June 21 .00

Last nights gathering of 2-poppers at the very first FCP User group meeting was a total success, not to mention a lot of fun. Familiar names here on the forums showed up in person to put a face to their moniker and great faces they were.

Meeting was called to order at 7:00PM over at Video Symphony in Burbank. The room was filled to capacity and all eyes were on each other. First order of business was to tell a little bit about ourselves and collect ideas about where we go from here.

As we went around the room, I couldn't help but realize that we could easily crew an entire movie with the talent in that room alone. We had writers, actors, directors, cinematographers, software developers, newbies, and professionals. Men , Women, young, old, white, black, brown, and yellow . It was the perfect demographic, and I imagine an accurate reflection of just who is using this application.

Bill Davis flew in from Arizona. Telly woke up Wednesday morning and couldn't resist the pull of his 'So Cal' posse. So he hopped on a plane from San Fran and gave us all a few giggles and some great ideas on how to drive this user group thing forward.

Lisa Brenneis climbed down off the ladder at her avocado farm in Ojai and drove the 90 minutes to grace us with her presence. Ken Stone skipped and hopped among the chairs taking digital stills of the crowd.

Larry Jordan sat proudly like a King in his big black chair surveying this small piece of the Kingdom he worked so hard to create, and is so obviously proud of. Cawan from Promax stood up and not only talked a little about himself but donated several Lisa B books and Promax T-shirts for our raffle. Thanks Cawan.

And if that weren't enough, we finally got down to the far right darkened corner of the room for our last two introductions. Hunkered sheepishly in their chairs, the two slowly got up and introduced themselves. "Hi I'm Vin Capone from Apple computer and this is Carl M White, also from Apple." Thats right poppers. Apple was there and they are listening.

Vin Capone and Carl M. White are development executives and two of Apples finest And they are really good guys. They are aware of the needs and wants of FCP users and (insert wry grin here) we have their e-mail address. Hoo yay!! We forgive you both for crashing our meeting. More on them later.

After a brief break of Hansens Soda and bottled water, (donated by the trustworthy and hardworking sweat and energy of Damon Abacherli) we got down to what everyone came to see. Legendary 2-popper Ralph Fairweather.

A hush came over the crowd as Ralph, sitting at his chair in front of a mass of monitors and wires, slowly turned to face his adoring fans. I could see tears in the eyes of some of the folks who had waited months for this opportunity. An opportunity to come face to face with the Guru himself. Suddenly someone whispered to their neighbor. "Good God, he's wearing shorts."

OK so I embellish.

Ralph gave us all an eyeful and earful of FCP 1.2.5 and all the cool things that come along with it. 16:9 is awesome and reference movie is a God send. Luma clamping, (I still don't know what that is) is gone with the wind. Ralph did a great job and only once did anybody have to say, "Speak up damnit!" Thanks Bill Davis for the microphone.

Then came an exciting announcement for folks using film and wishing to transfer to DV. Ramy, announced Digital Film Tree - a professional film-to-DV-to film cut list, and DV to Digi-Beta and D1 service, with Davinci color correction, catering specifically to DV/FCP folks. And it works and is affordable. 100% accurate TC. Cool. Thanks Ramy. www.dvfilmtree.com

Winding down now and on to our raffle. 2-pop donated five t-shirts and these babies were a coveted lot. One of a kind, never seen before, fresh off the presses of Kinkos Printing, and so treasured by poppers that $101.00 were raised. Oh yeah. Carl and Vin from Apple donated a copy of FCP to be included. This was incredibly generous and I promise never to bad mouth Apple again. What's even more cool about this donation is, (and what are the odds here) that the winner was a young woman who happened to be the ONLY person in the room who did not own a copy of FCP. What1s more, she just finished a short film and had no money to hire an editor. Now she can edit the thing herself. This lady has GOT to buy a lotto ticket today.

A group of us went to the Burbank Bar and Grill afterwards to partake in a bit of brew and chips. Larry Jordan and Bill Davis picked up the tab I think. All I know is I got away with only paying for one drink. Membership has it's privileges if you go to the bathroom at the right time and bring Telly with you.

Just a great time with great people and the start, I hope, for monthly gatherings of LA 2-poppers. We want to keep it loose and fun and maybe learn something along the way.

And we got Apple's e-mail address. heh heh heh.

Thanks Damon and Doug Linderman for your hard work, and thanks to all the poppers who showed up and made a little history

See ya next month.

Michael Horton
HeadCutter