[Mark Suszko]

No issues so far, then again we’re not doing very high-performance work with it. Mostly we work in 720, though It hasn’t choked on higher-rez 2k either. We have no 4k stuff to work on so can’t speak to that. Once you get it configured and all the apps talking to each other, it seems pretty dependable.

[Mark Suszko]

“Render in real time?” Pretty much all the new edit systems and software can do that now. Even if it is actually happening in the background, the effect from the perspective of the user is that it’s all real-time. Since it’s free, give Resolve 14 a try, see if your machine has enough muscle for it. Yeah, there are outboard graphics processor boxes; you would use a thunderbolt connection to get the data throughput necessary, not sure USB would cut it. Connecting one of these outboard processors to your laptop may not me as important as adding a very fast external RAID.

[Mark Suszko]

There is nothing special about a particular make or model of switcher for this kind of function. Your choice comes down to how much flexibility you need, and how you intend to use it.

You can use either a broadcast switcher, ( as long as it has enough fx buses, ) or a security camera type multi-image display processor, which can do various splits of two, four, six, or more sources combined onto one screen. Or even a multimedia display system designed for live stage work, can process incoming video and scale/arrange it for projection or view on screens. Put a recorder in the signal chain between the unit and the monitor, and you have a multi-split recording.

[Mark Suszko]

We use the BlackMagic Ultrastudio 4k breakout box to feed broadcast monitors and the rest of the plant playbacks from our imacs and pac pros, using both FCPX and Premiere CC

[Mark Suszko]

You have family and friends and neighbors – sit one of them down and interview them about some aspect of their lives and history. You can use anything from a phone camera to a pawn shop camcorder – doesn’t have to be expensive. I’d say the bare minimum is to use some kind of tripod and try to get a clip-on mic – Amazon sells a workable lav that can plug into phones and camcorders in the 20 dollar range. tripods you can get at thrift stores and pawn shops for a few bucks. This will get you a LOT of material to cut together in different ways, especially if you interview several people, all on the same general subject. Shoot outdoors on a park bench with a foam core bounce card until you can afford some lighting. Vary and ask the same questions a few times, in different ways, changing the camera shot on each iteration. Then look for old photo albums or other b-roll opportunities and start cutting.

Some possible topics to interview about:

Your first date.
The time you were bullied.
First house.
First car.
First job.
The nature of family and parenthood.
Changes they have seen in the neighborhood over the years.
You get the idea.

[Mark Suszko]

I meant as general policy.

[Mark Suszko]

Ballrooms are often horrible places to shoot. The house lighting is often poor, of the wrong color temp, there are sometimes windows and backlighting to deal with, and/or placed in unfavorable places.

Or there are panels, grilles, lights, and other distracting junk on the walls behind the speakers, which should have been addressed with pipe and drape, but these nuances are often overlooked these days.

The sound systems are a crapshoot. You may or may not be able to tap in, and half the time, the feed is so full of noise you might as well run your own parallel system. Ambient audio and noise is highly variable.

Back of the room telephoto shots are okay if the speakers are welded to their lecterns and never roam from it. But if you have to track them as they perambulate across the room, the long throw gives away every little bump and wiggle while tracking the speaker. Depth of field and shot compression by the long lens will also mess with shot composition, cropping out the distractions or irrelevancies while getting the key images can be more difficult. And some tall goof will always walk thru your long shot at the wrong moment, unless you use risers. I concur with Peter’s suggestion of a dedicated ENG style camera over DSLR’s. Budget for wireless lavs on all speakers, and plenty of batteries for them.

So fight hard to get a second camera closer-in, preferable you want three cameras but a good team who knows each other’s moves and who have experience at this can make two cams look like three or more, by carefully overlapping when they make their angle changes so something is always covered. If you can’t put a manned camera up closer, try for a PTZ job, controlled remotely.

[Mark Suszko]

Hey Chris, I’ve been too busy to respond until just now, but I wanted to say it was providential that you posted your response when you did. The moment it went up, I was in exactly the situation you described, stuck and not sure what was causing it. Your post literally popped into my email in-box as I was getting ready to call for more help and it made me look in the right place to solve the problem. Your timing could not have been better unless controlled by a divine hand. Just wanted to give a belated thanks to you and the others in this thread for the help.

Annnnd…… it’s happening again….. but on another project, and this is one where the original footage was first offloaded to a folder in the RAID, and the P2 card ejected, before we even created the project/library/events.

I imported into FCPX from the folder on the RAID, did a swell edit, and now again I can’t export it. I’m not at the office to double-check if the camera clip icons Chris mentioned are present, but let’s assume they are not, because I’ve re-imported the raw media twice, and “reconnect media” is not an available option. Everything is there in the timeline, and it will play fine, but no dice when I hit the “render all” or the “Share” commands. Soon as this project is done, I’m going to upgrade the FCPX to the latest build and see if things get more reliable. In the meantime, any other things I might try, to get the pickles out of the jar?

[Mark Suszko]

One old music video comes to mind:

Wang Chung “Everybody Wang Chung tonight”, which may not be the first time this was done, but it’s the first one I remember seeing. It’s a cheat in that it’s actually editing between two very similar takes, not two camera on the *same* take.

INXS might have done something like this too but I’d have to go back and look for it.

What you call it? I dunno, maybe the Nimslo illusion?

[Mark Suszko]

You’re welcome. The distort tool and the multipoint mask will be your friends here. Avoid having to track matte this. If you shoot a locked down “plate” shot of the TV area, a little wide, at 2k or 4 K, then you can tighten the shot a little bit in post, and have room to add a little interesting simulated pan or dolly-like moves on it, without disrupting the composite.