[Angelo Lorenzo]

Interesting, I have relatively similar specs to you but beefed up to an i7 2600 running at 3.8gHz and 32gigs of RAM (overkill for Premiere but I use AE a lot) and I’m working on 4K footage without a hiccup. My previous system ran under your spec a good bit (AMD Phenom quadcore and 8 gigs of ram) but I was editing 5D and 7D footage all day long.

In Premiere, go to Preferences > Media. Is your media cache set to your SSD? If you’re hitting against low space issues, this would be my next guess.

What do you have going on as far as background processes? Are you running any resource aggressive programs like Norton AV?

[Angelo Lorenzo]

AVCHD isn’t an optimized editing codec. Because of its file structure (and most long GOP variations of h.264 encoding) when you watch one frame, your computer is actually decoding a number of frames. In layman’s terms, most frames in AVCHD are partial frames, only showing what has changed from one frame to another so it takes a group of them to create the frame you’re seeking to.

There are two ways to go about this. If Premiere runs fine on its own, why are you not ingesting and just watching your footage in Premiere?

Secondly, consider transcoding your footage to a more edit friendly codec like Avid DNxHD. The codec is free https://avid.custkb.com/avid/app/selfservice/search.jsp?DocId=263545

Sure you’ll need more hard drive space for the transcoded footage but it takes less processing power to deal with and because the codec is quicktime compatible you should be able to preview your footage in Quicktime Player if you so choose to do so outside of Premiere.

Angelo
FilmsFor.Us – Distribute your indie film online

[Angelo Lorenzo]

In the media bin, right click the file and select Modify > Interpret Footage. You can then change you Pixel Aspect Ratio. Since the sample video is already 1024×576, it looks like it has permanently been resized and should be conformed to “square pixels”. Alternately, the same frame of footage could be represented by normal PAL 720×576 set to a 16:9 Pixel Aspect Ratio.

Like anamorphic film, it’s a way to represent frame aspect ratios outside of NTSC/PAL’s normal 4:3.

Chances are it was the file you were using. It might have never had the PAR information reset when it was resized.

Angelo
FilmsFor.Us – Distribute your indie film online.

[Angelo Lorenzo]

This is too risky as a stand-alone product in my opinion. Why? The popularity of your documentary (and any return on percentage of ownership) is based solely on the popularity of this film. Film tanks or unforeseen circumstances kill the project and you’re done beyond your dayrate.

I would approach this is a payday: They retain the rights and you charge a dayrate or flat fee for the project with a bonus paid out if this documentary is included on dvd/blu-ray with the film.

In my mind, this works better for a few reasons:

I don’t think the producers would overvalue this material to the point where they would try to sell it separately — and think about it, how many stand alone documentaries about the making of a film exist in the marketplace? If you’ve been granted a percentage of ownership, chances are they would still control it and you’d be under their mercy if they shelved it.

Secondly, if this film is well funded, consider the producer’s big bosses: the financiers. It’s a lot easier for them to pitch and approve it if they pitch it as marketing material/content from the budget than as a completely separate budget and business plan.

I know you want to “get some” but it seems like you’re over complicating the business around EPK material.

Angelo
FilmsFor.Us – Distribute your indie film online

[Angelo Lorenzo]

Alternately, consider using some green screen as well if you haven’t begun principal photography.

Lets say there is a static shot of someone walking. Have someone follow them with a greenscreen on a frame. You can then shoot a rolling take of just the background. With the original shot you can key/garbage matte the actor out and then desaturate and plop them onto the background. Designing the scenes and coverage carefully so you can maximize this technique could save you weeks in post.

[Angelo Lorenzo]

Sit down, brew a pot of coffee, crack your knuckles, and get ready for a grind. The only fool proof method is rotoscoping an adjustment layer. After Effects (CS5+) does have a rotobrush which may make the process faster for some scenes (like the character’s head against a plain wall or the sky).

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xYgfDUnA1Ys
https://www.videocopilot.net/tutorials/ (most of the early tutorials cover the basics of rotoscoping)

PLEASE avoid keyframing your rotoscope shape frame-by-frame… this leads to poor tracking and mask jitter.

Some contents or functionalities here are not available due to your cookie preferences!

This happens because the functionality/content marked as “Google Youtube” uses cookies that you choosed to keep disabled. In order to view this content or use this functionality, please enable cookies: click here to open your cookie preferences.

[Angelo Lorenzo]

Get a coated UV filter. It has been my experience that unless you’re working with only modern lenses that employ multicoating, that you’ll benefit from a coated filter. There is also no real downside to a coated filter other then you have to clean them more gently to reduce scratching or wearing the coating, and it can sometimes reduce transmission of light by a marginal difference (we’re talking less than a tenth of a stop)

Uncoated glass usually comes in two flavors, the horribly cheap glass no one wants to use (think Hoya G series) and the more high end offerings from companies like Tiffen. Anything in the middle seems to all be subjected to a coating process.

Most motion picture filters are uncoated because they’re used in conjunction with a mattebox that protects from flare issues. The only protective filter that is coated, that I can recall, is Schnider Optics’ optical clear filter (this is not a UV filter in the sense that it’s not designed to cut transmission of UV light).

[Angelo Lorenzo]

Did you install this yet? https://labs.adobe.com/technologies/redepic_importer/

[Angelo Lorenzo]

CS5? Do you have all the updates installed? This was a known issue with it and I think they fixed it in a late update before CS5.5 came out.

[Angelo Lorenzo]

While the other answers address your issue… why not simplify the workflow?

Editor A locks the edit
Editor B does finishing and export

If you’re not working in the same office with constant access to the same assets, plugins, and/or workstations then it’s advisable to keep hand-offs to a minimum for the sake of sanity.

If you need to make constant tweaks to the edit, send editor B updated Project files but I wouldn’t bother with round trips. Try medium res (720p) preview files so you can give thumbs up to titles and color.

Good luck!