Sarah's Blog

The “Pleasantville Effect”

2009-03-25T05:15:38Z

The other day I was doing some editing for fun and I decided to isolate a single color to make the scene look a little more...dramatic and artsy. However, I kind of forgot how to do it! I learned it awhile back and hadn't really needed to use that particular effect in anything I've done recently so it slipped my mind. I went searching with Google and found a VERY helpful article. I remembered that I needed to use the color-correction 3-way tool but I couldn't recall what needed to be done after that. So the article about creating the "Pleasantville Effect" served as a reminder! Google is an incredible tool! Never be afraid to use it!

Constructive Criticism?

2009-03-18T04:49:22Z

I got an email recently that basically said my work was horrible and "left alot to be desired."...along with some other nasty things. What really makes me laugh is that this person signed their name as "noname." How ridiculous! They claimed to be a christian web developer with some "constructive criticism" for me. If your going to just diss everything I put up on my site, don't call it constructive criticism! It's just rude and pointless! Keep it to yourself or have the guts to actually sign your name to it. If you wanted to start something, you should have just gone to YouTube.

By the way, I'm not a video producer. I'm a video EDITOR. It says it on the front page and in bold letters in the top left hand corner of every page.

The New Firefox

2009-02-23T21:30:23Z

Over the past week or so i have been receiving emails from various people that my videos did not play when using the new Firefox mainly for the PC. This version came out just after my website went live! What are the odds? So the problem has been fixed now using a new video player called "Vimeo." It is much more professional looking and runs so much faster and easier! If you're still having problems getting my videos to play for you, please email me!

Rendering in Final Cut Pro

2009-02-06T17:59:51Z

As I began to work on this site, I realized that I needed some more video projects and that most of mine were on my demo reel! So as I brought my last projects into my Final Cut Pro at my home..I completely forgot that it would have to be rendered. The project settings that were set up for that project and the project settings I already had set up at home were VERY different! Whoops! It took like 20 min to render! How unfortunate...I will remember next time.

Filters and More With Final Cut Pro

2009-01-30T22:38:23Z

Sometimes when I don't have any special projects I'm working on, I grab some random footage and start experimenting. My belief is that experimenting with different types of editing techniques, ect is really the best way to learn. One of my favorites happens to be the "screen" filter. It resides under the composite mode option in a drop down menu that appears after right-clicking on the footage in your timeline. It makes for a really cool picture and is kind of fun to play with. After applying the "screen" composite mode, go under your motion tab in the viewer window and play around with your settings a little bit! Don't be shy! Go ahead, pull the opacity down to about...35 and you will be able to see two images! You can even play around with the "edge feather" option under "crop" in the same menu that you found the opacity. I can't tell you how cool I think that is! Try it, you will have so much fun!

Final Cut Export Settings For The Web

2009-01-30T21:22:11Z

So I have been having some trouble with exporting the videos for this particular website. I have never done web videos before...besides YouTube of course. As a suggestion from my awesome brother, I went online and googled export settings for FCP. I watched a short video on how to easily export a video for the web. My original problem was that the file size was WAY too big!! From this video, I found out the best way to make the file size smaller is to set your audio settings to IMA 4:1 and set the rate at about 22.050 and make sure the size is 480x360. This cured my problem! The video looks fantastic and all is well with the web!

If you would like to watch the same video that helped me figure out my problem, and learn totally cool stuff about exporting for the web while you're at it, go here!