Michael Phillips
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COW Coin
Forum Replies Created
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You are correct. JKL was the keyboard equivalent of the KEM – another good example of that “transition” from one tool to another. JKL was suggested by Steve Cohen at the time. Even flatbeds had their differences between KEM and Steenbeck. There are so many approaches to storytelling that can affect how a solution gets developed. I believe that that genres themselves can suggest different approached, narrative versus documentary, versus montage, etc. The design goal was always to keep the eyes focused on the image, and not the tools which speaks to the game controller approach. Those devices are designed to always have you watching the screen, not the hardware interface.
Michael
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That sounds about right. Keep in mind that this was 1990 and most offline creative editorial was still flatbeds, even in the high end commercial market that bought the first Avid/1 Media Composers. Computers themselves were not an everyday thing, so the transition from a flatbed to a keyboard was an important move from a comfort factor. The point being that creative editor UX was also part of the design going into these systems.
These days, there are so many offerings, and users growing up on game controllers, mobile devices, and such that there is a lot to consider. There is no one perfect device, yet, but combining technologies will still be the way to go for a while.
Michael
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I can only speak to my experiences as the product designer at Avid from 1990 through ~2002’ish (when my role changed). At the time, there were two product designers as they were called. It was important that these roles were individuals who were editors, and come with production experience. My experience was all film based, film production and workflows, while Tom Ohanian came from a video and facility background editing corporate, commercials, news,etc. We acted as the intermediary between all the customers and engineering to “translate” what is meant when an editor says this, or what does it mean when an engineer says this. Then we write up design docs as to how the function/solution should be enabled, work with engineers to make it even better as they understood what could really be done with the code base, then worked with the customers in beta for final. Our experience in the entire production allowed us to see what was happening before it got to post, and how to best prepare for what happened after post as part of a workflow solution.
A small example of this; many people asked why IN and OUT were defaulted to E and R on the keyboard in addition to the more obvious I and O keys (as long as you spoke English). It is because there are more right handed editors in the world based on averages, their right hand is on the mouse, and your left hand naturally fits at the keyboard where your fingers fall on the E and R keys. Two of the more common functions being done on the keyboard at the time. The early years of NLE was a fascinating time to be on that side of the business. But even working full time, I still produced and edited features as it was a complete circle of using what was develop in a real scenario, as well as coming up with new ideas and solutions as you edited and be able to go back in and tweak and invent.
I learned an awful lot from the engineers, who are extremely creative in their own right. From what I learned on what was possible, I was able to co-invent the first digital 24 frame editing system named the Film Composer. A lot of work went into that, not just capture and playback at 24, but the metadata and list management, audio pullup/down, ABCD, and how it applied to both NTSC and PAL at the time. This eventually led to the first Universal Mastering solution with Symphony in 1999 when picture quality finally reached uncompressed and the ability from a single sequence delivery PAL and NTC with progressive and interlace, 16:9 and 4:3 at a time when HD cameras were just at the dawn of their arrival on the scene.
Can’t really speak to how the process works today – I am sure they have similar type individuals in similar roles, regardless of company. But the market pressures today are far more varied in needs and distribution, so the feature sets seem to be more IT than what can be done to take storytelling to the next level. I believe there is still more to be done in that space.
Michael
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One would need to go through the contracts on any film to see who had the right to the final edit. Sometimes it’s the director, rest of the time the studio. Rarely, if EVER, does an editor have final edit on a studio feature unless they are also directing and negotiated for that right. I’ve worked on DGA type films where the director had final edit if the film scored a minimum of “_______” at a test screening. Many editors I know speak to their rule of threes if they don’t agree with the direction of a scene or a cut is taking; suggest the change three times over the course of postproduction. If the third time is a still a no, them you let it go, you’ve done your job. It’s easy enough to show them the change these days. It’s the director’s choice in those scenarios.
There was one amusing story when Kevin Tent paid Alexendar Payne $75 to keep a dissolve in the cut because he believed in it. Of course this was based on their long term relationship and trust working together, and was all in jest when Alexander said, “put your money where your mouth is.” If I remember correctly Kevin offered $50 and Alexander got him up to $75. Kevin paid him and the dissolve stayed. I have to ask Kevin which film that was as I’ve forgotten since he told me that story.
Michael
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If you render out a timeline, then it is all baked in, but then you don’t have edits anymore other than lining up your existing timeline and doing the “subdivide” trick with Pan&Scan (not zoom) or using an EDL/relink trick I blogged about here:
https://24p.com/wordpress/?p=35
There is no real roundtrip in the case of Pan & Zoom, since the conform does not really work in he first place as mentioned. But in the case of AAF roundtrips, Avid and Blackmagic still have some work to do in that area to know when it has been baked in or not etc. Sometimes a sequence refresh helps, other times you need to remove the effect so it does not get “doubled” up.
Michael
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Like anything, one you understand what will work or not, then planning conforms and roundtrips become easier. I’ve done a lot of conforms in Resolve, round trips, dailies and such and there are certainly things to watch for. Every system has their way of representing source, compositions, effects, etc. and anything that requires interchange is open to interpretation and support on both side of the process. The Resolve guide is very well written and complete, and they have some good charts as to what is expected to conform. Outside of that, you start looking at the workaround that preserve the quality as much as possible.
Michael
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Pan and Zoom does not translated to Resolve. Still in general are challenging as Resolve sees it as a single frame and Media Composer defaults to 30 seconds, so Resolve does not see any event that is more than 1 frame.
From a plug-in perspective, Resolve supports the basic effects including resize from the 3D including rotate, but since there is no equivalent OFX of pan & zoom it does not parse the metadata. But it does not. A better bet may be using Boris which does have an OFX version for Resolve. But you will run into the 1 frame conform issue.
Your best best is doing what you already started with the mixdown. You can export an EDL and use that as a “notch” timeline to recreate the events in Resolve. Or use Resolve’s own scene detection.
Michael
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Well first off, Media Composer UI windows should not be used for color reference, especially in that version. In v8.3, you can actually apply different color spaces to the GUI and full screen playback, so assuming that monitors are calibrated to proper RGB, then you’re much closer.
I would test this by by first exporting a .mov file with “same as source” and look at that outside Media Composer. Also keep in mind that MoviePlayer likes to add its own interpretation of color space, etc. How does the file look there? Typically, an H.264 compression will not change colors unless you have filters active as some apps allow you to do.
And when you’re color correcting, are you using a calibrated rec 709 color monitor with proper I/O? Media Composer is a video system meaning it wants video levels and color space for most everything it does. You can cheat a bit with this and work in full range, but you have to be aware of all your steps when doing so.
And I have to say, that shooting underexposed seems a little weird to me. Perhaps that depends on camera and codec type being recorded to. But underexposing shots can bring out more noise than necessary.
Also, when you look at your image with the waveform/vectorscope, is there red in the shadows and such that you are not seeing on the GUI?
Michael
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Good question. I am only guessing, but it may be by duration but I don’t know if its shortest or longest first.
Michael
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Back to the OP’s topic, here is another view into the acquisition:
https://finance.yahoo.com/news/lot-people-mad-apple-bought-214756035.html