Jason Levine – Healing People Daily with the Power of Digital Video & Audio

Hello, my friends! I'm just back from my brief tour in the UK, and this time the focus was around Universities, broadcast and industry clientel, and a special appearance at the FCPUG Supermeet in London, reprising my performance from the 'meet' in Vegas during NAB.

This time around, my colleague Michael O'Neill joined me at the event, and I took the stage in the early evening to an enthusiastic capacity crowd. As in Vegas, the session was titled Sharing the Love - FCP & CS4, and I did indeed share it 'round, getting some great responses from the crowd.

My intro slide, snapped by Michael from the audience

Just about to begin, standing on stage, snapping with the iPhone

Prior to the Supermeet, Michael and I spent several days visiting Universities in the South of England, focusing on workflow and integration between CS4 and FCP, as well as Avid Media Composer integration and even mentions of incorporating ProTools into a CS4 project. What was especially cool about these visits is that we got a chance to show-off performance from the latest MacBookPro 8GB laptops, as well as the newest Intel Nehalem Workstation (similar to the one I used at LLB a few months back). Once again, the Nehalem processor continues to WOW people (even primarily Mac-based set-ups) and in conjunction with the supah-speedy MBP 17", it's a true one-two performance punch, for both online and offline production.

And, in case you thought that Universities still have basic 'Broadcast Journalism' majors (well, I 'sort of' though that!) here's a list of what you might be studying at Falmouth U. Where was this stuff when *I* was in school? ;)

Falmouth University Media Degree Programs

With that, my friends, I'm going back to the studio to 'shed' and work on some new materials for upcoming Adobe TV episodes. I've also got a few musical creations in the works, so perhaps I'll post some 'in-progress' versions, if anyone has any desire to hear them. And, since a few people asked where they can get a 'proper headshot', here's the one I used at the SuperMeet (and will likely update my Twitter account with).

Healing People Daily, with my hair down...;)

Until next time,

Blog on.

Posted by Jason Levine at 12:53 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Hello, friends! Well, it's been a bit too long since my last post, but things have been cooking, and all I can say is...machine rebuilds take too much time! LOL. In the last few weeks (since finishing the Chip Hanna video), I've built and re-built about 4 different systems, including transferring several Terrabytes of data back and forth, cleaning up literally dozens of projects, and prepping for another series of Adobe TV (which will likely feature the CH content, and a complete breakdown of the multicam edit process).

In any case, I've now arrived in the UK, where my fellow colleague Michael O'Neill and I will visit with several Design/Film Universities, going over the entire Cross-Media and Production Workflow, including heavy emphasis on our Avid and FCP Integration (which is now in full-force, thanks to the recent Premiere Pro 4.1 update).

Mikey & me at Jamie Oliver's "15", morning of arrival, Newquay, UK

In any case, we've also got a few visits with some of our broadcast partners, and on Thursday evening I'll be presenting at the Final Cut Supermeet at the Kensington Conference Centre in London. This is the first-annual FCPUG meet in London, so it should be extra-special for all who attend. Please be sure to stop by our table (where Mikey and I will have laptops setup for demo purposes) and say hello.

For now, I'm off to do a few Connect presentations, and then we'll continue the process of re-building Michael's MBP (seems to be a theme this month!). And by the way, there are several new episodes of Short & Suite up on Adobe TV. Here's one on Normalization/Volume Matching and level techniques in Soundbooth CS4.

Until next time,

Blog on.

Posted by Jason Levine at 4:38 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Hello, my friends! Well, it's taken several weeks, countless hours, and lots of cross-continental Adobe SHARE file exchanges....but the Chip Hanna music video is finally complete!

As referenced earlier, this project was part of a new series of assets that the Evangelists have developed for our road shows (along with our shows on AdobeTV) and the entire thing was filmed live, cut, processed, color-corrected, stylized and remixed in CS4 (with the audio post completed in Audition 3). Here's a brief look at the before, mid-way, and 'after' looks/sounds from the original multicam cut:

Work in progress

Chip Hanna Multicam - A Before & After from Jason Levine on Vimeo.

And here's the final video, with remixed audio, titles & branding, and the finished look:

Chip Hanna - 'Just A Cowboy' (Multicam Music Video) from Jason Levine on Vimeo.

Now, as you can see from the 'before' video, an enormous amount of work was done in post. On the video side, the picture was brought back to life (pulling out what was seemingly not there, thanks to there only being 3 PAR-64s on stage at the venue). And on the audio side, it was a matter of upgrading the sonic mix to sound equal parts live and clear, minimizing the often sterile artifacts of having a soundboard audio capture. For the video processing, I turned to my friend and Adobe colleague, 'Magic' Max Hagelstam...

Continue reading "Multicam Music Video Mastery in CS4" »

Posted by Jason Levine at 9:30 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Hello, my friends! Well, it's been an extremely packed 2 weeks, with LLB ending last Friday in Stockholm, and then a quick hop over to the Netherlands to begin a series of VAR/Freelancer training sessions, as well as the 'big' show, MultiMania '09 in Kortrijk, Belgium. Check out me and Max on the cover of MONITOR Magazine

During the brief stay in Amsterdam, I spent some time with several of our top freelancers, VARs, and additional production/design studio cats, going over the new workflows in Premiere Pro 4.1 (soon to be released) as well as emphasizing tips & tricks around our 'Everyday Timesavers' messaging. These sessions proved to be really informative for both me and the attendees, and there were many discussions about workflow/integration with Premiere Pro/FCP and AVID (our AAF support/exchange for Avid is also part of 4.1). This truly energized everybody, and it was a great opportunity to re-engage with our peers.

Following the training, I met with AKN, one of the public broadcasting channels in Holland (located in Hilversum). Here, my colleague, Klaasjan Tucker and I talked them through CS4 workflow, AVID integration, and highlighted some of our lesser known (and seldom shown) features that truly augment and improve their broadcast workflow. Once again, great feedback was received, and we're due to meet with them again soon.

But it was a short stay in Amsterdam, and then we were off to Kortrijk to present at MultiMania. This would be my third time appearing on the MM stage, and it was once again a great pleasure to be there (and a phenomenal success, with nearly 1200 attendees). Joined by fellow my evangelist, Paul Burnett, we lead a series of sessions (including the closing session/keynote) around HD Video to the Web, CS4 Web Workflow and more. As always, a big thanks to the organizers and in particular, Koen De Weggheleire, for welcoming us back and putting on a grand show.

The only picture I took this week; from LeROY @ Grand Place, Brussels

Following MM, it was off to Brussels to conduct another series of Freelancer/VAR training sessions at the Belgian office. Much like Amsterdam, we had a great crowd of attendees, and the questions were all very high-level, and really provided everyone with lots of information. I also managed to exchange some of the new assets (RED footage, among them) with our Belgian/Dutch colleagues, so they now have some new goodies to show off!

In any event, I'm back to the US tomorrow, and then I've got a little time in the desert to re-group, and develop some new road content and additional stuff for AdobeTV. The calendar continues to evolve, so stay tuned for 'where' I'll be next.

Until next time,

Blog on.

Posted by Jason Levine at 1:15 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Hej hej, mina vänner! Well friends, I do apologize for the long delay in postings; with so many recent changes in schedule, it's been quite a whirlwind of events getting things ready, organized, and delivered in a timely fashion.

In any case, I'm in the midst of my final few days at LLB in Stockholm, along with my Adobe Nordic colleague, Max Hagelstam and our partners MediaTeknik. The show has been great, and as is often the case, our booth has been packed with continuous standing-room gatherings during my theatre sessions.

Photos by Mattias Jonsson

Max and me, and the MediaTeknik gang

The theatre sessions, held in the Speaker's Corner Theatre have been based around Time-Saving Techniques in CS4, as well as showcasing the 'new' RED Camera Workflow with our new, soon-to-be-released RED plugin (shown at NAB). This, along with sessions on RED & HD content to Blu-Ray/Flash Output has garnered many great questions, many great responses, and a great deal of buzz around RED, 'RED Raw' and Production Premium. Naturally, as part of the 'Time Saver' session, I also showcased the Final Cut-->CS4 workflow and once again, the crowd really responded positively.

An artistic shot of the Speaker's Corner light board

Continue reading "LLB Stockholm Loves RED & CS4 Time Saving" »

Posted by Jason Levine at 2:40 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)