It might be Friday the 13th of November, but it is not all bad. Seeing as we haven't done one for a while, we thought we would do a round up the free products out there. This time is a smorgasbord of non-fcpx delights!
We start with a website we remembered triggered from a request online. This Laurel Leaves generator is perfect for glamming up your videos with all your film festival awards.
It takes about 20 seconds to make a laurel that's perfect for your Vimeo poster frame. Once it has won an award that is! Might have to tinker around with the background colour to overlay over video.
Two items we saw on the recent 'Free' week on Premiumbeat, the first is a very cool pack of sound effects for film trailer style edits. We especially like the 'slams' in this free pack of 20 sound effects. Seeing as they normally retail for about $3 each, well worth downloading on to your FX hard drive for future use.
More information and the download link on here: Trailer Construction Lite.
In a similar vein to the Laurel generator, Premium Beat are also offering a free Photoshop file and fonts to make a trailer rating screen and movie posters.
More information and the download files here.
Good at design but lousy at making up a good looking colour palette? No problem, there is a web tool that will allow you to select colours & shades that work well with each other.
Head over to Paletton, design your own colour scheme and then export the Hex codes. Wouldn't it be great if Apple turned this idea into a generator for Motion?
Not as glamorous as colours or sound effects, the Motion template designer Fox Mahoney found a handy way to fix validation errors with fonts on a Mac. By following the steps outlined here Fox reckons you will reduce crashes with Motion.
Lastly, we should mention that Blackmagic Design's DaVinci Resolve 12 has just had an update to 12.0.1. We are slightly confused as the update appeared on the Mac App Store after we had installed 12 from the Blackmagic site. No new functions this time, just a performance and stability update.
I am the Editor-in-Chief of FCP.co and have run the website since its inception ten years ago.
I have also worked as a broadcast and corporate editor for over 30 years, starting on one inch tape, working through many formats, right up to today's NLEs.
Under the name Idustrial Revolution, I have written and sold plugins for Final Cut Pro for 13 years.
I was made a Freeman of Lichfield through The Worshipful Company of Smiths (established 1601). Though I haven't yet tried to herd a flock of sheep through the city centre!
Current Editing
2020 has been busy, the beginning of the year was finishing off a new property series (cut on FCP) for Channel 4 called The Great House Giveaway. I also designed and built the majority of the graphics as Motion templates. It has been a great success and the shows grabbed more viewers in the 4pm weekday slot than any previous strand. It has been recommissioned by C4 for 60 episodes, including prime-time versions and five themed programmes. The shows have also been nominated for a 2021 BAFTA.
Although both were postponed to later in the year, I worked again on ITV's coverage of the Tour de France and La Vuelta. 2020 was my 25th year of editing the TdF and my 20th year as lead editor. The Tour was the first broadcast show to adopt FCPX working for multiple editors on shared storage.
BBC's Snooker has played a big part in my life, I've been editing tournament coverage since 1997. I'm proud to be part of a very creative team that has pioneered many new ideas and workflows that are now industry standard in sports' production. This is currently an Adobe Premiere edit.
Covid cancelled some of the regular corporate events that I edit such as trade shows & events. I was lucky however to edit, from home, on projects for Amazon Kindle, Amazon Black Friday, Mastercard and very proud to have helped local charitable trust Kendall & Wall secure lottery funding.
As for software, my weapon of choice is Final Cut Pro and Motion, but I also have a good knowledge and broadcast credits with Adobe Premiere Pro, MOGRT design and Photoshop.
Plugin Design & Development
I'm the creative force behind Idustrial Revolution, one of the oldest Final Cut Pro plugin developers. It hosts a range of commercial and free plugins on the site. One free plugin was downloaded over a thousand times within 24 hours of release.
I also take on custom work, whether it is adapting an existing plugin for a special use or designing new plugins for clients from scratch. Having a good knowledge of editing allows me to build-in flexibility and more importantly, usability.
FCP.co
Now in its 10th year and 4th redesign, running FCP.co has given me knowledge on how to run a large CMS- you are currently reading my bio from the database! Although it sounds corny, I am pretty well up on social media trends & techniques, especially in the video sector. The recent Covid restrictions has enabled live FCP.co shows online. This involves managing a Zoom Webinar through Restream.io to YouTube and Facebook.
The Future
I'm always open to new ideas and opportunities, so please get in touch at editor (at) fcp.co. I've judged film competitions, presented workflow techniques to international audiences and come up with ideas for TV shows and software programs!
