Sign of the times?

As those who attended the last meeting will know, this unsolicited gift appeared on my doorstep. It's a sure sign of superior technology - Avid now have pens that LIGHT UP! All the better to write edit lists (or fault reports) in the dark.

We can but wait for the Apple retaliation - which may be coming in the MacWorld announcements later this month, of course. Pens which speak? Pens which edit on their own?

A timely reminder to all to -em- defer buying any new stuff until after the announcements, should there be any. Or then again, wait until NAB in Spring, or MacWorld next January....

What you DO have to wait for is the next wefcpug meeting. All being well, it'll be on Monday 15th, venue yet to be confirmed. The February meeting will also be around the middle of the month, for reasons to be announced shortly :-)

In the meantime, happy new 2007
Phil

What happened in November - and coming up..

November’s meeting was a night at the movies:

The Player

Emmy award winning filmmaker - and wefcpug member - David Herman gave us a preview of ‘Fairplay’, the documentary he’s making which explores the relationship between a playwright and her elder brother who has Down Syndrome. It’s based on the highly acclaimed play ‘The Choice’ that Claire Luckham wrote about a couple who decide to abort a child with Down Syndrome.

Short Cuts

Richard gave us a run-down of what’s new in the latest ‘point’ update to FCP. Running against the usual form, Apple have incorporated several all-new features and improvements, rather than just fixing bugs. So we gasped at the new all-singing all-dancing, all-TV lines scopes and waveform monitors, and played to our hearts’ contents with the newly-incorporated plug-in ‘Motion’ effects, all there in the FCP interface, waiting to enhance your footage.

Pret a Porter

So what will come 'off the shelf' with the next OS X? Phil polished the crystal ball and divined the future from the runes on Apple’s ‘Leopard’ preview pages and their latest notes to developers. A proper write-up may appear here one day, possibly even before Leopard itself, but Phil’s tips on what he liked were:

1. Time Machine - the first backup/restore application that might actually be used regularly. Brilliant intuitive interface, check out this link
2. Core Animation and resolution independent window resources - pointing the way to an even cleaner, classier interface to apps like FCP
3. Improvements in iChat (integration into the OS) and QT (including alpha channels in QT movies using H264 coding).

M.A.S.H.
(Mondays are soon here)

December's meeting is Monday of next week, meaning December 4th,usual time of 7pm. It’s probably our last meeting at Granada Bristol, so come along to see out the old year there. Main topic will be audio - we’ll be demoing a cost-effective control surface for audio mixing which works (with a bit of pushing) with FCP, and in tribute to the late great Robert Altman’s overlapping dialogue style I suggest we all talk at once in the ‘Stump the Guru’ section. So no change there then. See you on Monday, Phil

And yes some of the titles were rather forced...

November 6th next meet

Blow the horns, bash the drums, start the countdown for the next season of wefpug meetings. Put a big ring around Monday November 6th, and meet up at Granada Bristol 7pm.

In the mix so far: catch-ups on FCP changes and updates; a look forward to Leopard and how to get ready; survey of new hardware that's caught our eyes.

What we'd also like to see: anyone with a good show'n'tell for the group to kick off the new season?

Phil & Richard