[Nick Meyers]

ok, but how about your actual sequence settings?

with the timeline active, go to the Sequence Menu and choose Settings,
OR
right click on the sequence in the Browser, and choose Settings.

when that window opens, is “Anamorphic” ticked?

[Nick Meyers]

ok, i think i see.

the clip is letterboxed with french subs in the black area.
you are adding turkish subs in FCP.
i suspect you are working in an anamorphic timeline, and your clip is postage stamped in the canvas.

do you need the french subs on the final DVD?
you could blow the clip up and remove them,
leaving just the turkish subs.

nick

[Nick Meyers]

OK, that last screenshot is NOT of your sequence’s settings.
it is the sequence preset editor in the A/V settings.
that has nothing to do with your current sequence.

if that first screen-grab is really your canvas (and not your viewer),
then your current sequence settings are NOT anamorphic.

is that really the canvas?
have you created a sequence and edited that clip into it,
or are you just looking at the clip in the viewer?

create a new sequence, edit the clip into it,
you should get a window asking if you want the sequence to match the clip,
say YES

do your editing, and export using the default “Same Settings”
if your clip doesn’t need any editing, the you don’t need to take it though FCP anyway,
just take it directly into Compressor.

are you adding the subtitles in the timeline, or are they on the clip?

nick

[Nick Meyers]

the clip is NOT anamorphic,
it is letter-boxed 4/3
so you shouldn’t be exporting as anamorphic

BUT
almost NO-ONE has a 4/3 TV anymore,
almost everyone watches 16/9 TV now,
so the only way to show your 4/3 film on a 16/9 TV is PILLAR BOXED, which means bars left and right
and seeing as how your image is already LETTER BOXED, (bars top and bottom)
then your DVD will most likely be seen as you show us, black all around (POSTAGE STAMP)

what you could possibly do is to blow the image up to fill the whole frame,
but you have subtitles. are they burt into the DV?
then if you blow up the image, you lose the subs.

i don’t quite understand why your quicktime file is showing the clip pillar-boxed
that doesn’t make sense to me.

nick

[Nick Meyers]

“My problem is that, I am not sure if my footage on the timeline is anamorphic”

that is a problem!

looking at the canvas, is it the shape of an old fashioned tv, (square-ish)
or the shape of a new tv (more rectangular)

DV PAL, by its nature is the squair-sh 4/3 ratio
but a wider image can be compressed within that ratio,
then the screen stretched back out to present a more rectangular 16/9 ratio.

the most likely bet is your frame is 4/3
if so, does the image look compressed, squished up?
do people look tall and skinny?

then your footage was shot anamorphic, but is now displaying as 4/3

if you could upload some screen shots of your footage in FCP,
and the quicktime file you’ve made,
it would be a lot easier o figure out what the problem is.

nick

[Nick Meyers]

i think you need to story board this sequence.

“walking on the street towards the railing of the bridge”

sounds like they’re walking away from camera?
so how do we know it’s the same person as was in the truck?

you don’t really need any vfx or compositing either, in my mind.

1. establish the drier of the truck. MS driver in cabin. driver looks up, maybe sees something, cut to:
2. empty road, (WS) truck goes thru frame
3. cut down the line to MS of truck wiping frame to reveal driver on side of road
the closer shot will allow you to clearly see it’s the same person.

an alternate shot 3 would be a tracking MS in front of the person as the truck goes by on the right of frame
the only magic is in the editing.

if you want the magical effect of the empty road / truck by to reveal person, then yes, you do need some fairly simple compositing.

as with all vfx, shooting it properly in the first place makes it simpler.
locked off camera
shot 1 WS empty road, truck drives thru
shot 2 WS road with driver, truck drives past

shot 3 safety pass of driver on road, NO TRUCK
just in case

get the driver to go at the same speed both times
so the driver would not be the “driver ” character, but a different person, wearing the same clothes
the truck will be going so fast you won’t be able to see clearly the driver.
you need to be able to do both shots fairly quickly one after the other so the lighting and bg don’t change too much

the truck may well be kicking up some dust, or have some sort of exhaust,
so NOT having the truck go by in the character shot would not make for an easy composite, and the frame would be too clean.

in FCP line up both shots as closely as possible on V1 and V2
1st thing to try would be a simple jump cut
next thing would be a full frame wipe, either a transition, or a key-framed crop.
next step up in complexity would be a key-framed garbage matte.
these are relatively crude in FCP,
you get more control in Motion or After effects

of you cant match the 2 shots, you can revet to the clean truck-less shot,
and comp in the truck.
that’s a more complex rotoscope job,
you might be able do it with a keyframe garbage matte, but the dust exhaust issues would be tricky to deal with.

nick

[Nick Meyers]

here it is:
(almost identical to Matt’s)

=============================================

copy the sequence/s into a new project.
delete all video tracks:

lock all audio tracks (shift F5)
select all (Apple A)
delete.

select the sequences in the browser, and run Media Manager.
– create offline
– dont delete unused

this gives you a new project WITH all the audio files.
MM wont trim them, or make them offline (my audio files were BWF files, don’t now how yours will behave)

the audio only files still have the names of the video clips.
(i tried using “base media file names on existing file names” in Media Manager but got the same result)

select them all in the browser, and Modify Menu > Rename > Clips to match File,
and they revert to their orignal names.

=============================================

HOWEVER
if, as you say, the sound guy didn’t label things well,
maybe my idea of creating OMFs of the rushes could be a good one,
(Unless your sound post has started?)

nick

[Nick Meyers]

or do as matt suggests, and revert all the audio clips names to the originals prior to making the OMFs.

i also have a method for this that, and it doesn’t involve copying the media.
only thing is.. i’ve forgotten it!
i’ve got it written down somewhere, i’ll see if i can find it.

nick

[Nick Meyers]

it might be too late for this but…

i always set up a naming convention with the sound recordist that mirrors exactly how i will label my clips.
if they cant to it for some reason, then i adjust the audio file names.
while we sync, we cross check the audio file names, and correct any errors.

this way any used clips appear in the OMF with exactly the same name as the audio file,
and it’s easy to find that file if more extensions are needed.

are you able to perhaps make OMFs of your rushes?
then he’ll have full-length versions of the sound files that match the clip names.

another approach would be to look into AAF rather than OMF
is is possible to get it to reference entire original files.
(at least one editor and assistant team told me that, although they;d forgotten how they;d done it!)

nick

[Nick Meyers]

Log & transfer (with the original card structure, and those THM files) is best,
as you get TIMECODE, and have the ability to add REEL#s
without these a lot of functionality can be lost.

neither Compressor or Mpeg Streeamclip will give you correct TC & Reel#s
compressor can, but depends on the source

it could be that now all your clips start with a zero TC and have no reel#
this can be tricky down the track in the on-line and grade.
it also means you can’t properly show duplicate usage in FCP
you can fix this.
if all our clips have a zero TC, then you will need to add a unique reel# to each one.

if you shot at 25fps, then transcoding to 25fps is not a problem,
if you shot at another frame rate, then yes, you should start over.

nick