James Sullivan
Forum Replies Created
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Did you have the Log and capture window open? FCP likes to lock you out of things when that window is open. Especially if you are changing clip settings.
James
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I am going to ask a dumb question. Did you start the project at the same version of Final Cut? Upgrading anything of that size, even a dot upgrade can wreak havoc and sink ships off the coast of small countries I have been told. Nasa images of the day are photoshopped right?
I understand the risk to dig deep into gear at what could be a long drawn out indy situation. I currently have a wonderfully stable SD system. I have been waiting for “HD” to figure itself out. Blue-ray being the final piece that still sucks. I do not have clients that need it and therefor I am holding out on Encore/Fastmac internal drive/Toast. I can wait while others cannot bless them.
On the other hand, at lease you have a new system. I have nightmares about working on a project captured on firewire with second system sound that started on an ibook and is now doing a film out. Forget Jaws, or Saw Part 14 “Home Despot”, Final Cut lets you mess up and it has come to bite me more then once. It sounds like you were able to put together a decent edit suite and can finish this puppy to much applause and knowledge gained. There is too much to know about HD, post, and the future. I am finding out that patience and planing are more fundamental to money and time. This is where the Cow (Thank your creator), friends, and people who have done it before come in handy.
There was another post recently that reminded me that we are in this for the artistic creation end of things and not so much the tools. Dropped frames with producers in the room still blows.
Good luck and get that puppy out the door to be downloaded and crunched to all hell when it hits cable and ipods everywhere!
James
P.S. I am in TV please do not take any offense if in fact you are creating art. The real cost of reality television is the depletion of one’s soul one piece at a time.
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IF you are staying in FCP use Joe’s soft spot. It lets you rotate the oval which can help. Depending on how much the persons head is moving you can key frame it by hand and do ok. If you have 20 shots you might want to flip to motion where you can motion track. That being said Ripple training has a wonder demo on using the motion tracker. They do not however show you how to track a blur. The trick is to track the video first. Then duplicate the layer. Then add a blur filter to the copy. Then add a mask and feather the mask. You then apply the tracking data to the mask and viola blurry face!!! This is my solution and I am hope that somebody will make a clone filter for motion that I can then track so that I can remove logos from hats. They suck. (I do not have affter effects at work.)
Good luck,
James
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Howdy, Good news and bad news. Good news, the company that makes cinemacraft encoder is finally coming out with a mac version! Bad news I have no idea when it will be available. I wrote them an email and have not heard back yet. What is really nice is that it will be a plugin in compressor. Check out the site.
https://www.omni-cinemacraft.com/products_cinemacraft_encodermp.shtml
This should finally allow us to make good looking mpeg2 video.
I hope,
Nothing against bitvice of course.
James
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Dude! Forget HDCAM I am going VHS. Wahoo! I don’t need no stinking Time code anyway.
James
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I did not know that. Thanks for the info!!!
James
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Howdy, in a pinch if you have a standalone DVD burner they have internal TBCs that work pretty well. Come out S-video and analog audio into the DVD player. Then if its a nice one take the component out for video and the analog out into the Kona. You will be capturing now so if you need repeatablity starting dubbing and go to lunch!
James Sullivan
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I agree with everything that has been said. However, what I am after is a system whereby picture lock is maintained rather than representing a transient state of enlightenment that can have 20 revisions to it.
To me, onlining and offlining forces things to move smoother. Producers actually have to stop changing things. Offline editors mistakes can be found and corrected. And you can have access to all of your footage on avordable storage. (When I mean all of your footage I mean, 120 hours per episode of tapes, P2, Stock footage, Roughcuts, Scratch VO, Graphics, times 10 episodes, times 3 series, times your starting season 2 of all of them.) Expensive storage representing smaller first generatioin Xsan installs. (Expanding Xsan for a fleet of old G5s is money that we do not need to spend to still make money. I do believe that ProRes or DVDPRO HD could address this issue but I am after something else. Tapeless also means that when your hard drive dies so does your show. (yes I know Walter backs up all his footage) With tape you just reload it. Until Blue ray is archiving P2 to 50GB discs (Hurry up Sony!!!) I will have an affection for tape because it does not use a computer. I know several long time producers and directors who can appreciate that.
I am preparing for when you show up and nothing works and you have to move to a different place. Proper offline/online workflows assure that everything can be repeated on a different system. Having Mp3’s, H.264, Solid baked QTs with filters on them in your timeline nested twenty layers deep from older versions of Final cut on a hard drive that just died is not the way to live. (I already have ulcers just thinking about that)
Also you do not have to have the latestest and greatest computer. Droping $8000 on a new tower every two years times 12 edit suites makes no sense to me. Avid can uprez projects from System five versions of Media Composer (That people are still using by the way) Can final cut do that? It can if you do it right and that is my point. Final cut has been out long enough that people and companies have older systems. The offline/online workflow lets them keep making money of the stuff they have while making it shine and sparkle with a newer system that is the online suite.
I love Final cut. I love that we have access to all of this but I do not see offiine/online as doing work twice (Even though it is) I see it as representing a system that still has advantages too it. I am looking to merge the old with the new, east meeets west, sugar and sweet whichs blends into a harmonious relationship like at the end of Casablanca but with less alcohol and smoking…
God forbid anybody tries to deliver an EDL from the sequence that Color sends back!!!
( I will use it when they fix it)I just have to add that I have always liked your tagline!!!
James
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Howdy, I have been onlining hour long programs for Discovery Channel for a year now. I hope to post a longer set of suggestions to the cow when I can compose them in a readable manner.
I will add here that I really like offline/online. I am very concerned that FCP is moving into an “Online Only” world, and that producers will no longer think they need to do an “Online”. Anybody who has worked proffesionally knows there are numerous pitfalls with this trend when strict delilverable requirements are required to get paid. (I have several ideas for FCP in this regard as well) Also, no executive is looking at Full HD on their Blackberry or iPhone when they review your show while driving to work. (Where else do they have time to give you notes?) Why cut at full resolutioin when you are rough cutting a show? Everything takes longer…(Renders, screeners, previewing effects, etc.)As we go tapeless I really want FCP to downres to codecs of my choice inside the Log and Transfer window. Not just ProRes. Especicially as Red comes down the road. I will save the rest for another date! ( I know that you can mix and share and whatever in a timeline. I am oldschool at 27 years of age and want everything accounted for and repeatable)
James Sullivan
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I would definatley run a test to make sure the way Canon Flags 24 frames can be ingested by FCP. They have their own codec that in previous versions of FCP could not be ingested. You might have to use a camera to ingest as well. Although maybe the new Sony HVR-1500 might read Canon’s flaging system but I would not count on it. I would shoot regular boring 1080i HDV 59.94 and use a Miranda box to do the cross to 720p. Or ingest everything through a Kona card at full 1080i, make your selects, then output back to 720p letting the card do the cross convert. You will need a lot of hard drive space or do tapes sequentially. I recommended the dub route because that makes all of your footage available for the offline just in case you need to grab something else. However, I work in reality TV whereby we have no script and we use anything and everything to cut scenes.
I have never done a film out so I will defer to your post house if that path will look like crap when it gets blown up. I also am very very very unfamilar with 24p in general. I do not know if mixing 24p and 1080i has implications in terms of cadence and motion jerkiness. I do know that HDV is a good acquisition format for the money but doing anything outside of 1080i 59.94 needs to be looked at closely. You might look into the DV rebel Handbook as I think they have detailed workflows for the Canon HV20 as well as 1080p. You should see the amount of crap they strap onto that little camera!
Good luck,
James