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Organising workflow – switching from FCP to AVID
Hey there,
I’m making the switch from FCP7 to AVID Symphony, and is about to embark on my first project which is shot on 5D mark II. The project is about 15 min long and contains interviews with 2 cameras (external sound) and multi cam sequences of songs.
My questions are:
1. Can I convert the h.264 footage to pro res 422 with mpeg stream clip and then AMA link them to my project, or is it a better way?
2. In FCP7 I always create multiple sequences to organise my footage. For example sequence 1 could contain cam a and b with synced sound, so I could easily make selects within the sequence and copy paste that to my assembly sequence. In that way I didn’t have to keep “loose” clips in my projects, only sequences containing ALL of my rushes. Does this workflow work in AVID Symphony?
I had a play around with AVID, and the editing seems fairly straight forward, but need to really get on top of organising.
All help is highly appreciated,
Spencer
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3 Replies
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I wouldn’t take the extra step of making ProRes and go directly to DNxHD via AMA. Link to Canon .mov files via AMA, then transcode within Symphony to make DNxHD. DNxHD 115/145 should be fine as a codec data rate choice.
For organization, there are several ways to go about it – you can sync the double system sound first (see AutoSync) and create a new .sync subclip for each take. From there you can assemble sequences (select reels) and use that as source. While this works, you cannot double click a sequence into the source monitor, it needs to be dragged and dropped into the source.
You can make group clips, or multigroup clips to further organize this footage. Read up on multicam editing to best plan how you want to approach that. If your interviews have transcripts, you might consider ScriptSync for a very unique method of organization and editing. If not, then PhraseFind can be used to quickly access spoken words or phrases across all sources – but not for sequences. So if these are used, you might want to reconsider the sequence selects reel approach.
Michael
Michael Phillips
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Thank you so much for your reply Michael!
The reason for asking about the Pro Res is that these projects have a very tight turnaround, and any prep I can do on the road to save time in the suite is invaluable. Do you think I can streamclip the h.264 files into DNxHD on the road and ama link these? I tried your suggestion before, but then end up with duplicates of the rushes in my project.
When it comes to organising and syncing, I’ve been using pluraleyes for syncing up both the cameras (if only two cameras) and the external audio. Would you recommend this workflow for Symphony, or relay entirely on AutoSync?
Again thank you for your help! I’ve ordered the Avid Assistent Editor’s Handbook, but the reviews are saying the organisation of projects is not featured, which I consider to be one of the most valuable things to edit efficiently.
Spencer
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Depending on amount of footage and such, one “might” consider AMA direct to the ProRes, but performance and management will be hit & miss depending on what you are trying to do. Perhaps the 30 day free trial can be used on the road to make “dailies” via AMA and a transcode to save some time. H.264 is more processor intensive to decode and play back than ProRes – albeit smaller file size.
PluralEyes is a cool product and works well, but I find it has too many steps to make an overall effort worthwhile if claps were used. It’s fantastic for the shoots that have no timecode or slates. I can sync faster with a slate than the multiple step process to sync with PluralEyes in Media Composer. This would be another advantage of using the 30 day free trial on the road – you can also prep dailies all the way through sync and organization.
If doing an offline/relink online workflow, then you can save some drive space by transcoding to DNxHD 36 first. You can fit 65 hours of DNxHD 36 on a 1TB drive.
Michael
Michael Phillips
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