[Scott Sheriff]

Yes you can re-use broadcast tapes. Bulk (erase) them first if you have access to a high power (metal) eraser. It’s done all the time in broadcast. Some people even prefer ‘one pass’ tapes, because the head buffs the loose oxide of on the first pass.

I would respectfully disagree with Arnie on the subject of reusing miniDV. The tape speed, head diameter and surface width of the tape are such that drop outs, misthreads and tape wear (and head clogs) are much more likely to occur with these small tapes I know people do it all the time, but you also see a lot of posts regarding “signal loss and how to repair”. An unnecessary reshoot at even a cheap day rate isn’t worth saving 10 dollars on tape.

[Scott Sheriff]

All the filters in the world won’t get rid of the Honda Element in the BG at :58.

Sarcasm aside, what 70’s 16mm look were you wanting, the color, the bad gate frame, light leaks?

All that can be done with FCP 6.06 and the filters that come with it.
There are some plugins that make it easier, but with time and imagination you can make FCP jump thru a lot of hoops without spending any extra $$

[Scott Sheriff]

Try looking on Amazon. I saw FCP 6 on there around the beginning of September. There were several different listings, so I’ll bet one of them must have been the upgrade, one the full version.

[Scott Sheriff]

Are you sure your memory is working?
I have an 08 Mac Pro octo and you can only install memory in matched pairs.
If that is the case 3GB wouldn’t be a valid combo, same for 3 x 4 GB. Any memory that doesn’t have a mate would be ignored.
But maybe the requirement of having matched pairs has been dropped on the newer machines.

Also there are preferential locations for memory that will produce slightly better processing speeds if you are not filling all the slots with matching memory. Some benchmark tests by OWC show that there are some combinations (total larger memory) that don’t benchmark as well as all matched memory of a smaller overall size. I’m guessing that 8 x 1 GB sticks would benchmark faster than 12 GB (assuming that 3 x 4 GB is a valid combo).

Last, but not least, FCP can’t use all that memory anyway, so once you get past that number you are not going to see a FCP improvement.

[Scott Sheriff]

Try searching for “widescreen”.
This was just discussed on October 21st 2009!

[Scott Sheriff]

I just recently cut a lo-budget feature that was 98 minutes. We broke that up into 9 sequences, with the longest being 13 minutes.
That worked pretty well for me. I didn’t use a master sequence, we stuck to each sequence being a major chapter in the film. I would avoid nesting your sequences into a master. Nesting looks good on paper, but on longer projects it was unreliable.
Once your project is finalized you can combine (without nesting) your sequences into one long one.
I’m sure others will chime in with some workflows that have worked well for them.
Good luck on your project.

[Scott Sheriff]

I thought he meant cropping the image for effect, like 80’s rock videos, not technical reasons.

[Scott Sheriff]

There is a matte filter for that in the filter list, just do some looking.
There is also the ability to crop under the motion tab, which could be copied to all the clips in the timeline.
This is all FCP 101 stuff you should know.

[Scott Sheriff]

Without knowing the particulars of your format and settings, you might try adding a gaussian blur filter (setting of 1 or 2) to the layers that are causing you problems.

[Scott Sheriff]

I would have to agree with those that advocate asking lots of questions.

I just got done working on a low budget feature, that the original editor got in over their head because they didn’t ask enough questions, and just jumped in, only to have it all go horribly wrong.

There is a growing trend for low budget producers scrimping on script asst, logging, and other nice things like that, so they can spend that money somewhere else in the budget. and then hoping they can hook someone into putting in an ‘editing bid’, only to find out later that ‘editing’, means the entire post work flow, and a lot of the normal pre- production work had gone undone.

So be wary of all jobs that you are not included in the original creative team, and that think of editing as a last minute hurdle they just need to get over as quick and cheap as possible. Yes, ask lots and lots of questions.
And get it in writing.