[Lars Fuchs]

Basically you’re dealing with version control. Key to this is to have a consistent naming strategy for your sequences. You can use whatever works for you, but stick to it religiously – it’ll prevent the kind of confusion you’re talking about.

I like to append the date to the name of every sequence I’m working on, and I make a fresh copy every morning when I start work. That gives me a benchmark that’s useful when the client wants to review progress or compare changes etc. Its also a safety net.

I also tend to make copies of my sequence during the day, mainly whenever a biggish edit decision is made. Cutting or reordering whole scenes, changing music tracks, deleting an interview, etc. These I identitfy with a letter – Rev A is the first cut of the day, B the second, etc. This way I have a chronology of the project. Often I decide to put back a scene which was cut at some point, and this system helps me find it.

I’m also never in doubt about which version is current – its just the highest letter with the most recent date.

So – to your tcr question. If you apply the tcr filter early in the edit process, it will stay on all your subsequent versions. (just disable it when you don’t wan to see it.)

For outputting to dvd I also make fresh copies of the current edit sequence. I do this because I want to keep a copy of exactly what the client sees on the disc. If they call me up and have a question about the shot at 25:30 in the film, but I’ve already made changes since I burned the dvd three days ago, I can reopen the sequence used to make the disc and see what they’re talking about. These sequence I put in their own bin and tag them with “output” or “dvd” or “for mix” or whatever, but still keep the date and revision letter.

again, use whatever system works for you, just use it consistently. Its more a question of editing practice rather than of FCP features.

Hope this helps. Good luck!

[Lars Fuchs]

Perhaps you don’t need to make a duplicate of the nest. In the parent timeline, add the Timecode reader effect to the nested clip. When you double-click the nest, it opens up for editing, which should update properly back in the parent (master) timeline. When you no longer need the tcr, just turn it off (you don’t actually need to delete it, just uncheck it in the filter tab in the viewer.)

If you explain more clearly what your goal is, I may be able to help more. If you’re using the tcr effect when you make outputs, then the above process should work. Just disable the filter when you dont need it. (Or vice versa)

[Lars Fuchs]

People have made clear in this thread how much work there is to do on a ‘reality’ show in too little time. Their absolutely right. (I’m putting reality in quotes here not to be derogatory, but to include all manner of non-fiction shows that share this basic dynamic – ungodly gobs of footage from multiple cameras, not nearly enough time.)

What this almost always means is that the amount of footage equals or exceeds the time to cut an episode in. For example, I interviewed for a gig where they shot 85-105 hours of footage per episode, but a rough cut was expected in 2 weeks, or about 100 hours of editing. There’s no way the editor had the luxury of watching in real-time all the footage; something he’d be expected to do on a documentary, for example. This is why experience counts for so much in this type of work… experienced editors can confidently cut the best episode without seeing all the footage.

Usually field producers can help with some general notes. Like, “Bob and Jane got into a big fight before breakfast on tuesday”, or “Steve wrecked the car on Saturday night” etc. Its still up to the editor to find the relevant footage and get a scene together out of that without further direction.

Make sure your edit assistants know how to sync multiple cameras, and enforce a rigorous naming convention. You’ll also rely on assistants to hunt down cutaways and b-roll.

In general, I would say the most important attributes of a reality editor are an ability to improvise creatively and a pig-headed determination to beat the deadline. Improvisation, because as other posters have remarked, the quality of coverage can vary from bad to really bad to ‘are you kidding me? we haven’t got any footage of that!’. Pig-headedness, because once you start falling behind, problems snowball and then things can really get ugly.

And the hours are long. Its another hallmark of ‘reality’ shows that their budgets are ludicrously small compared to other genres. Even talk shows, which ought to be the cheapest, in theory. So producers cut edit time and wages. Many shows are made on razor-thin margins.

Of course, I’m a bit of an old-timer, and there was a time when you could work a 40 hour week and not be considered a slacker. Just because 50 and 60 (and 70 and 80!) hour weeks have become the norm, doesn’t mean they should be. Its just a byproduct of the increased productivity the American economy has enjoyed over the past decade.

[Lars Fuchs]

I use a 6×8 Wacom Graphire, and I’m very pleased with it. I love the fact that I can use a mouse or the pen. Best of both worlds, if you ask me.

I also use a Nostromo N52 Speedpad. I find that that really accelerates my work. I have all my most used shortcuts right under my left hand, so I rarely have to put down pen or mouse to move to keyboard. I also do it blind – meaning I don’t have to look at the keyboard first – which also speeds me along. Throw in the scroll wheel and your cooking with gas.

Of course, I also use a Griffin powermate, which is super handy, because I’ve mapped the scroll wheel on the N52 to zoom in and out (⌘+ /-). The powermate is for scrolling up and down bins etc.

FYI, if there any folks out there cutting on Avid Symphony on a Mac, the Griffin powermate is the closest thing to a VTR-style jog/shuttle wheel you’ll get. The powermate driver allows you to map rotation to mouse-left/mouse-right; combine that with the ‘mouse-jog/shuttle’ feature in the symphony and Presto! you’ve got the best shuttle controller around! (Alas, FCP doesn’t offer true jog/shuttle, AFAIK. can anybody help me out?)

I’ve always wanted to try Kensingtons trackball with scroll wheel, but I’m not ready to plunk down the cash just to try it. Has anybody used it with FCP?

[Lars Fuchs]

[Bret Williams] “Isn’t 10 hours a standard work day?”

No – you’ve got it backwards. Editors are allowed 56 hours a week for sleep. Not necessarily 8 hours a day, just an average of 8 hours per day). Client owns the rest.

;->

[Lars Fuchs]

You don’t have to worry about the 23.98/29.97 frame rate when using DVDSP alone or together with Compressor. The dvd specification accomodates 24p material; dvd players will automatically add pulldown during playback. If you need BITC, I recommend nesting your sequence and applying a TCR filter. This way the tc burnin will be 23.98, and refer directly to your sequence time code.

[Lars Fuchs]

Hi Peter,
Aaron’s method works well – I’ve done it that way. Another option is to export a reference QT from FCP, using ‘current settings’ to keep it hd, and then use Compressor to create mv2 files which you can drag into DVDSP. That’s my preferred way to work, I have been cutting a feature doc in DVCProHD, 720p24, and delivering standard-def dvds for approval. In Compressor I use Apple’s preset under DVD, “Best Quality 90 minutes”. if your material is longer, use the 120 minute preset or whatever. I haven’t had to make any special adjustments to keep the 16×9 letterboxing. I think that compressor might be flagging its output files correctly so that DVDSP knows its 16×9.

There’s no real difference between the two techniques, I’m just more familar with Compressor than DVDSP, so I’m more comfortable mucking about with it than DVDSP.

BTW, in case you’re not familiar with what to do in DVDSP to make quick-and-dirty dvd screener (no menus, etc) once you’ve dragged the mv2 file into DVDSP, delete the default menu and track. Then right-click on your file and choose ‘first play’. That will make it play automatically upon insertion. Hit “burn” and you’re off and running.

[Lars Fuchs]

You’ve basically got two options, and they both come down to a time/money cost benefit analysis. The first, working with what you have in hand, is to eye-match the original film footage to your final offline edit. As Paul explained this can be very time consuming.

Option B is to retransfer the film with a timecode reference- at a minimum you need a burned in tc. This will save you tons of time as you can set the auxiliary time code to the bitc. This will allow you to generate a transfer list for the telecine in nothing flat. I’m not sure how you would use the aux tc to reconform the sequence with the transferred footage – but I’m sure theres someone on the forum who can help you with that, and I’m sure it wont take very long. Even if you had to do it by hand, you only have to match it up by the numbers, much faster than matching it up visually.

Which option you choose depends on yours and your client time vs money equation. If your time is expensive, spending weeks or more manually building a transfer list and eyematching the conform will cost a lot more than a retransfer. On the other hand, if the cost of the retransfer is prohibitve, you might consider hiring an apprentice or assistant editor. And hey- there aren’t enough opportunties for apprentices and assistants these days!

Also, it never hurts to fight for better quality, just as a general rule. Producers are always looking to cuts costs – that’s their job – but sometimes they don’t always realize what they’re giving up in terms of quality. There are an awful lot of competition for tv syndication and home-video distribution, and good-looking pictures always helps a product stand out.

[Lars Fuchs]

Gotta love google:
Timelapse

and
Timelapse 2

[Lars Fuchs]

[Jeremy Garchow] “‘d imagine that it would knock those files offline for the other editors (they were working separate projects, no?)”

That’s what I figured, I just didn’t want to try it… too much at stake.

The Project management was annoying; everybody was working in different projects as far as their own sequences went, but all of the footage was logged in bins in projects everybody could pull from. It got a little tricky sometimes. The head ‘assistant editor’ often had to spend a lot of time ‘normalizing’ different copies of project where two editors had made different changes to sequences in it. We did have occasions where the master file fell out of sync with changes that were being made, and we had to trace down the correct edits. It wasn’t fun, and made me long for Unity.