Feature Article August 27, 2001
Feature Article August 27, 2001
"Think Different"-ly
Getting More out of FCP
By Ben Bryant
I do read manuals but I don't always understand them. You're probably smarter than me so you've never had that experience - Ha Ha! But seriously, there are always things in any software that don't seem to work the way they're supposed to or aren't applicable to the effect you want to create. Many useful techniques will not be found in the manuals anyway. Someone thought outside the box and came up with a new, better way to do something long after the manual was written.
I recently had two such experiences with FCP and the solution to both, quite different, challenges (I try to avoid problems, I prefer challenges.) was remarkably similar - they both involved doubling the clip in question. The first was audio, the second, video.
I was editing a demo reel for a singer and dealing with a quiet (low audio level) song and the ambient room tone was high relative to the music. After much experimentation with the FCP audio filters to no avail, it was suggested at my NYC FCP User group that I try the double-the-track-trick. If you don't know it, it's simple and effective. Rather than increasing the db - which also raises the noise floor level - leave the db where it is, copy the audio for the clip, add the appropriate number of empty audio tracks to your timeline and paste the copy right under the original clip. The net effect is a doubling of the volume without a noticeable increase in the noise floor. Very cool, easy technique! And you won't find it in any manual. Someone had to make it up - a result of thinking differently.
A couple of weeks later I was working on a project for an artist. With a polarizing filter on the lens of my Sony PD 150, I had taped high quality reproductions of a dozen or so paintings and collages by the brilliant Robert Taub in order to present an introduction to his work on tape, DVD and the Web.
Eighteen to twenty individual gravestone rubbings comprised each of the collages. I made locked-off wide shots of each collage as well as various zooms, pans and tilts and used them all in my edit. The music I chose has a passage which is mysteriously haunting and that's the section to which I cut the collage portion of the video. Even with the variety of shots I had of the material there were moments when I wanted something more - a ghostly quality. The strobe filters (FCP and the Eureka! plug-in) gave me what I wanted for two passages but there was a third section of about 7 seconds for which none of the various strobing effects quite gave me what I needed.
I had no deadline on this project and it was finished except for that little section so I let it sit, did some other work and (unconsciously) mulled the idea for a day or two. I have found that often a solution comes when I stop (consciously) thinking about an issue. The next time I opened and ran the Taub piece it was still finished - except for that section - and the audio track doubling I had done a couple of weeks earlier popped into my mind along with the question: "Could that idea be applied to video tracks?" The short answer is "yes!" And, as is often the case, it was improved with a little help from my friends.
I had already added 2 video tracks on top of the original so:
1) I copied the unfinished section of video track 1 and dropped it onto video track 2 right smack on top of itself. Locking the other tracks (video and audio just to be safe) and setting the opacity (Motion > Opacity) on the copied piece to 50%,
AUDIO FILTERS - NOT!
VIDEO EFFECTS FILTERS (also) NOT!
The common theme of all the works was the gang warfare in East LA and its tragic results. In addition to some powerful and emotionally charged murals Taub had created several collages from actual grave stone rubbings illustrating the scores of Hispanic youths cut down in their teens. Because these were works of art I had no intention of using any video effect which would distort or affect the paintings themselves. They had to remain "clean" and I limited my "creativity" to zooming in on elements, framing to separate components of the pictures for detailed scrutiny and the like; Except for the collages.
A Robert Taub collage of grave stone
rubbings from East L.A.
2) I started experimenting with slipping track 2 one frame, two frames, three frames, four frames and back again until I got the displacement I wanted. (3 frames) I added some Blur (Video Filters> QuickTime> Blur) and played with the brightness/contrast filter.
3) Then I tweaked the opacity. I was liking the effect but something was not quite right and I didn't know exactly what.
That night I went to my FCP User Group meeting. One of the guys screened a rock concert promo he'd just finished and there was a section of incredibly quick cuts that piqued my curiosity. He told me he had used 2 layers of (different) video and applied the "Blink" filter to the top track. The Blink filter (Browser> Effects> Video Filters> Video) is nothing more that a time-adjustable, rhythmic opacity control and it was exactly what I needed. I couldn't wait to get back to my Mac and try it.
After opening the project and moving to the appropriate spot
4) I selected the V2 version of the headstone clip, double clicked to open it in the viewer and took out all the opacity tweaks I had put in.
5) Once it was "clean" I dragged the Blink filter onto it, did a low res render and ran it. The effect was almost exactly what I wanted. All that was left to do was to fade in and out the doubled clip using the opacity control and the speed/tempo of the blinks. I used the Blink Filter's On and Off Duration controls to match the rhythm of the music and I was done.
The aforementioned processes required several low res renders but once I figured out what to do it only took 25 or 30 minutes and I had exactly the effect I wanted. BTW, when you're doing an experimental process like this and do a lot of low res renders - once you're finished don't forget to re-render it in high res!
CONCLUSION
The point of all this is not so much to teach you these specific techniques as to point out that if you "think outside the box" when faced with a challenge where nothing seems to work, you can probably invent your own methodology for achieving the desired result. Anyone with $5,000 to $10,000 can buy the tools but that no more makes them an editor than my buying an easel, paints and brushes would make me Picasso. Tools are just tools. The magic, if there is any, is in the imagination, the heart, the brain - sometimes the gut and occasionally in serendipity. (n: accidental sagacity; the faculty of making fortunate discoveries of things you were not looking for). I have, in my 30 year career made mistakes that turned out to seem like brilliance. Nobel invented dynamite because a flask of nitroglycerine fell off a table and landed in some insulation material which absorbed it. What counts is that he recognized what had happened and made the most of it.
Sometimes a plumber will add a length of pipe to the handle of a wrench to loosen an overly tight joint. He is merely enhancing the capacity of a tool. You can do the same thing with FCP. There are capabilities and capacities in this wonderful program just waiting to be discovered. I expect to discover more and more and you can, too. Don't let the "rules" and instructions and tutorials and manuals limit you. Mess with it, trick it, get your head out of the box and invent something!
Ben Bryant has acted in prime time TV shows and commercials and on
Broadway, sung at the Metropolitan Opera and in Jazz clubs, produced
over 1,000 TV commercials and dozens of industrial films, worked as
First AD on features, produced and directed over fifty TV shows. Now he
shoots, directs and edits video productions of all varities.
Ben Bryant Web Site
copyright © www.kenstone.net 2001
Art work copyright © Robert Taub 2001
