Visual Story

Class Tutorials :

Captruing with Final Cut (OSX):

1) Take a look at the computers. There is a post-it note with the name and password on each of the machines.- Plug in your camera to the computer via the Fire Wire cable. Turn your camera on, and set it to VCR or Video Playback mode.
2) plug in (and turn on) your external hard drive
3) log in and open up Final Cut Pro HD (it's in Applications)
4) You may get a warning to 'reset your scratch disk'. A scratch disk is the location where Final Cut will save all the video you capture. This NEEDS to be somewhere on your external class hard drive. Hit the Reset Scratch Disk button to select a folder on your hard drive. If this message did not pop up, and the application opened, click on the "Final Cut Pro HD" menu, and then "System Settings".
5) Hit the topmost set button, and choose a folder on your external hard drive. Hit ok.
6) Now you can play with final cut.
7) To capture video, open up the "file" menu and select "Log and Capture..."
8) First, make sure that the computer can talk to the camera. Open up the "capture settings" tab in the Log and Capture Window.
9) Change Device Control to "FireWire NTSC" and "Capture/Input" to "DV NTSC 48 KHZ"
10) go back to the Logging tab
11) there are a lot of ways that you can capture videos.
- the simplest way is "capture now". This simply records what the computer is seeing. Hit play on the camera, and now on the computer, and one big file will be created untill you stop it.

or

- Clip logging is a little more sophisticated. This is a method where you tell Final Cut what portions of the tape you want to capture. This way, you only get the good takes. You will see a video window, and VCR controls underneath it. These control playback from your camera. What you will do is mark the "in" and "out" of each clip you want. You do this by hitting "I" for in and "O" for out on at a certain time. You can do then when video is paused or playing.
- once you have marked a clip, hit the "Log Clip" button. This will create an empty clip in the bin for your project. You'll see a file icon with a slash through it created.
- log all the clips on that tape you want to capture.
- when you are done logging, hit "Batch" from the Log and Capture window, or File -> Batch Capture. This will capture all the clips you logged onto the computer.
- Once this is done, all your video files will be on your hard drive under "Project Name/Capture Scratch".
12) At this point, you can start editing with final cut, or take your hard drive up to the bullpen to use premier.
13) if you opt to use premier, you NEED TO ADD FILE EXTENSIONS to the videos you captured. Rename every file you captured to end with the .MOV extension. OSX doesn't believe in file extensions, but windows requires them.

Formatting a Hard drive to use on both Windows and OSX (FAT32 Partitioning):

Some of you are having hard drive troubles. This is a function of Macs and Windows Machines only being able to read certain hard drive formats. The only format that both Apple and Windows can read AND write too is called FAT32. Here's a conversion *ALL* groups should do to make their portable drives work on both machines.

Be VERY careful when doing these steps. A mistake could mess up your drive.

1) plug your hard drive into a WINDOWS machine.
2) right click on "my computer" and select "Manage"
3) in the left bar, select "Disk Management"
4) You will see a list of all the drives your computer has connected to it
5) don't mess with C: or U:. Those are your normal computer hard drives
6) find the disk you want to format, and right click on it. Depending if a group last year used your drive in this manner or not, you will either see 1 big partition (taking up your whole drive) or 3-5 smaller ones.
7a) If you see 3-5 smaller ones, check to see if the format is FAT or FAT32. If they are, than you are done, and can use your drive on both machines
7b) odds are that if you are reading this, your drive is formatted as NTFS (something that OSX cannot write to).
8) Right click on the drive, and select "delete partition"
9) there will be some warnings about loosing all your data. Hit yes.
10) Now right click on the drive again, and select "new partition"
11) hit Next
12) select "Primary Partition" and hit next
13) on this next page, you have a text box where you can type in the size of the partition. THIS IS VERY IMPORTANT. FAT32 drives can only be 32 GB big. We are going to make 30GB partitions. Dividing up the drive into 30GB sections will make those 3-5 partitions on the drive of larger size. 30GB is 30720 MB. Type 30720 in the text box and hit next.
14) This next page will give your drive a letter. Hit next
15) On this page, make sure that the File System reads "FAT32". Make sure that the Allocation unit size is "Default". Under volume label, type in your group's name, followed by a number, like [FOX_1], or something. Select the box that says "preform a quick format", or you will be waiting for hours.
16) hit finish.
17) repeat steps 10 - 16 as long as there is part of the hard drive that is "Unallocated" or "Unpartitioned".
18) Your last partition will be smaller than 30GB, so just make it the maximum size that your drive will allow on step 13.
19) Enjoy!

Now, when you plug your drive into a PC or Mac, you will see multiple hard drive partitions you can use on any computer.

Connecting to Randon from a MAC
http://www.etc.cmu.edu/computing/servers/wizard/osx.htm

Online Guides :

Web Resources:
www.ifilm.com  (Internet video exhibition site)
www.dv.com  (tech info on digital video)
www.adamwilt.com  (video production info)
http://www.dvfilmmaker.com (digital movie making)
http://www.mediaed.org  (media literacy resources)
http://www.cyberfilmschool.com  (digital resources)
http://desktopvideo.about.com  (links to other digital video resources)
http://www.imdb.com  (huge movie database)

Interactive Cinema:
http://ic.media.mit.edu./  (interactive cinema)
http://www.softcinema.net/form.htm  (interactive cinema)
http://www.three.org/fairetales/home.html  (interactive on-line examples)
http://www.icinema.unsw.edu.au/projects/prj_eavesdrop.html (center for interactive cinema)
http://www.artmuseum.net/w2vr/contents.html (interactive website)
http://telematic.walkerart.org/timeline/timeline_shanken.html  (Telematic Embrace: A Love Story?)
http://www.cinema.ucla.edu/Mamber2/  (Digital Hitchcock)
http://www.georgelegrady.com/  (interactive artist)
http://artport.whitney.org/commissions/idealine/Idealine.html  (cool interactive site)
http://www.channel4.com/culture/microsites/B/bodysong/website.html  (Bodysong interactive)
http://www.interactivecinema.org/stopworrying/stopworrying-ch1.html  (interactivecinema.org)
http://www.manovich.net/little-movies/  (Little Movies)
http://www.plugincinema.com/plugin/plugin_cinema/index.htm  (web cinema)
http://www.rhizome.org/  (new media art)
http://www.incident.net/  (new media and installations)
http://www.superficiel.org/index2.html  (interactive cinema)
http://www.maedastudio.com/index.php  (cool site)
http://www.sodaplay.com/
http://www.manovich.net/
http://www.blipstation.com/  (Hackney Girl)
http://www.annenberg.edu/labyrinth/  (Interactive Narrative)
http://mf.media.mit.edu/pubs/pubs.php  (MIT Interactive Cinema)
http://art.teleportacia.org/olia.html  (artist site)
http://artport.whitney.org/  (Whitney digital arts site)
http://www.interactivestory.net/  (interactive story)
http://www.netzwissenschaft.de/kuenst.htm  (a ton of stuff)
http://www.nette.ca/art/salome/ (web cinema)
http://www.flamini.com/art/index.html  (web art/interactive video)
http://www.zkm.de/futurecinema/webcinema_werk_e.html  ( great examples of web cinema shorts)