We don't think we've covered a marriage proposal here before on FCP.co and it makes a happy change from the rather depressing news from yesterday. When industry guru Michael Kammes proposed, he did it with style and in three dimensions...
Michael works as a technology & workflow consultant at Key Code Media. He might look familair from a few appearances here on FCP.co in industry panel chats. One of them had that great teaser film.
Some people choose to do it in a restaurant, some people do it in a hot air balloon, Michael chose to propose to his girlfriend Kate Miller in 3D and record the result in 3D. Looks like they both had a lot of fun doing it too.
Sad to say the video was post produced in Avid, but on the basis these events don't happen everyday we think it easily makes it to our frontpage.
Now onto the embedding problem... We don't think YouTube will toggle the 3D on when we embed the video at 600 pixels wide. You'll need to watch the video on the actual YouTube page to get the depth.
You'll also need some of these Red/Green anaglyph glasses to watch the moment in 3D
May we offer Michael & Kate our congratulations and best wishes for the future. The debate on how the wedding video will be made is going to be an interesting one!
Here's how Michael put the video together.
"In a nutshell: I shot a video to propose to her in 3D, edited the video in 3D, showed it to her in 3D, and filmed her reaction in 3D. Got that? This was uploaded in 3D, so if the video looks funky, toggle to 2D viewing beneath the playhead. Hey, I'm not gonna exclude those of you who are still holding out.
I'm a technology consultant here in L.A., and a good chunk of my time is spent consulting on 3D workflows. So, when I decided to propose, I thought what better way than to propose in 3D. I hadn't seen it done before - and that's enough for me.
I was shot on a green screen in 3D, then was 'inserted' into 3D weather footage. As I was planning this, I told Kate I needed to speak at a conference and needed to run the presentation by her to see how it flowed. The topic - '3D Immersion' allowed me to pull some old fashion 3D gags...and catch her completely off guard.
Nerd details: I used a low grade JVC TD-1 to shoot me on a green screen. The JVC shoots MVC encoded MP4. Used MVCtoAVI to convert both the JVC and 3D weather footage into L & R Cineform files. Each eye was then pulled into After Effects, where Christian Glawe worked his 3D magic to set me within the 3D space, along with some particles, color work, and blurring. I then used Avid 6.0 on a Mac to import each eye into DNX 175x. Created stereoscopic clips and edited. AMA of the raw files was just a massive pain.
Exported a 2D version to cut FX to in Pro Tools 10. Sound was shot dual system; no XLR on the JVC camera.
Graphics are from Screen Candy via Enhanced Dimensions.
Monitored on a JVC 463D10. Passive, as the TV Kate was going to view it on is also passive. And wearing a heavy set of glasses on top of my own glasses is lame. 3D weather footage courtesy David Cole, via Bob Kertesz and the CML. Vince Rocca was my DP, grip, snow man, rain man, and love coach.
Key Code Media provides me with just about any piece of gear I need, as they employ me...and are now only PART owners of my eternal soul."
I am the Editor-in-Chief of FCP.co and have run the website since its inception ten years ago.
I have also worked as a broadcast and corporate editor for over 30 years, starting on one inch tape, working through many formats, right up to today's NLEs.
Under the name Idustrial Revolution, I have written and sold plugins for Final Cut Pro for 13 years.
I was made a Freeman of Lichfield through The Worshipful Company of Smiths (established 1601). Though I haven't yet tried to herd a flock of sheep through the city centre!
Current Editing
2020 has been busy, the beginning of the year was finishing off a new property series (cut on FCP) for Channel 4 called The Great House Giveaway. I also designed and built the majority of the graphics as Motion templates. It has been a great success and the shows grabbed more viewers in the 4pm weekday slot than any previous strand. It has been recommissioned by C4 for 60 episodes, including prime-time versions and five themed programmes. The shows have also been nominated for a 2021 BAFTA.
Although both were postponed to later in the year, I worked again on ITV's coverage of the Tour de France and La Vuelta. 2020 was my 25th year of editing the TdF and my 20th year as lead editor. The Tour was the first broadcast show to adopt FCPX working for multiple editors on shared storage.
BBC's Snooker has played a big part in my life, I've been editing tournament coverage since 1997. I'm proud to be part of a very creative team that has pioneered many new ideas and workflows that are now industry standard in sports' production. This is currently an Adobe Premiere edit.
Covid cancelled some of the regular corporate events that I edit such as trade shows & events. I was lucky however to edit, from home, on projects for Amazon Kindle, Amazon Black Friday, Mastercard and very proud to have helped local charitable trust Kendall & Wall secure lottery funding.
As for software, my weapon of choice is Final Cut Pro and Motion, but I also have a good knowledge and broadcast credits with Adobe Premiere Pro, MOGRT design and Photoshop.
Plugin Design & Development
I'm the creative force behind Idustrial Revolution, one of the oldest Final Cut Pro plugin developers. It hosts a range of commercial and free plugins on the site. One free plugin was downloaded over a thousand times within 24 hours of release.
I also take on custom work, whether it is adapting an existing plugin for a special use or designing new plugins for clients from scratch. Having a good knowledge of editing allows me to build-in flexibility and more importantly, usability.
FCP.co
Now in its 10th year and 4th redesign, running FCP.co has given me knowledge on how to run a large CMS- you are currently reading my bio from the database! Although it sounds corny, I am pretty well up on social media trends & techniques, especially in the video sector. The recent Covid restrictions has enabled live FCP.co shows online. This involves managing a Zoom Webinar through Restream.io to YouTube and Facebook.
The Future
I'm always open to new ideas and opportunities, so please get in touch at editor (at) fcp.co. I've judged film competitions, presented workflow techniques to international audiences and come up with ideas for TV shows and software programs!
