The closer we get to NAB in April, the more exciting life seems to get. (But, I've always been a geek.) This week, I've got a ton of new goodies for you - interviews, webinars, new training, four new articles and one from the archives this week.

Whew!  This sleep thing is way over-rated.

And, for those of you that like popularity contests, and seeing what other people are reading and watching, I've updated our Top 3 Lists.

Randi Altman, former editor-in-chief at Post Magazine, has started a new venture: Post-Perspective Update.  This week, she interviewed me about my thoughts on the upcoming NAB Show in Las Vegas in April. I shared my thoughts on 4K and other hot topics.

Read it here:  www.postperspective.com/ppnews-031314.html

Recnently, Smartsound released two new plug-ins - one for FCP X and one for Premiere Pro CC - that make it easier than ever to add music to your projects.

This last week, I was working on a video tutorial for Smartsound showcasing the new software. I was so impressed, I wrote this product review to tell you more about it.

OK, I admit it. I can't draw.

But there is still a reason to learn Motion. Recently, I wanted to show a class how to animate text on a curve.

And I discovered that I had forgotten how. So, to serve as a reminder to myself, I wrote this detailed tutorial so that the next time I forget how Motion works, I can re-read what I wrote.

You don't need to wait that long. This is a fun article that requires exactly zero design skills to get your text to do fun and crazy things.

This article is a follow-on to the one just before it that shows you how to animate text on a curve.

Motion also allows us to animate text around a geometric shape that we draw (um, not likely), import from Photoshop, or steal from the Motion library.

I opted to purloin a shape from the Motion library and wrote this tutorial to show you how this techique works. Cool, even if I do say so myself.

This article was written a while ago, but I still get asked to explain frame reordering, when compressing QuickTime files.

So, if you've ever wondered what this means and what you should do about it, this article will take less than a minute and a half to read.

And, as an update, what applies to QuickTime Player 7 also applies to QuickTime Player X.

Here are the most popular articles, webinars, and audio interviews for the past seven days across all my websites.

Articles

We expanded this list to the Top 4 for more variety:

• Color Correction: Make People Look Normal 
• Media Management is the Biggest Change in Final Cut Pro X v10.1  
• Apple Releases Final Cut Pro X v10.1 
• FCP 7: Pick the Right Version of ProRes  

For an index of all our articles, visit here.

 

Webinars

• #119: 3rd-Party Plug-ins for FCP X 
• #118: Integrating Motion 5 with FCP X  
• #117: Media Management in FCP X 

This list is based on the webinars watched most often by our monthly subscribers. For a list of all our webinars, visit here.

 

Digital Production Buzz Audio Interviews   

• Michael Cioni: Is the New Mac Pro the "Missing Link" for 4K Media?
• John Putch: A Look at Indie Films From the "Inside"
• Josh Apter: Shooting Video on an iPad

For a list of all the audio interviews we've conducted on The Buzz, visit here. 

With the release of Final Cut Pro X v10.1, Apple also updated Compressor to version 4.1 An all new interface, improved compression settings and better monitoring. So much changed, in fact, that we went back and re-recorded all our training for the new version.

• Better organized
• More informative
• Tighter focus on making your images look great.

These days, everything we do ends up on the web.
Which means that if we don't know how to compress our video to make it look good, all our work during production and post is wasted.

In this in-depth video training, Larry Jordan shows you how to make the most of Apple Compressor 4.1.

Whether you are a new or experienced, this training will help you make your media look and sound great!

Larry Jordan

Larry Jordan & Associates

P.S. I always love hearing from you. Feel free to write.