[Richard Herd]

[Mark Suszko] “There’s only one reason a client would need a copy of your project Files, and that’s to make changes or additions to what you created, without your direct input, or the years of study and practice you undertook to be able to do what you do”

In context of this thread, the reason to get rid of the project file (and everything else) is because the movie is done. When the movie is done, and it’s being marketed (vis-a-vis withoutabox.com), then there are no more revisions, changes, additions. Another way of saying this is this stuff is taking up room that I want to store other stuff on, so I give it back. Microbudget short films are an entirely different beast than a retainer-style vendor/client relationship. In other contexts, it’s really important that the project file is delivered so that the other parts of post production can get to their stuff exactly. Perhaps we should split hairs on what a project file is and is not. If I send an XML you still have my cuts. What exactly is the secret sauce not being delivered, some color correction, some JavaScript in After Effects, some side-chain compression, the j-cut perfection?

A couple other points:

1. A work for hire agreement means everything, so the original agreement needs to negotiate the price for the project file from the start.

2. By not delivering the project file, then we guarantee the new editor will have to rebuild and will therefore get paid more money also, and that is a reasonable place to begin discussing the fees for the project file.

Above a short-film deliverable was discussed, but in an advertising situation, supposing we are creating some ads for a business, the project files and associated media have a very short shelf life.

Learning to negotiate is tough anyway, and in a competitive situation, the risk of losing the client before it even starts is real, when the client says it’s a work for hire agreement, and we want to keep the project files. It takes some time to get that kind of juice, and while it’s wise not to leave money on the table, it’s also wise to get paid and not lose a deal over the project files.

[Richard Herd]

The point is that you have an additional negotiable income stream.

This is an interesting read. https://forums.creativecow.net/readpost/335/72936

[Richard Herd]

[Jeff Pulera] “cutting 24p” mixed frame rates:

You can imagine the frame counting issue, and it gets worse with Dynamic Link. The final render takes forever.

Simple example of what the computer deals with:

1 second = 00.01.02.03.04.05.06.07.08.09.10.11.12.13.14.15.16.17.18.19.20.21.22.23.
1 second = 00.01.02.03.04.05.06.07.08.09.10.11.12.13.14.15.16.17.18.19.20.21.22.23.24.25.26.27.28.29

If one of them is speed ramped then the audio is off, if the other is stretched the audio is off. The poor sad computer 🙂

Note the gray in my beard, I think they have grown gray waiting for computers.

By transcoding first (what Prelude is designed for, not because it’s old school but it’s necessary) then all the timecode lines up properly. Here’s a real example: an editor sent me his AE/PP dynamic link stuff saying something must be wrong because the render was taking an hour, for a :30 spot! THE issue was frame rate mismatches all over the place. A sequence in PP was 29.97 with plenty of 23.976 footage and the AE even had some 59.94 in a 24.0 comp. There were also precomps and so on. I duplicated everything, and then transcoded all of the footage to the same mezzanine codec using Prelude. After replacing the footage (not as straightforward a process as we’d like) the final render was 10 minutes. (2013 Mac Pro 3.7 GHz Quad-Core intel Xeon 5, 16GB , dual AMD FirePro D300), the transcode took 30 minutes. So it saved 20 minutes, but the time savings grows as critique and revisions come in and more final output is needed.

Also…in the actual old days of 2006/7 before file based acquisition was real, the 23.976 was mastered to tape and then log and captured! So Prelude is still a bit techno-advanced than that. And even before that 2003/05, we had to change the telecine settings LOL 🙂 and pay for a new film to tape transfer. We worried about field order and pull down, like 2:3:3:2 Man! things changed fast between 2003 and 2007, super fast shifts.

tl;dr things are better now with Prelude.

[Richard Herd]

[Jeff Pulera] “Apple Pro Res 422 1920×1080 (1.0) 23.976”

Well said Jeff!

Just to break it down a bit more, the stuff above is: Codec Name image size (pixel aspect ratio) frame rate. For an easier formatted read…

Codec: Apple Pro Res 422
Image size: 1920×1080
Pixel Aspect Ratio: 1.0
Frame Rate: 23.976

I choose to use APR422 because it meshes with some older workflow stuff, but DNxHD (Avid’s) is also a fine alternative.

For me, transcoding to a “mezzanine” codec (if you will) makes a lot of sense when (1) there is a lot of footage and (2) there is more than 1 difference between them.

For example, yesterday I received footage from an AG-HVX200 and an AG-AF100.

AG-HVX200: DVCPROHD 1280×1080 (1.5) 29.97
AG-AF100: AVCHD 1920×1080 (1.0) 23.976

Another consideration, previously not mentioned, is that some codecs are Long GOP and some are Intraframe, so those two cameras also differ there (DVCPROHD is intraframe; AVCHD is Long GOP).

Since my deliverable is 1080p, I went to the above mentioned specs. If I was making a DVD and had plenty of 720×480 (.9) SD material, I would have downrezzed all the HD stuff into a DV codec first, and I would have made sure the stakeholder/producer understood that some footage would be pillar boxed because it’s 1.33 aspect ratio and some is 1.78 aspect ratio.

To plug Prelude, that piece of software is brilliant at the transcode-first workflow.

🙂

[Richard Herd]

LOL.

Sometimes I cut the music on the beats, but almost never.

I should also mention, the best reel I ever cut I took Mark S’s advice and added an entire sound design. So although the cut was the length of a music bed, the additional audio made it much better. (Still thanking Mark on that one.)

[Richard Herd]

[Mads Nybo Jørgensen] “keep it simple”

Simple as cash on the barrel head 😉

[Richard Herd]

I know that is a refrain often repeated around here, but the risk/reward scenario is absurd for microbudget short films. Here’s what actually happened/happens: The client knows who did what and how well it turned out, so when they need something they call me back. In other situations, the Avid project file is the deliverable.

Micro budget short film is a one-time thing. Once it’s done, it’s in the Withoutabox.com stuffs, and there is no more editorial.

[Richard Herd]

I ask myself this pretty much everyday. The answer turns out to be “however long the music bed is.”

[Richard Herd]

To be real, there is no actual market for short films, meaning the producer/financier will not make any investment back. I do these projects as follows. Number 1: Do I like and trust this person and or the project? If so, then I will work at a discount, but still get paid real money. That’s a negotiation. Number 2: how much footage is there? If there is 1 minute of footage, then it will take 1 minute to just watch it, and I haven’t even made a cut. Number 3: I work like this Assemble Edit, client review, and I get paid, or I don’t move on. Number 4. Rough Cut, client review, I get paid, or I don’t move on. Number 5. Final Cut/Audio/Color: client review, I get paid.

Things can work out well. Won an award for best comedy short doing it this way. No contract but very real conversations and lots of trust, and we used the money for a pretty decent Christmas 🙂

Often times these microbudget projects are deferred compensation, so don’t do that, ever. And when they ask why not say “Editing is not the most important part of the movie. IT IS THE MOVIE! If you want me to finish your movie, then those are my terms.”

Also I just give the footage and project files and drive (the whole thing, “here you go”) back because honestly I don’t want them. I do keep a copy of the finished export though.

Oh yeah: that person also needs to buy a drive that’s fast and needs to dump all the footage onto it, and then also keep a copy of the footage at their house. I also upload my project files to google drive, so if something goes horribly wrong, then I can always grab the latest file and get the footage back. The client needs to understand also that they carry the risk of hard drive failure not you.

Good luck! Have fun!

[Richard Herd]

They’re kind of the same, really. Prelude has a cool tool called the Ingest window. And inside of that you can check to transfer clips to a destination using a preset from Media Browser. It’s kind of like an interface between file management and Media Encoder. It also has some other uses like cutting a rough cut and so on, but I don’t really use that. I find that bringing the metadata from Prelude into Premiere is clunky (CS6, I don’t know about CC). I end up transcoding and file managing with Prelude, and then organizing and logging in Premiere.