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Workflow – Hints for Editing, Approval, and Rediting?
Hi, everyone. I’m posting this in the Premiere forum because it’s the program I use, and the responses might be software-specific, but my issue is a bit more general: My workflow is a mess, and there’s got to be a better way than what I’ve been doing. I’m hoping you guys might have some suggestions.
As part of my job, I’m tasked with making numerous short videos, usually promotional stuff. It’s almost always talking-head format, and usually begins with a sit-down interview. “Tell us about your experience with…” or “What was your favorite part about…” This results in, say, 15 or 20 minutes of footage per interviewee. The final product will run just a few minutes. I’m the technician — camera guy and editor — and the decisions on what content to use are usually made by someone else.
My current workflow:
- Shoot interview with two cameras (‘A’ cam on tripod, ‘B’ cam handheld for closeups and b-roll).
- Once back at my desk, create a sequence with the video manually lined up on the V1 and V2 tracks.
- Trim out all of the crap — unusable takes, between-question banter, etc. — and overlay a transparent video on V3 with the timecode effect added.
- Like so:
- Shrink the B video into the corner for reference, and export the sequence.
- The result looks like:
- I then send the exported video to the person who is “directing” and ask them to give me the I/O times for the clips they’d like to use.
- They send back a draft EDL.
So far, so good, but now it gets frustrating. I now have my cleaned up sequence and an EDL, and I’m not sure how best to go from here.
Editing the sequence directly doesn’t work very well, as I just lose track of the time code as soon as I start moving stuff around.
I’ve tried basically shoving the whole sequence rightward in the timeline, then trimming out the parts on the EDL and assembling them in the left side of the timeline. This is effective, but still annoying, as it’s really easy to get the video tracks out of sync.
I’ve tinkered with using a nested sequence, but then I lose the ability to view the audio waveform (which really helps me with making cuts and transitions).
Each “solution” I’ve come up with ends up producing the same kind of format shown in the first picture, and I then remove the motion effects from the B footage and choose when to use B instead of A. It’s inelegant, at best.
I’m guessing I’m missing some fundamental workflow principle, and one of you reading this is slapping your forehead and saying, “duh, why don’t you just do it like this…” Would you be so kind as to enlighten me?
Thanks!
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3 Replies
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When doing this sort of project I’ve had success with sending individual TC stamped proxy clips and letting the producer scrub thru the “unusable” bits. The producer has the choice of returning a paper edit, sequence or EDL with the selects.
The timecode is burned in on export (via the queue) so there’s no “losing” it while editing. Once your edit is locked, reconnect your proxies with the full res clips, color and export.
If you must pare down the interview, try nesting it then export a TC’d proxy. Editing with the nest may be less problematic.
Good luck.
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enricobenjamin.com
Regional Emmy™ and Promax award winning producer/editor.
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I do something similar Joel, but when I go to the final edit
with edl notes, I just make a new empty sequence and razor
the in and out point from the “footage” sequence then copy that block of media to the new sequence.That way you don’t get out of sync when removing portions. you just copy
the parts to keep. -
I give the producers clips with timecode burned in that’s the CLIP timecode, the source timecode…not sequence time code. Give them this number and no matter how you cut it out of the sequence, the number will remain the same.
But I also don’t edit from the timeline. put the clips into the viewer and cut them into the timeline….OR…when using FCP and multiple sequences, would mark IN and OUT and COPY and PASTE into a new sequence, when I had layered video like that.
But yes…you should be providing them with clips that have the CLIP timecode burned in, not the sequence timecode.
Shane
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Read my blog, Little Frog in High Def
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