Little Frog in High Def

It started with this thread on the Adobe forums.  And then Mike Nichols (@TheEditDoctor) did this video showing the issue he was having with his Blackmagic card and CS6…and how it wouldn’t act like it does in FCP.

Basically the issue is this:  In FCP, if we were using a 1080p 23.98…or 720p 23.98 sequence, and we wanted to view this on a monitor that might not be able to do 23.98…all we had to do is set our VIDEO PLAYBACK to be 1080i29.97 (for 1080), or 720p 59.94 (for 720p), and FCP would add the proper pulldown and send out a 29.97 or 59.94 signal.  Playing back our 23.98 sequences at 29.97.  The issue that cropped up is that with CS6 you couldn’t do that.  At least with a Blackmagic Design card.

I wanted to verify this for myself, because I find this to be an important feature…and I just couldn’t believe that this was the case. There had to be some way to do it.  I have the AJA Kona 3 card, so I have different drivers…and it turns out that it works for me.

First I looked at the AJA Control Panel. And just like with FCP, The sequence setting and video output control what the FRAME BUFFER is. This was set to 1080sf23.98. When I changed the secondary to 1080i 29.97, and switched the output to match…my monitor freaked out. OK, so that wouldn’t work. So then I looked into the settings in PPro CS6.

I went into the PREFERENCES and looked at PLAYBACK. Note that my video device is the AJA Kona 3. I noticed a SETUP option. I clicked on that…and got this:

Hmmm…VIDEO FORMAT. This looks promising. So I clicked on that and VIOLA! A list of options appeared.

I chose 1080i29.97, clicked OK and my monitor flickered…then registered that it was getting a 1080i 29.97 signal. I looked at the AJA Control Panel and the FRAME BUFFER did indeed register a 1080i 29.97 signal.

I mentioned this on Twitter, and Mike said that he didn’t see that with his BMD card. Is this an AJA only thing at the moment? Can no other IO devices from other makers do this?

I know what you all are asking yourselves: “What did Shane edit that NAB wrap-up video with?” Plenty of you asked on Twitter, and I know you WOULD have asked on my blog in the comments…but I offered up the information before you could.  Because I knew you’d ask.

So yes, I used Adobe Premiere CS5.5 to start the edit…mainly the inputting and organization part…and pulling the selects I wanted to use. Because that’s what I had on my laptop, and that’s what was on the work machine I used while I had some downtime.  But then I did the bulk of the editing using Adobe CS6.something-that-is-in-beta.  So that I could do my part in testing and bug hunting, and so that I could dip my toes in the app and see how it works.

I will say that this project was PERFECT for Adobe Premiere.  I shot the NAB video with my Canon T2i (550D for all you Europeans) and a GoPro Hero 2, and I edited the footage from both cameras natively…without transcoding. This was…OK on my laptop and the work computer, but only OK. Because neither had a graphics card to enable CUDA and let the Freddie Mercury Engine loose on my footage. So scanning the footage was stuttery, playing back was as well.  But once I opened up the project on my Octocore 3.0 Ghz MacPro with 12GB RAM, NVidia GTX285 card…it was butter. And it was really cool to have external monitoring AND the Mercury Playback working at the same time.

The opening sequence and me drinking the fantastic strawberry shake from the Mad Greek in Baker, CA was done with the GoPro.  The bulk of the interview and all of the b-roll done with the T2i. And I used a condenser mic connected to the camera via a simple adapter. I did attempt to use the GoPro as an off-angle b-camera, but because I lacked the LCD attachement, I only guessed at the shot, and all but one (the MOTU interview…although that was bad too) was very poorly composed.  I blame the camera operator for not having his shit together. Oh…that was me.)

 
The really fast stuff was shot in timelapse mode with the camera taking one picture every 60 seconds.  Then when I took the exit to Baker, took a sip from the shake, and got back onto the freeway…I shot normal speed and sped up.  Then back to timelapse for the rest of the way to Vegas.

Now…when I shoot timelapse with the GoPro, and want to use the footage in FCP…I need to use Quicktime Pro to import the image sequence and produce a playable QT movie. The only issue is that the frame dimensions are not standard TV dimensions, so I cannot export to ProRes at full size and have it play in real time in FCP.  I either have to squeeze it and have it be squooshed.  Squashed? Squished? Whatever… Or render it out Animation or something big, drop it into FCP, repo where I want it to go, and then render.  Oh, didn’t like that positioning…repo again, render.  Not so with Premiere Pro.  Even CS5.5 allowed me to import the image sequence and have it appear as a clip in the native dimensions, and allow me to repo it how I wanted…and play it back. But not smoothly.  No new media was created, so the machine staggered a little. But once I rendered it, it played smoothly.  At least that eliminated one step…the QT image sequence render part.

With the image sequence brought in, it was time to bring in the other footage.  I copied the camera masters from the backup drive to my media drive. The full card structure.  Made a folder based on the project…and in that I made a folder for the project file, one for the footage, one for the audio (the music and SFX I would be using), and then others for outputs and whatever I needed. 

See, I start organizing myself right from the start.  The first thing I do is set up folders to organize the material.  That is the key to a quick edit…being organized.  So just like I did with FCP, I did the bulk of organizing on the finder level, then brought the footage into PPro.

I used the Media Browser to browse the camera masters and drag in the footage. I did them en masse, and when i did that, I noticed that PPro was “conforming” the media. (I saw this on the timeline, lower right). I wondered what it was doing, as I thought PPro dealt with the footage natively, without converting it.  So I posed the question on the Adobe forum at the Creative Cow…what’s happening here? (OK, fine, I asked that BEFORE I started on this project…) It turns out that PPro conforms the audio.  “The audio needs to be all in the same bit and sample rate in order to be able to mixed together. Whereas FCP would wait until you wanted to play a timeline and then render the audio needed (remember the BEEP BEEP BEEP?), Adobe Premiere (like ProTools) just conforms all audio to the same, 48khz, 32-bit file type upon import so you don’t have to wait when you want to play it back in the timeline.” At least that’s what Ryan Patch told me. I believe him.  And it did this while I was able to do other things (so I guess that is a background process…even though it causes the app to slow down).

After I brought in the footage, did I start editing right away? HECK NO! I organized things. 

I watched everything I had, labelled the clips (keeping the original file names, but adding a description in another field). That’s a big part of the editor’s job…watching everything and knowing what you have. I didn’t sit and watch it all play in real time.  I did scrub through the b-roll. But I took the time to label my footage, make bins by category (Blackmagic design, MOTU, Autodesk, AJA, Avid…etc) and organize the footage into those bins. Only after the footage was organized, did I start editing. Yes, I could access the footage natively, but that doesn’t mean I started editing immediately. I wonder about all the marketing people who tout this “you can immediately start editing!” Who does this?  Well, I can see it in certain areas like news, or if you promised a wedding video to play back at the reception. But for most of the stuff…you need to watch what you have, and organize it.

The editing progressed much like I did things in FCP. Throwing clips onto the timeline in rough order…then rearranging things as editing progressed.  Although it was really fun to be able to scrub through the thumbnails and mark in an out.  That was a fun and a great speed advancement. (Yes…I know that FCX does this too…moving on.) 

Note…the IN and OUT points STAY PUT when I come back to the clip.  Something FCX’s version does not do.  It works when roughly getting the points you want. For more fine tune editing, I resorted to the VIEWER/Program method.

I did have to drop the audio way down.  Without the ability to use the audio mixer to do this (it only works on a track level, not clip level. So adjust the levels down in the mixer and the WHOLE track audio dips) I resorted to adjusting the audio on the timeline via my mouse.  The audio levels went down in big steps.  2.6dB, then 4.46dB, then 6.83dB, 10.10dB, 15.5dB, 22.8dB…then infinity. 

So what I had to do is ballpark it, and then hold down the option key to get more fine tuning of the levels.  And I couldn’t adjust more than one track at a time (if I am wrong about this, please comment and enlighten me)…so audio mixing took a bit longer than I am used to.  I did use a lower third preset that was built into the app…because motion graphics are not my forté. I’m thankful to have those.

One thing that I noted while editing this is that, well, I didn’t get all that I wanted, and that most of my stand-ups where I am alone and describe the product were…well…dull.  Flat.  A few jokes didn’t work, and on two occasions my mic wasn’t connected fully, so the audio was either not there, or dropped in and out. That’s fine, something always ends up on the cutting room floor.  (I don’t know if half of you reading this will get that reference, having only edited on computers). So I had to write some voice over to cover things that didn’t work out, and I ended up running with it. I’m glad it turned out well, because I felt, while shooting it and when I watched the dailies, that it was going to be a huge failure. Thank goodness I’m a great editor.  (Modest, too.)

When I was done, I sent it to Media Encoder and went from the shooting format right to the delivery format…no in-between codec or step.  Encoder has lots of great presets for people like me who know jack diddly about encoding…and it was really fast. Chalk that up to 64 bit I wager.

All said and done, editing was pretty much second nature, as I come from a Final Cut Pro mentality. It also helps that Premiere has a FCP keyboard layout option.  But I was also able to do some trimming that I could only do on the Avid…so it is a bit of a hybrid.  I really enjoyed editing with it.

Finally, another episode of THE EDIT BAY. This time it is a VIDEO podcast (sort of…it’s on Vimeo, courtesy of FreshDV). This video shows highlights of a few things I found interesting on the NAB 2012 show floor.

The Edit Bay – an unexpected journey

If you like the MEDIA OFFLINE shirt, you can find that here. If you like the BOLEX shirt, you can find that, and others, at Della Luce Style.

A friend of mine who now works for a major NLE manufacturer recently emailed me with a philosophical question: “I’ve wondered openly objectively if the lower price points of FCPX or other NLEs doesn’t by extension create an expectation in professional circles (on behalf of clients, agencies, prod cos, etc.) that the skill set to drive such systems is devalued as well?”

Yes….yes it does.

But this is nothing new. This expectation came about years ago when Final Cut Pro started encroaching into the broadcast market.  FCP was much cheaper than Avid, therefore the rate for the work done on it must also be cheaper, right?  Because FCP costs 1/10th the price of Avid, your price for services must also be about 1/10th the cost, right?

Wrong.

It took me a while to figure out a good way to explain this to clients…producers…networks.  Just because the TOOLS are cheaper, doesn’t mean that the TALENT is.  Yes, my rates might go down, but not exponentially to match the cost of the tool.  No…sorry.  I am not cheaper because my tool is.  Well, I sort of am, but….

OK, let me put it like this.  Because I ended up breaking it down like this to clients and producers.  When you hire me to work on a project, you hire me.  I have a set cost.  If you hire me to work on your equipment, I am only that cost.  If you hire me AND my equipment, then I bill the same amount for me, and a separate amount for my equipment.  Let’s say, for example, 8 years ago I owned an Avid Meridian, which ran about $70,000 to $95,000 depending on the features you got.  It would be the computer, the Avid hardware, the monitors, a big ass desk, a big ass mixer, a beta deck, external broadcast monitor…the works!  So I would then need to rent that to productions for about $1500 a week in order to be able to pay it off.  And then there was me, and lets use the union scale rate for back then which was about $2500/week.  That’s $4000/week for me and my system.  But that is if they house me and my system. If I have an office, that is additional overhead that doesn’t decrease either. It is a set cost.

Now FCP comes out and it only costs $1000.  But then you still need to buy the equipment to go with it…but all said and done, when you get something comparable to that Avid, it’s about $16,000.  That’s about 17% the cost of the Avid.  Producers would go, “hey, look how cheap this system is…so now you are only 17% as well, right?  Instead of paying $4000/week, we only need to pay you about $700, right?”

Wrong…your math is wrong.

I am still $2500.  I am not cheaper because my tools are.  Actually, with inflation and improved skill set, I might be more.  But let’s keep it simple and say that no, I am still $2500/week.  The only change is that my overhead is lower…my system rental is cheaper.  I am still the same amount, my office still costs the same amount…the only thing that is cheaper is my tools.  So that is where you will save money.  Instead of $1500/week, now it will run you $400/week.  I still need to pay it off, I still need to make money on the system so that I can constantly upgrade it to meet the changing needs of post.

And yes, if you hire me to edit, and stipulate that I have my own system in order to work on your project, there will be a cost for renting my system. Too many producers feel that your system comes with you…and that is a set rate.  No, it does not. Equipment costs money, software costs money…I need to make money towards that in order to buy the stuff I need and remain current.

My friend also said:  ”I’d hate to be trying to make my living or charging for services on $300 software (FCP-X).  And to that point, maybe not on color grade software as inexpensive as Resolve.”

Sure, FCP-X is $299…Avid Symphony is now $1000 (crossgrade promotion) instead of $6000. And Autodesk Smoke might also be cheaper than it’s original $14,000 price tag (we’ll know by Sunday). But there is still all the surrounding equipment needed to run that…and while that too is tons less than the $250,000 Flame rooms of old, it still has a significant price tag.  And the talent to drive it isn’t cheaper. My talent for telling a story, or knowledge in on-lining and delivering a show to network spec has not diminished.  There will be cost savings due to the software and hardware being cheaper. But it won’t be as much as you might expect.

I started this blog in 2005, when I made my leap from editing on an Avid in standard definition…to editing with FCP in high definition…thus the name Little Frog in High Def (Little Frog being my Indian name from my youth). This blog was me talking about my foray into the world of HD specifically using Final Cut Pro…for broadcast TV shows. A diary of my successes and my failures…lessons I wanted to share so that people could learn from my…well, successes and failures.

So now, with the EOL of FCP and me moving back to using Avid Media Composer…and Adobe Premiere…I’d like to list off my 10 favorite things about FCP that I will miss.  My favorite features that made me love the application.  Don’t get me wrong, I’ll still use it for a while, my current job as a matter of fact most likely will use it for a few more years.  Companies out here tend to do that…use what they have because it works…until it no longer works (in some cases, even when it doesn’t work).  I post these in hopes that the other NLE makers will see them and go “yeah, that’s a cool feature” and try to incorporate it into their future releases.

Here are the top 10 favorite features that I’ll miss in FCP…in no particular order:

1. Resolution independence. I like that I can add HD to an SD sequence, and it works fine.  720p in a 1080p sequence look fine too.  And I can take 1080, put it into a 720p sequence, and scale and reposition to show what I want to show.  Adobe has this too…Avid does not. If I put a 1080p clip into a 720p project…it becomes 720p.

2. Audio mixing on the timeline, and with keystrokes. My favorite ability is to lasso audio, and press the CONTROL key and bracket and + – keys to increase and decrease audio by a few db.  Control brackets adjusts by 3db in either direction, – and + by 1db.  This allows for very quick and very precise audio mixing. And if I didn’t do that, just toggling Clip Overlays brings up the level lines and I can drag up or down, quickly add keyframes for more controlled audio dips.  Yeah, Avid does this too, but it isn’t as elegant. And Avid doesn’t do keyboard audio mixing. Nor Adobe.

3. Speaking of audio…I like having more than 16 tracks of realtime audio. Most times I don’t have more than 8-14 channels of audio, but it isn’t all that rare for me to have between 24 and 48 channels of audio. I have been in that boat many a time, especially when dealing with 6 people on individual mics, the need to add b-roll audio, extensive sound design for SFX, and smoother music editing.  And yes, as a picture editor I am responsible for a lot of the pre-mix. Many clients/network execs can’t watch a cut with temp sounding audio…so it needs to sound finished.  And be very in depth.  Avid stops at 24 total tracks of audio…only 16 audible at a time.  PPro is better…it allows, well, at least 48. Although the audio mixer is track based, not clip based, and mixing audio on the timeline is lacking…more difficult than it should be.

4. The ability to work with picture files at full size on the timeline without plugins. Being able to add picture files, in their full size (well, they have to be under 4000 pixels or FCP gives the über helpul “general error”) onto my timeline and do small moves, or temp moves on them and have them remain sharp is handy.  Avid imports still as media, unless you use the Avid Pan & Zoom plugin, which allows for manipulation. But isn’t as easy as direct picture access.  Adobe works like FCP in this respect…so that is good.

5. Clip enable/disable. With the click of Control-B, I could turn off clips in the timeline that I had highlighted…rendering them invisible and silent.  This was a quick and easy way to see clips under clips, without turning off track visibility and un-rendering EVERYTHING. It enabled me to only turn of portions of my timeline. To be fair, Avid doesn’t need this, as you can monitor separate video tracks, and go under clips without losing one render.  Disabling audio files quickly, so that I can only hear the music though…that is something Avid doesn’t do. Yeah, I could click-click-click to turn off tracks.  But it is so easy to lasso/disble in two quick strokes. And I could use it to turn off clips surrounding others for easier soloing of audio elements.

6. Simple compositing on the timeline. FCP is a far better compositor than Avid…for an NLE. Adobe is good too, but the simplicity and ease that I can composite shots in FCP dwarfs what I can do in the Avid.  And I can blend elements better, add filters to single clips only, rather than from a clip, and everything below that clip.  Composite modes right there on the timeline for many cool effects (not all broadcast safe, so beware). Building a composite shot, or funky transition is easy in FCP…a tad more involved and difficult with Avid.  As I said earlier, Adobe Premiere Pro does this well too.

7. The wide variety of plugins.  Let’s face it, there are simply a LOT of plugins available for FCP.  Enough free ones to keep you occupied and happy…and dozens more cheap ones.  A few spendy ones.  But really, A LOT of plugins.  Did I use them all? No, I have favorites, and I don’t rely on them a lot.  But when I need them, I know that I have a wide variety that I can choose from, give the look I want to make.  Avid has darn few, and of those few, they are EXPENSIVE. The only free ones are the ones built in.  There are no great free fan-made plugins for Avid.  FCP had lots of people doing this for free…for fun. FCP has a great and vast plugin community.

8. Organization of materials. This is big…so big that I had a tutorial DVD that covered all aspects of this topic. I am big on organization.  But the strength of this, the beauty of it, was also a curse. If you are new to FCP, or don’t know how it dealt with assets or  just weren’t paying attention, you could hose your project in a big way, or make life difficult down the road.  So it’s a gift, and a curse…to quote Monk.  FCP allowed for organizing footage in the project, and outside of the project, on the desktop level. It kept all tape imports and tapeless imports separated by project. And renders as well.  All captured/imported media was imported into the Capture Scratch folder, into project subfolders.  This made it really easy to find only the assets used by certain projects. I liked to make one folder per project, point FCP to that project for captures and renders, and make folders for audio assets, stills, graphics…everything.  So that all assets for one project were in one location. Easy to backup, easy to transfer…easy to delete.  The danger of the way FCP did things is that if you just grabbed a picture file, or audio file from your desktop and put it into the FCP project, the original file REMAINED on the desktop. So when you transferred the media to a drive for mobile editing, or to hand off, you might forget those odd stray files. So you really had to pay attention and be organized on the desktop level, and in the application. But this was a REALLY powerful way of doing things.

Adobe does this too…so that point is moot.

Avid doesn’t. Avid puts ALL imported assets, regardless of project, into one location. Or if you need to use multiple drives, into single folder locations on multiple drives.  And the media wasn’t accessable via the desktop level, all organization needed to be done inside the Media Composer itself.  I find this limiting.  But, it is just one way that Avid keeps track of everything, and VERY well.  There are power-user things you can do, like change the MXF folder names so that you keep multiple folders, separated out by project. But you should only do this if you know what you are doing, and know how Avid does things.

9. Exporting a Quicktime file with multiple channels of discreet audio.  Before MC6, this was something ONLY Final Cut Pro did. In fact, when I asked someone how to do this from Avid as DNxHD, they responded “it can’t. And that is the reason we have one FCP station, so that we can do just that.” But now, with MC 6, I can do that too. Isn’t as smooth as it is in FCP, but it is close, and will only improve.  Adobe PPro cannot do that…it has Mono, Stereo, and Dolby 5.1 options only. We’ll have to see if CS6 adds this ability.

10 – The ability to import only portions of tapeless media via Log and Transfer.  In Final Cut Pro you can import only portions of clips if you want.  Have a 1 hour clip of nothing, then 2 min of something happening?  Import only that.  Premiere Pro, being native only, does not do this. All or nothing. With Avid, you have to do a few tricks…extra steps.  Access via AMA, put your selects onto a timeline, and then transcode.  I guess that isn’t too bad, but not as slick as Log and Transfer.  And again, Premiere Pro doesn’t do this.

OK…eleven things.  I will also miss the ability to open multiple projects…and especially multiple sequences.

Avid and PPro have improved, and might now include something I used to only be able to do in FCP.  Either that or I simply only have 9 things.  Either way, I’m keeping the title the same…sounds better to say “my top 10 list” rather than “my top 9 list.”  Monk knows what I’m talking about.

Please feel free to add your favorite features you will miss in the comments section. Doesn’t need to be 10, but I am interested in what tricks other people do in FCP, that aren’t doable in other apps.

Normally when I work on a documentary…well, any sort of project be it a documentary, reality show, competition show…and especially narrative work…I am handed a script. And I build a show based on this script. If I am not handed a script, I am given what is called a “string out” of the footage…the interviews and VO (or a text slate with what the VO should be) all in the order the producer wants it. Either the producers do this or they have the assistant make the string out…based on a script they hand them.

So, at some point in the process, the initial structure of the project was dictated to me by someone else. Now, it might change as editing progresses…that’s the normal progression of editing. Cut what works, move things around, add more things, until you get what will be the final project. But the producer/writer had first stab at the footage and story structure.

But recently I was given a project where I was given creative freedom…almost total creative freedom. I was given the footage, I was given transcripts of about 50% of the interviews, and was told what the main points of the project should be. What points I needed to hit upon. But the sound bites I used, the order in which it went, and the b-roll added was all up to me. I was given near full creative control….and that excited me.

Now, this is a normal process on many productions. There are docs out there that the editor is given a lot of creative freedom on. I just never seemed to land those kind of projects. I always wanted to, I’d like to flex my creative muscles and show off my story telling skills. So when I was approached to edit a short documentary aimed at art education…I leapt at the chance.

So I had this drive full of footage…all Canon 5D transcoded to ProRes 422, and someone was kind enough to merge the clips with the second-system audio that was recorded too. I later found out that this footage actually came from a project with another aim entirely, but that many of the questions asked would pertain to the project I was assigned. It was dual-use footage. Well, the interview were. about 98% of the b-roll and non-interview footage was meant for the other project, so I needed to figure my footage needs as editing progressed.

Because this footage was ProRes, and was synch in Final Cut Pro for the previous project, I opted to use FCP for this job as well…even though I much desired to move all future project to Avid. But I was fine with FCP…I’m fairly comfortable with it.

So…where to start? Here I am with the footage…some transcripts (timecoded, so I can find the footage easier), and a few notes on the direction the project needed to go. Well, the only place to start is to watch the interviews fully and pull selects. While the questions pertaining to my project were asked later in the interviews, I opted to watch them fully, because you never know what nugget of information someone will say, even if the initial question doesn’t ask for it. And yes, in multiple instances, I found great statements in the questions aimed at that other project. I used many of them.

I broke the interview selects into categories. I didn’t put down all the selects from one person and then all from another. I’d separate them out by topic. Where were they from? What is their tribal affiliation (this was a project on native artists), where were they educated, where did they get their inspirations from, what type of art did they do…and so on. I did this using separate sequences for each topic. And when I was done, I made a master selects sequence and strung out the answers, separating the separate sections by 5 seconds of black. So it would be one person saying something on the topic, then another, then another.  And a cool thing that happens is that when someone spoke on a topic…expanded on it, they lead into another topic that I was going into, so it was a great segue tool.  I could have one person talk, then another, then another, back to the 1st person, third again, 4th, second…who then transitioned us into the next segment.

HOW did I determine who went first, second, third, and then when to go back to the first person?  That’s tough to explain. Explaining the creative process is difficult, as I edit by “feeling.”  That is, I feel that I need to have this particular sound bite from someone, and that a sound bite from a second person sounds very similar, so I’ll use that next.  I won’t use the full selection from the first person as they seem to mention several things, so I’ll grab the first thing mentioned, then use a similar bite from other people back to back, and then go to the second thing they talk about, then add the other people who also talk a little about similar circumstances, then back to the interviewee who will carry the conversation to the next topic.

Confusing?  Yeah, I can see that.  It is best to show examples of this…be able to do the rough string out, then duplicate the sequence and show the building of the sequence, and duplicate again with every change made so that people can see the process.  Not something I am able to do with this project…but I hope you get the general idea.

Once I have the rough stringout, or “radio edit,” I will watch it a few times, and show the client it (or producer).  This is basically the spine of the piece…the order in which the story we are telling is laid out.  I don’t add any b-roll, or music.  I might add cards where I think b-roll or pictures should go, but typically not at this point.  I don’t want to add anything at this point because things will be re-arranged and shifted to better tell the story.  Once we get this all adjusted correctly, then I move onto adding other footage.

The next pass is where I add what footage I have, what stills I have, and then cards or “slates” with descriptions of what I need, or think will work, for these sections. This is my first ROUGH CUT…lacking music, but where I start to add pacing, space out the dialog, add the b-roll and, if needed, other footage that includes audio.  This is where the piece starts taking shape.  After this, I might show it again, show where I am and what footage needs I have.  Or I might do a second rough cut pass, this time adding music and rough sound effects (if needed).  Adding music is where pacing really starts to take shape, as it can add dramatic emphasis to what is going on.  You can have someone make a statement, and then raise the music over b-roll, or over the interviewer’s face (say they are sad, or really happy and you want to show that) and let that play out for a while.  Because you don’t want to just raise the music randomly, choosing the right music, and planning how it plays out so that the part you want swells when you want it…can be difficult.  It is often the hardest part of the process for me, and the most time consuming.  I have to search for hours, days for JUST the right music.  And then edit it so that it sounds right, and swells when I need it to.

But after I add music, I tend to call this phase the FINE CUT phase.  No longer rough, but not really final.  It is a “finer” cut.  There will be versions during this phase…Fine Cut 1, Fine Cut 2…as I rearrange things, find new music, replace shots…and add more shots. FINE TUNING if you will.

That is sort of the phase I am at right now. I have a cut that has music, most of it is covered with b-roll or pictures, but I still have a few sections that need footage, and the show title is still just a black card, as we are working on a final title for the project.  But thus far most of what I have done has been up do me.  The client has made suggestions for what to cut, what to add, move this section there, that one there.  And at one point saying that there seemed to be missing a point they wanted to make. They knew that they had them talk about it, but forgot to have me include it.  As it so happens, I did have a timeline with those sound bites, as I came across them as interesting, but didn’t know where to put them.  The clients note reminded me of those, and lit a lightbulb in my head.  I added them to the piece and they made it better.

Now the cut is in the clients lap, awaiting more materials to cover some gaps.  But it is almost done.  It is really exciting to work on something where I was given footage and a few general notes about the tone of the piece, and given near full-creative freedom to make it a reality.  Normally work with scripts, or producers in the room…or with extensive notes. But this time I was allowed to do what I wanted, explore creative ways of solving things…and that is refreshing.

OH…that brings up one point…a creative solution to a problem.  For the painters, installation artists and print makers, I had images of their art.  But for the authors, I have them reading selections from their books on a stage.  Not the most exciting visual.  The camera work wasn’t the most steady at times, and at one point, this being shot with Canon DSLRs, the 5D stopped recording after 12 min (a known issue about overheating sensors).  I needed something to make this…better.  So I called the client and asked for the books that the authors read from. When I got them, I used my own Canon DLSR (T2i) and shot extreme close-ups of the books, followed the reading down the page.  I then layered this over the footage of the authors reading, so that we the viewer, could follow along.”  It seemed to work well.

I broke my laptop.

It happened so quickly. I popped off the power adapter connector and swung the lid down to close it and CLUNK! The adapter connector had not popped off to the side, but rather flopped on top of my laptop speaker, and prevented me from closing the lid. It was sandwiched between the metal speaker cover, and the delicate LCD panel. Guess what gave? Yup, the LCD panel.

Now I have this lovely rainbow crack on the lower left of my display, and then the rest up from that is white. I have a white pillar covering 10% of my display, on the left hand side. My lovely 15″ laptop is now effectively a 13″. And I cannot see the Apple menu nor the FILE menu. So, good thing I am handy with the keyboard commands.

Well, what to do about this? Get a new laptop? Believe it or not, that was my first thought. I mean, I too was sucked into this “disposable object” mentality that is affecting everyone lately. One small thing breaks, and so you replace the whole thing.

Now, I did then, a few seconds later, think, “well, this should be fixable. Just replace the whole LCD. But, that might cost a lot. A lot more than the computer is worth.” And this is an older computer…2008 MacBook Pro. Would the cost of the repair be worth it on such an old machine? I did take it to the nearby Mac repair center, and they did quote me $550 for the repair. That thought made me go back to thinking that if it was going to be THAT much, and the computer is THAT old, why not just spend a few more extra hundred and get a more recent machine? The MacBook Air is $999…a refirb is $850. It’s not that much different.

Well, I can’t afford it. Normally I might have the funds for this in my business account, but I have other expenses that make that not viable. Also, I saddled my wife with a cheap laptop that I turned into a Mac (“Hackintosh” is the term), and really, she has been looking at the MacBook Air and drooling. If I got one before her…no, that wouldn’t do.

I showed the damage I did to a co-worker, and he said, “oh, you can just replace the LCD. That’s pretty inexpensive. They sell those…a friend of mine broke his LCD too, and he just replaced it on his own.” Well, I like that idea. So I googled the part…found one for $150. Much better than $550.

And then I found a video tutorial on how to do this replacement yourself. That is a bit daunting. I have to remove 37 screws, delicate wires, and at one point, use a razor to cut through the glue that keeps the LCD attached to the bezel of the lid. Scary stuff. But, I did replace the hard drive in my previous laptop, and that meant removing about as many screws, but also a ton of other parts. And I was able to do that. So, I think I’ll take the LOW LIFE approach to this and replace the screen myself, and keep my computer, that works JUST fine for everything I do, for a few more years.

When the LCD arrives, I’ll be sure to crack open a beer, and document the whole thing. And I’ll be doing so on my family’s blog, LIVING THE LOW LIFE…where we talk about living cheaply. Replacing a laptop screen instead of the whole laptop…or paying a LOT to get it done…is “living the low life.”

“Gah! I jinxed myself!” said my co-worker, who I share an edit bay with.  ”I labelled the last sequence as “Final,” and now I have changes.  I KNEW that I shouldn’t do that.  Every time…”

And this is true.  Adding FINAL to the name of the sequence will almost guarantee that changes will be given. Often a few seconds after you finished typing “Final.” How often have you opened a sequence bin only to see a dozen sequences with the word “final” in the name?

“****CoolProject_FINAL FINAL FINAL_Absolute FINAL_IGNORE OTHERS_USE THIS!!_Final”
“****CoolProject_FINAL FINAL FINAL_Absolute FINAL_002″
“***CoolProject_FINAL final_Locked cut_v2″
“**CoolProject_FINAL_Locked_01″
“*CoolProject_FINAL_Locked”
“CoolProject_NearFinal_v43″
….etc.

I saw this pattern when I started assisting over 12 years ago, and I still see this pattern today. Although I have noticed that now people will have one bin that is called CURRENT CUT, and inside that bin is the “****ProjectName_FINAL FINAL FINAL_Absolute FINAL_002″ sequence….and a bin called PREVIOUS CUTS will have all the others.  But still, the practice is still…uh…practiced. Editors still insist on calling a sequence final.  And when it ISN’T the final, they don’t simply rename it to “v_45″ or something, they just make a NEW sequence and call that “FINAL final” until they eventually end up with “Final FINAL Final_NoSeriouslyThisIsFinalImNotKidding_008.”  And then you end up looking at the CREATION DATE (Avid only, sorry, FCP doesn’t do this) to make sure that, yup, that is indeed the final sequence.

Please stop.  You, like my partner, are just jinxing yourself.

I gave up doing this years ago when I was duplicating the “final” sequence for the 8th time.  I just increased the version number, and added a date…month/day/year like all of us backwards American’s date things (and my initial, but I always do that when I am working on a cut).  So instead of the string of useless “Final_Final_ForTheLoveOfAllThatIsHolyLetThisBeTheFinalFinal,” I end up with “BrilliantEdit_v38_020812_SR.” This way you see the latest version number…or at least the latest date…and who made the change to that cut.

I still do this when I am the only editor on the project…just to keep in the habit.

Not too long ago I was given a project to cut and it came with a producer that I hadn’t worked with before.  They came in to my bay, handed me the script and told me generally what the piece was about.  Then they left and I got to work.

But then later, partway through the cut, they came back and asked to see my progress.  O…K…  Well, I don’t normally show something part way through…not on short form 90 second spots anyway.  But…OK.  So they watched, liked what I had done, and left. So, I got back to my cut.

Then a few minutes later they came back and said that they didn’t think that one shot worked, and wanted me to find another. Then proceeded to sit down while I looked for the shot.  And they stayed there after I found a replacement and continued to edit.  They were watching me edit.  My ROUGH CUT.

To say this unnerved me is an understatement.  To have someone sit there (who isn’t an assistant editor looking to learn how to edit…and see my thought process…which I am TOTALLY cool with)…someone who is in charge of the project, is distracting. Because they’ll see me try something, and it won’t look good. And they will tell me that.  Well, after I see it, I KNOW it won’t be good, because I see it too.  It happened more than once.  ”Are you sure about that? I don’t know if that will look right.”  ”Wait, do you have a shot of this?  How about that?  Anything from the next day?”

And not only footage suggestions, but when to cut.  ”How about cutting out a hair sooner? This feels like it is on screen too long.” They are behind me (or beside me at the desk) basically driving the cut. Trying to give me instant feedback to my initial cut.

This is wrong.

The rough cut phase is my time to play around and see what works.  My time to look at the footage, toss things on the timeline and see if they work, or if they don’t work.  To see if things cut a certain way looks right, or not.  This is the phase when we are basically feeling our way through the cut like a blind person down an unfamiliar hallway.  We need to find out what is there, and how to get around it.  I need to try several things before I get what I like. To have the producer there during this phase is just plain wrong.  They need to give me the time to create what I think is good.  Or, at least, the beginning of something I think is good.  They will get their time to give me feedback.  They will get a LOT of time to give me feedback.  But the rough cut is my time.

Sure, they can hang around after giving me notes and watch as I change things to their liking. That’s fine. Because I am addressing THEIR notes…their thoughts. While I would prefer to decipher their notes myself and see what works, and tweak things just right (because I might need to do large changes to the music) on my own. But, if they stay while I do this…I’m used to that.

So…how to get this producer out of my bay while I finish my rough cut? I was gentle, tactful, but straight with them. “Hey, if you don’t mind, I’d like to do the rough cut on my own. Because I tend to make try a lot of things and make a lot of mistakes, and I don’t want you to see my mistakes. I want you to see my successes. I want you to watch this spot when it is all assembled, and to my liking.  So that you can see a complete piece.  And then I will welcome you into my bay while we change things to your liking.  Cool?”

And they were cool with that. And apologized for being there. This was an important project for them, and one of the first they were producing on their own, and they  just wanted to make sure it was good.  Didn’t realize they were stepping on my toes.

And I have had more experienced producers in my bay during the rough cut phase. But they were smart enough to not pay attention to me or the cut until I was ready to show them. They know that we are trying out several things and that most won’t work.  They tend to bury themselves in email or the internet or writing, and only look up when I ask, “are you ready to see what I’ve got?”

OK, I’m not all about Avid now. I’m giving Adobe Premiere Pro some love too. With Apple no longer making a tool I can use, I’m exploring the other two main options for NLEs and seeing what they are capable of. Seeing how they might fit into my workflow needs. Now, while Avid does easily plug into my broadcast workflows, I do have other projects that would be cumbersome to work with in Avid Media Composer…even MC6. So those projects I used Premiere Pro to tackle.

Project #1 – Show Pitch/Sizzle.

I have a producer who is in development mode. Working on four to five show pitches in hopes of getting one of them picked up as a series. Them being low low budget, he’s forced to shoot it on his own, with a flip camera that shoots .AVI files. When I was first approached to edit these, I figured I’d use Avid to get back up to speed with that, and to beta test it while I went along. But, as it turns out, trying to convert those AVI files into something Avid could import was a huge issue. When audio did carry over, it didn’t stay in sync. It was way out of sync. And after 5 attempts to get things right, I gave up. I launched Premiere Pro, used the Media Browser to bring in those files and guess what? They worked perfectly right away. I cut them natively and they were always in sync. And because I worked with them natively, they imported instantly…no conversion time.

Now…I must mention that the computer I used for this was my personal machine. A MacPro OctoCore 8.0Ghz (Early 2008) with 12GB of Ram, and the Nvidia 285 graphics card that enables CUDA and speeds up the Mercury Engine…so it enabled PPro to deal with this format more easily. At one point I did move the project to a different machine (with the same version of PPro), but this machine was a Quad Core 3.0 and had an ATI graphics card. So the Mercury Engine was relegated to software only…and boy, did it become sluggish. Glad I only used that for changes.

But for this project, Adobe PPro CS 5.5 was perfect. Did quick edits on four show pitches, all shot with either the producers AVI flipcam, or in two instances, an HPX-170. Native import of the P2 files was nice to have. And editing that format was much smoother. I was able to do quick graphics (lower thirds), able to send a few VERY shaky clips to After Effects for smoothing out, and export directly to the MP4 format my producer wanted. And because this was all so quick, the low rate I was getting for the job actually worked out to be a better deal, as less time was spent transcoding the footage.

Project #2 – Family Home Video…shot with my Canon T2i.

The other project I decided to take into Premiere Pro was the family trip up the coast to San Francisco, along the coast. I’d been putting this off for a while, but finally, because I had a couple weeks of no work, decided to get it done.

Again, I brought the footage into PPro 5.5 natively…H.264 files that would choke FCP 7, and also chokes the new Avid MC6…although I hear FCX does fine with them. And again, because of my faster processors, amount of RAM, and the CUDA enabled Mercury engine, editing went smoother. When I took the project to my laptop (Dual Core 2.4Ghz MacBook Pro)…it was more sluggish than a turtle in the mud. So I really needed to stick to my main rig for this. Editing was smooth, easy, and when I was done, I was able to export a nice quality H.264 file for Vimeo for the family to see our exploits in SF.

Now for the nitty-gritty.

PROS:

I am pretty comfortable working in the PPro timeline. Things act pretty much the way they acted in FCP. The way I can grab clips and move them, the way I can adjust audio in the timeline by dragging the levels up or down. I can even do a SELECT ALL DOWNSTREAM and move things down (Press T using the FCP keyboard setup, and hold SHIFT to get the double arrow to select all the tracks. Just T will get you one arrow that selects one track). Making titles was easy, doing my moves on stills was sure JOY as I have my AE controls, and EASE IN and EASE OUT actually work!

My editing time was sped up because I didn’t need to take time to convert media before I began editing. Very cool when under a tight deadline, and when your budget is low. The less time you spend editing, the more you make per hour.  And the less you stay late getting the work done.  And I could play back multiple layers without rendering. That was something new to me, and nice to actually see in person. I had 4 layers with a text layer on top of that for one of the pitch pilots, and it played with only one minor hiccup…but I attribute that to the AVI files.  They were not optimal.  PPro did well with them anyway.

I was able to use my Kona card for external monitoring (you need to use AJA sequence settings for this) so that I could see what I was doing on my external monitor. One tip for monitoring is that while you do use the AJA settings, in the Adobe Preferences, PLAYER, do not choose AJA, rather choose ADOBE.  This enables things to work smoother. Dunno why, but it’s how it is done.  But, initially this was pretty problematic. Nearly show stopping.  Why?  Well, because when you viewed the Program Monitor (Canvas…the timeline playback monitor) on the external monitor…it was smooth. But the window in the PPro interface was not. It stuttered badly.  And since that is the primary window I look at, it was unworkable for me.  Also, the Viewer…Source monitor…wasn’t viewable on the external monitor.  ONLY on the computer display. And if you use the AJA player, you could ONLY see it on the external display…the Source monitor in the computer interface was black…empty.  So it wasn’t the optimal viewing by any means.  It was pretty poor actually.

But then a couple days ago AJA released the 9.1 drivers for the AJA card, and the 9.1 drivers for the Adobe Plugin, and with that came the option in the Player Preferences for “AGGRESSIVE CACHING,” meaning that (according to the release notes):

“When this Option is enabled, AJA’s Plug-ins will read further ahead in the timeline during playback operations. The feature should be used to mitigate minor frame dropping issues. Particularly, this feature was created because some DSLR clips can take a very long time to open, and subsequently cause frames to drop when they are played back.”

That new driver and plugin solved all the monitoring issues. Now I could see smooth playback on the Program monitor and my external monitor…as well as see what was on my Source monitor in the computer and on the external.  But one thing I noticed is that when I use AJA settings, editing and playback aren’t as smooth as when I choose the native format settings, or use other Adobe settings.  Now, I know that AJA does support the Mercury Playback Engine with their hardware I/O, but the amount of GPU support you get from that is limited…it does take a hit.  That’s why things were a bit sluggish.  I do hear that Adobe is working with AJA and others to improve this.

CONS:

OK, now for the bad.  My biggest issues with Premiere Pro was the overall working in the timeline. There were too many things that just slowed me down. The biggest issue I had was patching the source tracks to the timeline tracks. When I dragged the source video to V2, or V3…that track wouldn’t enable…meaning, it wouldn’t light up…become selected.  I’d have to click on that track after I patched my source.  So too many clicks. Avid automatically enables the track you patch to.  And in FCP, once the source is patched to the timeline, it is always connected, and patches to the layer you move it to…until you manually unpatch it.  So…too much clicking to get stuff patched.

No matter how you have your Audio and Video tracks selected in the timeline, audio will always be put into tracks 1 and 2 if you simply drag from the Source to the Timeline.  If you INSERT EDIT, or OVERWRITE EDIT, it will follow your patching. But no matter what, if you drag to the timeline, audio will always go to A1 and A2.

Here’s an example video.

I cannot adjust my audio levels on my source clips.  Not while they are in the Source monitor. That’s a problem. They might be too hot and breaking up, so I’d like to lower them.  Or, I’d like to universally preset the audio levels on that clip so when I cut multiple parts of it into the timeline, the audio is already good.  As it is now, I can only adjust the audio AFTER I cut it into the timeline. So I have to adjust the levels for every clip I add, and always after I add it.  Annoying, and slows me down.

On the topic of audio…the audio mixer works unlike any NLE audio mixer I have ever used.  The sliders will affect the WHOLE TRACK, not the individual clips on that track.  So if I lower A1 by 6db, the entire track is lowered by 6db.  Unlike in FCP or Avid where the audio mixer relates to the CLIPS in the timeline and in the source monitors…the Adobe mixer doesn’t interface with the clips in either location. It only interfaces with the timeline as a whole.  See, when I am in FCP or Avid, and I have my playhead parked on the timeline on several layers of audio, and clips, when I adjust the levels of say, tracks 10 and 11, the mixer adjusts the levels of the CLIPS that it is parked on.  This way I can mix the levels of my clips.  With Premiere Pro, you can only adjust the audio of the clips on the timeline, by dragging the levels on the clips themselves.  And if they are mono, you need to do each and every individual clip.  Unlike in Avid where I can gang all the tracks I want to adjust in the Mixer, or, enable all the tracks on the timeline and adjust the audio keyframe of one clip, and all the other tracks that are selected move as well.  So this is a major stumbling block for me as well.  Audio mixing needs to be addressed.

Audio output…so far it is limited to stereo out.  That is a big issue for me as well as I need to deliver QT masters with between 8 and 16 channels of embedded audio.  Before today only FCP did that, but with Avid MC6 coming out with this same ability, we now have two options that enable me to deliver what I am required to deliver. This is a feature request I have filed with Adobe.  If you have feature requests, you should file some too.  I hear they are eager to get them.

The trimming capabilities are worse than even FCP…which I didn’t think possible.  So trimming should be absolutely avoided in PPro.  Heck, I avoided it 95% of the time in FCP as well, as it was poorly implemented.

Batch capturing is spotty, at best.  I was able to capture video with my Kona card, and that was cool.  But what I do to save time is log clips as I scan the tape, then set the application to then batch capture all the clips while I then go each lunch, or do some other menial task. Adobe PPro’s batch capture with the Kona 3 was so unreliable, that I’d have to sit and babysit it.  It’d miss a clip several times, and often I found myself capturing one clip at a time. Booo…a working lunch!  Tapeless?  Adobe shines!  Tape…which I still capture a good bit of…not so much.  Rememeber guys…tape isn’t gone, not yet. I’ll have the need to capture from tape for quite some time now…being a documentary editor.

Overall I did like it.  And do feel that it is the next step up from FCP 7.  There are just a few stumbling blocks in terms of general editing that have me shaking my fist at the computer screen and swearing out loud.  Small things like needing to click several times to patch audio and being limited in the ways I can mix audio…and I do a LOT of audio mixing. The small things do count…but so does the ability to work native.  So if I am faced with tight deadlines and tapeless footage, PPro is high on my list.  Tape capture…That’s Avid-land.

OK, here’s a little follow up to my Media Composer 6 review.  In that review I mentioned that you could label your clips via a small palette of colors.  Well, there is actually a way to open up that choice of colors…to get to the full color palette including the Color Wheel and Crayon options.  All you need to do is Option+Command+click (or Opt+Cmd+CNTRL click if you use a trackpad) to have access to the full color options:

So now you can make clips a putrid split pea green if you wanted.

NOW, onto the AMA tip.

So, you might want to bring in some footage via AMA and work with it natively…alongside your other Avid media. (People have indicated that they have done this, or plan on doing this…so they don’t waste time transcoding). So you now have a mixed bag of Avid media and AMA footage. And then you get to a point where, for some reason, you need to transcode only the AMA footage. There are several reasons for wanting or needing to do this. There are some things that don’t quite work right with a timeline full of AMA footage. Avid has fixed a bunch of these issues, but others might still be in the wings.

ANYWAY…so you’d like to track this footage. How can you tell which footage in the sequence is AMA, and what is not? The answer to this is simple…Color all the AMA clips a certain color. Make it that ugly split-pea color if you want to…or bright pink so they stand out. Just give them a unique color, and then they will appear in the timeline with that color. Even if you do this after you edit them into the timeline:

FYI, the clip colors don’t show up in the timeline automatically. In fact, the option for this is defaulted to OFF…not showing any clip colors. You have to enable this action. To do that you go to the little “FAST MENU” (us editors still call it the “Hamburger” menu…because it looks like a small hamburger) on the lower left of the timeline and choose the option CLIP COLOR:

In there, you will need to check the option for SOURCE.

That will enable the color you assign the clip in the bin to appear in the timeline. I also enable OFFLINE, so that I can see at a glance what media is offline or missing. And you see that you have options to show mixed media in your timeline. Useful stuff.

Hey…do you live on the East Coast?  More specifically, North East?  And are you in Post Production?  Then you MUST go to the Boston Supermeet.  Well, do what you want, but really, this is a great place to meet people, see famous and talented people talk about the ART of the craft (how often do you get to see that?), and talk directly to hardware and software vendors.  Get out of the house…you can DVR that TV show and watch it later.  Seriously, I have many many friends that I know mainly from LAFCPUG and Supermeet get togethers.

I mean…Walter Murch.  Listening to this man talk is an experience. He doesn’t think like the rest of us do.

Here’s the speil…

Los Angeles CA / Boston MA – The agenda has been set for the Second Annual

Boston SuperMeet, to take place on Thursday, October 27, 2011 at the Stuart

Street Playhouse, Radisson Hotel Boston in Boston, MA. The SuperMeet stage

show will begin at 7:00PM and continue until 11:00PM. Doors open at 3:30pm

for the “SuperMeet Digital Showcase” featuring over 15 software and hardware

developers. Tickets are on sale online only for $10.00 each and $7.00 for

students and Teachers with valid ID. The Boston SuperMeet marks the last

city stop in celebration of the Tenth Anniversary of SuperMeets in 2011 and

is expected to sell out as historically every SuperMeet sells out.

Scheduled to appear on the SuperMeet stage will be Oscar and BAFTA winning

film and sound editor Walter Murch, who has recently completed post

production on director Philip Kaufman’s HEMINGWAY AND GELLHORN, starring

Nicole Kidman, Clive Owen and Robert Duvall.

This will be the first public appearance by Walter Murch since the launch of

Final Cut Pro X. It is expected Murch will share his thoughts on Final Cut

Pro X, but more importantly give Boston SuperMeet attendees a rare chance to

listen to and learn from Walter on the craft of editing itself.

In addition to Murch, Avid will feature Andrew Weisblum, A.C.E., who will

discuss his editorial workflow on BLACK SWAN. Weisblum was also editor on

THE WRESTLER, and supervising editor on FANTASTIC MR. FOX, among other

credits. Avid is also slated to make a very special announcement.

Canon has just announced the Canon EOS-1D X DSLR, Canon’s latest DSLR

redesigned from the inside out, and presenting on behalf of Canon will be

filmmaker Jem Schofield of theC47.com, who will talk about Canon’s new DSLR,

which features an 18-megapixel full-frame Canon CMOS sensor, Dual DIGIC 5+

Imaging Processors, a third dedicated DIGIC 4 Imaging Processor for metering

and AF control, a completely new 61-Point autofocus, 14-bit A/D data

conversion, fast shooting up to 12 frames per second (FPS), Full HD video

recording and much more. Jem is an engaging presenter and is certain to

share some interesting news at the SuperMeet as well about his DSLR workflow

and on the present and future state of Canon EOS filmmaking.

Colorist Alexis Van Hurkman, who spoke on behalf of Blackmagic Design at the

recent London SuperMeet, returns to the stage to share new workflow and

support for Final Cut Pro X on Version 8.1 of DaVinci Resolve for Mac.

Hurkman will discuss how, in the last nine months, DaVinci Resolve from

Blackmagic Design has changed his color correction practice. In the process

he’ll show off a few of his favorite Resolve workflow and color correction

features in examples from projects he’s worked on this last year, which

includes the television pilot NUCLEAR FAMILY and the feature CARGO, and give

insight based on years of experience grading and finishing broadcast content

for The History Channel, for the BBC, and for The Discovery Channel Network.

Marc-André Ferguson, the SMOKE Industry Manager at Autodesk, will

demonstrate groundbreaking new finishing workflow for SMOKE on Mac OSX using

the latest Thunderbolt enabled MacBook Pros from Apple and a Promise

Technology Pegasus Thunderbolt RAID. Ferguson, a long-time Final Cut Pro

editor and Adobe After Effects artist, will demonstrate how accessible

Autodesk SMOKE really is, how to blast past the apparent steep learning

curve it has and hit the ground running to bring the power of SMOKE on the

road.

Rounding out the evening will be the always wild and fun “World Famous

Raffle,” where over $50,000 of dollars worth of valuable filmmaker-related

prizes will be handed out to dozens of lucky winners, including a fully

licensed copy of Autodesk SMOKE on Mac OSX (value $14,995).

While the main SuperMeet presentation will begin at 7pm, doors are scheduled

to open at 3.30pm with the SuperMeet Digital Showcase featuring over 20

filmmaker-related software and hardware developers including Adobe, AJA,

Apogee Digital, Autodesk, Avid, Blackmagic Design, Boris FX, Canon,

EditShare, Fast Forward Video, Genarts, G-Tech, HB Communications, Imagine

Magazine, JVC Professional, Matrox, Manhattan Edit Workshop, Noise

Industries, Promise Technology, Raven Research, Talamas Broadcast, and more.

Here, attendees can enjoy a few cocktails, mingle and party with industry

peers, network one on one with leading manufacturers and learn about the

latest trends in collaborative editing workflows for post production and

broadcast markets.

Tickets are on sale online only at $10.00 each plus ticket fee (includes 2

raffle tickets) for Adults and $7.00 for students and Teachers, or $20.00 at

the door. Complimentary and tasty hot hors d’oeuvres and cash bars will be

available throughout the evening. To purchase tickets online, directions,

transportation options, and a current list of raffle prizes, visit the

Boston SuperMeet web site.

http://supermeet.com

First, I’d like to point out two excellent articles about FCP-X and the future of post. First, a blog post by Oliver Peters, and then a Creative Cow Article by Walter Biscardi.  Both very good and in depth.

OK, now on to me.

I finally downloaded the FCP-X trial and explored the application for a full day. Prior to this, I used it briefly for two hours. But now, while spending all day trying to make something with it, I discovered that I disliked  just about everything about it.  Every minute I spent using it made it worse because it was backwards from the way I like to work.  But I guess that is how it is designed…to be unlike any other NLE, and to do things very differently.  But is the different way better?  Not for me. Am I too tied to TRACKS?  Maybe. To tied to two monitors when working?  Maybe. Dislike that I needed the Skimmer on to view footage in my EVENT, but that meant that the Skimmer would be on in the timeline too, and every time I moved the mouse, I’d be hit with a barrage of hyper fast audio? Definitely.

I had a list of all the issues I had with FCP X, and I was going to gripe about every one, but then my blog went down for five days giving me time to think about things and I’m not going to post another rant.  I am only going to say that I will not be using FCP X in the forseeable future.  Why?  Well, it doesn’t solve any post issues that I currently need solving, and the whole reason why I moved to Final Cut Pro in the first place was that it solved a big post issue I was facing

You see, I started this blog many many years ago, April 2005 to be exact, when I made my leap from Avid Media Composer to Final Cut Pro.  I had been using FCP for a couple years before that (starting with FCP 3) on smaller side projects, like actor demo reels, a handful of short films, a couple of corporate videos.  But I didn’t think it was quite right for me to use on broadcast work…even though FCP 3 was enabled to do this with the RT Mac and Cinewave hardware cards.  It wasn’t until FCP 4.5 came out with it’s native workflow with DVCPRO HD that it caught my attention.

See, I was working at the time on a National Geographic series that was shot with the Varicam to tape at 23.98…720p 23.98.  But the Avid Meridians that we were using couldn’t deal with that format…they were SD only…so we dubbed all the footage to DV tape and offlined that way.  And then when the time came to online, we were faced with a big issue…The Avid Adrenaline that we were onlining with didn’t do 720p…only 1080.  So we needed to upconvert everything, and deal with the 29.97 to 23.98 frame rate difference, and that was complicated, and costly.  We went over budget by just over a hundred grand for 9 episodes.  Not good.

Shortly thereafter I was asked to edit a History Channel series on the Mexican American War…and the producer wanted to shoot with the Varicam.  I was hesitant, given my recent experience.  And while Avid did release an update shortly AFTER our online to allow for 720p onlines…I had just been to a LAFCPUG meeting where I saw FCP 4.5 demo’d showing how it could capture DVCPRO HD from tape natively.  No offline/online…it was online from the start.  And it was 720p…23.98.  Final Cut Pro offered a solution to a post production issue I needed solving.  So I leapt on it.  Then we were going to also try to shoot with the new Panasonic P2 cameras as b-roll…and FCP was the only NLE to actually work with that format as well…so it was a no brainer.  (If you want to see my experiences with that, dig into the archives).

So…with the release of FCP-X and how Apple seems to have changed the way it feels editors should work…it doesn’t offer any solutions to any post workflow needs I have.  In fact, it actually lacks many features I need for the type of work I do. Other than being able to string pictures together to tell a story, and make the audio sound decent and picture look OK…it is missing everything I need to master for broadcast.  You know the list…no OMF for audio mixing, no output to a broadcast monitor for color grading, no ability to export to Color or Resolve for grading, no way to export multi-channel audio that I need (oh, wait, with the update I now have ROLES…), and on and on.

So, instead of trying to make it work…or wait for it to eventually work…I will be looking at the alternatives.  Going back to Avid Media Composer…and exploring Adobe Premiere Pro…both of which are making advances yet retaining the basic editing methodology that editors rely on to edit quickly, and concentrate on the creative and not the technical. They solve the post issues that I am currently faced with.

The thirty-seventh episode of THE EDIT BAY is now available for download.

This one is about how even the editors…and DPs and Production Designers…need to get approved by network and feature film heads in order to be hired on a show.

To play in your browser or download direct, click here.

To subscribe to this podcast in iTunes, CLICK HERE.

I made a quick tutorial in response to someone asking in a forum “Are there any free plugins for Avid for flash frame or blur dissolves? I don’t have Boris…”

That tutorial can be found here.