OK. So last month we have overflow crowds and folks hanging from the rafters and laying on the floor so we decide that our next meeting should be held in larger facilities. So we find Moviola in Hollywood and the good people there work their tails off to accommodate us and the facility looks great and ...overflow crowds show up. So the next meeting will be held at the Rose Bowl in Pasadena Ca pending negotiations with the local City Council.
A great big thank you must go to Chriss, Matt, Patty, and the other good folk at Moviola who worked tirelessly to set up the facility to accommodate us, the 500+ members that make up the lafcpug.

First up was our second installment of what we like to call, "Stump the Gurus" where members try to get their FCP problems solved by asking our resident Gurus, Ralph Fairweather and Andrew Balis. No one stumped the Gurus again this month so we roll over the "prize" to 3 raffle tickets for next month. Some of the questions asked this month were:
Any easy way to export audio into ProTools?
No, not really, but there are articles on 2-pop.com and Apples FCP web site on this that will help you.
What extensions do I need to turn off to use FCP?
Don't worry about extensions. Use Mac OS ALL and you should be fine.
Is there any way to clean out my capture scratch drive when it gets filled up just leaving what I have used?
You can use the Sequence trimmer or the Media Mover for this. You can dump the renders files and re render. The sequence Trimmer and recapture is the best method but you must of captured properly the first time and Andrew recommends that you first use RS 422 capture as Firewire seems to have a one to two frame inaccuracy rate.

Note. This is a bit of a sad note for us as Ralph Fairweather is leaving us to go to San Francisco to be the FX supervisor on a Imax movie. This doesn't mean that Ralph won't make a few trips back down to visit, but it does mean we will miss him terribly.We all wish him the best and as a token of our affection the lafcpug presented him with a $50.00 gift certificate to go to the movies when and if he ever gets a break.

DVCreators.net's Steve Martin was up next with with his now famous 5 minute tip/trick of the month. This month? How do you get that "Cops" like blur on the face of people you want unidentified, like, well, those crooks on "Cops."
Well not only did Steve show us, he also wrote it down for us and everyone in attendance got a step by step on how to do this. For those of you who couldn't make it to the meeting, click here to get your own step by step.
You can also catch Steve at NAB in April where they will not only be giving free FCP and DVD authoring training to anyone who signs up, but will be selling 2 volumes of tips/tricks that Steve and Josh have compiled over the last several months. As a teaser, Steve showed us one of those tricks, a cool explosion of a mans head. Gotta love that.

Dawn Cichon was up next with the soon to be released SonicFirePro, a very impressive audio and music editing program from the good folks at SmartSound. Now, you can finally edit your music and audio to your Video. This new version includes the following;
Video Import: DV, AVI, MPEG, QuickTime
Score Videos Inside SmartSound - Automatically
Preview Ideas in Real Time with Your Video
Score Multiple Scenes & Events - Fast
Complete Support for DV Audio and More
Edit Your Own Music - Automatically
New Streamlined Professional User Interface
Includes More Music & Sound Effects ..... And more.

There were lots of oohs and ahhs from the gallery and I for one think this is a pretty dang good looking app. And we only saw the beta release with many of the features in the "soon to be shipped" version missing.
Dawn was a lot of fun, very skilled in her presentation, and since so many of us were so impressed with what this program can do for us and our budget, we wrestled her to the floor and made her give the lafcpug a discount on this fine app. So, after intense negotiations, SmartSound is kindly offering us a discount on two SonicFirePro packages until March 16. So click here and read the instructions carefully and take advantage of the price break if this is the sort of thing you might need.
Now if only SmartSound would bundle this app with FCP as it does with Premiere 6.

Philip Hodgetts from the "must have or you are really making your life difficult, DV Companion, and here in the US for a few months, dropped by to share his expertise and give us 3 quick tutorials on animating titles using the much maligned Title Generator in FCP.
Philip, like Steve Martin before him, also handed out a step by step on what he showed so I don't have to write it here. So click here and you too can do what Philip showed us. Also, if you are an owner of DV Companion, just download the installer and that will drop the tutorial into your existing copy of DVC so you can bring it up, when you want, because you want, just because.
We thank Philip for allowing lafcpug to be the first in the world to have and use these tutorials and showing us that the titler in FCP just ain't THAT bad.

Anthony Scarpa was first Show and Tell of the night giving us a glimpse of his movie DunceDance, a mockumentary recently shown to a standing room only crowd at the "SlamDance" film festival in Park City, Utah. Because of technical problems, Anthony was unable to show off his brilliant sound mix but with the help of Ron Margolis and Charles McConathy and one of our members who held a mike to the GL1 camera we were able to hear the movie as well as see it. While all this was going on Tony gave us a how2 on exporting audio out of FCP into ProTools, the SIMPLE way. Click here to see Tony's solution.
Anyway, back to DunceDance. Directed by David Mcclellan, and edited by Tony, it tells the story of a group of Filmmakers at Sundance Film Festival and is very funny and sure to be a big hit especially with those who have been to the festival before.
DunceDance has also been accepted into the New York International Film Festival.

We were so far behind at this point and it was getting quite late, that not only was a break in order, a nap was a good idea. So for 15 minutes, some of us did just that.

Allan Hamill of Adobe was first up after the break and bravely stepped into the "den of lions" we call the FCP faithful to demo the brand new version of Premier, called "six."
While we might of called this night, Premiere 6 vs FCP 1.2.5, it really wasn't about that. Premiere is a very different program incorporating many features FCP does not have, but, (and this is a modest "but,") FCP still has the edge as a professional editing tool in my humble opinion.But, by gosh, I sure would like some of the new features P6 is offering and Allan so entertainingly showed us. So would lots of others judging from the response.

In between hurling Adobe rockets into the audience, Allan gave us brief glimpses into some of the new features of P6, such as the real time audio preview/mixer. (I want that) The integration with After Effects and Photoshop had me drooling while the web export function, using a "lite" version of Cleaner seemed just plain awesome. The story board feature was pretty cool and the integration of SmartSound into the program seemed to be quite functional and clever.
This is a MAJOR upgrade and one that will give FCP some serious competition. There are significant differences that you will see once you get under Premier's hood that might prevent you from going "over," but for the price, this is a NLE program worth considering.

Thanks Allan for braving a FCP group and showing us that competition is what will drive FCP forward, and in the end be good for all of us.

Dan Fort was up next with "Life after Bojangles." a 15 minute presentation of life after cutting the Showtime TV movie "Bojangles" on FCP and a iMac. For those of you who might not know Dan, he has almost single handedly persuaded the Motion Picture Industry that FCP is an affordable alternative to the Avid editing system. Because of Dan and people like Ramy Katrib, and Loran Kary of Film Logic, over 25 feature films have been cut on FCP, Showtime still uses FCP as it's editing tool for its TV movies.
Dan showed us clips from Bojangles as well as a slide show of his visit to Sundance where Apple hired him to talk to filmmakers about FCP. Seemed Dan didn't have too as most of them were already using it. If Dan ever takes this show on the road you would be well to book him.
Dan has showed us before some of what he showed tonight, but no matter how many times you see it, you still can't believe you an cut a feature film on an iMac.
Hollywood is taking notice and FCP is slowly finding it's way into the mainstream as a result of what Dan has accomplished. As long as Dan continues pushing the envelope and getting his message out to the skeptical what FCP can do as a tool for cutting Film, it is not far out to believe that FCP will give the Avid some serious run for it's money.
Fascinating and eye popping, we are very lucky to have Dan Fort living in our neighborhood so he can drop by and wow us with his stuff.
BTW, Dan is also writing the Filmmakers Guide to Final Cut Pro. I'll let you know when it's out.

JC Cornwell had the unenviable task of being last to show and tell, as the evening was now slowly approaching morning - or so it seemed. Of course we had technical problems which extended the time even further until Dan Fort came to the rescue and showed us that by turning the power ON you will be able to get the deck to work. Thanks Dan for that invaluable tip.
JC showed us a clip from the mockumentary "Life Planers, a Documentary about the Tuttle sisters." and you can get samples and more info on his web site, www.reelcheese.com.
Shot on a PD100 PAL camcorder, and directed by his wife Autumn, this movie is about two "twisted" sisters who run a company called Life Planners which plans and details the lives of their clients whether their clients need it, want it, or not. Very funny and all too true in many places, my only regret was I was too tired by that time to laugh much. But, the audience did and thats what counts.

World famous raffle was up next and it was not only WORLD famous tonight but Solar System famous as the prizes were just that good. (Just try being me for awhile having these in my home for weeks daring me to rip open the shrink wrap and install. An exercise in discipline, let me tell you.

Special thanks to Allan Hamill for the Hats and T-shirts and rockets
Adobe for Premiere 6, Illustrator 9, and Acrobat 4
SmartSound for SmartSound
SmartDisk for VST 45 gig FW Drive.

Winners were:

Adobe Hats - Leslie Taylor, Dennis Lu
Premiere T-shirts- Bill, Barbara, Andy B, and Ned Soltz
SmartSound - Frank Grekowicz
Acrobat 4 - Mark Herbert
Illustrator - Kerry Millerick
Premiere 6 - Anthony Delasandro
VST 45 gig FW Drive - Frank Grekowicz

Next month I promise to bring in a very large hairy man with tattoos and a stop watch and get you all home at a decent hour.

Special thanks to Chris Coe for the still pics. Dan Brockett for taping the meeting, Doug Lindeman for taking notes, and a big thank you to the good folks at Moviola for all their hard work.

See you Wednesday, March 21, (one week earlier) for another marathon edition of the lafcpug

Michael Horton
"HeadCutter"