"Man from Harlem" remix

In my attempts to learn Soundtrack Pro, part of the  Final Cut Studio package that Apple used to sell for sound editing, I've gone back to this video with friend Gary Lettan - who can really put on a performance. Some fun, basic effects have been added.

Oh my. STP as it's known on the message boards. What an annoying POS. Even after reading the Apple published "Sound Editing in Final Cut Studio", I still can barely find my way around. The only commands that it shares with Final Cut are use of the J, K, & L keys and the space bar. It's not even obvious where the focus is while working in various panes. Selection works nothing like it does in FCP. The functionality of the File Editor pane at the bottom of the screen is completely counter intuitive. As far as I can tell, envelopes cannot be applied to single files, but work only in the multi track window. Roundtripping to/from FCP works as it should, but the file saving process is about as obtuse as could be imagined. I'm only hanging on with this application because of the huge variety of effects that it has that cannot be done directly in FCP. Perhaps a few hundred more hours and I'll make it far enough up the curve to be able to do something productive. It's frustrating enough that the Adobe alternative begins to look like a wise choice, especially since Apple has abandoned the entire Final Cut suite.

But then it's starting all over again at the bottom of the hill.

roscoe day 2

Another great day shooting "Walking With Roscoe" yesterday. As always, lighting interiors goes on and on and on. Even I ran out of patience. Eventually we had to get moving. I'm very proud to report that I had told people we'd be done by 4 pm, and we got in the van and pulled away from the location - Barratt Woodworking - at 4:02 pm.

The initial nervousness has calmed somewhat, but it seems as if every day it starts over again. I'm running on only four or five hours of sleep every night (last night I awoke and the power was still off from the previous evening, so what have I got to worry about but not being able to get in touch with the crew and Gary about the oversight of calling all to the wrong location for Tuesday), and am still not familiar enough with this kind of work that each day's challenges don't throw me into a state of anxiety. Many variables that are mostly new. Despite that, once we get going, it's much like running a construction job where there are people coming at you all day long. Which lends a certain degree of familiarity, enough so that I eventually am able to get moderately comfortable in the environment.

What I am truly thankful for is the assistance. There really is no way of doing this sort of thing by yourself. My three previous artists videos were done completely as solo efforts - other than the artist subjects - but anything scripted really benefits from having others contribute their unique knowledge. It's wonderful to be able to ask people to work on a task and have them go to it while I go check on something else.

Man From Harlem

This guy can play!

Gary Lettan plays and sings. You can find him at:

customcarpenterdesign.com