Mike Parfit
Forum Replies Created
-
I agree with Ricardo.
We’ve been editing in Resolve for a couple of years and I love it. Our goal is to produce broadcast quality work, and perhaps theatrical again some day, with a large in-house component. We go out to focused talents for any part of the work when necessary and like that process (which is why we still need Resolve to deliver to Pro Tools better) but we prefer in-house control where possible. As is often said, colour is a tool to manage emotions, and for us having Resolve’s colour power one click away from the timeline makes managing colour a seamless part of editing. But I have spent a great deal of time learning Resolve’s colour tools, which I also love, so I’m not pushing any auto buttons.
If that means we’re trying to be a high-end boutique, so be it, though in looking around the edit suite, it doesn’t feel particularly boutiquey, I’m afraid.
-
Hi, Tim,
In case you’re curious, the show that we edited and finished on Resolve has its US premiere on Nat Geo Wild tomorrow night (Sunday, March 26), 9pm/8c. “Call of the Baby Beluga.” It’s a whale film. 52 min. It’s showing in a bunch of other countries, too. We delivered in 4K. Lots of drone footage from a Phantom 3.
Another advantage of editing in Resolve I was thinking about after this discussion is that people are always saying that these days, because tweaking in any NLE is so easy, they can’t get the director to lock picture so they can send it to Resolve. When you’re in Resolve anyway, that’s less of an issue.
Cheers,
Mike
-
Hi, Chris,
Yes, I really liked it. It was quite stable, as I remember, more stable than everything else I’d tried.
Thanks for answering my question!
Cheers,
Mike
-
I see mention of “Speed Razor.” Who remembers Speed Razor? Does anyone know what happened?
I was using it, there was talk of a new version, then poof! Gone.
Does that ring a bell? Anyone?
-
[Tim Wilson] ” Any of you using it as an NLE for any heavy lifting?”
Hi, Tim,
Yes, I don’t know how heavy my lifting is, given that I’m a simple cuts-and-dissolves kind of editor, but I’ve been using Resolve as my primary NLE since version 11. That version was not stable enough but I used it anyway because of why I use Resolve in the first place.
Which is that I love to grade while I edit. For me almost everything about film is about connecting emotion to information, and as Grant said more than once in the press conference, color is emotional. Just as I incorporate music very early in the editing process, so I want to see what my color is doing, or can do, early on. (I’ve been using some system of colour management with enthusiasm and, I hope, increasing skill for about 14 years now.)
I’m happy to cut strictly factual sequences without messing around with the color (or music), but if a sequence is strictly factual it’s not using all the power that film brings to communication. And I want that power to be part of my palette from the start.
It is possible that my need to see and hear these things early on is simply a failure of imagination, that maybe I can’t tell, at least as well as others can, how it’s going to feel when that stuff is all done. But if that’s the case then using Resolve is helping me out with a talent I may lack, so it’s doubly important to me.
I edited our most recent one-hour natural-history film, “Call of the Baby Beluga,” broadcast on CBC, with Resolve, then did what Resolve let me do seamlessly — had a more experienced colorist take it for a thorough polish. Although he had a different creative work flow, so started over with a grade in many cases rather than using my preliminary work, Resolve let him use versions to do that, so he could always take a look at the grade I had in mind to see where we were going. I was very happy with the way it turned out.
During that work, I was able to take the 1 TB SSD on which the film lived back to my suite to fix issues with bad clips or rough sequences overnight without juggling between NLEs, then I would just hand the SSD back to the colorist to continue the session. All this back and forth understandably worried the Post supervisor a bit, because it was a different work flow, but there were backups all through, with the underlying footage stored in several places, and it worked well.
After that we delivered to CBC, doing a final finish of a rendered clip in Premiere, which was preferred by the post house. But then I was able to go back into Resolve in our own suite and do a complete re-edit for an international version ten minutes longer, which I successfully finished without leaving Resolve. We never baked anything in except effects done externally, and I had all the grades still in Resolve so I was able to match things up in the new footage pretty well.
Bear in mind, almost the whole thing was just cuts and a few dissolves, probably only 5 basic composites done in Resolve, almost all of the few effects and animations created and rendered in either FCP X or After Effects, some by other people. So it was not effects-type heavy lifting, if that’s what you meant, Tim.
Overall, once the program got into version 12 and most of the stability issues were gone, it has been a delight to work with. I think it’s a contender now as an NLE that is a really easy move from FCP 7, and being able to easily render out sequences and rough cuts in which color differences, exposure issues, and so on are not distractions is a huge advantage.
Almost everyone I’ve worked with in this business always says “We’re used to seeing rough-cuts so don’t worry,” then someone comes back and says “We’re worried about the different color casts of those three cameras you used.” So even if I just make those distractions go away by using the color page as I go along, it’s worth it.
Yes, I know, I could do pretty much the same thing in any good NLE these days, so it’s not necessary to use Resolve. But since I want grading, not just color correction, and Resolve is definitely where the film is finally going, so why not start it there. Since I know how to use the tools pretty well myself so I can set up a grade or even finish it in many cases, the ability to edit and grade seamlessly is wonderful. And being able to go back in without making round-trips to do a complete re-edit is great.
Plus, finally, I flat-out enjoy editing in Resolve. First, it was very easy to move a lot of instincts and muscle memory from FCP 7. Second, though I have enough knowledge of other NLEs to work in FCP X, Premiere and, with a day or two’s refresher, in Avid, I just have more fun with Resolve. Is it because I’m partly a colorist at heart and completely love switching to that page and spinning the wheels? I mean, I can’t wait to get my hands on that Mini panel and spin the pivot knob. Maybe that’s it.
Basically, as an NLE, Resolve feels natural and straightforward, and it gets the job done.
Cheers,
Mike
-
Yes. I have had major problems with corrupted renders, but I am using Yosemite on Blackmagic’s tech support advice. The problem I have is not just in rendering 4k. For me it shows up in random horizontal lines that look like dropouts.
I have had some success by making sure I have only one connection to each Thunderbolt bus, and by limiting rendering to 10 frames. I have no idea of the thunderbolt bus thing has anything to do with it, but it’s worth trying if it puts less stress on the VRAM, and I’m pretty sure the slow render rate is likely to help.
If the render has some glitches in it, I re-render the bad places in short bursts, which seems to work fine, then I put all the rendered footage on a timeline on a different NLE for the final render. (I use FCPX and Compressor.)
I don’t think it’s the change of NLE that does it. I’m pretty sure it’s just that once there’s a render, the computer no longer has to deal with demanding grading operations like noise reduction.
Ironically, I did not have this problem with Resolve Lite; it just began when I spent all those $$$ on Resolve Studio, and started to use the noise reduction. It doesn’t necessarily glitch on the frames where the noise reduction occurs, but the workload on the computer from those renders must have something to do with why the glitches eventually occur. Heat perhaps?
This is a very problematic situation. No more rendering anywhere close to a deadline, because it takes so much longer, and i don’t have enough faith in this workaround to be sure that the renders will work, so I have to build in time to do my own QC and render it again.
I have tried rendering the same material on my 2014 Retina MacBookPro, but it crashes every time. There is so much less VRAM on that machine.
I hope this helps with your answer. I’m very disappointed with Apple, because it sounds as if it will take me weeks or months to get Apple to replace the machine, which seems to be the only real answer. And even that may not work. I would have bought a Windows machine if I had noticed the Blackmagic Forum comments on this problem before I bought the Mac.
Cheers,
Mike
-
I’ve experienced the same thing. Unexplained failures.
(Just to be clear, that’s just in reference to Resolve, not about life in general.)
After a lot of attempts, removing a few clips at a time, I narrowed the problem to a few JPEG stills. I can’t figure out why those particular files caused grief, but I went through and took out all the JPEG stills in the timeline and replaced them with .mov files of the same images that I made with the Resolve delivery page (which had no difficulty with them). After that, the media management process worked fine. I haven’t done a lot of it, though.
Cheers,
Mike
-
I love it.
I was doing some editing in version 11, and liked it, so I was primed for 12. I’m using 4k on a 1080 timeline right now on a 1-hour doc. I’d say for 4k use it’s all about using proxies, either the straightforward Optimized Media process or making your own proxies and using the relinking process.
Using Optimized Media — a slightly different use of the term from FCP X — is delightfully easy but has had a few hiccups in my system, which has a bunch of external USB 3.0 drives and a Thunderbolt raid on a new Mac Pro 6 core. Relinking is so easy that we’re mostly making our own proxies right now because with a little planning it’s so simple to switch back and forth.
I find the editing quick and smooth, and like the trimming. I’m going to ship out the audio, so haven’t done much except fix it for my ear. Except perhaps for some lower thirds, titling and compositing will go out as well, so I haven’t been testing any of that yet.
I, too, find myself drifting into the Color page, but in some ways it’s a bit like making sure of focus to check what might be done with a difficult clip. The ease of going to the Color page and back is one of the big reasons I want this to work out as my full-time editor.
But I’d like it even if it wasn’t tied to the famous color machine. I haven’t had a favourite NLE since FCP 7, which I was still using until the end of last year while looking around. I would put Resolve in that category now. Perhaps it’s the ease of transition from FCP 7, but it feels intuitive; I’ve picked up a lot of the keyboard muscle memory quickly, even the keystrokes that don’t emulate FCP. Though the editing side feels a bit like a version 1.0, it’s pretty robust.
The tech support I’ve had has been of such high quality that it’s clear to me that Blackmagic is serious about making this a real editor. So that has also made the experience good — and promising.
So I’d say go for it. I hope you have fun.
Cheers,
Mike
-
Yes! Resolve.
I’m an FCP7 person, and have been cutting in Avid, Premiere, and X lately — but now it’s Resolve 11. (Proxies and 16-bit audio seem to help the playback problem.) I like Resolve a lot. Possibly best. I think it feels easy because there’s a lot of FCP 7 here.
It’s a bit like a Brit getting off the plane in New Zealand and renting a car. Ahh. The turns are easy.
I just hope they get 12 out quickly, and it works as promised.
Mike
-
Hi, Peter,
Thanks for the response.
I disabled the Intel GPU by turning off graphics switching in system preferences the day I bought the machine. I imagine that’s why Resolve 9 and 10 worked on this machine with the UltraStudio mini monitor.
I’d be fine if I could only work with SD with this. I just want to try out the editing enhancements.
I have tried to attach the CaptureApp file to this thread but it didn’t work, probably because I’m unfamiliar with the process, so I’ve put the text log in question after my signature. I will attempt to send the tgz file to support.
The only thing I can think of that makes my machine unusual and might affect Resolve 11 is that I have a full version of Easy DCP 2.0 installed. That hasn’t affected Resolve 10, but maybe 11 handles it differently. On the crash log that recurs each time, the crash is preceded by lines referring to FraunhoferDCP.
Is there any chance of Easy DCP being the problem? If so, can it be solved?
Thanks,
Mike
#TIME Thu Aug 14 07:49:06 2014 – Uptime 00:00:08 (hh:mm:ss)
#FROM_EMAIL
#TO_EMAIL
#VERSION 11.0lite (#060)
#SMTP_SERVER
#PROGRAM_NAME (64-bit)0 Resolve 0x0000000101c979d0 _ZN7BtFieldC1EPKcj + 44786
1 libsystem_platform.dylib 0x00007fff8ec2f5aa _sigtramp + 26
2 ??? 0x0000000000000012 0x0 + 18
3 FraunhoferDCP 0x000000010971fa0f _ZN3FhG3Dcp14IISComposition4loadERKSsPKNS0_16IISPklAssetEntryEPNS0_17IISTrackFileStoreE + 31
4 FraunhoferDCP 0x00000001097f74c2 _ZN3FhG3Dcp14IISPackingList17createCompositionEPNS0_16IISPklAssetEntryEPKNS0_11IISAssetMapEPNS0_17IISTrackFileStoreE + 546
5 FraunhoferDCP 0x00000001097f9608 _ZN3FhG3Dcp14IISPackingList18createCompositionsEPKNS0_11IISAssetMapEPNS0_17IISTrackFileStoreE + 312
6 FraunhoferDCP 0x00000001097fc2e1 _ZN3FhG3Dcp14IISPackingList5_loadERKSsPKNS0_11IISAssetMapEPNS0_17IISTrackFileStoreE + 5329
7 FraunhoferDCP 0x00000001097fadbf _ZN3FhG3Dcp14IISPackingList4loadERKSsPKNS0_11IISAssetMapEPNS0_17IISTrackFileStoreE + 31
8 FraunhoferDCP 0x00000001098507b7 _ZN3FhG3Dcp22IISDistributionPackage4loadERKSsPNS0_17IISTrackFileStoreE + 1831
9 FraunhoferDCP 0x000000010976162a _ZN3FhG3Dcp13IISDcpProject10addPackageERKSs + 1402
10 FraunhoferDCP 0x000000010976095c _ZN3FhG3Dcp13IISDcpProject11loadPackageERKSsNS_16IISRecursiveModeE + 140
11 FraunhoferDCP 0x0000000109546c5a _ZN3FhG6Player12IISDcpLoaderclEv + 234
12 FraunhoferDCP 0x0000000109f04fd8 _ZN3FhG5Tools15IISWorkerThread3runEv + 1016
13 QtCore 0x00000001081b1ecf _ZN7QThread5startENS_8PriorityE + 1569
14 libsystem_pthread.dylib 0x00007fff8ebc3899 _pthread_body + 138
15 libsystem_pthread.dylib 0x00007fff8ebc372a _pthread_struct_init + 0
16 libsystem_pthread.dylib 0x00007fff8ebc7fc9 thread_start + 13
Signal Number = 11