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super16 to HD offline edit workflow: please help!!!
Dear editors!
I’m editing a short that was shot super 16 and includes old footage from super 8. All that was telecined to HD master and down converted to SD Apple pro res. They are pretty much giving me a G-Raid that has Apple Pro res in 24p to do my edit and the flex file. The plan was to then conform the edit to HD at the lab and do tape to tape color correction. I have several questions about this workflow: do I need to pull down the video from 24p to 23.98p to work with it in final cut? how does the whole batch capture between Cinema Tools and FCP work when the footage is already captured to a hard drive? do I export the batch capture list from CT to FCP and then just import the video files from the harddrive into my project? and the most scary question is: how do I avoid EDL confusion when I have mixed frame rates in the timeline? Should I try to conform the frame rates from super 8 (which is 18p) to 24p? I don’t know what to do, so confused, please, help! -
7 Replies
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[Irina Abraham] ” do I need to pull down the video from 24p to 23.98p to work with it in final cut?”
Well, what is the master timecode on the HD masters? 23.98 or 29.97? I assume 23.98 as 16mm shoots 24fps, but I make a practice never to assume. 24p can be 23.98, it can be 29.97…confusing? Yes. What format is the HD master? DVCPRO HD? D5? HDCAM? is it 23.98psf? If so, your SD file should be as well.
[Irina Abraham] “how does the whole batch capture between Cinema Tools and FCP work when the footage is already captured to a hard drive?”
You don’t. That is only there for when your footage is telecined to tape and you need to capture it. Your footage is captured, therefor you don’t need to batch capture anything.
[Irina Abraham] “and the most scary question is: how do I avoid EDL confusion when I have mixed frame rates in the timeline?”
Why do you have mixed frame rates on the timeline? You should NEVER mix frame rates. Convert everything to one frame rate and work from there.
[Irina Abraham] ” Should I try to conform the frame rates from super 8 (which is 18p) to 24p?”
Oho… Well, what was the Super 8 telecined to? And what was that frame rate? Are you intending on cutting film when this is done? How were you planning on mixing the Super8 with 16mm? If you were, you should have the super8 transferred to 16mm, THEN telecined to tape, so that you have matching frame rates and types. You can’t untercut Super8mm film and 16mm film obviously, you have to conform to one standard, then work from there.
Shane
GETTING ORGANIZED WITH FINAL CUT PRO DVD…don’t miss it.
Read my blog, Little Frog in High Def -
You really need to speak to the lab about some of these questions.
[Irina Abraham] “do I need to pull down the video from 24p to 23.98p to work with it in final cut?”
The lab transfered the film for you, they can tell you what frame rate & codec they’ve transfered it to on the drive they’re giving you.
[Irina Abraham] “Should I try to conform the frame rates from super 8 (which is 18p) to 24p?”
If they’re doing the HD conform and the DI, then they will most likely be the one’s to conform the 18fps 8mm to 24fps. Check with them about this. They may have a specific way of doing it on their telecine or with a Smoke or Flame or an IQ.
Arnie
Post production is not an afterthought!
https://www.arniepix.com/ -
may I suggest saving yourself a world of grief ?
get the transfered HD footage and edit that directly. there is NO good reason to edit the SD ProRes clips. the very first thing is, do the SD clips have TC that matches the HD ones ? if you can’t say yes for sure, and don’t assume they do without actually checking, anything you do will be a huge headache to reconform by hand. it will take MANY hours, and the other guys will rack up a huge bill doing this.
going back to my first comment, if you do the HD edit, you can either
1. do the color correction yourself in FCP / Color / Whatever
2. export the HD edit to a selfcontained QT HD clip for CC somewhere else
3. do a media managae and export the project to a hard drive, and also save out a XML and EDL of the timeline.smoke can read a FCP XML file, will relink to the media, and they can mess around with it from there for final output.
by adding the SD down conversion into the mix, you’ve added an entire layer of mess, and I’ll add some more.
is your 24P footage really 24P – 24.000, 23.976 or 29.97 with 3:2 pull down ?
and does its TC match back to the HD material ?as for mixing frame rates, I do it every day without worry. its not a big deal **IF** your TL is the final output, or directly used ( QT export ) for final export. if you have some sort of reconform back on another system, I’d try to get into a common TC format. thats probably 30FPS NDF as the safest one.
as for mixing Super8, again, what FPS ?
and are all the reel names straight ?
you need to do a very good tech inspection of TC and reel names before you do anything else.
and what about sound ? has that been synced yet ? and at 24.000 or 23.976 ? has pull up / down been handled ?
Steve Oakley
DP • Editor • VFX Artist
http://www.practicali.com -
wow, thanks for all the info.
well, you see i didn’t know i could edit directly from HD, my comp is mac book pro and apple told me it couldn’t handle HD files. I was asking them for 10bit uncompressed QT on a harddrive to begin with. but they told me since my mac can’t process HD i should get downconversions and then go back to them to conform to HD. the HD master is 23.98 with pull down. what confused me in their SD files is that in CT some show as 30NDF some as 24p. that seems weird. the sound was on dat tapes at 30fps, not synced yet. i’ll have to pull it down. they gave me the flex files, so, supposingly everything should macth to the HD masters, that was their plan at least the super 8 is also 23.98 with pull down on the HD masters. do you really think it’s gonna be a mess if i edit the SD and make an EDL from it for the lab? -
thank you, Shane!
yes, all footage on HD master is 23.98fps. however, in my flex files it shows that some SD files are at 30NDF and some are 24p. is it some kind of mistake that the lab made? -
[Irina Abraham] ” my comp is mac book pro and apple told me it couldn’t handle HD files. “
APPLE said this? Or some incompetent employee of Apple? The MacBook Pro can handle all sorts of HD editing…the big thing is how fast of drives can you connect to the machine? The MBP can handle HDV, DVCPRO HD and ProRes off of firewire 800 drives…eSATA is better. YOu can go Uncompressed, but you need a FAST miniSAS raid for that, and the only RAIDs I know that connect to a MBP that handle uncompressed are the CalDigit HDPro and HDOne…but they can only handle one stream of uncompressed HD. Uncompressed HD is pretty much the domain of the towers. But ProRes, perfectly fine on a MacBook Pro.
[Irina Abraham] “I was asking them for 10bit uncompressed QT on a harddrive to begin with. but they told me since my mac can’t process HD”
Poppycock. That wasn’t the reason. 10-bit uncompressed on a Laptop is difficult due to the raid speeds required to play it back. The best you can get on the laptop is 200MB/s…that is the limitation of Express34. That was the reason. But there is the great alternative to UC and that is ProRes. All the quality (well, like 95%) of uncompressed HD but with 1/4 the data rate.
[Irina Abraham] “i should get downconversions and then go back to them to conform to HD.”
Typical old OLD world thinking. Done by people with Avid backgrounds who can’t grasp working at full res. But yes, you CAN do this…and it is acceptable to do so, but you have to plan right. Your SD footage needs to be able to match the frame rate of the HD master, so you need to be able to remove the pulldown from the 29.97 master to get 23.98. Or you can conform the EDL afterwards, but that is risky and more complex than doing things right from the get go.
[Irina Abraham] “. what confused me in their SD files is that in CT some show as 30NDF some as 24p. that seems weird.”
Some are 29.97 and some are 23.98?
[Irina Abraham] “he sound was on dat tapes at 30fps, not synced yet. i’ll have to pull it down”
What? Why? If you shot on FILM at 24fps, you should be recording audio to match that at 24fps…what’s going on there? And can you even “pull down” audio? THere is no frame rate for audio, but there are frame settings so that it will match either the 24fps footage or 30fps footage you are shooting. But since audio doesn’t have FRAMES there is no pulldown to remove. But audio is not my strong suit, so I can’t offer much here.
[Irina Abraham] “do you really think it’s gonna be a mess if i edit the SD and make an EDL from it for the lab?”
Not if things were done right…but they don’t sound like they were. Or you are inexperienced with this and cannot explain it properly (I hate to assume this, but I cannot tell via a web post…so sorry if I am wrong). Some footage is 24p (which can either be 23.98 or 29.97, so saying 24p doesn’t help) and some is 30NDF…why would that be? And audio at 30fps? A lot here makes no sense.
Shane
GETTING ORGANIZED WITH FINAL CUT PRO DVD…don’t miss it.
Read my blog, Little Frog in High Def -
Shane, first of all you are right, I AM inexperienced, unfortunately. But the thing is that everything on that project was poorly planned: they shot super16 without even thinking of what they wanted to do with it later. and then they threw me on it, not explaing anything about their plans for it. So i had to really second guess. here is a better explanation: the master is HD, 23.98. The downconversion is apple prores 422, 29.97. i pulled it down to 23.98.
what confused me is that the info in CT when i just imported the flex files, showed 30NDF for some files and 24p for others (in detail view window). In FCP however in item properties they were all 29.97. i don’t know why, maybe i’m just not reading something right. i’m not sure what’s going on with the sound, but that’s what they told me: 30fps. you can pull it down though, it’s possible. what i did for now, I imported the flex file into CT, connected them to apple prores clips, pulled them down to 23.98fps. I created a project in FCP with apple prores in easy set up. i’m just trying to figure it out as i go. you have to start somewhere, right? i’m not sure yet how to connect the dat recorder to my comp… but in the post production manual i’m using, it says that it’s fine to have video at 23.98 and audio at 29.97. not sure why, but that’s what it says. what do you think?
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