Andrew Rendell
Forum Replies Created
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I took up the Avid offer, but then I used Avid for a long time before taking up FCP as well, so it was more a case of me getting back up to date with Avid than making a big switch.
TBH, where I go next will depend on where (a) my clients and (b) the facilities go. I won’t make a big switch until they do and at the moment it’s still Avid and FCP7 that are doing the work.
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I’ve had some success with the BBC and Hollywood Edge audience tracks, but only to augment or replace an existing track – enhancing a low level recording, covering extraneous noises or cuts, that kind of thing (situations where I’ve mixed sounds so any repetition in the source tracks isn’t noticeable). The trick to making it work is getting the pacing right for those moments where the performer reacts to the audience, as opposed to the audience reacting to the performance.
In your situation, I’d be inclined to get a few people to watch it together (just a few mates and some beer, nothing elaborate) and record their reactions. Even if you don’t use the resulting track, you’ll get a guide for how an audience will react to the performance which you can base your laughter track on, which will give you an edge in trying to make it sound natural.
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Quite a few of the things I like about FCP7 are also things that I like about Avid (I own and use both).
I can cut quickly, without having to use any of my brain space thinking about the equipment.
I feel confident that I can do whatever I’m asked to do, whether it’s some tricksy editing flash that a director has seen somewhere and wants me to replicate, down to giving a researcher an edl of just the music tracks for them to sort out the clearances.
As a freelancer I frequently cut on my own gear but I don’t own pro decks or high grade monitoring, so I can take my project on a hard drive to a local facility for ingesting from and playing out to tape, colour grading (whether I do it myself or use an experienced colorist), transfer the audio into Pro Tools with the tracks already layed out sensibly for the dubbing mixer, that kind of thing.
I also get quite a lot of work using other people’s gear (mainly at production companies or facilities) because what I’ve got is the same as what they have, i.e., FCP7 or Avid, so they trust me with it.
I’m quite happy to admit that my choice of what kit to use is much more driven by what pays and what makes my life easier, rather than what I like. I’ve learned quite a few systems in my time and I expect to have to learn a few more before I’m finished, but that’s fine because I don’t really care that much about the kit (I care about using pictures and sound to tell stories). The kit is a tool to do a job for me so I don’t invest emotional capital in it, I take it seriously because it enables me to do what I want to do.
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One thing I particularly like is the way you can create speed change sequences in 7 by putting markers on the video track and dragging them to where you want that frame to be…
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TBH I’d accept stuff in any of the “standard” frame rates. Most footage will stand having it’s frame rate converted once, if you need to do that.
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It’s hard to say without knowing more about what they want it for. In addition to Brendan’s suggestions, it might be worth finding out how they want it – if they’re after a high quality master that would indicate that they’re in a higher level game (and therefore you could charge a lot more) than if they just want to use the web clip.
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It’s really about finding the best compromise, for a given data rate you’ll get better picture quality for a lower frame rate, but a low frame rate is indeed flickery. I’ve been using 25fps because I’m in the UK and that’s what we broadcast over here, so that’s what most stuff is originated on, but I’d be equally happy at 24fps, anything below about 20fps gets a bit too steppy IMO.
A couple of rules-of-thumb; material for the internet should be progressive (not interlaced), and if you’re changing the frame rate only do it once because material quickly goes to mush if you change the frame rate more than once.
I wonder about the animations which work best for you at 60fps – are you looking at that frame rate after the material has been encoded for the web or at full quality? Just because things that benefit from a high frame rate also tend to react badly to the kind of data compression that’s needed for the web, so you really ought to watch it compressed before making a firm decision.
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The beep will be because the track needs rendering at that point. Convert your 44.1kHz source to 48kHz and the problems won’t arise.
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You shouldn’t have to render on every edit – what codec are you using and does your sequence setting match the source?
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[Vladimir Talijan] “And just one thing, why the hell you want to import old finished project ever ?”
Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha, rofl…
We don’t open old projects or use tape for delivery or any of those other old fashioned things because we want to, we do those things because we have to.