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ProRes project with multiple source formats
I’m working on a documentary that is obtaining video from various news and archive sources, some on Beta, some on DVDs. (In some cases we will only have the DVD as our master for on-line unfortunately!)
Some original video was shot for the program on a Red camera. And there are a lot of original animations in production.
The bottom line is that the footage is in various formats and aspect ratios, and was imported into the FCP project that way. I’m trying to figure out how to corral everything so that when it’s time to output the on-line, we do not have hell to pay. The director wants to do the program in Apple ProRes. I’m new to the project and to working with both tape and digital source material (without any TC) in so many formats.
Are there any good step-by-step instructions for this sort of project. Can you give me a good intro to properly setting it up? Your good advice is greatly appreciated. Thanks,
Susi
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2 Replies
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Hello Susi!
Wow, you have a mess on your hands, right? We can sort this out.First, ask the director what his intended output will be. HD? SD? If HD, which format? 1080i or 1080p? Or will it be 720p? What about frame rate? 24, 29.97, 23.98? If SD, you still have to know your intended frame rate for the final sequence.
Once you find out exactly what the director wants at the end of the project, you can begin work. Always work “backwards” on a project like this.
1. First step is to “conform” or change all your footage to the same frame rate, the final frame rate of your sequence. Also, get everything to the same frame size, as well, by scaling it. You will also need to get all the footage into the ProRes 422 format.
It is best to have scaling done by a post-production house that has a piece of hardware called a “Teranex”. This will give you access to the best quality scaling for HD. If it is not in the budget, you can do an OK job in Final Cut Studio. Use Compressor to scale your footage (perhaps overnight). Avoid scaling directly in Final Cut Pro, it’s quality is OK, but you can do better.
2. Once footage is all in the proper format, ensure that you are working in a sequence with the intended frame size and frame rate. Go to Final Cut Pro > Easy Setup and choose the proper setup for your intended output. Use ProRes as the sequence codec, not HDV or DVCPro HD. After you choose the right setup, click OK. Then go back to the project and make a new sequence (CMD + N). Begin your edit in this new sequence.
3. Regarding aspect ratio. Try to scale everything up to full frame in Compressor. If your blowing up the SD footage to a full HD frame looks too poor, scale the footage to letterbox or pillarbox (black bars on the top/bottom or left/right).
With a decent MacPro setup with fast drives and a good external monitor, I think you can get going on this project.
Good luck!
Kevin Monahan
60 Blu-ray Templates for Final Cut Studio 2009
http://www.fcpworld.com
Author – Motion Graphics and Effects in Final Cut Pro -
Hi Kevin,
Thank you so much. Your instructions are great, very clear. We want to ultimately output the documentary as HD 1080p, 24fps to HD-Cam (for festivals) and DigiBeta master (for TV broadcast), and for DVD reproduction. With that in mind, a few more questions come to mind after receiving your reply and talking to a couple of filmmakers about multi-format FCP editing for output to.
1)In order to avoid creating the bulkier files that ProRes will create, can we just conform all of our footage to 23.98 fps and skip the ProRes 422 conforming?
2)Or can we conform only our native HD footage to ProRes, but keep the other source formats non-ProRes at 23.98 fps?
3)In the ProRes 422 timeline, can we import footage that is not ProRes without having to render edits? (We would like all of the individual formats to show in the timeline in their original aspect ratio.)
4)Is there any reason one could argue that we should not go back and conform everything to ProRes?
I want to use best practices workflow here, and really appreciate your help. Thanks again.
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