[Tore Gresdal]

I did this using “beam” and then “glow” in after effects:
https://www.redigering.com/filmer/effekter/lightsaber.wmv

1. apply beam and set keyframes for start and end of beam
2. press pagedown to move forward one frame, and move the start and end crosshair for the beam. Repeat until done.
3. precomp and apply glow.
4. add CC Light Rays for the lighting spark when the swords meet. (deselect “color from source”)

Regards
Tore Gresdal

[Tore Gresdal]

Now audio slippage on miniDV material is something I have heard of. I thought you were talking about frame accurate batch capture and that the capture device wouldn’t hit the exact frame while capturing. You didn’t mention anything about audio slippage… if I was more experienced maybe I would have known, but yet again you could have been more specific in your post:

Quote from previous post:
[Pixel Monkey]
Just for the DV, DVCam and MiniDV record, all them formats suck timecode wise. A small number of us editors really don’t care about the timecode that was shot in the field, because we demand that it all get upconverted to a more stable format with new timecode anyway. There’s just too many cases of up to 6 frames of slippage upon batch digitizing. Too many edit schedules are destroyed by the “miniDV slip”.

I am only guessing here, but too me the combination of high speed capture and use of miniDV material could cause problems as minDV don’t have audio lock and use a track pitch of only 10 micron.

Quote from DVinfo.net [Rhett Allen]
March 10th, 2002, 02:03 AM
Quickly, the difference is DV has a track pitch of 10 micron, DVCAM is 15 micron and DVCPro is 18 micron. DV has unlocked audio, DVCAM has locked audio and DVCPro has an analog audio reference track. What this means is that only DVCAM will sync the audio exactly to every frame in the video while DV (and mini DV) will allow the audio to slip out of sync, especially on long takes. The plus side is that the slip is not that bad (usually only a few frames per min).
DVCAM and DVCPro write SMPTE time code not DVTC (consumer). And although you can use DV tape to record DVCAM, the DVCAM tape is made with MUCH higher tolerances and quality materials and has the optional micro chip for added features and labeling.
The actual quality difference is still limited to 500 lines in any format but the DVCAM (and DVCPro) formats are built for professional use (and abuse).

[Tore Gresdal]

[Charlie King] I really don’t mean any disrespect, only making observations.

No worries. The comment was not aimed at anyone in particular. It’s just that I am usually met by a lot of prejudice since I still have the student title and many don’t even bother to hear what I have to say because of that. So I was just trying to be pre-emptive 🙂

(I am also trying to tune into the tone of this forum… many internet forums are sceptic to newbies and assume them to be rather stupid until proven otherwise, so I thought I would try to work on that)

Glad to hear that you have enjoyed the thread. I have appreciated your engagement and feedback. There is nothing more productive than a constructivist argument, as they say in the managment class.

I have a strong passion for editing combined with a strong urge for learning and an almost annoyingly strong curiousity, so I both hope (and know I will) run into an argument with you guys again.

PS! I am from Norway in case anyone is wondering why my english is far from perfect.

Regards
Tore Gresdal

[Tore Gresdal]

Hmm… I made myself look kinda stupid didn’t I… 🙂

Sorry, I must have misinterpreted Pixel monkey. I do a lot of batch capture in Premiere Pro and I even temporarely delete all the source footage from my harddrive to get enough space to work on another projects now and then as you can easily batch capture everything into the system again.
I have never had any trouble with the accuracy of the batch capture… And please don’t assume that I wouldn’t notice if it was 6 frames off just because I am a student. 6 frames is a lot and is very noticable if you’re doing the standard hollywood continous seamless edit.

I assumed that the system would be off 6 frames all the time and therefore not move any of the cuts as they were edited after the initial capture. Meaning that you capture with a system running at 6 frames off, edit it with the timecode 6 frames off… and if you then delete the footage and recapture it again, it would still be 6 frames off and no harm done to your cut.

But it is a totally different scenario if the system is 2 frames off one time and 5 frames off the next… In the light of your response I take it that it is the case, and that I have just run lucky so far.

Regards
Tore Gresdal

[Tore Gresdal]

BTW: I remember someone told me once that you could give your subject a glass of water to reduce plosives in the mic. They usually get a very dry mouth from nervousness and that causes more pops in the microphone. Dunno if it applies to sibilants as well… but worth a try…

Regards
Tore Gresdal

[Tore Gresdal]

Here’s a low-res version of the card I created today… click here to see As you can see the idea is just to have a reminder of the things to check… not to teach anyone how to use the camera.

Email me if you want a copy of the photoshop file. All the layers and text is intact so you can modify it as you please and it will scale to any resolution. Email: tore@gresdal.no

Regards
Tore Gresdal

[Tore Gresdal]

I have a book called Audio Postproduction for Digital video by Jay Rose which has an entire chapter on editing dialog. And page 183-191 is dedicated to Phonetic-based editing.

Quote from that introduction of chapter:
We could predict exactly which tiny sounds made up “the small pot” or “my name Jay” because there aren’t very many ways humans move their mouths during speech. Standard american english uses only about three dozen of them.
Tables below show them organized into groups based on their usefulnes to editors. Note how there’s no phoneme for c, because it’s sometimes /s/ and sometimes /k/. But there are 15 phonemes and dipthongs for the five vowels. That’s why, when your scanning a script or transcript to find replacement sounds or likely edits, it helps to say the word aloud. The two columns -unvoiced and voiced- have to do with how the sound is generated. You’ll see why this is important later in this chapter.

ISBN on the book is:1578201160

Regards
Tore Gresdal

Here’s the direct link if you want:

[Tore Gresdal]

[Mark Suszko]
Shoot a minute of room tone, wherever you are shooting, and mark it as room tone by shooting a scribbled note saying so while doing it.

A good one. Thank you for that! Added it to the refined list.

[Todd at UCSB]
The couple things that I run into, that was not on your list, is tape speed SP NOT LP and tape stock. Although it hasn’t been a problem lately, we have had tape problems in the pass with certain brands not playing right on our decks. For some reason, TDKs were a problem.

Yes and no, I had it in mind but LP doesn’t exist on Sony Prosumer cameras and I don’t think you’ll find them on Canon, Panasonic or JVC either. (somebody tell me if I am wrong.. I haven’t checked them all) But I could allways change the list to say TAPE SPEED instead to broaden the spectrum.

[Pixel Monkey]
Man, I can think of a ton of photogs that would take a checklist the wrong way…
Yes, but you allready know that they are professionals and trust them to never make any of the mistakes on the list anyway, and therefore wouldn’t have to present them a list at all. But in my opinion it has a lot to do with the way you present your list as well… There are *many* ways of presenting it, and at least half of them are ways of putting it nicely without offending anyone.

[Pixel Monkey]
Just for the DV, DVCam and MiniDV record, all them formats suck timecode wise.
Ok, my lack of experience is unabling me to respond to that… I can think of one thing, but I don’t know if I am offending you by saying the obvious… There are settings for adjusting the timecode offset and preroll of the tape in the device control on most DV editing programs. But why is frame accurate batch capture so important…? (The question is out of curiousity and not sarcasm) I allways grab a little extra for handles anyway.

[gaspar]
Label your tapes properly!
Ah! Can’t believe I forgot that one! Thank you! I have bought a DYMO Labelwriter with miniDV sized labels myself and I relabel everything that comes in. (very useful because since fontsize 6 enables me to write a lot on the labels 😉 ) Oh, and I also give all my tapes individual serial numbers and use that for tape names when I am logging and batch capturing.

I have refined the list and restructured it a bit:

• Tape speed (DV, DVCAM, SP, LP)
• Gain level
• Continous timecode
• Clean lens
• AGC – Audio gain control
• Brightness on LCD/exposure
• Shutterspeed
• Labels tapes properly
• REC pre and postroll on tape (min 30 sec. at beg. and end)
• leave handles on all shots (min 3 sec.)
• REC 1 minute room tone
  • Whitebalance
  • Audio levels
  • Focus
  • Exposure

The last four of them is supposed to be cycled through all the time, and would be in the blood of any photog with some experience. This way you can just present the list and say; I know this is in your blood, especially the last part, but could you just scan through this and have it in mind…

Thank you everyone for your feedback! I think this thread made some of us (and others that read the thread without responding) do some thinking. It’s allways good to look for ways of improving your workflow. At least for my part this list was motivated by the desire to work on the edit and not spending ours on fixing up what other could have done in ten seconds with a few buttons.

Regards
Tore Gresdal

[Tore Gresdal]

Hi Charlie

Thanks for clearing it up, I was pretty confused at one point, I have to blame my lack of experience with other systems than DV for this confusion 🙂

That is one long list!!! I see that the computer industry is not the only industry that forces you to learn a system from scratch every 5 years 🙂 (DOS/Win 3.11/W95/Win NT/Win XP/Longhorn etc.) For the record; I was in the computer business before I turned into editing, which is far more open for creativity 🙂

Anyway, back to the subject… a DV camcorder will in fact pickup the timecode and resume it. But that is provided that there is something allready on that tape. A virgin DVtape is *absolutely blank* when opened for the first time and striping it (putting continous timecode onto it) before using it for shooting will prevent any timecode problems at all.

Most of my fellow students are doing the following:
1. set the camera to VCR mode
2. play back what they have just shot
3. When the screen goes blue because they’ve reached the end of the recorded material they press stop
4. Set the camera to CAMERA mode
5. press record for the next scene

What I want them to do, is between point 3 and 4; which is to rewind the tape slightly until the hit some prerecorded material on the tape so the camera have some timecode to pick up on.

But as most of them forget about this, or doesn’t rewind it far enough for the camera to pickup the timecode I figured it would be easier to just tell them to allways prestripe the tapes.

Maybe this happens just because we’re students, but I have a feeling this happens now and then in the professional world as well…? Does anyone have any feedback on that?

Regards
Tore Gresdal

[Tore Gresdal]

Not sure if I follow you here. Do you do analog editing? Sorry if I am rude in any way… I just don’t understand what you are referring to.
A DV camera will reset the timecode and start off at 0 if it hits a blank spot on the tape when inserted into the camera. So if the cinematographer ever ejects the tape or is reviewing some of the previous shot material without positioning the recording head over something with timecode on it, it will reset the timecode to zero. Which is making batch capture more or less impossible.
I have lots of DV tapes with timecode that keeps resetting itself because the cinematographer was sloppy. Are more high-end systems more tolerant? What are you using? (I am using Premiere Pro and Final Cut Pro myself)

Regards
Tore Gresdal