[Glenn Sakatch]

I feel your pain.

wow…150 seconds with 175 cuts…thats intense!

The first thing i ask when a project i wasn’t in control of comes to me is “what was it cut on”
(I ask this more and more for the simple reason of finding out if it came from Premiere Pro instead of Avid.)

I have said for years that Premier (and the old FCP) might make it look really easy to do frame rate conversions, but their inability to track the actual change is hell in an offline/online workflow.

Nesting and baking in effects and renaming master clips just smells of an editor that needs to go through the pain of a conform him or herself, in order to learn what they are doing.

Glenn

[Glenn Sakatch]

It really depends on the type of project you are doing.

I do a lot of live sports opens and bumpers and promos, so the music can end up being just as important, as it drives many of those pieces.

For sports i usually get my audio bed (85-90%) built. There is always wiggle room needed when the pictures fall into place.
I build a section of my timeline at the end of the music with all my selects…the shots i really want to use, already trimmed to the moments i think will work.

From there i know what i have, what i have passed over, and i start moving items around above my music, placing hits or crashes in spots designated by the music, if there is voice over, then items to represent those statements are placed.
There can be a lot of experimenting to find the right balance of action vs emotion vs epic shots…and there is usually 1 shot that gets tried over and over and over again….but in the end, keeps getting put back in the scrap pile.

As clips are moved around, they are trimmed, the music might need to be opened up if i’ve under estimated the impact in a section, but typically we are trying to hit a fairly specific time range, so there isn’t a lot of room for that.

Final step for the edit is usually to take a look through my scrap pile to see if there is something that really “has” to be in the piece.

Once done, on to color and output. If we have the time and luxury to send to sound then obviously color then layback then output…if not, i do the sound mix after the edit is done, before color.

Docs, features, and agency commercials are a different workflow, where music may or may not drive a scene, and can be added at either the start or closer to the end of the process.

But Color, layback and output are typically the last 3 items. I very very rarely would worry about color until the piece is locked, unless there is one shot i’m worried about, and want to see if it will clean up properly, or whether i need to avoid it like the plague.

Glenn

[Glenn Sakatch]

depending on what you have at your disposal, if the camera is moving, the typical technique is to stabilize the shot, mask it off, and then un-stabilize the shot by adding a reverse of the original stabilization.

Boris can do the stabilize, so i’m assuming it can do the reverse as well.
Mocha, fusion, after effects could all also help if you feel the need to leave Media Composer.

If the shot is locked off, then yes, the animatte will work quite well…feathering the edges where the existing lights intersect the body may be the most difficult area.

Adding the lights in with an additive or screen technique will help to hide these areas.
Again, using something like fusion to create your lights would be a great way to proceed, as you could actually have the lights spin through the shot, as if they were rotating from the top of the police car.

Glenn

[Glenn Sakatch]

Is uncompressed better…yes. Is it necessary…again depends on your final delivery

The one thing you might find going PC to mac, and DNX to prores is a gamma shift.
Uncompressed will probably help with this…but at a cost in file size.

If you do some testing on bars from the colourist, and can get everyone’s settings correct the I would do one of the following.

If you want a 422 master then I would go r3d to DNA 175x to prores 422.

If you want a 444 master I would go r3d to Dnx444 to prores 444.

Test the file workflow…scope the bars from the colourist and make sure you see what he saw….then you can avoid uncompressed.

Nobody will ever look at your final Prores output and say “it doesn’t look like you used an uncompressed intermediate”

Glenn

[Glenn Sakatch]

Thanks for all that Bob, i know it was a bit of a mess of questions.

I think the qnap will be my solution.

I hadn’t heard of Indistore, i’ll have to look into that.
Like i said, its just me, and i don’t really have enough hands to try to access the same project at the same time, (although it has happened where i forgot to exit the project on one box, and you end up with a conflicted copy of the project inside avid).

I appreciate you taking the time to clarify everything.

Glenn

[Glenn Sakatch]

[Shane Ross] “The interface in Resolve is NOT COLOR ACCURATE! Sorry, I seem to say this every day”

I always hold off saying it because i know you will ☺

There needs to be a sticky at the top of this forum.

Glenn

[Glenn Sakatch]

if the piece is already edited, and about to go to grading, then you might want to consider linking back to the R3ds.
Talk to the colorist and see what they want.

Yes uncompressed is a great quality option, but not knowing the scope of the project you are working on, it may be overkill. That is why a lot of us are simply saying work in a high quality DNX.

The client wants a prores master…fine. There is a great chance they want that because that is what they always ask for. There isn’t really an advantage to having it in Prores for the most part, but if thats what they want, fine. That still doesn’t mean you need to turn everything into ProRes first.

If the colorist is fine working with highres DNX, then let them. If his box can handle R3d’s, then let him.

Your original post said you were looking for a working codec for editing, so i think we are all a bit confused that the project is already edited. Personally if it has been edited at high res DNX and has to go off to color, you have two choices…go to R3d or leave it as is. Turning your DNX into uncompressed isn’t going to do anything, but waste space. You don’t gain anything in that workflow. Same thing if your DNX is 422…going to 444 isn’t going to gain anything, unless you go back to R3ds first…in which case, i would again send that off to the colorist, and let him work natively.

If the colorist can’t create prores, and it has to come back through you, he would either send you a DNX file that matches his orignal codec (not sure what that is) or if he has worked in R3d, then NOW he could create as high res a master as you want…again, depending on the scope of the project and what is needed.

Is this going to a theatre, a broadcaster, or a youtube channel. Those are considerations as well.

Glenn

[Glenn Sakatch]

Resolves restrictive sizing rules drive me crazy. You can expand this but not that. Just give me floating windows already, and let me save out some workspace settings! I use dual ultra-wides and would love to customize my workspace.

Glenn

[Glenn Sakatch]

Give Avid support (licensing) a call, and make sure your email on your avid account, matches the dongle SID account and Application manager is aware of those items working together.

I think when 8.0 or 8.2 came out i started having licensing issues with Avid not letting my dongle work with the latest version. Support would have to send me a manual dongle update file for 8.2 and 8.3 and 8.4..it was very annoying. Finally in 8.5 it all worked…not sure what changed, but everything is now on the same page.

And obviously if you are moving from box to box, you do have the same (or earlier) version of Avid on each box?

Glenn

[Glenn Sakatch]

“you can’t change anything about that directory, or organize the files within it”

Not true, you can organize your media, many of us do it, but you have to be diligent and organized to keep it working.

As Shane pointed out, all new media goes into the “1” folder. Any number folder can be written to by Avid…which basically means any other numbered folder can be scanned and have the database updated.

My workflow (and i’m not alone) is to bring in day 1 footage, AMA and transcode, or how ever you get your media into the box. This puts the media into a “1” folder. Once transcode is complete i rename that folder to ProjectName_Day1, or on a smaller project, ProjectNameMedia. By using letters in the folders name, this essentially locks this folder from anything new adding to it. (Avid can’t update the database).

I then do my work on the box as normal, not worrying about folders for the rest of the day.
If i’m just working on the same project tomorrow, again, i don’t worry about anything. Any renders, imports, etc that i create during those sessions are put into a new “1” folder.

If a second days footage comes in, and i’m going to ama/transcode it, i rename the “1” folder to ProjectName_working
and then create my transcodes. At the end of the transcode session, i rename the newly created “1” folder ProjectName_Day2. I then rename ProjectName_working back to 1, and continue my job.

I use this process for all my projects. My Avid MediaFiles folder has folders name by Project_Camera, “working” “Project_renders from resolve” “Project_HighRes from Avid”….what ever i need to keep things organized.

If i’m on a simpler project, i leave it all in a 1 folder until i change projects. Then i rename the 1 folder to something else, and jump to a different project.

As i said, you have to be organized, and fairly diligent to maintain the structure, but if a second edit house needs day 2’s footage, i can find it immediately.

If footage appears offline, because the data base has gone corrupt, i copy the folder name, rename the folder back to numbers 55555 is used a lot for this purpose…delete the database, and let avid rebuild it. Once done, i paste 55555 back to the original name and move on.

Play with the technique, you will get used to it. You will get to the point where you are about to hit the render or the import button, and you will ask yourself what project the current “1” folder is connected to, and is it ok to hit render yet or not.

If i forget to do a switcheroo at any point, i can always drag the database into an open bin, and figure out what media is from what project, and get it clean up and reorganized.

Glenn