[Richard Herd]

[Mark Schubb] “thanks in advance for any advice on how I should approach this “learning experience.””

What’s your deadline?

That’s a ridiculously high shooting ratio, and also because you have all these other questions, I imagine there are codec and frame rate issues too. I always check that first.

There are two basic ways to get your media into your edit session, but before I explain that, be sure your media are on a dedicated drive separate from your system drive. There are dozens of options to choose from, but it should be the fastest possible connection you can afford.

To get the media in the edit session:

1. Use the Media Browser to navigate to the media (now located on the above-mentioned drive) and drag and drop it into the project pane.

OR

2. Use Prelude (which is what I suggest) to transcode the media into the exact same codec, framerate, and format. Then either use the Media Browser or “send to Premiere.”

Again I highly suggest using Prelude in this situation.

Your next step will be to sync all the picture and sound. So hopefully the production used a slate or sync’d timecode. Otherwise, it’s a real pain.

In order to sync: You need to make a sequence and call it ACTOR_A (or whatever makes sense) and put the video in there and the audio under it until it matches. Then cut both clips at the same place and delete the stuff that no longer matters.Then select both the audio and the video, right click, choose “merge clips…” and choose synchronize point in-points.

You will also need to stay very organized, by creating and labeling bins, and putting the various footage items in there.

Once you start cutting, call the first sequence the assemble edit, and you’re just trying to find the pacing and tone of the scene. Once that’s set, duplicate that, and rename it to the rough edit. In there, you’re moving beyond pacing into shot selection and maybe have alternatives for which angle, hold on a reaction, or whatever. Once that’s done, you start mastering audio. And when that’s done, duplicate the sequence and rename to fine. On that one, your audio should have been mastered to its deliverable format and levels, and the color correction can be started.

You should prepare yourself that this will all take you a very long time. 45:1 shooting ratio can take days to deliver 2 minutes of video. Since you are very new, give yourself a month.

[Richard Herd]

If you’re doing something wrong, then I am too, ’cause that’s how I do it and it is annoying.

[Richard Herd]

In Dynamic Link, I often have Premiere open on my left monitor and AE open on my right monitor, and the changes I make in AE populate instantly in Premiere. It’s pretty cool.

One big tip I learned from Walter Soyka is as follows:

1. In preferences of both AE and PP, set the Media Cache to the exact same folder (best is on a fast SSD that is not the system and is not the media drive).
2. In AE, Composition > Cache Work Area in Background.

This means that literally PP and AE are sharing the exact same render files. Wow is it fast!

One note also: I learned the hard way that it is very wise to Duplicate the PP sequence and call it something like Sequence_name DL, in order to denote that this sequence is the one being shared, because once you right click and replace with AE comp those edits are no longer available in premiere and if there are changes for who knows what reason, “you have to cut picture in AE,” which is its own kind-of malphemism.

[Richard Herd]

The Rate Stretch Tool in Premiere is fantastic. And also right click > Speed Duration… (in Premiere) is also very powerful. The “trick” instead of keyframes is to use hard cuts. Imagine you have a 1 second clip, 24 frames.

Cut it into thirds.

part 1 (frame 0-7) right click speed duration of 133% (or whatever)
part 2 (frame 8-15) right click speed duration of 50% (or whatever)
part 3 (frame 16-24) right click speed duration of 85% (or whatever).

Regarding (or whatever) 😉 That’s where the Rate Stretch Tool is fantastic. Because instead of right clicking and typing in numbers you can “ripple” the time rate directly in the timeline.

I love after effects don’t get me wrong, but in instances like this it is quite the pain because playback/RAM preview is wonky. Also once you have set your time in premiere, knowing the percentages, you can then write those values down and send the three parts mentioned above to AE (replace with comp), and manually type in those numbers to the timewarp to take advantage of the Pixel Motion render method.

[Richard Herd]

Try the reverse of the replace with after effects: Open after effects and import the PP project. As previously noted I’m on CS6, so before I import a PP project into AE, I project manager the sequence I’m going to import. That will create a new PP project. I name it Project Name mm for ae to denote if I need it later that this is “media manage for after effects.” If you do not media manage first (again CS6 not sure about CC), then it will bring ALL of the footage in that PP project into AE, and that can be a lot of footage.

[Richard Herd]

[Mike Kelley] “how do you “unalign” a surface in Mocha?”

Make a new layer in Mocha. Track it again. Do not hit align.

[Richard Herd]

[Jason Jenkins] “For those of you that produce work for agencies, do you have a reduced rate for them since you are basically working for a middle-man who will mark it up for the end client? “

Never! A discount can be had in other ways though: Hourly rate v daily rate v weekly rate v retainer.

[Jason Jenkins] “Or, do you charge the same rate no matter if you are working for an agency or directly for the end client?
“

Non-profits (already mentioned), something creative that I personally like, videos for family things like graduation — I will charge almost nothing if I’m sympathetic to the cause. I think it’s Mark S who has a great strategy I employed: It is better to have the non-profit say “Richard waived his fee for this project” rather than set a ridiculously low rate.

[Richard Herd]

Yes. I use CS6 🙂

[Richard Herd]

Hmm. Maybe I don’t understand the question, then.

Step 1. Make a sequence, I call it something like “sync sequence 1” or something . Put the audio in there. Put the picture in there, can only have 1 track of each. 1 video track. 1 audio track. Then sync them. Then select them, right click > Merge (name it) > OK.

Step 2. Make a second sequence, I call it something like “sync sequence 2.” Then do the same thing.

Step 3. To keep things organized, I make a new Bin and call it Merges. Then inside of that I have two more folders Merge Sequences and Merge Clips. Now it’s kind of organized.

Step 4. In the Merge Clips bin, select a clip using the mouse, then hold shift or control to select another (or more than that) clips. Right click > Create Multi-Camera Source Sequences…

Step 5. I create a new Bin called Multicam, and I put the Multi Cam in there.

Step 6. Multicam is interesting and very powerful. Double click it and it opens, normally. Be sure also to go to Window > Multicamera Monitor, to see in and outs. When you play the sequence you only see a clip representation of the multicam, and as you click on the squares in the Source Monitor, you can select which clip is use when, but that’s only half the story because you can go one level deeper, but there’s a trick: instead of double-clicking the Multicam Sequence icon in the project pane, you have to right click > Open in Timeline. Let me tell you that again because it is a bit counterintuitive: From the project pane right click > Open in Timeline.

I hope this answers the question you were asking.

[Richard Herd]

[James Malamatinas] “Is there a resource where clips are available”

Not really.

Also check out Bill Davis. His picture is above, in this forum. He sells footage that has been shot in coverage and can be used to learn editing.