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Speaking of FCP X editorial speed…
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[Steve Connor] “Give up now Oliver”
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– Oliver
Oliver Peters Post Production Services, LLC
Orlando, FL
http://www.oliverpeters.com -
[Tony West] “It looks like you are slowing yourself down and not the program.”
PS: Then please explain to me a faster way with an L-cut (sync dialogue) to achieve a 15-frame video dissolve with a 4-frame audio crossfade?
– Oliver
Oliver Peters Post Production Services, LLC
Orlando, FL
http://www.oliverpeters.com -
[Oliver Peters] “PS: Then please explain to me a faster way with an L-cut (sync dialogue) to achieve a 15-frame video dissolve with a 4-frame audio crossfade? “
You are jumping topics a bit. Your original point was
“Now if you could only add the equivalent of an audio cross-fade with one keystroke. Sigh”
So that point is settle now right?
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[Tony West] “So that point is settle now right?”
No. Adding something which is essentially a programming hack – or even a mistake – is not a viable solution. Plus it only works in a very limited situation.
– Oliver
Oliver Peters Post Production Services, LLC
Orlando, FL
http://www.oliverpeters.com -
[Oliver Peters] “No. Adding something which is essentially a programming hack – or even a mistake – is not a viable solution. Plus it only works in a very limited situation.
“It’s not a viable situation for “you”
Because you said it looked “gunky”
You first said that you couldn’t do it “Now if you could only add the equivalent of an audio cross-fade with one keystroke. Sigh”
Then when Nick pointed out that you could do it by using the app
You tried to move the goal post a little.
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Thanks Andrew,
I’m just trying to understand how fixing this with extremely short audio only ramps results in something audibly different to the classic smoothing technique of adding just enough consistent room tone to bury any small audible anomalies beneath the background sound floor?
If I’ve got room tone available – or even just access to a believable room tone effect from my library – I can do that for my whole project with one global action that takes me just a few seconds.
And if that frees me from needing to go through a project and manually insert 100 2-frame ramps – wouldn’t it be a significantly better solution?
I’m asking here, not arguing. I’ve cut audio for video for a lot of years, but never felt the need for the type of extremely time-consuming cut by cut ramp process you’re suggesting.
Perhaps in common workflows it results in something audibly superior for the cost in production time. If so, that would be useful information.
One reason it’s even a worthwhile discussion, IMO (and it surely IS) is that I worked in eras where all sorts of switching transients were real problems that required a lot of fiddly work like this ramp stuff to fix. But I haven’t encountered them remotely as much in the past few years – so today I’m less attuned to it as a problem.
And its causing me to wonder if it’s more necessity these days – or more a “best practices” habit from the past – and nowadays there are simpler ways to fix it where you can maybe get 90% of the cure – for 10% of the effort?
Hopefully, others will weigh in.
Creator of XinTwo – https://www.xintwo.com
The shortest path to FCP X mastery. -
Adding the 2 frame fade just takes a couple of clicks since I already have that set as my default audio transition. I just highlight all my dialog audio (which is typically on A1 and A2) and hit Command+Shift+T to apply the default audio transition to everything highlighted. I usually do it as I’m cutting though so I can better time it with breaths, getting in/out between words, getting rid of “ummms”, etc.,. I mainly work in the doc/unscripted world (usually w/o narration too) so I do a lot of dialog editing/frankenbiting and using the fade is second nature to me. Do I need it on every cut? No, but I’d say on 90% of the cuts.
I certainly have used room tone (assuming I get it from production) or canned background noise, but it doesn’t always match the situation. For example, one piece I worked on had an interview with two bar owners and when the interview started the bar was empty but by the end of the interview it was pretty full with the lunch crowd. There was a steady increase in background noise that would’ve been hard to replicate with tone unless they had recorded room tone via a separate mic for the duration of the interview. For that I did use room tone once the place started to fill up, but I still used the fades so that ‘sharp’ sounds (like a beer glass coming down on a metal counter) didn’t get cut off mid ‘thunk’.
I might also have many interviews in various locations edited into a single piece so that would require separate tone/sound design for each interview. More often than not the combination of audio fade plus music bed is enough to keep the audio edit invisible. If I have room tone (or at least something that I can fake as room tone) I like using it because I like using nat sound to help bring people into the piece, but more often than not the quick fade is required to keep the audio edit from calling attention to itself.
I think it’s mainly a product of the type of work I usually do. The quality of the audio person in the field also makes a big difference. On one project the interviewee was driving his truck down a country road with the windows rolled down and the audio from his lav was pristine (no wind noise at all from the open window). I don’t know how the audio guy did it in the field, but it sounded amazing. And sometimes I get things where I swear they pointed the mic at the AC vent instead of the interviewee. #PostProblems
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[Andrew Kimery] “Adding the 2 frame fade just takes a couple of clicks since I already have that set as my default audio transition.”
I’m with you here. I do this with nearly every audio edit I’ve done, regardless of application. If I’m in a DAW like Audition or Logic, I can adjust the edge and a crossfade is automatically created by the overlap. IMHO, adding a constant bed of room tone under the entire track simply adds more noise on top of noise when someone is speaking.
Adding the crossfades also adjusts differences in the ambience under the speaker. It just smooths it out in imperceptible ways that would be obvious with a straight audio cut. But it is driven by the work you do. More location sync interview stuff, the more it’s needed.
– Oliver
Oliver Peters Post Production Services, LLC
Orlando, FL
http://www.oliverpeters.com -
When cutting sound in a doc there are so many variables. So many times a person makes the point I want but then they try to go into another point that I don’t want and I have to cut it off but make it sound natural, as if they stopped there. That’s when I tend to go for the fade handles and I like the handles because I like the control. How much fade I want.
My narrator was a professional and cut her tracks in her studio. Sounded perfect and I didn’t have to do anything with that. Most times when the narrator is speaking I put music under them anyway as a transition to help move things along for the viewer.
I tend to not like to see people sitting in a chair on camera for too long so I will show them briefly and then go to the b-roll of what they are talking about. I’m a big fan of the J cut so most times I’m cheating in the sound of the b-roll under them so it’s covering the room tone in that spot.
It just depends, but I’m pretty sure I didn’t fade my sound bites 90% of the time. The narrator alone would cut down my percentage. Thats certainly not to say it’s not worth dong 90%, I’m sure Andrew’s mix sounds awesome.
I just don’t think I did it myself that many times.
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[Brian Seegmiller] “In a high pressure business editing commercials with deadlines you need to be fast. Yes he took the time to organize his footage and FCP X helps you work faster. Time is money. Try making a shorter cut with traditional tracks. What a mess that would be. Same with a feature. The way FCP X organizes media makes way for you to have more time to be creative and edit with a Blink of an Eye. No pun intended.
“High end commercials are pretty lax as far as deadlines with what Ive seen at least compared to tv/trailer deadlines.
A very high end commercial editor I know gets about two weeks to come up his V1 for a :30 spot. Then the notes and revisions begin.
In contrast – Alot of movie trailers V1’s happen in just a few days – and thats 2:30 in length. Hell, Ive seen some come together in a day total hail mary style.
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