Little Frog in High Def

I started my new job on Tuesday, and this time I find myself in front of an Avid Media Composer.  And what’s REALLY cool about it, is that it is the lastest version of Media Composer. When I interviewed I asked what version they were running, and they said MC Adrenaline version 2.7.7.  That’s pretty old, but a fine version.  But when I got the job, I asked them if they would be willing and able to upgrade to Media Composer 4.0.  My main reasons are that they shot everything on Panasonic P2, and P2 support on MC 4.0 is much better than 2.7.7.  Plus we will be needing to add some stock footage, and to be able to take advantage of Avid’s Mix and Match would be a real time saver.  And other enhancements like SELECT ALL RIGHT or LEFT and transition preservation, it would be a real timesaver and a benefit to me and the production.

Apparently I did a good job of selling this, because before I started, they updated the system.  I cannot tell you how happy that made me.  Oh, but that’s not the point of this blog post, so I’ll move on.

While I am taking these first couple days to familiarize myself with the footage, I find myself resorting to an old practice I had of making select reels.  This isn’t uncommon, this is a standard practice for Avid editors.  What I do is when I run across some good footage, I add it to a sequence.  This sequence is a select reel.  I do this for each scene, or location, or interview.  I have  a bin called SELECT REELS in which I store these, and I will often refer to them.

I can then load this sequence into the PREVIEW monitor (Viewer for all you FCP folks) and scan through it for footage when I cut, and when I cut them into the sequence, they bring over the original clips.  There is even a toggle on the bottom of the timeline that will toggle between the timeline in the Preview Monitor, and the main sequence.  Very handy to have.

Now, you can do this in FCP too, but the default way FCP does this is to NEST the footage from the Viewer to the timeline.  VERY odd behavior, and something I don’t want.  I get past this by mapping OVERWRITE WITH CONTENT to F12, and INSERT WITH CONTEST to F11.  Then the behavior mimics what the Avid does.  But FCP doesn’t have a way to toggle between the sequence in Viewer…which is why in FCP I tend to COPY/PASTE from one sequence to another, because I can have more than one sequence open at a time.

That’s my Avid MC tip of the day.  I’ll see if I can come up with more while I edit…perhaps this will help people just learning Avid.  I might not get to one tip a day, but I’ll try my best.  Maybe a tip of the week?  Because some things are so second nature, I might not recognize it as a cool tip.

Oliver Peters has a great blog post that compares Avid Media Composer, Final Cut Pro built it 3-way color corrector, Color, Magic Bullet Looks, Magic Bullet Colorista and Adobe Premiere.  This is a follow up to a blog post I wrote here, in which we had a great back and forth about the color wheels and how they reacted in different apps.

VERY nice in depth look at this.

OK, here is the Color Correction before and after of AFTERGLOW.

Well, HERE is the before and after. Link to big movie.

Here is a spec commercial that I color corrected. Shot on 35mm, edited on Avid, color corrected using COLOR. I’ll be putting the before and after on my reel in a few days. But until then…

“AFTERGLOW” – Prince Tennis spec commercial (HD) from Todd Kaufman on Vimeo.

The twenty-third episode of THE EDIT BAY is now available for download.

In this one I talk about how starting a new job always excites me.

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

To subscribe to this podcast in iTunes, CLICK HERE.

If you follow my Twitter feed, you will note that I landed a new job.  This new job will be a History Channel two hour special, and I will be using an Avid Adrenaline (v2.7.7) to edit.  Now, while I am a HUGE FCP advocate and known world wide as an FCP editor and expert…I also know Avid Media Composer.  In fact, that is the first edit system I learned, back in 1995.  I edited with that system exclusively until 2005, when I made the switch to FCP.   Since then I have been editing primarily with FCP, but a few Avid jobs have come up…including the one I will be starting in a week or two.

I mention this as a way to say that, knowing both systems is VERY important in today’s post production market.  Don’t be labelled as an “FCP Editor” or “Avid Editor.”  Just be known as simply, an editor.  You need to be known as someone who can use either tool, because that will make you far more marketable.

Lately I have seen more friends and ex-coworkers remaining out of work because they don’t know how to edit on an Avid MC, or with FCP.  Recently a couple shows I have been working on shut down, in fact I am finishing up the online of the last few.  But the editors of those shows have been done for a while, and are in the market for new jobs.  And one of the producers here has many  many job leads that he gave all of us.  The issue is that pretty much all of them are for companies that use Avid MCs.  And a couple editors don’t know how to use the Avid MC, so the job leads are pretty much dead for them.

This is not a good situation.  By knowing only one NLE, in a town that is pretty evenly split between Avid MC and FCP, you have cut your job prospects in half.  And when post jobs are hard to come by, that is not a good situation to be in, to say the least.

So do yourself a favor…learn the other NLE.  When it comes to Avid MC, they have made this easy.  Avid offers a 30-day demo of Avid Media Composer.  Full feature demo…nothing held back.  You can download the software, capture footage via firewire, or use Avid Media Access to ingest tapeless media, and begin cutting.  Learn how the Avid works.  Go to the Avid YouTube channel and watch the demos.  Look at the demo they have a Lynda.com for Avid Express Pro (a lot of the features will be the same). Take this time you have off, or time in the evening if you do have a job, to learn this.

FCP doesn’t have a free demo…sorry about that.  They make it cheap and that is how it is accessible.  It would be very nice if they had a demo though.  But, there are TONS MORE tutorials out there for FCP, so you won’t be short on instructional material.  Lynda.com has tons, there are a few on CreativeCow.net, and YouTube…all over.

So take this time off and put it to good use.  Or if you are working and want to make yourself more marketable, then take your evenings or days off to learn the application.  Or if you can afford it, take a class.  Hands on with an instructor is second to none.

Now, I don’t mean to exclude Adobe Premiere or Sony Vegas or Edius or other NLEs.  It’s just that, in Los Angeles, as well as other major markets, Avid and FCP are the main NLE’s that companies that hire outside editors or freelancers use.  If there is a big market for Premiere editors in your area, then it would be wise to learn that software as well.

Good luck.

EDIT: Here are some very good links for learning the Avid. Just about everything you need to get you started, including sample media!

MC Help Menu:
http://avid.custkb.com/avid/app/selfservice/search.jsp?DocId=346171

Not including stuff for FCP as you can throw a virtual rock on the interweb tubes and hit about 5000 things FCP related. Lynda.com being your one stop shop. BUT, this is also a good resource…at Apple: http://documentation.apple.com/en/finalcutpro/

About two and a half years ago, Alpha Dogs in Burbank, host of the Editor’s Lounge, had their first HD monitor shootout.  There were nine monitors, all 8-bit 24″ monitors and they all looked pretty different.  A couple were close, but it was amazing that they all weren’t.

Well, last week Alpha Dogs held another Editor’s Lounge, and this time, the panels were all pretty darn close.  VERY close, and that’s what you like to see.  Instead of writing the review here, I’ll link to the Post Magazine article that has a quote of my quick summary.

So, that project that I took from FCP and converted to Avid, you know, this, this and this one?  Well, after sending off three of five masters, we got notes back.  Not QC (quality check) notes like one would expect, but some more online notes like “blur this more, blur that…and blur that,” and “the graphics are the old ones, please replace with the new ones, link below, and the font needs to change as well.”  But notes like, “instead of blurring that shot, can we replace it?  And the sound byte here seems to cut short, can we fix that?  And this series of stills, they repeat too much, can we replace with others?”  More than a few CREATIVE notes.  Notes that should have been sent before we mixed audio and onlined and color corrected.

The producers did manage to talk down the number of notes to just a few, but a couple of those included the creative notes.  But those were handled without too much difficulty.  I fixed the Master, then I needed to fix the textless version.  But then…oh yeah, I needed to fix the AVID project too.  I had done all these changes on the FCP cuts, because I onlined in FCP, and just converted to Avid after I was done.

I wondered if I could just export another AAF via Automatic Duck Pro Export and have that cut reconform in Avid, connecting to the media that already existed.  But after a few attempts (with help from Wes), I couldn’t get the media to connect.  I unlinked the clips changed the source names to match, and tried to connect, but no go.  So I had to just redo the cuts AGAIN.  It wasn’t so bad, it just took a bit of concentration, exact number matching…and an hour.

Then I needed to add Bars to the front of the Avid Sequence.  I neglected to do this the first time.  But, how did I do that?  I had been on FCP so long, I didn’t know where to look.  I remembered that you went through the mixer to create tone media, but for the life of me, I couldn’t find the way to make BARS in the menus.  So I had to ask someone…I wanted to avoid the forums as to not seem like a complete hack.  But here I am, telling everyone how I forgot where to get color bars…whatever.  We all forget things like this.

So I asked Bryce of Post Fifth Pictures as he was on iChat, and used Avid every day.  He explained that I go FILE>IMPORT and then look in the Avid Media Composer folder, then Supporting Files, and in there are TEST PATTERNS.  Import the ColorBars.pict and I was good to go.  Oh, but then the sequence started at 59:59:00…and I needed it to start at 58:00;00.  I remembered that the command to get the window to change this was CMD-I (on the Mac), but it wasn’t working.  Again, Bryce reminded me that I need to click on the Composer window, THEN click CMD-I.  Brilliant!

Now I just need a gig cutting on the Avid so I can get my Avid legs back…

Time for another “I-don’t-have-anything-to-blog-about-today” link to a cool video.

I wonder how many takes they did until this one?

Post Fifth Pictures blog interviews Daryl Baskin, one of the editors for Star Trek the Next Generation. Five questions, with short and sweet answers.  Cool info.

They didn’t edit on Avid!

How a Camera Works from Austin Herring on Vimeo.

(Thanks to Jim Geduldick for finding it)

Being organized from start to finish is KEY to working quickly. While you think that it is time wasted that you could spend shooting/editing/whathaveyou…it really is the secret behind working efficiently, and smartly.

And don’t just take it from me because I am trying to sell a DVD on how you can better organize things in FCP (see the sidebar on the right)…but it has been coming up a lot lately. TWICE TODAY as a matter of fact.

First from my buddy Dan Wolfmeyer, who talks about the importance of being organized in post, but also BEFORE post. Getting post involved before you shoot, and just being organized from start to finish.

Then there is Norm Hollyn, USC professor and feature film editor (HEATHERS!)  He talks about not only the importance of organizing in post, but WHILE SHOOTING.  He and Shane Hurlbut (see links for Hurlbut’s blog in Norm’s blog) talk about the importance of organizing your footage on the set, especially in the world of the tapeless shoot.

Too many people want to shoot first, organize later…and that leads to a world of hurt.  I started this blog when I started working with P2, the first major tapeless format, so that I could share my experiences, and pitfalls, of working with that format.  And from the start I stress organization.  Taking the time to backup the footage, smartly, on location.  Helps to come from a film background where you need to reload and track film reels.

And I will also throw in another link to a post on the Suite Take Blog from about 7 months ago…all about organization.

With so many of industry professionals talking about how important organization is, you’d should get the hint that, well, organization is important.  So I don’t want to hear any excuses about how “oh, we just needed to capture and edit this quickly, we didn’t have time to stop and organize.”  That’s bullcrap.  Organization aids in the speed of editing, and helps you learn what you have, so you aren’t searching and searching for shots.

Organization on the set is equally important.  I can’t tell you how many times I get handed a box full of tapes, with ZERO writing on them.  What are they?  Which one is first?  And tapeless shoots with footage in such disarray that I am taking days just to sort it out.  Something that could have been prevented with just 5 min of time to properly label footage.

On bigger budget, and mid budget TV productions, they hire people SPECIFICALLY to keep things organized.  A whole profession whose sole purpose is to organize things!  The Assistant Editor.  Feature films have career assistant editors.  Major TV production companies have a handful…working day and night.  Now, there are times when there isn’t the budget for a full time assistant, in which case it is your job as the editor to know how to organize.  I have done this quite often, myself.  Never have I just captured willy nilly and began editing.  That’s just plain insane.

‘Nuff said?

The twenty-second episode of THE EDIT BAY is now available for download.

Some people start with lovely words, others shoot straight from the hip. Either way, the network gives you notes…

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

To subscribe to this podcast in iTunes, CLICK HERE.

Bryce over at the Post Fifth Pictures blog will be having an iChat interview with Daryl Baskin, an editor who worked on Star Trek: The Next Generation.  He is currently accepting questions you’d like to ask…just pop them in the comments section of the post I linked to above.

Cool…now I need to think of one…

Well, it turns out that I didn’t do an Avid online of an FCP offline, it was an FCP online of an FCP online, converted to Avid for final delivery.  Well, I DID do one…I used Automatic Duck to convert the FCP sequence to an Avid sequence and then I recaptured.  But went it came time to color correct, I felt severly hamstrung by the color correction tools available in Media Composer.  No secondaries, no color wheels (No, it has color wheels, see my comments at the end of the article)…and the CURVES take a while to get used to when you are used to color wheels.  No way to visually save grades for easy application to shots that occur later.  Well, you have 8 slots that are push button, but EIGHT?  No, I needed 50!  That’s what I ended up with in Color.  Reality show with scenes happening all over the place.

Sure, you Symphony has far better controls, but I wasn’t using that.  What Avid really needs to do is take the Symphony and Media Composer and roll them into one.  Give MC the color controls of Symphony.  That would make it pretty comparable to what I can do in Final Cut Studio.

Anyways…not to bust on Avid.  Mostly what was hampering me was my unfamiliarity with the MC interface,and curves.  Plenty of people do just fine with those controls, but I am just not used to them.  It took me 9 hours to color correct 15 min on Media Composer.  When I switched to Color, I did the whole show in that amount of time (45 min total).  I’m sure that given time I’d get used to curves, but I’d still miss secondaries, the color wheels, ability to do vignettes, Color Effects…many many tools.

So I did the final online and color correct with FCS.  Then I used Automatic Duck Pro Export 4.0.2 to export the project WITH MEDIA to Avid. That was a process I let go overnight.  When I came back in the morning, I moved the media to the proper locations, opened Avid MC, chose a new project with the proper 1080i 59.94 settings, imported the AAF file and BOOM, everything connected!  And there was no visible gamma shift.  To really see if there was, I’d need to switch back and forth from applications, but seeing how I have FCP on one drive partition, and Avid on another, I can’t do that.  But it looked spot on.  The only thing that didn’t transfer was all the text I made with Boris Title 3D.  The other text, the stuff made with the FCP TEXT tool, converted fine.

Now there seems to be a blurring of tools.  I can take an Avid offline (because I love the tools it now offers), convert it to FCP, online and color correct, and give them a tape and Avid master project with media.  Hmmm…except if I am relying heavily on MIX and MATCH, or tapeless acquisition.  I’ll have to look into that.

EDIT: Oliver Peters emailed me to point out my error in this post. The MC most certainly DOES have Color Wheels. I replied to him by saying I though they were HUE wheel controls. Because they are found in the HSL tab under HUE OFFSETS. When I adjusted these it seemed to add more color to the highs/mids/blacks than color wheels should. Well, it does, when compared to Color or Colorista. But when compared to the 3-way in FCP, they are actually slightly better at not neoning out the colors. As Oliver put it, “FCP seems to be increasing blue through the roof without reducing R&G. MC doesn’t seem to offer nearly as extreme of a shift, but it does seem to reduce R&G with the increase of blue.” So I wasn’t used to the way that Avid’s wheels did things, so I was thrown.

I still prefer Color and Colorista. Good thing Colorista is for the Avid too!