[Neil Orman]

Thanks so much, Usama and Ricardo! Usama, those were great tips and tutorials. It sounded like the first tutorial on automatic exposure settings like auto ISO and auto iris was generally recommending using those auto settings, which seemed different from the DSLR world, but sounds great if I understood that right. Just let me know if you or others disagree with my understanding there. Ricardo, thanks a lot for your detailed tips on how to achieve proper exposure with the C70, by referencing skintone, and also how to best match with the Mark 4. And you are correct, I was referring to the 5D MKIV DSLR. Just one last question on this, my employer is offering some paid training for us. Do either of you (or anyone else) recommend immersive courses like a C70 master class? Or some kind of similar in-person workshop? One of my limitations is I work as our sole video producer, and also work a lot on the same types of shoots, like interview tapings in the studio. So I’m wondering if anyone has benefitted from in-person courses or workshops, especially when the C70 camera is so different than the DSLRs I’m used to?

[Neil Orman]

Lots of interesting and helpful points, thanks so much, Mads and Stephen.

Mads, that’s very interesting about Time Machine not working with iCloud drive. I’m wondering if that’s why my helpdesk colleagues advised against Time Machine at one point. Do you think that’s why? That’s a great tip on that Samsung SSD T7 drive too, which seems like it might offer a big potential savings if I need to purchase more external drives soon, over the G-drive I’ve been using.

Stephen, one thing I wanted to ask, to you or others, relates to how you direct your autosave files to save in a specific location. You just set that in PPro preferences right? Are the autosave files the only ones you worry about directing to a specific place like that? What about media cache files? To this point, I’ve just been letting those save to their default location, which seems to be in the PPro projects folder on my internal drive.

Your practice makes a lot of sense, on creating one PPro folder for each project, that has all the media but also all the project and other files. So the Dropbox desktop app allows you to save your autosave files there? I wasn’t totally clear what you meant when you said you have ‘a hard drive set aside for Dropbox.’ Could you please just clarify that?

I’ think I’ve been able to not worry about where I’m directing files to save, or back up, because virtually all my work is for my employer. I’m not really needing to share PPro project or other files with others, like many others probably are. But learning about these practices is a great help, as I know this isn’t sustainable. Thanks again to you both, Stephen and Mads!

Neil

[Neil Orman]

This is very helpful, thanks so much Dennis. I’ll try to adopt many if not all of these practices. I seem to remember the helpdesk people at my employer saying they didn’t like Time Machine for some reason. Not sure why, but we are largely a PC place with a small minority of Mac users. So if I’m remembering that right, maybe they just didn’t know Time Machine as well. I’ve heard Apple people recommend it several times, versus my much less regular and thorough backup methods. So I’ll definitely try to start using Time Machine. I’ve flirted with disaster a few times myself! Just one question occurs, on all these extra hard-drives you mention, for different (and sensible) purposes. I’ve been using the G-drive hard-drive below for my video multimedia files. But it’s pretty pricey at $400 or so. Is this the type of drive you or others recommend for these types of uses, like Time Machine or ‘on-site’ backups? Or are there others you like for these purposes?

Thanks so much again.

Neil

https://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/1661635-REG/sandisk_professional_sdps11a_004t_gbanb_g_drive_ssd_4tb.html?sts=pi

[Neil Orman]

Hi, trying to chime in here again, in case Graham didn’t see my response to his suggestion, and sees this one. Graham, I was hoping to get your take on the challenge I ran into applying your precomp technique. For some reason, when I tried to reply to you Wednesday, instead of to myself I guess, I wasn’t able to do that. I’d be grateful for any quick response here, even if it’s just to say you don’t have anything to add. Still struggling to make truly 3D-looking text with this gold texture I’m looking, with AFX’s Cinema 4D render engine. And thanks again for your suggestion and tutorial!

Neil

[Neil Orman]

Thanks so much, Graham, for this helpful reply and video tutorial! You have a great teaching style. The method of creating a precomp seemed perfect to get solve this issue, just like you suggested, except one aspect I can’t seen to solve in my text. Unlike the ‘first name’ text in your tutorial, in my gold texture text I’m not able to create the three-dimensionality, like light reflecting off the extruded sides of the text etc, after trying to apply your method. I’d be grateful if you could check out the gold texture ’50th’ text at the bottom, in this test clip https://vimeo.com/794577606 and please let me know if any tips occur as to why I can’t see light reflecting off the side etc, so my text looks three-dimensional like yours? Do you think I missed a step?

Thanks so much again,

Neil

[Neil Orman]

Thanks for your response and those helpful tips, Graham! I’ll look at those approaches, and especially appreciate the idea of making my own ‘diopter’ effect using adjustment layers along with the Bulge and Magnify FX. I’ll update my post later with any results.

Thanks again for your response,

Neil

[Neil Orman]

in looking for a solution here, one option I came across is Wondershare Filmora.

https://filmora.wondershare.net/filmora-video-editor.html?gclid=CjwKCAjwhNWZBhB_EiwAPzlhNpHVKzfzYrTruaWL9TkANgE85wETimBlzH5M0nrHps6L8Lrnsymp2hoC_o4QAvD_BwE

So I’d be interested, too, if anyone has used that, and has any feedback?

Thanks a lot, Neil

[Neil Orman]

In looking around some more, Wondershare Filmora looks like it might be a good option.

https://filmora.wondershare.net/filmora-video-editor.html?gclid=CjwKCAjwhNWZBhB_EiwAPzlhNpHVKzfzYrTruaWL9TkANgE85wETimBlzH5M0nrHps6L8Lrnsymp2hoC_o4QAvD_BwE

So please let me know if anyone’s used that and has feedback.

[Neil Orman]

Just circling back on my main question here, in case any insights occur. Is there a simple-ish app that non-video-people could use themselves on their everyday computers, like Thinkpad PCs for example, to make basic edits to their zoom recordings if need be? I’d be grateful for any suggestions. Typical requests include deleting the start portion when they’re waiting for people to join, cutting out a portion where there were brief technical difficulties, or adding a title slide such as a jpeg version of a Powerpoint cover they were using. So very basic video editing, that laypeople could likely do themselves, if I could recommend an appropriate/inexpensive tool, that could work for such people using regular PCs rather than high-performance Macs etc.

Thanks, Neil

[Neil Orman]

Thanks for the heads-up Greg. I should’ve attached that tips doc as a PDF, which I’m doing here. Hopefully it will be accessible now, but let me know if you can’t open. And like I said, I welcome any suggestions for improvement.

Remote-Taping-Tips_general.pdf 857 KB PDF - Click to view

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