The John Lennon Educational Tour Bus had the amazing opportunity this past year to tour with Liyana as they came to the United States for their very first U.S. visit. Liyana is an amazing band composed of musicians that met at school in Zimbabwe. All band members share the reality of living with a disability and the idea of overcoming these disabilities through their music. Without a doubt they are one of the most inspiring groups I have worked with while on board the John Lennon Educational Tour Bus.

While touring with Liyana they not only performed at Macworld but also wrote an original song and made a music video with students from the San Francisco School of the Arts.

Check out “Diversity” here!

Check out this video to see how much it helped me.

In January at the NAMM show we hosted a press event on our stage and were joined by many special guests such as Yoko Ono, Quincy Jones, Jackson Browne and Students from The Fernando Pullum Performing Arts High School. They played an awesome medley comprised of some of John Lennon’s hits. These students are talented, humble, respectful and full of energy. I really enjoyed having them. Below you can watch their performance.

After the show was over the Lennon Bus went to the school to set up 12 Apple Laptops equipped with Logic Pro 9 to get the students certified Logic users by the end of the year. This gives them a chance to list that on resumes, learn something new, create their own music and have fun at the same time. I was lucky enough to spend the first three days there getting to know the students, teach them the basics of Logic, and get the ball rolling for the rest of the year. They have a challenge in front of them to pass an Apple Certification Exam before becoming Logic certified, but after meeting them, I’m nothing but confident. Let me tell you the school is truly amazing. As soon as you walk in you’re surrounded by dancing, music, creativity and laughter. You feel the vibes as soon as you step foot in the door. Fernando Pullum started his performing arts school in a local church in the heart of South Central, LA dedicated to giving the youth a chance to be creative, learn, express themselves and stay in a positive atmosphere guided by positive people. The world needs more places like this!!! The students will take their tests in May so wish them luck, even though they don’t need it!

Yesterday was an off day for the tour. The band spent most of the day working hard in the studio. Drummer Keith Harris and musical director Printz Board, burned the midnight oil, pumping out some great tracks with guitar player George Pajon. Tonight the band will perform at the Nassau Coliseum in Uniondale, NY to round out another exciting day on the Black Eyed Peas tour.

For example here are 3 steps to trim using the selection tool by mousing over the edit point at the tail and dragging to the left to shorten it.

I select the edit point by clicking it:

Here I drag by holding the mouse on an edit point while dragging to the left to shorten the clip. * Notice the yellow tool tip box showing me how much I’m trimming and the new duration of the trimmed clip.

By dragging the out point to an earlier point in time, I shorten the clips duration.

This is the simplest form of trimming in FCP and can be done with the Selection tool (a on the keyboard).

There are four more trimming tools in Final Cut that making editing fun and easy…. stay tuned.

For those of you who use a green screen and know what a hassle it can be when lighting and keying I want to discuss what we use on board the bus.

Its called Chromatte Fabric by Reflecmedia. Its a gray fabric with millions of tiny green and blue reflective particles that will reflect green and blue light sources creating an easily key-able green and blue screen without having to light the background. All you have to do is light your subject or talent in front of the material and your in business.

Here are the products needed:

1. Lite Ring Adapter: Place this LED lite ring adapter on your camera lens to send blue or green light to be reflected off the background thus giving the Chromatte fabric a key-able color.

2. Lite Ring Controller - Controls the intensity of the Lite Ring.

3. Chromatte Fabric - Background Green/Blue Screen.

Here is the basic 1 person setup:

1. Position your talent a minimum of 10f from you camera. The talent should be a distance of 3 to 4ft from the Chromatte fabric background.
2. Light your talent and not the Chromatte. Large amounts of spill light on to the Chromatte will create hard shadows and can cause the blue/green from the LiteRing to be bleached out.
3. White balance the camera before turning the LiteRing on.
4. Turn on the LiteRing until the Chromatte appears as an evenly coloured blue or green. Increase the intensity of the LiteRing until there is no blue or green spill on the talent.
5. If there is blue or green spill from the LiteRing on the talent then you will need to turn the LiteRing’s intensity down.
6. Subtle adjustments to both the Iris and the LiteRing Controller will enhance your results.

It’s a fairly inexpensive portable solution for all your green screen needs.

Here is a video describing how we use it on board the bus:

Like if there is a fork in the road…take it.

Bad joke? Sure.

Good Advice? Sure.

Seriously, when you’re working on a track you’ll often come upon these “forks”. And your artistic decision on which way to go will define your personal style. It will define your art. Art is really a reflection of which way you took your fork. As albums unfold you begin to hear the patterns of decisions that artist and producers made on their way to Rome.

For example, lately in popular music when artist have come to the infamous fork in the road “Auto-tune turn left, No Auto-tune turn right” Lots of people have been hanging lefts.

So much so that it as actually become a decision made prior to even recording. It is no longer a fork. More so the dinner plan.

Back to the forks though…

I suggest this: Next time you come to a fork in your songwriting process go both ways. That’s right, venture a little down the left then bring it back and maybe go a little down the right.

The beauty of digital media production is that you don’t have to worry about wasting time or tape. The digital process has allowed us to quicken our workflow by an unforeseeable amount so take advantage of it. Use the time you have saved by investing it in your fork. Use the time to experiment down the left and down the right. The right decision will make itself apparent through the music and the good old “undo” button is always there to back you out of any corners.

So what does this all mean?

Don’t be so frustrated with backseat drivers on your way to Rome anymore.

Let’s say you are working on a track with your band. You’re guitarist (the backseat driver) says “What are we gonna do after the third chorus?” (This would be the “fork”) You say, “I’m not sure, any ideas” and naturally you’re guitarist says “I should do a wicked solo over it that is anywhere from 38 to 72 bars long where I will change keys and styles at least 6 times.” Rather than getting in the traditional band argument and someone quitting because their creative needs aren’t meant, you can simply say “sounds good, let’s try it”. (This would be you “venturing down the left side of the fork”) In less than 10 minutes you and the whole band will be able to listen back to your decision. You’ll all be able to “hear” this bad decision and move on in the other direction. By approaching it this way you’re guitarist still feels empowered through his creative contribution but was able to hear that the music didn’t call for his input at that time.

Remember this applies to solo artist too.

Let’s be honest we all have voices in our heads. You’re just crazy when you tell other people about them.

For example, I got into a bit of a creative argument with myself just before I did this blog.

Lucky for you, cameras we’re rolling.

Check out how I deal with different ideas as they come along during my creative process.

Check out the finished product!