[Phil Lowe]

I agree with Michael about learning Avid and Premiere, but I would throw in other Adobe offerings, too, like Photoshop and After Effects. In many cases, it’s just not about being a good editor anymore. You have to at least know the basics of compositing, and that means working with transparencies (alpha channels) and blending modes, to name a few. After Effects and Photoshop are both great “plug ins” for Avid, so much so that having a working knowledge with experience on your resume with them can definitely help. In fact, the reason Premiere is out-pacing Avid for open jobs right now is because more and more companies are using Photoshop and After Effects in a unified workflow with Premiere. The integration is just that good now.

As far as getting a job in the business goes, I think a great training ground is news. Small-to-mid market TV stations are always looking for new shooter/editors to replace those that have moved on. If you have a good eye, can handle a camera, and have a basic understanding of non-linear editing, a news operation will give you a chance to grow beyond what you know. There is no difference in editing fundamentals between editing a news package and a feature-length film. What changes revolve around the scale of the project and the need for superior organizational skills. But in either case, a cut is a cut and a clip is a clip. What gets you from one to the next is your mindset, not just your toolset.

I started in news very young (21) and have been working in broadcast TV since 1979. During that time, I’ve seen editing go from linear 3/4″ tape-to-tape, to 1/2″ BetaSP, BetaSX, and Avid. I started out cutting simple reporter packages and busting down news feeds into VO/SOTs. Then I started doing longer investigative packages (5-10 minute range), and half-hour specials, all on Avid. The skills you learn for doing those simple reporter packages migrate with you to larger, longer, and more complex projects. But no one will hand you a big project until you’ve sharpened your editing claws on the small ones.

So if I had any advice to offer, it would be this: learn as much as you can now to build a reel that will land you that first job which will teach you production workflows and deadlines. Nothing will get you up to speed faster than having to meet daily (or even hourly, in the case of news) deadlines. You will probably be working with seasoned pros in that first job. Pick their brains. And practice, practice, practice. Be as passionate about learning the craft as you are about working in it, and it will show both in your work and your attitude.

Hope this helps.

Canon XF-300, Canon 5DMkIII, Canon 7D MkII, Avid Media Composer 7.05, Adobe CC 2015, iMovie Pro.

[Phil Lowe]

[James Cude] “you need to use roles to accomplish what you wish to accomplish.”

Not according to Apple. I didn’t set a single role for either of the package cuts I did and got where I needed to be. If my employer decides we will have to use roles, then I’ll use them. Right now, I don’t want or need to learn them. Too much to deal with just to slap clips down on a timeline to get the piece out.

Don’t like X. It ain’t Avid.

Canon XF-300, Canon 5DMkIII, Canon 7D MkII, Avid Media Composer 7.05, Adobe CC 2015, iMovie Pro.

[Phil Lowe]

[Jeremy Garchow] “Overlaps (or split edits, which I linked to the manual earlier, did you take the time to read?) look like this:”

Yep. Mine look like this:

Problem?

Canon XF-300, Canon 5DMkIII, Canon 7D MkII, Avid Media Composer 7.05, Adobe CC 2015, iMovie Pro.

[Phil Lowe]

[Jeremy Garchow] “You don’t.”

Great for export. Not for monitoring. FCPX doesn’t do alternating L/R (Avid), which is the workflow I need for both

Not going to waste my time on roles. Even the guy at Apple wrote this in an email to me:

Assigning roles before editing is completely optional.

Cutting a package with narration, SOT, and nats shouldn’t require renaming tracks in any NLE or assigning roles in FCPX. Just seems like an extra, wasted step to me.

Canon XF-300, Canon 5DMkIII, Canon 7D MkII, Avid Media Composer 7.05, Adobe CC 2015, iMovie Pro.

[Phil Lowe]

[James Cude] “No need for hard panning if you set up the roles in the browser/inspector before you edit clips into he timeline.”

Assuming I were to use roles (which I am not inclined to do), how exactly do you set up a role so one track is panned fully left and the other fully right?

Because here’s the thing…I can rename tracks in Avid to do part of what roles do which is to describe what media sits on a track. But it’s completely unnecessary.

Why is using roles the preferred workflow for an 80 second news package that needs to hit the server in 30 minutes? In the Garber article he states up front that he had two days for that edit. I’m not convinced that roles are the right fit for small packages, and certainly not for 40 second voice-overs and SOTs.

Canon XF-300, Canon 5DMkIII, Canon 7D MkII, Avid Media Composer 7.05, Adobe CC 2015, iMovie Pro.

[Phil Lowe]

[Jeremy Garchow] “Honestly, Phil.

Please take the shivs to the debate forum. This is the techniques forum. We try to keep it civil here and offer help.”

I was being civil. I did not criticize anyone. I was simply agreeing – in so many words – with the person who wrote, “spent hours editing hour long doc of recent holiday….opened it up later completely disappeared ..what a crap editing system.”

Media management in X isn’t an issue? Sure sounds like it to me.

Maybe I’m a little guilty of piling on, but here’s the thing: I wasn’t piling on a person.

Peace. Out.

Canon XF-300, Canon 5DMkIII, Canon 7D MkII, Avid Media Composer 7.05, Adobe CC 2015, iMovie Pro.

[Phil Lowe]

[Terry Connell] “spent hours editing hour long doc of recent holiday….opened it up later completely disappeared ..what a crap editing system”

It’s funny that I never hear or read media management as a selling point for X. Go figure.

Canon XF-300, Canon 5DMkIII, Canon 7D MkII, Avid Media Composer 7.05, Adobe CC 2015, iMovie Pro.

[Phil Lowe]

Here’s the recut using connected clips. Having cut this piece twice now two different ways, I still don’t see the advantage of connected clips for a deadline driven straight news pkg. And I really don’t like the narration sitting on the primary. Putting it underneath on a secondary feels a little more like track-based editing. And I’m fine with that. 😉

I think this timeline looks better (more organized) and – more importantly – plays out just as well.

Canon XF-300, Canon 5DMkIII, Canon 7D MkII, Avid Media Composer 7.05, Adobe CC 2015, iMovie Pro.

[Phil Lowe]

[Jeff Markgraf] “1) Are you required to layoff to tape, and thus require the VO-1, SOT & nats-2 format?
2) Is playback for broadcast still based on the 2 discrete channels from tape and being mono’d at the audio board?”

Not tape. It’s a file-based workflow that archives directly (and automatically) from the playback server, so anything edited for playback on air must be edited for archiving and possible reuse with clean nats later. So, for all practical purposes, it may as well be a tape-based workflow.

Regarding 2 above, yes the mono mix happens at the board in PC. As you correctly noted, the demands of news for clean, reusable file whenever possible dictate this workflow. It was like this at my former station. It’s like this at my current station.

[Jeff Markgraf] “As far as overlapping audio and video: expanding the audio and video (control-s) and the audio components (control-option-s) makes L and J cuts very fast.”

My big issue with making this type of cut with audio only and video + audio on the primary is that I was unable to trim the b-side video over the a-side narration. All I wanted to do was back time sound and video over the narration.

Using trim opens a gap between the b and a side audio. Using position overwrites the a side audio. It appears this is because an audio track (green clip) is treated as though it also has a video component, even though it’s empty.

It seems the only way around this is to put only one of these elements on the primary and connect the other, allowing me to use the position tool to extend the b-side clip over the a-side narration. All I did then was use the range tool to select the overlapping audio on the b-side, and drag the audio levels “under” the a-side.

In my original finished edit, I had lifted the narration from the primary. In the screen cap above, I lifted the b-side clip from the primary. The result was the same.

The reason I put all the cleaned-up narration on a secondary, is because when editing under deadline – as you know – sometimes back timing and fore timing clips over track is the fastest way to get those tracks covered, and if you have time at the end of the edit, you can go back and change some of those shots. It makes sense to me to keep the narration (VO) off the primary so that dealing with it later doesn’t become an issue. Once a script is approved and a reporter and I start editing, there’s not a lot of changing the order of elements around. Sometimes you might add a bit of nats for effect, but I don’t find a lot of value in using connected clips just to drag stuff around. There simply isn’t time to screw with that kind of stuff regardless of the NLE one is using.

[Jeff Markgraf] “Regarding the lav-1, boom-2 source issue: I don’t think there’s any way around the lack of alternating l/r issue. “

Yes, I know. It sucks. 🙁

[Jeff Markgraf] “So…if I cut the clip into the timeline as dual mono, then expand audio on all the clips, I can turn off the boom or the lav as necessary on each clip or group of clips. I can then make those same clips “stereo l/r” in the pan mode, and pan full left or right. Since the only clips I need left (ch. 1) are VO, that’s a simple lasso & change operation. Every other clip is right (ch. 2), using the same lasso & change step. I would do this just before output or layoff, so that I’m monitoring my mix while editing in mono.”

I have always dealt with audio issues immediately after laying down each clip. I’ve been burned and have seen colleagues burned by putting these decisions off to the end of the edit. Invariably, some people don’t build time into their edit to address these issues at deadline, and pieces go to air with bad mixes or unrendered effects, as they spend that time making the piece “pretty.” As much as I like making pieces look good, I know I have to get the basics done first, and that includes tweaking audio while it’s fresh on my mind. This was especially important when I was cutting long-form investigative pieces and half-hour shows.

As far as monitoring the mix goes, as I wrote in an earlier post, my old station had precision 2-channel amps with click-stop pots, and the internal boards were calibrated to our standard -14dB reference. Turning each pot to the right (or left) the same number of clicks meant I was monitoring both channels at the same level without having to monitor in mono. I would then simply watch my meters and listen to the mix, adjusting higher freq nats lower and lower freq nats higher as needed. (Higher freq sounds need less power to penetrate a mix. It’s why there’s always only one piccolo in a band or orchestra.)

I am currently in the process of re-editing that practice package given the workflow Bret (and now you) have mentioned, but I’m really not digging leaving the narration on the primary, for the reasons I stated above.

Above all, I really don’t like FCPX, in case you couldn’t tell. 😉

Thank you for your feedback.

Canon XF-300, Canon 5DMkIII, Canon 7D MkII, Avid Media Composer 7.05, Adobe CC 2015, iMovie Pro.

[Phil Lowe]

[Jeremy Garchow] “I don’t know why I keep trying to help.”

Considering that nothing you offered helped me, I don’t know why, either. But thanks anyway.

Canon XF-300, Canon 5DMkIII, Canon 7D MkII, Avid Media Composer 7.05, Adobe CC 2015, FCP X.