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Final Cut: My Free ‘Swing’ plugin
I made this one by taking the Swing transition and turning it into a filter that gives you keyframe control over animating a clip so that it swings on or off the screen:
Here are the controls:
This shows the keyframes to make the clip swing slowly away then quickly swing towards the camera.
Download Alex 4D Swing, copy the ‘Alex4D_Swing.txt’ file to
Your Startup HD/Library/Application Support/Final Cut Pro System Support/Plugins
(Your Startup HD/Users/your name/Library/Application Support/Final Cut Express Support/Plugins for Final Cut Express users)
The filter will appear in the ‘Perspective’ category in the Video Filters section of the Effects tab or the ‘Perspective’ sub-menu of the ‘Video Filters’ sub-menu of the Effects menu (!)
This plugin is in text format. That means you can have a look at the changes I made to the FxScript transition to make it into a filter. I’ve used ‘//’ to comment out the original code that doesn’t apply to filters.
scriptid "Alex4D Swing" //DO NOT LOCALIZE
filter "Alex4D Swing";
group "Perspective";
producesAlpha;
// scriptid "Swing" //DO NOT LOCALIZE
// transition "Swing";
// group "3D Simulation";
// wipeCode(21, 100);
input info, "www.alex4D.com - Swing v1.0", Label, "string" // Added for PR
input angleofaxis, "Swing Angle", angle, 0, -360, 360 detent 0;
input swingAngle, "Swing (%)", slider, 0, -100, 100;
// was input SWING, "Swing", popup, 2, "In", "Out";
Dialogue tips from UK scriptwriters
“Write your whole scene with all the things you think people would say to each other. Imagine all the things two people could say when saying goodbye to each other. Then keep taking words away while it still makes emotional sense. Five lines of dialogue between to people may end up being a single word: ‘Later’ “
– Tony Jordan, Life on Mars
“In good dialogue people aren’t really listening to each other, the opposite of listening is waiting: you’re just waiting to say your next thing. That’s everyone in life, all the time. People hardly ever listen to each other. Good dialogue is two monologues that connect sometimes.”
– Russell T. Davis, Doctor Who
On avoiding exposition: “I’d rather be confused for ten minutes than bored for five seconds”
– Jimmy McGovern, The Street
Clare’s selections from 4mations
Channel 4 are starting up a community for people who want to share animations called 4mations.tv – this promotes their work and celebrates animation in the UK over the last 26 years. Since 1982 Channel 4 funded a major proportion of British animated films. On Friday, Clare Kitson – their commissioning editor for the 90s – presented some of the films they supported, here are links to some of the films she showed:
15th February – A film that seemed to not be completed based on an initial plan. It’s 6 minutes 39 seconds feels like 10 minutes.
Many Happy Returns – A film that takes a long time to tell a story that needs to be told. Again mixed media, this time more violent.
The Man With The Beautiful Eyes – A beautiful, sunny story based on a poem by Charles Bukowski.
Feet of Song – An impressionistic film at its best when it’s at its most abstract.
The Cat With The Hands – A scary gothic tale.
I’m linking to these films because they are some of the films that Clare thinks are a part of a representative sample of British animation over recent years.
Plagarise your memory
Last night I went to Clare Kitson’s presentation of films celebrating the launch of her book on the history of British animation since 1982. She was the commissioning editor for animation at Channel 4 from 1989 to 1999. Find out more about the book at the publisher’s website.
One of the films she showed was “Love is All” by Oliver Harrison, an animation inspired by the song as sung by Deanna Durbin in 1940. That reminded me of a TV advert he made based on his graduation film back in 1988.
In 2002 I wanted to get back into using Adobe After Effects as I hadn’t used it for a few months. I had recently heard a version of Noel Coward’s “I’ve Been to a Marvelous Party” by The Divine Comedy, and vaguely remembered a typographic TV ad from some time in the 80s. I decided to make a typographic animation based on the song inspired by the ad.
At that point I might have been able to find a copy on YouTube. There are few visual references to it today, and I might have found some to base my animation on. I decided not to copy the ad, but copy my 13 year old memory of the ad. The advantage being that my memory would combine with my other experiences and interests over the intervening years to create something a little more original.
Here’s what I came up with:
Today I found a video with some excerpts from the original short film mixed in with some other stuff (somewhat spolit by it). There are no more exceprts after 1:30 –
Oliver’s typographic compositions are a lot more advanced than mine, but you can see how his ideas informed mine.
So if ‘immature poets imitate; mature poets steal,’ steal from your imperfect memories of other artists works.
Visit Oliver’s website to see what else he’s been doing over the last 20 years. When I find some video of his work, I’ll post links to it on this blog.
My big hands
Over at MacVideo there are a couple of videos featuring me attempting not to talk too fast, yet going on for quite a while.
The first demonstrates the problem of Final Cut Pro not being able to use all the fonts installed on a computer and how to use my free plugins to fix the problem.
The second is the first part of an interview with me about how I approached writing my Closing Credits plugin for Final Cut.
More egomania soon…
The evolving relationship
Ela Their suggests that you base your plots around the evolving relationship between the main character and the main supporting character:
Act 1: When a character with a pattern is faced with a problem that challenges their pattern
Act 2: Then the main character and their key relationship pursue a goal despite major obstacles
Act 3: Until they step outside of their pattern to achieve the goal and solve the problem
If you are based in New York, consider going to her workshops.
Gandhi’s screenwriting tip
“Become the change you want to see around you”
An aphorism I seem able to remember most days.
“Seven social sins: politics without principles, wealth without work, pleasure without conscience, knowledge without character, commerce without morality, science without humanity, and worship without sacrifice.”
Each of these could be the theme of a film – the debate that all the characters have different positions on.
“Carefully watch your thoughts for they will become your words. Manage and watch your words for they will become your actions. Consider and judge your actions for the will become your habits. Acknowledge and watch your habits for they will become your values. Understand and embrace your values for they will become your destiny.”
I read this on a marketing/business blog. This looks like a method for exploring character. If we start in the middle, we can get better ideas about the edges of his idea.
If screenplays are about showing actions, not words, work out what each character needs to do in your screenplay.
Gandhi says
1. Character actions are determined by what they usually say, which is defined by how they think
2. Character actions become habits, which modify values which determine destiny
These dependancies will help define your characters as they are in Act 1… when they bump up against each other, you get a film.
Coming soon live TV on iPhone via Wi-Fi
Here’s a demo showing an beta version of an iPhone app that streams free TV directly to your iPhone, iPod Touch and iPhone 3G via Wi-Fi:
More information at Livestation.com
.tel – Contact info will never be out of date again
.tel is a new internet generic top level domain. From today, brand owners worldwide have the opportunity to buy domains associated with their brand names. .tel addresses are repositories of contact information stored in and distributed all over the internet.
What is a top level domain? It is a way of labelling information on the internet as belonging to a specific category. A major part of connecting different networks in the 70s and 80s was coming up with a standard way of addressing computers and people in a consistent way. Before the invention of the world wide web, TLDs were mainly used to associate people’s email addresses with the kind of institution they belong to. alex@kent.edu would define ‘Kent’ as an educational organisation. alex@kent.mil is a military email address, alex@kent.com – commercial, alex@kent.gov – governmental.
After the first few TLDs were defined, country-code TLDs were defined to denote which country a computer resource is associated with: .fr .uk .de .ca. When the world wide web was introduced, web sites used the same addressing technique, and TLDs became associated with naming web sites. For example when the Pacific island of Tuvulu were assigned the country-code TLD .tv they sold it to a third-party who were able to sell web domains ending in .tv to many companies in the media industry.
.tel isn’t a top level domain that is used for web sites. It’s for directory information: all the possible ways to get in touch with an organisation or individual. The promoters don’t expect Unilever, the owners of Dove beauty products, to buy the ‘dove.tel’ domain name so that they can create a http://www.dove.tel web site. dove.tel will be the location for contact information for anyone wanting to get in touch with the people responsible for the Dove brand.
There are three dates associated with registering .tel domains. Today, December 3rd 2008 is the date from which trademark owners can apply for .tel domains associated with their brands. From February 3rd 2009, those who want to get in early registering domains can pay extra for .tel domains. This is when domains such as media.tel, love.tel, business.tel, hamburgers.tel, taxi.tel and flowers.tel will be available to buy. February marks the beginning of the ‘land-grab’ phase. To register these domains in this phase you have to pay extra, but it is still first come, first served. From March 24th, standard fees will apply.
If you use Domainmonster.com here’s what it’ll cost you at each stage. December 3rd, 2008 – February 2nd, 2009: £279.99, February 2nd, 2009 – March 23rd, 2009: £79.99, March 24th, 2009: £14.99.
What does this mean for you and I? Business cards for freelancers will become very simple. If you buy media.tel, people need only remember that to get in touch with you. Phones will be able to get your current number from the internet. Email software will get your current email address automatically. You’ll be able to make other contact info available such as Instant Messaging and forum IDs.
You’ll also be able to share information with the world using .tel – starting with social networking pages, multiple websites and blogs. In a few years time, the location of rate card information, products that you are interested in buying… could be found through .tel. More on the future of .tel soon…
Find out more at Telnic.
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