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OT: How do you present work-in-progress?
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[Herb Sevush] “I understand going to this extreme for a feature or a commercial, where post expense and effort are a minor part of the picture, but for most broadcast or corporate work, I don’t get it.”
Obviously if you have “end to end” production control – you shouldn’t have to mess with very much “base grade” stuff, if any.
But when you’re receiving and working on footage from varied sources, it’s s very different story.
Right now, I’m working on a set of commercials featuring interview footage of customers shot in three batches – some in 2015, some in 2016, and some in 2017.
So multiple years, multiple days, multiple camera types, multiple setups.
It doesn’t need a ton of tweaking, because it was all shot very competently, but even the matched C-500s vary from day to day – and definitely year to year.
Having a system directly “plumbed in” to FCP X that lets me correct and match different source cameras in pre- and then have those corrections flow into all the subsequent work becomes a “fix it once – then forget about it” thing that I love.
I’ve always said that X seems to me to be built on a conceptual foundation of cascading metadata flow. If you take the time to improve something upstream via metadata – tag a set of frames, apply a base grade, assign an audio role – whatever – that fix essentially flows through everything subsequently, And arrives in all your exports (comp, working and potentially even final) – already improved.
X leverages preparation better than anything else I’ve ever used. Not just prep of editorial organization, but actual prep of the digital stream.
As much as “fix it in post” was a terrible concept – “fix it in pre” is kinda glorious.
Massive overall timesaver, IME.
FWIW.
Creator of XinTwo – https://www.xintwo.com
The shortest path to FCP X mastery. -
[Bill Davis] “Having a system directly “plumbed in” to FCP X that lets me correct and match different source cameras in pre- and then have those corrections flow into all the subsequent work becomes a “fix it once – then forget about it” thing that I love… X leverages preparation better than anything else I’ve ever used. Not just prep of editorial organization, but actual prep of the digital stream.”
Source-side correction exists across all four “A” NLEs. The “B” NLE has somewhat similar functionality, too, via groups.
(Thunderdome disclaimer: the letters are for company names and do not imply ranking!)
Walter Soyka
Designer & Mad Scientist at Keen Live [link]
Motion Graphics, Widescreen Events, Presentation Design, and Consulting
@keenlive | RenderBreak [blog] | Profile [LinkedIn] -
It sounds like most folks are putting a close-to-final level of polish on WIPs. Do you find this leads to a lot of re-work? Is there any work you actually save for that mythical state of Picture Lock?
Walter Soyka
Designer & Mad Scientist at Keen Live [link]
Motion Graphics, Widescreen Events, Presentation Design, and Consulting
@keenlive | RenderBreak [blog] | Profile [LinkedIn] -
[Walter Soyka] “Source-side correction exists across all four “A” NLEs. The “B” NLE has somewhat similar functionality, too, via groups.”
I’m sure they do.
Stripiing timecode onto analog tapes was also a form of “source side correction” – so I know the concept has been around forever.
I’ve watched more and more of the Apple style of this showing up in the Adobe tools over the past six years.
And not surprised B is writing them into Resolve.
It’s been quite nice to have such robust ones for so long in X.
Which is WHY I enjoy them so much.
In some cases, enhanced source side preparation was something I could use instantly. In other cases (range based keyword tagging a prime example among others) it’s taken my years to evolve an efficient strategy for applying them to the many conditional uses I seem to face more and more.
And so it goes.
Creator of XinTwo – https://www.xintwo.com
The shortest path to FCP X mastery. -
[Walter Soyka] “Do you find this leads to a lot of re-work?”
the short answer, no. I do a fair amount of work that eventually goes to a colorist for the finishing so my color work is really just to give the client an idea of how it’s going to look in the end. But even for the pieces that I do the final color work, all of the prep LUT work helps make the final color pass much easier.
Outside of having to go back into Audition to re-dump out mixes I don’t think creating more finished rough and fine cuts is adding much additional workload to us editors.
I Hate Television. I Hate It As Much As Peanuts. But I Can’t Stop Eating Peanuts.
– Orson Welles -
[Walter Soyka] “Do you find this leads to a lot of re-work?”
Yes, but as a previous poster said, it’s a necessarily evil due to the client/producer/director/network being inexperienced, insecure, having trust issues, lacking the prerequisite amount of creativity to properly do their job, etc.,. Not exaggerating, on some past projects (unscripted work) I’ve thrown out 3-4 weeks of work because I was told the higher-ups won’t ‘get it’ unless it’s covered in b-roll and there’s music underneath. Such a frustrating and colossal waste of time… but that’s the way the cookie crumbles these days.
The rare times I work with collaborators that can actually understand the rough cut process I’m nearly brought to tears.
[Walter Soyka] “Is there any work you actually save for that mythical state of Picture Lock?”
For me it’s just tweaking/fine tuning things since all the elements are already in the cut.
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[Andrew Kimery] “on some past projects (unscripted work) I’ve thrown out 3-4 weeks of work because I was told the higher-ups won’t ‘get it’ unless it’s covered in b-roll and there’s music underneath. Such a frustrating and colossal waste of time… but that’s the way the cookie crumbles these days.”
If I’ve learned anything in 20 plus years of editing it’s that 99% of clients have absolutely no ability to envision what the final product will look like.
I guess an analogy is the huge success of home staging companies for real estate sales. Without seeing what’s possible, most prospective home buyers shy away.
I Hate Television. I Hate It As Much As Peanuts. But I Can’t Stop Eating Peanuts.
– Orson Welles -
[greg janza] “If I’ve learned anything in 20 plus years of editing it’s that 99% of clients have absolutely no ability to envision what the final product will look like. “
The 4th law of thermodynamics.
Herb Sevush
Zebra Productions
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nothin\’ attached to nothin\’
\”Deciding the spine is the process of editing\” F. Bieberkopf -
[Walter Soyka] “It sounds like most folks are putting a close-to-final level of polish on WIPs. Do you find this leads to a lot of re-work? Is there any work you actually save for that mythical state of Picture Lock?”
Using X has very much changed my approach to the entire video production process.
I’ve become much more “front loaded” in creating my videos. When I have time – I typically spend a bunch more of it in prep than I ever did before.
I really enjoy that – since it seem far more “strategic” than my prep used to. The nature of the project, determines the nature of the preparation I have to do. But if I do it well – what I’ll call my “asset polish” is largely done – so I don’t have to waste as much time on polishing assets in the edit. I expect all my import assets to be “good” already when they arrive. That saves me time.
In the context of this specific discussion, it also now seems far, far EASIER for me to version and revise work.
So “polish” isn’t something I do as much to the many client versions I’m typically required to spit out.
The “asset polish” was already done upstream.Timeline polish has also changed for me a good bit.
Because of the magnetic timeline. I tend to build my X timeline a good bit more on a Y and Z axis as the traditional X axis.Let me explain that.
If X is your time flow downstream – think of the Y axis as my vertical build. Magnetism makes those Y constructions persistent – so once I build a vertical stack – I can move it so easily that versioning seems to me to have less friction. A snapshot, then move a block, trim a block, re-time the elements of the block – all easy and quick.
The Z axis is my Auditions. more than one optional candidates to fill a position in my program.
Because of how X works – “depth” choices on my storyline are possible. So I get to play with multiple clip options in a single storyline.All this means I feel really free and efficient in versioning and optional edits – so when nearing the “end game” of presentation to clients. I can “play” more and feel like I’m “working” less.
Just me, I’m sure.
And I totally agree with “picture lock” needing to be in quotes. I’m not actually sure what “picture lock” is anymore. I totally get it for a movie workflow where departments critically need to “Lock” a project so other stakeholders can do their work and know things aren’t changing anymore. But nothing I do remotely resembles that. Revisions, versions, alts, and even narration/script changes happen literally up to the moment the CEO or primary stakeholder shows the work. And often AFTER the work is sent out to the troops – changes and corrections and tweaks typically continue.
Preliminary financial estimates get replaced with audited finals. One of the three departments featured in the video want “their” piece recut into a standalone. The last :03 of the commercials need rotating tags against 100 stores…
The new normal.
YMMV.
Creator of XinTwo – https://www.xintwo.com
The shortest path to FCP X mastery. -
[Bill Davis] “Having a system directly “plumbed in” to FCP X that lets me correct and match different source cameras in pre- and then have those corrections flow into all the subsequent work becomes a “fix it once – then forget about it” thing that I love. “
Maybe there are other examples that you didn’t mention, but in the above example it sounds like you made adjustments to the clips prior to editing them into a timeline and that’s something that’s been doable in NLEs for a long time. Or am I misunderstanding the example you gave?
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