[David Lewis]

Hi David:

I found it and (of course) it works perfectly. Thanks for guiding me through that. For some reason I didn’t see that line in the drop-down menu (guess I “didn’t look hard enough”… as I’m oft to remind my daughter to do!).

As I work more and more with FCP I’m finding it very easy and friendly to use… the trick is just to get over the learning-curve and get to know the system… of course just when I’m getting to be somewhat “proficient” (still got a ways to go)… they drop FCP7 and promote FCPX, which apparently is missing a few key features I may need.

All the best and thanks again!

David C. Lewis
Editor- Director
DCL Video Productions

[David Lewis]

All good points. This is the 5th episode in a series, which by the way, has some foreign experts (professors) speaking in English, which is not their native tongues, so I’ve had a lot of “uhms” and “ahhs” to edit out during the course of the cut.

I have used “pull ups” a lot and do cover most of my interviews with some great footage our research team acquired (this is a historical documentary and we have hit many rich archives for footage including photos and films) making for terrofic visuals.

Yet in this particular case he not only just talks with pauses (very easy to eliminate) but he actually slows the words he is saying. So, I thought that in addition to our usual “MO” of multiple trims and b-roll images, I could speed him up a bit (5%-10%… gotta experiment) to help the cause. I thought I remember hearing about an application, plug-in or some effect that did this.

Thanks for the input, always appreciated.

David C. Lewis
Editor- Director
DCL Video Productions

[David Lewis]

Hi Dave:

Thanks for your answer… I figured it was something simple like that (in AVID, which is where I am more comfortable, I’ve been able to do that without any problem).

My only question is, where/what do click to dis-engage the stereo option? I’ve been playing around abit with the Audio Mixer and I don’t find that option.

Sorry for the “spoon feed”, but I haven’t found an answer by my own devices of “trial and error”.

In the end, which actually made my editing easier in this particular instance for what I needed to do, I made a VO/SYNC/FX track (eliminated all the music) and exported it as a mixed QT movie. I did the same for the stand-alone scratch music. I then placed imported these new audio files, placed them into the timeline matiching the video. THEN I was able to very easily pan the tracks L/R for CH1/2, as there were no longer any stereo associatd tracks.

Thank you for your help.

David C. Lewis
Editor- Director
DCL Video Productions

[David Lewis]

Thank you Shane.

BTW, your tutorials and input have been a big help to my better understanding FCP and allowing me to work better with it.

David C. Lewis
Editor- Director
DCL Video Productions

[David Lewis]

Hello Cody:

Thanks for your reply.

I’ll look into “Motion” for the gradient bar. I’m not too familiar with it, but I’m sure with some patience I’ll be able to create what I need.

As for the titling… yes, I had a colleague of mine show me that today. Don’t know why I didn’ think of it before…. I was rushed to get a video clip done and didn’t clearly think out my options. I ended up going to Photoshop to create the titles and imported them into the program. A couple of more steps than I needed to go, but it worked in the end.

I appreciated your reply.

David C. Lewis
Editor- Director
DCL Video Productions

[David Lewis]

Hi Shane:

You’re right.. I don’t want to edit off/on line material in the same sequence. Due to the space I’m trying to save with my portable drive, I think I’ll simply re-ingest the interview material as Proxy files… I just did a test and I see that one clip that weighed 5.29GB as the HD Apple ProRes 422 file, weighed in at 1.59GB as a proxy. Overall that’s a great savings for me in dealing with close to 2 TB of material!

As to the SD and HD issue… 100% correct, thanks. I know that there is a SD screen size of 16:9, but it isn’t HD and there is no HD 4:3. I still have to debate this issue with the client.

I will take your advice and upconvert the DV material into HD. Where can I see your tutorial. BTW, am I able to make these files in Proxy files? If so, I misunderstood something I thought you wrote earlier. That would be great if I could.

Another thing with the AVCHD file… they were filmed at different times by different cameramen. I have a lot of repeat file names of things like “Clip 1″…”Clip 2” etc. for different interviews. Now in the FCP project I keep them in indivdually labeled bins for each person interviewed. At this stage, since I’m going to re ingest everything again as Proxy (and then I can later re-ingest as full ProRes 422 for the on-line version), can I relabel the master AVCHD clips? I’d like to give them unique clip names at the very start.

Once again, I thank you for your assistance and advice. You’ve already helped me a great deal.

David C. Lewis
Editor- Director
DCL Video Productions

[David Lewis]

To both Shane and Everest:

Thank you both for setting me straight via the ProRes Proxy issue.
I can certainly easily re-ingest all the interview material from it’s origianl AVCHD format as Proxy files.

The story is that I am editing on two different machines. A powerful (6TB) Mac Tower at my client’s office and a Mac Book Pro portable with a 2TB drive connected to it at my home studio.

I had posted earlier checking how to do this and I understand that if I make an exact copy the media files between the two hard drives I can simply copy the FCP Project file and “bounce” between machines (one in my home and one at my client’s studio) and edit.

The actual edit hasn’t started, but we have accumulated a majority of the interviews (all on AVCHD files from a Panasonic camera). The amount of interview material as Apple Pro Res seems to be getting heavy.

Shane you are right… if I wasn’t going to edit at home on my Mac Book Pro, I probably wouldn’t worry about size and going to Proxy. Yet I am about to digitize in DV material ( I have an AJA Kona card) for the project and am very scared I will not be able to easily edit on my home machine if I have all this heavy Pro Res quality material.

Another issue I have to deal with is frame size! Apparently, since the archive material, and past episodes of this doco series were shot in 4:3, the client wants to have the final edit in 4:3. I’m not quite sure how to do that.

It was suggested that I simply transcode all my HD interview into SD (16:9), set a NEW project with SD 4:3 settings and crop the interview material into the native archive material(4:3) frame.

If this isn’t right… let me know how dumb an idea it is…no ego here… I am in a realm I am unsure of… I do most of my work in AVID ( I edited 3 of these epiosdes that way until the client decided he wanted to switch everything to Apple and PCP)and am working inf FCP for only the second time.

I more than just appreciate your input and suggestions…. it will make my edit on this project go so much smoother, I’m sure.

David C. Lewis
Editor- Director
DCL Video Productions

[David Lewis]

Paul:

Thanks for the information. I’ll try it when I get back to my edit station in a couple of days… it really is weird. I was able to make edits etc. but simply once I cleared the in/out on the viewer clip… the thumbnail went away.

David C. Lewis
Editor- Director
DCL Video Productions

[David Lewis]

Jeff:

Thanks… I thought that importing AVCHD files come as separate audio and video… and for some reason that AVID wouldn’t combine them, even on import until they were “togther” as a QT MOV… no doubt I was mis-informed and my lack of information didn’t help.

So using AMA I should be able to locate the files and have them imported into the AVID for editing- that’s great. I’ll give it a shot and see what happens. Frankly I haven’t worked out the AMA workflow in detail yet.

I edited two programs importing XDCAM HD material shot on a JVC and then to save drive space encoded/copied the files to DNxHD. The quality was great and work flow was very easy (only a small P&Z issue, unrelated to the video footage). I finished the project in DNxHD and exported the videos as such. Quality seemed to be great and I didn’t go back to the original AMA footage… frankly I didn’t know how to “match” the edits.

Would I (could I) do the same thing (transcode/copy) the AVCHD material to DNxHD in the same fashion??

Hope I’m not mixing apples and oranges in my question.
DCL

[David Lewis]

Hi Gaz:

As I replied to Jeff… to you as well, thanks for the reply and assistance.

I copied all my essential project information to a separate drive in a “safe” file. I then uninstalled MC4 and installed MC5 and everything is still in order.

The only difficulty I encountered was upgrading my Sorensen Squeeze 5 (came with MC4) to 6… wouldn’t allow me to do it, but I’ve sent their tech support an inquiry and hope to get that squared away.

Again, thanks for taking the time to respond and assist me.

All the best,

DCL