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Speed Ramps and conforming…PROBLEM
Hello all,
I’ve been working on a RED project the past week. I worked with prores proxies. There were a lot of variable speed ramps in the cut. There is going to be a lot of motion gfx/fx work done on several of the shots and the producer had asked me (before the cut was even locked) to export these shots for tracking and roto. The key thing about this was that the roto/tracker had requested I spit out image sequences of the footage with the time remaps already on the footage. I was very hesitant about doing this, but went along with it.
The footage was color corrected in a telecine session with the original RED files and for some reason the producer asked to get back Tiff Sequences. The problem now lies in the fact that I have image sequences that do not have time code and am being asked to conform the edit with the new color corrected footage and then spit out new image sequences that match the shots I spit out before frame for frame. The problem is that these where variable speed ramps with easing on most keyframes and it is proving to be especially difficult without time code to eye match these shots and have every single frame be exactly the same as the originals (even if I try to reproduce the same keyframes on the new footage, FCP never handles the speed change the exact same way). I am finding myself razor-blading the hell out of this footage and applying various speed changes to try to get the shots to be frame for frame accurate. The problem is, if I export these shots even one frame off they are going to have to be retracked, rotoed, etc…but I am pulling my hair out trying to do it. I’ve suggested we get the post-house that did the telecine to give us QTs with Timecode, but I am afraid that this is not going to really make things any easier the way FCP deals with remaps. The only way I see that even working is if the post-house gives us back the ENTIRE color corrected shot, not just the part I used with handles, so that there are the exact same number of frames and I can copy and past the speed attributes from the original dailies. Will this work?
If anyone has a suggestion it would be greatly appreciated. I wish that I didn’t put so many variable speed remaps in the cut, but more than that I wish that I hadn’t let them track and roto the shots with the speed ramps in them…if they wanted to do that they should have held off until I had conformed the cut with the color corrected footage, because from an editing perspective I don’t mind if a speed change is a little different by a frame or two here or there, but from an effects perspective it could mean having to do everything all over again.
Sorry for the long post.
Best,
EliEli Mavros
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1 Reply
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Hi Eli, I think your instincts are correct and you should try to get the full length shots from the lab. You should then be able to cut and paste the keyframes and have them eye match, as you said.
Given how far along the process you are, I can’t imagine an easier solution at this point. Have them send one shot to test before trying the whole batch.
Next time, if you have to send shots before locking the cut, at least send the full res versions, so you don’t need to do the second conform and vfx render pass.Matt Lyon
Editor
Toronto
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