Every now and then I come across something that truly inspires me to become a better more thoughtful creative, something that reminds me to put intention behind every artistic decision and something that reinvigorates my belief that I should always strive to do my best work, always.

Stephen’s thoughtful process is so evident even in brewing a simple cup of coffee; his easy manner shows even with the stress such an elaborate production; his commitment to excellence is apparent in every detailed drawing, adjusted structure, selected fabric; it’s incredibly refreshing to see a renewal of craftsmanship in our generation after what seems years of mass manufacturing. Stephen’s work, lifestyle and process is truly beautiful and inspiring. Not to mention, I want to own the rad products he creates.

Could it be more hipster? I don’t think so…. but I don’t say that with any sort of negative connotation, I say “hipster” emphasizing the artistry in filmmaking and alignment with current trend seen in this short narrative. Highlighted by filmmakers collaborating with craftsmen to tell the truth about their process, this is the story behind The Process Collective. “Its people, its purpose, its heartbeat. From sketchpad, to final product.”

Be inspired!

When the new Final Cut Pro X launched, one massively important feature that Apple failed to include was the ability to import projects from FCP7. As far as I am concerned, this one lacking feature was Apple’s biggest offense with the release of FCPX. Most of our troubles are over with the 7toX app and the latest update to FCPX. This morning I spent a little time working with 7toX and it seems most of my projects migrate quite seamlessly – more so than the sequence seen in the video above. However I would like to clarify, FCPX is stil a ways off from completely satisfying editing professionals but this is clear evidence that there may be a positive future for FCPX. At this point, most of my entire workflow has switched to FCPX, so that in itself says it’s holding up to my professional workflow. However, I have had several conversations with other professional editors that prove a few remaining flaws that continue to keep them from stepping into a FCPX workflow.

Here’s to a nice step forward!

Yep, Final Cut Pro X FINALLY received a shiny new update today, outfitted with support for some of the things we were missing:

1. Multicam Editing
2. Chroma Keying
3. Ability to reconnect media
4. XML Support across color, effects and audio
5. Import from FCP7
6. And more…

Most importantly though is support for a new third-party plugin which lets editors import their sessions from legacy version of Final Cut Pro. Something I have had long lamented.

According to PC Mag, this new $10 plug-in, names 7toX, will take your old FCP sessions in the .EDL format and convert it to a compatible XML file, which Apple stands firmly behind.

Key to the app’s development, according to {Apple exec Richard Townhill], was the new plug-in API. “We wanted to make sure that we were building APIs for Final Cut Pro X that were richer and more powerful than what we had in previous releases. We’ve actually got a faster growing ecosystem than we’ve ever had before.”

The update is free and available now, along with 7toX. Now will you fanatics quit with the sobbing, at least a little?

Back their project on kickstarter.

The 50-Dollar Follow Focus’s Story…

All we wanted was an affordable way to adjust the focus on our DSLRs in a precise, repeatable manner. We wanted a device that performed solidly and intuitively and we didn’t want to spend a lot of money on it since we’d rather spend our hard-earned dollars on more lenses or food and beer for the underpaid crews on our low-budget shoots. But such a follow focus didn’t exist, until we made one, that is.

What better way to reinvigorate the joy of REAL books than to make an amazing stop motion video?! Also a shout out to my friend Elana Cherin for sending this video to me!

This is the first of three lighting tutorials created for philipbloom.net, Eve talks you through simple to advanced lighting setups that are easy to achieve and produce beautiful results. She explains simply, how to get the most from your existing lights and some quick tips to create a really impressive shot. In tutorial two Eve covers using budget lights from around your home and in tutorial three Eve explains how to light a green screen.

Eve is Director of Photography for The Underwater Realm, a series of 5 films set underwater being shot by a team of volunteers in the UK. Follow Eve on twitter @evehazelton.

It’s a smart phone based – 31 megapixel – wireless lens – full manual control – SLR quality – camera system? Could this really be possible? Is this the future of digital cameras as we know it? My eyes couldn’t hardly comprehend what I was seeing when I watched this video straight from the show floor of the annual International Consumer Electronics Show (CES). What do you think? Is this for real? Do you think this is where we’re headed? Post your thoughts comments below…

THIS JUST IN…. Sadly I just found out that this is just a concept camera not in actual production, see their website here: http://www.artefactgroup.com/wvil/

Can someone please tell me how in the world this shot was accomplished? My best guess is that the medicine cabinet is actually CG. But I dunno…. Post your brilliant ideas in the comments.

Ready to have your mind blown? Join Eelis Rankka, Tommi Salminen, and Jukka Pelttari on their fishing trip under Lake Saarjarvi in Vaala, Finland through this video. The adventure starts out pretty normally, with the fishermen walking along an ice floor. But soon, things start getting a bit surreal, and the viewer’s perception is forced to shift. Nothing makes sense until the end, when you realize that everything is an illusion. The effects are stunning and trippy all at the same time. Quick warning though, the end is cheesy compared to the rest…

Originally posted by GOOD http://www.good.is/post/intermission-fishing-under-ice/

‘The Christmas Story’, as told by the children of St Paul’s Church, Auckland, New Zealand. What a fun and whimsical way to tell the story of the birth of Christ through the eyes of a child. May this inspire you Merry Christmas!

Christmas Eve at ROCKHARBOR is nothing short of amazing! What you’re seeing in this video is a team of more than 10 people moving shadow puppets behind the screen live on stage. What a visual masterpiece beautifully portraying the magnificent birth of Christ.

Merry Christmas!

“How do you keep track of your finances, receipts and invoice clients for your freelance work?” I often get asked this and I’m happy to reply because I’ve worked out a simple-as-pie 3 step process that is 90% automated! I think you’ll like this…

1. Track my time, send an invoice and get paid.
Harvest ($12/month) is my weapon of choice for all of my time tracking, invoices, estimates and collecting/recording payments. Harvest conveniently keeps track of everything for me in a beautifully designed – and I mean beautifully designed – easy to use interface all stored safely on the web. It’s completely web based so I can access it any time from anywhere. I use it to send invoices and estimates, track time and record/receive payments. It even integrates seamlessly with several payment gateways including paypal for quick easy online payment. By the way, if you are concerned about the cost of collecting online payments, I suggest selecting Paypal e-Check Payments from the options in Harvest since that only costs 50 cents per transaction – sure saves me a ton of money!

2. Get my receipts in order.
Shoeboxed (FREE) allows me to capture all of my receipts with my smartphone and upload them directly to their human recognition service in a matter of seconds. Their staff quickly grabs all of the information from the receipt image and they even categorize it for me according to the standard Schedule C categories. Side note: since I have so few receipts each month I stay on the free service plan and I input my receipts manually into Shoeboxed. Shoeboxed allows me to archive all my receipts online, have them always accessible and keep them organized automatically.

3. Get a big picture of my income and prep my taxes.
Outright (FREE) gives me a live net income of my freelance business and preps my taxes. It links up to Harvest and Shoeboxed to aggregate all of my income and expenses in one place giving me a live snapshot of how my freelance business is doing on a daily basis. Additionally, it tells me what I owe in estimated taxes each quarter and it even writes my Schedule C tax form form me. Could it get any easier than that?! I also use Outright to record any business mileage expenses and report on who my best paying clients were this year.

What I Do at Tax Time
At tax time my life is simple, there are no surprises and all I do is:
1. Double check that my income in Harvest is all in order.
2. Make sure I didn’t forget to upload any receipts to Shoeboxed.
3. Jump into Outright to make sure everything was imported and categorized properly. Then I open up the Schedule C tax page.
4. Bust open Turbo Tax and fill everything out using the Schedule C data from Outright.

I’ve just barely scratched the surface of each of these amazing services but this is what works for me. Hope you can find this useful now that we’re coming up on this year’s tax season.

If you’re like me…. you’re always adding social media icons to web projects. I thought it would be nice to have an expansive set of css-sprite social media icons that covered pretty much every social network I could possibly need. And since I took the time to make these I thought I’d share them so you could speed up your web design workflow as well. Hope it comes in handy for you!

Also a huge shout out goes to Icon Dock for the beautiful vector icons I used and thanks to Sprite Cow for making the process of building my sprites so painless!

Test drive it

Download Source Files

Icons Include
Delicious, Flickr, Twitter, Facebook, MySpace, StumbleUpon, Digg, Slash Dot, Skype, Technorati, Reddit, FriendFeed, YouTube, LinkedIn, Google, Google Talk, Yahoo, Netvibes, AIM, Apple, MobileMe, App Store, Amazon, Vimeo, Virb, Tumblr, WordPress, Blogger, Posterous, Design Float, Share This, RSS, and Email and so on and so forth…

License Info…
Free to use for whatever purposes. If you use these nifty CSS icons, an optional link to http://blog.brandonsetter.com would be appreciated. And I’d love to hear about where you’re using these – so please share in the comments. Enjoy and thanks!

If you found this useful consider following me on Twitter @bsetter and retweeting this article :)

Not really sure what to gift this Christmas? Have you considered buying a gift that would benefit someone else in another nation?

I originally found this video last summer and was going to share it because it’s nicely done and I totally dig the “film look”; but it’s no coincidence that I came across it again today looking through old tweets and thinking about what I should buy my wife for Christmas. It’s interesting that this sort of gift never seems to come to my mind…. maybe now it will…. If you’re looking for that perfect gift maybe this would be a cool start.

Plus, I love what these guys believe in and what they stand for: People. Love. Jesus.

Learn more…. Check out their blog and buy a hat.

If you’ve ever lost someone special to you allow this be a little reminder of the gifts God gives each of us in our lives and the lessons we learn from each one.