Last fall we we’re lucky enough to meet USA Today’s Jefferson Graham when he came to Minneapolis for a story on tech companies in the Minnesota (check out the piece here!) Early this week Jefferson posted an interesting interview with Carson Daly about the approach his television program takes to production. It was awesome to see how Jefferson used a couple different CrumplePop effects in the piece. We got a chance to talk with Jefferson about Talking Your Tech and CrumplePop.

Tell us about Talking Your Tech?

Talking Your Tech runs every Monday in USA TODAY. I produce and host the series, which features my interviews with celebrities about tech. Past guests have included comedians Jeff Dunham, Drew Carey, Wayne Brady and Aisha Tyler, TV’s Valerie Bertinelli and Phil Keoghan, director James Cameron, former boxer Mike Tyson and Kermit the Frog.

Check out the Highlight Reel

Interesting that Last Call with Carson Daly is shot using DSLRs. I didn’t know that. It really fits the loose, casual style of his show. I dig it. I saw that you we’re working with new Canon 5d Mark III. I know a lot of people have been really excited to get their hands on new 5d. How did you like working with it?

I’ve been a 5D shooter since the Mark I days, and absolutely love the new edition. The video just rocks, and we can shoot in higher ISOs than ever before. The Carson Daly shoot was at normal 800 ISO, but I’ve been using it at 12,500 range with little signs of noise. May I also add that for Daly’s shot (5D Mark III and 70-200mm 2.8 L lens) we also used the Lowell Rifa eXchange softbox which made a huge contribution to making Daly jump pop on screen.

What made you interested in SplitScreen X?

I met with the Crumplepop folks when I was in Minneapolis last November. They turned me on to their stuff–I’ve been using the plug-ins ever since. The reason I used the plug in was very specific: for an interview, the two shot of us is OK, but it’s more fun to see both of us conversing eye to eye, which is only possible via split-screen.

How was using Finisher with the Carson Daily interview? It looks great!

I’ve been using Finisher often on our videos–it gives a really nice upgraded look to what comes out of the camera.

What other effects and tools did you use?

I used plugins from FXFactory and Sapphire Edge as well.

Have you found that FCP X has improved your workflow?

If I had made this video in FCP 7, I would still be waiting for the render to finish. FCP X is much faster, and fun to work with.

Thanks so much to Jefferson Graham for taking time out to talk with us. Check out Talking Your Tech over at USAtoday.com for a fantastic look at what’s going on in tech news.

A few weeks ago we came across a very interesting project that was using Lumineux in some of it’s footage. The footage looked great, but it was the idea that impressed us most. We got a chance to talk with Love Letters To The End’s Peter Dean about his project and working with Lumineux.

Can you tells us about the Love Letters To The End project?

Love Letters to the End is part interactive web series, part community letter-writing project with the premise that the world could end this year. People write love letters to the world and send them to our PO Box. We then scan every letter we receive, put them on our website, and pick one or two letters from those we receive to include in each episode- they can influence the plot, a character, or an event that takes place.

Love Letters to the End
PO Box 17693
Los Angeles, CA
90017
http://loveletterstotheend.com

What is your camera set up for the shoots?

We are currently shooting on a Canon 7D and hope to purchase a 5D MkIII within the next few months.

What has you excited about possibly picking up an Canon 5D MkIII?

For Love Letters to the End, we’ve launched a Kickstarter (check it out here.) One thing we need to do is purchase equipment because our DP, who owns his own camera and sound equipment, will be leaving for Bangladesh for a while. I heard the news about the new model, and read into it. It sounds like there are a lot of improvements. I’ve heard the low-light performance is improved, which would be great for us because we shoot a lot in natural light.



What is your workflow like?

The 7D shoots H.264, which we transcode to ProRes before our editor cuts with Final Cut Pro X. There is a lot of talk about how FCPX is an enormous letdown and lacked the pro features that professional editors need. It’s a complete redesign and many processes need to be relearned, but we’ve learned to love it for our small production.

I couldn’t agree with you more on FCP X, we love it over here. It’s massively improved our workflow in almost every way. What are you liking about FCP X?

It seems like a faster workflow with the DSLR footage we are working with. I think it might be more suited to the way I edit. One thing I’m not used to yet is the media management. I, like all the editors out there, am used to managing my own media, organizing it in folders as I choose. And I’m not convinced it would be practical for a larger scale, higher profile job, but it has been working great for Love Letters to the End since we are in control of all of the post.



What made you think about working with Lumineux? Was it always part of the plan or just something you thought might help in post?

The director I worked with on the music video for Whatchalookin@ told me about Lumineux, and I used it on that video. I like to use the Calm and Transition filters. We thought that it would add to the filmic style of Love Letters to the End.

How did you like working with Lumineux?

Using Lumineux is straightforward and there are many looks that can be created using the different composite modes in FCP and using multiple layers of filters. It’s been easy and looks great.

Do you have any specific methods to making Lumineux look so good?

I tend to use the screen composite mode. I like to use a combination of a “Calm” filter ending on a transition over a cut. When that happens in a good rhythm, over an progression in a song for instance, it looks and feels great.



As you mentioned earlier you worked on J*Davey’s video Whatchalooking@. That video is gorgeous! I like how the video has such a distinct feel but still uses Lumineux in different ways than Love Letters To The End. Was it the same idea to use Lumineux to make the music video more film-y?

The original idea was to make a video that was reminiscent of the 60s or 70s combined with modern editing. The light leaks and transitions in Lumineux fit with that aesthetic perfectly.

Thanks a bunch to Peter for taking time out to chat with us about his project. Make sure to check out their kickstarter page, they only have a few days left! Also to see more take a look at The Love Letter’s To The End Vimeo page.

This weekend we are flying out to Las Vegas for the 2012 National Association of Broadcasters Show. I cannot wait to try out all the new gear and see what projects people are working on.

We will also have a table at the CPUG Supermeet on Tuesday. We will be featuring some of our upcoming projects. So if you’re going to be in Las Vegas, come stop by and say hi!

The latest update for Final Cut Pro launched midday yesterday. 10.0.4 features mostly minor performance fixes. They’ve improved the broadcast monitoring and multi-cam performance and added Simplified Chinese support. While this may not be the most massive update, it’s fantastic to see Apple taking such an active role in FCP X. Within less than a year we’ve seen four updates. That’s quite impressive compared to past versions of Final Cut.

The update is available in the Appstore.

Less than a month ago we launched our very own Kickstarter project: Grain35. Throughout the past few weeks we’ve been amazed at the wonderful support we’ve received in order to launch our very own comprehensive set of 35mm and 16mm film grain scans. We’ve luckily reached beyond our goal – meaning the product is well on its way. We’re well into the development and it’s looking great. We can’t wait to get the film scans to all of those who helped support us. If everything goes as planned we will be shipping Grain35 to supporters at the end of the week.

Today will be your last chance to pick up Grain35 at a heavily discounted price. Thanks to everyone who has supported us so far. It’s been a great experience!

To support Grain35 check out our Kickstarter page.

Sony made a nice pre-NAB announcement in the form of their latest NEX camera, the FS700. The FS700 features an incredible sensor that will be capable of shooting 4k (while using an external recorder,) although this feature won’t be available at launch. The camera is also able to to shoot all way up to 960fps (at 720p, 240fps at 1080p in an 8 second burst.)

There are still more details to be known, but it’s rumored price is $10,000 or below. For more info check out Sony’s press release.

We’re excited to announce that we’ve launched a Kickstarter for our latest project Grain35.

Grain35 is a set of 35mm and 16mm film grain scans that you can use inside FCP 6, 7, and X, Adobe Premier and Avid Media Composer. There are a bunch of fantastic film grain sets online but many of them are outside the budget of many film makers. We want to create a comprehensive set of film grain scans in both 1080p and 4k. They’ll work with many frame rates. We’re offering 6 different Kodak and Fuji film stocks in both ProRes and h.264.

We’ve run a bunch of tests and we are more than able to do this, but we do need help with the upfront costs. By supporting our Kickstarter project you’re helping us pay for much of the upfront fees to make this available. If we reach our goal we should be able to get everything to you very quickly.

We have even more info over at our Kickstarter, so take a look. If you’re interested in Grain35 let people know! We’d love to be able to offer an affordable film grain set!

Today is your last chance to our great new transition tool for FCP X, TransiMatic for the sale price of $39. After today TransiMatic will go to it’s normal price of $75. Click here to learn more about TransiMatic.

To take advantage of the deal use this coupon code at check out: TRMC-0039-INTRO-0312

TransiMatic™ from CrumplePop on Vimeo.

Working with SquidFX, We’ve just released out latest product: TransiMatic.

TransiMatic features 10 completely customizable slide, swing and flip transitions for Final Cut Pro X. Simply drag and drop TransiMatic on to your timeline to add unique transitions between your clips. On top of that, TransiMatic offers a multitude of custom tools. Need to get your transitions set just right? TranisMatic can be shadded, blurred and colored to fit any video. Use the onscreen controls to finely pick your transitions direction. To learn more about TransiMatic, take a look at our TransiMatic page or watch some of our TransiMatic tutorials.

TransiMatic is on sale for $39. After this week, TransiMatic returns to it’s $75 price. To save more than $30 enter this code upon checking out: TRMC-0039-INTRO-0312

Also, if you are purchasing TransiMatic and interested in picking up ShrinkRay X, it’s discounted when bundled with Transimatic in your shopping cart.

To learn more about SquidFX, check out them out over at SquidFX.com.

A few days ago, Gabe was a guest on the Digital Convergence podcast with Carl Olson, Chris Fenwick and planetMitch. They looked in depth at the announcement of the Canon 5D mark III, the history of how CrumplePop started (and where we’re headed,) our thoughts on FCP X and much more. It’s a great hour discussion on the world of video. Check it out here.

Also listen to the prior Digital Convergence podcasts for fantastic analysis of the happenings in video (subscribe on itunes.) It’s a great podcast!

Thanks a bunch to Carl for having us on!