To get familiar with FCPX, I’m working on a series of short videos. I love shooting anything related to music- it helps to have friends who are fantastic subjects, willing to allow my camera in their faces regularly (Thank you Zoli & Tango No.9). This was shot with the 5D MarkII– very low light. I believe I was at 2500ISO, which makes the footage a bit grainy. My exposure: 100 @ f2.8 with Canon’s 24-70 2.8L lens, and I had a shotgun mic attached.

Zoltan Di Bartolo

The Red Poppy Art House on 23rd and Folsom St. (Mission) is an intimate space to begin with- but it was so packed on Friday, people were sitting on the floor and standing clear to the doorway. I had reserved a chair on the end of the first row and I was literally stuck there until the intermission. As far a “stuck” goes, this was an amazing location to be stuck, don’t get me wrong. Front row, up close & personal with Greg Stephens’ trombone…

Greg Stephens & Trombone

but from a video standpoint- on first glance it did have its limitations. This was not a situation where walking in front of people is an option- and I was fairly sure when the show began, I wasn’t going to be able to capture it from my lack-of-vantage point. However, the longer I sat there, the more I noticed details- shadows and reflections at play. The advantage of sitting in one place- you sit there long enough, and eventually- the magic reveals itself. From my position, I couldn’t clearly see Joshua at the piano due to a music stand, but I started to notice the light refracting through his glasses onto the sheet music.

Light, shadows and music with Joshua Raoul Brody

Although I couldn’t directly see Catherine,  I could see her shadow articulated on the red velvet curtain as she played the violin (which I found visually decadent). At the intermission, I walked behind the piano and discovered underneath the mailing list & CD’s for sale, it had a glossy, reflective surface which I’m a bit of a sucker for, I’ll admit. That’s where I stayed for the duration. Combining the two perspectives (wide vs. detail) hopefully creates the illusion of moving around the room.

Final Cut Pro X (FCPX): As I explore this editing program- one of my favorite features so far, is the way you can highlight a section of a clip and keyword it or mark it as a favorite. This is SO efficient compared to my former logging workflow in FCP7. Although I’m still figuring out the best workflow for layering tracks, this basic edit took about 3 hours to edit from import to export.

One confusing element of FCPX- is that the project doesn’t automatically open in the timeline when you close/re-start the program as it did in FCP7. Not only that, but it’s not clear to me, just yet, where the files are going. I shut down my computer prior to exporting and temporarily couldn’t locate my edit when I re-opened the program. Google steered me to a forum that suggested, when you have an external HD attached and event folders on both system and external drive, FCPX may not recognize the project at all. I had duplicate folders on both system drive and external for back-up. Although it seems a bit ridiculous, this did turn out to be my problem. I had to trash the event folders from my main HD, after which my edited project was visible in the viewer (not timeline). Will be looking more into this issue… TBA. I realize what are current annoyances with workflow will soon become second nature. The process of discovery is always interesting if nothing else, right? Here’s the final product…

Tango No. 9