[Lucy Mal]

Thanks Don – I’ll give it a whirl and see how I get on.

Many thanks again for responding to my questions.

Best wishes,

Lucy

[Lucy Mal]

Hi Don – also another thing occurred to me – in the sequence settings you mention choosing 1080i – does it matter that my film is shot progressive?

Thanks

L

[Lucy Mal]

Hi Don – this is so helpful thank you very much. I will try and edit it in a pro res timeline. A couple of qs on that – in easy set up do I choose Apple pro res 422 option? In the box below it you can choose between custom set up and and HDV 1080p24 – would i choose custom set up as i shot my film on 25p? Also do i follow the same procedures as put by the first poster i.e. open up fcp7 and go to log and transfer (having installed log and transfer plugin for XDCAM). Are there any settings within log and transfer menus that I need to amend?

I’ll get there! This is all very helpful thank you. It’s about time I learnt how to use the bet settings for this cameras as although I’m using old editing software and an old camera it’s all I’ve got to use so want to make the best of it.

Thanks again for your detailed reply.

Lucy

[Lucy Mal]

Hi Tom

Thanks for replying to my question. I think I understand what you mean – I will try ingesting the footage into FCP7 the way you suggested. One thing that has confused me is what easy set up i do in FCP and do I do the easy set up before or after ingesting the footage? One of the problems I had last time i edited XDCAM EX footage was that the sequence changed to 1440×1080 instead of 1920×1080 -I don’t know what happened. I’m so lost in all the jargon – I have a very basic understanding of the tech involved in edition?g on FCP. Should I be clicking ‘yes’ to match sequence settings to clip settings when I first start editing

I’ve somehow winged it for a long time, fudging it as I go along – for this project I really want to make sure I follow every step to the letter so the footage looks the best it can. I probably haven’t used best practices when filming – I’m shooting in Africa so some of my rushes are a bit overexposed, which doesn’t help with the quality problem once it’s gone through youtube.

Anyway – if you can help with a step by step breakdown of getting the XDCam EX into FCP7 including the easy setup settings, it would be very much appreciated. I’ve also been reading on the apple fcp notes about rendering in apple pro res when I’ve finished editing. Would you do this or do it natively?

Thanks in advance.

Best wishes,

L

[Lucy Mal]

Thanks for replying Mark. My subject moves around too much I think. I’ve never used photoshop so think this might be a bit beyond me. How do you copy a grayscale version of the subject? You might have to talk me through this if you have the time.

Meanwhile, I’m going off to learn about grading as I think that’s the first thing I need to do before attempting capn blowout and sharpening.

Thanks again.

[Lucy Mal]

Hi Nick -thanks for the advice. I will attempt a bit of sharpening – feel I might get a bit lost as I’ve never done anything that complicated in FCP7. If you don’t mind – can I get back to you with any issues? I want to tidy the shot up as much as I can as although it’s not terrible it looks out of place amongst I mostly ok shot film.

I’ll be back!

Thanks again.

[Lucy Mal]

Hi Dave and NIck

Thanks for replying. I’ve got Capt Blowout into Final cut pro and, although I need more tweaking, it has definitely helped.

The face also looks a bit soft – are there sharpening tool that can be used just on one area (the leaves don’t need sharpening any more!) so I can adjust the face a bit more. Total newbie to any sort of colour correction. I’m thinking I might grade the whole short film as one clip being doctored might make the others look odd?

Thanks again for helping me.

[Lucy Mal]

Thanks so much Jorn – that seems to have done the trick. It’s weird though because when I click command 0 on the sequence that doesn’t match the clip settings, it is set to those settings. But I’ve got a feeling I set this up after I’d put clips into the sequence.

On another forum someone wrote this as the fix, which seems long-winded. Is it necessary?

‘Well, you have a lot of work ahead of you. Sorry about this.

Step 1: Make a new sequence.

Step 2: Add one of the clips of your footage to that empty sequence. When FCP asks “Do you want the sequence settings to match the clip settings?” Click YES. Remove that clip.

Step 3: Now, open the other sequence, select all…and COPY. Go to the new sequence and select PASTE.

You’ll now notice that there are a lot of gaps between many of the cuts. This is because of the frame rate difference. Also, pretty much every clip will have a numerical value in the DISTORT field in the MOTION tab…between 12% to 25%.

Step 4: You’ll have to remove the distort by highlighting all your clips, and right-clicking choosing the REMOVE ATTRIBUTES option, and choose DISTORT. That’s the easy part.

Step 5: Manually fix every gap…and make sure your audio is all in sync, that nothing slipped. How long this takes depends on how long your sequence is.

Good luck’

Thanks again for your help.

[Lucy Mal]

Hi Nick

Thanks for replying. It’s not that either – the image is ticked in the drop down box. All very strange. Any other suggestions for what it could be. It has audio no picture and is the only clip from the browser that is like this. I’ve reloaded it in and it’s fine but wondered what on earth I had done to make that clip lose its picture.

Thank you

BM

[Lucy Mal]

Hi Shane,

Thanks for your response. I tried doing Cntrl b and nothing happened, in fact the audio also disappeared as well as the picture. It’s really weird because the whole clip in the browser is black with just audio. I definitely pressed something by myself when I was spinning through it to put in markers before I put things on the timeline. And on the timeline you can still see a thumbnail of the video. All my other clips in the browser are fine.

I’ve gone back into log and transfer and put in the clip again and it works fine. I wanted to find out what I’ve done wrong in case it happens again.

Any thoughts much appreciated.

Thank you.

BM