Andrew Kimery
Forum Replies Created
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[Scott Witthaus] “I have never worked this way. Isn’t it a pain in the ass? Where is the continuity of the storytelling if you have multiple editors cutting a show?”
It takes some coordination but after a bit it’s second nature, and many times it’s the only way to meet deadlines. Splitting it up by act works out well since acts are usually self-contained to a degree, but I have had times where two editors were working on the same act (one on the first half, the other on the second half) and that starts becoming a PITA making sure the two halves come back to form a nice whole.
With regards to the continuity, many times if you are the new guy on a show you’ll watch past episodes for reference and then producers will help guide you until you get the feel for the show down. Many shows have lead editors too that will get all the finished individual acts, put them together and do a ‘style pass’ at the end to make sure the look/feel of the episode is appropriate and consistent. Even if you split it up to where each editor gets their own episode you would still need to maintain a cohesive feel between episodes.
Also, going into the edit either the writers or the story producers have written a script (or at least an outline) so there is a structure to follow (at least initially) so it’s not like each editor gets an act, does whatever the hell they want, and then you hope it all comes together at the end.
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[David Mathis] “I thought the black levels for digital is 0 IRE, with 7.5 reserved for analog. It is possible I could be missing something here. Not trying to confuse anyone, just wanted some clarification on the subject.”
No, you are correct. If it’s a digital video signal then black should should be 0. If it’s an analog signal then black should be 7.5.
All this only applies to the US though. If you are in Japan then both analog and digital are both 0. Yay, standards! 😉
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That’s surprising that one camera won’t sync but the others will. Did the C Cam not record audio?
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[Scott Witthaus] “All are accessing the same partition and adding material at the same time. Is this similar to what you describe above or are there folks actually cutting the same footage in the same project at the same time?”
In my current situation it’s just me prepping footage but eventually it will be an editor and an AE working together on a single documentary. I’ve worked a lot in both situations though (people just sharing the same media pool while editing ‘individual’ projects and people sharing the same media pool while collaborating on the same project at the same time). At one place I worked at it would change depending on need, so mall projects would usually just have one editor working on them where as large projects could have 4-5 editors working collaboratively at the same time (someone gets Act 1, another person gets Act 2, etc.).
[Oliver Peters] “You really jump through hoops trying to create one-off systems and procedures and rules trying to create a similar environment with FCP legacy, FCPX, Premiere, etc.
“Right, and not having that extra busy work is one reason why MC functions so smoothly in a multi-editor environment.
For example, on my current gig it’s just me and two machines hooked up to a SAN and I’m prepping footage for a doc in PPro. I have Project A (main Mac) and Project B (helper Mac) and ultimately all the footage, sequences, etc., need to end up in Project A. There are basically four steps to my workflow, Ingest, Tag, Sync, Export and I’ll constantly bounce between between both projects to maximize what I can get done in a day. If Project A is syncing footage then I’ll use Project B to ingest and tag footage. If Project B is doing a lot of exports (I use Media Encoder but it can still slow the machine down) then I’ll use Project A to ingest footage. Part of my workflow involves tracking which steps are done in which project so I can make sure nothing gets overlooked and everything ends up back in Project A.
If I was in Avid I wouldn’t have to worry about micro managing separate projects, using the Media Browser to transfer from one project to another, etc., because it would all be happening inside of one project. And it’s not like you can’t use X, FCP Legend, PPro, etc., in a multi-editor environment (many people have, including myself, and have done so for years) it’s that Avid’s implementation is better because it’s been designed with that functionality in mind. I spent over five years working with FCP Legend and an Xsan and, no joke, the first day I was back on an MC/ISIS gig I said to myself, “Man I missed multi-user done right.” I know I’ve mentioned it before but being able to do things like update Avid projects by just dragging & dropping folders, bins, etc., via the Finder (or Windows Explorer) is amazingly simple and effective.
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[Scott Witthaus] “But isn’t the multi-editor environment just a niche at the top of the pyramid?”
I don’t think so, no. With NLE cost of ownership (hardware + software) plummeting over the last 15yrs it’s more feasible than ever to have multiple editors working collaboratively on the same project or working with the same media pool on separate projects. For example, I used to work for a website that had a dozen editors sharing assets and cranking out web videos on a daily basis and there’s just no way to make that work w/o shared storage. And no way they could have done it w/o the relative inexpensiveness of FCP Legend running on off-the-shelf Macs. For another example, currently I’m doing some AE work on a doc at a small shop (4 people including myself) and they have 32TB of shared storage. I’m on two computers ingesting, prepping, exporting, etc., and an AP is on another computer logging footage. If I had to guess I’d say the shared storage is going to pay for itself inside a year or two due to increased productivity and because there’s no need to but a ton of drives so create multiple, local storage copies of all the media.
I’ve also worked at places that could have really benefitted from having shared storage but while the cost of shared storage has come down a lot in the last 10-15 years it hasn’t dropped as fast as computer and software prices have. It also still takes speciality knowlege to build and maintain. If there was a reliable, Plug and Play shared storage system you could pickup at Best Buy and then easily setup by just plugging in a couple of wires I think the adoption rate would be much higher. Most NLEs not really being designed for a multi-user environment is another hurdle because it adds to the complexity to the situation.
I think this is why a viable cloud-based shared storage solution for video editing is so sought after because it does create a plug and play experience for the end users (just connect to the Internet at a fast enough speed and you are good to go). The downside of course is getting your footage into the cloud in the first place.
Are there multi-editor environments that are so cost prohibitive that only a nice at the top of the pyramid can afford them? Of course, but there are single editor environments like that too.
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Too short notice for me, otherwise I’d be there with rotten tomatoes ready to hurl. 😉
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[Bill Davis] “But for how long?
When AVID was ascendent, part of that was that the only way to make the NLE work was to buy into a whole AVID CERTIFIED Ecosystem where you were forced to purchase branded hardware included “Certified” Hard Drives at WAY over retail in order to be sure everything would work. I’ve always suspected that was a HUGE part of why FCP Legacy succeeded. You could configure your own hardware and buy “off the shelf” and end up with a dependable edit system.”
How long is Avid going to have the best Until X, PPro, Resolve, Lightworks, etc., create a multi-editor environment as good as Avid’s (or until Avid goes belly up and someone else wins by default). The DV and desktop NLE revolutions kinda came in side by side around the turn of the century yet it’s 2016 and we are still asking “but for how much longer could Avid possibly have the best multi-user environment”? Honestly, no one else really seems interested in building a desktop NLE that has the mulit-user environment in mind. Saving happening in bins and the project just being a collection of folders on in the Finder is ingeniously simple, IMO. Being able to update Avid projects (which are currently being worked in) just by dragging and dropping files/folders at the Finder level makes disseminating media very quick and easy.
You can certainly setup other NLEs to function in a multi-user environment, I’ve worked with FCP Legend and PPro that way, but neither was a good as Avid in that capacity. Now, how much that asset is worth to someone is certainly depends on their workflow and budget.
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[Joe Marler] “The problem is despite all the “street cred”, there’s not much money at the top from NLE software sales. Avid’s total annual revenue from all video and related products and solutions is only $233 million. That is the total from their Hollywood monopoly, broadcast news, independent film, documentary — everything.”
I’d go one step further and say there’s not much money in NLE sales in general. The business model we mostly grew up with (buy a perpetual license, wait 18-24 months for a big upgrade to come out and buy that with an upgrade discount) is pretty much dead.
Apple went to a pay-once-get-free-upgrades-forever model (Mac required of course). Adobe went subscription only. Avid offers a subscription plan and a perpetual license (but the upgrade discount is gone so you either pay an annual maintenance fee or you have to pay full price again if you want access to any new software, including small point releases). Smoke, I think, went subscription only. Blackmagic just gives away a nearly fully functional version of Resolve (which requires BM hardware for I/O). Software prices continue to race to the bottom and if Avid didn’t have ISIS, and the best platform for large, multi-editor environments, I think they would have been skunked years ago.
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[Steve Connor] ”
I run it quite happily on a 2008 Mac Pro with a Radeon 7950 card. It’s not as fast as newer systems but it works well, even in 4K”That gives me hope that it will run adequately on my on 2009 MP. No slowness to the UI or anything like that?
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If both cameras were recording audio then just select all the clips, right click, choose Create Multi-camera Source Sequence, use sync by Audio. This will put the B cam clips where they belong next to the A cam clips. The only annoying thing is that the B cam clips will be spread out over multiple video tracks (the first one on V2, the next clip on V3, the next clip on V4, etc.,) and you’ll have to drag all the clips down to the same video track and then delete the now empty tracks.
Adobe needs to add a feature so we can say “all these clips are from B cam so please put them all on the same video track” but that hasn’t appeared yet.