If you’re on the look out for some free generators, effects, and such for use in FCPX, then this round up of some of the best free downloads available on the net, should satisfy that search.

Free Generators For FCPX

Ripple Training has a set of 12 free generators – things like bars and tone, lens flares, noise and shapes, which you can now use in FCPX.

Free Effects for FCPX

Alex Golner has a fantastic archive of 50+ effects, transitions and titles that you can download for free from his site. Its amazing how generous he is with the things he has painstakingly created including an aged film look, bad tv effect, animated curve controls, blurs and colour effects, masks and titles. It is a valuable resource for any FCPX editor.

Andy Mees has also released 3 great free plugins for FCPX including one that called Elastic Aspect which lets you stretch non 16:9 aspect ratio footage to fit. The other two free effects are a region tool to apply an effect only to a specific area and the last are a set of safe guides for on screen checking.

PremiumBeat has a link to a great free re-lighting tool from ProduceNewMedia.com which lets you relight your shots with variable spot and point lights.

Motion Array has a set of free light streak transitions that you can download in exchange for a tweet or a like.  They’re a handy addition to any editors tool box.

CineFlare’s Free FCPX Downloads

Cineflare has a large collection of freebies for use in FCPX including light transitions, quick look grades, adjustment layers and split screen effects. If you’re editing in FCPX there’s no reason not to grab these great treats.

The last post I did called Colorist Resources was very popular so here is yet another round up of some of the latest tips and tutorials to hit the web. If you want even more colour grading posts check out the categories links on the right hand side of the site ->

Using the Blur Palette in DaVinci Resolve 9.1

In this short tutorial Jesse Borkowski talks through how to use the blur palette in DaVinci Resolve 9.1. Its a handy follow up to some of Jesse’s other tutorials (Series 1 & Series 2), providing a more in-depth look at the tools in the blur palette.

Discussion With Colorist Jim Wicks

“When you approach color restoring old film prints, you cannot approach it the same way that you would a ‘new’ film… If there’s a green wash over a shot of a forest, how do you remove the green wash without effecting the green trees? This film was the hardest I’ve had to work on to date. –  Jim Wicks on restoring La Escondida, 1956.

Tom Parish interviews Jim Wicks about his work on restoring vintage spanish language films through DaVinci Resolve. It’s a fascinating discussion not only about Jim’s career, the film business at large and also the process of colour restoring 35mm old prints.

Creating a Faded Film Look

Heading back the other way if you want to make your film look old and faded in a 60′s/70′s style then Aaron Williams has a thorough step by step guide on how to do just that. Aaron used Adobe Speedgrade to create his look but you could apply his technique in any software.

Alexis Van Hurkman’s NAB Round Up

If you’re wondering what you might have missed in all the NAB hubbub then colorist and trainer Alexis Van Hurkman (who demoed Resolve 10 at the Las Vegas Supermeet) has a lengthy round up of the monitors, calibration devices and new software releases he picked up on while walking the floor this year. Well worth a read.

FXGuide – 10 Colour Grading Podcasts

Josh Petok posted this great list of 10 colour grading podcasts from FXGuide.com’s excellent site. The list features interviews with colorists working on major Hollywood films like Harry Potter, Saving Private Ryan and er, Journey To The Centre of The Earth.

I have previously linked to some of these great interviews via a post on Premium Beat’s blog with some other great interviews with working colorists from all sides of the globe.

2 Tips from a great free newsletter

These next links comes from Patrick Inhofer’s ever excellent free Tao of Color weekly newsletter. Its always a delight to rummage through Patricks’ eclectic round up of curated resources from around the web. You’d be crazy not to sign up for it, its free!

First of all colorist Nikolai Waldman has a whole bunch of his tutorials on his site, including this quick tip on using layer mixer nodes instead of parallel nodes. The next link from Patrick is to an interesting article on how colours affect our purchasing decisions and brand impressions.

The weekend of the 28th and 29th of June is a big one in the editor/geek’s calendar. Not only is EditFest coming to London for the first time, but the night before, the Supermeet team will be in town too!

To get tickets to EditFest London – which will feature an incredible line up of high calibre film and TV editors like Chris Dickens (Slum Dog Millionaire, Les Miserables) Eddie Hamilton (Kick Ass 1&2) and John Wilson (Billy Elliot) - and check in on the latest schedule updates, hit the Edit Fest site. For a taster of previous Edit Fests – check out the AOTG archive.

The day will culiminate with an in-depth discussion between Anne V Coates (Lawrence of Arabia, Out of Sight*, Erin Brokovich) and Tom Rolf (Taxi Driver, The Right Stuff*, War Games). *If you’ve not seen The Right Stuff its old school filmmaking at its best and you should definitely watch it! The same goes for the sublime Out of Sight.

UPDATE: Editors drinks – Gordon Burkell of AOTG fame will be leading the charge to the pub (The John Snow, 8-11pm) on the Saturday night for some further drinks and editor chat.  A great opportunity to swap tall post-production tales and actually meet people from twitter!

Third Annual London Supermeet

The friday night will see the Supermeet come to London for the third time. Having been along last year it will great to be there again in person rather than hoping and waiting for videos to hit the internet. There is also the opportunity to win some amazing prizes via the world famous Supermeet Raffle - as each and every entry ticket includes two raffle tickets. Remember to get your whoop on when you win! Buy tickets directly here (£10.90)

5 Things To Do While In London

“Why, Sir, you find no man, at all intellectual, who is willing to leave London. No, Sir, when a man is tired of London, he is tired of life; for there is in London all that life can afford.” – Samuel Johnson

Here are 5 small suggestions on how to have a good time in London while you’re here stocking up on editing and post-production gold.

1. Buy a decent Coffee

The independent coffee scene has exploded in the last few years and you’d be a fool to venture into a Starbucks, Costa, Neros or any other chain when a far superior coffee is to be had on almost every street corner. (Yes, there is an app for that) Personal favourites include Speak Easy, Prufrock, Caffe Vergano 1882, Workshop, Flat White, Foxcroft & Ginger, Monmouth and many many more.

2. Buy a decent burger

London is full of tourist traps. Luckily we’ll be in the centre of soho for the Edit Fest London event so you should avoid most of them and when you get peckish you must get a decent burger. And when I say decent I mean amazing! Honest Burger on Meard Street is the place to go. Accept no substitutes.

3. Visit the Queen

Pop in if you can. I mean its only polite it is her country after all. She lives here. Say hi from me.

4. Get a stroll in a park

London is the greenest city for its size in the world with over 40% of Greater London being green to some description. Regent’s Park and St. James park are two of my favourites. Take time out to munch your burger or sip your coffee there.

5. Buy an Oyster Card

Getting around London is easiest on the tube, buses or ”Boris Bikes” (cycle-hire from one of thousands of stations around town) and this is cheapest when you buy an oyster card. Top it up with cash and then zip around town by tapping in and out of all the barriers (or just ‘in’ on a bus) to get fares at about half the price of paying cash. Giving you more money to spend on coffee/burgers.

Being a great storyteller is key to any creative work, whether its a song, still image or feature film. These 5 books on screenwriting and writing will help you learn how to craft, hone and shape a story, regardless of your creative field.

As a film editor I need to be able to quickly shape a story from the raw building blocks of documentary rushes, talking heads or a drama script. Moulding them into something that really works and developing strong storytelling skills are invaluable to my day to day work and life long career. Here are a few books I’ve found particularly useful so far.

Teach Yourself Screenwriting – Ray Frensham

The first book I ever owned on screenwriting and originally called Teach Yourself Screenwriting (now retitled: Break Into Screenwriting) by Ray Frensham is the most straight-fowrard guide to the classic Hollywood 3-Act narrative structure you could hope for. Given that I was probably 11 or 12 when I first read it, this book represents a great introduction to essential screenwriting concepts but won’t slow you down with too much unnecessary depth.  A great book for any creative trying to understand simple narrative structure and a slick introduction to screenwriting. Thank you Mr. Frensham for inspiring me to get into film!

Buy on Amazon.com | Buy on Amazon.co.uk

On Writing – Stephen King

This is probably my favourite book on the art, craft and life of being a writer. I’ve never been a Stephen King fan (I don’t really go in for horror) and aside from masterpieces like Misery and The Shawshank Redemption I’ve not read/seen much of his stuff. But his memoir on the craft of writing is fantastic.

A must read for any would-be writer this part autobiography, part writers manual is a genuine page turner. King’s idea that a story is like a fossil you find on the ground and slowly uncover is extremely pertinent for documentary filmmakers too. Storytelling takes patience, discipline and determination and you’ll learn what that takes from an outstanding teacher in Stephen King. Brilliant.

Buy on Amazon.com | Buy on Amazon.co.uk

A Million Miles in a Thousand Years – Donald Miller

Although author Donald Miller’s A Million Miles in a Thousand Years isn’t strictly about screenwriting it is about the story of writing a screenplay and how that storytelling process taught him to live a good story, not just imagine one. This is a great book about what makes for telling a good story as well as how to go about living one. I often recommend this book to creative friends because ultimately the best stories will come from a place ‘writing what you know’. So we had better get living a good story as life, as my wife so often tells me, is for living. Miller’s funny, moving and inspiring reflections on the process of screenwriting make for a thoroughly enjoyable read.

Buy on Amazon.com | Buy on Amazon.co.uk

The Writer’s Journey – Christopher Vogler

If you’ve ever heard anything about George Lucas’ inspiration for Star Wars you’ll know it had everything to do with reading Joseph Campbell’s seminal The Hero With a Thousand Faces. (Which is a book I own, have started a couple of times and always meant to come back to.)

Christopher Vogler’s The Writer’s Journey is the kind of book a story analyst who works for Hollywood movie studios would write after digesting and working with Joseph Campbell’s core ideas that there are archetypal stories, characters and narratives which provide the basis for every story ever written, and then worked those into modern feature films. When I say its the kind of book someone like that might write, it is the book that Christopher Vogler (story analyst for Hollywood movies studios) has written. The Writer’s Journey, though a thickly detailed book, is incredibly easy to read and get to grips with. If you’re after a point by point screenwriting guide through the mythical archetype of The Hero’s Journey, this is the book for you.

Buy on Amazon.com | Buy on Amazon.co.uk

Screenwriters Favourites – An Assortment of Classic Books

It would be a bit odd to have collected together a list of the best books on screenwriting and storytelling and completely fail to mention a few of the ‘classics’ on the genre. Robert Mckee’s Story is probably the most famous and recommended screenwriting bible. A thick book I own but not gotten around to reading it is considered essential reading for any screenwriter. Or you could just watch Adaptation and get three minutes of Brian Cox instead. Lastly William Goldman’s books Adventures in the Screen Trade, Which Lie Did I Tell? and The Big Picture are all considered classic screenwriters reading material.

Another wave of great resources for new colourists has hit the web and I’ve rounded up a fair few of them here. Hopefully this melange of tutorials, tips and training will help you progress in the fun that is colour grading.

Summer Blockbuster Grading Tutorial

Juan Melera, whose free film emulation LUTS are very popular, recently posted this meaty tutorial on creating a summer blockbuster look similar to Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol. If you want to follow along with Juan you can also download the original 5K RED files.

In the tutorial I analyse the look of Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol and show you it’s not one single cool hue being added to the image, but actually several hues that appear at specific places on the luminosity ramp.

Some professional colorist’s seem to get a bit agitated by the propagation of the idea that you can simply shove a LUT on your footage and that makes you a colorist. Of course it doesn’t but that doesn’t mean that you shouldn’t use them if you want to.

People ask me why I use film LUTs and if they are somehow cheating by using them. I use LUTs because I think they’re an important component in achieving this look. Film LUTs have been used by post production studios on films for aslong as they’ve been conducting DI colour grades. There’s a good chance that the films people continually try to match the look of, have been graded with a film LUT which has then been baked in, thus becoming a large part of the finished look.

Ask a Colorist – Alexis Van Hurkman Q&A blog

If you’ve ever wanted even more direct access to a professional colorist and trainer then your wishes have been granted. Alexis Van Hurkman (who recently demoed DaVinci Resolve 10 at NAB. wrote its manual and has some excellent training on Resolve) has a new blog over on Pro Video Coalition which will take the form of a Q&A structure. In this first post Alexis answers a couple of questions about Video Scopes. If you want to email in you can do so via ahurkman@procoalitions.com

Interviews with Colorists

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Tom Parish chats with colorist Rob Bessette about his career and what its like to demo DaVinci Resolve at NAB. Its a great interview with plenty of inside detail on Resolve 10 and is well worth a listen. For more interviews with professional colorists check out these five I put together on Premium Beat, including another great chat from Tom Parish with Patrick Inhoffer.

The Craft of Colour Grading

Its always interesting to get an inside look at the workflow and artistic intent of working colorists and these few resources will give you that insiders view.

Studio Daily has a great interview with colorist Leandro Marini, on his approach to owning and running a boutique post production shop (Local Hero Post) and using Assimilate Scratch to perform creative DI in post. This quote is from Leandro’s work on Pitch Perfect.

The director saw the footage and although there was a lot of flaring going on with the lights that were there already, he thought the stage felt kind of empty. In the DI we filled in more of the flares and added spotlights and moving spotlights. It just made the world feel bigger and more expensive. We did those directly in the color system. When you watch the final film, it just makes those scenes look more exciting. And that’s work you’d typically ship out to VFX vendors.

Colorist Aaron Peak is briefly interviewed over on the Film Independent blog – giving an introduction to what it takes to grade an indie feature.

I generally already have an idea of the narrative and story from talking to the director and DP about the film and it’s intended look and feel. The last thing I’d want to do is tie my eyes to an offline version of the color, as that version is typically quite generic and not creatively appropriate for the film. Everyone else has been looking at that offline editorial for months and what the picture really needs are fresh eyes.

Here’s a quick round up of some useful tutorials on colour correction in Davinci Resolve, Final Cut Pro X and Avid Media Composer.

The first tutorial is another great Anatomy of a Grade from colourist Chris Hall. For more of his great grading breakdowns check out this previous post featuring 4 other tutorials.

To find out how to get your project into Resolve from any NLE, including Adobe Premiere Pro and FCP7 check out this previous post.

Avid Media Composer – Grading Basics

Kevin P McAuliffe continues his epic run of Avid Media Composer tutorials over on the Creative Cow with this two part colour correction tutorial. I’ve personally found Kevin’s free tutorials very useful in my journey into using Avid. (Check out the Diary of an Avid Switcher posts for more on that.)

In part 1 Kevin, demonstrates how to balance the image and then in part 2 gets into using the colour wheels too. A great primer for anyone new to colour correction.

Getting Started in FCPX

Chris Fenwick has a whole load FCP tutorials, and a growing number of FCPX tutorials, on his youtube channel and in this short video he walks through some effective colour grading effects, including using qualifiers to treat selected parts of the image. If you’re trying to wrap your head around the color board this is a great place to start.

If you want even more FCPX colour correction tutorials here are ten more courtesy of Premium Beat.

I needed a new microphone to record a voice over for a recent project and set about trying to find out what the best microphone to get would be. As with anything there’s a vast range of choice for a even bigger range of prices. Here are some of the best microphones for recording voice overs (and podcasts or tutorials) as recommended by a few composer, musician and post-production friends.

How to choose the right microphone

Personally I’m not setting up a studio level booth – I just need a good microphone I can trust to record voice overs in a way my clients will be pleased with. Another vital criteria for me is to be able to quickly connect it all up to my laptop so I can record their talent, wherever they may be. Portability, quality and price are all important factors for the frequently travelling editor!

In choosing a microphone there are essentially two ways to go: A straight USB microphone or a XLR microphone into a pre-amp that connects via usb into your computer. XLR microphones will be of better quality but this 2-part set up will cost a bit more money and take about 10 seconds longer to set up. I went with a XLR/pre-amp set up because it affords me great flexibility in the future and access to a higher quality microphone.

Should I pay more?

In researching which mic to get, I came across voice over artist Trevor Jones website, where he linked to this 17 microphone blindfold shoot out which lets you download the mp3′s from each microphone and see if you can tell the difference between a $79 and $2,600 price tag. That’s the Neumann U87 by the way –>

Trevor’s conclusion: Once you have a mic at a certain level, it takes a lot of money to make a small difference. 

The surprising hit of the shootout, and a mic also recommended to me by a composer friend was the Shure SM57. As silly as it may sound, from a looks point of view I didn’t think the SM57 would cut it in front of my clients so I went with something more beefy looking. As it turns out Trevor also recommends the same microphone that I ultimately went with.

Buy on Amazon.com / Amazon.co.uk

USB Microphones for Recording Voice Over

If you don’t want to splash a lot of money on a microphone and just want something that will get the job done a USB microphone will do that and do it well. Compared to XLR microphones they’re not as good but they’re still pretty darn good.

I have previously used a Samson CO3 for recording temp vo at a director’s house and it held up very well. We did have to construct a ‘booth’ from plenty of duvet’s but it worked for our low-fi purposes. A package like this one includes all the bits you need like a shock mount, pop shield and desktop stand. Buy on Amazon.com / Amazon.co.uk

Blue’s Snowball and Yeti Pro microphones were also recommended to me and although they do look a bit more funky, I prefer the look of something a bit more ‘technical’. Also these were recommended for more of a podcast purpose. Pat Flynn lets you listen to a selection of USB microphones in this podcasting tutorial and that is probably the best way of choosing which one sounds good to you.

XLR Microphones for Recording Voice Over

Voice over professionals like Hal Douglas in the trailer at the top of this post will be using the best microphones that money can buy. But what if you want something a cut above a USB microphone that doesn’t take you in a price tag with three zeros attached? Here are a couple of recommendations.

The Audio Technica AT2020 and AT4040 were also recommended to me by a composer I work with a lot.  Something like the AT4040 is quite a bit more money than I wanted to spend, but probably represents a good investment for an actual voice over artist. Where as the AT2020 also comes as a USB version too.

Also the MXL 770 came up as one of the most popular on Amazon – I’m always interested to see what people are actually buying vs what they’re recommending, and for people to bother with an Amazon review they must be impressed. Amazon.com / Amazon.co.uk

 The Voice Over Microphone I Chose To Buy

In the end I chose this all in one NT1-A recording package from Rode which comes with a shock mount, XLR cable and pop shield (I also picked up a light weight mic stand too). As its not a USB microphone I also bought this USB powered Focusrite Scarlett 2i4 pre-amp, which lets you set your levels, monitor your audio and input various other audio devices into your laptop, all via USB. It also provides phantom power to the NT1-A.

It was incredibly simple to put together in a couple of minutes, including a quick driver download from the Focusrite website. I did a couple of quick tests using the voice over tool right inside FCP7 and it sounded great.

Because you can get so close to the mic and have such fine control, relatively quiet background sound (eg planes) is largely unnoticeable and the Scarlett’s controls make it very straight forward to get a decent level. Although you obviously you want as quiet a recording environment as possible, thats not often the scenario I get to work with.

Once out of the boxes it also all fits nicely into my editing rucksack, including my trusty BeyerDynamic DT770s. For a full spec of the NT1-A and the Scarlett 2i4 check out the Rode and Focusrite sites.

Buy the Rode NT1-A Package on Amazon.com / Amazon.co.uk

Buy the Focusrite Scarlett 2i4 USB Pre-amp on Amazon.com / Amazon.co.uk

If you’re after a similar “all-in-one” package this Scarlett 2i4 bundle with the Audio Technica AT2020 also came highly recommend and represents equally good value for money.  Buy on Amazon.com

If you’ve read this far and you’re still not sure what to get, you can always have a read of Edge Studio’s very helpful and detailed voice over microphone selector. Also if you have any better recommendations for the readers of this blog, please do hit the comments!

A Few Quick Voice Over Recording Tips

First of all your brand new microphone is actually quite delicate so don’t go throwing it around or leaving it out to get clogged up with dust. If you do have it set up on a stand all the time something like the NT1-A comes with a handy draw string cover to keep dust off, but you could just use a sock I suppose!

Because of a a microphones differing response pattern, how you place and position the microphone can make a big difference to the quality of the sound. Twisting the mic as you record a test will let you hear how the front and side (of a NT1-A the back is ‘dead’) will sound. Also if you’re after a narration sound, any soft furnishings you can place between the voice and the walls will help prevent harsh reverberations hitting the mic.

If you’re new to editing in FCPX getting used to the unique way in which it does a few things can be a bit of distraction to getting any real work done. Hopefully this round up of tips, tricks and tutorials will help you leap over those pain barriers and get back to what you really love doing – editing!

Faster Editing in FCPX

Larry Jordan has a good write up of all the keyboard shortcuts involved in trimming in FCPX. Memorising these will definitely speed up your working day. He also demonstrates how to use the precision editor in this short tutorial from his training series.

In this great short tutorial Ben Consoli shares how he uses FCPX’s favourites feature to keyword talking head interviews to allow him to search through interview footage for the sound bite you need.

Final Cut Basix is a fairly new FCPX editing site that is packed with plenty of great tips, especially for the editor coming to FCPX for the first time, so do have a good rummage. Here is a good example of the kind of tips on the site: Modifying Keyboard Shortcuts - Customise the FCPX keyboard so every button does what you want it to.

Tips on Correctly Setting Up FCPX

Get to grips with the plethora of preferences in FCPX will set you on a firm foundation for trip-up free editing. In this efficient walk through of all the options in the four preferences tabs FCPX has to offer Final Cut Basix explains how to configure each one.

Larry Jordan talks through how to make sure you pick the right video format from the start and then how to get the best output from FCPX as a result.

Discover the ins and outs of batch renaming clips in FCPX with the Mac Break Studio boys Mark Spencer and Steve Martin. Here’s a quick run down of why you might want to know how to do that:

This custom batch renaming feature, coupled with the ability to group and arrange your event clips by various methods (content created date, date imported, role, file type, camera name, etc.) and the ability to create keyword collections and smart collections mean that you can very quickly sort through a large amount of material to find just the clips you want, when you want.

Audio Tips in FCPX

How do you get rid of background hum, loud peaks and unwanted ambient noise? Check out this simple walk through of some of FCPX’s audio enhance features from Danny Greer on PremiumBeat. In another post Danny shares two quick keyboard shortcuts for making the most of audio skimming and slow motion playback.

Quickly dip audio with the range tool (R) with this micro tip from Jeff Greenberg who has some great FCPX tips on his blog and plenty of free lecture notes from his NAB sessions.

Ben Consoli shares how he uses the ‘voice over enhancer’ to sweeten his dialogue.

Lastly in this quick tutorial Larry Jordan shares an excerpt, from a 40 minute long webinar on working with audio in FCPX, how to work with the surround sound panning tools. Nice.

I’ve been collecting a growing list of links to interviews with editors who are using Avid Media Composer to get their job done, whether thats a major Hollywood feature or a cable network TV show. Although these are pretty much all Avid market tools there’s plenty of craft insights to be had too. Thanks to the Postchat chaps for such great interviews from NAB 2013.

William Goldenberg – Argo

Star Trek – Mary Jo Markey & Maryann Brandon

FrontLine – Steve Audette

Editor Nicholas Eliopoulos – Getting Started

Eddie Hamilton – Kick Ass

There are some great technical tips in this presentation which are worth making note of!

Game of Thrones – Producer Greg Spence

True Blood – Mark Hartzell

The other day I had to work with some C300 LOG footage in FCP7 and needed to quickly apply a LUT that would show the client what it might actually look like in the final grade. For a simple free way of doing this just grab LUT Buddy from Red Giant Software and follow the tutorial below. You can also download several free Canon C300 LOG LUTS from the great people at AbleCine.

On-set Data Management with Canon C300

For a step by step guide to working with the C300, you won’t find much better, or more detailed resource than this article on from the Canon official site. The article includes useful charts of data rates, camera menus and comparison of various Compact Flash card makers.