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Annoying Cameraman!!!
I’m working on a doco at the moment with a director & cameraman who have the great ‘fix it in post’ attitude. They keep forgetting to hit the TC return button on new takes and aren’t too concerned because someone told them once it’s not a problem and the post guys can get around it. It’s a major pain in the butt when you have over 100 tapes [dig’d at offline quality] and you have to put each set of clips [created by the TC breaks] into a sequence to view the whole tape, and then match frame to start to cut.
So I just wanted to check if this is what everyone does with tapes with many breaks or if there is another magic solution that will back these guy’s lazy attitude to post.
Thanks
Danny
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19 Replies
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[dan811] “So I just wanted to check if this is what everyone does with tapes with many breaks or if there is another magic solution that will back these guy’s lazy attitude to post.”
Professionals don’t do this at all. TC is continuous on all tapes and with your situation, offline first then online, it will be a nightmare to online the project because I’m assuming you don’t have enough pre-roll at each TC break.
I’ve only encountered this a few times, thankfully, and my only solution to this is to bring all the footage in at online quality so there’s no need to back and attempt to re-capture.
Also, charge by the hour, not the project when a situation like this arises. Cameraman is being incredibly lazy or doesn’t understand how their camera works and doesn’t care. Either way, it’s definitely not the norm.
Walter Biscardi, Jr.
https://www.biscardicreative.com“I reject your reality and substitute my own!” – Adam Savage, Mythbusters
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Well, it takes a long time to do, but it WILL “fix” the problem.
The recommended way to “save” these broken TC tapes is to FireWire dub from the original to a new tape. Under most conditions this will result in continuous TC on the dub (if you’re using a “pro” deck, make sure it it set for INTERNAL TC.) Most camcorders ignore the TC on the original tape anyway and always generate their own. You would then only capture the newly dubbed tape.
As I said, this will take a long time, but if you are off-lining, it CAN SAVE YOUR EDIT when you need to up-rez later.
I’d set this up with two stand-alone DV “dubbing” units (camcorders or decks) SEPARATE from your “capture” DV unit. That way, you can continue to work while you just keep dubbing all the time with the other two units.
BTW, the “other” DV dubbers could be “home video” camcorders. There is no “quaility difference” in the FW and dubbing sections of these and pro gear.
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[Matte] “I’d set this up with two stand-alone DV “dubbing” units (camcorders or decks) SEPARATE from your “capture” DV unit. That way, you can continue to work while you just keep dubbing all the time with the other two units.”
And still continue to charge by the hour. 🙂
Matte’s suggestion is the only realistic option other than just capturing everything online from the beginning.
Walter Biscardi, Jr.
https://www.biscardicreative.com“I reject your reality and substitute my own!” – Adam Savage, Mythbusters
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Hi Guys
Thanks for the tips.
I’m a little more worried now however as I thought this won’t be a major hassle when I online unless I have cuts within pre roll points. I’m am right aren’t I? My background is AVID & Media 100 and this is the way they worked with TC breaks.Danny
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[dan811] “I’m a little more worried now however as I thought this won’t be a major hassle when I online unless I have cuts within pre roll points.”
As long as you have proper pre-roll you should be ok. I’ve found that camera operators who don’t keep TC continuous also have a bad habit of not allowing for pre-roll either.
Also, if you have some very short scenes, like 15 seconds or less, FCP may shoot right past the TC depending on how fast the machine is shuttling. So you may have some instances we’re you’ll have to manually rack the deck to get into the correct TC window, and then let FCP re-capture the material.
Walter Biscardi, Jr.
https://www.biscardicreative.com“I reject your reality and substitute my own!” – Adam Savage, Mythbusters
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It can be a lot more serious than that.
Every time the TC starts over, the deck/FCP may “think” it is at the head of the tape…
every single time.And its likely that YOU won’t know either after so many tapes.
In a large project with many tapes you are much safer to “DUB to another tape” for continous TC.
Even if you ON-LINE high res NOW, if you need to make any changes in the future… it may be nearly impossible to locate WHICH “00:43:02:00” you are looking for on a tape with THREE or FOUR of that same TC.
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I think you should request the presence of the cinematographer while you do this, so he can see just how “easy” it is to deal with his decision in post.
He may sing a different tune after he sees how many freakin’ hoops you have to go through because he decided to not push a button.
debe
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[dan811] ” They keep forgetting to hit the TC return button on new takes”
Danny,
As a camera operator I’m certainly finding this an interesting thread, but I’m having a bit of trouble understanding what you mean. By wanting them to “hit the TC return button on new takes” are you saying you expect timecode to be reset for every take? I’ve never heard of such a workflow. That would indeed result in tapes with lots and lots of duplicate timecode.
As Walter mentioned, continuous timecode (record run mode) is the norm for single camera shooting. Jam synced free run timecode the norm for mult-camera shooting, with care to give enough pre-roll. For multi tape single camera jobs we try and reset each tape with a new hour start (01:xx for tape 1, 02:xx for tape 2 etc.) but in the heat of shooting that doesn’t always happen.
So I guess I must be missing something regarding your problem. I’d be interested to know what that is.
Regards,
David -
Talk to the cameraman. Ask him,
“Remember the last time we worked together?”
“Yes?”
“This is it”You’re FIRED.
There are too many great camera guys out there to put up with wannabes like this guy.
Go get a proper DP and all will be well.Just ’cause you own a camera doesn’t make you a DP. It takes talent and experience.
Kevin Monahan
Take My FCP Master’s Workshop!
fcpworld.com
Pres. SF Cutters -
Talk to the cameraman. Ask him,
“Remember the last time we worked together?”
“Yes?”
“This is it”You’re FIRED.
There are too many great camera guys out there to put up with wannabes like this guy.
Go get a proper DP and all will be well.Just ’cause you own a camera doesn’t make you a DP. It takes talent and experience.
Kevin Monahan
Take My FCP Master’s Workshop!
fcpworld.com
Pres. SF Cutters
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