John August

John

Final Cut Pro updated

Follow Up, Software

Apple has [updated](http://www.apple.com/finalcutpro/software-update.html) Final Cut Pro X to address some of editors’ biggest concerns (XML, shared media) and now offers a free [trial version](http://www.apple.com/finalcutpro/trial/). It’s worth a download.

As I noted in my [original review](http://johnaugust.com/2011/final-cut-pro-and-con), I found FCP X to be very “discoverable” — it is easy to figure out how to do almost everything:

> In earlier versions of FCP, if you didn’t know what you were doing, it was incredibly frustrating to even get started. That’s why there was a whole industry of classes and tutorials. They weren’t teaching editing. They were teaching Final Cut Pro.

Let me amend that a bit.

While you don’t *need* a class to get going in FCP X, I’d urge you to check out Ripple Training’s [terrific video tutorials](http://www.rippletraining.com/categories/final-cut-studio-courses/final-cut-pro-products/final-cut-pro-10-core-training.html) for FCP X. Having now watched 20 of the 39 lessons, I realize how much I was missing.

A few examples:

* Split edits. L-cuts and J-cuts in FCP X are so easy you keep thinking there’s another step. Once you Expand a clip (or all clips), you can drag the audio or video separately. Bumping audio clips get out of each other’s way.

* Compound clips are basically groups. If you’re familiar with design programs, you’re used to Command-G to group objects together. It’s the same idea.

* Connected clips pin to a specific frame in the main storyline, rather than floating in the timeline. It’s so tempting to fall back into thinking of stacked video clips the way they used to work in legacy FCP, but so wrong. It’s not a piano roll anymore. Everything is connected, always. Once you accept that, everything makes a lot more sense.

If I were Apple, I’d license Ripple Training’s videos and just give them away. They’re very smartly done, and would relieve a lot of the knee-jerk “It’s iMovie Pro!” responses. The app is much more sophisticated than it appears at first glance.

Working with directors

Episode - 4

Go to Archive

Directors, Scriptnotes, Transcribed

In episode four of Scriptnotes, Craig and I discuss migraines, kidney stones and zombie apocalypse preparations before we segue to the main topic: how screenwriters work with directors, from the first meeting to on-set etiquette to giving notes in post.

Screenwriters and directors often come at a project from different directions. The writer is trying to explain the movie he’s already written; the director is trying to explore the movie he’s planning to make.

By understanding what a director wants and needs, you stand the best chance of getting your movie on screen in a way that satisfies both of you.

Links:

You can download the episode here: AAC.

UPDATE 9-24-11: The transcript of this episode can be found here.

Kids, cards, whiteboards and outlines

Scriptnotes, Transcribed, Writing Process

This week, Craig and I follow up on our earlier comment about kids being the death of screenwriters, then dive into the process of outlining a script, from index cards to whiteboards to spreadsheets.

Along the way, we discuss Curious George, Torchwood and V.

Some links:

* [My Dad Lives in a Downtown Hotel](http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0247549/). Beau Bridges!
* [Curious George Goes to the Hospital](http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0395070627/ref=as_li_ss_tl?ie=UTF8&tag=johnaugustcom-20&linkCode=as2&camp=217145&creative=399369&creativeASIN=0395070627)
* [Torchwood: Miracle Day](http://www.starz.com/originals/torchwood/Pages/title.aspx?src=starz_mktg&med=referral&cmp=torchwood&cid327)
* [Elizabeth Mitchell](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elizabeth_Mitchell) [boiling water](http://www.corbisimages.com/stock-photo/rights-managed/42-23347152/woman-boiling-water-on-camping-stove), perhaps.
* V theme cover by [Bottin](http://www.bottin.it/).

You can download the episode here: [AAC](http://traffic.libsyn.com/scriptnotes/scriptnotes_ep_03.m4a).

**We’re now listed in iTunes.** You can [subscribe here](http://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/scriptnotes-podcast/id462495496). Ratings and raves are welcome. Questions and feedback are much better posted below, since we can answer back.

We are also listed in Sticher and several other podcast directories. If you are using a third-party player, you can find the podcast feed [here](http://johnaugust.com/podcast/feed).

UPDATE 9-21-11: The transcript of this episode can be found [here](http://johnaugust.com/2011/scriptnotes-ep-3-kids-cards-whiteboards-and-outlines-transcript).

Hipster terrorism

Rant

Megan Amram shines a spotlight on one of my frustrations with this crop of post-collegiates, a kind of [defensive detachment](http://meganamram.tumblr.com/post/10098980408/anniversary):

> We are coming of age in a culture not of un-enjoyment, but of anti-enjoyment. Passion is not just superfluous — passion is weakness. If you like things, you might like the wrong things […] The Internet can’t figure out whether it wants to beatify things or damn them, so it just gets all sorts of contentious.

I would argue that upcoming generations are *supposed to* push back against what came before them: that’s part of the engine of culture.

But “everything sucks” isn’t pushing; it’s flailing.

> To participate in this chic backlash against passion is to have a small mind. In my humble, unimportant, normal-sized opinion, it is better to have a small BRAIN than a small MIND. If you have a small brain, you can still be a good, kind, hard-working, dumb person who can manage some sort of farm or daycare. If you have a small mind, however, you very well might hurt people with it. You are just getting a sliver of the delicious Bacon, Ham, & Cheese Lean Pocket that is being young in America.

> Spending your youthful energy on combative, kinetic apathy is a waste. Stuff is AWESOME, GUYS.

I genuinely hope that I Just Don’t Get It, and that in a decade’s time we’ll look back and realize that the endless cycles spent on 4chan and Jersey Shore will have been worthwhile.

But I worry instead that we’ll end up with a terrible government and a lack of innovation because the generation entrusted with stirring shit up sat on its collective ass.