FCP 7 Workflow for DSLR and Z1U

[David Roth weiss]

Capture the Z1 footage as Pro Res on the fly via FireWire. (See Chris Poisson’s Cow tutorial on the subject.) And, transcode the video from the Lumix to Pro Res as well (done in Log & Transfer). Then edit away in a Pro Res sequence.

David Roth Weiss
Director/Editor/Colorist
David Weiss Productions, Inc.
Los Angeles

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[Steve Cornell]

Hi David,
That works! What’s I’m still confused about is the various frame rates of the footage I’m working with.

In my FCP project, I have the following assortment of footage

1920 x 1080 29.9fps ProRes422 GH1
1280 x 720 59.94fps ProRes422 GH1
1440 x 1080 29.9fps ProRes422 Z1U

What should my sequence be set to for framerate and dimensions if I’m working with clips from all 3 ? I want the image quality as high as possible.

What I’ve tried already:
Cinema Tools ‘conform’ to change the framerate from 59.9 to 29.9 and the result was slow motion and not what I intended.

[David Roth weiss]

Both 1080i formats should work just fine in a ProRes 1920×1080 timeline.

The 720 material at 59.94 is essentially just progressive video at 29.97, so it should not require pull-up or pull-down and should also play just fine in the 29.97 timeline, but you’ll need to scale it up to 1080. There are better ways of scaling it up, such as up-converting via a Kona 3, or via Compressor, but you may be surprised that FCP does the job well enough.

David Roth Weiss
Director/Editor/Colorist
David Weiss Productions, Inc.
Los Angeles

POST-PRODUCTION WITHOUT THE USUAL INSANITY ™

EPK Colorist – UP IN THE AIR – nominated for six academy awards

A forum host of Creative COW’s Apple Final Cut Pro, Business & Marketing, Indie Film & Documentary, and Film History & Appreciations forums.

[Steve Cornell]

Workflow for GH1 Lumix 720 60fps and Sony Z1U 1080 29.9

(1) In FCP, I set the sequence to prores422 1920×1080 29.9
(2)Log & transfer of my GH1 footage shots at 720 60p
(3) Dropped footage into the sequence created at step 1
(4) The sequence changed its settings to match the clip – 1280×720 59.9(oops, don’t want this)
(5) I went back to my sequence settings and changed it back to 1920×1080 29.9,

I had to manually stretch out the clip to fit 1920×1080. Is there a way to automatically resize all the 720 footage in one go ?