Alan Okey
5
COW Coins
2
DaVinci Coins
Forum Replies Created
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[Tom Wolsky] “Clients just want to see finished look every time they look at the product, and not place holders or proxies or colors that change because it’s not been graded, or partially graded. “
You’ve just hit on one of the biggest differences in workflow between film and video.
In the feature film world, directors and producers are used to working with proxies or temp tracks during editing. The last stuff to get done is the audio mixing, color grading and completed VFX shots. It’s quite common to see film trailers that have medium-quality temp VFX shots, which are ultimately replaced with much better quality completed shots in the theatrical release.
The video world is much different – turnaround times are much faster, and producers want to see everything happen in real time right in front of their eyes. Much of the time they can’t visualize something without actually seeing it in front of their face. That’s why as long as production budgets remain large enough, Smoke/Flame/Quantel suites will still be with us.
I find in my work that clients consistently overestimate what today’s technology can do. Perhaps they’ve seen too many behind-the-scenes DVD segments on visual effects, but they assume that anything can be created or fixed in post. They are almost never surprised or impressed by what can be accomplished with the latest hardware and software – instead, they usually are surprised by how long everything takes. Only the really savvy clients appreciate the time, effort and skill that goes into finishing a spot or a show. “What do you mean it has to render?” “Why can’t I see it now?” “Well how long is that going to take?” I hear that a lot more often than I hear “Wow, that’s amazing! How did you do that?”
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My bad, I thought it was your pinky.
“ONE MIIIILLLLLLION DOLLARS!!!!”
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Just to add confusion to the mix, Quicktime Player is savvy about certain SD video formats – DV and MPEG-2, for example. Quicktime Player will display a 720×480 DV or MPEG-2 movie as 640×480 on screen when played back. This is merely an aspect ratio correction for playback (i.e. 720×480 nonsquare pixels displayed as 640×480 square pixels), and does not change the actual file. This can be confusing for people who expect to see nonsquare pixel output.
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I would recommend adding 3:2 puldown to all of the 24p footage then editing everything in a 60i (29.97fps interlaced) project. By trying to edit in a progressive project, you’ll never get both frame rates to look acceptable together. Adding 3:2 pulldown is the key to getting the 24p to play nicely with 30p.
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[Jeremy Garchow] “Uh, can I get that on Beta?”
All I have is 3/4″ U-matic or 1″ open reel…
😉
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[Llewelyn Roderick] “Interestingly enough, I’m finding that with the sudden explosion of new formats that there’s a growing demand for video finishing expertise.”
[Llewelyn Roderick] “I’m spending a helluva lot of hours on the phone with producers who are about to embark on a shoot to design their work-flows which is very encouraging and will hopefully avoid situations like the one I’m in. “
It’s funny that you mention this, I’m finding the exact same thing to be true in my work. I’m still baffled that people are willing to pay me money to tell them information that is freely available to anyone with the patience to look it up online. I guess that’s the beauty of consulting. I have to remind myself that some people either don’t have or don’t want to take the time to do all of that research, or may not have the technical mindset to be able to process all of the available information and reduce it to the relevant details.
Even though I’m not a DP, I find myself increasingly going through workflow with DPs, directors and editors prior to their shooting projects just to make sure that they’re shooting in the right format, capturing media properly and working with the correct editing project settings. With all of the available flavors of HD, compression schemes and progressive formats, it’s fairly easy for someone to overlook a critical detail in the process and end up making things much harder than they need to be. Not to take anything away from the talent of the people involved – it’s just that the complexities of the workflows ushered in by new formats can be hard to keep up with, especially if it’s outside your primary area of focus.
Those who are willing to take the time to do some proper preproduction research are the ones who will reap the greatest benefits of new formats and workflows.
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[Jeremy Garchow] “Don’t get down on Llewelyn for it is all I’m asking. He is FINISHING the project. That might involve a deinterlace. “
Perhaps I wasn’t clear, Jeremy – I didn’t mean to sound like I was getting down on Llewelyn, I was feeling sorry for him. I’ve been in those kinds of situations before and it’s not fun. I apologize if I came off sounding like I was attacking him. Not the case at all.
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[Jeremy Garchow] “You mean to tell me that if the director of the documentary you have been spending most of your waking hours editing wants the movie deinterlaced, you wouldn’t do what you could? You’d just say no?
“I’m not killing the editor, simply pointing out the futility of enabling clients who don’t have their sh*t together. Life is too short to spend countless frustrating hours polishing a turd.
I’d have along conversation with a director before editing a project and make sure that he was aware of the limitations of the format and the budget.
Of course I’d deinterlace if asked to do so, but I certainly wouldn’t eat the additional expense in time or additional software if things ran over budget.
The way I work is that commercial clients who pay well get whatever they want. If I work for indie clients who can’t pay full rate, then I have to really like the project or I won’t get involved. What I’ve learned to not get myself into is a situation where there’s a very demanding client with no money who doesn’t have a clue.
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[Llewelyn Roderick] “I have a director on my hands who insists on getting that ‘film’ look for his documentary. This is his first film shot in HDV, mastered in Prores HQ. In the past he’s de-interlaced his PAL films and been very happy with the result.”
Forgive me for asking the obvious, but if the director “insists on getting that film look,” why didn’t he either A) shoot film, or B) shoot in a progressive HD format?
If I were in your shoes, I wouldn’t bend over backwards to appease someone who doesn’t seem know the first thing about video technology but “insists on getting that film look.”
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More information would be helpful. Did you remove the 3:2 pulldown on your telecined clips prior to editing (for true progressive editing), or are you editing in an interlaced project? What are your FCP project settings?
Exporting a Quicktime from FCP should be as simple as choosing File>Export>Export Quicktime, which will export a Quicktime movie with the exact same settings as your FCP project.
From there, it’s a simple matter of encoding the exported Quicktime move to MPEG-2 using Compressor, selecting a 2-pass VBR setting. Encode the audio as AC3 at 192kbps or 256kbps. Bring your MPEG-2 video and AC3 audio into DVD Studio Pro and create your DVD.
iDVD is crap. Avoid at all costs.