Stereoscopic 3D

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We take a look at how to do a Stereoscopic 3D shot in both After Effects and Final Cut Pro. If you have a pair of red/cyan glasses, put them on and step into the world of 3D.

Click here to download the 3D tutorial footage.

After Effects Rack Focus

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We take a look at how to add a digital rack focus to any existing footage. This will add production value to shots that were made on video cameras that don't have a shallow depth of field. You will also learn how to make your own custom presets.

iRack 1.0 is a Rack Focus preset for After Effects CS3/CS4/CS5. With this preset you can add the look of a professional focus pull to any existing footage.

You can download iRack 1.0 here for FREE!!!

Real Player Secrets

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Real Player SP has some amazing new features. You can download flash videos from your favorite media sites, such as YouTube, Vimeo and blip.tv. It will also convert the flash video into whatever format you need, depending on your particular device. From iPads to iPhones, to Blackberry and HTC. This is a great way to get the content you want off the web and into your hands.

Soundtrack Pro Audio Sweetening

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Soundtrack Pro has some great tools to clean up your production audio. On today's episode, we'll take a look at setting up and using noise prints to help lower your background ambient noise. We're also going to check out the über cool frequency spectrum view. This will make you feel like you're a forensic analyst on CSI.

For those of you who don't have Soundtrack Pro, I would recommend Sound Soap 2 and Sound Soap Pro from Bias Software.

Final Cut Pro 2 After Effects

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I love editing in Final Cut Pro. But when it comes to keying, masking, tracking, or advanced color correction, Final Cut Pro is definitely lacking. For these tasks, After Effects is the way to go. The biggest problem has always been how to get your edit from Final Cut Pro to After Effects. Automatic Duck is great, but darn expensive. What's a pixelphile to do?

Go land yourself on Popcorn Island and enjoy the XML bliss of Final Cut 2 After Effects by Ross. The best FREE way that I know of, to get Final Cut Pro and After Effects to play nice with each other in our digital sand box.

Final Cut Pro XML Export Secrets

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One of the problems with Final Cut Pro is that once you save the project file, it can only be opened up again on systems running the same version number of the software. So, if you were working on a machine that had FCP 7, and took your project to another machine running FCP 6, and tried to open up the file...no dice.

Luckily there is a way around that problem. XML enables us to save our projects in a format that will let us continue to edit on other machines with older versions of the software. Steve Jobs might not like this idea, but I am sure you will.

Here are the version numbers for you to use.

Use XML version 1 for going back to Final Cut Pro 4.1
Use XML version 2 for going back to Final Cut Pro 5.0
Use XML version 3 for going back to Final Cut Pro 5.1.2
Use XML version 4 for going back to Final Cut Pro 6
Use XML version 5 for moving between Final Cut Pro 7 systems