FCP workflow basics; labelling/organising selected shots

[Bob Flood]

Erin

Hi. I have seen a number of different workflows and all have good and bad sides. Here is what i do. This will be based on my situation, and your may be different.

1. Capture from tc break to tc break with simple logging. This will allow you to recap later, if need be, but still lets you do all your jog and shuttle in FCP, which is lot better than the HDV deck i use. If you have a more professional VTR, like a Beta SP or a DVCAM deck, then you can do logging off tape, as its easier to shuttle those decks around.

2. I use the timeline to divide up my clips, backload each clip to the source viewer, then subclip. the subclip will always show up in the same bin as the master clip, but i then edit the various text fields/columns for easier searching later.

3. once its all broken down, what i call ‘binning” I then sort by a certain column, select it all, and move it to a bin for the same name.
ie all shots I have marked as Scene: Front Desk, i can sort the scene column and there they are. BTW if you hold shift after you click on a column to sort it, you can then sort by a second column, to further refine your sort.

4. Sometime soon after i am finished capturing, i copy ALL the footage to a second drive, like a My Book, and that becomes my backup.

This method is pretty viable for all the stuff i do, spots, docs, promos, etc.
In case a clip gets corrupted, i dont lose a whole tapes worth of shots.
The time code breaks are clean so i can recapture if needed.
I use the timeline as its faster to subclip than just doing it in the viewer.

hope this helps

“I like video because its so fast!”

Bob Flood
Greer & Associates, Inc.

[Michael Weitzel]

Thanks Walter, I hear you! Just to clarify though I seem to remember that I had an issue when I moved the original media clip, but I seem to remember that when I reconnected it to the new location that the sub-clips were still ‘in order’. Are you saying that is not the case? For sure when the source material is corrupted this would be, well… a problem. =) -Mike.

[Andy Mees]

[david bogie] “there are good and bad practices in this business … You don’t even need to know why …”

Ahhh, the old bogiesan we know and love, arrogant and old school 🙂

[Walter Biscardi]

[Michael Weitzel] ” Are you saying that is not the case? For sure when the source material is corrupted this would be, well… a problem. =) -Mike.”

Sometimes this works and sometimes it doesn’t.

I never recommend capturing entire reels as it’s a waste of time and an incredibly inefficient way of editing. Also, if you have “On Timecode Break” set to “Warn After Capture” you’ll never have the correct TC for the entire reel. This will hamper any attempt to recapture just a segment of the original tape in the future.

I could go on but there are literally dozens of reasons why this style of editing is a very inefficient manner of working. It seems easy to just load entire reels, but logging prior to ingest makes editing easier later.

I’ll give you one example. We did an independent film two years ago. I logged all the keeper takes and ingested only those takes. They were logged with the proper shot numbers so in my Bin they were essentially laid out in order from shot 1 to shot 125. This took approx. 4 hours.

I selected All my shots in the Bin and dragged them at once into the Sequence. Presto, an entire slap cut done in one move. Took me 10 minutes to go through and trim the clips down to get rid of the head / tails and we were watching the rough cut of the project.

Now how long would this take if I loaded all the 12 reels (6 hours of material) into the machine and THEN pulled the selects and edited them into a timeline? Longer than 4 hours and 10 minutes.

Walter Biscardi, Jr.
Biscardi Creative Media
HD and SD Production for Broadcast and Independent Productions.

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[Andy Mees]

Darn good going Walter!

Now imagine if you will a scenario where you are in a facility of a size where overnight staff are readily available to ingest all 6 hours of the material before you even come into work in the morning. You begin your day by logging and assembling your selects from the already ingested reels … tape transport loading, unloading and cueing times to a large respect eliminated. I’d wager you’d have arrived at that selects cut even faster than your admirable 4 hour 10 minute record, and you have access to those all too familiar missed shots that somehow got away during the first pass, or that you never guessed that you might need.

My point is only that best practices vary from project to project and from workplace to workplace … there is no definitive right and wrong.

Just saying, is all. Am still impressed by that 4hr 10 minute record.
Best
Andy

[Nicholas Bierzonski]

I am just curious. Are you billing the client for the 12 hours of capture? If you aren’t how do you justify the time your editing system is occupied?

-Nicholas Bierzonski
Senior Editor/DVD Author/Java Boy
http://www.finalfocusvideo.com

[Elijah Lynn]

Just wanted to say that this was a great discussion and I learned a few things from it!