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Desperate for some insight switching from FCP 7
Hello All-
Long time reader/ first time poster here!
I recently was forced to switch to Avid as our client is advised by outside sources to bring his production in house using AVID. In a desperate attempt to keep the business one more year, we have switched to AVID in order to be compatible with him. (ie: sharing footage, bins, sequences, etc)
We do long format, broadcast reality television and have been delivering shows via FCP 7 for years.
Let me explain my basic offline workflow and maybe someone can explain how AVID has a faster way of doing things as this is commonly what I hear from AVID users.
Normally we have 2 main cameras on shoots–A cam an B cam. We also shoot some stuff in gopro but that normally gets tacked on at the end. For now I’m basically trying to figure out how to deal with the 2 main cameras.
We still shoot to tape in 720p (the workflow was solid so why change? {because now the client wants better image and is moving in-house to get it– Of course, being the editor I had no control over re-investment in the company and this is whats happened.. let it be a lesson to all the cheapskates})
Anyway, we capture the tapes via FCP – each tape gets its own logging bin so Cam A tape 1 gets captured to bin C1T1. Tape 2 goes to C1T2 etc etc. We deal with about 18-20 tapes per shoot. So my bins are usually C1T1-10 and then a Cam B bin with C2T1-10. All the footage is in .mov WIth me?
Now I’ve brought all that footage over to AVID and have transcoded it to DNXrLB because I’ve been watching more tutorials and reading more posts than I ever imagined and everyone says avid runs so much smoother in its native compression. Ok so thats done. all the clips look and play and act fine.
Our cameras are loosy-goosy. We dont use clap boards, we dont have a ‘sound guy’ we mic up the talent with lavs and away we go.. filming everything we can as we follow them around doing what they do. Sometimes Cam A is rolling while B is shooting broll around a location, sometimes Camera B is on the action while A changes tapes. Timecode is loosly synced but not jammed.
We begin the offline with the end in mind knowing we want to feature X, Y and Z in the show and which tapes had that footage.
I will go to Cam A. find the ‘on camera standup’ and drop that in the timeline. I’ll go to Cam B footage, find the alternate angle, find the easy sync point, and drop that quickly on the second track.. A couple frame shifts in a couple of seconds gives me 2 synced clips. I then scale the Cam B footage to the bottom corner and cut the two back and forth removing the ‘scale’ attributes on the B cam as needed. I hate multicam editing because I dont like ‘live switching’ I like to cut when I ‘need to’ and to do that properly, I need to be able to scrub around the footage quickly. lastly I’ll throw some Broll over the top from another clip, drop a music track in and viola.. done. Takes about 20 minutes to cut a minute long scene ready for broadcast.
So now, we’re switching to card based media and FCP is not going to be viable like avid or premier and since the client wants AVID im stuck.
All I can find on AVID about ‘multicam’ editing requires and arduous, time consuming process involving making edits, 3rd party software (pluraleyes?) and creating AUX TC in order to create multigroup clips that you then have to cut using multicam editing.
What was avid made for? time wasters? :p
Unless you’re working with tons of pre-editors who can sit there and add all the metadata of a Michael Bay film how is AVID faster is doing MY kind of work? Are there any other producers who have made the jump and found the tricks?
I did read about Auto-sequencing which seemed amazing but I get a sequence of lets say “Cam A tape 1” and then it creates a whole NEW sequence for “Cam B tape 1”.. I want both on the same sequence. I tried to copy and paste and that became a mess quickly.. The biggest thing for me is in FCP7 I could edit PIP so quickly and easily.. am I to understand doing so in AVID requires a FILTER?! WTF? A Filter to resize an image?! WHYYYY??? please lord help me.
I have watched NUMEROUS (50-60hrs) of creative cow, lynda.com and AVID videos explaining many of the processes but it feels like all the tutorials are for kids making soda fountain videos on youtube. 10 clips in a project with 2 angles.. When we’re dealing with hundreds of gb of footage spanning 4 days and trying to stay organized.. the 1 bin solution seems far more disorganized in terms of finding clips to sync, finding certain things that happened etc. There is so much junk and garbage in the bins in a normal project but drive space is cheap and I find some of the best moments IN BETWEEN the stuff we shoot for a segment. Sometimes parking the car on the way into the store is a funnier bit than what happened in the store and we use it.
Is there anyone out there who can relate to this style of production/editing? Is there anyone out there who can help? Anything at all will be helpful… The shows need to air 1st quarter and here is is.. end of august without a single show offlined yet.. yikes…
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9 Replies
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Yes Avid can work the way you want. Probably.
With ‘loosey goosey’ TOD timecode then auto sequence is probably your friend, but copy & paste is not so hot in Avid.
With your 2 x camera sequences, find the one that starts first.
Add a video track and 2(?) audio tracks with Ctl&y and Ctl&u
Drag other sequence to source monitor and patch video and audio tracks. (Nb auto patch is your friend here)
Overwrite
You now have C2, say, on V2 obscuring C1 on V1
Apply a PIP (picture in picture) effect to the first clip on V2 and resize and repo to taste. Drag effect icon from PiP editor to a bin to save that effect.
Select all clips right on V2 (this is the time to assign the three ‘select’ buttons to a keyboard shortcut AND add the alt key so it doesn’t select filler)
Double click the effect you saved to bin and it will apply to all the selected clips
Now you can see V2 over V1. Hopefully you made the pip big enough that you can now sync.
Sync by moving all the selected clips right by the required amount (there’s a number of ways of doing this but hopefully you were close to begin with and then managed to slide with the nudge left/right shortcuts
If you got this far then edit as per FCP7, otherwise employ a trainer to work through it with you
Now Avid is a complicated beast but is a very powerful editor that takes time to learn well. Yes some of it is long in the tooth and it is less than intuitive. But think yourself lucky they haven’t decided to implement a linear edit system.
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Thank you for your response.
I will go ahead and attempt to replicate what you’ve described … (seems easy enough)
If anyone has any other advice or theoretical understanding for me I’ll greatly appreciate it… such as.. HOW does AVID do things FASTER than FCP7. The name of the game is speed. We try to get shows from capture to delivery in 3 weeks with FCP7. I cant imagine stopping every 2 minutes to re-patch tracks when I can drag and drop in 1.2 seconds with FCP. Where is this ‘speed’ everyone talks about with AVID?
Thanks all.. Not trying to bash AVID.. just trying to fundamentally understand in what sense AVID is faster? Certainly pushing a hotkey to overwrite isn’t any ‘faster’ than doing the same thing in FCP… Certainly needing to apply effects to scale down footage isn’t ‘faster’ than clicking and dragging a clip in the viewer in FCP… nor is patching audio and video back and forth as opposed to simply again, dragging and dropping to the track I want.. hell even CREATING tracks by dragging and dropping rather than having to stop and push apple+u and apple+h or whatever it is… Where does this speed come in?
I’ve spent 10,000 hours on FCP and I’m pretty fast.. with everything. Can I really expect to edit even faster with 10,000 hours on AVID? Seems completely improbable at this point.. at least for THIS type of ENG, Fly-by-wire, Large-scale, small budget, fast turn-around, zero pre-production, 1 editor, type of production. Seems like FCP was made for that style..
Button Pusher since 2006
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[Jason Small] “All I can find on AVID about ‘multicam’ editing requires and arduous, time consuming process involving making edits, 3rd party software (pluraleyes?) and creating AUX TC in order to create multigroup clips that you then have to cut using multicam editing.”
If you multiclipped all this footage in FCP…instead of doing it your way…it would be as complex…if not more so. Yeah, if you do group multiple cameras with multiple starts and stops…the process is very complex. Even I don’t know how to do it, but my AEs do. But you don’t want to do that anyway, you want the same process you have with FCP…so follow the steps Trevor suggested and you’ll be fine. Yes, you add a filter, it’s just one of the differences. But as he said, you save that filter with the settings and apply it to other clips quickly.
[Jason Small] “What was avid made for? time wasters? :p”
Same can be said of FCP 7. It all comes down to what you know. When you know FCP like the back of your hand, you know all the tricks you need to do to get it to do what you want…and you can do them quickly. If you know Avid like the back of your hand, you can do the same. But put an Avid expert on FCP…or FCP expert on Avid…and things slow down due to unfamiliarity. You’ll get there…it takes time, just like it took time to get the hang of FCP.
I’ve done your style on a few shows, because of the start and stop issue. Works fine in Avid just like FCP…just do what Trevor suggests.
Shane
Little Frog Post
Read my blog, Little Frog in High Def -
Thanks for your reply, and yes, I completely understand what you’re saying and agree. I was kinda just hoping there was an easy way to understand the fundamental editing technique behind AVID vs FCP… as if such a thing exists. Looks like I’ll need to get more in depth.
The PIP thing works great.. why it was hidden in ‘Blend’ I’ll never understand but.. ok.. 🙂
Now I’ll try to get full tapes worth of footage on 2 cams to sync. Once I get that down, the cutting part is easy as any editor knows 🙂 I might just hire an AVID editor to come in for a day. I’d rather pay a day rate to learn the things I need than sit through another 30 hours of tutorials for projects that aren’t relatable.
Last quick question.. how do you move about your timeline quickly? In FCP i’d just glide my finger on my magic mouse to scroll left and right in the timeline. In AVID its making me zoom in and out… I guess I could google all this info but if anyone reading wants to hook it up with that tidbit I’d appreciate it as I’m chugging along on the edit..
I really appreciate anyone taking the time to help me along here. Switching systems under a deadline because you HAVE to.. sucks. Big time. I’m sure you can all relate one way or another.. 🙂
Button Pusher since 2006
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Trevor you are brilliant.
What a giant leap you’ve helped me with.. THANK YOU.
Now I noticed 2 things if you could help clarify..
1) [Trevor Asquerthian] “(Nb auto patch is your friend here)” Can you please explain what Nb means? I’m sure I can google auto patch if you dont have time to explain it. Sounds like something I’ll like very much..
and 2) [Trevor Asquerthian] “this is the time to assign the three ‘select’ buttons to a keyboard shortcut AND add the alt key so it doesn’t select filler)” Can you please point me in the direction of more information on this?
If you tell me to go look it up I will but I’m hoping you may have a clearer way of explaining it than some of the videos out there that get very muddled. You did such a great job simplifying the auto-sync / PIP process I would really appreciate if you could clarify those two things.
Thank you so much I really owe you big time. (but I’m kinda broke so anything but money) 🙂
Button Pusher since 2006
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[Jason Small] “how do you move about your timeline quickly? In FCP i’d just glide my finger on my magic mouse to scroll left and right in the timeline. In AVID its making me zoom in and out…”
Hmmmm…because I too slide from the left to the right with the mouse. Now, at home I use the roller ball one…MIGHTY mouse. But at work I have the magic mouse and it goes side to side just fine. I don’t know how I’d manage without being able to do that. Grab that little bar at the bottom and move that way, I guess? *shudder*
If you need to shave off time, I’m not sure going Avid will do that. FCX and Premiere might be faster…in terms of editing. Premiere…no transcoding. FCX…I hear people say it’s just faster at everything when you get used to it. Avid…you’ll get back up to FCP speed, once you get used to it. I’m pretty fast. But really, it’s strong points are multiple editor shared storage connections, world class media management, and tight integration with broadcast and feature film workflows. CURRENT ones.
Shane
Little Frog Post
Read my blog, Little Frog in High Def -
Nb = iphone for n.b. = notte bene in Latin = pay attention, this may be useful
Select icons are in timeline button bar by default – and are a copy of ‘select track forwards’ functionality in FCP7
I do edits where what I edit goes on-air minutes later. I can go closer to the wire in Avid than FCP7. Haven’t had to do that with Adobe or FCPx yet. (Although IPEdit allows me to make an edit 10 seconds before it hits air…)
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https://www.derek-lieu.com/2014/07/08/26-simple-tricks-for-faster-editing-premiere-pro-cc/ – has avid notes too…
autopatch – https://lmgtfy.com/?q=avid+media+composer+autopatch
select – https://lmgtfy.com/?q=avid+mc+select+tracks+right
(do keep asking questions though… but value the work you do. ‘button pusher since 2006’ should qualify for work that pays enough to train for ‘new’ technologies)
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[Jason Small] “I might just hire an AVID editor to come in for a day. I’d rather pay a day rate to learn the things I need than sit through another 30 hours of tutorials for projects that aren’t relatable.”
very sensible… although she won’t be as quick training & working as just working…
[Jason Small] “how do you move about your timeline quickly?”
I’m mostly on PC so use a combination of Ctl + bracket to zoom in and out of timeline and ‘rewind/fast forward’ to jump between edits.
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