

Organizing your folders and keeping your workflow streamlined is all about making it easy to find what you need when you need it. In addition, your workflow can make it painless to retrieve a prior project for the purpose of making changes. This is all about maintaining efficiency and keeping all the hair in your head!

DATE:

The March meeting of our group will take place on the 3rd Wednesday of the month.
WEDNESDAY, March 18, 6:30 PM – 9 PM

LOCATION:
University of Hawaii, Manoa
Krauss Hall,
Yukiyoshi Room
PARKING: $3, and because it is in the evening,
PARK IN ANY PARKING AREAS ON CAMPUS

View a map at this link:
Krauss Hall, Yukiyoshi Room

***** PLEASE RSVP ***** if you plan to attend.
We need to know how many will attend. E-mail RSVP’s to steve@digitaledgehawaii.com