Michael Garber
Forum Replies Created
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Carsten –
This is great to know. Didn’t know you could do that. Thanks!
Michael Garber
5th Wall – a post production company
Blog: GARBERSHOP
My Moviola Webinar on Cutting News in FCP X -
Speed Increases:
1. Not necessarily having to transcode (R3D + Alexa 4444). Background transcoding doesn’t slow me down too much if drives are fast or left overnight.
2. Skimming. Huge. Not having to 2x-click each clip.
3. Making fixes / working with producer/director in the room. MTL makes that process very fast.
4. Batch renaming in X over 7. Can this be done in Avid?Slowdowns:
1. When you make one itty bitty teeny tiny mistake on import or in creating roles or keywording, can complicate things down the road when timelines have been made.
2. Multi-user issues
3. Slowdowns in the timelines due to unexplainable issues or complex timelines.
4. Other little bugs/glitches due to early days on development or OS-based issues.
5. Making quick audio dissolves. Not necessarily a slowdown though. I find it slower but that I generally get it right on the first try, whereas I would futz around with an audio dissolve in 7 a lot.
6. Exports don’t use rendered clips to build QT (AFAIK). That would be a nice speed increase if it worked that way.
7. Having to stop and thing, “how would I do this in FCP X vs another NLE?” Although I do consider that a good thing since it forces me to think about how I’m going to organize for the edit.Areas of questionability that are supposed to increase speed – Roles. Just make sure that you’ve done it right to begin with and test everything before getting it out to an AAF.
Logging channel names for multichannel audio. Takes a little longer, but it really helps you out in the timeline.
I’m finding that I do every edit in X slightly different. Slight differences in how I keyword or group clips, etc… It’s all based on how I see the edit going. Getting better at this with each edit.
I find the process of building the edit to take roughly same amount of time. That process tends to work at the speed of my brain making mental connections to what I need to place in the timeline.
Hope that helps.
Michael Garber
5th Wall – a post production company
Blog: GARBERSHOP
My Moviola Webinar on Cutting News in FCP X -
Yes. Was also thinking, since I’m in wish mode right now, it might be interesting to be able to expand compound clips in the same way you can expand audio components to quickly make adjustments without having to open the compound. This way you’d see changes made to the TL as you make the adjustments.
Michael Garber
5th Wall – a post production company
Blog: GARBERSHOP
My Moviola Webinar on Cutting News in FCP X -
[Jeremy Garchow] “I do miss some of the organizational functions, but I don’t need tracks to do so. “
Agreed.
We need a way to quickly group (without compounding) clips in order to lock a clip in time. For example, a song that has been cut down and has two overlapping clips with a fade-in/fade-out on the audio. In order to keep an overlapping cut point on two connected clips easily editable and locked in time, you have to add gap on the second clip and stretch it back to the beginning of the first audio clip… Kinda sorta faking tracks.
As for organization, I used to think we needed role buckets whereby any clip you add to that horizontal region gains a predetermined role. Now that I’ve cut more than a few projects with X, I’m thinking we just need a simple grid system to “hang” a clip in place vertically. Roles could then be added later based on their vertical position.
I also hope for a way to solo or highlight these “grids” (not tracks! ;0) ) so that you could use your keyboard to perform edits. The MT would still operate the same way. We’d just gain that oh-so-needed hierarchical organization food our editor brains feed on.
And yes on color coding and all that fun stuff. More more more. Can’t wait to see what’s coming down the pike.
Michael Garber
5th Wall – a post production company
Blog: GARBERSHOP
My Moviola Webinar on Cutting News in FCP X -
Hi Jules,
If I understand your issue correctly, my solution for dealing with a situation like this is to move the a-roll out of the primary and place it underneath the storyline. Then place the b-roll in the primary so you can easily attach the transition. I understand the why you would want to to keep all b-roll above, but it’s just not always possible.
I’ve been working with multiclips a lot lately and you cannot break those apart, so that’s how I came up with the above solution.
Sometimes, depending on how many shots, I’ll move the A-roll up to a secondary storyline and just create the transition to the b-roll above the storyline.
I try to stay away from detaching audio. I guess, another way around detaching audio would be to match back to the original shot and do an audio-only attached edit.
Hope that helps!
Michael Garber
5th Wall – a post production company
Blog: GARBERSHOP
My Moviola Webinar on Cutting News in FCP X -
Not sure of the positives or negatives of creating proxies in RCXP and matching back to the R3Ds for color, so I can’t add to the conversation there.
Disclaimer- I haven’t taken a full project from X to Resolve, so I don’t know of the pitfalls. I’ve just tested it out in short test sequences to see if it would port over to Resolve. It seemed to work just fine. But those sequences were very simple. My guess (and hope) is that Resolve 10 will be even better at importing X timelines.
My understanding is that the plus side of letting FCP deal with it is for the sake of simplicity. Import the files, let FCP do the transcode while you’re working or at night. Switch to proxy mode to work. When you’re done, switch back and export an FCPXML to Resolve. You can also edit the RMD raw data in FCP if you choose.
To save on drive space, one trick you could do is to uncheck Copy Files to FC Events Folder. You could import the R3Ds from an external drive, perform the proxy transcodes – which always default to placing the files in your event (you can’t change their location outside of the event you are working from). When that’s all done, switch to proxy mode. You should be able to then unmount the R3D media drive and be good to go.
When you’re ready to conform, just re-mount the drives with the files in their original directories and switch back to original media in FCP X. As I’m sure you know, test test test, then proceed with caution ;).
Michael Garber
5th Wall – a post production company
Blog: GARBERSHOP
My Moviola Webinar on Cutting News in FCP X -
The last two projects I worked on were commercials – the first was a 2-camera multicam shot on Alexa (800 clips total) with lots of slow-mo and 5D footage. The second spot was a single cam shot on RED.
Both spots were shot with matching timecoded audio and video. I used Sync-n-Link to match everything up. Very fast and easy to use. If there is any sync offset, it will handle it based on you telling it the number of frames.
I recommend keeping the media in it’s own folder and not allowing FCP to import the footage into the Events folder. This will keep the events and projects “multi-user friendly.”
With the RED footage, open up all the clips in REDCineX first and save all the RMDs into the native folders. This way, if you make any changes to them in FCP, they will port over to Resolve.
I think it’s best to let FCP handle the proxy transcoding.
Can’t say that I recommend the Mac Pro with the 5870 card. If they can spring for a new iMac, then go for it. I was editing with the native RED R3Ds without transcoding on the iMac and also on my rMBP without any problems. Just some slow renders. But *very* fast renders with the Alexa 4444 footage.
I had some issues with spots that used the Alexa-based 2-camera multiclips. Major system slowdowns. This was possibly because I had a 3rd angle with footage from the 5D. That issue has gone mostly unresolved.
On the project shot on RED, I was very meticulous in the way I logged. Skimmed every shot and keyworded based on scene. Then I added the Scene_Take# into the keyword’s notes field on each shot, especially if it was a series.
I’m just coming off both of these projects tonight and stepping on a plane in the wee hours of the morning. So I’m just throwing a bunch of info without reading it back. I’d be happy to elaborate more if you want to contact me directly.
Michael Garber
5th Wall – a post production company
Blog: GARBERSHOP
My Moviola Webinar on Cutting News in FCP X -
Took me a second to figure out how to work the G key. That’s awesome. Thanks. Second new fav!
Michael Garber
5th Wall – a post production company
Blog: GARBERSHOP
My Moviola Webinar on Cutting News in FCP X -
B to blade, cmd-b to cut = new fav! Thanks for the tip.
Michael Garber
5th Wall – a post production company
Blog: GARBERSHOP
My Moviola Webinar on Cutting News in FCP X -
I echo everyone’s favs as pretty derned important. When I teach editors FCP X, I start the keyboard demo by telling them to keep their left hand near S and C.
Since I use a Wacom tablet, the arrow tends to float around a lot, ending up in places I’d care not to mention in public spaces such as the Creative Cow :P. And since having skimming turned on affects where FCP places an insert or overwrite edit, I’m constantly turning S on and off.
Michael Garber
5th Wall – a post production company
Blog: GARBERSHOP
My Moviola Webinar on Cutting News in FCP X