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DSLR Organizational Headache
To set this up, I am not new to FCP, I’ve set up projects for numerous broadcast documentaries. Right now I’m working on a short documentary, shot entirely on the 5D at 29.97 with separate system sound. This is new territory and I want to make sure I’m that my approach makes sense.
The synching is all very straight forward and I’m not worried about that. What I’m worried about is the way I’m organizing my project. We are shooting upwards of 15 interviews for this project, which run about an hour each. Each interview is being shot with two cameras and I’ve been able to synch them with the separate sound easily. However, my problem lies in the fact that I need transcriptions and have no timecode from the cameras.
What I’ve done is create a few sequences for each interview (between 1 and 5) depending on how many times the sound man started and stopped the Audio. I’m treating each sequence as a “tape” in that I’ve named them using a convention like DB001A, DB001B, DB002A etc.. The timecode hour of each one matches the “tape” number. I’m exporting the sequences as quicktime reference movies and will use them in the edit project as the original media.
For transcription purposes I’m encoding these quicktimes with BITC and sending them to the transcriber. This way the transcription timecode matches the “tape” timecode, even though each of these quicktimes actually contains a stringout of several 5D clips. This creates a ton of new reference movies as I have an A and B angle of each interview.
Does this make sense? Am I creating a headache by using reference movies? My original files are not moving and I’m setup on a raid so I have redundancy if a drive goes down. Tapeless workflows make me really nervous so any help calming my nerves would be great.
Jeremy
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5 Replies
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[Jeremy Belzer-Adams] ” I’m exporting the sequences as quicktime reference movies and will use them in the edit project as the original media.”
Huge mistake!!! Reference Movies can and do go completely “bye bye” if anything changes in the underlying sequence, including a simple link to even a single render file contained therein. Since that happens all the time in FCP, you’re setting yourself up for failure. Always, always resist the temptation to save space and make self contained files.
David Roth Weiss
Director/Editor/Colorist
David Weiss Productions, Inc.
Los AngelesPOST-PRODUCTION WITHOUT THE USUAL INSANITY ™
EPK Colorist – UP IN THE AIR – nominated for six academy awards
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You’re absolutely right. I will make self-contained movies. I was trying to save time up front, but only headaches will come from it. Thanks, David.
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Did you use a slate in your production? This can help you in synching and also by labeling your slate, you can save some confusion later if you ever need to go back a year or more down the road.
As far as being nervous, just be redundant in archiving your files and organize them in some written label. I always get two hard drives and save duplicates of my master DSLR folder. Just drag the folders onto the drive and duplicate that to the other drive when you get finished organizing and labeling.
Once you do your File and Transfer you will have another LARGER file in Pro-Res. If you have the space, it’s also good to back the Pro-Res file up in case you have to go back and re-link your files. If not, there are ways to re-link from your DSLR folder, but that’s another forum issue.
Brent Dunn
Owner / Director / Editor
DunnRight Video.com -
yeah, using the Canon EOS plugin and logging and transferring, THAT will get you timecode. It brings in the TIME OF DAY code from the files. THAT is huge, and will help with transcriptions.
Shane
GETTING ORGANIZED WITH FINAL CUT PRO DVD…don’t miss it.
Read my blog, Little Frog in High Def -
We did slate with a smart slate and the synching has been super simple. I’ve found the EOS log and transfer plugin to be really slow and somewhat un-reliable. It has improperly named files and sometimes even trims files when there is no in/out point even after I’ve trashed preferences.
The time of day timecode that it gives me isnt that helpful either because I cant jam sync the two cameras and I still need to create auxiliary timecode.
My workflow has been to convert to ProRes with mpeg streamclip (with three edit bays this is easily batched over night). Then I’ve synched both angles on the same timeline and exported each as its own new quicktime file.
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