[Per Holmes]

Hi,

If anyone is still reading along in this thread, I’m loving this QuicKeys workflow, it actually results in nearly natural multicam editing.

Look at this picture:

The workflow is that you simply Ctrl-S to view the footage on the lower tracks (the angles), then you Set In, Set Out, and Ctrl-Keypad-1 (or the number of the track), and it’s copied up on track 5.

With Show Duplicates enabled for the timeline, a by-product is that you can even see which source is currently showing.

I’ve worked with this for a little while and I’m picking up some speed, so I’m definitely going to do it this way. I can have any number sources, they can start stop as they please, and they can be any mix of formats. Yay!

Take care,

Per

[Per Holmes]

Hi,

That’s great to know, thanks! I don’t have much experience with QT Refs, beyond seeing them freak out a couple of times, but that was along time ago.

Best,

Per

[Per Holmes]

By the way, I said almost impossible in Avid, because someone has actually found a way to use broken sources in multiclip in Avid. While it seems to work, it’s just so stupidly manual that I can’t see myself doing it 200-300 times.

After having editing in FCP for a while now, I still do miss my Avid, but I feel like I have to pragmatic that FCP *does* allow me to produce all the same results, and mere convenience is not enough justification for unloading an FCP system and upgrading my Avid MC to HD. I’m actually very happy with FCP overall.

Best,

Per

[Per Holmes]

Hi,

I think that this is a splendid idea, and very clear thinking! Yes, there will be many times where it’s totally possibly to make multiclip groups, even with adhoc footage — because in practice, everybody will tend to be shooting when something interesting is happening, and everybody will probably be stopped when nothing is happening. So even without asking for it, there might be many segments that are fully multiclip compatible.

My main issue is that I almost can’t avoid using people with more than one type of camera. I’m personally P2 with a couple of cameras, but there’s for example a person I want to bring in because he is reliable, can work on partial deferment etc., but uses one of the Sony cameras. However, his 720p/24 footage intercuts perfectly in FCP and plays in real-time along with the P2 footage, and looks the same as well, so I almost have to include him on the list of possible shooters without having to rent a HVX camera for him every time. This is an example, but I run into this a lot.

I therefore almost feel that the ability to pick from a larger pool of shooters is most important, and then go for the QuicKeys method of editing, which I’ve described in another thread.

But very clear thinking!

Cheers,

Per

[Per Holmes]

Hi there,

Yes, I’d be in (almost) the same place with Avid, so I’m not considering switching back, I’m going to gamble and keep project in FCP. I only suggested that it might have been a bit more understandable that Avid assumed single clips because many things in Avid are tied directly to studio-workflows, but really it’s just as lame of Avid to assume unbroken sources. Especially reality-type programming generates a lot of concurrent sources that start and stop, but I guess people typically just edit it as regular narrative editing anyway, since the goal is to compress time enormously. I, however, won’t be compressing time, I’ll have runs of 2-3 minutes where I’m pretty much real-time. But I still can’t control all the sources, or to put it another way, I can’t stop the event for sync.

Doing a black-element as a separate QT element in a QT reference is actually a brilliant idea, but QT really has issues when reference files get moved around. So I’ve abandoned the idea of QT reference because it places the footage outside of any media management.

I thought for a while that I could perhaps force the production to have longer continuous, but I remember that a key thing for some shoots is to have a lot of cameras going around, many different formats (although everything will be 720p/24p), and so even if I enforced a continuous-clip policy, I actually couldn’t edit in multiclip anyway. So it’s really not available to me.

In another thread, I’ve posted a QuicKeys solution that gives you some level of intuitive control of multicam editing by assisting you in more easily copying segments from the lower tracks up to a high track where you build the final output. I think this is the solution I’ll have to use.

Best,

Per

[Per Holmes]

And by the way, I will definitely try to squeeze as much coverage as possible into the one-clip-per-angle regiment, because clearly that has obvious advantages. There *are* parts of this shooting that I *can* control, so at least I can benefit from multiclip for those circumstances.

By the way, Premiere Pro allows you to edit multiclip with a sequence as a source, but limits it to 4 angles, probably for no real reason other than picking a number. While I don’t have the balls of steel to do a large project in Premiere Pro, I think that there’s some realization in their choice of doing it like that.

I’ve read an article where someone describes at great length a technical workaround that makes it possible to have multiple clips per angle in Avid.

So it’s actually only FCP where it’s completely impossible without exporting and reimporting each single angle with duplication of data.

Whether Avid or Premiere Pro, their implementations have enough drawbacks that it doesn’t make sense to for example switch back to Avid.

But as David points out, there are improvements more desperately needed, so this feature is unlikely to see improvement.

Best,

Per

[Per Holmes]

Hi John,

Yes, I’m writing a detailed feature request. My hopes are low, though, as they probably should be, but then at least I tried.

Thanks,

Per

[Per Holmes]

It’s still a highly controlled circumstance, you seem to be recording straight into external decks as well, and you seem to be able to stop the production for sync.

That’s fine, if you completely can stop the production and there are no live moments that only happen once, unpredictably, and can’t be recreated, then yes, you’re totally fine, that is certainly ideal.

But take any reality-type programming, and you no longer control the event. To ask the event to stop for sync is the equivalent of asking a bank robbery to pause while you change P2 cards and resync.

Stopping the event is the same as losing the event. Period. It’s very simple. It’s like a photographer who takes the picture long after everyone has lost their natural smile.

Therefore, you instead just have a bunch of coverage, and you can’t know when it starts or stops. Invariably, all this ends up on a timeline where each track is an angle, and everything is synced up, but there’s no way to edit it.

I’m not extrapolating my reality-type programming to encompass your highly controlled programming, so please don’t extrapolate in the other direction as well. I fully understand that you can use multiclip if every angle is one clip.

But it’s bizarre that it’s so hard to understand that reality-type programming by its very nature records an unpredictable event, and you might be recording for over 20 hours before it happens, but when it does, a camera has to be rolling, because you can’t stop and ask the event to happen one more time.

Therefore, all you can do is keep as many cameras rolling as much of the time as possible and get a separate multi-channel audio-recording, and then you KNOW that you have coverage of any key event that happens.

I don’t know of any camera that can record for hours on end without ever stopping — possibly a P2 workflow with some MASSIVE real-time card-swapping regiment. Maybe some gigantic TV-station multi-channel HD recorder and wireless HD feeds from the cameras. But this is getting ridiculous.

Read the forums, you’ll find an endless list of people having the same problem. I’m trying to solve it.

Per

[Per Holmes]

No, you are absolutely dead wrong. It’s is practically impossible to acquire footage where no single camera ever breaks, especially when you’re tapeless, with various crews roaming. It’s just a fantasy, and it doesn’t matter how much you idealize it. You can ONLY have footage this well synced when you completely control the event, and can ask EVERY SINGLE CAMERA to stop, and ask the EVENT to stop for syncing.

It’s a total fantasy.

Best,

Per

[Per Holmes]

Hi Jeremy,

I’ve come up with a QuicKeys macro structure that actually makes it fairly painless to build a final edit on track 10. I’ve posted it in a new thread, because I can’t navigate this thread anymore — too many posts!

I know that Avid does allow you to use multi clips per angle, but that the workaround is heavy.

This FCP solution actually does work to a large extent. Then if Apple one day has an epiphany, it might be become possible to edit multi-clips with more than one take natively.

So I think I’ll stick with FCP. While I could probably afford a Nitris DX for Avid, I just took personal offense at Avid charging $8,000 for something that all others do for $1,500.

Cheers,

Per