After a long hiatus, the Edit Bay podcast is finally back. The thirty-ninth episode of THE EDIT BAY is now available for download.
This one is all about how the stuff I watch on TV doesn’t look nearly as good as when I color corrected it in my edit bay.
To play in your browser or download direct, click here.
To subscribe to this podcast in iTunes, CLICK HERE.
OK, this has been an odd couple weeks, as I took half a week off to vacation up at Lake Arrowhead, and then I had a tight tight deadline to get this show done. But I’ll keep this short and sweet too. I’ll mention the obstacles I faced, and how I solved them.
OBSTACLE #1: The heat.
Yes, it was getting hot in LA. In the 90’s in the valley where my office…er…garage…is located. And my garage lacks one major component…insulation. So while I did buy a 12,000 BTU air conditioner, it really didn’t cool the office down at all. And that made working out there intolerable, and dangerous for the equipment. So, I did the only thing I could do at the time…moved into the house. I set up a small table in my bedroom and set up my new 2012 MacBook Pro (non-retina) along with one of my Dell 24″ monitors and a speaker so that I could continue editing in a nice cool setting. I brought in my nice chair, bought a Griffin laptop mount to get the computer up to a reasonable height to match the Dell, connected the hard drive and was ready to go. This setup helped with obstacle #2.
OBSTACLE #2: Slow computer
Even though it is a tower with loads of RAM (if you think 16GB is loads) and a nice graphics card (Nvidia 285GT) with a Kona 3 card…Avid Symphony seemed to struggle. I would get beach balls periodically that would last about 30-45 seconds, then finally go away. The system would lag behind my keystrokes, meaning I’d hit 5-6 keys…then wait two seconds for the Avid to catch up to me. And I would get consistent FATAL IO ERRORS…related to the Kona. And this horrid “K” key bug where I’d press “K” to pause playback, only it wouldn’t, it just slowed playback down until I released it…in which case it resumed at full speed. I’d need to his the spacebar to stop. That happened periodically.
So in moving into the house, I began using my laptop to edit. And let me tell you, most of those problems went away. By most I mean the “K” key issue persisted, and I got one FATAL IO ERROR…but only after I installed the AJA IoXT box to the system. And then it only happened once in two weeks. And I didn’t use the IoXT all the time, as my reference monitor had to be left out in the office/garage, as I have no room on my bedroom setup for it. Ah well. But overall, the laptop performed a lot better than my tower. Even encoding an H.264 with TC burn was faster on that laptop. My 2008 MacPro is showing it’s age.
OBSTACLE #3: lots of footage, lots of scenes, music to be added…
Basically…time. I was running short on time, and I had a lot of footage to cut. In the end I went a couple days over my deadline, and ended up with a 57 min rough cut. The cut should be in the 48 min range for international, with three minutes removed for domestic. So I am 10 minutes long. No biggie, that just means that the episode will have to be attacked with a machete to cut out enough stuff to get me to time. It took me longer than usual as I had a small library of music that I needed to choose from, and I’m a bit too much of a perfectionist when it comes to music editing and temp audio mixing. It’s a blessing, and a curse. My cuts sound good…but take longer to do. It turned out to be fine, as the producers were still focused on the first episode that another editor cut…so I had some breathing room. Still, it took eighteen 12-14 hour days to get this cut done. 3 days more than I was allotted for this. I hope the next episode will go smoother. I think it will.
OBSTACLE #4: other things
Yes, other things needed my attention. I was on vacation, so was busy trying to work and pack at the same time. Then trying to work with the kids constantly coming in because they heard some cool moment they wanted to see, and they wanted to watch me edit (at that point I switched to using headphones so they couldn’t hear things), and I was trying to deal with two onlines for MSNBC that needed tweaks here and there (Defending Casey Anthony and Ted Bundy: Death Row Tapes. Casey already aired).
All in all I like my cut. I will need to go back and “fancify” things…rock and roll it a little. Add speed effects and cool transitions and the like. I did a bit while I was doing the rough after seeing what the first cut had, I had to try to keep the same style, and make it “not boring.” I did mainly focus on the story, but also wanted to have SOME cool things to make it stand out. And that cool stuff takes a while. I wonder how long the editors of AMERICAN HORROR STORY get to cut a show? I’ll see if the assistant editor Misha comments here and lets us know. He follows me on Twitter, and we’ve had pizza together…so I hope he might.
OK…the cut is done, and I’m off to eat dinner and watch a movie with my family. Here’s a picture of my timeline:
OK, time for another review for a hard drive enclosure: the RAIDAGE GAGE104U40SL-SAUF 1U 4 Bay RAID Enclosure from iStarUSA. This one is cool…it stands out. That’s why, when the makers asked me to review the unit by commenting on a previous post, I leapt at the chance. Well, after first starting to compose the email gently letting them down… “Thank you for your interest in my blog. I’m sorry, but I no longer do hardware reviews for drive enclosures as I find them dull and the same old same old…” But then I got a wild hair and clicked on the link to look at the thing.
I liked what I saw.
Here’s why I liked what I saw. This is a slot loading TRAYLESS hard drive enclosure. I can take bare SATA drives I buy off the shelf at Fry’s or order at newegg.com and put them in the unit right away. No trays to screw onto the drives first. Pop open the door, and in they go.
I’m a HUGE fan of this type of enclosure, because I use bare SATA drives to archive all sorts of things. Camera masters, media managed show masters, show outputs, stock footage, music, and sound effects. And I also use them on occasion to edit from, although that is rare. You see, I currently have a SansDigital unit connected via eSATA that I use as a trayless enclosure, although it isn’t designed to be one. Yes, you can slide the drives in, but the unit wants you to then screw them in, to keep them in place. The drives aren’t as snug in their beds as they should be…they are only held in place by the connectors. So it isn’t the best solution, which is why I mainly use it only for archive solutions.
But this unit is designed for the bare drives. It holds them in place without the need for trays.
And it has nice release handles to aid in getting the disks out.
And it’s VERY quiet. There are fans for cooling, but I don’t hear them. I hear the drives more than them, and when you close the big front door…even that sound becomes very minute. Barely noticeable. My MacPro is louder.
And there are indicator lights on the front so you can see which slots have drives in them, and if they are active.
OK, so we have one cool feature… that the unit takes bare SATA drives without trays. Let’s add a couple more cool features.
CONNECTIVITY.
This unit pretty much has it all. It covers nearly all the bases. It has eSATA (my current connection of choice), Firewire 800 (two connectors), Firewire 400 (one connector), USB 3.0. You can connect this to just about anything (Yes, for Thunderbolt you will need an adapter). Perfect! I can connect it to my MacPro via eSATA, or to my 2012 MacBook Pro via Firewire 800 or ultra fast USB 3 and use it to back up tapeless media or files from my laptop. Or use it as my media drive. Macs used to lack USB 3, but now they are available on their laptops…and they are a Windows workstation standard, so on a Windows PC you have ultra fast USB 3 connect-ability as well.
To answer your question before you ask it…no, you cannot connect it to your tower via eSATA and another computer via Firewire or USB 3 and have it show up on both at the same time. It won’t work, I tried. And why two firewire 800 ports? Loop through. Daisy chaining drives is possible with this.
FOOTPRINT.
Well, it does have a pretty major footprint. Meaning that it does take up a big part of your desk. But you can set one of your monitors on top of it, or put it off to the side under your decks. Unlike my SansDigital that stacks the drives vertically, this design has the drives side by side. But that is to enable it to do the other cool think I liked about it.
IT’S RACK MOUNTABLE!
It takes up 1 U of rack space. That stands for ONE UNIT…one width high. In that respect, it takes up very little space. And since I happen to have a rack or two under my desk, it fit in perfectly. So perfectly that I’m most likely going to buy the unit when testing is over. I like it that much.
RAID TYPES
The unit can be configured in many ways.
- JBOD (Just a Bunch of drives), meaning that each drive shows up as a separate drive. Put four drives in, you see four drives appear on the desktop.
- RAID 0
- RAID 1
- RAID 3
- RAID 5
Don’t know what those all mean? Then go here for some light reading:
Most people use JBOD like I do, for archiving, RAID 0 for speed, or RAID 5 for speed and redundancy.
SPEEDS
Yes yes…”how fast is the thing?” I know that’s what you want to know. Alright, I tested it only as a JBOD unit. That’s the default setting it ships with. I tested it in this manner as I didn’t have four drives of the same make/model/size in order to test the other RAID types. Those are all in my other RAID. I did have four drives of varying size, so I tested the speed of the unit in JBOD mode via firewire 800 and eSATA. Those being the fastest and more common connector types.
With eSATA I got speeds in the 98MB/s to 108MB/s range. A bit faster than I get with a G-Raid connected via eSATA, or my SansDigital. VERY nice.
Firewire 800 resulted in between 69MB/s and 82MB/s…which is typical for the other drives I have as well.
For the RAID 0 and RAID 5 testing, I relied on the manufacturer to provide the numbers. I’m sure if I had the 4 drives to test with I’d get the same numbers they did. I’m confident they were truthful in their reporting. They connected it via eSATA to a windows machine.
Here are the RAID 0 numbers:
Between 111MB/s and 123MB/s using the AJA test…but upwards of 140MB/s using the ATTO benchmark. I think I trust that one better on a PC.
And the RAID 5 numbers:
RAID 5 gave pretty much the same numbers as RAID 0. Between 111MB.s and 119MB/s, and upwards of 140MB/s using the ATTO test. Now, the reasons the numbers are a LOT higher like 300MB/s, is the limitation of eSATA connections. That’s near it’s limit. For faster speeds, look at GigE Ethernet, Fibre and SAS connection speeds. But for the connection types it has, that’s pretty dang decent. Perfectly fine for multiple layers of compressed video formats like ProRes and DNxHD. 3-4 streams in my tests.
No, it isn’t a speed demon, but what it offers is ease of use. Easy to get drives in and out, so you can buy bare SATA drives (cheaper than ones with enclosures) and swap them out for archiving camera masters, show masters, or going back and forth from project to project. And because it is rack mountable taking up only 1U of space…it’s compact and out of the way.
By the way, they have a pretty cool video that shows off the unit on YouTube. Check it out.
Now that I have a laptop with USB 3, and my Tower sporting eSATA…this is on my wish list.
The units run for $375, and can be found on Newegg.com
(The unit was returned at the conclusion of the review)
Week 2 was a full week. A LONG full week. There is a lot of footage to go through, a lot of script pages to go through…so my days are ending up being 12-14 hours long. It’s a good thing I enjoy editing…otherwise that’d be a bit much. But I love what I do. I guess in this situation that’s a good and bad thing.
Well, I cannot say enough how good the C300 footage looks. It looks great. And they are using prime lenses, so it is really sharp. And it does very well in low light. Some scenes are very dark, but I can still see what is going on.
Now, this show is pretty unique in that it employs interviews, narration, and recreation audio. But the narration and interviews do tend to cover a lot of the scripted scenes. I just have to let a few key lines be heard. So this makes editing a bit tricky. I have to cut the scene like you would a scene, yet make sure I leave enough room for narration and interviews to cover up the parts that need to be covered up, yet let the lines I want to hear be heard at the right time. And I want these scenes to make sense if I turned off narration and interviews. So, what I do first is cut the scene like I would cut the scene. Then I drag in the narration and sound bites and try to fit them in. If I need to extend the scene a bit to cover more of either of those, before I can do a sound up on my lines, I then deal with that. Typically adding more pauses, looks, reactions…breath. If i need to shorten the scene, I do so but still try to have the dialog make sense. Yes, it is going to be covered up by voiceovers, but still, I want it to work.
On the technical end, I am working slightly longer hours because I need to group the clips myself…multicam them. The Assistant Editor will do them for the next episode. This episode I was told that it wasn’t done (something I agreed to), because most times both cameras don’t cover the same action, and it might be best to just treat them as separate takes. I agreed to that, and thus why they weren’t grouped, but then I found that grouping them helps me speed up the process. First, I can watch both angles at the same time when previewing footage. Second, I’m finding that more than a few times, the lines being read differ from each other. They aren’t sticking to the script strictly…mainly in scenes with the kids. They want the kids to act natural, so they are having them adjust the lines sometimes to best fit how they say things. It does help the kids give better performances, but it does make editing more…challenging. I prefer the better performances…let me deal with getting them to match.
As for the Avid performance, one thing is plaguing me. Well, a couple things, but the biggest is that the PAUSE button…the K key…isn’t pausing. It isn’t stopping playback about 1 times in 4. 25% of the time, it doesn’t pause. It’ll just slow down the footage. I then have to press the space bar to get it to stop (space is PLAY, but that also STOPS). I’ve mentioned this on the COW forums, and the Avid ones. And I have found others posing the same issues. And there are no solutions, there are workarounds. One person suggested I remap PLAY to the K key. And I did, and that stopped the issue. But then raises more issues, like when I press the K key, then press L…things go double speed. Don’t ask why I do that. Habit I formed in FCP that when I pressed play, then moved the playhead with the mouse, FCP then picked up playing…because it doesn’t stop unless you tell it to, even if you move the playhead. Whereas Avid will stop if you move the playhead. 8 years of habit…tough to break.
Now, I did try fixing it. It first appeared under Avid 5.5. But then I updated to 6.0…then 6.0.1. Still happened. I Patched using 6.0.1.1…same thing. I switched to my laptop…SAME THING. It’s taunting me. So many people say they don’t have this issue, but I have it on several machines, using several versions of the app. And others report this issue, so somethings up.
The second issue is that Avid still seems to not be able to keep up with my keystrokes, and often will lock up with a spinning beachball. After the 4th I’m going to try to get my laptop set up to the main editing machine…and hope that cures that. But my MacPro tower is running 16GB of RAM, is running an NVIDIA card…is running in 64 bit mode, so I don’t get why this is still happening. On more than one occasion I’ve had to force quit because it was just locked up.
There is a third issue, one that plagued Walter Biscardi…and that is one of TAPE NAME. Or rather, the lack of one. Unlike FCP, and Adobe, that assign the reel number a name based on the name of the folder you backed up to…or the name of the card if you import directly, Avid Media Composer or Symphony don’t do that. They don’t assign any source to the clip. This would help me greatly in tracking down footage masters. And this is a big issue when it comes to going to Resolve, as Walter found out. And we don’t know how we’ll be finishing the shows just yet. So this is an issue that might affect us more, later.
But Angus of Avid did say that they know of the issue and will be dealing with it. Can’t wait guys, thanks.
While I’ve been editing this, I’ve been onlining a couple other shows on the side. TED BUNDY: DEATH ROW TAPES and DEFENDING CASEY ANTHONY, both for MSNBC. These were editing with FCP, and on CASEY I’ve had to go in and do some touch up editing. And I prep the shows for online and man, is FCP snappy and pain free, and no beach balls. All the Avid slowness and locking up has made me really miss FCP.
On the plus side I sent out Act one for review, just to show them the style I’m employing, and I got back good notes. They like it…and that is a load off. And I’m really digging the trim mode editing Avid utilizes. I’m able to make tweaks to the sequences so fast, and I am always tweaking shots to fill the void, or to shorten so that the lines I need to be heard, are heard.
Yesterday I took a stab at editing the show using my laptop. The laptop in question is the new 2012 MacBook Pro…2.3Ghz i7, 8GB of RAM, matte screen. I took the external drive with the episode and connected it via Firewire 800 (glad I got the non-retina…I need that connector). I ordered a Thunderbolt to DVI/HDMI adapter from monoprice.com for a very reasonable $14 so that I could connect it to one of my Dell 24″ monitors. Now, the laptop on the desk is a little low, and I’d like to get it semi close to the level of my Dell that I will be connecting it to, but I didn’t get a laptop stand…not for this test. I’m too cheap…actually, too busy to go buy one. So I used a box.
So as you can see, I have the laptop on the left, complete with project window, bins and mixer. The large Dell has the Composer and timeline window. Nothing feeding my broadcast monitor yet. I’m saving up for the AJA IOXT…or at least the AJA T-TAP. Although of those only the IO XT has dual Thunderbolt, so I could connect the IO box and external monitor. The T-TAP has one Thunderbolt port, so it’d be a choice of external monitor, or second computer monitor. Not both….unless I shelled out for an Apple Display. Not gonna happen.
So I set out to edit, and edit I did.
The new computer was definitely faster than my old one…a 2008 Octo-Core 3.0Ghz Mac Pro with 16GB of RAM. It ran circles around it. It was able to keep up with my keystrokes, where the MacPro lagged behind a few keystrokes. It scrubbed better, less skippy. Less beach balls. Faster renders. It was great.
Sorta.
You see, I have a script I need to follow, and I didn’t want to print it out and waste paper. I like to look at it on the computer. But because I was editing with my computer, I could just lean over an look at the script. I had to hide the Avid interface, or click away from it…read…then go back. Distracting to say the least. And I still needed to check email, look at show notes contained in emails, tweet, and iChat with the wife. More than a few people on Twitter suggested that I get an iPad for this. But guys, I just shelled out $2200 for a new laptop, I’m not about to shell out $500 more for an iPad. Not just for reading the script. The screen was small. I’m used to two 24″ Dells to look at. Suddenly I had a 15″ and a 24″. It might have been better to have the second monitor to be smaller too. I might look into that.
So I put up with it for the day, but that was it. I switched back to the tower the next day…just so I could have my script at my ready. But I miss my laptop already as the edit station. It was solid. A pretty good replacement for my tower, at least for running Avid Symphony and FCP. I haven’t tackled Premiere with it yet. I did tackle FCP with it today, rendering out an online I am working on at the same time. The renders were much faster, and I didn’t get any General Errors like I did with the Tower. The laptop was better.
I might have to print out the script. Because I under such a crunch, any speed boost would help.
OK, it was only half a week. I received the drive via UPS on Wed, a 3GB OWC drive with eSATA and FW800 connections, and began my cut. Actually, I began on Tuesday by reading the script. it is 98 pages long. That normally indicates that the end product will be 98 min too, as it is typically 1 min per page. But there is a lot of screen direction on every page, so it will be shorter. Not sure how much shorter, but I think it will be longer than the target time of 48 min.
On the drive a project file and media…the project all organized for my by the assistant editor back in Virginia. There were folders for all my bins: Cuts bins, footage bins, audio bins. The footage was all organized by scene, A camera and B camera…and by interview subject. Audio, well, all I had for that was the narration thus far. SFX to come soon. Music was provided on the drive as compressed files labelled by previous episode numbers. I uncompressed those, and imported them into a separate project, putting the media on local drives. Because this music will be used across all three projects I will cut. After I imported the music, I changed the name of the folder on the media drive, in the MXF folder, to “5″ so that it’s different than the other number (“1″), yet still something that Avid would see. I then copied it to the show drive…. and then hid it on my local drives. So that Avid wouldn’t see both and get confused.
I opened the project and opened the CURRENT CUT bin. In there was the RADIO EDIT that the assistant cut for me. What I mean by RADIO CUT is that it is all the audio (narration and interview bites) strung together according to the script. If you played it without watching it, you’d get the story. Basically just people talking. The producers actually have this cut before they start shooting. This was cut, and then screened, to help them plan out what they will need to shoot. So this was cut weeks, if not months, ago. No, I didn’t watch this. No need, I read the script. But I did duplicate the sequence and name the new one ROUGH CUT v1. I always duplicate my cuts before I make any changes. This way, if I need to go back to anything…in case I need to recover something I lost, or use a scene the way I cut it in a previous cut, I have it.
The Radio Cut was 38 minutes long. And as I mentioned, the show will have a target total running time of 48 min. for international, and 43:30 for domestic. The initial cut will aim at that 48 min mark, and be seamless, with no act breaks. From that we will cut out the small bits we call “Plus Elements,” the extra scenes international needs, and make it a 43:30 “cut to clock” with act breaks inserted. Now, I have a lot of scenes to cut, and they will add time to the show, as there will be many cases where we use the audio from the scenes. But mostly the scenes will happen with narration or interview bites rolling under the footage.
I started by watching all the footage I had, scene by scene. This is a MUST that all editors must do. Watch all of the footage before you cut. And editor needs to know what they have. Not only so that you can use the best take in the scenes, but also to know all your options. And when a director asks, “don’t we have this shot?” or “I thought I got a close up, can we use that here?” You know what they are talking about. Know your footage. That is your job. Even if you have to scrol through it at double speed, watch it all. Well, you can’t scrub through dialog at 2x speed. B-Roll and action shots you can. Dialog has to be watched.
Now, there was one show I was on where I didn’t have time to watch all the footage. It was a “reality show” (loosest use of the term) and I was given 80 hours of footage to cut in 40 hours time…into a rough cut, with music and SFX added. So I literally had no time to watch everything. I went for the last take and used those (typically they are the best, as that is when the director was satisfied with the performance) and cut as fast as I could. When the director asked, “Is that the best take?” I wouldn’t know. I’d have to then look at the others. They did get annoyed if I found a better one, but what could I do? I had no time to watch everything.
Watch everything…if you can. It’s important.
I also needed to do a few things the assistant didn’t…group clips. Not all of them…there were many times when they shot with both cameras but far enough apart that a slate would have been problematic. And far enough apart that we didn’t need them synched. But when both cameras were on the same subject, I needed to group the clips. The issue was that there were no slates, and no hand claps. Because of that the assistant and post super decided to not group, and said I should treat all the camera angles as separate shots. I found in many cases it was preferred to group, so I did. Via audio cues. There was a door slam in one take, but for most I went on when the director called ACTION. The cameras were jam synced on the set at the beginning of each scene, but they drifted apart after every take. Oddness that the camera guys couldn’t figure out. So I couldn’t just group using timecode.
By the end of day Friday, I have cut 10 min of show time, and it is adding lot of time to the cut. I figure I will end up with perhaps 60-65 min by the time I am done. But that’s only a guess. That means that a lot will have to be cut, and the pacing changed in order to get us to time.
Oh…just a bit about cutting with Avid. This NLE isn’t new to me. I started on it and used it for 10 years before I switched to FCP…so going back isn’t too hard. Even though this is the newest version…Avid Symphony 6.0.1.1…it is pretty much exactly the same as it always has been, but with new features. I don’t use the Smart Tool on all the time, I use it the same way it always worked, activating the tools I need when I need them. Trim mode, select arrows. I’m using Avid as an Avid…not activating the Smart Tool to make the tools act semi-FCP like. It isn’t quite the same, so I’d rather just use Avid as Avid. And since this is very much a narrative show in how it is shot, the trim tools come in VERY handy.
The footage was shot using two Canon C300 cameras. And it looks AMAZING, by the way. They are using fixed focal length lenses, and spending a lot of time lighting, so the footage looks great. The format the cameras shoot is XDCAM in an MXF wrapper, something Avid deals with natively. So we are accessing the footage via AMA, then consolidating it in the native format to the media drives. We aren’t transcoding to DNxHD 145…we are sticking to native as the file sizes are smaller and the consolidation time is shorter. It plays back fine…smooth without skipping. And I am able to group the two angles and play back fine.
After a few days on my 2008 Octo-Core 3.0Ghz Mac Pro with 16GB of RAM, I’m going to be switching to my new 2012 2.3Ghz MacBook Pro with 8GB of RAM…to see if there is any noticeable speed difference. That’ll be the subject of a future blog post.
Still not using it.
Why?
I don’t like the editing paradigm it employs.
‘Nuff said.
I got the script for my episode today. It reads exactly like a narrative script. And, well, it is. Full of recreations, and written in normal script form. Now, I can’t post the script online, not even one page. But…for example, it goes like this:
1 INT SMALL OLD HOUSE – DAY
And old house sits tucked into a the middle of a small cul de sac. Several vehicles fill the driveway and surrounding street.
NARRATOR
And then the narrator says a line, and then it cuts to the interior for scene 2 where several people engage in conversation…all in normal script style. Then it cuts to interview bites, and goes back and forth between interview and the recreations. This makes me wonder if I should get Script Sync. Wondering if it would be worth the cost. I’m only doing three episodes. I might see how the first one goes without it. I see that there is a free trial, but it points to an old Avid Media Composer download page.
Anyway…reading the script tonight. After that, I’ll watch an old episode online. I receive the drive with the project file and footage tomorrow morning via FedEx.
*snifff!* I love that new computer smell.
Yes, I did it. I got a new MacBook Pro. 2.3Ghz i7 with 8GB of RAM.
My older one…a 2008 model…had a cracked LCD that I tried to replace, and it worked for a while, but the panel just won’t continue to work. Loos connection. And then my entertainment center MacMini died (logic board), so I put my old MBP in the entertainment center…and waited 3 weeks until WWDC and the new MacBook Pro announcements. It paid off…a new one was released.
But TWO were released. An updated original, and the new ‘retina display’ model. I opted to get the updated original, as it has all the connection types I need, and I can update components when I see fit. The new Retina MBP is non-upgradeable. The RAM is soldered on, the battery is glued in, the hard drive is soldered and glued, the GFX card is soldered in. If anything breaks…you need to send the unit in and get it replaced. Plus I hate…and I mean totally despise…the GLOSSY display. They blow chunks. Rarely am I in “ideal lighting conditions” with my laptop.
So I special ordered the new updated MBP. And it arrived today. Woot!
But, it shipped with the most current OS, 10.7.4. As it should. Only I plan on installing Avid Symphony 6 on this, as well as FCP Legacy and Adobe CS6, and the current version of Avid MC and Symphony is only supported on 10.7.2. So…I’m going to install Lion fresh, and then the combo update to 10.7.2. And then copy over all my data and install apps. I do plan on using this on my new Avid show, just to see how it performs vs my 2008 MacPro.
EDIT: Seems I cannot even BOOT to Lion 10.7.1. That’s surprising. I knew I couldn’t boot to a previous major OS, like Snow Leopard. But a dot.update? Surprising. Guess I’ll be running Symphony under a non-supported system for the time being.
…as in “going native.” Get it? OK, sorry…moving on.
I have a new project starting up in June. This is a revival of a TV series that aired on the Discovery Channel called “A Haunting.” The name is changing slightly to “An American Haunting,” but will pick up where the last series ended, episode number wise. This time it is going to be aired on the new DESTINATION AMERICA network, one of their secondary channels.
This will be an interesting project, as it is being produced by New Dominion Pictures out of Suffolk, Virginia…with interviews done around the country and re-creations being shot on the New Dominion backlot in Suffolk…and post will happen in Los Angeles. Well, not only L.A., two of the three editors will be here. The third is on the east coast, based out of Philly, although he is relocating to Virginia for the production so that one editor is at home base. The assistant editor will also be in Suffolk in the main offices, and will prep the footage for the editors there.
(New Dominion was a very busy production company 10 years ago, with multiple shows happening at the same time. But they had to shutter their doors and sell off just about everything when the re-creation market dried up in favor of cheaper “reality” programming. Thus the need to re-build from the ground up).
It will be shot with the new Canon C300, and we will have two of them going. The camera shoots to MXF in the XDCAM format, and that is only one of the reasons we have decided to use Avid Media Composer, and Symphony, to cut and finish this show. We will use AMA to access the media, then consolidate it to our drives, keeping it in the native format. In many cases, these files will then be grouped as multi-camera clips. We’ve done a few tests, and it seems to work well. And the plan is to finish using the Symphony software, that all of us editors will have anyway.
Final Cut Pro 7 was touched upon, but because of the cameras used, the transcode time involved…and because we want to move forward with technology that will keep up with the ever changing production landscape, we opted to go with Avid Symphony and Media Composer 6. Build systems that will move forward. Yes, there is Adobe Premiere…but because the assisting will be done in Virginia, and media shipped to Los Angeles, and all sorts of media management needing to happen, and needing to be rock solid, Avid seemed like the obvious choice.
FCP-X was mentioned, but not considered, as none of the editors were interested in using it.
Adobe CS6 was a thought…because of how it works with files natively. And because the editing workflow, editing language, was very close to FCP 7. And all the editors were well versed with FCP 7. But the main reason we chose not to use it was media management issues. Currently they are below where FCP 7 is…and as many know, FCP 7’s media management was pretty iffy. I will be more than willing to use Premiere Pro CS6 on a single editor show or special…and for many of the smaller projects I work on. But for this show, with an assistant editor in Virginia, ingesting and organizing the media for two editors in L.A. and the other in a third location, and with a short production schedule, we opted to go for Avid editing solutions as they are tried and true with media management. Rock solid. And with Symphony being offered to people with FCP 7 licenses for $999…all three editors will be going that route. The main office going for Media Composer, as they are starting post from the ground up.
This will give me the opportunity to edit full time in my home office on my system. Lately I have been working on systems at production companies primarily, and using my system for smaller side projects that I do after hours. I will be able to sit in front of my own system, full time, for the first time in over a year. During the heat of the summer, so I need to make sure the huge stand-alone AC unit is up and running soon.
And just as I started this blog when I made my transition from FCP to Avid…now I’ll blog about my transition from FCP back to Avid. Triumphs and frustrations.
Ray Bradbury’s passing today reminded me of something that happened to me in college. The year was 1993, and I was a film student at Montana State University, and a huge Bradbury fan. I had just read a collection of short stories, and one stuck out to me. Affected me greatly. BLESS ME FATHER… I thought this would make a great film, but not wanting to limit this to a student project, I actually looked into securing the filming rights to the story. So I went to the bookstore to look at a recent Bradbury book to find the publisher (again, this is in 1993, so before the internet boom). I wrote the publisher…via snail mail… and asked how I could get in contact with Mr. Bradbury or his agent, so that I could look into securing the rights of a story to make a short film.
A short time later I got a letter from the publisher giving me the address of his agent. And so I wrote the agent asking if he could please pass on my request to Mr. Bradbury. I included a letter addressed to him directly.
Well, some time had passed, and the class project was coming to a point where we needed to make a decision rather quickly as to what script we’d be going with. And it was just before Halloween that a letter from Ray Bradbury himself arrived in my mailbox. A fuzzy pumpkin sticker on the front. And inside was perhaps the best rejection letter I have ever received. He was very nice, very polite…and let me down gently. And then commented on my production company name…hoping that when I made it in Hollywood, that it’d change. I nice little “P.S.” joke. Honest to god, the rejection letter warmed my heart.
In hearing of his passing, I dug through my files for half the morning, and finally found that letter.
The only rejection letter I want framed.
(Should I rename the blog to BIG POND 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.
