-
first really commercial/corporate job with FCPX
I don’t do a lot of corporate work. In fact this was my first time. The gig was to basically go to a fancy party thrown by a lux swiss watch company, shoot some red carpet interviews, a lot of atmosphere and scene. Then edit together a cool sizzle real feeling recap video, incorporating some pre-existing high-impact footage, whole thing set to music.
I had a cameraman, 3 cameras, sound person and an editor. So we had BlackMagic footage at 24fps, 5D footage at 60fps, both 16:9, and then the preexisting footage at 25fps and 2.35:1.
The editor offered to try using FCPX but I figured let him use the NLE he preferred. We finished shooting at 11pm. He had rough cut to me by 3am. Looked great. Gave him notes. Woke up again at 6am, more notes. Had a low res export to the client by 830am.
All fine.
However I noticed some wonky interlaced looking stuff going on and some stretched aspect ratios etc.
Total nightmare. Getting all the frame rates and aspects to work in the old system was near on impossible.
-
63 Replies
-
So you didn’t use FCP X? The post title seems a bit off.
-
Wish I had.
I guess my point was that every single thing that tripped us up were things that are no-brainers in FCPX. And being used to FCPX at this point I didnt anticipate a single one of them.
-
Why did you shoot two frame rates? But even so there shouldn’t have been interlaced weirdness or aspect issues. Sounds like the editor might not have been familiar with his app of choice either.
-
It seems like the problem was not the NLE but pre production planning that failed to set a common frame rate and aspect ratio with the cameras available.
Needing an NLE to fix basic pre problems seems like a strange “fix it in post” attitude that just give editors and post people the shits. But hey I’m a realist and have to deal with these issue on a daily basis long after the camera crew has moved on so I am glad NLEs in the past few years like X & Pr are better able to deal with this sort of unfortunately increasingly common problem.
-
[Jacob Brown] “However I noticed some wonky interlaced looking stuff going on and some stretched aspect ratios etc.”
Don’t know if FCPX would have been any better.
-
[Jacob Brown] “Total nightmare. Getting all the frame rates and aspects to work in the old system was near on impossible.”
There’s no reason getting that footage to mix properly should’ve been difficult on any ‘pro’ NLE. Even FCP 7, which hasn’t been updated in 5 years, should handle it okay.
-
So which NLE did he use?
-
[Bobby Mosca] “So which NLE did he use?”
Sounds like the nightmare was FCP7. Confusing subject title.
Scott Witthaus
Senior Editor/Post Production Supervisor
1708 Inc./Editorial
Professor, VCU Brandcenter -
[Gary Huff] “Don’t know if FCPX would have been any better.”
Why do you believe that?
————————————————————-
~ My FCPX Babbling blog ~
~”It is a poor craftsman who blames his tools.”~
~”The function you just attempted is not yet implemented”~ -
In 7 your only option would be to conform the 25 to 24 in cinema tools, and then edit it all in a 720p60 sequence. A perfectly viable option.
X would handle the frame rates better. It could add correct pulldown so you could mix the rates in a interlaced 1080 sequence, and you could also conform the 25 to 24 in the app directly without cinema tools.
Either app should handle the aspects just fine.
Reply to this Discussion! Login or Sign Up