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editing with distant producer
Hi guys,
i am new here so I hope this is the right section.
I am based in France and have to work with a producer who is in Singapore and wanted your feedback on our workflow to see if you had ideas to get a quicker turnaround to produce these interviews.
I work on the latest version of FCS on a Mac Pro Octocore.
Here is the current workflow:
Once the filming is done here, I digitize the main tape (usually the interviewee) in Final Cut, then export the rushes in H264 straight from Final Cut Pro using Compressor and its new feature which enables me to automatically upload it to an FTP server (thanks Apple!).The producer in Sg looks at the video, makes a transcript of the bits of the interview he wants to keep and then send me this as a Word document with the transcript of the interview as he wants it to be edited.
I then do the editing using his notes and adding the 2nd camera with the interviewer.
Once this is done, same process again: FCP to Compressor to FTP server.He has another look at the edited video and usually gets back to me for the fine tuning.
I have been already gaining a lot of time thanks to the new feature built in Compressor but was wondering if you would see some room for improvement here except for me to move in Sg 😉
Also, cherry on the cake, he will also be doing interviews in Sg and wants me to do the editing here; what I thought was getting a Network Raid storage here on my LAN (Synology RS407, 4TB capacity), so that he could digitize his rushes in Sg (he also has a FCP station) in DV format (they are usually not so long, 10-15 minutes max), upload them to my Network storage so that I would only have to copy them to my Mac Pro, we would then follow the usual process.
What is your advice?
Final Cut Server does not seem to be the adequate solution in our case? Neither Digital Heaven Movie Logger?Do some of you face the same constraints, i.e. work with distant producers, how do you then handle this process?
I would be curious in sharing experience on this. -
6 Replies
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Julian,
We’ve been working with editors in different time zones for years.
Here’s my suggestion.
Have a duplicate set of media. If your producer already has FCP, there’s no need to compress down to h.264. It would be far easier to clone a firewire drive of the digitized media and have him just boot it up. Then, rather than a word document of “selects” he can just email you a project containing a single timeline of choices. The file size of that small project (sequence only) is small enough to email back and forth. Worst case, you set up an FTP site to send that info back and forth. If you maintain a file structure of naming your drives EXACTLY the same at both ends, your “reconnecting” is literally just one click.
Renders stay local, so you’ll have to redo those, but the time it takes to do that should be minimal… especially if you’re working at a low resolution.
There’s plenty of people who have been doing this for a long time. It works well.
Mark
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I’m working with producers in multiple states here and what we did was install the Media Batch software that works a bit like an FTP site, only easier. It allows me to create a web page for each of our clients with secure login and we work that way.
The neat thing about it is that the viewer is included right in the software so no downloading is necessary and it can display video, graphics and all sorts of files right in the software.
Other than that, the workflow is pretty much the same except that we do all the digitizing / editing here, except for shows that I’m only doing the color grade or animations. We even use this service for in town clients as traffic in Atlanta can be an absolute bear.
Walter Biscardi, Jr.
Biscardi Creative Media
HD and SD Production for Broadcast and Independent Productions.STOP STARING AND START GRADING WITH APPLE COLOR Apple Color Training DVD available now!
Read my Blog!
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I’ll second the recommendation for Media Batch Pro. It’s fantastic. We’ve been using it from its inception. Fantastic tool and keeps getting better. They’re very responsive to feature requests. In your case, you have a very efficient workflow. In your case you might be well served by it’s Flash player with timecode. The producer can then add notes directly on the video playback itself. You can check out that feature at http://www.mediabatch.com. They have some demo movies that show this feature.
Many of my clients are local (Los Angeles) however I almost never see them in the edit room. Traffic and all, it just takes too long. Most of our work is posted to our Media Batch page on our web server and clients view it there. We also have many clients in New York and across the country. It’s become quite normal for this type of review and approval process.You might be surprised at how long it takes to upload 10-15 minutes of DV material. Depending on your clients upload speed it may take 12-14 hours. You may want to try a high bitrate h.264 at 720×480 to see if you can maintain picture quality and reduce file size. See if the trade off size vs. speed is worth it.
Good luck.
Michael Alberts
Ambidextrous Productions, Inc.
http://www.ambidextrous.net -
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Many many thanks, I will certainly try this tool.
Given that the final product is for web, I will make a test encoding in H264 full resolution rather than DV, it may save me 30-50% file size.
Thanks for this.
I am amazed at the quality of answers I get and to see that you guys have such a great network in the US compared to France, we are not anywhere near this.
Best
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[jon smitherton] “https://www.syncvue.com/”
another outstanding product. allows the producer and editor to review a project in realtime.
Walter Biscardi, Jr.
Biscardi Creative Media
HD and SD Production for Broadcast and Independent Productions.STOP STARING AND START GRADING WITH APPLE COLOR Apple Color Training DVD available now!
Read my Blog!
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