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P2, Batch List Importing
We are looking for suggestions on how to use the “Import Batch List” feature with P2 footage.
Prior to transitioning to P2, we would make analog “Window Dubs” of our tapes with timecode, and have our clients use these dubs to create Batch Lists in Excel that could easily be converted to text files and then imported into FCP to aid in efficient digitizing.
We are trying to recreate this workflow with P2 content.
As all of our raw footage is already in FCP rather than on tape, we put it all in a large sequence and use the FCP Timecode Reader Filter to generate the “Window Dub” with the source material timecode and burn to DVD for our clients to review and create the Batch List in Excel as usual. That part works fine. However, problems arise in trying to get the client generated edits to translate as “In” and “Out” points that would ideally become Sub Clips to the existing P2 footage in FCP that already have “Media Start” and “Media End” points. It seems that the Import Batch List process is looking for only Media Start/End points and gets confused when trying to reference existing media. The results are predictably unusable.
Any ideas, suggestions, or possible workarounds would be greatly appreciated.
Thanks.
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3 Replies
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You want to Batch Import clips that have already been imported? Trying to, with the click of a couple buttons, have FCP do the rough cut for you? Well, that might work with footage from tape that you haven’t captured yet…although why you wouldn’t capture the full tapes is beyond me. As an editor I want everything…but this won’t work with P2. FCP imports full clips, unless you manually mark IN and OUT points.
I’m afraid that you’ll have to manually create the cut that the client has done…because importing footage is very different than capturing footage.
Shane
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Thank you for confirming what we had also come to conclude.
Historically we have used this process to work with clients and subject matter experts to help distill the best content from long form interviews in our documentary work. It has previously made sense to only ingest the good interview material from tape and then begin editing from there. Though with our current P2 workflow all of the interview content is already in FCP or ideally on some hard drive somewhere.
We were hoping to somewhat recreate this Widow Dub -> Client Review -> FCP process in the P2 environment, and to some extent we have been able to. We can produce accurate Window Dubs of interview material in FCP for our clients to review and make notes, which is a useful first step. However, as you’ve suggested, their notes (IN/OUT points, plus Comments) do apparently need to be manually transfered into FCP to create Sub Clips to begin the editing. We had hoped to avoid this manual step, but it does not seem possible at this point. Overall though, we think this process will still be useful in providing our non-technical clients a method of reviewing interview material using tools they are familiar with, a DVD player and spreadsheet, to generate notes that we can then work from.
While a bit of a round-peg-square-hole scenario it seems, overall we think this will still be a good strategy to begin working with our long form interview content.
Again, thanks for the additional opinions, and any other ideas or suggestions would be most welcome.
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Hello Guy,
Did you ever by chance figure out any work-arounds for this manual process? We have a similar workflow with extensive interview materials which our clients and content experts mark up in an Excel document based on a window dub. We are using Firestore FS-5 units so our footage is already QT clips. We were also hoping to do the same as you are suggesting by importing a batch list from our clients which would reference the larger original clip and create subclips. Probably wishful thinking, but I wanted to check if you had figured out any other solution.
Thanks!
Wendy Kohn, Kwamba Productions
http://www.kwamba.com
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