Brett Sherman
7
COW Coins
Forum Replies Created
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[Herb Sevush] “in which case I give you the case of a 1 second dissolve between 2 scenes where you can hear the director giving the action cue just before the talent speaks in the second clip – do you really want the audio effect to match the video effect right there?”
Wouldn’t this be an example where the FCP X method of Fade Handles is actually superior? If you’re B shot has the director you fade that half of the edit in quicker and later and do a slower fade on the A shot to avoid a rough audio transition.
For me this example highlights why just throwing a audio fade between two clips is a little imprecise no matter if it’s with or separate from the video fade. And with Premiere if you want to do what I outlined above you’d have to move your B shot audio into a different track than the A-shot.
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[Herb Sevush] “the idea of downloading an X trial and spending months only to find out that I had wasted my time was not on my agenda, “
There’s a lot of truth here. Even if X is slightly better in some way the effort to switch is not insignificant. This is why I don’t even consider Premiere. I made my call with X, and I still believe it was the right one and believe it’s simply the best documentary editor out there. As an institutional editor, I can only switch editing programs maybe every 6 years or so. But even if I wanted to switch to Premiere, it would be more trouble than it would be worth. They are both quite capable programs.
But to the original point I’d say Fade Handles are the tool designed for the job. Superior in precision to transition fades, but inferior in speed. Depends on which you care about more. But I don’t see how this particular issue would hardly enter the equation about whether you go with X or Premiere.
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[Howard Duy Vu] “To sum up: it would be nice to have, but the fade handles are superior even though they take a bit more time.
“Yup. It’s fine to say that you don’t like the way X handles audio fades, but to suggest it doesn’t exist or requires a workaround is completely inaccurate. Fade handles are designed for this exact thing.
Personally I use them only when there is an actual auditory need for them. Rather than just preemptively on everything. But to each their own. If this is a true issue lots of people have, Apple could create a keyboard shortcut that would trim the audio an extra 3 frames, and apply a 3 frame fade. It would do the exact thing some people seem to want.
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For me pretty much staying the course. Editing FCP X on new Mac Pro box. Shooting on C300 and GH4 when necessary (not bad, but not great either). Storing and editing on a Promax Platform Studio via ethernet. This year will probably be the lowest amount I’ll spend on equipment and software in a long time.
Things I’m waiting for: Network SSD server with at least 60 TB of storage and 10G Ethernet (3 years?). 4K and 60P camera to replace the C300 at some point. I’m interested in the Sony FS7 but can’t justify replacing the C300 at this point which remains a phenomenal camera.
Oh and if someone actually makes a REAL luminance curve plug-in for FCP X, I’ll buy it in a heartbeat.
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Yep.
I don’t think it has anything to do with the camera. With pans at 24/25/30 P you either have to be really fast (think whip pans) or slow no matter how good the camera. The in-between speeds simply don’t work. You could play around with speeding up or slowing down the pan with optical flow.
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I think a better method might be to export your final edit as Quicktime with Audio split into roles. Then import that into a new project and Detach Audio to get individual tracks.
Also I’d say if you don’t know what you want to do with it, you might be better off just mixing via the individual clips. The primary effect people apply at the track level would be compression to increase loudness. However, if not done right it can also muddy up dialogue and make it actually less intelligible. Then EQ, often to boost highs.
Other corrections are better done at the clip level, like noise reduction (if you don’t have iZotope RX4 consider getting it), and EQ matching between clips.
People making 30 second ads or promos want to hype the sound quite a bit, so there is liberal use of compression and EQ. However, mixing a 60 minute documentary is another matter, a hyped sound wears thin very quickly.
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I have a similar method. But it’s fill and retire. I keep two backups drives of a volume on the server (partitioned the same size as the backup drives). Once the drives are filled up, they are retired (meaning no new modifications). New drives are given a new number – so maybe I started at Drive10 – now I’m on Drive62. Once the server is full, I delete the oldest volume, then relying on the backup drives for access to the media.
Depending on the extent of the edits, I can either use the media directly off the old drive or copy media onto my new server volume. Either way I create a new library(with external media) on the new server volume. This way I don’t have to backup old drives and keep track of what has or has not been updated. And I can store the 1 set of the drives offsite. Storing media external to the library is required for this method to work.
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[Daniel Frome] “Based on water-cooler talk with fellow editors in my realm of broadcast, it seems like Premiere Pro”
I have no doubt that’s true. But places where editors don’t hang out by the water-cooler are places where FCP X can gain traction. This includes documentary production, news production, one-man band productions, wedding productions, web video production, institutional productions, to name a few. Whether FCP X develops more market share in broadcast work or not, there is still a sizable market for it.
Personally, I use FCP X because it’s the fastest at what I need to do. I think there are also broadcast edits where this is true also (not every edit, you trolls). In places where people don’t care whats “in” and what’s “out”, I think FCP X can make some headway.
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[John Rofrano] “Well said. You are most vulnerable the moment you take the card out of the camera because you only have one copy. I immediately create a Camera Archive to my RAID 5 array. Then I backup the archive from the RAID 5 into an external hard drive. Finally I import the media into my Library so there is always a working copy and two backups. Note that RAID 5 in and of itself is not a backup. RAID 5 is for uninterrupted use in case of a single drive failure. You still need a backup!”
So two copies of the media are on the same array? I’d call that one backup, not two backups. It would protect against corruption(pretty rare) not media failure. Everyone has their own system that works for them, so I’m not criticizing here. But I’d be uncomfortable relying on a backup on the same drive. If your external dies while on the shelf you are pretty vulnerable to loss. If your external drive is always live then it’s less risk as you would know when it dies.
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Are there significant advantages to copying MXF directly off the camera card versus rewrapping to Quicktime? I’m not sure why I would do this.