Boyd Mccollum
Forum Replies Created
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is your Video Processing (in the Sequence Settings) set to render high-precision YUV? This might clear up some of the problem.
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I think Chaz nailed it.
The books you should be looking at are not “editing” books, even those by Walter Murch. You should be reading books about storytelling and scriptwriting. Often the analysis that needs to be made is about the story elements – you really need to approach it as a writer. The only difference is that one’s tools are pen and paper, the other’s is moving pictures and sounds.
The other books to read are reflected in the title of this post – Literature. Read good novels and then reread them with an eye informed by what you’ve read on the craft of writing. It might not be a bad idea to take a creative writing class or two. That may do more to help then just editing – you can write quite a few short stories in less time than editing a doc.
For your project, you may want to get away from the edit bay and write it out in story form. Or practice telling the story verbally to friends – so when you say, “hey, I’m working on this doc,” and they say, “what’s it about?” you answer then becomes the narrative structure for the film you edit.
It’s funny, editors often talk about being “storytellers” but often neglect working on that aspect of the craft. Just compare the time we spend on that with the time writers spend. Not even close. I just picked up a book by Robert McKee called “Story: Substance, Structure, Style, and The Principles of Screenwriting.” He described a storyteller as a “life poet”. Writers will often sit for hours at a time, just watching the world around them. Do we as editors do this as well? I dunno, but we probably should…
just my $0.02.
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I think part of the problem is that the V1 workflow isn’t entirely figured out yet (or entirely supported). Not sure how well it would work going through a capture card, but if you capture it the way you did, did the conversion as mentioned in the article you referenced first, then began editing, it would prevent some of the issues you are currently having.
I’d also recommend when you mix media, to have the workflow figured out in advanced and bring everything together with the same framerate and codecs prior to editing.
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modify my input based on what Graeme said!
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[KMimsey] “1) How do I handle mixing frame rates on the timeline? “
You need to get all your footage to the same framerate AND codec for editing.
I don’t know anything about the V1 – does it need to be 23.98 to playback correctly or is it designed to playback at 29.97? (with the DVX 100 for instance, 24p is designed to playback and look right at 29.97, while 24pA needs to playback at 23.98).
What is the final output requirements? 24p or 60i? HD or SD? And which to you have more footage of? You probably need to convert your HDV to the same codec as your DV footage, (Standard Def DV25). You could drop your HDV footage onto a DV/NTSC timeline and render. It may be that you can go back out to the V1 and then reimport it as SD DV.
You can also use compressor to up rez your DV footage to HD if that’s what you need to do. Export as a QT movie (either self contained or reference), then import into Compressor. Make sure you use the same codec that you are going to convert your HDV timeline to (photo-jpeg codec per the article). You need to have the same codec on the timeline.
If the footage from the V1 can playback at 60i, you should be okay. If not, follow the information in the article you provided. The directions aren’t totally clear, but you drop your HDV footage into the proscribed timeline, *but* don’t convert to photo jpeg if you need to end up with DV25 to work with your other footage. Render. Export as self contained movie or reference file. Open Cinema Tools, locate the QT movie you made and follow the directions. That movie will only be one clip. Go in a second per the instructions to find the A frame.
You may need to use the Nattress Standards Converter to turn your DV 60i stuff into 23.98 so that you can edit with your HDV originated material.
[KMimsey] “Do I need to delete the DV footage from the timeline that I’m going to make a QT file out of and reverse telecine, then add them back in on the new timeline afterwards?”
No.
[KMimsey] ”
2) When I create the QT file, do I make it self-contained?”It’s not necessary – I usually do, but that’s a preference with no real grounding in logic.
[KMimsey] “What about animated LiveType clips?”
Don’t copy those over to your new timeline and render. Do all of the other stuff, then at the end, on your final timeline, put them back in. Right now they are resolution independent, but if you render them, they become part of the movie and when you scale and do other things, they will lose sharpness, etc.
[KMimsey] “4) Just to make sure, I only need to export the timeline as a QT and reverse telecine, not the individual clips, right?”
Yes.
[KMimsey] “5) What is the best method for exporting this at the highest quality without the capability of using BlueRay HD DVD’s?”
From your final timeline, export a QT movie. Import into Compressor, select best quality for the duration of the project. You can’t add quality at this point. You only have what you have. Trying to go out to any other codec first before making your mpeg2 file will just add more compression then what you already have.
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Another thing you can try is to export your sequence as a QT file. Make the QT self-contained. Then open Compressor on your own, go into File>Import, and see if that brings in the project. You can also try exporting the QT movie as reference file, then importing that into Compressor to see how that works.
The other thing is to trash preferences in FCP. Do a search on the Cow for the link to FCP rescue. It may not be a Compressor problem at all.
And as a double check, have you recently installed any 3rd party applications, etc., since the last time you’ve successfully exported out through Compressor?
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Hey bbalser,
a quick question, I can see the advantages of the higher resolution to work with, but isn’t the color space the same in HD and SD? DVCProHD is 4:2:2, but many SD codecs are also 4:2:2 (uncompressed 8bit comes to mind).
Thanks,
Boyd
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Thanks Dave!
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Hi Dave,
thanks for the response – what you described is exactly what happened. The footage was accidentally shot in 24pA, the editor didn’t know, and it was all captured at 24p.
I was able to get the original tape and will be recapturing. Here’s a question, I know I can use the preset that removes the 2:3:3:2 pulldown, but will that create problems playing back out of the timeline when mixed with the other 24p footage that had a 2:3:2:3 pulldown? There’s a playback cadence that is selected where FCP adds the cadence back in and you choose which pulldown to use.
OTOH, it may not matter as we are going to 24pDVD.
What I was thinking of doing was capturing at 29.97, use the Nattress standards converter to change the 24pA to 24pN, then Cinema Tools to remove the 2:3:2:3 cadence to maintain a consistent look.
I could try it both ways, though I hate to be redundant for no reason. And unfortunately, I’ll be the one replacing the clips by hand.
Thanks,
Boyd
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Check out Boris Crawl found in the Boris submenu of the video generators in FCP 5. The plugins are part of Boris Calligraphy. The PDF manual is located in the FCP application bundle, or can be downloaded from Apple:
<https://manuals.info.apple.com/en/Boris_Calligraphy_2_User_Guide.pdf>