Raylight workflow

[Marcus Van bavel]

Drag the card image into “Other Scan Locations” and use the “Store Links with MXF Files” option.

[Jesse Gordon]

OK.
And what if I bring that project over to another station, where the MXF files live in a slightly different directory structure.
Can I relink as I would do with Quicktimes?? Even if the MXF clipnames have all been renamed?

THX
-Jesse

[Marcus Van bavel]

[Jesse G] “And what if I bring that project over to another station, where the MXF files live in a slightly different directory structure.
Can I relink as I would do with Quicktimes?? Even if the MXF clipnames have all been renamed?”

If you move the folder, you would have to open each link file, wait for quicktime to find the MXF file, then save it.

Or use Raylight to rescan the MXF files with the “Overwrite” option.

The MXF files cannot be renamed.

[Jesse Gordon]

I want to rename clips within Final Cut.

“00165K.MXF.mov” is not very informative to the various editors who work together on these projects.

I appreciate the time saved creating QT wrappers, but this work flow feels a little clunky. Am I missing something?

[Marcus Van bavel]

[Jesse G] “I want to rename clips within Final Cut.

“00165K.MXF.mov” is not very informative to the various editors who work together on these projects.

I appreciate the time saved creating QT wrappers, but this work flow feels a little clunky. Am I missing something?”

Yes, you have shoehorned Raylight into an ineffective workflow and that’s why it feels clunky. When movies are shot on film it is the camera crew that names each clip (“Scene 23, take 5” etc.) not the film editor. Somehow this got switched around and the forcing of this extra work upon the editor is being perpetuated by Apple.

Here is how it should be done:

1. The cameraman or assistant camera uses a Mac laptop computer and P2 CMS software (free from Panasonic) to backup the card onto hard drive and rename the clips, and fill in any metadata items such as ProgramName (e.g. “MyFeatureFilm”), UserClipName (e.g. “Scene 23 Take 5”), etc. and give a name to the P2 card, i.e. “MyShootDay1”. This job can be simplified if you upload some of these metadata items to the camera via an SD card so they are used by default, see https://www.dvxuser.com/jason/P2-Name-article

2. The backup drive or the P2 Cards are connected to the editor’s computer.

3. The editor scans with Raylight using the UserClipName, Volume Name, and Program Name options. The shots are automatically organized into a “MyFeatureFilm” folder in the Raylight folder. Inside the “MyFeatureFilm” folder there will be a “MyShootDay1” folder (the name of the P2 Card). This process only takes a few seconds.

4. Inside the “MyShootDay1” folder will be a number of .MXF.mov Raylight link files, beginning with “Scene23 Take 5 0001FG.MXF.mov” where 0001FG.MXF is the first clip that was shot on that day for example. If an external drive is used for editing, then the Raylight links should be copied to the drive and backed up along with the card images at some point in the editing process (for example at night after the first day of editing).

5. The link files are imported into FCP using File->Import, like regular quicktime files.

6. If the drive is moved to another computer, the links will still function as long as the structure of the drive is not changed and the volume name of the drive is not changed. Also the other computer does not need to have Raylight installed. The link files, once they are created, are completely handled by Quicktime without help from Raylight.