[Michael Hutchinson]

Many thanks for your prompt and very helpful response. The shoot was a mess from start to finish and we had a limited amount of time, so as soon as the set and lighting were ready, it was go time, and for some reason, it never occurred to me to match camera settings.

Anyway, I’m converting everything to a common codec right now. Here’s what I’m doing (if you get a chance, please let me know if this makes any sense to you or if I should be going about things a completely different way).

First, let me explain why I have to do the image re-sizing and cropping. I won’t go into too much detail as per my agreement, but it’s essentially a fake courtroom type show.

My PMW-EX1 is focused on the “Judge,” one of the cameras (the Sony VX-2000) is roaming, getting audience reaction and what not. Camera #2 (the SR1) takes a two-shot of defendant and plaintiff. And camera #3 (HC3) is zoomed in tighter, jumping back and forth between plaintiff and defendant.

Because we didn’t really have time to set up the shots and I was on the EX1, I didn’t get a chance to monitor the video from the other cameras.

It was only when reviewing the video during transfer that I realized how poorly composed so much of the video turned out to be. Lots of zooming, adjusting of the angles and picking up unwanted background images, etc… When I saw this, I realized that the only way to make it look somewhat decent would be to do a lot of cropping, while adding some fake two-shot framing borders.

So, I realized that I’d have to edit everything in a SD timeline.

What I’m doing now is separating the cases into new video files. There are 6 cases in total, so I’ll end up with 24 different video files.

So, I started with the footage from the Sony VX-2000 and created an Apple ProRes 422 HQ 1920 x 1080 24p sequence. Having used the razor blade to divide the segments in a previous sequence, I then copied and pasted the segment to the new sequence with a name like “Case001_VX-2K.”
After rendering the video, I then chose to export as a new movie with these Sequence Presets (Apple Pro Res 422 HQ 1920×1080 24P).

I’ll then do the same for the other video files until all have been converted to this format.

Then I’ll start a New Project with standard 720×480 NTSC sequences for cases 1-6 and import the up-converted video files.

Not sure if I’ll use the multi-cam feature or not. I’ve done it before with three different types of cameras and settings, but in this case, since I’ll be doing so much split screen work, I think you’re right about doing it the old fashioned way.

My apologies for this poor description of my current workflow. I hope you or someone else can make sense of it and let me know if I’m going about things all wrong, or if this actually makes some sense.

Will definitely take your advice for my next shoot and will also spend a good deal more time setting up the cameras so that I know I’m getting the composition I want.

Any tips for now or later would be hugely appreciated.

Many thanks and all the best,
Michael

Michael David Hutchinson
“That most limited of all specialists, the well-rounded man.”–F. Scott Fitzgerald ‘The Great Gatsby’