Alex Elkins
Forum Replies Created
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Hi Peter,
It kind of depends on the delivery format in my opinion. Will this be for the web or for tape?
For web, stick with progressive. For tape you might as well go interlaced and save any unnecessary upscaling as you’ll be going back to interlaced anyway.In any case, change your compressor in your Sequence Settings to Apple ProRes 422 and render/export with that to avoid quality loss.
All the best,
AlexTwitter: @postbluetv
http://www.PostBlue.tv
Shot on RED, Post on FCP/Color: Short Capoeira Film -
Hi James,
Just to expand on Michael’s point, there is a quicker way of doing what he suggests (as long as all cameras recorded free run TC)…
In the browser select all clips from Cam A, right click and choose Make Multiclip Sequence. This will place all of your clips into a sequence with blank gaps where the camera wasn’t recording.
Do the same for Cam B etc until you have one sequence representing each camera angle.
From here there are a few options:
1. Copy and paste Cam B, C, etc onto the Cam A sequence so that each angle sits on top of each other. You should have one stream/layer representing each camera. Sync each stream manually using your sync flash, making sure to adjust the position of ALL clips in the stream.
Now you can do it the old fashioned way and scale and reposition each clip so you see all at the same time OR you can render out the streams for a proper multiclip. For this option, see below…2. After creating the multiclip sequences, make a slug (blank gap of video) and render it as a self-contained Quicktime, making sure it matches the settings of your camera files.
Then replace all of the gaps in your multiclip sequences with this slug.
Next, export a Quictime movie but DO NOT check ‘Make movie self-contained’.
Do this for each angle, then import the Quicktime files you’ve created and sync them together in a ‘master’ sequence. Cut each angle so that the in point of each clip is your flash.
Select each angle in turn and press Shift+F.
Highlight each of the angles, right click and choose Make multiclip. Choose to sync by in point.Note: The reason I said don’t choose ‘self contained’ is so that your clips render out faster and don’t take up huge amounts of storage. For this to work though you need to make sure you don’t change the location of any of the files.
This is something I do regularly because no matter what, camera ops often can’t grasp that I NEED them to keep their shots running to do a multiclip! Incidentally, I think I’m right in saying that Premiere can create multiclips with breaks in recording but maybe someone can confirm that as I’ve not tried it. Not sure about Avid.
All the best,
AlexTwitter: @postbluetv
http://www.PostBlue.tv
Shot on RED, Post on FCP/Color: Short Capoeira Film -
Hey Walter,
I hope I’ve not come across as a prima donna editor! One of the greatest pleasures in my job is that I literally learn constantly. Check out my post history here on Creative Cow and you’ll see that. What I’m getting at is just that more streamlined tools make the time we spend in the office more effective, which is great for us and great for our clients. That’s why people purchase plugins, isn’t it – because they don’t accept the limitations of their standard toolset as a ‘this is how it is’ situation.
Yes, I love understanding why something does or doesn’t work and it’s imperative to my job. But those things that don’t work well or as advertised should be improved. If Avid/Prem/Vegas etc are improving and FCP isn’t then we all have to take a look at the tools we use and say “should I invest money and time on an alternative/addition?”I love FCP as many others do, but if we have to move on then that’s fine too. People just want to make educated decisions about the path they take because not every company or individual has the infrastructure to change at the drop of a hat and maintain productivity.
Anyway, the point of the original post was “why no news” and as everyone has said, nobody expected any.
Alex Elkins
Salad Daze Films – Freshly Tossed
Check out my latest addition to the Creative Cow Reels Section -
[Shane Ross] “No…you have ALWAYS needed to know the technical part of editing.”
I completely agree, but understanding how and why something works is different to being limited by a technical flaw or the lack of better technology being added to your arsenal.
[Shane Ross] “just want the easy app that just works”
What’s wrong with an app that ‘just works’? It doesn’t mean people don’t want to learn the inner workings of it. The ones who don’t, as you rightly say, end up losing clients because they have to come to you to fix things! Those of us who make use of both our creative AND analytical abilities tend to make the better editors, carpenters, composers, bricklayers whatever.
[Shane Ross] ” Now, people just buy a camera, buy an NLE, and BOOM, they are professionals.”
Sure, people will call themselves professional simply by owning the tools but we all know it doesn’t make it so. It goes back to what we agree about the cream rising to the top. My point is peoples’ work and education being hindered by technicalities is not a good thing. If people are so arrogant that they will call themselves professional when they aren’t then they deserve to lose clients to you and the rest of us who end up fixing peoples’ mistakes.
I don’t think we’re really disagreeing on much here. Stability of the software we use is key, but if an NLE can work with mixed formats, doesn’t need to ‘bake’ effects etc, etc, AND still remains stable then that’s fantastic! So if the competition does does do that, and Apple aren’t talking, then people are understandably concerned and weighing up the benefits of holding out vs jumping ship early.
Personally I hope that soon enough the technology will catch up with the marketing hype, and we can all just get on with the editing!Alex Elkins
Salad Daze Films – Freshly Tossed
Check out my latest addition to the Creative Cow Reels Section -
[David Roth Weiss] “FCP’s current limitations in terms of not playing nice with mixed codecs is in many ways a blessing in disguise.”
A blessing to who? The various technical gotchas of FCP and the other NLEs are a barrier to entry. The digital revolution was/is about reducing that barrier. Today’s aspiring editors (and many veterans) are forced to learn how to avoid the technical issues before getting into the important part of actually editing and improving their storytelling skills. Take away the technical limitations and more people can give it a shot, more quickly. The cream rises to the top anyway, and the more competition there is the better craftsmen/women we all become.
Alex Elkins
Salad Daze Films – Freshly Tossed
Check out my latest addition to the Creative Cow Reels Section -
[Paul Jay] “A new final cut pro won’t make your edits better.”
Of course not, but it should improve productivity. If the competition are getting the same results in less time (i.e. no transcoding, more realtime effects etc – all the technical stuff) then that eventually filters through to customers’ expectations and people using outdated systems can’t compete on price, which unfortunately is increasingly what drives revenue, NOT quality or operator experience!
[Paul Jay] “The fact is. Final Cut Pro can handle all formats. As well tapeless formats as tape formats (in combination with AJA, Decklink or Matrox)”
Yes it can, but at the moment the competition does these things faster, which means customers get more for their money. What people want to establish (guess at?!) is do we hang on and wait for an FCP update in a year, or do we jump ship to get ahead of the game? Apple’s approach of keeping quiet will lose them business (not just on FCP sales but on the high-end hardware too). The question is, do they care? Relatively speaking our custom isn’t worth much to them, so I think probably not.Alex Elkins
Salad Daze Films – Freshly Tossed
Check out my latest addition to the Creative Cow Reels Section -
[Tom Adams] “compressor no help”
Google Quick Cluster Compressor. Setting this up will speed up your encoding with Compressor (faster than realtime in many scenarios).
Just to clarify also, you need to add the timecode filter in Compressor, not in FCP. I wasn’t sure if that was clear in the suggestions being made earlier.
All the best,
AlexSalad Daze Films – Freshly Tossed
Check out my latest addition to the Creative Cow Reels Section -
I haven’t watched the Keynote yet, but saw in Apples ‘Hot News’ that in 2011 we can expect OSX “Lion”. Oh dear… https://www.apple.com/macosx/lion
I completely agree that there’s no point moaning about no FCP news as there’s no good reason to expect any! And besides, we all know it will be ‘awesome’ whenever FCP iUltraSuperExtreme is released. But that said, if Apple’s obvious focus on iOS functionality is creeping into their laptop/desktop OSs as well should we be preparing ourselves for a permanent move to Avid, Adobe etc and even Windows? Yes, I’m perfectly happy with FCP + Leopard/Snow Leopard and our clients couldn’t tell the difference right now. But if the other NLEs/Windows leave FCP/OSX dead in the water then it becomes difficult to justify charging clients for, say, transcoding time when the other NLEs don’t require us to.
We are an FCP facility and thus switching to Avid/Adobe takes some investment but more importantly the time to adapt to new working practices. I think it is these concerns that explain the ‘why no FCP news’ type posts we keep seeing. It’s not gossip, it’s financial planning. People just want to make educated guesses.I look forward to hearing other peoples’ views.
Alex Elkins
Salad Daze Films – Freshly Tossed
Check out my latest addition to the Creative Cow Reels Section -
[Tom Adams] “even if the original MXF files aren’t there….which, in this case, is the situation…”
If this was from an XDCAM-EX camera there shouldn’t be any MXF files anyway. They record MP4 files, which was why I directed you to the Calibrated MP4 plugin.
It sounded like the directory structure had not been preserved correctly by whoever backed up the files. Calibrated ignores the directory structure and you just work with the MP4 files as they are.
With Sony Clip Browser it’s possible to rebuild a directory back onto an SxS card, then you re-copy the card correctly. Out of interest are you able to post a screenshot of the directory so we can see what was actually missing? It will help people in the future if they have similar problems.All the best,
AlexSalad Daze Films – Freshly Tossed
Check out my latest addition to the Creative Cow Reels Section -
[Lur Idoy Montero] “How do I capture it onto a USB drive?”
You shouldn’t, it just sounded from your description like you might have been (USB is not fast enough to capture video and can result in these immediate failures to capture). See Gary’s response below for the solution.
All the best,
AlexSalad Daze Films – Freshly Tossed
Check out my latest addition to the Creative Cow Reels Section