Editing – Latest News from MediaStorm

When Hard Drives Fail

Post author:Eric Maierson
Post published:February 17, 2015

For years I’ve been preaching the adage that when it comes to hard drive crashes, not only as an answer to the question, "how much storage do i need?", but also to the two types of people, those who have lost data and those who will. Well, last week it was my turn. Again. I was working at home, with all the proper protection, and still, in a single surge, two hard drives went kaput. Fortunately, thank the stars, the drives were from different projects and I had backups of each. Because let me tell you, as an editor there is no worse feeling than knowing you’ll have to redo hours, or even days, of work. What I took away from the experience is this: Unless you are backing up your work, never mount both the main and backup drives at the same time. This way, if there is a catastrophic failure,…

MediaStorm Guide to the Slip Tool

Post author:Eric Maierson
Post published:January 30, 2014

This article is part of a series of posts with tips and tricks from our producers' experience working with Adobe Premiere Pro CC after years of working in Final Cut Pro. To read more about why we made the switch, check out this post. One tool I often overlook when editing is the slip tool. My buddy Tim McLaughlin reintroduced me to its power last week. The slip tool allows you to change the in and out point of a single clip without affecting it’s duration or the duration of adjoining clips. Your project length stays the same. Activate the slip tool with either the shortcut key Y or by clicking on its icon in the toolbar. Next, hover over a video clip and you’ll see that your cursor change to the slip icon. Hold down your mouse and drag forward or backwards inside the clip, don't move the clip itself. You’ll…

Check Every Output

Post author:Eric Maierson
Post published:January 16, 2014

Here’s a simple tip I’ve learned the hard way: check every output. And by check I mean watch your files from start to finish every time. Because no matter how conscientious you are, it’s just too easy for typos and sound pops and other gremlins to slip by. Checking every output is the only way to catch them all. Once, at the very end of a Storytelling Workshop, I made some last minute structural changes to our team’s project. I did not have time to check my work before the final screening. Everything was out of sync and everyone saw it. It was a disaster. Check every output. Prior to the ICP Infinity Awards, we played back all of the projects on a large TV. Among the discoveries: white edges on photographs that went unseen on a smaller monitor, low-res footage that had not been replaced, watermarked video. We caught these mistakes…

MediaStorm Guide to Importing Canon C300 Footage into Premiere Pro CC [Screencast]

Post author:Eric Maierson
Post published:November 1, 2013

This article is part of a series of posts with tips and tricks from our producers' experience working with Adobe Premiere Pro after years of working in Final Cut Pro. To read more about why we made the switch, check out this post. Recently, while importing Canon C300 footage into Premiere Pro CC, I realized that many of the longer clips were being duplicated on ingest. For instance, I’d have three of the same files, the only difference was their last two digits. This happened both when I used File > Import and when I double-clicked the Project window. The trick, I discovered, is to import via the Media Browser. Select your file, right-click, and choose Import. You’ll ingest the files properly, with no duplicates. Check out the accompanying screencast, for a more detailed explanation.

Worth Clicking: NYC Documentaries, Interactive Highrises, and Janis Joplin

Post author:Cortney Cleveland
Post published:October 11, 2013

All links are hand-picked by the MediaStorm staff for your enjoyment this weekend. Cheers! Portraits of soldiers before, during, and after war [My Modern Met] The 10 best documentaries about New York City [NonFics] Janis Joplin on rejection: “You are what you settle for.” [YouTube] “When you do something guaranteed to succeed, you close the door to the possibility of discovery.” [LifeHacker] How should we judge the best multimedia? [News Shooter] American Cinema Editors is an honorary society of motion picture editors founded in 1950. [ACE-filmeditors.org] You know your film is making a difference when…. Ellen Schneider fills in the blank. [ARTSblog] 105 vital sources for journalists in the new media landscape [Journalism Degrees and Programs] An amazing interactive history of the rise of highrises in New York [New York Times] And how could we resist....Bohemian Rhapsody arranged for a symphony orchestra [YouTube]