Two people on one project – Automatic Duck

[Jeremy Garchow]

[Alex Kuzelicki] “I don’t know how can we both work on the same project without eventually overwriting each others work?”

You won’t be able to very easily or cheaply. The best would be to duplicate the media for both of you and then swap AE or FCP projects/timelines. Sanity will be had by all.

Jeremy

[Alex Kuzelicki]

Thanks for the ideas.

Much appreciated,

ALEX

[Wes Plate]

You can’t work on the same project file, obviously, sounds like you need to just set up rules for who is working on what.

Import from FCP into AE. Copy the project file so now you both have the same comp(s).

You don’t say if there are multiple comps or one long comp, or what, but clearly you work on some bits and your friend works on other bits. If you’re networked together you can both use the same source media.

— Wes Plate
Automatic Duck

[Alex Kuzelicki]

Hi Wes,

Basically the project is a 3 1/2 minute music vid, with a cut every few seconds. There are so many shots with so many effects (lots of green screen) I’m not sure how we are going to allocate who does what.

There are two different ‘environments’ (for lack of a better description) though:
1) Action composited into various real-world locations, and
2) The artist singing and his band playing instruments composited into a more graphic world.

I’ll probably do the real-world stuff and my friend will do the graphic look.

Let me understand if this will work: If I buy Automatic Duck and use it to transfer the Final Cut project into After Effects can I then give a copy of that project to my friend so he can work on the graphic stuff? If so, when he’s done, and I’m done on the real-world stuff, how are we going to combine them into one.

Just say my project will be the Final Master, would it work if he pre-comps each and every one of his sections (in his project), then I import those Comps into my project and use them to replace the corresponding footage?

Would that work? And would that be logistically a nightmare? Or not? I have no idea (obviously).

Thanks if you get the chance to answer this,

ALEX

[Wes Plate]

If I buy Automatic Duck and use it to transfer the Final Cut project into After Effects can I then give a copy of that project to my friend so he can work on the graphic stuff?

Yes. The plug-in is called Pro Import AE. Page here.

I think you’re overcomplicating it on the render side.

Assign the work as feel comfortable, then both render out sections as you need to and reassemble in FCP.

— Wes Plate
Automatic Duck

[Alex Kuzelicki]

Yes, maybe you’re right.

I’m just trying to keep all rendering to a minimum (just read Stu Maschwitz’s excellent book and he suggests using AE as your final rendering stop).

If I render individual clips in AE and take them back into FCP to be rendered again, won’t I lose some quality along the way. I thought the point of using Automatic Duck was to get your FCP timeline into AE and keep it there for the render. Taking it back to FCP again will ‘add a generation’ won’t it… or not?

If it does though, is it really that big a deal ie. is one extra render really going to have a noticeable impact? Sorry for all the questions, I guess (as someone suggested) I’m a bit ‘render shy’ – want to keep as much quality as possible.

The source footage is DVC Pro HD 1080i (PAL) and I’d like to preserve as much of the original resolution as possible.

Thanks for your advice so far.

Cheers,

ALEX

[Wes Plate]

I’m just trying to keep all rendering to a minimum (just read Stu Maschwitz’s excellent book and he suggests using AE as your final rendering stop).

Good idea.

If I render individual clips in AE and take them back into FCP to be rendered again, won’t I lose some quality along the way. I thought the point of using Automatic Duck was to get your FCP timeline into AE and keep it there for the render. Taking it back to FCP again will ‘add a generation’ won’t it… or not?

If you render to the same codec that your FCP timeline is in, FCP won’t recompress.

Obviously you have a plan for outputting that doesn’t involve FCP, because obviously you can’t go out to tape from After Effects. If that is the case, you can consolidate your renders in AE, I guess.

But consider this– At some point you’re going to have to re-do something, and by rendering small sections at a time it reduces the number of bits you’re going to have to re-do when you have to render a patch. Besides, where better to edit in a render fix than in an editing program?

Plus, with Nucleo Pro (you have Nucleo Pro, right?) you can work on a shot, set it to render and have it render in the background while you work on the next shot. Then you have all these individual short-ish renders, assemble them in FCP.

Someone else can confirm but I believe that as long as you render to the DVC Pro HD 1080i50 codec, and that is what your FCP sequence setting is, FCP will not further-render your AE clips (unless you apply effects to them in FCP).

— Wes Plate
Automatic Duck

[Jeremy Garchow]

[Wes Plate] “Someone else can confirm but I believe that as long as you render to the DVC Pro HD 1080i50 codec, and that is what your FCP sequence setting is, FCP will not further-render your AE clips (unless you apply effects to them in FCP).”

Yeo that’s right. You will get a bit of a color shift in going from RGB to YUV, but as long as your whole sequence is rendered out of AE it won’t make a big difference.

I agree that you should each render out your respective sequences then recut in FCP. I would cc in AE first before going back out to FCP to avoid the recompression that Wes is talking about.

Jeremy

[Alex Kuzelicki]

Ooh cool.

You’ve set me straight on a few issues – that were only really ‘issues’ in my head, I guess.

Will definitely consider just using AE to render the special fx bits and then just plop them back into FCP. Would make life a lot easier.

The only thing is, with this project, nearly every shot will be color-treated by a pre-set I’ve set up in After Effects. Still, if there’s no recompressing going on it shouldn’t matter.

Thanks kindly for the advice. I’ve learned a lot.

Cheers,

ALEX

PS – Yes I have Nucleo Pro (another excellent product).