We spent the last week on MORE fixes. I fixed the audio so that it was now the proper configuration. I called the closed caption company and they fixed the typos and sent new files, and a 24fps one for the HDCAM tape…since the previous one was a 30 NDF one, thus the reason closed captioning drifted. We were all set to get the dubs done when my producer was looking at the show, waiting for the dub process to start…noticed something.

A lower third was wrong.

One of our interviewees had the wrong book title under his name. My producer only noticed this when he went online to find it and verify a few things. But he couldn’t find the title we had, but another book with only one word different.

Great. Well, we hadn’t started the dubs, so we still had time for fixes. And since I had to do this, I would fix the three pictures that were kicked back for moire issues. So I changed the name, strung out a sequence with those changes, cut to cut so we just had to insert edit them into the show in a linear bay. We had to do this in a linear bay as FCP isn’t completely frame accurate with insert editing.

OK…output done…8 interview bytes and 3 stills all ready to go. We get to the bay, drop in the interviews and they fit fine. We look at the first still with the moire issue and WHOA NELLY! Minor moire issue? It was MAJOR. On the HD screen, it was fine. On the SD monitor, an image so trippy you’d swear you were on LSD. Well, THAT was not good. And my fix? Well, my fix didn’t fix it. I still had a zoom out and zoom outs are still bad for these. I simply did not see these on the HD output. it was an SD issue only. BIG SD issue. Line art…never use line art. Or if you do, PAN…TILT…never pull out or push in. My fix didn’t work. But thankfully the online tape-to-tape guy knew what to do. He blurred the image virtically and re-edited them in. We checked all 15 line art paintings, and 10 of them were bad. We could only fix 9 of them.

But, we fixed them. And we fixed the lower third, avoiding embarassment for us and egg on the interviewees face. But we tried to clone the HDCAM tapes with closed captioning…and it just wouldn’t work. I don’t fully understand how closed captioning works…all I know is that the engineers said it wouldn’t take properly. What to do? We went to D5, which accepted the closed caption just fine. And since the deliverable was to be either D5 or HDCAM, 1080p 23.98, we delivered D5.

MAN…this show really has become a learning experience. And the GOOD news? In three weeks I am slated to be one of two editors on another HD show for the History Channel. And due to all I learned on this one, I was a shoe in. Having worked with this company on two other shows, and with the DP on my LAST one…I have an edge.