Absolute Presence » Blog

Media Composer 5 and ProRes Files

chip — Wed, 04 Aug 2010 00:10:42 +0000

I am fairly new with Avid products, but I do realize that many post-houses use Avid over Final Cut Pro. I am going to do a series of short video tutorials from a Final Cut Pro users perspective.

Presentation is everything

chip — Tue, 13 Jul 2010 01:30:38 +0000

When I first finished college I thought I knew how to present: fire up a projector, give a few power point bulleted slides and then talk to those points.

I was doing it wrong for years-I recently read a book entitled the Presentation Secrets of Steve Jobs, and I was skeptical at first, but after reading it, I was convinced otherwise. Presenting before an audience should’t be that difficult, but being a good and engaging presenter is, and this book makes it easy for you to become a better presenter.

Erykah and Ricky at the pier

chip — Sat, 12 Jun 2010 23:15:28 +0000

I have a lot of respect for photographers. I don’t consider myself one at all, but every now-and-then, I get the chance to do a few shoots. Erykah and Ricky are getting married in 2011 and we were in Fells Point in Baltimore and I captured some pics for them. Enjoy. To see the entire set visit my Flickr site.

It always starts with a song

chip — Mon, 24 May 2010 06:33:14 +0000

I was looking at a friends Facebook profile and they had this song entitled, “Find My Way to Love” on their profile. It is such a great song by an artist named Chantae Cann and I was inspired to finish the last trailer for Jared and Anika’s wedding.

It always starts with a song.

Loves Composition

chip — Sat, 15 May 2010 04:00:42 +0000

I recently worked with JAR Media on Loves Composition-Jared and Anika’s wedding trailer video. We shot the video in Old Town Ellicott City, Maryland. We shot the train sequence by Ellicott City Station and it was a great place to film the interviews and for some great b-roll.

JVC GY-HM100u Footage

chip — Fri, 14 May 2010 03:08:32 +0000

Thanks to my friend, Bryant Taylor for sending me some test footage of the JVC GY-HM100U.

I testing the editing with the camera and the native Final Cut Pro support. The camera worked flawlessly in the edit session. I exported the video using Compressor and it worked flawlessly. To find out more about this camera visit the JVC web site here.

Adobe Photoshop CS 5 Three Key Features

chip — Sun, 09 May 2010 01:41:06 +0000

Andy Russell of JAR Media and Design gives a tutorial showing three key features in Adobe Photoshop CS 5.

Howell Funeral Home

chip — Sat, 08 May 2010 14:57:22 +0000

We had the opportunity to complete a web site for Howell Funeral Home located in Baltimore, Maryland. It is the first funeral home web site project we have completed and we learned a lot about the funeral home industry as a result of this project.

The site was moved from a static html web site to WordPress, one of our favorite CMS due to flexibility.

Thanks to Karen Miller (Karen Miller Consulting) for helping facilitate this project and to Dave Cavins for design and implementation and C. Spencer Anderson who provided the photos for the site.

Plural Eyes for Audio Sync

chip — Sun, 25 Apr 2010 13:02:07 +0000

I wrote in an earlier blog post about audio for the Canon 5D MK II and Canon 7D and my audio set up. I did a brief tutorial on PluralEyes, by Singular Software and how you can use the software to sync audio from multiple camera sources and line up audio tracks, like I did for the video below. I highly recommend this software as it cuts down on editing time/workflow.

Apple iPad Review

chip — Sun, 18 Apr 2010 00:32:59 +0000

iPad

All the hoopla has passed now since Apple’s iPad has been released. I was very skeptical in my first review of the
iPad, but I have changed my views. (Sigh)

The iPad is like leather interior on a car, you don’t need it, but it sure is nice if you have it. There are numerous reviews on the functionality and specifications on the iPad so I figured I would review the key ways I use my iPad.

32 GB iPad Wi-Fi (I would suggest to purchase the 3G though)
Main uses: reading, surfing the web, email and creating short presentations, notes, and gaming.

My favorite apps (in no particular order) Updated April 24, 2010

AirVideo -Some apps just solve issues and this one does it well. I have a lot of movies in .avi format and I didn’t want to convert all of them to the .m4v format for the iPad now I don’t need to copy your videos to the device just to watch them.

Netflix-streaming movies right to your iPad and ordering DVD’s from the app. This has to be in my top 3 list off iPad apps. This is one of the main reasons to love the iPad.

TweetDeck–I use this to access all of my twitter accounts on my desktop, iPhone and now it moves to my iPad. Tweetie, I like you but for now TweetDeck has it.

Keynote-I recently did a presentation and uses my iPad and it worked flawlessly. Now if you are doing major presentations I wouldn’t use this, but for a few slides it works very well. I think the negative reviews are because people are expecting this to replace the keynote program on their laptop- and its not, but another way to do some quick presentations.

Goodreader--allows me to read and archive pdf’s and transfer them back and forth to my Mac. It’s a good utility app.

NPR–I am a news junkie and this app looks beautiful and works flawlessly and you can catch up with all the news of the day.

Pandora–free Radio, need I say more?

Games

Scrabble–I could play this all day, it’s a great app on the iPhone and it gets better on the iPad.

Asphalt 5-I usually don’t like racing games, but this game holds my attention and keeps it going.

iBooks--this app is what Steve Jobs debuted during his iPad keynote and it is very good, I just wish they had a better selection of books

Kindle–this app is ok, and the selection of books from Amazon.com is amazing, but I guess you can’t really compete with an book app on Apple’s device. I am sure they are retooling this.

For my kids

Doodle Buddy–keeps them drawing and quiet, but the app is really good.

Cat in the Hat--It reads the book to them and the graphics look so good.

A few more apps that I want to mention are: WordBook XL-this app is very good especially if you like a good dictionary app and this one offers so much more. AirSharing HD-this app offers you to share documents between computers.

Key vertical markets:

Photographers-show off your work and portfolios easily at client meetings and presentations. Here is an interesting article that states more possibilities.
Educators-Use it to download classic books and electronic textbooks.

Overall:

This device isn’t necessary, but it is a nice addition, if you have the extra cash from your tax return or other income you may want to consider getting it. All in all, however, the iPad is an advance in making more-sophisticated computing possible via a simple touch interface on a light device. Only time will tell if it’s a real challenger to the laptop and netbook.