[Adam Taylor]

you didnt say if it was unsharp on one format or the other (or both).

I find that Beta SP does look less sharp than more modern delivery formats. Getting tapes in on Beta SP – they always look much softer and noisier than Digibeta. It may just be that you are used to seeing clean crisp digital video and when seeing the beta sp back, its limitations are more obvious.

Michaels right about learning your compression tools and sticking to your HD workflow.

I was told an interesting fact a while back – The better your hd image, the smaller and cleaner your compressed image will be. In essence, the more noise in an image, the more data the compressor will try to retain, thus bumping up the file size, and noise in your web output. He went on to say that was one reason many people are shooting web video on cameras like the Red.

adam

Adam Taylor
Video Editor/Audio Mixer/ Compositor/Motion GFX/Barista
Character Options Ltd
Oldham, UK

http://www.sculptedbliss.co.uk

[Adam Taylor]

figured it out – Need to use RASTERIZE !

Adam Taylor
Video Editor/Audio Mixer/ Compositor/Motion GFX/Barista
Character Options Ltd
Oldham, UK

http://www.sculptedbliss.co.uk

[Adam Taylor]

I find the software scopes in Apple Color work just fine. I do have a hardware waveform monitor as well, which is almost a confidence tool now…I have not had problems with Colors scopes.

Sorry I cant recommend a screen – I still use a JVC TM-H1950C crt monitor which is SD only.For the work i do, it works just fine, but its not really the latest thing!

adam

Adam Taylor
Video Editor/Audio Mixer/ Compositor/Motion GFX/Barista
Character Options Ltd
Oldham, UK

http://www.sculptedbliss.co.uk

[Adam Taylor]

do a search for “Rotoscoping”

gets mentioned daily on the forums!

Adam Taylor
Video Editor/Audio Mixer/ Compositor/Motion GFX/Barista
Character Options Ltd
Oldham, UK

http://www.sculptedbliss.co.uk

[Adam Taylor]

i’m assuming you are beginning your arrow animation at a zero % keyframe? so why not start with a 1% keyframe and use opacity to bring the arrow into vision? That way your arrow should already be aligned.

adam

Adam Taylor
Video Editor/Audio Mixer/ Compositor/Motion GFX/Barista
Character Options Ltd
Oldham, UK

http://www.sculptedbliss.co.uk

[Adam Taylor]

its almost definitely down to having altered the dimensions of your pro res frames.

I have had the same error message several times, and it was always a result of my trying t be clever and create a prores file with non-standard dimensions.

adam

Adam Taylor
Video Editor/Audio Mixer/ Compositor/Motion GFX/Barista
Character Options Ltd
Oldham, UK

http://www.sculptedbliss.co.uk

[Adam Taylor]

all excellent replies, so my answer will probably reflect those already given. Oh well…

Its a difficult market in which to specialise these days (especially here in the UK – we have a much smaller pool of work to all dip into than in the States).

Every skill you can develop will ultimately help you get the career you want. Thats what you need to decide – not what traditional definition you want to follow, but what really flips your switches. Learn all you can, then try mould your career to fit your choices (as best you can – very few are fortunate enough to have the perfect job)

The role of Editor seems to have evolved over the past decade.

Twenty years ago, i worked on lowband umatic machines with awful quality images and heavy cumbersome tapes and cameras. All was linear, so if you changed your mind about earlier cuts, then you had to re-edit your entire sequence. Graphics were bought -in at astonishingly high prices, and captions were very basic text overlays. It was still a relatively new field for corporates, and as a result a lot of very cheesy effects got thrown at videos (some things never change!).
Some CEOs could afford the first vhs camcorders, so you had the first wave of “clueless clients who think they are Speilberg”

Twelve years ago, I was sat in a tv news edit suite, cutting anything that was thrown at me, but not having to worry about graphics – we had a dept for that. Colour grading was a matter of checking your video levels on the Beta SP machines.I cut pictures, told the best story i could with the shots the cameraman caught and the words the journalist wanted to use, in as short a time as possible. A great way to hone your edit decisions process…but be prepared for the “proper” facilities house to sneer at you as a lowly news editor. They have little respect from other edit depts.
Now everyone has a camcorder – what do we need an editor for?

Then i moved into Animation – where editing a 10 min show took 3 months, as we only got 12 secs a week per animator. It was shot to the frame, so editing was little more than paste up. The video editors actually spent more time as audio editors. The online was done at a specialist facility, where the editor had no editing to do, just painting out wires, dust busting and colour grading.
Here comes the internet – editors will be old hat soon. News is being cut by the journos now.

As software/hardware gets cheaper, companies expect the talent to do the same, so they tend to employ people who have the abilities to do more roles, and thus save a wage or two.

For me, I have been lucky over the past 20 years that i worked in a variety of places where i could hone lots of different skills.

Now i am a one stop, one-man Commercials post-production facility (video editing, motion graphics, sound design and sound mixing, color grading, final outputs, station submissions, I have directed commercials and recently finished my first fully cgi commercial (which i also modelled and animated in C4d)).

Everyone carries an HD camcorder on their phone…still no-one knows how to use it properly. Now i’m the specialist – my boss acknowledges that and defers to my experience most of the time. Phew – its taken long enough!

You could probably count the number places like mine on one hand – I work for one company (not a tv company but an advertiser, making all their tv commercials (last year i had over 400 clocks on air), and i do all the post – for me its a perfect job (most of the time!!).

Its worth noting that i got here by getting bored at my other jobs. After 5 years doing the same thing, I found my brain wasn’t being challenged. My solution was to learn other skills on an evening. Whilst editing i learned all about sound mixing by reading magazines, trying things out at home, and asking and watching dubbing mixers during sessions.
Then i found my job became more audio oriented, so to keep sane, i found myself learning to composite at night, teaching myself Shake and After Effects.
Now i’m learning Cinema4d.

All these (and many other skills) are now part of my everyday arsenal, and i now find that I doing the work i dreamed of 20 years ago, i just got here a very different route than i would have imagined.

Don’t worry about Motion or AE – they are just tools to achieve an end. They work in similar ways so you can transfer your abilities when required.
You should aim to develop your knowledge and analytical skills regarding all aspects of post-production – they all have an impact on each other, so the more you know, the better prepared you are for whatever job you get. Even if you don’t know the immediate answer, you should have learned enough to be able to find the answer quickly.

sorry for rambling – your seemingly innocent question seems to have sparked a mental enema…it all just came pouring out.

good luck with whatever path your career takes.

adam

Adam Taylor
Video Editor/Audio Mixer/ Compositor/Motion GFX/Barista
Character Options Ltd
Oldham, UK

http://www.sculptedbliss.co.uk

[Adam Taylor]

[Bret Williams] “As for interlaced text, there really is no such thing. First, it would only apply to movement of the text across the canvas”

not quite so…if you have text which has horizontals only 1 or 2 scanlines high, then you will get flickering when viewing it on an interlaced screen. Nothing to do with moving the text.
Whilst there isn’t interlaced text, it becomes interlaced in an interlaced sequence, and so you need to account for this when creating the text.

adam

Adam Taylor
Video Editor/Audio Mixer/ Compositor/Motion GFX/Barista
Character Options Ltd
Oldham, UK

http://www.sculptedbliss.co.uk

[Adam Taylor]

I’m with Rich on this one…..

some really nice underwater footage, but not enough variation to make it interesting for over three minutes.

I saw no story structure, just a montage of similar shots. Without a story, there is little to engage a viewer who was not actually involved with the shoot.

Be brutal – from the material used, you could get a really strong 30/40 sec piece that also tells a story and wouldn’t lose the audience halfway through.

Watch a bunch of quality tv ads, you’ll be amazed how much story and image can be put into a short timespan.

please post an update if you decide to do one.

adam

Adam Taylor
Video Editor/Audio Mixer/ Compositor/Motion GFX/Barista
Character Options Ltd
Oldham, UK

http://www.sculptedbliss.co.uk

[Adam Taylor]

I would suggest whichever application you feel most comfortable with would be the best one for you to learn.

I prefer AE, but thats my personal choice. I found Motion less adaptable to my needs and as i already had experience with AE, couldn’t find enough reasons to persevere. I was/am too busy learning Color and C4d.

I agree with Mark – learn the principles of good design, the applications are merely tools to help realise those designs.

As for learning the apps, you have a massive amount of free tutorial material for AE on the internet. If i were you, i’d visit the tutorials on the Cow, and also check out Videocopilot.net, as they both give an excellent grounding in using AE.

good luck

Adam

Adam Taylor
Video Editor/Audio Mixer/ Compositor/Motion GFX/Barista
Character Options Ltd
Oldham, UK

http://www.sculptedbliss.co.uk