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| Home > iLife > Putting it together: Byte by Byte |
| Putting it together: Byte by Byte | | Date Created: Jun 14, 2005, 05:33 PM |
I thought I'd write a bit about why and how technology can be used to make life easier. It's not always the case. Quite often, things that were designed to make life easier, or save time, or save paper do just the opposite, creating absolutely frustrating results. It takes time to learn how to make and edit movies, for example. Lots of time. Quite often, when I'm working on a video project for someone else, I will inevitablly hear the question, "What's taking you so long?". And there's no real answer to that except that making things easier takes a lot of time!
About a decade ago, I videotaped my niece's wedding, and since my equipment at the time included only two basic VCR's, it took me an entire year before I could present the tape to them, since I had to work out every kink and nuance of the presentation. When computer movie making came into effect, that time was cut down considerably. I was able to finish a video of my Cousin's wedding in less than two weeks (remember - I was working on it only during my off time from work).
I'm currently working on an iMovie project that probably should have been finished weeks and weeks ago. However, I am so pleased with the results of a new feature I've discovered, that I am taking my time to make sure the movie turns out the way I want it to. I have watched it over and over and over and over. I'm afraid that by the time I actually finish it, I won't want to watch it again. As I see it, a few more solid hours on it should do the trick. But since I don't get more than an hour or two to myself a night, and who wants to be stuck on a computer on a day off, much less a weekend?, I think it's going to take some time yet to complete. I am so anxious to show it off, since I found a new and thrilling solution to presenting what is essentially a sound and image slideshow, but I'm frightened my audience won't want to see it when it's done if I show them a preview of it.
iMovie is one of my favorite of the "iLife" applications created by Apple. It includes powerful movie editing tools that allow some pretty astonishing results for regular people. Even though I'm an experienced editor, I often find that learning a new computer interface for doing something can slow things down when you're trying to create. After 5 years of using iMovie, I often feel as if I want to go back to some of the original ones I made, and remake them with my new knowledge.
I've been trying for two years to get used to the more professional editing software, Apple's Final Cut (of which I use the Express version). The interface for that is a little touchier than iMovie, but feels much more intuitave and you get the sense that you can really do anything you dream up with your footage. I have been a habitual Final Cut user since 2002, when iMovie changed and ruined all of it's best features, destroying some projects in progress at the time. I switched back to iMovie with the recent release of iLife '05, since the Applications are made to act with each other in a suite. (iMovie, iPhoto, iTunes and iDVD (along with the fantastic Garage Band are included free on every new Mac). But I may have found a way of working with both together on this particular project.
iMovie makes handling the images imported from my digital camera a breeze, with clear copy, cut, and edit tools. However, Final Cut provides much better sound management (and I really only have to learn the Visual interface of it to get more out of it). Every time I get close to finishing the project and exporting it back to my camera, I've encountered a minor glitch or two, so until this project is done and on DVD and playing in someone's player without problems, my job's not done.
My... hobby, that is.
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