[Andrew Rendell]

Audio Hijack Pro doesn’t have a suitable meter within it for my purposes, I have PPMulator installed as a plug-in within Audio Hijack Pro, because PPM and EBU R128 loudness metering are what I need, VU isn’t used much where I am.

You can get some metering software that’s standalone, the advantage of using Audio Hijack Pro is that you can use metering software that is normally a plug-in for DAW software (VST or AU) and that gives you much more choice, no point in spending the price of SpectraFoo if PSP Vintagemeter does what you need, IYSWIM.

https://www.rogueamoeba.com/audiohijackpro/
https://www.zplane.de/products/ppmulator
https://mhsecure.com/metric_halo/products/software/spectrafoo.html#tab=1

[Andrew Rendell]

There isn’t an equivalent between the metering in FCP and VU.

The internal metering in FCP is instantaneous, so it’s not too far different to a PPM (it’s not the same though) but it’s quite different to a VU meter, which averages out the instantaneous peaks.

I use a software meter via Audio Hijack Pro, so it sits outside of the editing software (effectively looking at the output of the edit system) and I just arrange my screen layout to see it.

[Andrew Rendell]

Check the size of your project files. I was handed one that was 49MB the other day and it was very slow to open, beach-balling, etc.

If you do a lot of saving previous sequences the project can get really big very easily, I shift early cuts that I want to save into another project to try and avoid it.

Just a thought… I expect someone will be along with better ideas soon.

[Andrew Rendell]

I do this all the time but I never bother subtitling all of the rushes. I work out the structure on paper (well, using a word processor, but you know what I mean), then place each section that I want on the timeline and put the subtitles on it (copy & paste from the translation into the title tool). I don’t “burn in” the subtitling to a copy of the rushes.

I will probably then remove a third or a half of what I’ve assembled as I refine the cut, but it saves the time of subtitling a lot of material that wouldn’t make the cut.

Now, I’m invariably working with interviews where I will only use in the region of one to five minutes out of half an hour or an hour of recording and it works well for that. It would be less than ideal for assessing the subtle differences between alternative takes of a performance, but to do that you’d need a good understanding of the language anyway.

[Andrew Rendell]

I’ve seen this recommended, which I think should do what you need
https://mhsecure.com/metric_halo/products/software/spectrafoo.html#tab=1

(I don’t use it so I can’t really comment about it, PpmulatorXL does what I need but that doesn’t do most of what you’re after)

[Andrew Rendell]

Well, a boom pole, cables, headphones, a copy of this https://www.tyford.com/Ty_Ford_Audio_Bootcamp_Field_Guide.html

(Ty is leader of the audio professionals group here on the cow)

TBH, it’s not so much what kit you have as how well you use it.

[Andrew Rendell]

Everything has copyright, i.e., it’s owned by someone, except for stuff which is old enough to have fallen out of copyright and become public domain and even then you probably have to pay to get a copy of it.

Having said that, you can probably get what you want from the big libraries, e.g., Getty Images. They are rather expensive though. CriticalPast are good for war stuff in my experience. Check NASA out for anything to do with space. Itnsource, Britishpathe, Aparchive have news footage.

It can be expensive to go through those sources (apart from NASA) but you should be able to get what you need and the fee will give you a licence to use it without having to worry further about copyright.

Did I mention that it can be quite expensive?

Good luck.

[Andrew Rendell]

In principle yes, but as Mark says think very carefully about how you want to present yourself.

When I was starting out I applied for a trainee position and didn’t get it. I followed it up with a letter asking for feedback and advice and a few weeks later I was invited to apply for another trainee position that was coming up, which I got. That basically got me a career.

Nothing ventured, nothing gained, as the saying goes.

[Andrew Rendell]

I dislike being alone for extended periods of time. I really value what I’d call the unexpected and unanticipated usefulness of colleagues – having people around to talk things through with can really help get things straight in my head.

I think the collaborative nature of editing is what drew me to it twenty five years ago and what keeps me interested today (not having more people choosing the shots or the timing of a cut, that’s just a waste of everyone’s time, but things like the interaction between cutting pictures and sound with writing the script).

Also, when the filming is lazy “interview plus b-roll” instead of properly thought out sequences it can be soul destroying to have to wade through it on one’s own.

I’m not sure where I am on the extravert – introvert continuum, there are things I do which are solitary and part of the inner mental world (oil painting and experimental music) and there are things that I do which are social. I don’t think I could exist without both, but as a freelance cutter I make my living in the sociable side.

[Andrew Rendell]

As Richard says, not holding sync between kit like that is quite normal. The conversion from 44.1kHz to 48kHz shouldn’t be noticeable with modern software, it doesn’t change the running time.

Did you have the camera recording it’s own microphone? A camera-mounted microphone is almost entirely useless for production sound but is very useful for syncing up sound recorded on another device – in your NLE, place the camera pictures with it’s sound on a timeline and add the Zoom sound immediately below it, you can then line up the waveforms. Start at the beginning and go along the track until it’s out of sync and put a cut point in the Video/camera audio and slip it back into sync with the Zoom audio. Allow yourself a tolerance of half – three quarters of a frame between the tracks (you can only move the video by whole frames and very few viewers can tell if the sync is out by half a frame anyway). Once you’ve done that, delete the camera mic and use that timeline as your source for the editing.

My experience is that the Canon pictures and Zoom audio will usually run close enough to stay in acceptable sync for 2 or 3 minutes at a time (as a very rough rule of thumb, it could be double that, it could be half), so you should be able to put your video cut points in spaces between answers to interview questions (unless the interviewee is one who gives very long replies, but even then, everyone has to breathe occasionally and a cut in a gap to either duplicate or cut out a frame will ne less noticeable than during a word).

Don’t vari-speed the video unless you really, really need to stay on it for a very long time, if you have to, use a setting that interpolates the frames rather than dropping or duplicating (i.e., FluidMotion or equivalent).