More thoughts on keyword strategies…

[Bill Davis]

X should make this remarkably easy.

First, make sure to feed the field audio to the XDCAM recorder as well as the 744. (this will make things much easier in post since you won’t have to make Sync clips up front)

Import the 20 “interviews” into FCP-X.

Depending on your system speed – you might let it crunch overnight to make Proxys since you’re initial goal is just client review exports and Proxy’s will make any large timeline more responsive.

Review each interview and RANGE select and TAG the 20 interview captures by question with simple tags such as “Q01” thru “Q20” (DO NOT use Favorite – as it’s unimportant at this stage – use a custom tag to separate the questions into their own buckets).

When you click on any tag (Q06 for example) X will display JUST all the answers to that question across all interviews.

Create 20 projects. Group select and drag all the responses to Question 1, Question 2, etc into their own projects. Timecode and export them for client review.

When the client picks their selects, add a tag to the select to separate it into new bucket (FINALS)

Build your FINAL PROJECT from that sort and replace the audio in that timeline with the files from the 744t.

Done.

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[Michael Sanders]

Thanks for that Bill – by tag do you mean keyword?

I probably dont need to bother with video proxies or indeed syncing the audio off the744, as we’re record full audio to both the PDW800’s and that will be fine. But all else makes perfect sense.

Thanks again!

Michael Sanders
London Based DP/Editor

[Bill Davis]

[Michael Sanders] “Thanks for that Bill – by tag do you mean keyword?”

Yes.

One thing I’ve learned is that while X has truly deep capabilities in sort/search via keywords – one successful strategy is to keep things as simple as you can. Sit down before any project and try to figure out how LITTLE you can get away with in terms of applying keywords – not how much.

Use them to satisfy actual needs, rather than dreaming up wants.

Tho I acknowledge that it’s hard to figure that out until you get to know how they do and don’t work.

I see people use “Favorite” and (less so) “Reject” all the time like that’s where you always must start. But I see those as simple “first order” buckets that usually pretty poorly targeted. Building a more sensible custom simple taxonomy is almost always a better approach than just thinking about what’s a “favorite.”

FWIW.

Know someone who teaches video editing in elementary school, high school or college? Tell them to check out http://www.StartEditingNow.com – video editing curriculum complete with licensed practice content.