[Nicholas Crowley]

Thanks Shane, the last sentence of your response was what I was looking for. Like I said, I’ve got the camera down, because that’s where most of my interest lies, it’s just getting what that camera captures into FCS correctly is what I was looking for, thank you very much for your help.

Nick

[Nicholas Crowley]

“You can have all the technical skills in the world, but if you’ve got no ideas, what’s the point?”- Steve McQueen. And no not THAT Steve Mcqueen. We can go like this forever, Pat because it seems like that’s what you want to do and like I said before I came to this “q&a” forum to ask a question and see if anyone can help not get a lecture.

[Nicholas Crowley]

Thank you Shane for making multiple stabs at my question. Seeing I’m not that technically inclined I know right off the bat that even the phrasing of my questions will have problems. Thank you for being patient. Let me just give you some background. I worked on FCP years ago when it was in its infancy. I filmed on an Arriflex 8 camera which was then transferred to mini dv tape which was then loaded into a mini dv player which was connected to a Mac which was then captured into what was probably Final Cut Pro 2. This all took place at film school so we had an instructor walk us through the steps. Fast forward to the present. Now I have all my own equipment and I am great at lighting, assembling sets, designing shots, and even editing, just not the tech part. So basically I am person who knows what he’s doing, I just am not that great at terminology. Ok now I can try again with the help of your response.

I tape at 24p advanced on my Panasonic DVX100B 3ccd. The project I am working on is a commercial for a kitchen/bath woodworking company. It will be posted on their website and on DVD. The DVD will play on loop on a TV in their offices. It consists of shots of multiple kitchens and baths the company has produced. Clarity in color and lighting are essential and it looks great on camera and I don’t want to lose that. So, I connect my camera via firewire to my computer. I open my Final Cut Pro 6. I go to file/log&capture. Then I click on the final cut pro tab and I can click on easy setup or audio/video settings. By the way I lay down the audio separately, so no audio when I’m filming. Obviously what I want is to have the footage captured as close to what it looked like on camera. Of course I can use Color and the many tools in FCP to make it look even better but I want the original footage to come in as clean as possible. As of now I capture my film into imovie and then drag the clips into FCP. So if I were to use easy setup what should I enter in the ‘format’, ‘rate’ and ‘use’ pulldown menus? Conversely, if I were to click on the audio/video settings, which has way more tabs and choices, with my camera and the taping at 24p advanced what should my settings be?
Now above I mentioned what my project was and what the final output will be, DVD and internet. I would like to use Compressor at least for the DVD, again so I have the best quality, unless I don’t need to and there is a better or just as good way to getting it on DVD. I have posted some of my work on my youtube page so I am ok with doing that but this is more professional so I would like to know how to get the best quality for the internet. So of course when I send my finished project to Compressor there are more tech specs I need to know. Just wondering what I should use? If this still doesn’t help you out in answering my questions I’m sorry and thanks for your patience. It would be much easier in person but hey I’m trying. Thank you again.

[Nicholas Crowley]

No, but there is a difference. I just am simply not a tech guy. Hence, why most directors can tell somebody where they want something cut they don’t know all the tech specs that go into. I have an eye for filming and editing, the creativity to drive a story, but not with the codecs and unlimited amount of data and numbers that go into the endless number of settings involved with something like FCS. Simply put, I look through a camera and my brain understands. You look at your computer screen and see information and your brain understands. I am simply looking for basic help on a complicated application. I use to edit on actual film when you spooled it through an editing table and literally cut and taped the scenes together. I didn’t need a response from some dark recess of your bitter, no one appreciates “techies” ego.