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Speech analysis concept
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“Auditions” in FCPX allow you to edit with different takes, and the magnetic timeline makes this so easy to switch from take to take and not have to heal the timeline around it.
If the metadata has been prepared in advance, getting to synced Auditions is very easy in FCPX with Shot Notes and Sync-n-link .
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[Jeremy Garchow] “”Auditions” in FCPX allow you to edit with different takes”
I’m not sure if you are responding to my post or just adding another option.
While useful, audition is not really the same as the process I described. With auditions, you have to switch back and forth. With a string-out of all takes, you can directly compare one line reading to another without any delay in switching the audition. Furthermore, with a 2-sequence pancaked timeline in Premiere Pro, just pull down the section you like from one sequence to another to build the scene.
Auditions is nice, but seems impractical if you have a dozen versions of each dialogue line in a dramatic script.
– Oliver
Oliver Peters Post Production Services, LLC
Orlando, FL
http://www.oliverpeters.com -
[David Steiner] “As somebody said before, in Avid’s script integration there is a unified view of the screenplay + all the takes right inside, which allows us to see what takes include this line of dialogue, compare them quickly, takes the best take etc.
it is true the sync has to be a manual process until the scriptsync licensing issues are resolved, but this view of takes it’s still ultra-useful, especially in fiction, when takes have different energy, varying tones, and the edit wants to use all that richness etc.
does that “script integration view of takes” exist in FCP X or Premiere Pro? I’ve searched the net, it doesn’t seem so… any solutions?”
[Jeremy Garchow] “”Auditions” in FCPX allow you to edit with different takes, and the magnetic timeline makes this so easy to switch from take to take and not have to heal the timeline around it.
If the metadata has been prepared in advance, getting to synced Auditions is very easy in FCPX with Shot Notes and Sync-n-link .”
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I should note that Mike Matzdorff addressed this directly in one of his web appearances, expressing the opinion that while the ability to match takes to a script can be nice, it falls apart pretty quickly in the face of real real world filming where the actors and a director often want to deviate from the “as written” lines.
He described great frustration during the edit of Focus, trying to fit what was ACTUALLY said, into a form where the script was running simultaneously. In the end, I think he opted for using the X database with LINE NUMBERS instead of transcriptions – since that bucketed the takes designed to get the sense of the scenes across, regardless of the actual words spoken doing so.
That doesn’t say script line matching it’s useless at all. Just that it might be a more suited approach for strictly constructed copy where a performer is expected to do the lines precisely as written. This may make the most sense in areas such as corporate video where highly technical or procedural scripts are vetted by content experts and even teams of lawyers and have to be delivered word for word.
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.
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well for me even when words are changed and small improvs are made, it’s still very useful to be able to click on a line and go directly to the time where the actor says that line, responds to the previous line
so I can compare quickly and in context the different tones and wording styles of how a character could answer a line, etc. – without having to spend time finding the right time in each take, which breaks the process…
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[Bill Davis] “I should note that Mike Matzdorff addressed this directly in one of his web appearances, expressing the opinion that while the ability to match takes to a script can be nice, it falls apart pretty quickly in the face of real real world filming where the actors and a director often want to deviate from the “as written” lines.”
I’ve interviewed a lot of big-name Avid editors for some of the DV stories that I write and I generally find them to be split. Some love it and can’t live without it and others have never used it. One sentiment I’ve heard a lot is that they think they’d like to use it on a film and drive their assistants crazy setting it up, only to never use it when they start cutting.
FWIW – here’s a bit of a pseudo script-based workflow I set up for FCP X. It’s a lot like Mike’s approach.
https://digitalfilms.wordpress.com/2014/03/14/nle-tips-week-4/
[Bill Davis] “That doesn’t say script line matching it’s useless at all. Just that it might be a more suited approach for strictly constructed copy where a performer is expected to do the lines precisely as written. This may make the most sense in areas such as corporate video where highly technical or procedural scripts are vetted by content experts and even teams of lawyers and have to be delivered word for word.”
Where it really helps on the Avid side is with documentaries, if you have interview transcripts. Obviously the holy grail would be speech-to-text that actually works, so you didn’t have to create a transcription in the first place. Steve Hullfish create a nice workaround for this using dictation.
https://provideocoalition.com/shullfish/story/trans_ylvania
– Oliver
Oliver Peters Post Production Services, LLC
Orlando, FL
http://www.oliverpeters.com -
Actually, while Siri speech-to-text does work, it works only in English or even English delivered with a sufficiently western accent. Siri absolutely doesn’t work in, for instance India, or the Far East, or maybe even Africa. OTOH, Google search works just fine with our accents too. On my iPhone I cannot make Siri understand me without repeating things with a faux US accent.
But Google maps and Google search can understand me perfectly.Avid Script Sync too (AFAIK) works only in English. With dialogues and scripts in other languages, not so. I’ve seen Script Sync magic work in an American movie being shot in India where the asst editor had set it up with the script neatly and one could simply double-click on any line in the script and it would jump to the shot with those lines. Except when one of the characters was speaking some other language or even English with a non-Western accent. There it needed help.
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Neil Sadwelkar
neilsadwelkar.blogspot.com
twitter: fcpguru
FCP Editor, Edit systems consultant
Mumbai India -
Nexidia supports a couple dozen languages and dialects and language packs were available to purchase for both ScriptSync and PhraseFind. Whether Avid’s implementation stayed updated with latest versions might be a reasons for a more limited set of languages as new ones get modeled over time.
Michael
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Hey Neil, if it’s any consolation, Siri is FAR from perfect even for those of us who speak fluent American.
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I think there are a lot of valid alternatives as to how takes are organized. What is unique about the script layout is there is no need to do a search or other operations as it can be done at a glance – I can look at the script and see what coverage is available for any given span of story. This can be further refined with indications of dialog being spoken on screen, or off (or from the back), color for preferences, etc. Once edited, there is a script matchback (like matchframe) that from the event in the timeline goes back to the script and highlights take and span used for alternate choices. And without PhraseFind can be used as a text search for action, scene, dialog etc. to make the story work.
There are many more things this interface could provide if Avid was committed to the interface with or without phonetic sync (which is huge, but still a supporting player).
Speech to text (ala Siri) and such get you to a transcript which could then get you aligned, but that technology has been hit and miss for decades and Adobe even removed it from the product. It’s amazing how much 80% accuracy is still a pain to work with.
Michael
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