Hi, I'm Michael Mistretta, a student passionate about technology, photography, and design. Welcome to my online home where I write about technology, reviews, and my thoughts and opinions on technology-related matters. If you’ve been tuned in to my twitter stream over the last week or so, no doubt you’ve heard about the video I’ve been making for my youth group’s video contest. This has been the first project that I used Final Cut Express for, and now, I can easily say that Final Cut has changed the way I edit.
It isn’t one of those apps, like Aperture, that just feels right. In fact, when you begin to use it, it feels awkward. Adding clips, creating keyframes, and preforming edits are all confusing at first. However, after spending a couple hours experimenting and clicking buttons, everything comes together in a quirky sort of way. Almost like Photoshop or Illustrator’s interfaces. Far from seamless, but they work once you become accustomed to them.
After much filming, thinking, editing, and (waiting while) rendering, the video is finished, and has been submitted for the contest. I will find out the winners on April 27th. So without further ado, the feature presentation:
Now that I’ve used it, I can’t help but dream about a complete redesign of Final Cut from the ground up. Written in Cocoa, and sporting a fresh Aperture-like interface. I’m excited just thinking about it.
I have used final cut for like 30 minutes and I could not et my head around things so i switched back to iMovie, I might try it again if I have time to play. Funny video love the evil spirit!! very scary.
Comment by rmaspero — April 6, 2008 @ 2:04 am
It’s amazing what you can do with Final Cut Express when you get your head around the interface. Like you Michael I’ve been getting to grips with it and have really enjoyed using it - in fact, I think I an say that I prefer it to iMovie simply because of all the power you have over the footage. I don’t think I could go back to iMovie very easily now.
Twitter really has become a very useful way of getting support for very simple questions. It’s nice to know that an answer can only be a tweet away.
Anyway, thats a really good final result.
Jonathan
Comment by Jonathan — April 6, 2008 @ 8:47 am
I love the intro. I remember when I first discovered that app.
If you ever need any help with FCE, drop me an email (I use Final Cut Studio 2).
-Kevin
Comment by Kevin S. — April 6, 2008 @ 10:27 am
After watching it again, watch your exposure/contrast in the opening scenes, unless you meant for it to be that way (and I don’t mean the light spill effect). Also, the font you used towards the end is one of the coolest fonts, though I try not to use it too much. As for the music, I like it except for one part where you used one of GarageBand’s full “songs.” Whenever I watch a TV show that uses one of them, it makes the show look less professional; though to non-Mac users it sounds fine.
Comment by Kevin S. — April 6, 2008 @ 1:39 pm
Kevin: Thanks for the tips. I’m pretty bad at fonts, and need some design sense kicked into me.
I’ll keep that in mind when doing titles for my next project.
Unfortunately, I am still filming on a 10 year old Sony Handycam, that doesn’t really give good image quality. As for the high contrast in the opening scenes, I purposely tried to create that supernatural dark effect. I’ll try not to go to a super extreme next time.
Overall, I’ve learned a lot from this project, and can’t wait to edit some more.
Comment by Michael Mistretta — April 6, 2008 @ 2:55 pm
About the high contrast, I was just saying that if you didn’t intend to do that, make sure you don’t do it again. I’ll find that I make a mistake so many times that it ends up looking normal, and that’s not a good thing. If you did mean to do it (which you did), it’s a cool effect. I’ve done that with a few projects and it really catches your eye. Check out http://www.izzyvideo.com for some really good filming and editing tutorials.
-Kevin
Comment by Kevin S. — April 6, 2008 @ 3:58 pm
Oh wow. That podcast looks cool. Subscribed.
Comment by Michael Mistretta — April 6, 2008 @ 3:59 pm
Michael,
What font did you use for the titles around the 3:52 mark?
-Richard
Comment by Richard Escobedo — April 6, 2008 @ 10:33 pm
Richard: It’s a very cool font that I have to force my self not to overuse. It’s called Bleeding Cowboys.
Comment by Michael Mistretta — April 7, 2008 @ 6:58 am
Thanks… I think I’m going to have to exercise some self-control too with that font!
Comment by Richard Escobedo — April 7, 2008 @ 7:14 am
Great to see you using Vimeo, a shame it’s not HD.
Comment by Stephen Chinnadorai — April 7, 2008 @ 9:29 am
Michael!!!!!!!!!
Why did u have 2 put that video on ur website.
Im really mad!!!!!!!
Comment by Candice — May 16, 2008 @ 9:45 pm