IT-Enquirer had a short e-mail interview with Stewart Brown, the CEO of SPIRaRT. SPIRaRT is a design firm, which has just begun to venture in the film making business. Stewart chose Apple’s Final Cut Studio for his project. 

Q: What is your experience with film making?

A: SPIRaRT started as my Graphic Design/illustration company. It has branched out into film making and editing, which has really took over as the main focus of SPIRaRT now. We are starting with short films, having just completed our first short INSIDE a couple of weeks ago. We are working in collaboration with another local group The Brimstone Cowboy Film Company, pooling the resources of both groups.
For INSIDE I was writer/director/producer/editor and even costume designer!  We are trying to get more people from our local area involved all the time but as we are a new group and on a low (on nil) budget we can’t pay folk so trying to work around peoples lives can be very tricky. At the core there is a group of about six or seven of us.

Q: Which equipment do you use?

A: On INSIDE we used a JVC JY HD10 High Definition DV camera but it keeps breaking so we are switching to the SONY HDR-FX1 HD camera, which although we haven’t been using it for long is a big upgrade.  We recorded the sound into an iBook using a Tascam US-122 USB interface using the XLR inputs. We were going to use Cubase or Bias Peak but ended up using Sound Studio, the free, basic editing and recording program that came with the iBook.

Q: Which software do you use?

A: Software wise edit in Final Cut Pro 5 which now has native HDV support which is a big improvement over the previous workarounds. I was able to upgrade to Final Cut Pro Studio so I am now in the process of learning Motion, Apple’s motion graphics program. Soundtrack Pro also looks like a big improvement over the previous version. All this is running on a Dual PowerMac G5 1.8 with 2GB of RAM, 2 x 200Gb internal SATA hard drives plus 200GB external firewire drive and an external 240GB firewire RAID, two Apple Studio displays --the old CRT style-- and a Sony broadcast monitor. I also use Adobe Photoshop (who doesn’t) and Macromedia Freehand for any graphics that are needed.
For sound we will be using Bias Deck as we are creating a 5.1 surround soundtrack, as well as Soundtrack Pro.

Q: What is your workflow?

A: I have just started using the latest versions so my knowledge of them is limited but the biggest improvement for me is the native support for HDV in Final Cut Pro 5. To import from the JVC HD camera before we had to use Lumiere from Frederic Haubrich which worked well but was pain. Then I bought iMovie HD which could capture directly from the JVC and the Sony FX1. Then you actually had to open the package file that is written as, then extract the Quicktime files, which use Apple’s new Intermediate codec.

Again this worked well but was a long way for a shortcut. Now it’s a case of opening Log and Capture and away you go, well almost --there is a bug which prevents video playback in the preview window if you have a pci graphics card installed, ah well. I will find other improvements and drawbacks the more I use the program. The same goes for the other progs in the Final Cut Studio.

Q: What do you like about Apple’s Final Cut Studio?

A: The thing I like most about the Apple programs is their simplicity and ease of use, which Apple is famous for of course. But it makes the act of creation so much easier and intuitive as creativity can be extremely tough mentally. As far as dislikes goes I don’t have any major bugbears although the previous loops editor in Soundtrack usually didn’t work. As INSIDE is our first completed short and is still to be edited and output I am bound to encounter more problems with FCP as my experience grows.

I haven’t used Motion to any great extent yet but again on the surface it looks pretty intuitive. I haven’t used DVD Studio Pro since version 2 but my main problem then was I found the scripting hard to follow. I hope version 4 has made it easier.