Like many contemporary composers, I am fascinated with the correlation between music and the visual arts. The cross-pollination of the arts has given birth to many great compositions and visual works. Dr. Kristine H. Burns (see link in Artist Links) at Florida International University has mastered an animation style utilizing Final Cut Pro's Video Generator features. She used it for her amazing video piece, Copper Islands. Final Cut Pro has a variety of Video Generators available. You can create a simple color matte, text, shapes, bars, noise, etc. For electroacoustic composers, think of these as the basic sine, triangle, and square waves (and noise, of course) that a composer manipulates electronically through sound synthesis. These are building blocks. You need to be familiar with the KEY FRAME feature available in Final Cut Pro. By setting KEY FRAMES you can alter an effect over time. Start with something basic, say a basic Color Matte with a Mask Shape (ex. a circle) over it. N...

CHAPTER 6 CURRENT TECHNOLOGICAL INNOVATIONS The late 20th century witnessed a cultural shift as professional media editing tools found their way into every home. The advent of the personal computer in the 1980s made each home a potential studio. An almost egalitarian society has developed where anyone with a little technical ability can churn out "professional-quality" music and video. The maverick attitude of early independent filmmakers flows through each discipline indiscriminately, and a significant number of artists can attribute their early success to their own mastering of available techniques. In the visual arts, handheld cameras and high-end video editing programs enabled budget-strapped artists to record and cut their own moving picture creations. The handheld camcorder of the 1980s, with its bulky VHS tape, eliminated the extra step required of film processing. Inexpensive and easily available, camcorders opened the closed door to filmmaking. While not all...