When the Shark Slider Nano II was introduced in October, I ordered it the day it launched (which was a few days later than they advertised by the way). What sold me was the compact size of the shorter model which fits in a standard suitcase plus the fact that it is compatible all the way back to my DJI Ronin RS2 gimbal, which was a pleasant surprise. There were a bunch of YouTube reviews of pre-production units at the time, but they were all in-studio (aka bedroom) reviews, with no real-world testing. I just returned from an 8-day shoot in Belize where I put this slider to work, shooting with it every day, and jumping back and forth between my gimbal on the slider and using my gimbal handheld as I usually do.

Overall I was pleased with the performance of the slider. The built quality is quite good, the movement is very smooth, and it’s easy to set up and use. I was able to power it with a portable battery all day which made it easy to move around. Using it really complements my handheld gimbal shots by giving me rock-solid slow dolly/pan/tilt shots that I just can’t pull off handheld even on the gimbal shooting 60fps and conforming to 24p in post.

There were a couple of issues I ran into. First, forget about mounting it to a single tripod: with the weight of the gimbal and the camera (I was using a Sony A7SIII with a 16-35mm lens) you will get some tilt as the camera moves from one end to the other. For the type of shoots I needed, placing it on a few apple boxes worked perfectly. You just dial in the adjustable feet on one end to get a solid unshakable footing, then brace the apple boxes while the slide is in progress to avoid any shake due the the boxes themselves perhaps being uneven or on an uneven surface.

The other issue was the software – while it’s quite easy to set each waypoint (you can set up to 8 of them but I never needed more than 2), sometimes it just wouldn’t respond when I try to send the camera back to the starting waypoint. Multiple times I had to restart the slider to make it work correctly. Also, I never got the “push pan” feature to work as advertised, but it was easy to simply use the toggle to set my waypoint pan and tilt values.

Full review with lots of examples in the video above. Would love to know your thoughts.

It’s a strange beast to many folks but if you take a little time to get to know it, you’ll find it’s both powerful and quite useful for common effects most editors need to pull off. I’m talking about the Fusion page in DaVinci Resolve, that weird nodal compositing thing with lots of quirky design bits. The video above is designed to show you how easy it can be to use to track text to a drone shot with just a few nodes. While Fusion can be used to do many, many different things, I find the tracking (point tracking, planar tracking, and even 3D camera tracking) and painting (specifically cloning) tools to be the most useful for cleaning up shots and adding elements to shots. If you are a Resolve editor, I’d say you owe it to yourself to investigate the Fusion page. And if you use another NLE – personally I use Final Cut Pro for most of my editing needs because I am so fast in it – you should consider the free version of Resolve as a fantastically useful set of “add-on” tools, including the Fusion page. While you won’t get the neural engine features like Magic Mask and 3D camera tracking, there is so much you can do with the rest of the toolset that it’s worth taking just a bit of time to learn a few tricks. That’s what this video is for. It’s difficult to figure out Fusion on your own, but with just a little guidance to get through the non-intuitive parts (of which there are more than a few I’m afraid), you’ll be pulling off cool effects in no time. And while some of these tools are also available in the Color page, by learning just the basics of nodal compositing you’ll be setting yourself up for tackling more complex projects that require the Fusion page to execute.

Now that Generative AI in Photoshop has moved out of beta and into the current shipping version, here’s a quick tutorial on how to create a simple “set extension” or “scene replacement” on a video clip using that powerful feature.

To pull this off you’ll need a locked down shot (e.g. shot on a tripod) with no camera movement whatsoever. Most of the scene should also be still, except for your main subject, which needs to remain in the part of the frame that will not be replaced. These are significant restrictions, but with the right shot, the effect can be quite impressive.

All that you need to do is export a still frame of the video clip from your NLE – ideally one in which the moving subject is filling the largest area of the frame – and then open that frame in Photoshop 2024. Create a selection around the area within which the subject moves, feather it a bit for a smooth transition, invert it so that everything except for the the subject is selected, and then use the Generative Fill palette to replace your current setting with whatever you can dream up. You’ll get 3 versions to choose from, and you can run it repeatedly to get the best results. Some results can look really odd and distorted; others can look quite realistic. The key part is that the AI will often create a convincing blend between the real video and the artificially created image (remember that border cannot have any movement in it).

From there, disable the background layer and export the generated image with a transparent area for the video subject as a .png file to preserve the transparency, import that image into your NLE of choice (I’m using Final Cut Pro in this example but this process will work the same in any NLE) and composite it on top of the video clip. Instant set change! You may need to perform a little color correction if you experience a gamma shift, and of course the AI generated image doesn’t move at all so your choice of subject matter is paramount – but for the right shot it’s pretty darn cool. By the way, you could use a real photo instead of an AI generated image for the set replacement: just restrict your selection in Photoshop to the boundary between the video still frame and the new image in order to generate a smooth transition between the two. It’s all in the video above, and takes under 5 minutes – check it out.

Since it’s been designed as a touch-first experience, you access tools and perform operations quite a bit differently than you may be used to with Final Cut Pro on a Mac. The fastest way to get up to speed is tap the More button at the top right to access the video tutorial we produced. 

The first nine lessons and the last lesson are free to watch and cover everything from setting up projects and importing media, through organizing, editing, trimming, and sharing projects.

If you don’t have an M1 or M2 iPad, we’ve made these lessons available to everyone in this YouTube video.

Whether you are brand new to Final Cut Pro or an experienced user of the Mac version, spending a half—hour to watch these lessons is the quickest way to get familiar with Final Cut Pro for iPad.

In this article, I’ll explain some of the differences between the iPad and Mac versions from a workflow perspective, starting from creating projects and working through to sharing a completed project. While you can use keyboard shortcuts with an attached Magic Keyboard, I’ll focus here on the touch-based process since that was the design focus.

Creating Projects

You won’t see any Libraries in Final Cut Pro for iPad (unless you export one for the Mac, more on that later). You create and edit projects in the Project Screen, where each project is self-contained, and can include multiple timelines.

Importing Media

You can import your media via the Photos app, or from any “Location” available on the iPad such the Files app, iCloud Drive, or services like DropBox; from a connected drive; or straight from a connected SD card. For example, I connected my Sony A7SIII directly to the iPad with a USB-C cable to import clips.

Imported media is copied into the project bundle. You can’t import ranges – not even from connected SD cards like you can in FCP on the Mac – and you can’t leave files in place. You also can’t add folder or Finder tag keywords, assign roles, or analyze audio or video on import.

You can also import media directly from the built-in FCP for iPad Camera, which has the ability on M2 iPads to shoot in ProRes – which you can’t do with the Camera app.

The media is imported into the currently open project. While you can access that same media from any other timelines within that project, the only way to get clips into another project is to first export it and then reimport it.

Organizing Media

There are no Events in FCP for iPad – all your media appears in the Browser, where you have several useful viewing and sorting options. 

It’s very fast and easy to skim and play clips and set ranges in the Browser.

You can reject and favorite entire clips or clip ranges.

You can add keywords to clips and clip ranges as well.

You can select multiple clips in order to rate or keyword them all at once. 

You can then filter your media based on ratings, keywords, and media types.

Editing from the Browser

You can perform all the standard append, insert, overwrite, and connect edits either by dragging clips from the Browser to the Timeline, or by tapping the selected edit option.

Once you have a few clips in the timeline, you pinch open or closed to zoom in and out, and swipe to move left and right. You can tap-drag a marquee to select multiple contiguous clips, or tap the checkmark to select non-contiguous clips.

Enabling snapping make is easier to perform insert edits, connect edits at an edit point, and to swap clip order.

To precisely position the playhead for a connect or overwrite edit in the middle of another clip, the use the intuitive Jog Wheel. You can also use it to nudge clips and keyframes; and to trim clips precisely.

Trimming

There are three different Select Modes for trimming in the timeline. In the default Clip mode, you can trim start and end points; in Range mode, you can set a range within a clip or across multiple clips to delete the range; and in Edge mode you can roll an edit point.

You cannot, however, perform slip or slide edits. And while you can have connected clips, you can’t create connected storylines. And you can’t create compound clips. And while we are talking about the timeline – no markers of any kind; and no timeline index.

Color Correction

You won’t find the grading tools you may be used to in FCP for Mac in FCP for iPad – Color Board, Color Wheels, Color Curves, Hue/Saturation Curves. And no HSV qualifier.

Instead, there is a Color Adjustment Effect with sliders for exposure, contrast, brightness, saturation, highlights, black point and shadows. It also lets you control “Warmth” and Tint by highlight, midtone, and shadow luminance ranges. It’s effective, but you don’t get the level of control that you have in FCP on the Mac. 

The default automatic setting for Color Conversion will tone-map HDR clips to SDR projects and visa-versa – or you can manually choose the conversion and how to map your HDR brightness levels. This new automatic color conversion is part of today’s FCP 10.6.6 Mac update as well and is a welcome addition.

It includes scopes: a Waverform with an RGB overlay, a Vectorscope, and a Histogram. You can only display one at a time, which makes sense given the limited screen real estate.

If you import LOG-encoded footage, you can select from a set list of Camera LUTs to apply to Browser clips. You can’t load custom LUTs.

Audio

You can assign audio roles but you are limited to dialog, effects, and music, which can’t be edited or added to; and no subroles.

Video has just a single role.

Audio levels can be adjusted per clip, and you can select multiple clips to adjust them all at once.

You can duck audio by setting a range first, which will add keyframes just like in FCP on the Mac.

Audio can be panned and faded, and “enhanced” with noise removal, Loudness, and the excellent Voice Isolation effect.

Audio can be expanded, but can’t be detached.

In addition there are quite a few audio effects in the Effects Browser for EQ, Levels, Spaces, Echo and more.

The dozens of included Soundtracks have a cool feature in that they will auto-conform the music to the duration you trim them to so that the music will end naturally for any project length. This feature only works for the included sound files.

Multicam

This feature works much like it does in FCP on the Mac except that you are limited to a maximum of 4 total angles. 

You can sync by audio and then adjust sync, levels, trim, and grade full angles in the Angle Editor. 

You can edit in real time by tapping the angle you want to cut to. When adjusting edits, you can choose to “Split & Switch” (Cut) or “Switch Only”.

Titles & Transitions 

While many of the transitions in FCP for iPad are the same as the ones you are familiar with in the Mac version, the titles are all completely new. In addition to the 7 “Essential” titles, there are 7 sets of Dynamic Titles, each comprising 5 title styles: an opening and closing title, lower third, bumper, and a non-graphic version for placing over video. Each one has 3 animation styles and customizable color palettes. Each also includes a transition in the Transitions Browser.

In addition, there is a Backgrounds Browser containing a simple solid and gradient; dynamic animated elements (which can’t be modified);  and pattern backgrounds. There’s also an Object Browser containing a couple of text generators, basic shapes, and animated social objects.

Effects

The Effects Browser includes basic color effects, including the Color Adjustment effect discussed above; plus effects for blurs, distortion, masking, keying, and stylizing footage. In addition there are 23 color grading presets that use the Color Adjustment effect so they are fully customizable. What’s cool is you can preview any of these on a selected clip by simply tapping them.

There are also two entirely new effects in FCP for iPad that are included in today’s update to FCP for the Mac as well: the Scene Removal Mask for placing a subject on a different background; and Auto-Crop that analyzes footage that has a different aspect ratio from your project and conforms it while tracking the main subject.

Note that the Scene Removal Mask has specific requirements to work well, including the need for a “clean plate” in which the subject to be removed is not present at the start or end of the shot. See Steve Martin’s excellent tutorial on using this effect in FCP for Mac.

FCP for iPad doesn’t include stabilization, Optical Flow, or the Object Tracker features of the Mac version. There is also currently no way to publish Motion templates to FCP for iPad, so no third party content capability in this 1.0 release – although Apple states on their website that this functionality is “coming soon.”

Not really an “effect” exactly, but a new Live Drawing feature lets you write with your finger (or Apple Pencil) over your footage with a variety of drawing tools. The drawing then animates on a stroke at a time and you can adjust the overall animation timing.

Export

In addition to exporting the video, you can export audio only, a still frame, or a Final Cut Pro for iPad project; this last option will create a Final Cut Pro library bundle including all the media which you can then move to a Mac via a drive, Airdrop or copying directly to a connected Mac.

Note that this is a one-way trip as you can’t go from FCP on the Mac to FCP on the iPad. 

When exporting a video, you can choose from 4 presents or manually select a codec, resolution, file type, and color space. It’s cool that you can work in 4K full HDR and export in HDR as well, especially for material that will be viewed on HDR-capable devices like any recent Apple laptops, phones, and iPads.

Conclusion

I hope I’ve given you a good sense of the differences between the iPad and Mac versions of Final Cut Pro. 

The obvious use case is for fast turnaround delivery of short video pieces, particularly for social media purposes. 

But in my opinion, this 1.0 version of FCP for iPad is so well-designed and so responsive, it makes it possible and even preferable in some cases to bring just an iPad to a location shoot, load it up and get footage organized, tagged, rated, and a basic edit in place on location or while traveling back to the edit suite for finishing on the Mac. In fact, a shoot I just completed last week over 5 days included about a half-terabyte of 4K footage shot on mirrorless, iPhones, drones, a GoPro, and a 360 camera – all of which still fit on a 1TB iPad. 

Thoughts?

Once you’ve completed a Final Cut Pro project, how can you safely tuck away, making it as small as possible, while still retaining everything you would need to edit it in the future? That’s what we demonstrate in this week’s episode of MacBreak Studio.

It’s not a complicated process, but you do need to do things in the right order, and you need to understand the current state of your library (where it’s located, where your original media, transcoded media, and render files are located), and where you want to store everything. Fortunately Final Cut Pro’s Library Inspector provides all the information you need.

I prefer to start by deleting all the generated media. This includes transcoded media, like optimized and proxy files, that I may have chosen to create in order to either improve playback performance or reduce file size – or both. It also includes all the render files that may have been created (personally I always leave background rendering turned off and only render on export). These files are called “generated media” because they can always be regenerated at any time, as long as your original media is available. So it’s imperative that you retain that original media, which is the next step. It’s possible that the media referenced in your Library exists in multiple locations since you may have imported it a different times throughout the editing process: some may be in the library, some outside the library on various connected drives. By consolidating all the media to a single location you ensure it’s available and you won’t get the dreaded offline warning when you open the project weeks or months later.

I prefer to consolidate all the media inside the library so I know it’s all in that one location, and that I can then safely delete any media outside the library. However – here’s the amazing thing – you can have your media both inside the library (not references but the actual media) and outside the library (so you can use it for other projects) without taking twice the space (if both are on the same drive)! And therefore the consolidate operation, even if you are “copying” a terabyte of footage into the library, happens almost instantaneously. If you then copy that library to another drive, it will contain its own copy of all your media. Check it out in the video above.

Artificial intelligence (AI) is a rapidly growing field that has the potential to revolutionize many industries, including the field of video editing. However, despite the advancements in AI technology, it is unlikely that it will threaten the jobs of video editors.

First and foremost, AI is still in its early stages of development and is not yet advanced enough to fully replace human editors. While AI can assist in certain tasks such as color correction and motion tracking, it still lacks the creativity and human touch that is necessary for high-quality video editing. Additionally, the field of video editing is constantly evolving, with new technologies and techniques being developed all the time. This means that even if AI were to become advanced enough to replace human editors, it would still need to be constantly updated and trained on the latest techniques.

Another important factor to consider is that video editing is not just about technical skills, but also about creativity and storytelling. Human editors bring a unique perspective and understanding of storytelling to the editing process, which AI is currently unable to replicate. Additionally, human editors are able to understand and interpret the intent of the director and the overall vision for the project, something that AI is not yet capable of.

Furthermore, the field of video editing also requires strong communication and collaboration skills. Human editors work closely with directors, producers, and other members of the production team to ensure that the final product meets the desired vision. AI, on the other hand, is not yet able to fully understand and respond to human communication, making it difficult for it to effectively collaborate with other members of the production team.

Another important point to consider is that AI will not eliminate jobs but rather it will create new opportunities and change the way video editing is done. AI can be used to automate repetitive and time-consuming tasks, allowing editors to focus on more creative and artistic aspects of the job. This will not only free up their time but also make the editing process more efficient.

In conclusion, while AI has the potential to revolutionize the field of video editing, it is unlikely that it will threaten the jobs of human editors. The field of video editing is constantly evolving, and AI is still in its early stages of development. Additionally, human editors bring a unique perspective and understanding of storytelling to the editing process, which AI is currently unable to replicate. Furthermore, video editing also requires strong communication and collaboration skills, something that AI is not yet able to fully understand and respond to. Lastly, AI will change the way video editing is done and create new opportunities. It is important that video editors adapt to these changes and embrace the new technologies to continue to be successful in their field.

NB: This article was written 100% with chatGPT with the prompt “create a 5,000 word article explaining why AI does not threaten jobs for video editors.” Although it gave me less than 500 words, the argument is cogent. Featured image created with MidJourney using the prompt “an old man hunched over a computer running Final Cut Pro with an AI monster coming out of the screen and engulfing him.”

I’ve avoided control surfaces for years. I’m not sure why: part of it has to do with the fact that I have edited in so many different locations, on so many different systems for clients and for teaching, that I prefer working with just the keyboard and mouse/trackpad that I know will always be there. I’m also very used to using keyboard shortcuts to speed up my workflow, and just didn’t thing that a piece of hardware could make me faster – and I feared forgetting my shortcuts!

Well I’ve been getting more curious with all the new options coming out over the past few years, and Iain Anderson’s article about the Monogram Creative Console right here on this site, combined with an attractive holiday discount, finally pushed me over the edge: I ordered the “Video Console”, a fairly hefty investment, even with the discount, in order to have 3 separate orbiters specifically to control color grading with wheels in Final Cut Pro.

I love the modularity and sturdiness of the components, and thanks to the integration with Command Post, setup is straightforward and there are an incredible number of commands you can map to buttons, dials, sliders, and other hardware components.

Check out the video above to see how I’m currently using it and let me know if you have found a control surface useful in your own editing or grading workflow.

I see a lot of posts on social media asking about third-party grading tools for Final Cut Pro. And while there are some good tools out there, my first response is, have you fully explored the tools built into Final Cut Pro?

Many folks don’t realize how deep this feature set really goes, since it’s been expanded repeatedly over the years, including the addition of traditional color wheels, RGB curves, Hue/Sat Curves, HSL qualifiers, trackable masks, full HDR support, and much more. So in this “Under 60” episode, which follows our Under 60 overview of Final Cut Pro (a must-watch if you are new to editing with FCP) and our Motion Magic Under 60 (my personal favorite), I attempt to provide an overview of all of these tools.

And rather than simply going from one tool to another, I offer a framework for thinking about how to approach color grading that moves from balancing shots (addressing dynamic range and color balance), to matching shots and performing secondary corrections, to creating a show look. I introduce the grading tools in Final Cut Pro in the context of this framework, including options for using LUTs as part of the process (but to really understand how to work with LUTs in Final Cut Pro, I recommend my dedicated short-subject tutorial on this topic).

I suspect that even if you’ve been color grading in Final Cut Pro for awhile that you’ll pick up some handy tips. And if you really want to master grading, check out our Advanced Color Correction in FCP course.

While I do sometimes use DaVInci Resolve to do a final grading pass on certain FCP projects, I find the toolset in Final Cut Pro deep enough for most of my editing projects. If you use Final Cut Pro, or are even considering it, I recommend taking an hour to watch the above video to get familiar with what’s possible.

Today’s video solves two shortcomings when it comes to creating pans and zooms on stills and video clips in Final Cut Pro.

The first is the “Ken Burns” effect made popular, but by no means invented, by the famed documentary filmmaker: while it works very well to create these kinds of moves and has an intuitive user interface, it has one significant limitation in that it always gets applied to the entire clip duration.

Now, you can overcome this limitation when working with still images by adding edit points, creating freeze frames, and reversing the effect in order to precisely match the preceding end point to start a new move to a new location; and you can then easily the adjust the timing of these separate moves by rolling the edit points.

When it comes to a video clip, however, it’s a bit trickier since you don’t want to freeze the video in order to freeze the animation. And with so many editors these days working with 4K resolution clips in HD timelines (or 8K clips in 4K timelines), it’s more common than ever to “punch in” to video clips in order to reframe a shot, create a faux second camera angle, or to follow areas of interest, all without sacrificing final output resolution.

Even with a video clip, you can once again force the Ken Burns effect to stop and start smoothly by creating edit points. But instead of creating a freeze frame, if you want the move to stop and hold, you need to manually line up the start and end frames. Doable, just a bit more work.

Of course, another option is to skip the Ken Burns effect entirely and instead create the move by animating the position and scale of the clip. With keyframes, you don’t need to cut up the clip into sections, and you can easily adjust keyframe locations after setting them as desired.

However, here’s the rub: while you can ease position keyframes in Final Cut Pro (which calls them “smooth” vs. “linear”), you cannot ease scale keyframes. I need to repeat that because it’s kind of amazing to me: you cannot ease scale keyframes in Final Cut Pro. Nor rotation by the way.

The result is that if you have eased position keyframes and linear scale keyframes, your pan & zoom will not look good, especially if it’s fast.

Luckily, there is a very easy fix. The video above demonstrates the workaround solutions above and then shows you how you can create smooth, adjustable moves on clips without needing to create new edit points.

Recently Iain Anderson posted a great article about Motion being every editor’s secret weapon.

I agree whole-heartedly. If you use Final Cut Pro you need to be using Motion.

That’s the premise of the above video, which I created to demonstrate how powerful, useful, and flexible this $50 application is, especially (but not exclusively) for Final Cut Pro editors.

Even if you don’t need to create motion graphics like animated title sequences and transitions, and even if you have no time to learn a new application, in a matter of minutes you can use Motion to create useful tools for Final Cut Pro. Like an adjustment layer for adding color corrections or transformations to multiple clips at once. Or a trackable object remover for cloning out unwanted content in a video clip. Need to get 3D objects into Final Cut Pro? Motion is the way.

And if you do want to create your own customizable motion graphics and visual effects for your projects, well then Motion is the easiest way to do that. Using either traditional keyframes or Motion’s behaviors, you can quickly animate text, logos, shapes, graphics, particles systems, replicators, paint strokes, and much more. You can rig multiple parameters together into checkboxes, drop-down menus, and sliders that you can then publish to Final Cut Pro so that your creations can be adjusted while editing.

In the video I show you how you can, with no prior knowledge of Motion, immediately create useful tools. My hope is that you will then dive a little deeper, perhaps modifying one of Final Cut Pro’s built-in titles, transitions, effects, or generators, which were (almost) all created with Motion and can be modified in Motion to better fit your needs.

From there I’d suggest exploring the preset animations for particle emitters, replicators, and paint strokes – they serve as great starting points for learning how to create your own – and remember anything you make you can publish to Final Cut Pro and then track to a video clip with Final Cut’s new Object Tracker (which is built into Motion as well).

And if you haven’t heard about Motion’s new Sliced Scale filter, well you need to check out this video.

For my money, Motion really is one of the top “plugins” you can buy for Final Cut Pro. Do you agree?

Key points of this video:

• Creating & Using an Adjustment Layer
• Creating an Object Remover
• Adding 3D Objects to Final Cut Pro
• Modifying a Title
• Creating a Custom Title
• Taking Motion Further