[Boyd Mccollum]

Apple has a couple of articles on Walter Murch’s and Sean Cullen’s workflow for both Cold Mountain and Jarhead. There’s even a newer one with Murch talking about working with Coppola on Youth Without Youth. You may get a couple of useful ideas.

Here’s the Youth Without Youth link:

https://www.apple.com/pro/profiles/coppola_murch/

Boyd
“Go slow to go fast”

[Boyd Mccollum]

It’s funny, I use both approaches as well, but in reverse. And I’m not sure really that the choice is necessarily between being authentic or not. I usually use Grinner’s approach when I’m under a deadline. All useful footage straight to the timeline and I start throwing out what doesn’t fit.

When I have more time, I’ll use Mark’s approach. I like to think about the footage I’m working with, what it’s saying to me, then I start with those shots that I feel best capture the heart or essence of the story. Then I start fleshing it out from there.

As for manipulation, hey it’s all manipulation, that’s what we do 🙂 Slightly OT, back in my younger days I was taking a theatre directing class. During in-class rehearsals I used a television as part of my scene, but it was an elaborate ruse for the scene I was actually putting on (it was from Waiting for Godot). Prior to my scene I needed to get the TV (that wasn’t going to be used, at least in the way the audience expected) and my professor offered to walk with me to get it (she had the keys). I felt kind of bad, her taking the effort to help me when it was somewhat of a con. So I told her, “you know, sometimes I feel really manipulative” and she said, in her really cool British accent, “but darling, you’re a director, that’s what you’re suppose to do.” Somehow I didn’t feel so bad having her help me out… As for the scene, well I’ve done some good work and some work that I wish never saw the light of day. This turned out to be one of my better pieces and one of the few times I really experienced an epiphany from something I’ve done.

Boyd
“Go slow to go fast”

[Boyd Mccollum]

I agree with the comments that others have posted. The one thing that would be nice to see, if you have the footage to work with, is matching footage across a scene. You know where the reverse angle shot might be underexposed and they forgot to white balance the two shot, or the lighting just doesn’t match in some other way, basically where the raw footage has totally different looks and you need to bring them together in one scene. Something like that would really standout.

[Boyd Mccollum]

[mark Raudonis] “Explain to me the difference between drop frame and non drop frame time code. “

would that be semi-colon vs. colon 🙂

Just to add a perspective to this thread from a different pov, I would ask what the hiring supervisors are doing to make things better? It’s all well and good to give advice on the importance of a reel, etc. and I think many editors applying for positions can do better. I’ve seen on a variety of forums, including here on the Cow, folks putting up reels, looking for feedback. (Not to mention the other advice I’ve heard from many folks that their reel never got them their jobs, but it was through their contacts. Heck, even one of the posters above recommended that approach – the “taking an editor out to dinner” type of thing.)

But each time the generic hiring supervisor receives something that doesn’t quite make the cut, or could have made the cut, do they give feedback to the editors that were applying? Like saying “hey, your reel pieces are too long” or “your music montage should have been only 60 seconds instead of 2 minutes” or “sending us to You Tube is unprofessional,” etc. The point I’m making is, some of the feedback needs to be given from the people hiring directly to the persons they are rejecting with specific reasons. Or else the person doesn’t have the opportunity to improve their reel in a practical sense.

It also doesn’t seem particularly hard to do that, just a simple “thank you for applying, your one piece reel bored us after 20 seconds and there were still 12 minutes to go and, oh btw, your You Tube screen name of Dips**t28 turned us off and scared our cat, so we threw it into the trash.”

I would also suggest that even if a person’s reel was one 12 minute piece, and the first minute kept you engaged, then it demonstrates that s/he can edit. If you can tell in 30 seconds or less that someone doesn’t have it, then you can tell in 30 seconds or less if they do. In fact, it would seem the length of the reel (too long or too short) is really irrelevant. And as someone who does long form editing, seeing a 2 minute music video or a graphics heavy piece doesn’t tell me anything about someone’s storytelling.

Hiring supervisors could also make it more clear as to what they are actually looking for in a reel – long form, quick cuts, spots, graphics, etc. Part of the problem I think is vagueness on the part of the people hiring to clarify what exactly they are looking for. For instance, if reels are important to you, and you know what you are looking for in a reel, state it. For instance, say the reel should have a 60 second or less music montage, followed by “x” number of spots that demonstrate the following “whatever your requirements are”. (for any decent, motivated editor, revising their reel, if necessary, to fit a specific request shouldn’t be that big a deal.)

OTOH, even though I’ve never seen Walter Murch’s reel, I’d hire him, even if he didn’t know the difference between drop frame and non drop frame timecode. That’s why I’d also hire Sean Cullen to be his E2 🙂

Happy New Year!

BTW, I think threads like this are necessary and helpful for editors, at least those who care, to make stronger and stronger applications each time out.

[Boyd Mccollum]

[Imagine Video] “output will be to sd DVD- for now”

I’d have them capture at a higher res for future use, not to mention the hit you’ll take compressing so-so footage to QT Pal (you don’t state it, but I’m guessing you’d xfer it as DV25) then recompressing it again when you go out to sd-dvd.

I’d suggest capturing it at least as DVCproHD. It’ll cut in better with your HDV footage and also give you a better color space to work with.

just my $0.02.

[Boyd Mccollum]

There are really only 4 factors in depth of field for the same camera (film/sensor size) based on specific constants (there are also specific mathematical formulae to describe these various relationships):

1. At any given focal length, DOF increases as the aperture gets smaller.
2. At the same aperture and focal length, DOF increases as the distance to the subject increases.
3. At the same aperture and distance to subject, DOF is greater for a shorter focal length than for a longer one.
4. At the same aperture and image size (the subject framing remaining constant), DOF remains approximately constant for all focal lengths.

In this thread, it appears Bob is talking about situation number 4, whereas Todd is talking about number 3. Both are making valid points.

The situation many people encounter is too much DOF for the framing/composition they want – for example, in an interview. The common advice given is to move the camera back and zoom in. However, when you do this, to achieve the same frame composition, you have to move the camera back to a point where the DOF of the new focal length matches what you previously had. This is demonstrative phenomenon.

However, using a longer focal length can help with the illusion of a shallower DOF by narrowing the field of view and magnifying the background blur of the image (making the background larger in relationship to the foreground).

An excellent article with specific photographic examples and reference material can be found at:

https://www.vanwalree.com/optics/dof.html

So yes, focal length does affect DOF. But there are areas where you achieve the same DOF with different focal lengths – same subject framing being one of them.

[Boyd Mccollum]

There are really only 4 factors in depth of field for the same camera (film/sensor size) based on specific constants (there are also specific mathematical formulae to describe these various relationships):

1. At any given focal length, DOF increases as the aperture gets smaller.
2. At the same aperture and focal length, DOF increases as the distance to the subject increases.
3. At the same aperture and distance to subject, DOF is greater for a shorter focal length than for a longer one.
4. At the same aperture and image size (the subject framing remaining constant), DOF remains approximately constant for all focal lengths.

In this thread, it appears Bob is talking about situation number 4, whereas Todd is talking about number 3. Both are making valid points.

The situation many people encounter is too much DOF for the framing/composition they want – for example, in an interview. The common advice given is to move the camera back and zoom in. However, when you do this, to achieve the same frame composition, you have to move the camera back to a point where the DOF of the new focal length matches what you previously had. This is demonstrative phenomenon.

However, using a longer focal length can help with the illusion of a shallower DOF by narrowing the field of view and magnifying the background blur of the image (making the background larger in relationship to the foreground).

An excellent article with specific photographic examples and reference material can be found at:

https://www.vanwalree.com/optics/dof.html

So yes, focal length does affect DOF. But there are areas where you achieve the same DOF with different focal lengths – same subject framing being one of them.

[Boyd Mccollum]

point of clarification – there are only 2 elements that affect depth of field (DoF), that is f-stop (aperture) and image size (or in the case of video, sensor size). The smaller the image/sensor size, the greater the DoF and the lower the f-stop (for example f/2.0), the shallower the DoF. Depth of Field is the result of a mathematical relationship between these two, and the focal length doesn’t matter.

Zooming in, or increasing your focal length, creates the illusion of a shallower DoF, but this is due to higher magnification. Longer focal lengths flatten perspective, which makes the background larger relative to the foreground (basically magnifying the inherent blur in the background image). Focal length can also affect the distribution of the DoF around the focal plane: at a shorter focal length (wide angle), the majority of what is in the DoF takes place behind the focal plane, while at a longer focal length (telephoto), the DoF is more evenly distributed in front and behind the focal plane.

I

[Boyd Mccollum]

I’d echo using DVDSP – in the reverse of your situation a few years back, I had trouble figuring out iDVD and found DVDSP much easier to use (weird, huh?). Once you get a simple menu in there, you can also just do a “Save As” for any additional projects you have, import the new files, drop them on the timeline and be good to go. I’d recommend picking up the APTS book on DVDSP – you don’t need to go through all of it, just the steps you are working on at any given time. Basically though, if you’ve been using FCP, DVDSP isn’t too intimidating.

[Boyd Mccollum]

[iCriddle] “i know older versions of Premiere can capture 29.97 at a time lapse rate”

if you are asking if there’s a way to capture the footage as timelapse in FCP, I don’t believe it can do that. You will need to capture all 9 hours of footage.

Also, speed changes aren’t “timelapse”. Timelapse involves shooting a frame of film or video every “x” seconds, minutes, hours, days, etc. I’ve never needed to backend this in FCP, so I don’t know what the short cuts might be, but you could select what interval between frames you want and delete all the footage in-between. Time consuming, but that’s the genesis of the reason why we try to avoid “fixing it in post”.