Isobuster Updates to Version 4.2
For quite a while now my “go to” tool for dealing with any kind of problem with CD’s, DVD’s or Blu-ray discs has been Isobuster.
The software pretty much does what it says on the box and apart from discs that have suffered physical damage it has never ceased to amaze me as to how much information it can recover off damaged to badly written discs.
These days it has been developed to the point of not just being able to deal with optical discs.
It can also be used to recover data from hard drives as well as USB mounted storage devices.
One of the worst cases I ever had was a very, very cheap mini-DVD (remember those?) where you could actually see the data layer with huge patches of discoloration from material degradation.
Even from that one Isobuster retrieved all of the video files I had burned!
This week Peter the designer of the software released an update to Isobuster with a mountain of improvements and new features as usual.
I am not going to list ANY of them here because to be honest most of the time I have no idea what he is talking about!
So if you do have any kind of optical disc, hard drive disc or USB that you need to retrieve data from, Isobuster is where you should be looking.
You can check it out HERE and you can see my procedure for recovering video files from discs HERE.
Cinematography 101: Camera Movements for Cinematic Filmmaking
This week I have added two videos on the subject of camera movement with the first directly below this blurb and other one below that.
This top one is from the guys at Filmora and you can tell it is the simpler one because it uses the word “Cinematic!”
No professional video editor or cinematographer EVER used the word cinematic when describing how or why they were going to do something!
They just do it professionally and it automatically ends up looking cinematic!
Coming to a Halt, Motivated Camera Moves – The Film Look
OK this is the second video this week on the subject of camera movement and this one is a little further up the video shooting food chain.
Time Freeze Effect
So before you check out the video below there is probably a little clarification of terms needed here.
There are basically two types of “freeze” effects used in video production.
The first is called a freeze-frame.
This is simply a single frame pulled from the video and displayed for a second or more resulting in the action stopping for a moment or two.
Usually it is used to highlight or emphasize a particular moment in the video.
The second is called a “Time Freeze” in which the subject or objects in the video remain stationary while the rest of the scene (the background) appears to change because of an apparent motion of the camera.
This effect was widely used and popularized in the movie The Matrix.
To achieve a time freeze as dramatic as those in the Matrix requires not just a knowledge of how to do it in video editing software.
It also requires that a number of separate shots are taken at the time of filming so they can be used later in post production.
However with a little practice moderate time freezes can be achieved with existing footage as long as you don’t try to go crazy with it.
Invisible Cloak Effect Tutorial
The invisible cloak trick as seen in the Harry Potter movies was a pretty advanced effect that incorporated both green screen and later CGI in post production.
Given the fact that most of us will not be using the CGI part any time soon it is still possible to create a passable invisible cloak effect just using green screen.
Check out the video below for a run through of pulling off this effect.
5 Pro Tips for Editing Vertical Video
With the announcement last week from Instagram regarding their new video platform IGTV, there has been flurry of traffic all over the internets about it.
For the actual lowdown from the horses mouth you can click here for Instagram’s original blog post on the subject.
In light of that one point regarding Instagram that has to be addressed if you are going to use their video functionality and that is the subject of vertical video.
Most commonly up until this point in time video has tended to be shot widescreen in a 16:9 aspect ratio.
YouTube, Vimeo and FaceBook have pretty much been designed to accept and deliver video in this way.
Vine was an exception but now that it has gone the way of the Dodo.
So apart from holding your cell phone upright when shooting you videos there are a few other tips and tricks you need to keep in mind if you are going to be outputting you final project file as a vertical video.
More on HDR and RAW
OK severe geek warning and heavy technical stuff ahead.
Both HDR and RAW are terms that are probably going to find their way down the food chain to us amateur videographers over the next year or so.
If this kind of stuff doesn’t really interest you then feel free to scroll on and pretend it all never happened.
If on the other hand you do like to geek out every once in a while then click through for some seriously incomprehensible text on these subjects.
P.S. Don’t say I didn’t warn you!
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