Finessing Final Cut Pro - Filters

Back in the day when I was a film student, I used to attend luncheons at Tiffen. For those who don't know, they are the premiere filter company for still photography and motion pictures. At these informal gatherings I learned all sorts of tricks about in camera color correction (81 EF anyone?), gradation, image enhancement, polarizing, etc.
Unfortunately for teachers/students these filters are expensive and are sometimes not available in the same sizes as prosumer cameras. They also require some in depth experimentation that pre-professionals are not always willing to do.
I recently found out that Tiffen has developed a digital suite of filters for use in Photoshop, Aperture, and Final Cut Pro. Tiffen DFX can be thought of as a toolkit that will encourage students to experiment. I can also see some nice applications in a Physics class - to teach about how filtration can affect light. And for the camera pro's out there, there's even a split diopter option that will allow you to re-create a shallow depth of field.
These filters are available for $100 for the still programs and $600 for FCP and well worth the investment. It's possible that you could even get an educational discount if you sent them a note from your school.
Oh, and if you're program is strapped for cash, here's a link to an article over at Creative Cow with some free Final Cut Pro plugins. Nothing as extensive as Tiffen's DFX, but some fun stuff.

Classroom 2.0

Classroom 2.0: "Welcome to Classroom20.com, the social network for those interested in Web 2.0 and collaborative technologies in education.

We especially hope that those who are 'beginners' will find this a supportive community and a comfortable place to start being part of the digital dialog.

If you are new here, please consider introducing yourself by going to the introductory forum message. You should also feel free to explore! Here are some starting tips and a 'Tour of Web 2.0' webcast video, or you can ask help of a 'host' below."

--- Seems to me that this site (and Ning) are popping up everywhere the last little while. Next big thing? ---

Langwitches � Best Web 2.0 Applications for Elementary School

Langwitches � Best Web 2.0 Applications for Elementary School: "Thanks to an amazing list of “The Best Web 2.o Application for Education-2007” from Larry Ferlazzo’s Website, I decided to create my own list of the applications that have been the most useful or promising in the Elementary School scene."

Keeping up with the trends...

10 Ways Social Media Will Change in 2009 - ReadWriteWeb: "'Social media' was the term du jour in 2008. Consumers, companies, and marketers were all talking about it. We have social media gurus, social media startups, social media books, and social media firms. It is now common practice among corporations to hire social media strategists, assign community managers, and launch social media campaigns, all designed to tap into the power of social media.

But social media today is a pure mess: it has become a collection of countless features, tools, and applications fighting for a piece of the pie."

It's Not Just About the Software

Adobe has an excellent suite of resources for iTeachers. Not only is there a wonderful gallery of work, but white papers, curriculum, and direct links to an employee volunteer program and software donation and training for educators and non-profits. Phew! Definitely worth checnking out.

Adobe - Adobe Youth Voices Gallery - Resources: "Adobe and its founding Adobe Youth Voices partners — Educational Video Center, Listen Up!, What Kids Can Do, Arts Engine, and iEARN — offer a variety of free and low-cost resources to help you integrate youth media into your classroom or out-of-classroom programs."

Technology and Music

From the Desk of David Pogue - So Many iPhone Apps, So Little Time - NYTimes.com: "Once you install and open this program, your iPhone's screen displays four colored circles of different sizes. These are the 'holes' that you cover with your fingers, as you would the holes on a flute. Then you blow into the microphone hole at the bottom of the iPhone, and presto: the haunting, expressive, beautiful sound of a wind instrument comes from the iPhone speaker."

A surprising example of iPhone as musical instrument.

Cool Software - Mac Only

Create Polaroid™-like pictures over at the Poladroid Project.
Samples are here

When You Have Some Time...

I know it's hard to make time as a teacher to do more than just plan and teach. But if you have a chance, sneak on over to this very helpful site. Here's what Techlearning has to say about it:
Storytelling 2.0 "It turns out a very busy person named Alan Levine created an online resource for a series of workshops that lists (at the time of this writing) 57 different Web 2.0 tools that can be used for digital storytelling. That in itself isn't unusual, of course, but what he did that was different was he took the time to retell the same story with each tool!

The site is at http://cogdogroo.wikispaces.com/StoryTools, and is wonderfully comprehensive. In addition to his own oft-retold story, almost all of the titles also include examples of stories told by others. He also has a shorter list at the end of tools that he's tried that weren't successful for one reason or another, so you can see what sites to avoid (at least for now). Be sure to budget a lot of time for exploring!"

Everyone's Talking About...

This week I spotted this technology in an article on Wired, but I've also found articles on Techlearning and, of course, Cnet. So, I did what any modern girl would do and searched Flickr Photos and found one Flickr Group - called the ChumbyChums.

The object of my infatuation is a Chumby. It's been available for less than a year. Once I saw the company site, I remembered that I'd heard about it about 6 months ago, went on the site and didn't see anything to get excited about. But I was only seeing it then as an out-of-the-box tech toy.

Turns out it's customizable in many ways...which means it could very well be a great tool for teaching. (It connects to your wi-fi network, has a touch screen and runs widgets from all the major sites. Some blogs are also saying it has an accelerometer inside and maybe even a built in GPS? But you can also take the electronics out of the casing and hotwire your Chumby to things like a small engine or embed it inside a teddy bear.)

Anyone want to hack together a Chumby, a Tonka Truck, and a Camera and have some fun geomapping the neighborhood? What other ways would you, could you use it in your digital classroom?

(By the way, my guess is Melissa's been getting a lot of hits lately.)

Lifehacker: Stitch Photos into Panoramas with Free Software

"You can get decent photos out of a standard, consumer-grade digital camera, but a little post-processing can turn them into fantastic wide-angle landscapes. You don't need to be one of those people who can explain the concept of lateral chromatic aberration to get truly eye-catching digital pictures. With a few shutter clicks and some free, cross-platform software, you can easily mesh standard digi-cam shots into true landscapes, fix one photo's deficiencies with another, and create layered photo collages. Let's take a look at how to use the free, open source application Hugin to make two basic kinds of panoramas."

Read More Here...

My New Playground

We have a student who needs their own, individual project. So I'm building a series of exercises that will allow him to explore some of the issues going on in his life - inspired by the film Tarnation. Part of the plan is to have him use the built-in camera on one of our iMacs to make a self-portrait using stop motion. So I went hunting to find an example and found this instead...Boinx Software - iStopMotion 2 - Examples

Fun stuff. Now I have lots of ideas for projects for all ages!

Almost time for Spring - Must Customize the Lab Computers!

Top 10 Free Wallpaper, Fonts and Icon Sources: "Spicing up your computer desktop or documents is a cinch with the right fonts, wallpaper or icon set - but finding the best ones isn't an easy task. Googling free wallpaper or fonts turns up a gaggle of random sites with flashy ads and mediocre art. In retaliation, today we've gathered up our favorite sources of quality, good-looking free desktop wallpaper images, fonts and icons for your downloading pleasure."

Gotta love Lifehacker

Screenwriting Software and Sooooo Much More

A colleague recently turned me on to celtx, which describes itself as "Integrated Pre-Production".

Wow this software is cool. Not only does it allow you to write scripts/screenplays in a variety of traditional formats, but you can also complete many project chores in the software. Everything from character breakdowns to production schedules, and more.

(As with any open source software - or just creative work in general - I would print out a hard copy every once in a while, just in case. I've had no problems with the software, but my friend has found a couple of bugs here and there.)

"Making a movie is like asking a question, and when you finish, the movie itself is the answer.”

Really nice article in the profiles section of the Apple Pro site. Describes the process that Francis Ford Coppola and Walter Murch used when making the film Youth Without Youth.

The movie was mhot with a Sony 900s in Romania, then (with Final Cut Pro) captured at DV resolution on set, then uprezzed and finished in 1080 in San Francisco. The workflow also included some effects with Shake.

Spring Semester Cleaning

Time to archive, backup, and cleanup the workhorses of post-production: our computers.

This year, we've decided to make the investment in Apple Remote Desktop. Not only will this allow us to shorten our down time at the lab, but we'll be able to monitor students better over the course of this year.

Please feel free to add a comment if you've used it...we're very excited to learn all of it's features.

iLife Surround Sound

As part of their in depth series on iLife software, MacLife presents this gem: Add Movement to Sounds in GarageBand

Take Your Sound to the Next Level

MacLife presents this helpful tutorial on how to Add Movement to Sounds in GarageBand Nothing like surround sound to kick it up a notch.

Look Sharp - iPhoto problems

I had heard that there were some problems with iPhoto - turns out it's a pretty big deal. Since we use iPhoto in our lab to archive a lot of the students' work (and staff photos of students-at-work), I'll be purchasing an '08 upgrade asap.

iPhoto Woes
Purging the Corruption from iPhoto '08- MacLife

Tips and Tricks for the new iMovie

MacLife's Better Your iLife (Part 3)- iMovie '08: "iMovie is all about easy editing, but it’s still got some hidden tricks aimed at more advanced editors. This collection of three video tips and four audio tips will help you go past the more obvious basics and squeeze a little more professionalism out of your iMovie projects. Try them out, and maybe you won’t want to upgrade to a more difficult (and more expensive) editor like Final Cut Express."

Hands Free Logging and More

This handy tool came up at a conference I attended last week.
DV Log-X FireWire Videologger for Macintosh OSX
is a set of software tools that can come in very handy when working with students. (As we all know, they don't always take the best notes while shooting.)
The most basic version of the software: DV Log detects when your camera starts/stops and uses that information to make a very basic log that you can import (with some difficulty) into Final Cut Pro or many other software titles.
The most advanced version: HD Log Gold lets you save your logs in a Final Cut Pro format (XML) and also adds features like spell check and search functions.
Which version is best for you depends on the complexity of your projects and your budget. But I recommend you download the Demo and give it a try. In my experience, even the most basic version can be a handy tool for quickly scanning tapes and noting which clips are where.