Bret Williams
Forum Replies Created
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Sorry Phil, I just got back to the thread and read like 20 posts from Jeremy, you, and Jeff and absolutely not one single new thing was said except for minor differences in the phrasing and no matter what was said or how it was suggested you just said you will not will not use them! 🙂 And since I have a 5 and 8 year old, of course the first thing that came to mind was green eggs and ham.
But leave it to Jeremy to get creative with it! Somehow I was counting on him. Now if I can just trick him into cutting my next project for me…
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Roles are just like green eggs and ham. Try them try them!
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When I say archive raid, I’m simply referring to a mirrored raid where I throw completed projects. I also keep pretty much everything there because of how secure it is. A mirrored (raid 1) is just two drives with duplicate info. It has no performance benefit. Mine is an external chassis – guardian Maximus. It has two 5tb drives in it. As it gets full, I go in and delete the camera media from the projects as long as I gave the client a copy. I don’t keep their media on my system forever! Usually 6 months or so or until I need the space just in case something comes back as it always does. But if it’s a turnkey project where we scripted and shot then I’m sort of my own client and I have separate usb drives with just camera media. I like to have access to just about everything except camera media for the last 10 years or more. A project takes up very little space once you remove the video/camera media. It’s just some graphics and a ProRes master usually. I like having the AE projects in case I want to redo a look or something. But I don’t have a database. It’s all memory and search. Another neat thing about the mirrored drives is every year I get two bigger drives and copy everything over. Then I take the 2 old drives and store them in separate locations. They also have family photos, invoices, stock media, and more.
The guardian Maximus is a hardware raid. I don’t think there’s any need for software raid. It just boots up as a single drive.
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Depends on how you work. The general consensus seems to be a Library for each job. A job might just be one project(timeline) or a series of videos. Some people create a library for each client. I prefer a library for each video project because at the end I need to consolidate the library down to just the final project(s) and the media necessary for said project(s).
I highlight the project(s) in the browser and choose File>Copy Projects to Library>New Library and choose to save it to the appropriate client folder on my archive raid.
When that is complete (close the original library to avoid confusion)and with the new library open I highlight the library itself and in the inspector library properties make sure storage locations for media is set to “in library.” Then I click the consolidate button which ensures there aren’t any aliases in the library. (When you copy a project to a new library it only copies the necessary media and if that media is an alias, the new media is also an alias.)I choose not to copy optimized or proxy as that just makes the new project bigger. Render files won’t be copied.
Now you have a single FCPX packaged project that can be reopened on any system and won’t have any issues with relinking or missing media.
It will keep all your keywords, but if you had some file structure at the finder level for your media, that will be lost as all your media is now contained in the package.
In addition- I do similar processes for my AE and Motion Projects and save them to the same location in a folder along with ProRes masters and the consolidated FCPX project. If I have any other projects that I feel may be necessary like psd or ai files, I copy them too.
And don’t forget! If you created any custom fx or templates or settings or plugins, those sadly don’t get saved with the library, so you’ll need to back them up separately in case you want to open it on a system that doesn’t have them or even open it up on your own system after a clean install at a later date.
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It also affects decode of h264 which is why you’ll find iMac users having no problem editing native footage and MacPro users having to transcode. Then, of course complaining about export times. Between those two, and the cost difference, plus a retina display included, I can’t find a reason to purchase a MacPro for FCP X usage alone.
How about a Mac Pro mini with the dual GPUs, and quad i7s?
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I only use compounds for compositing and animation. Much like you would in After Effects. Generally try to avoid making a compound because things are then hidden and access to anything is only available by opening the compound out of context with the elements around it. I kinda wish they’d take a page from Avid where you have the additional option to open the nest right in your timeline. It would open up like key framing does.
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[Phil Lowe] “(can’t skim across multiple clips with the inspector open, however)”
What does that mean? Of course you can.
BTW you can kinda turn off the skimmer only in the timeline by pressing shift T. That puts you in transform mode where the skimmer is turned off, presumably for plotting keyframes. But the you can still skim in the browser, inspector open or not (still a strange comment).
[Phil Lowe] “Edit out bad takes and dead air, then drop to secondary, leaving a gap on primary.
Pieces that start with track, drag to beginning of timeline on secondary timeline. Pieces that start with SOT/Nats, drop into primary with insert/overwrite.”I think I’d leave everything in the primary storyline that dictates time. I’d leave the reporter and the sot pieces on the primary. They are the driving force. The broll should connect to those pieces whevever possible so that when you drag or move them around in the primary, the connected broll moves with them. I wouldn’t ever use overwrite or place any broll in the primary.
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Why did you apply a gain filter?
What did you mean by you can’t skim across multiple clips when the inspector is open? You said that multiple times and I haven’t the foggiest what you meant. There are no limitations to anything when the inspector is open. I pretty much never close the inspector. People say to close it for better performance, but that’s where you DO everything.
Are you outputting to tape? That is the ONLY reason I can figure you’re outputting with stuff isolated right and left. Doesn’t your station output in stereo? I can’t believe you’re working in a mono transmission TV station in 2016. Even in the days when I edited like you but on tape we sure didn’t monitor with our channels panned left and right. That provides an inaccurate mix. We monitored in mono mix. Hearing the channels independently out of different speakers is just no way to determine a mix. Sure won’t help with determining if one signal has a phase cancellation or if one eq is messing with the other. Sounds like you’re editing just mic and nat. Which means you should be able to set up all your interview shots in the browser mono, select the single channel you need (others off), panned one way. Then do the same for all your nat, and just pan that channel to the other side. Then edit away. The only adjustments you’d make in timeline would be volume as you go along. You never answered if you use more than 1 channel from any shot. You kept saying you needed both channels separated, but all your examples involve two channels of output, L&R which I assume care coming from different sources, mic & nat. Correct?
So if you’re not outputting to files? Isn’t that a time suck?
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John are you talking full Rez ram previews? Usually I skip a frame or two and go half Rez but that’s on iMac. I thought Adobe didn’t want to call them RAM previews anymore.
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If you want to use just 1 channel from your footage, then you can pan all the channels left or right and turn off the channels you don’t need. That’s what I just described.
If you need both channels from your footage in your edit, then you can leave them dual mono and pan the components in the timeline as I demonstrated in my first post way back.
You could also leave them stereo, but if you need to adjust the channel volume separately you’ll have to dive into components.
That’s your options. They seem pretty quick and easy but I don’t have much use for them in my cat and skateboarding vids on YouTube. Please subscribe!