Telecine prediction for EDL

[Tony]

Why not find a facility that can do color correction from quicktime files.

Applications such as Color Finesse 2 or Final Touch would be ideal.

Tony Salgado

[Mike Most — account bouncing, bad address]

>>Why not find a facility that can do color correction from quicktime files.
>>Applications such as Color Finesse 2 or Final Touch would be ideal.

Well, perhaps this is a reasonably professional project and they want to use a professional colorist working on a high end system like a DaVinci.

The primary problem with a list at this point is field marking, which to my knowledge Cinema Tools is not capable of doing. If you’re using a DaVinci, you’d be better off running it through the scene detector, which can and should properly detect field 2 edits. The post facility will charge you for the time to do this, of course.

[Tony]

Mike,

Since it looks like the editor is dealing with the offline (original digitized footage from DVCAM) I offered my suggestion as a cost effective solution which could be handled in house or at another facility.

I speculate the production would spend the money on a high end suite after the online assembly is completed.

Tony Salgado

[Walter Biscardi]

[Mike Most] “Well, perhaps this is a reasonably professional project and they want to use a professional colorist working on a high end system like a DaVinci.”

Final Touch HD is a daVinci on the Mac. I would highly recommend Bob Sliga out of Chicago, a long time daVinci artist who is now using Final Touch HD instead because it’s taken what daVinci started to another level. It works directly with Final Cut Pro. You simply export your XML and send Bob your hard drive. Contact me via email if you would like Bob’s contact information.

We’re now using Final Touch here with all HD and broadcast programming and it’s simply superb.

Walter Biscardi, Jr.
https://www.biscardicreative.com

Director, “The Rough Cut”
https://www.theroughcutmovie.com

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[Rick Sebeck]

Thank you all for your posts.

Tony, you are right, this is just a “temporary” color correction for festival screenings until we either make a film cut, or do a DI.

Mike, yes it is going through a DaVinci, and that is why an EDL will substitute for the frame matching – thus saving us time and money.

Walter, I am familiar with Final Touch HD, but the colorist is a friend of the DP’s and this is a “favor” so begars can’t be choosers!

And finally, the answer to my question was much easier thaan I thought. I exported thee EDL from the 24fps sequence, then used CinemaTools to convert the EDL into a 30fprs EDL. (They think of everyhting!) I am taking the files in to the colorist tommorow, and I’ll let you know how it works!

-Rick

[Tony]

Keep up updated Rick,

Thanks for the answers.

Tony Salgado

[Mike Most — account bouncing, bad address]

It won’t work very well, because it won’t generate a field marked list. Many of your edits will by definition be on field 2, because the 3:2 pulldown in your output will be continuous from the first frame of the piece. Some edits will be on field 1, some will be on field 2. The converter assumes that all edits are on field 1. Your colorist will need to be very careful when watching for color flashes at cuts, and change those that are on field 2 manually. In doing this, he will undoubtedly miss some and this will produce a one field “flash”. If the color correction on the scene change is not large, you might not notice, but if you want the color corrections to be “clean,” it becomes an issue. That’s why I suggested running it through the scene detector, which is field sensitive.

Just as a bit of background, the reason this isn’t a problem when material is edited at 30fps, even if the source material has 3:2 pulldown, is that by definition all edits in this format occur on field 1. When you cut at 24fps, you add 3:2 pulldown on the output – thus causing some scene changes to occur on field 2.

[Rick Sebeck]

Okay, mike I think you are right. Here’s where I am at so far. Our color timming session got bumped so in the mean time I figured I could check the EDL with the Digi Beta – and as luck will have it IT DOES NOT MATCH.

So i started to do some experiments.

The first, was to take the 23.98 QT file and change the editing timebase in CT to 29.97. I then put this file into a 29.97 FCP sequence. The file plays back in real time – but it doesn’t match my EDL

So I then decided to paste the “edits” (from the 24fps sequence) into a 29.97 sequence. When you scrub, you can see FCP adding in the 2:3 pull down and if you render it out, it seems to play back okay. But to my suprise, the “flattened QT file” from above was REALLY SHORT! But here’s the strange thing – it matches the EDL! The only strange thing, is that every couple of edits have a one frame gap. I am asuming these are edits that are happing on field 2 like you say Mike.

So my question is – can I just fix these edits, render out in FCP, and export it that way onto my digibeta?

-Rick

[Mike Most — account bouncing, bad address]

>>So my question is – can I just fix these edits, render out in FCP, and export it >>that way onto my digibeta?

No, not really. They’re a consequence of cutting in 24 frames, but outputting in 60i. They’re a result of 3:2 pulldown, so unless you can figure out cut points that all fall on field 1 (that’s very unlikely), you will have some field 2 edits. What you can do is lay it off to tape, making sure to set the machine to insert VITC. This will allow you to field jog, and determine which edits are happening on field 2. You can then make a list (by hand) and give that to the colorist. It is a simple one button function on a DaVinci to change a mark from field 1 to field 2 or vice versa, so your colorist can load the EDL (forcing field 1 when he does), then go through the list and change the ones you flag as field 2 prior to starting the color correction. Since your piece is a short, this won’t take very long – certainly less time than using the scene detector, and more reliable as well.

Just as a bit of history, this was never a problem prior to 24 frame editing, because in video editing, all edits are normally on field 1. Even when nonlinear editing came into play, most longform shows were onlined in a “traditional” linear online bay, in which all edits are field 1 edits. The EDL that was sent to color correction was generated from the online system, so the problem never existed.

[Mike Most — account bouncing, bad address]

By the way, you don’t want to be putting the piece into a different timeline. What you need to do is play it out directly from the 23.98 timeline, and let Final Cut add the 3:2 pulldown in real time. Anything else and you’re creating problems for yourself. Just make sure the program starts at the correct timecode, and you’re good to go.