image sequence nightmare

[Michael Gissing]

Pre import the stills before loading the xml. Stills can be loaded either as an image sequence or as individual frames. On the Media page you can select which option by clicking on the three dots (top right) of the file source viewer.

I try to avoid the problem by asking editors not to use numbers on stills. If necessary rename them to get rid of numbers before editing. It is only the files with numerals in the name that are treated as image sequences by default. For people using image sequences the default behaviour is very important so it makes sense that loading stills as individuals should not be the default. But it does require pre planning or some management to import that way.

[Marc Wielage]

I agree with Michael above, but I also generally ask clients to give us the stills as ProRes 444 files in the delivery resolution with the positional changes baked-in. That way, there’s going to be no question it’s going to work.

If there’s any push-back, I remind them that if they were moving the session to any other edit platform (like Premiere or Avid or FCPX or whatever), there would still be a lot of workflow issues with large numbers of still frames. If it’s just a handful of stills — say, a few dozen — we can do it that way. But anything more than that, I’d rather they render them out and let us only have to worry about color.

[Enginn Heima]

Thank you both of you for your inputs!

[Michael Gissing]

[Marc Wielage] “…I also generally ask clients to give us the stills as ProRes 444 files..”

I’ve used this approach before. Working on docos, I very often get the director asking to change speed or target on these shots so I also ask for the original still on a lower layer with their keyframes just in case.