Alex Elkins
Forum Replies Created
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It won’t make any difference as long as the XDCAM clips were shot progressive. Leave your sequence settings as they are.
Alex Elkins
Twitter: @postbluetv
http://www.PostBlue.tv
View Post Blue showreel
Shot on RED @ 100fps, Post on FCP/Color: Capoeira Film
My Vimeo Pro page -
Hi Brad,
What format is your video? ‘HD’ is a bit of a general term. If you don’t know, select one of your clips and press CMD+9 to open then Item Properties window. If you could post a screenshot of what you see there it’d help. It is possible to render in a lower quality but without knowing what format you’re starting with its hard to advise as to the best method.
One thing you might want to do is the following:
Select your sequence and go to Sequence –> Settings
In the window that opens, select the Render Control tab.
Change Resolution to 33% (or 25 or 50%, depending on the quality you need).
You will find that doing this speeds up your render time. Remember to change it back to 100% for your final master though.
Alex Elkins
Twitter: @postbluetv
http://www.PostBlue.tv
View Post Blue showreel
Shot on RED @ 100fps, Post on FCP/Color: Capoeira Film
My Vimeo Pro page -
I’m fairly new to Avid too, and had exactly this problem earlier this week. I managed to track down the Avid document below, which solved it for me.
Alex Elkins
Twitter: @postbluetv
http://www.PostBlue.tv
View Post Blue showreel
Shot on RED @ 100fps, Post on FCP/Color: Capoeira Film
My Vimeo Pro page -
[Shane Ross] “Well, depends on if what they are saying is interesting enough…”
Shane – I think you’ve hit the nail on the head with that statement. If every interview subject was completely engaging then we wouldn’t need to cut (except for dramatic effect, as you mentioned).
Shooting an interview with two cameras is a safety net – the cut to angle 2 hides the jump in time, or more often, hides the fact that the interview is relatively uninteresting, so an editor has to add pace or emotion artificially. Sometimes it works ok, other times it makes me cringe.
Alex Elkins
Twitter: @postbluetv
http://www.PostBlue.tv
View Post Blue showreel
Shot on RED @ 100fps, Post on FCP/Color: Capoeira Film -
Hi Mark,
I’ve just successfully done a quick test using the following method:
1. Edit in Avid using R3D files (link via AMA)
2. Transcode to DNXHD 36
3. Export AAF
4. Import AAF into FCP using Automatic Duck (which is now free) with ‘Use existing media’ unchecked. The sequence imports but everything is offline, which is fine and to be expected. Note that all clip names carry through in full, but also have ‘.new.01’ appended to the clip names. eg ‘A013_C003_11090S_001.new.01’
5. Export EDL from FCP
6. Open the EDL in TextEdit
7. Search for ‘_001.new.01’ and replace with nothing, i.e. ‘A013_C003_11090S_001.new.01’ becomes ‘A013_C003_11090S’
8. Save the EDL
9. Import EDL into Color and link to the raw files. 100% successful re-link.I realise that you said the raw files were transcoded to MXF at the start, but what the test shows is that provided the file and reel names have been maintained during the MXF transcode, you should be able to go from Avid to Color via Automatic Duck and FCP. Can you ask the editor to send you an AAF rather than an EDL and see if that carries through the complete clip names?
I beleive DaVinci Resolve Lite (free) will also import an Avid AAF and let you export an FCP XML if needed. That could be another option, but I’ve not tested it.
Alex Elkins
Twitter: @postbluetv
http://www.PostBlue.tv
View Post Blue showreel
Shot on RED @ 100fps, Post on FCP/Color: Capoeira Film -
[Marshall Darling] “Is there any reason that I shouldn’t do that”
Unless you leave appropriate gaps in your timeline, you will struggle to match back to the original files, should you ever need to, because the timecodes will not match up. The question I would ask is “Is there any reason that you should do that?” I personally can’t see much benefit in doing so. What is the problem with having 5 ProRes files?
Alex Elkins
Twitter: @postbluetv
http://www.PostBlue.tv
View Post Blue showreel
Shot on RED @ 100fps, Post on FCP/Color: Capoeira Film -
Hi Olly,
Bear in mind that however experienced someone is as an editor, they still need to review the footage in order to know what’s been shot. That takes time, no matter who you are. As you review the footage, even though there may be nothing on your timeline, in your head you should be editing. Thinking to yourself “ah, that cutaway would well when the presenter talks about XYZ”
Planning ahead is crucial. Say I’m editing a corporate video where a CEO talks about the product. If I don’t have a script to work from I like to lay text slugs in my timeline saying things like ‘Intro: 20 secs. Location scene set, product shots etc‘ which might be followed by ‘CEO piece to camera: introduce product’ etc, etc.
As I go through the footage I already have an idea of the shots I’m looking for. As soon as I see something that fits over one of my notes I add it to the timeline. I do this as quickly and roughly as possible. As I do this things begin to fall into place, and I can start re-arranging some of the shots to tell the story. Quickly it becomes clear what shots are working and what aren’t and the first cut gets more and more refined as I go through the footage.Another really useful thing is if the project is going to contain some voiceover, get that recorded early on, either by the artist if the script is signed off, or record a rough version yourself before you start editing. Talk slowly – you can always shorten your edit more easily than you can extend it.
Don’t mess about with audio mixing and adding music on a first cut (unless the piece specifically NEEDS music). If you work heavily on sound before your picture is locked you’ll end up cutting out a load of carefully tweaked levels for no reason.
Keyboard shortcuts: Learn them. There’s almost no need for a mouse in FCP if you know the shortcuts. Learn as many as possible and you’ll find your editing really speeding up. Here’s a handy one: press CMD+Shift+/ to open the help menu, then type the name of any menu item (eg the name of a filter, window arrangements etc).
To me, one of the key things about editing is organisation. In being organised you’re already beginning the editing process. If you find yourself repeatedly looking for the same clip, or not knowing which sequence a certain scene is in then you need to re-think your organisation techniques. If another editor was to pick up your project and start working on it now, would it be easy for them to work, or would they have to call you to ask how everything was organised?
Hopefully these are handy tips. I’ve completely ignored my own advice and have just spilled them out onto the screen as they’ve occurred to me. Maybe this post should be considered a rough cut?
Alex Elkins
Twitter: @postbluetv
http://www.PostBlue.tv
View Post Blue showreel
Shot on RED @ 100fps, Post on FCP/Color: Capoeira Film -
Hi Peter
When you have a multiclip loaded in the viewer, click on the wireframe icon and select ‘Multiclip 9-Up’. you will see each angle.
Alex Elkins
Twitter: @postbluetv
http://www.PostBlue.tv
View Post Blue showreel
Shot on RED @ 100fps, Post on FCP/Color: Capoeira Film -
Hi Dave,
Delete the FCP Thumbnail Cache file. That’ll sort it.
Alex Elkins
Twitter: @postbluetv
http://www.PostBlue.tv
View Post Blue showreel
Shot on RED @ 100fps, Post on FCP/Color: Capoeira Film -
Hi Tom
This would usually happen if your clips contain an alpha channel. However, you say that in the past the same clips haven’t needed rendering. Are you certain that they don’t contain an alpha channel, i.e. the clips have transparent areas?
Alex Elkins
Twitter: @postbluetv
http://www.PostBlue.tv
View Post Blue showreel
Shot on RED @ 100fps, Post on FCP/Color: Capoeira Film