Handling Changes In Online

[Mark Raudonis]

Dylan,

I feel your pain. It seems that we have entered into an era where no one is willing to lock ANYTHING until the last possible moment. Usually this is a result of overly ambitious schedules created by squeezed budgets. Doesn’t really matter why, the impact is the same… you’re breaking open previously locked sequences.

Here’s where you get schooled. As I recall from your initial posts, when you said your workflow was to start out in AVID and finish in FCP, people asked, “Why do you want to do that?” Of course it’s possible, and you’ve figured out how. But here’s the catch. Once you break that “platform” barrier, there’s no going back. You’ve left all of your off-line media behind, yet now you’re going to need it to make these “minor” changes. I can think of a few ways to accomplish “reaching back” for new material, but they all are painfully complex and create more problems than they solve.

While I’m sympathetic to your plight of not having a “firm lock” (we face it every week), I think you’ve created an even more difficult problem by agreeing to a cross platform finish.
I think most of the veteran hands on this list would agree that it simply is NOT A GOOD IDEA. Notice I didn’t say it couldn’t be done. I just think it’s an inefficient workflow.

So, either tell your producers to make up their mind and lock the darn thing, or face more pain and suffering than you rightly deserve. And… next time, don’t even consider this as a viable workflow. I think now you know why.

Mark

[Dylan Reeve]

I certainly understand the hell I’ve created for myself here, but to my mind this should be really simple and fundamental.

I only last week realised that I couldn’t relink based on Timecode and Reel to existing media. To my mind that’s almost a showstopper. I can’t believe it.

In this case we’re dealing with a show that is locked off, but the network reserves the right to make changes still. And we expect they might.

Sadly I can’t avoid this workflow in the future really – Avid is still the predominant NLE in this country (and will be the originating suite for almost every job we online). In most cases it won’t be a problem. But this will come up again.

I can relink against existing media in every other NLE I’ve used (and even used to have an app for determining differences in EDL for Linear online – wish I still had that, it might help).

[Misha Aranyshev]

Capture the original EDL with plenty of handles. When the revised master comes to you move you online one track up (Command-A, Option-Up Arrow), drop the revised master on the now empty V1, set you sequence to the Filmstrip View, zoom all the way in. Turn Autoselect off on V1, hit Home, hit V, step through every cut. When you come to the cut that doesn’t match the revised master trim it (U toggles roll/ripple, square brackets trim the cut). In case you don’t have enough media in a clip recapture it with longer handles.

[Misha Aranyshev]

Yeah, and since the clip on V1 is continuous you have to lock V1 for ripple on other tracks to work

[Dylan Reeve]

Thanks Michael,

I’ll try something like that when I get to it.

In this case I will be able to get the offline editor to make some notes about where changes occur. So I should be able to narrow my search down somewhat.

I can’t help wondering if this is a process you could somewhat automate by processing the XML files from FCP. I may look into that too.

[Misha Aranyshev]

You might want to take a look at Traffic and EDL Mirror. Not exactly what you’re looking for but useful tools for a FCP online editor nevertheless.