Final Cut Pro & Multicams

I needed something a little more right-brained this weekend after a very hectic month at work.  I’ve been playing around with Final Cut Pro X and synchronizing audio and video just for fun.

Today I skipped the Superbowl and played around with some video.  Over the weekend, I got the radio broadcast of Todd Rundgren with The Metropole Orchestra, a show I was privileged enough to see live in Amsterdam on Sept 24, 2011 while on my way to Bangalore.   Just for fun, I pulled a couple of YouTube videos that were shot at the concert (one full clip, one partial clip), synched them up with the audio from the radio show, and did a multi-camera edit — just because I’d never done one before.  Once I wrapped my head around the FCPX approach, it was pretty straightforward, and didn’t take long at all.

It’s hard to describe the wall of orchestral sound that was coming at the audience from this 55-piece orchestra, in a venue that wasn’t huge, but if you look at some of the faces in the crowd, you’ll see it was a pretty special event.

I was surprised in viewing the final render at how much of a difference this approach makes in communicating what was happening (vs just a camera pointed at Todd).

Might have to go out and pick up another camera for my own videos .

Videos  here in various formats.  Pick your favorite!

• God Said – HD
• God Said – Standard
• God Said – Cellular

A trip to the canyon, hiking Squaw Peak, swimming in Cave Creek, dinner at the Conways….what more do you need to know THIS WAS FUN!

Here’s the video.

Banglore, July 2011

I had another trip overseas in July.  Back to Bangalore, but also included stops in Toulouse and Amsterdam.  I always have my trusty camera with me, so I collected a little video….

• H.264 video
• IPad Friendly video

Work has taken me all over the place, but this week was the first trip to India…specifically Bangalore.

India

It was a short two-day meeting, but the travel time to/from India makes the trip 5 days.  The shortest routing I could find was through Frankfurt. It’s a mere 21 hours of flight time, not including airport layovers.  Door-to-door, I think it’s about 28 hours minimum to get from Oregon to the hotel in Bangalore.

I left the house in Oregon shortly before 8am on Monday for the airport, and got to the hotel at about 4:30am Wednesday morning Bangalore time.  I napped for a couple of hours then went into the office for a full day of meetings.    I got about 5 hours of sleep Wednesday night, then it was back in the office early for another day of meetings on Thursday, then off to the airport to catch a flight home.

One thing I like a lot is that the flights out of India leave at around 2am.  It’s about an hour drive to the airport at night (when there isn’t a lot of traffic out), and the 2am flight time means there’s time to grab a decent dinner, pack and get to the airport.  Works out just about right.

Some initial thoughts:

• It was hot when compared to home
• The visible poverty is shocking, with shanties next to very nice buildings
• Friendly people
• Good food.  I love Indian food.  It was much spicier than the Americanized version, but I love that.
• Traffic is unbelievable.  No way I’d ever attempt to drive there

I’d done a little homework, and knew enough to stay away from uncooked things, and not to drink the water or even use it to brush teeth.  I didn’t have any issues there.

There wasn’t any downtime, and I was either at work or in meetings at the hotel so I didn’t get a chance to get out and see anything.

But, of course, I did manage to capture some video from my cell phone in the taxi to/from work. We had meetings in the taxi, so I had to replace all the audio from the videos, and this was done VERY quickly.  So you’ll miss all the horn-honking that happens on the street, and lots of video mistakes.

Bangalore is the silicon valley of India, so I was probably in the nicer/safer parts of the city.

Looks like I have another trip there coming up, so I’ll get some pix next time.

Dooblin!

I  spent 5 days in Dublin last week on business.  Despite facebook appearances, it was almost all work, but I had a few rare moments to see parts of the city.  I had meetings Sunday morning, but took Sunday afternoon off to see some of Dublin.

Among the interesting things I saw were:

• The Book of Kells – 8th century illustrated edition of the gospels.  Pictures aren’t allowed unfortunately
• St. Patrick’s Cathedral – 12th century cathedral that stands on the site where St. Patrick baptized converts in the late 5th, early 6th centuries.  In addition to the stone that covered St. Patrick’s well, Jonathan Swift, who authored Gulliver’s Travels, was buried there in 1745.
• Christ Church Cathedral – Protestant church.  Built sometime starting in the late 11th century (I think).
• National Treasures Museum – Very very cool (and free) museum that has Irish artifacts dating back to 2000 B.C.  No pictures there either
• Natural History Museum – lots of stuffed animals.  The Irish taxidermists have been busy.  I could have skipped this one.
• St. Stephens Green – public park that dates back to 1664.  Very pretty.
• Temple Bar – pub district.  Loved the Irish Music.
• Dublin Castle — only the outside.  This was my last stop of a 4 hour walking tour of city centre — all the time I had.
• Guinness Storehouse — meeting event held here.  6 stories of Guinness goodness.  I passed the pouring school with flying colors.  Lots of practice in college paid off here.  Passed on first try.

The conference I attended had a fun run early one morning.  A local running group took a group of 40-50 runners (including me) for a run out to the Irish coast at dawn.  Very beautiful.

Here is a short video of some of the things I saw.  Dublin is a very interesting city.  I hope to go back at some point and spend a little more time hitting all the other interesting places I missed.

• H.264
• Ipad/Ipod Touch

WWII

I had a few spare moments here/there over the past few days, and had a little fun with some video.  Most of what’s posted on this site are Hall Family Videos.   This really isn’t a “Hall Family” vid….more of a music video for a great tune by Eric Matthews.  The tune is called “And the World Will Go,” and it can be found on the excellent _Foundation Sounds_ CD.

As I said, this isn’t really a family video, but it does contain a few interesting family photos.  Randall, Billy (grandparents) and Aunt Helen can be seen in the video if you look closely, but one of the more interesting photos was taken by Randall when he was stationed in Europe in WWII.

While back in Kansas earlier this summer, we came across a photo of what’s either some sort of rally or a religious ceremony.  If you look closely, you can see a swastika at the event.  I ended up photoshopping out the swastika from the video because it didn’t really fit the context (and might be misinterpreted), but I’ve included the original photo here.

WWII

Judging from the apparent size of the mountains in the background, I would say that those are either the Alps or the Pyrenees.  I know Grandpa was in France so I’m guessing that’s where this is.  Interesting photo.

In any case, this was a fun video to put together so I’ll probably do a few more of these.  Here’s a link to the video, which is also posted on YouTube:

• YouTube
• H.264
• QuickTime